Date: 25 June 2026, 18:30-20:00

Location: R. 017, Altes Finanzamt, Landshuter Str. 4, 93047, Regensburg

Speakers: Leonid Ragozin, Vladimir Shvedov; Moderator: Jędrzej Morawiecki (University of Wrocław)

Organizers: “Denkraum Ukraine” / “Think Space Ukraine” at the University of Regensburg, financed by the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) through the funds from the Federal Foreign Office (AA), Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS) 

Language: English

The meeting will center on conversations with journalists who left Russia and openly oppose Russian aggression in Ukraine. We will examine the forms of both soft and hard repression they experienced – how pressure intensified gradually (“boiling the frog”) and in sudden escalations (“tightening the screws”). Guests will reflect on the moment they realized that free journalism in Russia had definitively ended. Can a shared timeline be drawn, or do different reporters point to different turning points? Has free journalism ever truly existed in Russia, and if so, for how long? How did their perception of Soviet-era journalism shape their understanding, and has this perspective changed?

We will also explore the personal consequences of this “end of the free world”: How has their understanding of the profession evolved? Who are they now after such a profound rupture? Who can they write to, and who is now beyond reach?

By combining individual stories with broader reflection, this session will help us understand not just the challenges journalists face, but the systemic forces that shape media in Russia today.

Leonid Ragozin

Leonid Ragozin is a freelance journalist - originally from Russia, but based in Latvia since 2014. Reporting for English-language media, he has covered most of the greatest political upheavals that occurred in Eastern Europe during the last two decades, prominently including the conflict in Ukraine. Leonid spent a total 12 years working in different parts of the BBC, eventually becoming a senior TV/radio producer at the BBC Moscow Bureau. He also reported from over 30 countries on all inhabited continents during his three-year stint as a foreign correspondent for Russian Newsweek. Leonid co-authored a Norwegian book on Russia and the conflict in Ukraine, Den Eiropeisk Tragedie, as well as numerous Lonely Planet guidebook titles, including Russia, Ukraine, China and Germany. 

Vladimir Shvedov

Vladimir Shvedov, Managing Editor, «Verstka». Born in Vladivostok. From 2015 to 2022 worked as an editor in the socially oriented media «Takie Dela». Since 2022, is an editor at «Verstka». Also collaborates with other anti-war russian-language projects abroad. Based in Germany.

Unfortunately, Masza Makarowa is no longer able to attend the event.