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Meduza (Russian: Медуза, named after the Greek mythological figure Medusa) is a Russian and English-language independent news website, headquartered in Riga, Latvia. It was founded in 2014 by a group of former employees of the then-independent Lenta.ru news website. Free mobile applications for iOS, Windows Phone, and Android became the basis of the media.
Timchenko told Forbes that the decision to base Meduza in Latvia was made since "right now, establishing an independent Russian language publishing house in Latvia is possible, while in Russia it is not". Moreover, Timchenko stated: "We understood that in Russia, most likely, they would not let us work."
Russian businessman and former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and telecommunications magnate Boris Zimin had been considered as passive investors, but they parted ways "for strategic and operational reasons". Timchenko said Khodorkovsky had wanted 100 percent control of Meduza, which she considered unacceptable. For financial reasons, Timchenko and her partner at Amond & Smith Ltd, Sergey Nazarkin, based Meduza in Latvia.
In February 2015, the website also launched an English-language version. In January 2016, Timchenko handed over the role of chief editor to her deputy Ivan Kolpakov. Meduza chief editor steps down, remains as CEO , Meduza, January 28, 2016.
In August 2017, Meduza started a partnership with the American news website BuzzFeed News. The partnership included publishing each other's materials, sharing experiences, and carrying out and publishing joint investigations.
On October 20, 2018, at the outlet's annual celebration, Meduza chief editor and co-founder Ivan Kolpakov reportedly groped an employee's wife, saying, "You're the only one at this party I can harass and get away with it." Kolpakov was temporarily suspended until Meduza publicly censured and reinstated him. The incident triggered a social media backlash. On November 9 Kolpakov announced his resignation saying that "it is the only way to stop the crisis engulfing the website and minimize the damage to its reputation". He was reinstated as chief editor on March 11, 2019.
In 2019, Meduza started the English podcast The Naked Pravda, which highlights how Meduza
In May 2022, Helsingin Sanomat started publishing individual Meduza articles translated in Finnish.
In February 2023, Timchenko's iPhone was targeted with Pegasus spyware. The attack occurred a day before a conference of exiled independent Russian media that was held in Berlin and which Timchenko attended; her phone could have been used to eavesdrop on the journalists' conversations during the conference. This attack is the first confirmed instance of Pegasus being used against a Russian journalist. It is unclear which state carried out the attack. Several employees of other independent Russian outlets, Current Time TV and Novaya Gazeta, received notifications from Apple that "state-sponsored attackers" may have attacked their phones as well.
In 2025 (April 26 to July 6), in Berlin, hosted No ( Nein), curated by Meduza, consisting of an art exhibition by 13 invited international artists (anonymous artist, Aleksey Dubinsky, Alexander Gronsky, Semyon Khanin, Gülsün Karamustafa, Stine Marie Jacobsen, Teobaldo Lagos Preller, Cristina Lucas, Pavel Otdelnov, Sergei Prokofiev, Fernando Sánchez Castillo, SUPERFLEX, Pilvi Takala, and Alisa Yoffe) and a specifically commissioned video documentary presentation chronicling the last ten years of Meduza. The documentary was directed by exiled Russian playwright Mikhail Durnenkov and featured interviews of Meduza contributors (Taisia Bekbulatova, Elena Kostyuchenko, Svetlana Reiter Lilia Yapparova, Zhenia Berezhna, Anton Dolin, Alexander Gronsky, Ivan Kolpakov, Galina Timchenko, and others) with support from Helsingin Sanomat Foundation, Fritt Ord Foundation, Stichting Editors Choice, JX Fund, Network of Exiled Media Outlets, and Committee to Protect Journalists.
Since March 2015, Meduza has published a daily news called "Evening Meduza".
In September 2022, it announced the creation of English email dispatch "The Beet", aiming to amplify "local perspectives" from Central/Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, "without centering Moscow". Its debut article was titled 'Suing Gorbachev' and explored Soviet violence in the Baltic states under Mikhail Gorbachev.
Meduza grants open source access to all their coverage of the war in Ukraine under a Creative Commons license. The articles can be reprinted in full (CC BY 4.0, does not apply to photos).
The day after it was launched (in October 2014), Meduza was blocked in Kazakhstan, probably due to an article about the city of Oskemen (Ust-Kamenogorsk).
By October 2016, access to the site has also been blocked in Uzbekistan.
By 15 April 2016, Meduza reported installing technical measures to circumvent censorship with their mobile apps.
In June 2019, Meduza journalist Ivan Golunov was arrested by Russian police for claimed drug offences. Colleagues and friends of Golunov said they believed the charges to be fabricated, motivated by his investigations into corruption. Following a public outcry, Golunov was released, and five police officers were fired and later arrested.
On 23 April 2021, the Russian Ministry of Justice designated Meduza as a foreign agent. In response, the European Union rejected the decision, saying this restriction "goes against Russia's international obligations and human rights commitments". Russia's actions caused financial difficulties for Meduza, as they stopped many advertisers from Russia, which were the portal's main source of income, from displaying their ads at Meduzas pages. This resulted in an international campaign to collect funds to ensure Meduzas survival through donations and buying subscriptions. Timchenko said the designation made it even harder to obtain sources that are willing to talk to the reporters – specifically without the protection of anonymity.
Meduza published an editorial condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022; due to its coverage of the invasion, the site was blocked on the territory of Russia by Roskomnadzor among other news websites due to the "systematic dissemination of fakes". Despite the actions of Roskomnadzor, Meduza managed to maintain most of its Russian readers, but the economic sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine also hit Meduzas finances, as the sanctions made it nearly impossible to send donations from Russia and 30,000 members across the Russian border were suddenly unable to donate to the website. As a result, Meduza launched a campaign seeking donations from new supporters outside of Russia. On March 11, Reporters Without Borders announced a mirror site has been set up. Russian journalist Ilya Krasilshchik, the former publisher of Meduza, was charged under the "fake news" law for denouncing the war in Ukraine.
On 26 January 2023, the Russian prosecutor-general’s office designated Meduza as an undesirable organization in Russia. In March 2023, Timchenko said that while "Russian propaganda has enormous financial sources" and the government can spend billions to spread disinformation, Meduza has a "little crowdfunding campaign by people of good will around the world, and some support from international organizations".
Meduza has implemented a number of technical solutions to bypass Russian censorship, including reliance on mobile apps and the ability to save articles as PDF files.
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