Ukraine explained through war, history, and survival.
Explaining Ukraine treats the war as more than a battlefield story. Through long-form conversations, it links energy attacks, defense technology, imperial history, civil resistance, and international policy to the daily facts of Ukrainian life.
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Explaining Ukraine is a measured, interview-centered show about Ukraine’s war, politics, society, and place in the wider world. It starts from urgent facts. Missile and drone strikes, winter blackouts, battlefield technology, foreign policy shifts, and occupation are treated as entry points into deeper structures of power. The show is especially strong when it connects Ukraine’s daily vulnerability to long historical patterns. Russian imperialism is not presented as background color; it becomes a framework for understanding conquest, language, memory, and resistance. Security is another recurring axis. Episodes ask what Europe can become, how NATO and the European Union might change, and why Ukraine’s experience has become central to debates about modern defense. The program also pays close attention to ordinary people. Stories of civilians, volunteers, entrepreneurs, journalists, and local organizers are used to show that resistance is not only military command but social stamina under extreme pressure. The tone is calm. It is not casual, and it is not theatrical. Long answers are allowed to develop, while follow-up questions often push guests to define terms, clarify causes, or connect one episode of violence to a broader pattern. That gives the show a cumulative force. A conversation about energy infrastructure can become a discussion of survival in winter, allied hesitation, and the physical limits behind talk of national spirit. A conversation about defense innovation can become a study of small companies, export limits, intellectual property, and wartime ingenuity. The show also reaches beyond Ukraine without losing its center. Discussions of Black American history, Soviet dissident psychiatry, Trump-era policy, and European security all return to agency, dignity, and domination. Its editorial stance is clear: Ukraine is not a peripheral crisis but a place where the future of security, freedom, and imperial politics is being tested. For listeners willing to stay with complexity, Explaining Ukraine offers context that is grave, concrete, and intellectually alive.
Made for: For listeners who follow Ukraine beyond daily headlines and want careful context on war, security, civil society, history, and international politics. It suits people comfortable with serious long-form interviews and morally engaged analysis.
What sets it apart: The show speaks from a Ukrainian intellectual and civic vantage point while keeping the frame international. It links frontline realities to European security, Russian imperial history, defense technology, energy systems, and cultural memory without flattening them into slogans.
A podcast by UkraineWorld.org, a multimedia project about Ukraine run by Internews Ukraine. Explaining Ukraine, its politics, society and its culture. Support us: patreon.com/ukraineworld
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Explaining Ukraine connects war and geopolitics to the civilians, institutions and cultural memory shaping Ukrainian resistance.
Explaining Ukraine turns large questions about war, state power and national survival into focused conversations with people working close to the subject.
This is the show that makes your Ukraine briefing answer to civilians, dissidents, and curators.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A focused look at whether Europe can turn shared danger into shared security, with Ukraine near the center of the question.
Europe's possible security union comes through as a question of political structure, sovereignty, and shared exposure. Borja Laseras frames the European Union's role as something broader than conventional military force, linking it to coordination around the COVID-19 vaccine…
A serious conversation on how histories of oppression shape the language of freedom.
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A grounded conversation about ordinary people at the center of Ukrainian resistance.
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A sober look at winter, strained defenses, and regional targeting in Russia's energy war.
This PlayNext review follows a grim, practical question: how Ukraine's civilian energy system holds up when Russia turns winter itself into pressure.
A clear look at Ukrainian innovation, ownership, and European cooperation in the technological war.
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A measured episode connects the treatment of Ukrainian children to Russia's wider machinery of war.
Russian war crimes are considered through the treatment of civilians and children, with the episode asking why cruelty so strongly defines Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
A measured account of Ukrainian culture as fragile reconstruction after repression, rupture, and war.
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Ukrainian memory, culture, and wartime witness.
Political anger and quiet stories, side by side.
Iran war talk, moon missions and the weather, unscripted
An interview with filmmaker Zarina Zabrisky about her documentary 'Kherson Human Safari' detailing the dangers faced by civilians in Kherson, Ukraine, under Russian attack.
Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba discusses how Ukraine can navigate a changed global landscape, including shifting alliances with the US and Europe.
This episode explains why Trump's proposed plan for Ukraine to cede territories to Russia in exchange for peace is dangerous and unlikely to be accepted.
Ukrainian human rights defender Maksym Butkevych discusses his capture, torture, and imprisonment by Russia on fabricated war crime charges, and his philosophical reflections on life, death, and freedom.
Volodymyr Yermolenko interviews Oleksandra Romantsova, executive director of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Center for Civil Liberties, about Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
Olesya Ostrovska-Liuta, director of the Mystetskyi Arsenal, discusses Ukrainian cultural heritage as a fragile mosaic reconstructed from fragments.
Borja Laseras tells Explain Ukraine that Russia is already waging a hybrid war against Europe, not just fighting Ukraine, through sabotage, democratic interference, and attacks on companies.
Terrell German-Star says he has spent 10 years thinking about Ukraine through colonialism, and he links that frame to Georgia, Slavic studies, and the 2014 Maidan and Black Lives Matter protests.
Volodymyr Yermolenko hosts Explain Ukraine with Orisa Hrutka and Bohdan Benj about their book Dark Days Determine People, Stories from Ukraine Under Siege.
Yulia Marushevska discusses Ukraine's emergence as a leader in defense technology and its implications for global security.
An analysis of Trump's Ukraine policy and its impact on the war, featuring an interview with human rights expert Christopher Atwood.
Oksana Ishchuk says Russia's best result was only six hours of total blackout on November 23, 2022.
On Explaining Ukraine, Volodymyr Yermolenko speaks with Volodymyr Havrylov, the former Deputy Defense Minister and ex-defense attaché to the United States, about peace talks, battlefield technology, and Ukraine World’s wartime work.
A discussion on the history and defining features of Russian imperialism since the 16th century, focusing on Ukraine and the near abroad.