Ep. 208: Dodging censorship in Russia

On today’s episode, we discuss Alexei Navalny’s death, Vladimir Putin, censorship in Russia, and Samizdat Online, an anti-censorship platform that grants users living under authoritarian regimes access to news and other censored content. Yevgeny “Genia” Simkin is the co-founder of Samizdat Online and Stanislav “Stas” Kucher is its chief content officer.   Timestamps   0:00 Introduction  2:25 Alexei Navalny  8:53 The state of Russian opposition 20:48 The origins of Samizdat Online 28:17 How does Samizdat Online circumvent censorship?  35:16 Could Yevgeny Prigozhin have overthrown Putin? 41:03 The progression of Putin’s regime  58:08 How can people help?  59:56 Outro   Show notes   Statement by Russian prison service on Alexei Navalny’s death The Anti-Corruption Foundation (nonprofit established by Alexei Navalny) Samizdat Online “Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible” by Peter Pomerantsev Transcript   Past related episodes   Ep. 108: A history of (dis)information wars in the Soviet Union and beyond Ep. 156: What Russians don’t know about the war in Ukraine Ep. 157: Former BBC bureau chief Konstantin Eggert and what you need to know about censorship in Russia