Thinking in Dark Times

Fareed Zakaria on Ukraine, Trump, Wars, and the World Order

Does Ukraine’s fight have global significance? What might happen to the world if Russia wins? Is the liberal international order dead, or do we still have a chance to rev

Understanding Ukrainian Resistance. Volodymyr Yermolenko, Marci Shore and Kateryna Mishchenko at the Frankfurt Book Fair

What are the roots of Ukrainian resistance? Why can we describe Ukrainian culture and statehood not as something that exists thanks to favorable circumstances, but as som

Religion in Ukraine - with Cyril Hovorun

What role does religion play in Ukraine? How pluralistic is the country’s religious landscape? Which Christian denominations are the most influential, and how does Christ

Why Shevchenko Is Still Central to Ukrainian Identity - with Rory Finnin

Why does Taras Shevchenko remain the central figure of Ukrainian culture? Why is a poet who lived in the 19th century still perceived in Ukraine almost as a contemporary?

Timothy Snyder on the Deep Layers of Ukrainian History

Studying Ukrainian history can be far more fascinating than you might think. It can reveal deeper layers of our past than we ever imagined and help us better understand t

What We Get Wrong About Power

What if our fundamental understanding of power is flawed? Is violence truly its ultimate expression, or rather a sign of its absence? How can societies navigate the extre

Greece, Ukraine, Communism, War, Europe - with Christos Chomenidis

I read this book with absolute passion. While it is a novel, it is truly an epic—the story of a family told through the greatest upheavals and disasters of the 20th centu

How war technology shapes peace

In this podcast episode, I explore how wartime technologies can impact peaceful life, drawing parallels from historical conflicts.  Author: Volodymyr Yermalenko, a Ukrai

Decoding Trump’s Ukraine policy - with Christopher Atwood

Since Donald Trump’s return to the U.S. presidency, Russia has drastically escalated its missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian cities. In January 2026, launches exceeded

Cities without Kings: Humanity's Prehistory on Ukrainian Soil — with David Wengrow

What can the deep past of Ukrainian lands reveal about the global story of humanity? Six thousand years ago, "mega-sites" flourished in what is now central Ukraine—but ca

Ukrainian geopolitical thought - with Danylo Lubkivsky

Ukraine has its own tradition of geopolitical thinking — a tradition that reaches deep into the past and continues to shape the country’s strategic imagination today. Wha

Nobel Laureate Oleksandra Matviychuk on Ukraine’s Moral Core

She is not only a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. She is not only one of the most visible human-rights defenders in Europe in recent decades. She is not only a tireless activ

Why Europe’s security depends on Ukraine - with Yevhen Hlibovytskyi

Ukraine is not a burden for Europe — it’s a chance for Europe. Today, European security is unthinkable without Ukraine. Ukraine has the strongest army in Europe, a dynam

Timothy Snyder on why history matters — and how we get it wrong

In September 2025, in Kyiv, a prominent American historian Timothy Snyder received the Vasyl Stus Prize — a Ukrainian award honoring the name of Vasyl Stus, one of Ukrain

Niall Ferguson on Empires, Networks, and Ukraine

SUPPORT this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/c/thinkinggg  *** Are all empires equally bad? If some were better than others, what criteria can we use to make such judg

Can Nationalism Be Good?

SUPPORT this podcast: https://www.patreon.com/c/thinkinggg  *** Nationalism, for many people, is a bad word. They associate it with xenophobia, a sense of superiority,

Why Ukrainian History Matters Globally — with Yaroslav Hrytsak

Yaroslav Hrytsak is one of Ukraine’s leading historians and public intellectuals. His recent book in Ukrainian, "Overcoming the Past: A Global History of Ukraine", became

Why colonialism is more complicated than you think - with Botakoz Kassymbekova

What’s the difference between colonialism and imperialism? What types of colonialism can we identify — and which of them are playing out in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a

What is Evil?

In this episode, I pose a question about evil. I argue that while the relativization of the concept of evil may once have been necessary, it has now swung to the opposite

Nobel-Winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz on the Failures of Neoliberalism and Sanctions Against Russia

Joseph Stiglitz is a world-renowned economist and thinker who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001. I met him in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, in