Meduza (Russian: Медуза, named after the Greek goddess Medusa[3]) is a Russian- and English-language independent[9] news website, headquartered in Riga, Latvia.

[14] In 2014, Galina Timchenko was fired from her job as chief editor at Lenta.ru by oligarch Alexander Mamut, a supporter of Vladimir Putin, after she had interviewed Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh.

"[17] Russian businessman and former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and telecommunications magnate Boris Zimin had been considered as passive investors, but they parted ways "for strategic and operational reasons".

[22] On October 20, 2018, at the outlet's annual celebration, Meduza chief editor and co-founder Ivan Kolpakov reportedly groped an employee's wife, saying, "You're the only one at this party I can harass and get away with it.

[17] In September 2022, it announced the creation of English email dispatch "The Beet", aiming to amplify "local perspectives" from Central/Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, "without centering Moscow".

[37] Meduza aims to fill a market niche that exists due to "a long list of forbidden topics which Russian media do not raise for various reasons—due to direct and indirect censorship".

[clarification needed][40][41] In June 2019, Meduza journalist Ivan Golunov was arrested by Russian police for claimed drug offences.

[45][46] In response, the European Union rejected the decision, saying this restriction "goes against Russia's international obligations and human rights commitments".

[55] Despite the actions of Roskomnadzor, Meduza managed to maintain most of its Russian readers, but the economic sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine also hit Meduza's finances, as the sanctions made it nearly impossible to send donations from Russia and 30,000 members across the Russian border were suddenly unable to donate to the website.

[58] Russian journalist Ilya Krasilshchik, the former publisher of Meduza, was charged under the "fake news" law for denouncing the war in Ukraine.

[60] In March 2023, Timchenko said that while "Russian propaganda has enormous financial sources" and the government can spend billions to spread disinformation, Meduza has a "little crowdfunding campaign by people of good will around the world, and some support from international organizations".

[36] Meduza has implemented a number of technical solutions to bypass Russian censorship, including reliance on mobile apps and the ability to save articles as PDF files.

[61] In December 2022, the independent outlet Proekt wrote that since 2019, Meduza increased the number of exclusive articles per month from two to up to eight, especially since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.