Galina and Kirill, thank you so much for your work and thank you for joining us today to tell us about the situation of journalism and the media in Russia. Hello, thank you for having me here and I'm glad to see you all. Thank you, thank you. Hello, it's a honor to be here. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, it's a honor to be here. Thank you so much. My name is Daniela Kraus. I'm the General Secretary of Press Club Concordia here in Vienna. And we're organizing talks on current issues. And we are also here to discuss what we can do in the current situation. I just want to announce that this event is recorded and also live streamed on YouTube. So good morning and welcome to the audience online and on the Internet. We will have a live discussion with Kirill and Kalina, and there will also be the possibility to ask questions via chat or with the video. This is a cooperation between Forum for Journalism and Media Vienna Press Club Concordia and IPI, International Press Institute, which is also situated in Vienna. And welcome to Barbara Zionfi, the director of the IPI, of the Press Institute. And I will hand over the word to Barbara in a minute. And after that to Mirjana Tomic, who is organizing this series of talks, and she will moderate today. So, Barbara, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. Thanks, Daniela, and thanks to everybody for joining us today on this very important topic. I know that you're all eager to hear from Galina and Kirill, so I'll be very, very brief. I just wanted to stress the importance of providing support toI that in this war, even more than in other wars that we have seen before, the information element was going to play a key part. It was going to be an information war. The Russian government had prepared the ground for it, also thanks to years of profound restrictions on press freedom and independent journalism. And we have seen as soon as the conflict started, this restriction became even harsher. Our speaker will talk about it. It became so dangerous to do journalism in the country that many journalists had to leave. So thanks to the IPI networks, our members and contacts in both countries, we were able to assess the needs fairly, and we were able to assess the needs fairly, and we constantly continue to assess the needs of independent journalists there and try to respond to their needs. Obviously, on the Ukrainian side, it was clear that what was needed was safety equipment, support in relocating very often within the country. often within the country. On the Russian side, however, we have seen a lot of journalists had to leave the country because the situation in the country became unbearable. And with this, we have launched a number of initiatives, on one hand to raise funds for the safety equipment and the needs of the Ukrainian journalists. On the other hand, our network has mobilized to offer safe spaces in their newsrooms, in their countries, to those journalists that have to leave the countries, both countries. But in particular, we are seeing this leaving of coming journalists coming from Russia. So I think my colleagues are going to share a link now, and I would like to encourage all of you, if you have the possibility to support this initiative in any way, please do. And the solidarity is a key element in this conflict and in supporting independent journalism there. Thank you so much. And I'll pass it on to you, Marianne, I believe. Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. Good morning to Galena. Good morning to Kirill. Good morning, everybody. Good morning to Galina. Good morning to Kirill. We do organize many events, but this one is very special. It is meant for information. It is meant in the future also for support. Independent journalism is essential in conflict and without conflict. conflict, but now with the war escalating and all the prohibitions that we have had in Russia, then all the prohibitions and blocking that we have had in Western Europe, any sort of communication seems to stop. I have two incredible speakers and journalists, Galina Timchenko. If anyone is interested a little bit in the background on how repression started, in May last year, we had a conversation with Galina, and she explained in detail how the concept of foreign agent works, so we shall not discuss it now. Galina Timchenko is the founder of Meduza, one of the reference independent media, both in Russian and in English, although the focus is the Russian audience. She has been for eight years in Riga. Prior to that, she was the boss of Lentaru in Russia, and she had to move to Riga because of her coverage of the beginning of the conflict or the war between, I don't even know which words to use anymore. There is lots of death anyway and destruction in Ukraine. And Galina, let's start with you and with the question that is the question of this event. Will independent media survive the latest Kremlin crackdown, when you cannot even mention the World War? How can it survive? How can both sides be informed? Are Meduza and Gazeta, and the OIA Gazeta, the only media that have remained, are there any more? Please just start, and then I will ask you, Kirill. Yeah, thank you so much. Good morning, everybody. And I'd like to start with a very short thought. You know, a few months ago, I delivered a speech at the IPI ceremony, and this speech was all about war. But I said in a metaphoric situation, I said it's a war against independent journalism. It's a war against freedom of speech. Putin started a war against journalists and it was the main thought of my speech a few months ago in Vienna. But now we are in the middle of the real war, not cold, not hybrid, but the real war. And where are we now? You know, thinking about this war, maybe half a year ago, when all this campaign against foreign media, foreign agents and against media started, I thought, if I would be Vladimir Putin, what would be my goal to start such a ruthless campaign against independent media? Because everything started with this foreign agent campaign against independent media. And I thought, if I would prepare a war, at first, I would silence all the independent voices. And unfortunately, I was right. We were, we, Russian independent journalists, we were the first victims of this war now. State Duma Parliament just passed a few laws and our journalists now in a grave threat or you know they are in a grave danger because independent coverage of the war leads them up to 15 years in prison, and they would be charged with state treason. So it's the most crucial and the most ruthless and the strongest attack on the independent voices in Russia. Most of its exodus, you know, most of my Russian journalists must leave country and they left country. Some of them are in third countries. Some of them are now in European Union. But it's actually not about Medusa. It's about the whole industry. You know, the whole industry is destroyed because some of media outlets agreed not to cover war at all. Some of them agreed to cover only war consequences. cover only war consequences. But you know that even the word war, the war was prohibited in Russia. Russian media could not use the word war, the word intrusion, invasion, or only they are allowed to use only special operation words describing this war. So where are we now? The whole industry is destroyed. We have a very few islands of resistance. Nowhere is among them. And Medusa is here and a very few small news outlets. Our journalists left the country. And I will say about this situation. And we are blocked, but we are continuing to broadcast on all platforms. Eight years ago, when we left Russia after Crimea annexation and after war at Donbass, we put the main goal. We would like to broadcast from every platform. So now Meduza is broadcasting from all possible platforms. Email newsletters, three of them, messengers, social media, podcasts, YouTube, application, and so on and so on. So what's about the audience now? Just before blocking, we have enormous record number of audience. For example, from the beginning of the war, we had more than 2 million unique users per day, 2 million plus. Why I mention these numbers? You know, there are thousands, millions of Russian people who desperately need independent information. Even now, when we are blocked in Russia, we have more than 1 million users in our Telegram channel. And we have almost a million in our mobile application. And still, we have more than 500,000 unique users per day in Meduza. So before blocking, we deeply understood that Russian authorities would block us. We started campaign promoting VPN, promoting downloading application, promoting our other platforms. We succeed. So now we have one of the biggest audience in Russia, and they do need us every day, every minute. So what about our journalists? Elena, may I just interrupt you? There are so many journalists left. Is it okay to say how the reporting works? Is it okay to say how the reporting works? You know, speaking about the report, the main goal for us now is Ukraine. And three of our reporters are working from Ukraine. They are on the ground. And speaking about Meduza in Moscow, we have a very few reporters in Moscow, but I could not mention it due to safety reasons. But we still have people in Moscow. But you know, the hardest and one of the painful thing declared that they are organizing black lists for all journalists who somewhere, somehow, in past or now, working for foreign agents. So all of our contributor writers, all of our freelancers, they are in grave danger now. So is this law retracted? Yeah, sure. It's a retracted law. If you worked for Medusa in the past, for example, in 2015, you are in danger. It could lead you of charging for state treason or promoting fake news or any crime they wanted to charge you. So, but we are still broadcasting and we have very big numbers of audience. And now we have a very few problems. Some of our journalists are in third countries. Just before they left Russia, we paid them some compensation for traveling, for transfer abroad. But next day, Visa and MasterCard just stop operating. And our journalist is definitely, literally, without any money in the third countries. Some of them are in European Union, but their cards, payment cards, just do not work at all. So it's the first thing. The second thing is visas. You know, some of them are in third countries, some of them in European Union, but they do not have visa. And unfortunately, European Union is not in a hurry to give them visa as soon as possible. not in a hurry to give them visa as soon as possible. But maybe I am repeating the same word, but they are in grave danger. So we do need support in visa application to obtain visas. We do need support in transferring money to them because they are out of money and out of financing at all. And speaking about Meduza, now we are okay and we have a plan how to continue broadcast. And I want to assure you that we will not surrender. We have our plans and we are well prepared because even me and Ivan Kolpakov, who is co-founder of Meduza, we have a negative way of thinking every day. For the last year, every day we told each other what next would kill us in five minutes, five days, five months. So Meduza is well prepared, but our journalists, independent journalists, they are in danger and I desperately asking for help. Thank you. Kirill, Kirill Martinov is a political editor and deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta. As you all know, it is one of the best known independent papers inside Russia. And more, if I'm not mistaken, seven journalists were killed who worked for Novaya Gazeta at different times. And Kirill was until recently also a university professor of philosophy and political theory. And Kirill, the floor is yours. Will Novaya Gazeta survive? Tell us what is your view of how can independent journalism function now in this situation? Yeah, thank you so much. I believe yesterday we published a thing which can become a historical one, a cover. You can see it on the web. It's a nuclear bomb and swan-like bullet. The symbol that is common, that is well known in every persons in Russia. And we dedicated this cover to the wartime censorship, of course, and I feel like it was quite a strong position of our editorial board, because we really can't write about war itself for now, but we still can cover what happens in Russia, what happens with humanitarian crisis, with social crisis in Russia and so on. And basically I strongly agree with Galina with most of her suggestion. We still have a lot of public interest, we have a record amount of visitors on our website. Even we can write about war because of these new laws that suggests 15 years in prison if you write on what happens in Ukraine. And we have the same problems like she described. We have some journalists which are outside Russia, they have their bank accounts blocked, they have no money money they have no legal statuses most of them have no visas and if in my view european union is doing a great job for now maybe this job is quite slow but they i feel like a few few european countries helps us a lot uh to to provide a safe space for our journalists. The main difference in our situation is we still have a huge amount of journalists in Moscow. They have real names, they have addresses, Russian authorities know us, know where we are. And of course I feel like my fellow journalists are in great danger for now. So we try to decide the same problem as was described by Galina. And we also try to keep our journalists safe in Russia. And I feel like there is no law anymore in Russia. If you can attack your neighbors with cruise missiles, you can do anything you want in so-called internal politics, which was my area of interest for these years. So that's basically what I want to say. If you need some answer on the first question, if we will survive, I strongly believe yes, we want to fight. We want to recreate Russian independent media in any circumstances we have. And I personally am very motivated to do my job and to help my fellows do my job as best, as good as we can. Я делаю свою работу как можно лучше. Мы делаем все, что можем, чтобы восстановить нашу профессию для социальной России и для наших читателей. Спасибо большое. Кирилл, может, я задам следующее вопрос, перед тем, как я открыю дверь для зрителей? Вы думаете, было ли полезно, как реагировала на это сообщество, блокируя Россию сегодня? Do you think it was useful the way the international community reacted by blocking Russia today? On the other hand, Russia expelled some media. Then we have the major, let's say the big international media, who said they would not be operating from Russia. Even in a war situation, we need information. В случае войны нам нужна информация. Вы считаете, что эти движения противопоставимы для проведения какой-то веры? Потому что, как мы знаем, в войнах вера умерла первой. Я думаю, это сложная вопрос, потому что мы не понимаем, какая лучшая решение. Например, если в России It's a hard question because we don't understand what is the best solution. For example, if international media still operate in Russia, they just put their own journalists at risk. If you are at war, at least you can find a safe space and don't go on the front line. But if you are in Russia and you are covering war, you can face prison for 15 years and no one can help you. Even if you're a foreigner? Yeah, sure, why not? They address this law for foreigners, of course, and that is why most of the independent international media leave Russia for now. So it's quite an obvious decision. You know, there is one thing we can address now. It's YouTube. YouTube is the last and the only biggest media platform in Russia. It's about 45 million daily users in Russia and YouTube is still operating in Russia. It's about 45 millions of daily users in Russia and YouTube is still operating in Russia and it's probably the biggest problem for Russian authorities. How to block YouTube, how to decide to solve this issue. They probably still fear to do it because it's a huge amount of people and this is people who don't like politics for example, they just want to have some entertainment. But if you block YouTube, you have some social problems. And I feel like everyone feels like they go for it in the next few days or probably weeks. And it was our last channel to deliver our information en masse. And for international media, it was the only channel to deliver its information to the mass auditorium in Russia. When it comes to Novaya Gazeta, well, you tell us what you can say. But if the distributors, I understand that Nov что распространители не хотят это делать. Будет ли это только в интернете и, как Галина сказала, на разных сетях? Мы рассматриваем это как антиваршаловый... Я забыл это слово. Я имею в виду, как бы статус-арта. um um i forgot this word i mean i mean uh a kind of state of art as you were campaign yeah yeah so so we just we just put it in kiosks and and we send them we are via mail so so but most of our our readers are online of course, for many years from now. We have, let's say, two millions of readers now on our website daily. And of course, it's not it can be compared with the amounts of people who read us in paper. Thank you. I read one question that came in chat before I opened the floor. It says, this is from Philip Noble from Global Voices in Prague. He says, would you say that we should be supporting Telegram? Telegram, would you say this is the platform we should all be supporting for content as it might be the more resistant to blocking and censorship now? You and then please Galina. You know, speaking about Telegram, Telegram is a private messenger. Its owner, Pavel Durov, he is a very eccentric person and he definitely is a very smart guy who avoided blocking in russia uh technically uh but we do not know his intentions still but what we do know that telegram channel is the fastest and uh the most safe way to provide and to broadcast information. I mean, news and everything else. So it seems to me that Telegram now is one of fire exit for media in Russia, but not the only one. What is the best right now platform for you? For us, the best platform is email newsletters, because it's the safest way. And it's not considered by Russian authorities like spreading information on media. Because every person says yes to our question, do you want to receive this letter? It's a one-to-one letter. So newsletters are the best way for us. one-to-one letter. So newsletters is the best way for us. And we have enormous growth of email newsletter subscription. Thank you. Could you, either of you reply, there is a question from Florian Tupferl. I think he's a professor in Passau, University of Passau. Telegram blocked the RT channels last Friday. How do you interpret this move? You know, unfortunately, I am still thinking that banning is not the best way. You know, my main thought is that we are not Putin's circle. We are against them. So we, unfortunately, we are predictable as every honest and independent person. Bad guys, they are unpredictable. But we have to stand for our principles and freedom of speech and freedom of information. And we have to be respectful to our readers. We have still to give them a chance to choose the channel. So it seems to me that it is the main principle. I do not want to mirror Putin's circles or Putin's dogs or Putin's propagandists. I am still against banning any information. I am still standing for respect for our readers and give them a chance to choose the source of information. Thank you very much. I just want to say for the audience, for those who do not know that Galina is in Riga. Kirill, would you like to reply as well? Спасибо большое. Я хочу сказать для зрителей, для тех, кто не знает, что Галина в Риге. Кирилл, ты бы хотел ответить? Я бы хотел поговорить о Telegram. Это сложная история, потому что, there was some kind of miracle because Telegram is not blocked in Russia anymore. It looks like they have some negotiations, Pavel Durov and Russian authorities. Women's concessions. Да, у нас нет документов на это, но это очень понятно. Они могут блокировать что угодно. Российская дигитальная цензура очень сильна сейчас. Например, они предполагают, что могут блокировать Google. Конечно, они могут предполагать, что могут блокировать Telegram, но они этого не делают. И мы спрашиваем, почему? pretend they can block Google. Of course they can pretend they block Telegram, but they don't do it. And we ask why? And so the private company of Durov have no obligation to describe what they do. It based outside European jurisdiction and they basically work for themselves. they don't work for some public good. And for, let's say, if it's still useful channel of distribution of information, I would say yes. If we should strongly support Telegram, I don't know, because I don't know what Durov really thinks about Russian authorities and what obligation for them he has already. Thank you very much. I shall start reading some of the questions that came in and then later I'll give the word to Andrei. From Evelin Petrna, I know she works for Kurir here in Vienna, so I'd like to know what you think about the exodus of young, well-educated people from Russia. May that be an additional problem for liberal media because the influential oppositional sphere is vanishing? Evelyn, Korea. Please, who would like to reply? Maybe you Kirill, you're a bit younger, you appear younger. Кто бы хотел ответить? Может быть, ты, Кирилл, немного юнее. Ты, Пирьер. Простите, у меня была плохая связь. Может, Галина первая? Говоря о эхо молодых, молодых людей, я могу сказать, что это наш аудитория. It's our audience. You know, actually, it's our audience because more than 50% of Medusa's audience is younger than 35. So it's our audience now are leaving Russia, maybe forever. But Russian world is not just inside Russia at first. And second, we have a lot of audience inside Russia. They are under 18, under 20, or under 50. All of them, every person is priceless because we do not know. I do not want to focus just only on young audience. Because, you know, it seems to me that every Russian reader is priceless for us. And it seems to me that maybe, maybe we are in some kind of bubble because we think, okay, my friends are leaving, my Facebook page is empty, so everybody is leaving. No, there are millions, millions of young, smart, well-educated people who are still in Russia and who are intended to stay in Russia and to fight from inside. Thank you very much, Galina. I see another question from Darren Seifert. I'm not quite sure I understand it, but I will read it. It is for Kirill. It says, you said there is no law anymore. In the past, we saw that Russian government took a great effort to apply what has been called abusive legalism, i.e. application of legalistic ways to repress opposition like foreign agent law. Do we still see that Russian government engages in this kind of hidden legalistic repression, or do we rather see blunt violations without any regard for seeming legitimate or like the rule of a law state? Please, Kirill. Okay, I got the question. I believe they don't care about laws anymore. They still publish it. They still discuss some laws. They can basically implement any law, let's say, in one or two days, and they have a state Duma which is fully agreed to any law which was proposed by the president. But I feel they don't really care about law. They don't really care about this legalistic procedure. Let's say what happened in Russian police departments, they just pretend to torture people who protest against war. So they don't need any law because they attacked Ukraine. If you attack Ukraine, you don't need such small problems like law enforcement. And I probably want to say a few words about young people, I feel like, and our young readers, I feel like it's kind of existential tragedy for these people. I feel like a teacher, like an educator in university, because we were raised, personally I'm 40, and I was raised in the free country all my life was is in russia which was was a part of global community and western world and for now if you let's say if you're 20 and you live in russia you have no no future you have no no dreams you have they destroyed everything with this war. And we, of course, we should keep contact with our readers because we need to discuss what to do next, how we can help young people and how we can recreate their lives. My fellow journalists, let's say, it's young people, we have people in their 25 years old, which work for Norway Gazeta, Это молодые люди, у нас есть люди, скажем, 25 лет, которые работают для «Новой газеты», и я чувствую, что эти люди очень frustрированы сейчас, и мне кажется, что нам нужно помочь им. Спасибо большое. Андрей, пожалуйста, представь себя, мы не знаем тебя. Мы знаем, что ты не знаешь. yourself we don't know you we know some participants we don't know you sorry some people from here know me so hello who knows me but uh i'm here is a representative of journalists and media workers union of russia and also i'm a muslim correspondent of reporters without borders. I think we saw in the end in the last September. Yep, maybe. So, I have just a few remarks concerning all this blocking of internet and so on. On my opinion, first of all, internet cannot be blocked because it was created in the departure to fight, to continue in the case of nuclear war. But in fact, the main distribution, and I mean not the small messages, it can be blocked, absolutely. And concerning, for example, YouTube, is only a technical question because our media regulator, they had such experience when they tried to block Telegram. And there was some huge problems with other services. It was a dozen or thousand of internet sites who became inaccessible and so on. The same thing we can see right now with the attempt to block Facebook, for example, that works time to time without VPN here. So their technicians are more smart and it's not the immediate blocking, but they will block, I'm absolutely sure. And they can block and they probably will block everything, including YouTube. We saw this situation in China, and Russia, since four years, is trying since 2018 when this strategy was presented to Russia during the summit of Shanghai organization in China. It was a huge summit of few countries. summit of few countries. So they are trying to imitate, but they can do it immediately. But I'm absolutely sure that they will do the same thing in China. So it's concerning the Internet, that's my point of view. But even in China, you know, people, they have an access. Can you ask a question? Because we have so many questions. Please. Not everybody. But I want to speak to you about the current situation, not about the future. Because we... Can you please make it short? Because we have so many please make it short? Because we have one hour. Yeah, we see right now at least dozens of journalists, independent journalists fleeing Russia. They are in a few countries, in Turkey, in Georgia and so on. Even some people is in Uzbekistan because for them it was no choice. And right now the main question is how to organize help for them. Many organization try to do this job, Many organizations try to do this job, but it's, and I know people who work right now in Istanbul, for example, for people coming from those TV station. And also this work is organized because our reporters without borders, they do something. Andrei, we shall have a special event dedicated to... I ask everybody to, in fact, to go to our website, for example, because we are... Andrei, we shall have a special event dedicated to how to help journalists. And I shall get in touch with you. May we ask journalists now also? Sorry, but the time runs really fast. Salmas, and then I shall go back to chat. Salmas. Hi, I'm Salmas. I work for the Swiss magazine Republique. And I appreciate so much your expertise and thank you. I wanted to follow up on what Kirill said about the Russian youth, because what we can sense here in a lot of European countries is this anti-Russian sentiment towards the Russian, also not only towards the government and Putin of course, but also towards the population. We can see also anti-Russian, I don't know, like in some restaurants, like Russians are not allowed to go in anymore. но и в отношении популяции. Мы видим, что в некоторых ресторанах русские не позволяют встать. В Германии такое было. В русской популяции есть смысл, что русские не встают в мир? Не только экономически, но и социально, и политически. Галина, Кирилл, кто хочет начать? in a world, not only economically, but also like socially and politically. Galina, Kirill, who wants to start first? I feel like it's not the biggest problem. You know, if I have to choose if my homeland, my own home will be destroyed by some cruise missiles, or I have no option to have a dinner in the restaurant in Germany. You know, I prefer the latter. So it's quite obvious for me. And I feel it's not such a big problem. People from Russia should just discuss these issues and describe why they don't support war. Мы должны обсудить эти проблемы и объяснить, почему они не поддерживают войну. Конечно, не каждый русский поддерживает эту войну, и, конечно, мы должны обсудить ее. Давайте поговорим о важном, как помочь людям. Я боюсь, что я не согласна с Кириллом, потому что, мне кажется, это проблема. I'm afraid I'm not agree with Kirill because it seems to me it's a problem. A week ago, we spoke with our journalistic team and we said, guys, now we feel ourselves like a cancelled nation. You know, it's all about cancelled culture. We feel ourselves like a cancelled nation. And those people who are fleeing third countries, they are journalists, they are telling truth, they are risking their lives, but they have to show their passports and they have to feel these disgusting emotions towards them from police officers, from border controls, from magazines. And it seems to me that I can see the chart question, what Western media could do with this situation, with independent journalists. Please tell your readers that Russia has no social, that Russia has no social, no polls, independent polls at all. We have no real picture how many Russians support war and how many do not support war. Russia is much more bigger than Kremlin, than Putin, than rockets or than army. There are millions of people who are devastated with this news, who are hating war, who want peace for Ukraine and who feel so much for Ukrainian people. But now it seems to me that almost all Russians are just cancelled, even artists or composers or musicians or actors or writers. So we do not the same with the Kremlin beasts, you know, and Russians feel this Ukrainian pain. I am half Ukrainian. You know, my second name is Timchenko. My father was Ukrainian. My mother is Russian. I'm half Ukrainian, but now I am canceled. Kirill, you disagree? Would you like to say it? Well, I already make this point. I feel like I'm not sure if there is such thing like collective guilty, but I feel my personal responsibilities for that president of my country started this war. And so I feel like we don't have to worry about restaurants or even concerts for now. We have to worry about war and safety, just physical safety in the first sense of people, Ukrainians and Russians. Thank you. Daniela, would you like to read the two questions that we have not replied because there are several questions about RT and banning and we have already and that was already replied and I will send everyone the video so you can see what was replied. Daniela, would you like to read the questions? Yes, I can do so. There was one more question which was partially answered by Galina, but maybe Kirill, you want to say something? By Simon Kravagna from Fium. Does the majority of Russians even want to know what is happening in Ukraine? Is there even a desire for truth? I can say just two words. Kirill and me, we mentioned enormous recording number of audience while we are views. There are desperate desire for truth and for information about war. And so it's my opinion. Yeah, I agree with Kalina. It's quite a simple question for us. We have, let's say you can check for example, the independent YouTube channels, for example, Navalny team done for these days and they have huge amounts of viewers. Thank you. Daniela? Wait, I just lost a little bit of overview. There's a question by Sarah. Okay, it's again to Ben. Do you think after this war the Russian government really aims at creating a war between Russia and Europe, hoping also in a telematic digital separation? Kirill is all about inner politics. I'm a bad politician, but I have my prognosis, but I'll give the floor to Kirill. Well, I believe that our country is on the edge of civil war, a kind of civil war, because we have enormous amount of hate and distrust in Russian society. One of the part of Russian citizens are officially called national traitors for now. And there is a call for expel them from teaching, from universities, from their workplaces. I just feel it on my personal story last week. And the other part of Russian society is very, very disinformed, very, very... I believe they don't know what to believe in for now. They want to believe in strong government and vice president and they pretend to do it still, but I feel like this concept of reality is broken for now. And I feel like it could be a very, very harsh conflict inside Russian society. And of course it would be a conflict with political elites, but also it would be a conflict with ordinary people. So I believe, you know, my main thesis on this situation is like we now, in 2022, we live in the moment when USSR is really collapsed. The collapse of USSR is happening right now in these days because what happened 30 years ago was just the first chapter of this collapse of Soviet empire. And I believe the Russian state can be broken Russian state can be broken, not by some foreign agents or enemies outside Russia, just by politics of Russian president himself. Thank you, Kirill. And we shall definitely organize quite a few events to understand the internal functioning of Russian politics, and I'll definitely invite you. I got on my phone a question, and one of you can answer. Can you please explain the origin of Roskomanzor service, which is responsible for blocking the websites of independent media? Is there any way to outlaw it? Which one of you would like to reply to it? You know, Roskomnadzor is the main Russian censor or watchdog. And previously, it was a technical department of Russian government who just fulfill the orders or make these orders real. Now they have the biggest power to block anything they want without following any rules. For example, they sent us almost 50 letters demanding to delete our content against war. And they blocked us minutes after sending these demands, demand letters, while the law says that we have 24 hours, but they blocked us minutes after these demands. There are no rules for Roskomnadzor now. They are main Russian watchdog, main Russian censor, and they have power to block anything they want to or anything Kremlin had ordered to block. Would you like to add something, Kirill? Well, the story of Roskomnadzor is back to 2011 when we had the Balotnaya uprising, the Balotnaya meeting. And after that, it was a long story of interest to the digital censorship from russian authorities let's say 15 years ago roscoe nazar was just the industry agency it regulated some some small small things about about a little about how media works in just technical sense of the word. And after that they created a really strong censorship and the crucial point is last two years when Roskomnadzor has deployed new instruments to filter web and to block near everything they want to block on the web and on the global internet. Thank you very much. Yesterday, this is from Heinz Mikko, a former spokesperson of the European Commission in Austria. Yesterday at a meeting organized by GMF with participation of EU Stratcom, it was said that Russia has lost the information war already. What is your view in this respect? Excuse me, I will read a few questions and then ask you to. Then another, I'm a journalist working in Italy. I have one question. In covering the war, do you have some type of collaboration with other Ukrainian independent media outlets? I think this is a very important question. Could you reply to this too? And then we continue. Whoever wants to start. Speaking about Medusa, we have collaboration with a few Ukrainian media, and not only on the base based on covering the situation, but our Ukrainian colleagues now are helping our journalists inside Ukraine to get the information, to connect them with the sources, to clear them way to officials and so on. Moreover, we are in a very close connection with the press office of President Zelensky, President of Ukraine, and so on. So we are fully collaborating with Ukrainian colleagues, speaking about collaboration, speaking about information war. Yeah, my opinion is that Russia just lost this war because, you know they are um lazy they are not for the truth they are lying and they are so used to lie every minute that they just lost the nerve of reality. They are in their own world without any connection with reality. So this sincerity of independent voices, this openness of Ukrainian president to the press and this open call for international community for help or explaining. So and Russia is still very closed and lying and very rude. So it seems to me that they lost this informational war. What do you say, Kirill? Well, I agree that Russian state propaganda is losing this information war. They have enormous resources. They have billions of dollars to create its own picture of reality. But I feel they will lose this war at the end. And for our cooperation with Ukrainian fellows, you know, I can't answer on this question for safety reason, and you can imagine what happens in Russia if we can discuss even media cooperation with Ukrainian journalists. Thank you very much. There is a statement here by Teona Sekashianvili. A Doge journalist was not allowed to enter Georgia with no explanation while citizens of Russia can enter the country without a visa. And this is not a standalone case. Maybe international community should speak about such cases. And I will jump to one question by Amel Ghani. Is there any way of legally challenging this agency? This is Rosna Zab. I'm a journalist based in Pakistan and the government is introducing similar censorship measures targeting journalists for digital media, but there has been some success in challenging them in court. A brief reply. I do not want to be rude, but guys, there is no independent court in Russia. And it's the main argument of Putin's guys. Let's go to court, they said. Okay. And we went to court and we argued our foreign agent status in court. And not only this case, there is no independent court in Russia. Please. Kirill, would you like to reply? Or should I? Kirill, would you like to reply? Or should I? Yeah, we have, I just thought that we have perfect lawyers like Galina Arapova, and her help is enormous. But we probably all we can do just to put our great lawyers in Russian so-called court. And then they said, OK, again, they just broken their own laws, and it happens daily, on the daily routine here in Russia. Thank you. I would like to make a small announcement, and then give the floor to Oliver from IPI. I know that in this Zoom, there are people from different foundations, and let's put it this way, there are people from different foundations. And let's put it this way, those who may help financially, or if your media can help in any way, please send me or Milica Miletic, who is in the chat, an email, and we shall organize another event only dedicated to that. And now I would like to, Oliver from IPI, would like to say a few words. Please, Oliver. Thanks, Miljana. In fact, you've taken the words from me. That's exactly what I wanted to talk about. Thank you to Kirill and Galina, and obviously to everybody who has participated in this meeting. It's incredibly important and fantastic to see everyone here. We at IPI and Concordat, we want to turn this energy and this passion into practical support. Please go to our webpage that was put on the link, which will show you how you can support, whether financially, whether signing up to a database that IPI has created with our members and with our partners of media who want to and are able to host displaced journalists, whether from Russia or Ukraine or Belarus, but displaced journalists who want to carry on doing the work that they're doing and carry on reporting on the war, etc. If you can offer these sorts of services, please join us we will send out a message later on today to organize another closed meeting for those who can provide practical support probably very early next week initially we assumed that this would be quite vienna focused because we assumed that most participants would be from Vienna. No, they're not. But clearly we have participants from all across Europe and beyond. So we will look exactly at how we will manage that, but we will be in touch with you in the coming hours. Thank you very much. Daniela, would you like to ask your question that you wrote to me? Daniela, would you like to ask your question that you wrote to me? I was just pointing out that there's one more question in the chat that might be a very good question for these last minutes that are left. What do you think are the next steps of Putin's information war? What can we expect more? uh we we developed three scenarios uh bad worse and the worst the very bad bad bad bad and uh they could block us and it's the good scenario they could declare it as an extremist and it's the worst scenario and they could charge us with a state treason it's the worst so it seems to me that they started to fill in these black lists of journalists and it's actually the black lists of enemy of state. So we will wait for charging in some kind of crimes. You're already a foreign agent, so you have two more steps. Yep. What do you think, Kirill? Well, I believe they have basically the main scenario. They have to put some kind of digital iron curtain on the country, because if they don't do it, more and more Russians become well-known that that's what happened in Ukraine. for governmental propaganda. And so I believe the only really thing they can do is to cut off their own people from any sources of independent information. Because if you're, let's say, if you just blocked some websites, people already can use some VPNs. And if Meduza have 1 million persons per day on its website from Russia, so you can imagine how many discussions inside Russia on war and on all other circumstances around it are there. So I believe it's just a return to the situation of 1980s. So they just built a new wall. Thanks God not in Berlin at this time, but I don't know what city can be chosen. Maybe we should call it Moscow wall, I don't know. Let's see. Kirill, just a small follow-up question. Novaya Gazeta has agreed to report on the consequences of the wall. How far can you report or what can you actually report or is it too early to say we can report everything besides the movement on of russian armies because we can't uh because we can write on russian army on the source of russian state propaganda it would be propaganda too and we can't we report everything besides of military actions itself. Thank you. Galina, I think I interrupted you. No, no, no, no, no. I said that I agree with Kirill at the previous question. So in other words, if Russian population right now reading your outlet somehow on some channel, if they want to know the consequences of this isolation, they can learn about it. And about erosophobia, I have to say, Galina, I agree with you. And I think it is very important. And I would like to make an appeal to journalists in this room who in this zone who will be writing about the conflict or commenting or commenting to students choose the words very carefully because stigmatizing people is not the solution and is not a make a way to make friends and the thing is, and I'm speaking from personal experience, when you are against the war and you are against the government that conducts the war and they put you, as you say, as a cancel person and you're nowhere. Is there a last question? Or Barbara, would you like to say something? Barbara? Thank you Mariana. No, no I just think this, for me I just wanted to thank both the speakers has been so incredibly interesting and I wish we could know even hear even more from them. Thank you so much. And thanks for your courage as well. Yeah. Thank you. I want to thank you. As I said, we gave the emails. We shall do more things. In terms of information, there is a support part and information part. We shall organize more events to understand what is happening in Russia and also the impact on Europe. I will send an information. We shall have an event in one week on how the war in Ukraine is impacting the elections in France, Hungary and Serbia, because this war has a very far outrage. Thank you. Thank you for your courage. We shall do everything we can to give you a platform. Thank you. Stay in touch. It's so helpful and it feels great to be part of your society. Thank you. Daniela? Only saying thank you to Kirill and Galina, thank you. Yeah, thank you, bye. Bye, all the best to you.