Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Chapter 2: What challenges do journalists face when reporting in Putin's Russia?
Millions of Russians fell into poverty when the economic reforms began and you had this sort of switch from the state-controlled economy of communism to wild capitalism, basically. So it was a difficult year for many people. But on the other hand, the thing I remember most about the 1990s was this sense of hope. that finally East and West could put behind them the Cold War era confrontation.
Well, how were you received as a Westerner at this particular moment?
Very warmly. I think it was 1997. I got a call saying, would you like to go on Russian TV's premiere comedy show? It's called The White Parrot Club. Basically, it involved various Russian celebrities sitting around every week telling each other jokes. I present to you all... Steve Rosenberg. And this was a special edition devoted to British humour.
Doctor, doctor, in 59 seconds I'll die. Wait a minute.
LAUGHTER
Very often, the white parrot club was filmed in a pub. And there was a white parrot, I think, called Arkasha in a cage. And apparently, I've heard that they used to let Arkasha out from time to time. And he used to fly around the pub or the bar, landing on alcohol and drinking some of these drinks. So the symbol of Russia is the double-headed eagle.
But my first experience of a bird in Russia was a tipsy parrot called Arkasha in the white parrot club. Yeah. Anyway, so we're sitting around in this Moscow bar and the president of the White Parrot Club, who was a huge star called Yuri Nikulin. He was a famous clown in the Soviet Union. He ran the Moscow Circus, a big film star.
He told the story of his World War II adventures and how Britain and the Soviet Union had been on the same side. And it really felt as if we were on the same side, right? And we were going to walk off into the sunset together, the West and Russia, and be friends forevermore. And they asked me to sing a song.
So I sat down on the piano and I played this kind of British classic, Daisy Daisy.
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Chapter 3: How has the crackdown on freedom of speech affected journalism in Russia?
It was the first song that came to mind, but actually thinking back to it, I think it was quite appropriate. Because there's a line in the song, you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle made for two.
You'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle made for two.
And that's how I felt at the time. I did feel as if Britain and Russia were on this bicycle made for two. And we were going to be going in the same direction. And it was the start of a great new world. And it just didn't work out.
As you say, it hasn't quite worked out as many people might have hoped or expected in the 1990s. Do you remember the moment when you had a sense for the first time that things might change? I think when Vladimir Putin took over.
So I joined the BBC Moscow Bureau in 1997 as a producer. But in 1999, this was New Year's Eve, the Bureau was empty. I was the only one in the office at that moment in the morning. And suddenly there was breaking news. Boris Yeltsin had resigned. Huge news, right? And I was the only one around. So I had to, muggins here, do the first dispatch, radio dispatch on this breaking news.
So as I was sweating profusely, I managed to stumble through my first kind of national BBC dispatched. Boris Yeltsin always said he would see out his full term in office. Today, he told Russians he'd changed his mind. So in a sense, my career as a reporter began the same day as Vladimir Putin's career as president.
Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister, had become acting president and was elected president a few months later. Clearly, he was a very different kind of president from Boris Yeltsin. Boris Yeltsin had a thick skin. There were TV channels in Russia that criticized him, and he didn't care. He didn't close them down. Also, he was not from the KGB or the FSB now, the Russian Security Service.
He was a party apparatchik, Communist Party apparatchik originally. Vladimir Putin, his background was security services. He was a much younger leader. And he came into power at a very difficult time for Russia. There'd been a banking crisis. Many Russians were craving stability. And Putin came into power and said, look, okay, I'm going to restore order.
But it was clear pretty quickly that restoring order meant restoring the power of the center, the power of the Kremlin. And anyone who resisted that, clearly the Kremlin was going to ensure that you couldn't defeat the Kremlin. And that's what happened.
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Chapter 4: What personal experiences shaped Steve Rosenberg's view of reporting in Russia?
You have to think so hard about the phrasing of a question and practice it.
Steve Rosenberg, BBC News.
So, yeah, in December 2025, I was lucky I got a question. And... Yeah, I asked Vladimir Putin, how did he see the future of Russia? Were there going to be more special military operations? Was he going to continue to cut off the mobile internet for people? That's happening a lot here. Was the hunt for enemies, internal enemies and external enemies, going to continue?
Were critics of the authorities going to be prosecuted like they are now? So I packed a lot into it, and I said, you know, Basically, power is in your hands in this country. So what kind of future are you going to build for your country? And, yeah, he replied, a nine and a half minute reply.
And even though, obviously, one question at a press conference is not as good as an interview, you can still find out quite a lot about... the Russian president, I think, from one response at a press conference. He was clearly fueled by resentment of the West. That comes through time and time again when he responds.
He believes in his mind that Russia has been duped, Russia has been deceived by the West for years. He believes Western leaders broke promises to Russia. And this is fueling, to a large extent, his actions. He comes across as confident. He believes that he's got the edge now, that he's got the initiative on the battlefield. Now, whether he's right or not is another matter.
But he is focused on the war. He's animated when talking about the war. He's energized when talking about the war. And actually looking at him at that press conference and generally when he makes speeches, it's hard to imagine Vladimir Putin as a peacetime leader again.
And then after the press conference, it's not over because then, because I asked a question, lots of Russian television crews then come up to you. and starts sort of bombarding you with questions.
What did you think of the president's answer?
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