Washington Post hires WSJ’s Sonne as Pentagon reporter

Washington Post national editor Steven Ginsberg, deputy national editor Lori Montgomery and national security editor Peter Finn sent out the following announcement on Thursday: 

We are thrilled to announce that Paul Sonne, a distinguished foreign and Washington correspondent, is joining the National staff to cover the Pentagon. Paul has spent eight and a half years as a correspondent for The Wall Street Journal in London, Moscow and Washington, most recently as a defense and foreign affairs reporter.

Paul started his career as an intern at the New York Times and Associated Press bureaus in Moscow before joining the Journal in London, covering business and political news. He returned to Russia to serve as Moscow correspondent for the Journal from 2013 to 2016, covering the Kremlin as relations between Washington and Moscow soured. He reported from Kiev’s Maidan during Ukraine’s pro-Europe uprising and made an early departure from the Sochi Olympics to chronicle Russia’s surprise annexation of Crimea. He later reported on the war in eastern Ukraine from both sides of the front and led the Journal’s coverage of the 2014 shoot-down of a Malaysia Airlines plane from the crash site outside Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

Originally from upstate New York, Paul graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Russian literature and received his master’s from the University of Oxford, where he studied Russian history and politics as a Marshall Scholar. He is fluent in Russian. Unsurprisingly, Paul believes “The Americans” is the best show on television. The only thing he enjoys watching more is Vladimir Putin’s annual call-in show.

Paul will begin Jan. 29. Please welcome him to the newsroom.