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Author Andrey Kurkov on Winter in Kyiv and Why Putin Won’t Stop

Author Andrey Kurkov on Winter in Kyiv and Why Putin Won’t Stop

The Mishal Husain Show vor 8 Monaten

0:00

37:29

This winter has been exceptionally brutal in Ukraine. Already the
coldest in more than a decade, it’s been made worse by Russian
attacks on energy infrastructure that have left millions with no
heating and intermittent power.

As Russia’s war approaches its fourth anniversary, Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is under intense pressure from
Donald Trump to hold elections and accept a peace deal within
months. But inside Ukraine and among its allies, there remains
deep skepticism that Vladimir Putin is truly interested in a
durable peace.

Celebrated writer Andrey Kurkov has lived the reality of
the wartime winter in his home city of Kyiv. Best known for his
1996 novel “Death and the Penguin,” set in post-Soviet Ukraine,
Kurkov also has written extensively about the current war,
publishing three volumes of diaries alongside his fiction. While
he’s been determined to remain in Ukraine throughout the
conflict, he says the present conditions have been too much to
bear. In this conversation with Mishal Husain, he talks about his
hopes for peace and how he plans to return to Kyiv in the
spring.

02:54 Situation in Kyiv: “Winter allied with Russia”

04:53 Four years since full-scale invasion

07:12 Ukraine is “fragmented”

09:12 “Writing nonfiction is a duty”

12:03 “Nobody’s winning”

14:20 Kurkov’s relationship with Russia

17:47 How the war changed Kurkov and his country

20:19 Kurkov’s message to the Munich Security Conference

21:53 Capitulation “camouflaged” as a peace deal

24:15 Support for Zelenskiy in Ukraine

26:15 Corruption scandals: “I’m very angry”

2:49 “I hope the war will be over this year”

31:43 Observing the war as a diarist

33:14 Humor as a “psychological defense”

35:17 “We are part of Europe”

Watch this podcast here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe4PRejZgr0Ns_wjGlmjlPz0cded0nTYS

You can find the written version of this interview with Mishal’s
notes on Bloomberg Weekend:
https://www.bloomberg.com/latest/weekend-interview

Contact The Mishal Husain Show mishalshow@bloomberg.net

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Illustration: Uli Knörzer for Bloomberg; Photo: Leonardo Cendamo
for Getty

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