Yaroslav Trofimov - Russia's Invasion was an Existential Threat to Ukraine, but People Fought Back.
Vložit
- čas přidán 19. 06. 2024
- Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Yaroslav Trofimov has spent months on end at the heart of the conflict, very often on its front lines. In this authoritative account, he traces the war’s decisive moments-from the battle for Kyiv to more recently the gruelling and bloody arm wrestle involving the Wagner group over Bakhmut-to show how Ukraine and its allies have turned the tide against Russia in a modern-day battle of David and Goliath.
----------
BOOKS:
Our Enemies Will Vanish - The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence (2023)
Faith at War (2005)
Siege of Mecca (2007)
----------
GUEST:
Yaroslav Trofimov is the chief foreign-affairs correspondent of The Wall Street Journal and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting for two consecutive years, in 2022 and 2023. Before covering the Russian war on Ukraine, he reported on most major conflicts of the past two decades, serving as the Journal's bureau chief in Afghanistan and Pakistan and correspondent in Iraq. He holds an MA from New York University and is the author of several highly critically acclaimed books.
----------
ABOUT "OUR ENEMIES WILL VANISH"
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Yaroslav Trofimov has spent months on end at the heart of the conflict, very often on its front lines. In this authoritative account, he traces the war’s decisive moments-from the battle for Kyiv to more recently the gruelling and bloody arm wrestle involving the Wagner group over Bakhmut-to show how Ukraine and its allies have turned the tide against Russia in a modern-day battle of David and Goliath.
Putin had intended to conquer Ukraine with a vicious blitzkrieg, in a few short weeks. But in the face of this existential threat, the Ukrainian people fought back, turning what looked like certain defeat into a great moral victory, even as the territorial battle continues to seesaw to this day. This is the story of their epic bravery in the face of almost unthinkable aggression.
For Trofimov, this war is deeply personal. He grew up in Kyiv and his family has lived there for generations. He tells the story of how everyday Ukrainian citizens-doctors, computer programmers, businesspeople, and schoolteachers-risked their lives and lost loved ones.
At once heart-breaking and inspiring, and combining vivid reportage with expert military analysis and rare insight into the thinking of Ukrainian leadership, Our Enemies Will Vanish tells the riveting story Ukraine’s fight for survival and refusal to surrender as it has never been told before.
----------
LINKS:
/ yarotrof
www.wsj.com/news/author/yaros...
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/au...
www.pulitzer.org/finalists/ya...
----------
SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:
www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconc...
/ siliconcurtain
----------
TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND:
Save Ukraine
www.saveukraineua.org/
Superhumans - Hospital for war traumas
superhumans.com/en/
UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukraine
unbroken.org.ua/
Come Back Alive
savelife.in.ua/en/
Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchen
wck.org/relief/activation-che...
UNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyy
u24.gov.ua/
Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation
prytulafoundation.org
NGO “Herojam Slava”
heroiamslava.org/
kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyśl
kharpp.com/
NOR DOG Animal Rescue
www.nor-dog.org/home/
----------
WATCH NEXT:
Julia Tymoshenko
• Julia Tymoshenko - Sai...
Anastasiya Shapochkina
• Anastasiya Shapochkina...
Luke Harding
• Luke Harding - On the ...
Yuri Felshtinsky
• Yuri Felshtinsky - A R...
Ian Garner
• Ian Garner - Generatio...
----------
PLATFORMS:
Twitter: / curtainsilicon
Instagram: / siliconcurtain
Podcast: open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6...
Linkedin: / finkjonathan
Patreon: / 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 CZcams s algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Yaroslav, your history book "The Siege of Mecca" which I read many years ago when it came out, is still one of the most thrilling history accounts that I have ever read. Thank you! I also love following your reporting on Ukraine on X and in the Wall Street Journal.
Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Jonathan,
I continue to be impressed with all the great interviews you have on your channel.
Your channel is unparalleled in the depth of the cause and the scope of the war in Ukraine.
👍👍👍🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦
Russians are suffering through rolling blackouts, loss of heat, water pipes bursting and widespread fires destroying both businesses and wiping out the jobs within. Lack of adequate maintenance staff to deal with all the problems reminds me of the little dutch boy without enough fingers to plug the leaks in the dam.
Finally...
A so-called superpower without the Super to keep the power on
Well, karma is a bitch
Jonathan, thank you for your craftsmanship in the way that you steered this piece with such a light touch, for giving Yaroslav the time and space to expand on each topic yet keeping the narrative moving forward.
This interview was a gem.
Cheers, R. 😎👍🍻
👍👍👍🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦
🙏🕊🌻🔱 Excellent History Lesson! Ukraine is Stronger with ATACMS and Storm Shadow! Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the Heroes! The World Stands Committed with Ukraine's Quest for Democracy and Retribution! 🔱🌻🕊🙏
Peace through superior fire power.
Bo Johnson ~ Tucson, AZ
In 1922 Ukraine had a short time as an independent nation, but inevitably this was crushed by Stalin, forced into intentional HOLODMORE starvation, flooded in Russians into the depopulated east of ukraine intent on exterminating every aspect and idea of Ukraine identity and then incorporated into the USSR as a puppet state of the Kremlinate. The men where incorporated into the USSR military and under the leadership of Colonel Chevchenko were eventually organized and sent to Finland in 1939 to attack it in the winter war.
This history lesson is mostly unknown to the world, BUT IT IS THE PATTERN INTENDED BY PUTIN TO FUEL HIS INVASION ARMY.
Russia is literally the BORG of science fiction.
The point is that there is no possibility for it to stop awith Ukraine, the people and resources WILL BE USED as CANNON FODDER TO ATTACK THE WEST. Russian population expects some compensation for their sorry state for silent or active complicity, but they will be disappointed.
Do not allow this to happen as you are the ultimate target wherever you sit in comfort or security.
Yoo cannot make a fair deal with a narcissist, and Trump should be smart enough to know this.
He should make every effort to recognize that Ukraine is not an expendable bargaining chip for western convenience.
The problem is that Trump is also a narcissist, and like Putin, he only understands and appreciates "power". His knowledge of Russia and Ukraine is non-existent.
Q: Ukraine had a short time as an independent nation...
A: Ukraine actually had a long time as an independent nation in 839-1434, 1648-1775, 1917-1921 and 1991-2024 or over 645 years of a full independence, which is twice more that Muscovy had, being fully independent only since 1739.
@@donotmislead Thanks for the clarification.
I was aware generally of the existence of other periods of independence but had no formal schooling, relying on recollections from many decades ago stories of Ukraine history.
Most of my life I never even met anyone not from Ukraine who was aware of its existence, even the early group of expelled or released USSR persons in the 70's uniformly denied its existence even though some doubtless came from there..
In one instance in college I asked a question about Holodomor in a lecture about modern European history and the visiting professor immediately called the campus police and THEY escorted me physically from the building while the lecturer continued on claiming there was no Ukraine, and that I must be an antisocialist provocateur 'disrupting' the class by promoting lies and propaganda by lying that I knew survivors of it.
Q: persons in the 70's uniformly denied its existence...
A: Back in 1918 Ukraine was invaded by Muscovy (RSFSR) and, having no regular army to defend the country, forced to sign the Treaty of Berestie with the Central Powers. Which fact effectively turned Ukraine into an enemy of the Triple Entente and the USA respectively, so they never recognized the independence of Ukraine right until 1991.
Q: a question about Holodomor in a lecture...
A: The genocide of 1932 was actually covered by the US media of the time, there were dozens of articles. It was not the first genocide committed by the Muscovites in Ukraine though, mostly of Ukrainians but also of Germans, Poles, Jews, Greeks and Tatars on 1659, 1678, 1709, 1712, 1769, 1775, 1778, 1783, 1794, 1832, 1860, 1915, 1919, 1921, 1932, 1937, 1940, 1941, 1944 and 1946.
Mr Fink is such a phenomenal interviewer.
There's a 2017 video of Douglas Murray with Israeli intellectuals where, after a hilarious shakedown by a general of the EU as a place where "people wake up in the morning, admire the lovely sun shining outside, and ask themselves, "Who can I capitulate to today?", Murray observes that Europeans believe they live after history; that the time when people did terrible things is over and we're all oh so civilized now.
We learned our lesson so surely everyone else did too.
Israelis do not have the luxury of being that delusional, he says.
They live in history.
It reminded me of Ukraine, who continues to suffer because the rest of us are so reluctant to believe that for them, to capitulate really would be that bad.
A fantastic interview of Mr Sumlenny on this channel explored that too, as a reason why Germans have so much trouble understanding why Ukrainians don't just give up; after all, it worked out just fine for them.
Yet Anne Applebaum tells us what happens to teachers, volunteers and small town mayors in Ukraine's occupied areas in her "They didn't understand anything" talk.
What kind of a people manufacture torture equipment for children???
I cannot wait for this poor country's enemy to vanish.
Where do you people get your information? Russia invaded Ukraine to keep NATO away from it’s border. Nukes were the reason. You people lie constantly.
Always brilliant, thanks so much this honest appraisal of Ukrainian life and struggle.
Great interview, thanks!
The frequently overlooked danger of the western hesitation is the opposite effect of this hesitation, ie by trying to reduce the risk of a nuclear war the west sleep walks into the dire risk of such a war
I suspect that not only will US under Trump not help Europe/Ukraine, but will help Putin maybe indirectly, by not enforcing the "red line" of no (tactical) nuclear weapons.. Putin has been VERY afraid to use anything like that under current circumstances, but Trump will probably allow it because he will generally do whatever Putin wants him to, being who he is.
Thank you Jonatahan for another very interesting interview. Yaroslav really picked on some really points about language and history.
👍👍👍
Yaroslav, thank you. It was
intriguing to hear yet a further layer and insight into the Ukraine many of us are following and supporting at the moment. Thank you both for this interview.
Thanks again Jonathan. I have learned so much about Ukraine from yourself and Timothy Snyder.
It’s going to be interesting seeing what happens with the Russian elections if Russian infrastructure continues to collapse. Russia’s cut infrastructure investment in half this year & sent an awful lot of its workers off to fight on the front lines. And it’s not just the boonies that are suffering. Moscow’s suburbs are freezing, too.
"elections" 🤣
@@bofostudioabsolutely! Since words matter, i think the world needs to stop calling Putin by the title of his office but eather the function that he literally executes therein. AND at a minimum, as you gave done, put quotes around the word "election" , perhaps with a suitable adjective reflecting the vast difference in meaning of the term between democracies and dictatorships, or best yet, choose a new word entirely. Why are we letting the aggressor use our terms for a completely opposite reality?
I'll risk a prediction - poo tin will win.
There is nothing Russian in Muscovy, not to speak of elections that do not depend on any infrastructure either, but on a single typewriter used to print the result.
Excellent interview as always. Thank you.
Great insight into changes to how people in Ukraine 🇺🇦 started to see russia quite differently many years ago. Thats a short haircut, Jonathan. Hope you are able to keep warm 😊
Chilly around the ears!
Thank you for another excellent episode.
👍👍👍
This war has never been about any real security threat to Russia coming from either Ukraine or NATO,” Admiral Rob Bauer added. “This war is about Russia fearing something much more powerful than any physical weapon on earth - democracy. If people in Ukraine can have democratic rights, then people in Russia will soon crave them too.
I believe that internet-surfing Russians already crave the democracy so blatantly shown by the internet.
I’d argue that the Russian people can’t truly want democracy when they don’t even know what it’s like to live under a democracy…
Always an interesting conversation!
Interesting and important discussion. Please keep up the good work.
BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE AND INSIDE!! GREAT SHOW❤
An extremely interesting and insightful discussion, thank you !
Best interviews on Ukraine.
You both speaketh the truth...😞
🇺🇦🌻🌻🇺🇦
Very elegantly expressed, in courtly prose...nice to see in these cynical days..peace and love from the wirral peninsula,bounded by the mersey and the Dee and the Irish sea...geography and rhyme...E...
Thank you, Jonathan, for the conversation with Yaroslav Trofimov. Very interesting to hear an in-depht analysis from him.
🇺🇦 Заради життя кожного українця! 🇺🇦
The speaker's point about people thinking Ukraine isn't real is simply due to some folks being ignorant of the topic. I'm thankful that in the 1980s while still a teen, I read a novel by Frederick Forsyth (the title escapes me) where Ukraine was trying to break away from the USSR. Ever since then, at least I've realized that Ukraine and Russia are not the same, and that Ukrainians don't want to be ruled from Russia. Thank you Mr Forsyth.
i also knew that too, my parents who passed away 30 years ago, told me that russia was always an enemy, they were both born in 1919.
@@dkrawk8309 BS. Russia only destroys or subjugates, living in the past
Load of crap.
@@dkrawk8309 kyiv Rus was built, while Moscow was still a swamp.
@@dkrawk8309 Ukrainians were there, before the russians, ie Ukrainian speaking people.
Well thats bullshit, they were still living like your russian peasants.@@dkrawk8309
Thank you for having this interesting conversation. Slava Ukraini
👍👍👍
Excellent interview!
Very interesting interview
I can admit that I thought Ukraine was just a Russian state at one point.. "the Ukraine" it was behind the iron curtain. Child of the 80's. Even when I learned it was it's omw country. I had no idea how important and large it really was for a European country. You only ever hear the worst about most places.. So glad I've educated myself. Ukraine was the main economic engine of the Soviet Union... of course there going to kill to get it back. Without Ukraine Russia would have to find it's own identity.... Which is a problem. Be ause they have alwaysied about there roots and what's there is a brutal violent crooked culture. It's rotten at its roots..
Russia has / had no states. The USSR had republics. Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, etc. And it is not because of the 80' s. The American maps in the 80s clearly showed it as not a Russian ' state'. It is lack of the geography subject at US schools.
As a Wall Street Journal journalist, Yaroslav Trofimov has a platform in the WSJ to reach people who usually don't read other publications considered "leftist". Patrick O'Brian, a military analyst did this recently to escape the bubble of likeminded pro-ukraine readers and reading his substrack, it seems to have been quite an overwhelming response one way and another. Hopefully with a wider audience comes a change in attitude from the right side of the political spectrum in the US, and a change in policy.
Another great interview. SO ADMIRE Yaroslav. Blessings!
great video - love the channel
Excellent!
Never mind what Putin said. I can't count the times I had verbal altercations with Brits and Americans about Ukraine before this war. They were telling me that Ukraine was Russia, that it was a state of Russia. Just like the US has Oregon as a state, so Russia has a state called Ukraine.
Some Americans said that Ukraine was a city in Russia. One American ex-military said that he had seen US military maps that said that Ukraine was Russia. Another military person had married a Ukrainian woman and he was surprised that she called Ukraine a European country like France. He was indignant, " How dare she! It is not a European country. To me, it is part of the Russian Federation", he said.
And these are American military people?
An American teacher told me that Ukraine was in Russia.
And a Brit said, " Ukraine is Russia".
And it just went on and on. Better not to breach the subject, and lie to such people where I was from because it created needless fights.
And I worked with Filipinos and one of them was laughing " I'd never heard of such a country". He thought I'd made the country up. No such country existed, he said.
Eventually, he saw it but then he called it " a Russian country"
I was denied several social and professional opportunities because of me being " from Russia:
With friends like these.,,
Had this war not taken place, nothing would have changed and Ukraine would have just remained " part of Russia" or a " Where
s that?"
Enjoyed this discussion very much, thanks!
For my money, Trofimov is head and shoulders above any other correspondent reporting from Ukraine. How he did not win the Pulitzer last year is beyond belief. As a former Democrat and Biden voter, I have been disgusted with most of the defeatist reporting that we see in the American media (looking at you, NY Times). Trofimov writing in the WSJ is really the only US journalist that I trust to get the story right.
👍👍👍
Another great interview Jonathan , thankyou ! One learns so much ! There is so much there, and I'm not the only one to have missed a bit as he spoke rather fast.... so i listened to it twice 🙂
👍👍🇺🇦
Click on the gear ⚙️ icon top right, you can adjust the speed of the video…
Great guest! Thanks for presenting wide-ranging background onUkrainian culture. I watch your shows every day from Oakland, CA.
Slava Ukraini Heroyam Slava 💪🇺🇦🇫🇮👍👍
Great guest Jonathan. Very insightful.
👍👍👍
Excellent interview, many thanks.
Amazing interlocutor and a great conversation. Thank you.
I have his book, The Siege of Mecca. I was in Jeddah during the insurrection. His recounting of the events are an accurate account of the events in Mecca.
Thanks 👍😊
👍👍👍
My guess is that after the war is won, Zelenskyy will like nothing more than retire to the country, grow cabbages, and entertain his grandchildren with comedy sketches.
I’m thinking that too.
lol, yea, good times, chillin' in the village!
The man has aged a decade in two years - and most of those years were drained out of him on the streets of Bucha. Looking at him giving that speech to russians, on the eve of war, he looks like a boy.
He so, so deserves a cold beer in peace under the Crimean sun.
But maybe he has been too reshaped by this to ever be a silly joker again. I think, though peace will come, he might fight this war for the rest of his life, as will so many other ukrainians.
My only reference is the Finnish part of my family - the older generation that fought the Winter War, and their children too, they had something hard, worn, yet ferociously emotional about them.
I don't know. I just have my whole heart in Ukraine. Все, весь час.
@@medeology4660 wow, well said, I hear ya, but from my decade living in Ukraine, the spirit of the people is such that they refuse to descend into darkness of mind, even just recently, over Xmas, there was people all over the city where my wife and I are IDP's singing carols and not letting the ruZZian savagery drag them down, to not foster negative emotions. I totally agree that President Zelensky has become more "steeled" as you said, a very serious and stern man, but I think he will not let the heavy burden he shouldered totally kill his comic spirit! Well lets hope so anyway!
@@irongron i feel that the current emerging understanding of trauma both will provide a way of healing for many Ukrainians but also informs the actions of us the onlookers because, put briefly, "trauma is what happens to you in the absence of a sympathetic witness". We need to keep communicating way more than sympathy, but the knowledge that many support them surely has helped any who might otherwise sunk into that negativity of mind you mention.
Is there a possibility of a Ukraine militarry industrial complex expansion with western investors, soon?
The US, Britain and others will not do what is right in the end. Each party is playing their own game with different criteria. Helping themselves rather than helping Ukraine. The nuclear threat delusion is just an example of serving our own interests.
That sucks for me
🇺🇦👍
👍
💛💙🇬🇧💪🏻
Yup. Uniting over democracy, but not just democracy in-itself. Uniting over the quality of life we understand flows from transparency and accountability, etc. Practical stuff. Once you've tasted---. Oof.
They will vanish?? How? In reality
exetra….
The speaker is wrong about Ukrainian nationalists in 1930s
I think all British, Germans etc aged 16 to 40 should be required to serve a minimum term of 12 months in the Ukrainian army
🤡
Clearly there won't be any meaningful negotiations with Russia until it has a government which can lead Russia away from its imperial nostalgia, stop trying to recreate the tsarist/Soviet empire, and recognize the right of the former Soviet republics to exist as sovereign countries in their own right. That's what we thought we were getting after 1991, but I suppose Chechnya should have been an early wake-up call
JOEL 2: 20 CONFIRMS this premise
Un saluto da Italia e mi dispiace per le sofferenze della gente russa per la follia di Putin e del suo entourage.
The people are the problem as well ,why are they fighting ? Why not surrender or better still not go to war….
Other factors limiting Western assistance for Ukraine are the absence of Boris Johnson, the weak political situation of the Biden Administration, the excessive influence of the Israel lobby and Wall Street over US politics and the US mainstream mass media and finally the neoliberal ideology of fiscal austerity in Europe, Britain and to a lesser extent the US that greatly restricts defence spending. The need for Europe to switch to alternative sources for fossil gas once Russian supplies ended has also diverted considerable financial resources.
Too much talk thresh
He is talking so fast that I cannot understand what he says. Sorry. All words come togeather at the same time.
If you press the "gear" icon at the bottom of the window, you can adjust the speed of the video to suit your needs :)
Turn on the subs
Ukrainian satalites
Liar 🚀
russia didn't perhaps atack at all in 24.2.2022 ukraine's soldiers thought that they[(russia's human beings)]were angry
What?
Amazing discussion. Thank you very much. Slava Ukraini