Two of Russia's best investigative journalists tell the story of how the hopes of their generation of optimistic Russians in the 1990s faded to be replaced by autocracy, fear, and betrayal

Our Dear Friends in Moscow tells the story of a group of young Russians, part of an idealistic generation who came of age in Moscow at the end of the twentieth century, just as the communist era imploded and a future full of potential, and uncertainty, stood in front of them. Initially, the group seized and enjoyed the freedoms of the new era, but quickly the notion that Russia was destined to join the West, and Europe, in a new partnership began to fade. At home the economy imploded, civil war stalked the Russian border in Chechnya, and terrorism came to Moscow. More discreetly, the new Russian government began to pull back from reconciliation with the United States and the West; by the time of Vladimir Putin's second and apparently endless term as president, the country had embraced a kind of ethno-nationalism and as heading for war at home and abroad.

The group is torn apart by the shift in Russia. Some flee; others become sinister agents of the ever more aggressive state. The center cannot hold.

Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov are visiting fellow at King's College London and nonresident senior fellows with the Center for European Policy Analysis. 

They are investigative journalists and cofounders Agentura.ru, a watchdog of the Russian secret services' activities.  They have covered security services and terrorism issues since 1999. 

In October 2012, Agentura.ru, Privacy International, and Citizen Lab launched the joint project 'Russia's Surveillance State.' The project's research over surveillance measures introduced by the Russian authorities at the 2014 Winter Olympics was run by the Guardian as a front-page story.

Together they are the authors of The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia's Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB (PublicAffairs, 2010), The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia's Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries (PublicAffairs, 2015), and The Compatriots: The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia's Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad (PublicAffairs, 2019).
They live in London.