LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Two of Russia's most prominent investigative journalists are out with an investigation of their friends. Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan recall the year 2000 when they were young reporters and Vladimir Putin came to power.
ANDREI SOLDATOV: We wanted to report on the most sensitive topic on the Russian security services, and for this, you need to have sources.
FADEL: They took jobs at a Soviet-era newspaper with sources in the Kremlin called Izvestia. There, they befriended fellow journalists, a reporter in Putin's press pool, a war correspondent with stories of hitchhiking to the frontlines in Chechnya, a writer with fringe views, and a collection of North Korean postage stamps. They are who Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan call "Our Dear Friends In Moscow." Their memoir tells how their friendships ruptured as Russia grew isolated from the West.
IRINA BOROGAN: Back then, it was a group of people in their mid-20s, early 30s, full of hope, very bright, and as it used to be very popular in Russia, we spent nights talking and discussing and drinking sometimes outside on the streets, in the parks.
FADEL: Yeah, and you were all passionate about politics and your country and the future. And then you start to feel the influence of the state at Izvestia, where you work. Your stories are changed from the top down, an intelligence officer gets hired to the politics desk. And you eventually resign, and then you chronicle how, over time, your friendships dissolve. You become separated by ideology, by border. Why did you want to connect your personal stories in these friendships to the political trajectory of Russia?
SOLDATOV: Well, because this story was really tied up with political events in our country. And at some point, for instance, our friends who were getting more and more pro-Kremlin nevertheless supported us. For instance, when we got these horrible terrorist attacks in Moscow in 2002, we were extremely critical of the way the Russian security services responded to this crisis. Most of our friends supported us and helped us. The people who now are firmly on the Kremlin side back then believed that we shared the same idea of journalism, but we were in the same profession. But gradually, when the country went through more and more political crises, it was getting more and more clear that we all, as political animals, we needed to make choices, and we did our choices, and they made their choices. At some point, it led us to the situation when a very close friend of ours put us on the list of the enemies of the people. To be honest, it was such a big shock for us.
FADEL: You said, we all made our decisions in that moment. What were the decisions you both made, and what were the decisions your friends made?
BOROGAN: Our decision was absolutely predictable and clear. We decided to oppose the Kremlin, but we did not start it back then. We started it in 2000 when Putin came to power. We have never been nostalgic for the Soviet Union. We understood the opportunities we got after the collapse of the Soviet Union. That was the difference between us and our dear friends.
FADEL: Were you surprised to watch your friends make different choices?
SOLDATOV: Yes, to be honest.
BOROGAN: Of course, a lot. We were surprised. We were angry. We were - I mean, we loved them a lot, so - they were friends, so we were outraged by this.
SOLDATOV: To be honest, the most shocking development for us was that at least three of our friends decided to cooperate with the Russian security services at some point. And given that we, the Russians, all know what Russian security and Soviet security services did under Stalin and after that, well, why to cooperate with them? That was a big question to us.
FADEL: So now you're in London and you are deemed enemies of the Russian state for the work that you continue to do. For this book, you reconnect with your old friends, what was it like to do that? People who were your friends who are now propagandists, one of which declared you an enemy of the state.
BOROGAN: Oh, that was very hard emotionally. The first call I did was to the guy named Petr Akopov who wrote an article calling for the final solution of the Ukrainian question, which reminds us of language used by Hitler in Nazi Germany. My father from Ukraine. He's from Odessa, so many of my relatives, all of his relatives, they live in Odessa, and I called him. It was a really very hard feeling. You were still listening to the voice you knew from your past. To me, it was like a torture.
FADEL: It was like torture?
BOROGAN: Yeah.
FADEL: What did you learn from living as reporters, as journalists in an ever more restrictive Russia that might interest an American audience right now?
SOLDATOV: Well, that sometimes it's very tempting to think that if you go close to someone who has authoritarian habits, it's better to be inside than outside because you have a chance to change things, but it's just an illusion. Many of the Russian intellectuals, the best and brightest of Russian society, they decided to side with Putin for that very reason. But at the end of the day, we just lost the country because of that. You cannot befriend a crocodile. It's just - at some point, it will eat you alive.
FADEL: Do you believe you'll ever go back to Russia to live and work as journalists in your home?
BOROGAN: Yes, I'm certain at some moment we will get back to Russia, and it will be a free country with free media.
FADEL: And why do you believe that?
BOROGAN: Russia's a country full of surprise.
SOLDATOV: Yes (laughter).
BOROGAN: I mean, our parents, they lived in the Soviet Union. And they never had an idea that they could live in a free country, but they did. Now Russia is bad, but not so bad as the Soviet Union used to be.
SOLDATOV: Well, I also think that, of course, Putin made things really horrible. But I do believe that now in the modern world, which is still modern and still globalized, the country is capable of sudden change.
FADEL: Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan are the authors of the book, "Our Dear Friends In Moscow: The Inside Story Of A Broken Generation." Thank you both so much for your time and for this book.
SOLDATOV: Thank you for having us.
BOROGAN: Thank you very much.
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