Panorama - Our Man in Moscow. Available on BBC iPlayer

Our Man in Moscow – Panorama. BBC iPlayer

My son worked in Moscow a few years ago. He liked it there. He always said that Muscovites are more open than you would imagine and that the streets felt safe unlike cities such as London. He returned to the UK after the start of the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine which saw tanks roll in from February 2022.

The company he worked for was London-based and had decided to withdraw all of its teachers from Russia. My lad was invited by friends to return for a visit to the largest country in the world only last Christmas but he hadn’t got the money to cover it. He still keeps in touch with a fellow teacher and US citizen who returned home at the same time and went to work in the White House as presidential staff. They meet in central London regularly and chew the fat over a coffee at Starbucks.

It all seems so long ago now.

So when I saw that Panorama were showing an hour long documentary about Steve Rosenberg – BBC’s Russia editor - I just had to watch. I had seen Rosenberg’s reports on the news over the years but wasn’t familiar with him to any degree. He comes across as intelligent, articulate and affable. The latter is a quality much needed given the ongoing diplomacy required to get by in a role like his.

Rosenberg’s love for Russia shines through. Having moved to Moscow in 1991 to teach English at the Moscow Machine Tool Construction Institute, he became Moscow Correspondent for the BBC in 2003 and the Russia editor for BBC news in 2022. As the documentary progresses, it maps a distinct change in culture from lighter, happier times post the fall of the Berlin Wall to a more authoritarian state under the auspices of Vladimir Putin.

At one point the BBC man is in a comedy club sharing UK-centric jokes with other Russian luminaries but those days are long gone now, instead replaced by daytime TV shows denouncing him as a propagandist and questioning why he is still allowed to report in the country.

With the invasion of Ukraine came repressive new laws designed to supress any criticism of the military operation aimed at ‘denazification’ of its sovereign neighbour. If a journalist called it a war then they could face up to 15 years in prison following legislation passed in March 2022. With the hard line taken, an exodus of independent media saw up to 1,800 reporters leave the country. Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was imprisoned for 16 years in 2024 on a charge of espionage.

The move to increased autocracy is evident from clips showing CCTV cameras monitoring activity in city suburbs, covert shady individuals sitting in cars and the constant presence of local police appearing just as people are being approached for comment on the streets. In the oddest of juxtaposition, we also see Russians having selfies taken with Rosenberg compounding his almost celebrity status as the one foreign journalist that many are familiar with.

Particularly revealing is the footage of Putin’s Direct Line where an audience get to ask the President questions. This yearly TV extravaganza can go on for hours and is staged to make the Russian Premier appear as though he has all the answers to the issues facing the populace. Rosenberg is shown asking "My question is about Russia's future. What kind of future are you planning for your country and your people?" I ask President Putin.

"Will the future be like the present, with any public objection to the official line punishable by law? Will the hunt for enemies at home and abroad be accelerated? Will mobile internet outages become even more common? Will there be new 'special military operations'?"

Taking notes as the BBC reporter is speaking, Putin’s reply is telling.

“Will there be new special military operations? There won't be, if you treat us with respect, and respect our interests, just as we've always tried to do with you. Unless you cheat us, like you did with Nato's eastward expansion."

The underlying message seems to be that further military action is distinctly possible if the Russian authorities deem it appropriate.  

By now Rosenberg’s microphone has been taken away and the moderator has changed the subject to Donald Trump suing the BBC.

There’s a clear sense throughout that the future is uncertain in the former Soviet nation. At the impromptu meeting in Alaska between Trump and Putin there’s a genuine anticipation that a peace deal is about to be reached over Ukraine. Journalists are caught on the hop as the summit ends well before anticipated and neither of the POTUS present take any questions as they simply leave the auditorium after a brief update that differences remain.

There’s no doubt that Rosenberg is a resilient man. He is seen knocking on car windows demanding that shadowy figures apparently tailing him identify themselves, politely standing up to police challenging him about his motives and intentions when talking to the public, remaining cheerful when shown footage of a bellicose tv presenter accusing him of spewing propaganda and being an enemy of the State and remaining stoic when shunned by potential interviewees that have given comment in times past but are now rude and dismissive in this rather different era of Russo-West relations. One tells him to “Go to Hell”.

As one of only a handful of non-Russian journalists representing non-Russian media, he intones that he will stay in Russia because he wants to see how the story ends. It’s a story we are all invested in as Europe goes through the gears to prepare for a possible future conflict with the Russian Bear. For me, the Kremlin and the state machinery that goes with it does not seem to accurately represent the common man on the street. Of course, I might be wrong given the recent incident involving a doctored feature involving Donald Trump aired by the BBC.

Maybe we are all being hoodwinked all of the time. I trust Steve Rosenberg enough to tell me if that’s true. Make your own minds up.

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