David Knowles, journalist who helped make the Telegraph podcast Ukraine: The Latest a runaway success

David Knowles, the journalist who has died aged 32, was known and cherished by a huge number of listeners all over the world for his dedicated work presenting the Telegraph’s award-winning Ukraine podcast; a naturally gifted broadcaster, he was a reassuringly authoritative presence who never pushed his own personality into the foreground, even though he felt deeply about the fate of the Ukrainian people.

Each episode would open with his clear and gentle tones: “I’m David Knowles, and this is Ukraine: The Latest.” He would introduce his fellow presenters, Telegraph colleagues Dominic Nicholls and Francis Dearnley, as well as special guests, and announce the dateline (“it’s Tuesday the 30th of July, two years and one hundred and sixty two days since the full-scale invasion began”) against the background of a quietly insistent percussive musical theme.

The podcast became a runaway hit – it is fast approaching 100 million downloads – prized by listeners (including senior players in the war) for the granular detail with which it illuminated day-to-day events in the Russia-Ukraine war, interviewing experts and hearing reports from the field. Knowles himself made four visits to Ukraine, including two to Bucha, site of a notorious massacre, and another an aid visit to Kramatorsk.

Dominic Nicholls, the Telegraph’s Associate Editor (Defence), who was one of the regular experts on the podcast, said: “David asked relevant and sensible questions, never seeking a performative edge to his journalism – the story and the guest took centre stage, he just enabled their stories to reach the audience in the most effective ways.”