Explaining Ukraine

Japan stands among the top supporters of Ukraine today. It provides major financial and humanitarian aid, and backs Ukraine at the political level globally. These countries lie thousands of miles apart - so what brings them together? Has this difficult time of war brought the Japanese and Ukrainian people closer, helping them discover more about each other?

This episode is part of a joint series “Ukraine’s Global Partnerships” produced by UkraineWorld and the Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism”.

In this episode, Deputy editor-in-chief at UkraineWorld Anastasiia Herasymchuk spoke with

Tomonori Yoshizaki, from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies,

and

Anastasia Polishchuk, from the Foreign Policy Council "Ukrainian Prism" and Waseda University

UkraineWorld (ukraineworld.org) is brought to you by Internews Ukraine, one of the largest Ukrainian media NGOs.

SUPPORT us at www.patreon.com/ukraineworld. We provide exclusive content for our patrons.

You can also support our volunteer trips to the frontlines at PayPal: [email protected].

This podcast series was created with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation. Its content is the exclusive responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the International Renaissance Foundation.

There is a big debate about whether sanctions against Russia are working. Some argue that they are failing to stop the Russian war machine, and that Ukraine’s allies need to find something else. Others say that real sanctions are yet to be applied or truly implemented. What is certain is that without the sanctions in place against Russia, Moscow would likely be occupying much more Ukrainian territory than it is.

In this episode, the Explaining Ukraine podcast invited Stephanie Baker, senior writer at Bloomberg News, and author of the new book "Punishing Putin: Inside the Global Economic War to Bring Down Russia". Stephanie has reported a lot from Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, and believes that Russia is more vulnerable than we think.

Link to the book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Punishing-Putin/Stephanie-Baker/9781668050583

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, Ukrainian philosopher, chief editor of UkraineWorld and president of PEN Ukraine

UkraineWorld (ukraineworld.org) is brought to you by Internews Ukraine, one of Ukraine’s largest media NGOs.

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

Support us at patreon.com/ukraineworld. We provide exclusive content for our patrons.

You can also support our volunteer trips to the front lines at PayPal: [email protected].

Trump’s election has brought the topic of negotiations with Russia back into focus. In this episode, we will analyze the obstacles that any talks with Russia are likely to entail.

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

Explaining Ukraine is a podcast by UkraineWorld, a multilingual media about Ukraine. 

UkraineWorld is brought to you by Internews Ukraine, one of Ukraine’s largest media NGOs.

You can support us at patreon.com/ukraineworld. We provide exclusive content for our patrons.

You can also support our volunteer trips to the front lines at PayPal: [email protected].

You can find these links in the description of this episode

There is a long intellectual tradition of studying the moral character of war. One of the key questions of this tradition is whether a war is just or unjust. What elements of this philosophical tradition can we apply to Russia’s war against Ukraine, and to Ukraine’s resistance?

Our guest today is Jeff McMahan, an American moral philosopher, and author of books such as "Killing in War" and "The Ethics of Killing".

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, Ukrainian philosopher, chief editor of UkraineWorld and president of PEN Ukraine

UkraineWorld (ukraineworld.org) is brought to you by Internews Ukraine, one Ukraine’s largest media NGOs.

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

Support us at patreon.com/ukraineworld. We provide exclusive content for our patrons.

You can also support our volunteer trips to the front lines at PayPal: [email protected].

This episode is produced in partnership with the Department of Philosophy at the University of Tartu, which recently published a special issue of their journal on the Russia-Ukraine war.

What does Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president mean for Ukraine? What are the potential threats—and perhaps hidden opportunities? Trump has claimed he can end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours, but what challenges would he face?

Our guest is Natalya Gumenyuk, a well-known Ukrainian journalist. She traveled to the U.S. to report on the election campaign and gain an insider’s perspective. Natalya has published extensively in both Ukrainian and international media and is a leading figure in the Public Interest Journalism Lab and the Reckoning Project.

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, Ukrainian philosopher, chief editor of UkraineWorld and president of PEN Ukraine

UkraineWorld (ukraineworld.org) is brought to you by Internews Ukraine, one of Ukraine’s largest media NGOs.

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

Support us at patreon.com/ukraineworld. We provide exclusive content for our patrons.

You can also support our volunteer trips to the front lines at PayPal: [email protected].

Denise Dresser is a prominent Mexican political analyst, columnist, and academic. Forbes recently listed her as one of the 50 most powerful women in Mexico. With almost 5 million followers on Twitter, she is also one of the most influential opinion leaders in her country. She was recently awarded the Legion of Honor by the French government for her work on democracy, justice, gender equality, and human rights.

Denise recently visited Ukraine. In this podcast, she shares her conclusions from her visit, a global view of how democracies are becoming fragile worldwide, including in Latin America, and why Ukraine’s fight matters to the rest of the world.

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, Ukrainian philosopher, chief editor of UkraineWorld and president of PEN Ukraine

UkraineWorld (ukraineworld.org) is brought to you by Internews Ukraine, one of Ukraine’s largest media NGOs.

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

Support us at patreon.com/ukraineworld. We provide exclusive content for our patrons.

You can also support our volunteer trips to the front lines at PayPal: [email protected].

This episode is produced in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute (https://ui.org.ua/en/), the country’s major public and cultural diplomacy institution.

Anne Applebaum is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, historian, and political analyst. A few weeks ago, she was awarded the Peace Prize of German Publishers at the Frankfurt Book Forum.

Her new book, "Autocracy, Inc.", explores the fragility of today’s democracies, and an ever-stronger network of autocracies that threaten them.

In this podcast, she discusses some of the book’s key ideas and Ukraine’s role in this global setting.

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, Ukrainian philosopher, chief editor of UkraineWorld and president of PEN Ukraine

UkraineWorld (ukraineworld.org) is brought to you by Internews Ukraine, one of Ukraine’s largest media NGOs.

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

Support us at patreon.com/ukraineworld. We provide exclusive content for our patrons.

You can also support our volunteer trips to the front lines at PayPal: [email protected].

---

Link to Anne Applebaum's book:

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/455382/autocracy-inc-by-applebaum-anne/9780241627891

Link to Anne Applebaum's Frankfurt speech:

https://ukraineworld.org/en/articles/opinions/speech-frankfurt-book-fair

Why does Ukraine need to speak with the Global South? How can it have these conversations? Is the “post-colonial” framework effective? What parallels can be drawn between the Russian invasion of Ukraine and recent and current wars in the Middle East? What can studying ISIS teach us about contemporary wars?

The Explaining Ukraine podcast invites Dr. Omar Ashour, Professor of Security and Military Studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (Qatar) and the University of Exeter, Director of the Strategic Studies Unit at the Centre for Research and Policy Studies

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, Ukrainian philosopher, chief editor of UkraineWorld and president of PEN Ukraine

UkraineWorld (ukraineworld.org) is brought to you by Internews Ukraine, one of Ukraine’s largest media NGOs.

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

Support us at patreon.com/ukraineworld. We provide exclusive content for our patrons.

You can also support our volunteer trips to the front lines at PayPal: [email protected].

This episode is produced in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute, the country’s major public and cultural diplomacy institution.

Ukraine has started a conversation with the countries of the "Global South." This conversation is difficult, but it is opening up new prospects for understanding. What do we still lack to better understand each other?

The Explaining Ukraine podcast invites you to a conversation at the PEN Ukraine / UkraineWorld event “Ukraine, South Africa, India: How can we better understand each other?” The conversation took place in Kyiv, as part of PEN Ukraine's project "In Solidarity with Ukraine", on May 2nd, 2024.

Guests:

Damon Galgut, a South African writer, winner of the Booker Prize in 2021 for his novel The Promise. His work has been translated into 35 languages.

Anjan Sundaram, an Indian author, journalist, and academic, winner of 2015 Frontline Club prize for his war reporting from the Central African Republic. Sundaram also received a Reuters environmental journalism prize in 2006 for his reporting from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, Ukrainian philosopher, chief editor of UkraineWorld, and president of PEN Ukraine

UkraineWorld (ukraineworld.org) is brought to you by Internews Ukraine, one of the largest Ukrainian media NGOs.

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

Support us at patreon.com/ukraineworld. We provide exclusive content for our patrons.

You can also support our volunteer trips to the frontlines at PayPal: [email protected].

This podcast episode is produced with the support of the Ukrainian Institute (https://ui.org.ua/en/).

The full episode is available for UkraineWorld’s patrons at https://www.patreon.com/posts/114232265

Both India and Ukraine suffered from artificial famines imposed on them by British and Russian colonial authorities, respectively. In both cases, colonialists who committed mass crimes against the indigenous populations were considered “heroes” in their imperial metropoles.

Yet there were also differences in how the relations between the colonial master and the colonized were organized. It is time to analyze both the similarities and differences of these cases and to map a more comprehensive picture of the imperialisms and colonialisms of the past and present.

The Explaining Ukraine podcast invites you to a conversation at the PEN Ukraine / UkraineWorld event “Learning more about each other: Indian authors in Ukraine.” The conversation took place in Kyiv, as part of PEN Ukraine's project "In Solidarity with Ukraine", on April 17th, 2024.

Guests:

Tehnaz J. Dastoor - human rights activist and the UNICEF ex-Global Coordinator for Landmines and Focal Point for Child Soldiers

Bishan Samaddar - Director at Seagull Books, an Indian publishing house specializing in translating world literature.

Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, Ukrainian philosopher, chief editor of UkraineWorld, and president of PEN Ukraine

UkraineWorld (ukraineworld.org) is brought to you by Internews Ukraine, one of the largest Ukrainian media NGOs.

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

Support us at patreon.com/ukraineworld. We provide exclusive content for our patrons.

You can also support our volunteer trips to the frontlines at PayPal: [email protected].

This episode has been made with the support of the Ukrainian Institute (https://ui.org.ua/)

The full version of this episode (with Q&A section) is available for UkraineWorld patrons at: https://www.patreon.com/posts/113800708?pr=true