Dispatches

He arrived in Ukraine presenting himself as a humanitarian volunteer. But was he? And why could the answer matter far beyond the region? by Susan Katz Keating He arrived in Ukraine in 2024, presenting himself as a humanitarian volunteer. He joined a stream of foreigners moving through a country where …

I spent years talking with legendary spy hunters about the clues that expose secret agents. Then I went looking for answers from a spy himself. by Susan Katz Keating Journalists love anniversaries, and this was a good one, the perfect day to highlight history and talk to a spy. Fourteen …

by Susan Katz Keating Not everything moving through war is a physical object. Some of the most valuable commodities in a conflict zone are identity, permission, and cover. You need the right document, the right credential, and the right story, at the right checkpoint. My team and I at Soldier of …

by Susan Katz Keating China and other foreign actors are using Ukraine as a testbed, deploying cut-outs and deniable assets to gather real-time data on drones, intelligence sources told Soldier of Fortune. The grainy figures moved across the screen, creeping through murky terrain like shadows come to life. A blip …

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating The work has been called the most dangerous form of journalism. Amid my daily influx of emails, text messages, and phone calls, I frequently am hit up by people who want to go downrange under my name. They approach me with variants on the following requests. …

by Susan Katz Keating For decades, war correspondents earned the right to carry a PRESS credential into dangerous places. Now outsiders, operatives, and opportunists are seeking the same protection without earning it, because in conflict zones a press card can open doors, lower rifles, and get you out of a …

by Susan Katz Keating In years gone by, they called it the Living Room War. Every evening, American families watched grainy footage of helicopters lifting from rice paddies, and listened to body counts read in calm anchor voices. The war came home, but it arrived on a schedule, filtered through …

by Susan Katz Keating World SitRep tracks selected developments in conflicts, armed networks, and illicit activity, focusing on significant shifts and emerging patterns. Hizballah Cash Flies Commercial Air A smuggling network uses airline passengers to carry hundreds of millions of dollars in cash bound for Hizballah, the US Treasury Department …

by Susan Katz Keating The movie dropped. The files keep coming out. We’ve been covering this for years. Here’s your field briefing. With a major UFO film hitting theaters, the timing feels almost scripted. But at Soldier of Fortune, we didn’t wait for Hollywood to greenlight a script before digging …

by Susan Katz Keating The call came in the early morning hours from a friend who heard it through a friend before it was news. A CH-47 Chinook carrying U.S. special operations personnel had been shot down in Afghanistan. The helicopter, call sign Extortion 17, was brought down on Aug. 6, …