Inside Russia

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has presented a paradox: internationally isolated, under sanctions, with tens of thousands dead, yet domestically, the mood appears strangely calm. Dissent is rare. Exile is rising. Fear and propaganda have tightened their grip.

Now, with Russia intensifying missile and drone assaults on Ukraine, violating NATO airspace, and reviving Soviet-style repression at home, the stakes have only grown higher. What looks like calm inside Russia is underpinned by fear, surveillance, and the calculated suppression of truth.

Investigative journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, long-time chroniclers of Russia’s security services and crackdown on independent media, will be joined by Drew Hinshaw, senior correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. Together they will explore how Putin’s regime has turned friends into enemies, silenced opposition, and created a generation defined by betrayal, exile, and survival, while also revealing how Russia’s provocations, from repression at home to hostage diplomacy abroad, shape global security today.

What does life look like inside today’s Russia? How far can Moscow’s provocations go before the risks spill beyond its borders? And what can we learn from those who stayed, and those who fled?

Andrei Soldatov is a Russian investigative journalist, co-founder, and editor of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of the Russian secret services’ activities. He is co-author with Irina Borogan of The New Nobility. The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB (PublicAffairs, 2010), The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia’s Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries (PublicAffairs, 2015) and The Compatriots: The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia's Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad (PublicAffairs, 2019).

Irina Borogan is a Russian investigative journalist in exile, co-founder, and deputy editor of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of the Russian secret services’ activities. Borogan reported on terrorist attacks in Russia, including hostage takings in Moscow and Beslan. In 1999 Borogan covered the NATO bombing in Yugoslavia, in 2006 she covered the Lebanon War and tensions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. She chronicled the Kremlin's campaign to gain control of civil society and strengthen the government's police services under the pretext of fighting extremism. Borogan has written extensively of the role of the Russian intelligence and security agencies in the war in Ukraine.

Drew Hinshaw is a senior correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and co-author of Swap: Inside the U.S.–Russia Hostage War. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, his reporting has taken him from Russia and Eastern Europe to some of the world’s most complex conflicts. His latest work investigates how the Kremlin revived Cold War tactics of hostage-taking, reshaping global politics in the process.

Roland Oliphant is Chief Foreign Correspondent / Chief Foreign Analyst at The Telegraph, specialising in international politics, Russia, and conflict zones.

He has reported from front lines across Eastern Europe and beyond, covering crises, geopolitical tensions, and breaking global news.