Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org. I'm Ian Masters,

and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin and go to Kiev-Ukraine for an analysis of how Ukrainians feel

about the upcoming summit between Putin and Trump, to which they are not invited,

and must hope that Trump does not sell them out, as many expect he will.

Joining us is Tamar Jakobi, the Kiev key base director of the Progressive Policy Institute's new

Ukraine project.

She was a senior writer and justice editor at Newsweek, and before that, the Deputy Editor

of the New York Times op-ed page.

Now a regular contributor to Forbes.com.

She's the author of Displaced, the Ukrainian refugee experience,

and we will discuss her article at the Washington Monthly,

Ukrainian fighters aren't expecting much from the Trump-Pooten summit.

Then we'll speak with Simon Schuster, a reporter for Time magazine based in New York City

by way of Moscow, Kiev and Berlin.

He has previously covered Russia and the former Soviet Union for Reuters, the Associated Press,

the Moscow Times and foreign policy, and he's the author of The Showman, Inside the Invasion

that shook the world and made a leader of Vladimir Zelensky.

We will discuss his latest article at time,

the secret White House backchannel that paved the way for Trump's summit with Putin

and his interview with Europe's longest ruling dictator of 31 years, Lukashenko,

who served as a back channel with Trump envoys to set up the Putin-Trump summit in Alaska.

...