By popular demand, we are unlocking the extended interview with Ian Proud. Watch the full chat here:
From July 2014 to February 2019, veteran diplomat Ian Proud was posted to the British Embassy in Moscow where he advised UK Ministers on sanctions against Russia.
His embrace of diplomacy over war made him a Misfit in Moscow.
Proud joins Useful Idiots to explain how British diplomacy failed in Russia, and how a strategy other than aggression and saber-rattling could have averted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He gives a complex history of the conflict, beginning with the 2014 West-backed coup in Ukraine, and culminating in Boris Johnson’s infamous in person threat to Zelensky that he must reject a peace deal.
We ask Ian if it was Biden who instructed Johnson to do so.
And today, with a (“so-called”) peace summit convened by the Ukrainian government and Putin making his most concrete peace offer to date, Ian’s long history as a British diplomat in Moscow gives us a chance to pull back the curtain on the talks that could potentially end the proxy war.
Subscribe to hear the full interview with Ian Proud where he explains:
•How the US’s Victoria Nuland undermined peace talks at every step since 2014
•Boris Johnson’s admission that the proxy war is about “defending western hegemony” (and his embarrassing meeting with the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion)
•The UK’s role in the dirty war in Syria
•The UK’s role in aiding Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza
•How much the British government and its allies invest in propaganda (or, as they call it, strategic communications) to deceive the public into going along with their proxy wars
•And the 2024 US presidential election: Would there would be any foreign policy difference between Biden and Trump?
Useful Idiots is off this week, so we are unlocking a fan-favorite episode. Thanks for your support!
UNLOCKED: UK Diplomat Ian Proud Full Interview