Masha Gessen and Joshua Yaffa on the Escalation of Violence in Ukraine

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2022

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Joshua Yaffa is a Moscow correspondent for The New Yorker, but he has been travelling throughout the war zone in Ukraine for weeks, reporting on the Russian invasion. Masha Gessen, who has lived in and reported from Russia in the past, returned to Moscow to write about the Russian people’s response to the invasion. Yaffa and Gessen spoke with David Remnick on March 3rd about the week’s escalation of violence, and what Putin’s goal might be.

Plus, David Remnick speaks with Igor Novikov, an Internet researcher and entrepreneur who served as an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky. Novikov explains how Zelensky’s background as an actor and a comedian has given him an advantage in the West’s “attention economy.” Ukraine “will only survive if people pay attention,” Novikov notes, and must “make sure people understand who the perpetrator and who the victim is in this situation.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.
0:11.8	Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnick.
0:15.8	There were thousands of people storming.
0:20.0	You got bomb silence going off every 12 minutes, every 15 minutes.
0:24.4	So then in the train station, then you have to run outside, go to the metro for the bomb
0:28.0	shelter in the silence stop, then you go back into the train.
0:31.3	So then we try to compromise and we go to taxi to the border of Poland for $1,000.
0:43.8	As the Russian invasion of Ukraine has gathered in intensity, something like a million refugees
0:49.3	have left the country.
0:51.0	And not only Ukrainians, but foreigners too, people who are in the country to study or
0:55.4	travel.
0:56.6	Johann Nell is South African and he was only in Kiev to get a visa.
1:01.0	He'd been there a few days when the fighting broke out.
1:05.6	We got to the border of Ukraine or not exactly because there was a line of cars traffic going
1:10.8	into the border about 25 kilometers long.
1:13.8	They said it would take us 70 to 80 hours to get to the front of the gate and we did not
1:20.6	have enough food or water to wait in the car for 70 or 80 hours.
1:24.8	So we decided, okay, we're going to walk because if we walk, it will take us 14 to 15
1:29.4	hours.
1:32.7	So eventually we got to the police border and then it was complete chaos.
1:38.5	Thousands of people telling us that they've been here for five days.
1:42.9	They've been here for four days, for four nights with no shelter, no water, no food, no
	...

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