Original title: Yulia Latynina: de Russische oppositie journaliste ¹
Published: June 30, 2026
In: Eurazië Instituut
By: Marie-Thérèse ter Haar ²

Dutch text translated with a machine translator by Admin.
Footnotes by Admin
Photo Yulia Latynina: from Wikipedia, added by Admin.

Yulia Latynina: the Russian opposition journalist

I have been following Yulia Latynina for more than twenty years; she is one of the most important journalists one can count among the opposition in Russia. Latynina knows how to give her criticism of the Russian government such substance and form that I can accept this much better than that of the Navalny followers, the Albats³ screamers, or the liberal Nemtsov machos. I may disagree with her thoroughly, but I know that I can take her criticism seriously.
Because of her expert investigation into domestic affairs in Russia, the corruption, the misdeeds in the government, the governors in the Russian provinces, the censorship, and the media, and what not. Latynina writes for Novaya Gazeta⁴ and she has been reporting since the time of Anna Politkovskaya, around the turn of the century.

Almost all opposition members call themselves ‘liberals’, indirectly also referring to ‘being Western’, and idealize the West disproportionately, in my view. Apart from the constant criticism of their own people and their government in domestic reporting, my biggest problem with them was and is that they know nothing of the great international power game. For example, from 2002 onwards they criticized the Kremlin’s actions in Chechnya but never reported on American intervention in Afghanistan and/or Iraq. They wrote about Putin’s actions in Abkhazia, Dagestan, or North Ossetia (domestic affairs) without shedding light on the background of Western geopolitics. They know nothing of the Wolfowitz Doctrine. Let alone that they have knowledge of the ongoing NATO expansions and how this relates to the national security of their own country. In 2014, Latynina wrote touting words about the Ukrainians on Maidan Square who were fighting for their democracy. She felt that the Russians should follow their example. But what did Latynina, as a journalist/activist, know about the neocolonialistic objective of the West?

When Crimea joined Russia shortly thereafter, it was Latynina who harshly condemned Putin. She wrote that Crimea had to remain part of Ukraine, despite the fact that most ethnic Russians had indicated in a referendum that they wanted to belong to Russia and not to the pro-Western government in Kyiv. Most striking in her analyses was her lack of geopolitical context. Knowledge regarding the geopolitical strategy of the US and NATO, and how these clash with the interests of Russian national security, was lacking. Consider, for example, the enormous geopolitical importance of the Russian port in Crimea for the Russian navy. If Ukraine were to become a NATO member, Russia would most likely lose its access to the Black Sea. Or NATO military bases that would be built in Ukraine where American troops could be stationed upon Ukrainian NATO membership. Or, at least as important, an anti-missile shield that is currently in use in Poland and Romania but which could also be built in Ukraine. This installation could also be used against Russia in the future.

The fact that Russia would be increasingly surrounded by Western NATO troops is not an issue for the Russian opposition. Until far into the year 2022, Latynina remained an important voice within the Russian opposition and condemned Putin’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine. Her slogan was: ‘No to war’ and she supported the Ukrainian
war efforts to liberate the Donbass region from Russian troops. After that, I saw very little of her articles. At the time, I still thought that Latynina had been silenced. In 2023, I suddenly saw an article by her with the title: How can we explain to our allies that Ukraine needs weapons to cleanse Crimea of ​​biological waste?⁵

I thought a mistake had been made in the article’s headline…

But no, it turned out to be Latynina who was criticizing Zelensky and the West. I suspect she took a crash course in geopolitics to understand the background of the Ukraine-Russia drama. Then you cannot avoid studying the American/NATO strategy within the great international power struggle. Her fellow opposition members and followers started describing her as a traitor and became furious. In 2024, I started following her more on social media, or in her blogs and articles (all her articles can be found at Novaya Gazeta). She literally accuses the Zelensky government of having carried out ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Crimea and the Donbass. She also accuses Zelensky of wanting to prolong the war to stay in power. She blames the West for making Ukraine ‘addicted’ to arms deliveries. She adds that all these weapons lead to deaths on both sides, which, according to her, benefits Washington. In 2024 (January), she wrote in her column: ‘The Ukrainian Impasse: Why the West is no longer waiting for Zelensky’s victory’. In this, she blames Zelensky for rejecting Putin’s conditions (in April 2022) with the quote: ‘Such a peace would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides and would have enabled Ukraine to develop like South Korea. But it would have been a political death sentence for the president.’

In 2025, Latynina’s articles have become even more critical, particularly regarding the actions of ‘The hand of the collective West’. Among the Russian opposition, there is bewilderment and disbelief: ‘One of their most critical journalists criticizes the ‘good West’, how is that possible?’ She is portrayed today as a conspiracy theorist and a traitor. The Moscow Times had the story in January 2026: ‘The mole who betrayed the Russian spies’. I feast my eyes on the social media of the Russian opposition, at how their hero is being attacked. The Russian opposition leaves no stone unturned in its criticism of her. They are the greatest admirers of the (liberal) West and they could never admit or realize that that same West also has very dirty hands.

The fact that this very critical Latynina has conducted so much research speaks in her favor. Not because I think she is right, but because she is brave enough not to remain entrenched in her opinion after 25 years. Finally, then, a skilled Russian opposition woman who has delved into the geopolitical power struggle. I wish our journalists would also conduct the necessary research to uncover the causes of the conflict. And then you also have to have the guts…

Source: Eurazië Instituut / Blog

Footnotes

1. PDF in Dutch ↩︎
2. Marie-Thérèse ter Haar is a Russia & Eastern Europe expert. From the communist era (1987) until 2022, she spent six months in Russia and six months in the Netherlands. From the very beginning, she shared her knowledge of and experience with Russia and other countries of the former USSR by giving lectures, seminars, and organizing trips. Later, this expanded to include advising the business community, and in 2001 she founded the Russia & Eastern Europe Academy. The aim here is to build a bridge between Eastern and Western Europe. Due to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, the current name is the Eurasia Institute. ↩︎
3. Albats: Russian opposition journalist Yevgenia Albats, a fierce and outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin’s government. She lives in self-imposed exile in New York, USA, and works as a political scientist for the New York Post. See more: Wikipedia, a mainstream —which means following the neoliberal West’s and its anti-Putin point of view— website. Because of that, “Sustainable Politics” does not support, neither recommends Wikipedia. Wikipedia is heavily censoring real, in-depth, independent, objectively monitored investigative information, even independent objective science, creating therefore disinformation, tolerating even slander and lies about those who do not follow the mainstream media opinion because Wikipedia’s chief-editor keeps a strict eye on providing the mainstream opinion to avoid losing followers and payments, so in this case all what is mentioned about Yevgenia Albats will be uncensored by Wikipedia editors, since she is a fierce and outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin’s government, and therefore supporting the mainstream opinion.
   Note 1: the Wikipedia page about political scientist professor Ivan Katchanovski, the author of the book “The Russia Ukraine War And Its Origins, From the Maidan to the Ukraine War“, contained slander, lies, bias, until he discovered it. He found the right way to correct it. But not all have this possibility, do not know the way to change it into the correct info.
   Note 2: Yulia Latynina has a [Russian language] page in Wikipedia. Since she mentions this Russian language page on her website, I assume that she knows what is written about her, and that all is correct. However: if you chose for instance the English Wikipedia version, that version can contain lots of lies, disinformation and even slander about her, and the best is therefore to translate the Russian version into your own language, by copying the Russian text and paste it into a machine translator, for instance Google Translate. Only then you will get the correct info. ↩︎
4. Novaya Gazeta, Yulia Latynina, Юлия Латынина, articles in Russian, no new articles since March 2024. The article where Marie-Thérèse ter Haar refers to: How can we explain to our allies that Ukraine needs weapons to cleanse Crimea of ​​biological waste?, written in 2023, was published in Novaya Gazeta, but removed. See for more: footnote 5. ↩︎
5. The article where Marie-Thérèse ter Haar refers to: “How can we explain to our allies that Ukraine needs weapons to cleanse Crimea of ​​biological waste?“, written in 2023, was published in Novaya Gazeta, but has been removed, most likely by the chief editor of Novaya Gazeta, afraid to lose readers. More: the Ukrainian (thinking and writing anti-Kremlin) website IDPO.ORG.UA, article How Former “Good Russian” Latynina Came to Support the “Amputation” of Ukrainian Territories, published January 28, 2025. In this article you can find a screenshot of the article, as was published in Novaya Gazeta. Admin made a screenshot of the screenshot as published in IDPO. Above the screenshot in the article you can read: In November 2023, Latynina saw social media comments as a threat to Russians in Crimea. Some users referred to Russians as “biowaste,” prompting her to write: “If Russians are “biowaste” and make up the majority in Crimea, how can we explain to our allies that Ukraine needs weapons to cleanse Crimea of “biowaste”? ↩︎

Additional information about Yulia Latynina

1. Biography
2. Photos
3. YouTube