Inside Russia With Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan

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.

Investigative journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, long-time chroniclers of Russia’s security services and crackdown on independent media, offer a rare window into how the war has fractured Russian society. Drawing on their reporting and their interviews with fellow journalists, artists, and former colleagues now scattered across Europe, they explore how Putin’s regime has turned friends into enemies, silenced opposition, and created a generation defined by betrayal, exile, and survival.

What does life look like inside today’s Russia? 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.

Roland Oliphant is a seasoned journalist with extensive experience reporting on Russia. Currently serving as a chief foreign analyst at The Telegraph. Prior to this, Roland worked as a Business and Environment Correspondent for The Moscow Times and as a Moscow Correspondent for The Faster Times. Additional experience includes serving as a Staff Writer at Russia Profile and as an Editor at RIA Novosti, focusing on the editing and cross-referencing of news translated from Russian.