How Putin stole Russia's future

This Is Not A Drill with Gavin Esler

Podmasters

News, Society & Culture, Politics

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a generation of young Russians hoped for a better future of economic prosperity and personal freedom. Yet three decades later Russia has invaded Ukraine and is isolated from the Western world. What happened to the dreams of the perestroika generation, and what does Russian society think about Putin’s war and his grip on power? In the latest episode of This Is Not a Drill, Gavin Esler talks to Russian journalist and writer Irina Borogan, whose book Our Dear Friends in Moscow: The Inside Story of A Broken Generation, co-authored with Andrei Soldatov, tells the story of a group of young Russians torn apart by the political shift in Russia. Buy Our Dear Friends in Moscow through our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund This is Not a Drill by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too. • Support us on Patreon to keep This Is Not A Drill producing thought-provoking podcasts like this. • This episode of This Is Not A Drill is supported by Incogni, the service that keeps your private information safe, protects you from identity theft and keeps your data from being sold. There’s a special offer for This Is Not A Drill listeners – go to https://incogni.com/notadrill to get an exclusive 60% off your annual plan. Written and presented by Gavin Esler. Produced by Robin Leeburn. Original theme music by Paul Hartnoll – https://www.orbitalofficial.com. Executive Producer Martin Bojtos. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor Andrew Harrison. This Is Not A Drill is a Podmasters production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, this is Ava from Vanta.
0:02.0	In today's digital world, compliance regulations are changing constantly,
0:07.0	and earning customer trust has never mattered more.
0:10.0	Vanta helps companies get compliant fast and stay secure,
0:13.0	with the most advanced AI automation and continuous monitoring out there.
0:17.0	So whether you're a startup going for your first stock two or ISO-27,001,
0:21.5	or a growing enterprise managing vendor risk, Banta makes it quick, easy and scalable.
0:26.4	And I'm not to say that because I work here. Get started today at banta.com.
0:44.4	Whatever happened to the Russian dream of building a better future after the fall of communism?
0:55.5	And whatever happened to that generation of young Russians from the 1990s, who were old enough to remember at the end of communism and therefore young enough to hope that Russia would enjoy a much better future of economic prosperity, freedom from a hyper-intrusive state, and plugged in to the
1:01.2	wider society of a new Europe. We're going to explore Russian dreams and reality with the
1:06.4	Russian writer and journalist Irina Borogan. I'm Gavin Esler, and this is not a true. Irina Boraghan is a Russian writer and co-author along with Andrei Soladov of Our Dear Friends in Moscow,
1:43.3	the story of a generation of young Russians who, like her, grew
1:47.2	to adulthood in the 1990s, only to find that in the 21st century the Russia they dreamed of
1:53.7	was hijacked by Vladimir Putin and taken in a very different direction.
1:59.1	Irina, welcome to This Is Not a Drill.
2:01.7	Hi, Gavin. Thank you for having me here.
2:04.2	Maybe, could we begin by talking a little bit about your childhood in Russia?
2:09.1	The impression of those of us on the outside was it was emerging from a rather gray place
2:15.5	and trying to shed the failures of communism.
2:17.7	I mean, is that how you saw it?
2:19.6	I'm a child of perestroika, so I remember the Soviet Union mostly by my parents' memory.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Podmasters, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Podmasters and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.