Name: After three decades covering Russia, CNN's Nic Robertson leaves in despair
Uploaded: 2026-02-04T13:21:22.000Z
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CNN international diplomatic editor Nick Robertson is joining us right now.

You were in Moscow just a week or so ago, but now you're here.

I want to read to our viewers a couple lines from this really powerful article you just posted on CNN.com I highly recommend was really moving.

But let me give a couple lines from what you write.

Quote, after over three decades of covering Russia, I leave in despair with one man has extinguished the bright hope many once felt.

And then you add Russian President Vladimir Putin isn't just destroying Ukraine, but

two nations condemning Russians to an isolation that they didn't necessarily choose.

Explain your thoughts because they are so, so powerful.

These sanctions aim to bring Putin down or at least halt his invasion and war in Ukraine.

They're going to affect the Russian population.

The Russian population, many of them don't support Putin and don't support the war, but

they're going to suffer the economic consequences.

He's told his oligarchs who we know are getting sanctioned, are having their yacht seized in Europe, has told them to suck it up, be patriotic.

But it's those other Russians who wanted a different future, a future integrated into Europe that he steadily stifled over the years.

That's one part that made me, made me angry about the situation and the absolute wanton way that he has gone to war on a false pretext and continues to push that pretext and absolutely stomps on any voice of dissent.

That's what when you're there watching it happen, that's what gets you because you were there back in 1990 as the Cold War was ending, the collapse of the Soviet Union.

I was there December 91, when the Soviet Union ended.

All of us were pretty upbeat that things were moving in a brand new direction.

I remember we set up cnn, we set up a big live operation in the middle of Red Square, that fabled military parade ground right outside the Kremlin.

The Russians gave us or the Soviet Union gave us the opportunity to do that.

At that time, you had the sense that this was a country that wanted to integrate the West.

Fast forward a decade, Putin comes to power.

All those changes, all that alignment towards a European style democracy and integrating the rest of the world, he said that was wrong and he's reversed it, tried to reverse that position ever since with his different invasions and now in Ukraine.

And that I think, you know, tells you because of his complete power There, it tells you that Russia is, at the moment, Putin.

Putin put that he's trying to drag his country back to some imagined former glory.

And that, at the moment, is to the detriment of the vast majority of Russians.

And certainly to the detriment of millions of people in Ukraine right now.

I originally thought, well, Putin, maybe he'll do something along the border like he did with Crimea.

But I was surprised when he decided to go and attack all of Ukraine and trying to seek control of that country.

That came as a surprise to me, and it did to me as well.

We heard him threaten military technical measures if we don't get what we want with, with NATO.

It needs to stop Ukraine becoming a member.

I think people thought this was just Putin wanting a voice at the table.

Once he got his voice at the table, he wouldn't follow through.

But he's become more and more determined, and

we are now in a position of looking at the scenario going forward.

Putin is taking tracts of land, territory, cities.

We've seen a mayor of a town marched off today.

The future, therefore, in Putin's mind in Ukraine, is going to be more of that.

And how do you get Putin then to let go of these places and give them back to the Ukrainians?

Because it's going to be a very, very long war for them.

You were doing great reporting from Moscow over these past few months.

Jill Dougherty was doing great reporting from Moscow.

Everybody has basically fled, left Moscow out of fear that if they reported the truth about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they could wind up in jail for 15 years.

What's it like for the media in Moscow right now?

There was a moment during the opening days of the war when you knew you had space to go out where the protests were happening and establish stand shoulder to shoulder with the protesters, elbow to elbow with the riot cops and know that they weren't going to round you up, that you were very unlikely to be thrown in the truck with the rest of the protesters.

So when you're in that truck, Putin essentially has created a state where he can decide on what the rules and laws are going to be and he has a massive apparatus to follow through those rules.

It's very much looking but looking like the sort of Germany under the Nazis before World War II.

Putin is creating the rules and there is a system and a law enforcement body and people that will follow those rules and that's what's happening.

You really don't know when you're going to come out the end of that legal.

You've been doing amazing reporting for us not just now but all of these years going back 30 years together.

We did the first Gulf War as well here on CNN and we're grateful to you Nick for doing everything you're doing.

And let me recommend to our viewers if they haven't read it go to CNN.com and read Nick Robertson's excellent, very powerful moving article about Russia CNN.com and.