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Mediazona English
@en.zona.media
Independent news from Russia. Investigative reporting, courtroom live-blogging, digital censorship coverage (now censored in Russia)

https://en.zona.media/
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THIS IS AN EMERGENCY. Mediazona is struggling.

We’ve tracked 100K Russian casualties in Ukraine. Covered political prisoners repression. We survived Putin’s censors.

Our reporters risk prison. Our editors will now work without pay. We need your help: en.zona.media/article/2025...
Mediazona on the brink. We need 5,000 monthly subscribers to survive
Mediazona is running out of money. We’ve had to cut staff and slash salaries. Editor-in-chief Sergey Smirnov and editor Dmitry Treshchanin will now be working without pay. If thing...
en.zona.media
From our Censored in Russia project. Interview with the Vampire, s1e2. The main characters of the show, a male vampire couple, devour an opera singer. The problem of Russian censors isn’t the violence—the problem is the vampire’s romantic relations
November 23, 2025 at 11:15 AM
1 million views on our English-language count of Russia’s war dead.

Not a milestone to celebrate, but a sign this work is appreciated, as we verify every name to document the human cost of this war.

This work relies on your support. Please donate: donate.zona.media/en
November 22, 2025 at 4:19 PM
From our Censored in Russia project. The New Pope, episode 4. At an audience with John Paul III (Malkovich), Marilyn Manson talks about his pharmacological experiments.

More examples of censorship:

Insta tinyurl.com/3rk76s9d

YouTube tinyurl.com/4e27j8e4

TikTok tinyurl.com/4yzdh7zw
November 22, 2025 at 11:18 AM
From our Censored in Russia project. Succession, s2e10. Shiv Roy and her husband Tom discuss a prospective candidate for a threesome—something unbearable for Russian censors.

More:

Insta tinyurl.com/3rk76s9d

YouTube tinyurl.com/4e27j8e4

TikTok tinyurl.com/4yzdh7zw
November 21, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Reposted by Mediazona English
Our reports on Russian losses in Ukraine are available in four languages besides Russian. Please help us share them

Eng: en.zona.media/article/2025...
Esp: zona.media/article/2025...
Fr: zona.media/article/2025...
De: zona.media/article/2025...
Russian losses in the war with Ukraine. Mediazona count, updated
149,250 deaths confirmed by November 21
en.zona.media
November 21, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Reposted by Mediazona English
Mediazona, together with the BBC’s Russian Service and a team of volunteers, keeps updating the count of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine. No detailed report this week, only refreshed numbers: 149,241 KIA personnel known by name

en.zona.media/article/2025...
November 21, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Mediazona, together with the BBC’s Russian Service and a team of volunteers, keeps updating the count of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine. No detailed report this week, only refreshed numbers: 149,241 KIA personnel known by name

en.zona.media/article/2025...
November 21, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Reposted by Mediazona English
“Glam-arrows,” “gains on credit”, and fills for Gerasimov.

Mediazona spoke to the Russian military draftsman who updated battlefield maps. He described the internal logic of deception, the absurdity of e-scooter attacks, and why he deserted

en.zona.media/article/2025...
Fantasy maps filling and real losses. A Russian military draftsman recalls faking battlefield “advances” for his commanders and explains why he deserted
Propaganda loves maps showing the advance of Russian troops. Arrows, shaded regions, captured tree lines, and destroyed villages with populations of just a hundred people: this is ...
en.zona.media
November 20, 2025 at 3:24 PM
“Glam-arrows,” “gains on credit”, and fills for Gerasimov.

Mediazona spoke to the Russian military draftsman who updated battlefield maps. He described the internal logic of deception, the absurdity of e-scooter attacks, and why he deserted

en.zona.media/article/2025...
Fantasy maps filling and real losses. A Russian military draftsman recalls faking battlefield “advances” for his commanders and explains why he deserted
Propaganda loves maps showing the advance of Russian troops. Arrows, shaded regions, captured tree lines, and destroyed villages with populations of just a hundred people: this is ...
en.zona.media
November 20, 2025 at 3:24 PM
From our Censored in Russia projet. Game of Thrones, s2e7. Jaime Lannister explains to Catelyn Stark that he's been loyal to his sister and never slept with anyone else.

More censorship:

IG www.instagram.com/censored_in_...

YT www.youtube.com/@CensoredinR...

TT www.tiktok.com/@censored_in...
November 20, 2025 at 1:31 PM
The cult novel “It” by @StephenKing has vanished from Wildberries, Russia’s leading marketplace. Pro-Kremlin outlets have linked it to the law against “LGBT propaganda.”

AST, Russian translation’s publisher, kept the book in its online catalog but removed all marketplace links
November 20, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Tarot reader from Krasnodar fined for publishing an image of a card. The woman's socials account, "Alyona, the Goddess of Tarot," contained the 15th trump or Major Arcana card, the Devil. Satanism has been banned in Russia as extremist since July 2025

en.zona.media/article/2025...
November 20, 2025 at 9:51 AM
From our Censored in Russia project. The White Lotus, s1e2. Olivia Mossbacher (Sydney Sweeney) has an argument with her mother, successful entrepreneur Nicole (Connie Britton), comparing her with the ultimate evil: Vladimir Putin
November 19, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Mediazona developed an algorithm that reveals Russian censorship in Western TV shows. Follow to see the most striking and absurd:

IG www.instagram.com/censored_in_...

YT www.youtube.com/@CensoredinR...

TT www.tiktok.com/@censored_in...
November 19, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Vladimir Putin signed a law under which minors in Russia could be charged with sabotage or terrorism: 14 instead of 16. Statutes of limitations for sabotage-related crimes are abolished. Recruitment of minors is now punishable by a sentence of up to life in prison
November 17, 2025 at 4:18 PM
Over the past month, news came about the murders of two women who fled Chechnya. Human rights activists say that they were victims of “honor killings.” Here's what we known about the deaths of Aliya Ozdamirova, Aishat Baimuradova, and similar crimes

en.zona.media/article/2025...
“They will either kill me or cut me up”. Second Chechen woman killed in a month was after fleeing abroad
Over the past month, news came about the murders of two unrelated women who fled Chechnya abroad. Human rights activists claim that they were victims of “honor killings”: the famil...
en.zona.media
November 17, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Procedural extravaganza in Moscow: Russia’s Investigative Committee has completed its investigation into senior figures of the International Criminal Court over “illegal prosecution of Russian citizens,” which prompted an “immediate” action

en.zona.media/article/2025...

1/4
A warrant for a warrant. Moscow adds International Criminal Court leadership to wanted list for “illegal prosecution” of Russians and “provoking a war”
Russia’s Investigative Committee has announced it has formally completed a criminal investigation into the most senior figures at the International Criminal Court (ICC), charging t...
en.zona.media
November 14, 2025 at 5:54 PM
A Moscow court has issued an outrageous posthumous verdict in the “LGBT extremism” case against Andrei Kotov. The 48-year-old director of a travel agency was arrested last December and committed suicide in jail. Now, the court finds him guilty

en.zona.media/article/2025...
Russian court finds Andrei Kotov guilty of “LGBT extremism”—posthumously. He committed suicide soon after arrest
A Moscow court has issued an outrageous posthumous verdict in the “LGBT extremism” case against Andrei Kotov, the 48-year-old director of a travel agency who died in pre-trial dete...
en.zona.media
November 14, 2025 at 7:00 AM
Reposted by Mediazona English
Как проходят суды над участниками группы Stoptime. Сегодня певица Наоко и гитарист Александр Орлов получили еще по 13 суток
November 11, 2025 at 3:18 PM
The crackdown clock in St Petersburg ticks to its own rhythm:

13 days in jail
release
13 days in jail
release
13 days in jail (we are now here)

A new sad update to our article about the Stoptime band: en.zona.media/article/2025...
November 11, 2025 at 3:17 PM
On Friday, our confirmed count of Russia’s war dead passed 145,000. We noted a sharp rise in the number of teenagers killed at the front, fueled by new laws allowing 18-year-olds and criminal suspects to be recruited from detention.

Read the full story: en.zona.media/article/2025...
November 10, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Reposted by Mediazona English
Activist Mikhail Kriger has been on a hunger strike for over a month to protest solitary confinement. After @garbage’s Shirley Manson sent a public appeal to the prison chief, she got a response: 2 pages of penal code quotes that never mention his name

en.zona.media/article/2025...
A Garbage response. Russian prison sends Shirley Manson bureaucratic boilerplate, omitting name of hunger‑striking activist she appealed for
The administration of Penal Colony No. 5 (IK-5) in Russia’s Oryol region has issued a formal, two-page response to a letter from Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson regarding the tr...
en.zona.media
November 10, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Activist Mikhail Kriger has been on a hunger strike for over a month to protest solitary confinement. After @garbage’s Shirley Manson sent a public appeal to the prison chief, she got a response: 2 pages of penal code quotes that never mention his name

en.zona.media/article/2025...
A Garbage response. Russian prison sends Shirley Manson bureaucratic boilerplate, omitting name of hunger‑striking activist she appealed for
The administration of Penal Colony No. 5 (IK-5) in Russia’s Oryol region has issued a formal, two-page response to a letter from Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson regarding the tr...
en.zona.media
November 10, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by Mediazona English
He turned 18, signed a contract, and was dead a month later. Our analysis finds hundreds of teenage recruits among Russia’s war dead, a rise fuelled by relaxing laws and allowing criminal suspects to sign contracts from detention.

Read the full update: en.zona.media/article/2025...
November 7, 2025 at 4:54 PM
Reposted by Mediazona English
Over 145 thousand Russian soldiers. That’s the confirmed death toll as of 7 November.

Many of the 5K names added in the past two weeks weren’t new losses, they were men missing for months or years, now confirmed dead.

Read the update: en.zona.media/article/2025...
November 7, 2025 at 5:13 PM