What's going on in Russia is not that the public is homophobic, but that the Kremlin has unleashed a war. You don't… — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
Putin needed an enemy, an Other, against which to mobilize. LGBT people are really convenient: we're sort of the ultimate foreign agent. — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
The reason Vladimir Putin released Pussy Riot, the Greenpeace activists who were kidnapped in international waters and kept in prison for two… — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
Every time I talk to somebody about Putin, it's like, 'But isn't he vastly popular?' Is that really the most important question?… — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
It is the first time since 1993 that Russians have come out into the streets without an explicit permission from the government… — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
Putin has this ritual of having the televised meetings with ministers. Cameras will be allowed in to film the first five minutes… — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
There's nothing effective against Trump. Trump is Trump. Trump is going to lie. Trump is going to act the way he's acting.… — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
The rest of Russia is watching the same television that Vladimir Putin is watching. As far as they're concerned, Pussy Riot was… — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
Putin set out to build a mafia state. He didn't set out to build a totalitarian regime. But he was building his… — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
Russia, at the start of the 21st century, at least in its larger cities, very much resembled the United States of the… — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
For the first ten years, Vladimir Putin was constructing his power structure, and now he's defending it. He's retrenching, mobilizing a shrinking… — Masha Gessen Copy Share Image
There's this American pretense, which is the pretense of the journalist with the view from nowhere - which has somehow morphed into the journalist… — Masha Gessen Copy Share
Pussy Riot have certainly changed some people's assumptions about the role of political art and the relationship between the intelligentsia and the church. That's… — Masha Gessen Copy Share
Trump, like Putin, has a demonstrably thin skin and short temper when it comes to being criticized by journalists. — Masha Gessen Copy Share
You risk everything if you so much as join a legal protest demonstration in Russia. It raises the stakes. — Masha Gessen Copy Share
Donald Trump creates word salads. And that is awful to language, because we try to parse out what he's saying and try to find… — Masha Gessen Copy Share
It is the first time since 1993 that Russians have come out into the streets without an explicit permission from the government to do… — Masha Gessen Copy Share
I think Donald Trump was brought to power by Americans. They voted for him. — Masha Gessen Copy Share
In the 1990s, there was a lot of reform, and there was a lot of forward movement on a lot of fronts in Russia.… — Masha Gessen Copy Share
Poverty and scarcity are actually very good for totalitarian societies. They maintain that sense of mobilization that's essential for totalitarian societies. — Masha Gessen Copy Share
I think that Putin's strategy has been throwing a lot of money, fairly haphazardly, at a lot of projects aimed at disrupting Western relations… — Masha Gessen Copy Share
Both Trump and Putin use language primarily to communicate not facts or opinions but power: it's not what the words mean that matters but… — Masha Gessen Copy Share
I worked both as a Russian journalist and an American journalist and ran a bunch of magazines in Moscow over the course of about… — Masha Gessen Copy Share
I have no doubt that there are Russian efforts to disturb the fabric of American democracy, but they're disruption efforts. They're troublemaking efforts. They're… — Masha Gessen Copy Share
For years I was the only publicly out gay person who was not a full-time gay activist: my position as a quasi-foreigner gave me… — Masha Gessen Copy Share
