The New Ukraine with Stavroula Pabst

In this episode, Whitney talks to Stavroula Pabst about the reconstruction efforts in Ukraine and how much of Ukraine's government and infrastructure has been outsourced or sold off to Western corporations that are using the country as a testbed for 4IR technologies.

Show notes

Follow Stavroula: @stavroulapabst and Substack

Originally published 05/11/23.

• Get early access to podcasts by becoming an Unlimited Hangout member.
• Find previous episodes on all podcast platforms
• Order Whitney’s book One Nation Under Blackmail. 
• Sign up for the weekly newsletter to receive updates on the book, new articles, podcasts, and interviews.

Episode Transcript

WW (00:19):
Welcome to Unlimited Hangout. I'm your host Whitney
Webb. For well over a year thewar in Ukraine continues to rage
on with little sign of slowingdown. Despite the havoc wrought
by the conflict within Ukraine,Western elites and multinational
corporations are pouringmillions and millions of dollars
into the post war reconstructionof the country while the
fighting continues unabated.While that may seem nonsensical

(00:42):
to some but the reality is thatthese actors to Ukraine is the
perfect testbed for a host ofpolicies and technologies,
particularly invasivesurveillance systems that are
part of the rollout of the socalled Fourth Industrial
Revolution or 4IR while thelaunch of the quote unquote
great reset trumpeted that COVIDwas the catalyst for
implementing these policies andtechnologies globally. In

(01:04):
Ukraine, the chaos of theconflict is being used to turn a
desperate war torn country intoa four IR testbed. From digital
ID to Central Bank digitalcurrency to having sold off or
outsourced much of its criticalinfrastructure to Western
businesses and tech giants.Ukraine is changing quickly and
may soon be unrecognizable.Ultimately, whatever Ukraine is

(01:24):
becoming it is being made to fitthe visions of Western elites,
like those who populate themeetings of the World Economic
Forum and those who sit withinthe boardrooms of companies like
BlackRock. To discuss this andmore. I'm joined by Stavroula
Pabst. Stavroula is a writer,comedian and PhD student based
in Athens, Greece, who haswritten for The Grayzone, Slate,
and the satire site Reductress,among many others. She has also

(01:46):
recently become a contributor toUnlimited Hangout with her new
piece covering the very topicswe will be discussing today. It
is entitled Ukraine's FutureLies in the Great Reset. Thanks
for joining me today Stavroula,and welcome to Unlimited
Hangout. Thanks for having me. Iappreciate it. Well, thank you
for writing such a wonderfulpiece for Unlimited Hangout. So
you detail on your piece, thiseffort to quote unquote, rebuild

(02:10):
Ukraine is going on before theconflict has even ended, which
seems kind of odd, you know, alot of the investments these
people are making, because theconflict continues could just be
blown up or destroyed by by theconflict, right. So you know,
what exactly is going on here?Who are the main players? And
what are their goals? And morespecifically, do the Ukrainian
people have any agency in thesedecisions? Right, so this is

(02:34):
actually one of the main thingsI discussed in the piece.
There's this obsession, I feelwith the reconstruction efforts
of Ukraine, even though again,the war has not ended, we really
don't have any idea about howlong the war will be going on.
But I personally think that thisreconstruction obsession is

(02:57):
about preparing, you know,preparing to ensure that the
reconstruction goes on in theleads interest. And we see this
reconstruction efforts be led bysome of the world's most
powerful, and in my opinion,most predatory people who are
already preparing to make majorinvestments in Ukraine. One

(03:21):
example of this is, of course,Black Rocks memorandum of
understanding with Ukraine's itMinistry of Economy. And it's a
situation where Black Rock isexplicitly saying, we're going
to recreate Ukraine, or we'regoing to reconstruct a new
Ukraine. So they're activelytelling us right away some of

(03:45):
the most powerful people andpowerful groups in the world,
they're actively telling us thatthis reconstruction is about,

SP (03:53):
They want to make Ukraine especially pliable, politically,

(05:17):
speaking to a lot of policyinstruments, let's say, that
makes it much easier toundermine its sovereignty,
especially what's going on rightnow in Ukraine specifically, is
a lot of corporations are reallyjust taking on, they are taking
over the war effort in Ukraine.They're doing basically

(05:38):
everything except the dying, wesee goo. We see Amazon and
Microsoft, both. They're bothessentially, they have all of
the Ukrainian Government'sinformation on their servers in
various ways. They're there,they literally have ownership
over critical infrastructure ofUkraine.
I think it's a situation wherethey understand the elite

(06:02):
understand that if they pushthings like public private
partnerships in Ukraine, ifcorporations take over major
wartime efforts now, this isessentially crystallizing a lot
of the larger politicalstructures that's critical to
the development of the globalpublic private partnership,
right? Where we have theseunaccountable groups, you know,

(06:25):
public private counterpartnerships are essentially
situations where corporationstake on major aspects of use of
Ukraine or whatever isinfrastructure, and then it's on
accountable to the public. Soessentially, what's going on in
Ukraine is that we're seeing anumber, we're seeing the public
private partnership becomefurther crystallized, we're

(06:48):
seeing act be activated,essentially, in wartime. And
it's something where they canconsistently do it. They can
normalize it, they can show uswhat power corporations and
public private partnerships havein Ukraine. And it's a situation
where if these efforts and ifthese policy objectives and
structures become normalized inUkraine, I think it's very easy

(07:11):
for them to facilitate that forthe rest of us in the future. So
essentially, yeah, it's ahotbed. It's a testing ground,
whatever works in Ukraine nowwill probably come first later.

WW (07:23):
So thinking about how the conflict is played out. Of
course, we know by now thatthere's been several efforts,
particularly by the UKGovernment and the US government
to essentially egg on theconflict and scuttle scuttle
events that could have led topeace in the past, for example.
So do you see that sort of as anintentional prolongation, that

(07:45):
ties into this reconstructioneffort? Since a lot of, you
know, those governments inparticular, those countries have
a lot of involvement in thisreconstruction process?

SP (07:56):
Personally, yes, I do see it as intentional I don't think a
lot of the world's larger powerswant this conflict to end. I
think that that's for a numberof reasons. But in relation to
this, and in relation toimplementing the great reset in
Ukraine, I think that they wouldlove for this to continue

(08:16):
forever, because they know, theyhave the world that in a state
of crisis through war, they havea world that's now much more
pliable to their initiatives.And I think that's especially
true in Ukraine. I mean, thelonger Ukraine is at war, the,
you know, the more destroyed itbecomes, obviously, and it's a

(08:37):
situation where they know thatthey can essentially push
whatever they want in Ukraine,the Ukrainian people have very
little sovereignty. Andactually, the Ukrainian
government has essentially,like, expelled, they've already
essentially expelled most of theoppositional parties. And my
understanding is that Zelenskyyhas also consolidated the media.

(08:58):
So they know that they have avery ideal situation to be able
to continue these efforts atlarge.

WW (09:07):
All right, so you know, considering the great reset,
right. So essentially, that wasa campaign launched during
COVID-19. And that particularcampaign, launched by now King
Charles and the World EconomicForum, and supported by other
groups. You know, this campaignargued that COVID-19 was the
catalyst for a series of changesthat need to be made to all
facets of society, right underthe sort of this umbrella of the

(09:30):
Fourth Industrial Revolution.But after COVID-19 started to
wane, and as the Ukraine Russianconflict began, there was this
new buzzword that came out andmaybe you've heard it, they call
it the polycrisis. And it's sortof a way to put Yeah, COVID-19
the Ukraine Russian conflict,not just within Ukraine in
Russia, but you know, its globalimpacts on food and energy

(09:51):
prices, for example, and muchelse under one umbrella. And
what you know, I'm thinkingabout here in the context of my
last question, you have thisdeliberate effort prolonged
Ukraine Russian conflict fromWestern powers, a lot of
government policy from COVID-19caused a lot of, you know,
unnecessarily we know now, a lotof the damage being blamed on,

(10:13):
you know, this polycrisissituation. And so too with
Ukraine Russian conflict, a lotof the energy price issues, for
example, were policy decisionsby groups like the EU to
sanction Russia, for example,right. So, again, it seems like
there's sort of this effort totell the public that these are
inevitable crises that are outof, you know, the hands of the

(10:35):
elite, but at the same time, alot of the crises itself, at
least in a tangible sense, hadbeen caused directly by
unintentional governmentpolicies, a lot of it, of
course, from the Western world,but not especially in the case
of COVID-19 not exclusive tothat. So basically, you know,
the way it looks to me, giventhe the sort of intentionality

(10:57):
of creating the polycrisis on apart of a lot of the governments
that are affiliated with theWorld Economic Forum, to me, it
sort of seems like, as you notein your piece, right, the
chaotic eWCA, quote, the chaoticongoings in Ukraine are a
microcosm of the largerpolitical moment. And you also
refer to the war as the greatreset accelerator, I would sort
of say that implicit in a lot ofwhat we're seeing right now is

(11:19):
essentially a threat from a lotof these elites that, you know,
until you acquiesce to thesepolicies that we want to impose
on, you know, the worldessentially, or have it be, you
know, a majority of nations, youknow, until that acquiescence
takes place, the crises will notonly continue, they will get

(11:40):
worse. What are your thoughts onthat?

SP (11:42):
I really do think that what's going on in Ukraine is a
microcosm, as I wrote in thepiece of the larger situation.
And I really do agree with theidea that there is
intentionality behind this.We're I live in Greece, this is
a situation where they'veactively had they had actively
told us earlier in the fall thislast year, you know, due to the

(12:03):
war in Ukraine, it's quitelikely that, you know, you may
well face power outages there,this could be a situation where
food prices go out of out ofcontrol, you're not going to be
able to necessarily be able topay for things very easily, they
actively were telling us thatthat was going to be the
situation. And it's quite truethat every time I go to the

(12:26):
grocery store, I see things, Isee the prices of items jump
almost every single time, Ireally do think that a lot of
this is about putting a lot ofmental pressure on the
population, they're kind oftrying to tell us, we don't care
if you don't want there to be awar or not, we want there to be

(12:46):
a war, the Western powersclearly very much actively want
to war, they want to continuethe war. And due to the war, of
course, that means a lot ofliving conditions are going to
worsen. I think they're makingit very clear that they want us
to get used to that type ofreality that we can't really
resist it, I would actually verymuch agree with that. And if I

(13:07):
can connect that back to COVID.And I suppose that's the point
of the World Economic Forum'sterm, polycrisis. We're living
in this world where there'scrisis after crisis after
crisis. And it's horrible. Youknow, they, they essentially
forced a lot of us to live withtwo and a half years of very,
very excessive restrictions. Andit was a situation where, sure,

(13:30):
you know, many of us technicallygot through it. But it was a
very mentally stressful time.And there was obviously duration
to that the lockdowns destroyeda lot of lives. And I think that
what's happening now is, let'ssay if COVID was some kind of
springboard for what washappening, I think that the war
is making things even moredirect, they're telling you that

(13:52):
living standards will get worse,as long as this war continues,
they're trying to tell you thatyou have really little say about
whether the war is happening, orthey try to make it sound like
you should not be able to fightwhether a war is happening, or
you shouldn't be able to resistor protest in certain ways. And

(14:12):
yes, in short, I think thatthat's very intentional. I think
they want us to feel that wecan't escape the state of
crisis, even though this crisisis something they very much have
created. So yes, in short, Ifind there's a lot of
intentionality here. Yes.

WW (14:28):
So another thing I wanted to bring up the you've already sort
of touched on, but I might wantto make it a little more
explicit is that, for example,in Western media, we're told all
the time and half men over thecourse of this conflict, have
been told that, you know, it'snecessary to support the
Ukrainian side, you know, andthis is why the US and UK and
other governments have told thepublic to justify them sending

(14:49):
millions upon millions ofdollars to the conflict with
little traceability andaccountability, that this is
necessary to ensure democracy inEurope and you know, Putin
There's literally Hitler and allof this stuff, right? And, you
know, essentially what you showon your piece is that, you know,
this idea that what is reallybeing done by the West and

(15:10):
Ukraine is about protectingdemocracy is really hogwash, at
least when you consider, atleast if you want to define
democracy is like people have anagency and direct involvement in
deciding their leaders and theirpolicies and all of this stuff.
And an example you sort oftouched on earlier, for example,
is the role of big tech likeMicrosoft and Google Silicon
Valley companies, right, havinga major role in Ukraine's

(15:33):
military operations, themanagement of the conflict, and
also major functions of civiliancomponents of the Ukrainian
government. And, of course,these companies are not
Ukrainian. They're not based onUkraine. They're not even based
in Europe. They're based on theWest Coast of the United States.
And, of course, they have a veryextensive ties to the
intelligence services of theUnited States, particularly

(15:56):
Google having a very welldocumented relationship with the
CIA and Microsoft'scollaboration with intelligence.
And well, and, you know, Israeliintelligence, also in the mix
there with Israel, all sorts of,you know, non Ukrainian actors
really involved. And, you know,as you noted earlier, you know,
the Ukrainian government under,you know, these policy

(16:18):
directives, have essentiallyoutsourced most of the functions
of not just their military, butalso their government to these
foreign multinational companies.And people in Ukraine themselves
don't have a lot of say overthat. And, of course, as we
know, now, or have known forseveral years, the Silicon
Valley companies areincreasingly interested in just

(16:39):
the mass harvesting of data. Andit seems unlikely that Ukrainian
people have a lot of say overhow their data is being used,
and particularly in theUkrainian government and
military. Is there anytransparency into how their data
is being used? From what I'veseen? I don't think so. It seems
like Google and Microsoft have,you know, full control over over

(17:01):
that to an extent. So, you know,in this type of public private
partnership, like you mentionedearlier, what exactly is going
on here? You know, what are theimplications for actual
democracy in Ukraine?

SP (17:14):
Sure, um, you know, that this is a situation. Of course,
it's quite complicated, and alot of lot is happening. In
short, I, you know, as we'vesaid, I really don't think any
Ukrainians have any realsovereignty. And this is
actually a situation what'sreally been interesting, though,
I will say none of this issurprising is that Zelenskyy,

(17:38):
both he and the Minister fordigital transformation. Yes,
Ukraine actually has a ministryfor digital transformation. The
Minister for that, who's MikhailFedorov, they're actively going
around, they actively show up atany high profile event they can,
such as at Davos, such as at theWeb Summit of last year, to be

(18:01):
able to try to get investmentsand further, quote, unquote,
assistance for Ukraine so thatthey can, you know, essentially
try to fight this war. And, ofcourse, they're acting like they
are able to win this war. Ireally do not, I don't know how
that would be possible. But itdoesn't really change the fact

(18:22):
that that's essentially whatthey're trying to do it every
single chance that they're ableto get, which means that yes, I
mean, a large number ofcorporations have lined up to
help Ukraine, but by helpingUkraine, I would argue that
they're essentially they'reessentially taking Ukrainian
solid sovereignty, right,whatever. Ukraine's Ukrainian

(18:44):
sovereignty exists, still, thesecorporations are eating away
with it with every agreementthat is signed. And to be
honest, it's to the point thatif you were interested in
looking up what's going on, youcould probably just search for a
major corporation and itsefforts to assist Ukraine, you
will probably find some weirdstuff. It is that common. But

(19:07):
um, yeah, essentiallycorporations are eating up, or
they are taking on what shouldbe government infrastructure in
Ukraine, they are taking thatover. I'm not really convinced
that there's any realtransparency on how these
corporations are using theinformation they now have. I

(19:28):
mean, based on what I was ableto look for, they published
almost nothing. And I'm notsurprised that they tell us very
little about the transparency ofwhat they're doing because they
realize that they don't have tothey understand I think very
well, this is a wartimesituation where it increasingly

(19:49):
seems that anything goes theyknow that the Ukrainian people
are in a state where they can'tfunctionally really ask
questions and actually expectsomebody to be held accountable?
So in short, no, I find thatthere's very little
transparency. And I think thatthere's very little chance for
anybody to actually say whatthey'd like. And I actually I

(20:12):
should probably talk a littlebit about India app, which I
discuss a little bit in mypiece. Ukraine actually has a
state in a smartphone app thatencapsulates perfectly what's
going on in Ukraine. And thisdia app is, it is a state in a
smartphone app, which I find tobe quite creepy, to be honest.

(20:32):
But okay, it this appfacilitates about 120 government
services, including digital ID,you can register your business
through Diia. You can pay taxesthrough dia dia has even given
like cash payments to peopleaffected by the war time, during

(20:53):
COVID. Diia had also facilitatedvaccination passports as well as
like cash payments to people whodidn't get vaccinated. So in
short, we're seeing a lot ofthese efforts kind of
encapsulate itself perfectly inthe Diia app. But I would say
that very much dia encapsulatesa lot of what's going on wrong,

(21:15):
because, you know, you'reessentially forcing this
government app through, you'reforcing a lot of tools, you
know, Diia is a very easy way tointroduce new tools that people
may have problems with. Butyou're able to do it quite
quickly, because you're doing iton a smartphone app, right. So

(21:37):
if Diia now holds a digital ID,which it does, it's very
difficult to resist that becauseessentially, the Ukrainian
government can say this serviceis now on Diia Oh, this service
is now also on Diia, we can usedo however we would like to. And
there have been a number ofsurveillance concerns. Regarding

(21:59):
Diia, I think also, there'sgeneral privacy concerns in
terms of people's like, secure,secure information, or very
private information is on theDiia app. And I think that early
last year, Diia was actually diaa number of other Ukrainian
government services had beenhacked. And a lot of people's
information had actually beencompromised, if I can remember

(22:22):
correctly. So it's a situationwhere a lot of the public is
being asked to use Diia. To do alot of Everyday Things. The
population is especially askedto use Diia since COVID. Because
COVID was a time where youweren't supposed to access
services in person. So thepopulation is kind of being

(22:42):
slowly coerced into using this,this very invasive smartphone
app, where they really havelittle say over about how it
could be used by the governmentand against the idea that you
would use a state in asmartphone app where, you know,
who knows about Diia ability tosurveil the population. And I

(23:05):
know, this has this came up inmy piece also. But funny enough,
USAID has supported Diiadevelopment. And right now
they're actually hoping or it'sbeen announced Samantha Power
had announced at the WorldEconomic Forum earlier this year
that she would like to see Diiaand Diia equivalents make their

(23:26):
way around the world, especiallythe global South, which, I mean,
I think that's disgusting, butnot really surprise. And so it's
been announced that they will beable to try to bring something
like Diia to other countries,whether people like it or not.
So in my opinion, Diia kind ofencapsulates what's happening, a
lot of initiatives are beingrammed through quickly, they're

(23:50):
being done in this semi coerciveway where maybe your life is
harder if you don't go long. Orif you don't use Diia, for
example, you know, it's harderto get by in your day to day
life, if you don't have thatdigital driver's license, you
don't have that digital ID. So Ithink a lot of that kind of
encapsulates the overallproblem.

WW (24:11):
So in my experience in Chile, and I assume it's
probably similar in Ukraine,essentially, what happens when
you have a lot of thesegovernment services move online,
you stopped being able toconduct them in person as you
did before. And this is oftenvery inconvenient for regular
people. So for example, applyingfor residency and things like
that, and Chile, used to be in agovernment office and because,

(24:34):
you know, allegedly because ofthe migration crisis, it's all
online now, and a lot moremessy, and a lot of times they
claim they, despite youuploading stuff to their
servers, they claim to lose yourdocuments and all this stuff.
But essentially, what'simportant here is that it's um,
as they move everything to thedigital realm, they tend to
remove the equivalent to thephysical realm to force you into

(24:57):
the digital realm. And it's nosurprise that you have Have a
group like USAID which has beennamed by numerous groups of, you
know, across the spectrum reallyas a cut out for the CIA, that
you would have them backing thistype of initiative program.
Because essentially, it'smoving, it's generating more

(25:18):
data. And it also makes it mucheasier to surveil like you
mentioned earlier, what peopleare doing, and how's a lot of
people's sensitive data wherethey can easily access it.
Because of course, if it's allon all these different servers
of different government offices,and you know, more decentralized
and you know, tied up withphysical locations, and not in a

(25:40):
one stop shop digital program,like dia, for example, it's
obviously benefits them a lotmore to have it all in one
place. And something that I'venoted as part of the great reset
and some past interviews, andthen some of my past work is
that the same you have sort oflike two parallel operations
going on. So you know, what,what we see here, what we've

(26:00):
just talked about, is thiseffort to push everything into
the digital world, right? And sodia, you know, government in a
smartphone, you know, you haveto go into the digital realm to
to access these necessaryservices in order to, you know,
interact with the economy or dobasic stuff like you know, drive
a car, for example, but thisparallel push we're having is to

(26:21):
exert increased control over thedigital world, the internet,
centralize the internet and makeit more easily surveilled under
the guise of doing things likepreventing hacking, stopping
cybercrime, censorship, to stopforeign malign influence and
hate speech and all of thisstuff, right? I see these as
intentionally an interminglingsort of parallel operation. So

(26:46):
you're pushing people into thedigital sphere, essentially
forcing them there throughcoercive measures, like you just
noted. But you're alsoconsolidating control over the
digital world in anunprecedented way. Right. So
that sort of makes it take onthis more, I guess, nefarious
element, in the sense. Andthat's why I think stuff like

(27:06):
Diia is really, reallydisturbing, as you point out in
the fact that there's really nopublic say about it. And you
know, people in Ukraine, it's awar torn country. You know,
people are not necessarily in astrong enough position to make
their voices heard in this inthis government, particularly
with, you know, the oppositionand the media being under the

(27:27):
control of Zelenskyy, who isvery much aligned himself with
the Western oligarchsresponsible for these policies.
It's a very sad situation. Butsomething complimentary, in
terms of what we've just beentalking about with Diia is your
discussion of Ukraine andcentral bank digital currencies.
So can you touch on that thosepolicies and how they relate to
things like the digital ID andthe Diia app and things of that

(27:50):
nature?

SP (27:51):
Sure. So I will touch on Ukraine cbdc. And quickly, I do
really think that I think it's alittle bit hard to say for sure
what will happen but I thinkUkraine is fairly hell bent on
ensuring it becomes one of theworld's most digitized
countries. And I actually startthe piece off with Mikhail

(28:15):
Fedorov tweeting about thisvideo where they were, it's
about Ukraine 2030, wherethey're actively telling you,
they want Ukraine to become acashless society. They want
everybody to be using ehealthand education, e education type
services. And now it's becomekind of in in federal jobs view,

(28:37):
it's become essentially thisparadise, because everyone now
has a very convenient life. Sothey're even using the word
cashless there, by the way, so Ithink that while I don't know
for sure, I wouldn't besurprised if they did start
trying to remove or making thesepaper versions of services,

(28:59):
traditional services, and thedigital or, and the paper
currency, I'm sorry, availableto people, you know, that
they're telling you where theywant this to go. They actively
talk a lot about where they'dlike this to go. And my
understanding is that Ukraine isactively trying to portray
itself as this very digital,very front forward, whatever

(29:20):
that means country that will doanything to be able to prove to
the world that it's moved aheaddespite this war, and of course,
they're acting like Ukraine willwin, but that's kind of besides
the points in relation to theCBDC, I think there's a lot of
interesting stuff going on here.Ukraine does have a CBDC in the

(29:40):
works. It's called thee-hryvnia. And assuming that all
goes well with it, this will belaunched next year in 2020 for
granted when they say that Idon't know if the war will
affect this, but for now thatthat's what they're trying.
They're positing they will do.Now the e griffonia. There's a
couple interesting things. I didfind about it because it

(30:02):
wouldn't be facilitated by acentral bank of Ukraine. But it
also would run on the stellarblockchain or the stellar
blockchain network, I shouldsay. And I think that actually,
if I, I think stellar isactually worth further
investigation, because if youwant my honest opinion, it's a
little suspect, to say the veryleast, stellar blockchain is

(30:27):
technically a public network.But it's facilitated by the
stellar Development Foundation,which is a nonprofit. And if you
look at stellar, I feel that itvery much uses the language of
the elite, and it's very much inline or the stellar foundation
Development Foundation, I'msorry, it's very much in line

(30:49):
with the goals of the elite. Ifyou look at their language that
they use publicly, stellar isaiming to become a global
payment standard. And stellaractually has been slated or it's
been selected to become aprospective European stable
coin. It's also collaboratingwith Mercado Bitcoin, to help

(31:13):
develop a future Brazilian cbdc.And if you look at Stellars
public materials, they activelyhave decided, you know, it's
actively fashioning itself tobecome the blockchain that CBDCs
could be used on. So I thinkthat people listening to this,
you know, I think a lot ofpeople are aware of the general

(31:34):
dangers of CBDC's, I also wouldlike to say that stellar in
particular creeps me out and itand it is being used here. In
terms of this, the e griffonia.It's obviously part of this
larger push toward CBDC's that'shappening worldwide. And I do

(31:55):
think that the currentsituation, we can talk a little
bit about the general concernsregarding CBD C's. But in this
case, you know, because wealready have Diia. You know,
let's say that the e-hryvnia isbeing launched, we already have
Diia, which does already have adigital ID. And another thing
about Diia is that a lot ofpeople verify their identity,

(32:18):
identity through Diia to doother things. For example,
people will verify theiridentity through Diia to access
their banking services, toaccess the post office, it's
even being used for like a chatbot where you can verify that
you're Ukrainian, then you canenter the chat bot on telegram
to essentially report on enemyactivity. So we're already

(32:41):
seeing this CBDC launch withinthe context of a country that's
first of all, very hell bent onbecoming as digitized as
possible as quickly as possible,I should say. And it already has
a digital ID. So it seems quiteplausible that if there is an
e-hryvnia launched, it wouldquite likely it could quite

(33:05):
plausibly I should say beconnected to the digital ID
because that infrastructurealready exists. That's, I
wouldn't be surprised to see anyof that considering the general
drive that's ongoing in Ukraine,they're very much hell bent on
trying to move as quickly aspossible so that there is little
safe for about any of thepossible dangers that this could

(33:28):
pose the population. I thinkthat your audience is very aware
of the possible dangersregarding CBDC. But I think in
particular, we're concernedabout, you know, first of all,
its programmability. And secondof all, it being tied to your
identity. And, you know,essentially, this digital ID and

(33:49):
the e-hryvnia being tied to alot of basic information about
you. So one day, we work toprogram a CBDC, it would quite
be quite easy to say, okay, youknow, this is this, this person
does or doesn't follow rules.This will therefore determine
their level of access to goodsor services. I unfortunately

(34:10):
think that a lot of generalconcerns regarding CBDCs I'm
very concerned for them in thiscase, because it's again, a
situation of wartime. It's asituation where a war torn
country has very little sayingwhat's going on. And like I've
said, it seems that theUkrainian government is very
much interested and pushingforward as quickly as possible.

(34:34):
They don't want discussion theywant to look like they are the
most advanced country on Earth.So I think this is a situation
where priorities are clearly notabout listening to people.
Priorities are about movingthese agendas as quickly as
possible, which very much meansthat if we see a CBDC I fear
very much that it will be linkedto digital ID and the other

(34:57):
software or the otherinitiatives. The Ukrainian
government is moving forward.

WW (35:02):
Well, I think you're absolutely right about that.
Because from what I've seen,with, you know, the push to
increasingly digital, you know,make currency digital and move
to sort of the CBDC or pre CBDCparadigm, one of the ways
they're trying to sell it isn'tjust convenience, right. It's
also stuff like safety fromhacks, like your money safe and

(35:24):
where they're pitching that isto tie it to some sort of
identity. And a lot of that, youknow, I mentioned on the recent
interview, that one contributorto unlimited hangout recently
told me that, I shouldn't saythat he had to change banks,
because they were requiring himto use bio, his biometrics to
even be able to access his ownmoney. So you know, wow, that's

(35:45):
even before cbdc has been rolledout. And this is, you know, a
private commercial bank, makingthat so it's very plausible to
that, you know, when the cbdc isrolled out, in order to access
it, you'll have to prove it'sreally you. And what better way
to do that than the digital ID,right. And there's plenty of
groups out there that havealready pushed for the idea of
having them completely tiedtogether. And actually, the UN

(36:08):
has been pretty explicit aboutthis, they had a working paper
that they called The People'sMoney. And silly, very misnamed
paper, yes. But it's talkingabout how you know, in order to
foster in, you know, the cbdc.And all of this is necessary for
fostering financial inclusivityand all of this stuff, and that

(36:29):
in order to move finances to anincreasingly digital, you know,
the digital realm, it'snecessary to have it also tied
to digital ID. I mean, they makethat very explicit. And they
also tie that, interestinglyenough, explicitly to the
Sustainable Development Goals,which, broadly speaking, are
part of agenda 2030. So it'sinteresting what you mentioned

(36:50):
with Ukraine 2030, you know,it's essentially the same. And
it's interesting, too, becausewhen people think of, oh,
Sustainable Development Goals,sustainable development, they
don't necessarily see that asmeaning turning everything
digital, right. But to the UN,if you actually dig into the
sustainable development goalsand agenda 2030, they're
actually quite explicit about alot of that and frame it as more

(37:14):
quote unquote, sustainable butyou know, that's debatable. And
one of the ways they tend to dothis is by claiming somehow that
making everything digital issomehow greener. And this is
oddly something that is alsobeing, in a sense, you know,
piloted in Ukraine, because asyou note in your piece, there's

(37:34):
this big push by Zelenskyy, andalso by Western billionaires, to
turn Ukraine into the quote,world's first green digital
economy, and the fastest growingeconomy in Europe per Zelenskyy.
And one of the ways this isallegedly going to be

(37:55):
accomplished is through thisentity that you wrote about
called the Ukraine Green GrowthInitiative, which was launched
by Australian mining magnetsAndrew and Nicola Forrest forest
with two R's. So what can youtell us about Ukraine's vision,
not to just be, you know, inalmost entirely digital faster

(38:15):
than anybody else, but alsogreener than anybody else. And
if this is actually correlatedwith environmental justice, in
any capacity, or just a talkingpoint,

SP (38:27):
um, in short, I would have to say this is more or less a
talking point. It's actuallyinteresting that you had brought
up you know, this push fordigitalization and green at the
same time, because when I wasdoing research for this piece, I
had actually seen some peopleuse the phrasing twin
transition, where there's twoprongs of like the digital

(38:50):
transformation being paired witha green transformation. So
they're kind of actively tryingto show you are the elites are
actively trying those trying totie those two transitions,
together with their language. Sothat was something I actually
found very interesting when Iwas doing my research for this
piece. In terms of the UkraineGreen Growth Initiative. Well,

(39:13):
there's that initiative, whichis an investment fund. And
there's just so many other youknow, green reconstruction
plans, that I find to be verydisingenuous to say the very
least. And of course, a lot ofthis is again, being tied into
the reconstruction being plannedfor Ukraine. Again, as we had

(39:37):
said earlier, they're talkingabout reconstruction way before
the war is even over. Andthey're very much talking about
Reconstruction in ways that aregreen. I typically wouldn't
recommend people do a Googlesearch. But I think in this
case, it's kind of interestingto see what weird search results
Google is going to give you interms of the elites plan.

(40:00):
There's just so if you look uplike green reconstruction,
Ukraine, green future Ukraine,you'll just see dozens of
articles saying why Ukraine'stransition should be green.
There's been this idea that agreen Marshall Plan should be
packaged together for Ukraine.And I think in all of these

(40:21):
cases, it's very disingenuous.But what's consistent is
transformation of society beingpositive. Right, this
reconstruction is a perfectchance to transform Ukraine in
ways that are green. And withinthe context of consistent
predatory behavior from thegreen elites were things like

(40:44):
decarbonisation, or other greentargets are kind of being used
as bludgeons to get, you know,other countries to do what they
like, I think the same thing isgoing on in initiatives like the
Ukraine Green Growth Initiative.It's an investment fund, as you
said, and it's an investmentfund, where I think the forests

(41:05):
had put like 500 million USdollars into it. And I think
that they are hoping that theywill get a billion in suppose in
green investments. Obviously,this is being put forth by some
of the world's most predatoryelite like Blackrock's, Larry
Fink, Michael Bloomberg, and JoeBiden, former UK Prime Minister

(41:32):
Boris, Boris Johnson, all ofthese people were consulted in
the process of establishing thisinvestment fund, if that tells
you anything in the first place.If we're talking investments,
and we're talking the world'smost predatory people, I think
what we need to understand rightaway is that the green elite
have a history, not asaltruists, but as people that

(41:55):
are looking for returns on theirinvestments, right. I think that
if they're putting this level ofmoney into Ukraine, they're
essentially saying we'reinvesting now to ensure that
Ukraine, and Ukraine, thisfuture is the way that they want
it. And I think they'reespecially interested in using
these green targets and thesegreen initiatives to ensure

(42:18):
these transformations go thistheir way, I actually, in terms
of the Green Growth Initiative,it's interesting, because
they're talking abouttransforming basic
infrastructure. So they'resaying they're going to focus on
infrastructure basics, likeenergy and communications. And
they actually talk in the one ofthe press releases, I think

(42:38):
about building a digital greengrid, quote, so Ukraine can
become a model for the world asa leading digital green economy.
And there, again, we're seeingdigital and green being put
together. At the same time, Ithink they're trying to show you
very much that we're going to dothe green transformation and the
digital transformation at thesame time. And I don't, I'm not

(43:01):
an expert in terms of whatdigital green grid means. But if
you look into it a little bitfurther, this digital green grid
that they're positing, they'regoing to use these investments
to build, you know, it leveragesthings like artificial
intelligence, and the internetof things, you know, they
actually use the word Internetof Things to describe how the

(43:22):
digital green grid is, I guess,going to be able to optimize
production, energy constructionin real time to be able to
reduce waste, or maxify maximizeefficiency. So they're kind of
pushing forward these veryadvanced technologies that I
think a lot of the populationwould find quite problematic.

(43:43):
The idea that you're going toundermine the current
infrastructure, okay, I guesssome of it's probably getting
destroyed by the war. Butthey're using these investments
to put forth these technologies.They're pushing forth these
transformations in ways again,the population has little say
over and again, I think in allof this, unfortunately, green is

(44:06):
really just being used as abludgeon. It's a way to get the
population both in Ukraine andelsewhere to agree with what's
going on. You know, you want tohelp us save the environment,
right? So you're going to agreewith me, the billionaire and my
desire to transform society, butit's actually about transforming
society into the one they want,or they have the say, not the

(44:28):
general population. So in short,yes, I do think that these green
initiatives, they areunfortunately very disingenuous.
I mean, it's very upsetting tobe honest, because it's, we're
essentially being told we needto give up a lot of things. To
meet these targets. We're notreally being asked what our

(44:48):
opinion is, and the Ukrainiansespecially in our are not being
asked. So yes, they are usingthis as kind of a bludgeon to be
able to accelerate their goalsfor Ukraine.

WW (44:59):
So you know, it's seems to me like, and I've seen this too,
not just in Ukraine, butelsewhere, a lot of the same
billionaires you've mentioned,like Mike Bloomberg, for
example, he was a UN specialenvoy. And Mark Carney, the
former Goldman Sachs and centralbanker who runs a lot of the
climate finance stuff. For theUN, ultimately, you know, the
digital green grid being builtby these billionaire investment

(45:22):
funds with billionaire money,they're going to essentially be
the owners of that grid, and aregoing to get a massive return on
investment from it. And this isbeing framed as philanthropy.
But if you look at people likeBill Gates, for example, that's
also in the space through aBreakthrough Energy, energy
ventures, and things like that.He's been very open in the past
several years that his wholeapproach to quote unquote,

(45:44):
philanthropy is about maximizingreturn on investment. So
essentially, what's been doneover the past several decades,
largely because of PR, is thatthere's been a real redefinition
of what philanthropy means, inpractice, but for the public,
most people continue associatingthe term with altruism. And this
has led us to this current pointwhere, because of that, a lot of

(46:07):
these billionaires, what they'redoing now with building things
like a digital green grid, andUkraine and elsewhere, is being
framed, again as altruistic,about concern out of the planet.
But there's not really that muchevidence that it will be really
that green, and other people,including myself, but you know,
people like Cory Morningstar,for example, who you referenced

(46:29):
in your piece, have made it veryclear that a lot of the
particular power generationtechnology these people want to
invest in, requires a lot ofmining of minerals, that is
going to totally decimate theglobal South, particularly the
Andes, in South America and muchof Africa. And for people
familiar with how that miningtakes place, and how workers are

(46:51):
treated and the environmentaland social costs, it's
definitely green, really, atall, or at least, you know, any
sort of green benefit definitelyis, is sort of swallowed up by
the enormous environmental andsocial costs in the places where
the mines actually exist. So,you know, again, I sort of see

(47:12):
this as more PR speak to sortof, again, cover up the fact
that what they want to do wascreate a digital grid and a
digital economy. But by addinggreen to it, they're able to
sort of tie in the SustainableDevelopment Goal, PR spin. And
like I mentioned earlier, the UNhas been very specific about
framing, completion andimplementation of the SDGs with

(47:34):
moving into this completelydigital paradigm. And I think
one of the reasons they're sointerested in and focusing on
energy and stuff like that isbecause a lot of the Model A lot
of these elites want to followis essentially technocracy,
which is all about, essentially,it's essentially a new economic
paradigm where it's not reallyabout money, it's about energy,

(47:54):
and how much energy you spend.And so when you recreate a
Digital Green, you know, adigital power grid of a
completely different type, itseems like the way they're
trying to remake it is those sothat they can better track, who
is using what amount of energyand they can manage it that way.
And of course, a lot of ittoday, will be most likely

(48:17):
managed by artificialintelligence and things of that
nature. Whereas technocracy inthe past, obviously, emerging in
the 30s. And developing in thedecades after that, you know,
technology wasn't at the samelevel it is today. So a lot of
what they theorized about is alittle different from how it's
implemented being implementedright now. But I think
ultimately, you know, there's alot of that there. And then

(48:38):
also, when you're talking aboutthese quote, unquote, green
economies and development,there's also this major effort
to include things like naturalcapital, things like carbon
markets, and all of the stuffbasically creating giant new
markets that are based aroundthe natural world and don't
necessarily protect the naturalworld, but they certainly are

(49:00):
poised to make a lot of powerfulpeople a lot of money as the
SDGs roll out. So, you know, Idefinitely see a lot of this
stuff, particularly some of thethings you wrote about, as it
relates to quote unquote, greengrowth of Ukraine sort of
falling under the same under thesame measures. And I think it

(49:20):
will likely also tie in withsome other aspects of what's
going on in Ukraine that youwrote about, for example, the,
the buying up of farmland andthings of that nature will, of
course, inevitably be tied intothe same system, because as you
know, in your piece, a lot ofthe same people buying up the
farmland are kind of onboard forthis broader digital, quote
unquote, green transformation.

SP (49:42):
Yeah, yeah. And I think I guess the best way to put a lot
of this is that I'munfortunately not surprised by
any of it. And I think it's allI think it's all unfortunately
happening in a perfect way inUkraine. And because they know
they have us in a state ofcrisis, and they know that they

(50:03):
have had Ukrainians in a stateof crisis. I didn't touch on
this in the piece, but I'll haveto share it with you. I have
been doing some looking intolike, you know, Ukraine's plans
to be green and actually aCOP27. I know that the UNDP,
Ukraine had hosted some kind ofseminar where they're actually

(50:23):
discussing carbon markets, forexample. So there, there's
active talk about a lot of theinitiatives you had just
described, even though theydidn't actually make it into my
final piece. It's everywhere.Yeah. And yeah, and I think that
they are very interested indeveloping green tools for
Ukraine and green economic orbanking tools for Ukraine's

(50:45):
future. You know, and it allsounds very nice, but I almost I
don't know how to word it. Ialmost feel like they're trying
to use this flowery language towash this out to confuse us all
out. But the idea that any ofthis is about sustainability is
just a big lie. And I think it'sall very disingenuous, in terms

(51:06):
of like, the buying out of offarmland. I mean, I was kind of,
I would not say I was shocked byit, but it's unfortunately par
for the course. What's going onthere. The I find not
surprising, again, is that, youknow, major agri businesses,
major financial groups likeVanguard, BNP Asset Management

(51:30):
holding. There's, there's acouple other major Ukrainian
agri businesses that have alsobought up a lot of the
farmlands. What's interestingabout that is actually a lot of
these groups I just discussedare indebted to groups like the
European Bank forReconstruction, or development
and development, and theEuropean investment great

(51:52):
Investment Bank, theInternational Finance
Corporation, which is an arm ofthe World Bank. So you're seeing
a situation where like,oligarchs are buying up
Ukrainian farmlands, but inturn, those oligarchs and
agribusinesses are actuallyindebted to the world's major
financial institutions. And Ithink what's important to say

(52:13):
here, or an important note isthat the Institute called the
Oakland Institute had publisheda report on this. And they
actually note that a large lotof major agribusinesses buying
up Ukraine's farmlands areactually indebted to major world
Institute, world financialinstitutions. So they're

(52:34):
indebted to like the World Bankfor Reconstruction and
Development. The IFC, or theInternational Finance
Corporation, which is an arm ofthe World Bank. So we're
essentially seeing a situationwhere oligarchs are buying up
Ukrainian farmland, but theintern these oligarchs and agri
businesses buying up thefarmland, are indebted to the

(52:56):
world's major financial groups.And if that's the case, the
Oakland Institute posits that,you know, these major financial
institutions have a major say,and now major stakes in what
happens to the farmlands. Soit's it's just another situation
we're seeing the world's largestfinancial institutions, the

(53:19):
world's power elite, justfinding every different way they
can think of, to get a stake inUkraine's future. So that
Ukraine's reconstruction is thetype of reconstruction that they
would like, I don't think ittakes a genius to posit that I
know that reconstruction thatthey pause, it is a

(53:41):
reconstruction that is aboutthem, and about the society that
they would like to create.

WW (53:47):
Yeah, well, it seems like, you know, with these particular
actors using the the crisis, youknow, the conflict in Ukraine to
rebuild it this way, I thinkit's pretty fair to say that
whatever crises, you know, inanywhere else will be used in a
similar fashion, to rebuild, toreconstruct to make society more
just and inclusive. I mean, itdoesn't really matter. They can

(54:09):
make any crisis, you know, fitthe the talking points, I think,
at the at the end of the day. Soone last question, as we wrap up
here, a lot of the policieswe've been talking about in
Ukraine, including CBDCs, andbiometric stuff and all of that.
They're not just they're alsoadvancing in the country that
Ukraine is fighting as part ofthis conflict in Russia. So what

(54:33):
are your thoughts about, youknow, Ukraine and Russia being
locked in this? This prolongedconflict, but a lot of the same
policies are sort of beingrolled out in both countries?

SP (54:46):
Sure. I mean, I think this is something that I've thought
about a long time and it'ssomething where I wonder what if
I will agree completely withwhat I say today, but I think
what I would have to say todayis that you No, while it does
seem there are some gems, thereare genuine hostilities between
the world's most powerfulnations, it is true that there

(55:08):
is a war going on. But itdoesn't really change the
overall reality where thesecountries, they agree more on
the great reset initiatives thanthey disagree. Right. They are
more in agreement, ultimately,at the end of the day, despite
the fact that we have this majorwar on going. That's essentially

(55:30):
the way I see this conflict. AndI can understand that the World
Economic Forum has technicallybanished Russia from its, I
don't know, its events, I don'tknow from being part of the
World Economic Forum. But thatdoesn't change the fact that you
Russia, at the end of the day,agrees with a lot of what's
going on. I know, they'recurrently working on a cbdc. I

(55:53):
know also, I think we can alsosay from experience that Russia
was more or less on board with alot of the COVID restrictions.
It was on board more or lesswith the vaccination passports
and mandates that were on going.So I think that this is a
situation where we can, in myopinion, we can say that perhaps

(56:15):
there are genuine hostilitiesbetween the powers. But that
doesn't change the fact thatthese countries ultimately agree
or they've been forced to agreefor one reason or another. I
mean, the sovereignty of manycountries has been undermined at
this point. I personally havenot been to Russia, I don't
necessarily know what the moodis there regarding both the war

(56:39):
but also the genuine the generalfeel that a lot of policy
initiatives are coming from thetop down. While I don't know for
sure, I'm not in a position tosay it, I feel they will
meaningfully resist this. Maybeindividuals will resist it.

(56:59):
They're just like individualsresist these initiatives in all
countries. But for me, when Ilook at the situation, my
understanding of the conflict ormy understanding of the conflict
being a proxy, where where thereare genuine political
geopolitical tensions does notoverride this overall move
towards a technocracy or thisoverall move towards stakeholder

(57:24):
capitalism.

WW (57:25):
Well, what concerns me is that, you know, Russia and some
of its allies, and BRICS, and,you know, the multipolar order
has some have called it are verymuch committed also to agenda
2030. And the SustainableDevelopment Goals, which, as
we've talked about, you know,sort of entail a lot of the same

(57:45):
policies that are underscrutiny, and in your piece
about Ukraine specifically. And,you know, I think, ultimately,
some of the actual, you know,reasons for hostilities between
these groups is about whether itwill continue to be, you know,
this agenda 2030 paradigm,whether it will continue to be

(58:05):
dominated by the unipolar, socalled unipolar order, ie, the
West, the Anglo AmericanAlliance and whatnot, or whether
it will be more dominated by,you know, the BRICS countries,
but a more like multipolarparadigm, as it's called, but
necessary, you know, at the endof the day, the sustainable
development goals and agenda2030 are ultimately about

(58:27):
technocracy in a nutshell, whenyou start to look into them, and
who's building it, why so manybillionaires are involved in it,
why they're pushing to digitalties, absolutely everything
under the guise of it beingsustainable, when that's not the
same thing as sustainable. Andin all of this stuff, you know,
it seems to me, at leastpersonally, more like who's

(58:50):
going, you know, you know, who'sgoing to be on the top and what
the, how power will be dividedin this coming, technocracy?
Right. As opposed to reallybeing opposed to the, you know,
the technocracy itself, right.But again, you know, it's
obviously a really complicatedthing to unpack. And, you know,

(59:12):
there's a lot of questions beingraised on on all different sides
about the nature of the Ukraine,Russia conflict, as it was wears
on because, you know, it was awrench, you know, a lot of
people thought it was going toend a bunch sooner, because
Russia's military is, is solarge, and the way the, you
know, quote, unquote, specialmilitary operation was
described, a lot of peoplethought it would happen faster,
and people are puzzled why it'sbeen so prolonged. And now you

(59:35):
have the statements from thehead of the Wagner group saying
he's been essentially deniedammunition and things like that
by the Russian military. I mean,there's a lot of weird things
going on. And I honestly don'tthink any one person can really
make sense of at all at thispoint in time, because there's
just so many data points and somany moving parts, but the fact
that you have, you know, Ukrainewith the Western elites behind

(59:59):
them so committed to agenda 2030and the SDGs. And then you have
Russia and China and Brazil and,and the BRICS nations similar
being similarly being socommitted to them as well. You
know, there seems to be again, alot of agreement about how to
move forward, just not so muchabout how power will be shared.
You know, that's just myopinion. I don't know. Do you

(01:00:21):
want to add anything to that?Or?

SP (01:00:23):
Um, yeah, I guess the only thing I really have to say about
that maybe a couple of thingsis, I mean, yeah. And this has
kind of changed or challenged mypolitics a lot over the last
couple years, essentially,because I, yeah, I mean, I
really don't see the BRICS blocopposing a lot of these things
in fundamental ways, ormeaningful ways. And I think the

(01:00:47):
same thing had happened duringCOVID. Right? I mean, a lot of
these policies were so top down,and it really didn't matter
which country you're in,generally speaking, everybody
went pretty universally towardsthem. And, you know, the idea
that BRICS can offer as anactual alternative or meaningful
challenge to the unit party,let's I don't know how else to

(01:01:10):
describe it. To be honest, I amincreasingly skeptical of that
as time goes on. Because I don'tsee them challenge. A lot of the
main initiatives that are, arepart of the great reset, you
know, they are also developingCBDCs, they're also quite happy,
you know, they're quite happywith a lot of these basic things

(01:01:35):
that I personally have a lot ofissues with in terms of just
what I consider dignified lifewhere I have the ability to say,
you know, this is what I'd like,this is what I wouldn't like.
And I think a lot of people thatare still kind of on the BRICS
team, they either downplay thepossibility for abuse, a lot of

(01:01:55):
these measures imply or theyalmost say that they are a good
thing. And so I am increasinglyskeptical. First of all,
personally, I should say, butagain, it is a very complicated
situation. I didn't even knowthe tidbit about the the Wagner
group actually, I didn't knowthat. So that was a fun thing to

(01:02:15):
learn just now. So that's kindof my thought there. I guess one
other quick point I'd like tosay is that, I find it. I don't
know if it's surprising or not.But, you know, of course, when I
was doing research for thisreport, I just had to look
through so much media, whereUkraine's prospects for victory
are being discussed. Andeveryone writing about Ukraine's

(01:02:40):
prospects for victory, if theybelong to the elite political
class, if you can call it that.They seem so steadfastly....
They seem very obstinate aboutthe idea that Ukraine will win
no matter what. And I don't knowif this is a silly observation
or not. But it's really startingto bother me that they keep

(01:03:00):
saying that, because if I lookat the objective situation, it
just seems that this is going togo on for a long time, I don't
necessarily see a clear victimwindow for Ukraine to win. And
so it just really freaks me outto continue to see that
juxtaposition of, you know, amilitary conflict that could

(01:03:20):
take a very long time,unfortunately, to lead to large
loss of life. And then this justarrogant attitude from the West
that Ukraine will definitivelywin. Ukrainian Ukraine is
definitely winning right now. Itcreeps me out. I don't really
no, if there's anything to bemade about that, specifically?

WW (01:03:41):
I think that's probably a good place to leave it. I mean,
ultimately, at the end of theend of the day, it's hard to
know exactly what's happening atat any given time. But I think
what's important, and what Iappreciate you for is, you know,
keeping an open mind as thesedevelopments show themselves,
because like you, you know, Idefinitely had very different
views on on this particularmatter, you know, compared to

(01:04:01):
when I, you know, before COVID,and when I worked for ferment
press, and all of that, and wasreally, really focused on
reporting about US Empire, and,you know, the military
industrial complex and proxywars, US foreign policy. But,
you know, over time, especiallywith COVID, it's just become so
puzzling, like, why are theyincreasingly acting like they're
on the same team and all of thisstuff? And, you know, how

(01:04:24):
opposed are they do a lot ofthese, you know, apparently, in
my opinion, tyrannical measuresand policies, you know, it is a
really confusing time, but, youknow, the best we can really do
as journalists is to keep anopen mind and just report the
facts and try and, you know,adjust our analysis accordingly
and invite our, you know, ouraudiences to sort of ask, you

(01:04:45):
know, critical questions andthink critically about, you
know, the information as itcomes out, and, you know, these
developments as we're movinginto these very crazy and
unprecedented times, because itseems to me that a lot of
People, in particularlyindependent media has remained
sort of locked in to some ofthis pre COVID. You know,

(01:05:07):
geopolitical understanding, in asense. Yeah, and I can
understand why that might be.Because it's certainly, you
know, maybe more familiar for alot of people and easier to make
sense of things. But thatdoesn't necessarily mean that's
what the facts on the ground arereflecting at any given time.
So, you know, it's alwaysimportant to keep an open mind
and be willing to sort ofchallenge your own perspectives

(01:05:29):
and views about geopolitics andother matters of, of note, you
know, because, man, I mean, alot of stuff that's gone in the
past few years, I don't thinkreally anyone really expected,
but it certainly has given us alot of new information to work
with. And if your ultimate goalis to get to the truth of the
matter. You know, I mean, wehave to be willing to readjust

(01:05:52):
and reassess the end of thesituation as more information
becomes available to us, right?

SP (01:05:59):
Yeah, definitely. And I think for myself, yeah, I mean,
COVID was personally a, it was avery big turning point, because
I know I fell for it for a fewmonths. I don't know how else to
word it. Yeah, I fell for alittle while. And then kind of
when I realized the damage thatlockdowns were doing to society
and realizing that a lot ofpeople were just outright

(01:06:20):
ignoring the dangers of thesetakedown measures. I mean, it
kind of forced me to askquestions like, Why is everybody
doing this at the same time? Anddoes this mean that these powers
agree more than they disagree,and if they agree more than they
disagree, that's a big deal. AndI as a journalist have to be

(01:06:41):
very open to that I really triedto be very open minded because I
understand that I was Idefinitely was fooled. But I
think it's very critical. Thestage when it's very hard to say
what will happen. I mean, itreally feels that all things are
kind of a go for the greatreset, and all things are kind

(01:07:01):
of a go for this big transitionor transformation of society. So
it's such a, it's such acritical time, the best thing
that I think we can do is becareful about jumping to
conclusions about what any onecountry will or won't do. And to
be trying to be Yeah, just tryto keep an open mind. That's

(01:07:21):
what I've been trying to do inmy reporting. I've been trying
to be honest about that. I wantto I want to understand, why do
these countries agree more thanthey disagree? And what does
that actually mean for ourfuture? So yeah, in short, I
agree with you.

WW (01:07:38):
All right. Well, that's probably a good place to leave
it. So thanks so much for comingon. So for everyone listening,
can you let us know how we canfollow your work and support
you?

SP (01:07:48):
Sure. So you can follow me on Twitter at Stavroula dot
Pabst, and it's all lowercase. Ialso do have a sub stack. It's
just stavroulapabst.substack.comand I to be honest, anybody
following me anybody sharing mywork, that's the best way to to

(01:08:08):
support me at this time. You'realso welcome to give me
donations, or, you know,subscribe to my substack either
for free or paid. I am an earlycareer journalists. So any
support and sharing my work isactually very appreciated this
time. Thank you.

WW (01:08:25):
Oh, thank you. And thanks to everyone for listening,
hopefully sharing this podcastaround and as always a big very
special thank you to people whosupport this podcast. So thanks
so much, everybody and catch youon the next episode.