Gershkovich Trial is a Dangerous New Development for Journalism in Russia
This week my colleague Dina Fainberg and I wrote for The Conversation about the case of the U.S. correspondent, Evan Gershkovich, who is on trial in Russia on spying charges. This is an extract from the article. You can read the full version, where we place the case in...
Special Derby Book Festival Event, with Clive Myrie
ON JULY 29th I will be in conversation with my former BBC colleague Clive Myrie at the Derby Theatre, a special event organized by the Derby book festival. We will be discussing his book Everything is Everything, and my own work in, and writing on, Russia–including Assignment Moscow: Reporting...
A European Journey 80 years after D-Day
AS I LEFT my house in London that morning, I passed the door of another: a house where once I heard the stories of an old soldier. He came to live in my street for what became the last years of his life. Victor Syborn was part of the...
To Germany by train: a journey through European history
A railway bridge over the Rhine in Mannheim, Germany © James Rodgers For this week’s New European, I wrote about travelling from London to Germany by train, and about the railways’ history in European culture, commerce, and conflict. TIRED OF DELAYS and of all those onerous, if necessary, security...
Book Review: ‘How Finland Survived Stalin’ by Kimmo Rentola
I have not posted on here for some weeks because research for my next book, on Russia and The West since the end of the Cold War, has been my priority. I have, though, done some journalism, a review of How Finland Survived Stalin (yale.edu). I have published the...
Crimea 2014: the West’s ‘terrible mistake’. Was it the first? War in Ukraine, two years after 2022
A hoarding opposite the Russian embassy in Berlin, February 2023 © James Rodgers This latest post is an article I wrote for a special issue of Baltic Rim Economies, published in February 2024 to mark the second anniversary of the escalation of Russia’s war on Ukraine. You can read...
Defying Putin: Remembering Navalny, and my Gift from Ukraine
Flowers laid in memory of the Russian opposition politician, Boris Nemtsov, at the site of his murder near the Kremlin in 2015. Photograph from March 2019 © James Rodgers THE DEATH IN PRISON THIS WEEK of Alexei Navalny, the highest profile critic of Vladimir Putin, has reminded the world...
Tucker Carlson and Putin: A New Chapter in the Kremlin’s History with western media
This post brings together some of my media commentary on Carlson’s interview with Putin, which was posted on Carlson’s website on 8th February 2023 ‘THE ANSWER WE GOT SHOCKED US,’ Tucker Carlson told viewers of his interview with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. He was explaining his astonishment at...
The Soviet capital choked with grief: Witnessing Lenin’s funeral, Moscow 1924
On January 26th, 1924, the New York Times published Walter Duranty’s report of Lenin’s funeral, as well as an obituary of the late Soviet revolutionary leader. This post is a brief extract from my book, Assignment Moscow: Reporting on Russia from Lenin to Putin, on day the young Soviet...
Gaza, Israel, Peace and War in the Middle East
Over the Christmas and New Year holiday, I took the opportunity to reflect on the war in Gaza. Based on my experience of being there as a correspondent from 2002-2004, and on my subsequent research and writing, this new post is the result of that reflection. EVEN WHEN I...