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rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath.

You tell the stories of what they're going through and the terrible injustices that exist under the effects of autocracy and authoritarianism.

Those stories cannot coexist with the just society.

And it calls it back into us. It requires that we address it. It requires that we fix it.

And it requires all thinking people, educated people, caring people to talk about how it is that they could improve that situation,

whether that's in Russia or in Taiwan or in any other place in the world where people are not able to be the champions of their own destiny and make their own decisions.

So my hope is that we'll start here in Ukraine and by this time next year we'll have an office open in Taiwan.

And we'll tell stories from that perspective too. That's my goal.

I'm Benjamin Wittis and this is the LawFair podcast May 30, 2023.

Tim Mac was an NPR reporter in Kiev since the beginning of the full scale invasion last year.

He recently stepped down and started his own sub-stack from the Ukrainian capital. It's called the Counter Offensive.

And he joined me from Kiev in the virtual jungle studio to talk about it.

What makes a reporter leave an established news organization like NPR to start a startup in a war zone?

What is the counteroffensive going to cover? How will it be different from other stuff you might be reading on the Ukraine War?

And what are things like in Kiev these days as the Ukrainians get ready for the counteroffensive for which the publication is named?

It's the LawFair podcast May 30, Tim Mac on the Counter Offensive.

So Tim, let's start with where you are every morning for the last year and a half.

...