Arkady Ostrovsky is an award-winning author and journalist who leads The Economist’s coverage of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

He has three decades of experience reporting and analysing domestic and foreign affairs in Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet Union. His cover stories and special reports have helped to shape Western policy and thinking about the region. He joined the Economist in 2007 after 10 years with The Financial Times.

He holds a doctorate degree from Cambridge University in English Literature. His book The Invention of Russia won the 2016 Orwell Prize.

Highlights

Next Year in Moscow
Episode 10. A farewell to arms

Life and death
in Putin’s gulag

Escape from the meat grinder: the making of a Russian deserter

The Invention of Russia

How did a country that liberated itself from 70 years of Soviet rule end up as one of the biggest threats to the West and to its own future? Why did the people who rejected communist ideology accept a new regime of state propaganda?

The Invention of Russia is a groundbreaking reconsideration of the events leading up to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and of the country’s march towards militarism and authoritarianism under Putin. Its main characters are not politicians but those who took charge of the media and the message and invented Russia’s dominant narrative. First published in 2015 it clearly warned about the dangers of the largest war in Europe since 1945.

Next year in Moscow.
A podcast about Russia’s future

When Putin started shelling Ukraine in February 2022, free-thinking Russians faced a fateful choice: lie low, resist or flee. Hundreds of thousands decided to leave. Because for them the war meant Russia itself had lost its meaning and its future. Now they have to rebuild their lives and their hopes for Russia from exile. Can they get their country back? In this eight-part series, Arkady Ostrovsky travels across Europe and the Middle East to find out. The answer may hold the key to ending the war.