Julius Strauss

Since coming to power in 2000, the former KGB spy Vladimir Putin has rolled back many of the freedoms Russians had during the 1990s, corruption is on the rise and few officials are ever held accountable for their misdeeds.

This is a collection of articles from my time as the Daily Telegraph's Moscow Correspondent that throw some light on the state of Russia and the dark currents that swirl beneath the sometimes glitzy exterior.

Revolutions in the CIS

In the first decade of the 21st Century some of the former Soviet states, launched a second velvet revolution. The aim was to oust their corrupt and morally degenerate leaders in the hope that they could gain the freedoms and material success they had been thirsting for for more than a decade.

In first Georgia and then Ukraine tens of thousands of demonstrators faced down riot police and eventually forced the powers in charge to capitulate.

Chechen Unrest

After Russia's attempt to suppress Chechen independence with a 'small, victorious war' in 1994, the Kremlin returned to the offensive at the end of 1999, a campaign whose initial successes brought Putin to power.

Five years later, however, the Russians had still not succeeded in pacifying Chechen rebels and a marriage of convenience between nationalists and Islamic radicals led to a string of worsening terrorist attacks.

Stalin's legacy

The shadow of Joseph Stalin hangs heavy over Russia to this day. Many Russians hark back to an era when Moscow was a superpower and life was more predictable, often forgetting the unparalleled brutality of the era.

Official Russian circles, while not glorifying Stalin outright, have sought to draw on the symbols of his rule as a source of Russian pride. Attempts to discover the truth and uncover Stalin's crimes are often blocked.

Uprising in Iraq

A year after US tanks arrived in Baghdad, fighting in the country continued as both Shiite and Sunni hardliners - some fed up with the cavalier approach of their new masters, others seeking more power for themselves - battled American forces and their proxies.

I traveled to both sides of the lines, accompanying the Shiite Mahdi Army into battle against American soldiers and spending several days with a US army sniper working his deadly craft in Sadr City.

War on Saddam

In spring 2003, after a huge military build-up, the US and Britain attacked Saddam's Iraq. Faced with the prospect of embedding with the military in the south or working as a free agent in the north I entered Kurdistan via Iran.

For the Kurds, the war meant liberation from a regime that had been menacing and murdering them for decades.

Fall of the Taliban

Within days of the 9/11 attacks, the US and Britain were planning a war on the Taliban. I flew over the Afghan mountains into the Northern Alliance capital of Faizabad.

From there, along with a small number of colleagues, I lived with a local warlord and covered the military campaigns on horseback. Later I based out of the newly-liberated Kabul.

Milosevic overthrown

In October 2000 I traveled to Belgrade just in time to see Slobodan Milosevic finally overthrown by his own people. For the tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims, Kosovo Albanians and Croats that died, it was too late.

But his fall, nevertheless, brought an end to an era of blood-letting in the Balkans. For me it marked the end of nearly a decade working in the former Yugoslavia.

Kosovo erupts

The western powers had justified their non-intervention in Bosnia by citing fears that Kosovo would erupt if they did. In 1998 the inevitable happened anyway. Serb paramilitaries renewed their murderous campaigns of ethnic cleansing.

In 1999, after Nato began bombing Belgrade, I was expelled from Yugoslavia. I returned illicitly but was caught again and threatened with jail time.

War in Bosnia

I traveled to Bosnia when fighting broke out in 1992 to find horrific scenes of suffering and carnage. With no experience of war and in a borrowed car, I found what I saw distressing, embittering and outrageous.

By 1995, the year the war ended, I was working as a driver for a German journalist and sending in freelance pieces. These are reports from the last year of the war and its aftermath.