Pod Save the World - A chemical weapons attack in Ukraine?

Episode Date: April 13, 2022

On today’s episode, Tommy talks with Oleksiy Sorokin from the Kyiv Independent about the latest news from Ukraine, including reports of a Russian chemical weapons attack, Russian war crimes, British PM Boris Johnson’s visit to Kyiv and preparations for the next phase of fighting in eastern Ukraine. Then Tommy walks through some additional Ukraine news out of Washington, what happened in the French elections, Pakistan’s Prime Minister receiving a vote of no confidence, and the covid lockdown in Shanghai. Finally, Ben interviews London Mayor Sadiq Khan.How to Help in Ukraine Come Back Alive Ukrainian Congress Committee of America: donate to humanitarian efforts United Help Ukraine: donate to the life-saving medical supplies to Ukraine’s front lines Revived Soldiers Ukraine: donate to treatment of the wounded and the provision of hospitals Razom for Ukraine: donate to tactical medical training and emergency response in Ukraine Nova Ukraine: donate to humanitarian aid for Ukraine Vox: How you can help UkrainiansFor a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. And we have a great show for you this week. Here is how it's going to go. First, you are going to hear my interview with Alexi Sorokin. He's from the Kiev Independent. We're going to talk about all the latest news from the ground in Ukraine. He is just an incredibly impressive human being and journalist. And it was a really powerful interview, as I think you'll hear in a second. Then I'm going to walk you through some of the other big headlines. from Ukraine and from around the world this week. And then finally, you guys will hear Ben's interview with London mayor, Sadiq Khan, which he recorded last week in London in person. So Ben is off today. He's taking a little vacation with a family, but you will still hear his dulcet sounds at the end of the episode. So please do not despair.

I am a little sad that of all the weeks, Ben decides to take a break because he is a workaholic. it's the week we get more detail about just how corrupt and immoral and depraved Jared Kushner is and how thoroughly he sold his soul to the Saudi government for a multi-billion dollar kickback from his bonesaw buddy Muhammad bin Salman but I'll raise that with Ben next week you'll get to hear from him this one I get to say my piece on POTS of America I suspect we'll also talk about the Trump administration's failure to record all the gifts they got from foreign officials What a shock that those scrupulous, well-meaning officials over there on Team Trump, State Department, DoD, White House, wherever else they were. Just never wrote down all the free shit they got.

Very, very above board. Before we get to my interview, check out the latest episode of Offline. This week, John talks with the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, Ev Williams. Let's talk about the Twitter early years, the newest on-again, off-again board member, Elon Musk, Donald Trump. Check out offline. It drops every Sunday. It's where you get your podcasts. Great, great, great show. Lots of awesome episodes.

Also, you guys really remember Jason Rezion. He is a Washington Post columnist, and he is the host of 544 days. An amazing podcast we released, Jesus, a year ago, this year? I don't know. Who knows time anymore? It's about the 544 days Jason was wrongly imprisoned in an Iranian prison. It was nominated for a Webby Award. for Best Limited Series.

You can vote online now for Jason's show, 544 days, for This Land Season 2, for lots of other cricket stuff. If you go to vote.webbyawards.com, vote.webbyawards.com, vote for Jason, vote for 544 days, vote for this land season two. And you can listen to the entire season of 544 days for free, by the way, only on Spotify. So without any further ado, let's get to. interview. My guest today is the political editor and COO of the Kiev Independent, Alexei Sarukin. Thank you so much for joining. Thank you for having me. So, Alexa, yesterday there were reports

that Russian troops may have used chemical weapons in Mary O'Bol. U.S. officials say that they haven't been able to confirm these reports. I saw the Pentagon say that and Tony Blank and the Secretary of State today. I know the city has been under siege for weeks. It's hard to get information in and out, or at least to get journalists in and out, and it can take some time to confirm chemical weapons use under any circumstances. But can you help us understand what's been alleged or reported so far? Yes. Ukraine also doesn't confirm chemical weapon use. Right now, the deputy defense minister says that it might be phosphorus munition. So obviously, we don't know what was used, but according to those on the ground, they say that many have irash, have hard time breeding,

and all the symptoms that some kind of chemical was used. We still don't know what it was, and I think that it's going to be impossible to prove this case. Yeah, and obviously the details matter a lot here because, you know, we saw in Syria that, you know, something like a sarin gas or VX gas may be used. It took a while to confirm that, but also, you know, chemical. Like chlorine gas can be highly toxic. They can terrorize and kill civilians, but they're not listed as a chemical weapon or banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention. I think the same is true for white phosphorus, if that's what they're saying was used here. That's an incendiary weapon, meaning it's often used to create smoke or to light up an area. But if it gets on you, it can literally burn through your skin, burn through the bone. It's a horrific, horrific weapon. But again, not viewed as a chemical weapon by the OPCW. So yeah, and technically it's not about. So Russia can point to this that it's not a chemical weapon use on their part. Right.

I saw it. I know you saw this as well. Some journalists were cautioning that the source of these reports about potential chemical weapons use were from the Azov Battalion. Therefore, we need to treat them with skepticism, given who the Azov Battalion are. I see that a lot over here. Critics of Western support for Ukraine point to the Azov Battalion. and the fact that there are some right-wing nationalists and maybe even neo-Nazis

within the organization as a way to sort of tarnish Western support for the war effort. Can you help us understand the broader context of who the Azov Battalion are and how they fit into the Ukrainian defense and maybe political infrastructure? Sure. Well, the first thing to point out here is that using chemical weapons on people should be banned and no matter who reports that. Concerning Azov Battalion, the trick here is that the Azov Battalion that was created in 2014

when Russia first invaded Ukraine and launched its invasion of Donbass and the Azov Battalion right now, it's completely two different structures. Back then, the battalion was created by Harkiv Ultras, basically football hooligans, obviously, many of whom were far right. Some of them were neo-Nazis. And that's the source of information that many people in the

West get. Basically, they saw that there were neo-Nazis in Azov in 2014. They carry it to 2022, and they say that the battalion is Nazi. What happened later? In 2015, Ukraine basically decided that those volunteer battalions should be incorporated into the Interior Ministry, into the National Guard, and obviously it checked everyone who was part of this group. Those who had far-right views were cast aside, and now the Azov regiment is basically a department of the National Guard. So it still has the same insignia. It still has the same history. But I would say that less than 5% of those who are part of this battalion in 2014 are still part of the battalion now.

Got it. Also, we know that the Russian propaganda used this case to frame Ukrainian volunteers as neo-Nazis. this is obviously not true. If we look at, for example, the Ukrainian parliamentary elections in 2019, then far-right parties in total received 2%. A bit over 2%. Obviously, they didn't make it into parliament.

And even as Zolv's leader, Bieletsky, who was a lawmaker in 2014, he didn't run and the party he represented didn't run in the preliminary elections. If we look, for example, in Germany, there's A of D, which has over 10%. Marine Le Pen is now... Yeah, in France. Yeah, in France, she's in the runoff in the presidential elections. We also know that there's a lot of problems with far-right groups in the states as well.

So pointing to one group, which is pretty marginal and saying that, A, Ukrainians are neo-Nazis, and two, that the report of chemical weapons being used is not true. I think it should be cast aside this notion. Yeah, that's incredibly helpful context. You know, stepping back a little bit, I mean, there are new reports almost every day about civilian casualties about war crimes by Russian forces. You know, there's the occupation of Bucha, the shelling of a railway station full of civilians and kids over the weekend. The mayor of Marriopal says 10,000 civilians have been killed. Chernev was under siege for weeks. I know that

you personally, your team, you've been visiting some of these places. I mean, what has that experience been like for you and what have you seen? I think it's first reaction you get is shock. you see this in movies about Second World War when there's villages completely destroyed where people are executed women are raped, children are raped you hear this and you think, okay, this can't be true this sounds, this is so horrific

that you think that maybe we're exaggerating maybe this reports are not true and then you go to the site, then you see this, Then you see, for example, the town of Borodianca, 40 kilometers northwest of Kiev, completely destroyed. All high-rise buildings were bombed with airstrikes. There is under one building they found, in the first day of rescue operations, they found 26 bodies. In the town of Cherniig, which we visited, under one building, they found 47 bodies. And that's one building.

and when you walk those streets destroyed streets for example in Boucher when you walk the streets you see people lying you see people lying there for weeks there's a certain smell there's a certain picture of kids women lacking body parts there's tanks burned there's buildings destroyed and when you when you see this with your only

eyes, you feel like something died inside. And especially when we're talking about Kiev suburbs, I'm from Cape. I was born in Kiev. I live nearly all my life in Kiev. I have friends who lived in Bucha, who lived in Irpian. Those are pretty well-established suburbs. For example, in the European Buccia, a lot of young Ukrainians were buying houses or had a mortgage. And when you hear your friends having their apartments destroyed, the friends of your friends being killed, their parents being killed, you think that, well, your life won't be the same. This is something that changes your life. Yeah. I mean, the other horrifying report I saw over the weekend, I think, was there's some

Ukrainian officials were saying that more than 100,000 children have been forcibly deported, kidnapped would be a better word, to Russia by the Russian government. They say that Russia may be changing its laws to fast track the adoption of Ukrainian children. That is obviously one of the most evil things I've ever heard. I think that is clearly a genocidal behavior. Do you know where these estimates are coming from? Are these children who primarily live in eastern Ukraine? Yes. What happens is that in Donbass and in cities, in circle in Russia, Russia basically forces people to flee to Russia. It says that, okay, we're going to allow a humanitarian corridor, but only to Russia, right? And if you are a family with a small child and you have an option

either to sit in a basement in Marupil and die of starvation, of dehydration, or take your chances and try to flee even to Russia. Obviously, you will take that chance. And we see that in the Kharkiv region, in Donetsk region, in Lohansk region, where Russia, for the state's own propaganda, to show itself as the liberators, as the saviors of the people,

it forces people to flee to Russia. and then obviously people have problems. Little kids are separated from their parents. Parents are interrogated, especially if it's men from 18 to 60. There are some reports, this is unconfirmed reports, but some report that men were shipped to Siberia to basically live there so that they can't return to Ukraine and pick up arms.

The best account here is Ludmila Denisovah, who's the ombudsman of Ukraine. She's a parliamentary representative for the human rights. Every day, she publishes reports about systematic human rights violations, and it's hard to read that. After Bouchad, there were multiple cases of rape, of children being rape. There is also I think it was yesterday In her interview to BBC She said that

25 women Were kept in the basement in Boucher And systematically raped By Russians And You read this every day You start your morning By reading this news

That children are kidnapped by Russia Children are raped Men are shot You read this The whole day Then you write a story Then you edit a story then you go to bed and you check the news and you see, for example,

defenders of Mariupil pleading for help and saying that Russia uses chemical weapons. And then you just sit there and you think that how am I still saying? How am I still able to process this and to work and to continue to provide information? if for the past 48 days, I'm hearing just war crime after war crime and one powerful neighbor completely trying to completely annihilate me, my family and the people I love. Yeah. It's horrific. And, you know, I mean, not that there's any consolation, but I mean, one of the thing that has just been like staggering to me and to Ben, my co-host here is

the ability for people like you, I mean, Ukrainian journalists to continue doing their jobs and reporting and keeping the world abreast of what's happening in doing so in such a factual and rigorous way. I mean, it's horrifying, but pretty extraordinary work. So you deserve credit for that. You know, you mentioned the pullback from Ukraine that the Russian forces made a couple weeks ago that allowed, you know, access into places like Boucha. There's speculation that, Russia might be refocusing their military efforts on the Donbas solely and are looking for some sort of success by May 9th, which is a major holiday in Russia where they celebrate their victory over the Nazis in World War II before, I guess, deciding to emulate them in 2022. Have those forces been brought into the fight yet? And if not, is there a sense of when that might happen? Yes. According to both Ukrainian and Russian officials, those troops are moved. For example, those that were stationed near Kiev are moved through Belarus, through Russia to Lugansk region.

Those that were stationed near Chenehif and Sumer are moved also through the neighboring Russian regions to Lugansk and Donetsk. We expect this, as it's now called battle for Dunbass, to begin maybe early next week because Russia has logistics problems. It's hard for them to basically form battalions out of those scarce resources that were left near Kiev. Ukraine has here a priority in shipping arms also to the Netsk, to the Netsk region, to Slavans, Kermatoresk. Ukraine can do it faster. Ukraine is using railways, which proven to be very effective of, for example, moving people out of war zones. They moved over several million people to the West. So everybody expects this battle to start any day now, probably closer to next week.

And also, this is important to point out that now both Ukraine and Russia, have paused any sort of peace talks because both countries are banking on this battle. Russia on the offensive, Ukraine on the defensive. Here Russia has an advantage, I would say, because when they tried this so-called Blitzkriek, this fast operation to conquer Ukraine in three days, they overestimated their resources, underestimated Ukrainian defenses. Now, obviously, they understand that they're against a very tough opponent. And now they will try to pack as many troops in one region to have basically five to one,

maybe seven to one in terms of troops, tanks, missiles, and so on. And here, Ukraine will have a problem. Here, Ukrainian mobile defenses when they can hit supply lines, hit several tanks and then move back. Here it will work because it's a very narrow strip here. You can't basically move out of Severdanesque or Kramatarsk or Burrupal. So I think this will be a very, very hard battle for Ukraine to win. And that's why President Zelensky has increased his plea to Western leaders for them to provide heavy weapons because he said it, quite frankly, today, that without heavy weapons, we can't break the siege in Mariupil and basically probably we can't win the battle in Budbas. Yeah, it seems like the Russians have lots of stuff tanks, armored vehicles, missiles, etc.

but they might be short on infantry and troops with, you know, any kind of morale left, whereas Ukraine has some of the, you know, bravest fighters, I think we've seen in a long time, but maybe not enough material. I mean, to your point about Zelensky's plea for more stuff, weapons, et cetera, heavy weapons, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in Kiev recently. I know he had talks to President Zelensky. He sort of walked around the city greeting people, wondering how that visit was received and whether that visit has been matched with sort of a commensurate.

offer of more of the weapons you need? Well, obviously it was a photo up, right? We know that Boris Johnson likes shiny things. He likes to appear as the leader of the free world, as the Churchill of our time. That's one thing. The second is that he promised Ukraine more weapons. He promised Ukraine anti-tank weapons.

He promised Ukraine anti-tank weapons. promised Ukraine some defensive weapons against Russian naval capabilities. That's what we're hoping for right now. Obviously, the number one priority for Ukraine is tanks and air defense. That's where we basically obviously are losing in comparison to Russia. that we were asking, well, Slovakia was the first country to finally ship one S-300 battery, we more. The S-300 is a Soviet-made air defense system, which Ukrainians can operate, meaning that we can just ship it to the east and it's already operational. So here, I think it's not

what Boris Johnson can do. It's something that the US can do, basically swap the Soviet-made weapons that many Eastern European countries part of the Warsaw Pact have

for new American Patriot, yeah, for Patriot, basically air defenses. And we're hoping that the US will do it, but after U.S. basically fumbled the case of MIG 29 saying that U.S. is not going to help transfer those planes,

those jets to Ukraine. I think that now Ukraine is hoping more on the U.K. and eastern European countries such as Poland than the Baltic states. And it sounds like, I mean, the Germans initially said that they were going to to do a lot of things for Ukraine, but it seems like maybe the new chancellor is dragging his feet on cutting off Russian imports of oil and gas and maybe dragging his feet as well on the delivery of armored personnel carriers. Is that right? There was this shocking situation where basically Germany decided to decommission 100 APCs instead of transferring them to Ukraine. So they just decided to.

destroy a hundred military vehicles rather than providing them to Ukraine. Obviously, they were old. Obviously, Ukrainians don't know how to handle them and you have to train Ukrainians, but just that was a shock. And Frank Walter Steinmeier, the president of Germany, basically said today that he was willing to repeat Johnson's photo op and go to key. Kiev, but Zelensky said no. And that's Ukraine's stance here that we believe that Germany is doing not enough. We believe that Germany is partially responsible to the situation that's

happening. First, because they were appeasing Russia for years. And second, because they are now choosing their comfort for Ukrainian lives. Because every bullet that Russia fires in Ukraine is sponsored by European countries that buy oil and gas. Russian oil and gas imports, experts of Russia and imports of the European Union account for 40% of Russia's budget. 40. that's if if tomorrow the European Union says okay we're done we're cutting off

Russian oil and gas and coal the war will end within the month yeah yeah so last question for you and thank you again for giving me so much time I mean I know people in the Biden administration listen to this State Department of the Pentagon whatever what do you want them to hear from you and about what Ukrainians need and you know about what the expectation is for the U.S., for NATO to deliver in these crucial weeks ahead in this refocus fight in the Donbos. I think it's important for Western leaders to understand that it's not a war between this small country, Ukraine, against Russia.

This is a war between the free world and a dictatorship. And Ukrainian survival, the survival of the Ukrainian nation, the Ukrainian state, is in the interest of the U.S., of Germany or France. And if it causes a spike in gas prices or a fall, I don't know, in employment, a couple of percent, that's still worth taking than seeing Ukrainians die, then seeing Ukrainians being massacred, because this will be in history books. This will be the same history books that talk about the Second World War, the First World War. and you have to choose on which side of history you are. And helping Ukraine survive, this will obviously go down in history as a major win for democracy in the free world. Lexi, thank you so much for talking with us.

And thanks for all the great work the Kiev Independent is doing. Everyone should follow you on Twitter. I don't know. Can they help you out? Can they subscribe? What can people do to help you guys are working so fucking hard? I think it's better to donate to your. Ukrainian organizations such as Come Back Alive and some humanitarian organizations that help, for example,

the displaced refugees. I think that will be much appreciated in Ukraine. Okay. We'll do that too. Thank you again. And have a great day. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. I'm going to talk through a few more things that I saw in the news about Ukraine that didn't come up in the interview today. And then a couple other issues from around the world that I just think are worth noting. So the first thing I saw from Washington was the Biden administration is reportedly debating how much they are legally allowed to support a criminal investigation of Russian war crimes in Ukraine by the international criminal court. This issue is a little complicated for the United States and for President Biden because the U.S. isn't party to the treaty that created the

international criminal court. The U.S. military mostly vigorously opposes the U.S. being a part of the criminal court because they don't want U.S. troops prosecuted at the Hague. So we're going to watch how this one plays out. Obviously, there's a lot of momentum to call President Putin a war criminal to prosecute him and other Russian officials for war crimes. I suspect that the United States will be able to find ways to get evidence of Russian war crimes to these prosecutors without joining the treaty, but I am far from an expert here. We need you, Amal Clooney. Please come on the show, walk us through this one. We've also talked on past episodes about how there's a debate over whether NATO expansion was a good idea, whether it went too far. The question is basically, did NATO unnecessarily

antagonize Russian leaders, including Putin, by expanding further and further eastward and admitting countries closer and closer to Russia's border? Regardless of what you think about that debate, and if you really want to dig into it, you should go back and listen to my interview with Peter Beinart from several months ago. It now seems pretty clear that Putin's decision to invade Ukraine, whether or not it was the result of, you know, NATO encroachment will lead to more NATO expansion, not less. There are reports that both Sweden and Finland are currently debating whether to join. And there's polling in both countries that show support for joining NATO doubled in both countries. Funny how that happens when you fucking invade your neighbor.

People suddenly want protection. So Finland will probably decide what to do in a few weeks. Sweden is more likely to decide, I think during the summer, it might be an issue in their parliamentary elections in September. So great work there, Vladimir Putin, more strategic genius from the man over in Russia. Finally, the investigative journalist organization Bellingat reported that there has been a massive Stalinist-like purge of Russian intelligence officials. They reported that nearly 150 FSB agents have been fired or moved and that the head of the department responsible for Ukraine was sent to prison. There's been a lot of speculation lately, a lot of experts arguing that Putin's isolation, his ever-shinking circle of advisors and friends, and his tendency to punish people who bring in bad news

is part of why this military campaign has gone so badly to date and why all the Russian assumptions about Ukraine have been wrong. Putin seemed to think that he could just gallop into Kiev, that Zelensky would flee, that the Ukrainian military would roll over, the exact opposite happened. So we shall see what happens with all these, you know, FSB agents and everybody else. You know, good luck to you. Evil monsters. Sorry, you work in a system where the messenger sometimes literally gets shot.

And speaking of which, best of luck to the new Russian commander of the war effort who was named over the weekend. In other news from around the world, French voters went to the polls on Sunday for the first round of a two-part presidential election. As expected, the runoff on April 24th will pit President Emmanuel Macron against right-wing zealot Marine Le Pen. In the first round, Macron got 27.8 percent of the vote. Le Pen got 23.2 percent of the vote. According to polling, Macron is the slight favorite going into the runoff, but I still think we should all be a little bit nervous about the way his lead shrank over the past few weeks and what the totality of these results tell us. Before I get to that, a little background. So Marine Le Pen and her party have a long history of anti-immigrant rhetoric, anti-immigrant policies. There's been some vile anti-Semitism. She's a well-documented fan of Vladimir Putin. So if she's elected, it is bad news for a lot of reasons, and you can probably kiss French support for Ukraine goodbye. Le Pen barely beat out a leftist candidate named Jean-Luc Melanchon. He took third place.

with 22% of the vote, apologies for that accent. Melanchol focused a lot of his campaign on populist economic issues like lowering the retirement age and creating a minimum wage. But, you know, it's notable that he is also far more hostile than Macron to EU rules. And he's been a long-time critic of NATO. So, you know, what I think these results tell us, the early results at least, is that racism and Islamophobia, you know, dressed up in campaign rhetoric as a deba bit. about language and culture has resonated with a lot of French voters. Soar messages that are critical of NATO, critical of the EU, critical of internationalism generally, although it's worth noting that this time Le Pen did not run on exiting the EU.

That previously had been a plank in her platform when she's run in the past. There was no Brexit pledge this time. But we can also see that populist economic policies are resonating as people everywhere deal with inflation and rising gas prices. And I think a global economy that is, clearly just still a mess after the pandemic. So the question now becomes, can Emmanuel Macron get his shit together? Will he start campaigning hard? Can he attract enough votes from the lefts or has he disappointed them? And will those voters stay home or give Le Pen a shot? Melanchon, the leftist

socialist candidate, told his supporters that he doesn't like either candidates. He doesn't like Le Pen, he doesn't like Macron, but he said his voters can't let one vote go to Marine Le Pen in the second. round. Notably, he did not say, vote for Emmanuel Macron. He said, don't let one vote go to Marine Le Pen. So there's a question there of whether he's sort of signaling stay home. This is Le Pen's third run. Last time, 2017, she went head to head in a runoff with Macron. He beat her handily. One reason for that was she did a terrible job in their debate. And that really hurt her. We'll see if she's improved. It's worth, again, remembering that Marine Le Pen's party got an $11 million dollar loan from a Russian bank in 2014 that has ties to the Kremlin. That could be a far more

salient issue now. She has had to try and hide her Putin love in the past few months. There were a bunch of flyers that had her and Putin on them that they had to tear up or put away. She now says she supports sanctions on Russia, but not energy sanctions on Russia because she doesn't want to hurt French consumers. Obviously, sanctions on Russia that don't include energy are not particularly Lee strong, but it'll be interesting to see if that kind of attempt at splitting the difference flies and if Macron is tacked too far to the right. The last step in this process is going to be that a few weeks after the presidential election, there will be parliamentary elections. So whoever wins, but especially Le Pen, will not just have to win that election, but then find a way to form a government.

So we'll watch that one very closely. The other issue we preview last week that came to a head this week is Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was finally ousted from his job on Sunday after losing a no-confidence vote in Parliament. Khan had tried to block that no-confidence vote from happening by dissolving Parliament before they could take the vote, but Pakistan Supreme Court ruled that that move violated the Constitution and allowed the vote of no-confidence to proceed, and Khan got the boot and is now the first Pakistani Prime Minister to be removed by a no-confidence vote in history. Parliament then named opposition leader Shabaz Sharif to be the interim prime minister that happened on Monday. If his name sounds familiar, it's because Sharif is the younger brother of former prime minister Nohashirif, who last got thrown out of office over corruption allegations back in 2017.

The younger Sharif now inherits a brutally difficult political environment with inflation, a powerful military that he too has to appease, and a pissed off former prime minister named Imran Khan, who is likely to run. again, who's likely to whip up his supporters, and then elections that are likely later this year. So, you know, in the past, Sharif has been accused of ordering extrajudicial killings and charge with corruption. So not a great outcome, I think, although maybe he'll provide some stability. One of the last things I wanted to cover is just this COVID lockdown in Shanghai, China. This isn't getting that much attention, I think, because, you know, so much of the international news focus is on Ukraine. But again, this is the third largest city in the world. like 25, 26 million people, and parts of the city have been locked down for two weeks.

And it's not like lockdown, like we were locked down, like, you can walk the dog, oh, you know, postmates is still delivering. Like, in some cases, people were literally locked into their homes or apartment buildings, like bolted from the outside. And today, April 12th, when we're recording, some residents were finally allowed out of their homes. But that really only came after videos and news reports emerged of people who are you know, screaming that they were literally starving. And there was a video of people trying to break into a supermarket. Others had run out of medicine. I mean, residents, like, they can't get

food delivered because all the delivery people are locked down as well. And authorities have responded with, you know, brutality imprisoning residents, beating them. People who test positive have been forced into crowded, unsafe, quarantine facilities. And, you know, it doesn't seem like this, this draconian effort is even working, and really will lead everyone to question, I think, China's COVID-zero policy and whether it's sustainable at all. The last thing I wanted to mention to you all before we go into Ben's interview with London Mayor City Khan is some other news out of the UK. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was fined by police for breaking coronavirus laws by attending a COVID party during lockdown that his own government had ordered. I'm curious how they

decided which party exactly to fine him for because there were so many, but apparently what got him this fine was his birthday party at 10 Downing Street. On Tuesday, Johnson said he had paid the fine. We don't know how much it was. He got to apologize, but he refused to step down. London police say they will issue fines for at least 50 violations, including Johnson, his wife and the chancellor of the exchequer. You know, Boris seems to have been banking on the fact that Ukraine has distracted everyone from his partying ways, we shall see, you know, when Parliament comes back at the session, you know, you have to think that they might raise this several times. They might raise the fact that it seemed pretty clear that Boris lied to Parliament, lied to the British people about what

was happening. And he could still be in some trouble. But really, it's up to members of his own party to decide to throw him overboard to do a vote in no confidence. But we'll see if we get there. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, you'll hear Ben's interview with London mayor, Sadiq Khan. Okay, I'm very pleased to be joined by the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. Welcome to London, Ben. It's good to see you in London face-to-face rather than virtually all Zoom or on a phone. Exactly.

It's a bit different, and these are people can see it, but we're in your fabulous new city hall digs. So congratulations on that. And I wanted to start. I noticed the Ukrainian flag hanging outside City Hall as I walked in. You know, I think people look to London as kind of a barometer of, public opinion globally, such a global city. I've seen you out at pretty significant demonstrations. How do you just describe, for starters, the mood here, what is the sense of concern about the war, the sense of solidarity with Ukrainians? What are you doing to try to demonstrate that?

Well, London is the most diverse city in the world. We have more than 300 different languages spoken, people from all over the globe who've made London their home. So it is a microcosm of world. public opinion. And the two things about Londoners, in general terms, is one is unequivalable condemnation of Putin's barbaric aggression, almost unanimity there in that view. And secondly, our solidarity with Ukrainians. It's been heartbreaking to see those images from, you know, Boucher or Maripal or Kirkalf or on the outskirts of Kiev to see what they're going through. And when you look at the numbers and speak to Ukrainians in London, and those, you know, those are not able to come here. It's heartbreaking. And there is a frustration when I speak to

Londoners about the inability of the West to either stand up to Putin in a meaningful way or to provide the proportionate help Ukrainians need. And we've been inspired by both President Zelensky and when we had that big, big tens of thousands joined our march in London, we got the mayor of Kiev, the former heavyweight champion, you know, Mayor Klitskow speaking to us. And And we're in all of their strength and their bravery. And also, frankly speaking, we're a bit embarrassed about the lack of support we're giving them. Well, I wanted to ask you, you know, obviously the sanctions are one of the tools that the West has really applied here. That's put, once again, a kind of magnifying glass on London as a place where you've had a significant population of Russian oligarchs.

A lot of wealth passes here. as a New Yorker, same thing is true of my hometown. So I recognize it's not decisions that you've made that led to that. That's been the reality for some time now. But as those sanctions are enforced, is there a role for the city? And what might be the impacts on the city's economy of really beginning to go after the kind of kleptocratic network that Putin has had here in London? Well, my view is these are the sort of less affair, you know, let the market rate.

chicks coming on to roost. For years now, London, like other cities around the world, global cities, but London's been seen as a place to store your money, to clean your money. You can buy homes and leave them empty or buy businesses. And I'll give you one stat. An NGO transparency international estimate that there's more than 1.1 billion pounds worth of money

from Russian oligarchs tied up in 100 properties in London. Right. We know that the famous football club, Chelsea Football Club, Soccer, owned by somebody very close to Putin, Roman Abramovich, and so on and so forth. And so it's been frustrating for Londoners because many Londoners are priced out because of these oligarchs buying property. It's been frustrating for many Brits not being able to purchase businesses because they've been outbid by oligarchs and others. And this, for me, is a chance for a reset. It's an opportunity. And I feel really bad using the word opportunity.

talking about Ukraine. Yeah. But an opportunity for us to clean things up, to stop allowing it to be so easy for those oligarchs close to despots like Putin to use London as a place to launder money. And the public are on our side here. The public want us to stand up to Putin and others close to him, but also you'll beware. There are other unsavory characters who are using, you know, global cities to store their money, to launder their money.

And I think what the international community has got to do is. is work together. Because what will happen is, if London tightens its rules, and we're going to do so, they'll go to another city. They'll go to a New York or to, you know, a Paris or L.A.

And that's why it's really important. The international community works together to understand we don't benefit, you know. We may think, oh, it's great because money's been attracted into our cities, but it's not benefiting the residents of our cities. It's not benefiting our society. And I think this should be a wake-up call

for societies around the globe, for democracies around the globe, change our rules to make it, you know, far more difficult, if not impossible, for our society to be used by these despots. Yeah. So there's an opportunity, I guess, in not pricing people out. Is there any opportunity for some of that wealth to do good? Yeah. So what I've said to the government is really good point. There's two things. One is we need transparency. At the very least, there should be a register of all the properties owned by people who are not resident here, who are using in shell companies and tax haven't.

That transparency is important so we can see who owns what, who the beneficial owners are. But secondly, why not, you know, have poetic justice in using some of the proceeds of these oligarchs to benefit the Ukrainians,

the refugees, those who need support, those who've actually, when you speak to friends in Russia who aren't close to Putin, they will tell you, actually, many of these oligarchs became billionaires overnight because Putin and before him Yeltsin handed to them

these privatized utilities, And they didn't create this wealth through hard work of themselves, but it's unearned wealth. And so there's poetic justice to be done here in relation to using the proceeds, the assets, to do good. Yeah. And what about, I mean, there's also obviously been through Brexit, some concern that the conservative party here was a bit too close for comfort with some of this money, some of it was flowing to them. I mean, what do you think the political dynamic is here? Oh, without that.

So for those, for those you're listening to who aren't in the UK, so the conservative party, very, very close to many very, very wealthy Russians, not dissimilar to President Trump and his close association to certain factions from Russia. And what we now have evidence of is many very wealthy Russians funding, donating to the conservative Party, not just photographs of leading politicians and the Conservative Party, members of the government, with wealthy Russian individuals, but also a close association. And you can't disentangle giving donations with government policy that inextricably linked. Why would somebody give money? You think, why'd you do that? It's because you get something in return. Not just access, but the access leads to

certain policies of the government. And, you know, the same concerns I know Mary Americans had with the, you know, President Trump and associations with people close to Putin, if not Putin himself, we have here in the present tense, not the past. And again, this is an opportunity because the British public generally get it right. The British public won't stand for this. And you're now seeing an accelerated attempt from Prime Minister Johnson and his party to try and, you know, distance themselves from Russians. It can't come soon enough. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's hope so. I wanted to, pivot to a different global issue, which is climate change. You know, you can't help but notice as someone who's come to London a lot over the years,

just how much has been done in recent years to change transportation here, to change the carbon footprint here. You know, for people who aren't familiar, can you just describe what would have been your principal policies here to address as a big city climate change? And I want to get into like how that can be or whether that can be replicated. in other places, how you've worked with other mayors around the world? Yes, my view, when it comes to climate change, is there are three groups of politicians.

You've got those who are, frankly speaking, climate change denies. You've got those who are climate change delays. They're delaying taking action. They're talking about policies in 2040 or 2050 or whatever. And there are those who are climate change doers, who are doing stuff now. And I think mayors across the globe are doers. We do stuff.

And since I was elected May in 2016, we did a number of things. The first thing is when you're honest and you speak to people in the global north, think of the New Yorks, the L.A., the L.A., the L.A., the Lundans, the Parises, the Madrids, the Barcelona's. And you ask them about climate change. What they say to you, if they're honest, is two things. One is this is not really an issue for us. It's for the global south.

It's for sub-Sahar Africa, islands in the Pacifics. And it's not an issue for now, it's for tomorrow, 2030, 2040, 2050. And what we've done in London is saying very simple. We have shown the link between climate change. and air pollution. Why have we done that? Because we're trying to make this not just an environmental crisis, but a health crisis, because we know in London, on an average year, there were tens of thousands of premature deaths. There are children who have permanently stunted lungs because of the stuff they're breathing in. Adults with a whole host of health issues from asthma, cancer,

heart disease, lung disease, dementia, directly attributable to toxicity in the air, which is linked with climate change. And what we did in my first year as mayor is educate Londoners about how bad this thing is, just to frankly speaking scare Londoners into giving me permission to take bold action. And working closely with actually with somebody you know very well, Mike Bloomberg and Bloomberg philanthropies. We have now the biggest number of air quality monitors of any city in the world, given real-time information about how good or bad the areas.

And that gave me permission from Londoners to have world-leading policies. So we have the world's first ultra-low emission zone. What that basically means is it applies the pollute of pace principle. If you've got a platoon vehicle and you want to come into Central London, you've got to pay for that. And what that's led to is fewer non-compliant vehicles, more compliant vehicles, more people walking, cycling, using public transport. We've reduced by half the amount of toxic care in the centre of our city.

We've now rolled that out, so we're going to have more of London covered. And in May, I'll be consulted on all of the... London being one big ultra-line ambition zone. And the prize is not simply cleaning toxic air. We've reduced carbon emissions. In the first two years, by an additional 6%, you know, we're past peak emissions and we're going to reduce further the nitrogen dioxide, the particular matter, carbon emissions. At the same time, we're planting record numbers of trees.

We're greening our city. We have planning policies that require you, if you're building a new home or a building, for it to be zero carbon. and so we've got bold policies and the great thing is we're taking Londoners with us and people want to see change and by educating Londoners

we're seeing that change in London. Is there, I mean there's also obviously things like you know, you have to pay a fee for congestion if you're driving a non-electric vehicle. Has there been pushback though? I mean, you know,

some things get more expensive for some people. There's just changes in how you get around. Obviously, I've just even noticed in a way that I find interesting and I can see the benefit. There's so much incentive to take public transportation now that I don't even think about taking a taxi here. But I'm sure that that's a hardship potentially for taxi drivers. So how do you deal with, what is the level of pushback and what have you learned about how you

deal with that that might be useful for other countries that are trying to bring a public along with this? Well, the first thing I've learned as a politician is the decisions I'm most proud of are the big bold ones. They're the things you're proud of. But you'll take people with you, we're living in a democracy. There's no point doing bold stuff than losing the next election.

The other guy comes in and unravels at all. So you'll take people with you. So educating London as was really important. That's where the air quality monitors help. But you know, an amazing stat, almost half a Londonist don't own a car. And actually, on a micro level,

you see in London what happens on a global level, which is those least responsible facing the biggest consequences of climate change and air pollution. So we've had schemes to assist those who may need their vehicle to transition away. So we've had a scrapage scheme, giving people a grant to get rid of their polluting vehicle. I froze fares for the first five years of me being fairs. So the same fare you paid in 2016, you paid in 2021. Many people were concerned about cycling being unsafe.

So we increased fivefold the amount of safe cycling, and we had more cycle-high facilities available. We widened pavement. So you're right, made it attractive to use alternatives to pollutant vehicles. And an amazing thing about London is when you speak to most Londoners below the age of 30, they've never bothered to learn how to drive. Why? Because they don't need to.

Yeah. Because the alternatives are so large and so affordable, they do that instead. Yeah. No, it's really interesting. You know, I can sense how, you know, because New York's a little bit behind, but we had Mayor Bloomberg. You know, you're developing policies here that, you know, you obviously have more resources in other places.

But how much do you think these are the types of approaches, you know, kind of really getting rid of traffic congestion, air monitoring, like we talked about, public transport cycling? Do you think these are things that can, do you talk to mayors in other parts of the world, you know, that are way behind and have much further to go? Do you think there are ways that you're creating a playbook here that can be used elsewhere? Look, cities are where the action is. You know, one of the things that I'm really pleased and proud of is I'm now chair of C-40.

C-40 are 97 megacities across the world, New York, L.A., Phoenix, Seattle, Chicago are members, and, you know, the Parises, the Madrid, the Barslodaghs, the Degas, the Delis, the Lehmers, and so forth. And we're working closely. There's a great amount of teamwork. and, you know, we're very collegiate. We share ideas. We share best practice. So, you know, in Barcelona, Ada Callow is doing great stuff in relation to reducing street traffic

cars in the centre, you know, in free town. They're doing great work in planting trees. So we share ideas all the time. You know, we're not competitive. We're collaborative in relation to sharing ideas. One of the examples of a good idea that came was actually a conversation I would with Bill de Blasio, the former mayor of New York about five years ago. And I explained to Bill that we were trying to do.

divest our pensions away from fossil fuels. And we decided to work together. And we now have 18 cities across the globe. And we've divested more than $400 billion away from fossil fuels. And actually, it's not simply for moral reasons and environmental reasons. It makes economic sense. How would it make sense to invest in fossil fuels? And so there are other examples. We're doing joint procurement. So we, a C-40, invested a billion pounds from the private sector for cities across South America to buy electric buses. And this is a virtual circle because these electric buses are going to be made somewhere. These solar panels, these are, you know, wind turbines, electric vehicle charging points,

retrofitting our buildings, insulation and so forth. And so, you know, one of the things we've tried to do across the globe as cities is coming out of this awful pandemic is have green new deals. Yeah. And so in London, we're invested in energy efficiency. We're invested in, you know, future-proof jobs for young people because, you know, you know, we've got to make sure coming out of the pandemic, we don't go back to business as usual. That'd be just awful.

Yeah. I was going to ask you about your upcoming trip. But just listening to talk, the last question I want to ask you on this subject is we've talked about kind of democracy in the context of Ukraine in the many ways and corruption that erodes democracy. We've talked about climate change. This is the two big issues, right? Democracy and climate change.

And right now it's not looking that great on either. You know, it's looking good here in London in a lot of ways. You know, we just had a, we've seen what's happened in Ukraine. We just saw a troubling election in Hungary. We, the polls out of France are, you know, the far rights doing a little too well for comfort. You're someone, I think, who's looked to by a lot of small D Democrats and progressives around the world. What is, when you assess what you've learned in this job, what is, what, what can be done at the local level? Because part of what I hear in a lot of places is to rebuild democracy or to build climate solutions, you kind of got to build. from the bottom up. What is your message to people who kind of look at the enormity of the challenges

to democracy and climate about why did it not give up? What hope can you offer us here on these meta trends? The two responses say is not firstly don't underestimate the impact of Joe Biden becoming president made. One of the first things he did was to re-sign the Paris, resigned the USA being part of the Paris Accord, right? Appointed John Kerry to be his climate change envoy. COP 26, as critical as we are, would not have happened with the numbers there had President Biden not been the president. Can you imagine in a parallel universe, President Trump and COP 26? Simly, what we've seen in the last few weeks with President Biden, shoulder to shoulder with the European Union, with the UK, NATO's role in this, imagine in the power of universe, President Trump being the guy,

being the leader of the free world. So let's not talk down too much what we've achieved. And I've got to say this, as somebody who loves America and American democracy, don't underestimate as critical as you may be in America of President Biden, of the difference. I mean, not just me feeling lighter as a Muslim having the American president being Biden rather than Trump, but the impact's had on climate change and multilateralism. My second response is actually, I think cities is where the action is. Across the globe, we're seeing greater urbanization. More and more people move into the cities for actually good reasons. And that's not going to change. It's only going to only going in one direction. I think the UN estimate over the next few years, more than

two-thirds of the world's population will live in cities. Now, for me, as a mayor, that's very exciting, but we've got to plan for that growth. And there's a former American politician who said, and I'm paraphrasing, if the 19th century is going to be known as the century of empires, 20th century is a century of nation-states, 21st century is about cities and mayors. And it starts, you know, somebody you know very well, he was a community organizer. Yeah. That's how he began. Yeah.

And you start small, you're organizing. You start organizing. And then you grow and you grow and you grow and you grow. I remember my brand to be mayor. You know, Nadim's who is in this room, who's one of five people when I began my campaign to be the Labor candidate to be mayor. And lo and behold, you know, that snowball got got bigger. And we're doing, you know, bold policies. And I think you've got to be hopeful.

You got to be hopeful. Don't be pessimistic. We are the change makers. I think the bold, big policies are the ones that bring about meaningful change. And there is a lot of goodwill and good people out there. We've just got to mobilize them and bring them together. Yeah, no, you got to organize. Well, I want to end by just asking you.

I know you have a trip upcoming to the U.S. to New York and in California. What are you setting out to do? What should we be watching for? Well, this is a very different trip. My last major trip to America was in 2016. It was my first trip in my first term. And I remember that trip joking. that actually I was there just in case Trump won.

I'd be bad from going. It was a joke and people would laugh and there was no chance of course Trump's going to win and lo and behold, the rest is history. This is my first major trip since my second term victory last May and ostensibly I'm going to bang the drum for London in relation to in New York. We'll be launching a major tourism campaign. I'm inviting my American friends to come back to London.

Her Majesty's Jubilee's taking place this year. But also we've got great events from three, you know, America Football Games. We've got Major League Baseball coming back to London, I hope. We've got great Lady Gaga's coming to London, but also great, the stones will be in High Park and so forth. So come to London. Then we go to San Francisco.

We do some really good work with the tech companies there. London is the go-to place for Silicon Valley. We're taking female founders with us who've set up their companies doing some really good stuff in San Francisco. The mayor of San Francisco was recently in London. And then we're going to LA, big cultural friendship, kinship with LA in relation to the work we're doing. London is the second biggest, most popular city for filming.

Netflix are here, new film studios, here. You can't go to a restaurant where they're bumping into a Hollywood actor. Yeah, which is fantastic for us. And so, you know, we are going there to rebuild the relationships that we had. And you can't beat face-to-face stuff, Ben. You know, virtual is fine. Teams is fine. The phone is fine.

But, you know, shaking hands, giving hugs, meeting friends and rebuilding that's special relationship London has with our friends in the States. Post-Brexit, post-pandemic, you know. It's crucial. And also, you know, small D-D Democrats, small P-progressives, there is nothing better than breaking bread, sharing stories. And it's, you know, let me be frank, this year, many of us around the globe will be looking at the big terms.

You know, many of us are looking into what happens in, looking into what happens in America, American politics matters, but also your role matters, you know, you are now again on the world stage, whether it's Ukraine. whether it's climate change. One of the things I want to do when I go to the U.S. is to say, listen, in the kindest possible way, don't judge us by our leader. Boris Johnson, maybe our prime minister, but he doesn't speak for many people in London. Yeah, well, just like we wouldn't want to be judged by Trump.

Well, look, I really appreciate that, and we're glad you're coming. And one of the things we always say on this podcast and on my work is that, you know, the other sides of these debates are very coordinated. They break a lot of bread together on the far right. They help each other out. We need to do the same. So that's why it's really great to hear from you today. And we'll be looking forward to welcoming you to America.

Can't wait. Stay safe. Thanks again to Lexi Soroken for joining the show. Thank you to Mayor Sadiq Khan for joining us. And thank you all to listening all the way to the end, even if it's just me solo, talking to myself. Just me and a mic, waving it, producers and everybody. They can't talk back.

Their mic's turn on. But anyway, thank you guys. Ben will be back next week, and we'll talk to you soon. Positive the World is a Crooked Media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Mews. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chatterwick. Kyle Seguin is our sound engineer. Thanks to Saul Rubin for production support and to our digital team, Elijah Cohn,

Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth, who upload our episodes as videos at YouTube.com slash crooked media.