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Regardless of how the talks in Alaska end between Russian President Vladimir Putin And U.S. President Donald Trump, Ukrainian-American soldier Yaroslav Ponomarov believes it will not end in Ukraine’s favor.

Yaroslav moved to Brooklyn with his parents when he was five and grew up American. But when Russia invaded his homeland he decided to return, join the military and fight the colonizers. He said his commander gave him some sage a...

Terrell was invited to be on a panel at the Hay Festival in Lviv in October. It's a wide ranging conversation that places the current war in the kind of historical context that is rarely a part of legacy media reporting.

The work of Myroslav Shkandrij, professor emeritus at the Department of German and Slavic Studies, University of Manitoba, and author of Revolutionary Ukraine, 1917-2017: Flashpoints in History and Contem...

Have you heard of Project 2025? If not, you better learn fast. It's the GOP's 900-plus page conservative manifesto aimed at dismantling the federal government and the Democratic Party has no answer for it. Here to talk about 2025 is Anne Nelson, who read the entire document and is traveling the country to educate communities about the dangers that lie ahead if Trump wins in November. 

Host: Terrell Jermaine Starr

Guest...

Do HBCU students care about what’s happening in Gaza? Of course they do, but there are some distinct social-economic factors that play a role in how Black kids who attend HBCUs are protesting—or, in many cases, not at all. 

Two-time HBCU president Dr. Walter Kimbrough joins the podcast this week to talk about how he’d handle some of the challenges HBCU presidents face when it comes to student protests regarding Gaza, the right-...

This week, Black Diplomats Podcast speaks with Christopher Shell, a fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment. At Carnegie, Christopher’s work studies how Black Americans feel about foreign policy issues. We talked about how Black folks feel about Ukraine, Gaza and other foreign policy issues, based on his research

Host: Terrell Jermaine Starr

Guest: Chris Shell 

Producer: Mike Hull

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Today, I speak with two young Georgians under 30-years-old who have been hitting the streets every day in protest of their ruling government’s introduction of a “foreign agent” law that critics say will restrict the work of organizations and independent media that safeguard free and fair elections and other services that depend on foreign financial support. 

Read more about the controversial bill here.

Ana Lazariashvili, 24 and ...

This week, I spoke with two Ukainians who support Palestine and why they feel it is important for their countrymen and women to understand colonialism in other parts of the world. Rita Adel, a humanitarian analyst, and Vladyslav Starodubtsev, a socialist leader and historian, and I talked about Ukrainian socialism, what progressives in the west don’t get about Ukraine and NATO and why Ukrainians aren’t privileged because they are “...

Warning: This week’s episode will focus on sexual violence committed by Russian soldiers. Reader, listener and viewer discretion is advised

This week, I talk about Ukrainian civilians who survived sexual assault from Russian troops during the war. Ukraine is investigating  nearly 300 cases of sexual assault, but that number is likely much higher. Today, I am talking with Nadiia Volchenska, co-founder of the Sylni foundation, wh...

This week’s episode is about the ongoing protests in Georgia in response to the country’s ruling political party, Georgia Dream, moving forward with its “foreign agent.”

Officially titled “On the Transparency of Foreign Influence," the bill, if passed into law, would require organizations in the country receiving more than 20% of their funding from overseas to register a...

#ukraine #russia #putin #warinukraine #blackdiplomats #ukrainianhistory #history #harvard 

Terrell J. Starr spoke with Havard Professor of Ukrainian History Serhii Plokhii about Putin’s obsession with fake Ukrainian history, Ukrainian resistance against Russian colonialism, Stepan Bandara, fighting Kremlin disinformation and more.

Host: Terrell Jermaine Starr

Guest: Serhii Plokhii

Producer: Mike Hull

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#crimea #crimeantatars #ukraine #russia #ukrainianhistory #history

Terrell spoke with Tamila Tasheva, the Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea about liberating Crimea, human rights violations on the peninsula, Crimean history and what people get wrong about what’s happening there. 

Host: Terrell Jermaine Starr

Guest: Tamila Tasheva

Producer: Mike Hull

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V...

#ukraine #russia #putin #zelensky #warinukraine #blackdiplomats

Terrell J. Starr spoke with Ukrainian security expert Maria Avdeeva about Russia’s ongoing missile attacks against civilian targets, Germany’s reluctance to send Taurus missiles, why Russia doesn’t want peace, her own work documenting war crimes and so much more.

Host: Terrell Jermaine Starr

Guest:. Maria Adveeva

Producer: Mike Hull

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Venmo: @BlackD...

#ukraine #blackdiplomats #foreignpolicy #un #unitednations #nobelprize 

Terrell Jermaine Starr speaks with Ukraine’s first Nobel Peace Prize Winner Oleksandra Matviichuk about her work as a war crimes documentor, the broken United Nations system, why it’s not possible to have peace with Russia and building solidarity with Africans and Palestinians. 

Host: Terrell Jermaine Starr

Guest:. Oleksandra Matviichuk 

Producer: Mi...

I spoke with Christopher Shell and Nola Haynes about Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats, why Black people should care about foreign policy, Andrew Tate’s arrest, uncommitted voter movement and more.

Host: Terrell Jermaine Starr

Guests: Christopher Shell is a fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Nola Haynes is a national security and foreign affairs analyst. 

Producer: Mike Hull

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Venmo: @...

#ukraine #russianinvasion #foreignpolicy #trump #nato

This week, Terrell Starr and Ukrainian journalist Olga Tokariuk discuss how Ukrainians are reacting to the possibility of Trump winning the U.S. election, her curiosity over Black support for Trump, NATO’s relationship with its Eastern European members and her trip to South Africa that convinced her Ukraine needs to build solidarity ties with Africa. 

Host: Terrell Jermaine S...

Terrell J. Starr and guest Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon discuss the second year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the African students who faced discrimination while fleeing the war, House Speaker’s Mike Johnson’s refusal to bring the U.S. Senate’s bill to the floor for a vote, how MAGA’s racism is blocking Ukraine military aid and Alexei Navalny’s death.

Host...

Greetings, everyone.  

This week, I was a guest on Andrea Chalupa’s Gaslit Nation podcast, where we discussed Alexei Navalny’s death and how we should all be reflecting on it. 

This recording is from her most recent episode. 

We also talked about how New York State Attorney General Tish James and Fulton County  District Attorney Fani Willis are defending American democracy from Donald Trump’s attacks on our de...

This week, we’re replaying our May 10 show about Palestine. We’re pretty sure you’re aware of the terrorist attacks Hamas committed against Israeli civilians October 7 and Israel’s response. What is making matters worse is the massive disinformation that is going around on social media. Twitter is a cesspool of disinformation, where even the best and most seasoned reporters are being tripped up by false accounts and videos.

Black Di...

The fifth and final episode of “Liberating Iran” features Priscillia Kounkou Hoveyda. She talks about being Black in Iran and the racism she and other Black Iranians face under Tehran’s brutal theocracy. This episode is one of the few pieces of reporting that deals with the lives of Black Iranians in any meaningful way. 

There is pretty much no reporting on Black Iranians, but this episode does address some aspects of how they ...