Founder, TV Dozhd

Mikhail Zygar is a Russian born journalist, writer and filmmaker, and the founding editor-in-chief of Russian news channel TV Rain (2010-2015). Under Zygar’s leadership, TV Rain provided an alternative to Kremlin-controlled federal TV channels by giving a platform to opposition voices. Zygar is also the author of All the Kremlin’s Men (2016), Empire Must Die (2017) and War and Punishment (2023). 

In 2014, CPJ awarded Zygar with International Press Freedom Award.  

On February 24, 2022, the day Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, Zygar launched an online petition condemning the war, which was co-signed by tens of thousands of Russians. On the third day of the war, he left Russia. Now lives in New York. He is a visiting professor of Princeton University. 

Zygar writes a weekly column on Russia and the war for Der Spiegel, and also columns for The New York Times, Time Magazine, Vanity Fair, Foreign Affairs and a newsletter The Last Pioneer.  

In October 2022, Mikhail Zygar was designated as a “foreign agent” by the Russian authorities. In July 2024, a Moscow court sentenced him in absentia to 8.5 years in prison, accusing him of spreading false information about Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. 

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