Preet Bharara:

From Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network. Welcome to Stay tuned. I’m Preet Bharara.

Joshua Yaffa:

People who thought that the war effort in Ukraine could have been run better. In that sense, they might have found common cause with Prigozhin, who took every opportunity to criticize Russian generals and the Russian war effort in Ukraine.

Preet Bharara:

That’s Joshua Yaffa. He’s a contributing writer at the New Yorker and has reported extensively on Russia’s war in Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict nearly 18 months ago. His 2020 book, Between Two Fires, truth, ambition, and Compromise in Putin’s Russia. Won the Orwell Prize for its depiction of everyday life in that country. I spoke with Yaffa about the rise of Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenary group, why his attempted coup failed President Biden’s renewed intention to support Ukraine’s military and the latest on the detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. That’s coming up. Stay tuned.

Now. Let’s get to your questions. This question comes in a tweet from Martha who asks, “How is jurisdiction determined in wire fraud cases in which fundraising or other solicitations are sent all over the country? Do charges have to be filed where they originate or anywhere that they are received?” Now I get questions about venue all the time. It is something that is an element of a crime. It has to be proven, although not beyond a reasonable doubt in Federal Court, but despite preponderance of the evidence. It’s by the way a constitutional requirement. Crimes must be charged where they took place. But obviously in modern society, part of a crime can take place in many jurisdictions, and in fact, sometimes, particularly in conspiracy cases, there are fights among federal prosecutors as to who brings the case because a part of the crime may have been committed in California, another part may have been committed in New York and so on and so forth.

With respect to your particular question about fundraising and solicitations, if you have an unlawful political donation that’s actually subject to criminal sanction, the charge could reasonably be filed in the place where the donation was made or the place where the donation was received. And in fact, it could also be brought technically in any jurisdiction through which the money traveled.

So for example, in a case that we brought some years ago when I was the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, there’s an elaborate plot on the part of Iranian nationals to assassinate the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States in the District of Columbia. So the bad guys who were originating the plot were in Iran. The hitman who they had hired who they didn’t know was a confidential informant, was operating out of Texas, but there were one or more wire transfers to pay the hitman, that traveled through a bank and that bank was located in the southern district of New York and that was sufficient.

This question comes in an email from Emily. “Hi, Preet. Can you explain exactly what the D.C. bar said in recommending that Rudy Giuliani lose his law license?” So this is an issue that we’ve been following for quite some time. As you may recall, this disciplinary proceeding arose in the matter of the Giuliani lawsuit that he signed onto in Pennsylvania in connection with the 2020 election on behalf of the Donald Trump campaign. It’s a searing and scathing document, and I’ll quote from it in a moment.

Procedurally, you should understand that this was a three person committee who made the unanimous recommendation that Rudy Giuliani be disbarred. That finding now goes to a full nine member disciplinary board, and if the whole board agrees with the finding, then it’s up to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to make the final decision about Rudy Giuliani’s disbarment from the D.C. Bar.

So the panel issued a 38-page decision and it’s pretty tough. It wrote among other things, quote, “Mr. Giuliani’s effort to undermine the integrity of the 2020 presidential election has helped destabilize our democracy. His malicious and meritless claims have done lasting damage. He claimed massive election fraud, but had no evidence of it. By prosecuting that destructive case, Mr. Giuliani, a sworn officer of the court, forfeited his right to practice law. His utter disregard for facts denigrates the legal profession.” End quote.

There’s an important phrase in there, “Sworn officer of the court.” Lawyers, people who are in the profession that I’m in are not ordinary workers in the workforce. They’re sworn to an ethical code and a professional code as officers of the court, and they’re not allowed to lie and they’re not allowed to bring baseless claims. Otherwise, they might meet the same fate as Rudy Giuliani.

The panel also noted that Rudy Giuliani was not particularly remorseful over his conduct. Didn’t apologize, no contrition was demonstrated whatsoever. As they write, quote, “To the contrary, he has declared his indignation. He’s shocked and offended over having been subjected to the disciplinary process, quoting him, saying, ‘I really believe I’ve been persecuted for three or four years.'” End quote. That did not serve him well.

Did the panel consider or think about Rudy Giuliani’s long history of service before working for Donald Trump? Well, they did and said they considered in mitigation Mr. Giuliani’s conduct following the September 11th attacks as well as his prior service in the Justice Department and as mayor of New York City. But then they say this, “But all of that happened long ago.” And then they say this, quote, “The misconduct here sadly transcends all his past accomplishments. It was unparalleled in its destructive purpose and effect. He sought to disrupt a presidential election and persists in his refusal to acknowledge the wrong he has done. For these reasons. We unanimously recommend that Mr. Giuliani be disbarred.” End quote.

This question comes from odd followers who posed the question on the new social media platform Threads and the question was this, “How are you and Joyce White Vance liking threads?” Well, I don’t want to speak for Joyce, but I think she’s liking it. She’s been on it since day one, as have I. As people may know, threads is a social media platform that’s closely resembles the Twitter platform except it’s being run by Meta. Threads does not yet have all the features that Twitter has, but it’s just gotten started just a few days ago. So I think we can give it time.

I’m not leaving Twitter, I’m still remaining on that platform. Although it has its flaws and its issues, Threads may eventually develop some of those flaws and issues as well. Time will only tell for the time being though, join me on Threads and let me know what you think. I could use some more followers. I have about 37,000 on thread so far as compared to 1.7 million on Twitter. So maybe you can help me even the gap going forward. By the way, during the Q&A, we’ll be fielding questions from both Twitter and Threads, so send your questions there as well.

This question comes in an email from Peter. “Hi, Preet. I’m about to start my first year of law school at the University of Pittsburgh. I’m very excited but worried about what I’ll focus on. I think I want to go into labor law, but I’m worried about siloing myself off intellectually. Do you have any advice for a future attorney about how to choose a specialty? I love the show in your wonderful book.”

Well, Peter, thanks for your question. I get questions like this all the time. I think as an initial matter, it’s my view, but you should solicit opinions from lots of people. I don’t think you need to worry about a specialty before you’ve set foot in law school. Law school’s a pretty long ordeal. Three years you’ll have an opportunity to take lots of classes in lots of different areas and certainly you can take a lot of electives after your first foundational year of law school.

I think it’s great and terrific that you have an initial inclination for a particular specialty labor law. I don’t know what drives that interest, but it’s something you should explore by taking classes related to labor law and employment law. If you can find internships or externships that focus on those kinds of things, maybe a summer associate job at a labor law firm to test the interest.

I will tell you that over time, people who think that they want to be transactional lawyers end up being litigators in the long run, and sometimes people who are litigators end up switching to transactional law and sometimes people leave the law altogether. So I would suggest keeping an open mind, don’t suspend that interest and don’t worry about siloing. Take as many classes in as many areas as you can maybe with an emphasis on labor law and find it a way to do that in internships, as I mentioned, but see if the interest persists and it may not.

The other thing I always say about law school and lawyers, particularly when I’m giving graduation addresses, I think the people in the legal profession have more mobility than any other profession in the country. There are always changes you can make. You might start in-house at a company and decide to go to a law firm. You might be at a law firm and decide to go in-house. You might be in law enforcement as a federal prosecutor and then maybe you become a podcaster stranger things have happened.

This is all advice by the way, I’ve given to one of our own beloved producers here at Cafe, Sam Ozer-Staton. You have heard his name in the credits for a number of years now. Like you, Sam is also about to head to law school at NYU. So I’m going to take advantage of your question about law school to congratulate Sam on his new path to law school and to thank him with great gratitude and affection for all the hard work he’s done bringing you these programs that you appreciate week after week after week. Sam, good luck. We miss you already.

I’ll be right back with my conversation with Joshua Yaffa.

Joshua Yaffa is an award-winning writer for the New Yorker, where he covers Russia and the ongoing war in Ukraine. Joshua Yaffa, welcome to the show.

Joshua Yaffa:

Thanks for having me.

Preet Bharara:

I’m very pleased to have you here. We have a lot to talk about with respect to the war in Ukraine and some nutty, I think nutty is the right word to use, developments in recent weeks. I should also timestamp this for our listeners because the news can change and there could be developments between our conversation and when folks get to hear it. So we’re recording this late afternoon of Monday, July 10th.

So the person everyone’s been talking about is a gentleman by the name Yevgeny Prigozhin, who a few weeks ago looked like he was leading a coup attempt against Vladimir Putin. So I want to ask you the ultimate questions, namely, how is it as of this day, July 10th? He’s still alive, and also ask you about this extraordinary meeting that apparently Putin and Prigozhin had a few days after the coup attempt. But before we do any of that, you are the perfect person around to give us some of the background. Who is this gentleman?

Joshua Yaffa:

Well, Prigozhin’s backstory goes back indeed quite a ways to Perestroika era, Leningrad, that is the city that is now known as St. Petersburg, Putin’s hometown as it happens. Prigozhin was by all accounts, a kid of the streets ran with a tough crowd, went to prison actually for some years in the late Soviet Union for taking part in a number of robberies, comes out in the ’90s and starts to hustle first actually by making and selling hotdog a business that in the early ’90s, St. Petersburg becomes quite popular, which he turns into supermarkets, restaurants, a catering business.

And it’s that latter enterprise that seems to bring him into contact with Vladimir Putin, quite a fortuitous meeting for a one-time hotdog salesman turned restaurateur, who hosts Putin at one of his restaurants in the early years of Putin’s presidency. Putin returns bringing all manner of foreign dignitaries. The visiting Japanese prime minister, Jacque Chirac from France, Putin himself celebrates his birthday at one of Prigozhin’s establishments in St. Petersburg, and that gets him not at all to the center of power. Prigozhin is not a Putin intimate by any means, not in this trusted inner circle of Putin’s court that forms a kind of latter-day [inaudible 00:12:20] bureau for the running of Putin’s Russia.

Preet Bharara:

But Putin likes him.

Joshua Yaffa:

Prigozhin is close enough to be able to parlay that proximity into other things, and that’s, as you’ve talked about on this podcast before, how power works in today’s Russia through informal power relationships, proximity to power that can be turned into yet more power and influence and money. In Prigozhin’s case, he ultimately is a businessman and that seems like what he caress about most of all.

Fast forwarding a bit, Prigozhin is a very intrepid creative freelancer. He launches the Internet Research Agency, which you and your listeners may better know as the St. Petersburg Troll Farm, which pops up in the 2016 election and it’s aftermath. Let’s not go down that rabbit hole or else we’ll spend the whole podcast dissecting just-

Preet Bharara:

Well, you should just mention, Prigozhin is an indicted defendant.

Joshua Yaffa:

That’s right. Yes. US prosecutors are well familiar with Prigozhin, albeit in a very different context for his activity running the Troll Farm.

Preet Bharara:

So how does a person like this street criminal not super close to Putin? How does he become the head of a mercenary group called Wagner?

Joshua Yaffa:

Well, by all accounts, and we don’t really know the ins and outs because this story like much of Prigozhin’s biography and much really of Putin era political history is purposely shrouded in Byzantine mystery about what actually happens in the halls of power and how decisions are made. But sometime around 2014, 15, a private military company, mercenary structure pops up with the name Wagner. Is operating in the occupied territories of Eastern Ukraine and the Donbas where the Kremlin has launched in 2014 a war covert only in the most winking flimsy sense. Everyone knows that it’s Russia backing these would be faux separatists in eastern Ukraine, but for maintaining the legalistic veneer of plausible deniability, the Kremlin uses a lot of proxy forces, different militias, runs a big covert, basically, even if it’s not that covert across the whole of the Donbas, and Wagner seems to be one of these groups that’s doing some fighting, not a lot in the Donbas and its boss, patron, CEO, if you will, is Prigozhin.

Preet Bharara:

Who are the people who are in those regiments?

Joshua Yaffa:

At the beginning, Wagner seemed to draw from professional soldiers, veterans, people who had been in the Russian armed forces and left their service in the armed forces and taken up with this mercenary outfit for money. I mean, classic story, we’ve seen it in America with Black Water and other outfits that took on a lot of contracts in Iraq in the early and mid 2000s. Of course, what Wagner would become would something far different than Blackwater, but I think the initial model, at least as Russian officials, what they thought they were doing or what they thought… The example they thought they were taking or studying from was very much an existing one in which veterans with combat experience sell their services and knowledge for a high price in the private sector.

Preet Bharara:

Can you explain where the Wagner group got its name?

Joshua Yaffa:

Also something we don’t know for sure, but as legend has it, the chief military commander of Wagner is a former Russian special forces officer named Dmitri Utkin, who is said to have favored the music of the composer, Richard Wagner, for the same reasons that someone like Adolf Hitler favored the music of Wagner. That is Utkin according to the stories and anecdotes of many, many people who have come across him as well as videos or pictures that have surfaced on the internet of his tattoos showing German and Third Reich symbols, seems to have a proclivity for the cultural ephemera and ideology of the German Third Reich.

Preet Bharara:

Do you have a sense of how well the mercenaries are paid? Is it lucrative work or not?

Joshua Yaffa:

Depends on your, I guess, well-

Preet Bharara:

I guess compared to ordinary enlisted men in Russia.

Joshua Yaffa:

Yes.

Preet Bharara:

How do they do?

Joshua Yaffa:

Yes. The salaries seem high, several thousand dollars a month, especially if you are a army veteran in Russia who comes home done with your service return to your small town in the provinces, there certainly aren’t a lot of options to make that kind of money if you’ve ended up back in small town Russia having finished your army service.

Preet Bharara:

Aside from the Donbas, the Wagner group or at least Prigozhin also made themselves important in among other places, Syria, is that right?

Joshua Yaffa:

Yes. Syria is where they really came out as a major quasi-public fighting force. In Ukraine, they weren’t really discussed. They were just one among many, many of these kind of dark, murky militias doing the fighting in eastern Ukraine, doing the Kremlin’s dirty work there. And it was only later, I think, that at least in wider circles, people began to collect the dots.

But in Syria you could say Wagner’s PR campaign really began, the public image and brand, if you will, of Wagner began to be promoted as they did just about all on the ground fighting for Russia in that campaign. Putin famously announced Russia’s intervention in Syria supposedly to fight ISIS really to back up the regime of Bashar al-Asad, but did so with a promise first and foremost to the Russian people who I think he correctly surmised, didn’t have all that much appetite or interest in seeing a protracted land war in Syria with Russia’s involvement, at least of all Russian soldiers coming home in caskets, how to fix that problem don’t send Russian ground forces, send a technically private deniable group like Wagner.

So if and when Wagner soldiers die, it’s not the same. Doesn’t contain the same political costs as it would if a regular Russian soldier was dying and then Putin and the Kremlin could just sell the war very differently. Honestly, can’t see my air quotes, but honestly telling the Russian public that there are no Russian boots on the ground and Wagner did a lot of fighting. They were involved in, for example, the capture of Palmyra in Syria and other battles, and they were very much a kind of major tip of the Russian spear in Syria, while also being accused, I would really say documented, committing massive war crimes, including most infamously the torture and beheading of a Syrian fighter captured on video.

Preet Bharara:

So now fast-forward, they have these exploits in the Donbas, they have these exploits in Syria, if you want to call them that. We’re at the beginning of 2022 before the February invasion of Ukraine. What is Prigozhin’s status? What is he doing? What’s his role in the lead up and at the start of the war?

Joshua Yaffa:

Well, it seems like at the very start of the war, there’s no role for Wagner, and that’s because the entire conception of the invasion as the Kremlin saw it was that it really would be this, quote, unquote, “Special military operation.” Right? This now absurd-

Preet Bharara:

Right. And there’s no reason to have plausible deniability really, because Putin was proud of the fact that he was doing the invasion, right?

Joshua Yaffa:

Right. So you don’t need plausible deniability because Russian cruise missiles and Russian tanks are streaming across the border early in the morning of February 24th, but you also don’t need mercenary storm troopers because in three days you’re going to have captured the capitol [inaudible 00:20:46].

Preet Bharara:

And Zelensky would be dead-

Joshua Yaffa:

Right. Victory parade down Kiev’s main street. And so you actually don’t want these mercenaries running around acting kind of roughly and gunning everything and everyone down in sight. You want this much more kind of special forces run special military operation as Putin and those around him called it. So-

Preet Bharara:

Could you remind me, so did the war not end in three days?

Joshua Yaffa:

Yeah, 500 days later, here we are. Now 502, maybe as we’re recording this. Days later, the war is not over very much not over, and it was clear within days, certainly weeks of the invasion that it was not going to go or had not gone as Russia had initially planned.

Preet Bharara:

Then enter the Wagner group.

Joshua Yaffa:

Right. Russian forces become bogged down. And again, we don’t know exactly how and why Wagner entered the war. I mean, we know big picture, we don’t know exactly what was the conversation like in the Kremlin when either Prigozhin proposed his services or Putin called on them. I guess that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that by the late spring Wagner troops are sighted in fighting in Eastern Ukraine in the Donbas, in areas where they in fact had been active in 2014 and 2015 and that campaign that they steadily march not across a whole lot of territory. We’re talking about a span of maybe 20 or 30 miles really over the course of a year, but they go all the way up to and into a city called Bakhmut, which becomes really the prime battle for Wagner, the battle or set piece through which I think most people came to know about Wagner and the way they fight in Ukraine.

Preet Bharara:

And what is the way they fight, clean?

Joshua Yaffa:

Well, I think most importantly and what really sets Wagner apart in this war is their use of convict storm troopers. Starting last summer, Prigozhin began traveling around Russian prison colonies, recruiting Russian prisoners for the war, offering them effective amnesty after six months if they survived. Prigozhin was very honest, in fact, in his pitch to prisoners telling them that they may not survive, they may well die in Ukraine, but if they manage to survive, then they will after six months be freed.

Preet Bharara:

Wait, so at this point listeners are asking the question that I have in my head also, and that is, “By what authority can this guy go to incarcerated people and give them amnesty to come fight?”

Joshua Yaffa:

Putin. In a word.

Preet Bharara:

But is it informal authority or does he have a man… How?

Joshua Yaffa:

Well, at the time he is doing it no one really knows, and you’re asking good questions that don’t have precise answers.

Preet Bharara:

Man, how does he even get into the prison? Just as a matter of logistics, it’s very sort of hard to get your arms around.

Joshua Yaffa:

I agree, and that’s what had a lot of people really shocked last summer and fall when videos of Prigozhin making this pitch in prisons began to be leaked. And most people now credibly believe that they were leaked by Prigozhin himself who was engaged in this PR grand building exercise.

He very much has tried to develop this brand of a kind of rough, brash, but straight talking tough guy. He really does come off in these prison videos as someone who knows what the inside of a Russian prison is like. He’s a kind of, “And I’m one of you” speech, but how he’s doing all this? Nobody exactly knows, but yet at the same time, everybody knows and that it’s clear he couldn’t be doing any of this if he didn’t have Putin’s sign-off. So somewhere on some level, the boss has given him the green light, and in a system like Putin’s Russia, that means he then has carte blanche to do as he pleases.

Preet Bharara:

And where’s he getting his munitions from also?

Joshua Yaffa:

Also a good question because this comes to a head later as Prigozhin accuses the Russian defense ministry of depriving him of munitions, but that does suggest that the pipeline is flowing through the defense ministry, which even if they don’t like it, even if they don’t like having to tolerate this renegade quasi autonomous mercenary group, and its loudmouth boss, they nonetheless have to supply them. And if Wagner comes to have its own stocks of things like kalashnikovs and grenades and body armor and things, certainly for higher level ordinance, they’re very much dependent on the Russian army.

Preet Bharara:

Do they have tanks?

Joshua Yaffa:

Unclear. They seem to have some artillery pieces up to a certain caliber or in certain quantities. Again, the way that Putin’s Russia works in Russia and on the battlefield is that oftentimes something like ownership is very difficult to ascertain and maybe in a way irrelevant. Does it matter if you own the thing or does it matter if you have free license…

Preet Bharara:

[inaudible 00:26:14].

Joshua Yaffa:

… to use it as you please? For example, does Putin own…

Preet Bharara:

My car?

Joshua Yaffa:

Yeah, right. Does Putin own this yacht that was ultimately confiscated last year in Italy? No, I don’t believe the ownership documents show that…

Preet Bharara:

But he has free use of it.

Joshua Yaffa:

… Vladimir Putin is the owner of the yacht, but defacto it is his. And I think something like that might be the case for Wagner armaments as well.

Preet Bharara:

Okay, so he goes on this campaign and we don’t understand how he does it. He has the imprimatur of Putin, this guy Prigozhin, who as you’ve described, one way he’s distinguishable from the military brass, the official military brass is he’s got personality. So how strong a force and how large a force does this personality build?

Joshua Yaffa:

Again, going off of varying estimates that we’re all a bit in the dark and trying to make precise, but it’s certainly in the tens of thousands of fighters that he’s recruited up to around 50,000 maybe of these prison convicts.

Preet Bharara:

And they generally speaking, according to reports, and maybe also the media efforts of Prigozhin and himself are performing better or worse than the regular army of Russia?

Joshua Yaffa:

Well, Wagner is advancing, so you have to give them that. If you just go by territorial acquisition, let’s say, Wagner is steadily moving forward, not at a very dramatic clip by Prigozhin’s own admission, sometimes by meters at a day. It’s not a whole lot of territory day by day, but this is at a time when the rest of the Russian front is effectively stuck in place. Other regular Russian military units are engaged in a kind of feckless offensive of their own that’s not leading to a lot of advances. And so Wagner is itching forward, in the winter they capture a town on the approach to Bakhmut called Soledar. And this really, in a way you could say is Wagner’s high watermark, even though Soledar is itself a minor town on the approach to Bakhmut, which itself is a city that doesn’t actually hold all that much strategic significance for the war.

Nonetheless, given the paucity of Russian success on the front elsewhere, this is made into a big deal. And Prigozhin really does get to boast on his Telegram channel, first of all, but even on Russian state media, they have to give Prigozhin and Wagner his due, even the Russian military, which by this point was engaged in a passive-aggressive, well from Prigozhin’s side, very aggressive maybe from the side of Russians generals, passive-aggressive, trying to ignore Wagner, pretend they and Prigozhin don’t exist, even they, after the capture of Soledar, have to admit and thank Wagner for their efforts.

Preet Bharara:

We’re getting close to the point where I start asking about the attempted coup. But before we get there, do we have any understanding as to whom Prigozhin is reporting or who’s giving his orders? Or is he just doing everything completely autonomously or does he have a separate line to Putin? Do we have any understanding of that?

Joshua Yaffa:

No, and that’s a big mystery. I’m sorry to answer. So many of your good questions with, I don’t know, but I would be doing your listeners a disservice.

Preet Bharara:

How crazy is that?

Joshua Yaffa:

Right. I mean, clearly he has some sort of, I don’t know if it’s even a relationship with Putin, I don’t know… There’s this kind of parlor game among Russia watchers like, did Prigozhin have direct access to Putin? That’s a big deal in the Russian right watching world. Does this person get to go see Putin personally directly one-on-one and make his or her case? That’s a big deal, and that means that person has a lot of access by definition, but therefore a lot of influence.

We don’t even know if Prigozhin was in this lofty category of people who could one-on-one go to Putin and make their appeal. He clearly had sympathizers in the military hierarchy. At the middle and maybe even upper ranks of the military there were people who perhaps didn’t necessarily find Prigozhin, the individual, all of that compelling, but did find some of his arguments compelling just in terms of the inefficiency, corruption, mismanagement of the Russian armed forces, people who thought that the war effort in Ukraine could have been run better.

In that sense, they might have found common cause with Prigozhin, who took every opportunity to criticize Russian generals and the Russian war effort in Ukraine. So as much as he had rivals in the defense establishment, he also had far less, I don’t want to make them sound like equal groups, but he had some sympathizers as well.

Preet Bharara:

So his head is swelling. His victories such as they are, are mounting. He’s getting a bigger and bigger name for himself. He becomes unhappy, and in particular, he becomes unhappy and angry at, among others, two Russian military officials. Can you explain what was going on there?

Joshua Yaffa:

Sure. Well, as the fight for Bakhmut is reaching its critical phase in the early spring, Prigozhin’s criticism of the military brass reaches a new fever pitch. He calls out in particular the Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the chief of the general staff, the top military officer in the country, Valeri Gerasimov as being incompetent, corrupt, mismanaging the war, mismanaging the forest, and specifically out of personal vendetta, depriving Wagner of the ammunition it needs to continue the fight for Bakhmut.

This is also a very convenient argument for Prigozhin to make having promised publicly, and one presumes, also Putin that Wagner would take Bakhmut, Bakhmut is not falling. So of course better than admitting his own error or somehow the incapacity or in capability of Wagner to do the job better blame-

Preet Bharara:

Point the finger.

Joshua Yaffa:

Right, point the finger elsewhere. But his vitriol, it’s not so much even the content, I would say the form, just the degree of emotional hatred, name-calling.

Preet Bharara:

Give us some examples because some of the words we don’t use on the podcast.

Joshua Yaffa:

Yeah, well, I mean this-

Preet Bharara:

Could you give us a flavor?

Joshua Yaffa:

Just every synonym you can think of for absolute incompetent, idiot, moron, thieves and traitors, really, ultimately. That’s a word that comes up in Prigozhin lexicon.

Preet Bharara:

And he likes the F-bomb.

Joshua Yaffa:

Right. Likes the F-bomb, likes colorful language. And again, that’s all part of this brand. He’s building as this no nonsense truth telling bomb thrower, the kind of speak truth to power, bull in the china shop. I mean, sound familiar as a political persona?

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. But here’s what I don’t understand. This is the eighth or ninth time, I’m confused, and that’s because it’s confusing. How on Earth does Putin allow this to go unanswered? What is it about Putin’s style of management or thickness of skin that this semi rogue general of a mercenary army is allowed to defame and attack in deeply personal and offensive and strong language the military professionals who are actually leading the effort in Ukraine, which Putin wants everyone to think is going well?

Joshua Yaffa:

Well, you might say that in hindsight, this was an error of Putin, that he should have dealt with this problem earlier.

Preet Bharara:

Before the attempted coup, right?

Joshua Yaffa:

Correct. But he didn’t. And one imagines he didn’t because Prigozhin… Well, two reasons. One, Putin in general likes as a style of management to nurture disparate factions and clans that are at war with each other and battle for influence, battle for his attention and favor. And that in a way keeps him secure as the systems’ only arbiter of power.

All these other groups, all these other clans have to fight for resources, fight for his favor, but none of them can become actually dominant. He sits alone on the throne managing these rivalries. So it’s actually helpful or convenient to have someone provide a check on Russia’s top military leaders, especially given that the war wasn’t going all that well. Maybe it’s good for them to feel a little bit of pressure bearing down on them.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah, it’s just so odd.

Joshua Yaffa:

And the second part is that Prigozhin was useful, if not necessary, for the war effort at that moment. So much of Russia’s attention at that moment in the war, early spring coming out of the winter was about Bakhmut. There was no success or even the prospect for success anywhere else on the front. And it seemed for weeks and weeks like Russia was about to take Bakhmut just a little bit more, and Russia would fully capture Bakhmut and there would be not exactly catharsis or a sort of victory parade. It wouldn’t be a victory parade in Kiev, far from it, we’re talking about a very, very dialed down measure of victory compared to initial war aims. But it would still be something and to move against Prigozhin while the battle for Bakhmut was ongoing would threaten to potentially see that front collapse as well. It’s unpredictable.

If you go against Prigozhin, get rid of Prigozhin, what happens to his Wagner fighters in Bakhmut, if they melt away, then the Bakhmut front melts away, and Russia has just truly nothing to show for its war effort for many, many months. So I think that that also kept Prigozhin safe for a while.

It’s a kind of paradoxical situation for his reputation and image. He needed to capture Bakhmut as the kind of capstone to Wagner’s involvement in the war, but it was this condition of Bakhmut being almost captured but not fully captured that in a way kept Prigozhin safe because as we’ll get to in a moment, once the battle for Bakhmut ends, then it’s possible to start thinking about a transition away from relying on Wagner and Prigozhin personally.

Preet Bharara:

I’ll be right back with Joshua Yaffa after this.

So I think that was an excellent 30 minute or so foundation. I think that was very important because we don’t often get that when people get their news in small bites.

So there comes a time just a few weeks ago, I think it was June 23rd, where Prigozhin decides to take his mercenary band of brothers and make some statements and march back into Russia and towards Moscow. I’m interested to know how you explain that. One commentator said, I think on this podcast, that what happened is Prigozhin and simply lost his mind. Is that correct or is there some other explanation?

Joshua Yaffa:

No, I definitely don’t think Prigozhin lost his mind. I think he made a potentially gross miscalculation, but it was not one born out of insanity. It was just, I think, the wrong reading of the stakes or conditions at the moment.

Preet Bharara:

So what was his thinking? It’s one thing to bad mouth these military officials. It’s another thing to essentially declare war on Putin and Russia, isn’t it?

Joshua Yaffa:

Yes. Although I don’t think that’s actually what Prigozhin thought he was doing.

Preet Bharara:

Well, he says among other things, which is why it’s good that you laid the groundwork with respect to Shoigu and Gerasimov, his explanation is that he was just trying to topple them, right?

Joshua Yaffa:

Yes. And in that sense, I believe Prigozhin, however much I regret saying those words.

Preet Bharara:

Well, how are you going to do that? He was going to march into the Kremlin?

Joshua Yaffa:

Well, let me back up a little bit, provide one last piece of context and then explain what I think was going on. So after the battle for Bakhmut ends, Prigozhin himself announces that Wagner is leaving the Ukrainian front. They’re turning over Bakhmut to the defense ministry going out basically on a high note, potentially returning to their much more lucrative business in Africa, which we didn’t talk about much, but that’s really where Wagner lives up to its mercenary roots in terms of extracting profit from its operations.

And the defense ministry embarked on a project of revenge served cold, not through viral videos or name-calling, but through bureaucratic maneuvering. And that was a order that required all independent volunteer, as the defense ministry calls them, groups to sign contracts with the ministry essentially falling under military hierarchy, becoming subordinate to the military. And this order was going to apply to Wagner as well.

Putin himself said Wagner had to comply with this order, and if Prigozhin/Wagner indeed were forced to sign these contracts with the defense ministry essentially becoming a subordinate arm of the military hierarchy, that would be the end of Wagner, at least in the form that we’ve seen it so far and certainly be a major blow to Prigozhin’s power and business interests. And so this deadline, the defense ministry set of July 1st for signing that contract, was looming. And I think that that’s the main piece of context to understand in terms of the timing of why Prigozhin launched this mutiny. When he did, he was a week away from having to sign a contract-

Preet Bharara:

From being co-opted and absorbed.

Joshua Yaffa:

Right. That would spell the end of this quasi or nominally private fighting entity that he built up to produce great wealth and power for himself. And so this March 1st on Rostov, the city in southern Russia where Russia effectively runs military operation in Ukraine, and then ultimately this convoy to Moscow, that was remains unclear exactly how many troops and how much equipment was involved in this convoy and what their ultimate intent was.

But strategically, deep down, I believe that Prigozhin’s intent was, whoever crazy this sounds, but I don’t think it was actually crazy, was to force a conversation to get Putin’s attention. It was a kind of cry. I mean, how many times have we all done this in our own lives with much different stakes and with much different tactics? But when someone’s not paying attention to us and we have a point we really want to get across, when we feel like our interests are not being respected, understood, appreciated. If we could just explain it to the person, if we could just get in front of the boss’s desk for 10 minutes, surely he would understand.

Preet Bharara:

But most of us don’t take up arms. We go to the union representative if you have [inaudible 00:41:59].

Joshua Yaffa:

Well, most of us also don’t…

Preet Bharara:

Recognize labor.

Joshua Yaffa:

… control private militias with tens of thousands of fighters. So if you did, if you had that opportunity, maybe you would use it. So Prigozhin used the tool at his disposal and he thought-

Preet Bharara:

But he literally takes over a Russian town, Rostov, as you said, did they meet any resistance?

Joshua Yaffa:

Doesn’t seem like it. And that speaks to, I think, though I hope that we’ll learn more with time, but I think that means that there were sympathizers somewhere in the military and security hierarchy otherwise. How does Wagner march across the border from where had been based in Ukraine into Rostov and effectively take over not even so much the city, but this military garrison, the southern military district headquarters, that was essentially the high command for running Ukraine operations? How is Prigozhin in that building with his men? If he wasn’t let in effectively because it doesn’t seem like a shot was fired.

Preet Bharara:

Didn’t Prigozhin understand? Because we haven’t said he’s an idiot. Didn’t he understand that his actions were going to be seen as a great and significant humiliation of Putin?

Joshua Yaffa:

This is where I think the grave miscalculation of Prigozhin comes.

Preet Bharara:

I’ll say so.

Joshua Yaffa:

Because my sense, and I’m just here riffing with as much right as anybody, but my sense is that Prigozhin was surprised, unpleasantly surprised by when the next morning, Saturday morning, Putin makes an address on television and effectively calls Prigozhin a traitor says his actions are akin to a stab in the back, and Prigozhin knows full well how Putin relates to traitors. Traitors are worse than enemies in Putin’s book. I mean, traitors are really to be destroyed as demonstrably as as possible.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. Traitors are by definition enemies.

Joshua Yaffa:

Well, I mean they’re even worse. The enemy within is worth even more contempt and can be met with even more merciless violence. And at that moment, I think Prigozhin gets spooked, realizes he’s gotten himself in way over his head, that this whole idea, which again to you and I now sounds fanciful, in retrospect, that he would force a productive conversation with Putin by taking over Rostov and marching on Moscow, that that’s gone way off script, that he’s now effectively a traitor, and that if he continues, he’s going to be wiped off the face of the Earth along with all of his men. And so better to pull up and ask for a deal, which seems to be what happened, remarkable that Putin still went for it. Even-

Preet Bharara:

Well, that was my next question. I mean, I have always assumed and many other experts, I mean, I’m not an expert. So many experts plus non-expert, me, have assumed that eventually he will pay the ultimate price. But in the meantime, and I’m very curious to know what you think about this, but in the meantime, among other things, Putin and his cohorts want to sort of neutralize and shunt to the side the Wagner group and learn other things that maybe Prigozhin knows, but he’s not long for this world or is he?

Joshua Yaffa:

Well, that’s another big mystery. Maybe the biggest mystery going forward is what happens to Prigozhin. At the day that this deal was announced, the day that the Mutiny both happened and was called off, it was said that Prigozhin and his men or those Wagner fighters who chose to go with him would go to Belarus, and that would become their new stage of operations in a deal that was, I don’t think so much actually negotiated by Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. I think he was kind of called in for cover to be the public mediator mediator, but I’m sure the deal was actually worked out and will be worked out by Prigozhin and Putin personally in their intermediaries.

But that doesn’t seem to have really happened. We haven’t seen a relocation in many significant numbers or really any at all of Wagner to Belarus. And then this gets to the report you mentioned at the outset of Prigozhin apparently was in Moscow where he met with Putin five days after this whole failed uprising. And so that really blows apart-

Preet Bharara:

So I want to ask you about this, and the first thing that came to mind when I read about the report of the meeting five days after he was described as a traitor effectively was when he got the invite, “Hey, why don’t you come over? We’ll have some forced.” I kept thinking of the scene in Goodfellas when Joe Pesci goes to get made and instead gets whacked. What’s going on in Prigozhin’s head about whether he would survive that meeting?

Joshua Yaffa:

Well, what’s really interesting is that maybe what I said a few minutes ago about Prigozhin’s grave miscalculation was actually wrong. It was just delayed by five days or so, but Prigozhin actually got the audience that he wanted with the boss to make his case. Putin’s Press secretary said, or press spokesman said that Prigozhin and other top Wagner fighters were in the Kremlin for three hours. I mean, you can really make a lot of arguments.

Preet Bharara:

That’s a long time.

Joshua Yaffa:

You can really make your case pretty well in a lot of detail over the course of three hours. And so that makes me reconsider or revisit what I said just a few seconds ago in saying that Prigozhin had grossly miscalculated because it seems like he actually got what he wanted at, at least in terms of an audience with Putin forcing a conversation with Putin where he could make his case.

What will come of that? Let’s see. Something to watch first and foremost. I mean, this is the most easiest or obvious bit is what happens to people like Shoigu and Gerasimov, the defense minister and head of the general staff. Do they stay in their positions or not? Who wins that power struggle, Prigozhin or his rivals? Maybe Putin tries to muddle through, not make a choice and do what he’s always done and keep these rival clans in place.

But let’s see if there’s anything, any detail that we can use to judge the deal or the terms of the deal that Prigozhin is walking away with. Does he get to keep, for example, his operations that are so lucrative in Africa? Or is Wagner effectively disbanded there and its mercenaries absorbed into some other structure or a whole number of new private structures that appear? The Wagner empire as it were in the Middle East and Africa is important to watch just as much as the Wagner footprint in Ukraine in terms of understanding what does Prigozhin get to walk away with here?

Preet Bharara:

I thought and have been told for a very long time that Vladimir Putin is strong and ruthless. What happened to that guy?

Joshua Yaffa:

Well, that’s the big political implication of all of this that’s way bigger or separate than anything involving Prigozhin and what happens to Prigozhin personally. What happens to Putin as a result of this that essentially has the potential being much more important and decisive for the future of Russia.

And if you talk to or listen to just about every informed knowledgeable Kremlin watcher, Putin watcher, there’s an anonymous, basically, decision or idea there that Putin has been wounded by this whole episode because he hasn’t acted in the ways that you just said. He has negotiated and may well make concessions to someone he publicly identified as a traitor. When’s the last time that’s happened? When’s the last time that Putin has made himself look so vulnerable, so weak even?

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. Mr. Navalny writes some stuff and he’s rotting in a prison. This guy, Prigozhin, marches on his own country, takes the lives, we should be explicit about this, takes the lives of Russian soldiers…

Joshua Yaffa:

That’s right.

Preet Bharara:

… wearing Russian uniforms.

Joshua Yaffa:

A dozen Russian soldiers died during the course of the separation.

Preet Bharara:

He killed members of Putin’s Russian army and was declared a traitor, as you described a couple of times, and yet Navalny rots in prison and Prigozhin gets a three hour meeting with Putin, and maybe will get concessions from Putin as well. I’m going to repeat the question. What about that makes sense?

Joshua Yaffa:

Well, clearly either… Or in fact, I think both can be true. Putin still sees a certain utility in Prigozhin, whether in that he believes Wagner will again be necessary either in Ukraine or elsewhere in extending Russia’s footprint abroad. Also, perhaps is in keeping Russian generals in check as part of this managerial strategy we’ve discussed. That’s one part.

The second which, and this is not mutual exclusive, I think they actually can and probably are happening at the same time, is that Putin is on the back foot. He’s in a tough spot here. The war is not going well, 500 days into an invasion that was supposed to last three. The Russian body count is rising, and the main wager of Putin’s has not played out, which is that the West would tire of this war before Russia. That still may happen. We don’t know what chapters of this war yet to come, but at least it hasn’t happened on the timeline that Putin predicted. The West seems to have, at least for the moment, quite stiff resolve in providing the kind of support, mainly arms that Ukraine needs to continue its defense and even go on the offense.

And so in that context, things look a little shaky. They look certainly very shaky for the Russian army in Ukraine where it should be said Ukraine has not made the kind of dramatic advances during the summer’s counter offensive that many in Ukraine and many in the West might have hoped. There hasn’t been this total collapse of Russian lines or Ukrainian forces moving dozens or more of kilometers deep into Russian lines. But at the same time, Russia’s offensive capability appears all but exhausted. And the best that Russia can do is to try and limit the damage of Ukraine’s counter offensive. So Ukraine is certainly not a great and glorious story for Russia at this moment.

Preet Bharara:

Repeat podcast guest and my friend Bill Brower tweeted on June 25th, I think it’s a tweet that you agreed with, but I’m not positive, quote, “Putin will execute an almighty purge that would make Stalin blush.” End quote. Do you think that’s still possible, or are we past that?

Joshua Yaffa:

No, I don’t agree with that. And I think that what Putin is and will try and do is to project even to a degree of absurdity, an air of normalcy and try and act like nothing to see here, no big deal.

Preet Bharara:

Like when a cat miscalculates a jump.

Joshua Yaffa:

Right.

Preet Bharara:

I meant to fall. I meant to do that.

Joshua Yaffa:

Right. There was this moment a few days after the failed Prigozhin mutiny where Putin visited a domestic tourism conference in Dagestan, in southern Russia, and did what he never does, which is go out into a crowd. I think that was clearly very much in response to the pictures and video of the crowd positively responding to Wagner fighters in Rostov. But the point is, Putin’s agenda 48 hours after a failed mutiny that if not was directed at him, was directed at his top military leadership and he’s at a domestic tourism conference in the Caucuses.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah, it’s like Trump going to a Cuban restaurant after his arraignment.

Joshua Yaffa:

Yeah, not a totally inappropriate analogy. And I think that that actually will be Putin’s strategy going forward. And that’s not to say that there will be no arrests, in fact, another subject of a lot of guessing and parlor speculation of Russia watchers is what has happened to general Surovikin, very high ranking general who is seen to be or said to be a kind of ally of Prigozhin inside the armed forces. He hasn’t been seen publicly since the day of the mutiny. There are rumors of his arrest or at least strange disappearance.

So there may be consequences for some inside the power hierarchy in Russia, but I don’t think it’ll be anything like a mass purge for the reasons I mentioned in that Putin seems to prefer to project the air of normalcy and stability, but also because of the situation of the ongoing war and a fragile situation for Russia in that war. I think Putin knows the last thing he needs to do is to start destabilizing the middle and upper ranks of the armed forces by launching a purge.

Preet Bharara:

So the Wagner group, tens of thousands strong, is no longer fighting. What does the absence of that fighting group and also the events that we’ve been discussing mean for the actual battle on the ground in Ukraine? Does it have any effect? Does it advantage Ukraine? And if so, by how much?

Joshua Yaffa:

Interestingly, I don’t think it’s that, not to say important, but certainly not decisive. Remember, as we discussed, Wagner had effectively left the front lines already before this mutiny happened. So Wagner was off the front. It was not really involved in active fighting starting from late May, early June. And also the nature of the fight has changed to the degree that these Wagner convict storm troopers are effective. They’re in these assault waves that have a credible human cost, but due, in some cases, overwhelm Ukrainian defenses just by sheer quantity.

But that’s not really the nature of the war right now. We’ve shifted to a phase of Ukrainian, and for that kind of fight, Wagner storm troopers might be less appropriate or less effective anyway. But like I said, they weren’t really on the battlefield already even before the mutiny happened. And so I don’t think their continued absence will be particularly decisive factor for how this offensive plays out to the Ukrainian offensive.

Preet Bharara:

What about, with respect to Putin himself? Is there someone in Russia who’s thinking about the show of weakness and thinking hypothetically about plotting a move? And if so, who would those people be?

Joshua Yaffa:

On the first part of the question, I think a whole lot of people are thinking about this demonstration of weakness, not just in the military establishment or hierarchy, security services, oligarchs, people of all stripes saw Putin objectively demonstrate weakness, and I think a lot of people paid attention to that saw that, internalized that, and are wondering what that means for the future.

The second part of the question, is there a next person or a next group that’s willing to act on that and to be the kind of smarter, more decisive Prigozhin? That I’m not so sure. And that’s because the Russian elite, just like Russian society writ large, incredibly atomized, incredibly apathetic, difficult in some ways to even use the word elite to describe the Russian elite, given how much they have kind of abdicated their role or responsibility for setting the direction of the country, and essentially have become a responsive class, people who try and kind of preserve or maintain their own interests in the shadow of whatever Putin decides and just wait for the next Putin decision so they can then update their own strategies of adaptation.

So I don’t see necessarily the makings of another more effective mutiny/coup. But then again, given what I said in the first part of my answer, that a whole lot of people took note, paid attention and saw Putin weak in a way he hadn’t demonstrated weakness before. What that could mean going forward is anybody’s guess.

Preet Bharara:

Turning back to the prosecution of the war itself, the Biden administration in the last number of days has done something that has caused some controversy and that has agreed to give over to Ukraine and its fighting effort cluster bombs, which I understand that those precise types of weapons have been outlawed by over a hundred countries, though, not by the United States. And I’ve been struggling to understand how to think about that, if it’s a good thing, it’s a bad thing. What does it mean about how the war is going? What’s your thought on it?

Joshua Yaffa:

I myself struggle with the question of is it a good thing or a bad thing. And I guess the privilege in a way of being a journalist is I don’t necessarily have to decide that, I can really try and understand why it’s happening and try and relay that with as much fidelity is I can.

And so the reason that Ukraine wants those weapons has to do with the nature of the counter offensive at the moment. And as Ukraine argues, especially due to a lack of air power, which Ukraine feels acutely right, those promised F-16s are nowhere near the battlefield in time for this offensive, very difficult to move across open terrain, very difficult to clear Russian positions, to clear Russian trenches to move across minefields.

And these cluster munitions are effective in exactly that sort of operation and provide a capability that Ukraine says it doesn’t have at the moment that that is acutely needed for exactly this kind of counter offensive operation. Will it be a game changer? Let’s see. I doubt any one weapon system will be the game changer that really turns the tide of the war, but it’s part of the arsenal that Ukraine has argued, and apparently in the case of the Biden administration, convincingly argued it needs to have a fighting chance with this is counter offensive.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. Would you agree? I don’t know the inside scoop maybe you do from your reporting and your sources. It can’t be the case that the Biden administration was running to provide cluster munitions and was pleased and excited about it for the reasons that some of the opponents have cited. I mean, to be clear for folks, the issue with cluster munitions as I understand it, is that there no matter how large a stock you have, there’s some percentage of duds and they drop. And then when the war is over or even during the prosecution of the war, civilians might be injured or killed from the dud munitions that didn’t explode when they were supposed to.

Joshua Yaffa:

Well, it’s definitely not a good thing in the sense that if the war, rather the counteroffensive, was going the way that Ukraine and the West wanted, or in the maximally advantageous scenario for Ukraine, then perhaps these munitions wouldn’t be needed. They’re needed because the fight is dragging on, the burn rate of munitions is extraordinarily high, Ukraine is going through a lot of artillery ammunition, both to prosecute the war at large, but specifically this counter offensive. The gains haven’t been, like I said, perhaps as dramatic as some would’ve hoped going into the counter offensive.

And basically what it’s become clear yet again, as has emerged as a main theme of this war throughout, is that it’s a numbers game. Who has the ammunition to keep the fight going, Russia or Ukraine? And what seems to be the case is that Ukraine’s stores of artillery ammunition supplied by the West, the United States, of course among… Or really the chief donor, is running low and providing new stores of artillery ammunition has become difficult simply because they don’t really exist, not in the United States, and certainly not it seems like in Europe which has been much slower to ramp up munition production.

So what that means is that the clock on this counter offensive is ticking first and foremost for ammunition reasons. Does Ukraine have the ammunitions, the shells to keep this offensive going? And what opening up the stores of cluster munitions does more than provide battlefield utility pertaining to the kind of particular type of weapon or ammunition that cluster munitions are is it just provides a new supply, a new kind of line of artillery munition that can give Ukraine more time.

And that seems to be the main impetus in the Biden administration’s decision. It’s a decision that they looked to delay that it seems like Biden himself had a difficult time with for all of the reasons you outlined of the very problematic nature of cluster munitions. But I guess the decision came down to, “Do we want the Ukrainian army to be able to continue this counter offensive to basically extend the timeline of the counter offensive?” Because nothing would be worse than effectively Ukraine having to stop its offensive operations and defacto seed territory to Russia and have that territory be occupied indefinitely by Russia.

Preet Bharara:

I don’t want to let you go in without asking you about something that I know is very important to you and that’s important to the country and to journalists everywhere. Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, is your good friend. And as people know, he was arrested by the FSB for “Espionage” quote, unquote, and is still in Russian custody. Can you explain how it feels to have a friend and a colleague there in that situation and what can you tell us about your understanding of what efforts are being made to bring him home?

Joshua Yaffa:

Thanks so much for asking about Evan. He’s indeed a dear friend, a wonderful colleague, someone I hold in great esteem and affection, and it’s terrible to know that someone so close to you is spending every day in Lefortovo prison in Moscow and awaiting trial for the laughably absurd, but very much real charges of espionage.

Preet Bharara:

I mean, once again, I mentioned Navalny before, but the idea that Prigozhin is negotiating and Evan Gershkovich is in prison is among other things to me infuriating.

Joshua Yaffa:

I agree. Everything about Evan’s condition is infuriating. He is a earnest, energetic, honest, professional, and that’s what he was doing in Russia, his job, trying to report the news about Russia and to bring understanding to us in the West, I very much believe now maybe even more than ever, no one benefits from Russia turning into a black box. So we should really be all grateful for what Evan was doing, which is trying to bring understanding about Russia in wartime to readers in America and across the West.

He seems, to his credit, to be in good spirits, good health. That’s what those who see him report, that he’s keeping up both in mind and body, awaiting trial, when that will happen we don’t know. Awaiting potential prisoner exchange when that will happen. We know even less about, there have been some reports in the Times and the journal where Evan works, that there are some sort of talks between Russia and the United States on this score.

What are those talks? We have no idea. Are they actually negotiations? Who knows. Are they just people putting feelers out or just keeping Evan’s name in the conversation, which is already important? We don’t know. And I think as these things tend to go, we may not know until this long awaited day happens when Evan is on a plane headed back to the US. That seems to be the way these negotiations play out, but that’s really just me speculating based on past experience.

What we can all do in the meantime are keep talking about Evan, have his name be one that is in the conversation in the United States, so the Biden administration knows that there are people waiting for Evan to come home. That that becomes something of a political imperative for this White House. Also, for Russia to know that Evan is someone who, whose friends and colleagues care about him and are waiting for him.

And in the meantime, you can write to Evan, there’s a website set up by friends and supporters, Free Gershkovich, that has a section explaining how you can send a letter to Evan in Lefortovo. He likes getting letters, he likes hearing from people, he likes getting news from the outside. So I encourage everyone who has a few moments who’s interested in sending him a note to do that. And besides that, talk about Evan just like you and I are doing now.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. Well, you’ve been very kind with your time. Josh Yaffa, thanks for spending it with us and thanks for your service.

Joshua Yaffa:

Thanks for having me.

Preet Bharara:

My conversation with Joshua Yaffa continues for members of the Cafe Insider Community. To try out the membership for just $1 for a month, head to cafe.com/insider. Again, that’s cafe.com/insider.

Before we wrap, I want to say a few more words about Evan Gershkovich. As I discussed with my guest, he currently sits in a Russian prison for the crime of reporting on the news in Russia. He’s been there for a hundred days now. President Biden’s, national Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, said this week the Biden administration has a clear commitment and conviction that we will do everything possible to bring him home. But no pathway to a resolution has been confirmed by the White House.

It’s truly horrible what he’s going through, and yet, as Josh Yaffa just told us, he’s in good spirits. That takes a certain immense and immeasurable kind of strength, and it’s a testament to his character. Journalists who report in places like Russia, places that criminalize dissent and speech risk their lives every day to tell stories about what’s happening around them. Without them, we’d be in the dark.

They shouldn’t have to be so brave, but every day, all over the world, they are. And for this public service, we should all be immensely grateful. As Yaffa and I just discussed, there are a few things we can do to help, share his name, share his story, tell people who may not be aware, and consider sending him a letter. You can even say that you heard his friend Josh Yaffa talking about him, and that you’re wishing him well. You can find the information to send a letter and to support Evan Gershkovich in the show notes to this episode, and to him and his friends and family, we are all hoping for his swift return back home.

Well, that’s it for this episode of Stay Tuned. Thanks again to my guest, Joshua Yaffa. If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. Tweet them to me at PreetBhara with the hashtag AskPreet. Or you can call and leave me a message at 6-6-9-2-4-7-7-3-3-8. That’s 6-6-9-2-4-Preet, or you can send an email to letters@cafe.com.

Stay Tuned is presented by Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director is David Tatasciore. The senior producers are Adam Waller and Matthew Billy. The Cafe team is David Kurlander, Noa Azulai, Nat Wiener, Jake Kaplan, Namita Shah, and Claudia Hernandez. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m your host, Preet Bharara. Stay Tuned.