Criminalizing independent journalism
James R. Rodgers · 2025
This chapter starts with an analysis of the televised discussions of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his top security officials shortly before the escalation of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. It continues with an overview of the Kremlin’s relations with international correspondents during the twentieth century, setting into historical context the consideration of the challenges the challenges facing those correspondents’ successors today. The main one of those challenges was the introduction in Russia of legislation that in effect criminalized much of their legitimate journalistic activity. It includes interviews with two correspondents for British newspapers who felt that they had no option but to flee the country, offering insights into how they were able to continue to report on Russia from outside the country. It gives examples of how some western news organizations have succeeded in reporting on Russia as the war in Ukraine, and Moscow’s increasingly confrontational relations with the West, have continued. It concludes by making the case for the value of journalism in mutual understanding between Russia and the West, even at a time of such heightened tension.