I was born and raised in Russia. Beginning in 2017, I became deeply involved in the anti-corruption movement led by Alexei Navalny. My colleagues and I organized rallies and marches, and I served as an election monitor in the presidential election of 2018, where I saw firsthand the ways that Putin rigs elections so that he always wins. My activism quickly made me an “enemy of the state.” By 2022, persecution forced me to leave my homeland.

But long before I fled, I was already living in a society where truth was nearly impossible to find. Since 2014, Russian state television, newspapers, and internet platforms have been saturated with aggressive propaganda. Independent media disappeared. Professional propagandists blurred the line between reality and fiction so completely that most citizens could no longer tell the difference. For those of us unwilling to live inside that fog of lies, Voice of America was a lifeline.

VOA gave me a chance not only to hear the truth but also to speak it. On August 5, 2023, after I escaped Russia and came to seek safety in the US,  I attended a protest in California in support of Alexei Navalny. That day, a Voice of America journalist interviewed me. I said what millions of Russians have felt but cannot safely express at home:

“Alexei Navalny showed people that we have a chance. He didn’t just inspire – he gave people hope that we can go out into the streets, we can protest, we can express our opinions. When Putin’s regime saw this, they panicked. They were frightened by the sight of hundreds of thousands in the streets, and for them, it was a clear signal that Navalny had to be eliminated..”

For me, that interview was more than a moment on camera. It symbolized what Voice of America has always meant: a platform where truth can be spoken, where voices silenced at home can still reach the world. Just as older generations in the Soviet Union once tuned their radios late at night to hear VOA – defying government jamming in order to catch a glimpse of reality – I was able to speak through VOA to shine a light on the brutality of Putin’s regime.

Even in the 21st century, VOA carried that same torch. In Russia, and in many other countries under authoritarian rule, VOA’s online presence offered a rare window into reality. That is why the U.S. decision to shut down the Voice of America platform in March 2025 has been devastating. It silenced not just a news outlet, but a bridge of truth for tens of millions of people who live under censorship and fear.

When free information is cut off, governments gain unchecked power to rewrite reality itself. For this reason, VOA was never “just” a news organization; it was a defender of freedom of thought, peace, and democracy.

I am profoundly grateful to everyone who worked on the Voice of America project. To me, and to so many others who depended on it, your work proved that truth can cross borders, even when regimes try to silence it. My own story, and my chance to speak freely at that California protest, exists in part because VOA was there to listen. I can only hope that someday VOA will return to continue its essential mission because the world desperately needs it.