David Patrikarakos is an author, journalist, broadcaster and podcaster specialising in international affairs and conflict. He began his career at the Financial Times and went on to report as a foreign correspondent from Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the Gulf, North America, Southeast Asia and the Arctic. His work has appeared in most newspapers in the UK and US. He is Special Correspondent at the Daily Mail and foreign correspondent for UnHerd.
In 2024, he became the host of the Daily Mail’s first and only weekly global news podcast Apocalypse Now? (formerly 90 Seconds to Midnight), which was Shortlisted for Best News or Current Affairs Program at the 2025 Radio Academy Awards.
He has reported extensively from several continents and conflict zones, notably Ukraine, where on 12 April 2014 he was the first Western journalist in Sloviansk when Russian forces seized the city’s police station and began the war in eastern Ukraine.
As an author his last book War in 140 Characters received international acclaim. The book was shortlisted for British Army Book of the Year, and publicly and repeatedly praised by the head of the British Army, General Sir Nicholas Carter, who cited the book in his annual RUSI lecture, calling on the army to internalise its lessons. and Admiral James Foggo, Commander of NATO Forces Europe. It is used by West Point and Sandhurst on information war and counter-disinformation courses; by the UK MoD for its “information advantage” policy; as well as being on the required reading list for NATO Allied operations non-commissioned Officers. More generally, his work is used across various militaries, including the British, US and Ukrainian armies.

It was optioned for a major TV series by triple-Oscar winner Angus Wall.

In February 2022 The Wall Street Journal the chose War in 140 Characters as one of “7 books to read to understand why Russia wants Ukraine.”

In January 2019 he gave evidence based on his research at the House of Commons Defence Committee examining the UK’s response to Islamist Terrorism.

He has lectured extensively at universities and think tanks in both the US and UK, including Harvard, Yale, Oxford, LSE, King’s College London, UCL, IISS, Manchester and many more. He has given a TEDx talk on Post-Truth Politics in the Modern Age.” He gave the 2017 Keynote Speech for the International PEN Congress.

In 2027 he will take up a visiting fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford.

As a broadcaster he has appeared on BBC Newsnight, Start the Week, The World Tonight, BBC 5Live, times Radio, GB News. BBC Have Your Say, BBC News 24, BBC World News, ABC, Al Jazeera, Ukraine’s Hromadske TV, various US radio stations and many other programmes on TV and Radio, as well many other international broadcasters.