BBC’s ‘independent’ Russian partner begged UK govt for funds, files show

By Kit Klarenberg and Wyatt Reed - May 24, 2025

Leaked documents show the supposedly self-reliant anti-Kremlin outlet Mediazona asked the UK gov’t for £300,000. With foreign funding drying up, the “independent” news site now faces financial crisis.

Mediazona, the self-styled “independent” Russian outlet which partners with the BBC to track the deaths of Russian troops, requested hundreds of thousands of pounds directly from the British government, according to a tranche of leaked official documents.

Having mainly targeted Russians since its founding in 2014 by members of the Western-backed troupe of provocateurs known as Pussy Riot, Mediazona has largely remained off the radar of news consumers in the West. But that changed with the outbreak of full-scale war in Ukraine. Since the first day of the conflict, Mediazona has collaborated with the BBC Russian Service on a project tracking the deaths of Russian servicemen through open source methods. Mediazona describes “the work [as] meticulous and time-consuming,” requiring “relentless efforts of journalists.”

Who or what was footing the bill was left unmentioned in the description of the initiative, which was clearly designed to foment dissent and opposition to the proxy war among Russian citizens. Now, leaked documents reviewed by The Grayzone indicate that between 2020 and 2023, Mediazona was in line for vast, secret grants for anti-Kremlin agitation from the British Foreign Office, under the official auspices of London’s opaque “Global Britain Fund.”

From Pussy Riot to Mediazona

Leaked files related to the information warfare effort show London earmarked a myriad of NGOs, rights groups, and news outlets in Russia were earmarked for receiving hundreds of thousands in order to undermine the Kremlin with propaganda and supposed civil society initiatives. Among the most prominent proposed repeat recipients was Mediazona.

One prospective grant from the Foreign Office would have transferred a whopping £300,000 between 2020 – 2023 to the outlet, which describes itself in the application as “Russia’s leading independent and socially focused media company.”

Boasting that “Mediazona contributes to the discussion of many legal and structural problems haunting Russian society and state, and also reports on foreign events (including in the UK) that have implications for Russians,” the proposal laid out the “key objectives set for Mediazona,” which included “[challenging] the official version of events by providing audiences with high-quality investigative journalism, compelling eye witness accounts and live feeds from the ground.” If approved, Mediazona would also “develop critical thinking amongst young Russians through the proactive use of social media networks and interactive content.”

The applicants bragged that Mediazona’s “prominent status on the Russian-language internet” meant “issues raised through its publications” would “have measurable resonance, stimulating constructive engagement between multiple stakeholder groups including public officials.”

Mediazona would be expected to produce “around 120 news articles per week, at least 18 investigative reports per month and a series of online feeds delivered from crucial events across Russia.” The Foreign Office pledged, “this programming will serve to expose corruption and the abuse of power whilst bringing credible and authentic voices into the public domain.” In addition, the editorial team hoped to “forge new partnerships with key players in the Russian and international media landscape, thereby ensuring powerful multiplier effects.”

Elsewhere, the British Foreign Office received a petition for £150,000 over two years on behalf of Zona Prava, an NGO which was also founded by Pussy Riot. The organization would expose alleged human rights abuses in Russian prisons, via “public events” such as “hot lines, round tables, seminars, information events with the invitation of public figures and government representatives.” Meanwhile, in “close cooperation” with Mediazona, Zona Prava would produce “at least 800 materials in federal and regional media… at least 10 videos” and potentially one or two documentaries.

British intel circumvents ‘foreign agent’ law

The leaked documents make clear that the British were aware that their activities were illegal under Moscow’s Foreign Agent law. A funding application for Equal Rights Trust, a Global Britain Fund recipient charged with lawfare operations referred to cryptically as “targeted strategic litigation” explicitly describes a British government-funded effort to evade the new law. “As part of our current project” being financed by the UK Foreign Office, ERT wrote that it “has undertaken an extensive risk assessment of the Russian context, including commissioning an independent consultant to produce a report on the Foreign Agent Law.” As a result, “ERT is now well-versed” in various “procedures to mitigate the risks of transferring funds to Russia,” which “allowed for the ongoing successful implementation of activities despite the Foreign Agent law.”

These procedures included “diversifying means of transferring of funds, on-going assessment on methods of transfer, clear lines of communication with the recipient on when and how transfers are made, neutral codes and payment reference for bank records, and maximum amounts per transfer and numbers of transfers using the same method.”

ERT concluded that “it is simpler and safer for all concerned to work without a formal partner to distribute funds to project beneficiaries,” and instead “work with a series of informal partners through consultancy agreements.” ERT was said to have “utilised this approach to great success in similar environments.”

It is unknown if the Global Britain projects involving Mediazona went ahead, and, if so, whether they used such “procedures” to launder the money. But the outlet’s long standing public alliance with the British state, via the project mapping Russian war casualties with the BBC’s Russian Service, highlights the outlet’s perceived utility as a conduit for anti-Kremlin agitprop.

Mediazona lashes out at damaging leaks with libelous allegations

If financing did flow to Mediazona under “Global Britain,” it would not have been the first time London covertly supported the group’s activities. In February 2021, leaks reported by The Grayzone revealed how Mediazona had, alongside Meduza, received covert backing from British intelligence in the form of “audience segmentation and targeting support” some years prior. The assistance formed part of a wider clandestine effort to “weaken the Russian state’s influence.” While Mediazona’s top brass issued no official statement or response to the disclosures, a retort of sorts was promptly forthcoming.

Days after this outlet’s reporting appeared, Mediazona published a sensational exclusive, claiming Amnesty International’s decision to rescind Western-backed, imprisoned Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny’s “prisoner of conscience” status resulted from a sinister Kremlin-orchestrated “campaign,” led by “individuals tied” to Russian state broadcaster RT. The supposed culprits were The Grayzone’s Aaron Maté, and a freelance writer and translator known as Katya Kazbek – neither of whom were tied to RT in any way.

Maté’s apparent sin was revealing how Amnesty had revoked Navalny’s status “given the fact that he advocated violence and discrimination and he has not retracted such statements.” For her part, Kazbek stood accused of posting a viral Twitter thread documenting Navalny’s lengthy history of racism, xenophobia, and association with and promotion of Neo-Nazi figures and groups, which he consistently refused to repudiate. She was subsequently doxxed by Bellingcat editor Natalia Antonova, who revealed sensitive private details, including her home address.

Amnesty International issued a statement explicitly denying “external pressure” from any source influenced its decision to remove Navalny from its list of “prisoners of conscience.” Nevertheless, Mediazona’s hatchet job was promptly translated into English by Meduza, where its charges were seized upon by mainstream Navalny endorsers and Western news outlets, including the BBC.

Meduza’s then-investigative editor, Alexey Kovalev, appeared to acknowledge the bogus story was revenge for articles exposing Britain’s clandestine support of both Mediazona and Kovalev’s employer, Meduza. In a 2021 tweet, Kovalev accused the author of this article of having “unleashed a careless conspiracy theory,” insisting that the leaked documents exposing those ties were “fake.” In closing, he sneered: “consider us square.”

But the documents, and recent announcement by both Mediazona and Meduza, indicate that claims of secret Western sponsorship for the supposedly-independent outlets were anything but “fake.”

In a lengthy plea posted across their social media accounts entitled “Mediazona on the brink,” the group groaned that they were “running out of money” and urgently needed 5,000 monthly subscribers just “to stay afloat.” After Western sanctions forced Visa and Mastercard out of Russia, “funding from our readers” dried up, they wrote, explaining that the Ukraine proxy war’s outbreak “collapsed” the outlet’s business model “overnight.”

Mediazona claimed they’d already begun laying off staff as a result of budget cuts, warning if their subscriber target was not reached, layoffs “will have to continue.” Before the war, they claimed, the outlet was funded “almost [emphasis added] entirely” by reader donations. This glaring caveat strongly suggests they had been at least partially backed by government funding – a notion seemingly confirmed in a February 28 Euractiv interview with Nikita Dulnev, director of Mediazona’s Central Asia branch, who directly linked his outlet’s financial woes to the Trump administration’s shutdown of USAID.

Dulnev was described by Euractiv as one of many “media professionals in Eastern European countries” who fear Washington’s “abrupt funding cut” to local propaganda projects “could inflict lasting damage on the region’s media infrastructure.” In the article, Dulnev lamented, “for years, we had some support and didn’t diversify much. That’s why we had to pause our work.” Dulnev’s LinkedIn profile lists him as formerly employed by the “Khodorkovsky network.”

That international anti-Kremlin propaganda group was formed by London-residing exiled Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was released with members of Pussy Riot in December 2013 as a “magnanimous gesture” by Moscow towards the Russian opposition. Since then, Khodorkovsky has openly plotted Vladimir Putin’s downfall, though the full extent of this agitation is unknown.

Pussy Riot cofounders Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova launched Mediazona almost immediately after their release alongside Khodorkovsky. A 2014 press release announcing their outlet’s founding explicitly linked Mediazona’s creation to the lack of “space for anything in [Russian] media that criticizes Putin’s policies.”

It was thus evident from day one that Mediazona was intended to serve as an extension of Pussy Riot’s political activism in Russia, which previously included Tolokonnikova’s participation in a public orgy at a Moscow museum in 2008, and other incendiary, criminal acts that would get perpetrators jailed almost anywhere in the world. The outlet quickly became a dependable megaphone for Western-sponsored opposition figure Alexei Navalny until his February 2024 death.

A February 2025 New York Times report confirmed Meduza had been in receipt of unacknowledged funds from USAID, a traditional US intelligence cutout, amounting to 15% of its annual income. This budgetary shortfall, they claimed, was sufficient to put the outlet’s entire future in jeopardy, and inflict more damage on its operations than previous alleged “cyberattacks, legal threats and even poisonings of its reporters.” The New York Times noted that financing for opposition media outlets from other foreign governments was “tiny in comparison with American funding” cut by the Trump administration.

Moreover, “traditional media supporters” such as the CIA-connected Ford Foundation and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations have “abandoned much of [their] media funding” outright. This abrupt lack of overseas bankrolling for anti-Kremlin propaganda operations was parenthetically acknowledged in Mediazona’s desperate March 31 plea for reader donations, which lamented that “grants from various foundations” are no longer forthcoming “in the current situation.” It appears Mediazona is also a victim of the US-led cessation of foreign funding for ‘independent’ media projects targeting enemy states.

As funding from Western governments dries up, Pussy Riot has launched a page on OnlyFans. The group’s “fetish/kink friendly” official profile on the website, widely used by sex workers, promises paying subscribers “daily exclusive photos and videos,” “one on one chatting,” “custom content and items,” and “exceptional service for all your personal requests.”

At the time of publication, promotional offers on three and six-month subscriptions are offered. It is unknown how many NATO member states, if any, have availed themselves of the opportunity.