Tag: war
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...
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...
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...
THE NEW EDITION OF ‘ASSIGNMENT MOSCOW: REPORTING ON RUSSIA FROM LENIN TO PUTIN’ will be published in the U.K. and U.S. on May 18. It includes new material covering the Covid-19 pandemic; the jailing of the Russian opposition politician, Alexei Navalny, and, of course, Russia’s escalation of its war...
THE MEDIA WAR THAT HAS ACCOMPANIED RUSSIA’S INVASION OF UKRAINE has shown how important a part of 21st century conflict journalism is, and also demonstrated the power authoritarian regimes possess to restrict reporting–even in the age of smartphones and social media. In a move that echoed the draconian censorship...
ON FRIDAY 20TH JANUARY AT 1900 I will be chairing a live discussion, ‘Reporting from Russia’, at the Frontline Club in London. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a war not only on a neighbouring country, but also a war on journalism. New laws rushed through the Russian parliament in...
RUSSIA’S ATTACK ON UKRAINE in February this year focused international attention on the Kremlin’s imperial ambitions in a way unseen since the collapse of the Soviet Union. At the same time, Russia introduced new legislation making normal journalism all but impossible. To call a ‘war’ by its real name–instead...
MY FIRST INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENT was in a past century, to a place that no longer exists. This week, I have been thinking a lot about that–for the story I covered then dominates Europe as it has not done since, and, on Friday 10th June, was the reason a president...
THE AUDIENCE WAS SILENT THROUGHOUT, only stirring to hush some people from the venue who had started a whispered conversation at the back of the hall. When the time came for them to question the author, they slowly began to raise their hands. They seemed still to be trying...
Finding your way in a strange city has got easier with apps, but even they can let you down in urban areas where the closeness of buildings confuses the software. I was a little late. My flight had been on time; the car I had booked had turned up;...