What is life really like for Russians right now?
The Europeans | European news, politics and culture
Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer
4.8 • 162 Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 2026
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The predictions began soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine: the collapse of the Russian economy was imminent. Four years later, it still hasn’t happened. And yet, the cracks are appearing: Ukrainian drones that are now capable of striking critical targets in Moscow; economic data that even the Kremlin can’t spin as positive. But what do these changes actually feel like for Russian citizens? This week, Wojciech calls people with friends and family in Moscow to find out.
We’re also talking about why your bar of Milka is 10 grams lighter than it was. Oh, and we’re calling up the winner of the Microsoft Excel World Championships. No biggie.
Check out Diarmuid Early’s YouTube videos here, including this one, which starts with an introduction to competitive spreadsheeting.
This week’s Inspiration Station recommendations are Aleksandar Vučić’s interview with The Rest Is Politics: Leading, and Francesco Pacifico’s essay in The Dial: Are You Enjoying Our Linguine?
Resources for this episode:
- The Milka ruling from Bremen in full (German)
- “Russia blocks Telegram and cracks down on VPNs” – Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich, 17 April 2026
- “Moscow bans publication of Ukrainian drone strike damage without official permission” – The Kyiv Independent, 13 May 2026
- “Ukraine conflict in January 2026” – Levada-Center, 4 February 2026
- “Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s oil export infrastructure” – Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich, 1 April 2026
- “Turning Point in the War in Ukraine?” – Kyiv Post, 19 May 2026
- “Disentangling effects of protection on seabed organic carbon and biodiversity in a rare highly protected mud-dominated MPA” – Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, August 2026 issue
- “Dutch court rules bottom trawling in Dogger Bank is unlawful” – Oceanographic, 11 May 2026
This podcast was brought to you in cooperation with Euranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news. But it’s contributions from listeners that truly make it all possible — we could not continue to make the show without you! If you like what we do, you can chip in to help us cover our production costs at patreon.com/europeanspodcast (in many different currencies), or you can gift a donation to a superfan. You can also donate via our website if you prefer. And finally: we'd also love it if you could tell two friends about this podcast. We think two feels like a reasonable number.
Produced by Katy Lee
Mixing and mastering by Wojciech Oleksiak
Music by Jim Barne and Mariska Martina
The Europeans is proudly produced using Europe’s own Hindenburg.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast has been produced in cooperation with Euronet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news. |
| 0:11.4 | But this podcast would not be possible without the incredibly generous support of our amazing listeners who donate a little bit each month at patreon.com forward the Europeans podcast, your guide to absolutely everything that happens on this continent, or at least three to five things every week. I'm Dominic |
| 0:56.5 | Kramer in Amsterdam and I'm joined by Vuechek-Olegiak in Warsaw. I think you're just back from Vienna |
| 1:02.9 | though, right? Yes, hello. In Warsaw, back from Vienna. How was Vienna? Because you were there |
| 1:08.5 | just before the Eurovision Song song contest happened, I think. |
| 1:12.1 | Yes, I wasn't there for Eurovision contest, |
| 1:14.8 | but I left the night before the actual contest took place. |
| 1:18.8 | And I have to disappoint you. |
| 1:20.3 | It's not like it looks in the television. |
| 1:23.0 | It's not like the whole city is like constantly parading and having fun |
| 1:26.9 | and, you know, sings, all those |
| 1:28.5 | songs. I could barely see any traces of Eurovision in Vienna and actually, like, took quite a few |
| 1:34.5 | walks and it was just nowhere to be seen. |
| 1:36.7 | That's so interesting. I guess you were just not in the right neighborhood. |
| 1:40.3 | Maybe, or maybe just Vienna understood that I'm semi-boycotting the competition this year |
| 1:45.5 | and just didn't want to impose Eurovision on me. |
| 1:48.9 | It could have been that. |
| 1:50.2 | And have you eventually watched any glimpses of that? |
| 1:54.1 | In the end, I actually did go and watch it with my neighbours |
| 1:56.3 | because there's like a neighbour kid who loves watching it with us and our friends and it just felt too sad not to watch it with him. It's like the one night he's allowed to stay up until late. But it was quite a stressful watch. Yeah, it's kind of lost some of the joy for me. And I saw like on our Patreon community chat group, everyone saying they didn't watch it. Like Katie asked, who watched Eurism this year? And everyone was just like, not me, not me, not me. |
| 2:19.9 | And I don't know whether our listeners are representative of the wider European public. |
| 2:23.7 | I haven't seen the data yet. |
... |
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