A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available. During the ongoing emergency in Ukraine, as Russia’s unprovoked military aggression throws the region and the world into crisis, my colleagues at the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN) and I are going to try as best as we can to feature on KickBack experts who can shed greater light on how issues related to corruption relate to the ongoing crisis. And rather than keeping to our usual schedule of releasing new episodes every two weeks, we will release new episodes as soon as they are available. In the new episode, I was privileged to welcome to the podcast Oksana Nesterenko, Associate Professor of Law at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla and Executive Director of the Anti-Corruption Research and Education Centre. Professor Nesterenko was forced to leave Kyiv after the Russian attack, and she spoke with me from Poland, where she, like so many of her fellow citizens, is a refugee. In the first part of our conversation, Professor Nesterenko explains why the war between Russia and Ukraine is really a war of values, and why gradual reforms in Ukraine in the direction of liberal democracy and anticorruption threatened the Putin regime, and why this, rather than any actual military or security threat to Russia, is the real underlying reason for the Putin regime’s attempt to topple the current Ukrainian government. She also explains that Putin’s war is also an attempt to deflect domestic attention from his regime’s failures, including the government dysfunction caused by his corrupt approach to governance. She also provides an assessment of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s pre-war anticorruption efforts, emphasizing that from the perspective of anticorruption activists were disappointed in the lack of progress on some issues, but recognizing that as a politician he had to balance interests and demands from different stakeholders. In the final part of our conversation, we turn to the question of Russian (and Ukrainian) dirty money flowing into wealthy Western countries, and what more can and should be done to stop this. You can also find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations:

• Soundcloud
• Stitcher
• iTunes
• Spotify
• Google Podcasts
• Apple Podcasts
• Pocket Cases
• Overcast
• Castbox
• Radio Public
• Twitter
• Facebook

KickBack is a collaborative effort between GAB and the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN). If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends. And if you have suggestions for voices you’d like to hear on the podcast, just send me a message and let me know.