Vladimir Putin is obsessed with Ukraine.

Back in 2008, he famously told then US President George W. Bush that it was not even a real country.

In a press conference following his summit with current US President Joe Biden, Putin became visibly animated - indeed almost unhinged - when talking about Ukraine.

And this week, Putin published an essay on the "historical unity" of Russia and Ukraine in which he argued - among other things - that present day Ukraine is an artificial construct of the Soviet era and that Ukrainian sovereignty is only possible in partnership with Russia.

On this week's Power Vertical Podcast, host Brian Whitmore speaks with James Sherr and Konstantin Eggert about what Putin's obsession with delegitimizing Ukraine's statehood tells us about his state of mind and Russian policy toward Ukraine and beyond.

Battleships, warplanes, brinkmanship, and geopolitics on the high seas.

What actually happened when Britain's HMS Defender sailed from the Ukrainian port of Odessa to the Georgian port of Batumi? How did what appears to have been a routine mission to assert navigation rights in the Black Sea escalate into a military and diplomatic incident between Russia and the West?

With Russia and NATO conducting dueling naval exercises in the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Seas tensions are rising. On this week’s Power Vertical Podcast, host Brian Whitmore speaks to military analyst Michael Kofman of the CNA Corporation about what it all means.

Enjoy…

The debate over Russia policy in the West is, unfortunately, not always grounded in reality.

All too often, it is instead based on myths and misconceptions that have been spread by disinformation campaigns and perpetuated by whataboutism.

As a result, Western policy toward Russia is often driven by wishful thinking on the part of many well-meaning politicians and policymakers.

On this week's Power Vertical Podcast, host Brian Whitmore speaks with James Nixey and Keir Giles of Chatham House, two of the authors of an important new report: "Myths and misconceptions in the debate on Russia, how they affect policy, and what can be done."

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Western sanctions against Belarus finally appear to be targeting Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s enablers in Russia.

When the United States, the European Union, Canada, and the United Kingdom announced a new round of sanctions against the Minsk regime this week, one name in particular stood out: Russian businessman Mikhail Gutseriyev, the largest single foreign investor in Belarus who was included on the EU’s list of sanctioned individuals.

Given the expanding Russian economic footprint in Belarus and the close ties between the two countries, many are arguing that the West cannot just sanction Belarus alone - it needs to sanction the Putin-Lukashenka axis of autocrats and kleptocrats.

The Europeans took a big step in that direction. On this week's Power Vertical Podcast, host Brian Whitmore talks to Ilya Zaslavskiy of the Free Russia Foundation and Paul Massaro of the U.S. Helsinki Commission about what happens next and what should happen next.

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It had the vibe of a Cold War-era summit and it came at the lowest point in U.S.-Russian relations in decades. When U.S. President Joe Biden met Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Russia's cyberattacks, election interference, human rights abuses, and aggression against its neighbors were all on the agenda. Both leaders laid down their so-called red lines and Putin predictably played his usual game of whataboutism.

On this week's Power Vertical Podcast, host Brian Whitmore discusses the summit and its aftermath with former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Kramer and Deutsche Welle columnist Konstantin Eggert.

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There won't be any reset buttons. There won't be any grand bargains. And U.S. President Joe Biden probably won't be looking into Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin's eyes and getting a sense of his soul.

But the stakes will nevertheless be high when the U.S. and Russian presidents meet in Geneva next week.

On this week's Power Vertical Podcast, host Brian Whitmore speaks to Jonathan Katz, a senior fellow and director of democracy initiatives at the German Marshall Fund, about what we can expect to happen when Biden meets Putin.

Serious questions remain about whether the authoritarian regime of Alyaksandr Lukashenka acted alone in hijacking Ryanair Flight 4978 and kidnapping Belarusian dissident journalist Raman Pratasevich and his Russian girlfriend Sofia Sapega. Did Lukashenka get a stealthy assist from Vladimir Putin's Russia in commandeering a commercial airliner travelling between two European Union countries? Was the Putin-Lukashenka axis of autocrats acting in concert in this brazen act of air piracy? And if so, what are the implications for Western policy?

It was always going to be a difficult needle to thread.

The Biden administration clearly views Russia's Nord Stream-2 natural gas pipeline as a geopolitical project that threatens European energy security and that of Ukraine and eastern flank NATO allies like Poland and the Baltic states.

But in Germany, the main destination of the pipeline, the project has powerful supporters, investors, and stakeholders. Which makes imposing sanctions, to say the least, difficult.

So now, the United States is trying to thread that needle - punishing an adversary without also hitting a close ally. On this week’s Power Vertical Podcast, host Brian Whitmore discusses the geopolitics of Nord Stream 2 with Josh Rudolph and Kristine Berzina of the German Marshal Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy and Paul Massaro, a policy advisor at the U.S. Helsinki Commission. Enjoy…

Should the United States and its allies consider broadening its approach to sanctions against Alyaksandr Lukashenka's authoritarian regime in Belarus to include its Russian enablers in Vladimir Putin's Kremlin? Should the West instead look at imposing sanctions on the Putin-Lukashenka Axis of Autocrats?

On this week's Power Vertical Podcast, host Brian Whitmore speaks to David Kramer, who served as Assistant Secretary of State in the administration of President George W. Bush about the West's options in Belarus as well as recent developments in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.

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In this episode of The Power Vertical, Konstantin Eggert joins host Brian Whitmore to discuss the growing intensification of Vladimir Putin's regime's war on Russia's opposition.