The founder and CEO of social media and communications app Telegram, Pavel Durov was arrested in France on August 24th. The country, one of the Nine Eyes intelligence partners along with the US, UK, Australia and others, claims that the social media app is a hotbed for illegal activity, and Western media coverage blasts it as a tool of the Russian government. But the attack on Telegram is actually a testing ground for future attacks on encrypted messaging platforms and alternative news sources.

Then later in the show, we discuss the invasion by Ukrainian forces funded with US dollars and using British tanks into the Russian territory of Kursk. The incursion marked the first significant breach of the Russian border by Ukrainian ground forces in the nearly two-and-a-half years since the immediate conflict began and follows a pattern of missile strikes and minor raids into Kursk and neighboring Belgorod since February 2022. Is this the sequel to the Ukrainian counteroffensive of 2023 that was hyped up by Western media and governments but ultimately failed to make a significant difference?  How do these developments figure into the longer history of the conflict, going back to 2014 and even further into history? And what prospects are there for peace rather than further escalation into a global conflict?

We’re joined by investigative journalist Kit Klarenberg to talk about all that and more.

Read Kit’s article Britain’s Kursk Invasion Backfires? 

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