ABOUT

This is a site about the books and other writing by James Rodgers, author of Assignment Moscow: Reporting on Russia From Lenin to Putin (new edition 2023; first published July 2020); Headlines from the Holy Land (2015 and 2017); No Road Home: Fighting for Land and Faith in Gaza (2013); Reporting Conflict (2012). My work looks at how stories of international affairs, especially armed conflict, are told to the world.

BIOGRAPHY

I am an author and journalist. During two decades of covering international news, I reported on the end of the Soviet Union; the wars in Chechnya; the coming to power of Vladimir Putin; 9/11; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the 2003 war in Iraq; Russia’s war with Georgia in 2008. I completed correspondent postings for the BBC in Moscow, Brussels, and Gaza. I now teach in the Journalism Department at City St George’s, University of London.

Tag: Chechnya

Grozny 2000: the Start of Putin’s 25 Years of War

March 29, 2025
This post is an extract from an article published earlier this week by The New European . I wrote it to mark the 25th anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s first victory in a Russian presidential election. The day of the vote, I was reporting for the BBC from Grozny, a...

Chechnya: 30 Years Since The Start of Modern Russia’s Wars

December 12, 2024
The centre of Grozny, Chechnya, Russian Federation, spring 1995 © James Rodgers Thirty years ago this week, the Russian army began its assault on Grozny at the start of the Chechen War. In a world currently suffering several wars, including Russia’s war on Ukraine, it is not surprising this...

Vladimir Putin: 20 Years Of Telling A New Story Of Russia

April 17, 2020
On the 20th anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s first being elected president of Russia, I wrote for The Conversation about how Russia’s place in the world, and the technology used to tell its story, have changed since. You can read that piece here, and a complete text follows. It contains...