Our Next Moscow Bureau Chief

We are excited to announce that Paul Sonne will be our next Moscow bureau chief, leading a tenacious group of journalists covering one of the most important and challenging stories in our coverage, Vladimir Putin's Russia and its war against Ukraine.

Since joining The Times in 2023, Paul has established himself as a critical member of the award-winning team of journalists who have been fearlessly and incisively reporting on the war, as well as on Belarus and the eight nations of Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Paul's sharp coverage has included leading the recent Times investigation of abuses within the Russian military, which analyzed thousands of internal complaints from Russian soldiers and their family members about wrongdoing in the Russian Army.

He has also helped The Times shine on big stories in Russia, including the failed uprising of Yevgeny Prigozhin , the death of Aleksei Navalny and Mr. Putin's stage-managed re-election to a new six-year term . He has shown how the war has changed Russia at home, including with stories about the fall of Russia's most popular late-night television host , the charged rollout of a "Master and Margarita" movie and the windfall for Kremlin-connected elites scooping up Western assets . And as talks between Washington and Moscow have unfolded in the past year, he has excelled at explaining the twists and turns in regular analyses .

"Paul is like a great quarterback who sees the whole field, and all the possibilities within it," said Bill Brink, our former Russia-Ukraine editor. "Which is to say he has great instincts for many different types of stories - big news pieces, analyses, investigative, and collaborations with his bureau colleagues, or those in other bureaus. He's a great thinker who will be another in a long line of terrific Moscow bureau chiefs."

The new role, which is based in Berlin, takes Paul's career full circle. More than 20 years ago, while studying abroad in Russia as a Columbia University student, he began his journalism career as an intern at The Times's Moscow bureau under the then-bureau chief, Steven Lee Myers.

Paul later reported for The Associated Press before spending nearly nine years as a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, with stints in London, Moscow and Washington. He was in the stands at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, on the ground in Crimea when Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine and in the fields outside Donetsk after the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. He also spent five years as a national security correspondent at The Washington Post, where he covered the Pentagon, President Trump's first impeachment and the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, before rejoining The Times.

He is the winner of four Overseas Press Club awards as part of teams at The Journal, The Post and The Times. He speaks Russian fluently and is learning German.

Paul joined the bureau in 2023, after it had moved to Berlin during the Ukraine war. Valerie Hopkins, our Russia correspondent, has continued to report from inside , writing about the war's impact on people living close to the front line and its reverberations deep inside the country . She will manage operations in the Moscow office.

We are lucky to have Paul and Valerie. Please join us in congratulating them on their big move.

- Phil, Adrienne and Andy