Journalist | Currently at
@JSKstanford
| Co-founder
@Codastory
&
@zegfest
(check us out!) | past life: BBC foreign corr in Central Asia, Mid East,US,India
As AI takes over more of our lives and more of us retreat into our individual bubbles, that shrinking shared space we call our “public square” is ever more crucial to preserve. Journalism can help us save it, but only if we separate it from the news cycle.
“Theresa May has resigned” announced George Galloway. “Let me give you a hug,” Steve Bannon replied. I pulled a camera out just as they let go of tight embrace but here is the far right and far left very much on the same page in Almaty
#Kazakhstan
Here’s she is: the beautiful, talented, generous & ever inspiring Victoria Amelina reading poetry at the Kyiv Book fair just two days before she was hit by a Russian missile. Monsters.
“Alexey is not afraid. I am not afraid. You shouldn’t be afraid either” says
#Navalny
‘s wife before getting into car to leave the airport without her husband. What a story.
That’s right. We are witnessing an epic failure by legacy media to report from the frontline of global backlash against rising autocracy which is endangering free speech and media everywhere. No quality reporting = stronger conspiracists & disinfo = autocrats win.
This should have been the front page of every credible media source. About half a million protestors have gathered in Tbilisi, with a population of 1 million, chanting "Yes to Europe" and "No to the russian law."
just chatted with a Russian woman in Istanbul airport who was weeping from happiness about the “liberated territories” in Ukraine. “I normally stay out of politics, but finally these people are free!”… a housewife who lives in Spain, on way home to visit parents
#UkraineWar
RIP
@oksana_baulina
. Oksana was brave, fun and fierce. Before she came to
@CodaStory
to take on a project that exposed Putin's dangerous re-writing of history, she worked with Navalny production team, exposing Putin's corruption. Honor her by sharing stories she wanted to tell.
All of us at Coda are devastated that our brave colleague Oksana Baulina was killed in Kyiv. Oksana was the journalist behind Generation Gulag, which documented the dangerous re-writing of history in Putin’s Russia. Please watch and share her work.
What made Putin truly powerful was not the narratives he molded or territories that he grabbed. It was the complacent, stubborn refusal of the collective West to accept that he was at war with them.
Extraordinary: Russian MOD just put out a threatening statement against
@LaStampa
journalist
@jacopo_iacoboni
. Jacopo and I just worked together on the story below. He pissed Russian officials off so much that MOD now tells him 'Who digs the grave, crashes into it". 👇
Russia is using the
#coronavirus
crisis to carry out an “unimaginable” influence operation in a NATO country.
An investigation by
@codastory
and
@LaStampa
Not only framing of this conversation was off. It was also deeply disturbing to have been invited to the
@BBCRadio4
Media Show to be constantly interrupted and cut off & then find parts of my answers cut out of subsequent broadcasts. Here’s one example
This is so bizarre. This week’s
@bbc
Media Show asks ‘Why are Russian oligarchs only now in the spotlight?’
& ‘Why is it only now that the mainstream press has put the oligarchs in the spotlight?’
WHAT?!? We at
@guardian
&
@ObserverUK
did. The problem is
@bbc
NEVER followed up
In Russia official
#covid19
numbers are low but 5 Russian virologists contacted by
@codastory
described overwhelmed respiratory wards, shortages of protective gear + severe delays in testing. All five declined to go on the record, for fear of retribution.
“Theresa May has resigned” announced George Galloway. “Let me give you a hug,” Steve Bannon replied. I pulled a camera out just as they let go of tight embrace but here is the far right and far left very much on the same page in Almaty
#Kazakhstan
Disinformation on
#Ukraine
is spreading like wildfire across social media and beyond. Amplify and share reliable voices, especially Ukrainian voices. This piece by
@nataliegryvnyak
is a good start
In a village south of Kyiv we met Ihor Mozhaev picking through the rubble of his home after a Russian air strike Friday. He lost 5 family members, including his wife and 12yo daughter. "Just leave Ukraine alone already. God help this to end as soon as possible." (W/
@gultuysuz
)
Hate writing pieces about colleagues. But the recent
@VICENews
exclusive from Russia is a masterclass on how to become a tool in someone else’s disinformation game
This is Lekso Lashkarava. One of 53 journalists beaten by a far right mob while trying to cover
@TbilisiPride
.Lekso was operated on & recovering but this morning he died. No official cause yet but what we know is that his attackers were encouraged by the church and the government
As a genocide scholar I am an empiricist, I usually dismiss rhetoric. I also take genocide claims with a truckload of salt because activists apply it almost everywhere now.
Not now. There are actions, there is intent. It's as genocide as it gets. Pure, simple and for all to see
Speechless. Phenomenal sense of moral clarity is right. And humanity. We worked together on one of the best projects
@CodaStory
has ever done: Generation Gulag. Will share some of the amazing work later...for now just speechless
And now it's someone I've known for 16 years and worked with at several independent outlets. Oksana Baulina, a Russian journalist with phenomenal sense of moral clarity, killed by Russian rocket fire on a reporting mission in Kyiv today. I'm yet to process this.
#Ukraine
️ is not trending on Twitter in the UK anymore. The war is disappearing from our social media feeds. But no, it’s not over and this raises questions for big tech platforms that we can’t afford to leave unanswered.
It wasn’t a handshake it was a hug. It wasn’t a debate, it was a full mutual agreement on stage. Bannon did disagree with you once - you didn’t disagree with him at all. At lunch you got up six times to show Bannon smth on your phone. So let’s not pretend none of that happened
If you think I shouldn’t debate with the man who ran
@realDonaldTrump
presidential election and who continues to influence the White House you’re too stupid to be on my timeline. If you think I shouldn’t shake hands with those I’ve just debated with you’re too ill-mannered to be
A Russian pilot tells passengers that he believes “the war in Ukraine is a crime,” adding “I think each sensible citizens will agree with me and will do everything to make it stop.” Rare to see public opposition to the war given the consequences such a statement will have
This is one of
#Ukrainian
heroes. Mr. Vitaliy Kim is of Korean descent, and is currently the governor of
#Mykolaiv
Region. There is a heavy fighting against
#Russians
in his area, but he stays positive, calm and constructive. Lets make him famous!
Just as you thought things couldn’t get more confusing: ABC shows voter lines in Georgia the country while talking about
#GEORGIA
count. Georgians delighted, take to social media, demand a say in the
#Elections2020
😂
Abuse of UK’s libel laws means the game is rigged and all journalists are vulnerable “I hope everyone can look at what has happened to
@carolecadwalla
and recognize this is a sign of a system that is broken.” Says
@OliverBullough
"If you get it wrong, and you offend someone prepared to take you on, your life as you know it is over." In this week's Oligarchy,
@OliverBullough
looks at the exorbitant cost of libel litigation in the UK.
На «Дне памяти» в Узбекистане военные не смогли определиться с тем, как выразить дань уважения гимну страны — отдать честь или приложить руку к сердцу. Выглядело это комично
Navalny was a genius when it came to tech. And he had a crazy, innovative plan for using it to stand up to Putin. But
@apple
and
@Google
took Putin’s side and so the whole plan collapsed.
How Big Tech Let Navalny Down ⬇️
I think what made Putin truly powerful was not the lies he told, narratives he molded or territories that he grabbed. It was the complacent, stubborn refusal of the collective West to accept that he was at war with them.
#UkraineRussiaWar
#RussiaUkraine
Mind blowing on so many levels, including how Lukashenka just created a whole new reality for so many dissidents around the world. A simple act of flying from one safe country to another is no longer safe if you are flying over a dictator who does not like you. Insane
A commercial flight was flying from Athens to Lithuania, a flight path that has it fly over Belarus. While in Belarus's airspace, it was intercepted by military jets and forced to land, because there was a journalist from Belarus on board who is wanted in the country
No one can spin it like Putin: newsrooms across Africa are covering Putin’s generous decision to write off the continent’s 20 billion USD debt. Except… the “debt” has been written off again and again. Details in
@CodaStory
’s Disinfo matters. Do sign up
You can watch the whole thing but you won't hear the bit where I talk about Lebedev & Lukashenko going off for a private meeting after the interview. It was cut out from the program even tho it was in my Newsnight report at the time
And to understand why it is so difficult for the British establishment (including, tragically the BBC) to tackle this hugely important subject of kleptocratic influence sign up to
@OliverBullough
's brilliant Oligarchy newsletter for
@CodaStory
I can think of so many parties, conferences, gatherings where over the years my take on Russia and dangers of its imperial ambition was met with a condescending “let’s not go crazy here”.
@edwardlucas
explains the price of that attitude brilliantly 👇🏼🧵
BS: “How could you reach me? How did you get the information?”
UM: “Look, we know each of you. We have a database of your soldiers. We have telephone numbers, names, surnames, dates of birth — we know everything about you, you get it?. If you go forward, you will all die here.
NEW: Ukrainians are using hacked phone data to warn Russian (and Belarusian) troops to stay out of their country. Some of the Russian replies are… something.
It’s easy to focus on the tedious side of Brussels and take European values for granted when you are on the inside. But change your angle and it’s a whole different story. Georgia is really the best advertisment for the power, the appeal and the promise of Europe.
Before I’ll tell you why my fellow Georgians and myself are at the anti-Russian, anti-govt protests already 10 days in a row, I want to highlight that we kicked off ourmassive rally today with the EU and Georgian anthems. 1/10
Victoria Amelina now “enters the history of Ukrainian literature – a tragic history filled with unfinished books.” Fellow Ukrainian novelist
@AKurkov
’s heart-wrenching tribute to a spectacular human being murdered in Ukraine
@BBCRadio4
Media Show also undermined
@AdamBienkov
's investigations as well as
@pcaruanagalizia
's excellent reporting on Lebedev. Listeners could tell. Check out this email I received from a stranger:
It won’t make headlines but Russian soldiers just occupied a bit more of Georgia, yet again. “Creeping occupation” is real and it’s scary.
@CodaStory
teamed up with brilliant Georgian photographer Tako Robakidze to tell this story.
The death dance of democracy has begun again, just like in the 20th century, by painting human rights, freedom of the press, judicial independence, science and art to be political questions. By portraying facts and reality as a matter of threatened identity.
I feel physically sick watching
#Chernobyl
. Nauseous from ugliness of the country I was born in but even more sickened by the anger that 33 years on and it took outsiders to make this film. Exactly how I felt when I watched
@Aiannucci
’s Death of Stalin
April 9,’89 is imprinted into memory of every Georgian.Soviet tanks rolled into Tbilisi, killing & wounding pro independence demonstrations. 35 years on, a note on the victims memorial amid fresh anti Russia protests “mum, I am exactly where you were on the 9th of April” 😍💔💪
An unseen interview with Vladimir Kara-Murza. He talks about Putin, his hopes for Russia and what makes him angry. Incredibly poignant to watch it now. Pls share.
@CodaStory
When people ask why countries like Georgia or Moldova want to join NATO instead of sticking to whatever other security structures are available in the neighbourhood...well this is why. What a mess
@antelava
Ukraine intercepted report - Russian comms have broken down, so they’re using mobile phones with local SIMs to communicate - easy to intercept for the Ukrainians.
The
#Ukraine
national anthem sends chills down my spine each time I hear it. It goes:
Our enemies shall vanish
Like dew in the sun;
We too shall rule
In our beloved country.
Soul and body shall we lay down
For our freedom
look up the rest
#UkraineRussianWar
Many of us are forced to live in bombshelters and subway stations now. Forced by Russia’s extreme inhuman cruelty.
Our national anthem has become even more special to us in the last few weeks. Kharkiv.
Agree. Like everyone else I am hugely inspired by this show of super human courage but have a massive knot in the stomach thinking about what cornered and already unhinged Putin will do next
#UkraineUnderAttack
I was not the only one whose critical comments about Lebedev were quickly shut down throughout the show, while Lionel Barber was able to speak in his defence without the host offering any alternative views or allowing other guests to come in on it.
This war is causing a massive political crisis in Georgia, where the government is effectively a proxy for Russia while people are overwhelmingly on the side of
#Ukraine
. Throw in 30k Russians fleeing sanctions who are not welcome and you get one big mess
#UkraineRussianWar
Georgia’s seen around 30K Russians going in the country, debates follow whether or not to allow them in, since it’s hard to figure who is fleeing because of sanctions or because of persecution. Mixed feelings. Seen takes that later Russia will invade to “protect its population”.
stunning video coming out of iran
in mahsa amini’s hometown of saqez, thousands ignore govt road closures to walk to her gravesite
40 days after her death in the custody of iran’s morality police
“I have a memory of Oksana in a small, quiet moment in St. Petersburg while filming one of the Gulag survivors, Irina Verblovskaya.I remember Oksana taking the time to carefully comb through Irina’s hair before we started rolling.” 🧵
Really strong piece from
@paraicobrien
in Tbilisi. Bravo to
@Channel4News
for leading their bulletin with it. In Georgia democracy is being assassinated in front of our eyes, its consequential far beyond its borders
Crowds of protesters have gathered again in Georgia's capital, after police broke up demonstrations outside the parliament building.
@paraicobrien
is in Tbilisi.
Oksana Baulina was killed in Kyiv by a Russian missile strike on March 23. She died documenting the real world consequences of the historical revisionism she reported on for
@CodaStory
. Read this tribute by
@katia_patin
Here is the scene in Tbilisi right now. Woman next to me “I am afraid of Covid but I am not letting this government steal my vote’ another massive anti government protest
Thank you everyone for your messages. Andrew was in Kabul working for the UNHCR & trying to help the people of Afghanistan. We are extremely concerned for his safety & call on anyone with influence to help secure his release.
Two journalists on assignment with UNHCR and Afghan nationals working with them have been detained in Kabul. We are doing our utmost to resolve the situation, in coordination with others.
We will make no further comment given the nature of the situation.
Tbilisi last night. What you can’t see is the rain. As one friend put it “It rained but not a drop could hit the ground, that’s how close together we stood”. Incredible determination & courage esp against the violence the government has unleashed
#TbiliProtests
So many great things about
#Georgia
protests, including these amazing slogans. The Georgian one (addressing the government) reads “smoke and sirens is what we go to nightclubs for, you dicks” 🤣💪
I keep hearing accounts from non-Ukrainian/non white refugees - specifically students from Yemen and Nigeria - who are not being allowed to enter Poland. This is outrageous
#UkraineRussiaWar
#UkraineWar
#UkraineInvasion
We like to blame others for the disinformation crisis: hostile states, algorithms, big tech, pseudo journalists. But when real journalists break basic journalism rules they too become part of the disastrous information disorder. Case in point ⬇️
Every war is a test for tech. Among tech being tested in Ukraine: killer robots! This brilliantly reported
@IlyaGridneff
piece comes with a warning from
@DanielFiott
: high-tech solutions should not come at the expense of conventional arms deliveries
Russia’s war in Ukraine shows that lack of historical reckoning creates space in which lies can thrive. But what sorts of confrontation with the past is truly successful?
@E_Hellerstein
finds unexpected answers in Germany & the US
Thank you everyone for your messages. Andrew was in Kabul working for the UNHCR
@Refugees
trying to help the people of Afghanistan. We are extremely concerned for his safety & call on anyone with influence to help secure his release.
@AmrullahSaleh2
Andrew North is working for the UN in Kabul. He is a former colleague and a respected journalist. All inquiries about his situation, which his friends and colleagues are obviously concerned about, should be directed to the UN. Please correct your tweet.
“My captors waited in the van with me, watching Russian TikToks for hours on end. Honestly, that was almost worse than the beating.”
Amazing first person account of events in Georgia from Luka Gviniashvili for
@CodaStory
Lord Evgeny Lebedev 🤦♀️ Qualification: son of a Russian oligarch. Bright side: all of the other oligarch children at Eton now have a role model. To understand how it screws the rest of us sign up to Oligarchy newsletter by
@OliverBullough
Fighting for justice always brings results & the truth always prevails!
The Georgian president has just pardoned Nika from his unjust & politically motivated imprisonment!
Thank you friends for all your support ❤️
As Nika puts it, now "onwards until the final victory!"
-S
Police has used violence in Tbilisi, but then there are great photos like this (not mine!) that show: policemen are also part of the extraordinarily strong, non-negotiable consensus that’s at the very core of the society in
#Georgia
: freedom is sacred and Europe is freedom 🇬🇪
"if I’m honest, I celebrate every incinerated Russian tank. I tried to think about the soldiers inside them at the start of the war but I lost that moral battle by week two." Every line in this painfully honest piece by
@peterpomeranzev
is a pull quote.
Babchenko now: they came to me about a month ago, told me: your killing been ordered, the money has been paid.They showed me evidence and I understood that it was coming from Russia, probably from state security apparatus they offered me to take part in this sting operation
If our policy is to stay in our safe warm house and watch this slaughter through the window, toasting our newfound unity — then we have already accepted that it is Putin who defines us, not ourselves.
#mustread
from
@MollyMcKew
There is no way back.
If we want the war with Putin to end, we must see why the Ukrainians have defied all expectations, and learn to think as they do.
We must learn to see not only risk, but the opportunities born by taking them.
Via
@RenewGreatPower
So
@FT
’s
@lionelbarber
just gave the world’s top thug a platform without challenging him once on things that matter to him.Ukraine?MH17? Not a mention. You got him to say liberalism is dead except your failure to challenge him on helping it die is part of the reason he is right
Truth wins.Can’t watch this without tears.Manila court rules in favor of
@rapplerdotcom
&
@mariaressa
. Huge win for them, for the Philippines, for all of us who believe in journalism & free expression. Many more battles ahead but hope Maria & her amazing team pause to celebrate
with memories of
#Salisbury
still fresh, a site of russian NBC troops in the EU rang alarm bells for many. Chemical weapons experts I spoke to say Russia's NBC unit is believed to overlap with military intelligence (GRU)
Good day to revisit this
@CodaStory
about “Crimean Bridge. Made with Love” - a 1.5 million dollar state funded production. Money went to Margarita Simonyan who wrote the screenplay & her director husband. It’s all about how THE bridge was built …
#Crimea
Rare for a journalist to parachute in and do a piece as nuanced and considerate as this by
@shaunwalker7
for the
@guardian
. Best testimony to why the world needs proper foreign correspondents
The thing that Russians are particularly furious about is that on March 24th
@jacopo_iacoboni
reported that 80% of aid Kremlin sent to italy was "useless". Russian sent: 15 massive military planes carrying 122 officers from one of the country's most secretive units