The Transatlantic

In October 2026, Ukraine's use of Starlink in its defense became front-page news as Ukrainians experienced several days of unexpected limits on their access to SpaceX's satellite internet service. Observers and Ukrainians alike have remaining questions about why the slowdown occurred, why Ukraine relies on Starlink, and if there are alternatives Ukraine could turn to if these disruptions become regular. This week, Bakhti is joined by expert Oleg Kutkov to probe these questions, discuss how Oleg became Ukraine's leading Starlink expert, and reflect on how his life journey beginning as a child in Crimea has affected his career as an engineer and mission to understand and repair Starlink terminals during the war.

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Oleg Kutkov is a Ukrainian embedded systems engineer from Crimea who is currently based in Kyiv. He is well-known for his work with Starlink systems and focuses on software and hardware hacking. Kutkov is an senior embedded engineer at Ubiquiti Labs Ukraine and has a master's degree in computer science from Kharkiv National Aerospace University.

This podcast is hosted by Bakhti Nishanov and produced by Alanna Novetsky and Anna Nestler in conjunction with the Senate Recording Studio.

October is a month of elections for the Balkans. Bosnians voted in their general election on October 4 and Serbians are heading to the polls on October 25 for their first national elections since the mass student protest movement began in November 2024. While these elections are consequential, they also underscore the unrest, political dysfunction, and foreign influence that have created friction and instability across the region over the past several years. This week, Bakhti is joined by experts Jasmin Mujanović and Amanda Thorpe to discuss the context shaping these elections, what to expect in the aftermath of each, and how the Dayton Accords signed thirty years ago continues to define the politics of the region.

Jasmin Mujanović is an LA-based policy specialist on southeastern European international affairs. He is the author of two books on the subject titled, Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans and The Bosniaks: Nationhood After Genocide. Jasmin currently hosts the Balkanomnicon international affairs podcast and is a columnist at Odgovor. In addition, he serves as an advisor and analyst at the Sarajevo Security Conference, the Pell Center at Salve Regina University, and Freedom House. He holds a PhD in Political Science from York University in Toronto.

Amanda Thorpe is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Europe Center, where she focuses on the Western Balkans and Congressional strategy. She previously worked on the hill for twelve years as a professional staff member and as a national security advisor for Senator Welch of Vermont. She holds a master's degree from National Defense University and has received the Army Meritorious Public Service Award and the Office of Strategic Services Society Congressional Gold Medal.

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This podcast is hosted by Bakhti Nishanov and produced by Alanna Novetsky and Anna Nestler in conjunction with the Senate Recording Studio.

In August, Russian forces attacked two warehouses belonging to Ukrainian publisher Ranok Publishing, burning nearly 10 million books including 620,000 textbooks for the coming school year. On this episode of the Transatlantic, guest host Kristine Berzina joins us from Kyiv, Ukraine where she sat down with Viktor Kruglov and Bohdana Bohelska of Ranok Publishing. Viktor and Bohdana discuss what these attacks have meant for their families and business, Ukraine's schoolchildren, and the country's wartime literary culture.

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This episode is hosted by Kristine Berzina and produced by Alanna Novetsky, in conjunction with the Senate Recording Studio.

In this episode, Bakhti sits down with Nate Mook, an award-winning documentarian who has led organizations providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine since Russia's launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. Mook offers a firsthand account at how the organizations he has led, including World Central Kitchen and All Hands & Hearts, have adapted to provide for Ukrainians' evolving needs over the course of the war. Bakhti and Nate also discuss why Nate began working in Ukraine, how he has rallied international support for Ukraine in a challenging media environment, and what he thinks policymakers are missing about Ukrainian society.

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Nate Mook is a seasoned leader and gifted storyteller who transforms words into action and ideas into impact. From 2018 to 2022, Nate served as the first CEO of World Central Kitchen (WCK), leading its transformation from a small operation with under $1 million in revenue to a global humanitarian powerhouse raising $500 million annually.

Following his time at WCK, Nate served two years as Special Advisor on Ukraine for the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. In recognition of his efforts for the Ukrainian people, Nate was awarded the Order of Merit by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In 2025, Nate became CEO of All Hands & Hearts, the disaster relief nonprofit co-founded by Petra Němcová. He is also a co-founder of Hachiko Foundation, supporting cats and dogs affected by war in frontline Ukrainian communities.

Nate serves on the boards of March For Our Lives, a youth-led movement against gun violence, and Save Ukraine, which has rescued over 670 children abducted by Russia. He also advises Razom for Ukraine, on its advocacy efforts.

Early in his career, Nate was a technology entrepreneur and later began working in film. He produced the award-winning HBO Documentary Baltimore Rising with The Wire's Sonja Sohn. Nate is an executive producer of the 2022 Emmy-nominated film We Feed People from Ron Howard about WCK's rise. In 2015, he conceived and directed the documentary Undiscovered Haiti with José Andrés, a project co-produced with National Geographic and PBS.

Nate has been a longtime collaborator with TED, helping to grow the TEDx program from its start in 2009, leading the TEDxSummit in Doha, and organizing conferences in places like Mogadishu, Baghdad, Tripoli, and Mount Everest. He was named a "Change Hero" by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for his work amplifying voices in underserved communities.

When not working in disaster zones or traveling across Ukraine, Nate resides in Washington, DC, with his cat, Jinx Furdinand.

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This podcast is hosted by Bakhti Nishanov and produced by Alanna Novetsky, in conjunction with the Senate Recording Studio.

The year 1968 has become synonymous with protest and upheaval around the world. On this episode of the Transatlantic, Bakhti talks with Adrian Matus, author of the book The Long 1968 in Hungary and Romania, about what this pivotal year looked like in Hungary, Romania, and elsewhere behind the Iron Curtain. Bakhti and Adrian discuss how the generation of eastern Europeans born amidst World War II resisted the authoritarian systems they grew up in in uncoventional ways—through universities, literature, and even making their own instruments. Adrian then shares how the legacy of the '68ers lives on in Ukrainians under Russian occupation who are keeping their culture and identity alive using many of the same methods.

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Adrian Matus is an educator and scholar annd the Editor of the Democracy and Culture section. He defended his PhD in History at the European University Institute in 2022. Subsequently, he wrote a book entitled, "The Long 1968 in Hungary and Romania." Previously he graduated from Université Sorbonne Paris IV and Babeș-Bolyai University from Cluj-Napoca. From 2020 to 2022, he curated the "Communist Parties from Non-Socialist Countries" collection at the Blinken Open Society Archives, then continued researching this topic as a postdoctoral fellow at the New Europe College Bucharest. Adrian has also worked on various educational initiatives, designing history, cultural studies and social sciences syllabi for high-school students, asylum-seekers, and refugees.

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This podcast is hosted by Bakhti Nishanov and produced by Alanna Novetsky and Carly Breland, in conjunction with the Senate Recording Studio.

How does the Soviet Union's approach to human rights compare to contemporary Russia? Bakhti is joined by historian Benjamin Nathans to discuss the evolution of the Soviet dissident movement, what Vladimir Putin learned from his time as a KGB agent quashing dissent in the Soviet Union, and the lessons of this period for those resisting authoritarianism today.

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Benjamin Nathans teaches and writes about Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, modern European Jewish history, and the history of human rights. Currently, he is the Endowed Term Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. His most recent book, To The Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement, was awarded the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, the Pushkin House Book Prize, the Vucinich Prize in Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies, and the Zelnik Prize in History. It tells the story of dissent in the USSR from Stalin's death to the collapse of communism, exploring the idea and practice of rights and the rule of law in the setting of "mature socialism."

Nathans is also author of Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter With Late Imperial Russia and edited A Research Guide to Materials on the History of Russian Jewry (19th and Early 20th Centuries) in Selected Archives of the Former Soviet Union [in Russian]. He is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement. He is the co-editor and contributor to two scholarly volumes, Culture Front: Representing Jews in Eastern Europe (2014) and From Europe's East to the Middle East: Israel's Russian and Polish Lineages (2021).

This podcast is hosted by Bakhti Nishanov and produced by Carly Breland, in conjunction with the Senate Recording Studio.

Bakhti is joined by Sarah McLaughlin, a senior scholar focused on global expression at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Sarah and Bakhti discuss the difference in free speech traditions between the United States and Europe, threats to speech on both sides of the Atlantic, and why Americans apply free speech selectively along political lines. Sarah also talks through why Americans should defend the right to free expression even, and especially, when it is painful for them.

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Sarah McLaughlin is the Senior Scholar, Global Expression at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and author of Authoritarians in the Academy: How the Internationalization of Higher Education and Borderless Censorship Threaten Free Speech. She writes regularly about the state of free speech around the world and her work has been featured in outlets including Foreign Policy, The Guardian, and The Los Angeles Times.

This podcast is hosted by Bakhti Nishanov and produced by Alanna Novetsky and Carly Breland, inconjunction with the Senate Recording Studio.

Why does religious freedom matter in today's world? Ambassador Sam Brownback draws on decades of experience to explain why it is central to advancing human rights and strengthening global security. He also examines how Russia's actions and Ukraine's wartime challenges have brought new urgency and complexity to these issues.

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Sam Brownback has spent decades in senior public service advancing human dignity, democratic values, and freedom of religion around the world. He currently serves as Co-Chair of the International Religious Freedom Summit and Chairman of the National Committee for Religious Freedom, leading global efforts to protect religious liberty and counter repression.

From 2018 to 2021, Brownback served as United States Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, where he worked across regions and faith communities to confront religious persecution and advocate for the rights of believers facing state repression. His diplomatic service built on a long legislative record focused on freedom, human rights, and the rule of law.

Previously, Brownback represented Kansas in the United States Senate from 1996 to 2011. During his tenure, he was a principal architect of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, landmark legislation that institutionalized U.S. advocacy for religious liberty worldwide, and the author of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, the first comprehensive federal law to criminalize human trafficking and expand protections for victims. He was a commissioner with the Helsinki Commission from 1999 to 2010, serving as chairman from 2005 to 2006. While on the Commission, Brownback was outspoken about countering human rights abuses worldwide, particularly in Russia and North Korea.

Earlier in his career, Brownback served in the U.S. House of Representatives representing Kansas's Second Congressional District and as Secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture, becoming the youngest person to hold that office. Honoring a term limits pledge, he left the Senate and ran for Kansas governor in 2010. He was inaugurated in 2011 as the 46th Governor of Kansas and was re-elected in 2014 before returning to national and international service. He is one of only six individuals in American history to have served in all four roles: congressman, senator, governor, and ambassador.

A native of Garnett, Kansas, Brownback was raised on his family's Linn County farm. He earned his undergraduate degree from Kansas State University, where he served as student body president, and his law degree from the University of Kansas. He and his wife, Mary, have five children and eleven grandchildren.

This podcast is hosted by Bakhti Nishanov and produced by Alanna Novetsky, in conjunction with the Senate Recording Studio.

On this week's episode, Bakhti sits down with Nastassia Rouda, director of Nasha Niva, a Belarusian media outlet operating in exile in Vilnius. Rouda discusses how she and her colleagues have used new types of content and social media to remain relevant and grow their audience inside of Belarus, even as Belarusians experience economic downturn and political repression. She talks about how she and other hosts on their network rely on humor to keep hope alive for a freer future for their country and maintain interest in free media among the millions of Belarusians of all ages who tune into their online shows.

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Nastassia Rouda is the director of Nasha Niva, Belarus's oldest newspaper. Founded in 1906 upon Belarus's independence, the paper is best known for its role in preserving Belarusian language, culture, and art. The paper closed in 1914 as it became illegal to criticize their government during World War I and was re-established in 1991. In the 2010's, Nasha Niva moved online and became one of the most popular websites in Belarus. In 2020, following Nasha Niva's coverage of the Belarusian presidential election and subsequent protests, the KGB declared the paper an extremist organization, arresting reporters and forcing many others into exile.

Nasha Niva continues to operate from Vilnius, Lithuania and remains popular, especially thanks to their video content, which receives millions of views on YouTube and TikTok from Belarusians. In order to remain popular and relevant, the paper has innovated in a variety of ways since 2020, finding ways to evade censorship, recruiting young reporters, and developing comedic content. Nasha Niva's online comedy and satirical shows poking fun at Lukashenka and other political elites in Belarus are particularly popular.

This podcast is hosted by Bakhti Nishanov and produced by Alanna Novetsky in conjunction with the Senate Recording Studio

On this episode of the Transatlantic, host Bakhti Nishanov talks to Georgiy Kent, who took an unusual detour after finishing his graduate program in May, biking over 4,000 miles across the United States to crowdsource funds for Ukraine. From the Oregon coast to Washington D.C., Kent interacted with hundreds of Americans along the way, engaging in dialogue about Russia's war on Ukraine.

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Georgiy Kent served as a Max Kampelman Policy Fellow at the Helsinki Commission, working on political and economic projects to hold Russia accountable for its ongoing war in Ukraine. He has worked at the Aspen Strategy Group, Harvard Kennedy School, Partnership for Public Service, and Atlantic Council. A graduate of Harvard College and Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Georgiy specializes in security, economy, and state development in Europe, Asia, and post-communist societies. Today, he is an Associate for Research and Client Strategy at Political Alpha, a political risk advisory firm in D.C., but this summer he decided to hop on a bicycle and cycle across America to raise money for Ukraine.

This podcast is hosted by Bakhti Nishanov and produced by Alanna Novetsky, in conjunction with the Senate Recording Studio.

Is the United States a nation state? Does it have a national identity? On this episode of the Transatlantic, scholar Colin Woodard discusses his early career experiences as a journalist in Eastern Europe and the Balkans at the end of the Cold War and how that work informs his work on national identity in the United States. He then talks about his current research uncovering what he describes as eleven distinct nations that make up the United States and how their clashing cultures and traditions have defined the country's struggle to form a national story and identity.

Colin Woodard – a New York Times bestselling historian and Polk Award-winning journalist – is one of the most respected authorities on North American regionalism, the sociology of United States nationhood, and how our colonial past shapes and explains the present. Compelling, dynamic and thought provoking, he offers a fascinating look at where America has come from, how we ended up as we are, and how we might shape our future. Author of the award winning Wall Street Journal bestseller American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, Woodard has written six books including The Republic of Pirates — a New York Times bestselling history of Blackbeard's pirate gang that was made into a primetime NBC series with John Malkovich and Claire Foye – and Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, which tells the harrowing story of the creation of the American myth in the 19th century, a story that reverberates in the news cycle today. His latest book is Nations Apart: How Clashing Regional Cultures Shattered America, released by Viking/Penguin in November 2025.

He is the founder and director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University, an interdisciplinary research, writing, testing and dissemination project focused on counteracting the authoritarian threat to American democracy and the centrifugal forces threatening the federation's stability. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a visiting scholar at the Minneapolis-based HealthPartners Institute and a POLITICO contributing writer.

As State and National Affairs Writer at the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram he received a 2012 George Polk Award, was named Maine Journalist of the Year in 2014, and was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting. A longtime foreign correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, he has reported from more than fifty foreign countries and seven continents from postings in Budapest, Zagreb, Washington, D.C. and the US-Mexico border and covered the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and its bloody aftermath. His work has appeared in dozens of publications including The Economist, The New York Times, Smithsonian, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Newsweek and Washington Monthly and has been featured on CNN, the Rachel Maddow Show, Chuck Todd's The Daily Rundown, The PBS News Hour, and NPR's Weekend Edition.

A graduate of Tufts University and the University of Chicago, he's received the 2004 Jane Bagley Lehman Award for Public Advocacy, a Pew Fellowship in International Journalism at the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Study and was named one of the Best State Capitol Reporters in America by the Washington Post. He lives in Maine.

This podcast is hosted by Bakhti Nishanov and produced by Alanna Novetsky, in conjunction with the Senate Recording Studio.

For decades Western policymakers have struggled to understand the mindset of the Russian people and their leaders. This episode of The Transatlantic brings together two Russia experts who provide unique perspectives into the challenges American leaders often face when negotiating with Russian officials. Join James Collins, former Ambassador to Russia, and Wayne Merry, the officer in Embassy Moscow who authored a 1993 dissent cable predicting the adversarial turn of post-Soviet Russia, for a wide-ranging conversation about their combined decades inside Russia, a look inside the Vladimir Putin's world, and their thoughts on what will determine the future of Russia.

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Read E. Wayne Merry's Dissent Cable here: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/32704-document-1-wayne-merry-dissent-channel-cable-american-embassy-moscow

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Ambassador James F. Collins is an expert on the former Soviet Union, its successor states, and the Middle East. Ambassador Collins was the U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation from 1997 to 2001. Prior to joining the Carnegie Endowment, he served as senior adviser at the public law and policy practice group Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP. Before his appointment as Ambassador to Russia, he served as Ambassador-at-Large and Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for the newly independent states in the mid-1990s and as Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d'affaires at the U.S. embassy in Moscow from 1990 to 1993. In addition to three diplomatic postings in Moscow, he held positions at the U.S. embassy in Amman, Jordan, and the consulate general in Izmir, Turkey.

He is the recipient of the Secretary of State's Award for Distinguished Service; the Department of State's Distinguished Honor Award; the Secretary of State's Award for Career Achievement; the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service; and the NASA Medal for Distinguished Service. Before joining the State Department, Ambassador Collins taught Russian and European history, American government, and economics at the U.S. Naval Academy.

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E. Wayne Merry is Senior Fellow for Europe and Eurasia at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC. He is widely published and a frequent speaker on topics relating to Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus, the Balkans, European security and trans-Atlantic relations.

In twenty-six years in the United States Foreign Service, he worked as a diplomat and political analyst specializing in Soviet and post-Soviet political issues, including six years at the American Embassy in Moscow, where he was in charge of political analysis on the breakup of the Soviet Union and the early years of post-Soviet Russia. He also served at the embassies in Tunis, East Berlin, and Athens and at the US Mission to the United Nations in New York. In Washington he served in the Treasury, State, and Defense Departments. In the Pentagon he served as the Regional Director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia during the mid-nineties. He also served at the Headquarters of the US Marine Corps and on Capitol Hill with the staff of the US Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He was later a program director at the Atlantic Council of the United States

In the years since it launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has subjected thousands of Ukrainian civilians to tortuous treatment in prison camps across the occupied territories. In this season premiere of the U.S. Helsinki Commission's podcast "The Transatlantic" Russian human rights activist Evgenia Chirikova discusses her experience searching for answers about what happens to those Ukrainians trapped in this system of terror and outlines the type of accountability she believes is necessary to bring the perpetrators of this abuse to justice.

Watch Evgenia's two-part documentary investigation here:

Prisoners. Part 1: Fates (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHldWCVigHM)

Prisoners. Part 2: The System of Terror (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K9Vy2AWGAg&t=2166s)

Evgeniya Chirikova is a Russian environmental activist who rose to prominence leading a movement opposing the building of a motorway through Khimki forest near Moscow. She also played a prominent role in the 2011–2012 Russian protests following disputed parliamentary elections in Russia. She is currently based in Estonia.

Evgeniya is the co-founder of the organization Support Net, which supports civil activism in Russia, helps Russian activists who face repression, and supports Ukrainian war refugees. Since 2024, she has investigated Russia's systems of terror in the occupied territory of Ukraine and cases of Ukrainian civilian prisoners. On July 1, 2025, she premiered her film, "System of Terror" in the European Parliament.

For her active support of Ukraine in resisting the Russian occupation, she has faced five criminal cases in Russia on charges of "terrorism," has been arrested in absentia in Russia twice, was included on Russia's list of "terrorists and extremists," and was recognized by the Russian Federation as a "foreign agent."

She has also served as a project coordinator, investigator, and journalist at the Open Estonia Foundation, and written articles for the Washington Post, La Tribune, de Volkskrant, the Atlantic Council, Postimees, and Activatica. Among other awards, she is a recipient of the James Lawson Award, Goldman Environmental Prize, and the Woman of Courage Award, presented to her by then-Vice President Joe Biden. She is a graduate of the Russian Academy of Economy and State Service and Moscow State Aeronautical University.

This podcast is hosted by Bakhti Nishanov and produced by Alanna Novetsky, in conjunction with the Senate Recording Studio.

The Helsinki Commission's podcast is back!

We are excited to be launching The Transaltantic, a podcast bringing you human stories across oceans, political divides, and intellectual traditions. Join our host Bakhti Nishanov as he talks to people behind the debates and developments shaping the struggle for freedom and security in the United States, Europe, Central Asia, and around the world.

Transgender journalist Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, a U.S. citizen, joins host Alex Tiersky to describe her journey, first to Ukraine as a war correspondent, then her decision to enlist in the Ukrainian Armed Forces as a combat medic on the front lines, as well as becoming a high-value target for Russian propaganda, and the importance of pursuing the truth against a regime that thrives on lies.

The OSCE has been central to diplomatic efforts around Russia's war against Ukraine. In this episode, Ambassador Michael Carpenter, U.S. Permanent Representative to the OSCE, discusses the ultimately unsuccessful diplomatic efforts to forestall Russia's full-scale invasion; the role of the OSCE in ensuring accountability for war crimes and atrocities; and the need to ensure Ukraine's victory and Russia's defeat.

Since February 2022, thousands of non-Ukrainians have signed up to help defend Ukraine from Russian aggression. In this episode, two former members of the U.S. military—former U.S. Army Staff Sergeant James Vasquez and retired U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Rip Rawlings—discuss their own efforts, one fighting on the ground, and the other mobilizing and coordinating support to the Ukrainian armed forces through his foundation.

One particularly insidious tool in Russia's arsenal of aggression is the Kremlin's use of mercenaries, in particular against Ukraine. In this episode, experts Candace Rondeaux and Col. Chris Mayer (Ret.) discuss how Russia draws on mercenary networks such the Wagner Group, which has been linked to human rights and other atrocities including the horrific massacre at Bucha.

Dr. Nicholas J. Cull, a pioneering scholar and educator in the field of public diplomacy and mass communication in foreign policy, joins Helsinki on the Hill to examine the fight over narratives around Russia's unprovoked war against Ukraine, how it shapes how different audiences understand the war, and the ultimate real-world impact of information warfare.

When the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security was adopted in 2000, it marked the first time that the UN Security Council acknowledged the vital role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts. Two decades later, meaningful progress has been made in advancing the equal participation and full involvement of women in peace and security-related efforts, but substantial challenges remain.

In this episode, two senior active duty female military officers—Colonel Katherine Lee of the New Zealand Defence Force and Lieutenant Colonel Diana Morais of the Portuguese Ministry of National Defense—describe why integrating the perspective of women is essential to sustainable peace and security efforts, including those undertaken by the OSCE and its participating States.

The Chinese Communist Party poses major challenges to the transatlantic community's ideals of governance and human rights.

In this episode, Didi Kirsten Tatlow, contributing author of the Atlantic Council report "The China Plan," discusses the Chinese Communist Party's oppression of its citizens, illustrates how that repression extends to the international system, and offers recommendations on how the transatlantic community, including OSCE participating States, can best unify to respond.

From September 10 – 16, ZAPAD 2021—a major Russian military exercise that includes thousands of troops—will take place in and around Belarus. The exercise follows months of reports that the Russian military has been involved in actions that potentially could spark a major and violent confrontation between Russia and other countries, including a March deployment by Moscow of some 100,000 new troops in and around Ukraine and a June incident in the Black Sea in which Russian forces seemingly faced off against the British destroyer HMS Defender.

In this episode, Lt. General Ben Hodges (Ret.) analyzes whether these developments represent a major escalation and imminent conflict with Russia; whether they are part of a deliberate, coordinated strategy by the Kremlin; and what, if any, guardrails could prevent Russian aggression against its neighbors or a direct conflict with NATO.

The work of the Helsinki Commission aligns closely with that of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the world's largest regional security organization. The United States supports the work of the OSCE through not only the Helsinki Commission, but also through funding—generally contribution between 11 and 14 percent of the OSCE's operating costs—and through the deployment of individuals who carry out the activities of the OSCE across its vast geographic expanse, who do the day-to-day work of trying to make the principles on which the OSCE is based into a reality on the ground.

In this episode, Kavya Rajan, Director of Human Rights and Communities at the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, and Kelsey Harris-Smith, Political-Military Officer in the Conflict Prevention and Resolution Program at the OSCE Mission to Moldova, describe how the work they and other Americans—as well as staff from other OSCE participating States—do contributes to a sustainable, enduring, democratic peace in the OSCE region.

The creation of the Moscow Helsinki Group was announced on May 12, 1976, a day that Helsinki Commission Chair Sen. Ben Cardin has called, "One of the major events in the struggle for human rights around the globe."

The 11 founding members, including legends of the human rights movement like Yuri Orlov and Lyudmila Alexeyeva, came together as what was formally named the Public Group to Assist in the Implementation of the Helsinki Final Act in the USSR. Their mission was to monitor the Soviet government's implementation of the human rights provisions of the historic 1975 Helsinki Accords.

In this episode, Dmitri Makarov, co-chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group, and historian Sarah B. Snyder discuss the history and impact of the Helsinki monitors, as well as the important work the Moscow Helsinki Group continues to do today.

The upcoming Tokyo Olympics, slated to take place late July after a one-year postponement, will be the first international athletic event since the passage of the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act (RADA) in December 2020, which established criminal penalties on individuals involved in doping fraud conspiracies affecting major international competition. The law, named after Russian doping whistleblower Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, empowers the U.S. Department of Justice for the first time to investigate and prosecute these rogue agents who engage in doping fraud, provide restitution to victims, and protect whistleblowers from retaliation.

In his first public interview since RADA became law, Dr. Rodchenkov speaks about the impact of the legislation that bears his name, as well as the blatant corruption that exists in the world of international sport, the vital role of whistleblowers, and more. He is joined by Helsinki Commission policy advisor Paul Massaro, who sheds light on the game-changing new tools created by the legislation and its importance to the U.S. fight against corruption worldwide.

President Alexander Lukashenko has been in power in Belarus since 1994. In the run-up to elections in the summer of 2020, the Lukashenko regime sought to eliminate political competition to through disqualification, intimidation, and imprisonment.

Election Day proper featured widespread allegations of fraud. Many countries, including the United States, rejected the election's outcome as illegitimate and refused to recognize Lukashenko as the legitimate leader of Belarus. The months since the election have seen an unrelenting crackdown by Belarusian authorities on peaceful protests, civil society, and the media.

As a participating State in the OSCE, Belarus is party to a number of commitments on human rights and fundamental freedoms, such as the right to free and fair elections and the right to peaceful assembly. In response to the apparent violation of these rights, 17 other OSCE states invoked one of the key human rights tools at their disposal: the Moscow Mechanism, a procedure that allows for the establishment of a short-term fact-finding mission tasked with producing a report on a specific human rights concern and recommendations on how to resolve it.

In this episode, Professor Wolfgang Benedek, the rapporteur appointed to investigate the crisis in Belarus, discusses his findings that human rights abuses are "massive and systematic, and proven beyond doubt" and his recommendations to address the violations.

Election observation is a core element of the OSCE's efforts to promote human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. Every OSCE participating States—including the United States—pledges to invite foreign observers to observe its elections. The United States plays an active role in OSCE election observation missions, both by providing observers for foreign elections as well as by inviting the OSCE to observe every general and midterm election since 2002.

Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, veteran election observer Orest Deychakiwsky, former director of the OSCE's Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and current OSCE PA member Michael Link, and Deputy Secretary of the State of Connecticut Scott Bates share insights on the origins and value of OSCE election observation, along with the process of election observation from the OSCE and state perspective.

Only July 11, 1995, more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys from the town of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina were rounded up, gunned down, and buried in mass graves by Bosnian Serb forces, in what was the worst mass killing in Europe since World War II.

The brutality of the genocide at Srebrenica was compounded by the deliberate effort by those responsible to hide their crimes. The use of mass graves and the subsequent movement of remains of the murdered using heavy machinery meant that the identification of the victims seemed nearly impossible at the time.

Ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, Kathryne Bomberger, director general of the International Commission on Missing Persons, discusses how ICMP has helped families of the Srebrenica victims find closure and pursue justice. She also discusses the commission's evolution from dealing with the conflict in the former Yugoslavia to its work worldwide—including in Syria, Colombia, and elsewhere—today.

Reports from nearly every corner of the OSCE region suggest that minority groups and vulnerable populations have been hit especially hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and sometimes by the policies enacted by governments to address it.

This extended episode of Helsinki on the Hill takes an in-depth look at the pandemic's impact on minority groups and vulnerable populations, and the role of governments in addressing that impact.

Margaret Huang, president and chief executive officer of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Karen Taylor, chair of the European Network Against Racism, share insight about the reality on the ground for minority communities, including African Americans, who are suffering disproportionately from both the pandemic and systemic discrimination.

Lamberto Zannier, OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, joins the discussion to offer recommendations on meeting the needs of national minorities and marginalized communities in the new world of the COVID-19 pandemic.