I'm Sarah Kanzir, the author of the best-selling books, The View from Flyover Country, and hiding in plain sight.

I'm Andrea Chalupa, a journalist and filmmaker, and the writer and producer of the journalistic thriller, Mr. Jones, about Stalin's genocide famine in Ukraine.

And this is Gaslit Nation, a podcast covering corruption in the United States and rising autocracy around the world.

And today is August 24, Ukraine's Independence Day. Ukraine declared independence

from the Soviet Union in 1991, and today turns 30 years old. The country's culture and

national identity is, of course, much older, with Kiev being seen as the Jerusalem of the Slavs

with an ancient kingdom that gave birth to what would eventually become centuries later, Moscow.

Speaking of Moscow, Putin says they're wrapping up the Kremlin's latest giant leverage

over the west, a gas pipeline known as Nord Stream 2,

a project that has been overseen by Putin's old crony from his KGB days in East Berlin.

Nord Stream 2 is a gas pipeline between Russia and Germany built with European companies and

Russian companies that makes Germany a leader in Europe more dependent on Russian gas at a time

when Germany should be leading the European Union and bringing Putin to justice, which she's not.

Instead, Merkel met with Putin recently in Russia, spoke out of both

sides of her mouth, mumbled something or other about freeing Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition

figure who was nearly killed by a chemical agent, and is held in prison on trumped-up charges

as more independent media in Russia is banned and Soviet-style repression

continues to escalate as Russians continue to see their income drop under decades of Putin's

corruption. Putin's Russia is what Florida would look like if it ever succeeded for the United

States. I will continue to keep

saying that because it's true. Just imagine Florida man as a country. That is Russia. This is like my new

tagline for every show. I will put it on a bumper sticker and drive around town. I will,

...