Silicon Curtain

John Sweeney is a British investigative journalist and writer. He worked for The Observer newspaper, and the BBC's Panorama and Newsnight series. Sweeney ceased working for the BBC in October 2019, and is now reporting on the war in Ukraine, as well as creating a Daily war diary. Which I strongly advise you to watch if you’ve not seen it. He’s also been working on a film, documenting the most brut...

Trucks under Christmas Tree Since 2022 an extraordinary group of people have been fighting the information war for Ukraine in the global arena. Car for Ukraine has now joined with a group of these special people and their communities to bring Christmas to the frontline in the toughest areas where the fight is happening right now. https://donorbox.org/trucks-under-christmas-tree/fundraiser/silicon-...

Alex Cornell du Houx served on the Energy Utilities and Technology and Legal and Veterans Affairs committees, sponsoring 14 successful pieces of legislation and co-sponsoring 98 successful bills. He won the REED award for the best national Public Affairs Campaign for his work co-founding Operation Free, a coalition of lawmakers and veterans promoting energy security. Cornell du Houx participated i...

Shota Dighmelashvili is editor-in-chief at Forbes Georgia, a policy entrepreneur and a dedicated civil society leader. His work has earned global acknowledgement, including features in renowned international outlets. ---------- LINKS: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shotad/ https://x.com/shotadig https://www.facebook.com/shotad/ https://oc-media.org/tag/shota-dighmelashvili/ https://civil.ge/archives/...

Iryna Baturevych is a co-founder of the Chytomo media project (NGO), the Ukrainian independent media covering publishing and contemporary literary and cultural processes in Ukraine. Together with the Chytomo team, she organized the Ukrainian Chytomo Award for the Outstanding Achievements in Publishing. The publishing markets observer. In 2022, she co-founded the Ukrainian Club of Montreal. Iryna i...

Welcome to our monthly conversation with Konstantin, who is one of the most respected voices on YouTube about what is happening Inside Russia. Konstantin Samoilov is a well-known YouTuber whose channel ‘Inside Russia’ comments insightfully on Russia’s decent into authoritarianism over the last few years. But now, like many others, he’s outside Russia, with no idea of when he can return there. ----...

A complex array of tactics are employed by the Russian government to manipulate public sentiment in connection with Russia's war in Ukraine, and to stifle any internal dissent. Studying the "politics of pacification" can help us understand how authoritarian regimes maintain control over society through a mixture of incentives and fear. As dissent increases, then repression needs to find new and mo...

It’s been claimed that on Election Day in the US 280,000 X users closed their accounts. At the same time, Bluesky saw a massive spike in new users, up from 13 million in October, surpassing 21 by November. Rose Wang, whom I’m honoured to speaking with today, is quoted as saying that the company's 20-person team has been in "firefighting mode" as this spectacular growth has far surpassed their proj...

Mariam Kintsurashvili is a Strategic Communications expert, countering hybrid warfare. ---------- LINKS: https://x.com/kintsurashvili7 https://www.linkedin.com/in/kintsurashvili/ https://demsecinstitute.org/?page_id=371 ---------- SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND: Save Ukraine https://...

Edition No68 | 08-12-2024 - Assad is falling – in fact the total capitulation of his regime may be confirmed by the time this episode comes out. The mainstream media are paying attention and giving these events prominence fitting with their historical importance. The rapid collapse of the Assad clan’s 50-year reign of tyranny is a major blow to Russia and Iran in the region and will send out shock...

See the full conversation on iWi channel - https://youtu.be/1aOGBQv2j2M https://www.youtube.com/@infowarfarechannel/featured ---------- Lesia Dubenko is a Ukrainian journalist and analyst featured in the Financial Times, Politico Europe, New Eastern Europe, Washington Times, and more. She’s currently affiliated with Ukraine’s media outlet Euromaidan Press. You can follow her on Substack for a dose...

Edition No67 | 06-12-2024 - Love him or loath him, Tucker Carlson has a knack for sucking the oxygen out of the information space. He creates friction, he generates headlines, he grabs attention. “Nothing is what it seems” is the apparent philosophy behind his media persona. He is just asking the ‘difficult questions’ that nobody else wants to ask. Looking for alternative ideas and uncovering the...

Anna Gvarishvili is a journalist and editor, providing news and analysis on the drastic reversal of liberal democratic values in Georgia. She is Head of Investigative Media Lab (IML). Anna worked as Head of media production and operations at School of Social Sciences, the University of Georgia. She has eight years of experience in TV and online media. In 2020-2022 she has served as a managing edit...

Andriy Zagorodnyuk is a Ukrainian entrepreneur and politician. From 2015 to 2017, Andriy headed the Reform Project Office at the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine. He was the Minister of Defence of Ukraine from 29 August 2019 to 4 March 2020. Andriy studied law at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. He also graduated from Warwick University and Oxford University and became an advisor to...

Kevin Leach is the main director for Sabre Training Advisory Group, a professional military training non-profit. Their aim is to give Ukrainian defenders the skills to come home alive. Kevin is a Canadian Armed Forces veteran, with a long history of working in Ukraine and in military affairs. He served as a sergeant from 2008-2018, specialising in armoured reconnaissance. He leads a weekly segment...

Cormac Smith has worked in Public Relations and Corporate Communications for over three decades. In 2016 he travelled to Ukraine to take up a special appointment as the ‘Strategic Communication Advisor’ to Pavlo Klimkin, then the Foreign Minister of Ukraine. He was attached to the British Embassy in Kyiv but was embedded in Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the first foreigner to hold such a...

Edition No66 | 01-12-2024 - It is an illusion that Putin wants the war to end. In fact, he needs the war not to end, to perpetuate his regime. There are no limits to how many Russians he will sacrifice to save his own neck, how much blood he will spill to save the 10.5 pints in his own body. He is quite prepared to burn all of Russia’s economy and resources, for as long as that keep him in power....

Cormac Smith has worked in Public Relations and Corporate Communications for over three decades. In 2016 he travelled to Ukraine to take up a special appointment as the ‘Strategic Communication Advisor’ to Pavlo Klimkin, then the Foreign Minister of Ukraine. He was attached to the British Embassy in Kyiv but was embedded in Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the first foreigner to hold such a...

Timothy Ash, who has been professional economist for more than 30 years, with two thirds of that in the banking industry. Timothy’s specialism is emerging European economics, and he writes and blogs extensively on economic challenges for leading publications such as the Kyiv Post, Atlantic Council, the Financial Times, and the United Business Journal. He is also an Associate Fellow in the Russia a...

Edition No65 | 24-11-2024 - We’ve been predicting that the Russian economy would implode for going on two years, but also pointing out that Russian Central bankers may be able to preserve an impression of stability and normalcy for some considerable time. And so, it’s proved. Russia has been more adept at creating an alternative economy to replace Western exports, and indeed not all the revenue fr...

African American journalist Terrell Jermain Starr sees the Story of Ukrainian resilience as a Black experience. Russia is not only a colonial state, but it’s also a supremacist state, he says. Terrell has made it his mission to build bridges of trust between Americans and Ukraine. This is clearly vital, as he explains that African Americans are some of the most exposed people to Russian propaganda...

Too little too late. Slow walking munitions for Ukraine over three years has ensured the war becomes a long, attritional grind. In that time Ukraine has lost some of its bravest and brightest warriors. Is the rush to supply Ukraine after the US election simply to ensure that the country does not lose on Biden’s watch? ---------- Jon Sweet is an accomplished intelligence professional who served for...

This video and the audio recording were made at an event at the Liberal Club in London on 20th November 2024. The event was kindly organised by the Liberal Democrat Friends of Ukraine. ---------- Kira Rudik is a Ukrainian politician currently serving as a People's Deputy of Ukraine from the Holos party. She is the party's leader, and vice president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Eur...

Edition No64 | 24-11-2024 - Russia stands accused of firing the first intercontinental ballistic missile to be used against an adversary at war. The horror is even starker, as the missile was not used against military objectives, but fired indiscriminately into an urban centre. Dnipro in Ukraine. When we strip way all the fluff of geopolitical jargon, we can see Russia as a nuclear armed, terroris...

Edition No63 | 23-11-2024 - Documents from the first weeks of Putin’s invasion have been obtained by Russian investigative unit Systema. They reveal aspects of the plan to render post-war Ukraine powerless. Russia seems to have embarked on its war, with a ‘pre-baked’ “peace agreement” to impose upon a defeated Ukraine. One also presumes with the Ukrainian government decapitated and its leaders eit...