Born in Soviet-era Moscow, Volochine studied in France before launching her journalistic career in 2009. She returned to Russia permanently in 2012 while continuing to collaborate with major French media outlets including Canal Plus, France Télévisions, Europe 1 and others. In 2016, she became FRANCE 24's Moscow bureau chief. She returned to France in 2022 after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. "I left Russia in March 2022, soon after the outbreak of the great war that remains unnamed," Volochine wrote. "The propaganda, total, had finally swallowed up any common sense in my country." For more on Elena Volochine (in French) click here.
La journaliste Elena Volochine a remporté le Prix du livre Albert Londres de 2025. © Autrement via Instagram
About Albert Londres The award is named for French journalist Albert Londres (1884-1932), who travelled the world reporting from far-flung continents and became best known for exposing abuses. His first reporting coup was in "Le Matin" newspaper, when he reported on the 1914 destruction of the Reims cathedral by German troops in the early days of World War I. He soon became one of France's most well-known correspondents, sending dispatches from Serbia, Greece and Turkey, later becoming one of the few journalists to report from the newly established Soviet Union before heading to India, China and Japan. “There are too many misfortunes in this vast world for us to be content with sitting still,” he once wrote to his daughter. In 1923 he travelled to Devil’s Island, a penal colony in French Guiana. Londres was shocked by the conditions of the remote prison of Bagne, and his reports were first published in a Parisian paper and later turned into a book. He continued to publish exposés throughout his career, including on the abuses perpetrated in mental asylums and on the sex workers trafficked in Argentina. He died when his ship sunk in 1932 as he was returning from a final investigative trip to China, reporting on a new subject he had yet to reveal. Today he is considered to be one of France's first whistleblowers. For more on the prize in English click here.
