#Mikhail Zygar

[yourdailyqueer]

Mikhail Zygar

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Gay

DOB: 31 January 1981  

Ethnicity: White - Russian

Occupation: Journalist, writer, activist

[maximumphilosopheranchor]

"On February 7 [2022], French president Emmanuel Macron arrives in Moscow and holds a six-hour talk with Putin late into the night. Or rather, according to a high-ranking French diplomat, he listens to Putin’s six-hour history lecture. At a joint press conference with the French president, Putin loses his cool, slamming Zelensky’s unwillingness to abide by the Minsk agreements: “The current president recently stated he doesn’t like a single point of the Minsk agreements. Like it or not, be patient, my beauty. There’s no other way!” Russian journalists are shocked: many recognize the source of this statement, from the punk band Krasnaya Plesen (Red Mold), popular in Russia in the 1990s. The song in question is about necrophilia. The full chorus, which Putin quoted from, goes as follows: The beauty sleeps in her coffin. I creep up and fuck. Like it or not, sleep, my beauty!"

Mikhail Zygar, War and Punishment: Putin, Zelensky, and the Path to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

That's absolutely horrible.

[russianreader]

Remembering Navalny

There’s shoddy work everywhere. Even great publications suffer ridiculous failures. This is the cover of the new issue of the New Yorker. What ridiculous crap. (You can probably guess who that is supposed to be.) Source: Sergei Parkhomenko (Facebook), 12 October 2024. Translated by the Russian Reader I wouldn’t want Navalny to be remembered the way he has been remembered this past year. I…

[incoherentbabblings]

There are so many batshit bad history things about Putin's interview, but saying Ukrainian identity is Polish propaganda and WWII was Poland's fault for not giving Germany Danzig and it was justice for what Poland did to Czechoslovakia and ahhhhhhhhhh. Like yes, Poland was absolutely shit at international relations in the 1920s and 30s. Doesn't mean Nazi propaganda is correct.

Russia’s hated of Poland... frankly incredible.

[adribosch-fan]

El hombre que podría desafiar a Putin

Por Mikhail Zygar Al parecer, el presidente de Rusia, Vladimir Putin, por fin se dio cuenta de que la guerra en Ucrania creó a un competidor peligroso para su poder: Yevgeny Prigozhin, fundador de la empresa militar privada Grupo Wagner, cuyas tropas combaten junto al ejército ruso. Dependiendo del punto de vista de cada persona, Prigozhin podría ser considerado la persona del año o el villano…

[canberramaidan]

War and Punishment: The Story of Russian Oppression and Ukrainian Resistance by Mikhail Zygar

[frederickchill]

How would you summarize your reading choices for this year?

The Sandman.

But well, if we think about proper books, I learned a lot more about Soviet Russia and the feel of it through such books as:

- Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

- I love Russia by Elena Kostyuchenko

- Dangerous Soviet Things by Aleksandra Arkhipova

- The Climb by Anatolii Boukreev

- War and Punishment by Mikhail Zygar

- and multiple novels by the great Soviet sci fi writers - The Strugatsky Brothers.

I think I understand my own country a lot more now. Which doesn't mean I stand by its choices, of course.

[mariacallous]

sorry if this is too broad a question but do you have any recommendations of books/general literature about Eastern European history/politics (like fall of USSR-now)? i'm realising with keeping up with the war in Ukraine i don't know nearly enough about Eastern Europe (esp for a western leftist). I know you really like Slavenka Drakulić's work so I thought you might know of some others in that area. i'm sorry if you've been asked this before/it's too much bother + thank you in advance! <3

Oh, I'm always happy to answer this question/provide book recommendations, so no worries :)

Apart from Slavenka Drakulić's work, I would say the following, off the top of my head and looking at my bookshelves:

Anything by Anna Politkovskaya

Black Square: Adventures in Post-Soviet Ukraine by Sophie Pinkham (this one would be interesting now considering it came out not too long after Maidan and the Crimea and other annexations)

Putin Country: A Journey into the Real Russia by Anne Garrels

Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and then Took On The West by Catherine Belton

The Impossible Country: A Journey Through the Last Days of Yugoslavia by Brian Hall

In Europe's Shadow by Robert D. Kaplan (and, tentatively, his Balkan Ghosts, just because there's both some skew and quite a bit of stereotyping)

The Balkans by Misha Glenny

The Future is History by Masha Gessen (and really, any of their books, tbh)

Belarus: The Last European Dictatorship by Andrew Wilson

Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation by Laura Silber and Allen Little

The Invention of Russia: The Rise of Putin and the Age of Fake News by Arkady Ostrovsky

Unequal under Socialist: Race, Women, and Transnationalism in Bulgaria by Miglena S. Todorova

All The Kremlin's Men by Mikhail Zygar

Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe and Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism by Anne Applebaum

Dancing Bears: True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny by Witold Szabłowski

The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe by Marci Shore

Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich

Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall by Tim Mohr

The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine by Serhii Plokhy

Orbanland: Why Viktor Orbán's Hungary Matters by Lasse Skytt

Black Sea: Dispatches and Recipes, Through Darkness and Light by Caroline Eden

The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of '89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague by Timothy Garton Ash

And then anything my mutuals/followers would recommend, of course.

[ferrolano-blog]

Los resultados de las elecciones en Estados Unidos fueron recibidos con entusiasmo en Moscú... Para muchos en el Kremlin, una presidencia de Trump podría provocar el colapso del Estado estadounidense... el propio Putin dijo que Estados Unidos marcha confiada y firmemente por el mismo camino que la Unión Soviética. ¿Cómo llegaría a producirse? Por una guerra cultural... la ideología liberal en Estados Unidos —que abarca no solo los valores progresistas, sino también la promoción de la democracia y los derechos humanos en el exterior— se ha convertido en lo mismo que la ideología comunista en la extinta Unión Soviética. Cada vez menos gente cree en ella... el Partido Demócrata se ha vuelto excesivamente dogmático, pareciéndose al Partido Comunista de la Unión Soviética en su última década: un administrador arrogante de un sistema de creencias en bancarrota, tambaleándose hacia una caída... En este ambiente incendiario llega Trump, quien podría desmantelar la ideología del liberalismo dentro y fuera de sus fronteras, desintegrando el país en el proceso. En este sentido, se parece —quizá de forma contraintuitiva— a Mijaíl Gorbachov... Al igual que Gorbachov debilitó fatalmente la ideología comunista, Trump puede hacer lo mismo con la ideología liberal (Mikhail Zygar)

[cyberbenb]

Russian court sentences exiled journalist Mikhail Zygar in absentia

A Moscow court sentenced exiled Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar to eight and a half years in prison in absentia for spreading “fake news” about the Russian army, as part of Russia’s intensifying crac Source : kyivindependent.com/russian-c…

[brewminate-blog]

As soon as the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, prominent independent Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar circulated a Facebook petition signed first by hundreds of his cultural and journalistic contacts and then by thousands of others. That act led to a new law in Russia criminalizing criticism of the war, and Zygar fled Russia. In his time as a journalist, Zygar has interviewed President Zelensky and had access to many of the major players—from politicians to oligarchs. As an expert on Putin’s moods and behavior, he has spent years studying the Kremlin’s plan regarding Ukraine, and here, in clear, chronological order he explains how we got here.

[russianreader]

North Korea Sounds Nice

Chulpan Khamatova, Sobchak Live, 6 June 2012 [Ksenia] Sobchak: You want your children to live in a stable country without revolution? [Chulpan] Khamatova: Without revolution. It could be some kind of changes in mindset. Without revolutions. I don’t want revolution. I’m categorical on this point, because the heads of completely innocent people fly in revolution and all these wars. I don’t think…

[12blogmk]

Russia puts more Kremlin critics on a wanted list as its crackdown on dissent reaches new levels

MOSCOW: Russian authorities have put more Kremlin critics on a wanted list as its crackdown against dissent reaches unprecedented levels since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine more than two years ago. Independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reported Tuesday that it found women’s rights activist Darya Serenko and prominent journalist and author Mikhail Zygar in the Interior Ministry’s database of…