The Daily Beast Podcast - ‘We Came Back to Show the Truth About This Russian Invasion’

Episode Date: March 6, 2022

On this bonus episode of the New Abnormal, Kyiv-based film producer Egor Olesov— an executive producer at FilmUA, one of the largest film studios in Ukraine, where we worked extensively with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his acting career — calls in from Lviv. Olesov—in a conversation also joined by John Wynn, a Vietnamese-American filmmaker who worked with Egor on the film The Rising Hawk, which was shot in Ukraine in 2019 and 2019—tells host Molly Jong-Fast that “We came back and right now we are doing what we can do as much as possible to support our people, to defend our country and to show to the world the truth about this crazy Russian invasion in Ukraine. It’s like horror dream. It's a really crazy situation. It's a big war in the center of the Europe.” Plus Andrew Rice, New York Magazine Contributing Editor and the author of the Year That Broke America, explains how “I came to the conclusion that the seeds of the future were sewn in 2000 in the election between Bush and Gore (as) all the things that we now see coming to fruition in distressing form in our society were sort of just starting to come into being at that time and in one place, in Florida. which I call the unlikely crucible of the future” — one where “at the time the recount was going on, the 9/11 pilots were training in Florida, sort of serenely flying above it”—just after Trump ran for the reform party nomination that year in his first presidential campaign and “all these stories I sort of brought together in the book tell this sort of ribald, picaresque and ultimately sort of tragic story of how America took a wrong turn.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Molly Zhang Fast, no relationship to Kim Jong-un. I'm a left-wing pundant and a writer at the Atlantic Invo. And I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart, conversations with the wisest and funniest and funniest people in science and media and politics that help make what's happening today clearer. Our world has been turned upside down, and on the new abnormal, we'll talk about the people who got us into this mess and how we'll hopefully get ourselves out of it. We have a super interesting show today. New York Magazine contributing editor Andrew Rice will talk to us about his book, The Year That Broke America. And here's a hint. It wasn't 2020. Unfortunately, our co-host, Andy Levy, was unable to join us today, so we instead have a captivating interview with the Ukrainian citizen who's on the ground to explain to us what he's seeing there as he gets his family safely over the last. the border. Igor Olisov is an executive producer at FilmU.A., one of the largest film studios in the

Ukraine, and founder of Kinorab, a film production company based in Kiev, and will be joined by his colleague John Wyn, who's a Vietnamese-American filmmaker who directed the film The Rising Hawk, which was shot in Ukraine from 2018 to 2019, and he worked with Igor and film UA on The Rising Hawk. Welcome to the new abnormal. Talk to me about where you are. Actually, right now, I'm in Lviv, so it's the last part of Ukraine. So as I mentioned, we have supported our families, like wife and kids, who already crossed the border. So they are in safe place right now, and we came back. And right now we are doing what we can do as much as possible to support our people,

to defend our country, and to show to the world. The true about this crazy Russian invasion in Ukraine and it's like horror dream. It's really crazy situation. It's a big war in the center of the Europe. Did you have trouble getting your wife and your children out? There was huge lines at the border. So it took like a few days to do it. There was not only my family. There was a few families. So step by step, we did everything. But I think right now it's a little bit easier because it was like the first wave when a lot of people came to the border and trying to cross the border to Poland to Hungary. Right now it's a little bit easier because a lot of people already crossed the border. And you sent them to Poland? They are in Austria right now.

Oh, but they were able to go through through Poland. They crossed the border to Hungary. from Hungary, they traveled to Vienna because we have friends there, so it's a little bit easier when we have some friends and to be with them. It seems like to someone who's just read about it that one day you were reading the newspaper and the next day, Vladimir Putin invaded. Do you mean when we understood that invasion is, I think, just after his speech. So just the day before, right? It was day before because the last eight or nine days for me is like one long day. So yeah, just after his speech, we understood that there are. His speech is your president.

I'm talking about speech, Putin's speech. Putin speech. Sorry, yes, continue. So after his speech in Ukraine, we understood that there is a huge chances that he will start invasion. But again, nobody believed that he will start invasion like it is right now. So there was rumors that he will start invasion only the east part of Ukraine. But right now, Russian army, they're bombing cities, like big cities. And there is a huge army near Kiev and Kharkiv was destroyed and other cities was destroyed.

So nobody believed that it's possible. What's it like right now where you are? I mean, it looks like it's a safe place right now. So a few times per day we have sirens, right, like air defense alarm system. And I think it's a safe place. And a lot of people are united. So we built a lot of defense system there, a lot of block posts to avoid any like Russian spies, but the main problem is that nobody know what Putin will do, what is his next step.

So right now, Ukrainian army are so good at the ground. So we destroyed a lot of invaders, but we have huge problem, unfortunately, with the sky. So they're launching a lot of missiles, rockets, aircrafts, bombing our cities, and we does not have a lot of air defa fire. systems. So this is a problem we need to solve right now and we're trying to do it. But unfortunately, NATO afraid to start World War and they don't want to close the sky. So in this case, we need to find some solutions. So probably NATO can give the Ukrainian army some equipment like air defense equipment and some aircrafts and Ukrainian soldiers will fight. And in this case, there will be no direct conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

So probably there is a solution, but again, it will take some time maybe to do it. And what is really bad that Putin use even some restricted weapons, so they are throwing some restricted bombs. And this is really horrible. So it's really horrible. And another part that we have some people in Russia, like producers, writers, some filmmakers, even some friends, and they have huge propaganda.

They told to the Russian people that they did not destroy any, no any city was destroyed, no any civilian was killed, and it's really horrible. So they're trying to do like isolated world in Russia right now. And it's really complicated to talk. with those Russian guys. And maybe you know, in Russia, right now, if you will protest against the war, you will have 15 years of the jail. It's really horrible. It's like North Korea right now.

Have you sort of come into contact with Russian soldiers? It seems like there are a lot of Russian soldiers who don't quite, and certainly this seems to be true of the Belarusian. They don't quite know what they're doing there. Do you mean Belarusian soldiers? Yeah, the Belarusian soldiers. Yeah. The situation is not clear, actually, because Belarusian soldiers, as we know, don't want to fight with us. They split it for two parts, and a lot of Belarusian soldiers sign, like, anti-sign agreement that they don't want to fight with Ukrainians.

So we're still waiting. We don't know. So we are ready for this. We don't want also to fight with them. But if they will start fight with us, we will defend our land. So there is no any options, unfortunately. And Igor, some clarification real quick and part of the question. Have you guys had any contact with actual Russian soldiers who feel the same way? No, it's not possible, I think. So as we know, like Russian soldiers, they even didn't have any mobile phones. So only like some people.

But they are so isolated right now. So even other friends who's like high-intellected people. So they, it's, it's really complicated to talk with them. So they believe that Putin, it's not war, it's just special operation to fight with the Ukrainian nationalist. And right now, they changed the little bit propaganda. And this is really crazy because some guys from film industry told me that, guys, you have support from Hollywood. It's all just the filmmaking. I mean, it's special effects.

No, any Ukrainian cities is destroyed. No people dying. It's like everything is like filmmaking. So this is crazy. We don't really know what the Russian casualties number is, but it seems like it's quite high. Yeah. And won't the Russian people sort of figure that out?

So first of all, I would like to thank to support from United States because a Russian army, they have a lot of tanks, you know it, right? But because of support from United States, we got javelins and we got also N-law system from Great Britain. And our soldiers really good with this weapon. And they destroyed a lot, a lot of Russian tanks. But they have a lot. I mean, the amount is huge. So, you know, like one day we destroyed like 50 tanks.

Next day, they have another 50 tanks. It's complicated. But yes, and in Russia, they did not tell to the mothers of the soldiers that their sons was killed in Ukraine. They're trying to hide all the numbers of the soldiers because they don't want that these numbers will be like officially published in Russia. And there is for us, there is a hope, but right now I think it's complicated, but there is a hope that some Russian oligars, maybe some like military people like generals will stop Putin because they some people understand right now that he's like crazy he's losing his mind so that's right now we are trying to produce a lot of video content to show the truth to the world to the western countries and to the

Russia as well it's complicated to show this content to them because as you know Facebook is already restricted in Russia and they control everything right now. So they can use only VPN to watch some content in YouTube or Facebook, but maybe it's just a few percent of whole Russian population who can do it. So it's really a huge problem. I mean, so they are isolated and each next day they will be isolated more and more and we need to break this wall. So we are trying to do and probably in this case, we need to also support from other countries. Do you feel safe where you are now? Yeah, in general, yes.

Igor, can you explain, just because it's, I think, hard for us here in the U.S. to understand the geography sometimes of Ukraine? Can you explain a little bit, one, generally how big the country is? And then can you explain, Igor, the distance from, like, Leviv to Kiev to Donesk, like, so that we have a general understanding of its size, because I think here in the U.S., we have a hard time understanding how big the country is and where everything is. Yeah, I will explain.

So the distance between Kiev and Leviv is 530 kilometers. In miles... It's like 300-some miles or something, something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So New York to D.C. It's 330 miles, yeah. So Lviv is not so far from the border with Poland. I mean, it's like 100 kilometers.

It's different places, but generally it's not. so far. So the main place, like from Leviv, right now, all the refugees, they come into Leviv, mostly, and after they're trying to cross the border. Can you explain to us a little bit about, like, what life is like there day to day now that you're there? Like, are stores open? Is it normal? Or is it just? In Kiev or in Lviv? Where you are. You're in Lviv. I'm in Lviv. Yeah. So the stores in general are open, maybe like. like 30% of the stores are closed, but everything is okay in terms of the food, some restaurants still open. There is a restriction everywhere in Ukraine for alcohol, which is really good,

I think, because of the war. But of course, people are stressed. So all the people right now trying to prepare for the worst case scenario, right? So we are trying to help people like women and kids to cross the border. We are trying to organize as much as possible aid from the Poland, Italy, Germany, and other countries to cross the border. It's including some medicine, bulletproof body armor, helmets, some tactical equipment like everything, right? So what we need right now in this world. Can you explain to Molly, Igor, because I know, so just so Molly get some context, you're originally from Kiev. You live in Kiev. When I met you, we worked together, you live in Kiev.

I was born in Kiev. I mean, you've only gone to Leviv recently because of the war. So can you explain to Molly what's happening in Kiev right now as well so that she gets context and understands the difference between the two cities? Yeah, I was born in Kiev. I have a lot of friends, of course, there. And the half of my friends has escaped from Kiev. And some friends are in VIV also.

Some community of filmmakers are in Lviv. previous head of Ukrainian film state agency. Philippa Liyanko, he is in Viv. I met him yesterday. And unfortunately, a lot of people, they stay right now. They stay in Kiev. For different reasons, some people don't want to go. So they would like to stay inside their apartments,

inside their houses. Some people doesn't have such an opportunity because there was a window like the first two or three days when it was possible to escape safely, but right now it's really dangerous because around Kiev, there are a lot of Russian troops, like different Russian troops, and the situation changes like each day and you need to check and you need to know the safest road to escape from the city. But in general, the situation in Kiev, it's not so bad like in Harcif. there is like big city, a lot of people with weapon inside the city right now,

because we have a really interesting situation in terms of army. So we have usual army, like military forces, right? But also right now, we have a lot of civilian people who got weapon. It's called like territorial defense in translation. So like a lot of people, let's say like another small army, Some people are well prepared, some people are not so well prepared, but they have weapon, they have body armours, helmets, so they equipped. And it's like CCH Army, and they are so motivated right now.

And even some people from this army, they have javelins, so they passed, they did some preparation for this, some trainings for this. And they're fighting with javelins, using javelins with tanks. And it works really good, I mean, because it's city, kind of city fighting. It's not fighting like aircrafts, not like open field. Do you feel that Zelensky has been, do you guys have confidence in his leadership? You know, what is really interesting, when the war has started, he became like another person. I mean, it's incredible.

Maybe because we think maybe because there was direct, he was like target number one for Putin, right? Because behind the face of the death. So right now he's doing the right thing. So he's doing really good things and his speeches really motivational. So like 90 or maybe 95% of Ukrainians right now supporting him, which is really good. It's really fantastic. So before the war, his ratings was. Like, not bad, but not good as it was like one year before.

But when the Russian army came, it's like another person right now. It's fantastic. So it's really interesting. It's hard to explain, but actually I know him very well, like, for 20 years because he's also from entertainment industry, and we did with him a lot of projects together. I know him very well, like maybe for 20 or even 25 years. Did you think he would be such a good president? What do you mean?

I mean, did you ever think that he would be this sort of, he's become a kind of hero? Did you ever think he was capable of that, of being like that? Do you mean before? What we mean, Igor, is that like he has become a wartime president, meaning the war, like you said, has brought out the best in him, right? Yeah. But before, like you said, it's complicated when he first became president. The expectation, what was your expectation of him?

My expectation was not so good because he was not. experienced a politician and yeah actually was not so good and when i understand how it was created from inside it's complicated to trust in some things but again right now maybe i cannot set such things because right now it's quite different situation and we need to be united as well all the nation all the ukrainians this is really important right now it's really complicated situation And it's not only right now, actually, it's not only about Russia and Ukraine. I think it's about the whole world and it's about Europe and even the United States. So we need to stop this crazy dictator and we need to fight with him here and not like to involve other to any countries or half of the world.

What do you want Americans to take away from your experience right now? Like what would you say if people want to help or can. they do? I think the most important thing we need to learn from the previous big war, from the second world war. And of course, you know how it was started, right? And some things are so, like, the same right now. So it's really strange, but even what Putin said, it's so close to what Hitler said in the beginning of the war. And United States was involved, finally, United States was involved in this war, but only when Pearl Harbor was destroyed, right? Not from the very beginning. It was even British army, other European countries, they was not involved from the very beginning.

And Hitler started to invade other countries like Poland, right, and other countries. So we need to study this lesson and we need to stop it here right now, not to start the big war. So that's why all the world, we need to unite everybody against this war against Putin and to stop it, not like country by country, like everybody, everybody. This is the most important. Of course, we have support in terms of weapon, in terms of sanctions, but I talked with some people from Russia. For example, I talked two days ago with Russian film director who was Ukrainian and he immigrated to Russia like nine or ten years ago. He has a lot of friends in Ukraine. So he was born in Ukraine. He's Jewish. And just imagine what he told me. People in Russia, I asked him, Mark,

can you explain me what's happened? Why people in Russia don't want to fight with dictator? Why they don't want to go to the squares? And he explained me everything. So he told me that, for example, in terms of economic situation, that's because of sanctions, the cost of Russian currency is so low right now, right, comparing to US dollars. And he told me that it's US dollars, like 90% of the people in Russia, even didn't know what it's the US dollar is. So they're very close. I mean, as a country, right now they're closed. He said that most of the people, they're afraid to start any protest. They're afraid to publish some. in their social media.

It's disaster. It's like in Ray Bradbury or oral book. Yeah. Well, we are thinking about you guys and hoping you guys stay safe. This was really such an interesting interview. Thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Please share this information. Andrew Rice is a New York Magazine contributing editor, an author of The Year That Broke America, An Immigration Crisis, A Terrorist, A Terrorist, A Summer of Survivor, A Ridiculous Fake Billionaire,

A Fight for Florida, and the 537 votes that changed everything. Welcome to the new abnormal, Andrew Rice. Hi. Thanks for having me. So the worst year, the year that broke America was 2016. No, it wasn't. Explain to us what the year that broke America was. I think most people, including myself, felt after 2016 happened exactly as you did, that this is the worst election we possibly could have imagined.

I mean, I covered a lot of the campaign and the early years of the Trump administration for New York Magazine. They've watched one institution after another fall or becoming debased as a result of Trump and Trumpism. And all along, I was kind of thinking about the roots of, you know, how we got to where we are today. I came to the conclusion that the seeds of the future were sown in 2000 in the election between Bush and Gore. All the things that we now see coming to fruition in distressing form in our society, we're sort of just starting to come into being at that time. And a lot of these things were all happening in one time and in one place in Florida, which I call the unlikely crucible of the future.

Explain to us what that means. I've always been interested from the time that I covered the 2000 election as a young reporter at a newspaper called the New York. Observer. Oh, I remember it well. Yes, yes. I covered politics and real estate for them. So I covered both Bush v. Gore and Donald Trump at that time for the observer. And that was sort of my first exposure to Trump. At that time, I covered the election. And it seemed to me in that moment as if it was this crazy, unprecedented, close election decided by 537 votes seemed like the wrong guy won. It seemed like a crazy thing that happened, but didn't seem all that consequential. We only discovered how consequential that election was nine months after Bush was inaugurated

on 9-11. And then the incredible coincidence, much remarked upon at the time that at the same time the Florida recount was going on, the 9-11 pilots were training in Florida, sort of serenely flying above it all. Right. So that was sort of the kernel of the book idea that, you know, these two parallel stories were going on at the same time. And really, they're intertwined part of the same story of the unraveling of the political culture in the United States as has began to happen in that year. And over time, I found other storylines that I thought were interesting, the L.A. and Gonzalez controversy, which is not well remembered now, but really was kind of a prototype for the kind of reality TV, 24-hour news cycle, media carnival that we now see on TV. Donald Trump ran for the Reform Party nomination that year

is his first presidential campaign. And all these stories I sort of brought together in the book, tell this sort of rebel, pickerous, and ultimately sort of tragic story of how America kind of took a wrong turn. What are the things you really see now that were born? I mean, there certainly are a lot. Is it the Brooks Brothers riot?

Or is it the hanging Chad? I mean, what are the sort of tropes that you feel like are the most you can see today? Well, I think that there are a couple things that I think we're significant that we're sort of coming into being at that time. You've got that, as I mentioned, before with Ellie Gonzalez, you've got this new media culture coming into being in which

these sort of passing controversies come along and take control of everyone's imagination and attention for episodes at a time. You have the peak of the U.S.'s geopolitical dominance. But now in retrospect, we can sort of see it was the beginning of the end of the U.S.'s unchallenged geopolitical dominance. First of all, of course, the 9-11 pilots were here in the United States training, unknown to anyone as this was going on, and ultimately would be staging this attack that I think brought an end to this, to this unipolar moment in which the U.S. was kind of the lone superpower. And a eerie historical coincidence, the December 31st, 1999, the millennium celebrations that those of us who were old enough to have participated recall as such a kind

of huge moment of coming together, you know, the world sort of converging to celebrate. That was also the day that Boris Yeltsin resigned as president of Russia and held handed over power to a little known caretaker named Vladimir Putin. In retrospect, you can you can say December 31st, 1999, maybe represented the high point of American power, the end of the American century, in a literal and a figurative sense. America was running a four trillion dollar surplus at that time. The two political parties were largely kind of centrist political parties. People actually thought that there was no difference really between Bush and Gore and the election, at least on the ideological level, so everything was decided on matters of character. But meanwhile, all these things were

happening sort of unnoticed a little beneath the surface of revolt against globalization. The beginnings of a populist movement as embodied in that year by Pat Buchanan, who actually defeated Donald Trump for the Reform Party nomination. It was the beginning of the mortgage bubble, which would ultimately end in global financial disaster. You know, you can really say that the beginning, of what we now see today as a polarized almost sort of verging on civil war kind of political atmosphere in which the two parties not only disagree with each other, but actually think each thinks the other party is treasonous or traitorous. That began really in 2000, during the recount, that dynamic of kind of win at all costs and debase all institutions,

sort of take down the system with you if you can't win within the rules. That really all started in Florida. Are there lessons to be learned from Florida? Yes. I think there are lessons to be learned. One lesson to be learned is it it's hard to know when you're going through a historical moment, what its true significance is. So right now things are horrible in the world. You know, US power seems to really be at a low ebb and everything sort of seems to be falling apart. When you read the book, you can recall that actually things were not always like this. it wasn't always destined to be this way. And it doesn't necessarily have to all end in an utter polarization and hatred. I think we've been there before so we can get back there again. I also

think that one of the things that's interesting historically looking at this is that Donald Trump and Pap Buchanan and all these characters who were kind of trying to capture this populist sentiment. I mean, there's popular sentiments and that were there underneath the surface all the while. that they really had trouble converting their messages into votes. And part of it was because they didn't really have ways to speak to their public and to spread conspiracy theories as efficiently and to mobilize people around their ideas. So I think that there can be some hope in the sense of if you can figure out how to deny polarizing voices, a platform and an ability to kind of reach in an unfettered,

and completely unchecked way, there's a chance that we can keep the worst parts of our political culture from getting worse and maybe they can even begin to heal. Andrew, one of the things I say, so you mention is the summer of Survivor. I'm curious how something so dumb could have an impact on the future. Can you explain? So first of all, that's all television is now. I mean, not not all it is, but it's become such a huge part of our pop culture. And a lot of this book is actually about pop culture, a whole, a whole thread of the book involves a, there's a lot about TV and movies and a whole thread of the book follows a black bond trader who was very much into the, you know, the hip-hop scene in New York during this

time period and got involved in some arms dealing schemes. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I guess I guess I can't, can't quite tease that without telling the whole story. The fifth thread in the book and the last one to sort of come together is a story of this black Goldman Sachs bond trader, mortgage bond trader, actually. So a guy, one of the guys who was involved in sort of creating the mortgage-backed securities market that we all know about from the big short, he later went to Deutsche Bank and under his leadership, Deutsche Bank brought in Donald Trump as a client and helped to inadvertently sort of rescue him from financial oblivion. And he subsequently, in 2000, he went out, started a dot-com, the dot-com,

the dot-com went bust as many of the dot-coms did. And sort of in his financial desperation, and he ended up getting involved with some characters down in Florida who were, who were purporting to be, they asked him to do some money laundering, and he did. It turned out that he had been sort of ensnared in a whole federal arms dealing sting operation. So, so this. So yes, he, and it all sort of came together about a couple weeks before 9-11. It was a big tabloid scandal. So I got to know him. I did a lot of FOIA requests, got a lot of documents about the case, got to know him, developed a whole point of view about the case that I think is, you know, very much sort of fits into this moment of reassessing, you know, the powers of law enforcement and who they choose to target

and why. I don't want to give away the end, but certainly there's some reason to question exactly how serious the crimes he was committed. He was accused of committing were. Yeah, so there's a lot of fun stuff in the book. Why Survivor? Why is it important? A, I think it's important because, you know, it's indicative of this new kind of pop culture where anyone can be famous and anyone could be famous either for good reasons or for bad reasons. But the other reason that it's significant is because reality television gave us Donald Trump. So in a very direct way, the success of survivor and the career making effect it had on Mark Burnett's career paved the way for the apprentice. And without the apprentice, I don't think there's a Trump. Without reality TV culture,

I don't think there's Trumpism. So in that sense, I think it's a very significant thing that that occurred in our culture in that year. Thank you so much for joining us, Andrew Rice. Thank you so much. It was fun to talk. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the new abnormal from The Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics, and science. We'll help us understand what's happening to our country and the world.

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