Galina Timchenko is an award-winning Russian journalist and the co-founder, CEO, and publisher of Meduza, an independent media outlet based in Latvia. After being dismissed as editor-in-chief of Lenta.ru in 2014 due to political pressure, she founded Meduza to provide independent reporting on Russian affairs. Under her leadership, Meduza has become one of the most prominent sources of independent journalism, reaching millions of readers despite being labeled a “foreign agent” and banned in Russia. In 2023, Russian security services targeted her with Pegasus spyware, marking the first known case of such an attack on a Russian journalist. In 2022, the Committee to Protect Journalists awarded Timchenko the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award, and she also received the Fritt Ord Foundation Prize for her courageous, independent, and fact-based journalism.