The best English-language journalism and scholarly work on Russia in 2021

12/29/21 • 85 min

On this week’s show, The Naked Pravda looks back at some of the journalism and scholarly work in 2021 that made significant contributions to our knowledge about Russia. These nine articles feature incredible fieldwork, insights into how power works in Russia, and compelling stories that you might have missed over the year. Meduza spoke to the authors of three of these articles — Julia Ioffe, Pjotr Sauer, and Maria Danilova — and we asked historian Sean Guillory of The SRB Podcast for his five favorite scholarly books on Russia and the Soviet Union released in 2021.

Timestamps for this week’s episode:

(3:15) “A Black Communist’s Disappearance in Stalin’s Russia: What Happened to Lovett Fort-Whiteman, the Only Known African American to Die in the Gulag?” by Joshua Yaffa (The New Yorker)
(6:25) “Climate Change Is Melting Russia’s Permafrost — and Challenging Its Oil Economy” by Ann Simmons and Georgi Kantchev (The Wall Street Journal)
(8:58) “On a Pacific Island, Russia Tests Its Battle Plan for Climate Change” by Anton Troianovski (The New York Times)
(11:51) “The Great Russian Oil Heist: Criminals, Lawmen, and the Quest for Liquid Loot” by Sergei Khazov-Cassia (RFE/RL)
(15:47) “Inside Wagnergate: Ukraine’s Brazen Sting Operation to Snare Russian Mercenaries” by Christo Grozev, with contributions from Aric Toler, Pieter van Huis, and Yordan Tsalov (Bellingcat)
(21:48) “Lyubov Sobol’s Hope for Russia” by Masha Gessen (The New Yorker)
(28:05) Meduza speaks to Julia Ioffe about her story, “‘These Bastards Will Never See Our Tears’: How Yulia Navalnaya Became Russia’s Real First Lady” (Vanity Fair)
(45:22) Meduza talks to Pjotr Sauer about his investigation, “A Royal Mark Up: How an Emirati Sheikh Resells Millions of Russian Vaccines to the Developing World,” coauthored with Jake Cordell and Felix Light (The Moscow Times)
(54:07) Meduza asks Maria Danilova about her report, “Russia Has an Opioid Crisis Too — One of Untreated Pain” (Vice)
(1:04:11) Sean Guillory discusses “Cold War Correspondents: Soviet and American Reporters on the Ideological Frontlines” by Dina Fainberg
(1:10:09) Sean talks about “Utopia’s Discontents: Russian Émigrés and the Quest for Freedom, 1830s-1930s” by Faith Hillis
(1:14:05) Sean recommends “Navalny: Putin’s Nemesis, Russia’s Future?” by Jan Matti Dollbaum, Morvan Lallouet, and Ben Noble.
(1:18:32) Sean recalls why he loved “Flowers Through Concrete: Explorations in Soviet Hippieland” by Juliane Fürst
(1:22:05) Sean ends his list with “The Things of Life: Materiality in Late Soviet...

Timestamps for this week’s episode:

(3:15) “A Black Communist’s Disappearance in Stalin’s Russia: What Happened to Lovett Fort-Whiteman, the Only Known African American to Die in the Gulag?” by Joshua Yaffa (The New Yorker)
(6:25) “Climate Change Is Melting Russia’s Permafrost — and Challenging Its Oil Economy” by Ann Simmons and Georgi Kantchev (The Wall Street Journal)
(8:58) “On a Pacific Island, Russia Tests Its Battle Plan for Climate Change” by Anton Troianovski (The New York Times)
(11:51) “The Great Russian Oil Heist: Criminals, Lawmen, and the Quest for Liquid Loot” by Sergei Khazov-Cassia (RFE/RL)
(15:47) “Inside Wagnergate: Ukraine’s Brazen Sting Operation to Snare Russian Mercenaries” by Christo Grozev, with contributions from Aric Toler, Pieter van Huis, and Yordan Tsalov (Bellingcat)
(21:48) “Lyubov Sobol’s Hope for Russia” by Masha Gessen (The New Yorker)
(28:05) Meduza speaks to Julia Ioffe about her story, “‘These Bastards Will Never See Our Tears’: How Yulia Navalnaya Became Russia’s Real First Lady” (Vanity Fair)
(45:22) Meduza talks to Pjotr Sauer about his investigation, “A Royal Mark Up: How an Emirati Sheikh Resells Millions of Russian Vaccines to the Developing World,” coauthored with Jake Cordell and Felix Light (The Moscow Times)
(54:07) Meduza asks Maria Danilova about her report, “Russia Has an Opioid Crisis Too — One of Untreated Pain” (Vice)
(1:04:11) Sean Guillory discusses “Cold War Correspondents: Soviet and American Reporters on the Ideological Frontlines” by Dina Fainberg
(1:10:09) Sean talks about “Utopia’s Discontents: Russian Émigrés and the Quest for Freedom, 1830s-1930s” by Faith Hillis
(1:14:05) Sean recommends “Navalny: Putin’s Nemesis, Russia’s Future?” by Jan Matti Dollbaum, Morvan Lallouet, and Ben Noble.
(1:18:32) Sean recalls why he loved “Flowers Through Concrete: Explorations in Soviet Hippieland” by Juliane Fürst
(1:22:05) Sean ends his list with “The Things of Life: Materiality in Late Soviet...

Previous Episode

Human rights law in Russia

The lawyers and journalists who worked with the Team 29 project specialized in Russia’s most hopeless political prosecutions — the treason case against journalist Ivan Safronov, the extremism charges against Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption movement, and dozens more indictments all but doomed to convictions. Earlier this year, the project was forced to disband after Russia’s federal censor started blocking its website. In November 2021, the Justice Ministry designated Team 29’s former members as “foreign agents” and many of those people subsequently fled the country. Valeria Vetoshkina, today’s guest on The Naked Pravda, is one of those people.

Timestamps for this week’s episode:

(0:00) Filmmaker Alexander Sokurov lectures Vladimir Putin about Russia’s “constitutional crisis”
(4:23) Analysts and experts battle in op-ed columns and online over the right strategy in Ukraine
(6:46) Moving closer into the Kremlin’s orbit than ever, the social network Vkontakte gets new owners
(11:02) The head of Russia’s Federal Investigative Committee has no sense of humor and no patience for exoneration
(13:21) Human rights lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, a former member of the now dissolved Team 29 project, describes her education in law school and the state of her field in Russia today

“The Naked Pravda” comes out on Saturdays (or sometimes Fridays). Catch every new episode by subscribing at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or other platforms. If you have a question or comment about the show, please write to Kevin Rothrock at [email protected] with the subject line: “The Naked Pravda.”

Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно

Next Episode

Russia's peacekeeping mission in Kazakhstan and security demands in Europe

In the past two weeks, Russia has demonstrated its capacity to project military power at different corners of its periphery, sending troops to Kazakhstan for a small but symbolic peacekeeping operation and pressing sweeping security demands in Europe, where the West has accused the Kremlin of plotting a war of aggression against Ukraine. The Naked Pravda reviews three essays by political analysts in Russia about the nation’s evolving geopolitics and speaks to two experts about the events in Kazakhstan and changing dialogue between Moscow and Washington.

Timestamps for this week’s episode:

(5:22) Reviewing National Research University Higher School of Economics International Relations deputy director Dmitry Novikov’s January 9, 2022, essay on how many in Moscow already see Joe Biden as a lame duck president.
(6:44) Reviewing Russian International Affairs Council director-general Andrey Kortunov’s January 4, 2022, essay about the fundamental “discrepancies” today between Russian and Western worldviews.
(9:24) Reviewing PIR-Center consultant Alexander Kolbin’s January 12, 2022, essay on Russia’s struggle against “self-censorship” and fight for a “legitimate basis” for its own “cultural, economic, and military expansion.”
(13:09) EurasiaNet Central Asia editor Peter Leonard answers questions about the CSTO peacekeeping mission in Kazakhstan and about how the nation’s political system compares to Russia’s.
(25:44) Russia in Global Affairs editor-in-chief Fyodor Lukyanov discusses the logic behind Moscow’s grievances in Europe and the tensions still escalating in Ukraine.

Как поддержать нашу редакцию — даже если вы в России и вам очень страшно