Yulia Latynina

Yulia Leonidovna Latynina (Russian: Ю́лия Леони́довна Латы́нина; born 16 June 1966) is a Russian writer and journalist. She is a columnist for Novaya Gazeta and the most popular host at the Echo of Moscow radio station. Yulia Latynina has authored more than twenty books, including fantasy and crime fiction.

Condoleezza Rice presents Latynina with the Freedom Defenders Award in 2008

Yulia Latynina was born in Moscow on 16 June 1966. Her father is poet Leonid Latynin and her mother is literary critic Alla Latynina. Yulia Latynina studied philology at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute from 1983 to 1988. In 1993, she defended her PhD at the Gorky Institute of World Literature.

Latynina worked for periodicals Segodnya (1995–96), Izvestia (1996–97), Expert (1997–98), Sovershenno Secretno (1999–2000), Ezhednevny Zhurnal (2005–15) and Gazeta.ru (2006–2013). She also worked for television channels NTV (2000–01), ORT (2001–02), TVS (2002–03) and REN TV (2003–04). Currently, she is a columnist for Novaya Gazeta (since 2001) and a host of the show Access Code at radio station Echo of Moscow (since 2003).

Latynina was a member of the Committee 2008. In 2007, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera named her best foreign journalist in an award ceremony dedicated to Maria Grazia Cutuli. In 2008, Yulia Latynina received the Freedom Defenders Award from the United States Department of State.

Yulia Latynina is known for her sharp and polemic statements. She argues that universal suffrage is bad for poor countries. She also criticizes western liberalism and human rights organizations which she thinks prevent winning the War on Terror. Yulia Latynina is generally regarded as an opponent of Russian political establishment, but has also scolded supporters of Igor Sutyagin, a scientist who was arrested for espionage by Russia. Lawyer Boris Kuznetsov, who represented Sutyagin, hinted that the Russian Federal Security Service benefited from her columns, which she vigorously denied.