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...
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...
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...
At Henley Literary Festival, Friday 6 October
On Friday 6 October, I will be appearing at Henley Literary Festival, in conversation with Keir Giles about our books on Russia. Keir is the author of Russia’s War on Everybody, published, like my own Assignment Moscow: Reporting on Russia from Lenin to Putin, by Bloomsbury. We will be...
Denmark: F-16’s to Ukraine for war with Russia; on holiday beaches, scars from WWII
The corner of a World War II German military bunker on the island of Fanø, Denmark, August 2023 My latest post is from Denmark, where I have been on holiday, on its decision to send F-16 warplanes to Ukraine, and on its own history of being occupied during World...
Berlin: the Soviet Union and Germany; Russia and Ukraine; War and Peace
A detail of a mosaic at the Soviet War memorial, Treptower Park, Berlin, February 2023. © James Rodgers. This post is a longer version of an article I wrote for The New European, published April 19 2023. You can read the article here. ‘GLORY’, THE GILDED TILES that spell...