When you're part of the opposition you want to stay. It's part of your identity. You're useless if you leave. You feel like you have failed.

- Masha Gessen

When you lose your freedom, you lose, first and foremost, the opportunity to choose the company you keep.

- Masha Gessen

Here in the U.S. we do have a problem with a president Donald Trump who uses language in two distinctly destructive ways. One is to lie, and to use w…

- Masha Gessen

When I was touring with my Vladimir Putin biography, which was published all over the world, people would ask me, How come you're still there, why ha…

- Masha Gessen

For the first stage of his dictatorship, Vladimir Putin was involved in destroying public space. On the first day he was in office, he introduced leg…

- Masha Gessen

Were there open gays and lesbians before the West started influencing Russia? No, there weren't. In fact, the most out person in the country, until r…

- Masha Gessen

There are several dozen political prisoners in Russia. When I cite that number people are often very surprised. They often think there are more. Well…

- Masha Gessen

As a gay parent I must flee Russia or lose my children

- Masha Gessen

Putin needed an enemy, an Other, against which to mobilize. LGBT people are really convenient: we're sort of the ultimate foreign agent.

- Masha Gessen