411. The Squeeze on Crimea, Lukashenko’s Apology & Inside the Kherson 'Human Safari'
About this episode
The episode discusses the impact of the war on ordinary Russians, Ukraine's military strategies, and features an interview with a war reporter from Kherson.
In a remarkably mixed bag of an episode, Roger Moorhouse and Saul David explore whether the war is finally "coming home" to ordinary Russians as a systematic Ukrainian degradation campaign triggers widespread fuel shortages and chaos across fifty-three Russian regions. The team breaks down Ukraine's multi-strand, hybrid strategy: disabling crucial land bridges to isolate the Crimean Peninsula, mocking Moscow's air defenses with daylight refinery raids, and the geopolitical shockwave of Belarus' Alexander Lukashenko publicly apologizing to President Zelensky. They also dive into a historical comparison to the 1944 Normandy breakout, asking if we are on the cusp of a major Russian battlefield collapse. Featured Interview: Later in the episode, intrepid Hungarian war reporter Boldi Gyori joins the podcast from Budapest. He shares deeply moving—and at times gruesome—firsthand accounts from his recent trip to the liberated but heavily targeted city of Kherson. Boldi details the terrifying reality of the Russian "human safari," where drone pilots use civilians for target practice, distance-mining litters the streets with "flower petal" explosives, and local volunteers brave "the blue…
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