Podcasts about Lviv

Orest Zub takes us on his journey growing up in Lviv, Ukraine, developing his passion for travel, making friends through tennis while traveling, becoming a digital nomad, and traveling to 129 countries.  He shares the story of how he met his wife, proposed on an airplane, and has since been traveling the world with her for the past 10 years.  Orest talks about the impact of not being in Ukraine during the 2014 revolution and how, in the leadup to the 2022 Russian invasion, he made the decision to go back home and report on the war from inside Ukraine. He reflects on his experiences as the war began, safety considerations for his family, and his first live stream from Ukraine after the bombing began.  Orest explains how he converted his businesses assets, professional network, and marketing skills into a media and PR operation to get information out to the world and cultivate international solidarity to support Ukraine. He talks about the importance of supporting Africans in Ukraine, provides some additional political and historical context for the war, and shares specific ways that you can make humanitarian contributions to Ukraine at this time.  FULL SHOW NOTES AVAIALABLE AT: www.TheMaverickShow.com

Dans cet épisode de “Rencontre avec un correspondant”, Sébastien Gobert, rédacteur en chef de la rédaction internationale du journal La Libre en Belgique. Sébastien Gobert a pendant plusieurs années été correspondant de presse en Ukraine. Il avait alors couvert la première partie de la guerre qui avait débuté en 2014 dans le Donbass. Récemment, Sébastien Gobert y est retourné en Ukraine, à Lviv puis Kiev et aussi aux abords de Kherson - une région du sud de l'Ukraine en partie occupée par les forces russes.

The leaders of the G7 group of richest nations, meeting in Germany, issued a joint statement calling a missile strike on a shopping mall in central Ukraine a 'war crime'. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is calling it an act of 'terrorism' as the mall had no strategic military value. FOX's John Saucier speaks with FOX's Nate Foy, in Lviv, Ukraine, about the latest attack on civilians and reaction to it. Click Here To Follow 'The FOX News Rundown: War On Ukraine' https://listen.foxaud.io/rundown?sid=fnr.podeve Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kellermann, Florianwww.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Studio 9Direkter Link zur Audiodatei

  On Episode 129 of Punk Rock Pariah, Greg & Grendel have an hour-long conversation with “Mira” from the street punk band Bezlad from Kharkiv, Ukraine, about their journey to escape the bombing of their city by Russian forces.  Mira offers insights into the day-to-day experiences of people amidst the ongoing war. A call to aid from Greg: My dear Ukrainian friends in the band Bezlad from Kharkiv have written five songs during the war while fleeing the bombings in Ukraine. These songs have been written about the war and what it has been like for them. Having gotten to relative safety, they are looking to record these songs near Lviv, Ukraine. I asked if it was safe to record there, and their reply was, “Yes, the bombs only fall here every week or two.” I feel that their songs, written in the midst of war, are some of the most essential songs hardcore/punk could possibly produce right now. The rest of us can write ABOUT war, but Bezlad has been living it. As fellow artists, I want them to be supported as they create these new recordings. I offered to pay for the first ten hours of their recording session ($20 per hour) and am looking for donations to cover the rest. Recording, mixing, and mastering the entire record will cost $1200 total, so we are seeking $1000 in total donations.   Since the band can't receive PayPal payments, and as a single bank wire would be easiest for them, we agreed that I will accept donations via Paypal and Venmo (donation info is in the comments below). Then I will send receipts for every donation to the band along with a bank wire for the total amount.   Any donations above and beyond that $1000 will go to our friends from the Kharkiv music community who are fighting on the front lines to buy them the defensive gear they need.   PAYPAL:  https://paypal.me/bezlad?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US VENMO: @gregbennick 
 (PLEASE be sure to put "Ukraine" in the notes!)

Today we continue our interview with Tom Rusing MD on his experience in the war-ravaged Ukraine. In this part, we discuss his journey from Lviv to Kyiv. How he stayed there, what he saw, and how he helped the people that needed his help.   Retired General Surgeon Tom Rusing MD just recently returned from spending over 30 days in Ukraine. There was much chaos going on in Ukraine and we discuss Tom's experience there and what made him go there in the first place.   We go deep into his experience there, the discussion took quite some time. So, this is part 2 of our discussion. Do check out the first part that was released last week.   Go to www.thestandard.academy/getmagazine to become one of the first to get my digital magazine for free that'll help you create a kick-ass life.   Tom is a Retired General Surgeon from Prescott Arizona. He got his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the University of Arizona in 1974. Tom graduated from the University of Arizona Medical School in 1978. And did a residency in General Surgery at the University of Texas San Antonio from 1978 - 1983. He did a Fellowship in Colon and Rectal Surgery at the University of Minnesota Affiliated Hospitals from 1983 - 1984. Tom was Medical Director at Tumu Tumu Hospital in Kenya from 10/1984 - 3/31/1985. Tom spent a short while in a General Surgery Practice in Tucson Arizona 1985 - 1986. And then moved to Prescott Arizona where he had a General Surgery Practice from 1986 till he retired on 12/31/2017.   Tom provided medical care in Haiti for 2 weeks after the earthquake. He also provided medical care in Nepal for 2 weeks after the earthquake. He worked at the Gallup (New Mexico) Indian Medical Center for 1 month during the peak of the COVID outbreak. He was a volunteer in Ukraine from 3/13/2022 to 4/15/2022.   He is married to his wife of Cathey and has grown kids. Tom is a classmate of mine from Brophy College Prep in Phoenix Arizona.   A bit about me (Dr. Orest Komarnyckyj): Dr. Orest Komarnyckyj enjoyed a prestigious career as a periodontal regenerative surgeon moving to a new passion in June 2018. He retired after a 33-year career to pursue new passions. At 69 Dr. Orest has taken on a new role as an Interviewer, Podcaster and government-certified Old Guy. He streams from his new home in Las Vegas, NV. He lives with his wife of 29 years, Oksana. His status as an empty-nesters with two out of college-employed children has left him with time and energy to share decades of successes, failures, and wisdom.   Connect with Tom at: email: tomrusing@gmail.com phone no: 9287133736   Timestamps: 00:00 - Precap 00:49 - Intro 01:57 - The risk of death 02:38 - Getting into Kyiv 03:50 - Spending the night in the train station 04:31 - Whether in Kyiv 04:56 - Accommodation in Kyiv 06:44 - Getting to the hospital 07:33 - Airraid sirens 09:50 - How far east did you go? 11:36 - Objective of the hospital I worked in 15:05 - Did you see any evidence of atrocities? 20:20 - What motivated me to go to Ukraine 21:32 - Commercial 22:05 - Commercial ends/Did you see any bodies or people who have been shot, or anything like that? 24:10 - Atrocities are just unbelievable 29:10 - What are your plans now? 36:10 - Closing statements 38:43 - Outro  

Journalist and editor of ‘Ukrainian Freedom News' Joseph Lindsley joined Bob Sirott from Ukraine to deliver the latest news on the Ukraine-Russia crisis, including the ongoing war in Kharkiv and music filling the streets of Lviv. You can find more updates on Joseph's website, ukrainianfreedomnews.com. To donate to Joseph and his team's efforts to distribute supplies […]

In this episode of Project Management Office Hours, PMO Joe welcomed Mariia Abdullina, Oleg Matseliukh, and Mykola Stefanyshyn who joined live from Ukraine. We discussed conditions in Ukraine, leading a PMO during wartime, Business Continuity, and so much more.Mariia is Head of Project Portfolio and Efficiency Management Division for Raiffeisen Bank Ukraine. She shared the important role the PMO has is ensuring the bank remains operational and supports clients across Ukraine as well as those who have left the country. Mariia also shared the steps team members have taken to continue working while facing the challenges of the ongoing war.Oleg is the Chief Development and Support Manager of Project Management Office for Raiffeisen. While we are often consumed by the news cycle, Oleg let us know that everyday life continues. During the war he has been married and got a new puppy and of course working to drive the business continuity efforts to ensure the bank continues to serve customers.Mykola is the Chief Analyst of Project Management Office for Raiffeisen. He is located in western Ukraine in Lviv and he shared his perspective being located outside the area facing most of the direct fighting. He told us stories of team members taking on additional responsibilities beyond their normal role, having a “whatever it takes” mindset to get the job done.Mariia, Oleg, and Mykola continue their discussion about leading the PMO efforts, how COVID prepared them and so much more. Be sure to catch the complete conversation and listen to the full episode: https://www.thepmosquad.com/podcasts/project-management-office-hours/episodes/2147751322Connect with Mariia: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariia-abdullina-36750717/Connect with Oleg: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/oleg-matseliukh-818a53125/Connect with Mykola: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mykola-stefanyshyn-9ab22549/To catch up on previous episodes visit the Project Management Office Hours website - https://www.thepmosquad.com/podcasts/project-management-office-hours Or see the guest list for upcoming shows - https://www.thepmosquad.com/podcast Thank you to THE PMO SQUAD and The PMO Leader for sponsoring this show. The PMO Squad is a leading provider of PMO and Project Management services in the US. They assist clients building and improving PMOs, provide Project Management Consulting services, deliver custom Project Management Training and provide Project Management staffing services. Learn more about The PMO Squad – https://www.thepmosquad.com Where do PMO Leaders go for Information, Learning, Networking and Services? The PMO Leader community has “Everything You Need to Become a Great PMO Leader”. One PMO World, One Community! Learn more about The PMO Leader – https://www.thepmoleader.com#projectmanagement #pmoleadership #ukraine

Emanuel Ax sat down with Jim Cunningham on Saturday afternoon after the live broadcast of opening night Friday June 17 to talk about Mozart's 20th concerto, Chopin for an encore, his long association with the Pittsburgh Symphony, friendship with Andre Previn, the war in Ukraine and it's effect on Lviv where Emanuel Ax was born, his recent Beethoven Trios cd Beethoven for Three with Yo Yo Ma and Leonidas Kavakos, and the answer to the question are there too many good musicians today-- recorded upstairs at Heinz Hall in the rehearsal room on the fourth floor with help from Adam Kilburn engineer and videographer.

Against the backdrop of fierce fighting in the east and a growing feeling that international interest in Ukraine's plight is now waning, Seva experiences a surreal dining experience in a Kyiv now flip-flopping between conflict and a strange kind of normal.Meanwhile, Oksana hears from two friends who fled to Canada and Belgium respectively, about the challenges of starting again in a new country.And an unexpected parcel from Poland stirs up old feelings for Ilyas.BACKGROUND-Oksana, 34, works in overseas education. She lives with her husband, Seva, in an apartment complex in central Kyiv and has remained in the Ukrainian capital since the war started. Many of Oksana's closest friends have left the country to begin new lives in Europe. Some may never return. She's determined to stay.Ilyas is an IT specialist and married father who fled from Kyiv to Lviv shortly after the war started. Right now his wife Natalia, and two young sons are taking refuge in Poland.As of June 2022, Ilyas is back living in the family apartment in Kyiv and working, in part, for the Ukrainian government on various projects.Seva, 40, is a company CEO and husband to Oksana. Before the war, he travelled across Europe for business. Now, he makes regular supply drops of medical aid and rations to Ukrainian troops on the front line in Eastern Ukraine. He's originally from a small village near Dnipro.Ukraine War Diaries uses first-person audio, recorded on the ground in Ukraine, to give an intimate day-to-day perspective of life in a war zone.Week 13 diary entries were recorded using WhatsApp voice note.From the producers of Sky News' multi-award winning series – StoryCast.CREDITS-Series Producer - Rob MulhernProduction Support/Editing - Paul StanworthUkraine War Diaries returns in July.

Against the backdrop of fierce fighting in the east and a growing feeling that international interest in Ukraine's plight is now waning, Seva experiences a surreal dining experience in a Kyiv now flip-flopping between conflict and a strange kind of normal.Meanwhile, Oksana hears from two friends who fled to Canada and Belgium respectively, about the challenges of starting again in a new country.And an unexpected parcel from Poland stirs up old feelings for Ilyas.BACKGROUND-Oksana, 34, works in overseas education. She lives with her husband, Seva, in an apartment complex in central Kyiv and has remained in the Ukrainian capital since the war started. Many of Oksana's closest friends have left the country to begin new lives in Europe. Some may never return. She's determined to stay.Ilyas is an IT specialist and married father who fled from Kyiv to Lviv shortly after the war started. Right now his wife Natalia, and two young sons are taking refuge in Poland.As of June 2022, Ilyas is back living in the family apartment in Kyiv and working, in part, for the Ukrainian government on various projects.Seva, 40, is a company CEO and husband to Oksana. Before the war, he travelled across Europe for business. Now, he makes regular supply drops of medical aid and rations to Ukrainian troops on the front line in Eastern Ukraine. He's originally from a small village near Dnipro.Ukraine War Diaries uses first-person audio, recorded on the ground in Ukraine, to give an intimate day-to-day perspective of life in a war zone.Week 13 diary entries were recorded using WhatsApp voice note.From the producers of Sky News' multi-award winning series – StoryCast.CREDITS-Series Producer - Rob MulhernProduction Support/Editing - Paul StanworthUkraine War Diaries returns in July.

There are unconfirmed reports that two former U.S. Military members fighting alongside Ukrainians have been captured by Russian forces outside of Kharkiv. United States State Department Spokesman Ned Price told reporters today that they have not reached out to Russia on the matter but are working with the Red Cross and the Ukrainian government to find answers. FOX's Eben Brown speaks with Nate Foy, FOX News Correspondent in Lviv, Ukraine, about what we know about these missing Americans. Click Here To Follow 'The FOX News Rundown: War On Ukraine' https://listen.foxaud.io/rundown?sid=fnr.podeve  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are unconfirmed reports that two former U.S. Military members fighting alongside Ukrainians have been captured by Russian forces outside of Kharkiv. United States State Department Spokesman Ned Price told reporters today that they have not reached out to Russia on the matter but are working with the Red Cross and the Ukrainian government to find answers. FOX's Eben Brown speaks with Nate Foy, FOX News Correspondent in Lviv, Ukraine, about what we know about these missing Americans. Click Here To Follow 'The FOX News Rundown: War On Ukraine' https://listen.foxaud.io/rundown?sid=fnr.podeve  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Leaders of France, Germany, Italy and Romania met with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv today, to show support for Ukraine and its defense against the Russian invasion. The high-profile visit demonstrates Europe's measure of support for Ukraine as the war continues. And rents in the Ukrainian city of Lviv have finally leveled out after ballooning at the start of the war, but they're still much higher than before it began in February. Those who fled the eastern part of the country are still in limbo, but the high prices have made it hard to stay in Lviv. Plus, TikTok may be a platform known for its fun and silly videos, but according to a new report, it's also a culprit when it comes to election disinformation in Kenya.

WAR! Just this word alone can run chills down the spine for most of us. But there are people like today's guest who would do anything they can to make a difference for the good even if it means endangering their life.   Retired General Surgeon Tom Rusing MD just recently returned from spending over 30 days in Ukraine. Between all the chaos that it's going through and we discuss his experience there and what made Tom go there in first place.   We go deep into it hence, the discussion took quite some time. So we split the interview in two parts. Here's part 1 of our discussion. Tune in next week for part 2. Till then, enjoy this episode.   Go to www.thestandard.academy/getmagazine to become one of the first to get my digital magazine for free that'll help you create a kick-ass life.   Tom is a Retired General Surgeon from Prescott Arizona. He got his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the University of Arizona in 1974. Tom graduated from the University of Arizona Medical School in 1978. And did a residency in General Surgery at the University of Texas San Antonio from 1978 - 1983. He did a Fellowship in Colon and Rectal Surgery at the University of Minnesota Affiliated Hospitals from 1983 - 1984. Tom was Medical Director at Tumu Tumu Hospital in Kenya from 10/1984 - 3/31/1985. Tom spent a short while in a General Surgery Practice in Tucson Arizona 1985 - 1986. And then moved to Prescott Arizona where he had a General Surgery Practice from 1986 till he retired on 12/31/2017.   Tom provided medical care in Haiti for 2 weeks after the earthquake. He also provided medical care in Nepal for 2 weeks after the earthquake. He worked at the Gallup (New Mexico) Indian Medical Center for 1 month during the peak of the COVID outbreak. He was a volunteer in Ukraine from 3/13/2022 to 4/15/2022.   He is married to his wife of Cathey and has grown kids. Tom is a classmate of mine from Brophy College Prep in Phoenix Arizona.   A bit about me (Dr. Orest Komarnyckyj): Dr. Orest Komarnyckyj enjoyed a prestigious career as a periodontal regenerative surgeon moving to a new passion in June 2018. He retired after a 33-year career to pursue new passions. At 69 Dr. Orest has taken on a new role as an Interviewer, Podcaster and government-certified Old Guy. He streams from his new home in Las Vegas, NV. He lives with his wife of 29 years, Oksana. His status as an empty-nesters with two out of college-employed children has left him with time and energy to share decades of successes, failures, and wisdom.   Connect with Tom at: email: tomrusing@gmail.com phone no: 9287133736   Timestamps: 00:00 - Precap 00:40 - Intro 01:51 - Guest introduction 04:55 - What's the most important thing you've done today? 05:27 - What made you decide to go to Ukraine? 09:13 - Did you go with a group, or as a private individual? How did you get into the country? 12:25 - Commercial 12:58 - Commercial ends/What was the first place in Ukraine that you end up in? Take us a little bit through your travels, what you were first going to do. 21:40 - What was different this time? Risk management 23:00 - Getting into Lviv 28:12 - Decision to go to Kyiv 28:01 - Outro

In Kyiv, Oksana finds a bittersweet escape from the war.In Poland, Ilyas' wife, Natalia speaks for the first time about her experiences as a refugee in Poland and efforts to try and make a functional life for her and her children, alone.Meanwhile Ilyas, writes something of a love letter to his wife Natalia and the two sons he still cannot see.BACKGROUND-Oksana, 34, works in overseas education. She lives with her husband, Seva, in an apartment complex in central Kyiv and has remained in the Ukrainian capital since the war started. Many of Oksana's closest friends have left the country to begin new lives in Europe. Some may never return. She's determined to stay.Ilyas is an IT specialist and married father who fled from Kyiv to Lviv shortly after the war started. Right now his wife Natalia, and two young sons are taking refuge in Poland.As of June 2022, Ilyas is back living in the family apartment in Kyiv and working, in part, for the Ukrainian government on specialist projects.Ukraine War Diaries uses first-person audio, recorded on the ground in Ukraine, to give an intimate day-to-day perspective of life in a war zone.Week 12 diary entries were recorded using WhatsApp voice note and first published on the Ukraine War Diaries podcast feed. To follow this series when it broadcasts, on weekdays, subscribe to Ukraine War Diaries wherever you get your podcasts.From the producers of Sky News' multi-award winning series – StoryCast.CREDITS-Series Producer - Rob MulhernProduction Support/Editing - Paul Stanworth

In Kyiv, Oksana finds a bittersweet escape from the war.In Poland, Ilyas' wife, Natalia speaks for the first time about her experiences as a refugee in Poland and efforts to try and make a functional life for her and her children, alone.Meanwhile Ilyas, writes something of a love letter to his wife Natalia and the two sons he still cannot see.BACKGROUND-Oksana, 34, works in overseas education. She lives with her husband, Seva, in an apartment complex in central Kyiv and has remained in the Ukrainian capital since the war started. Many of Oksana's closest friends have left the country to begin new lives in Europe. Some may never return. She's determined to stay.Ilyas is an IT specialist and married father who fled from Kyiv to Lviv shortly after the war started. Right now his wife Natalia, and two young sons are taking refuge in Poland.As of June 2022, Ilyas is back living in the family apartment in Kyiv and working, in part, for the Ukrainian government on specialist projects.Ukraine War Diaries uses first-person audio, recorded on the ground in Ukraine, to give an intimate day-to-day perspective of life in a war zone.Week 12 diary entries were recorded using WhatsApp voice note and first published on the Ukraine War Diaries podcast feed. To follow this series when it broadcasts, on weekdays, subscribe to Ukraine War Diaries wherever you get your podcasts.From the producers of Sky News' multi-award winning series – StoryCast.CREDITS-Series Producer - Rob MulhernProduction Support/Editing - Paul Stanworth

In March, Ashland photographer Christopher Briscoe traveled with doctors on a humanitarian mission to Poland to help refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine. Ten days later, when the mission ended and the doctors departed, Briscoe decided to cross the border into Ukraine. With the help of an interpreter, Briscoe has been capturing portraits of people and stories of loss and resilience amid the sound of air raid sirens and bombardment by Russian artillery. He joins us from Lviv, Ukraine to talk about what he's been seeing and why he feels his professional journey has led him to this moment.

Natalya is a Russian journalist working for BBC Monitoring, and her husband and colleague, Yuriy, is Ukrainian. They have been evacuated from their home in Kyiv to Lviv. Natalya tells us about the challenges of family life during war, and how she's given up trying to convince some friends in Russia about what's really happening. Changing attitudes in India A recent survey of social attitudes in India showed that a large proportion of the population, both men and women, still believe that husbands have the right to beat their wives. Women's affairs editor Geeta Pandey talks us through the findings. Why Germans are migrating to Paraguay Thousands of German migrants have moved to Paraguay, some of them escaping Covid restrictions; others because they are uncomfortable with immigration itself in Germany. BBC Mundo's Mar Pichel travelled to Paraguay to explore the reasons behind this new wave. Goodbye to South Korea's Blue House The Blue House in Seoul has been the seat of power in South Korea for more than 70 years. But the new president, Yoon Suk-yeol, has moved his office to a Defence Ministry complex and opened the Blue House to the public. Julie Yoonnyung Lee of BBC Korean explains the reasons for this decision. Uganda's Batwa people Over 30 years ago, the Batwa people of Uganda were evicted from their ancestral forest home by the government. It was thought they might threaten the gorilla population, vital to Uganda's tourism industry. But the Batwa people have struggled ever since, as BBC Africa's Patience Atuhaire discovered when she went to report on their story. Presenter: David Amanor Producer: Sue Waldram (Photo: Wedding rings. Credit: BBC)

«Zero Waste – це не місце призначення, а подорож». У цьому епізоді говоримо про філософію безвідходного споживання, економічну складову екосвідомості, нові концепції та ініціативи. Zero Waste City, заставне горнятко Zero Cup, Підгузки зайві – щоб зменшити користування одноразовим на користь багаторазового та прийти до баночки відходів на рік. Також наші гості Надія Кугук, Євгенія Дев'яткова, Софія Тимофіїв розповіли про важливість просвітницької роботи та вплив війни на екологічне середовище. «Хоробрі геошки» – магістерська робота Наталі Шкоропаняк, яка є студенткою УКУ та учасницею Католицького скаутства Європи. Подкаст про громадські асоціації України. Знайомство з їхніми цінностями та пріоритетами у часі війни, які наближають нашу перемогу. Слухайте нові епізоди на SoundCloud, Google та Apple podcasts. І якщо вам подобається, що ми робимо і ви хочете, щоб ми могли це робити й надалі, ще більше та впевненіше, підтримуйте нас на Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/radioskovoroda Внески символічні, щоб кожному, хто хоче допомогти, було посильно! Також можете задонейтити через PayPal radioskovoroda@gmail.com будь-яку комфортну вам суму. Творіть разом з нами нові медіа нової доби!

Ilyas seeks an escape from the war. Seva begins to prepare for a long and protracted conflict. And Oksana explains the Queen's popularity in Ukraine.Ukraine War Diaries uses first-person audio, recorded on the ground in Ukraine, to give an intimate day-to-day perspective of life in a war zone.BACKGROUND -Ilyas is an IT specialist and married father who fled from Kyiv to Lviv shortly after the war started. Right now his wife and two young sons are taking refuge in Poland.As of May 2022, Ilyas is back living in the family apartment in Kyiv and working, in part, for the Ukrainian government on specialist projects.Oksana, 34, works in overseas education. She lives with her husband, Seva, in an apartment complex in central Kyiv and has remained in the Ukrainian capital since the war started. Many of Oksana's closest friends have left the country to begin new lives in Europe. Some may never return. She's determined to stay.Seva, 40, is a company CEO and husband to Oksana. Before the war, he travelled across Europe for business. Now, he makes regular supply drops of medical aid and rations to Ukrainian troops on the front line in Eastern Ukraine. He's originally from a small village near Dnipro.Ukraine War Diaries uses first-person audio, recorded on the ground in Ukraine, to give an intimate day-to-day perspective of life in a war zone.Week 11 diary entries were recorded using WhatsApp voice note and first published on the Ukraine War Diaries podcast feed. To follow this series when it broadcasts, on weekdays, subscribe to Ukraine War Diaries wherever you get your podcasts.From the producers of Sky News' multi-award winning series – StoryCast.CREDITS-Series Producer - Rob MulhernProduction Support/Editing - Paul Stanworth

Ilyas seeks an escape from the war.Seva readies himself for a long and protracted conflict.And Oksana explains the Queen's popularity in Ukraine.BACKGROUND-Ilyas is an IT specialist and married father who fled from Kyiv to Lviv shortly after the war started. Right now his wife and two young sons are taking refuge in Poland.As of May 2022, Ilyas is back living in the family apartment in Kyiv and working, in part, for the Ukrainian government on specialist projects.Oksana, 34, works in overseas education. She lives with her husband, Seva, in an apartment complex in central Kyiv and has remained in the Ukrainian capital since the war started. Many of Oksana's closest friends have left the country to begin new lives in Europe. Some may never return. She's determined to stay.Seva, 40, is a company CEO and husband to Oksana. Before the war, he travelled across Europe for business. Now, he makes regular supply drops of medical aid and rations to Ukrainian troops on the front line in Eastern Ukraine. He's originally from a small village near Dnipro.Ukraine War Diaries uses first-person audio, recorded on the ground in Ukraine, to give an intimate day-to-day perspective of life in a war zone.Week 11 diary entries were recorded using WhatsApp voice note and first published on the Ukraine War Diaries podcast feed. To follow this series when it broadcasts, on weekdays, subscribe to Ukraine War Diaries wherever you get your podcasts.From the producers of Sky News' multi-award winning series – StoryCast.CREDITS-Series Producer - Rob MulhernProduction Support/Editing - Paul Stanworth

As Ukrainian refugees make it to Polish border towns, escaping the fighting taking place in their home country, VOA takes a look at some of the volunteers helping them with their basic needs. Plus, a look at the soccer stadium in Lviv, that's been turned into a refugee shelter. And New York and New Jersey firefighters are gathering gear from colleagues across the United States to help their counterparts in Ukraine stay safe.

Today on Post Reports, we bring you to the frontline of the war in Ukraine, as Russian forces encircle Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. Plus, a teenager coming of age in the war finds purpose in helping fellow displaced Ukrainians. Read more:Nearly 100 days into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian forces have suffered significant setbacks: President Volodomyr Zelensky says Russia has now taken 20 percent of his country. Foreign correspondent Siobhan O'Grady brings us into the trenches of the eastern Donbas region, where Russia has focused its military advancements. Ukrainian battalions are digging trenches, desperate to turn the tide of war. Later in the show, we meet 16-year-old Anna Melnyk, whose life changed overnight when her family was forced to flee their home in Kyiv and head west for the transit city of Lviv. Now Anna –– who volunteers as a guide for the displaced at a train station in Lviv –– is undergoing a drastic transformation alongside other Ukrainian teens, who are trading high school concerns for work that will shape the kind of nation they will inherit once the fighting ends.“She said it makes her feel like she's doing something for her country. That it's a role for her,” says reporter Hannah Allam. “She's not 18. She can't enlist in the military and then take up arms. She's not even old enough to drive. So, this was something she could do.”

Russia Ukraine War Donbas Intro and Voicer

American Reporter in Ukraine on the latest in Ukraine, Russians spotting him, does he feel in fear for his life, his message to people who might be losing interest and more.

On today's special episode of Human Events Daily, Jack Posobiec takes you on the ground deep into Southern Ukraine. In all he and the crew traveled 1,200 miles by train and car, more than 40 hours from the border city of Lviv in the West, to blockaded Odessa on the Black Sea, and the besieged city of Mykolaiv. This episode was recorded while on the train between various points of the journey. Donations to Ukraine Humanistarian Aid: https://www.caritas.org/ukraine-appeal-22/ Here's your Daily dose of Human Events with @JackPosobiec Go to www.itargetpro.com to get 10% off and free shipping with offer code POSOBuy three boxers and get one free by going to GETUNDERTAC.COM with offer code POSOSave up to 65% on MyPillow products by going to MyPillow.com/POSO and use code POSO 

Welcome to a special episode of The Radio Vagabond – recorded in May 2022. At a conference for digital nomads called NomadBase Live in Croatia, I met Orest Zub from Ukraine. He's another digital nomad and a big part of the community Nomad Mania founded by our good mutual friend Harry Mitsidis. Orest have been to 129 countries so far in his ten years as a digital nomad. When the Russians invaded his country in February this year, he came back to Ukraine to help his country in the war. Not by being a soldier at the front line but by making videos showing the truth about what it looks like in his country, and what the war is doing to Ukraine. NOMAD BASE LIVE We were both attending the conference NomadBase Live – a fairly new thing organized by the same people who brought the world Nomad Cruise (that you heard me talk about many times before here on the podcast). When the global pandemic changed everything, they had to pivot and come up with new ideas. And one of them was creating NomadBase Live – a conference type event on land. This is their third but my first and it's always great to meet old friends, make new ones and be a part of this community of likeminded people. On this NomadBase held in beautiful Primošten, Croatia we were 274 digital nomads from all over the world gathers to share experiences from our digital nomad, travelling lifestyle. OREST ZUB ON YOUTUBE In one of the videos on his YouTube channel, he's driving to Kyiv with an experienced war correspondent, Rauli Virtanen. He's a 73-year-old Finnish writer, freelance journalist, lecturer, and television producer. He's also the first person who visited every country in the world – and for that a big inspiration for both Orest and myself. RAISING MONEY FOR AN ORPHANAGE It's a tradition on NomadBase Live (and before that on every Nomad Cruise) that we have a charity dinner where we all chip in with donations to a good cause. And Orest was asked to find a children-specific charity in Ukraine that needs support in this crucial time. He found an orphanage in town Velykyi Lubin near Lviv in the western Ukraine where he lives. This orphanage hosts children from the surrounding areas and those who come from the war-torn eastern part of the country. At the conference Orest shows a video, he recorded at the orphanage, and a 7-8-year-old girl with a serious look on her face says that she's from Mariupol, one of the places in Ukraine that has suffered the most. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the city was a strategic target for Russian and pro-Russian forces. On 19 March 2022, a Ukrainian police officer in Mariupol made a video in which he said, "Children, elderly people are dying. The city is destroyed and it is wiped off the face of the earth."  And this the city this little girl was having a safe and happy childhood until this meaningless war started. When Orest show this clip most of us had tears in our eyes. GETTING A VAN FOR THE ORPHANAGE In a Facebook post after the event, Orest mentions that our first contribution will be a van. So far this initiative has raised around 6500 USD which is probably enough for a very basic 8-seater van. If you'd like to contribute, you can do it on PayPal orest@openmind.com.ua or see this page for other options:OpenMind.com.ua/support.

Velkommen til en specialudgave af Radiovagabond – optaget i maj 2022. Ved en konference for digitale nomader, der hedder NomadBase Live i Kroatien, mødte jeg Orest Zub fra Ukraine. Han er også digital nomade og en stor del af netværket Nomad Mania, der er grundlagt af vores fælles ven Harry Mitsidis. Orest har været i 129 lande indtil by og har været digital nomade i 10 år. Da Rusland invaderede Ukraine i februar, tog han hjem til sit hjemland for at hjælpe til. Og de mente, at han ville gøre mere gavn ved at lave videoer end med et gevær på frontlinjen. Nu tager han rundt i landet og fortæller historier på sin YouTube kanal, om hvad der sker i landet. NOMAD BASE LIVE Vi er som nævnt begge en del af konferencen NomadBase Live – som er en rimelig ny event, arrangeret af de samme som gav verden Nomad Cruise (som du har hørt mig tale om tit her i podcasten). Da Corona-pandemien ændrede alt, og det ikke var muligt at arrangere en Nomad Cruise fik de ideen om at lave lignende arrangementer på landjorden. Dette er deres tredje NomadBase Live, men min første. Og jeg elsker at deltage i denne type arrangementer, hvor jeg møder gamle venner og møder ligesindede, som forstår min lidt anderledes livsstil. På denne NomadBase, der bliver holdt i smukke Primošten ved kysten i Ukraine lidt vest for Split, er vi 274 digitale nomader fra hele verden. Vi hører foredrag, deltager i workshops og networker. OREST ZUB PÅ YOUTUBE I en af videoerne på hans YouTube kanal, kører han til Kiev sammen med en erfaren krigs-korrespondent, Rauli Virtanen. Han er en 73-årig finsk forfatter, journalist, foredragsholder og Tv-producer. Han var faktisk den første person i verdenshistorien, der havde besøgt alle lande i verden – og dermed en stor inspiration for både Orest og mig selv. SAMLER PENGE IND TIL ET BØRNEHJEM Det er en tradition på NomadBase Live (og tidligere på Nomad Cruise), at vi har en ”charity dinner”, hvor vi alle giver et mindre bidrag til et godt formål. Og Orest var blevet bedt om at finde et godt formål med fokus på børn i Ukraine. Han fandt et børnehjem i byen Velykyi Lubin i nærheden af Lviv i den vestlige del af landet. Dette børnehjem hjælper børn fra området og fra den krigsramte østlige del af landet. På konferencen holder han foredrag og afspiller en video, som han har optaget på børnehjemmet. Her ser vi en lille 7-8-årig pige, som siger (med et alvorligt ansigtsudtryk), at hun er fra Mariupol, som er en af de mest ramte byer i landet. Efter den russiske invasion, blev byen et strategisk mål for russerne. Den 19. marts lavede en russisk politimand en video, hvor han sagde: ”Børn og ældre dør her. Byen er ødelagt og er stort set jævnet med jorden.” Og det er altså denne by, denne lille pige havde en tryg barndom indtil den meningsløse krig startede. Da Orest spiller denne video, sidder vi alle i salen med tårer i øjnene. EN MINIBUS TIL BØRNEHJEMMET I et Facebook opslag efter NomadBase, skrive Orest, at vores første bidrag til børnehjemmet vil være en minibus. Indtil videre har indsamlingen indbragt omkring 45.000 kr., hvilket vil være nok til en almindelig brugt 8-personers minibus. Hvis du også har lyst til at give et bidrag, kan du gøre det via PayPal orest@openmind.com.ua eller se andre muligheder på OpenMind.com.ua/support.

RUOK with sharing? Stepan Berko, Advocacy manager with DEJURE foundation, gives us a first-hand look at Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. What did the city go through during the first months of the war, can Ukrainians see the future of their country, and more.   Canada's bee populations are plummeting for fascinating and concerning reasons. Paul Kelly, research and apiary manager at the University of Guelph Honey Bee Research Centre, takes us through why bee populations are so volatile and why they are incredible and important creatures. HEY, DO YOU LIKE PODCASTS? Why not subscribe to ours? find it on Apple, Google, Spotify & Curiouscast.ca    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's more than three months since Russian forces invaded Ukraine, changing millions of lives, including those of Ilyas Verdiev, Oksana and Seva Goshel, forever.In that time, Ilyas, Oksana and Seva have shared deeply intimate insights into how war has redefined their priorities and their lives.But what did a typical day in their lives, and life in Ukraine, look like before the Russian invasion?This special episode features a Ukraine that never made the news because the country had yet to be consumed by war. BACKGROUND Ilyas is an IT specialist and married father who fled from Kyiv to Lviv shortly after the war started. His wife and two young sons are now taking refuge in Poland.As of May 2022, Ilyas is back living in the family apartment in Kyiv and working, in part, for the Ukrainian government on specialist projects. Oksana, 34, works in overseas education. She lives with her husband, Seva, in an apartment complex in central Kyiv and has remained in the Ukrainian capital since the war started. Many of Oksana's closest friends have left the country to begin new lives in Europe. Some may never return. She's determined to stay. Seva, 40, is a company CEO and husband to Oksana. Before the war, he travelled across Europe for business. Now, he makes regular supply drops of medical aid and rations to Ukrainian troops in Eastern Ukraine. He's originally from a small village near Dnipro. Ukraine War Diaries uses first-person audio, recorded on the ground in Ukraine, to give an intimate day-to-day perspective of life in a war zone. Week 10 diary entries were recorded using WhatsApp voice notes and first published on the Ukraine War Diaries podcast feed. To follow this series when it broadcasts, on weekdays, subscribe to Ukraine War Diaries wherever you get your podcasts. From the producers of Sky News' multi-award winning series – StoryCast. CREDITSSeries Producer - Rob MulhernProduction Support/Editing - Paul Stanworth 

It's more than three months since Russian forces invaded Ukraine, changing millions of lives, including those of Ilyas Verdiev, Oksana and Seva Goshel, forever.In that time, Ilyas, Oksana and Seva have shared intimate insights into how war has redefined their priorities and their lives.But what did a typical day in their lives, and life in Ukraine, look like before the Russian invasion?This special episode features a Ukraine that never made the news because the country had yet to be consumed by war. BACKGROUND Ilyas is an IT specialist and married father who fled from Kyiv to Lviv shortly after the war started. His wife and two young sons are now taking refuge in Poland.As of May 2022, Ilyas is back living in the family apartment in Kyiv and working, in part, for the Ukrainian government on specialist projects. Oksana, 34, works in overseas education. She lives with her husband, Seva, in an apartment complex in central Kyiv and has remained in the Ukrainian capital since the war started. Many of Oksana's closest friends have left the country to begin new lives in Europe. Some may never return. She's determined to stay. Seva, 40, is a company CEO and husband to Oksana. Before the war, he travelled across Europe for business. Now, he makes regular supply drops of medical aid and rations to Ukrainian troops in Eastern Ukraine. He's originally from a small village near Dnipro. Ukraine War Diaries uses first-person audio, recorded on the ground in Ukraine, to give an intimate day-to-day perspective of life in a war zone. Week 10 diary entries were recorded using WhatsApp voice notes and first published on the Ukraine War Diaries podcast feed. To follow this series when it broadcasts, on weekdays, subscribe to Ukraine War Diaries wherever you get your podcasts. From the producers of Sky News' multi-award winning series – StoryCast. CREDITSSeries Producer - Rob MulhernProduction Support/Editing - Paul Stanworth

Lamenting a uniquely American tragedy, an anguished and angry President Joe Biden delivered an urgent call for new restrictions on firearms after a gunman shot and killed at least 19 children at a Texas elementary school. Ted is former and current resident of Ukraine. With sirens blarring in the background at one point, Ted calls in from Lviv and shares his insight and gives context to the current distruction happening as a result of the Russian invasion. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to a special episode of the Solana Podcast focusing on Crypto & National Security featuring Ari Redbord (Head of Legal and Government Affairs, TRM Labs) and Sigal Mandelker (former Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence). Amira Valliani (Policy Lead, Solana Foundation) guest hosts.00:09 -  Intros02:11 - Origin Story05:53 - Correspondent Banks07:37 - Why crypto resonates personally09:54 - Use cases of Crypto in humanitarian applications12:13 - Looking at the opportunity vs the risk16:06 - Typical Day at Treasury17:14 - What it takes to stop bad actors in Crypto24:53 - BitFinex Hack and Large seizures29:05 - Compliance and self-policing31:13 - Advice to other people in regulationDISCLAIMERThe information on this podcast is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose.The information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice.The information on this podcast is general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented on this podcast without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional broker or financial advisor. Amira (00:09):Hello and welcome to the Solana podcast. My name is Amira Valliani and I run public policy at the Solana Foundation. Today we're talking about an issue that's really been at the forefront of a lot of people's minds since war broke out in Ukraine earlier this year. And that's the topic of crypto and national security. We've brought two of the world's foremost experts to talk about how crypto links with foreign policy and the movement of money all over the world, and they are Sigal Mandelker and Ari Redbord.Sigal Mandelker is a general partner at Ribbit Capital where she deals with FinTech and crypto. But before this, she was Deputy Treasury Secretary and Under Secretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. She's joined by Ari Redbord who's the head of legal and government affairs at TRM Labs, the blockchain intelligence company. Before joining TRM, Ari was Sigal's senior advisor when she was the Under Secretary of Treasury and worked on a range of issues, including sanctions, anti-money laundering and a bunch of other scary and really important issues. Sigal and Ari, thank you so much for being here. We're excited to have you.Ari (01:15):Thank you so much for having us. I will say just to get things started, I'm a huge fan of sort of what you guys do at Solana and the team that's building with you and a huge fan of Sigal and just an amazing honor to be on a conversation like this with someone that I worked for when she was the under secretary and just really consider a close friend and colleague in the space now. So it's particularly cool. So thank you for having us.Sigal (01:40):Oh, it all goes back at both of you. I loved working with Ari then and I love being in this space with him now. It's pretty exciting.Amira  (01:48):I'm here for all of it. I think it's going to be a very exciting few minutes. I think the backgrounds are really interesting and you all know that this circle of people who come from government into crypto is growing, but it's small. And so very specific journeys I think got all of us into this space. I'm curious what got each of you interested in crypto? Why are you passionate about it? Ari, I don't know if you want to kick us off here. I know Sigal has a particular story.Ari (02:13):Sure. Yeah. No, happy to. Everyone has their sort of crypto origin story. And so many times you hear about "I bought Bitcoin 15 years ago." And for me it was really a lot different. We started to see it 2015 or so in a lot of our sort of large money laundering investigations that actually involve some of the sort of nation state actors like North Korea that we'll be digging into today. I think we sort of realized even then the power and promise of this technology, but also that if it was going to grow and flourish and they were going to build this new economy, that we needed to stop illicit actors from doing it. And that was sort of as a prosecutor and then honestly getting an opportunity to work with Sigal and the team at Treasury on some policy related issues in the space, I think really, really also got me interested in.At TRM labs, it's sort of like we sit in this sort of intersection, because I think we obviously believe very firmly in the potential and the growth of this new crypto economy, but at the same time, sort of understand that trust layer, anti-money laundering national security is critical infrastructure for it. And that intersection that we're going to be talking about today is really sort of where I see the most work that can be done.Amira (03:19):Yeah. I think that's incredibly important to remember that trust is really important to make sure that the space thrives. Sigal, I'm curious about your crypto origin story. Tell us how you got into it and why you're so excited about it.Sigal (03:31):When I was at Treasury, my job was very much a global job, so I would travel all over the world. In those travels, I would often meet with senior government officials from heads of state on down, central bankers, CEOs of banks, et cetera. And along the way, it became increasingly clear to me for a number of different reasons that our banks, US banks had massively de-risked all over the world. It became clear to me because in so many different countries, particularly in the developing world, in emerging markets, in so many different countries these senior officials and CEOs of banks would ask me if I could help them get access to US correspondent banking. We really studied to look at it and study it. And the trend is clear. Like if you start looking from 2012 to today, just as one example, the number of US correspondent, global correspondent relationships is very, very much on the decline.And so when I left Treasury, this became like an issue that I was very passionate about. How do we get great financial infrastructure and companies out of the US and elsewhere to be able to provide a variety of financial services in the developing world, in emerging markets, where in my opinion, in many respects, we had left them high and dry. And I came to the conclusion personally, that the only way we were going to do that was through disruptive financial technologies. And so I decided to find a place where I could pursue that passion. Along the way, I met our founder, Micky Malka, who has founded Ribbit along with Nick Shalek and some others about 10 years ago. I very quickly understood that really the mission of Ribbit is to change the world of finance and to do so exactly in this way through disruptive financial technologies that we're going to open up access to many, many more people in a much more efficient way all over the world.And so a week later, Micky called me and asked if I was open to having a conversation about joining Ribbit. It was definitely a road less traveled for a former undersecretary, but it was a super exciting path to go down.Amira  (05:36):I want to stay back on the beat that you mentioned about the drop of US correspondent banking all over the world. It would be helpful if you describe what exactly does that mean? What is a correspondent bank and why were you concerned about that as an undersecretary of Treasury? Why is that important to you?Sigal (05:54):For many reasons. First of all, correspondent banking, it basically allows banks all over the world in part to get access to US dollar accounts among other things. And when you don't have that correspondent banking relationship, when you're being de-risked, there's just less access to the US financial infrastructure in many different ways, which means a lot of things. One of the things that it means is that if you think about our various sort of tools of financial leverage, we're seeing that play out right now in Russia, right? Where sanctions has become a major tool of national security. But if you're issuing a sanction in a country or a region that has very little touch points with the US financial infrastructure, then that economic leverage no longer actually really works, or it's less likely to work. It's more complicated than that.Also, the US traditionally has been the exporter rate of democracy and American values. We have always prided ourselves in innovation and being like a center for ingenuity. And again, when you don't have US capital or those kinds of relationships all over the world, I think that's not only really to the detriment of the US, but also to the detriment of people all over the world. And then they're just going to go to alternatives. And that's definitely happening as well.Amira  (07:14):One of the things that we've chatted about before is, it's not just a whole for US national security, but there's a bunch of people out there who when US banks aren't abroad, they're still looking for financial services. One of the interesting things about crypto is it offers that.Amira (07:29):Sigal, I know you have a really personal story of why crypto and access to financial services are important to you. Now I was wondering if you could tell us a bit about that and why this industry resonates personally.Sigal (07:39):Yeah, so it's really in part because my parents are both Holocaust survivors. During the Holocaust, they were in hiding in a part of Poland that is now Ukraine. They were kids. So they were separate, but they happened to be relatively close to Lviv. And the only way at the time that my dad, for example, could have ate, had access to any food, was my grandfather would go out in the middle of the night and he would steal potatoes. Once he stole a pig ear and brought it to my dad and my dad said "It's not kosher dad, I can't eat this." And my grandpa said, "No, it's the only way for you to get nourishment." So when I think about, I imagine what would've happened back then if this technology existed and they had access to a phone and they had relatives far away who could actually send them some value that they could use to barter for food, something like that was just totally impossible back then. You couldn't get anything from your family members who were in another country.Actually when I was at Treasury, there was somebody who had brought this idea to me of being able to use crypto to provide humanitarian aid, for example, to refugees in Syria. And I thought it was a really fascinating concept. And of course, it's so prescient today because the crypto community, including very much the Solana community, has really stepped up and used crypto working with the Ukrainian government to do exactly what we couldn't do in the forties '40s, which is to provide aid to the government in their fight for freedom, to help people get access to food, medical supplies, and elsewhere. And for many reasons, we could, I know, get into. I don't think banking is really necessarily set up to provide that kind of access in that way. It's too difficult. It's too complicated. Our banks don't operate in those parts of the world often where people really need that assistance. But crypto is global. It's everywhere where you can get access to it. In many other respects, it's just like a really groundbreaking innovation.Amira (09:31):It's kind of amazing, I mean, how much history repeats itself and how much access to these tools they were needed 80 years ago, they're needed today. Ari, I remember you telling me an example of how the US government I think, maybe it wasn't, was able to get aid into Venezuela directly using crypto. I'd love it if you could tell us a little bit more about that example.Ari (09:51):I think that was Sigal's story so I'm going to give her that one.Sigal (09:56):Okay. Well, this actually happened after I left Treasury, but I think it's also incredible. So when we had very heavy sanctions on Venezuela because of Maduro and what he was doing in that country, when we had the sanctions program, I made sure, or at least when I oversaw it, I made sure that in the Venezuela context we had the most forward leaning general license for humanitarian aid in particular that we had ever had before. I basically told our team like, "Everything that's ever been on the cutting room floor, we need to put it in this program because we need to help people who were literally starving to get access to aid." The other challenge was that it was very, very difficult for the US government to get anything resembling humanitarian aid into the country. I mean, literally, there were shiploads of stuff that the US government had sent and Maduro wouldn't allow it in or accept it.I will say that even though we had these very forward leaning general licenses, NGOs would come to us, to me and to Ari, I had a call that Ari will remember at the state department where these NGOs would say, "Look, we know you've got this general license, but the banks were all de-risking us. They won't allow us to continue." And I said at the time, "Well, tell them to call me. I mean, this is why we had that such a forward leaning general license>" but banks are just very risk averse in that way.And so fast forward, actually after I left Treasury, what was the one way that the state department working with Treasury and I think with Airtm and maybe with Circle, they were able to get USDC to help something like 60,000 or 80,000 doctors and nurses who are fighting on the front lines of COVID in Venezuela. Again, it's just like Ukraine. It's another really amazing use case where our banks weren't able necessarily, maybe some did, but many weren't able to get humanitarian aid in. But boom, instantly you could send it in and you could account for it because it's transparent, so you can audit it. You can make sure that if it lands in the wrong hands, that they can't use it. So it's a really incredible tool to allow access to, again, just like Solana is doing to allow access to a very fast payment system or a transfer of value for humanitarian purposes while also ensuring, helping to ensure at least, that it's used for the right reasons.Ari (12:14):I think what's so interesting is there's this narrative that crypto with these sort of qualities, decentralized permission list, cross border value transfer at the speed of the internet, somehow it's only used by illicit actors. But the fact is those are the qualities that allow it to sort of move outside of traditional financial systems to provide aid to people that would otherwise not have access to it. And I think this Ukraine moment in this really horrific situation is this incredible example of how communities, decentralized communities have developed in order to support a resistance movement in a government. I mean, Zelensky talks about Twitter being a tool of the resistance or a tool of Ukraine in this moment. Well, what you see happening on Twitter is communities developing to send cryptocurrency to support movements there.Admittedly, I think Sigal and I are often talking about sort of the financial crime and the money laundering risks and the things in sort of that space, but you do have to step back and say like, "We have to stop bad actors from using it because it's so good and there's so much power and promise of it to do good." I do think we're having sort of a watershed moment in Ukraine where you're having this sort of global event where we're seeing hundreds of millions of dollars ultimately will flow to Ukraine in cryptocurrency and really arguably sort of the first maybe use case at scale of what the power of this technology can do. I think it's an exciting moment. Obviously, it's a moment you never wanted to see, but I think this will be an example that will be able to use as to why this technology has so much promise.Sigal (13:47):Yeah. And I would say just to add to that really quickly, what I like to talk about when I'm talking to policy makers and regulators, et cetera, is that you have to stop looking at everything through the lens of risk. Risk is important. We want to mitigate risk, but really what you need to do is start looking at the opportunity and how this technology will enable so much opportunity. Because what we have today are a bunch of developers, innovators, builders, dreamers, right? Who are literally thinking about how to build out a more efficient financial infrastructure for the future that many more people ultimately will be able to access and use.That part of the infrastructure that deals with illicit finance and investor protection, that's being built too. So you can do those things really in parallel and therefore really drive out. In many ways more successfully than what we have in traditional finance, the illicit part of it as what we're seeing is like the vast, vast majority of people in crypto, they're just builders. They want to grow new things whether it's NFTs, games, payments, access, Ukraine, et cetera.So if you only look at things as a regulator from the perspective of risk, then you're never going to let anything grow. You really have to start talking about how to use this technologies as a great opportunity, including one of the reasons that I came into this space, right? Which is because I thought like this is this great opportunity to build out potentially much better financial infrastructure, which many, many more people will be able to access in the future. And if a portion of that remains in the United States, then the United States will be able to continue to be a center of financial innovation for years to come. If it doesn't, that's a different story.Amira (15:29):A lot of folks in the audience have never actually been in your shoes or anywhere close to it. I want to take a second to dig into sort of like that Carrie Mathison type stuff, which is like, let's look behind the shroud and see what it looks like to walk into your desk at Treasury every morning and understand what's coming past your desk from the risk perspective. Let's help figure out why regulators might be so concerned and help listeners understand what it was like to track down bad actors when you were in Treasury. So what did that look like for traditional finance specifically? What would you see? What does the process look like? How do you start your days even?Sigal (16:06):I used to start my day every day with an intel briefing. Basically with a briefing, where I would learn about all the potential terrible things, terrible things around the world that were happening and potential terrible things that could happen. So when you're in a job whose title is terrorism and financial intelligence, that's just the way your day is going to start. You're constantly thinking about how to protect not only Americans, but people all over the world from bad actors. So that's how you start. Literally, the framing of your day really starts with hearing about bad stuff that could potentially happen. And then in many respects, you said about your day in part to ensure that that bad stuff doesn't actually come into place. There are all kinds of different ways in which that happens.Another big part of my job was also to think about how do we reform, how do we provide much more guidance to the private sector which we did really with the FinCEN guidance in 2019 and in lots of different ways through our sanctions programs, through advisories that we issued to help the private sector also work with us to better protect themselves against being abused by bad actors.Amira (17:15):What does it actually look like when you're stopping bad actors? So you talk on sort of vagueness, but think about a case where maybe you had to take traditional tools of finance to stop a bad actor and what that process looks like. And then how does that actually contrast when you're thinking about a crypto bad actor? What are the differences in that process?Ari (17:32):One thing that we did at Treasury and at DOJ when I was in AUSA is you put together great teams and you reached out to all kinds of different pieces of the inner agency, the executive branch. So when we were prosecuting a case, we would want to ensure that we had a team of the best IRS CI agents and HSI and FBI. It was very similar at Treasury, right? I mean, if you were going to do a sanctions' designation on North Korea for example, you would want to ensure that you had the right policy people in the room from TFFC, and that you'd have the right intelligence from OIA, that you'd have exactly the right subject matter experts from OFAC on sanctions and FinCEN on money laundering and financial crime. And you would put them all together. And I think this is what, why Sigal was frankly so successful, is that you basically would reach out to teams of subject matter experts. And you'd put these teams together and they would inform great policy.I think one thing that sometimes is missing is that there's this sense that sort of like from the private sector that the government doesn't know what it's doing and this sense from the government that the private sector just has a certain agenda. I really do think at the end of the day, some of the best subject matter experts in the world are in both places. When you have those public-private partnerships, you're going to have much, much more success. So to me, it really is about putting together great teams of subject matter experts. I think we're seeing that today quite frankly. I mentioned North Korea.For example, you have this hack of the Ronin, Axie infinity blockchain a few weeks ago. And very, very quickly, Treasury essentially identified Lazarus group, a state actor from North Korea as having engaged in that attack. I'm not there anymore. Sigal's not there anymore. But what I imagine happened is they put together teams of experts from those different places who were using blockchain analytics tools to watch the flow of funds in that attack. And then you saw the designation, the sanction of a specific address for the first ever time associated with Lazarus group. And then you saw those funds flow to three other addresses, and immediately you saw those addresses sanctioned. And then you saw those funds flow through mixing services, which are basically exchanges on blockchains that mix funds and send them out, sort of clean the other side. And you saw those funds flow through a mixer called Blender.io that was ultimately designated sanctioned by OFAC.So again, while we're not there anymore, when I see these actions, I sort of picture a skiff, a secure facility within Treasury a few steps from where Sigal and I sat. I picture this group of true subject matter experts sitting around and laying out game planning, these types of actions. I think that's as inside baseball as I could do here. But I do think that like the key is great teams, and we were always very lucky to work with great teams.Sigal (20:22):Speaking of which, I was also really smart to bring brilliant people to work with me in my front office. And of course, Ari was very much at the center of that. We're in war mode all the time at Treasury, right? You're always dealing with really bad actors.Ari (20:40):I picture Sigal running when I think of Sigal, in heels down.Sigal (20:45):Clicking.Ari (20:45):And I remember actually ended up buying shoes that had sort of sneaker styles soles on the bottom because you were so constantly running up and down the hallways of these marble floors, because that's exactly what it was. You were always in a rush. It was always because the work you were doing was important.Sigal (21:01):I lost a lot of shoes that way. One thing I will say when Ari's talking about Lazarus, the first time that I really understood the power of blockchain analytics and blockchain technology was actually when we had sanctioned a big network. I think it was the first time we sanctioned... I actually included wallet addresses. Literally within a day, maybe it was that same day, I don't even remember, Chainalysis had put out a piece that literally identify all the different addresses that were linked to the ones that we had sanctioned so that people could very, very quickly know what to stay away from, like what was really bad news and actually protect themselves from interacting. Ideally, we could freeze funds.I remember at the time saying to a different senior advisor, Leah Bressack, like, "Yes, this is what we want industry to do. We don't ever see this kind of analysis from the banking industry." And that was really in part because that capability doesn't exist in the same way. I mean, sure, we saw lots of SARS and sophisticated SARS from banking, but for somebody, a Chainalysis or now TRM to go out and very quickly publish reports much more quickly than we may have been able to do that really helped immediately track, detect, and deter illicit activity was really quite extraordinary.Ari (22:25):Yeah. I mean, it seems so obvious to probably most of your audience and certainly to us, but the ability to follow the money to watch financial flows in cryptocurrency is extraordinary compared to the traditional financial system. I mean Sigal and I both cut our teeth as prosecutors doing bulk cast smuggling cases and networks of hawalas and shell companies and Russian real estate and London and high value art, right? There's no TRM or Chainalysis for those things. Those are very hard. And in crypto you can follow the funds with great financial crime investigators at US law enforcement and globally can follow the funds using these kinds of tools in ways that were unimaginable before. So yes, you can certainly move money faster in larger amounts in many respects, but you have tremendous visibility. I think a lot of times that's missing still even from the conversations around sort of fraud and financial crime in crypto.Amira (23:22):So let me push on both points because I think this is really textured and no one knows more about this than you two, I think. So there are two people that might push back on what you just said. One is, I would say the folks that I think are especially concerned about crypto's usage for money laundering. Those people might say, "Yeah, but you're seeing the rise of privacy focused chains, of blending services, these things just make it impossible to obscure the movement of money. It's only a matter of time before we see these things succeed." And so maybe the technology's working for us now, but you're the first to say that this tech is early. How are we going to be able to catch terrorists and oligarchs once stuff advances?Ari (24:02):Yeah. No, it is still a little bit sort of a whack-a-mole. But it always has been in sort of the cat and mouse game between law enforcement and bad actors. I will say that so many of the big crypto investigations over the last few years involve mixing services, they involve privacy coins. Law enforcement ultimately was able to make those investigations using a combination of blockchain analytics like TRM, like Chainalysis, but then just great police work, off chain police works, subpoenas and search warrants, putting together the pieces.Amira (24:30):Is there an example that you can go into on that front?Ari (24:33):Yeah. I would say the Bitfinex case is a tremendous example actually. So I mean, essentially what you had there was a 2016 hack of an exchange where the money just sat there in a wallet. And then all of a sudden you started to see it move over the course of years across blockchains.Amira (24:49):And for background, for folks who aren't familiar, tell us what the broad strokes, the Bitfinex hack.Ari (24:54):Sure. Yeah, so really just that until recently, right? It was at the time one of the largest crypto hacks. About $70 million of Bitcoin was stolen from the Bitfinex exchange. A hacker breached these cybersecurity and stole about $70 million in Bitcoin. That money basically sat on an account for a while and then started to move in these individuals. They basically used every office station technique in the book, from mixers to privacy coins, to dark net markets and automating transactions which means you programmatically move funds across blockchains in order to obfuscate. Well, ultimately law enforcement used blockchain analytics tools to trace and track those funds through mixers and dark net markets. And ultimately, to be able to seize what grew to be about $4.2 billion, the largest seizure in US history, ultimately sees those funds.What's so interesting about crypto, and I think Sigal made this point earlier, is the blockchain is forever. So you don't just have to be ready for whatever the analytics tools and whatever the investigation tools is when you do the hack and when you start to launder funds. You have to worry about what it's going to look like five years down the road, what the technology is going to look like. Because law enforcement was able to follow those funds across years and across blockchains, ultimately actually arresting a couple in New York city a couple of months ago and charging them with laundering the largest seizure in US history. So there are definitely powerful, anonymity enhancing tools out there, but I will say that law enforcement is still making a lot of these cases.Sigal (26:38):Yeah, I would just add. I mean, like in this very early days, still nascent technology, the reason that some of the largest seizures of illicit assets in history has come from crypto is not because there's more illicit activity in crypto. For all of the reasons that Ari just mentioned, it's just in many respects easier to trace and ultimately to disrupt than what you have when people move all kinds of assets through shell companies and like all sorts of different parts of the world. That's really important because if you just look at the headlines and you say "Bitfinex, largest money laundering seizure in history," then you may just jump to like, "Oh, of course, because it was crypto." But no, people are just using crypto for bad things. It's really because law enforcement now with blockchain analytic firms, et cetera, and prosecutors have all these amazing tools at their disposal.Silk Road was another example. I mean there was a seizure last year or the year before of a billion dollars worth of, I think it was Bitcoin, that traced all the way back to maybe the earlier days of Silk Road. And boom! All of a sudden, money moved and they were able to pounce. I mean, frankly, if you're a bad actor, I would say as more of these cases are like coming to a fruition, stay away from crypto. There's a very decent chance you're going to get caught.There's also this narrative that I think has largely tamped down, but there was a narrative that crypto was going to be used on mass for sanctions evasion in the Russia context. And for a number of different reasons, I just don't think that, and I think Ari would probably agree, that's just not going to be the case. It's not that it couldn't be used for some, but Russia has been very good at money laundering for a very long time through things like real estate and shell companies and all kinds of different mechanisms that we've investigated for many, many years. With crypto, there isn't like the liquidity to move assets at the volume or scale that they would need to do that. Plus, if they try to, boom, the TRMs and Chainalysis and law enforcement kind of actors would likely be able to, at some point, quickly detect it, plus you have all these regulated exchange who have done really a terrific job working with law enforcement to be able to help trace and track and disrupt this activity.Ari (29:06):The only thing I would just kind of add to that, I think Sigal makes a great point at the end there in particular around compliance. I think there's this sort of sense that, "The wild west" is what you hear thrown around in terms of sort of the regulatory landscape. And at least on what we're talking about today, sort of that AML national security space, look, crypto businesses that operate in the United States are treated as like any other money service business for purposes of this. When you're looking at sort of the large exchanges where so much of the liquidity is today, they have robust compliance controls in place. They have compliance officers, they have policies and procedures. They use tools like TRM and Chainalysis in order to monitor transactions. This is not the wild west when it comes to stopping sanctions evasion when it comes to stopping bad guys.Ari (29:51):I mean, look, I think the reality is, there is certainly illicit activity occurring in crypto, but honestly, illicit activity occurs in any thriving financial system. Bad actors would not want to use it if it wasn't working, that's certainly true of cash. That's certainly true of sort of anything else. And as we see the growth of this economy, we're going to see more illicit activity just by the nature of it. But as an overall percentage, it's going to remain very, very low because I think as Sigal mentioned, it's not a great way to launder funds. It's not a great way for illicit actors to move money because we're watching it all the time. It's not just blockchain analytics and law enforcement. I mean, the coolest thing is when you jump on some of these Discords or on Twitter and you watch these super sleuths and parts of these different communities develop that are in these like open source tools that are following the funds in a hack. There is a self-policing element too, in this community that has never existed before when it comes to sort of following the money, watching financial flows.Amira  (30:50):I think the headline from this episode's going to be advice from former Treasury officials, if you're a terrorist financeer, don't use blockchain.Ari (30:57):100%. Never use crypto. Yeah.Amira (30:59):This has flown by, and I feel like I have a million more things I could talk to you both about. But in our last couple minutes, maybe any advice you have for your peers who are in your shoes today, talking about sort of the growth of this new industry. What would you tell them? What do you wish you could whisper in their ear? Or maybe you've already whispered in their ear.Sigal (31:14):Look, what I say is, number one, you have to interact with the technology. You have to meet the entrepreneurs, the developers, the founders, to really understand what's being built. I mean, I had amazing folks around me in the government, but there's nothing to teach me to talk to me about this stuff. But there's nothing like interacting with someone like Anatoly or what have you to really see and envision what the future can look like with this infrastructure. So if you really want to understand what's happening, get out there, interact with the technology if you can. There's all kinds of ethical restrictions that don't allow enough people to be able to do that, but there should be mechanisms to allow you to interact with the technology, number one.Sigal (31:55):And number two, be open minded. Learn what's happening, what can the future look like, why do we think ultimately, why are there so many of us who've left government who are investing so much of our time and energy in these technologies because we actually believe that it's quite possible that this is where the future of finance lies. That's number one. Number two, if you're looking at how to regulate it, don't just put your mind around all the old tools that you know that you've come to rely on for the last century, right? This is a fundamentally new technology. It's transparent in a way that we haven't seen before. It's open source. There's so many different attributes of the technology that can help mitigate risk. And so be open to fresh new frameworks that potentially in my opinion not only, let's say on the AML side, can continue to drive illicit activity out, but really, really importantly can bring many more people around the world access to the financial ecosystem.There's 1.7 billion people, at least as of 2017, who didn't have access to banking. We got to solve that problem. It's not enough to go to inter agency or multilateral meetings all over the world and talk about it in five minute interventions, which is often what happens in these meetings. We got to really find the technology that can help solve those. And then US people, they need to really focus on how can they maintain that leadership. It's not going to be by calling things wild west and it's not going to be by only seeing things through the lens of old boxes and old frameworks that were built up when we were using the telegram. I mean, not the app Telegram, like those telegrams that they used in the '30s. And then also, perhaps not the same frameworks that we were using when we were still using the rotary phone. I mean, this is fundamentally new technology. Let's understand it and regulate it in a way that makes sense in light of the technology and allow it to experiment and grow so that we can build something out really together that can be truly extraordinary.Ari (34:13):I think that's so beautifully said. I share a lot of those sentiments. I've been lucky to have really the coolest jobs that you can ever have, so don't take this personally, Sigal. But I have the coolest job that I've ever had now. I think it's because I've just gotten to sort of engage with this incredible community of builders and innovators. And they all understand, I think, uniquely that we're building essentially a new financial system. I think it's so important that regulators sort of also embrace that moment, that this doesn't have to be the same. We don't have to do what we've done before. We can work with the technology. We can work with these builders sort of build something new. I think Solana is an amazing example of this because the focus on speed and the focus on sort of that incredibly strong community of NFT builders and gaming, and really I think all the things that are starting to develop to me are like really the future not just of kind of the technology, but really also compliance and regulation.The metaverse is not going to be a place that is entirely unregulated. It's going to be regulated, but it needs to be done in a super smart pro innovation kind of way. I'm so hopeful that these communities that I feel like I have been lucky enough to engage with over the last year or so, that regulators and policy makers are also engaging with them. So yeah, no, it's an incredibly exciting time. I don't know, I get up every morning kind of feeling that. I think it's sort of like, how do we inspire regulators and policy makers to kind of feel that same way.Amira (35:39):I'm revved up just hearing you about talk about this. Let's go.Ari (35:41):Let's go.Amira (35:41):All right.Ari (35:45):Sigal and Ari, thank you both so, so much for your time. We really appreciate it, and in giving us the inside view of what it's like to be a regulator dealing with these issues. I think I've learned a lot and I think our listeners have too. Thanks a bunch.Sigal (35:56):Thank you so much. And thanks for bringing us back together.Ari (35:59):Thank you so much. I loved it. Thank you so much.Sigal (36:02):Thank you. 

Ilyas old life and his new normal collide when he tries to sources toys for his sons birthdays.Oksana continues to come to terms with a Russian home invasion in Hostomel.And Seva receives a letter of gratitude from the front line after using online crowd funding to secure vital military equipment.BACKGROUNDIlyas is an IT specialist and married father who fled from Kyiv to Lviv shortly after the war started. Right now his wife and two young sons are taking refuge in Poland.As of May 2022, Ilyas is back living in the family apartment in Kyiv and working, in part, for the Ukrainian government on specialist projects.Oksana, 34, works in overseas education. She lives with her husband, Seva, in an apartment complex in central Kyiv and has remained in the Ukrainian capital since the war started. Many of Oksana's closest friends have left the country to begin new lives in Europe. Some may never return. She's determined to stay.Seva, 40, is a company CEO and husband to Oksana. Before the war, he travelled across Europe for business. Now, he makes regular supply drops of medical aid and rations to Ukrainian troops on the front line in Eastern Ukraine. He's originally from a small village near Dnipro.Ukraine War Diaries uses first-person audio, recorded on the ground in Ukraine, to give an intimate day-to-day perspective of life in a war zone.Week 9 diary entries were recorded using Wats App voice note and first published on the Ukraine War Diaries podcast feed. To follow this series when it broadcasts, on weekdays, subscribe to Ukraine War Diaries wherever you get your podcasts.From the producers of Sky News' multi-award winning series – StoryCast.CREDITSSeries Producer - Rob MulhernProduction Support/Editing - Paul Stanworth

Ilyas old life and his new normal collide when he tries to sources toys for his sons birthdays.Oksana continues to come to terms with a Russian home invasion in Hostomel.And Seva receives a letter of gratitude from the front line after using online crowd funding to secure vital military equipment.BACKGROUNDIlyas is an IT specialist and married father who fled from Kyiv to Lviv shortly after the war started. Right now his wife and two young sons are taking refuge in Poland.As of May 2022, Ilyas is back living in the family apartment in Kyiv and working, in part, for the Ukrainian government on specialist projects.Oksana, 34, works in overseas education. She lives with her husband, Seva, in an apartment complex in central Kyiv and has remained in the Ukrainian capital since the war started. Many of Oksana's closest friends have left the country to begin new lives in Europe. Some may never return. She's determined to stay.Seva, 40, is a company CEO and husband to Oksana. Before the war, he travelled across Europe for business. Now, he makes regular supply drops of medical aid and rations to Ukrainian troops on the front line in Eastern Ukraine. He's originally from a small village near Dnipro.Ukraine War Diaries uses first-person audio, recorded on the ground in Ukraine, to give an intimate day-to-day perspective of life in a war zone.Week 9 diary entries were recorded using Wats App voice note and first published on the Ukraine War Diaries podcast feed. To follow this series when it broadcasts, on weekdays, subscribe to Ukraine War Diaries wherever you get your podcasts.From the producers of Sky News' multi-award winning series – StoryCast.CREDITSSeries Producer - Rob MulhernProduction Support/Editing - Paul Stanworth

How do you arrange a wedding in a warzone? According to Ukrainian authorities nearly 4,000 couples tied the knot in the first 10 days after the invasion. BBC Ukrainian's Zhanna Bezpiatchuk has recently come back from Ukraine – where she met a couple who exchanged their vows as twin rockets hit the city of Lviv, in western Ukraine.   Videogames in the Arabic world Millions of people around the world play videogames and the industry is getting bigger and bigger. One company is capitalising on this growth. Based in Jordan, their speciality is 'localising' videogames; making them more suitable for Arab audiences. Hossam Fazulla has been covering this story for BBC Arabic.  Meet the Nigerian Spiderman   Environmentalist Jonathan Olakunle dresses up as a superhero to help clean up the streets and raise awareness about illegal waste dumping. BBC Africa's Joshua Akinyemi has spent a day with him. Afghan women lawyers Since the Taliban took over in 2021, women have been barred from working in the judiciary system, leaving thousands jobless and at risk. And whilst the Taliban government say women with legal claims can still go to court, some Afghan women say that their cases are better understood by female judges and lawyers. Shazia Haya from BBC Pastho has the story.   Bridgerton in India The latest season of the drama Bridgerton has had a mixed reception in India. Set in Georgian London, the series follows the aristrocratic Bridgerton family. The second series introduces an Indian family visiting London to find a match for their youngest daughter. Though popular among Indians it proved controversial - as the BBC's Meryl Sebastian in Delhi explains. Presenter: Faranak Amidi Producers: Alice Gioia, Caroline Ferguson, Rebecca Moore, Emily Naylor (Photo: Newly-weds Aliona and Boghdan. Credit: Marek Polaszewski)

Russia continues artillery attacks across northeast Ukraine, targeting border villages. Why Putin's invaders chose this strategy isn't clear. Meanwhile, Ukraine says its combat mission in Mariupol is over, with commanders at the massive Azovstal plant ordered to save the lives of their personnel. More than 260 people left the plant Monday, but some Ukrainian forces remain there, and efforts are underway to get them out. CNN correspondent Melissa Bell begins today's coverage in Lviv. To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy

More than 14 million people have been displaced by the war in Ukraine. At a shelter in Lviv (luh-VEEV), about 4,000 women and children have spent at least one night there since the start of the war.

On Thursday, February 24th, Russian military forces crossed the border into Ukraine and ended a peace that had existed in Europe since World War II. The war in Ukraine has, among many other tragedies, created a massive humanitarian crisis with the millions and millions of Ukrainian citizens that have fled the country in search of safety. For those that have stayed, daily life has been completely upended and their future was thrown into uncertainty. But there are still plenty of Ukrainians trying to carve out a living and maintain a sense of normalcy amidst the invasion. Our guest today is Alyona Mysko, founder of FuelFinance, a cloud-based financial service based in Ukraine. Alyona has relocated her headquarters from Kyiv to Lviv in order to avoid the worst of the assault, but she still finds herself being woken up by the sounds of air raid sirens. Listen in to this special episode as we cover everything from what it's like to run a company in a country at war, the decision to stay in Ukraine versus fleeing, and her plans for both the short term and long term as the war drags on.

Protests are growing across the country after the leak of a draft opinion from the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Plus, explosions are reported in several cities across Ukraine tonight including Kyiv and Lviv. Also, polls are about to close in Ohio where tonight's primary may test the influence of Trump on the Republican Party. To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy

In the western city of Lviv, the U.S. chargé d'affaires to Ukraine Kristina Kvien returned on Monday to the country for the first time since evacuating six weeks ago. Kvien joins Nick Schifrin to discuss new shipments of U.S. arms to Ukraine, sanctions against Russia and how the U.S. would define victory in the war. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Since Russia began waging war on the Ukraine in February 2022, over six million Ukrainians have fled the country while another seven million have relocated near the Western border. On today's exclusive edition of Family Talk, Rev. Franklin Graham, President of the Christian organization, Samaritan's Purse, describes the devastation of the war, having just returned from the Ukrainian city, Lviv. He explains to Dr. Tim Clinton that his ministry has set up two field hospitals, six medical clinics, and distributed over 450 tons of food. Thankfully, Samaritan's Purse has a relationship with 3,200 Ukrainian churches who are distributing the supplies. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/707/29

Since Russia began waging war on the Ukraine in February 2022, over six million Ukrainians have fled the country while another seven million have relocated near the Western border. On today's exclusive edition of Family Talk, Rev. Franklin Graham, President of the Christian organization, Samaritan's Purse, describes the devastation of the war, having just returned from the Ukrainian city, Lviv. He explains to Dr. Tim Clinton that his ministry has set up two field hospitals, six medical clinics, and distributed over 450 tons of food. Thankfully, Samaritan's Purse has a relationship with 3,200 Ukrainian churches who are distributing the supplies.

About 100 residents in Ukraine's port city of Mariupol on Sunday were freed and promised safe passage after being trapped for months in the basement of a steel plant with little access to clean air, food or water. This comes after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a U.S. delegation to meet with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. Nick Schifrin reports from Lviv. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

A federal judge strikes down the airline mask mandate, Russia hits Lviv with missile attacks and Ukrainians in Mariupol refuse to surrender, and crime is on the rise in Los Angeles's wealthier neighborhoods.

Tonight on the Last Word: At least seven people are killed in a Russian missile attack on Lviv. Also, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe says President Biden can liquidate Russia's foreign exchange reserved that's held in the U.S. and is worth tens of billions. Plus, a Trump-picked judge nixes the CDC plane and transit mask mandate. And a Tennessee nurse becomes the focus of an anti-vaccine conspiracy. Ali Arouzi, Ben Rhodes, Claire McCaskill, Eugene Robinson and Brandy Zadrozny also join Lawrence O'Donnell.

Nicolle Wallace discusses Russian strikes on Lviv as the battle for Donbas begins. Plus, the GOP's hypocrisy on aid to Ukraine, activists project a Ukrainian flag on the Russian embassy, and the experience of refugees in Poland.Joined by: Gen. Barry McCaffrey, Claire McCaskill, Ali Arouzi, Igor Novikov, David Jolly, Frank Figliuzzi, Miles Taylor, Rick Stengel, Ned Price, and Benjamin Wittes

Ukraine says seven people were killed in the city, which had largely escaped attack until now. Also: South Africa deploys thousands of troops to help with the rescue efforts in KwaZulu-Natal province where flooding and mudslides have killed more than 400 people, and China acknowledges for the first time that there have been deaths in the current coronavirus outbreak in Shanghai.

The U.S. mental health crisis and its connections to the New York subway shooting; Sweden and Finland consider NATO membership; Update from Lviv on the Russian war in Ukraine after Putin declared a “dead end” to peace negotiations. Get Democracy Now! delivered right to your inbox. Sign up for the Daily Digest: democracynow.org/subscribe