Rina Nikolaeva - IStories

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Rina Nikolaeva

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After being released from prisons in Russia, Ukrainian citizens are indefinitely kept in practical captivity. IStories managed to talk to them

20 May

Polina Uzhvak, Rina Nikolaeva

Never-ending Prison

Over the past three years, Russia has almost completed the development of a digital registry that can be used for a new and more effective war mobilization campaign, storing data on 25 million citizens who can potentially be drafted. IStories examined the data shared by the hackers who attacked the registry key developer

22 December

Polina Uzhvak, Sonya Savina, Egor Feoktistov, Rina Nikolaeva

What We Learned from a Hacker Attack on the Russian Military Registry Developer

What else can we learn from the Russian court rulings data from the first half of 2025?

21 October

Sonya Savina, Rina Nikolaeva, Polina Uzhvak

Russia Breaks “Treason” Sentences Record, Publishes Data on How Many Criminals Escaped Punishment by Going to War

From July to September 2025, courts in Russia’s so-called new territories imposed sentences in this category of cases every three days. Teenagers, pensioners, women, and even entire families have fallen victim to the repression

13 October

Polina Uzhvak, Sonya Savina, Rina Nikolaeva

People Kidnapped and Sentenced with “Espionage” and “Treason” in Occupied Territories of Ukraine

One in four was killed, went missing, or was wounded. IStories analyzed the full list of those mobilized from Tomsk Oblast and reports on what three years of mobilization have looked like through the lens of a single Russian region

19 September

Sonya Savina, Egor Feoktistov, Polina Uzhvak

Three Years of Mobilization: What One Region — and the Whole Russia — Has Endured

Spending on promoting the Russian language abroad has tripled. This is how Moscow seeks to expand its influence and impose a pro-Russian agenda in other countries, while continuing its military aggression

16 September

Kremlin Has Increased Spending on Expanding Its Network of Loyal Young Leaders, Journalists, and Bloggers Abroad by 1.5 Times

83% of them were enrolled without taking exams or would not have been admitted without a quota because their scores were below the passing threshold

5 August

Polina Uzhvak, Rina Nikolaeva, Sonya Savina

In 2025, Nearly 3,000 Russian Troops Who Had Fought in Ukraine, and Their Children, Were Admitted to Top Russian Universities Through Quotas. That’s One and a Half Times More Than Last Year

Vladimir Putin has ordered residents of the occupied territories to legalize their status by September 10, or else they will be deported. In reality, Ukrainians whom the occupation authorities have deemed a “security threat” have long been expelled from their homes and abandoned at the border with Georgia. Here are their stories

23 May

Rina Nikolaeva, Polina Uzhvak, Irina Dolinina

Deportation From the Occupation

Journalists from six countries have united to investigate the death of Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna. In the summer of 2023, she organized a trip to the territories occupied by Russia to locate places where abducted Ukrainians were being held and disappeared herself. A year and a half later, her body was repatriated with signs of torture

29 April

Polina Uzhvak, Irina Dolinina, Rina Nikolaeva

Ghost Detainees. The Story of Viktoriia Roshchyna

The Judicial Department at the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation has published new data on the number and composition of convicted individuals. The IStories data team explains what has become known from this data

18 April

Sonya Savina, Polina Uzhvak, Rina Nikolaeva, Egor Feoktistov

How and for What Russians Are Judged in 2024

Meet the bloggers who criticize the West and lure foreigners to Russia — to enjoy “traditional values.” These bloggers are considered independent, but they are paid by the propaganda channel RT

13 March

Rina Nikolaeva, Anastasia Korotkova, Dmitry Velikovsky

Propaganda for Export

Leonid Popov was kidnapped, tortured and held for a year and a half without charges. Now he faces up to 20 years in prison. He disappeared in April 2023, all this time the law enforcers denied that they were holding him

29 November

Rina Nikolaeva, Polina Uzhvak

The FSB Accused a Resident of Melitopol with Severe Mental Disorders of Espionage

The devastating results of 2 years and 8 months of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine

18 November

1000 Days of War in Numbers

Exclusive

Judges Versus Migrants

In the first half of 2024, Russian courts fined migrants a record amount and ordered 86,000 foreigners to be expelled from Russia

Judges Versus Migrants

Exclusive

The Traitors, The Spies, The Terrorists

Russian courts break the record for state treason convictions, and the number of convicted military personnel continues to rise: the IStories data team research on the convictions in Russia for the first half of 2024

The Traitors, The Spies, The Terrorists

Exclusive

Russian Soldiers Have Become More Likely to Receive Real Sentences as Punishment

Almost half of the convicted servicemen were sentenced to real imprisonment, whereas earlier their share did not exceed one third. The damage caused by military crimes has increased more than 30 times

Russian Soldiers Have Become More Likely to Receive Real Sentences as Punishment

This includes organizing trips to Russia for young foreigners and trainings for foreign journalists on “debunking anti-Russian myths”

15 May

Kremlin Ramps up Spending on Foreign Youth and Journalists Programs to Promote Its Image Abroad

Stories of those missing in action and survivors’ accounts

18 January

Irina Dolinina, Rina Nikolaeva

Hell for the Mobilized Near Svatove

To stop the Ukrainian offensive on Svatove, the Russian command threw thousands of untrained mobilized people to the front line. Their relatives are telling what happened to them

18 January

Irina Dolinina, Rina Nikolaeva

Svatove Slaughter: What Was It Like

How the kidnapping, torture and terror is organized in the center of Ukrainian guerrilla resistance — Russian-occupied Melitopol

3 October

Polina Uzhvak, Rina Nikolaeva

“You Will Die and No One Will Know”

A disabled Ukrainian man was nearly tortured to death in occupied Melitopol. Now he’s back in Russian captivity

14 August

Polina Uzhvak, Rina Nikolaeva

“Mom, I Went to Hell”

Where does the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia hide military casualties and how official data differ from reality? Data investigation by IStories

6 July

Rina Nikolaeva, Alesya Marokhovskaya

At Least 18,000 Russians Died in War in 2022

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The Case of Russian Censorship

IStories found out who and why works for Russia’s main censor

2 March

Katya Bonch-Osmolovskaya, Rina Nikolaeva, Alisa Kuznetsova

Faces of Censorship

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The Case of Russian Censorship

Who found themselves in Roskomnadzor, the main Russian censor’s, sights, and why: potential “foreign agents”, opinion leaders, the media, tech giants, messaging apps and those close to powerful people. Enemies are blocked, while loyalists are saved from unflattering publications

8 February

Alesya Marokhovskaya, Polina Uzhvak, Katya Bonch-Osmolovskaya, Irina Dolinina, Sonya Savina, Rina Nikolaeva

The All-Seeing State Eye

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The Case of Russian Censorship

Russia’s main censor — Roskomnadzor — secretly monitors publications critical of Russian authorities on the internet. They generate reports that they then send to the security forces. What does it mean for Russian citizens?

8 February

Katya Bonch-Osmolovskaya, Irina Dolinina, Polina Uzhvak, Alesya Marokhovskaya, Sonya Savina, Anastasia Korotkova, Rina Nikolaeva

How Roskomnadzor Protects Putin's Power

IStories spoke with relatives of three dead, recently mobilized soldiers. They discussed why their loved ones decided “not to run” and go to war — and whether they consider this choice to have been the right one

28 December

Polina Uzhvak, Rina Nikolaeva

Until Death Convinces Us

After entering Kyiv, Russian soldiers detained locals, and held them prisoner for days, while violently beating and torturing them using hammers, axes and gunstocks

3 October

Irina Dolinina, Rina Nikolaeva, Editors

Harrowing Accounts of Ukrainians Who Were Detained, Questioned and Tortured by Russian Troops near Kyiv

Can sanctions stop the war and change the political regime in Russia? Maxim Mironov, Professor of Finance at IE Business School, explains

18 July

“Half of the Money the EU Sends, Putin Spends on the War”

What pushes the Russians to make up for shortages in the army's equipment at their own expense, and does their help make any difference?

4 July

Sonya Savina, Rina Nikolaeva

How “Moms” but Not the Ministry of Defense Provide for the Russian Army

Is it true that Russia threatens the whole world with famine?

25 May

The First Grain War