Ukraine has had an outsized role in American politics for almost a decade.

A revolution to westernize, a series of elections that attracted America's most expensive

political consultants, one of whom went on to run Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

The Russian invasion of Crimea, which became a football and American politics when Republicans

used it to attack Barack Obama's foreign policy.

The infamous phone call to Ukraine's president by Donald Trump, which became the center

of Trump's first impeachment.

The GOP's attacks on Joe and Hunter Biden, that dominated the 2020 presidential campaign.

And now this, Vladimir Putin, has invaded Ukraine, which ensures that we're all going to

be talking about that country for the next decade.

I'm Ryan Liza, this is Playbook Deep Dive.

By now, you know it's going on in Ukraine.

So today, I'm talking to two journalists, one on the ground in Ukraine's capital, and

the other at the Russian border, right outside the Donbass region.

Most Russians feel embarrassed to be Russians, because this is something that will stay

for a while, and I think a lot of people I spoke with don't feel like it was their choice.

Juliana Pavlova was on the Russian border when the war broke out.

And Natalia Humanuk, who's covering the situation from her home base in Kiev, where she remains

at the moment.

Ukraine is something he doesn't want to have, something he can't control.

Natalia is a security and conflict reporter and the head of the public interest journalism

lab.

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