Zhanna Agalakova was a journalist and newsreader at Russia’s state-controlled Channel One broadcaster. In September 2005 she became the station’s correspondent in Paris and from January 2013 till August 2019 its special correspondent in New York. From August 2019 she worked again in Paris and since March 2021 she has specialised in covering events in other European countries as well.

Agalakova resigned in March this year in protest at the war being waged in Ukraine. She said to believe Russian television was being used to pump out Kremlin propaganda and that the authorities had, for years, been stifling independent media. Speaking in Maastricht on 13 September, she will give an analysis of how Russian television has evolved over 20 years from a news channel to a propaganda tool. After the short lecture, there will  be a Q&A. 

This lecture is part of an initiative called The Moscow Time (TMT) lecture series. This series is organised all over Europe to give the floor to a selection of Russia’s best-know journalists who had to leave their country to avoid prison sentences since Putin’s troops invaded Ukraine and Russia passed a “fake news law”.