Meduza’s latest daily newsletter: July 19, 2024 Gershkovich sentenced to 16 years, former Ukrainian lawmaker assassinated in Lviv, and Russia’s censor plans new ‘bloggers’ registry’

The war in Ukraine

• 🕯️ Deadly Russian missile attack hits Ukrainian playground: Russia carried out an aerial attack on the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv on Friday, according to local authorities and the Ukrainian Air Force. President Zelensky reported that a Russian missile hit a playground next to an apartment building. He said at least three people were killed by the strike.
• 🚨 Gunman assassinates former Ukrainian lawmaker Iryna Farion: Former Ukrainian lawmaker Iryna Farion was shot in the head on Friday outside her home in Lviv. Farion later succumbed to her injuries and died at the hospital. At the time of this writing, the killer remains at large.

🪖 As the Russian army slowly advances, Ukraine is losing positions it’s held for years (7-min read)

Russian troops are continuing their offensive in Ukraine’s Donbas region. The Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) are losing ground north of Bakhmut, in the Toretsk area between Horlivka and Bakhmut, west of Avdiivka, in Krasnohorivka, and near Vuhledar and Velyka Novosilka. While not all these losses are equally critical, the failure to halt the Russian advance along a broad front — from Krasnohorivka in the south to Toretsk in the north — could prove costly for the Ukrainian army by late summer and early fall.

• This story features updates on fighting in the Siversk sector, Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, the Avdiivka front, Vuhledar, and Velyka Novosilka

Russian domestic affairs

• 👮 Oleg Kashin, a wanted man: Russian police have issued an arrest warrant for columnist and video blogger Oleg Kashin, who lives in London. Official records do not specify the criminal charges, though Kashin told the news outlet Mediazona that he suspects it’s related to his evasion of disclosure requirements as a designated “foreign agent” (which becomes a felony under Russian law as a repeat offense). (Kashin has been fined six times for these violations before. Russia’s Justice Ministry added Kashin to its “foreign agents” registry in June 2022.
• 🏳️‍🌈 Russia’s largest fan-fiction portal drops LGBT access: The Internet’s biggest collection of Russian-language fan fiction, Ficbook.net, announced on Friday that it will start blocking LGBT-themed stories for users inside Russia, in compliance with the federal censor’s takedown orders. Ficbook’s creators said the decision was difficult but necessary to lift Roskomnadzor’s block and restore access to the platform’s main content. (Authors will retain access to their work, reviews, and “likes,” says Ficbook.)

🪖 The Kremlin fears ‘public discontent’ and a rise in crime as returning soldiers fail to adapt to civilian life (3-min read)

The Kremlin’s policy of sending hundreds of thousands of Russian men, including many prisoners, to war with little to no training or equipment has had predictable effects back on the home front: numerous soldiers have committed violent crimes upon returning home, and the country reportedly has a critical shortage of psychologists trained to treat PTSD. The Russian authorities have been reluctant to criticize these veterans, with Putin calling for them to become the country’s “new elite.” But Meduza’s inside sources say the president’s team is well aware of the risks the returnees pose and fears Russian society isn’t prepared to accept them. Meduza special correspondent Andrey Pertsev explains.

🧑‍💻 Federal censor set to try again at national bloggers’ registry

Russia’s federal censor might try again soon to force small, independent bloggers to register with the government. Next week, State Duma deputies will consider amendments to draft legislation on SIM card sales that would require the owners of social media accounts (including Telegram channels) with more than 10,000 subscribers to disclose their own personal information to Roskomnadzor. Under the law, Russia’s censor could order network administrators to block the accounts, pages, or channels of any bloggers who fail to comply. 

Between 2014 and 2017, Roskomnadzor enforced a law requiring bloggers with more than 3,000 subscribers to self-report their identities and screen their own content for possibly illegal speech. Since 2017, the agency has focused instead on regulating so-called “information dissemination organizers,” listing and requiring websites and social networks with more than 500,000 daily visitors (such as Yandex, Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki, and others) to store their readers’ personal information and share it with the state authorities when requested.

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Catch the latest dispatch → A geopolitical paradox: Former diplomat Sergi Kapanadze on Georgia’s upcoming elections, the people’s E.U. aspirations, and the government’s drift towards Russia (18-min read)

As the world turns

• ⚖️ A conviction after just two days: A Russian court sentenced Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in prison on espionage charges
• 💰 Telegram’s upgraded revenue-sharing program comes to Russia: Contrary to earlier reports, Telegram’s new ad monetization platform is now available in Russia. Sources previously told The Bell that the Telegram Ad Platform would not roll out to Russia and other Commonwealth of Independent State countries where the company launched a monetization program in 2021 that doesn’t reward creators directly. Under the new system, the administrators of Telegram channels with more than 1,000 subscribers are eligible to receive half the revenue generated by ads displayed in their channels. Telegram is using the cryptocurrency Toncoin to run this platform (creators are invited to cash out or reinvest in promos and upgrades).
• ✈️ Spared by import-substitution: Russia’s Digital Development Ministry said on Friday that the country’s airports were operating normally without any disruption from the flawed software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike that is crashing Windows computers around the world

🤖 Yandex founder looks forward to A.I. development with ‘Nebius Group’

In an interview with Der Spiegel, Yandex founder Arkady Volozh again denounced the invasion of Ukraine, saying the war has destroyed an era-long effort to put Russia on a better, modern path. Commenting on the conclusion of the second stage of Yandex N.V. (Yandex LLC's holding company) selling off its Russian assets (the company will now be known as Nebius Group), Volozh said he’s managed to poach “more than a thousand” I.T. specialists from Russia, “including those who created Yandex’s entire technical infrastructure.” Nebius Group will focus on developing artificial intelligence — technology of “epochal significance” that Volozh compares to the printing press. Nebius inherits YNV's Nasdaq listing and begins operations with more than $2 billion in the bank and no Russian assets or debt.

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