Mykhailo Soldatenko

Anastasiia Lapatina, Lawfare's Ukraine Fellow and author of the Yours Ukrainian Substack, joins Mykhailo Soldatenko, a Legal Fellow and Harvard Law doctoral candidate, to dissect the tumultuous events in Ukraine-Russia relations. They discuss surprise attacks, troop movements, and stalled peace talks in Istanbul. The conversation delves into the complexity of prisoner exchanges, Russia's pressure tactics in negotiations, and the evolving Ukrainian identity amid conflict, emphasizing the geopolitical stakes and the implications for NATO.

It was a busy weekend in the waters off of Ukraine and Russia. The Ukrainians hit—for the second time—the Kerch Bridge, which connects the Russian mainland with occupied Crimea. The Russians, meanwhile, announced that they are not renewing the Black Sea Grain Initiative, the complex agreement by which Ukraine has managed to export grain through the port of Odessa.What do we know about what happened on the Kerch Bridge? How big a deal is it? Is it connected to the Russian withdrawal from the grain initiative? And what does the scotching of the Black Sea Grain Initiative mean for the Ukrainian economy? To chew it all over, Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Dmitri Alperovitch of Silverado Policy Accelerator and the Geopolitics Decanted podcast, and Mykhailo Soldatenko, a visiting researcher at the Harvard Law School and an international lawyer who has written for Lawfare about the Black Sea Grain Initiative. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.