“Five years after the Chernobyl disaster, in the summer of 1991, the last summer the Soviet Union was still in existence, I visited Ukraine. I trekked out to the 20-mile exclusion zone - it had been cleared of all people after the accident - together with some local environmental activists.”

American journalist, historian and foreign-policy commentator

Anne Elizabeth Applebaum is an American journalist, historian, and foreign-policy commentator. She has worked on the politics and history of Europe, and in 2013 became a Polish citizen. She is known for writing about Communism and the growth of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. Her work often focuses on the region’s political changes and the ideas that shaped them.