Christopher Miller: The War Came to Us

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. It is August sixteenth two thousand twenty three. We are in the second half of August, and of course, this is the week. That the fourth indictment against Donald Trump dropped.

And I think people are still getting their heads around the fact that, the insanity, the lies, the conspiracy to overthrow an American presidential election is going to be front and center in the twenty twenty four election. There’s no indication the Republican Party has decided that it is, this is the moment to move on from, the twice impeached disgrace, defeated, and now, four time indicted former president. So, if you subscribe to morning shots, we have a pretty complete rundown of many of the reads that I think that you might find helpful. Vaux, asking is Trump going to jail and they provide a list of all the criminal Charlie Sykes the potential prison time ranking the indictments in order of importance. Are the Washington Post why Trump might fear the George indictment the most Well, why, prison, no pardons, Rico, mug shots, bail restrictions, television.

What the heck happened in Coffee County, Georgia? Anna Bower from Lawfair has an account of this weird, sort of Keystone cops effort to tamper with the voting machines, access the voting machines. And, of course, here’s a reminder that we’re gonna be talking about Ukraine today. We’re gonna be talking about the war, but tomorrow, we are going to have another episode of the Trump trials, which will be a deep dive into, you know, all of all of this. In the bulwark, we’ll sell it in as a piece what’s We knew in the Georgia indictment.

We have Phil Rotner, the beating heart of the Georgia indictment, which is the fake elector scheme that was not really a contingency plan. It was an action plan. The New York Times looks at the whole question of how far is Trump going go in bullying, intimidating, invading the judges, biased corrupt deranged from stance test limits of release. A lot of lawyers are saying that If trump was anybody else, just an ordinary, you know, American citizen issuing those attacks, he’d be in jail by now. The daily mail chronicling Trump’s disaster diary for twenty twenty fourth, the former president will have to fit in his many criminal trials amid a very busy campaign schedule.

The Wall Street Journal has a piece on one of the I don’t wanna use the words like tragic But there is something there’s something like a Greek tragedy that really Giuliani who built his entire career using Rico gets indicted on the law that he made famous. Also, interesting phenomenon while Republicans all across the country continue to lose their minds over all of this, the Republican Party in Georgia is different. I mean, let’s be honest about it. I mean, the Georgia George’s Republican governor Brian Kemp is hitting back against Trump’s lies. Trump is saying that he’s gonna have this big press conference where he’s gonna make these big reveals about stealing the Georgia election.

Brian Kemp just slam dunked him. Get put out a tweet yesterday. The twenty twenty election in Georgia was not stolen for nearly three years now. Anyone Anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward under oath and prove anything in a court of law. Our election in George are cured accessible and fair and will continue to be, as long as I am the governor, you’re having, you know, another moment among the anti anti trump folks who are I think realizing that their effort to prop up Ron DeSantis might not be working.

So there’s a sense of kind of urgency slash panic You have, baseball crank writing in the New York Post. People, it’s time for the Republicans to move on from Donald Trump. It’s only they’d been warned. Noah Rothman in National Review, It is time for Republicans to come to terms with Trump’s legal peril. The former Republican lieutenant governor in Georgia, Jeff Duncan, has a piece in the Washington Post where he says the George indictment should be a turning point, whether it will be, we just don’t know.

Also, think that as we sort of brace for what the next year and a half is going to be, and it’s gonna be rough. I think this is part of the challenge of of going through this, this next year and a half, where if you think our politics have been insane up until now, it’s nothing compared to what we are going to be having, including you know, the, again, the the lies, the conspiracy theories, the threat of violence, and, of course, this festival of hypocrisy And I go through some of the things that have been happening just in the last several days, you know, the Republicans who demanded demanded demanded. That, the attorney general name name a special counsel in the Hunter Biden case that they, in fact, they wrote a letter saying, Merrick Allen must appoint David Weiss to serve as special counsel. Last Friday. Merrick Garland appoints David Weiss to serve as special counsel, the exact same Republicans who demanded it are now attacking it So it’s like that was then, and this is now.

I also, again, in in morning shots, kinda highlight what’s going on with folks like the boy philosopher of the right Shapiro, who, like so many other members of the right wing ecosystem, are saying how terrible it is that that the criminal justice system has been weaponized against the, felonious cult leader. And he tweeted out Whatever you think of the Trump indictment’s one thing is for certain the glass has now been broken. Over and over again, political opponents can be targeted by legal enemies. Oh, really? See, that turns out to be really awkward because Ben Shapiro had actually written a whole book calling for the criminal prosecution of Barack Obama.

I mean, there was nothing subtle about it. The title of the book is The People versus Barack Obama, the criminal case against the Obama administration, And guess what statute Ben Shapiro wanted to use to go after his political opponent back then, back in twenty fourteen. I make the case. He told Larry King that the Rico act Racatyr, influence, and corrupt organization act should be used to go after Barack Obama. So Once again, shamelessness being not just a superpower, but apparently a way of life.

So we are going to spend a lot more time tomorrow. And Friday going back overall of this. But I thought today would be a good day to take a deep breath and step back, and look around the real world because while this is going on, as America devours itself politically, culturally, legally, there are real issues in the world. There are bears in the forest. There are people who are fighting for their freedom and for their independence.

And for them, it is a matter of life and death. So today, we are going to be joined by the author of one of the most important new books about Ukraine. Christopher Miller is correspondent for the Financial Times based in Ukraine. He has been reporting on that country for more than a decade, and he is the author of the new book the war came to us life and death in Ukraine. I usually don’t do this.

Usually don’t read, the blurbs that the publishers put on the back of the book, but this one, I wanted to share. When I want to know what is happening in Ukraine, I turn first to Christopher Miller’s reporting. Whether it is the latest information from the front lines of Russia’s war against Ukraine, insightful analysis of the political maneuverings in Kiev or understanding into what the average Ukrainian is thinking about current events Miller always has the inside track. Now in his riveting book, the war came to us, this foremost export on the region, takes us back over the last twelve years providing the history of the culture and the context to help us understand where Ukraine is today And what might come next? A must read for those who want to get beyond the headlines.

And that is Marie Yovanovitch. Former US Ambassador to Ukraine, the authors of Lesson from the Edge. I think you’d remember that. So that is a damn, damn impressive blurb. Christopher.

Welcome to the Secret Podcast.

Thank you for having me on. It’s great to be here.

Let’s start with the big question because your book deals with so much, and I wanna get into the the political culture, the issues of corruption, oligarchy, the state of the war. But let’s start with this sort of meta question. Why does Ukraine matter? Why are we talking about Ukraine?

Yeah. I think that’s a really important question. And a good one to start you know, there is a lot of I I think questioning why this this war should be paid attention to by us in the west in particular to the United And I think it’s important to understand that this is a huge country. It’s the size of the US state of Texas. It plays a large role in that of global security.

Your PN security. It is the largest country within the continent of Europe. It is a place that is fighting for principles on which our country was founded and and which those of us here in the United States, I’m I’m currently taking some time off here. We care very much about independence and freedom, and and that is what Ukrainians are fighting for. For them, it’s an existential fight.

It’s obviously one of of survival, but for us, in the in the United States and in the Western world, you know, this is important for us to essentially put our, our money and our support where our mouth is. We say that we want to defend democracies around the world. Ukraine is a burgeoning democracy. It has a population of forty million people who very much want to be more than ever before, largely thanks to Vladimir Putin and his plans for Ukraine largely backfiring, wants to be a part of the European Union It’s a, again, a burgeoning democracy. And I think that’s something that we should care about.

And and more so, just to take it even a step further, I think if if Vladimir Putin and Russia is not stopped in Ukraine, there is a great concern that Russia could try to take a few steps further into Europe and possibly attack in other, various ways, the European Union and certainly continue to try to undermine our system of democracy here in the United States.

I’m always struck, to be reminded that Ukraine is the largest European country fully within the borders of Europe that is the size of the state of Texas. It’s not just some random, small country. Yeah.

That’s right.

So there is a narrative out there. And again, you know, as as Americans are learning and dividing over the question of Ukraine, there is the whole question of, well, what about the oligarchs What about of the corruption? And you and you know that there is that narrative out there, you know, that the billions of dollars that we’re sending to Ukraine are going to the oligarchs and corrupt businessmen. And there’s a long tradition of corruption hanging over Ukraine. So can you to me a little bit about that.

I know we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves, but that’s one of the questions that comes up about what do we not know about Ukraine? And is it really the pristine democracy that its portrayed as being.

Yeah. That’s a great question. And and certainly one that is on everybody’s mind right now as the US debates, you know, how much to continue supporting Ukraine. You know, the interesting thing about this war is that these powerful tycoons and oligarchs have largely been sidelined. Many of them, for example, Rina Akmietov, who was at times viewed as a pro Russian businessman.

He was responsible for the rise of Viktoryanukovich, the pro Russian president that was ousted in twenty fourteen and fled to to Russia.

Mhmm.

You know, he’s become much more of a pro Ukrainian businessmen. He’s lost a lot of, his his assets and wealth over the course of the last year and a half. So any, you know, Russian sympathies, or business ties have largely been cut off. And now, you know, he’s, he’s very much on the side of Ukraine winning this war, and he’s invested millions and millions of dollars in in the defense of Ukraine in the reconstruction of the company And so I think that’s worth noting. And there’s still plenty of reasons to to criticize him and certainly, you know, his past and and other oligarchs But broadly speaking, many of these oligarchs have actually lost influence in the last year and a half.

And we’ve seen the rise of new, younger, very democratic minded individuals and businessmen who are now wielding a lot more influence in Ukrainian society. And president Zelensky himself and and also the people working within his administration, as well as the Ukrainian Parliament continues, even in wartime, to to pass and implement reforms aimed at stamping out deeply entrenched corruption in the country. And there are some very, very active Ukraineian activists who continue despite the war to go after corrupt entities within the country their lobbying support in Washington and other Western capitals for assistance in trying to, again, stamp out this corruption. So there’s this parallel fight that’s happening. While soldiers are fighting and dying, trying to defend the country on the front line, there is this ongoing anti corruption fight in Kiev and across the country.

And we saw some sweeping actions taken by Zelensky last week to dismiss all of the heads of the military recruitment centers who had been taking bribes from young men who wanted to flee the country so they wouldn’t be mobilized.

Let’s talk about president Zelensky because this is one of the most fantastically bizarre stories in in European political history. Guy who is a TV star is a comedian who actually stars in a television show about being elected president and then goes on and is elected president. You know, you’ve watched him you’ve watched him go from being a showbiz star to being a politician to being kind of a churchillian figure. So tell me about Vladimir Zelensky his strengths and his weaknesses.

Well, he has this uncanny ability to connect with people. And we we saw that even before he became president, but I think that’s certainly one of the things that has had great appeal and made him as popular as he is today. You know, as a as a comic actor, he was widely popular, you know, he was recognized all over the country. You know, interestingly, he was, he was never really involved politically in the country. And even in twenty thirteen and twenty team during the Revolution of Bignity, which had been known at the time as as the year of maidan.

He sort of sat and watched from, Krivirig and and and Kiev where he split his time and didn’t really, you know, actively participate in that nor did he really actively participate in a lot of the support for the defense of the country after Russia’s first invasion in twenty fourteen. He was very much a businessman. He remained focused on that, his entertainment group, his widely popular television show where he became president but it was that show that actually, I I think, helped people certainly to to think, you know what? This this extremely charismatic guy while being a comedian is really onto something here in this television show he becomes president after a student of his, he plays a history teacher, just sort of an every man history teacher who’s very likable and and goes on this rant about how you know, entrenched corruption in the country is is destroying Ukraine. And this video goes viral.

And the oligarchs who are trying to find a new person to sort of mold and shape as their own and put in power rig the election to make him president. And he doesn’t realize this at the moment, and it looks like a popular election. He had he’s won democratically. And he gets into office and he He he defies these oligarchs by doing, you know, essentially what he said he would do on this viral video by stamping out corruption and and attacking these oligarchs

this just reminds people, we’re we’re talking about the TV show. We’re talking about the show.

Right. Right.

And so, you know, the funny thing is, this

is it was so surreal.

You know, he was This was a

TV show called Servant of the people. And so he became so wildly popular that when he launched his presidential campaign, he named his political party after the television show, servant the people. And the the theme music for the television show was also that of his campaign. And so when I saw him for the first, a couple of times campaigning in, in, in early twenty nineteen. There was this weird moment where he, he stepped into the room to the music played by his television show.

And you weren’t really sure if you were seeing, Vasili Golo Barroca, the, the TV president or Volody Marzalensky. And speaking with his his campaign staff, you know, they were like, this is what we want. We want people to feel like, you know, this is the same, it’s the same man.

So what did you think of this? Did you take it seriously back then?

It was hard to take it seriously at first because you know, he he he had no political experience. This was a country where it really had an old guard political class that still was very influential. And it was a country at a war. And so there was this big question hanging over him, you know, whether he could be a good commander in chief. And at the time, president petro Poroshenko had had managed the country for several years in wartime.

He had strong relationships with western leaders, but Ukrainians who really, really like change. And I’ve only once ever in their independent history since the collapse of the Soviet Union reelected a president saw Zelensky as an opportunity to move in a different direction. He was, you know, certainly campaigning on populist messages. And people were, were fed up with the sort of militaristic nationalism that had emerged in the latter part of the Poroshenko administration. And Zelensky actually campaigned on the issue of of finding a solution to the war, to Russia’s war against the country.

And so they felt as though, you know what, this is an opportunity, perhaps, to maybe find an end to this, war that at that point had been, you know, going on for more than five years, after he was elected. And so he became this president. He was widely popular. He he earned, more than seventy percent of the vote in the presidential election. But in Ukraine, as as often as the case, you know, his star faded over time when he couldn’t produce many of the results that he had promised on the campaign trail, the biggest of which was finding an end to this war.

Then we get to February twenty twenty two. And of course, you know, he makes what I think, and many Ukrainians believe is the most important decision of his political career, and and that was to stay in Kiev. And he filmed this video where he says I’m here. I’m with my staff. We’re not fleeing.

The Russians can try what they want. We’re going to defend our country. Extraordinary moment.

It was. But going back a little bit earlier, he didn’t really believe that there was going to be an invasion. He had intelligence services, including the United States telling him, you know, the Russians are going to invade, and they didn’t believe Right? I mean, your your sources were saying that the the administration thought that there might be a an attack, not an invasion. It would just be limited to southeastern Ukraine, and Zilinsky was actually complaining about these warnings about it.

So he he didn’t get that right beforehand.

Yes and no. You know, he was They they were wrong in the sense that, you know, they didn’t believe that the types of Russian forces that were surrounding Ukraine’s border and the number of those forces were enough and the right ones to be successful in launching the the blitzkrieg on Kiev that the Russians would eventually launch an attempt, right? Like, essentially, he he interpreted their own intelligence in Ukraine and Western intelligence differently. They believe that an attack would be on a large scale, but it would be focused on the east and the south. Russia would want to try to take the southern regions of Kyron, the rest of Danesco Oblast, and Zaporija Oblast, these regions in the south that border Ukrainian crimea, which is Russia has occupied since twenty fourteen, and tried to create this land bridge connecting Russia with the rest of these territories.

And he wasn’t wrong. You know, Russia did invade, coming north from Crimea and and heading west from from Russia through these territories. And I also believe that this would happen in a very similar way, and that’s why I was in the eastern city of Krematoresk on February twenty fourth when the first missiles came crashing down on the the air fields there. In in Kiev Zelensky’s office with the exception of a couple of people did not believe that the western warnings of a full scale invasion including an attempt on the capital would happen. It just seems so outrageous at the moment.

Mhmm.

And

you

know, I think ultimately the Ukrainians were in in some ways proven right. The Russians really bungled this invasion And they did a lot of things wrong. They made a lot of mistakes in those first hours and days, especially the ground forces that attempted to to surround Kiev and tried to, essentially decapitate the government. You know, they were using maps that were more than thirty years old. They were running into roadblocks and and bridges and dams that didn’t exist in Soviet at times.

You know, they were just making one bad decision after another you and your listeners will probably remember these long snaking columns of military vehicles heading toward Kiev, and that looks intimidating. In a video from the air, but from the ground, you know, the Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers who ran to defend the country, against these columns you know, for them, these were easy targets. You know, they would take out they would use American Java anti tank missiles to take out the front vehicle to take out a middle and an end vehicle. And then the rest were essentially just stuck. And it was a shooting gallery for for them, you know.

And so, in some ways, the Ukrainian analysis was was accurate in thinking that the Russians wouldn’t be able to take Kiev. And and also I think one one thing that’s also important to note is that the Russians believed a lot of their own propaganda. And and and and Vladimir Putin had a lot of yes men around him who were saying when when asked know, the Ukrainians want to be, quote, unquote, liberated from this, you know, brutal Zelensky regime, ethnic Russians and speakers in the country are being persecuted on a daily basis. They’re going to welcome you with open arms when you roll in. And so the Russians came in with three days’ worth of food and water and their parade uniforms, thinking that they were going to celebrate, in a in a large military parade down central street and Independence Square in less than a week.

And, of course, that didn’t happen.

Are you currently enjoying the show on the Stitcher app, then you need to know Stitcher is going away on August twenty ninth. Yep. Going away. As in Kaput, gone, dead. Rest in peace Stitcher, and thanks for fifteen years of service to the podcast community.

So Switch to another podcast app and follow this show there. Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Introducing Rich Valdez, America at night, the podcast.

Welcome to the conversation familiar. Perfect blend

of news and entertainment, interviews and insights.

It’s really just an expose on how messed up things are.

Ameri is nighttime town hall whenever you want.

It’s a huge problem that deserves a lot more attention.

Rich Valdez, America follow Secret Podcast. Wherever you listen.

Let’s just go back to Zelensky for a moment. I wanna, we will come back to the the details of the war and how it’s played out, but you mentioned, one of the pivotal moments when he that he was going to stay, that he was not going to flee, was not going to follow the example of the, president of Afghanistan, and then he recorded that video. Which was the first of many of the videos. His ability as a communicator seems really crucial here that he was able to mobilize world opinion in an incredible way that was not inevitable when you look back on it, and it’s hard while you, you’re you’re much more familiar with this. It’s hard for me to imagine any other Ukrainian leader being able to mobilize the west to be able a kind of international sympathy or to use all the different tools of communication, including propaganda, to rally the world, to Ukraine’s side and to tell that story.

I mean, I don’t know how involved he is as a military leader, but that seems to be his real decisive contribution. Is that a fair take?

Absolutely. I think that’s fair. He is in in many ways very much a a military leader, and I have it from him and his his office that he’s a very, very hands on leader. He likes to be involved in every decision for better or worse. And and there have certainly been times where he has overridden some of his generals to make a much more of a political decision.

I think in staying to fight and defend in Bakmoot, for example, this really grinding war of a trip or battle of attrition, you know, that was very much a decision that he made. But he has this ability because he’s not a seasoned politician to not really speak from a script but to speak from the heart and in a very and make these really emotional appeals that I think connect not only with with leadership in the west, but real, you know, ordinary citizens who then, you know, take to social media and say, we need to support the Ukrainians. Look with, look with the are doing over there. This is what the president is saying. These are the images that are coming out of the country.

You know, his office is is filled with people who work for his entertainment company. They’re very quick to turn around these really slickly produced videos that are not the type of propaganda that we look at and say, oh, this is clearly, you know, just government messaging. They are very good at appealing to people’s emotions and sensitivities and and make this war, I think in so many ways, one that is not being fought on these, you know, foreign battlefields but feel like something that is is actually really close to you.

Let’s go back to the beginning because I think one of the things that comes through in your book is that Ukraine is much, much more complex than most of us could have imagined or that you you could have imagined. So how did you end up in Ukraine of all places? Because you ended up there back in two thousand nine, In Bakmoot. How did you end up in Bakmoot in two thousand nine? And and what was the city like back then?

So I applied for the US P score program in two thousand nine. And they sent me to Ukraine in spring of two thousand ten. So I I arrived, I think on April first in two thousand ten in Kiev, and then after a couple of months of of Russian language training and and cultural education, I moved to Bakmoot, which at the time was called Artilemos. And, you know, I, I never set out to live and work in Ukraine when the peace corps asked me where I would like to go.

I said,

you know, I’d really like to go someplace in Africa it just seems so fascinating to me. I had known some other acquaintances and and and family members who had served in Africa and and South America. And I very much had those places in mind, you know, when when applying for the peace score. So when they came back to me and said, you know, we don’t have any openings there in the next several months. You could wait another year to go, or we could send you to Eastern Europe.

How about Ukraine? I said, sure. Let’s do it. And, you know, without any familial connections, without any knowledge of the culture or the languages, I arrived in Bakmoot, the only American in this city of seventy thousand people that was quaint, quiet, you know, very far from from the capital of Kiev, also, you know, very far away from Moscow, but just a few hours from the Russian border. It was not the place that I originally wanted to go when I first found out that I was going to Ukraine.

I, I’d really hoped to, to end up in in Western Ukraine, where there are these beautiful Carpathian mountains. And I thought, you know, it could be great to get lost for a couple of years in this cottage in, in the mountains, in the forest. And I had, you know, an interest in Crimea as well being by the sea and also having this beautiful landscape. Eastern Ukraine was very different. And at first, it looked really tough, and it was sort of brutal.

You know, this is a heavily industrialized region. The Soviets came in there, and really built up factories and and mines. There’s sort of a layer of coal dust across the entire eastern region because there are so many mines. Both both legal minds and illegal minds, because in some places, you can actually just scrape the coal from the surface. That’s how prevalent it is.

But in Bakmoot, I found it was actually this this sort of diamond in the coal dust. It was clean. It was, the the streets were lined with roses. There were these beautiful parks and, assault mine just up the road that largely provided for the community and and thousands of jobs. Was also this Champagne factory that Joseph Stalin had ordered to be created post Second World War that also employed a lot of people And I quickly fell into, you know, a routine within the community.

I became known by the local government there. I worked in schools. I became fast friends with a lot of people who had an interest in the west, but at that time, because the internet in two thousand ten wasn’t as prevalent, really didn’t have a clear picture of how we lived and who we were. And so for them, I was, you know, their sort of window to the west. And they were very much, you know, my my local educators and fixers and and friends and those relationships and and that experience for two years of living there really formed the basis of my understanding for the country.

And it’s really when I understood that, you know, this isn’t a country divided by east and west and Ukrainian speakers and Russian speakers. I was meeting and speaking with people who were speaking Russian, who were speaking Ukrainian, who were speaking Ukrainian, who were speaking a blend of the two called soda which made things a little bit tricky at first.

You

know, I met people of all various ethnicities from Central Asia, Eastern Europe, There’s a Greek community in Mariupol. So, you know, I found a place that was really deeply complex. And fascinating, which is why after two years, I decided to stay.

You read in the book that people there were equally skeptical about both Keith and and Moscow, and they identified themselves as the people of the Don boss. And you write, the Don boss, a vast wild step land once controlled by Cossacks had a long history of rebelling against rulers in both Moscow and Keith. People here valued freedom and independence above all else. They didn’t want anyone telling them what to do. So you mentioned that there’s a mixture of Ukrainian speakers and Russian speakers, and I kinda wanna just dig down into this a little bit.

There’s the mythology that that, you know, in Eastern Ukraine, there were these pro Russian Russian speaking, you know, pockets, but but, obviously, it’s just much, much more complex than that. Yeah. You know, the Russians will argue that, you know, Ukraine is not really a place. It’s just sort of it’s been Russia for Russian all along. You really are Russians.

You’re not really a different people. Obviously, Craines disagree. And the people of Dombas are, like, a third way. Right? I mean, it’s just, like, that’s a mixture.

That’s a mess down there.

Yeah. I well, Vladimir Putin has said explicitly that he doesn’t believe Ukrainians are are a real people that they are Russians who have lost their way and that Ukraine isn’t a real country and it’s never it’s never been a a nation. It is a place that was created by Lenin and the Soviet Union. Those things, of course, are are untrue. This is Russian propaganda and and the Kremlin’s propaganda.

And I think that is important to note because it’s that propaganda and that messaging that penetrated deep into these Russian speaking areas in eastern Ukraine and southern Ukraine and really, you know, got its claws into you know, a large number of people there. And so when Russia invaded in twenty fourteen that area, that’s where they did find some And and we did see some Ukrainians who had been, you know, watching Russian television for years because again, it was, you know, this is an area that’s that’s very close to the Russian border. And it felt, you know, it felt far from Kiev, and this was a place that often felt neglected by Kiev and didn’t see a lot of the money that they were paying in taxes to the central government return to be, used to build their their cities and infrastructure there. You know, that that alienation was something that was exploited by the Kremlin in twenty fourteen. And so we saw several Ukrainians and thousands of Ukrainians who did take up arms to fight against their own country at that time.

But, you know, that’s that is an example of of the complex city, but it’s also one of, you know, just how how Russia’s influence over decades had managed to influence these people and to get them to to believe these messages that were that were largely untrue, but had just, you know, just enough of a kernel of truth in there or foundation on which the Kremlin could build this argument to them.

Some I’m haunted by your description of living in Bakmoot and your references to Mary Opel because now is there anything left? It’s these towns have been reduced to to rubble some of the worst most brutal fighting taking place in those cities. Just talk to me a little bit about how you feel about this. I mean, you you remember what the city was like back in two thousand and ten, and you know what it’s like now. You know the people

Yeah. It’s it’s heartbreaking. I I returned to Bakmoo several times over the past, you know, nine years of of Russia’s war there, but in the first many years, you know, it had been a city that largely avoided conflict and fighting. It was not smack on the front line before twenty twenty two. And what we saw from summer of twenty twenty two till now still is this unbelievably brutal fighting, Russian air strikes, heavy artillery duels, close quarters combat in city streets that used to be lined with roses and where, you know, children walked to school and where Ukraine Ukraine’s Olympians trained for track and field where I walked through parks with my friends, you know, sipping coffee and watching people ride a ferris wheel, on on holidays.

All of this has been completely erased. Huge apartment complexes raised to the ground, it’s really unfathomable. The last time I was there was toward the end of December. And each trip that I had made through the year, things got progressively worse. The first time I I arrived, I saw that the apartment where I lived was was still intact, but the street had been badly damaged.

The next time was autumn, and, I noticed that several more buildings and cafes that I used to to to frequent at a school that I worked at had had been attacked and and were in bad shape. By December, the roads were completely chewed up by armored vehicles There was hardly a moment, where ex an explosion wasn’t heard. Artillery shells were crashing down all over the place. I wasn’t able to spend many hours there. It was it was especially dangerous.

And I interviewed these Ukrainian soldiers who were exhausted. They had, you know, covered in dirt. They were hungry. They were thirsty. They were cold because again, this was December.

And they described this hellish fighting at the front line where Russian forces were just sending waves of men toward them, trying to advance mere meters before being, cut down by Ukrainian fire, and then another wave of fighters being sent toward them. And I was just in shock of what this person was describing. Yeah. And he called it a meat grinder. And and as we spoke, I noticed that there were some some Ukrainian soldiers digging nearby.

And we were standing in this square that used to be a location for city holidays or a meeting place where I would go and meet friends to later go out in the evening, and it had turned into a fortress. The city was becoming a fortress, and Ukrainians were digging a trench to prepare for Russians storming the very city center. And I noted to him how crazy that looked to me. To be digging a trench there. And I noted that, you know, I I did see people digging here once before.

When I lived here in twenty eleven, There was, an excavation underway. And I had asked one of the diggers what they were doing, and he said we’re actually pulling up the bodies of German soldiers who had occupied, Artilemos — Oh, really?

—

which was what previously Bauchner was called, during the second World War. And we both just stood there in in awe. And and all we could do was was was shake our head. It was just this really surreal moment. But, yes, the city has been completely raised to the ground.

And unfortunately, many others have too. You know, there’s a list of them now. Mary Ubelle is is certainly one of the most well known, but I could go on and on because the have really set their sights on on destroying on cities.

So the title of your book is the war came to us. Where does that come from? Where does the phrase come from?

Yeah. I, you know, I never set out to cover a war. I wasn’t a war correspondent. I was someone who, I think, fell in love with Ukraine and wanted to stay because of a a deep in interest, in the country and its people and its culture. And prior to the revolution in twenty thirteen and fourteen and the war in twenty fourteen, you know, I was reporting on the political scene and geopolitics and Ukrainian people and culture and I was fascinated by that, and and that was good enough for me.

You know, I I didn’t go off looking to to report in Iraq or Afghanistan. Just like many Ukrainians, you know, did not seek out war. They did not provoke Russia. This is an unprovoked invasion of their country. And so, you know, the title is, you know, myself, Ukrainians, we’re living in Ukraine, essentially going about our lives and business.

Right? I mean, I was, I was reporting as a journalist. They were working in tech or government or, education. When Russia decided that an Envaldemir Putin decided that, you know, this country, this place is, is a place that belongs under our control. You know, we’re going to use Ukraine to attack the Western world and what I’ve led to in reputin views as, western hegemony.

And you know, so the title really comes from this brutal brutal war and invasion arriving without really being expected and totally unprovoked.

So let’s talk a little bit about the war because you describe it as a complex war in a complex place. The Ukrainian military is is fascinating because as you describe it, it’s a kind of workforce and, you know, it’s been so creative and so impressive with what it’s been able to do. I mean, they’re using check equipment, Iraqi equipment, American equipment, British equipment, British equipment, They’ve got instruction manuals and half a dozen languages. They’re going through a thousand drones a day. They had a famous stockpile of weapons at the beginning of the war, but they’re obviously very, very heavily reliant.

So what has to happen now? I mean, you you’re right. The the war’s gonna drag on, you know, unless the west and, you know, US government in particular are willing to provide a lot more and a lot more quickly. So where do you think we are right now? Because There’s that push pull we have done so much.

The Ukrainians are constantly saying you need to do more. It has to be faster. So give me your thoughts about the kind of the What I see is the kind of the tentative slow walk of the Biden administration that wants to give them sort of enough, but maybe not enough to win the war. Where are we at now?

I’ll paraphrase, the Ukrainian foreign minister who’s a longtime acquaintance of mine. When when I met him recently, what he told me when we were speaking about western assistance and what they need and the pace of it over the past year and a half is, you know, we’re tired of asking and being told no. And then asking a second time months later and being told maybe. And then knowing that when we ask a third time, months later, long after we needed this piece of equipment. Finally, yes.

If they would have just said yes from the start and put the process in place of delivering we could have done so much more early on. And we might not be in this position we are now, which is, I think, a brutal grinding war of attrition and this really crucial moment where if more assistance isn’t provided, we risk seeing Ukraine and Russia’s war against it slip into a frozen conflict. And that would allow Russia to really, even more than they have in in recent months solidify their frontline and their defenses, take even a stronger hold on these occupied territories in the east and the south of the country. And also, you know, we’ll we’ll be coming up against a presidential campaign in the United States where Ukraine, of course, yeah, where where Ukraine risks becoming a a political issue. And the Ukrainians do not want to see that happen because, you know, traditionally Ukraine has seen bipartisan support in the United States and you know, with the candidates who are who are running particularly president Donald Trump.

Mhmm.

You know,

the Ukrainians are very skeptical of of him and worried about the amount supportably so. Right. Right. Because, you know, they don’t want a replay of twenty nineteen when then president Trump, you know, dangled military aid over the head of Zelensky, asking him to do him political favors. And so there there is this concern that you know, if the Ukrainians do not get a lot more a lot sooner, this could, you know, slip in again into a frozen conflict and You know, they just don’t have the capacity right now to produce enough shells and weaponry on their own.

They’re heavily reliant on the West. And Russia, meanwhile, has has ramped up its production. It’s definitely got a deeper bench. You know, there is three times, if not four times the amount of people in Russia. If Vladimir Putin wanted to call up a mobilization or send more troops in, he would likely be able to do that.

And, you know, he has shown no indication of stopping until he achieves his goals of seeing Ukraine broken apart and and that’s what we’re worried about now. Yeah.

What is your sense about the status of the long awaited counter offensive? We don’t hear a lot about it. It appears to be going slower. There are occasional, reports of of break ruse, you’re watching this much more closely. Has the counter offensive been a disappointment or were our expectations excessive?

The expectations were excessive. You know, the Ukrainians were expected to carry out, you know, almost the impossible against the second largest and most powerful military in the world supposedly. Right? They were told that they would need to conduct a a very complex combined military forces operation with artillery and infantry and armored vehicles and without air support. You know, the Ukrainian Air Force is not nearly as big as Russia’s.

They do not have air superiority in their country. And the West has in in the United States in particular wanted Ukraine to conduct an operation in this manner thinking that it could provide its best opportunity to rust back occupied territory. But it’s an operation that the United States itself would never conduct without air superiority. And — Exactly.

—

the counter offensive did get off to a rough start.

Yeah.

The Ukrainian lost a lot of, western provided military vehicles they’ve lost, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of soldiers in the past two and a half months since the start of this counter offensive. They’ve committed a lot of their western trained and very experienced soldiers. They’re having to use reserves at the moment, and they’re still not having a lot of success on the battlefield. That’s largely also due to the fact that Russia had months to prepare its own defenses for this counter offensive. You know, this was a a counter offensive that everybody knew was coming.

Right? It was it was really well telegraphed. Ukraine had no choice, but to launch a counter offensive at some point. So the Russians spent months digging trenches, mining fields. The country is now the most mind place in the world because the Russians are spreading so many mines.

I was down on the front lines just a couple of weeks ago, and soldiers were telling me that they would come across minefields that were so dense that within, like, one or two square meters, they would find, as many as five mines at a time. I think that the counter offensive you know, it it has not gone the way the Ukrainians have wanted, of course. I don’t think that they have much of a choice other than to continue pounding away at Russian front lines and trying to achieve a breakthrough. Right now, it does look as though, you know, they are going continue to struggle to do that. They’re expending a huge amount of weaponry and ammunition at the moment, but they still have forces that they haven’t yet committed.

So I wouldn’t count the Ukrainians out around many turns. We’ve seen the Ukrainians outperform our expectations And they do have this really uncanny ability to over perform and to surprise us. And so I I I think that, you know, we should continue supporting them and and certainly not count this counter offensive out yet.

You put your finger on it, though, that, offenses like this usually rely on air support, and we would never try an an attack like this without air superiority and air support. And and that has been lacking. Of course, the Ukrainians have been saying this for months. Give us the air support And apparently, that’s going to happen, but it’s been delayed and it’s been slow. The book is, the war came to us life and death in Ukraine, Christopher Miller is correspondent for the Financial Times based in Ukraine who has been he’s been reporting on the country for more than a decade.

It is an extraordinary piece of work. Congratulations, Christopher. And thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.

Oh, thank you for having me. It was a pleasure to speak with

And thank you all for listening to the Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow, and we’ll do this all over again. Bullbrook contest is produced by Katie Cooper. And engineered and edited by Jason Brown.

Makes a little sports analysis, pop culture, and great interviews, and you’ve got the rich eyes and show podcast. The jets are bracing themselves into doing hard knocks this year.

Bracing themselves. Look, I coach is wanna control the controllables. They don’t want to have a camera crew in the building. You know, I know that they wanna lie low. This is what happens when you go and swing for the fences and get out of Rogers.

Are you kidding me?

The rich Eisenhower Secret Podcast. Wherever you listen.