Help weaken Putin's regime and end the war

May was a month of milestones—from preparing the second This Is Navalny festival, to a major victory for the Black Notebook project, to Patriot winning a British Book Award. Here's what we've been working on.

Platform of a Future Russia
On May 9–11, we held the second Russia of the Future forum, led once again by Yulia Navalnaya. Our team helped organise and run the event. Dozens of experts from across various fields attended, and for the first time, so did university students.

ACF
This month brought several important international achievements for the ACF:
First, the EU imposed sanctions on many of the judges, prosecutors, and investigators featured in our Black Notebook project—those responsible for sentencing people to prison for opposing the regime.

Second, Alexei Navalny was posthumously awarded the Charles Kettering Prize for Democracy. This is the award’s first-ever year, and the ceremony will take place in Washington this autumn.

Third, Navalny’s book Patriot received two British Book Awards—for Best Book and Best Non-Fiction.
Also, Yulia Navalnaya gave several powerful speeches this month. At the Truth Tellers summit in London, she spoke about where she finds the strength to carry on Alexei’s work and what drives her mission.

As Chair of the Human Rights Foundation, she delivered the opening speech at the Oslo Freedom Forum, calling on activists everywhere not to give up—to embrace imagination and remember that resistance is always possible, even under dictatorship.

ACF Annual Report
We published our Annual Report 2024, reflecting on the past year’s achievements and sharing our financial results. It was one of the toughest years for FBK, but we kept going—just as Alexei asked us to.
You can check out the full report in the presentation (in Russian) or watch the video version (with English subtitles). 

Investigations
In May, we took a closer look at Natalya Popova, the wife of Putin’s top negotiator Kirill Dmitriev. She hosts TV shows, speaks at forums, and travels abroad representing “Innopraktika”—a project linked to Katerina Tikhonova, Putin’s daughter.
Who is Popova really working for, and how does her friendship with Putin’s daughter shape her life? Irina Alleman investigates in our latest video.

Video Production
Navalny LIVE hit 13.5 million views and gained 3,000 new subscribers. We covered how Kremlin mouthpiece Dmitry Kiselyov lives, and how Putin’s oligarchs and officials throw their lavish weddings — with Putin himself attending some!

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV1B9bW5nHI

Popular Politics videos were watched 54 million times, and we gained over 15,000 new subscribers. Highlights included: a feud between Belarusian propagandist Azarenka and Putin’s chronicler Andrei Kolesnikov; the entitled daughter of a top Kremlin official; and a look into Sergei Shoigu’s new business ventures

Sirena
Our Sirena Telegram channel racked up over 8 million views this month. Some of the stories we broke: how Putin handed out Russian citizenship to those working at his private winery; how people in Moscow were hired as fake crowds for Victory Day events; and how the government responded to an oil spill in the Black Sea by hauling sand back and forth under the guise of clean-up—in reality, a money laundering scheme.

As we gathered material for our annual report, we were struck by just how much we’ve achieved—and none of it would be possible without the incredible support of our donors. Thank you for always standing with us.