Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov, "Our Dear Friends in Moscow: The Inside Story of a Broken Generation" (PublicAffairs, 2025)

Nov 18, 2025

Irina Borogan, an investigative journalist now in exile, and Andrei Soldatov, co-founder of Agentura.ru, dive into their new book that chronicles the painful split among friends in journalism against Putin's regime. They discuss the shock of former colleagues embracing authoritarian ideologies, the establishment of a watchdog for Russian security services, and the early signs of media suppression. Their experiences illuminate the stark contrast between early hopes for democracy and the grim reality of a controlled society, urging reflections on the complicity of intellectuals in both Russia and the West.

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INSIGHT

War Exposed Deep Social Fractures

The 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine shattered expectations and revealed deep splits among Russian intellectuals and journalists.
Borogan and Soldatov wrote the book to understand how former friends came to support a brutal war and authoritarianism.

ANECDOTE

Origin Story Of Agentura.ru

Agentura.ru began in 2000 as a crowdsourced watchdog to expose Russia's secret services using internet tools and investigative reporting.
Soldatov and Borogan launched it while working at Izvestia to gather declassified-like materials and build public scrutiny of security agencies.

INSIGHT

Stability Traded For Freedoms

Putin's early attacks on oligarch-owned independent media and fears from the 1998 crisis made many Russians accept curbs on freedoms for stability.
That acceptance allowed the systematic takeover of media and weakening of institutions with little mass pushback.

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1991 ushered in a new epoch of hope as Russia marched toward democracy and prosperity on the ruins of the Soviet Union. In 2025 those hopes for a thriving, democratic Russia have not panned out. Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov lived it as journalists in Russia from the start of Putin’s reign. Specialists in documenting Russia’s secret services, they’ve reported many, many important stories over the past decades. Our Dear Friends in Moscow: The Inside Story of a Broken Generation (PublicAffairs, 2025) tells an intimate story of a group of friends in journalism whose view diverged against the backdrop of Putin’s revanchist, authoritarian rule. Soldatov and Borogan narrate the personal, perplexing, and painful story of the friends and colleagues who assimilated Kremlin-aligned views as the authors themselves moved from opposition journalists to exiles under threat from the Putin’s regime. This conversation scratches the surface of the book’s riveting and important attempt to make sense of polarization and allegiances with weighty consequences.

Andrei Soldatov is a Russian investigative journalist in exile, co-founder and editor of Agentura ru, a watchdog of the Russian secret services’ activities. He has been covering security services and terrorism issues since 1999.

Irina Borogan is a Russian investigative journalist in exile. 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.

Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov are currently fellows at King’s College London and the Center for Europan Policy Analysis (CEPA). They are co-authors of four books: The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia's Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB (2010); The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia's Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries (2015); The Compatriots: The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia's Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad (2019);and Our Dear Friends in Moscow: The Inside Story of a Broken Generation (2025).

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