At The Frontline Club in London: 25 Years of Putin
Russian soldiers in Grozny. Chechnya, March 2000. © James Rodgers Are you in London on March 26? If so, please join us at the Frontline Club for a discussion marking 25 years since Vladimir Putin was first elected president of Russia.On 26 March 2000, I was reporting for the...
Latest Radio Interviews on Russia and Ukraine
This week I have given a number of radio interviews on President Trump’s proposal for a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war. My take essentially is that Russia and Ukraine remain too far apart for a ceasefire to work. With the United States having temporarily suspended arms supplies and intelligence...
Trump’s Ukraine Offer Gives Putin The Place He Wants in History
The White House, Washington DC, July 2024 © James Rodgers This piece was first published on the website of The Conversation on February 18, 2025. You can read that version here. The meeting in Saudi Arabia between senior delegations from the United States and Russia could be the first...
Chechnya: 30 Years Since The Start of Modern Russia’s Wars
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...
A Rare Perspective On Orwell’s Era, and Our Own
BOOK REVIEW: GEORGE ORWELL AND RUSSIA BY MASHA KARP Red Square showing part of the Moscow Kremlin, March 2019 © James Rodgers This post is a review of Masha Karp’s George Orwell and Russia (Bloomsbury). The review is published in the current issue (25:10) of the academic journal ‘Journalism’,...
Reporting on The Putsch to Save Soviet Power: Moscow, August 19, 1991
To mark the anniversary of the attempted coup in Moscow on August 19, 1991, I am sharing an extract from Assignment Moscow: Reporting on Russia from Lenin to Putin that covers those days that decided the fate of the dying Soviet Union. DECLARING THAT GORBACHEV had resigned for health...
Alexander Werth Reporting from Stalingrad in World War II–Conclusion
This is the second and final part of my article on Alexander Werth’s reporting from the Soviet Union during World War II. You can read the first part here, and the whole article on the website of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television where it was first...
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...
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...