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 fifth year of Russia's war on Ukraine beginning today and go to Kiev

to assess how the Ukrainian people are dealing with a bitter winter constant Russian attacks on

civilian targets and the United States under Donald Trump that has cut off

military and economic support while cozying up to Russia's ruthless dictator who started

this war and appears to have no interest in any real peace short of Ukraine's capitulation.

Joining us is Tamar Jacoby, the 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.

She's the author of Displaced, The Ukrainian Refugee Experience, and we will discuss her article

at the Washington Monthly Ukraine Requiem for a Citizen Soldier.

My friend, an entrepreneur turned exemplary officer, was killed in action in eastern Ukraine

this year.

Like his comrades, he knew what he was fighting for.

Then we'll look into how boycotts of companies doing business with ICE are working

and whether a general strike will be necessary to bring down the Trump regime.

An assistant professor of labor studies at Rutgers University, an organizer trainer in the

emergency workplace organizing committee, the director of the Worker to Worker Collaborative, and the author of the Substack Labor Politics, which can be found at labor politics.

His latest book is We Are the Union, How Worker to Worker Organizing is Rev is revitalizing labor and winning big, and his latest

articles at Jacobin, we will discuss are, your individual boycotts aren't helping, and how to organize a

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