Evening Medusa

Russia is evacuating diplomats from Ukraine. Nazarbayev made an appeal. Microsoft bought the publisher of World of Warcraft

Good evening,

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This is Meduza's daily newsletter about the most important things that happened during the day. For starters, as we usually try, the good news is that it's Jim Carrey's birthday, he's turning 60 (what? yeah!) years old. And he celebrates it, of course, like no other .

Pulse

The main thing for the day - point by point

• In Russia, a sharp increase in the number of cases of covid continues. across the country per day Over 31,000 new cases . The authorities, meanwhile, decided to reduce the quarantine for the sick from 14 to seven days.
• Nursultan Nazarbayev made his first address after the protests in Kazakhstan. “There is no conflict or confrontation in the elite,” he said.
• Russia has begun evacuating families of diplomats from Ukraine, wrote The New York Times. The downsizing of the diplomatic corps may be part of propaganda, a preparation for an impending conflict, or a ruse—or both.
• TikTok and Spotify have followed Apple into complying with Russia's "landing" law. So far, only a few points.
• Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard (the publisher of World of Warcraft and Diablo) for an industry-record $68.7 billion.

Texts of the day

If the war does start, will the Ukrainian army be able to resist the Russian one?

Negotiations between Russia, the United States and NATO have not led (at least so far) to the removal of tension, and therefore a possible military operation of the Russian Federation against Ukraine is again being discussed as a real prospect: Moscow denies this possibility, but Kiev and the West do not believe it. Experts, including former high-ranking US military, are actively discussing what the Ukrainian army (with all possible assistance from NATO) can oppose to the Russian one. Meduza - with the hope that this will remain just idle talk - summarized the conclusions of analysts .

The International Civil Aviation Organization has prepared a report on the landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk

The ICAO investigation team, in particular, revealed a discrepancy in the testimony of the Belarusian authorities about the time of receipt of the anonymous letter that caused the emergency landing. It claimed to have mined a Ryanair flight. An e-mail about the bomb threat was received at Minsk airport at 12:56 local time, when the plane was already preparing for an emergency landing. However, Minsk provided the organization with a screenshot of the letter with a different time — 12:25.

Interview with Sophie Marceau

“Everything Went Well” is released in Russia, a new film by Francois Ozon, in which an adult daughter (Sophie Marceau) fulfills the will of a seriously ill father (André Dussolier), who decided to die. The picture is based on the autobiographical book by Emmanuelle Bernheim, Ozon's screenwriter for many years. On the eve of the premiere, Anton Dolin talked about working on the film with Sophie Marceau , an actress who has been known and loved in Russia since the 1980s teen hit Boom.

Podcast "What Happened"

In Russia, they are about to start vaccinating schoolchildren against covid. Will this cause parental protest? Will officials decide on compulsory vaccination?

Vaccination of teenagers with the recently registered drug Sputnik-M should begin this week. In addition, clinical trials of another vaccine intended for young children will begin soon (the studies will take about three months). In some regions, schools have already begun collecting lists of children whose parents agree to be vaccinated.

In the new issue, we are talking with Ilya Yasny, head of scientific expertise at the venture fund Inbio Ventures, sociologist Denis Volkov, and Meduza special correspondent Andrey Pertsev about what is known about the new versions of Sputnik, why schoolchildren need to be vaccinated - to protect their health or to fight with the pandemic in general. And also about how the authorities will conduct the campaign.

Listen to What Happened on Meduza and YouTube , and subscribe to Apple Podcasts , Google Podcasts , Castbox , Yandex.Music and other podcast services.

It seems that Jim Carrey's anniversary is a great reason to revisit The Mask. Your Medusa