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 with the collapse of France's fifth government in three years,

fueling the rise of the far-right National Rally Party,

while Germany's nativist AFD Party grows in strength,

and the UK's ruling Labour Party blows its mandate,

losing voters as fast as the anti-immigrant

reform party gains them. Joining us, David Broder, an historian of the Italian far right.

He is a regular contributor to the new statesman and Internacional, as well as the Europe

editor of Jacobin. His books include the rebirth of Italian

communism, dissident communists in Rome, 1944, First Thing They Took Rome, How the Populist Right Conquered

Italy, and most recently Mussolini's grandchildren, Fascism in Contemporary Italy. We will discuss his op-ed at the New York Times.

They were supposed to save Europe instead. They're condemning it to horrors. Then we'll speak with

the filmmaker whose powerful documentary puts the audience inside the battlefield under Russian fire

as Ukrainian soldiers fight and die,

defending their land Putin claims as his own.

Joining us is Mistoslav Shernoff and a Ukrainian photojournalist, filmmaker, war correspondent,

and novelist known for his coverage of the Revolution of Dignity, War in Donbass, the Downing of Flight

MH17, Syrian Civil War, Battle of Moselle in Iraq, and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine,

including the siege of Mariupil, his video materials of which became the basis of the film 20 days in Mariupil.

An Associated Press Journalist, the president of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers,

and a member of Ukrainian pen.

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