A New Iron Curtain: Inside the Cold War to Curb Putin's Imperial Reach From Norway to Kazakhstan, U.S. allies hold a tenuous line with Russia, the ghost of an empire that insists it has no boundaries.

Learn more at Long Lead and Magnum Photos' latest collaboration, BORDER LINE WAR: border-line-war.longlead.com

The countries that make up the new Iron Curtain — bordering Russia — are attempting to shore up their borders, trying to curb Vladimir Putin’s imperial reach.

Has Russia’s aggression against Ukraine spawned new alliances among its neighbors?

Though traditional journalism continues to face major headwinds, independent journalism is currently growing.

Long Lead’s DEPTH PERCEPTION takes you inside independent journalism's top news every week, letting you hear from the journalists breaking stories.

Subscribe: depthperception.longlead.com

In WWII, when the US locked Japanese Americans away in camps, the country NEVER took away their citizenship. Today, the Supreme Court hears a consequential Birthright Citizenship case.

Mia Yamamoto was born in a camp. She's exactly the kind of person this administration would strip of citizenship.

Journalism as “an act of public service”: Joi Lee on the responsibility of reporters to witness and document injustice The international journalist and documentarian explains how ICE’s Minneapolis surge challenged her “to exercise this American privilege and this American passport.”

For this week's DEPTH PERCEPTION, @jennaschnuer.bsky.social discusses with Lee her past work and what it meant to return to the U.S. to report on the Trump administration’s shift to more aggressive immigration enforcement.

Learn more:
depthperception.longlead.com/p/joi-lee-jo...

Headshot of journalist Joi Lee, DEPTH PERCEPTION branding and text “Social media is like digital fast food, but my heart is in more sustainable slower forms of storytelling.” —Joi Lee, international journalist and documentarian

Journalist Joi Lee hadn't lived full time in the U.S. for 14 years when she decided to come back during the ICE deployment to Minneapolis. Lee thought, “’If my job is to be part of this industry that is meant to document and to act as witnesses, then what is my responsibility as an American?’”

The internet is trash—we all know it.

What better way to PROVE it than by helping Long Shadow win a Webby Award?

Vote for LONG SHADOW: BREAKING THE INTERNET here: bit.ly/LSS4Webby

LONG SHADOW is hosted by @vermontgmg.bsky.social, produced by @longlead.com and distributed by @prx.org.

🗳️VOTE NOW!

Blue graphic with 2026 Webby Awards HONOREE, photo of Webby Award trophy, and TWINS FEST Best Documentary Storytelling

TWINS FEST — the documentary that's part of DOUBLE MEANING, bringing viewers inside the annual Twins Days Festival — is being recognized as a Webby Honoree.

Explore the full feature: twins.longlead.com

Graphic with text on left 2026 Webby Awards VOTE THE AGE OF INCARCERATION Best Individual Editorial Feature - Media Company and photo of a Webby Award trophy on the right over blue background

THE AGE OF INCARCERATION is nominated for Best Individual Editorial Feature by a Media Company. The feature captures the testimony and experiences of nine of the last survivors of World War II Japanese American incarceration.

Vote for it to win now: bit.ly/AgeOfIncarce...

Graphic with text on left 2026 Webby Awards VOTE LONG SHADOW: BREAKING THE INTERNET Best Podcast - Documentary and photo of a Webby Award trophy on the right over blue background

LONG SHADOW: BREAKING THE INTERNET is nominated for Best Podcast in the Documentary category. The Garrett Graff (@vermontgmg.bsky.social)-hosted show produced with @prx.org unpacks the story of the internet and how it's gotten so bad.

Vote for it to win a Webby now: bit.ly/LSS4Webby

Graphic with text on left 2026 Webby Awards VOTE LONG SHADOW: BREAKING THE INTERNET Best Podcast - Documentary and photo of a Webby Award trophy on the right over blue background

Graphic with text on left 2026 Webby Awards VOTE THE AGE OF INCARCERATION Best Individual Editorial Feature - Media Company and photo of a Webby Award trophy on the right over blue background

Long Lead is thrilled to share that two of our features have been nominated for the 2026 Webby Awards and one has been recognized as an honoree.

Your vote can help us win. Please take a chance to vote for Long Lead's features today.

Long Lead An award-winning story studio focused on finding, financing, producing, and publishing original, in-depth journalism.

Follow Long Lead now to see more of our award-winning journalism. longlead.com

She Dove to Escape Grief—And Became One of the World’s Greatest Athletes Embracing her pain, Alenka Artnik pushes the limits of the human body, on just one breath.

THE DEPTHS SHE'LL REACH took home a Webby Awards for Best Sports Website. The feature focuses on how a woman sunken by grief found herself alone on a bridge, contemplating suicide. Ten years later, she became the world’s greatest female freediver.

See her depths.

Sports Illustrated's Forgotten Pioneer In the Mad Men era of magazine journalism, Virginia Kraft was a globe-trotting writer and a deadly shot with a rifle. Why hasn't anyone heard of her?

THE CATCH — Long Lead's feature about sports journalist Virginia Kraft, reflecting on the legacy left by the lost Sports Illustrated pioneer — gained a Webby for Best Individual Editorial Feature.

Check it out now:
thecatch.longlead.com

Powerlifter Anna Kurkurina’s Rescue Mission for War-Torn Pets Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this champion weightlifter has saved and sheltered countless injured and orphaned animals.

LIFTING UKRAINE won a Webby People’s Voice Award and a Webby Award for Best Use of Photography. The photo essay focuses on Ukrainian powerlifter Anna Kurkurina, who has saved and sheltered countless injured and orphaned animals, ensuring more than just the strong will survive during wartime.

A Uniquely American Problem

LONG SHADOW: IN GUNS WE TRUST was an honoree for the Webby's Best Crime & Justice Podcast. The third season of the @vermontgmg.bsky.social -helmed show chronicles how firearms moved from being an ordinary part of the background of rural life to a menacing element of modern American life.

Listen now

Home of the Brave: Enduring the VA’s Homeless Veteran Crisis A centuries-spanning land war in LA between the U.S. government, local forces, and disabled veterans has left thousands of heroes without a place to call home.

HOME OF THE BRAVE, Long Lead's seven-part feature about the West Los Angeles VA and veterans' fight for housing on it, won the Webby Award for Best Individual Editorial Feature.

Check out the feature today:
homeofthebrave.longlead.com

Long Lead has won seven Webby Awards. Before Webby nominations are announced tomorrow, take a look at the features that have won hardware.

A New Iron Curtain: Inside the Cold War to Curb Putin's Imperial Reach From Norway to Kazakhstan, U.S. allies hold a tenuous line with Russia, the ghost of an empire that insists it has no boundaries.

For BORDER LINE WAR, Long Lead assembled a team of expert, independent journalists who have first-hand knowledge working in Russia's war zone — necessary for reporting a story about the geopolitics at play along the Russian border.

Read the feature, produced in collaboration with Magnum Photos, now

Sports Illustrated's Forgotten Pioneer In the Mad Men era of magazine journalism, Virginia Kraft was a globe-trotting writer and a deadly shot with a rifle. Why hasn't anyone heard of her?

Among the most important sports journalists of her time, Virginia Kraft chiseled early cracks into publishing’s male-dominated world. So why hasn’t anyone heard of her?

Learn more at THE CATCH: thecatch.longlead.com

She Dove to Escape Grief—And Became One of the World’s Greatest Athletes Embracing her pain, Alenka Artnik pushes the limits of the human body, on just one breath.

THE DEPTHS SHE'LL REACH recounts how freediver Alenka Artnik emerged from obscurity and mental health struggles to become one of the world’s most elite athletes. thedepths.longlead.com

Powerlifter Anna Kurkurina’s Rescue Mission for War-Torn Pets Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this champion weightlifter has saved and sheltered countless injured and orphaned animals.

Amidst the chaos of Russia's war on Ukraine, powerlifter Anna Kurkurina has rescued and rehomed countless of injured and unhoused pets that have been left to scavenge the war-torn streets.

The three-time world champion muscles through her days demonstrating unwavering strength.

3 photo graphic showing Anna Kurkurina petting two dogs in the streets of Mykolaiv, Ukraine, a photo of Alenka Artnik freediving, and a photo of sports journalist Virginia Kraft on safari

Women's history month is all about celebrating strong women and the challenges they've had to overcome.

Long Lead's features LIFTING UKRAINE, THE DEPTHS SHE'LL REACH, and THE CATCH focus on women who have broken barriers, overcoming personal struggles to achieve their goals.

A New Iron Curtain: Inside the Cold War to Curb Putin's Imperial Reach From Norway to Kazakhstan, U.S. allies hold a tenuous line with Russia, the ghost of an empire that insists it has no boundaries.

Russia’s war on Ukraine, which began in 2014 and accelerated with the full-scale invasion in Feb. 2022, is not just about land — it’s a fight over history, identity, and language.

BORDER LINE WAR explores the areas in between: the residents along the new Iron Curtain and the geopolitics at play.

Home of the Brave: Enduring the VA’s Homeless Veteran Crisis A centuries-spanning land war in LA between the U.S. government, local forces, and disabled veterans has left thousands of heroes without a place to call home.

Jasper Craven was a contributor to HOME OF THE BRAVE, Long Lead’s award-winning multimedia feature on West LA’s unhoused veteran’s crisis. The multi-part report is a tale that overflows with government malfeasance, neglect, graft, and even death.

Check it out today. homeofthebrave.longlead.com

Cracking the bro code: Jasper Craven on how toxic masculinity propels America’s military academies His new book, “God Forgives, Brothers Don’t,” explores the role military education plays in stoking America’s lust for war.

For this week's DEPTH PERCEPTION, @vermontgmg.bsky.social speaks with Craven about how he came to focus on the home front of the forever wars and the current relationship between the military and education, as well as how modern journalism undervalues undercover reporting.

Read now.

Headshot of journalist Jasper Craven, DEPTH PERCEPTION branding, and text: “There remains this stubborn germ where war feels like all America knows.… We know how to build weapons, we know how to sell weapons, and there is some resilient urge in many Americans to win — this thirst for triumphalism.” —Jasper Craven, veterans' issues journalist

Jasper Craven's beat has evolved over recent years from the fringe of U.S. politics to the central animating threat of American culture. That’s due, he says, to a sprawling crisis in masculinity that’s fueling an interconnected toxic stew of misogyny, internet culture, gambling, and violence.

Museum of Military History in Chernobyl.

Check out BORDER LINE WAR, Long Lead's latest feature in collaboration with Magnum Photos, to see what life looks like along the new Iron Curtain amidst continuing shifting geopolitics: border-line-war.longlead.com

Members of a Live Action Role Playing group parody the American Dream, dressed in American flag garb in Poland.

As of now, Russia's war in Ukraine is contained to just Ukraine. But along the Russian border, citizens live in the moments of in-between: monuments, museums, military training exercises, Victory Day concerts staged across a river, and more. border-line-war.longlead.com

From Norway to Kazakhstan, countries feel the proximity and pressure of Russia’s existence — and its military power. Is Russia pushing its neighbors into the next World War?

Check out Long Lead's latest feature BORDER LINE WAR, produced with Magnum Photos, at border-line-war.longlead.com