Shaun Walker

Shaun Walker has reported on Russia and Ukraine for the past two decades, and brings that depth of knowledge and experience to his continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine. While never losing sight of the horrific nature of Russia’s brutal invasion, and the inspiring tales of Ukrainian resilience, Shaun has also tried to tell more difficult stories, of the dilemmas faced by people under Russian occupation, and on the widening social splits in a country torn apart and exhausted by war.

To paint a portrait of the country on the second anniversary of the invasion, he used a 23-hour train journey from the front lines in the East to the border of the EU in the west, featuring exhausted soldiers, grieving widows and a displaced theatre troupe putting on plays about the traumatic experiences they had lived through.

He has written numerous articles that document the torture experienced by Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian captivity, including telling the story of a brass band from Mariupol taken prisoner by the Russians after the siege of the ended in 2022, and the horrific physical and psychological abuse they endured.

In his Guardian longread investigating the story of Spanish journalist Pablo González, Shaun recounted a reporting day spent together with González on a Ukrainian military base in Crimea back in 2014, right at the beginning of Russia’s war on Ukraine. González is now accused of being a deep-cover Russian spy, using his journalistic privileges as a cunning way to get access to people and places important for the Kremlin. Shaun conducted dozens of interviews in various European countries and drew on open-source investigative techniques to put together the full story of González. The resulting longread illuminated the sinister and often surprising nature of the Kremlin’s espionage efforts as well as a shocking tale of the abuse of journalistic privileges.