WASHINGTON — Veteran foreign correspondent Jill Dougherty has covered Russia for more than four decades, from her early work at Voice of America to nearly 10 years as CNN’s Moscow bureau chief. In a conversation with Ia Meurmishvili for Independence Avenue Media, she reflects on her new book, My Russia, and on the country’s political and social transformation under President Vladimir Putin.
Dougherty traces her journey from a Cold War exchange student in Leningrad to a reporter covering the post-Soviet opening, the rise of Putin, and the closing of political space in recent years. “He seemed young, vigorous… smart, open to questions,” she says of her first impression of Putin in 2000. “What he was saying sounded good — economic reform, freedom of the press.” But, she adds, “right from the beginning, he went after the media” and never stopped.
Her career includes coverage of major events such as the Kursk submarine sinking, the Beslan school siege and the Chechen wars. Dougherty says Putin’s ambitions go far beyond Ukraine: “The near abroad basically either should be part of Russia, is part of Russia, or should be subdued and controlled to provide some sort of barrier and protection for Russia.”
In the interview, she examines the roots of Russia’s claims over Ukraine, its policies toward neighboring states such as Georgia, and the impact of the war on Russian society. She says the outcome of the conflict will shape not only Russia’s future, but also that of its neighbors.
The following interview was recorded on August 8, 2025, and has been edited for length and clarity.
Independence Avenue Media Editor in Chief Ia Meurmishvili: Jill, thank you so much for finding the time to talk to us. I’m really delighted to host you today.
Former CNN Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Dougherty: I am really delighted to talk with you, Ia. You and I have talked about many things concerning, especially Georgia, and I know it’s going to be a deep conversation and I hope a meaningful one and helpful for people who are listening and watching.
Meurmishvili: I really hope so. Let’s start from your book. Congratulations on the book. Tell us why you decided to write this book and what did you learn as you were going through that memory lane about Russia?
Dougherty: I had thought about writing a book for a long time, but I actually was afraid of doing it. I’d worked in TV, I can’t tell you how many years, going back probably 40 years. And I’ve written my fair share of reports, recordings and interviews and the whole thing. But it is different. There’s a big difference between a two minute – or even now, it could be a one minute piece – on TV versus a book. A lot of my friends had written books, but a lot of them were from the academic world or they were journalists who had done this previously. And, I thought: They can do it; I’m not too sure that I can.
I had a very helpful conversation with a friend of mine who’s in the field. And I said, you know, I’m thinking about writing a book and yeah, it’ll probably be a Putin book, it will be up to date, etc. And he said, “we don’t need another Putin book, we’ve got enough of them.” And it’s really true. I have them right behind me – a lot of really good books on Putin, books on Russia. But what he said was that the experience that I have as an American who became very interested in the Russian language – I could talk about that – when I was in high school, freshman year and then the career that I’ve had I’m very grateful for – going through Voice of America, U.S. Information Agency Exhibits, and then all of that time with CNN, including almost a decade in Moscow as a bureau chief, and it all kind of came together. I thought, maybe that is a little different from your average person, and maybe I ought to write about it. So I did.
I had collected little bits and bobs as I went along over the years, and then I began to more consistently put it together. My partner also was very good in guilt-tripping me, and she said, “When are you going write this again? Are you going to be alive forever? Why don’t you just write the thing?” And I actually did sit down and start writing in her kitchen.
Meurmishvili: Even now, when you’re talking about this, it comes out, and especially, as you’re reading the book, it’s very obvious that you have affection towards Russia. Tell us more about that. You fell in love with the language, with the country, and then it seems like you were disappointed over time. Take us down to that memory.
Dougherty: I am a typical American. I don’t have any Russian blood. My parents and grandparents and great-great grandparents came from Ireland and then England way before that. So I’m not from that part of the world. But when I started studying Russian in high school during the Cold War – and that plays a big role in this – I became really, really interested in and attracted to the Russian language.
t was the first foreign language that I studied. I did study French, and Latin, which helped me with declensions and conjugations in Russian, but it didn’t really click. It was Russian that kind of intrigued me. Then of course, regardless of what kind of feelings you have for Russia, everybody knows Russian culture. Russia has a very powerful culture and I found it a very attractive.
I have to note that at that point, a lot of what I thought was Russian culture turns out to be from other parts of the former Soviet Union. For example, art in Ukraine. I thought that many artists were Russian, because they were Soviet, but actually it turns out that they were Ukrainian. Then there were artists in Georgia. I also conflated them with the Soviet Union. But I became very, very interested in this. So as I went on, I became an exchange student twice – my sister and I. I have a twin sister who did the same thing.
It was kind of scary Soviet Union, not a lot of hot water in our dorm. We had roommates who were Ukrainians, but I found it really an exciting adventure. When I got into broadcasting at the Voice of America, it deepened that. I got to know Russians. I got to know the geopolitical situation. All of this kept me on the track of really being attracted to Russia. That never ended.
But I think what did change, what did end, was this starry-eyed idea about Russia. I have to tell you, when I went to Russia for the first time, there were some things that I saw that were really bad. This is 1969 Leningrad – poverty, crudeness to the society – the Soviet type – and then things that Russians couldn’t help at that point, Soviet citizens standing in line, waiting for things, deficits of goods that they couldn’t buy and then of course, the KGB and refuseniks and people who were put in prison and in mental institutions. All of those things began to affect me.
And then we can talk about Putin, but I went through kind of a similar transition with Putin, from relatively positive in the beginning to where I am now, which is quite negative.
Meurmishvili: And let’s move to Putin then. We should tell the viewers that you have something in common with Putin – as an exchange student you studied at Leningrad State University, which is also an alma mater of Putin. What was your first impression of him and what determined that impression?
Dougherty: I was there as a student in 1969, then I came back as a student in 1970-1971. Vladimir Putin was there in that second part. I never met him. I don’t think any Americans ever met him, any American students ever met him. But it turns out that he was a 10-minute drive away from where we were living. So, I was exposed to the kind of Leningrad that he was growing up in. That’s the best way I can put it. Again, with things that you couldn’t buy and mean streets. A lot of very high culture, but also Leningrad at the time – and even St. Petersburg now – has a rougher side to it. I was exposed to all of that.
Then my first impression as a reporter […] Yeltsin has stepped down, Putin is now going to run for president of Russia, March of 2000. I covered that election. When he won – which is no surprise, but was actually more surprising than things are now, where everything is very predictable – he came into the room to meet with journalists. I remember my impression. He seemed young, vigorous, not drunk as poor Mr. Yeltsin was. (I have a lot of affection for Boris Yeltsin as he was in those days, even with his impairments.) But Putin was young, vigorous, smart, open to questions.
I was able to ask him a question. And I thought, wow, this is new blood. What he was saying sounded good – economic reform, freedom of the press – all of these things. As an American, I thought he’s kind of coming around and he’s going to be on the side of Western, let’s say, liberalism, etc.
Now, it turned out, if I had been listening a little more carefully, I think I would have heard some notes that later turned out to be quite concerning.
Meurmishvili: And then he reversed on everything you just described as that’s somebody who gave hope to the Russian society to advance, to become more prosperous, didn’t he?
Dougherty: Yeah, it’s complicated because on the one hand, he did in the beginning do some economic reform. He even had a flat tax. And Russians, because of oil prices at the time, really began to live much better. There was investment in Russia. And yet, right from the get-go, right from the beginning, he went after the media. And he went after the media consistently throughout his entire presidency to the point that now, as you well know, a lot of our colleagues and friends have fled. They fled during the full-scale invasion in 2022, and they remain in Europe and other countries. Some actually did go to Tbilisi, many went on to Europe, and that’s where they are today. They cannot go back because they have been declared foreign agents, etc. It’s a very bad situation.
Meurmishvili: It’s a tough question to answer – I realize that. But how do you view the evolution of the Russian society? In your book, you’re saying that Putin is taking the Russian society backwards as opposed to moving it forward. What’s your view of the Russian society?
Dougherty: That’s really a broad question, but I think there is something that I’ve come to more recently – and recently meaning five years or so. As the Soviet Union collapses and an independent free, new Russia appears – and that’s when I became a journalist for CNN – I’m watching this friendship between Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton, detente, all of this stuff. I had the idea that this is the way it’s going to be. My focus became very much on that period instead of what I see now – that the end of Gorbachev, you know, mid- to late 1980s up to Putin – was an exception to Russia’s history. I thought this is the way history is going to be from now on, but it wasn’t. There was an opening and yes, chaotic, yes, pretty crazy with Boris Yeltsin, but there was an opening. There was Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika, and other things that opened up Russian society.
What Putin is doing, I believe, is closing down Russian society because of his desire now to focus everything that he can on this war. That means militarizing the society. It has become a very different place from even three and a half years ago when I was there for the last time. I cannot go back. I don’t think most Americans can go back. I’m not on any list as far as I know. I may be on a secret list someplace in the Kremlin.
Meurmishvili: But you’ve called the war a war…
Dougherty: Well, I don’t think Americans probably should go back because they’ve taken hostages, people to hold and to trade for people that Putin wants back. I don’t think I’ll go, but that does pain me to say that.
Meurmishvili: You are talking about some of the events in Russia’s contemporary history, like Nordost, for example, or the Beslan tragedy and the Chechen Wars. And in some cases, when we talk about these very tragic events, we think that they happened decades and decades ago. But that’s not so. They happened just recently, really. Russian society seems maybe to be more forgiving to Putin than the Western societies would be to their governments. What do you think about that relationship between the society and the Kremlin, and particularly President Putin?
Dougherty: All of those cases… the Kursk submarine sinking, in which a lot of sailors died, Nordost, when the terrorists took over the theater and in the attempt to save people, many, many Russians died because of the actions of the government. And then, you know, in so many cases, I think Russians looked at this and said, “We’re on our own.” I remember doing stories on that and many of them said, there’s no protection. “We are on our own because the government cannot or will not protect us.” So how does Putin change that?
I think that’s a very interesting question. In the beginning, let’s say when I was there, especially the late 1990s and then certainly in early Putin, there was a lot of terrorism. So the feeling was that it is Islamic terrorism that’s the enemy. The United States wasn’t really much of an enemy at that point. It was more “somebody we can work with.” But I think as time went on and Putin began to change and become disenchanted with and angry at the West, especially the United States, he was able to switch the focus of Russians. Because as Islamic terrorism kind of died out to a certain extent, he turned the society against other things. And that would be NATO.
Remember: in the beginning, he was actually complimentary and talking about maybe even joining NATO. It’s hard to imagine that now. So NATO became the enemy, the West became the enemy, the United States eventually became the enemy. And those are bigger things. They’re like the entire society must be mobilized because now we, the Russians, are in a war with the West. That’s a big deal. And I think that that is what Putin did. He just found a bigger enemy to rally people around and to say, I’m the guy who can protect you. That’s the easiest, simplest explanation I have for that.
Meurmishvili: And now there is of course Ukraine, which you say that Ukraine is the bigger thing for him to shift focus of the Russian society. Russia is a signatory to a number of agreements which recognize Ukraine as an independent, sovereign country. But then something changed. What do you think that was and when do you think that change happened?
Dougherty: Actually, I think it started a long time ago, way before. I think it started when he was in St. Petersburg with the Sobchak government. There is some reporting that I have not seen myself, but there apparently are some statements that he made at the time about the fact that it [Ukraine] belongs to Russia. I think a lot of Russians [thought] Crimea, not saying all of Ukraine at that point, but certainly Crimea and probably the Donbas region [belonged to Russia]. I think Putin right from the get-go believed that those are part of Russia. And then as time goes on, this idea hardens. He now looks to history and says that it really is historically correct that Ukraine is not a country, doesn’t have a language or a culture, and is part of Russia.
In this war, it’s an abiding primary interest of Putin. You can talk about territory, yeah, sure. He would like the breakaway four areas, regions of Ukraine in the east, and he certainly wants Crimea. But I think he wants [all of] Ukraine. I think he wants it in a geopolitical fashion. He wants to control Ukraine. It’s not just a bit of land here and a bit of land there. It is the [entire] country and it would be political control, maybe military, if you could do that, which is probably dubious to take the whole country.
But I do think his idea about Ukraine applies to a lot of other countries. If you think about Georgia right now, two regions, 20% of the land, is controlled by Russia. He’s not as neurological about Georgia at this point as he is about Ukraine. Ukraine really is different and deep. But he has much of the same idea about the rest of the belt of countries that are around Russia.
Meurmishvili: The near abroad, as they call them…
Dougherty: Yeah, exactly. The near abroad. The near abroad basically either should be part of Russia, is part of Russia, or should be subdued and controlled to provide some sort of barrier and protection for Russia.
Russia’s Grip on Georgia
Meurmishvili: You mentioned Georgia, Jill, and 17 years ago this week Russia invaded Georgia. The war lasted for five days. Russia occupied and to this day occupies 20% of the country, including one of the regions where I was born, Abkhazia. What did you think at that time? What’s your recollection of the 2008 war? And how do you look at it in retrospect – do you think it was a start of something that we’re witnessing today?
Dougherty: At that point, it was more confused in my mind than it is now. I remember that period of President Saakashvili almost tempting Russia to invade – it seemed to me at the time. I think the United States was urging him, “Don’t even play along with Putin.” I did not understand it the way I understand it now. Russia really did want to take that territory in much of the same way that it looks, as I said, at other parts of the former Soviet Union that should be subdued and controlled. I think that what they were doing in Georgia is somewhat different from Ukraine.
I’ve been to [South] Ossetia [demarcation line], right outside of Tbilisi, and [saw] that border guard place where the Russians have their military base. I did not get the feeling that they were going to invade again, but I think they use that frozen conflict … as a political and military lever to put pressure on Georgia.
They don’t want to solve it. They don’t want to leave. They want to keep it exactly the way it is so that they can always turn up the heat and make it difficult for the government in Georgia. And then they can kind of, you know, tone it down. In fact, when I went to the border there, it’s not actually the internal border, I was told. I said, “How many soldiers are there?” And they said, “Not as many, because many of them are in Ukraine.” So, you know, right now I don’t get the feeling that Russia is going to invade the mainland of Georgia. But they can create a lot of havoc and they can certainly do it, as they do in many parts of the former Soviet Union. They can use corruption. They can use many other ways [such as] political control of the government, influencing people, sometimes chaos. And I’m sure that there are a lot of Russian agents in Tbilisi right now happy to stir up trouble whenever they need to. It’s a very convenient tool, very dangerous, and not always noted by people on the outside.
Meurmishvili: Tell us more about Georgia. You’ve been studying these countries from the Russian prism for decades. How did you view Georgia 10, 15 years ago, even 30 years ago and how do you see it now?
Dougherty: I went to Georgia a very long time ago, 1972 probably, before you were born. I loved it because it has such a powerful culture. Talk about culture. Culture, food, a very different way of acting. The people are very full of life and creative. I was struck that if there’s a recurring theme in Georgia, to me it was creativity, art, especially art. I just found it a vibrant society, even in the old Soviet days. I did not realize some of the Georgian history that I now know. I recently learned of that period from 1918 to about 1921 when Georgia actually was a Western-style – turning into a Western-style – democracy, with a parliament, with women voting… way before the Europeans and Americans ever did. It was very, very impressive. But then of course, in I believe 1921, the Bolsheviks come in, take over the country, and then we know what happened.
So that is a part of the history that I didn’t realize. I just thought, Soviets came in to Georgia, but much later, and then that was it. So there is a long history of democracy, which has been covered up, I think, over many years, and now people are beginning to know what happened.
Now, I think the sad thing is that a combination of, let’s say, opposition leaders who can’t seem to work together – I have to be honest – I think the opposition is very good at fighting among themselves. That happened in Russia too and that’s one of the problems of the post-Soviet space. Opposition [personalities] don’t always want to work together. Then you have a government that comes in that has many problems. It wants to stay in power, so it does whatever it can to stay in power. It is focused on power, money, and other factors like that, and a certain affinity for Russia as well – which seems strange for Georgians, but there it is. I’m not an expert on Georgia, but I find it painful to go back. I went back three times last year and then early this year. And I find it very painful to see what’s going on because, so many Georgians want democracy and they want freedom and they want Europe and they want to make Georgia part of Europe, which it always was. Rustaveli was part of the Renaissance. Let’s get real. Hundreds of years ago it was, and it belongs in Europe.
And to keep it out with just brute force, which is happening right now, to me is a travesty. I’m not quite sure what you do – that’s for the Georgians to decide – but I think it’s a very, very difficult stage. I saw the protests, I saw the big ones, and I’ve seen the smaller ones, and I’ve seen people wearing masks so they won’t be identified at this point. It’s really tough.
But I hope that they will stick with it. I know it’s extremely difficult, but I hope they will stick with it and that they will get what they want.
Meurmishvili: There’s a viewpoint that once the Ukraine war is resolved successfully for Ukraine, then there will be new opportunities for Georgia to get back on the democratic, European path. So we’ll see what happens in both cases. Jill, I do appreciate your time.
Dougherty: Thank you very much. Really, enjoyed it. And I think it’s great that you’re doing what you’re doing. This is fantastic because you’re a fantastic journalist and you know a lot of people. I think it’s a really interesting and exciting venture.
