Letter from Meduzaʼs founders

Your help matters. We are proud of you.

Dear friends!

Youʼre receiving this letter from Galina Timchenko and Ivan Kolpakov, the founders of the Russian-language publication Meduza, because we owe our continued existence to you. You are early adopters of a huge worldwide effort to change how independent information reaches Russia. When we needed help, you were the first to lend a hand. Thanks to your support, we continue our work. On behalf of everyone at Meduza and our millions of readers in Russia, Ukraine, and other countries — thank you!

Your help matters. We are proud of you.

Since launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian authorities have blocked every independent media outlet in the country, imposing military censorship nationwide. Like other outlets, weʼve also had to pull our staff out of Russia. Even in all the mayhem of these evacuations, however, Meduza never stopped reporting the news for a single moment.

Since Moscow ordered the invasion, we have devoted the full force of our newsroom to covering the war and keeping our audience of millions informed about what Russia is doing, presenting the war through the eyes of Ukrainians.

Meduza is now the only major independent Russian-language news media thatʼs managed to retain almost its entire audience in Russia. Despite being blocked by the state censor, we remain accessible to our readers, thanks particularly to our mobile apps that feature built-in tools to bypass Russian censorship.

Because of the war, Meduza lost 30,000 recurring donations coming from Russia. That is why we turned to you, our global audience. In five days since redesigning our crowdfunding campaign, Meduza has received the support of more than 1,700 people in Europe and North America. Thanks to you, weʼve managed to raise enough money to sustain our organization for another month and a half. Thank you for this crucial help!

We are sure that itʼs only the beginning. In recent days, from Germany and the United States to places like Chile, Australia, and Japan, news organizations (including some of the biggest publications in the world) have covered Meduzaʼs story. Some of the most prominent journalists alive have urged their readers to support our work.

These are great achievements, but we still need more supporters to guarantee our future.

What else can you do to help Meduza?

• Please tell your friends and colleagues — anyone who will listen and cares about cutting through the disinformation that blinds Russians to what is happening in Ukraine — that Meduza needs their support. Write about our crowdfunding campaign on Twitter, Facebook, or wherever you have accounts. Send your friends a link to this recent article published in The Washington Post about Meduzaʼs work.
• And please keep sharing links to Meduzaʼs reporting throughout this terrible war. Weʼve made our coverage of the conflict free to distribute under a Creative Commons license. You can republish everything we write about the invasion — on your blog, through your student group, in your newspaper, anywhere.
• Follow us on Instagram and Twitter. Please repost us. Even small acts like these go a long way.

Thank you once again!

Here are links to a few recent reports weʼve published about Russiaʼs war in Ukraine:

• About Russian draftees being sent into battle: https://meduza.io/en/feature/26.02.2022/i-m-panicking-where-is-my-child
• About the moral choices facing Russians who oppose the war: https://meduza.io/en/feature/02.03.2022/why-no-mass-protests-in-russia
• About preparations in Lviv to defend the city against Russian troops: https://meduza.io/en/feature/08.03.2022/just-throw-me-into-hell
• About Russians living in Ukraine whose lives the war has upended: https://meduza.io/en/feature/14.03.2022/people-from-my-country-came-to-kill-me
• About the rise of an ominous symbol thatʼs come to represent Russiaʼs invasion: https://meduza.io/en/feature/16.03.2022/z

Your support means everything to us. Youʼll hear from us again regularly with updates about Meduzaʼs crowdfunding campaign and our work to keep independent journalism alive for people in Russia. And around the world.

End the war!

Meduzaʼs founders, Galina Timchenko and Ivan Kolpakov