War of Words
In 2014, Russell Bonner Bentley was a middle-aged arborist living in Austin. Now he’s a local celebrity in a war-torn region of Ukraine—and a foot soldier in Russia’s information war.
In 2014, Russell Bonner Bentley was a middle-aged arborist living in Austin. Now he’s a local celebrity in a war-torn region of Ukraine—and a foot soldier in Russia’s information war.
Sonia Smith Texas Monthly Mar 2018 Permalink
Russians will be going to the polls on March 18, but it is already clear who will emerge victorious. Vladimir Putin has been at the helm for almost 20 years – both dramatically changing his country and subjugating it at the same time.
Christian Esch Der Spiegel Mar 2018 20min Permalink
How the ex-spy tried to warn the world about Trump’s ties to Russia.
Jane Mayer New Yorker Mar 2018 1h Permalink
To the KGB and back.
Jason Fagone Washingtonian Feb 2018 20min Permalink
The connections he made at a 2013 pageant in Russia may have helped give him the Presidency.
Jeffrey Toobin The New Yorker Feb 2018 25min Permalink
An investigation into the Russian troll farm called the Internet Research Agency.
Adrian Chen New York Times Magazine Jun 2015 20min Permalink
The strange history of border fortifications.
Lauren Markham Harper's Feb 2018 20min Permalink
“Choice is a great burden. The call to invent one’s life, and to do it continuously, can sound unendurable. Totalitarian regimes aim to stamp out the possibility of choice, but what aspiring autocrats do is promise to relieve one of the need to choose. This is the promise of “Make America Great Again”—it conjures the allure of an imaginary past in which one was free not to choose.”
Masha Gessen NY Review of Books Jan 2018 15min Permalink
Finland shares an 833-mile border with an aggressive and unpredictable neighbor––Russia. North of the Arctic Circle, the author trained with the elite soldiers who will be on the front lines if this cold feud ever gets hot.
David Wolman Outside Dec 2017 20min Permalink
“His goal is to stay in power another day, another year, and to deal with complications when—and if—they arise.”
Julia Ioffe The Atlantic Dec 2017 Permalink
How an American-born businessman became an enemy of the Russian state.
Sean Flynn GQ Nov 2017 20min Permalink
There the man in the shorts—later identified as a Russian agent using the alias Richard Murphy of New Jersey—handed Michael Zottoli from Seattle two items: a flash memory card and a bag that held $150,000 in cash.
Within nine months they’d both be behind bars.
James Ross Gardner Seattle Met Oct 2017 20min Permalink
How the Kremlin built one of the most powerful information weapons of the 21st century — and why it may be impossible to stop.
Jim Rutenberg New York Times Magazine Sep 2017 35min Permalink
“The murder of Anna Politkovskaya was at once unbelievable and utterly expected.”
Michael Specter New Yorker Jan 2007 40min Permalink
“I feel like we sort of choked.”
Greg Miller, Ellen Nakashima, Adam Entous Washington Post Jun 2017 25min Permalink
Fourteen people connected to resistance of Vladimir Putin have died on British soil. Every case has been closed, the deaths deemed of natural causes. American intelligence believes they were all assassinated by the Kremlin.
Heidi Blake, Tom Warren, Richard Holmes, Jason Leopold, Jane Bradley, Alex Campbell Buzzfeed Jun 2017 1h Permalink
Searching for the world’s most prolific bank robber.
Garrett M. Graff Wired Mar 2017 30min Permalink
In Arctic Siberia, Russian scientists are trying to stave off catastrophic climate change—by resurrecting an Ice Age biome complete with lab-grown woolly mammoths.
Ross Andersen The Atlantic Mar 2017 40min Permalink
On what lay behind Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and what lies ahead.
Evan Osnos, David Remnick, Joshua Yaffa New Yorker Feb 2017 50min Permalink
The many myths of Vladimir Putin.
Keith Gessen The Guardian Feb 2017 25min Permalink
The double life of a KGB spy living in 1980s Manhattan.
Shaun Walker The Guardian Feb 2017 20min Permalink
The mass deportation of the Siberian Kalmyk people by Stalin still reverberates.
Badma Biurchiev Open Democracy Dec 2016 15min Permalink
One story of coming to America from the Soviet Union.
Julia Ioffe The Atlantic Jan 2017 Permalink
"There is a real danger here that this maneuver can harshly backfire, to the great benefit of Trump and to the great detriment of those who want to oppose him."
Glenn Greenwald The Intercept Jan 2017 10min Permalink
An investigation into how “Mr. Putin, a student of martial arts, had turned two institutions at the core of American democracy — political campaigns and independent media — to his own ends.”
Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger, Scott Shane New York Times Dec 2016 Permalink