Andrei Soldatov graduated from Moscow State Social University, journalist department. In 1996 he started to work as correspondent of Segodnya newspaper. 1998-1999 - staff writer of Kompania journal. In September 2000, then in Izvestia, he has opened with his colleagues the project Agentura.Ru. 2002-2004 - chief of section of Versiya (weekly newspaper). Covered Moscow theater hostage crisis.

In April 2004, Andrei Soldatov started to make comments for radio Echo Moskvy as security expert. In July 2004, he joined weekly Moscow News as the secret services observer. He covered Beslan siege for Echo Moskvy and Moscow News.Since January 2006 he works for Novaya Gazeta.

He covered for Novaya Gazeta 2006 Lebanon War from Lebanon and tensions in West Bank and Gaza Strip (Palestine).

Soldatov regularly makes comments on terrorism and intelligence issues for Vedomosti, Radio Free Europe and BBC. Since July 2008 he is columnist of The Moscow Times. Since 2010 Soldatov writes for Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs.

In June 2008 The Moscow Times has written in article "Journalist Enjoying A Security Monopoly"

"Agentura.ru has developed into an information and analytical hub, updated on a daily basis and covering developments related to security services in Russia and the former Soviet Union and terrorist groups worldwide. It also publishes articles on the history and practices of foreign security agencies and issues like media and legislative oversight of security services...Soldatov himself has emerged as a security expert whose insights and opinion are in high demand from the media and Western think tanks".

On November 25, 2008 Andrei Soldatov was the subject of a profile prepared by the DNI Open Source Center.“Soldatov has regularly highlighted the increasing influence of the special services in Russian government, reported on the security services’ efforts to limit journalistic freedoms, followed spy cases, interviewed defectors, and chronicled personnel appointments and reorganizations of the special services,” the OSC profile stated.

Soldatov is skeptical about Mikhail Trepashkin's awareness of the details of the Russian apartment bombings. According to Soldatov, the Russian government's suppression of the discussion of the FSB involvement theory reflects "paranoia" rather than guilt on its part. But, he argues, this paranoia has produced the very conspiracy theories the government seemed keen to stamp out.

On 1 November 2002, FSB officers searched the premises of Versiya, reportedly regarding information published in an Soldatov's article on 27 May 2002. However, Andrei Soldatov has claimed that this operation against his newspaper was related to a forthcoming article on the storming of the Moscow theatre and freeing of the hostages there on 26 October. Soldatov has been interrogated four times in Investigative Department of FSB based in Lefortovo.

In June 2008 Soldatov was questioned by FSB in Lefortovo over his interview with former SVR officer Sergei Tretyakov, who defected to US in 2000. This interview was published yearly 2008 year in Novaya Gazeta .

On November 12, 2008, Soldatov’s employer Novaya Gazeta fired him and Agentura.Ru colleague Irina Borogan. In press release, Soldatov and Borogan said that Novaya Gazeta had ceased its collaboration with Agentura.Ru without explanation. ‘They even removed our banner from their website,’ said Soldatov, noted by Maria Eismont in Index on Censorship on November 27). The paper’s editors had not met with them; all information came from the personnel department.

As a result of this action, the statement continued, “’Novaya gazeta,’ one of the few independent publications in the country in fact is ceasing to cover the special services and publish investigations [on them and] ‘both the suddenness and the form in which the separation happened gives reason to suppose that it was taken not for purely economic reasons”. reads the statement on Agentura.ru, encouraging readers to guess which of the recently published stories could be the real reason. One of Agentura’s last articles for Novaya Gazeta focused on the former FSB officer Pavel Ryaguzov, who is currently facing prosecution in the Anna Politkovskaya murder trial.

Novaya Gazeta’s deputy editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov denies to Index on Censorship any politics behinds the firing. ‘Job cuts, including some of the star writers, are a result of the investors’ decision to cut the funding of the paper. This has nothing to do with professional performance.’ Sokolov added that the job cuts ‘will certainly affect the paper, but not catastrophically’. He said that the newspaper will continue to monitor the secret services, ‘like we always did, even before collaborating with Agentura’. Sokolov added that the coverage of Politkovsakya’s murder case, which he is overseeing himself, will not be affected.

Roman Shleinov, head of the investigations unit at Novaya Gazeta, said to Index on Censorship the paper will continue to do investigations although now there will be less specialisation and journalists will be forced to write on a much wider range of issues. ‘Maybe the job cuts will push the remaining staff to work harder,’ he said. But Shleinov was in general quite pessimistic: ‘It seems that things will get worse.’

In December 2005, Andrei Soldatov published with Irina Borogan the book New patriot games. How secret services have been changing their skin 1991-2004.

In April 2008 Praeger has published PSI Handbook of Global Security and Intelligence: National Approaches: Volume 1 - The Americas and Asia; Volume 2 - Europe and the Middle East where Soldatov is author of chapter on Russia’s secret services.

In September 2010 Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan's book The Restoration of Russia's Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB is published by PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group.