Hi there, I'm Lale Arikoglu, and this podcast is brought to you by Wilderness, a conservation-driven

hospitality company that offers intimate world life encounters in extraordinary remote landscapes.

Last year, I embarked on two separate solo adventures with Wilderness, one to Botswana and the other

to Namibia, where the expert guides delivered a truly once-in-a-lifetime

experience. I promise you, whatever you watch and see before you go won't prepare you for the thrill

of a wilderness adventure. eBay, it's a place to fall in love with new pre-loved vintage and rare

fashion over and over again.

Your favorite designers, expertly authenticated.

Yeah, eBay. Things people love.

We're listening to The Political Scene, a show about current events and the political forces driving them.

I'm Tyler Faggett, and I'm a senior editor at The New Yorker.

Luke Muggleson, a contributing writer at the magazine, is one of the rare reporters who has seen the war in Ukraine from the front lines.

He recently spent two weeks embedded with a group of foreign fighters from around the world

who had chosen to travel to Ukraine and join the war against Russia.

In a new story for The New Yorker, he writes about the sophisticated and incessant violence

of the war and the mentality that keeps these volunteer soldiers there, fighting on behalf

of a country that is not their own.

So yeah, look, I feel like I should just start by saying that this is, it's honestly one of the most remarkable pieces of war journalism that I've read in a very long time. It's just sort of like unimaginable that you were able to write and report this piece. And I feel especially that it's just so unlike anything that I've read about the war in Ukraine. You know, in the piece, you mentioned that the war in Ukraine has been

extraordinarily opaque. That's how you put it. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit

about the reasons for that opacity and then explain how you were able to penetrate it by

embedding with this group of foreign fighters. Sure. Yeah, so I had been reporting on the war

since the very beginning in early March. And I had been reporting on the war since the very beginning in early March, and I had

...