Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm Adam O'Neill, executive editor of The Dispatch.

Today we've got a really insightful interview with Walter Russell Mead.

Walter is a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute,

a professor at Bard College, and a columnist for the Wall Street Journal.

He also recently returned from a visit to Ukraine and gleaned a lot of information

about what's happening on the ground while he was on his trip.

One quick programming note, we recorded this interview just a few hours before the short-lived

mutiny or rebellion inside of Russia over the weekend, so we don't touch on those events in the

interview. But Walter still provides a lot of context and understanding about the war that

should be useful, and we hope you enjoy.

Walter, welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. Thanks for taking the time to chat today.

It's great to be here. Thank you. What we'd really like to start out is just

talk to us about what it was like being on the ground in Ukraine not too long ago, just

right around before the counter-events have got rolling if I'm not mistaken.

That's right. Well, it was a very strange experience. For one thing, when we got there, the

Dow Jones Wall Street Journal Security made me put on a flat jacket, a very heavy flat jacket,

and a helmet, which we didn't use, fortunately, didn't need to use. There was an air raid while I was

air raid siren while I was there. I demonstrated I'm totally unfit as a war car spawning because I

slept right through it. Had I actually woken up, I would have gone down to the bomb shelter in the

hotel, and I'm happy to report there is progress in the world today because the bomb shelter has

Wi-Fi. Yeah, exactly. Unlike people in the London Blitz or whatever. If you have to

cower in your bomb shelter all night, you can at least catch up with your email.

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