Evening Medusa

Putin speaks to Macron. Nazarbayev leaves another post. Anonymous Telegram channel monitors Chechen security forces

Good evening,

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This is Meduza's daily newsletter about the most important things that happened during the day. Let's start, as usual, with the most interesting. Have you ever wondered what the logos of famous brands in medieval style might look like? An artist from St. Petersburg, Ilya Stallone, drew his own versions of medieval Instagram, Burger King, Lacoste and others. As expected, most of them look suffering .

The main thing for the day - point by point

• Putin spoke to Macron and promised to look into US and NATO responses on security assurances. At the same time, he said that Moscow's "fundamental concerns" were not taken into account.
• The Russian government decided to merge the Social Insurance Fund with the Pension Fund. Contributions to them will also become uniform.
• Nazarbayev stepped down as chairman of Kazakhstan's ruling Nur Otan party. His daughter was not included in the political council.
• The new record for coronavirus infections in Russia is 98,000.
• in Ulyanovsk region Mi-8 helicopter crashed . This is the third helicopter accident in Russia in a month.
• Bailiffs closed the exit from Russia to Sergei Mitrokhin.

Texts of the day

Why is the Kremlin constantly aggravating the situation around Ukraine?

The situation around Ukraine is becoming more and more alarming. Russian troops have long stood at the border, NATO countries are deploying additional forces to Eastern Europe, and politicians are exchanging mutual accusations of escalating the conflict. What is happening - and most importantly, what will happen in the near future - no one really knows, it seems. Meduza Special Correspondent Andrey Pertsev spoke to sources close to the Kremlin to try to find out at least something. His interlocutors claim that Russia is ready for “forceful actions” , the main thing is “not to bend” before the United States.

What are the residents of Kharkiv afraid of and what do they hope for?

Kharkiv is only 40 kilometers from the Russian border. In 2014, the city turned out to be one of the main centers of a fierce confrontation between supporters and opponents of the Maidan. Eight years later, during another escalation around Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted that Russia might try to “occupy Kharkiv.” At the request of Meduza, Kharkiv-based journalist Olga Antonova reveals whether local residents believe in the prospect of a full-scale war with Russia —and whether they are preparing for it.

What can't Kadyrov control?

Novaya Gazeta spoke about the anonymous Telegram channel Security Turkey, which monitors Chechen security forces who come to Turkey. This channel appeared in early August 2021 and gained more than seven thousand readers in six months, and the people who created it said that they were going to resist contract killings of Chechens in Turkey, as well as persecute the Kadyrovites. Administrators monitor the accounts of the Chechen security forces, tracking their stay in Turkey by geolocation, and also look for real estate and business in this country. “For the first time, Ramzan Kadyrov has faced a force he cannot control,” writes Elena Milashina, a Novaya Gazeta journalist. We have rewritten her article .

Podcast "What Happened"

Thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there are thousands of people in Russia who call themselves "citizens of the USSR." They believe that the decision to dissolve the USSR has no legal force, and the modern Russian Federation is not a state, but an occupied territory given to the management of a commercial structure.

How did Western conspiracy theories, nostalgia, and disillusionment with post-Soviet Russia lead to the emergence of a movement of deniers of the collapse of the Soviet Union? Mikhail Akhmetiev, the author of the book Citizens without the USSR, talks about this in today's issue.

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

Get some rest over the weekend. Your Medusa