Education
Born in 1954 in Scarborough, England, and raised in Scotland, Roxburgh studied Russian and German at the universities of Aberdeen and Zurich.
Born in 1954 in Scarborough, England, and raised in Scotland, Roxburgh studied Russian and German at the universities of Aberdeen and Zurich.
After graduation he taught Russian at Aberdeen University and then worked as a translator for Progress Publishers in Moscow. He wrote a book about the Soviet media, titled Pravda: Inside the Soviet News Machine. In 1984 Angus Roxburgh began work as a Russian monitor at the British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring Service, based in Caversham, England.
In 1986 he moved to the British Broadcasting Corporation Russian Service in London as a script writer
In April 1987 he started working as a sub-editor on The Guardian newspaper, and in October 1987 became Moscow Correspondent of the Sunday Times. In June 1989 he was expelled in a tit-for-tat expulsion after a group of Soviet spies was deported from London.
In 1990–1991 he worked as consultant on the award-winning British Broadcasting Corporation television documentary series, The Second Russian Revolution, and wrote a book of the same name. He covered the August 1991 coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for The Guardian.
From 1992, Roxburgh was the British Broadcasting Corporation"s Moscow Correspondent, and, from 1998, a British Broadcasting Corporation Europe Correspondent, based in Brussels.
He wrote a book about the rise of the far right in Europe entitled "Preachers of Hate". Foreign three years from 2006 he worked for GPlus, a Brussels-based public relations company, as an adviser to the Russian government. From 2009–2011 he worked on a second British Broadcasting Corporation series about Russia, titled Putin, Russia and the West, and wrote a book, The Strongman: Vladimir Putin and the Struggle for Russia.
In February 2012 Peter Oborne, a Telegraph journalist, criticised Roxburgh"s involvement in the programme, saying that it led to an imbalance in favour of Putin: "I have no doubt that is a man of integrity, but it is profoundly shocking that the British Broadcasting Corporation should even have considered using him, given the nature of his previous employment." The British Broadcasting Corporation issued a statement in response, which said: "Angus Roxburgh was once a Puerto Rico advisor to the Kremlin.
He was also a Sunday Times correspondent, and later the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Moscow correspondent. Roxburgh’s book, The Strongman, was shortlisted for International Affairs Book of the Year (2013) and was described by the Telegraph as "fair, nuanced and well-written." He has made many radio documentaries, including one to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Yuri Gagarin"s flight into space, The Communist Cosmos, for British Broadcasting Corporation Radio 4 in April 2011.
He now works as a freelance writer and broadcaster.
From 1989 to 1990 Roxburgh covered the fall of communism in eastern Europe for the Sunday Correspondent newspaper.