The War in Ukraine: Year Two (with Liana Fix)

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We are one year into the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II. President Biden marked the anniversary with a surprise visit to Ukraine while Vladimir Putin countered with a major speech from Moscow. Andy speaks with Liana Fix, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, about where Russia and Ukraine stand today, what could escalate this war into something broader, and whether we’re entering World War III without knowing it yet.

Keep up with Andy on Twitter and Post @ASlavitt.

Follow Liana Fix on Twitter @LianaFix.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Andy Slavitt, Liana Fix

Andy Slavitt  00:18

This is IN THE BUBBLE with Andy Slavitt. We are one year in to the largest war in Europe since World War Two, very interesting week, capped off by a major speech from Vladimir Putin. And, of course, the surprise visit from President Biden to Ukraine, interested to get people’s thoughts and reactions on both of those. And we’re going to do that on this episode today. Interesting fact, though. The President traveled to a war zone that was not under US control, which doesn’t happen very often. And is an incredible security challenge. So it doesn’t happen very often. So when was the last time that happened? I’m gonna give you four choices. And you’re going to treat yourself to a desert if you get it right. A, It happened when George Bush visited Iraq. Be the last time it happened was when Bill Clinton visited Sarajevo. C, the last time it happened was when Eisenhower visited Korea. Or D, the last time it happened was when Lincoln visited a silver war battle. All right, and have your answer. How many of you said D? The last time a president is traveled to a battlefield that wasn’t controlled by its own military was in the Civil War? That’s actually right. That’s actually right. Those other trips may have occurred. But they occurred to us controlled regions of the fighting are so far different, and therefore, incredibly risky and interesting move that by all accounts from everybody that I’ve talked to, and from accounts that I’ve read, really buoyed Ukrainian people, and really sent a clear message that the US will not abandon them in this war. Putin himself had a very visible kind of speech he gave and plenty of propaganda, and kind of some interesting notes, tinge of nuclear threat, a kind of widening of the dispute with the West, and a sort of repositioning of the war, as almost Putin saying, We were attacked by the West, this is not just a war with the West, but we are under attack by the West. Okay. Very interesting. But what does it tell us about where we are and where we’re going? The war is very much in flight. And in process. We don’t know what’s going to happen next. But what we did it was this World War One, and World War Two, both began with a single invasion of a country by an invading country, in that case, Germany, and it broadened over time into a wider war. And I think one of the debates and one of the questions among foreign policy experts is what actually would escalate this war into something broader? And are we in fact, already there or moving towards it? So the question that I will pose to our guest today, who’s Liana Fix? She’s a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, it’s really kind of get to my curiosity about whether we’re headed to a path of victory by one side or another? And if so, what that looks like, to a long standing ground war, which becomes a set effectively, almost a perpetual battle over territory that continues on almost for the foreseeable future. Or whether the third option, do we end up with some sort of escalated war effort. And the owner from the work she does has a definitive point of view, because she’s thought about these questions about the likelihood of any one of the other of these things developing. But I think, also, importantly, will ground us in what’s happening on the ground today, both with Ukraine and Ukrainians, inside Russia, among NATO allies, and among some of the allies of Putin. So it’s a very comprehensive analysis, and a very insightful set of direction of where things will go as we sit here one year after the war began. And unfortunately, all I can tell you is, I believe we will have a very similar episode a year from now, because very little tells me Little tells people I talked to you that there’s a path. Let’s bring in the Liana Fix.

Andy Slavitt  05:17

Liana, welcome to the bubble.

Liana Fix  05:19

Thanks so much for the invitation.

Andy Slavitt  05:21

So the one year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, torn apart by two sort of polar events that happened concurrently within 24 hours. One was President Biden to visit to Ukraine. And the other was a speech by Vladimir Putin. Let’s review both of those, I think is to help us take stock of kind of where we are, when you’re out. Maybe start with Biden’s visit, tell us about what that meant the import and what it tells us about where the war is today?

Liana Fix  06:00

Yeah, so Biden’s visit was a surprise it was unannounced. And there was speculation that he might go to Kyiv. But it is still an active war zone. Kyiv is still the center of Russian missile attacks right now. So the decision to go to Kyiv was quite courageous from the administration. And I’m sure that the security services of the White House might have been quite nervous about this. But it was such an important event for the Ukrainians who after one year of war, obviously exhausted, to see that the biggest supporter of Ukraine is taking the risk to come to Kyiv. And it also draws a line for future US policy. So if Biden has already been in key have once there’s just no way that he can be attacked again, or come under threat of Russian occupation, in any scenario that the United States can allow this to happen. So it was a line in the sand, which says, This is where we are right now. And whatever path this war takes Kyiv standing in Kyiv, will be free. So it was a very strong symbolic message. Not too much on the policy side, no big announcements about fighter jets or anything. But the trip itself was the big symbol.

Andy Slavitt  07:17

So it’s a sign of at least US commitment. And of course, other NATO leaders have been as well. Now, how about Putin speech? What do you learn from? And what do you think some of the highlights or lowlights were? And what does it say about where Russia stands today?

Liana Fix  07:36

Yeah, it was one of those typical very long speeches by the Washington president, and comparing it to the speeches that he has given a year ago, when the war broke out. And he tried to explain why he is doing this, this speech was very much more of the same. I mean, there was no big mobilization effort there. There was no big effort to somehow we frame the conflict. And the only new element that was in the speech is that he has suspended Russia’s participation in a major arms control treaty, which is not only for him of importance to the United States, but also of importance to Russia, because with its economy right now, watch, I cannot afford a nuclear arms race. It was a big threat to bring in the nuclear again into the game. But shortly afterwards, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has released a statement that many of the provisions of this arms control New START Treaty will remain in place. So again, it’s more about trying to us the West to threaten an escalation from the Washington side, then actually following up with concrete measures.

Andy Slavitt  08:46

Let’s talk about how both Ukraine and Russia are holding up the people, the economy, the political support for the war, is to start with Ukraine. You know, the big statement that we keep hearing is a symbolic statement that you keep still is still standing, that a year ago, it was expected to fall within days, that Vladimir Zelensky at what point said pointedly, this may be the last time you hear from me alive. So what does this tell you about how Ukraine is a country is facing as they look into what is by most accounts going to be a very long road still ahead?

Liana Fix  09:32

Yeah, it is. Absolutely. What gives you Queen strength at this moment is certainly that in the last year of war, Ukraine has been relatively successful. So there’s this idea that this was the stalemate with both sides going back and forth. But if we look at the broader picture, the last year was actually a success story for Ukraine because in three to four waves, they have been able to push back Russia to position, which is still more than Russia had when it started this war, but a significantly less than it had in the initial months. But then again, the question is how much further can Ukraine come. And while there is this pledge of Biden in Warsaw in Kyiv, to stay at Ukraine side for as long as it takes, that will be used elections in 2024. And already now there is a Republican minority in Congress, that is much less supportive of Ukraine, some of them openly hostile to the Ukrainian cause. So for Ukrainians, it is very clear that the support with to the extent that it’s coming now, will not last forever. So it is the moment this year to liberate as much territory as they can, and at the same time to look towards the next goals that Ukraine has, which is for its domestic political development to one day become a member of the European Union. So for the future of Ukraine, it’s this vision of where does Ukraine belong to? And is Ukraine, a nation state and statehood in its own wide are the most important questions, and Vladimir Putin has achieved exactly the opposite of what he wanted with this war. Ukraine is more united than it has been before the war broke out. I mean, after 2014 There was a lot of discussions about a Russian speaking Ukrainians having more pro-Russian views. This is gone. And even Russian speaking Ukrainians are very much united in this course. So this war has contributed more to Ukrainian statehood. And Vladimir Putin has contributed more to Ukrainian nation and statehood, then, many revolutions that Ukraine’s Ukrainian the Ukrainian citizens had had in the years before. But obviously the challenge of a war and of being under martial law for more than a year right now, there for Ukraine.

Andy Slavitt  12:05

It seems there’s been almost no greater sales person for almost any cause. And then Zelenskyy has been on behalf of his country, whether it’s coming to talk to European leaders or coming to talk to the US Congress, you know, in his kind of trademark boots, and his T shirt in sort of military kind of garb. And the way he both kind of […] and asks for more when needed, on behalf of his country points to sacrifice shows, gratitude, as you say, has to demonstrate that he’s worthy of the investment and that the country is worthy of the investment. And yet still, he has to ultimately prevail on the battlefield. So what did his prospects look like if you point to the next year as being really critical, and in large part because the sales job doesn’t get easier as time goes on? What are his prospects there?

Liana Fix  13:07

I think his prospects for the moment are pretty good when we look into the spring and into the early summer, because we’ve seen this renewed push from European countries and from the United States to provide Ukrainians with heavy weapons with tanks. So it seems that there is some kind of implicit consensus to give Ukraine another opportunity for an offensive not only to defend themselves against a Washington spring offensive, but also to react to this point offensive with their own offensive and to try to go to push Russia further back and potentially even to break up what is called the land bridge to Crimea, this connection of the occupied territories in the East and in the south, which Russia has been able to establish. So there is a momentum there wide now. And he’s certainly in a good position. And the Ukrainian military is in a good position to use this momentum too, to push Russia further back in the course of this year. But then the interesting question starts I mean, where will we be will washer be willing to negotiate if they have further losses at the moment, there’s no indication whatsoever that putting can concede a will concede defeat, or will even negotiate on terms which are not entirely unacceptable and equal to a Ukrainian capitalization. So it is imaginable and easily imaginable that Ukraine comes in an even better position this year. But how exactly the war will end from there on and if it will end at all, or if we will, perhaps see small scale fighting, just continuing from the Russian side, although they have clearly lost the war in a strategic sense with the war aims, but can just not concede defeat that remains an open question.

Andy Slavitt  15:03

That’s a really interesting possibility that they may in fact win more battles, as they have over the past year. But that that doesn’t end the world. Let’s take a quick break, and come back. And I want to talk about how things are playing out in Russia today. Okay, we’re back with Liana Fix. We’re talking about the state of the war. In Ukraine one year out, you’ve just told us about how things are going inside Ukraine, which it sounds like surprisingly well, but without a clear sense of what the end game might be. Let’s talk about how Russia’s faring. What is the status of Russia right now?

Liana Fix  16:08

Well, if I would try to locate Russia, in sort of a timeline of years, it would feel like perhaps the 50s, the 1950s, in the Soviet Union, I mean, all these pictures that now came out of Russia with Vladimir Putin speech, but also the big concert, where he came out and we repeated, the Hoover calls. It really very much fields for someone, especially like me, who was part of the Soviet Union, it feels like back in time back in the Soviet Union. And that’s not by accident. That is because what the Western regimes tries is to fill the gap in ideology that they have, with the weapons to these old Soviet times with the reference to the heroism of 1945, of the Great Patriotic War, as it’s called in Russia. In the political dimension, we can expect more repression coming from the Washington state repression has reached an unimaginable level so far already, with anyone who opposes this war in public, being sent to jail, neighbors calling upon other neighbors, if they hear something. And that makes it very difficult for those parts of the Washington society who pose this war, to come out onto the streets on a on a big scale, because many have left and the others are afraid at home, which again, that’s very reminiscent of Soviet times. When it comes to the elites and to the system, we see that Putin continues to be supported by his leads, there’s no challenger, and the Russian economy is going down. But it is still not at a point that the West hoped it would be that it would have collapsed by now after one year or two, because the central bank, with her leader have been quite successful in protecting the Russian economy against sanctions. So we don’t see this kind of overall, big destabilization. We don’t see this 1917 We evolved on this tweeds, we see a country which is very much going back to the early Soviet time, and seems to hope to wait out this brotherly war that they have waged on their neighbors.

Andy Slavitt  18:29

So how should we think about Russia’s resources in their capacity to wage war here? Do they have a nearly unlimited supply of resources and patients so that they can sustain an expensive and long and bloody war with hundreds of 1000s of troops? Or is there a limit.

Liana Fix  18:55

So there’s a limit in quality that Russia can use. So what has difficulties now in producing high technology weapons due to the sanctions so they can produce ever which level weapons which are still could enough to be used in the battlefield, and they can produce those in large quantities, they can also, again, bring more soldiers more recruits to the field, but opposed with a Ukrainian army, which is very much becoming an army on NATO’s that level. So far, quality on the Ukrainian side has been more important than quantity on the Russian side. And this may continue to be the case. And at the same time, the leadership can also not suddenly announced that they will be could another I don’t know let’s say millions of soldiers fought this war because they also have to be careful to not have too much of public discontent. Even in the first wave of mobilization. We’ve seen that this has stressed the regime So they have to proceed gradually. They want the country to be on a wartime footing the economy to be on a wartime footing. But they cannot, from one day to another announce another 500,000 1 million soldiers without risking discontent in their own country.

Andy Slavitt  20:20

What are the tactical victories that the Russians are looking for? To really put change the shape of this war from a war of attrition to something that they get a decided advantage? And what are their prospects for achieving those?

Liana Fix  20:38

Well, what the Russian president wants is to have those four oblasts, those four regions of Ukraine that he has a next last early autumn, he wants to have these regions under control. So these are the newly annexed regions. But the interesting thing is that those are not controlled, entirely controlled by Russia, even though Putin declared that they belong to the Russian state and are historically Russian lands. So this is the immediate aim. And this has also been in the past, used as a demand from the Russian president to Ukraine. Well, except those annexations, which would mean that Ukraine would not only give up territory occupied by Russia, but also territory that is liberated by Ukraine. So that’s the immediate aim. But even achieving that, from the Russian side will be incredibly difficult. I mean, what we’ve seen so far is that they have consolidated the defenses, so they have withdrawn from the south, they have made the frontline a little bit shorter, so that it’s easier to defend it, they have digged, their positions, so they’re better in defense. But that doesn’t mean that they are actually better an offense. And we’ve seen in the past month that they have sometimes advanced only meters or kilometers for months, and it has taken such high casualties. And that’s what we see right now, a lot of human cost on the Russian side, many Cannon Fodder stone into this was to advance for only very limited territory. So I find these, the hope to have those four regions and I wish and control unlikely for Russia to achieve.

Andy Slavitt  22:17

Yes, Putin certainly seems weaker. And I don’t mean in home, I mean, as a threat than he did at the start of this war. And early on. How about NATO? How is NATO holding up? And what are the prospects for NATO to continue to hold up? Obviously, the winter time has been one of the big challenges, particularly in Europe. And all of the bombast about nuclear weapons. And even the nuclear sites that Russia controls is got to be very concerning, as is public support.

Liana Fix  22:52

Yeah. For NATO. This is obviously the big revival of NATO after the end of the Cold War. I mean, NATO has tried out of area missions. But this really the defense of Europe, the defense of this transatlantic space has been the core mission for NATO, and it is returning to its core mission. So it is certainly strengthened also by the accession of Finland and Sweden, if it comes about so far, we still see Turkish resistance to Swedish NATO membership. But what is so crucial about this membership of Finland and Sweden is that, for NATO defense planners, the biggest headache in the past had been how to defend the Baltic states. Because they are on the map. They’re located in a very vulnerable position close to Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave and the membership of Finland and Sweden will make basically make the Baltic Sea somewhat of a NATO pool and will make it much more easier to defend the Baltic states. So for NATO, this would be an incredible upgrade that Vladimir Putin has provided, because even the new tool, Sweden and Finland, were concerned enough to finally seek NATO membership. And when it comes to the perspective for you, what was surprising this winter is that despite all the doom and gloom about Europe on gas and refugees and populism, up in democracies are actually more resilient than expected. I mean, the gusto just still filled the most one of the most far wide populist in Europe, Maloney the Italian prime minister just traveled to Kyiv and promised additional support for Kyiv Orban in Hungary is still very difficult, but he also agrees to compromises with the European Union. So perhaps the surprising success and resilience that you have provided this winter is actually a bigger story, then the big fear that you will put crumble under the weight of Russian energy, refugees and populism.

Andy Slavitt  25:01

That is good news. It’s got to be very encouraging to Ukraine. But I want to come back after this final break. And I want to talk about the other side of the equation, what we’re learning about what support Putin may be trying to draw on from the rest of the world. We’ll be right back here with Lena. So you’ve talked about the Allies ability to stick together and get through what was expected to be a very difficult winter. What do you we learning about what support Putin has in the world? And how material that support is from China, from Iran, from other nations?

Liana Fix  25:55

The most interesting question here is probably China, because China at the beginning of the war has clearly positioned itself close to Russia, it has taken Washington talking points about the threat of NATO. And it has also been supportive, trying to support Russia, not with direct Lethal Weapon deliveries, but with other deliveries that were useful for Russia. Also interesting is a position of other countries like India, countries, South Africa, Brazil, which have not been pro wash in the in the narrower sense of the word. But they have adopted a kind of, I wouldn’t even call it a poor Washington neutrality, I would call it an anti-Western neutrality. So it’s not really so much about Russia itself. I mean, for some countries like India, Russia is important as a weapon supplier. But it’s very much the skepticism of the West and of the cost that the West thinks it advances in Ukraine between the good liberal democratic world versus the bad, autocratic world that many countries of the global south see differently. Well, for them, it is more of a proxy war between the United States and Russia, which is conducted on US territory, I would disagree with this view, because the United States has certainly not been interested in waging a proxy war in Ukraine. But it’s also from their perspective, the war gets so much attention. Whereas from the perspective of the Global South, it’s a regional war in Europe. It’s not a system, transforming war. But for the West, it is a system transforming war, because the West has been has been dominating the global system for such a long time. And questions come up, why? Why have you not cared so much about wars in our region, and now care about a war in your region, so much? So that certainly gaps to fill when it comes to the diplomacy of the West, and just appealing to liberal values will not be enough to convince global south countries?

Andy Slavitt  28:04

Good questions. And so your suggestion is, they’re not necessarily pro Russia in their stance, but they’re certainly not sympathetic, just by a prima facia case that a democracy is attacked, and therefore we must rally to add side. So this is already, I believe, the largest number of casualties in a war since World War Two in Europe. And, you know, we have to remind ourselves that obviously, that World War Two did not begin as a World War, it began as an invasion of one country by another. Is there a potential that this gets escalated? And is it more likely to happen in a scenario where Russia is successful? Or is it more likely that there become some forms of acceleration if Russia is really bogged down and looking for ways out?

Liana Fix  28:58

I think it’s certainly the scariest question to ask, to ask ourselves, are we actually already in World War Three without knowing it? I have been discussing this with friends and relatives in the past, because that’s exactly how it has been in 1939. It was about Poland. Well, no one was to the defense of Poland despite the alliance commitments in 1939. But there are two reasons which give me at least optimism. And the first one is that the one big alliance that opposes Russia, the NATO alliance is very clear on its stance that it only would enter this war in any kind if NATO territory gets attacked. And we’ve seen this one incident with debris from Ukrainian Air Defense, which hit Polish territory and killed Polish citizens, which for me was quite an afternoon shock on that day, but we have seen We saw that both from the western side from the NATO Alliance side from Poland side, but also from the Russian side, there was a lot of washing to explain that this was not Russian, a Russian missile. There were no accusations of the western side towards Russia. So this demonstrated to me that for both sides, there’s no interest in a wider war and no interest to make an unintended accident like such that was the trigger for such a war to the country. And the same was the case with Biden’s visit to Ukraine. I mean, Washington announced to Moscow a few hours before that Biden will be in Ukraine. So there are these kind of deconfliction measures, as they are called in this parlance, which still hold that’s a positive sign. And I also think that, although it seems plausible to think, Well, if we supply weapons, stinger missiles, then we come to tanks is the next step ground troops in Ukraine, I don’t think that there was a gradual line to ground troops, because NATO ground troops is really the white wet line, which will lead to exactly this escalation that no one wants to see. So far, I feel that there’s a lot of restrained from all sides to keep the wall limited to Ukraine.

Andy Slavitt  31:27

So what you lay out as we think about how this moves forward, is something that could end up really as a very lengthy conflict, one that just could even persist in the background, even if the size and scale of the war were to decrease. I’m curious, though, whether you think there are things on either side, that would cause either as Alinsky or Putin to decide to come to the table and say, create a settlement of some sort, either, something that happens militarily, something that happens economically, some change in the support structure of the of the allies. Do you think that there’s something that could bring that to bear? And if so, which way is it most likely to happen? Is it most likely to happen with a weaker Russia or with a stronger Ukraine or vice versa?

Liana Fix  32:27

Well, honestly, it is difficult for me to imagine any scenario where the Cohen, Russian President, Vladimir Putin, even in a stronger weaker position would come to the negotiation table, because if he were in a stronger position, there would be knows it would not make sense for him at all, apart from you know, just getting a pause in the fighting to come to the table and then continue this war. If we were in a weaker position, then for him conceding defeat equals a threat to his own, even physical security. I mean, there’s not like there was a deal between Yeltsin and poutine, the former Russian president before poutine, that Yeltsin can we tie it and will be untouched, so he had some safety, this kind of physical, even safety will not be there for Putin. So for him, this war is personal in the most physical sense even. And he often talks about the fate of Gaddafi of the Libyan leader Gaddafi, for Ukraine for President Zelenskyy. Certainly human lives matter more than for the Washington side. So probably, that might be sort of one point where at some point, the consideration will go, how much human lives do we want to sacrifice for how many gains that we can still make? And that’s something for Ukraine to decide. It is certainly not something from the outside to define, as some voices in Western countries like to say, well, we need to save Ukrainian lives. Well, Ukrainians want to continue fighting. But at some point, that toll will obviously have to be put in relation to the outcome. But that’s sort of very difficult to put into terms of, you know, what should you claim concede? The question about Crimea is perhaps the one where if there were an interlocutor on the western side, one could talk to one could discuss scenarios of the militarization of Crimea of a 50 years deal over Crimea. I mean, one can be creative about this, but there needs to be some willingness. Also on the Russian side to discuss any of these scenarios.

Andy Slavitt  34:45

It feels like the right way to close the conversation is to recognize that everything is very much in motion, that there really is no closure, yet. I feel obliged to talk and have you come meant a little bit about the people of Ukraine. Because for all of the tactical, operational, economic, diplomatic forces that are going around, and that you’ve explained to us, that at another level, a very human level, it’s very hard to really feel and understand what it’s like to have your country invaded, have your infrastructure under attack, have air raids, and sirens? What would you say is the most important thing to remember about what we’re not seeing? And about what is happening every day to carry us? Those of us who are supporters of Ukraine, forward and strong in this support?

Liana Fix  35:49

Well, I think it’s important to keep in mind that for those territories that are under Russian control, I mean, the sounds very neutral and very clean, almost just hey, all territories under Russian control. But in reality, this does not just mean that the flag over the mayor’s office is just changed to a Russian flag. In reality, it means torture, it means mass weight, it means Ukrainian children being deported to Russia and adopted by Russian families. So the question about, you know, what can how can this war and what concessions can be made is really not just a political question for those people who still live under Washington control? It’s not a question about, you know, not criticizing the Washington’s it’s really a question of physical safety, of terror and war crimes from the Washington side. That’s a very sad way to conclude this conversation. But I think an important aspect to remember.

Andy Slavitt  36:53

Liana Fix. Thank you so much for joining us in the bubble. We really appreciate you and educating us. And as we go along, we hope for better outcomes. Maybe you’ll come back and hopefully post this on progress towards a good outcome for Ukraine.

Andy Slavitt  37:23

Monday’s episode, John Podesta, former chief of staff to Bill Clinton, now in charge of implementing climate policy, we’re going to have the most indebted comprehensive look, I think you’re going to find on how the inflation reduction acts, climate provisions, all 360 odd billion of them are being implemented, which essentially is the roadmap for how we get to net zero in this country on Wednesday, an episode that also relates to climate, but a little edgy, that I’ve wanted to do for quite some time. And that is what is the role the oil companies are playing in the climate and will likely play in our climate future. Many of them say they’re going to get help us get to net zero with some of their technology. Others are, would say that they’re not so sure that they’re obstructionist, but very clear that we have to deal with whatever role they’re going to play because they are mammoth parts of our economy, and our energy future right now. And of course, this is an issue Republicans and Democrats see quite differently. So we look forward to those episodes and more coming up next week. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

CREDITS  38:40

Thanks for listening to IN THE BUBBLE. We’re a production of Lemonada Media. Kathryn Barnes, Jackie Harris and Kyle Shiely produced our show, and they’re great. Our mix is by Noah Smith and James Barber, and they’re great, too. Steve Nelson is the vice president of the weekly content, and he’s okay, too. And of course, the ultimate bosses, Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Wittels Wachs, they executive produced the show, we love them dearly. Our theme was composed by Dan Molad and Oliver Hill, with additional music by Ivan Kuraev. You can find out more about our show on social media at @LemonadaMedia where you’ll also get the transcript of the show. And you can find me at @ASlavitt on Twitter. If you like what you heard today, why don’t you tell your friends to listen as well, and get them to write a review. Thanks so much, talk to you next time.

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