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Radio War Nerd #319 — Escape From Kiev: Interview With an American-Ukrainian Refugee (Patreon)

Published:
2022-03-03 15:11:12
Edited:
2024-06-19 03:28:53
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Guest: Peter Korotaev ("George Andersen")

Recorded: March 1, 2022

We talk to American-Ukrainian George Andersen about life in Kiev under Russian bombs, his escape to the western edge of the country, and about where the war is heading.

Total time: 1:44:03

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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Comments

Quaglar_The_Destroyer

I would add to this that the Oliver (not Roger) Stone interviews with Putin in 2016 are really great for framing his thought in this case. Its my theory that he is working off of a racist theory about Russians as the virtue of the USSR and that is why he may have gambled here on Ukraine breaking along ethnic lines rather than the national lines we are seeing now. (ty for the correction Kira)

Thomas Sankara

I agree with this analysis and have been following Luke Gromen’s comments closely. I think he’s right that this is also about peak cheap oil, currency wars and fighting the petrodollar system that has been used to sanction 30% of the world’s population. Putin is sane, strategic, and feels this is his window of opportunity. KSA refusing to increase oil production per biden’s request, India agreeing to trade using Rupee/Ruble denominated debt and China agreeing to soak up excess gas supply all indicate that this play is all premeditated and years in the making. He’s not the crazy lunatic that MSM is making him out to be and is far from being the proximate or root cause of the current crisis.

Mostly__Sunny

I saw some big financial instruments (bonds or something) that contained a clause along the lines of “if for reasons beyond our control we are unable to make payments in USD then the repayments will be made in rubles” - signed about 4 years ago. Clearly anticipating that there might be a sanctions/ lock out from the dollar system

Matthew Wood

Amazing interview - consider making it public and sharable? Especially liked the ‘hospitality’ guy selling ‘pizzas’..

T

Sounds interesting- do you have links to articles?

Steve

Another great episode! I could go for 2 of these a week during this conflict. Thanks for cranking this out and to your guest, who I hope stays safe.

etienne

yeah I saw the boilerplate "we must try diplomacy" and then zelensky went to negotiate with the conciliatory position of "please give us back crimea also" and thought awesome this is gonna be 10 years of insurgency. good to know we're all on the same page. Stand with ukraine!

Kira

oliver stone?

Robert Rowe

Same shit applied to me if mentioning anything re: Not a surprise, we pushed them into this situation (thanks, Victoria Nuland!) and how this type of maneuver worked so well for USA in Afghanistan ca. 1976 when we paid for the anti socialist coup...

Ander Pierce

Yeah you sound like a Kremlin Agent ew disgusting

Ander Pierce

I kid, you presented a rational take and today's discourse is a mess

Vesna Radivojevic

What is going on in Ukraine now is a lot like what was going on in Bosnia in the 1990s. Western powers will cry crocodile tears a let people of Ukraine be slaughtered. Serbia was under sever sanctions, with a lot less resources than Russia, but managed to fight civil war in Bosnia for five years. There was mass murder of almost 8000 Muslims in Srebrenica under the noses of UN peacekeepers!!! I feel enormously sorry for Ukrainians and can only hope this war is over quickly.

Nicknimh

Diplomatic statements from a politician shouldn't be taken at face value, especially not opening bids in tense negotiations. Zelensky is well aware that Crimea's not on the table; he's publicly said as much in the past. The fact that Ukraine agreed to hold the talks in Belarus shows that they're at least somewhat serious/desperate.

Nicknimh

Not directly related to the episode, but Reuters is reporting (unconfirmed) that Russian forces are shelling the Zaporizhia power plant, causing a fire there. Statements from the Ukrainian officials make it sound like they're attacking the plant specifically, but it's not 100% clear from the article. Obviously there's a lot about this war that's seemingly irrational, but is this not especially insane? It seems to me like creating even a 1/1,000 chance of a nuclear accident during wartime is incredibly reckless behavior, which would obviously have huge direct consequences for Ukraine and Belarus as well. Surely they're not that dumb? Surely?

Kane Sherlock

For such a grim subject, I was surprised this episode was so funny. Your guest was great.

K

He was phenomenal. Unbelievably insightful. (and so on… hehe) Thank you guys!

Breakaway

Great episode, wishing George and his family are safe and sound. Can we get an interview with the Romanian dude next?

Sam

Yeah, Ukrainian officials are saying something insane in the media to try and incentivize nato to start world war 3. This has been going on for weeks. I understand being repulsed by Russian aggression and you can hate Putin and blah blah. If you’re really just going to take the words of the Ukrainian government at face value after the last 10 years, you either have a steep learning curve or you’re unwilling to understand the context. Zelensky isn’t good. He’s not brave. He’s wreckless and he’s going to get a lot of people killed that don’t have to die because he’d rather tweet and make shit up to try to get nato involved then negotiate and honorable surrender and gtfo

Sam

It’s been 6 days. Ukraine isn’t breaking along any lines. It’s just breaking. Jfc the internet has broken everyone’s brains. This is a war. Russia is treating this like a war. Everyone else is treating this like a thing that needs a narrative that can be explained like this right now so that we can tweet right now and frame right now and blah blah. Ukraine won’t be a country a year from now. It’s over. They broke the number one rule of international relations and geopolitical survival: don’t project power you don’t have, and know how to use the power you do.

Sam Zeng

Insurgency in Ukraine will absolutely blow back into Central Europe and Eastern Europe. What a disaster.

Barticus Maximus

So many "uhhhh"s and "like"s makes this a hard listen. Hit 1 hr before having to pause as that shit's annoying af

Anthony Schiappa

Agree would love it if this was public and shareable! Hopefully throws some cold water on how horned up a lot of people in the US are.

Allen M

Ok, I rarely comment, but this one got me a bit tired of things. I understand Ames despises the Bandera bunch, but they are all dead, and the sliver that makes noise with that crap is exactly what Putin said was "justification" for regime change. The removal of a party that got over 6 million votes and is not a NAZI party is what is happening. I can point to John Birch Society and tar all of America with their nuttery. Like complaining about our militia movement when they can't even understand how the military industrial complex would never let them near the levers of power here.

Allen M

Now, the tragedy of this is manifest, but the "volunteers" are not totally sheep to the slaughter, and the Russian Army B and C team is their match. Further, thinking like typical rich westerners the interview guy was all about fleeing once the danger manifested of a real Russian occupation. So what about everybody else without a convenient Western passport? They might still press him into service, and that would be a great inconvenience in his modern life.

Allen M

Now, on to waiting for Putin to die, the people in Ukraine might have waited for Stalin to die, but it only took 20 years after the holodmor. So hey, look, here comes communism without any sharing, but we have Article 58 back in force.

Allen M

So those without an easy exit might just decide that fighting is preferable to suffering under Russian occupation. And looking at Grozny, they might just be savage in their fighting. There will be war, and huge unintended consequences. Our press is totally unseemly in their stick it to Russia mentality, but the new Cold War is an easy sell to an angry America. Now, watch how happy everybody will be with $10 a gallon gas....

Alex Bogat

Obviously all Ukrainian nationalism is tainted by Bandera they still use his red and black colors.

Allen M

And our own nationalism still uses stuff from the 1930s as well. Sigh. What I was tired of was calling Banderan nationalism Nazi- and Putin's propaganda is straight from Stalin. 44 million people are not necessarily represented by the extremes. But a significant portion of that 44 million is afraid of the return of the savagery of the Soviet Union and will be willing to seriously fight and die to avoid that outcome. That is what I am talking about.

James

I am on IOS 15.3 and the Patreon software has suddenly gotten worse for playing Warnerd- in terms of the 1.5X and skip forward/back controls:(

etienne

I strongly recommend you download the file and use another player or better yet fish out the RSS link from the patreon emails and use a podcast application

Jeremy Hartley

Great podcast. Thanks for sharing this interview. I feel the need for more frequent good information about Ukraine, once per week is not really cutting it at the moment. Can anybody recommend any other good podcasts about this subject?

Brendan Mason

@Jeremy: Off the top of my head (typoing on the run, here) The Anti-Empire Project has been doing recent episodes focussed on Ukraine at a faster clip than their usual output. It's good analysis from a lefty, anti-imperialist viewpoint, but not mired in chest thumping. Yasha Levine and Evgenia Kovda's podcast The Russians has been focussed on the Whole Fucking Thing from a Russian immigrant pov (paywalled, tho) They're funny and melancholy about it and mention things non-Russians wouldn't know to even consider.

Chloe Interferometry

Hello Mark from Rochester NY also. Your podcasting from TA made me a permafan. Excited to hear your thoughts on the bioweapons labs allegations

Sam Zeng

The right wing in Ukraine need their own special coverage. Its pretty complex network but they were instrumental during the maidan protests. What Russia is doing to Ukraine is terrible, Putin's justification is nonsense. Completely pointless war.

James

I appreciate the advice etienne. Thank you.

Robert Rowe

Since $10/gallon is darned close to what EU residents already pay, we have a lovely excuse here to end special treatment for USA plebians. Because, USSR is 30 YEARS GONE. No reason low functioning USA grunt workers shouldn't be sheared like the rest of the world's sheep are anymore.