Ukraine War

BBC News Russia editor Steve Rosenberg spoke via a sometimes erratic video link from Moscow, posing the question: “In today’s Russia, does a foreign correspondent still have the opportunity to do journalism?

Rosenberg joined the BBC’s Moscow Bureau as a producer in 1997 “at a time when Russia and the West were still partners – it’s very different now… in recent months, journalists from ‘unfriendly’ countries [largely the UK and the West] have been barred from major events such as the Victory Day Parade on Red Square.”

If we ever needed reminding that truth is the first casualty of war the conflict in Ukraine has supplied an abundance of misinformation and propaganda. War has also, wrote the historian AJP Taylor, just as reliably been the mother of invention for everything from battlefield hardware to advances in conflict journalism. 

The Ukrainian government had been warning of Russian saboteurs infiltrating the country and attacking civilians in their cars as they fled. And so, apprehensive but with one eye still on the story, camera operator Richie Mockler started rolling.

Even now his footage makes for terrifying viewing. It begins with an ambiguous bang, before the team quickly realise they are being ambushed. Despite the hail of gunfire, they somehow all make it out alive, but not without Mockler and Ramsay both taking bullets.

After Russia’s war censorship laws were introduced following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it became virtually impossible to speak up against the war in Russia. Journalists fled the country, media outlets closed, and individuals began to be arrested as they criticised the conflict.

Storyville, Inside Russia: Traitors and Heroes follows one small, independent YouTube channel battling against this censorship. Two journalists document stories from the perspectives of a selection of Russian citizens throughout the past year of war.