A unique personal insight into Vladimir Putin's Russia and the impact his rule had on his own
people and on its neighbour Ukraine. In 2021 Sarah Rainsford decided to write a book about
how those Russians who dared to think differently to the Putin regime were labelled as enemies
foreign agents and even traitors. It was something she had experienced first-hand when Russia
expelled her for being a national security threat. Then as Russia declared war on Ukraine in
2022 she realised that her own experience was a small example of Putin's need to destroy all
opposition both at home and abroad. This is not the story of the Ukraine war. This is
however the story of how Putin changed Russia so deeply that he was able to launch the biggest
conflict in Europe since the Second World War. Her focus is on the ordinary people she has
encountered in both countries many of whom are now fleeing for safety. On both sides these
are the real victims of Putin's war. This is also the story of Sarah's own personal reckoning
with Russia: from the country she saw emerge from decades of authoritarian rule and embrace new
freedoms to the Russia that has clamped down on internal dissent and invaded its neighbour. A
culmination of decades of on-the-ground reporting Goodbye to Russia shines a light on the
attacks on freedom that she witnessed and suffered bringing a human perspective to a story
that is often faceless and too shocking to confront.
