Following independent journalists fighting for free press in Russia
Fresh Air
NPR
4.3 • 36.1K Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2026
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Julia Loktev's acclaimed documentary, ‘My Undesirable Friends,’ follows young Russian journalists in the months before and after Putin's invasion of Ukraine — and the impossible choices they face when dissent means prison or exile.
Also, jazz historian Kevin Whitehead revisits a two-night set Miles Davis did in Chicago in 1965.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, |
| 0:07.4 | working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theshmit.org. |
| 0:14.7 | This is fresh air. I'm Tanya Mosley. Four years ago, filmmaker Julia Loctiv landed in Moscow to investigate the revival of an old |
| 0:23.8 | Kremlin weapon, the label Foreign Agent, a phrase with deep roots in Soviet-era repression. |
| 0:31.0 | It was being applied not only to organizations, but to reporters, bloggers, and human rights groups |
| 0:37.1 | that had spent decades documenting political persecution. |
| 0:41.3 | Armed with an iPhone, Lockdiv embedded herself among a group of young journalists working for TV Rain, Russia's last independent television channel, |
| 0:51.2 | as well as other independent journalists who were deemed foreign agents. |
| 0:55.1 | The result is My Undesirable Friends, Part 1, Last Air in Moscow, a five-and-a-half-hour |
| 1:02.2 | documentary that has swept major critics awards and stand as a record of what it looks like |
| 1:07.9 | when dissent is slowly criminalized in real time. Here's Julia |
| 1:12.3 | Loctiv, describing how she first entered that world. The world you're about to see no longer |
| 1:19.3 | exists. None of us knew what was about to happen. Four months before Russia started a full-scale war in Ukraine, |
| 1:30.6 | I came to Moscow to make a film with my friend Anya. |
| 1:35.8 | Anya was a host of TV Rain, Russia's last remaining independent news channel. |
| 1:42.1 | In the fall of 2021, it was still allowed to operate online, which is |
| 1:47.9 | unimaginable now. By the end of that year, the Kremlin labeled more than 100 individuals and |
| 1:55.1 | outlets as foreign agents. Those designated were required to stamp government disclaimers on everything they published, even personal social media posts, with penalties that could include steep fines or imprisonment. |
| 2:10.2 | The film has arrived in the United States at a moment when questions about press freedom and the risks of reporting in politically charged spaces feel |
| 2:18.5 | newly present here too. Just last week, journalist Don Lemon and Georgia Fort were arrested by |
| 2:25.4 | federal agents after covering a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, a case that is drawn |
| 2:31.6 | sharp criticism from press freedom advocates. |
... |
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