Welcome to What Matters Now, a new weekly podcast exploration into one key issue shaping Israel and the Jewish World — right now.

A year into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is Israel maintaining its policy of neutrality? Is the Russian presence in Syria still a good enough reason for the Jewish state to decline underdog Ukraine’s repeated requests of anti-missile defense systems?

To find out answers to these questions, I turned to Middle East and Russo-Ukraine expert, Ksenia Svetlova.

Svetlova immigrated to Israel from Moscow at age 14. Later, as a fluent Arabic-speaking journalist, for years she was able to use her Russian passport to report from areas most Israelis will never see in the Middle East.

In 2015, she renounced that Russian passport and stepped away from journalism to join the Knesset in the Zionist Union party, headed by Tsipi Livni. Svetlova served there until 2019.

This week, a year into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I made Svetlova a cup of hot tea in Jerusalem and I found out What Matters Now ahead of a new phase of the war in Ukraine-- and the legal battlefield here in Israel.

Tune in to the podcast episode to hear diplomatic correspondent Lazar Berman weigh in on Svetlova's statements.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on iTunes, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, PlayerFM or wherever you get your podcasts.

Image: Ksenia Svetlova in the West Bank (courtesy)

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