The New Yorker Radio Hour29 Apr 2022

A Ukrainian Diplomat on the Future of Russian Aggression

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters a third month, prospects of ending the conflict are still nowhere in sight, and there seems to be no end to the destruction that Vladimir Putin is willing to inflict. Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, tells David Remnick that he expects Russia to continue escalating its attack leading up to May 9th, a day of military celebration in Russia commemorating the German surrender in the Second World War. “They will escalate attacks by missiles from the sky to terrorize Ukraine in general,” he predicts, “and to make the government more susceptible to surrender.” In contrast to President Volodymyr Zelensky—who was a political rookie when he took office, in 2019—Kyslytsya has spent his career in Ukraine’s foreign service. In the years after the Soviet breakup, he says, Ukraine wanted to both placate its neighbor and ally itself with Western institutions. This created a “cognitive dissonance,” he says, that prevented Ukraine from recognizing the extent of Russian aggression. Having watched as diplomacy failed, Kyslytsya still has to separate his work from the personal toll of Russia’s invasion on his family and friends. “I try not to engage emotionally because if I engage emotionally too much, I am not operational,” he says. “And if I am not operational . . . I’m of very little use for my government.”

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(150)

Unpacking the Latino Vote, and Susan Orlean on the Queen of Tigers

In the lead-up to this year’s midterm elections, many pundits expected Republicans to make significant gains among Latino voters, further eroding a base of support that Democrats have arguably taken f...

22 Nov 202228min

The Stories of #MeToo

Five years ago, reporting on the film producer Harvey Weinstein’s history of assault and misconduct opened the floodgates of the national reckoning with gender and power known as #MeToo. Three New Yor...

21 Nov 202239min

How Qatar Took the World Cup

No self-respecting sports fan is naïve about the role that money plays in pro sports. But, by any standard, the greed and cynicism behind the World Cup are extraordinary. The cloud of scandal surround...

18 Nov 202221min

Safia Elhillo on Vulnerability and Anger in “Girls That Never Die”

The poet Safia Elhillo first found her voice onstage, performing in youth poetry slams in Washington, D.C., where she grew up, the child of Sudanese immigrants. She published her first collection in 2...

15 Nov 20220s

The Man Who Escaped from Auschwitz to Warn the World

Rudolf Vrba was sent to Auschwitz at the age of seventeen, and, because he was young and in good health, he was not killed immediately but put to labor in the camp. Vrba (originally named Walter Rosen...

11 Nov 202234min

Mike White on the New Season of “The White Lotus” in Sicily

The first season of “The White Lotus” won ten Emmy Awards and was a critics’ favorite. A dark satire of the privileged, the show chronicled the visit to a luxurious Hawaiian resort of a tech mogul and...

8 Nov 202218min

Russell Moore on Christian Nationalism

Russell Moore, a prominent figure in the Southern Baptist Convention, resigned over the church’s response to racism—which Moore considers a sin—and documented sexual abuse allegations. The theologian ...

4 Nov 202230min

Mayor Francis Suarez’s View from Miami

Francis Suarez, the Republican mayor of Miami, is popular in the city he governs, and increasingly prominent beyond it. Conservative voices as disparate as Kanye West and George Will have floated him ...

1 Nov 202218min