On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore breaks it all down with journalist, author, and longtime Kremlin-watcher Casey Michel, head of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human RIghts Foundation and author of the books American Kleptocracy, Foreign Agents, and United States of Oligarchy.

On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with Michael Carpenter, who served as the NSC's Senior Director for Europe as well as the US Ambassador to the OSCE in the Biden administration; and former U.S. State Department official Max Bergmann, who served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff and as a speechwriter for former Secretary of State John Kerry.

On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore breaks it all down with John Sipher, a 28-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service. John also served as a member of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service and is the recipient of the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal.  These days, John is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, a Senior Fellow at the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence and Policy at George Mason University, and the founder of Spycraft Entertainment.

On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with veteran journalist Michael Weiss, author of the report "The biggest cover-up of my adult life': Inside the CIA’s attempt to make Havana Syndrome disappear," which was published this week in The Insider. Michael is the author of the Substack newsletter Foreign Office, a contributing editor at New Lines magazine, and a reporter for The Insider. He is also the author of the book ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror and is currently working on a new book about Russia's GRU.

On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with James Sherr, an honorary fellow at the International Center for Defense and Security; and Serhiy Kudelia, a professor of political science at Baylor University and author of the recently published book, "Seize the City, Undo the State: The Inception of Russia's War on Ukraine."

On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with two veteran diplomats, former U.S. State Department official Donald Jensen, who is currently an an adjunct professor in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University and an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies; and Osmolovska, a 15-year veteran of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry who now serves as the head of GLOBSEC's Kyiv office. They are the co-authors of an important, exhaustively researched, and very timely report, "Adversary at the Table: Negotiating with Putin's Russia," which was released this week by the Atlantic Council.

On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with Mikhail Zygar, author of the bestselling books All The Kremlin's Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin, War and Punishment: Putin, Zelensky, and the Path to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine, and the recently published The Dark Side of the Earth: Russia's Short-lived Victory over Totalitarianism.

On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with Craig Kennedy, an associate at Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, author of the must-read Substack newsletter Navigating Russia, where he published the recent reports "The Mystery of the Bella 1: Why Did Moscow Mount a ‘Spetsoperatsiia' to Save a Stateless Shadow Tanker?" and "Restraining Russian Oil."

And as the Kremlin seeks to exploit the transatlantic rift, Ukraine is seeking a way to survive it. We're in uncharted waters folks.

On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with Michael Carpenter, a senior fellow for transatlantic affairs at the International Institute for Strategic Studies who served in the administration of former U.S President Joe Biden as the NSC's Senior Director for Europe as well as the US Ambassador to the OSCE; and Eric Ciaramella, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who served as a deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the U.S. National Intelligence Council.

On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with Katya Pavlevych, founder of the organization Forget Us Not, a civil society coalition advocating for the return of Ukraine's abducted children, and an advisor on children' s issues at Razom for Ukraine; and Andreas Umland, an analyst at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs and an Associate Professor of Political Science at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Andreas also is the author of the 2024 report "Russia’s Forcible Transfers of Unaccompanied Ukrainian Children: Responses from Ukraine, the EU and Beyond" and has testified in the European Parliament on the issue.