Mediazona is still standing. Help us keep reporting on Russia when it matters most

The past year has been gruelling for Mediazona, and we found ourselves fighting for our survival. To save the newsroom, we cut back on everything we could. We reduced video production, gave up our office and let go of members of our team. We lowered salaries, and Sergey Smirnov and Dmitry Treschanin worked for free for months.

But we pulled through, and that is all thanks to you.

By the summer of 2025, 5,000 people had signed up for recurring donations to Mediazona. This was precisely the number we needed to stem the losses and survive. We have now restored most salaries, including Smirnov’s and Treschanin’s. We kept our team together and preserved our most vital reporting.

A massive thank you from all of us!

Independence comes at a cost

We are an independent Russian media outlet seeking to reach both Russian and global audiences, as the issues we report on are of international importance. We investigate and expose crimes committed by Russian authorities, inside Russia and beyond its borders.

With your support, we tell the stories of people imprisoned for speaking out: for social media posts, private phone conversations, donations to opposition causes, or simply for opposing the war. We attend countless court hearings in Russia, track both overt and concealed politically motivated prosecutions, and follow the fate of prisoners of war and Ukrainian civilians held in Russian detention.

We document war crimes at the front and behind the lines, including violence committed by Russian soldiers against their own compatriots. At the same time, we monitor how the Kremlin aggressively stifles freedom of expression: throttling internet access, censoring books, and erasing even the faintest traces of impropriety from films and television.

Our work aims to dismantle the silence that enables violence. Because of you, what happens in Russia does not remain hidden. The stories we report are heard well beyond the country’s borders.

One of our most important projects is maintaining a verified list of Russian military deaths in the war against Ukraine. We have confirmed 153,000 names, each supported by evidence, context, and documentation. This is a deliberately conservative count—a minimum that state propaganda and the Ministry of Defence cannot dispute. The true toll is far higher.

After more than a decade of working under extraordinary pressure, we are fighting to survive so that independent journalism from and about Russia can continue, rather than disappearing when it is needed most. We look to that future with hope.

We continue to ask for your support to help us grow and improve

When resources are scarce, any development is put on hold indefinitely. This includes new formats, investigations and technical upgrades, even when we know they are vital for our readers.

Mediazona has not yet returned to pre-war levels of funding, and we understand that climbing back to that peak will be an uphill battle.

Our goal now is 7,500 recurring subscriptions

While reader support allows us to plan months in advance, we still lack stability. We cannot risk hiring new people or starting new projects, even if they are long overdue. Any new direction or additional workload is a gamble we cannot afford right now.

We understand that times are tough for so many across the world. But if you have been thinking about supporting Mediazona and were unsure if a small donation would make a difference, please know that right now every bit of help counts.

Even the smallest recurring donation is invaluable—it’s stable support that we can rely on. Thanks to this, we can move forward, grow and continue to tell the stories that would remain unheard without independent media.