The Real Russia. Today. An insulin medicine crisis, Leonid Volkov’s letter from jail, and why the Kremlin media hates HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’

Thursday, June 6, 2019

This day in history: 220 years ago, on June 6, 1799, some guy named Alexander Pushkin was born in Moscow. He allegedly wrote a poem or two.

• As Saratov Region runs out of insulin, Meduza discovers medicine shortages all over Russia
• An essay written by opposition activist Leonid Volkov in a Moscow jail
• HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’ miniseries has enraged Russia’s state media and pro-Kremlin reporters. Here’s why they hate it.
• Official records reveal that 170 Russian soldiers were deployed at the Ukrainian border on the day MH17 was shot down
• Russian censorship agency threatens to block VPN services ‘within a month’ if they do not comply with its website blacklist 
• Russian LGBT Network calls for boycott of censored ‘Rocketman’ as film opens in Russia without gay sex or drugs
• Russian space agency tightens regulations for foreign travel following high-ranked employee’s permanent ‘business trip’ to Europe
• FSB arrests members of 15 Jehovah’s Witnesses communities in Dagestan

‘This isn’t a panic — it’s a catastrophe’ 💉

On May 21, a photograph appeared on the Russian social media site VKontakte in a group called “Typical Saratov.” It depicted a long line in one of the city’s major hospitals: diabetes patients had been waiting for several hours to receive insulin, and the photographer himself said he was forced to go to a private clinic to purchase the lifesaving drug. The photograph’s caption pleaded, “Saratov is tolerating disaster. How many more diabetics will die?” A year earlier, a nonprofit organization that provided aid to people with diabetes closed in Saratov after it was declared a “foreign agent.” Then, local diabetes patients began facing obstacles to insulin access thanks to new Health Ministry regulations. Meduza discovered that not only Saratov but a range of Russian cities are currently “tolerating disaster” when it comes to insulin access.

Read Meduza‘s report: “As Saratov Region runs out of insulin, amid medicine shortages across Russia”

Letter from Russian jail ✉️

Leonid Volkov, a former campaign manager for Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny, is currently serving a 20-day jail sentence. He was charged this year for actions that supposedly took place during a September 2018 protest against Russia’s increased retirement age: police officers accused Volkov of “inspiring” protesters to scratch a car. The protest was organized by the Navalny-led Anti-Corruption Foundation.

While in jail, Volkov wrote an essay on the subject of fake news, a topic that has drawn ever more attention in Russia since the passage of a new law that penalizes sharing fake stories. Volkov agrees that now is the time to push back against fake news but argues that there are far better means to that end than censorship. Meduza received Volkov’s essay from Anti-Corruption Foundation employees. It is translated here in full.

Read Volkov’s essay: “What’s wrong with the fight against fake news”

‘Illiterate, stupid, uninquiring idiots’ ☢️

HBO has finished airing its critically acclaimed miniseries about the April 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. On the website IMDb, “Chernobyl” is currently the highest rated television program of all time, surpassing even other hits from the same network, including “Game of Thrones” and “The Wire.” In Russia, many journalists and film critics have praised the miniseries as a haunting and beautiful, albeit not entirely historically accurate, retelling of the 1986 accident. But HBO’s “Chernobyl” also has many critics in Russia, especially in the state media and various “patriotic” news outlets, where commentators have accused the show’s American filmmakers of trying to “reprogram” viewers and blacken the USSR’s historical memory. Meduza looks at some the the angriest reviews.

Read Meduza‘s report: “HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’ miniseries has enraged Russia’s state media and pro-Kremlin reporters. Here’s why they hate it.”

Another shocking MH17 coincidence ✈️

More than 170 soldiers from Russia’s 53rd Air Defense Missile Brigade, which was based near Kursk, were located near the Ukrainian border on July 17, 2014, the day Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down outside Donetsk, according to unclassified Russian Defense Ministry documents obtained by the newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

Read Meduza‘s summary: “Official records reveal that 170 Russian soldiers were deployed at the Ukrainian border on the day MH17 was shot down”

News briefs

• 🚫 Roskomnadzor head Alexander Zharov said in an interview with Interfax that nine VPN services may be blocked on Russian territory “within a month” if they do not comply with the federal censorship agency’s demands. Roskomnadzor contacted each of the VPN providers in question at the end of March 2019 to demand that they subscribe to its registry of banned websites within 30 business days. Only one, Kaspersky Secure Connection, has complied, Zharov said. Read the story here.
• 🏳️‍🌈 The Russian LGBT Network called for a boycott of the Elton John biopic “Rocketman” as it was released in Russian theaters. Find out why.
• 🚀 Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin has released an order enacting stricter regulations for employees of the state-owned corporation who travel abroad, RIA Novosti reported. Read the story here.
• 👮 FSB employees have arrested the leaders and members of 15 Jehovah’s Witnesses groups in the Northern Caucasian republic of Dagestan. Read the story here.