In 2025, Ukraine is facing unprecedented pressure from one of its key partners, the United States. The Trump administration has chosen not to act as Ukraine’s ally, but rather as a mediator between Ukraine and Europe on the one hand, and Russia on the other.

This shift has fundamentally changed the geopolitical framework of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Around the world, the language of victory has largely been replaced by the language of peace. Yet under current conditions, “peace” often implies that Ukraine will not regain its occupied territories—and such a peace may, in fact, amount to Ukraine’s defeat.

In this episode, we explain why this is a dangerous path. We also look back at 2025 and summarize its key developments

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Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher, editor-in-chief of UkraineWorld, and president of PEN Ukraine.

Guest: Tetyana Ogarkova, a Ukrainian journalist and public intellectual, the head of the international department at the Ukraine Crisis Media Centre, and author of the podcast “L’Ukraine face a la guerre”, “Ukraine facing the war”, in French.

***

Explaining Ukraine is a podcast by UkraineWorld, an English-language media platform about Ukraine, run by Internews Ukraine.

Listen on various platforms: https://li.sten.to/explaining-ukraine

UkraineWorld: https://ukraineworld.org/en

***

SUPPORT:

You can support our work on https://www.patreon.com/c/ukraineworld

Your help is crucial, as we rely heavily on crowdfunding.

You can also contribute to our volunteer missions to frontline areas in Ukraine, where we deliver aid to both soldiers and civilians.

Donations are welcome via PayPal at: [email protected].

***

CONTENTS:

00:00 - Introduction

01:46 - US's shift from ally to mediator in Russia-Ukraine war. The impact of the Trump administration's approach to military aid.

06:13 - Trump and Putin's similar world vision regarding spheres of influence.

07:03 - Key elements of proposed peace plans: territorial concessions, security guarantees, and military withdrawal.

08:38 - Ukraine's public opinion against territorial concessions.

13:55 - The "fog" of peace negotiations occurring amidst ongoing total war and Russia's strategy of buying time.

17:33 - Legal and moral challenges of territorial concessions and skepticism about the legitimacy of peace plan negotiators.

20:48 - The escalation of the war, increased civilian suffering due to infrastructure bombardments, and Ukraine's strategy to target the Russian economy.

25:01 - Ukraine's dilemma in peace talks and Russia's strategy of worsening conditions over time.

29:04 - Donald Trump's political weaknesses and Zelenskyy's strategy

30:57 - The security situation on the front line: the rise of drone warfare, its increasing danger to civilians, and the expanding "kill zone."

39:07 - Ukrainian internal politics: the war against corruption, the role of civil society, and Zelenskyy's responsiveness to public opinion.

46:45 - Concluding remarks and a call for support for UkraineWorld.

Imagine an NGO that has raised over one billion dollars to support the Ukrainian army. Imagine a civil society initiative that purchases armaments and military equipment. Imagine a transparent organisation with an independent board and detailed reporting. This NGO exists — it is called “Povernys Zhyvym”, or “Come Back Alive”. It is one of the largest Ukrainian civil society foundations supporting Ukraine’s defense.

In this episode, we will speak about its work — and about the ways you can help Ukraine.

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Explaining Ukraine is a podcast by UkraineWorld, an English-language media platform about Ukraine, run by Internews Ukraine.

Listen on various platforms: https://li.sten.to/explaining-ukraine

UkraineWorld: https://ukraineworld.org/en

***

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher, editor-in-chief of UkraineWorld, and president of PEN Ukraine.

Guest: Kateryna Leshchyshyn, head of the international partnerships at the Come Back Alive foundation.

***

SUPPORT:

You can support our work on https://www.patreon.com/c/ukraineworld

Your help is crucial, as we rely heavily on crowdfunding.

You can also contribute to our volunteer missions to frontline areas in Ukraine, where we deliver aid to both soldiers and civilians.

Donations are welcome via PayPal at: [email protected].

***

The podcast episode is produced by UkraineWorld with the support of the Askold and Dir Fund as a part of the Strong Civil Society of Ukraine - a Driver towards Reforms and Democracy project, implemented by ISAR Ednannia, funded by Norway and Sweden. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of UkraineWorld and can in no way be taken to reflect the views the Government of Norway, the Government of Sweden and ISAR

***

CONTENTS:

00:00 What is Come Back Alive (Povernys Zhyvym)?

02:09 Come Back Alive`s Role: at the crossroads of the military, defence industry, and charity

04:33 Why does Ukraine need charity foundations to win?

07:49 Povernys Zhyvym buys a lot of things: from arms and vehicles to drones and chairs

09:58 Come Back Alive tests and develops new solutions

13:27 Working with foreigners: Challenges and successful stories

16:09 Why foreigners are reluctant to fund military equipment

19:34 Reality of the Ukrainian army: 80-90% of soldiers are former civilians

22:07 Who are the main donors of Come Back Alive?

29:38 Ways to support Ukraine: Spreading information, demonstrations, literature

37:37 Why donors should choose Come Back Alive

Ukraine has its own tradition of geopolitical thinking — a tradition that reaches deep into the past and continues to shape the country’s strategic imagination today. What are its key traits? Why was it developed more by writers than by statesmen? And how does it relate to Ukraine’s current reflection on its identity?

***

Explaining Ukraine is a podcast by UkraineWorld, an English-language media platform about Ukraine, run by Internews Ukraine.

Listen on various platforms: https://li.sten.to/explaining-ukraine

UkraineWorld: https://ukraineworld.org/en

***

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher, editor-in-chief of UkraineWorld, and president of PEN Ukraine.

Guest: Danylo Lubkivsky, a Ukrainian diplomat and thinker, deputy foreign minister in 2014, and currently director of the Kyiv Security Forum.

***

SUPPORT:

You can support our work on https://www.patreon.com/c/ukraineworld

Your help is crucial, as we rely heavily on crowdfunding.

You can also contribute to our volunteer missions to frontline areas in Ukraine, where we deliver aid to both soldiers and civilians.

Donations are welcome via PayPal at: [email protected].

What makes the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church so unique? Why is it such a remarkable attempt to bridge the divide between Eastern and Western Christianity? How can its history help us better understand the history of Europe and of the Christian religion? How has it shaped Ukrainian national identity? And how did it survive the Soviet era, when the authorities sought to eradicate it?

***

Explaining Ukraine is a podcast by UkraineWorld, an English-language media platform about Ukraine, run by Internews Ukraine.

Listen on various platforms: https://li.sten.to/explaining-ukraine

UkraineWorld: https://ukraineworld.org/en

***

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher, editor-in-chief of UkraineWorld, and president of PEN Ukraine.

Guest: Natalia Shlikhta, a well-known Ukrainian historian and professor at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

***

SUPPORT:

You can support our work on https://www.patreon.com/c/ukraineworld

Your help is crucial, as we rely heavily on crowdfunding.

You can also contribute to our volunteer missions to frontline areas in Ukraine, where we deliver aid to both soldiers and civilians.

Donations are welcome via PayPal at: [email protected].

***

This episode is made in partnership with Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and under the framework of the project “HER-UKR: Challenges and opportunities for EU heritage diplomacy in Ukraine”, co-funded by the EU within the ERASMUS+ Jean Monnet Policy Debate action.

Ukrainian cultural heritage is not something that quietly settles into national archives. In reality, it is the result of a dramatic struggle against destruction and oblivion. This makes this heritage so magnetic—precisely because it is not always visible or accessible, yet can be reconstructed like a lost mosaic.

In this episode, we talk about what the Ukrainian cultural heritage is, and how we can understand it. And also about the role of cultural institutions during Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine.

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Guest: Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta, a prominent Ukrainian public intellectual and art manager, director of the Art Arsenal (Mystetskyi Arsenal), one of Ukraine’s major cultural institutions. Olesia regularly appears on lists of the most influential figures in the Ukrainian cultural sphere compiled by various media and rankings.

Host: Tetyana Ogarkova, a Ukrainian literary scholar at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and the head of the international department at Ukraine Crisis Media Centre. She also runs the French-language podcast L’Ukraine face à la guerre.

***

Explaining Ukraine is a podcast by UkraineWorld, an English-language media platform about Ukraine, run by Internews Ukraine.

Listen on various platforms: https://li.sten.to/explaining-ukraine

UkraineWorld: https://ukraineworld.org/en

***

SUPPORT:

You can support our work on https://www.patreon.com/c/ukraineworld

Your help is crucial, as we rely heavily on crowdfunding.

You can also contribute to our volunteer missions to frontline areas in Ukraine, where we deliver aid to both soldiers and civilians.

Donations are welcome via PayPal at: [email protected].

***

This episode is made in partnership with Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and under the framework of the project “HER-UKR: Challenges and opportunities for EU heritage diplomacy in Ukraine”, co-funded by the EU within the ERASMUS+ Jean Monnet Policy Debate action.

Russian propaganda claims that Ukraine is not a separate nation, but merely a “preliminary form” of Russia. Today’s Kremlin ideology seeks to annex Ukrainian history in order to justify its territorial aggression. But this myth has a birth certificate. It emerged in the 19th century, when the Russian Empire started inventing its “ancient” medieval roots. Before that, Russian travellers in Ukrainian lands showed little interest in such historical questions.

In this episode, we trace the genealogy of the myth that Kyiv is a “Russian city” and that its history somehow belongs to Muscovy.

***

Explaining Ukraine is a podcast by UkraineWorld, an English-language media platform about Ukraine, run by Internews Ukraine.

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher, editor-in-chief of UkraineWorld, and president of PEN Ukraine.

Listen on various platforms: https://li.sten.to/explaining-ukraine

UkraineWorld: https://ukraineworld.org/en

***

Guest: Kateryna Dysa, a Ukrainian historian and Associate Professor at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. She has been a visiting fellow at Harvard, Stanford, Paris, and Oxford, and a visiting professor at the University of Basel. Currently, she is researching how the image of Kyiv was constructed in travel literature from the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries.

***

SUPPORT:

You can support our work on https://www.patreon.com/c/ukraineworld

Your help is crucial, as we rely heavily on crowdfunding.

You can also contribute to our volunteer missions to frontline areas in Ukraine, where we deliver aid to both soldiers and civilians.

Donations are welcome via PayPal at: [email protected].

***

CONTENTS:

00:00 Kateryna Dysa, a Ukrainian historian and associate professor at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

00:15 Where and when did the myth of Kyiv belonging to Moscow actually begin?

02:05 How did 18th-century Russian travelers initially view Kyiv, and why was their interest superficial?

04:05 How did the rise of history as a discipline change Russia's perception of Kyiv?

12:17 Why did the French philosopher Madame de Staël describe Kyiv as a "semi-Tatar" or nomadic place?

15:17 What were the two extreme ways Westerners described Kyiv?

21:04 When did the annexation of the past become an "aggressive policy" and a part of Russian imperial ideology?

35:03 Why were Russian travelers unwilling to communicate with locals, stressing that Ukrainians were "the other"?

38:07 Why did Russian travelers consistently feel "not at home" in a place the Empire claimed as its "cradle"?

39:16 What aspects of Kyiv's social and cultural history in the 19th century still remain "understudied"?

***

This episode is made in partnership with Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and under the framework of the project “HER-UKR: Challenges and opportunities for EU heritage diplomacy in Ukraine”, co-funded by the EU within the ERASMUS+ Jean Monnet Policy Debate action.

She is not only a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. She is not only one of the most visible human-rights defenders in Europe in recent decades. She is not only a tireless activist with profound empathy for others. She is also a thinker — someone who reflects deeply on the moral foundations of freedom and dignity.

Our guest today is Oleksandra Matviychuk, a prominent Ukrainian human-rights defender and head of the Center for Civil Liberties, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.

In this episode, we discuss the moral ideas that hold Ukrainian society together.

***

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher, editor-in-chief of UkraineWorld, and president of PEN Ukraine.

Explaining Ukraine is a podcast by UkraineWorld, an English-language media platform about Ukraine, run by Internews Ukraine.

Listen on various platforms: https://li.sten.to/explaining-ukraine

UkraineWorld: https://ukraineworld.org/en

***

SUPPORT:

You can support our work on https://www.patreon.com/c/ukraineworld

Your help is crucial, as we rely heavily on crowdfunding.

You can also contribute to our volunteer missions to frontline areas in Ukraine, where we deliver aid to both soldiers and civilians.

Donations are welcome via PayPal at: [email protected].

***

CONTENTS:

00:00 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk: On Freedom, Dignity, and War

02:24 "Not Nobel Peace Prize changed my life - the large-scale war has changed my life"

08:32 Torture, rape, enforced disappearances, filtration camps — the reality of Russian occupation

11:55 Why are Ukrainians not "ideal victims"?

15:57 The horror of Russian captivity: Ihor Kozlovskyi`s experience

19:44 Why is freedom existential for Ukrainians?

24:16 Ukrainian strength lies in the people's belief that their efforts matter

31:38 Over 170,000 registered Russian war crimes in Ukraine

32:18 Why is justice important now, not after the end of the war?

35:41 Why is the Russian war against Ukraine genocidal?

43:50 What gives Oleksandra Matviichuk hope today?

***

The podcast episode is produced by UkraineWorld with the support of the Askold and Dir Fund as a part of the Strong Civil Society of Ukraine - a Driver towards Reforms and Democracy project, implemented by ISAR Ednannia, funded by Norway and Sweden. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of UkraineWorld and can in no way be taken to reflect the views the Government of Norway, the Government of Sweden and ISAR

How is the life of a soldier different from that of a civilian? Which aspects of it are hardest for civilians to understand?

What is happening on the frontline today — and how will the outcome of this war depend on the technological race?

***

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher, editor-in-chief of UkraineWorld, and president of PEN Ukraine.

Guest: Vladyslav Urubkov, a former soldier of the Ukrainian army and now a manager for military affairs at Come Back Alive (Povernys zhyvym) — one of Ukraine’s most prominent charitable foundations, supporting the military and veterans since 2014.

Come back alive: https://savelife.in.ua/

***

Explaining Ukraine is produced by UkraineWorld, an English-language media outlet about Ukraine run by Internews Ukraine.

Listen on various platforms: https://li.sten.to/explaining-ukraine

UkraineWorld: https://ukraineworld.org/en

***

SUPPORT:

You can support our work on https://www.patreon.com/c/ukraineworld

Your help is crucial, as we rely heavily on crowdfunding.

You can also contribute to our volunteer missions to frontline areas in Ukraine, where we deliver aid to both soldiers and civilians.

Donations are welcome via PayPal at: [email protected].

Ukraine is not a burden for Europe — it’s a chance for Europe.

Today, European security is unthinkable without Ukraine. Ukraine has the strongest army in Europe, a dynamic defense industry, and citizens with vast military experience.

The real question is: to what extent does Europe itself understand the threat posed by the new authoritarianisms? And to what extent does it realise that helping Ukraine is, in fact, a matter of its own survival?

***

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher, editor-in-chief of UkraineWorld, and president of PEN Ukraine.

Guest: Yevhen Hlibovytskyi, a prominent Ukrainian intellectual and director of the Frontier Institute.

Frontier Institute: https://frontier.pro-mova.com/en

***

Explaining Ukraine is produced by UkraineWorld, an English-language media outlet about Ukraine run by Internews Ukraine.

Listen on various platforms: https://li.sten.to/explaining-ukraine

UkraineWorld: https://ukraineworld.org/en

***

SUPPORT:

You can support our work on https://www.patreon.com/c/ukraineworld

Your help is crucial, as we rely heavily on crowdfunding.

You can also contribute to our volunteer missions to frontline areas in Ukraine, where we deliver aid to both soldiers and civilians.

Donations are welcome via PayPal at: [email protected].

***

CONTENTS:

00:00 Yevhen Hlibovytskyi, Ukrainian intellectual and director of the Frontier Institute.

02:04 Has the dynamic shifted, making Ukraine a supplier of security to Europe rather than just a recipient?

07:49 Is the acute 'need' driven by war a stronger motivator for entrepreneurship and creativity than peacetime opportunity?

10:25 Why is the historical understanding of the Russian threat still proving ambivalent in some Central and Southern European countries?

15:01 Should the European Union transform into a geopolitical union by adding a military security component to its integration?

22:36 Is the Ukrainian governance model inherently more resilient because of civil society?

27:59 Why is Europe failing to find the necessary political will to take decisive action on Russian assets, sanctions, and information warfare?

30:31 Is the perception of Ukraine as a 'burden' outdated?

35:03 What about NATO?

43:48 What long-term economic and demographic impacts will follow if the current threat isn't addressed?

In this episode, we will talk about “Ukraïner”: a great initiative that has done a great deal to help rediscover Ukraine — both from within and from abroad.

“Ukraïner” launched expeditions to villages and towns across the country, researched the lifestyles and cultures of Ukraine’s diverse communities, and created outstanding textual and visual projects that help us better understand our own land. It has also done much to tell the Ukrainian story to the world.

***

Host: Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher, editor-in-chief of UkraineWorld, and president of PEN Ukraine.

Guest: Julia Tymoshenko, head of Ukraïner.

Ukraïner website: https://www.ukrainer.net/en/

***

Explaining Ukraine is produced by UkraineWorld, an English-language media outlet about Ukraine run by Internews Ukraine.

***

The podcast episode is produced by UkraineWorld with the support of the Askold and Dir Fund as a part of the Strong Civil Society of Ukraine - a Driver towards Reforms and Democracy project, implemented by ISAR Ednannia, funded by Norway and Sweden. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of UkraineWorld and can in no way be taken to reflect the views the Government of Norway, the Government of Sweden and ISAR

***

SUPPORT:

You can support our work on https://www.patreon.com/c/ukraineworld

Your help is crucial, as we rely heavily on crowdfunding.

You can also contribute to our volunteer missions to frontline areas in Ukraine, where we deliver aid to both soldiers and civilians.

Donations are welcome via PayPal at: [email protected].

***

CONTENTS:

00:00 - Intro

01:43 - The phenomenon of the Ukraїner project

15:13 - How did the full-scale invasion reshape the project

22:13 - Challenges of spreading Ukraine’s voice abroad

27:57 - Seeking stories that resonate with foreign audiences

33:48 - Shoving Ukrainians the world's perspectives

42:53 - Communication strategy of building a mutual understanding

48:51 - Outro

49:22 - Support us