Yury Dud

Yury Aleksandrovich Dud (Ю́рий Алекса́ндрович Дудь,, also spelled Yuri Dud; born 11October 1986) is a German-born Russian journalist known primarily for his informational online videos he distributes as a YouTuber.

Dud was born on 11 October 1986 in the city of Potsdam in East Germany to Alexander Petrovich Dud, the head of Bauman Moscow State Technical University's military department and professor of military science, and Anna Stepanovna Dud, a schoolteacher of chemistry.

In 1990, his family moved to Moscow.

Dud has lived in Russia since the age of four.

He considers himself to be of Ukrainian origin and particularly Russian by identity.

Dud played football as a child and dreamt of becoming a goalkeeper, but had to stop playing because of asthma.

However, this passion got him interested in sports journalism.

In 2001, Dud began working at the Russian newspaper Izvestia as a freelance journalist; he became a staff journalist at the age of 16.

In 2007, Dud began working for the sports magazine PROSPORT.ru, which was then in the sports division of NTV Plus.

In 2008, he graduated from the MSU Faculty of Journalism.

From 2011 to 2013, Dud hosted the TV show Headbutt (Удар головой) on Russia-2.

From 2011 to 2018, Dud was editor-in-chief of Sports.ru.

From 2015 to 2017, he hosted the show KultTura (КультТура) on the newly launched TV channel Match TV.

The show was taken off the air due to poor ratings and a lack of sponsors.

In 2017, Dud launched his YouTube channel, vDud (вДудь), where he interviews individuals from Russia and other post-Soviet states.

He is one of the most popular YouTubers in Russia, with vDud having over ten million subscribers as of early 2022.

His series of socio-political interviews have included multiple opponents of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and related foreign policies of the nation.

This has brought him attention from worldwide audiences and opposition from Vladimir Putin's government.

On 11April 2022, Dud released Человек во время войны (English: Man in the Time of War / Man in War), a film project based upon his research into the Ukrainian refugee crisis.

In February 2017, Dud launched the YouTube channel (вДудь), where he interviews famous figures, including musicians (mainly rappers), politicians, journalists, film directors, and businesspeople.

He has been deputy director-general of the sports website Sports.ru since 2018, having previously served as the editor-in-chief from 2011 to 2018.

In 2018, he moved to the position of deputy director-general.

The channel quickly became a success; his 2018 interview with influencer Nastya Ivleeva received over 30million views.

In September 2019, Dud was awarded GQ Russia's Person of the Year prize in the Face From the Screen category.

In his speech at the ceremony, he urged his colleagues to break the silence around police brutality, corruption, and election rigging.

The next day, the Kremlin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told media that he does not advise for those words to be projected onto the whole of society.

By 2021, Dud became the most popular Russian blogger.

In his article "D — Dud" ("Д — Дудь") as part of his "Words of Russia" project ("Слова России"), Yury Saprykin wrote that Dud became a voice of the new generation in his country.

In his interviews, he openly speaks with guests on topics that are not represented in state media.

Saprykin stated that Dud, through his work, reinvents recent Russian history and presents it without state propaganda.

By November 2021, the channel had more almost 10 million subscribers and his 2020 documentary How the World's IT Capital Works had received over 40 million views.

Forbes estimated Dud's annual income in 2021 to be $1.8 million.

On 17 June 2021, the authorities opened a case against Dud for allegedly distributing "drug propaganda" in his interviews with a Ukrainian blogger and a Russian rapper; Dud had included the disclaimer "drugs are evil, don't consume them" at the beginning of the videos.

In October, he was sentenced to a 100,000ruble (US$) fine.

Dud tried to appeal the ruling, but the Moscow City Court declined his appeal.

Following a mass crackdown in Belarus on the media, the GUBOPiK of the Belarusian interior ministry labelled three videos on his channel as extremist in 2022.

The videos were about stand-up comedian Slava Komissarenko, who fled Belarus and openly opposes the government of Alexander Lukashenko.

The Committee to Protect Journalists criticized the decision and called on Belarusian authorities to reverse it and "stop using the country's extremism legislation to silence independent journalism".

Over time, Dud's YouTube channel grew from one-on-one interviews to documentary films on social issues and recent Russian history.

By June 2020, the channel received over one billion views.