Hello from our doomscroll…
Today we talk about—what else?—the events in Ukraine this past week :-(
We chat with Sophie Pinkham, an essayist, reporter, and expert on the region. In 2016, she published Black Square: Adventures in Post-Soviet Ukraine (read an excerpt in Dissent). She has written about politics after the Maidan protests (The New Yorker), the election of President Volodymyr Zelensky (The New York Review of Books), and, just yesterday, Zelensky and the war (New York).
We discuss our initial reactions to the news of invasion, why so many people didn’t expect it to happen, U.S. jingoism, the impact of social media and propaganda, criticisms of “the left,” speculations about the future, and the comparability of China–Taiwan.
Some stuff we’ve been reading:
“Ukraine: What Russia wants, what the West can do,” Anatol Lieven, Responsible Statecraft
“A letter to the Western Left from Kyiv,” Taras Bilous, Open Democracy
Background on history and political economy in Adam Tooze’s newsletter
Friends of the show Michelle Kuo and Albert Wu on reactions to Ukraine from Taiwan.
Thank you for listening. Please donate to the Red Cross to help people in Ukraine, and send any questions or comments via Substack or:
Ukraine with Sophie Pinkham