Human Rights in Russia week-ending 2 April 2021 - with Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov

Simon and Sergei

This week our guests on the podcast are Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov, well-known Russian journalists, creators of the website Agentura.ru and authors of the books The New Nobility, The Red Web and The Compatriots.

The topics we discuss on the podcast include: journalism in contemporary Russia; journalists’s safety; the role of Russia’s secret services domestically and on the world stage; disinformation; the history of post-Soviet Russia; the influence of Soviet political culture; Navalny’s poisoning; Amnesty International and Navalny; whether there is an on-going political crisis in Russia; and the future of human rights in Russia.

The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia [https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts/], SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “I like the way Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan write. I have read almost all their books: The New Nobility, The Red Web, and The Compatriots. They write in such a way that – frankly – I can’t tear myself away. Sometimes I didn’t want to wait for the Russian translation to come out, so I read the book in English. This was the case with their newest book. I first read The Compatriots: The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia’s Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad and then got a copy of the Russian translation. At the very end of the book, along with the acknowledgements, I liked the authors’ heartfelt confession: “When we wrote this book we argued passionately, and sometimes very loudly, about every chapter.” In our new podcast Andrei and Irina didn’t argue at all, and expressed their stories and views quite mildly. And what they had to say, it must be said, was just as interesting, of course, as their books. Starting with the story of how they became journalists and ending with their assessment of investigative journalism in Russia today.

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.