The Big Steal · Fresh Air Production

Russia Invades Ukraine

March 2, 2022·39 min·3 clips

Ukrainian MP Kira Rudik gives a live interview as air raid sirens sound, explaining what eight years of war taught her about reading Putin's lies.

The episode opens with a Ukrainian voice describing the first hours of the invasion: shelling followed by small armed groups moving building to building, soldiers who had been told they were liberators welcomed by grateful Ukrainians. Natia Siskuria, a Georgian analyst at RUSI, draws parallels between the 2008 Russian war in Georgia and the Ukraine invasion, arguing both Georgia and Ukraine had warned the West for years that Russia would not stop. The episode frames the invasion as a continuation of Putin's 2005 State of the Nation address, in which he called the Soviet Union's collapse the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. Moscow voices are featured extensively: Valeria describes waking up in a different world and feeling ashamed; a Moscow father recounts his 14-year-old daughter going to protest and the family's subsequent mass detention. Journalist Mika Golubovsky, recently detained for a no-war poster in his window, describes the scene in Moscow: scattered protests, queues at banks, and the ruble falling. He confirms ordinary Russians with access to independent media understand the gravity of the situation and know about Putin's nuclear alert, because it aired on state television. Labour MP Chris Bryant argues the invasion was predictable from Georgia, Crimea, and other Russian interventions, but Western politicians were blinded by Russian money flowing into the UK economy, particularly London property. He argues each tolerated transgression taught Putin that force works if pursued with impunity. Daniel Fried's earlier analysis is revisited: Putin had laid the basis for claiming all of Ukrainian territory by asserting Ukraine had no real national identity outside Russia. Putin's invasion-day nuclear threat is quoted directly, warning of consequences never seen in history. Chris Bryant is asked if Putin is mentally unwell and responds that Putin has learned behaviours around excessive force and that the West's failure to impose severe sanctions in 2014 trained him that partial madness works. Natia Siskuria reiterates that Georgian and Ukrainian warnings were systematically underestimated and that Putin's ambitions do not stop at Ukraine. The episode closes with Ukrainian parliamentary assistant Yulia Dziuba describing Russian shelling of her hometown Chernihiv, and Kira Rudik delivering her interview under live air raid sirens with a practical guide to decoding Putin's public statements based on eight years of observing his deceptions.

As heard by us

A grave, close account of invasion, propaganda, and the personal ties that make the war immediate.

It widens the invasion of Ukraine beyond battlefield detail. The piece follows how shelling gives way to armed groups moving through buildings, then to a story told to soldiers and civilians through talk of liberation, warm clothes, money, food, and fantasy.

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Why you'd press play

You want the invasion explained without euphemism or spin.

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