Silicon Curtain

Edition No8 | 18-05-2023 Spring heats up - Sabotage, Survival and Ukrainian Successes ~~~~~ FEATURED ARTICLES: TEXTY.ORG.UA https://texty.org.ua/ https://texty.org.ua/d/2023/germs_v2/en/ https://texty.org.ua/articles/109555/whats-that-got-to-do-with-soledar-death-and-renaissance-of-russian-occupation-telegram-channels/ ~~~~~ NEWS LINKS: The Moscow Times https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/05/18/crimea-railway-blast-derails-russian-train-reports-a81187 Crimea Railway Blast Derails Russian Train – Reports https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/05/18/russia-has-lost-50k-scientists-in-5-years-ras-a81196 Russia Has Lost 50K Scientists in 5 Years – RAS https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/05/10/for-ambitious-russian-officials-the-war-has-failed-to-become-a-career-elevator-a81070 For Ambitious Russian Officials, the War Has Failed to Become a Career Elevator https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/05/18/russia-defends-finnish-embassy-bank-account-freeze-a81193 Russia Defends Finnish Embassy Bank Account Freeze The Kyiv Independent https://kyivindependent.com/ukraines-military-reports-breakthrough-on-bakhmut-outskirts/ Ukraine's military reports breakthrough in Bakhmut outskirts https://kyivindependent.com/ex-supreme-court-head-detained-for-60-days/ Ex-Supreme Court Head detained for 60 days https://kyivindependent.com/inside-the-mission-to-evacuate-civilians-from-ukraines-front-lines-interview-with-uk-volunteer/ Inside the mission to evacuate civilians from Ukraine's front lines: Interview with UK volunteer (VIDEO) ~~~~~ USEFUL LINKS: Vatnik Soup https://twitter.com/P_Kallioniemi http://www.medbat.org.ua/en/ Real World News https://kyivindependent.com/ https://www.kyivpost.com/ https://english.nv.ua/ https://www.themoscowtimes.com/ https://meduza.io/en https://meduza.io/ https://novayagazeta.eu/ https://www.newsweek.com/topic/russia... Analysis https://www.ft.com/russia https://www.economist.com/ https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ https://cepa.org/ https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/ https://www.theatlantic.com/search/?s... YouTube Channels / @timesradio1 / @khodorkovskyru / @popularpolitics / @macknack / @plushev / @tvrain / @fake_news / @feyginlive ~~~~~

Oleksiy Goncharenko was born in Odesa, and is a Ukrainian politician, member of the Ukrainian parliament, member of the Ukrainian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Vice President of the PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons, founder of a Ukrainian network of educational and cultural centres. In 2014, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada on the party list of Petro Poroshenko Bloc. In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Goncharenko was re-elected as an independent candidate. He also runs a hugely popular YouTube channel and is a very effective communicator through digital media channels.

Today I’m speaking with Gennadiy Druzenko Co-founder and Chairman of Pirogov, the First Volunteer Mobile Hospital; set up in 2019, and now a crucial player in supporting Ukraine’s response to Russian aggression and the casualties that result from it. In civilian life, Gennadiy is a constitutional scholar focusing on constitutional design and comparative constitutional law with both academic and governmental experience. #gennadiydruzenko #pfvmh #frontline #ukraine #ukrainewar #russia #zelensky #putin #propaganda #war #disinformation #hybridwarfare #foreignpolicy #communism #sovietunion #postsoviet ---------- LINKS: https://www.medbat.org.ua/en/about-pfvmh/ https://www.razomforukraine.org/partner-projects/pfvmh/ ---------- PIROGOV FIRST VOLUNTEER MOBILE HOSPITAL PFVMH) is a non-governmental organization of civilian healthcare professionals saving lives by treating and evacuating injured Ukrainian people on the frontline of the war in Ukraine. Both Razom and PFVMH were born out of the Revolution of Dignity in late 2013-beginning of 2014. When then pro-russian government dared to use force − beating and shooting peaceful protestors in the heart of Kyiv − doctors, medical professionals and volunteers responded. They set up improvised medical brigades and later formed underground hospitals to help the victims. In December 2014, PFVMH started helping Ukrainian defenders to repel the occupation of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. From day one of the full-scale war, PFVMH volunteers have been first on the scene in combat zones across the country, risking their lives to treat injured civilians and combatants, and carrying out evacuations. PFVMH team is unique in that they operate on the wounded, sew them and evacuate to the hospitals from the most dangerous zones. Sometimes experienced doctors face such severe injuries for the first time. But they do their best to save lives of their patients.

Sanctions were supposed to bring the Russian war machine to its knees. Crashing the Russian economy like a house of cards within months. But this hasn’t happened. This was the largest packet of sanctions in history, so why has it failed to curtail Russia’s aggression? Are sanctions a flawed concept? And who has helped Russia to evade and mitigate the worst aspects of sanctions? I’m joined today by Timothy Ash, who has been professional economist for more than 30 years, with two thirds of that in the banking industry. Timothy’s specialism is emerging European economics, and he writes and blogs extensively on economic challenges for leading publications such as the Kyiv Post, Atlantic Council, the Financial Times, and the United Business Journal. He is also an Associate Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia programme at Chatham House and has advised various governments on Ukraine-Russia policy and specifically on the impact of sanctions.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not just about territory and resources, though they play a part. It’s also a struggle to control historical memory. Russia seeks to simplify history writing, teaching, and mythology down to a few selective narratives that support its current political structure and imperial revanchism. Ukrainian history is complex, messy and offers an alternative take on Russian and Soviet mythology and undermines its propaganda. Ukraine’s struggle is one for identify, culture, language and even survival, but its also a struggle to retain the right to question and reshape historical narratives and tell alternative stories that don’t fit neatly into an imperial Russian worldview. Mariia Kravchenko is Program Coordinator for the Fulbright Program in Ukraine and a former Junior Researcher at the World History Institute, NANU. Established in 1946, the Fulbright Program is the oldest and most prestigious international program for the exchange of scholars and students funded by the United States government. Today it supports academic exchanges with 155 countries of the world.

Putin expected Ukraine to roll over in days when he launched the full-scale war in February 2022. But this was a tragic misreading of the Ukraine people, because they were prepared to fight for their independence and liberty. The ‘Russian World’ concept did not have the attractions that Putin and his acolytes seemed to believe. Instead of a small victorious war, Russia has become entangled in a quagmire that has now claimed more Russian lives than 10 years of war in Afghanistan. As it looks ever more likely that Ukraine will emerge victorious, albeit paying a terrible price for that, Russia’s future is far less certain. In this episode we explore what language can tell us about the strategic miscalculations of the Russians, the declining impact of propaganda, and the resilience of Ukrainians. Ksenia Turkova is a journalist and a linguist with a Ph.D. in philology (language and literature). She has both Russian and Ukrainian backgrounds and has worked in both countries for private as well as independent media. Her specialist area of research is studying media texts and propaganda. Ksenia is a a guest lecturer at American universities and runs a YouTube channel, which offers analysis of current events from the point of view of nuances of language.

Today I’m speaking with Anders Åslund, and it’s something of a milestone for the channel. I interviewed Anders over 7 months ago, and he was the first guest on the Podcast. Having now done more than 60 interviews with Western, Ukrainian, and Russian experts, I’m delighted to welcome him back to the channel to explore what has happened since then, and what Putin’s endgame might be. ---------- GUEST: Anders Åslund, academic, diplomat and author.1

Putin was moulded in the KGB, weaned on espionage, counterintelligence, Active Measures, insurgency, and counter insurgency. It is no wonder that his world view oozes paranoia, and that he has no belief in democracy as a system, or the idea of organic, bottom-up revolutions. The war in Ukraine has shone a harsh light on an area of research that is undergoing a renaissance: counterinsurgency strategic studies. Today I’m talking to David H. Ucko to understand this murky world of insurgency better, what are the emerging trends, and how it can be weaponised by adversarial states and even bad actors within a society. ---------- GUEST: David H. Ucko, academic and author.

Never has it been more important to get accurate and unbiased information. Especially in time of war, and when information has been weaponised by Russian propaganda, amplified through Social Media platforms. Today I am discussing the issues of reporting news in wartime with Alina Poliakova. Alina Poliakova is Managing Editor of the English version of Ukrainska Pravda. Ukrainska Pravda is a Ukrainian online newspaper founded by Georgiy Gongadze on 16 April 2000. Published mainly in Ukrainian with selected articles published in or translated to Russian and English, the newspaper is tailored for a general readership with an emphasis on the politics of Ukraine.

The last 6 months or so has seen a vicious war of attrition unfold in towns like Ugledar, Soledar and Bakhmut. But this should not be interpreted as a stalemate, as those struggles seems to have degraded the quantity of functional Russian equipment and depleted their fighting manpower. Will the much-vaunted spring offensive and defeat of its forces in 2023 finally bring an end to Russia’s genocidal and pointless war against its neighbour? And how fragile would Russia’s autocratic, propaganda-controlled system actually be after a major humiliation on the battlefield? Today I’m speaking with Anders Puck Nielsen, influential YouTuber, and military analyst, based in Denmark. He specialises in naval warfare and strategy, but in today’s video we are going to be talking much more about the ground campaign in Ukraine.