My flight from Putin
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When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Kostyuchenko was among the few Russian independent journalists reporting from the front lines. But after learning of a plot to assassinate her, Dmitry Muratov, her editor and the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner, urged her to flee. She escaped to Germany, where
Russian journalist Elena Kostyuchenko
Brett Phelps for The Boston Globe
These days she is a Nieman fellow at Harvard. But she continues to write, as she has throughout her exile. Her recent book, 'I Love Russia: Reporting from the Lost Country,' was named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and Time in 2023.
Kostyuchenko, 37,
sat down with me to discuss her reporting in Russia, life in exile, and thoughts on President Donald Trump's allegiance with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. This interview has been edited and condensed.
Q: How did you get into journalism?
I joined Novaya Grazeta
,
Russia's largest independent newspaper
,
as an intern when I was 16, and I became a staff writer after turning 18. Since then, I was working there until the newspaper was shut down on the 34th day of Russia's invasion in 2022, after Russian authorities revoked our media license.
I worked in the Group of Reporters, a team like a special force within the paper—whenever something extreme happened—war, terrorist attacks, epidemics, natural disasters, mass killings—we were sent in first.
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Between these assignments, I focused on so-called invisible people—LGBTQ communities in southern Russia, Indigenous groups in the north, and women trapped in prostitution. I preferred reporting outside Moscow, traveling as far and as often as possible. Russia is deeply underrepresented in the media because of Putin's centralized grip on power. Even living there, we often had no idea what was happening in other regions. To truly report, you had to be on the ground, walking, seeing, and talking to people.
I got into journalism after reading the reporting of Anna Politkovskaya, known for her coverage on the Chechen war. She was the reason I joined journalism in the first place, and I truly admired her work. But she was murdered soon after I joined the paper.
Q. There were six black-and-white portraits of your murdered colleagues pinned to the newsroom at Novaya Gazeta
.
Tell us about them.
Four of them were murdered while I was working for
Novaya Gazeta. I think about them all. The most striking death for me was the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. I couldn't imagine her being killed but they did. On 7 October, 2006, Saturday, I was sent to her apartment building, where she was shot in the elevator. I saw them drag her covered body out.
Natalia Stemirova took over Anna Politkovskaya's work, but she was murdered too. Then Elena Milashina stepped into their shoes and kept reporting. She is still in Russia today.
At Novaya Gazeta, we believe in a simple strategy: There must always be people willing to step into the shoes of their murdered colleagues. The point is to make killing journalists meaningless because for every one they kill, five more will take their place, working on the same stories. Our strategy seems to be working. Elena is still alive.
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Q: In your memoir, you describe how your mother was influenced by Russian propaganda and challenged you while you were reporting in Ukraine.
My mom, like many of her generation, has been deeply affected by Russian propaganda. When I arrived in Ukraine on the first day of the full-scale invasion, she called me, trying to tell me what I was seeing and hearing, as if I couldn't trust my own eyes. I told her, 'Mom, I'm here. I talk to people. I see things.' But she insisted that state TV journalists knew better.
That same day, I had just come from the Mykolaiv morgue, where bodies were piling up. Among them were two sisters, one 17, the other just three years old. Then my mom called again, repeating the Kremlin's version of events. I couldn't take it. I sent her the photos I had taken at the morgue. She responded with some calm, detached message about civilian casualties. At that moment, I thought, 'I don't want to talk to you anymore.'
But then I realized if I cut her off, she'd just keep listening to TV. Could Putin get my mom? No. But propaganda could. Many Russians lost family over this war, cutting ties with parents, siblings, even spouses. I decided not to give up on her, and maybe she decided the same. We kept talking, and at some point, we really started to listen to each other. I have to admit it wasn't easy. But then one day, she called me and said, 'I don't think this war is just. I don't understand its purpose. I want it to end.'
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She is still in Russia. I miss her tremendously and I know she's proud of me. The last time we met was over winter break. She gave me a little pendant that was crafted to resemble my mom's eyes. I don't know when I will see her again.
Q: You went to Ukraine on Feb 24, 2022, and you haven't been back to Russia since.
I wasn't forced into exile. I was on a business trip to Ukraine, like I had done all my life. I packed my bulletproof vest, helmet, one pair of trousers, underwear, sweaters, and T-shirts. I left for Ukraine thinking I'd be back in a week or two. But I never came back home since then. I received an
I crossed the Ukrainian-Polish border and moved to Germany. I was furious that I wasn't able to document war crimes in Mariupol. Muratov [her editor at the time] asked me not to go back to Russia right away for a while, explaining that I might be killed there and it would look like an attack towards nationalists. We both thought that my absence was temporary.
But a few months later, I felt severely ill on a train to Munich. My sweat smelled like rotten fruits and my brain couldn't process the maps when I tried to call an Uber. I thought it might be COVID. I know the Russian regime had poisoned journalists before on Russian soil but I didn't think they would do something against journalists abroad. Those who were poisoned abroad are former Russian security agents, but I am not. I know it sounds super naive now. But at the time, I didn't believe it, my wife didn't believe it until doctors told us that poisoning is the only theory left after two months of examination.
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What hurts me the most is that I never had a chance to choose. I would never choose to leave Russia. More than anything, I want to go back to Russia, to live and write there. I want my life back. I want to do what I did for 17 years. I'm quite a boring person, you know? But I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even be able to leave the airport if I go back. So it's pointless. I don't know when I will be able to go back home.
Q: Do you experience a sense of loss, or do you feel relief that you're away from your country?
So far it's hard for me to even admit the loss because once you admit it, you start to truly feel it. You say, 'Okay, I lost something. It hurts.' Before coming here, I was kind of delusional. I couldn't even admit that I had lost my country. I admitted it in the subtitle of my book, but I couldn't start to feel it. Of course, I really enjoy my peaceful time here. I don't miss a policeman beating me up or spitting on me or something like that.
I'm taking a course called
"
Loss"
at Harvard. Every class focuses on a specific type of loss: losing a person, a beloved pet, or experiencing exile. What this class amazes me the most is that students are so open to their feelings, about what they see and what they cry about.
Q: How are your former colleagues at Novaya Gazeta
coping with the increasingly restrictive media landscape in Russia?
Many journalists who fled Russia established Novaya Gazeta Europe, while those who stayed are running what we call the remains of Novaya Gazeta. They can't even call themselves journalists anymore, just 'researchers.'
Our chief editor at the time Dmitry Muratov stepped down after being labeled a 'foreign agent.' He did not want his status to cast a shadow over what was left of the paper. My younger sister chose to stay and continues working in the investigative department. I'm very proud of her.
The work is incredibly difficult now. I recently asked her what her next story would be. She said, 'We don't have the luxury to plan anymore.' Every day, she leaves home not knowing if she will return. If she wakes up to an alarm clock instead of police pounding on her door, she has the luxury of one more day. Then, and only then, can she think about what to do next. It's even worse than how I used to work.
Q: In 2013, Russia introduced its first 'gay propaganda' ban, which broadly defined to mean any positive or neutral depiction or discussion of non-heterosexual relations. While protesting for LGBTQ rights in Russia with your girlfriend at the time, you were attacked, arrested, and even sent to the hospital.
The situation is way worse than before the war. In December 2022,
[In November 2023], our Supreme Court declared the so-called
The worst situation is for transgender people. [In July 2023],
Trump's promise to end the war in Ukraine has put the invasion back in the spotlight. What are your thoughts on the recent US-Russia talks about ending the war? Many people think Trump is too friendly with Putin. What do you think?
A lot here scares me. It's like I'm watching reruns of a show I've already seen. Right now, I feel like I'm in Russia in 2012 or something. The rise of antiabortion and anti-trans laws [in the U.S.] reminds me of what happened in Russia. Russia has set a global trend, and I am devastated to see the United States following this rightward shift.
Fascism sucks. It always leads to war. And if you allow your highest politician to say fascist things out loud, at first, it's shocking. But then, it turns into an ideology, or a culture. And then the war comes. I wonder how many Americans realize that. About Putin and Trump, well, if they weren't both so antigay, they probably would have found true love in each other.
Ukrainians should be the ones to decide when they want peace and what and how this peace would look like. For me, it looks like two very big powers are about to make a decision about a small country which was attacked. I don't think it's moral.
Q: How do you maintain your love for your country, as reflected in the title of your book?
This love is hard. It hurts a lot, but I don't want to reject it. I do believe that love is the strongest power in the universe, which can comfort death sometimes. I love my country. This feeling in exile is painful. I feel it all the time. I cannot forget about it. It kind of defines my life for better and for worse.
I wrote an entire book to express a simple idea: stay vigilant. You can lose your country, and when it happens, nothing you do ever feels like enough. Our civil duty is to stop it from falling into darkness.
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