Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at background briefing.

I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with President Zelensky's efforts to break the deadlock on aid to Ukraine

with his visit to Capitol Hill and the White House,

as domestic U.S. politics threatened to hand Putin a win on the world stage

because of the blindness of partisanship that has Republicans unable to allow Ukraine to win

because they see that as giving Biden a win.

Joining us is Michael Kimmage, a professor of history and department chair at the Catholic University of America,

chair of the Canon Institute Advisory Council, and a fellow with the German Marshall Fund.

From 2014 to 2017, he served on the

Secretary's policy planning staff at the United States Department of State, where he held the

Russia-Ukraine portfolio. He's the author of The Abandonment of the West, the History of an

Idea in American Foreign Policy, and his forthcoming book out in March is

Collisions, The War in Ukraine and the Origins of the New Global Instability.

And we will discuss his article at Foreign Affairs, A Containment Strategy for Ukraine,

how the West can help Kiev endure a long war.

Then we'll speak with Olga Loutman,

a non-resident senior fellow

at the Centre for European Policy Analysis,

who was also the creator and co-host of the Kremlin File podcast series,

which features expert discussions on the Kremlin's internal affairs,

global operations and tactics used from their hybrid warfare toolkit to

...