Shaun Walker (journalist)

Walker visited Russia for the first time as an 18-year-old, in 2000, working as an English teacher, and then travelling around the country.^[3] He then returned home to the UK, where he studied Russian and Soviet history at Oxford University.^[4] After completing his studies, Walker returned to Moscow at the end of 2003, working for an NGO for a year, before taking up journalism.^[3]

Walker worked for British newspaper The Independent from 2007, and was its Moscow correspondent until 2013.^[5] From 2014, working for The Guardian, primarily as its Ukraine and Russia correspondent, he has extensively covered the war in Donbas.^[6] As of 2018 Walker was living in Budapest, Hungary.^[3] From 2019, he has been The Guardian's central and eastern Europe correspondent.^[6]

Walker is the author of the non-fiction books Odessa Dreams: The Dark Heart of Ukraine's Online Marriage Industry (2014) and The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past (2018).^[7] The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West (2025) is about the agents who lived apparently normal lives in the west as part of Soviet espionage programmes.^{[8][9][10][11]}

Walker has been criticised^{[by whom?]} for some of his pro-Russian writings prior to 2022, including a 2014 article for The Guardian entitled "I can't stop dreaming about Vladimir Putin", and his positive comments on Russia at the time of the 2018 World Cup.^[1] He has also been criticized for not adequately considering the perspective of Russia and Putin in his reporting.^[12]

• Odessa Dreams: The Dark Heart of Ukraine's Online Marriage Industry (2014)
• The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past (2018)
• The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West (2025)^[13]

• Oliver Bullough
• Luke Harding
• Peter Hitchens
• Tim Judah
• Edward Lucas
• Sarah Rainsford