This Ukrainian Will Not Compete For Your Attention

Ukraine has seen an exodus of foreign journalists in the wake of the terrible conflict in the Middle East. But coverage of the war on this continent remains more crucial than ever. This week we talk to the writer Sasha Dovzhyk about what is happening in Ukraine right now, as well as Ukrainians' complicated feelings around the struggle for international attention. We're also talking about the corruption scandal rocking Portugal's government, and Greta Thunberg's fraught appearance at Amsterdam's huge climate protest. 

Sasha is the editor of the London Ukrainian Review. You can read her piece in the New York Times here and subscribe to her newsletter, Ukrainian Killjoy Dispatch, here.

The NRC piece on the climate movement's soul-searching over Palestine can be found here (in Dutch). And Aitor Hernández Morales’ excellent tweeting on the dramatic events in Portuguese politics can be found here. 

Thanks for listening. If you enjoy our podcast and would like to help us keep making it, we'd love it if you'd consider chipping in a few bucks a month at ⁠⁠patreon.com/europeanspodcast⁠⁠ (many currencies are available). You can also help new listeners find the show by ⁠⁠leaving us a review⁠⁠ or giving us five stars on Spotify. 

This week's Inspiration Station offerings: The Deepest Breath' on Netflix and the Spotify playlist of 'Le Guess Who?' festival in Utrecht (Katz’ top pick: Swedish Ethiopian band BITOI, combining vocals and bass heavily inspired by birdsong).

Producers: Katz Laszlo and Katy Lee

Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak

Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Katy: Can I say the thing? I haven't said it in ages.

Dominic: Go for it.

Katy: Welcome to the Europeans, the podcast about all things from around this little old continent of ours.

This is Katy in Paris.

Dominic: It's not just Katy in Paris, is it?

Katy: It’s also, as you can probably hear: Baby Lee in Paris.

Dominic: So nice to have you back on the normal show Katy… This is Dominic in Amsterdam. That's what I was meant to say, wasn't it? Sorry.

Katy: Yeah, well done.

Dominic: Haven't done this for a while and….

Katz: Katz also in Amsterdam, across the water, again.

Katy: Three of us this week.

Dominic: Four of us even.

Katz: Katy, you keep forgetting your baby.

Katy: Sorry, baby. It happens.

Dominic: I know people heard your voice on the only episodes, but this is the first time you're back with a normal episode since your maternity leave. And we're very happy to have you back, Katy.

Katy: Thank you. It's nice to be here. I mean, I should stress, I am sort of still half on maternity leave. I still literally have my hands very full of baby. But I figured that, you know, coming and chatting to you is something that I could do for a little bit each week, even if I'm not properly back at work yet.

Just don't expect me to be, like, super coherent, OK? That's totally fine.

Dominic: That's why we brought in the cavalry: Katz Laszlo to do a bit more of the research and explain some complicated things, to both of us.

Katy: I'm very much looking forward to being explained to… like imagine me in the role of like a really badly informed person who hasn't had time to keep up with everything, but I'm trying to get up to speed.

Dominic: I'm sure you'll do that very well.

Katz: So what have we got going this week?

Dominic: Well, we're currently in a moment when people are not talking or reading as much about the war in Ukraine as they were previously. This is, at least in part due to the horrors that are continuing to unfold in the Middle East. So this week we decided to try and find out what life is like in Ukraine right now. And to help us do that, we will be joined later on in the show by Dr Sasha Dovzhyk, a writer, researcher and curator from Ukraine who has spent a lot of time thinking about and writing on the topic of storytelling in war, and this week wrote a very moving piece in the New York Times about not wanting to fight for attention for Ukraine. It's a really fascinating conversation, so keep listening to hear what Sasha has to say a bit later on in the show.

But first, as always, it's time for…

Katy: Who has had a good week.

Dominic: Well, I'm giving a good week to the Climate March in Amsterdam, but with some caveats that may mean I end up renaming it Complicated Week.

Katz: Jolly

Katy: Bad week, complicated week.

Dominic: Bad week, complicated week. I just need to record a new Jingle for that. But let me start with the straightforward good week part. The annual climate march in Amsterdam was the largest climate march to ever take place in the Netherlands.

There was somewhere between 70,000 and 85,000 people marching on the streets for climate justice.

Katy: Wow, isn't that like most of the population?

Dominic: Oh, burn, she's back… I was actually one of those many people and it felt pretty powerful to be amongst this huge mass of citizens who want our leaders to do something about the climate emergency we find ourselves in.

Katz: Oh, I couldn't make it this year, but I heard Greta was in town.

Dominic: Yeah, she was. I was actually really excited to see her. And actually, it's not just because of the large numbers of people marching that I'm talking about the March today. Here comes the complicated bit. It's because of an incident involving Greta Thunberg that made international headlines. Earlier this week, a video of this incident was the most watched video on the BBC News website from all over the world. And the thing that caught everyone's attention was a man jumping onto the stage trying to wrestle the microphone out of the hands of Greta Thunberg. He got to the microphone and said, “I came here for a climate demonstration, not a political view”.

Katy: Wow, I totally missed this entire story.

Dominic: Sounds like you missed everything though, right?

Katy: I've been missing many things.

Dominic: Good for you. Enjoy it.

Katz: It's a funny statement, like at a protest. I didn't come here for a political opinion.

Katy: Right?

Dominic: Yeah, I also found it a bit of a funny statement.

Anyway, Greta reacted very calmly. She held on to the microphone quite tightly and simply asked him to calm down a few times whilst some young female activists helped pull him away, eventually joined by security guards who were actually surprisingly slow to react considering the world's biggest climate rockstar had been accosted on stage.

Katy: And that's kind of their entire job.

Dominic: Right?

It was really quite a powerful image to see this man come on and all these young women try and protect another young woman. I found it quite something to see.

Katy: But what was this political opinion that he didn't want to hear that made him jump on stage?

Dominic: Well, to explain it, probably I have to rewind a bit to before Greta came on. Greta's speech had been delayed by quite a while because there'd been some commotion on stage earlier in the program, when a young activist called Sahar Shirzad one of the winners of this PAX Dove Peace Prize this year in the Netherlands, she brought a young Palestinian woman on the stage with her called Sara. Sahar introduced Sara to the audience and said the organisers had not allowed Sara to speak, so she had decided to smuggle her onto the stage and give her the microphone during her allotted speaking time.

Katz: OK, so there's a suggestion that the Climate March organisers didn't want this to be a pro Palestine March.

Dominic: Yeah, that's what Sahar was implying. I can't verify what was happening in conversations behind the scenes, but the organisers have said to the press that Sahar was invited onto the stage to give a quote: “unifying speech about peace.” So the organisers were at least not expecting a speech about the terrible crisis in Gaza, which is what they got.

Sara, the Palestinian woman that Sahar had smuggled on stage, gave a speech in which she, amongst other things, accused Israel of ecological crimes such as uprooting hundreds of thousands of olive trees and the use of white phosphorus bombs. The organisers initially let her speak even though she wasn't on the programme, but things took a rather chaotic turn when she used a phrase which has for a long time caused controversy at Palestinian protests. The phrase: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.

Now I'm not going to go too deeply into whether or not this phrase should or should not be used today because to cover all the nuance and all the many different opinions we would be here for quite a while.

But in brief, many people say this phrase is anti-Semitic and that it is a call for the destruction of Israel, whilst many others refute that and argue that it is simply a call for Palestinians to be treated as free and equal to Israelis.

I'm sure listeners will have many different opinions about this and feelings, and I recommend you read up on where this phrase comes from. Use of the phrase is banned in Germany, but in the Netherlands it is actually allowed. A Dutch court ruled as recently as August that it can be used under freedom of expression laws, although our Green-Left mayor Femke Halsema said she still finds it unacceptable. And it seems that it was this phrase that made the organisers decide to switch off the microphone of Sara, the Palestinian activist who was speaking on the stage.

Katy: Hmm… I mean, how did the crowd respond to this?

Dominic: Well, I was quite far back in the crowd, so it was a bit confusing trying to work out what was going on when the microphone was turned off, but it felt tense and chaotic and very far away from the friendly climate march we'd all just been on. And of course, I'm not saying that marches should be fun always. But it was a big shift in mood.

There was a sizeable group near the front who started chanting, “Let her speak”. Many of them had Palestinian flags, but there were also people who were annoyed with the commotion and some people started to leave.

It was definitely messy and over the next 20 or 30 minutes it continued to be messy. The live stream screens were turned off. Greta was announced at one point, but didn't actually come on. Then a former Dutch Eurovision entrant, Jeangu Macrooy came on and tried to perform some songs whilst being heckled the whole time.

Katz: Strange interlude. 

Dominic: Yeah, I actually felt quite sorry for him. He did quite a good job at staying calm and trying to sing. Eventually, Greta did come on stage, and she came back with both Sahar and Sara, inviting them to finish their speeches. This time their microphones were not turned off, but they also didn't use the phrase “from the river to the sea” again.

But once Greta started speaking herself, that was when the man then jumped on stage. 

“Great: People on the front lines of the climate crisis have been experiencing the first hand consequences of it for decades now and they have been sounding the alarm. But we have not been listening. The people in power have not been listening.

Protestor: I come here for a climate demonstration, not a political view.”

Dominic: So it was pretty eventful. And it's obviously just an anecdote of one event that got quite messy. And messiness in complex situations of protest, with complicated, nuanced differences in political allegiances and different ways of expressing solidarity, are OK. But I did find myself walking away from it with a lot to process, especially in the context of the general election that's taking place in the Netherlands next week. One of the things that Sahar said at the end of her speech that I found very striking was, and forgive me for paraphrasing here, ‘make sure you vote for a party that cares about Palestinians. And by that I definitely don't mean the Green-Left or Labour Party.’

Katz: That's a huge statement at a climate March.

Dominic: Right? I mean, I guess that a significant minority of people in the march, if not a majority of them, were planning on voting for the joint Green-Left/Labour ticket.

And it just made me realise just quite how divided the left is in this country right now, especially when talking about Israel and Palestine. And this is not, of course, a problem that's unique to the Netherlands. We're seeing these splits repeated in different ways across huge swathes of Europe. But it was when she said this that from at least where I was standing, that's when I felt like she lost a lot of the crowd around me. 

Katy: So do you think the man who jumped on stage actually had quite a bit of support behind him then?

Dominic: Well. Actually, yes. I think most people didn't like how he did it. A fully grown man trying to grab a microphone off Greta Thunberg is not a good look, but there were clearly some people who seemed to be sharing his sentiment. But by no means everyone.

It is of course a risk that the coupling of the pro Palestine movement with the climate movement, albeit semi-unplanned, will have alienated some in this record-breaking crowd of marches.

There's a really interesting piece on exactly this topic in the Dutch newspaper NRC.

The journalist Camille Driessen collected reflections from some of the most prominent people at Extinction Rebellion, who co-organised the march, And the opinions even within Extinction Rebellion are really broad.

They range from people who say they will step away from extinction rebellion if the organization continues to align itself with the pro-Palestine movement. And people who are worried about it being a strategic error for the organization. To people who think that you have to look at climate justice in the broadest sense, Rosemarijn van ‘t Einde, one of the organization's spokespeople, said “Sunday was a March for climate and justice. The two go hand in hand because we strive for a livable future for everyone.”

She goes on to say that silence on this issue causes moral damage to the climate movement. 

And for some people that will be the decision they make, that it's more important to stick with what they believe in than to be strategic.

Katz: It's such a confusing moment. I feel like so many people walked away from that March just being having no idea what they were going to vote for.

Dominic: Yeah, it really is.

Chris Julian, who's one of the philosophers behind extinction rebellion, He seemed also to feel really mixed about it. He agrees that climate justice is linked to social justice and what he describes as the, quote, “large scale human rights violations and the unprecedented massacre in Gaza”.

But he also points out that there's an election next week and “we are only talking about that terrible war in the Middle East, but it should also be about the climate”.

And to go back to Greta briefly before I round up, she's also experiencing some serious blowback herself for her support for Palestine on Monday night this week, Fridays for Future Germany, the German branch of the organization which grew out of her school strike movement, distanced themselves from Greta and cut ties with the international branch of the organization. So I think you can probably understand why I think complicated week might be more appropriate than good week.

Katy: What was the Good week element again I've already forgotten?

Dominic: Loads of people got took to the streets to March for the climate 

Katy: and the Eurovision guy.

Dominic: And the Eurovision guy did a really good job.

Katy: Oh well, who has had a hopefully more straightforwardly good week Katz?

Dominic: Bad week 

Katy: Bad week.

Katz: It is bad week for Anónio Costa, the Portuguese Prime Minister who unexpectedly resigned on November 7th after police raided his official residence as well as several ministries.

Katy: I had not heard anything about this, so I'm really looking forward to being filled in.

Dominic: This is going to be Katie's wheelhouse for the next month.

Katz: I also haven’t heard that story.

Katy: Well, that's kind of what this podcast is for, right? Filling people in.

Dominic: Yeah, it's true.

Katy: But most of our listeners are a little bit better informed than I am right now. Tell me everything.

Katz: So, bit of background. Costa is the head of the Socialists and he was serving his third term. He's had a long and successful political career. He was the mayor of Lisbon and it basically seems like he's just been getting more and more popular for years now. In national government, his party won more power with each term, and the socialists were actually governing with an absolute majority this third term, so they didn't even have to negotiate to form a coalition.

Dominic: Rare luxurious position for Social Democrats in Europe.

Katz: I know, unheard of.

Katy: Why is he so popular?

Katz: Lots of different reasons, but a major legacy of him and his party is that they reversed a lot of the post financial crisis austerity measures. So one of his main election points was to increase the disposable income for the working and the middle class, and that hit a lot of people because it was a really challenging financial time just before he was voted in. He has also seen the country through several enormous and very deadly forest fires and not without criticism, but he has upheld stability and his sustained popularity means that Costa was internationally a sort of hopeful beacon in the European left because he's like this very steady, long-standing left wing head of government.

Dominic; OK, but sounds like that stability has passed. If he was raided this week, why was he raided by the police?

Katz: Yeah, it was pretty dramatic. There are not a lot of publicly released details yet. So we don't really know that much about, you know exactly why this is happening, but it's around the licensing for a couple of really big projects and the allegation is that several top politicians may have used their power to unblock or skip over some of the necessary permissions for these projects. One of the projects is a lithium mine, which is a crucial raw material for electric car batteries. And the supply of lithium is a pretty determining factor for the EU to meet its climate goals. So most lithium comes from outside of the EU. It's imported from Australia and China and South America, but the EU is obviously really keen to have its own supplies so that they're not as dependent.

So having lithium is like really good news for Portugal politically, and Portugal does have lithium, but it's not very pure, it needs to be refined quite heavily and lots of people have argued it's cheaper to just import it from elsewhere. And the mining it really has big ecological impact, so locally there's some resistance. So critics were sceptical that it would be possible for these government projects to get the necessary permissions. But they did.

Another project was this Green Hydrogen Plan and then a data centre attached to that. There are less details about those, but they're heavily connected to the EU Green Deal. The allegations are the same alleged corruption, influence peddling and malfeasance used to unblock these permissions. 

So the public prosecutor started looking into these deals, and they called the investigation Operation Influencer, [LAUGHTER] which I love. I love that we're now all in on that joke.

But they juggle quite a lot of evidence, enough to send 140 detectives into 17 residences of various people and politicians, including Costa's residence. They also wiretapped several top politicians in Costa’s government who have now been accused of this corruption.

Dominic: Wiretapping politicians? Ooof. 

Katz: So five people have been arrested and one of the people who's been arrested is Kostas, chief of staff. So that's not a good look, obviously. And there are four others who he also works very closely with. But the nail in the coffin was that some of those wiretapped conversations between these arrested people suggested that politicians were acting illegally, with the permission of Antonio Costa. So a few hours later, Costa immediately resigned. He said that he was innocent. And he had nothing weighing on his conscience, but also that the gravity of the charges driving this investigation were incompatible with the dignity of the office of Prime Minister. So for him it was impossible to carry on. A few days later, he also said that he was embarrassed to learn that Raiders had found tens of thousands of euros in envelopes in his residence in the office of the Chief of staff, who was arrested. So that was pretty embarrassing. 

Katy; Envelopes of cash never a good look.

Katz: I know. It’s so heisty.

Dominic: They're running the government, not Ocean's 11.

Katz: OK, but then plot twist. On Sunday, it was leaked by one of the lawyers of the defendants of the case. That the public prosecutor had misinterpreted the wiretapping They had confused Antonio Costa, the PM, with another Antonio Costa.

Dominic: What?

Katz: What?

Katz: That Antonio Costa is the economic minister.

Katy: No way. Fantastic.

Katz: Now, this was just in one of the conversations. It's very possible that Antonio Costa, the PM, is on other wiretapped conversations. We don't know yet. But it is pretty embarrassing for the public prosecutors, and it's not really clear yet now how much evidence there is that Antonio Costa, the PM, is involved in this case.

Dominic: Wow.

Katz: So we're just going to have to wait and find out.

Dominic: These Portuguese politicians need to come up with some different names.

Katy: So I'm actually right now on the Wikipedia page for Antonio Costa disambiguation, because I wondered if this was just like the most common name there is in Portugal. And there are quite a few, including Antonio Miguel Costa, the volleyball player. There's like a bunch of sports people, hockey players, Brazilian footballers and a serial killer.

Katz: Wow, many Antonio Costa's. So all of a sudden the Portuguese people are just like watching this enormous telenovela unfold in my government. But The thing is, the Portuguese legal system is notoriously slow, so people aren't really expecting much clarity on this Costa case for at least a year. It is a big stain on Costa's career, and it's also bad news for the European left, because he was almost at the end of his time as PM - this was probably going to be his last term - and he was being considered as a pretty likely candidate as the next president of the European Council, and that would have been a major position for the European Socialist to gain control over. In his resignation speech, he described this moment as the end of a chapter in his life, and some are wondering if he was talking about the end of his political career.

And it's also not a good look for the green movement because a lot of these projects are sustainable energy projects, right? Another, internationally acclaimed legacy of Costa's government is that Portugal has been a real leader in this energy transition. More than 50% of the National Grid was supplied with renewable energy earlier this year, and there's some concern that international investors will be much less keen to pour money into green energy after all of this chaos.

In one of Costa's speeches in the past week, he emphasized ‘it's important that international investors remain confident about investing in both Portugal and in sustainable energy projects’. So it might be just a political move on his part to sort of win some sympathy as someone with Portugal's best interests at heart. But regardless of his motives, we will have to hope that this doesn't sway investment in a country that's really been an example in speeding up the energy transition. New elections will be held on the 10th of April 2024, and in the meantime the government hadn't actually finished making the national budget. And so it's been decided that that's so important that Antonio Corsa and his government will carry on in a caretaker role until the new elections to finish that off.

Dominic: Well, Antonio Costa can feel better by looking towards the UK this week and seeing that David Cameron, Former Prime Minister David Cameron, is back in the cabinet as Foreign Secretary despite being involved in a rather shady financial scandal in 2021. So hey.

Katy: There's nothing you can't come back from.

Katz: Apparently, which David Cameron are we talking about? [LAUGHTER]

Dominic; We haven't had a chance to thank our new Patreon supporters for about a month now because we were busy making a mini series about oat milk, which you should go back and listen to if you haven't yet because it's really good. Well done, Katz.

Katy: Well done, Katz.

Katz: Well done everyone.

Dominic: But it means I have an amazingly long list of new Patreon supporters to thank this week, so as always, I will try my best to do it in one breath.

Thank you to XXX for increasing their monthly amount.

Katy: Well done. I would clap if I wasn't holding a baby around.

I'll do the clapping.

Dominic: We really couldn't do this without you all, so thank you all so much. In all honesty, we are having quite some budget difficulties right now and we may have to be slimming down our ambitions a bit if we don't find more support. So thank you all so much for keeping this podcast afloat. It's really quite moving that so many of you are willing to part with a bit of your well-earned cash to keep us going. We would be so grateful if you would consider joining them. If you don't support us already, you can donate as little as €2.00 a month, and you can choose to pay all in one go for the year if you like, making it the perfect Christmas present for your friend who listens to this show, yes, 

Katz: What more could you possibly ask for?

Dominic: Head to patreon.com/europeanspodcast.

Katy: Thanks everyone.

Katy: Even if you've been living in a domestic cocoon like me, the horrific war that is raging in the Middle East right now would have been on your mind. And an uncomfortable thought that I've been left with while I've been scanning news websites at 3:00 in the morning as I try and feed my baby, is the fact that there is also another terrible war still raging closer to home, but it's been slipping lower and lower down those news websites. And I guess, you know, that is unsurprising to some extent. That is kind of how the news works. But it's also really troubling. It feels like even here in Western Europe we are in danger of forgetting about what is happening on our own continent in Ukraine. Like there's only so much media attention to go around or something. And honestly, I didn't know what to make of these thoughts. And then here at the Europeans, we read a piece that was published in the New York Times last week by Sasha Dovzhyk. She is a lecturer in Ukrainian literature and the editor of the London Ukrainian Review. She's been living between Ukraine and the UK for a while now, but she's actually due to be moving back to Ukraine full time shortly, and the article was called “As a Ukrainian, I refuse to compete for your attention.’

And it's about exactly those questions about Sasha's complicated feelings, about just how exhausting it is feeling like you need to constantly remind the world about what is happening in your country. Because what happens if the world stops caring about Ukraine and just lets Putin do whatever the hell he wants? The consequences of that are dire for everyone. Sasha put it really beautifully. And so this week she felt like an excellent person to invite onto the show. We gave her a ring to talk about all of this, as well as what is happening in Ukraine right now. 

INTERVIEW

Katy: I wanted to start by asking you about the media presence in Ukraine. I mean, has there been a noticeable change in the numbers of international journalists in Ukraine and the attention that they're paying to the conflict since the Hamas attack on October the 7th?

Sasha: So the media presence in Ukraine has definitely changed since the 7th of October and I can speak as someone whose friends and close acquaintances are working as fixers for foreign journalists. So we have noticed that the media groups that came to Ukraine to do reporting on the frontline. On Saturday the 7th of October just cancelled their plans, cancelled the trips and went straight to the Middle East. So it was a very stark contrast for people who are involved in the coverage of the war in Ukraine.

Dominic: I've been thinking a lot about what happened back in 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea. Initially, there was this really strong international reaction and condemnation of Russia's actions. But then the spotlight slowly shifted, and the media stopped reporting on the war in the East pretty much altogether. Are you worried that the same thing is going to happen again?

Sasha: I think we did not feel that the war was covered enough even at the start, when Russia annexed Crimea. In Ukraine, there was a feeling that the maximum that we got was “grave concerns”. While what was actually needed on the ground was a really stark and stern response to Russia, which would throw it back to its internationally recognized borders and send a signal to people everywhere in the world that we are not to change borders in the 21st century. And yes, of course we already have this experience of the world just turning away from the really very hot war in Europe and focusing on something else on domestic political agendas. The hot war in Europe, which I mean in Ukraine, did not stop when we stopped looking at it, It continued for 10 years and the fact that it was not in the focus of our attention meant that Russia could escalate in 2022 and now it's an all out full scale war in Ukraine. 

Katy: You talked in your article about this pressure on Ukrainians to sell Ukrainian resistance to the world to keep convincing the international community to back your country. Do you resent having to make and remake over and over again these arguments as to why Ukraine needs support defending itself?

Sasha: The irony is not lost on me that I'm writing about the fact that all this storytelling and spreading the word infantilizes us a little bit, as if we are begging for attention, begging for the adults notice while we are performing in front of the camera or on the stage during a school concert. But this is what we have to do the moment we stop doing this, the moment we stop selling our assistance to the world, is the moment that we stop receiving the necessary military and humanitarian aid. And for us, there is just no way that we can afford this. And I don't think the world actually can afford this, the world cannot afford losing in Ukraine. Obviously, it's been a huge investment for everyone on political, emotional, financial levels, the support of Ukrainian resistance. And we know very well that if Ukraine fails, Russia's invasion will spread further. And Russia is not the only authoritarian regime that is eyeing other parts of the world and thinking about military conflicts. We can think about China and Iran. So for all of us, it is the best option to secure peace on the European continent and beyond by keeping the support of Ukraine and making Ukraine actually not only survive but win.

Dominic: Well, we really appreciate that you're taking the time today to continue making those arguments for us and for our listeners. And whilst we've got you here, I wanted to ask what do you wish people listening knew about what's happening right now? About how the longer term war in Ukraine is affecting people's lives?

Sasha: So starting with the most recent news tonight, Kyiv was bombed again by ballistic Russian missiles. So this does not stop the terror that the civilian population in Ukraine is subjected to. It does not stop at any moment. And you know, it affects people on all levels. Obviously, people in big cities that are removed from the front line, like Kyiv, like Lviv, have absolutely different experience compared to those who are on the front lines and whose homes and native villages have been completely erased from the earth.

But still, like in Kyiv, in Lviv, people leave to the accompaniment of the air raid sirens. You can see the effect on people on the physical level. There are so much more disabled people outside soldiers who have been visibly wounded. We are in their presence all the time and they remind us of the price constantly that we pay every day by defending our country and the rest of the continent from this genocidal onslaught. 

And since I mentioned genocide, I'll probably would say words about culture. I'm currently in London, and it was just the day before yesterday that we gathered at the British Library for a commemorative event for our different and colleague, Ukrainian writer turned war crimes investigator Victoria Amelina. This summer she was in the city of Kramatorsk with a delegation of Colombian writers. She was spreading their awareness internationally, as we all do about Russia's invasion. And while they were having dinner in a pizzeria in Krematorsk, a Russian missile, high precision Russian missiles struck the place and tragically, Victoria Amelina received wounds that were incompatible with life. And she died. And it's a huge blow to all of us and it just shows that in Ukraine. Basically, there is no group of the population that is secure or can somehow be spared. Russia targets civilians. Russia targets cultural practitioners as much as it wages this war against the Ukrainian army.

Katy: I've been wondering about what life is like right now in the occupied regions like Donetsk. I mean, what are people saying over there? Are you able to maintain frequent contact with anyone there?

Sasha: I have one story which does not belong to me, it belonged to the writer Olena Styazhkina, but I hope that she would not mind me sharing it. Olena has a friend in Donetsk. Olena herself is from Donetsk. She had to flee from Russia's occupation in 2014, and this friend remained - people remain for complicated reasons - this friend remained, and sometimes Olena begs her to leave Donetsk and to come to the free territories of Ukraine. And the friend tells her that someone has to stay in the city in order to greet the Ukrainian army with flowers. And I always find this very touching and very moving. 

Dominic: Yeah, that is very touching. You are a lecturer in literature and you edit the London Ukrainian Review. So I also wanted to talk to you about how you see the role of literature and art more broadly during this time of war. What do you think is the importance of those things?

Sasha: Well, again, we're back to the theme of storytelling. We live in the world saturated with stories. This is how we make sense of what is happening to us. And Ukrainian literary history is, among all other things, records of our resistance. It has a stand of people who fought for Ukrainian statehood, who fought for Ukrainian independence for the past 300 years. And when we want to understand why Ukrainian people are so resilient and so defined, literature is a natural place to turn to. We can read the Ukrainian national poet Taras Shevchenko and get inspired by his resilience, and that's his absolutely fierce defiance. We can read Ukrainian playwright Lesya Ukrainka, who was also thinking about Ukrainian independence, but sort of rewriting these themes and inscribing them into the world literature. So she looked at Ukraine through the prism of drawing her poetic drama, Cassandra, for example. She's very fascinating author. But we also can think about current Ukrainian interest in literature.

I was in Lviv at the Lviv book forum at the start of October and during a poetry night I saw scenes that they deeply impressed me. We gathered in a basement of a local theater to hear from contemporary Ukrainian poets and this place it was absolutely crowded with people. They were standing obviously in the audience, but also on the stairs, but also on the street, where they could neither see nor hear people performing on stage, but this like urge to hear these words and to be in the presence of poetry, to search for meaning, for something existentially significant. It was felt and it was just amazing in Ukraine. I feel like literature now has this life giving power. It helps people to persevere. When we think about the stories that are told about Ukraine in the international media, though, what do you make of those narratives?

Are there things that you think the international media are not seeing clearly enough? I think that there are patterns, obviously, in how we are perceived. There is this pattern of the underdog story and also there is a pattern of something that Olesya Khromeychuk, Ukrainian writer, historian, talks about beautifully, that Ukraine is perceived as this pretty young thing because our statehood does not like entrenched in centuries of history. We gained the statehood only in 1991, so Ukraine is a pretty young thing that should not make too much sense. It's sort of exciting and interesting, but not very persuasive, and it's not treated seriously.

But again, what Olesya constantly emphasizes is that the fact that Ukraine fought for its statehood for so long means that we actually understand the price of statehood, of independence, of democracy, and this is precisely why Ukrainians should be treated seriously when we discuss all these topics.

Dominic: Before we let you go, I wanted to get your take on some news that came through last week that the European Commission announced it would be recommending the start of formal talks about Ukraine joining the EU. Did this seem like a significant development to you, and does it give you hope for the future of Ukraine?

Sasha: It definitely does. Gosh, I felt very teary-eyed when I read the news. As you probably know, a decade ago Ukrainians went to the streets when our then corrupt President, Viktor Yanukovych denounced the country's European aspirations and instead aligned the course of the country with Moscow. People went out to protest and then it turned into a three months long Ukrainian revolution, which at the start was called Euromaidan because of this European association. And then it became known as the Revolution of Dignity. Ukrainians then succeeded in ousting our president and toppling the government, which was not serving the people anymore. And now, 10 years later, we finally received this welcome news that we get a chance to actually enter the European Union. And obviously for all of us, it means a lot. It means we gained what we have been fighting for, but it also means chances for enhanced security. For us, it's not so much about economy anymore, It's about being more secure, becoming protected as part of the European family.

Katy: I really recommend that you read Sasha's piece in the New York Times. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. She also has a substack newsletter called Ukrainian Killjoy, the name of which really made me laugh. You'll find a link to that too.

Time for Isolation Inspiration, which apparently isn't called Isolation Inspiration anymore. Did you guys like rename a segment while I was gone?

Dominic: Oh, yeah.

Katz: Sorry.

Katy: So much has changed. So what is it now?

Dominic: Yeah, it's called Inspiration Station. What do you think?

Katy: I like it, but I think it should be the Inspiration Station.

Dominic: OK. We can go with that.

Katy; This is like when the Facebook got renamed Facebook.

Dominic: Oh yeah, but the opposite. 

Katy: But the opposite.

Dominic: OK, welcome to the Inspiration Station. Have you got anything for us? What have you been enjoying during your time breastfeeding Katy?

Katy: I've actually been watching lots and lots and lots of things on the screen, so I've got a few probably stored up that I can tell you about over the next few weeks. And one of them is a beautiful Netflix film called The Deepest Breath, which is about free diving to see if you know anything about free diving.

Katz: One of my favorite radio pieces is about free diving.

Dominic: Oh cool!! And one of my friends did it for TV show recently. My next door neighbour was having to do some free diving. It sounded really stressful.

Katy: It's just this completely insane sport where you dive without oxygen. And this Netflix film, it focuses on 2 free divers. One of them is the Italian champion Alessia Zecchini, and it's also about an Irish man called Stephen Keenan who does the job of being a safety diver. And this film was like super uncomfortable watching for me as someone who is really quite bad at swimming and scared of drowning. But it is also so incredibly beautiful. It's a really powerful film about these people who are driven to take their bodies to the limits of what's physically possible, and it's about a human's relationship with the sea, and it's about doing what you love in life. It's really beautifully shot as well. And yeah, incredibly stressful watching, but it stayed with me for a really long time afterwards. I really recommend it.

Katz: Can't wait to watch.

Dominic: Sounds nice. What have you been enjoying Katz?

Katz: Yeah, so the reason I was not at the Climate March is because I spent the weekend at this festival in Utrecht called Le Guess Who. And there was a lot of different music from all over the world, also all over Europe. And I had this moment where we were sitting in a church and first there was this flamenco performance. And it just really moved me to see like flamenco in a church in this moment of like big conflict, to see these like different cultures in one space and then afterwards, the sort of singer of the Egyptian revolution a few years ago, he sang in the church and alongside 2 musicians. And it was just so healing. In this moment of like, such confusion, there's just a lot of really hard things happening in the world. I really needed this, like, musical odyssey of just hearing completely different things from all over Europe and all over the world. And they have a Spotify playlist that I will share in the link in the show notes. Which has all of this music of musicians that I have never heard of. But like there's this sort of modern Celtic bagpipe lady and it's just like all kinds of things. And it gave me a lot of joy. And I really recommend fishing through it and seeing all kinds of music that's really good and you probably wouldn't find anywhere else.

Katy: Oh, sounds amazing.

Dominic: What did you say the name of the festival was?

Katz: Le guess who?

Dominic Le guess who, I thought I'd misheard. I like it.

Katz: No, it's real.

Dominic: They've also gone for having Le at the beginning. Maybe we should call it Le Inspiration Station.

Katz: Le Europeans 

Katy: How euro.

I think we could all do with a happy ending this week. What have you got for us, Dominic?

Dominic: Well, I have a story for you from the city library in Gothenburg, Sweden. An employee of the Gothenburg City Library was walking past her place of work a few weeks ago on All Saints' Day, which is a public holiday in Sweden, meaning the library was closed. But as she walked past, she noticed something strange. There were people in the library. It turned out a door had been left unlocked by mistake and members of the public had just wandered in, assuming the library was open. It was quite a shock for this employee to discover that there were people in this closed, staffless library. So she immediately called a colleague for backup and they donned hi-vis vests and started asking people to leave the library over the loudspeaker. But they needn't have worried because all the visitors simply folded their books, got up and left. And you might assume that people would take advantage of an unstaffed library and vandalise it or take books without signing them out properly.

But in fact what happened was 245 books were taken out using the automated library Book withdrawal machines.

Katz: There is hope! 

Katy: Love the people of Gothenburg.

Dominic: Nothing was stolen. People were just happy to have a library to use on a national holiday.

Katz: How sweet.

Dominic: And in fact 446 people attended the library over that day before this poor employee realised that it was accidentally open.

I found it so heart-warming and a reminder that most people are civic minded and appreciate an important public service like a local library.

Katy: Great story. Love that.

Katz: Heartwarming and civic minded.

Katy: Is it most people who are civic minded and well behaved? Or is it just people who go to libraries?

Dominic: Yeah, maybe.

Baby Lee: gaga

Dominic: Hey baby Lee, aww.

Katz: Awww he’s an old man face.

Dominic: He's done a very good job at staying asleep during this record.

Katz: Yeah, isn't he just staring?

Dominic: Well, the baby is stirring, so it's probably time we should round up this episode, which was produced by Kats Laszlo with the interview produced by Katy Lee. Thank you both for joining me and for doing all that work.

Katy: Nice to be back.

Katz: Yeah. Nice to have you back.

Katy: Apparently we're on some new social platforms that we're also not here when I left.

Dominic: Yeah, things have changed.

Katy: Blue Sky.

Dominic: I'm trying out Blue Sky. Yeah.And you can find us on Blue Sky @Europeanspod.bsky.social If you would like to join B Sky, I actually have a few invite codes available. I've got three of them at the moment. So send us a message and I can share that with you.

Katy: Is it fun over there?

Dominic: It's much like softer and gentler than X, and seems to have fewer racist trolls.

Katy: That sounds great.

Dominic: I wonder whether it's also just like a friendly little bubble, which doesn't actually reflect what's going on in the world right now, but I'm enjoying it.

Katy: We're also on Instagram @EuropeansPodcast and you can e-mail us: hello@europeanspodcast.com

Dominic: Hope everyone has a good week, not a complicated week, and we'll see you all soon.