Andrey Soldatov began writing about the Russian security and intelligence services in the late 1990s while working as a technology correspondent. By 2000, he began focusing specifically on the organization and operation of Russian special services. Since then, Soldatov has regularly highlighted the increasing influence of the special services in Russian government, reported on the security services' efforts to limit journalistic freedoms, followed spy cases, interviewed defectors, and chronicled personnel appointments and reorganizations of the special services.
