Editor, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus at RFE/RL. Author of The Week In Russia, host of The Week Ahead In Russia. Likes/reposts are not necessarily endorsements.
Prague
Joined February 2011
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Steve Gutterman retweeted
🧵Oxygen Forensics: powerful phone/computer hacking software, to access files, circumvent passwords, encryption. In wide use throughout US government (and Russia). Last month, @TheJusticeDept charged that company is Russian-owned/developed. @kromark @pustota and I dug further /1
Steve Gutterman retweeted
🧵In 2018, the heads of Russia’s 3 main spy agencies came to DC on an unprecedented visit; raised alot of eyebrows. @mikepompeo defended the talks; little other info was released. In 2021, I FOIA-d @CIA, @FBI, @ODNI for details. Five years later, I got a response (from @ODNI)
Steve Gutterman retweeted
Frederick Flott had a distinguished career in the US government: @StateDept diplomat, @CIA officer, @USArmy officer (also one-time interpreter for Robert F. Kennedy). Was he also a spy for the KGB? A mystery dug up in the Mitrokhin Archive @Cambridge_Uni rferl.org/a/russia-kgb-spy-e…
Steve Gutterman retweeted
Random Numbers, Persian Code: A Mysterious Signal Transfixes Radio Sleuths -- And Intelligence Experts
The mysterious Persian-language transmission began about 12 hours after the start of the US-Israeli bombing campaign against Iran. It was jammed five days later. Is it a coded message for US agents in Iran? Iranian sleeper cells? Israeli operatives
Read here: tinyurl.com/2w6w5cd8
By @Mike_Eckel
Steve Gutterman retweeted
A Russian woman accused of lying to the FBI.
An alleged FSB networker.
Dozens of drunk texts to an FBI agent.
A courtroom breakdown.
Meet Nomma Zarubina — and one of the strangest espionage-adjacent cases in years.
1/7🧵
ALT PHOTO: Nomma Zarubina (Facebook)
Steve Gutterman retweeted
Incredible. The 4-year-old girl who survived did so because she was saved by @radiosvoboda war reporter and my old colleague @MaryanKushnir. He carried her in his arms after the drone strike. The girl's mother and her partner were killed. The girl's father lived elsewhere and she's now with him (correcting below). Read Maryan's account here: radiosvoboda.org/a/news-zhur…
Russia orphaned a 4-year-old child last night, killing a mother and father in their apartment in a drone attack on Kyiv region, according to local authorities.
Ukraine's Air Force said Russian forces attacked with an Iskander-M ballistic missile and 146 Shahed, Gerbera and Italmas loitering munitions and drones of other types.
Damage was reported in Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipro and other regions.
pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/…
Steve Gutterman retweeted
You didn’t see this one coming…🎤
Unstoppable R.E.M. is dropping a never-before-heard remix — “Radio Free Europe 2025” — in tribute to RFE/RL, at a time when our future is uncertain and funding unstable.
🎧Pre-order the vinyl and help us stay loud: ffm.to/remrfe2025
Steve Gutterman retweeted
🧵EXCLUSIVE: Docs obtained by @RFERL show that the UN's nuclear watchdog funded scientific research in Crimea by Russia-based institutes without Ukraine's permission - and despite the UN's recognition of the peninsula as Ukrainian: rferl.org/a/iaea-ukraine-cri…
A short thread.
/1
Steve Gutterman retweeted
My latest:
Israel's war has left #Lebanon's Armenians facing a painful choice:
Stay and risk death or flee the country they call home.
rferl.org/a/lebanon-beirut-a…
Steve Gutterman retweeted
🧵Fascinating text messages between a Russian operative & his FSB handlers on stoking US political discord have surfaced in a US criminal case, my @RFERL colleagues @Mike_Eckel, @pustota & @kromark have found. Links to Eng and Ru stories at end.
A handful of excerpts below.
/1
Steve Gutterman retweeted
Pavel Kushnir, a 39-year-old pianist, had his funeral yesterday after dying in a pretrial detention centre in Birobidzhan, Russia. He was arrested for posting anti-war videos on YouTube.
Steve Gutterman retweeted
EXCLUSIVE: Russia’s youngest prisoner convicted of treason shares his swap experience with Novaya Europe
Kevin Lik, 19, was among the 16 political prisoners freed by Russia as part of the prisoner exchange between Moscow and the West. Here is what Kevin shared with Novaya Europe upon his release:
“The swap was unexpected. It would be naive of me to hope for one. It was clear that Putin wouldn’t go for one if getting Krasikov back wasn’t on the table. [During the meeting yesterday] Chancellor Scholz said that this was a very hard decision for Germany. But as a result 16 innocent people, who are not criminals, went free.”
“No one would tell me where and why I was being taken. The colony head said, ‘Can’t you really guess what’s going on?’ But it was too good to be true. I thought that a prisoner swap was a possibility but not on such a large scale,” Lik said.
Steve Gutterman retweeted
I was there - but I can't help watching it over and over again.
Steve Gutterman retweeted
Keep in mind on this otherwise joyous day, 3 @RFERL colleagues remain imprisoned their families torn apart. Like Alsu, their charges are without merit. We call for the immediate release of Andrey Kuznechyk, Ihar Losik from Belarus; Vlad Yesypenko from Russian controlled Crimea
Steve Gutterman retweeted
I joined @sgutterman to discuss the battlefield situation in Ukraine. We also look into the future to discuss how Russia plans to address the personnel wreckage within its army via post-war retention and recruiting policies. Link below👇
Russian forces press forward in eastern Ukraine but also suffer setbacks. @MassDara joins host @sgutterman to discuss the battlefield situation, manpower problems, and the talk about efforts to end the fighting. rferl.org/a/week-ahead-russi…
Steve Gutterman retweeted
“If I could talk to my mom right now, I would tell her that I’m so proud of her and that this is a really hard time, but we will get through it. And, most of all, your family knows that you have done nothing wrong.” — #Alsu’s daughter Bibi speaking on @NewsHour. Thank you @IAmAmnaNawaz for having us on your program. Watch our @PBS interview about Alsu’s conviction by a secret trial in Russia: pbs.org/newshour/show/the-ru… #FreeAlsu
Steve Gutterman retweeted
💡ICYMI: @ChristopherJM, Ukraine correspondent for the @FinancialTimes talked to @sgutterman about the deadly legacy of the downing of the MH17 ten years ago. rferl.org/a/week-ahead-russi…
Steve Gutterman retweeted
Russia has kept Alsu prisoner for 270 days – 8 months and 25 days in a prison cell, barred from U.S. consular visits or phone calls with her family. #Alsu traveled to Russia for a family emergency but was arrested in October 2023 on absurd charges of not declaring herself a "foreign agent." She was then also charged with spreading what Russia considers "false information" about its war against Ukraine.
For 270 days, Alsu has been wrongfully detained and denied her basic human dignity by Russia for her work as an American journalist. For over a year, Alsu has been intentionally separated from her children by a merciless regime that has no regard for family or motherhood.
Secrecy, closed-door hearings, restricted contact with the outside world – these are all tell-tale signs of the illegitimacy of Alsu's prosecution. Her captors have presented no evidence that any of her publications as an American journalist have ever contained falsehoods or inaccuracies. The burden of proof that any of her reporting was false is on the Russian government, and I hope to hear its arguments in an international court of law one day.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention must immediately designate Alsu's detention by the Russian government as arbitrary and reiterate its call on Russia to release her immediately. #FreeAlsu
Steve Gutterman retweeted
You may remember Azeri tycoon Anar Mammadov from such stories as a Trump partnership, millions in US lobbying, & his fortune linked to his dad's ministry. Now @RFERL's @AzadliqRadiosu finds his opaque investments in a KFC chain & posh real estate in UK. rferl.org/a/azerbaijan-anar-…