The Eurasian Climate Brief is a new podcast dedicated to climate news in the region stretching from Eastern Europe and Russia down to the Caucasus and Central Asia.

This episode is dedicated to the crackdown on environmental activism, almost one month after Russia’s oldest human rights group, Memorial, was liquidated.

Our correspondents Anastasia and Ivan Shteynert report on the impact of the so-called foreign agents' law on ecological activism in St-Petersburg and beyond.  Vitaly Servetnik, a campaigner at Russia Friends of the Earth and the Russian socioecological union, takes us through the nuts and bolts of the legislation and explains why environmentalists are set to be the next targets of the Putin regime after human rights activists.

Plus we’ll be bringing you the latest climate headlines from our region at the end of the episode.

This episode is hosted by:

* Natalie Sauer, a French British environmental journalist and MA student in Russian and Post-Soviet Politics at the School of Eastern European and Slavonic Studies, University College London. A former reporter for Climate Home News, her words have also appeared in international media such as Le Monde Diplomatique, Politico Europe, Open Democracy, Euractiv and the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

* Boris Schneider, a climate and environment lead at n-ost, a Berlin-based network for cross-border reporting. Boris heads initiatives to boost climate journalism in Central Asia, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe.

* Angelina Davydova, an environmental journalist from Russia. Angelina has been writing about climate change in the region for Russian and international media and attending UN climate summits since 2008. She also teaches environmental journalism and environmental and climate policy and communication in a number of universities and regularly organises training for journalists from Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Caucasus on environmental and climate reporting.

* Anastasia and Ivan Shteynert, two radio journalists based in St-Petersburg.

Follow the Eurasian Climate Brief now in your favourite podcast app.

Find more news from us at: www.twitter.com/EurasianClimate

This podcast is co-hosted by Brussels’ thebattleground.eu and n-ost, a Berlin based network for cross-border reporting.