I focus on the human aspect of wars and civil strife, exposing human rights abuses and war crimes, explaining and understanding terrorism, revealing the people forced to become refugees and migrants, and describing life under repressive regimes and the social resistance to them.
My Background
I began my newspaper career at The Moscow Times in the 1990s, reporting in Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union. I joined The Times in 1999 and covered the war in Kosovo and the fall of President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia. I spent 10 years reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan after the attacks of 9/11. I was based in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, from 2013-17, covering the aftershocks of the Arab Spring. And from 2017-22, I was the Istanbul bureau chief, covering Turkey and northern Syria. I have been published in The Economist and The Financial Times.
My recent work has included investigations into Saudi Arabia’s influence on the post-conflict societies of Kosovo and Afghanistan as part of a series on the Gulf kingdom, and another on growing Iranian interference in Afghanistan as part of a series on Iran. I was part of a Times team that received the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2009 and a team that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for reporting from Ukraine in 2023. I’ve also won an Overseas Press Club award for human rights for reporting from Bucha, Ukraine.
I was educated in Newnham College, Cambridge, with a degree in French and Russian.
Journalistic Ethics
Like all Times journalists, I am committed to upholding the standards of integrity outlined in our Ethical Journalism Handbook. I work hard to make sure my reporting is accurate and fair. I believe in the importance of traveling to the scene to verify events, reporting what I see and what people on the ground say. I do not accept money or favors from anyone who might figure in my reporting and I do not pay anyone for an interview. I do not participate in politics, nor do I make political donations.
The State Department said Russia had used chloropicrin, a poison gas widely used during World War I, against Ukrainian forces, an act that would violate a global ban signed by Moscow.
As they return with physical and psychological wounds stemming from torture by their Russian captors, soldiers are being sent back to active duty — often without adequate treatment.
Ukrainian farmers and miners and their families who live to the west of the recently captured Avdiivka are poised to flee in the face of a Russian onslaught.
The tally that President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed on Sunday differs sharply from that given by U.S. officials, who have said the number is closer to 70,000.
European and other Western leaders gathered in Kyiv to pledge support for Ukraine amid U.S. reluctance, while its troops suffer growing losses on the battlefield, where the Russians have been gaining ground.
With Ukraine’s forces at risk of encirclement, the top military commander ordered a retreat. In startlingly candid accounts, soldiers described disarray and despair.
By Carlotta Gall, Marc Santora and Constant Méheut
Seven people from two families died in the inferno in Kharkiv on Friday night, as burning oil flowed like lava. “People were doomed,” an official said.
By Oleksandr Chubko, Carlotta Gall and Lynsey Addario
Thousands of young Ukrainians were separated from their parents by the Russian authorities in the early stages of the war. They are among the most forlorn victims of the invasion.
By Carlotta Gall, Oleksandr Chubko, Cora Engelbrecht and Daniel Berehulak
Tensions between Ukrainian leaders, including between President Volodymyr Zelensky and his military chief, come as the country seeks emergency aid from Washington.
The fight for the battered city of Avdiivka has emerged this fall as the fiercest battle of the war. Waves of Russian assaults have not broken through so far.
Said Ismahilov fled Russians in eastern Ukraine and then fled the suburb of Bucha when the war began. Once the mufti of Ukraine, he is now a medic on the front line.
The U.N. Special Rapporteur on torture said Moscow’s refusal to address the issue represented tacit approval of its use. Russia has denied it practices torture.
Despite tough fighting and heavy casualties, Ukrainian commanders say their forces are in better shape now than just months ago, while Russian troops appear worse off.
A Ukrainian unit sent a drone into Russian-occupied territory to surveil the battlefront, and it brought back vivid images of the Russian side of the war zone.
Journalists from The Times spent two weeks with troops from brigades trained and supplied by NATO to get their take on how, and where, the counteroffensive is going.
By Carlotta Gall, Oleksandr Chubko and Diego Ibarra Sanchez
Journalists from The Times spent two weeks with troops from brigades trained and supplied by NATO to get their take on how, and where, the counteroffensive is going.
By Carlotta Gall, Oleksandr Chubko and Diego Ibarra Sanchez
Recapturing the village of Staromaiorske was such welcome news for the country that President Volodymyr Zelensky announced it himself. But formidable Russian defenses have stymied progress elsewhere.
Kyiv has intensified its counteroffensive against the Russian invasion, but has kept things murky on the size of the assault, the casualties and what forces it still has in reserve.
After holding back many of its units trained and armed by the West, Ukraine is now committing them, the officials said, but it remained unclear whether a full-scale assault was taking place.
By Eric Schmitt, Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Carlotta Gall
A disaster unfolds in slow motion after a blast destroys the dam at the Kakhovka Reservoir, emptying its waters and threatening livelihoods and industries crucial to Ukraine.
A disaster unfolds in slow motion after an explosion destroyed the dam at the Kakhovka Reservoir, emptying its waters and threatening livelihoods and crucial industries.
Even as new attacks have brought the war into Russia, the Russians have responded with force, raising the threat for the few civilians left in towns along the border.
Ukraine has charged four members of Russia’s National Guard with war crimes in Kherson. The four acted with such impunity, the authorities say, they did not mask their identities.
Ukraine has charged four members of Russia’s National Guard with war crimes in Kherson. The four acted with such impunity, the authorities say, they did not mask their identities.
Ukraine’s sizable contingent of fighter jets come with a few problems. President Volodymyr Zelensky said F-16s would “greatly enhance our army in the sky.”