Ukraine Decoded

Vladislav Davidzon, a writer, translator, and critic joins Viktor Kovalenko to discuss the cultural and political transformations in Ukraine during the ongoing Russian war.

We discussed the first days of the Russian invasion, his magazine the Odessa Review and his book From Odessa With Love, how he burned his Russian passport in front of the Russian Embassy in France, why some Russians aren't granted an asylum in the US, political legacy and Jewish roots of President Zelensky, the new documentary Superpower by Sean Penn, and what is wrong with the Oscar.

Mr. Davidzon is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Since 2012, he also serves as the European culture correspondent for the Tablet Magazine. In 2015, Davidzon founded the Odessa Review and served as its chief editor until July 2018. His work has been featured in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal, World Policy Journal, the New York Observer, and the American Interest.

In this episode, my guest was Brian Mefford, a US expat from Kyiv who lives and works there for almost 23 years.

The guest of this episode is Brian Bonner, a former chief editor of the Kyiv Post, the English-language weekly newspaper in Ukraine. He is an American national from Minnesota who resides in Kyiv since the end of the 90s.

It was a pure luck to interview Mr. Bonner between electricity outages in the Ukrainian capital city caused by the Russian missile attacks on the energy infrastructure. He explained why he remains in the war-torn country and why the Ukrainians will survive winter of 2022-2023. We discussed why Ukraine was slow in reforms during three decades of independence since the collapse of the Soviet Union and didn’t become a member of the European Union and NATO. He expressed his opinion about achievements and faults of different Ukrainian Presidents, comparing pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych with pro-Western Volodymyr Zelensky and Petro Poroshenko. Mr. Bonner commented on work of Ukrainian journalists and Western reporters parachuted there to cover the war.

In this podcast episode David Stulik, a senior analyst in European Values Center for Security Policy think tank (Czech Republic) and a former diplomat of the European Union in Ukraine talks with Viktor Kovalenko about what Europeans think about the Russian war against Ukraine. For twelve years, Mr. Stulík served in Kyiv as the press and information officer at the EU Delegation (then - the EU Embassy).

We discussed why didn't Europe help Ukraine in 2014 during the first Russian military invasion that led to the Russian annexation of Crimea and occupation of the part of the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. It was interesting to hear what the he and Europeans think about the idea of peace negotiations promoted by some political influencers in the West and backed by the invader Russia since November 2022. Mr. Stulik explained why the European financial and economic sanctions imposed on Russia for its military aggression don't work as expected and what does Ukraine have real chances to join NATO in the future.

Also Mr. Stulik explained how Czechia helps the war refugees.