Alexey Kovalev is a Russian journalist who was born in Moscow and spent most of his life there, except for three years in London where he got his master’s degree in international journalism in 2010 and reported for Russian news magazines. Currently he is the investigative editor of Meduza based in Riga, Latvia (he was forced to emigrate Russia in early March 2022 after a law effectively criminalizing all independent reporting came into effect). Alexey has been working as a journalist for 20 years, mostly for local and national papers, magazines and news websites, but he is also an occasional contributor to The Guardian, The New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Policy magazine and other Western media.