Introduction

This episode contains explicit language. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into eastern Ukraine. This follows months of tensions precipitated by Russia's mobilization of its military on the Ukrainian border. Putin's order came shortly after a gruff speech in which he accused Ukraine of rejecting its historical links to Russia and asserted the independence of two breakaway regions — the self-declared People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. In the week before the Kremlin's orders, the Eurasia Group Foundation's Mark Hannah spoke with journalists Nataliya Gumenyuk and Peter Pomerantsev, who help us better understand the history behind today's crisis, Ukraine's perseverance under the threat of invasion, and Putin's seeming obsession with Ukraine.

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