Today

Sabotage by smartphone

Ukrainian teenagers are being recruited online to carry out sabotage against their own country in return for cryptocurrency, and for some the consequences are deadly. Ukraine accuses Russia of using Telegram to offer minors large sums of money to plant bombs or stage arson attack ... Show More

17m 40s

Yesterday

Drugs, Overdose, Hope - North Carolina and Nevada

Drug overdose has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Fentanyl – a synthetic opioid mass produced in Mexico and smuggled across the border – drove the increasing number of fatalities ever higher. But there’s a good news story that hasn’t been widely reported… Drug-related ... Show More

54m 28s

Oct 13

Alexey Seliverstov: Bionic birdsong

How fixed is the borderline between human music and the sounds of nature? That is a question that guides the work of Los Angeles-based composer Alexey Seliverstov. In this programme, Regan Morris follows Alexey’s creative process from recording the dawn chorus in the Santa Monica ... Show More

26m 29s

Feb 2024

Alexey Navalny: The interview

Russian authorities have announced the death of one of the country’s most significant opposition leaders Alexey Navalny in a remote penal colony in the Arctic Circle. Stephen Sackur spoke to him in Moscow in 2017 about the risks involved in being a prominent critic of President P ... Show More

23m 4s

Feb 2024

Who is left to oppose Putin now?

Alexei Navalny, the most prominent critic of Russia’s government, has died in a Russian prison, just months after he was placed in a high security cell in a remote Siberian penal colony. His allies, and his wife Yulia Navalnaya, blame President Vladimir Putin and say it was under ... Show More

15m 35s

Mar 2024

How will Putin react to the Moscow concert attack?

Four men have been charged with carrying out an attack at a concert in Moscow on Friday that killed more than 130 people. They all appeared in court on Monday heavily bruised with swollen faces and black eyes – with one attending in a wheelchair wearing a hospital gown. The Is ... Show More

16m 50s

Feb 2021

Navalny’s crusade against the Kremlin

Gideon talks to journalists Arkady Ostrovsky and Max Seddon in Moscow about why Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny decided to return home after he was poisoned and what his political movement can achieve if its leader is in jail. Max Seddon is the FT’s Moscow correspondent ... Show More

19m 43s

Jan 2021

Leonid Volkov: Protests on the streets of Russia

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is the most resilient opponent Vladimir Putin has ever faced. Navalny survived assassination by Novichok, returned to Russia and is now in a prison cell. Stephen Sackur speaks to Navalny’s chief of staff Leonid Volkov. The opposition movem ... Show More

22m 58s

Jan 2023

Evgenia Kara-Murza: Has Putin neutralised his Russian opponents?

Stephen Sackur speaks to the Russian opposition activist Evgenia Kara-Murza, whose husband Vladimir, a prominent opponent of Vladimir Putin, is in prison in Russia having survived two apparent poisonings in recent years. Has Putin’s repression effectively neutralised meaningful o ... Show More

24m 33s

Mar 2022

Vlad the in-jailer: Alexei Navalny sentenced

Alexei Navalny returned to Russia after being poisoned in an assassination attempt that many believe came from the Kremlin. He was immediately arrested, and yesterday his prison sentence was extended for nine years. But if Vladimir Putin hopes that ends his influence, he may be m ... Show More

23m 2s

Jan 2023

Boris Bondarev: Speaking out against Putin

Stephen Sackur speaks to the former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev, who quit his post and launched a scathing attack on the Putin regime after the invasion of Ukraine. Why haven’t more Moscow insiders followed his lead?

22m 58s

Bonus: Hardtalk - Defying Putin