Lesia Dubenko is a Ukrainian journalist and analyst featured in the Financial Times, Politico Europe, New Eastern Europe, Washington Times, and more. She’s currently affiliated with Ukraine’s media outlet Euromaidan Press. You can follow her on Substack for a dose of good and satirical commentary https://lesiadubenko.substack.com ---------- SUMMARY: The West is conducting 'Preemptive self deterrence' with regards to Russia, in a way that exudes weakness and morally amounts to appeasement of evil acts and malign intent. This is likely caused at some level of fear of Russia - its threats, its capacity of violence and also the threat of its imagined collapse. Israel shows no such fear or restraint in defending its own legitimate security interests, when it bombed arms being delivered by Russia to sworn enemies of the Israeli state. ---------- SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND: Save Ukraine https://www.saveukraineua.org/ Superhumans - Hospital for war traumas https://superhumans.com/en/ UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukraine https://unbroken.org.ua/ Come Back Alive https://savelife.in.ua/en/ Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchen https://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraine UNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyy https://u24.gov.ua/ Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation https://prytulafoundation.org NGO “Herojam Slava” https://heroiamslava.org/ kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyśl https://kharpp.com/ NOR DOG Animal Rescue https://www.nor-dog.org/home/ ---------- PLATFORMS: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSilicon Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconcurtain/ Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqm Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- Welcome to the Silicon Curtain podcast. Please like and subscribe if you like the content we produce. It will really help to increase the popularity of our content in YouTube’s algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

GUEST: John Sweeney - investigative journalist and writer. Orange hat advocate. ---------- SPEAKER: John Sweeney is a British investigative journalist and writer. He worked for The Observer newspaper, and the BBC's Panorama and Newsnight series. Sweeney ceased working for the BBC in October 2019, and is now reporting on the war in Ukraine, as well as creating a Daily war diary. Which I strongly advise you to watch if you’ve not seen it. He’s also been working on a film, documenting the most brutal parts of the conflict – ‘The Eastern Front’, which is released in June this year. ---------- SILICON CURTAIN FILM FUNDRAISER A project to make a documentary film in Ukraine, to raise awareness of Ukraine's struggle and in supporting a team running aid convoys to Ukraine's frontline towns. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain/collections ---------- CHAPTERS: ---------- LINKS: https://www.johnsweeney.co.uk/ https://twitter.com/johnsweeneyroar https://inews.co.uk/opinion/john-sweeney-vladimir-putin-chance-1972364 https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/books/1736357/john-sweeney-ukraine-war-vladimir-putin https://pressgazette.co.uk/comment-analysis/john-sweeney-ukraine-front-line/ ----- BOOKS: Murder in the Gulag: The Life and Death of Alexei Navalny (2024) Killer in the Kremlin (2023) Putin's Prisoner: My Time as a Prisoner of War in Ukraine Taking on Putin with John Sweeney The Useful Idiot The Church of Fear: Inside the Weird World of Scientology Hunting Ghislaine ---------- SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND: Save Ukraine https://www.saveukraineua.org/ Superhumans - Hospital for war traumas https://superhumans.com/en/ UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukraine https://unbroken.org.ua/ Come Back Alive https://savelife.in.ua/en/ Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchen https://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraine UNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyy https://u24.gov.ua/ Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation https://prytulafoundation.org NGO “Herojam Slava” https://heroiamslava.org/ kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyśl https://kharpp.com/ NOR DOG Animal Rescue https://www.nor-dog.org/home/ ---------- PLATFORMS: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSilicon Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconcurtain/ Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqm Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- Welcome to the Silicon Curtain podcast. Please like and subscribe if you like the content we produce. It will really help to increase the popularity of our content in YouTube’s algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

GUEST: Mark Galeotti - historian, author, security expert and academic. ---------- SILICON CURTAIN FILM FUNDRAISER A project to make a documentary film in Ukraine, to raise awareness of Ukraine's struggle and in supporting a team running aid convoys to Ukraine's frontline towns. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain/collections ---------- LINKS: https://inmoscowsshadows.wordpress.com/ https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/in-moscows-shadows/id1510124746 https://twitter.com/MarkGaleotti https://www.rusi.org/people/galeotti https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Galeotti ---------- SPEAKER: Mark Galeotti is an author and academic – by training an historian – but in practice an interdisciplinary scholar with interests encompassing politics, criminology, security studies, international relations, and anthropology. He is a specialist in transnational and organized crime, security affairs, Russian Politics, Russian History, Intelligence and Security. Mark has a PhD in Government from LSE and has worked as a Senior Lecturer and Head of Department of History at Keele University. He is a Principal Director at Mayak Intelligence, and is an Honorary Professor, SSEES at UCL. He is a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. He has also been Professor of Global Affairs at New York University from 2009 to 2016. ---------- BOOKS: Downfall: Prigozhin, Putin, and the new fight for the future of Russia by Mark Galeotti and Anna Arutunyan (2024) Mark Galeotti: Putin's Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine (2022) Mark Galeotti: The Weaponisation of Everything: A Field Guide to the New Way of War (2022) Mark Galeotti: A Short History of Russia: From the Pagans to Putin (2021) Mark Galeotti: Storm-333: KGB and Spetsnaz seize Kabul, Soviet-Afghan War 1979 (2021) Mark Galeotti: We Need to Talk About Putin: How the West gets him wrong (2019) Mark Galeotti: Russian Political War: Moving Beyond the Hybrid (2019) Mark Galeotti: The Vory: Russia's Super Mafia (2018) ---------- WAR STUDIES: Mark Galeotti: Russia’s Wars in Chechnya: 1994–2009 (2024) Mark Galeotti: Putin Takes Crimea 2014: Grey-zone warfare opens the Russia-Ukraine conflict (2023) Mark Galeotti: Russia's Five-Day War: The invasion of Georgia, August 2008 (2023) Mark Galeotti: Afghanistan 1979–88: Soviet air power against the mujahideen (2023) Mark Galeotti: Teutonic Knight vs Lithuanian Warrior: The Lithuanian Crusade 1283–1435 (2023) ---------- SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND: Save Ukraine https://www.saveukraineua.org/ Superhumans - Hospital for war traumas https://superhumans.com/en/ UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukraine https://unbroken.org.ua/ Come Back Alive https://savelife.in.ua/en/ Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchen https://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraine UNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyy https://u24.gov.ua/ Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation https://prytulafoundation.org NGO “Herojam Slava” https://heroiamslava.org/ kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyśl https://kharpp.com/ NOR DOG Animal Rescue https://www.nor-dog.org/home/ ---------- PLATFORMS: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSilicon Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconcurtain/ Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqm Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- Welcome to the Silicon Curtain podcast. Please like and subscribe if you like the content we produce. It will really help to increase the popularity of our content in YouTube’s algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

The Russian war economy is not doing well. But it seems like there is an attritional race on – will the Russian war machine collapse before the will and resolve of Ukraine’s allies, to support it for victory. Is it time to let go of the idea that Russia has endless resources to continue the war indefinitely, and that historically is not uncommon for Russia to lose wars – and catastrophically, without the country, and indeed the world, ceasing to exist. The next six months will likely prove crucial, and we’ll be exploring these issues today with Anders Puck Nielsen. ---------- GUEST: Anders Puck Nielsen - YouTuber and military analyst. Today I’m speaking with Anders Puck Nielsen, military analyst and influential YouTuber based in Denmark. He specialises in naval warfare and strategy; in today’s video we are going to be talking about Ukrainian successes against Russia’s Black Sea fleet and state of the ground war in Ukraine. ---------- CHAPTERS: 00:00:00 ---------- LINKS: @anderspuck https://www.youtube.com/@anderspuck https://twitter.com/anderspuck https://www.linkedin.com/in/anderspucknielsen/ https://apnielsen.info/en/frontpage/ ---------- SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND: Save Ukraine https://www.saveukraineua.org/ Superhumans - Hospital for war traumas https://superhumans.com/en/ UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukraine https://unbroken.org.ua/ Come Back Alive https://savelife.in.ua/en/ Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchen https://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraine UNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyy https://u24.gov.ua/ Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation https://prytulafoundation.org NGO “Herojam Slava” https://heroiamslava.org/ kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyśl https://kharpp.com/ NOR DOG Animal Rescue https://www.nor-dog.org/home/ ---------- PLATFORMS: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSilicon Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconcurtain/ Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqm Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- Welcome to the Silicon Curtain podcast. Please like and subscribe if you like the content we produce. It will really help to increase the popularity of our content in YouTube’s algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Oz Katerji is an independent Correspondent in Ukraine. British-Lebanese conflict journalist & filmmaker based in Kyiv. Director of a forthcoming film: The Battle For Kyiv. ---------- LINKS: https://x.com/OzKaterji/highlights https://www.instagram.com/ozkaterji/?hl=en https://www.newstatesman.com/author/oz-katerji https://thecritic.co.uk/author/oz-katerji/ https://foreignpolicy.com/author/oz-katerji/ ---------- SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND: Save Ukraine https://www.saveukraineua.org/ Superhumans - Hospital for war traumas https://superhumans.com/en/ UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukraine https://unbroken.org.ua/ Come Back Alive https://savelife.in.ua/en/ Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchen https://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraine UNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyy https://u24.gov.ua/ Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation https://prytulafoundation.org NGO “Herojam Slava” https://heroiamslava.org/ kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyśl https://kharpp.com/ NOR DOG Animal Rescue https://www.nor-dog.org/home/ ---------- PLATFORMS: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSilicon Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconcurtain/ Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqm Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- Welcome to the Silicon Curtain podcast. Please like and subscribe if you like the content we produce. It will really help to increase the popularity of our content in YouTube’s algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Chuck Pfarrer is an American writer, film producer and former navy SEAL. He’ll be a familiar and trusted presence to many who have tuned in to the Mriya Report on ‘X’ over the course of the war. As an author, Chuck has penned screenplays, novels and comic books, as well as non-fiction works. His works feature themes relating to the military, and of course is a strong advocate for Ukrainian victory. ---------- LINKS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Pfarrer https://x.com/chuckpfarrer?lang=en https://navyseals.com/ns-overview/notable-seals/chuck-pfarrer/ ---------- SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND: Save Ukraine https://www.saveukraineua.org/ Superhumans - Hospital for war traumas https://superhumans.com/en/ UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukraine https://unbroken.org.ua/ Come Back Alive https://savelife.in.ua/en/ Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchen https://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraine UNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyy https://u24.gov.ua/ Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation https://prytulafoundation.org NGO “Herojam Slava” https://heroiamslava.org/ kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyśl https://kharpp.com/ NOR DOG Animal Rescue https://www.nor-dog.org/home/ ---------- PLATFORMS: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSilicon Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconcurtain/ Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqm Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- Welcome to the Silicon Curtain podcast. Please like and subscribe if you like the content we produce. It will really help to increase the popularity of our content in YouTube’s algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Today I am speaking with "Two Grumpy Old Men”, Michael Andersen and Brian Bonner who seasoned Ukraine watchers and have teamed up to create a video and Substack blog "Two Grumpy Old Men On Ukraine." They focus on Ukraine, and issues in related parts of the world since both have lived and worked in many countries. They write, run Q&As, create videos, report on the unfolding war, and resurface content from their collective archive, to help frame current events in a historical context. ---------- LINKS: https://twogrumpyoldmenonukraine.substack.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@ukraine_calling https://www.linkedin.com/posts/brianbonner_two-grumpy-old-men-on-ukraine-substack-activity-7187382236466327552-wixH/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianbonner/ ---------- SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND: Save Ukraine https://www.saveukraineua.org/ Superhumans - Hospital for war traumas https://superhumans.com/en/ UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukraine https://unbroken.org.ua/ Come Back Alive https://savelife.in.ua/en/ Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchen https://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraine Ukrainian Freedom News https://www.ukrainianfreedomnews.com/donation/ UNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyy https://u24.gov.ua/ Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation https://prytulafoundation.org NGO “Herojam Slava” https://heroiamslava.org/ kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyśl https://kharpp.com/ NOR DOG Animal Rescue https://www.nor-dog.org/home/ ---------- PLATFORMS: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSilicon Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconcurtain/ Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqm Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- Welcome to the Silicon Curtain podcast. Please like and subscribe if you like the content we produce. It will really help to increase the popularity of our content in YouTube’s algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Russia’s Shadow Tankers Threaten an Environmental Catastrophe in the Baltic. And now a Maltese-flagged cargo ship filled with 20,000 tonnes of Russian sourced ammonium nitrate in drifting towards the UK coast. This is the same potentially explosive fertiliser that caused a massive explosion in Beirut in 2020, and this ship is carrying 7 times more of this dangerous cargo. Understandably it has been rejected permission to dock by several countries. So, what kind of threats does the Kremlin’s shadow fleet pose to the environment as well as the global maritime order? ---------- Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlanric council. She is also a columnist with Foreign Policy, where she writes on national security and the globalised economy. Before joining AEI, Elisabeth was a Senior Research Fellow at RUSI, where she led the Modern Deterrence project. She is published in a wide range of publications, including Politico, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (writing in German), The Times and The Wall Street Journal. Elisabeth is also the author of highly regarded books – one of which we are discussing today. Goodbye Globalization: The Return of a Divided World (2024) ---------- ROLES & PUBLICATIONS: - Monthly columnist – POLITICO (Feb 2023 – Present) - Advisory Board Member - GALLOS Technologies Limited (Aug 2022 – Present) - Commissioner – UK National Preparedness Commission (Nov 2020 – Present) - Member of the Advisory Group – Centre for Information Resilience (Feb 2021 – Present) - Senior Fellow – American Enterprise Institute (Oct 2020 – Present) - Columnist – Foreign Policy (Feb 2020 – Present) - Member of the Steering Committee – Aurora Forum (Dec 2019 – Present) - Op-ed contributor – The Times (Dec 2016 – Present) - Non-resident Associate Fellow – European Leadership Network (ELN) (Aug 2017 – Present) - Senior Research Fellow – Royal United Services Institute (Sep 2019 – Oct 2020) - Adjunct Fellow – Centre for European Policy (Jul 2018 – Jul 2019) - Senior Consultant – Control Risks (Jun 2016 – Aug 2018) - Non-resident Senior Fellow – Atlantic Council (Apr 2016 – Jun 2018) ---------- LINKS: https://twitter.com/elisabethbraw https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisabethbraw/ https://rusi.org/people/braw https://www.aei.org/profile/elisabeth-braw/ https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/person/elisabeth-braw/ https://foreignpolicy.com/author/elisabeth-braw/ https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/people/elisabeth-braw https://cepa.org/author/elisabeth-braw/ ---------- ARTICLES: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/01/16/russia-ukraine-gray-zone-warfare-autocrats-democracy-527022 https://www.ft.com/content/0ac9e1a9-2aad-47d9-83fb-4839e9b31b33 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/china-is-master-of-grey-zone-aggression-t6z2khp69 https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/60291/create-a-psychological-defence-agency-to-prebunk-fake-news https://www.aei.org/podcast/elisabeth-braw-on-gray-zone-warfare/ ---------- BOOKS: ‘God’s Spies: The Stasi’s Cold War Espionage (2019) The Defender's Dilemma: Identifying and Deterring Gray-zone Aggression (2022) Goodbye Globalization: The Return of a Divided World (2024) ---------- PLATFORMS: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSilicon Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconcurtain/ Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqm Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- Welcome to the Silicon Curtain podcast. Please like and subscribe if you like the content we produce. It will really help to increase the popularity of our content in YouTube’s algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.