Putin’s Invasion Part V: The Fight for the Donbas

How It Happened

Axios

News, History, Politics

4.8 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2022

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How It Happened: Putin’s Invasion Part V: The Fight for the Donbas goes straight to the frontlines of the war, seen through the eyes of a journalist who has been covering the war there and a soldier who has been fighting there, both since 2014. After the failed effort to take Kyiv, Russian President Vladimir Putin turned his focus to the Donbas, vowing to "liberate" the entire region, which was partially controlled by pro-Russian separatists before he launched his full-scale invasion on Feb. 24. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has described soldiers in the Donbas as some of the best Ukraine has. Their battle to defend this region will decide the fate of the war. Axios World editor Dave Lawler spent weeks interviewing Ukrainian Cpl. Andrii Shadrin and news producer Kateryna Malofieieva to understand the region’s history and significance, the realities of daily life on the ground, and why the stakes of this fight are so high. Credits: This episode was reported and produced by Dave Lawler and Naomi Shavin. Alison Snyder is the series editor. Sara Kehaulani Goo is the Editor-in-Chief. Mixing, sound design, and music supervision by Alex Sugiura. Ben O’Brien is the mix engineer. Theme music and original score by Michael Hanf. Special thanks to Axios co-founders Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei and Roy Schwartz. Additional thanks to Zach Basu, Kristina Zelenyuk, Anastasiya Ringis, Igor Kazimirov, Tanya Zhukova, and Hiroaki Kuromiya.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Dave Lawler, the world editor at Axios.
0:10.9	When Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the invasion
0:13.8	of Ukraine on February 24th, he said his mission was to liberate
0:19.3	Russian speakers in the eastern borderlands of Ukraine,
0:23.5	an area called the Donbass.
0:25.5	Putin invaded along three major axes, from the north toward Kiev, the capital,
0:38.6	from the south, up from the occupied Kremlin peninsula,
0:42.7	and from the east, where Russian backseparates had occupied parts
0:47.1	of the Donbass since 2014.
0:50.8	The attack on Kiev failed.
0:53.1	The offensive in southern Ukraine made more progress,
0:56.6	targeting cities like Maraupal, which faced a week's long siege.
1:01.7	At the time of this taping, 12 weeks into the war,
1:04.7	the last Ukrainian troops there have just surrendered.
1:08.7	But as the broader war efforts stalled,
1:11.4	and Ukraine's government held firm in Kiev,
1:15.1	Putin decided to concentrate his firepower in the east
1:19.1	to assert Russian control of all of the Donbass,
1:23.0	that's where the fighting is now concentrated.
1:26.8	For Putin, this is about securing control of the eastern borderlands
1:31.7	and the southern coast of Ukraine.
1:34.2	A territorial expansion he could sell as a victory for Russia.
	...

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