Rainsford, Sarah: Goodbye to Russia

A unique, personal insight into Vladimir Putin‘s Russia and the impact his rule had on his own people and on its neighbour Ukraine. In 2021, Sarah Rainsford decided to write a book about how those Russians who dared to think differently to the Putin regime were labelled as enemies, foreign agents and even traitors. It was something she had experienced first-hand when Russia expelled her for being a national security threat. Then, as Russia declared war on Ukraine in 2022, she realised that her own experience was a small example of Putin‘s need to destroy all opposition, both at home and abroad. This is not the story of the Ukraine war. This is, however, the story of how Putin changed Russia so deeply that he was able to launch the biggest conflict in Europe since the Second World War. Her focus is on the ordinary people she has encountered in both countries, many of whom are now fleeing for safety. On both sides, these are the real victims of Putin‘s war. This is also the story of Sarah‘s own, personal reckoning with Russia: from the country she saw emerge from decades of authoritarian rule and embrace new freedoms, to the Russia that has clamped down on internal dissent and invaded its neighbour. A culmination of decades of on-the-ground reporting, Goodbye to Russia, shines a light on the attacks on freedom that she witnessed and suffered; bringing a human perspective to a story that is often faceless and too shocking to confront.