The ongoing war in Ukraine continues to take a toll on the lives of millions of women who have fled Ukraine and on those displaced within the country. My guest today is a Ukrainian civil society leader, who has spoken out about the need to restore a faith in humanity that Ukrainian women and children have lost in the war. Russia not only tries to strip Ukraine of its sovereignty, but the country’s people of their agency and dignity. Women and girls are especially affected by the war, and an incr...
Feb 09, 2024•51 min•Season 3Ep. 343
Gregory Terry has worked in Ukraine for 26 years, facilitating the delivery of aid to frontline areas of the country. Like me, he uses YouTube as a tool to advocate for Ukraine and demonstrate the amazing work of his team on the ground. Greg has always been fascinated by the cultures, history, and languages of the region, growing up in an era which saw the opening up of the Soviet Union. I’ll let him tell the story of his family, and how he came to be connected to Russia and Ukraine. Greg now ru...
Feb 06, 2024•50 min•Season 3Ep. 342
Scott Lucas is a political analyst with more than 30 years’ experience including a wide range of interests from academic expertise to journalism, and public media, as well as digital engagement. Scott is a regular contributor to international TV, radio, and electronic outlets. He is currently a Professor at the Clinton Institute, University College Dublin, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Birmingham. ---------- LINKS: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/impact/heroes/previous-heroes...
Feb 05, 2024•56 min•Season 3Ep. 341
'Political technology' is a Russian term for the professional engineering of politics. It has turned Russian politics into theatre and propaganda – and now transformed the country into spectacle of blood, circuses, fear, and hatred. But once developed, these techniques for mass manipulation, that build parallel universes of alternative political reality, can be shared by authoritarian regimes. Political technology is being used to dismantle democracy in countries such as Hungary and is now about...
Feb 04, 2024•49 min•Season 3Ep. 338
Together with Jakub Kalenský, Roman Osadchuk is the author of a fascinating paper, “How Ukraine fights Russian disinformation: Beehive vs mammoth,” This detailed and compelling work forms the basis of today’s interview. ---------- Roman Osadchuk is a research associate for Eurasia at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab). Roman Osadchuk research disinformation narratives and technology uses for their spread in the region. He is interested in the role of information policy...
Feb 04, 2024•42 min•Season 3Ep. 339
Edition No34 | 01-02-2024 Unable to break the so-called deadlock on the frontlines of the conventional war, Ukraine is engaging in ‘smart warfare’ to attack the enemy’s oil and gas supply lines. Over the past three weeks, Ukraine has wreaked havoc with Russia’s energy infrastructure. Soon after the new year, someone attached explosives to train carriages in the Urals city of Nizhny Tagil. A blast took place next to facilities owned by Gazprom Neft, the country’s third biggest oil producer. Next,...
Feb 02, 2024•38 min
Brandon Mitchell is a Canadian who is deeply involved and invested in the Ukraine war. As a member of the Hospitaller crew, he has been evacuating people and the wounded since the beginning of the war. Brandon was born in a small Canadian town near the Atlantic Ocean. At the age of 17, he joined the army, and served first in Canada and then in the UK. When the full-scale war began in Ukraine, Brandon could not stand aside. He decided that this was his war too. “I couldn't think of anything but U...
Jan 31, 2024•49 min•Season 3Ep. 337
Russia has been hit be a perfect storm, that may affect the outcome of the war. Crumbling infrastructure combined with a cold winter. Strikes on strategic military energy infrastructure by Ukraine, and growing war fatigue among the domestic population. The move to a war economy, rampant inflation, and a growing deficit of some staple goods. ---------- Welcome to our monthly conversation with Konstantin, who is one of the most respected voices on YouTube about what is happening Inside Russia. Kon...
Jan 31, 2024•57 min•Season 3Ep. 336
First in a new series of monthly conversations on Silicon Curtain, about how Ukrainians are redefining the ideas of freedom and democracy, and why Ukraine must not be allowed to fall under Russian control. Politicians across the political spectrum are not taking the threat to the international order seriously enough. The war in Ukraine, despite it scale and intensity is still being classed as a regional conflict between neighbouring countries, not as a global struggle for values and power. We ar...
Jan 26, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Season 3Ep. 335
Professor Darin Gerdes provides in-depth analysis of the Russo-Ukrainian war on his popular YouTube channel, 'Professor Gerdes Explains'. Channel - @Professor-Gerdes He tries to provide unique insights that help his audience to understand the context of the war, and grounds his analysis in facts. LINKS https://www.youtube.com/@Professor-Gerdes/videos https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dr.gerdes P.S. he has written a book on Zelenskyy and the war in Ukraine. https://amzn.to/3D6z7DE ---------- SUPPORT T...
Jan 25, 2024•44 min•Season 3Ep. 334
GUEST: Anna from Ukraine - Anna Danylchuk ---------- Anna Danylchuk has been creating a war diary since the early days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022. Anna Danylchuk aims to tell the truth about Ukraine and Russia’s war and cut through the noise and propaganda. Anna is passionate about the beauty and independence of her country, and communicates this powerfully in her videos, in a clear and honest way. ---------- LINKS: https://www.youtube.com/@UCiVefOT4TGW3pOqW6AxmlBQ h...
Jan 24, 2024•53 min•Season 3Ep. 333
Ilya Ponomarev is a Russian-Ukrainian politician who was a member of the Russian State Duma from 2007 to 2016. After the 2022 Russian invasion, Ponomarev joined Ukraine's Territorial Defence Forces, and categorically denounced the invasion. While a member of the Russian State Duma, he was the only deputy not to vote in favour of the Russian gay propaganda law and to vote against Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014. In 2015, while in the US, Ponomarev was formally charged in Russia with e...
Jan 23, 2024•50 min•Season 3Ep. 332
Andrew Mercado is a U.S. Army Veteran who served both on active duty and in the reserves as an 88M motor transport operator from 2012 - 2020 with one tour overseas. His journey into journalism began when George Floyd was murdered in his home city of Minneapolis in 2020 and I had the desire to report on the subsequent riots, unrest, and protests. It’s a journey that led him to Ukraine, where he’s become a powerful voice in bringing the war to life on his YouTube channel. ---------- LINKS: https:/...
Jan 21, 2024•1 hr•Season 3Ep. 331
The Russian government’s deniable use of rogues, businessmen, enthusiasts, mercenaries, and political technologists confounded policymakers as Moscow waged a covert invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Did the war in Crimea and Donbas reveal the Kremlin’s ‘hybrid war’ playbook – or did Moscow quickly lose control over the forces it had unleashed? What’s clear, is that the international community dramatically misunderstood the very nature of this war and was unprepared for the Kremlin’s sudden and brutal...
Jan 20, 2024•54 min•Season 3Ep. 330
This episode is dedicated to Serhiy Korolyov, the genius who launched humanity into space, born in Zhytomyr and who studied in Odesa & Kyiv. Three of the most significant achievements at the dawn of the space era were masterminded by him. Sputnik. Gagarin. And Leonov’s first-ever spacewalk. Korolyov was the genius behind the technology that made these and many other leaps possible. By his contemporaries, he was simply called “The Chief Engineer.” ---------- ABOUT: Yaroslav Azhnyuk is an Entr...
Jan 19, 2024•43 min•Season 3Ep. 329
Edition No33 | 17-01-2024 Russia plans Belarus 'absorption' by 2030 — according to media reports. A Russian presidential document was obtained, in February 2023, by a group of international journalists who believe it to be authentic. It reportedly dates back to the summer of 2021. ~~~~~ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ~~~~~ KYIV INDEPENDENT https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-war-latest-january-16-2024/ https://kyivindepende...
Jan 17, 2024•48 min
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Yaroslav Trofimov has spent months on end at the heart of the conflict, very often on its front lines. In this authoritative account, he traces the war’s decisive moments—from the battle for Kyiv to more recently the gruelling and bloody arm wrestle involving the Wagner group over Bakhmut—to show how Ukraine and its allies have turned the tide against Russia in a modern-day battle of David and Goliath. ---------- BOOKS: Our Enemies Will Vanish – The...
Jan 15, 2024•53 min•Season 3Ep. 328
Christopher Miller is an American journalist covering foreign affairs, national security, global conflicts, crises, and politics, with a special focus on Ukraine, where he’s lived and worked since 2010. Author of the book, “The War Came To Us: Life And Death In Ukraine,” published by Bloomsbury in July 2023. Christopher Miller is the Ukraine Correspondent for the Financial Times. ---------- When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine just before ...
Jan 14, 2024•50 min•Season 3Ep. 327
Since February 24, 2022, Ukraine has enjoyed bipartisan support from the United States, and for that entire time, Russia has been looking for cracks in this support. Russia failed to achieve any downsizing in aid through military and diplomatic means. The Kremlin is now seizing the opportunity of the fractious upcoming election period to refresh another time-tested tactic: information-psychological special operations. ---------- ABOUT: Halyna Yanchenko is a member of the Ukrainian parliament, el...
Jan 13, 2024•48 min•Season 3Ep. 326
Edition No32 | 11-01-2024 Central heating pipe laid down in 1974 ruptured and flooded in Novosibirsk, Russia. Multiple districts without heating nor hot water in -25°C (-13°F) night temperature. Is Russia falling apart? ~~~~~ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ~~~~~ KYIV INDEPENDENT https://kyivindependent.com/russia-attacks-kharkiv-9-injured/ https://kyivindependent.com/zelensky-arrives-in-vilnius-as-part-of-visit-to-baltics/ ...
Jan 12, 2024•38 min
Guest: Tetyana Denford (Бісик) Ukrainian author - ‘Child of Ukraine’ & ‘The Soldier’s Child’. Translator, ‘20 Days in Mariupol’ and ‘Battle for Ukraine’. Writing courses on Substack. YouTube host. As the Russian invasion began, a team of Ukrainian journalists were trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol. The searing and harrowing film 20 Days in Mariupol documents their struggle to continue working to record the war's atrocities, under the brutal assault of Russia’s army. ---------- ABOUT: ...
Jan 11, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 3Ep. 325
For more than a decade Russia has pumped poison into the bloodstream of our civilisation, in the form of hypnotic lies and myths, that Stephen Douglas calls Disinfolklore. These human-crafted, mythical falsehoods are a form of simplistic, yet impactful fairytale nonsense. They have fooled many foreign policy professionals, politicians, diplomats, as well as lay people, into repeating patently absurd, yet endlessly recycled bogus Russian narratives. There is a strategic purpose behind the contemp...
Jan 09, 2024•1 hr 19 min•Season 3Ep. 324
This year has been mentally exhausting for Ukraine and those that have been helping Ukraine, but only Ukrainians have the right to be tired, and they are not. ---------- Jaanika Merilo is an Estonian-Ukrainian reformer, IT innovator, and philanthropist. Since October 2019, Merilo has been an advisor to Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhaylo Fedorov. She served as advisor to two Ministers of Infrastructure of Ukraine, the mayor of Dnipro, and the mayor of...
Jan 09, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 323
A documentary about the horrific and destructive war that is currently taking place in Ukraine. The film tells the true stories of Ukrainians who have been forced to flee their homes, lose loved ones, and live in fear for their lives. It is a story about the courage, strength of will, and resilience of the Ukrainian people...If you can, please send the link to a friend or two. FILM: To the Zero Line - Brave Hearts in Dark Hours Director - Benjamin I. Goldhagen (2023) – 2h 26m https://www.totheze...
Jan 06, 2024•1 hr•Season 3Ep. 322
Mariia Kravchenko is the Fulbright Program officer and a Historian. 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. ---------- LINKS: https://twitter.com/MariiaK54469057 https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariia-kravchenko-1a65b7177/ https://fulbright.org.ua/en/contacts/ https://trafo.hypotheses.org/48...
Jan 05, 2024•45 min•Season 2Ep. 286
Edition No31 | 03-01-2024 Joe Biden says US will back Ukraine ‘as long as we can’ - Zelenskyy visits Washington to appeal for further aid but meets Republican resistance. “We’ll continue to supply Ukraine with critical weapons and equipment as long as we can . . . but without supplemental funding, we’re rapidly coming to an end of our ability to help Ukraine respond to the urgent operational demands that it has,” Biden said. ~~~~~ SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain ...
Jan 03, 2024•32 min
In 2022–2023, Ukraine commemorated the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor genocide. It comes at a time when Ukraine is facing a new struggle for its survival. Russia is committing a new genocide – with the full-scale war it launched in Feb-2022. Methods to suppress Ukrainian nationhood differ, - a man-made famine, terror, and deportation in the 1930, and war in the 21st century, but the intent remains the same – and the source of this misery is Russia once more. But the Ukrainian nation persevere...
Jan 03, 2024•43 min•Season 2Ep. 282
Ada Wordsworth is a writer from London with a focus on Ukraine and other areas which have suffered under Russian imperialism, particularly Uzbekistan. She is also the co-founder and director of KHARPP, a UK registered charity which supports reconstruction efforts in eastern Ukraine, particularly the Kharkiv region. She holds an undergraduate degree from UCL in Russian Studies, and an MSt in Slavonic Studies, specialising in Ukrainian, from Oxford University. She has been published in Granta, the...
Jan 01, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 3Ep. 319
Dr Sasha Dovzhyk is a London-based author from Zaporizhzhia and a special projects curator at the Ukrainian Institute London. She holds research affiliations with Goldsmiths and Birkbeck, University of London. Since February 2022, she has been dividing her time between London and Ukraine. Sasha has written on topics as diverse as the legacies of Chornobyl, transnational decadent aesthetics, and Ukrainian literature for various publications, including Los Angeles Review of Books, The Guardian, CN...
Dec 31, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Season 2Ep. 321
Welcome to our monthly conversation with Konstantin, who is one of the most respected voices on YouTube about what is happening Inside Russia. Konstantin Samoilov is a well-known YouTuber whose channel ‘Inside Russia’ comments insightfully on Russia’s decent into authoritarianism over the last few years. But now, like many others, he’s outside Russia, with no idea of when he can return there. ---------- LINKS: https://www.youtube.com/@INSIDERUSSIA ---------- OTHER VIDEOS WITH KONSTANTIN ON SILIC...
Dec 30, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Season 2Ep. 320
