Silicon Curtain

***** Please note, the sound quality is not great because of an echo. I  hope the quality of the content means that you'll persevere! *****  ----------   Russia used energy as an economic weapon against Ukraine in 2007. But it  seems that it has now fully played the gas and oil cards, and Russia is  losing the energy war. Has Vladimir Putin’s winter gas attack  backfi...

Today I am speaking with a rare and special person – a Russian activist  with an unambiguous, strong voice condemning the crimes and horrors  being committed in Ukraine by Russia, and who is doing it with humour  and passion. It has to be said, that he’s also taking on considerable  risk in doing so. Fortunately, he’s also doing this in English, so you  can follow his view...

Edition No 2 |  08-02-2023  |  Silicon Bites Don't Fear a Ukrainian Victory  ~~~~~   FEATURED ARTICLES:  Don’t worry about a Russian defeat in Ukraine - Just give Ukraine tools to win the war, ASAP  https://timothyash.substack.com/p/dont-worry-about-a-russian-defeat   Decisive battles are looming in Ukraine  https://timothyash.substack.com/p/decisive-ba...

Edition #1  |  27-01-2023  |  Silicon Bites Feeding the Crocodile - "Eat me Last"   ~~~~~   LINKS & SOURCES:  ~~~~~  Germany to Crocodile: Eat Me Last   https://cepa.org/article/germany-fails-to-supply-leopards-to-ukraine/   Putin Blasts 'Neo-Nazis' in Ukraine on Holocaust Remembrance Day  https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/01/27/putin-bl...

Today I’m speaking with Orest Zub – traveller, blogger, and online  entrepreneur from Lviv. He has been reporting on the war in Ukraine from  the start via his YouTube channels in Ukrainian and English. Before the  war, Orest visited over 120 countries including many regions  experiencing conflict. But as he says, he could never imagine that the  full-scale war would come...

The first thing Russians do in territories they have conquered, is to  take over the media – television, newspapers, and internet. That’s no  coincidence. Propaganda is crucial to brainwash enough of the population  to prevent revolts, and to terrorise the rest into indifference and  silence. Today I am looking at the hybrid threats that have been facing  Ukraine since 201...

Russia seems condemned to repeat the mistakes of history, rather than  learning from them, as shown by Putin’s mass mobilisation of Russian  males into the armed forces, and the shock and panic it prompted earlier  this year in Russia. Konstantin Samoilov is a well-known YouTuber whose  channel ‘Inside Russia’ comments insightfully on Russia’s descent into  authoritarianis...

There was a time when those calling Russia a mafia state, and Putin a  terrorist, were in the minority, and who were even thought of as extreme  voices. My guest today was one of those people, who along with a  handful of other writers and journalists like Edward Lucas and David  Satter called Putin out early on, while his oppressive regime was just  starting to flex its m...

As Ukraine prepares for another wave of Russian attacks on the Eastern  front, an EU Ukraine Summit takes place – but is there the courage and  determination in Europe to stay the course, and persevere until, Russia  is comprehensively defeated? What will that take, and how will Russia  try to fight back with terroristic threats, influence, coercion, and  disinformation? W...

The rise of the internet in the 21st century has been accompanied by  unprecedented levels of polarisation, division, and coercion. At the  same time democracies are being hit by a huge range of different, and  rapidly evolving hostile state activities. Not all of them have their  origins in Russia, though clearly many do, and these saw a significant  scaling up after the...

From 2007-08 Putin came to believe that the West was in decline,  degenerate and weak. It’s at that moment he pronounced a more assertive  Russia, and started to act accordingly on the world stage, and in  relations to neighbouring countries, with the invasion of Georgia in  2008, and Crimea in 2014. NATO provocation is one excuse given for  Russian aggression and is promi...

Ukraine’s diaspora of professionals and refugees are playing an  extraordinary role in support Ukraine, both materially, but also by  raising awareness of it’s cause in their host countries and within the  international community. Today I am speaking with Julia Tymoshenko, who  is Fighting for Ukraine on the informational front – running Marketing  and Communications for S...

Today I’m speaking with Oksana Semenik - Art Historian and Journalist  from Ukraine. She has created an engaging Twitter account, called  Ukrainian Art History (@ukr_arthistory), which focuses on topics that  include Decolonizing American and European museums – particularly,  Ukrainian art and artists that have been labelled as ‘Russian’.   ----------   Ukrainian Art...

John Spencer is considered one of the leading experts in military  operations in an urban context.    As winter sets in with a vengeance life is becoming harder in Ukrainian  cities and the supply of power and heat become unreliable from Russian  missile strikes. Russia’s campaign to cripple Ukraine’s power  infrastructure could therefore trigger a new wave of emigrat...

After nearly a year of doing these Podcasts, about propaganda, Ukraine,  and Russian aggression, I’ve found that sometimes the best insights come  from people with first hand experience of the conflict. Insights that  you just can’t find in books or articles, and which can help to make  sense of the academic literature that is being written about the  conflict. In this spi...

In 2022–2023, Ukraine commemorates the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor  genocide. It comes at a time when Ukraine is facing a new struggle for  its survival. Russia is committing a new genocide – with the full-scale  war it launched in Feb-2022. Methods to suppress Ukrainian nationhood  differ, - a man-made famine, terror, and deportation in the 1930, and  war in the 21s...

Is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine about territory and resources, or is it  about much more? An aging tyrant seeking to create a legacy or even lift  flagging popularity ratings. Is it a struggle to control historical  memory, or evidence of a country trapped by historical myths and  delusions? Is there a coherent ideology behind the regime, or just a  messy collage of propag...

This week the choice open to the allies on the side of Ukraine became  clear and stark. Continue drip feeding weapons to Ukraine, and the  outcome may well be a stalemate that Russia would regard as a victory,  and which may ensure Putin retains his grip on the country. Or give  Ukraine the tools it needs to do the job to eject Russia from all its  territory. After months...

Russian lies. From government officials to the military, diplomats, and  propagandists – all the way up to Putin and his cronies. If their mouths  are open and they are uttering sounds – you can make a bet that they  are lying, and most times you’d win that gamble. The lies are often so  monstrous, gigantic, so ridiculous, so irrational and contradictory,  that they’d be c...

Putin unleashed a humanitarian catastrophe on Ukraine and Europe in  2022. He continues to terrorise the people of Ukraine and target  civilian infrastructure forcing a miserable existence on millions, and  extreme danger for those to the frontlines. The Russian targeting of  energy infrastructure is explicitly a war crime. Putin is enabled,  aided, and abetted by millions...

It seems like the past century has been least kind to Ukraine, of all  the countries in Europe. Fought over repeatedly in WWII by rampaging  armies, which came off the back of revolution, civil war, terror, and  genocide in the Holodomor. Ukraine has bene plagued with monumental  events — wars, famines, political upheavals. But there's a recurring  theme – its struggle to...

We are at risk of losing the information war. The widespread  normalisation of disinformation as a political tool is accelerating  distrust in democratic institutions and processes. But online  disinformation has offline consequences, as we saw during the  coronavirus pandemic and on January 6th in Washington. Malicious actors  such as Russia and China have also proved ade...

Women are playing an extraordinary role in support for Ukraine, by  raising awareness of its cause in their host countries and within the  international community. Anastasiia Marushevska is a Ukrainian  Communications expert, speaker, writer, and traveller. Like many  Ukrainians, she is involved in a whole range of initiatives to support  the war efforts, and to raise awar...

Ukraine’s diaspora of professionals and refugees are playing an extraordinary role in support Ukraine, both materially, but also by raising awareness of it’s cause in their host countries and within the international community. Today I am speaking with Dana Pavlychko, CEO of United for Ukraine, and owner of Osnovy Publishing.

Today I’m speaking with Marta Trotsiuk – Ukrainian art ambassador.  Gallery 101 founder. Expert in international art projects and cultural  diplomacy. She is also a leading expert on art consulting and curating  and has been highly active in the effort to promote Ukrainian identity  and art as part of the fight back against Russian aggression and  cultural imperialism.