11 November 2025
by Roman Badanin
Source: Facebook
11 November 2025
I’ll be posting funny anecdotes from our special project Fathers and Grandfathers here, too. The first story is about the importance of the audience — all of you, in other words. We only started publishing what we wrote yesterday, and we’ve already learned something sensational from you. It turns out that Putin, while we were releasing Fathers and Grandfathers, has brought yet another relative on board to the Russian government’s leadership.
Meet Viktor Fisenko, First Deputy Minister of Health of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin’s new son-in-law and the president’s third close relative in the government (after Sergei and Anna Tsivilev). The funny thing is: Fisenko, apparently, married Elena Zhidkova, Putin’s second cousin, in the late summer or fall, from the same Ivanovo branch of the Putin family that also produced Tsivileva and Gazprom co-head Mikhail Putin. Zhidkova herself is no slouch: she oversees all healthcare at the state-owned Russian Railways. To get together with Fisenko, Putin’s relative had to divorce her first husband, who, rather unpatriotically, turned out to be an American citizen. If Putin continues to acquire relatives in government at such a rate, Kadyrov should start to worry.
But that’s not the main thing! We learned about the latest Putin marriages from you, and thanks to you, we were able to quickly find confirmation. From the numerous responses yesterday, it became clear to me that there is demand for the special project and it looks to have a bright future ahead of it. As if we needed another excuse to celebrate!
Source: Facebook
11 November 2025
You must be fed up of me given how much I go on at you these days. This post is about what journalism is really like. Yesterday’s story about the Kremlin’s bigwigs had a lot going for it: the true story of Peskov, the mustachioed rich kid with a Bolshevik security officer pedigree; a story about Kremlin personnel officers, one of whom likes to reprimand his subordinates by peeing in his personal toilet right in front of them. And there’s also Brycheva’s story; she’s the one who writes all the laws by which we’re judged, and some of us are even imprisoned. And in her story, we publish a unique document proving how her grandfather – it was he who set her up in her career – was involved in repressions under Stalin.
I’ll quote it below, but here’s the context: the grandfather of the Kremlin’s chief lawyer, Skorokhodov, is initiating an investigation into Nikolai Ruzhnikov, head of the Penza Oblast Department of the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the RSFSR. Ruzhnikov’s brother had been the victim of repression some time earlier, which apparently had an impact on his emotional state. Skorokhodov found Ruzhnikov’s ‘withdrawn nature and outward reserve’ so suspicious that he launched an investigation. Over the past year and a half, we have found many more of his signatures on documents linked to acts of repression: he punished people for suspicious conversations with their roommates, for having relatives abroad, and all other Stalinist horrors. He showed no remorse and was not held accountable for his actions, receiving no punishment whatsoever. And then he got his granddaughter a job as a prominent lawyer. Grandchildren are not responsible for their grandfathers, but this is crucial context for understanding the biographies and views of those who govern us (link to the article is here).
Now imagine the complex, meticulous, and seemingly unnoticeable work required to find such papers. Not to mention the other facts. Support free journalism, friends!
Source: Facebook
Translated by Nathalie Wilson
