From Moscow Correspondent to 'Betrayal': the Crucial Milestones of Luke Harding

A detailed look at From Moscow Correspondent to 'Betrayal': the Crucial Milestones of Luke Harding, featuring in-depth facts.

Expulsion from Russia shifted Harding's vantage point rather than halting his reporting. Based back in London, he tackled one of the most brazen state-sanctioned hits on British soil: the fatal poisoning of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210. Harding’s deep-dive accounts laid bare how London had become a playground for sovereign hits and dirty capital.

His work on the Alexander Litvinenko investigation proved that the Russian espionage network treated international borders as porous suggestions. Harding documented how radiation traces tracked through London hotel teapots, boardroom seats, and passenger aircraft directly implicated agents linked to the highest echelons of the Russian state. The Kremlin was testing Western resolve and finding virtually no pushback.

By 2013, Harding found himself immersed in a different intelligence shockwave. When Edward Snowden leaked an archive of classified National Security Agency materials, Harding helped coordinate the reporting team at The Guardian. Working in London alongside Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill, he analyzed complex digital surveillance systems operated by the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. That investigation yielded The Snowden Files, establishing Harding as an authoritative voice on both democratic surveillance excess and authoritarian operational tactics.