Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2 · Scott Bury

World War 2 links to Ukraine: The Latest: A conversation with Francis Dearnley—Episode 71

March 31, 2025·57 min·3 clips

Dearnley says Ukraine is Europe's front line and warns Russia may not stop if Ukraine loses.

1. Beyond Barbarossa: The Eastern Front of World War 2 frames episode 71 around Ukraine and Francis Dearnley, who links World War II history to the war in Ukraine. 2. Scott Burry introduces Dearnley as executive editor for audio at The Telegraph's Ukraine The Latest, a daily podcast on Russia's war in Ukraine. 3. The episode asks what the Second World War on the Eastern Front can explain about Russia, Ukraine, and Western responses in 2025. 4. Dearnley says Ukraine The Latest began spontaneously on X Spaces after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 5. He credits David Knowles, who died suddenly last year, with inviting him onto air and helping turn the project into a podcast. 6. Dearnley says the show has run every weekday since then, with live broadcasts at one o'clock London time and edited episodes. 7. He says the team now provides detailed military and political analysis every day on Ukraine and beyond. 8. Burry and Dearnley compare the current war with the 1930s, including Churchill's The Gathering Storm and the cases of Czechoslovakia and Poland. 9. Dearnley says asking Ukraine to concede territory for peace repeats the logic that once treated Nazi Germany's demands as manageable. 10. He contrasts that with today's Europe, where he sees hesitation to arm despite what he calls a fascistic Russian state. 11. Dearnley says five or six European intelligence services now think Russia could launch further military attacks in three or five years. 12. He argues that Russia's war economy resembles the logic described in Adam Tooze's Wages of Destruction. 13. He uses the Napoleonic Wars to argue that Moscow's burning did not end the campaign in 1812. 14. He says the longer lesson is that people should not mistake a map's appearance for the real economic and political direction of a war. 15. Dearnley argues that many people now want a 19th-century model of compromise for peace, like the Congress of Vienna. 16. He says that approach risks restoring 'might is right' and abandoning the post-war order that bars seizing territory by force. 17. The interview style is conversational, historical, and analytical, with Burry pressing for comparisons and Dearnley answering in long, detailed explanations. 18. The energy stays serious and measured, with pauses for sponsorship breaks and clear section changes between topics. 19. Anyone interested in Ukraine, Russian strategy, or World War II history will get value from this. 20. Listeners wanting short, lightly edited current-affairs chat may skip it.

As heard by us

A sober bridge between Eastern Front history and the demands of covering Ukraine now.

Beyond Barbarossa ties Eastern Front history to present-day Ukraine in a way that feels immediate rather than remote. The conversation with Francis Durnley has the most force when it treats the past as a lens for the present, and Scott Burry helps keep the discussion grounded in…

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You want the Eastern Front and Ukraine's war in the same historical frame.

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