Today, I have podcasted with Jamie Fly, the president of RFE/RL. Go here. “RFE/RL,” as you know, is the combination of our Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. I wrote about this organization in 2018, here. Jamie Fly occupies a very important post. The Kremlin wages an information war, or disinformation war, even as it wages a war of aggression and subjugation on Ukraine. RFE/RL is an important counter to the Kremlin.
Fly is a Reagan conservative who has worked in the Senate, the Pentagon, and the White House, in addition to RFE/RL and other places. I podcasted with him in 2020 and wrote about his background here.
Some of our readers will recall that Jim Buckley — one of Bill’s older brothers — was president of RFE/RL from 1982 to 1985. As he has told me, he loved the job, and loved the mission.
RFE/RL has many journalists on the ground in Ukraine, and even some on the ground in Russia as well. Such work is dangerous, needless to say. In April, Vira Hyrych, an RFE/RL journalist, was killed in a Russian missile strike on Kyiv. To read about her, go here.
In Russia, independent media have been abolished. But Russians still find ways to gain access to RFE/RL and other honest outlets. They are not entirely at the mercy of their state media. One thing Jamie Fly tells me is: Don’t write off the Russian people. Many Russians are thirsty for reform — yearning for a better country — and this is especially true among the young.
We address a variety of issues, in our podcast today. What of the Kremlin’s echoers and apologists in the West? They can’t all be paid, right? Some of them surely do it from the heart? Are true believers? And what can you do about people who simply won’t believe honest reporting on the war? Who think that reports of Russian atrocities are made up?
Another question: How do reporters in Ukraine cope with the horrors they see? How do they maintain their poise and go about their work?
The “information space” is a key battleground in the general war between free and democratic countries and their authoritarian opponents. Jamie Fly has highly valuable things to say. Again, to hear him, go here.