as we near the end of the year, there s a lot on my mind. as usual, most of it having to do with politics. i wonder, for instance, if the democratic party has learned any of the correct lessons from the midterms. a lot more congressman, pat ryan about, it just ahead. and it won t be long until the russian invasion of ukraine reaches the one year mark. we ll ukraine be able to keep forcing russia back? what do the off-ramps for peace look like now? plus, from abortion rights to protests in iran, some of the biggest and most impactful social movements this year have is often the case been led by women. that s all coming up in the special year end addition of the program, so let s start the show. welcome to the show, what a year it has been. fighting in ukraine, the overturning of roe v. wade, the continuing covid crisis. but of course, the biggest story on the show, was the battle to save american democracy. ahead of the midterms, the issue was front and center, thanks to a ser
Mehdi Hasan provides insightful reporting and probing interviews that examine the day s events and provide a deeper level of context for the politics of our.
been settled. due to a tremendous courage of the ukrainian armed forces, the solidarity of ukrainian people. with western support. the the question at the beginning was indeed, would ukraine survive as truly independent state, or would it once again become a satellite of russia. then the second question, would ukraine lose perhaps a third or half its territory to russia? both of those have been settled. the simply is not going to happen. because of russian defeats. so, what we are now talking about is actually fairly small areas of territory. in eastern in southern ukraine. some of which will previously part of russia in the case of crimea, others of which after russia that to me raise the possibility eventually of an agreement that does not actually betray ukraine. that is the. to me with. hard to cut you off.
surprised are you by the ground situation in ukraine today? well, i did not expect, actually, the russians to try to take kyiv. because it was clear, to me, and i thought to russian intelligence, that there would be tremendous ukrainian resistance. so, i thought that putin would stop at trying to take eastern southern ukraine, we have a population of russian speakers who they could have, you know, deluded themselves into thinking that they would support russian invasion. i must say, julia is absolutely right, putin was completely deceived by his own bad intelligence, or by his own wishful thinking, but as you pointed out in the beginning of the program, western intelligence made the same mistake. and also thought that ukraine would crumble. very quickly.
dad, we ll have parent number one and pair number two, in putin s own words. but i actually think that because americans generally support this war, and actually because of their short attention span, that support for ukraine, given the direct military spending, is actually going to be pretty much okay, given the mainstream of both political parties. and given the fact that much of the spending that the u.s. is allocating to ukraine is actually coming back directly to america. these are american made weapons that are made in america factories, with american workers. this is creating jobs back in the u.s., some of them in the reddest states, for example, javelins are made in troy, alabama, which is a county that trump carried by 20 points. in 2020. they re gonna have to double up their factory space and hire more workers. so, i don t know. i think support for ukraine is pretty good for mega. it s interesting, because