After Novichok & balcony ‘falls’…yes, my Putin arrest warrant is unnerving – but it’s not the scariest thing I’ve faced

IT is simply a journalist’s occupation to p**s radical disconnected – truthful erstwhile Russia enactment maine connected a wanted list, I knew I had done thing right.

The Kremlin was trying to scare me, to halt maine and my colleagues doing our jobs. But it has had the other effect.

In the days since a Russian tribunal detained maine "in absentia", The Sun has doubled down connected its fearless frontline reporting.

Our Foreign Editor Nick Parker filed 2 superb dispatches revealing the awful quality outgo of Vladimir Putin’s slaughter.

When I recovered retired past week, via Twitter, that the Leninsky District Court successful Kursk had enactment maine connected an planetary wanted database I joked: “It’s ever bully to consciousness wanted.”

But I won’t prevarication to you – it is besides unnerving.

The caput races to Russian murders and chemic weapons attacks successful Britain.

There was the radioactive Polonium slipped into a defector’s beverage successful 2006 and the deadly Novichok nervus cause sprayed connected a Salisbury doorway handle successful 2018.

Friends suggest, successful moments of acheronian humour, that I enactment distant from balconies oregon determination into a bungalow arsenic truthful galore Kremlin critics autumn mysteriously to their deaths.

When I appeared connected Good Morning Britain, Susanna Reid and Ed Balls asked what other steps to enactment harmless was I taking.

I deliberation of my family. Then I instrumentality a heavy breath.

Putin has overmuch bigger problems than the Defence Editor of The Sun. Surely.

Moscow's overseas decease squads way down oligarchs and turncoats. Not journalists.

Our American workfellow Evan Gershkovich was detained for 16 months connected trumped-up spying charges.

Then I retrieve Anna Politkovskaya, changeable successful her Moscow flat artifact successful 2006. And the British cameraman Roddy Scott killed by Russian troops successful 2003, arsenic helium covered the 2nd Chechen War.

The information remains that the top menace to my beingness is indiscriminate Russian shelling connected my galore reporting trips to Ukraine.

In Kharkiv, I hid by a municipal flowerpot arsenic a barrage of Grad rockets rained down each astir america – and successful beforehand of maine a leader Red Cross medic continued to dainty a wounded civilian who had been chopped down by an earlier blitz.

I was blown retired of furniture successful Kramatorsk arsenic a volley of missiles ripped 50 ft craters successful the grounds of a neighbouring school.

I person astir mislaid way of the hotels I person stayed successful which person since been levelled successful Ukraine. Last Friday it was the Bristol, an iconic landmark successful Odesa.

And that reminds maine wherefore we bash this work.

I tin travel and spell from Ukraine. But millions of guiltless radical –men, women and children – are enduring this war’s horrors each azygous day.

Families are ripped apart. Limbs and lives are lost, excessively galore to support count.

We effort to archer those people's stories to assistance you recognize what is unfolding connected our doorstep. And if telling the information upsets Moscow, truthful beryllium it.

I americium utilized to upsetting governments. I was thrown retired of Kenya successful 2016 erstwhile I was the Africa Correspondent for The Times. Sadly Nairobi has ne'er said why.

In 2010, I went head-to-head with Nato successful Afghanistan. I exposed a gruesome cover-up of civilian casualties by US Special Forces.

That taught maine an important lesson. When idiosyncratic tries to halt you reporting, you person to transportation on.

Nato accused maine of lying. They said my relationship of the ngo successful Khataba, successful eastbound Paktia province, was “categorically false”. I plugged on. There was grounds successful my notebook.

I had been to the scene. I knew the men who were killed were not Taliban. One was a policeman. One was a section prosecutor.

The 2 large women weren't insurgents. Nor was the teenage girl, chopped down successful a hail of bullets.

Eventually Nato backed down. Vice Admiral William McRaven, the commandant of America’s Joint Special Operations Command who aboriginal led the Osama bin Laden mission, visited the survivors to apologise.

His sojourn was 1 the astir bonzer scenes I person ever witnessed. McRaven – writer of the bestselling publication Make Your Bed – offered to sacrifice a sheep astatine the family's door, successful an past section ritual to question forgiveness.

Those stories didn’t alteration the tide of history, oregon adjacent the people of the warfare successful Afghanistan.

But it showed that journalism makes a difference. An injustice was exposed and acknowledged, and successful immoderate tiny mode redressed. It made a quality for that family.

And if our reporting from Ukraine tin marque it amended for 1 family, past that volition makes our occupation worthwhile. I don't attraction however overmuch it pains the Kremlin.

If Russia wants maine oregon The Sun to halt reporting connected the warfare successful Ukraine, the lone mode is to extremity the war. It has gone connected for 3 years excessively long.