At this year’s International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Meduza’s publisher Galina Timchenko and editor-in-chief Ivan Kolpakov did not present themselves as innovators, victims, or heroes.
Meduza, the largest Russian-language independent media outlet operating in exile and a core member of NEMO, has spent the last several years reporting from outside Russia after being blocked and later criminalized by the Kremlin. In Perugia, however, Timchenko and Kolpakov were less interested in presenting a story of resilience than in describing something more repetitive and exhausting: survival.
In their panel, titled “Sustaining reader-funded journalism in a world of fear, indifference and news avoidance“, the two editors walked the audience through the mechanics of keeping Meduza alive while operating in exile, under criminalization, and increasingly cut off from its own audience.
“We refused to die,” one of them said early in the conversation, half-jokingly. “We’ve already tried dying several times.”
The line got a laugh. But the presentation itself was less about resilience as a narrative than about the operational reality of working under sustained political and financial pressure.
According to Timchenko and Kolpakov, Meduza entered 2025 with what they described as a familiar budget deficit. But the sudden collapse of international funding streams tied to political changes in the United States turned a manageable situation into an existential one in, literally, one day.
The result was layoffs, salary cuts, and another large-scale crowdfunding campaign — one launched in an environment where donating to the outlet can expose readers in Russia to criminal prosecution.
Fear as infrastructure
One of the clearest themes running through the presentation was not censorship itself, but fear. The editors described fear less as an emotional condition than as infrastructure: something built into everyday digital behavior.
In late 2024, Meduza conducted a survey among readers living outside Russia in an attempt to understand why relatively few people financially support the outlet despite its large audience.
The answer, they said, was simple.
People are afraid.
Even readers living abroad worry about leaving digital traces connected to donations, particularly if they travel back to Russia or Belarus. Border guards may inspect phones, banking apps, SMS notifications, or financial histories.
The newsroom said it has seen cases in which people were prosecuted for donations connected to opposition organizations or Ukrainian causes.
“Safety cannot be compromised,” one of the speakers said.
That concern now shapes not only Meduza’s reporting, but also the way it communicates with readers and donors.
The organization said it regularly provides supporters with practical digital security guidance, including instructions for crossing borders safely.
Reaching readers inside Russia
More than 60 percent of Meduza’s audience still lives inside Russia.
That creates a paradox central to the organization’s work: the outlet remains heavily dependent on readers it can increasingly barely reach.
The editors described a steadily tightening digital environment.
Meduza’s website has long been blocked inside Russia. YouTube is technically available but heavily throttled without VPN access. Meta platforms are banned as “extremist.” Telegram, once considered a relatively stable distribution channel for independent media, is now also facing growing restrictions.
Kolpakov described Russia as a laboratory for increasingly sophisticated forms of internet control.
The most significant shift, he argued, has been the introduction of localized mobile internet shutdowns. During shutdowns, access is limited to a state-approved whitelist of online services.
VPNs still function inconsistently, but the editors warned that the Russian government is becoming increasingly effective at disrupting circumvention tools.
“Russia is now engaged in a full-scale war against the internet itself,” Kolpakov said.
Radical transparency
Faced with financial collapse, Meduza opted for a strategy the speakers repeatedly described as “radical honesty.”
Rather than projecting stability, the newsroom openly acknowledged the scale of its crisis.
“We are in trouble,” they told readers.
One graphic published during the campaign showed that out of every 1,000 readers, only two financially supported Meduza.
Some members of the newsroom worried the image made the organization look weak or desperate. Instead, the editors said, it became one of the campaign’s most effective appeals.
“Don’t be modest,” Timchenko told the audience in Perugia. “Be radically honest.”
The campaign also attempted to visualize censorship itself.
For one day, Meduza placed black squares over every article that would have been censored under Russian wartime restrictions. Much of the homepage effectively disappeared.
The effect was intentionally blunt: readers could immediately see how much reporting had become inaccessible inside Russia.
Beyond catastrophe
At several points, the speakers pushed back against what they described as the emotional trap of permanent crisis.
“You have no right to be a drama queen always,” Timchenko said.
That thinking shaped one of the campaign’s more unusual projects, titled “Flower Power.”
Readers inside Russia were invited to anonymously submit messages explaining why Meduza mattered to them. For security reasons, each participant received a flower-based pseudonym such as “Purple Tulip” or “Yellow Rose.” Readers abroad could then donate symbolically on behalf of those still inside the country.
The project reframed support not as emergency aid but as a form of connection between Russians inside and outside the country.
“It’s not dramatic,” Timchenko said. “It’s peaceful. It’s about love.”
Crowdfunding as political signal
By the end of the campaign, Meduza had surpassed its goal of 15,000 recurring donors.
Financially, the organization said crowdfunding now covers the full cost of its newsroom operations.
But the speakers suggested the campaign mattered psychologically as much as economically.
After years of repression, exile, and growing international fatigue around Russia-related issues, the campaign became evidence — both for readers and for the newsroom itself — that a constituency for independent journalism still exists.
“I’ve heard many times: ‘You Russians are losers. You could not overthrow Putin,’” Timchenko said.
The campaign, she argued, demonstrated something different.
“People still help each other. People still stand by journalism.”
Even so, neither editor framed the outcome as stable.
Subscriptions expire. Donors disappear. Platforms become inaccessible. Laws tighten.
“The moment we gained these 15,000 subscribers, we immediately started losing them,” one speaker noted.
Near the end of the session, Timchenko joked that she had proposed calling the presentation “No Time to Die.”
Kolpakov rejected the title for being too obvious.
Instead, the session closed with a simpler conclusion.
“We will try not to die again.”
____________________________________________________________________________
This article was developed with the assistance of AI using a transcription of Meduza’s panel at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia. It was edited and reviewed for accuracy by a NEMO journalist.