Silicon Curtain

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have had to evacuate through Russia or were forcibly deported there. They have experienced terrible things like the “filtration” camps on the borders, separation from families, cruel interrogations by Russians, and being forced to live in another country (enemy country) without money or documents in many cases. Left stranded and struggling to leave Russia by the...

GUEST: Scott Lucas - political analyst, journalist and researcher. ---------- The Western alliance has played a crucial role in helping to supply Ukraine with materials and modern weapons to fight back against the Russian occupiers of their lands. But this is a commitment that will need to stretch to decades to ensure Ukrainian independence is maintained against a revanchist Russia. Similar to how...

“As the UK government mulls the idea of using frozen Russian assets to help pay for the rebuilding of war-torn Ukraine, ministers appear to have failed to realise that a simple weapon against sanctioned assets is within their reach. That is introducing a provision forcing sanctioned oligarchs to disclose all their assets in the UK.” Today I will be discussing this idea that could make a huge diffe...

Putin undoubtedly feared an independent, democratic, and affluent Ukraine on his doorstep, which is compelling reason why he started the war. Rather than a struggle caused by geopolitics, the Ukraine war can, with some justification, be viewed as a fight between the idea of an open society and authoritarianism. Freedom versus tyranny. For Ukrainian freedom and life are synonymous, which helps expl...

Pick the worst periods of Russian history and you will find echoes of them in the present day – whether that be the economic and mafia chaos of the 90s, the privations and repression of the Soviet period. And several stories from the last few weeks exemplify this devolution of Russia into the worst versions of itself from the past. The arrest of an American journalist. The defection of a former Kr...

Today we are exploring the cultural aspects of the David and Goliath struggle between Ukraine, a young democracy versus Russia an old imperial autocracy. Russian propaganda ties to play up the similarities between Ukrainian and Russian culture, because of some shared history and cultural ties. However, there are significant differences between the two literary traditions, due to the historical and...

One year after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Nobel Peace Prize winning organisation Centre for Civil Liberties has documented more than 30,000 war crimes in the country. Their aim is for an eventual “Tribunal for Putin” that will hold the criminals accountable. But how does documenting Russian crimes by the Centre for Civil Liberties and others help this process? While fighting a...

Taras Topolia is singer and frontman of leading Ukrainian rock band Antytila. He is also spokesman of the Youth Council to President Zelensky of Ukraine. In 2018, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the future president of Ukraine, participated in one of their videoclips, LEGO. Antytila has collaborated with U2 and Ed Sheeran as well as other bands and musicians. Shortly before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukrai...

Ukraine confounded military experts and pundits in 2022, firstly by surviving, and then by pushing the Russian army back from thousands of square kilometres of its territory. Politicians and pundits around the world had urged Ukraine to offer concessions in order to secure a peace settlement with Russia. Giving up territory in the east or pledging to remain neutral, would in their views have saved...

Edition No6 | 17-03-2023 A Year of Aggression and Lies ~~~~~ FEATURED ARTICLES: https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/02/11/russia-studies-war-ukraine-decolonize-imperialism-western-academics-soviet-empire-eurasia-eastern-europe-university/ It’s High Time to Decolonize Western Russia Studies Why has it taken a war of conquest for experts to recognize Russia’s nature as a vast imperial enterprise? By Arte...

Day by day Russia seems to be turning back the clock to darker times. Pick the worst periods of Russian history and you will find echoes of them in the present day – whether that be the economic and mafia chaos of the 90s, the privations and exceptionalism of the Soviet period, nuclear threat of the Cold War era, Stalin’s repressions and purges, the slaughter of WWII, poverty of the 19th century o...

Disinformation continues to be a threat to Ukrainian sovereignty and unity, though is perhaps not as effective as it was in the years 2014-2022. But around the world aggressive information warfare still threatens information security and social stability, especially in states which Russia seeks to destabilise or coerce into supporting it. As we saw in the 2016 US elections, it can potentially thre...

Every time Ukraine pulls off another ‘improbable’ victory, or achieves a substantial breakthrough, journalists and military analysts return to their familiar refrain that ‘the war will now grind on indefinitely’ or that ‘there will be no more advances until spring’. From the battle of Kyiv, to Kharkiv and now Kherson, the stark evidence of extraordinary Ukrainian capability and boundless Russian i...

The Putin regime has been widely exploiting the vulnerabilities of global social media platforms, using bots and trolls to promote specific stories and narratives. But they are not alone once developed the same techniques can be used by other powers, international and local to subvert democratic institutions and to warp public perception of the news and politics in their countries. But Russian pro...

After the first anniversary of the full-scale war, a febrile and impatient media is asking the question “when will the war end” with greater frequency. There are many reasons for this – of course a concern for the loss of life, the destruction, and the economic pain. But also, war fatigue, misunderstanding the combatant’s motivations and actions, and a general lack of historical perspective, leadi...

The Putin regime has been widely exploiting the vulnerabilities of global social media platforms, using bots and trolls to promote specific stories and narratives. But Russian propaganda does not work how most people think it does. The interventions of the trolls and agitators often fail to directly promote pro-regime narratives in political discussions but do succeed in distracting people from ha...

Russia is tearing itself away from modern civilization and its associated values, norms and comforts. Putin and his coterie of incompetent sycophants seem to be happily destroying the foundations of everything that has been built in the past 30 years. Instead, he’s embracing an alternative future tied to eastern despotism as a vassal state of China – a source of assets to be mined, without any val...

Through the winter, Ukrainian and Western officials had warned Russia was preparing to launch a new offensive. Apparently, it was “mustering forces beyond the Urals”, according to General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s army chief. Rumours circulated, that Russian forces, bolstered by Belarussian divisions, could even try to storm Kyiv once more. Russia had gathered half a million fresh mobilised troop...

It’s my great pleasure to speak with Ian Garner today, on the terrifying topic of indoctrination ot Russia’s youth. We’ll be exploring themes covering in his forthcoming book: Z Generation: Into the Heart of Russia’s Fascist Youth. Ian Garner is an historian and expert on Russian war propaganda. He is also a world leading authority on the myths and propaganda surrounding the second world war battl...

The KGB was the main security agency for the Soviet Union. It emerged as a direct successor of preceding agencies such as the Cheka, GPU, OGPU, NKGB, NKVD and MGB, and was nominally attached to the Council of Ministers. It was the chief government agency of carrying out internal security, foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, and secret-police functions. Did it morph into the current FSB, or...

GUEST: Anastasia Edel - writer and social historian. ---------- Until February 2022, the war in Ukraine could be dismissed by some as a “quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing”, especially if they had been influenced by aggressive Russian propaganda and the techniques of hybrid information warfare. But in 2022 the war became full scale, and the propagandistic subterfu...

The rise of the internet in the 21st century has been accompanied by unprecedented levels of polarisation, division, and weaponised information. At the same time democracies around the world are being hit by a huge range of different, and rapidly evolving hostile state activities. The focus of this channel is primarily Russia, but this problem is not confined to countries that oppose Russia’s expa...

Today I am discussing the mechanics and narratives of Russian hybrid information warfare with Oleksandra Tsekhanovska – revisiting themes we first discussed about 4 or 5 months ago. Ukraine remains one of the main targets of Russian disinformation operations, but we now see a strong divergence in propaganda narratives aimed at Ukraine, the West, the global South and other areas. Oleksandra Tsekhan...

WARNING - poor quality video quality - but audio and insights are great. Ukraine and Russia have arguably been very different for centuries, but in modern times the greatest split came when Ukraine gained its independence on 24 August 1991. Since then that independence has bene reinformed by a wave of revolutions that have gradually transformed Ukraine into a pluralistic, young democracy, with a v...

Last week, a law being pushed through the Georgian Parliament modelled on Russian legislation designed to curtail freedom of speech and stifle dissent was prevented through the pressure of public protest. The so-called 'foreign agents' law would require some organisations to list themselves as receiving funds from abroad, essentially flagging them as a threat to the state and society. Russ...