My guest is Aleksandr Khara, a Ukrainian diplomat and analyst from Donetsk who has not been home since 2013. He is of Greek heritage, and he talks about Mariupol's Greek community and his people living under occupation in the villages between Donetsk and Mariupol.
Khara argues Russian behavior has been consistent since 1991, from Yuzhmash ICBMs to the reaction to the color revolutions, and that in 2014 not a single bullet came from the US or Europe. We go through China and Russia as rivals rather than allies, which partners have been reliable (the UK, the Nordics, Denmark, Poland, Japan, South Korea), and Europe's fear of being split between Putin and Trump.
On the talks run by Steve Witkoff, he uses Thomas Schelling's four ways conflicts end to argue there are no real negotiations except on prisoners, abducted children and civilians. We also cover sanctions, Orban, the Epstein files, Greenland, Yuri Bezmenov, and the Russian Orthodox Church as a Stalin-era tool of control.
Chapters
0:00 Opening and platform problems
4:02 The corruption index and Ukraine's record since 2000
6:40 Welcome Aleksandr Khara
8:15 Russia has not changed for centuries
10:24 Yuzhmash, the color revolutions and Russian behavior since 1991
11:44 Ukraine and the United States since independence
14:09 Donetsk, Mariupol's Greeks and a personal loss
17:01 How diplomacy toward Ukraine has changed
21:42 2014: not a single bullet
24:03 China and Russia: rivals, not allies
28:06 China, India and the West's blind spot
31:40 A blue ocean strategy and China's ICBMs
34:00 Who has been a reliable partner
35:57 Poland opens its doors
38:02 Heating outages and Denmark's help
39:45 The United Kingdom and the Black Sea
42:57 Japan, South Korea and the EU
45:04 Splitting Europe between Putin and Trump
46:53 When a key partner's politics shift
51:29 Does the world need a superpower?
57:00 Witkoff and the so-called negotiations
58:01 Thomas Schelling's four ways a conflict ends
1:02:38 Sanctions and the battlefield
1:05:31 Orban and Russia's Trojan horses
1:07:31 Epstein and Russian intelligence
1:08:46 Why ceasefires fail
1:10:42 Trump's peace medal and Putin as a role model
1:13:46 Greenland and the Northern Sea Route
1:17:45 Soft power, Bezmenov and the Russian Orthodox Church
1:23:24 When democracy's strengths become weaknesses
1:26:42 Ukraine as the model for confronting authoritarianism
1:28:22 Decolonizing Russia and closing
Watch on YouTube: Aleksandr Khara on Security Guarantees for Ukraine, Witkoff, China and Russia's Long War
