Putin is the king of lies. Even in ordinary times, he is a champion in this sport, and now he needs lies in order to wage war and kill. This is a post about how we are confronting Putin’s lies—and why we need your help. A week before the war, the head of our investigations department, Maria Pevchikh @maria_pevchikh, wrote to me: “Hell is breaking loose. And you and I were wrong—the war is definitely going to happen. And all journalists will be jailed, crushed, and driven out. There won’t be a single word of truth left. So I don’t know how, I don’t know with whom, and I don’t know with what money, but we have to launch a new major daily news outlet. Because in Russia, apart from us, there are very few people who are not afraid to tell the truth. And for us, it no longer matters—we’re already labeled ‘extremists’ and forced to operate underground.” As someone who gets news only from television and understands that lies are an absolutely necessary condition for Putin to start a war, I agreed immediately. A war can continue only as long as it has some support inside the country. And for that, lies and propaganda are essential. What we need to fight the war is truth—and ways to deliver it to people. But that is easier said than done. A regular news outlet is a very particular kind of operation. It requires special technology, special people. It is frightening even to begin something like that. But the word “war” changes everything. ACF (the Anti-Corruption Foundation) threw itself into this new project, starting it immediately and quite literally cobbling it together on the fly. We did not even have time to announce a fundraising campaign. I still do not fully understand how we managed to do it, or with what money. But we did. Today, “Popular Politics” is one of Russia’s largest independent media outlets, with a monthly audience of more than 12 million people and daily news broadcasts watched by up to 1.5 million people (see the carousel for statistics). Now we are confident, we know what to do next, and we are asking for your support. Let’s do this together. We will expand our reach much further and build a real news service. The wonderful Edward Norton @edwardnortonofficial helped us plan and launch a fundraising campaign on GoFundMe. He even donated $25,000 of his own money. Help us tell the truth about the war to the rest of Russia’s citizens. Help us smash Putin’s lies. Help us destroy the ideological foundation of this deceitful, aggressive, senseless, and vicious war. Support the voice of truth. The link is in the profile bio.