The Power Vertical Podcast by Brian Whitmore

War, Famine, and Genocide by The Charles T. McDowell Center for Global Studies and Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center

The Winter War by The Charles T. McDowell Center for Global Studies and Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center

The Cartoon Villain by The Charles T. McDowell Center for Global Studies and Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center

Toward a Marshall Plan for Ukraine by The Charles T. McDowell Center for Global Studies and Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center

Threats, Lies, and Dirty Bombs by The Charles T. McDowell Center for Global Studies and Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center

Separated At Birth, University of Texas at Arlington Talk by The Charles T. McDowell Center for Global Studies and Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center

Ukraine strikes the only bridge linking the annexed Crimean peninsula to Russia, scoring a key strategic and symbolic victory after a month of victories on the battlefields in the east and the south.

Vladimir Putin's Russia may just be the first country in history to claim to be annexing another country's territory even as its own troops were simultaneously and hastily retreating from that very territory.

Vladimir Putin's mobilization runs into a snag as Russians take to the streets and draft-age men flee the country in massive numbers.

In the wake of humiliating military setbacks in northeastern Ukraine, Vladimir Putin implicitly threatens the West with nuclear blackmail and calls up 300,000 reservists to replenish his depleted troops on the battlefield

A stunningly successful Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kharkiv Oblast in the northeast liberated an estimated 3,800 square kilometers of territory, an area roughly the size of the US state of Rhode Island, in just two days as the Russian front line crumbled and troops retreated.

As Ukraine launches a fresh offensive to retake Russian-occupied lands in the south, another struggle is taking shape that will likely be as consequential as what happens on the battlefield. And that is the energy war.

August 2022 may go down in history as the month Ukraine took the war to Russia and challenged Moscow's dominance over the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula.

Ukrainian special forces and guerilla units strike deep inside Russian-occupied Crimea, hitting two airfields and a munitions depot, challenging Moscow's control of the peninsula.

Three decades ago, U.S. President George H.W. Bush marked the end of the Cold War in his 1992 State of the Union address. It was a heady moment when anything and everything seemed possible. But it would not last.

From torture to the summary executions of civilians to the widespread abduction and forced deportation of noncombatants, the anecdotal evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine has been mounting for months. Both the International Criminal Court and the Ukrainian authorities have launched formal investigations for crimes against humanity and potentially genocide. But as was the case with the downing of flight MH17 eight years ago, a lot of shoe-leather forensic work into these crimes is also being conducted by teams of investigative journalists. On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with Peter Pomerantsev, a Senior Fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and author of the books Nothing is True and Everything is Possible and This Is Not Propaganda, who is part of a journalistic initiative called The Reckoning Project that is documenting Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

The HIMARS are changing the game on the battlefield. The High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and other longer-range weapons supplied by the West are enabling the Ukrainians to hit high-value Russian targets, reduce their own casualties, and mount a counter offensive in the East and South.

On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with Michael Sawikiw, Executive Vice President and Director of the Ukrainian National Information Service, Vice President of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, and President of the US Holodomor Committee; and Marta Dyczok, an Associate Professor of History and Political Science at the University of Western Ontario and CERES Fellow at the University of Toronto.

NATO's most vulnerable members are also its most hawkish because they understand that should Russia succeed in subjugating Ukraine, then history suggests they could be next. On the Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with veteran journalist and Kremlin-watcher Michael Weiss about how the war in Ukraine looks from the alliance's front line. Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com

Just over a century ago, in the aftermath of World War I, almost all of Europe's empires began the process of disintegration and decolonization. The Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, and British empires all declined and fell in the first half of the 20th Century.

The Wider War: Russia's Assault on Ukraine -- and the West by The Charles T. McDowell Center for Global Studies and Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center

The battle for the Donbas rages in Ukraine's east with Russian forces on the verge of capturing the strategically vital city of Sievierodonetsk. And with Ukrainian cities facing a merciless onslaught of Russian artillery and missile attacks, Kyiv calls on the West to send more long-range weapons to push back the offensive.

As Ukraine fights for its sovereignty and independence, cracks are appearing in the Western coalition against Vladimir Putin. French President Emmanuel Macron has warned against "humiliating Russia," Italy has floated a peace plan that would have Ukraine cede territory in exchange for peace, and talks are continuing in Turkey, without Kyiv's participation, to ease the grain crisis that Russia created by blockading Ukraine's ports.

When Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, it managed to convince much of the world that Georgia had started the war - an absurd proposition given that Georgian troops never left Georgian territory. When Russia annexed Crimea and invaded the Donbas in 2014, it persuaded much of the world to pretend that it was some sort of "civil war" among Ukrainians and that Moscow was not involved despite massive evidence to the contrary. But with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine this year, very few are believing Vladimir Putin's hype. Few believe the fairy tales of Ukrainian Nazis and chemical weapons. And most understand that this is nothing but an unprovoked war of choice on Putin's part. Russia's once-feared disinformation machine suddenly looks pathetic. So what happened? And why? On the Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with veteran journalist Michael Weiss, news director at the New Lines magazine, contributing editor at The Daily Beast, and director of special investigations at the Free Russia Foundation, about Russia's flailing propaganda effort and the latest developments on the ground.

If Vladimir Putin's goal in invading Ukraine was to push NATO and the EU out of Eastern Europe, he has failed miserably. Because suddenly, Finland and Sweden have applied to join NATO, a prospect highly unlikely just months ago. Suddenly, the prospect of Ukraine joining the EU, unthinkable just months ago, is now a very real possibility. And suddenly, we are entering into a whole new era of European security. What will it look like? On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with former US State Department official Max Bergmann, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies about European security in the wake of the war in Ukraine.

Does declaring victory make you a victor? As both Russia and Ukraine say they've won the war, it's far from the only question on people's minds, but an important distinction, nonetheless. Listen to this week's episode as we tackle these lines of questions.

Listen to how Brian Whitmore and Jeff Mankoff argue that imperialism is tied to culture and that Russia may not see the changes you'd expect in a world after Putin.

On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore, speaks with former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who was in office at the time of the 2007 attacks, about how they unfolded and what they portended.

Genocide. The word has been thrown out by US President Biden when describing the horrors committed in Ukraine. But is there a legal case to back up the claim?

Week 8 of the Russian war on Ukraine. Is it too early to call this genocide?

Scenes of mass graves and civilians shot execution style in Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, are imprinted into the World's mind, and it may never be the same again.

On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore unpacks the latest developments on the ground with retired U.S. Admiral James Foggo.

As Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its second month, civilian casualties mount and so does evidence of Russian war crimes. Here are the latest developments.

As the war enters its fourth week Russia's advance on major Ukrainian cities is still bogged down and stymied by a fierce Ukrainian resistance. So we're effectively in a race against time. Can Ukraine hold out long enough for Russia's economy to crumble and undermine its ability to wage war?

The debate continues about how to arm Ukraine with the weapons it needs to defend itself, most importantly fighter jets to prevent Russia from dominating the skies. On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with three Ukrainian experts about the war and the situation on the ground.

Vladimir Putin launches the largest land invasion in Europe since World War II and escalates the bombing of civilian targets. Led by its charismatic President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine mounts a David-and-Goliath-style resistance that inspires the world. A surprisingly unified West imposes the most devastating sanctions package in history, isolating Russia and effectively cutting it off from the global economy. And across the globe, many are asking: Has Putin become unhinged? And what does that mean going forward? On this week's Power Vertical Podcast, host Brian Whitmore speaks with Georgetown University Professor and former U.S. State Department official Angela Stent, author of the book Putin's World: Russia Against the West and with the Rest, about the latest developments.

On this week's Power Vertical Podcast, I speak with former Assistant Secretary of State David Kramer about the Russian advances, the Ukrainian resistance, and the new geopolitical reality we are entering.

Moscow sends mixed signals, claiming to pull some troops back from the Ukrainian border and indicating an openness to additional diplomacy while at the same time taking steps to recognize the independence of Russian-occupied areas of the Donbas.

On this week's Power Vertical Podcast, host Brian Whitmore speaks with former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Daniel Fata and Deutsche Welle columnist Konstantin Eggert about Putin's landmark Munich speech 15 years ago and what it means in retrospect.

As more than 100,000 Russian troops continue to encircle Ukraine and as Moscow begins shipping supplies of blood and plasma to the front, war fears are very much in the air. But what is the perspective from Ukraine?

The prospect of a major land war in Europe, perhaps the largest conflict since World War II, appears more likely than ever. But as Vladimir Putin continues his brinkmanship, how much popular and elite support does he really have to start a war?

On the Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with defense analyst Michael Kofman of the CNA Corporation about what a Russian re-invasion of Ukraine might look like and what happens next.

On the Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with Merhat Sharipzhan, a Senior Correspondent at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the former director of RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, and veteran journalist and author Casey Michel about the civil unrest in Kazakhstan and the opportunities it presents to Russian expansion.

On this week's Power Vertical Podcast, host Brian Whitmore speaks with former Estonian President Toomas Ilves and former Assistant Secretary of State David Kramer about how far Putin may go and what a divided and distracted West can do to stop him.

From money laundering to stealth investment through opaque shell companies, strategic corruption is one of the main vectors of Russian malign influence abroad. It erodes democratic institutions, weakens Western resolve and unity, and enhances Moscow's efforts to dominate its neighbors. It also enables and strengthens Vladimir Putin's autocratic regime at home. The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has elevated combating corruption as a national security priority. Is it enough? And what more needs to be done? On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks to Paul Massaro, a policy advisor at the U.S. Helsinki Commission, and Russian opposition figure Vladimir Milov.

With Russia massing tens of thousands of troops on the Ukrainian border, the threat of an invasion appears increasingly real. In a video call this week with Vladimir Putin, U.S. President Joe Biden reiterated Washington's support for Ukraine, rebuffed Putin's demands that NATO membership be taken off the table, and threatened severe economic sanctions -- and possibly other measures -- if Russia invades. Ukraine has been living with a low-intensity war in the Donbas for eight years. But what may be coming is something qualitatively different. How does the crisis look from inside Ukraine? And how prepared are the Ukrainian armed forces to resist a full-scale Russian invasion? On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks to former Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Zagorodniuk, director of the Center for Defense Strategies, and Volodymyr Dubovyk, an associate professor in the Faculty of International Relations at Mechnikov National University in Odessa and director of its Center for International Studies. Enjoy…

As Russia continues to mount tens of thousands of troops on the Ukrainian border, Vladimir Putin says he is seeking a binding commitment from the United States that Ukraine will never become a NATO member. Sounds a lot like blackmail to be sure. And it is also a nonstarter. And if trouble on one front wasn't enough, Alyaksandr Lukashenka announced this week that Belarus would not stand aside in a conflict between Russia and Ukraine. And to drive the point home, the Belarusian Defense Ministry announced that it would be holding joint military exercises with Russia on its border with Ukraine. With U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinkin in Europe to meet with NATO and OSCE foreign ministers, Russia is escalating its brinkmanship in Ukraine. And Ukraine is now facing threats on two fronts. On this week's Power Vertical Podcast, host Brian Whitmore speaks to military analyst Michael Kofman of the CNA Corporation about what happens next.

It's all got a feeling of deja vu. Russia is again massing troops and moving ballistic missile systems near Ukraine's border and is accusing Kyiv of violating the terms of a ceasefire agreement in the Donbas region. In a bellicose speech last week, Vladimir Putin accused the United States and its NATO allies of "aggravating the situation by supplying Kyiv with modern lethal weapons," vowing that Moscow will "adequately" respond. And the Kremlin is claiming - without confirmation from Washington - that a second summit meeting between Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden is in the works. The summit would purportedly resolve a crisis entirely of Moscow's making. We went through all this before, when a menacing Russian troop buildup on Ukraine's border in April was followed by a Putin-Biden summit in June. So is Putin trying to repeat that trick? Or is something more menacing afoot? What is the goal of Putin's brinkmanship in Ukraine and how should the West respond? On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore discusses these issues with Konstantin Eggert, a columnist on Russian affairs with Deutsche Welle, and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Kramer. Also on the podcast, we discuss how Lithuania is preparing for the upcoming Summit of Democracies in Washington. Enjoy...

We now live in a world where a Belarusian dictator can hijack a European commercial aircraft, torture his political opponents, and orchestrate a migrant crisis on his neighbors' borders -- and suffer no meaningful consequences. We've long lived in a world where an autocratic Kremlin leader can get away with assassinating his opponents with nerve agents and radioactive isotopes in Europe, invading his neighbors, and annexing their territory. We're living in a world where cyberattacks are the norm - not the exception; where political assassinations are no longer shocking; and where it is a given that autocrats are going to meddle in democratic elections across the world. We now live in a world of impunity. We now live in a world where might makes right and the rules are increasingly optional. In many ways, we now live in Vladimir Putin's world. So how do we get out of it? On The Power Vertical Podcast this week, host Brian Whitmore speaks with Peter Pomerantsev - a Senior Fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and author of the books Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: Inside the Surreal Heart of the New Russia and This Is Not Propaganda - about the causes and consequences of this age of impunity.

It has been described as a “gas station masquerading as a country,” as a nation that has "nuclear weapons...oil wells and nothing else,” and as a mere “regional power.” Despite the fact that Vladimir Putin's regime has pulled off the first territorial annexation in Europe since World War II, successfully intervened in Syria to save the regime of Bashar Al-Assad, and is rapidly militarizing Belarus on NATO's Eastern flank, the stubborn perception of Russia as a paper tiger persists. And with the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden focused on China -- and hoping to park the Russia problem -- it is a perception that has serious policy implications. The thing about Russia is that it is never as strong as it appears -- and it is never as weak as it appears. So how strong is Russia really? And how much policy attention should it be receiving? On this week's Power Vertical Podcast, host Brian Whitmore speaks with Michael Kofman and Andrea Kendall-Taylor, co-authors of an important article in Foreign Affairs titled "The Myth of Russian Decline" to get some answers.