Especially in light of the Seth Rich conspiracy theory and its first heavy supporter, many people may wonder why there's no Russian outlet for Wikileaks. (Actually, in light of the first half of the first sentence, some people may have stopped wondering, if you know what I mean.)
Well, Russia has had an equivalent of Wikileaks for several years. Proekt has done some damn good work, as I've noted in the past, such as Russia backing Evo Morales' coup against the Bolivian constitution because he was eyeing an in to Bolivia's lithium mines.
No, really. Per Quartz, the Russkies thought Morales would grant more favorable mining concessions than his opposition. More at Proekt's site, including the role of Rosatom. And, it's good enough for the New York Times to have won a Pulitzer by apparently plagiarizing from it.
Alas, it's going to be harder for Proekt to do such work, at least inside Russia. The Guardian reports that Putin has essentially outlawed Proekt by fiat. Too many unflattering Putin scoops were too much.
Now, is Proekt perfect? (Setting aside that none of us are.) No, not really. I think it takes too whitewashed of a view of Navalny. That said, when all you have is Putin as a nail, every anti-Putin politician can become a hammer.
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Updates: Proekt is cutting ties with its US-based funder and closing that entity. But, via Moscow Times, Proekt says it has a new blockbuster coming. The cutting of US ties is probably to avoid the "foreign agent" label.
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