Bonus: Ukrainian Politics Deep Dive feat. Peter Korotaev
Felix sits down with writer & journalist Peter Korotaev for a wide ranging conversation on the state of the Russo-Ukranian War in the wake of the Trump administration’s spat with Zelensky & attempts at a peace deal, and loads of context on the politics of Ukraine, Russia, various oligarchs, the Atlantic Council, and other non-state actors that have led to this point.
You can find Peter’s writing on Ukraine here: https://substack.com/@eventsinukraine
And some other writing of note:
For al Jazeera: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/1/23/why-is-ukraine-struggling-to-mobilise-its-citizens-to-fight
Jacobin: https://jacobin.com/2022/07/ukraine-neoliberalism-war-russia-eu-imf
Canada Files: https://www.thecanadafiles.com/articles?author=645e6f082224bb01e8f3f37c
Comments (72)
Nestor Makhno vindicated once again
Rest in Peace people of Russia and Ukraine. The machine that killed you has already forgotten or perhaps never even remembered. But the Black Earth remembers. Goddess Bless.
I'm Russian and I never wanted this war to happen and its been a catastrophe. However, now its a weird situation. Our forces can probably break through and achieve a lot of war aims and decide the peace, but how many more men have to die for this? Like short of some blitz to Odessa this war can't be worth the cost
This was great, Felix did a terrific interview.
Good ep Felix well done
Richard Lewis has gotten very smart on Ukraine.
This guy kind of sounds like Elon. No shade, he seems like a great guy. Alas he has a similar voice and speaking pattern
A lot of Eastern Europeans learning English speak very monotone like Elon. You have to raise kids to speak English younger or else they will sound like that
Scowcroft was definitely a Poppy creature, but Obama fucking loves him and said Scowcroft was his #1 foreign policy influence
Scowcroft went to Columbia (the college)
Motor Sich was also the source of anti-vibration technology that Hunter Biden's Stratton Oakmont-ass "investment firm," Rosemont Seneca, lined up for a straw buyer that turned out to be the government of China, which brought out the Chengdu J-20 right afterward
Credit where credit is due - Felix actually let the guest speak and conducted one hell of an interview. Learned a lot from this one. Found it particularly fascinating to hear the United States’s antagonism towards Russia being framed as a policy intended to keep Western Europe cut off from cheaper energy so that it remains economically weak and perpetually dependent on American sponsorship. I think there’s really something to that idea.
There's interview footage of Condoleezza Rice 10+ years ago, talking about the Maidan "movement," saying that it would be interesting to see how we cut off Russia and move into the European energy market, which is (paraphrase) "the obvious next step" or "clear next move" or similar. The day Russia declared war, the supposed value of trillion-dollar, state-owned Gazprom dropped *$800 billion*, after years of Americans and Europeans trying to creep their way in with straw buyers and shell companies (dumbfuck Bill Browder and his dumbfuck friend Michael McFaul, Obama's 2nd-term Russian ambassador, "architect of Obama's Russian Reset"). The dickheads who run the world thought they could throw a respectable, reasonable, NATO-approved amount of Generic Ukraine Human Meat at Russia till it had to call time, structure a peace agreement that would, of course, center upon privatization of Russia's last (and massive) nationalized companies – so Western Investment Will Serve As a Needed Counterweight to the Kremlin, old boy – and click clack, Gazprom & co. jump right back up to a trillion-dollar valuation, right after our ruling class has bought in for 10-20¢ on the dollar. It's the ’90s again. Maybe we'll even let Hillary run in 2024. "She Was Right About Russia." Which is to say: oops. The Falls Church, VA Homeowners' Association is gonna have a HELL of a time deciding on Zelenskyy, because on the one hand, he's the most recent Hero of Liberalism!, but on the other, they'd have to break their own rule about Jews.
This was a fascinating and enlightening episode, particularly the lengthy analysis of the strikingly flamboyant character Ihor Kolomoisky, a man of many hats who is best known for his involvement with the crooked Privat Bank and his sponsorship and funding of the the erstwhile entertainer Vladimir Zelensky. Don't know if this was mentioned in the podcast and I missed it, but I was under the impression also that after the American-supported 2014 coup, Kolomoisky was appointed Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast (site of the present civil war) where he had many business interests, and that during this time Kolomoisky also sponsored and funded the far-right Azov Battalion to fight in the civil war in the East. Thus Kolomoisky was involved in a big way with some the most significant Ukrainian events in these last 11 years.
I lived in Ukraine until the war, this guy is a fucking goof and saying factually untrue things like about the constitution. There is martial law and elections can't be held during martial law, because there's a war on. Nothing about the mass torture and murder of Ukrainian civilians in the occupied territories or genocidal campaign by russia or forced separation and deportation of children, no Ukrainians are being made to fight by the evil Zelensky. And calling them "quote" "revolutions". Azov got reformed long ago and is not full of neo nazis. What a shithead. Where do you find these oafs.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/ukrainian-men-dragged-out-of-nightclubs-and-restaurants-army-press-gang-kyiv/
Really amazing episode. The mix of things like this, Rod Dreher, and the Noid is what makes Chapo...
I miss Rod
1hr into "name every corporation ever" challenge
How is this all that different from the Lev Parnas lore that Felix is so fond of mocking?
Do you need subway surfers gameplay alongside this to be able to pay attention?
@29:00 yes actually all of this is 100% true of coders in the US, way higher paid than everyone else, hates dumb working class proles, etc
I know I sound crazy here, but I think it was bad that Russia invaded Ukraine.
mhh i think its good to look into why and how things occur but i know that's a weird affection
Chabad's relationship to capital is interesting. Unlike Satmar and the other (problematic!) hassidic groups, they chose Czarism against Napoleanic Liberalism, and stayed economically and socially bound to Monarchism/Old Money, whereas the Polish and Hungarian hassidic communities embraced Liberalism/New Money, with the last Lubavitcher Rebbe trying to (ritualistically!) reconcile these extremes by embracing "Napoleon" as part of his Messianism. This expresses why they are so politically invisible yet central, like a Jewish global Qatar or Switzerland: they, as a religious, druze-like non political organization (nominally anti-zionist even, ostensibly lol) function socially and economically in a traditional, right-friendly way to both old money and weird new money!
Trump allying with the Azov battalion to end the war would be the absurd result that both NATO and Russia deserve.
Great ep... I wish I had heard this kind of commentary four years ago. It's all been NATOstan vs. Putinstan
DC anyone?
Super intelligent guest. Almost solved Felix's meaning of life question.
'The Territory of the Special Military Operation', not Ukraine.
please die
Really good discussion.
It's just insane to hear a Ukrainian take Trump's side on the first impeachment.
Chapo guests have a thing for handing it to Trump lately ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
lol he said James earl jones
Great splainer ep
I think we can call it "the" Ukraine again
I'm calling it Novarossiya
hell yeah this was so good
I agree with the latter unironically sorry not sorry
Schumer needs to check on the Baileys. The head of household is near a ledge on the rooftop rn
There are two kinds of podcasts. One makes me almost die laughing while I'm on the road (so to speak, i might be on the rail or sodewalk). The other kind helps me sleep. Nothing wrong with this kind
Love Felix but Ukraine stuff just isn't my bag.
well i guess they better delete this from the patreon then
So Zelenski invaded Israel but somehow Putin is to blame? It's pretty sickening to keep hearing this KGB hasbara from people who would rather see jews and Israelis kill each other In Ukraine than put their lives on the line for the IDF. Hunter Biden's nazi laptop was Bibi's pretext for October 7th, which NATO will never acknowledge because they support Hamas.
this is like polymorphously deranged
People need to stop calling everything Trumpian, because there's so many better comparisons, like Hitlerian when talking about supposed Wunderwaffen that can change the tide of war.
"Yeah, no." -Felix Beiderman
William Burns not only knew NATO membership would trigger a war, but oversaw this war as Biden's head of the CIA.
great substack. was pretty suprised to see this come up in my feed.
I wonder how long before Canada is mentioned
10:54 "Rudy Jolani" has created an indelible mental image
Is this guy foreign or just autistic. He sounds like he’s about to do a samurai sword review on YouTube.
Yah, Felix grows on you.
Felix speaks at 0:01
“In democracy only the peasants die…” THIS is why I’m anti war…. It’s not that I have some utopic belief that violence is never called for, it’s because these wars are just rich people dicking around. I was debating the Ukraine war with friends early on, and I just kept telling them that American motivations are fucked, we fuck up all these places we intervene in, and it’s just going to result in killing innocent Ukrainians. And to pretend we have some bullshit moral obligations to keep Russian from taking over Ukraine and Russia is killing innocent people, and then we turn around and support bibi and participate in genocide in Gaza is so fucking insane. It’s all so clearly being driven by the motivations of our oligarchs, and American kids join our military to get a free college degree.
I notice that people are always skeptical of the government and media and understand that they're always being lied to. However, when it comes to foreign policy, suddenly all that skepticism goes away and they hold on to every word said by the NYT, BBC, CBC ect. When talking about these issues with people in my life I always try to point that out. I say "do you think the gov cares about your life, or your rights? So why do you think they are so altruistic towards Ukrainian people?" but it's so hard to get through the indoctrination. I'm from Canada and people genuinely believe that canada cares about UkraIniAN DEmocRaCy when the gov lets thousands of their own citizens sleep on the street every night
interesting… americans liberals hate ex soviet countries liberals because they lay bare to what liberalism is… especially the part where Ukrainian and Russian liberals refer to the workers as cattle that can’t be trusted with… I guess public goods or social democracy
Christopher Walken! Big get!
sitting with my feet in trash bags under a heat lamp. i’m trying to send my partner sweaty socks but im on keto and can’t fucking sweat. i have prince andrew feet.
damn that arena.org article is one of the best ive read thus far... also reading through the wikileaks archive i found particularly disgusting how they talk about "ukranian democracy" all the time knowing that nato membership has below 1/3 approval – so they orchestrate a "nato information campaign" with the Ukr-government, plot against a referendum they know they would lose. as late as 2009 the russians proposed a "european security agreement" to ensure that there be no strategy directed against them which nato members found "completely unacceptable". saying no to that ensured that russia considered nato hostile. another finding is that russia asked nicely for better cooperation in afghanistan to train police to act against drug smuggeling... knowing what we know about the US at the very least turning a blind eye to heroin production (if not outright collaboration) in afghanistan for 20 years, the complete disregard for russian asks in the nato-russia-council and biletaral diplomacy becomes even clearer ...
It’s crazy how there literally zero discussion of any context. The arming of Ukraine is basically a reboot of operation cyclone
Can we just nuke Ukraine already
Only if Washington goes first
RWN but with memes.
6th and thats the best everyone else is a terrorist
Of course I'll be back. If you didn't close I'd never leave *BELCH!!*
EVERYONE GET THE HELL OF OUT THE COMMENTS SECTION BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!!!!!
Shut your fucking face you CIA op/liberal stooge/liberal warmonger/tankie stooge/Putinista!
So many people, fucking
First
Delicious delivery