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Zarina Zabrisky's Kherson doc - watch this now
Very occasionally you see a reference to Kherson on the news. A mention of 'human safari' taking place there. But not often. Kherson, a...
2 min read
Advice for aspiring journos
Brief note which I'll expand on when I've time I get lots of emails from student/young/wannabe journalists, asking for help & advice...
4 min read


Demining on the steppe - and the thorny issue of the landmine ban
Behind the scenes on the long-read for Prospect magazine about demining, landmine ban treaties, and the war in Ukraine
2 min read


Highland Book Prize
Hello. Some absolutely huge news this morning: Night Train to Odesa has won the Highland Book Prize. The shortlist was incredible (Ali...
2 min read


US Tour
If you'd told me a year ago, just as Night Train to Odesa was first hitting the shelves, that'd I'd go on a book tour all over the US,...
11 min read


The eloquent fury of Victoria Amelina
Remembering the Ukrainian journalist and novelist.
5 min read


Kharkiv, January 2025 - city of art, city of lights
BBC Radio Scotland, 1st Feb 2025 - listen here 55 mins in Full text: They do Christmas lights better than we do, in Kharkiv,...
4 min read


2023
There is such a vast gulf between Shetland and Donbas, such a lot of sea and different realities, but these are the two places that stick...
3 min read
How to send help to Ukraine
Lots of people in the UK asking me how best to help Ukrainians. So here's an initial list. Please comment/write to me to add to it, it...
1 min read


Essay: Finding community in lockdown
This was written during the first lockdown, in 2020. An abridged version was read on Radio Scotland, on 7 June that year. The reaction to...
11 min read
Prague's mass graves - Ďáblice, exhumations, the politics of memory
A story from 2019 in Prague, reported with Niels Bula for Germany's Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, broadcast on TV and radio. Long-read text below. For decades the land at the northern wall of Prague’s vast Dablice cemetery was a rubbish dump, overgrown and neglected. Few knew the significance of this spot, or were willing to talk about it. But after the Velvet Revolution in 1989, it became a site of quiet political activism. Volunteers began clearing the bushes and scrap away - a
6 min read


Oil tankers line Shetland’s horizon, but islanders face bitter fuel poverty
To avoid fuel poverty, residents of the ‘energy isles’ would need salaries of £104,000. Almost nobody here earns that
4 min read


A cult of violence
Writing against Kremlin propaganda about Ukraine.
8 min read


‘What matters most is that the support from the West doesn’t ebb’
Dispatch from Kyiv
3 min read


In the air
A day on the road with Ukrainian specialist drone unit near Russian border
5 min read


One Day in Donbas
With the frontline medics as Russians advance
7 min read


Wartime Christmas in Kharkiv
Interview with Nikolai and Lyubov, Kharkiv pensioners
4 min read


Shetland power outage report
Life is lived one day at a time as many islanders shiver and wait.
3 min read


'Forever our sister'
Ukraine war reporter remembers courageous chemistry student, 28, turned army volunteer after death on the frontline.
5 min read


Concrete resistance: how one building symbolises Kharkiv’s defiance
How one building symbolises Kharkiv’s defiance...
13 min read
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