I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Thursday, March 24th.

We'll get Masha Gesson's take now on the Ukraine War. The New Yorker correspondent's latest article is about Kharkiv, which has been

one of the biggest targets of Vladimir Putin's scorched earth campaign against civilians. We will also

ask Masha for their take on Putin becoming a hero to the global anti-LGBQ right wing.

Here's a clip of Steve Bannon and private security company head Eric Prince on a radio show a few weeks ago as the invasion was looming, seeming to really like Putin because he's anti-trans.

Putin ain't woke. He is anti-woke. The Russians people still know which bathroom to use.

They know how many genders are there in Russia? Two. Okay. That's all of a sudden, that's,

that's not, that's not, they don't have the flags. They don't have the pride flags outside

on their, on their, they don't have boys swimming in girls' college swim meets.

How backward.

That was from Bannon's own podcast, and that's horrifying enough, and it was before the actual killing started taking place.

We'll also ask Masha about one of her articles on how the Kosovo Air War foreshadowed the crisis in Ukraine.

Madeline Albright, who died yesterday, the former Secretary of State, was very involved in President

Bill Clinton's decision to bomb Kosovo when Serbian leaders were committing a genocide there

against Muslims in Serbia in

1999, that genocide resulted in a war crimes conviction for their head of state, Slobodan

Milosevic. Could that be a precedent for putting Putin on trial? Well, that's a lot. So let's see how

much we can get to with New Yorker staff writer Masha Gessen.

Their own background as a Russian immigrant to the United States includes being fired as editor of a Russian science magazine for refusing to send a reporter to cover hang gliding, that is Putin, hang gliding, with Serbian cranes.

And they won the National Book Award in 2017

for The Future is History, How Totalitarianism Reclamed Russia.

Masha, we always appreciate when you come on. Welcome back to WNYC.

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