The stories that defined Russian journalism in 2025 Meduza’s roundup of the year’s best reporting from the Russian-language independent media
With another year nearly behind us, it’s high time we look back at the best Russian-language reporting in 2025. Many of the year’s top stories addressed Russia’s increasingly draconian justice system and Moscow’s growing confrontation with Europe and the United States. Despite rampant censorship and a narrowing space for public discourse, journalists conducted several in-depth investigations into sensitive social issues. Naturally, most independent journalism in 2025 focused on the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. According to Meduza’s estimates — based on rigorous public records monitoring by Mediazona and BBC Russia — the war has killed well over 200,000 Russian soldiers.
Meduza has reported at length on all these issues, but our English-language edition — which you are reading now — also monitors other Russian news outlets and highlights their most outstanding work. In the list below, we recall some of the best journalism produced by our peers in 2025.
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A digest of Russia’s investigative reports and news analysis. If it matters, we summarize it.
Russia vs. The West
From moral migration to financial ruin: How one U.S. family’s move to Russia unraveled
People of Baikal
January 2025
Each year, hundreds of people move from Western countries to Russia, braving the country’s notorious bureaucracy and harsh winters in pursuit of the “traditional values” they believe their home countries are losing. The Hare family left the U.S. for Russia only to find themselves without money or a clear way to make a living. But these self-described “ideological immigrants” didn’t turn back.
While waging war in Ukraine, Russia builds up military sites near Finland
Yle
June 2025
Russia is making progress on an initiative to expand its military presence near the Finnish border, according to a new report by the Finnish media outlet Yle. The military has begun constructing a new artillery brigade installation in Kandalaksha, in the Murmansk region, while simultaneously expanding its hardware on the Karelian Isthmus. This expansion was revealed through new satellite imagery analyzed by journalists. The photos indicate that Russia began large-scale construction last winter at the restricted military facility of Lupche-Savino-2 in Kandalaksha, roughly 110 kilometers (about 70 miles) from Finland.
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Crime and punishment
How a single misspelling helped unravel a murder in a Russian university town
Holod Media
January 2025
When Anna Apatchenko, a 19-year-old from the Russian city of Tomsk, stopped answering her phone one day in 2014, her mother suspected the worst. Her fear intensified after she received a strange text message from her daughter’s number. Alarmed, she contacted law enforcement, and before long, volunteers organized search parties. When suspicions fell on Anna’s boyfriend, he fled and confessed after being caught.
From a teenage prank to prison horror
Takie Dela
February 2025
In November 2023, a 14-year-old Russian girl was arrested and charged with terrorism after setting off a firecracker. Lyuba was sent to a juvenile pre-trial detention center, where, cut off from her family, she began to unravel. Then, the abuse started. Her cellmates beat and sexually assaulted her, but despite documented evidence, prison officials refused to transfer her. The trauma left her so severely affected that she was eventually moved to a psychiatric hospital and diagnosed with a “mental disorder.” Meanwhile, despite a lack of evidence for the terrorism charges, the investigation into her case dragged on.
How torture learned at war returns to Russian detention centers
Okno Media
March 2025
Russian prisons have long been notorious for widespread torture, but over the past several years, the problem has worsened significantly. Human rights advocates say this escalation is directly related to the full-scale war in Ukraine, as prison guards and police who abused Ukrainian POWs during military service bring those methods back to civilian prisons, driving a sharp rise in brutality and impunity.
He survived a tiger attack. Then the state went after the man who saved him.
Novaya Vkladka and Govorit NeMoskva
July 2025
In February 2023, 19-year-old Sergey Kyalundzyuga and his 23-year-old cousin Alexander Sigde set off for a fishing trip in the Russian taiga. At the end of the day, they settled into the rudimentary winter cabin where they planned to spend the night. Late in the evening, Sergey heard a noise outside. As soon as he turned to look out the window, an Amur tiger leapt through the door, knocking him to the ground. By the time Alexander grabbed his rifle and shot the animal, it had already torn off his cousin’s arm. In the days that followed, police accused Alexander of provoking the attack by firing at the tiger earlier in the forest, and in May 2025, an appeals court convicted him of killing an endangered species. It wasn’t the first time the state had taken a tiger’s side over a human’s in such a confrontation; on the contrary, Vladimir Putin has adopted tiger preservation as one of his pet causes.
Russian politics and society
From Olympic star to sports powerbroker: Alina Kabaeva’s comeback
BBC Russia
January 2025
More than two decades after her Olympic gold medal, Alina Kabaeva remains one of Russia’s most celebrated gymnasts. However, since retiring from sports, her fame has been attributed less to her past exploits in competition and more to her alleged relationship with Vladimir Putin. Rumors of their marriage surfaced as early as 2008, even though Putin was still officially married at the time. Investigative journalists have reported evidence that Kabaeva is the mother of the Russian president’s two alleged sons, born in 2015 and 2019. Neither Putin nor Kabaeva has ever acknowledged their relationship.
Russia’s anti-porn campaign ensnares models, studio owners, and queer bloggers
Novaya Gazeta Europe
April 2025
The Russian authorities are prosecuting more and more “producers and distributors of pornographic materials.” The number of convictions for porn-related offenses jumped 1.5 times between 2021 and 2023 to more than 315. The shift follows a ruling by the Russian Supreme Court’s Plenum, which classified live-streamed performances by webcam models as pornographic productions. Novaya Gazeta Europe examined how Russia’s stricter enforcement of anti-pornography laws has affected the lives of webcam studio workers and given police another tool in the crackdown on queer bloggers.
Symbolic care, real pressure: The politics behind Russia’s Pregnant Women’s Day
Glasnaya
July 2025
Amid the war and a declining birth rate, the Kremlin has introduced a new holiday: Pregnant Women’s Day. To mark the occasion, maternity clinics, hospitals, and even vocational schools held workshops on newborn care, shared information about state support programs, and handed out gifts. Officials hoped to address the country’s demographic crisis by reframing pregnancy as a public contribution rather than a private milestone, but sociologists warn that such efforts do little to change the material realities facing young families.
An interview with Prigozhin’s mother revisits the Wagner mutiny and his death
Fontanka
August 2025
On August 23, 2023, a private plane crashed outside Moscow, killing three crew members and seven passengers, including Wagner Group private military company founder Yevgeny Prigozhin. Two months prior, Prigozhin had led a brief mutiny against Russia’s military that captivated the world and culminated in an aborted march on Moscow itself. Ahead of the anniversary of Prigozhin’s death — which U.S. intelligence reportedly assessed as a deliberate assassination — the St. Petersburg news outlet Fontanka interviewed the late mercenary leader’s mother, Violetta Prigozhina, who’d recently organized a gallery exhibition in honor of her son.
A dry law with wet consequences in Russia’s Vologda region
Bereg Cooperative
September 2025
In Russia’s Vologda region, weekday alcohol sales have been restricted since March 1: liquor may be bought only between noon and 2:00 p.m. The new dry law is the brainchild of eccentric Governor Georgy Filimonov, known as a protégé of Vladimir Putin’s influential domestic policy czar Sergey Kiriyenko and a friend of Putin’s daughter, Katerina Tikhonova. Six months after the law was adopted, Bereg traveled to Vologda to investigate how locals are coping with the inability to buy booze whenever they want.
How climate change and neglect are swallowing a once-fertile region in southern Russia
Kedr Media
October 2025
Astrakhan is famous throughout Russia for its watermelons and produce, but it could soon be known instead as a lifeless desert. That prognosis might sound alarmist, but the once-flourishing region is already being swallowed by the sand. This summer, journalists traveled to towns in the Astrakhan region that are suffering the most severe effects of desertification. They spoke with residents about what it means to survive under such conditions and asked ecologists which factors, beyond climate change, are exacerbating the situation in southern Russia, and whether there are any ways to mitigate the impact of what has already begun.
The war in Ukraine
A rogue commander, a dead soldier, and a unit no one could control
Mediazona
January 2025
In late 2022, while serving with Russia’s military in Ukraine’s Kherson region, Senior Sergeant Dmitry Maiborodin effectively created his own personal army of 60 men. Maiborodin’s unit ignored the chain of command and terrorized Russian career officers. The group was disbanded only after Maiborodin ordered his subordinates to torture a soldier to death.
Bankrolling pro-Kremlin influencers to reshape life in occupied Ukraine
DOXA
March 2025
The Russian government has been investing in a powerful propaganda tool in Ukraine’s occupied territories: video bloggers. These pro-Russian influencers film upbeat reviews of cafes in the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic,” praise “Uncle Vova” (Vladimir Putin) for “saving the locals,” and produce travel TV shows in war-torn Mariupol. They portray life under Russian rule as steadily improving, and they’re training young content creators to spread the message even further.
Russian officials warn of crime, addiction, and unrest as troops leave the front
Faridaily
March 2025
A peace agreement in Ukraine has remained elusive, but the Kremlin has begun preparing for one of the biggest challenges Russian society will face when the war ends: the return of hundreds of thousands of traumatized soldiers. Officials and experts warn that a sudden mass return of traumatized veterans could overwhelm Russia’s fragile social, medical, and labor systems, fueling crime, addiction, domestic violence, and public unrest that the state is still ill-equipped to confront.
Avoiding Ukraine’s battlefields by design: How Russian soldiers get jailed on purpose
iStories
June 2025
With fleeing the country out of reach for many, some Russian deserters have turned to a new tactic to avoid being sent back to the war in Ukraine: getting locked up. Their lawyers have the unusual task of making sure their clients face charges that result in real prison sentences, since probation could mean being sent straight back to the front. iStories learned how Russian soldiers deliberately go AWOL to trigger criminal prosecution.
Returning Russian soldiers flood St. Petersburg’s underground sex industry
Bumaga
September 2025
St. Petersburg’s sex trade has changed dramatically since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Women in the industry say that, until recently, soldiers returning from the front made up around half the clientele in illegal brothels. Sex workers are among the most vulnerable groups in Russian society, and violence at the hands of soldiers has become especially difficult to guard against. The St. Petersburg outlet Bumaga spoke with two women working in underground brothels who, over the past three years, have encountered dozens of men who fought in Ukraine.
What four weeks of ethnographic research show about daily life in wartime Kursk
The Public Sociology Laboratory
September 2025
Based on a unique ethnographic expedition, PS Lab’s study chronicles two researchers who traveled to the Kursk region soon after Ukrainian troops occupied part of the area in August 2024. One spent three weeks on assignment in September and October, visiting Kursk and a nearby settlement; the other spent four weeks in the regional capital in November and December. Throughout their stays, the researchers observed local life by volunteering at humanitarian centers and making acquaintances on public transportation, in taxis, cafés, bars, parks, and other public spaces.
How gas stations across Russia ran dry this summer
Cherta Media
September 2025
This summer, residents in many Russian regions reported gasoline shortages and soaring fuel prices. Drivers waited in long lines at the pump and vented online, while small, independent gas stations were forced to shut down entirely because buying fuel on the exchange had become prohibitively expensive. The shortages were driven in large part by Ukrainian drone strikes on oil refineries, which knocked out significant refining capacity and disrupted fuel supplies far beyond Russia’s border regions.
Meet the Russian commanders killing their own soldiers with impunity
Verstka Media
October 2025
Russian soldiers on the front line aren’t just dying in combat with Ukrainian troops — many are being killed by their own commanders. The investigative outlet Verstka identified 101 servicemen accused of involvement in field executions, referred to within the Russian army as “zeroings out.” Their alleged crimes include cases where soldiers were tortured to death, shot, or sent on suicide missions as punishment for “disobedience” or refusal to fight.
Russia’s war looting comes home as soldiers target their own border towns
7×7
November 2025
Russian soldiers’ widespread looting and violence in occupied Ukraine are now spilling back into Russia itself, particularly in border regions. Many of the perpetrators are former convicts recruited to fight in Ukraine, some of whom have returned home and resumed criminal activity, including murder, rape, and large-scale looting. Civilians report fear of Russian troops, bureaucratic indifference, and a lack of accountability, with authorities often minimizing or denying the problem.
Inside the cyberattack that paralyzed Russia’s flagship airline
The Bell
December 2025
On the morning of July 28, 2025, all of Aeroflot’s information systems went down — from corporate email to passenger check-in. The outage forced hundreds of flight delays and cancellations, plunging Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport into chaos and affecting tens of thousands of passengers. Russia’s largest airline lost at least 260 million rubles ($3.3 million) from cancellations alone, and total damages are estimated in the tens of millions of dollars. Who and what took out Aeroflot’s systems?
Cover photo: L. Calcada / ESO / Reuters / Scanpix / LETA