Episode Details

When Russian shells began raining on Ukrainian cities and Russian tanks smashed across the border toward Kyiv on Feb. 24, 2022, much of the world wrote off Ukraine. But Vladimir Putin's war of aggression did not go as planned. Ukrainian forces not only stopped the Russian drive on the capital, they drove the Russians back. This is the story told by the Wall Street Journal's Yaroslav Trofimov in "Our Enemies Will Vanish," an eyewitness account of the war's first year. In this episode, Trofimov, who has spent two decades covering conflicts from the front lines, discusses what's at stake for Ukraine as the war turns into a First World War-style slog, and as U.S. aid for Ukraine is entangled in election-year politics. ((Note: This conversation was recorded before the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka fell to Russian forces))