Sam Breazeale

1 month ago | meduza.io | Sam Breazeale

The Baltic Sea handles around 15 percent of global shipping traffic — approximately 2,500 vessels daily, according to researcher Julian Pawlak. A rising number of these ships belong to Russia’s “shadow fleet,” a group of hundreds of aging, poorly regulated oil tankers that Moscow uses to bypass Western sanctions.

Jan 20, 2025 | meduza.io | Sam Breazeale

As Donald Trump takes the oath of office for the second time, the world is waiting to see how he’ll seek to end Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine — something he’s previously said he would do within 24 hours (and, later, before his inauguration). But the nearly three-year-old conflict is just one of numerous interlaced geopolitical challenges involving an increasingly bold Russia that will affect the United States. Meduza explores three other critical issues Trump will have to navigate.

Jun 23, 2024 | meduza.io | Sam Breazeale

On February 15, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed into law a bill legalizing the use of cannabis for medical purposes. The new law is set to take effect in August 2024. But not everyone is happy: a large contingent of politicians and activists insist the legislation will be useless for Ukrainian patients without some serious fine tuning. Meduza explains how the initiative made it through parliament and what problems it aims to solve.

Apr 9, 2024 | meduza.io | Sam Breazeale

Like countless other Russian men, Ilya Bakharev thought joining the war against Ukraine was a path to redemption. Though he wasn’t recruited directly from prison, Ilya had a criminal record, and he spoke openly to his wife about his hope that going to war would keep their son from seeing him as just an ex-con.

Mar 27, 2024 | meduza.io | Sam Breazeale

Multiple methods of statistical analysis have confirmed: Russia’s most recent presidential election was the most fabricated in the country’s modern history. The Russian authorities claim that Vladimir Putin received an eye-popping 87.3 percent of the vote, with more than 90 percent of voters “supporting” him in most of Ukraine’s occupied territories.