Why subscribe?
Michael Andersen and Brian Bonner have extensive experience as journalists and media trainers, as well as in other roles in Ukraine, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia.
Michael Andersen covered Ukraine and the rest of the former Soviet Union for Denmark’s Radio and Danish newspapers, mainly Politiken, for 15 years. He specializes in long-form features. He has produced almost 1,000 radio reports/podcasts, often covering people and places overlooked by other journalists. He focused on the consequences of political decisions on the lives of ordinary citizens. Since 2006, he has also produced several television documentaries from the region for Aljazeera English. Additionally, over the past 20 years, he has run several large-scale media development projects in the region for the Danish and British governments, as well as the European Union and the United Nations. He was trained as a political scientist and worked for 10 years as a professor of international relations at British, Ukrainian, and Central Asian universities.
Brian Bonner led the Kyiv Post, Ukraine’s English-language newspaper, from 2008 to 2021. He currently works for The Cipher Brief and hosts a weekly current affairs program on Hromadske Radio in Kyiv. From 2022 to 2024, he served as senior editor for Geopolitical Intelligence Services, a digital think tank. He is an American who substituted regularly as a Moscow correspondent for the then-Knight Ridder newspapers from 2000-2006. From 1983 to 2007, he covered international, national, and local news for the St. Paul Pioneer Press in Minnesota. On behalf of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, he served as a political analyst on six election observation missions in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine between 1999 and 2013. He also was associate director of international communications for the Campaign For Tobacco-Free Kids in 2007-2008. He has a B.A. in History from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and publication archives.
Stay up-to-date
Never miss an update—every new post is sent directly to your email inbox. For a spam-free, ad-free reading experience, plus audio and community features, get the Substack app.
Join the crew
Join a community of people who share your interests by commenting on articles or subscribing to our work.
To learn more about the tech platform that powers this publication, visit Substack.com.
