Chechnya Governor Ramzan Kadyrov is suffering from pancreatic necrosis, a condition that entails part of the pancreas dying, Novaya Gazeta Europe reported on Monday. The outlet says the Russian authorities have conducted a “PR campaign” to divert attention from Kadyrov’s health problems and that the scandal sparked by a video of Kadyrov’s teenage son beating up a prisoner in September 2023 was part of this effort. Now, according to the report, the Kremlin is preparing for the worst case scenario by searching for a successor for Kadyrov. Meduza summarizes the main points from these revelations.

Since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, over 300,000 Russian men have been pulled out of the workforce and sent to fight. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of people have fled Russia out of fear they could be mobilized or face repression. All this has created a historic labor shortage — one the authorities are looking to fill in any way possible, lest the fragile wartime economy reach a tipping point. One potential untapped source of labor is the disability community. Russians with disabilities have long faced discrimination and a lack of accommodations in the workplace. With a shortage of qualified workers, employers are becoming more open to the idea of hiring people with disabilities. However, this doesn’t mean that companies truly understand what that entails or are willing to accommodate people’s needs. The independent outlet Verstka looked at the numbers and talked to job seekers with disabilities to find out how the situation has really changed. Meduza shares an abridged version in English.

On April 16, Alexey Navalny’s team, spearheaded by Anti-Corruption Foundation Chairwoman Maria Pevchikh, released the first episode of their new YouTube series Traitors, which delves into the role Boris Yeltsin and his associates played in Vladimir Putin’s rise to power. Reactions to the film have been mixed, with numerous negative reviews from individuals who were firsthand witnesses to the events of the 1990s, as well as from those who’ve studied this period of Russian history. Meduza shares some of the commentary, along with Maria Pevchikh’s responses to the criticisms raised.

In mid-April 2024, Meduza was hit by the largest DDoS attack in its history. The scale of the attack made it clear that the perpetrators weren’t just trying to interfere with our work — they wanted to make it impossible for anybody to access our journalism. And while we don’t have direct evidence, we believe that this attack, like previous ones we’ve faced, was orchestrated by the Russian authorities. Our technical partners at Qurium Media Foundation have compiled a report using the initial data from the attack. Meduza summarizes their findings.

It’s been 10 months since Yevgeny Prigozhin led an aborted rebellion against Russia’s military leadership and eight months since he died in a fiery plane crash near Moscow. To ensure Wagner Group never stages another coup attempt, the Kremlin has consolidated its control and reportedly shifted the group’s focus back to Mali. But while Prigozhin’s name rarely appears in state media or official public discourse anymore, the authorities haven’t banned it like they have pro-Ukraine slogans or symbols associated with opposition groups. As a result, the murderous mercenary leader has become a cult figure among a contingent of Russian teenagers who admire his supposed candor as well as his “memeability.” Journalists from the outlet People of Baikal recently looked into this phenomenon. Meduza shares an abridged translation of their story.

A district court in Moscow has sentenced a local man to five years of penal labor for expressing supposed “disinformation” about the Russian military in comments he gave to Radio Liberty journalists in a street interview in July 2022. Thirty-eight-year-old Yuri Kokhovets told the court that he deeply regrets speaking to RFE/RL and said he didn’t know that he was expressing “false information.” Kokhovets told journalists that Russian troops were killing civilians and bombing shopping centers in Ukraine, arguing that these atrocities are what provoke NATO’s hostility and that “there’s one man in Russia” (Vladimir Putin) who can stop this.

Federal investigators have arrested Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov on felony bribery charges. Ivanov has served in the role since 2016.