Meduza’s latest daily newsletter: Friday, August 23, 2024 Kremlin-run polling center records Putin’s largest approval drop of full-scale war, Russian teen recounts North Korean summer camp experience, and one year since Prigozhin’s fiery death

The war against Ukraine

• 🪖 Ukraine storms women’s prison in Kursk region where Russia held POWs: Ukrainian troops stormed a women’s prison in the village of Malay Loknya in Russia’s Kursk region on Friday, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing Ukraine’s Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR). Earlier in the full-scale war, Russia reportedly held more than 50 Ukrainian women there, including both civilians and military personnel. MIHR activists said Ukraine’s seizure of the facility will help document war crimes Russia committed against POWs. It’s unclear how close Ukrainian forces are to capturing the prison.

🪖 As Ukraine expands its foothold in the Kursk region (despite Russian reinforcements), Moscow’s offensive in Donbas picks up speed (9-min read)

Despite the arrival of Russian reinforcements, the Ukrainian offensive in Russia’s Kursk region continues apace. Ukrainian forces are trying to expand their foothold along the border while also pushing deeper into Russian territory. Meanwhile, Russian troops have broken through Ukrainian defenses in the Donetsk region, to the south of Pokrovsk and in the Toretsk area. In fact, the Russian offensive has not only persisted after Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region but has even gained significant momentum.

🤫 Parents of Russian conscripts who disappeared amid Ukraine’s incursion say pro-Kremlin activists are pressuring them to keep silent (5-min read)

Journalists from iStories have used open sources to identify 129 non-mobilized Russian conscripts who have disappeared or been captured by the Ukrainian army during its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. Parents of these conscripts told iStories that the Russian Defense Ministry hasn’t provided any information about their children — but pro-war activists have contacted them to urge them not to speak publicly about the missing. In English, Meduza shares key takeaways from the outlet’s report.

Meanwhile in Russia

• 📉 Take this with a glass of salt: A new survey from the government-run Russian Public Opinion Research Center recorded the largest drop in Vladimir Putin’s approval rating since the start of the full-scale war. According to polling results published on the institution’s site, Putin's approval rating from August 12 to August 18 stood at 73.6 percent, a drop of 3.5 percentage points from the previous week. (The lowest approval rating for Putin the agency has recorded since the start of the full-scale war came in mid-August 2023, when it fell to 72.6 percent.)
• 🕯️ Teenage athlete dies by suicide following racist bullying: Ksenia Cheponova, a 17-year-old competitive Sambo fighter from Russia’s Altai Republic who moved to Novosibirsk two years ago to train at the city’s Olympic reserve academy, died by suicide earlier this month, according to the Novosibirsk Regional Sambo Federation. In a message posted to Telegram on Sunday that Cheponova scheduled to publish after her death, she wrote, “I don’t understand what I did wrong. Is it that I was born with narrow eyes, or that I have dark skin? I was never ashamed of my ethnicity until some people made it into a joke.” Cheponova’s relatives told journalists that other students at the academy harassed her and called her ethnic slurs. The regional investigative committee has opened a felony case over Cheponova’s death, reportedly under the article against “incitement to suicide.”

⛓️ Four prison guards dead after Russian inmates claiming ISIS affiliation take staff hostage (4-min read)

Inmates at the IK-19 prison in Russia’s Volgograd region took multiple employees of the facility hostage on Friday. In a video posted online, the attackers said they were acting in revenge for the terrorists who carried out the deadly attack at Moscow’s Crocus City Hall concert venue in March. After an hours-long standoff, Russian security forces stormed the prison, killing four hostage-takers and freeing the surviving hostages. According to the Federal Prisoner Service, three prison staff members were killed during the attack and one more died later in the hospital. Multiple prisoners who were taken hostage were also reportedly killed.

🪦 One year after his fiery death, Prigozhin supporters bring flowers to his grave

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As the world turns

• 🇰🇵 A digital detox in North Korea: Earlier this week, a Russian teenager published an article in a regional newspaper about her experience at a North Korean summer camp. Anna Osintseva, a student from Yekaterinburg, secured one of about 250 spots in an exchange program for Russian and North Korean kids this summer by winning a contest organized by a Kremlin-backed youth organization. In her essay, she describes “the locals’ hospitality and love for Russian tourists” and seeks to dispel what she calls “‘scary’ myths about North Korea,” including the idea that her phone would be confiscated upon entering the country. While she didn’t have Internet access or cell service while in the country, she writes, she enjoyed the “two-week digital detox” this provided.
• 🤝 This day in history: Exactly 35 years ago, on August 23, 1989, citizens of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia took part in the Baltic Way protest against Soviet occupation. About two million people — approximately one quarter of the countries’ combined population at the time — joined the demonstration, forming a human chain spanning about 430 miles long and connecting Riga, Vilnius, and Tallinn. The date was chosen to mark the 50th anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, in which the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany carved up the Baltics and other Eastern European countries between them. Just six months after the Baltic Way, Lithuania became the first Baltic country to announce its independence. In 2009, UNESCO added documents recording the event to its Memories of the World register.

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