Melissa BELL

Bio

Melissa Bell is a correspondent for CNN based in the network's Paris bureau, covering European and global news. Most recently her work has focused on the war in Ukraine, reporting, over much of the last year, from inside the country and from Moscow. Her month's long investigation with exclusive footage and access to a former Wagner commander revealed the dissatisfaction and demoralization even within Moscow's elite fighting force. Her recent reports also include the first media access to the frontlines of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the town of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, as the first images emerged of Ukrainian flags being raised once again. She also travelled to the Georgia-Russia border to document the exodus of tens of thousand of men fleeing Russia and President Vladimir Putin's military draft. In September 2021, Bell reported from Haiti where she exclusively interviewed Prime Minister Ariel Henry about the former President Jovenel Moise's assassination and the migrant crisis. Her work in the region was nominated for Outstanding Live Breaking News Coverage at the News Emmys. She has also contributed to CNN's major breaking news coverage of the French presidential elections of 2017 and 2022, the Covid-19 pandemic, the rise of European anti-Semitism due to lockdown, Brexit, the fire at Notre Dame cathedral, the migrant crisis, wildfires and the climate crisis in France and Belgium. Bell joined CNN in October 2016 from France 24, where she was a political editor before being promoted to international affairs editor and correspondent. She has extensive knowledge of Africa and the Arab world and has covered most major news story for the network's French and English-speaking channels, from the Haitian earthquake to Egyptian revolution and the war in Mali. Beginning her career as a journalist in 1996, Bell worked for news wires before joining Granada Television in Manchester in 1999. She then moved to the BBC as a political reporter, where she covered Westminster for seven years. Bell has a degree in politics from Warwick University and speaks French and English fluently.