As 2022 comes to a close, this week on the podcast the staff of Chatham House reflect on a year of war in Ukraine and twelve years of war in Syria. Joining Bronwen Maddox in the studio is Oz Katerji, a war correspondent and freelance journalist who in the early stages of the Syrian uprising reported on the brutality of the regime of Bashar al-Assad from neighbouring Lebanon and Turkey and covered closely the role played by Russia's armed forces in the conflict. Having written extensively on the Middle East, in January of this year he journeyed to Ukraine, where he was present in Kyiv on February 24th as Russia began its invasion. He reported extensively on the battle for Ukraine’s capital and later Russia's offensive in the Donbas in Foreign Policy magazine, the New Statesman and Rolling Stone.

Joining Bronwen to unpack the wider role played by Vladimir Putin's military in Ukraine and Syria are James Nixey, the Director of our Russia and Eurasia programme and Lina Khatib, the Director of our Middle East, and North Africa programme.

Read our expertise:

Russian imperial mindset must change for real victory

Will an EU oil price cap limit Russian aggression?

Moving medicine in Iraq: Networks fuelling everyday conflict

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Presented by Bronwen Maddox. Produced by John Pollock. Sound by Abdul Boudiaf and Robin Gardner.