Today, in our live chat, Mikhail not only told me what he’s hearing inside Russia and Ukraine after the phone calls between Trump and Putin, and then Trump and Zelensky: he also shared some of his personal journey.

He explains why he knew it was time to leave Russia in February 2022; how the Kremlin tried to break TV Rain, the independent station he worked at years earlier; but he had believed nonetheless that his work was not “in vain”. Until the invasion, when “it became hopeless”.

He also shared some thoughts about his late friend, Alexei Navalny, whom, he reminds us, believed so passionately that there was hope that democracy could live in Russia that he was prepared to die for it. It’s Mikhail’s belief that Navlany’s widow Yulia keeps that torch alight, albeit in exile.

Watch the conversation at Vicky Ward Investigates