This week, I spoke with two Ukainians who support Palestine and why they feel it is important for their countrymen and women to understand colonialism in other parts of the world. Rita Adel, a humanitarian analyst, and Vladyslav Starodubtsev, a socialist leader and historian, and I talked about Ukrainian socialism, what progressives in the west don’t get about Ukraine and NATO and why Ukrainians aren’t privileged because they are “white.” Host: Terrell Jermaine Starr Guests: Rita Adel and...

Warning: This week’s episode will focus on sexual violence committed by Russian soldiers. Reader, listener and viewer discretion is advised This week, I talk about Ukrainian civilians who survived sexual assault from Russian troops during the war. Ukraine is investigating  nearly 300 cases of sexual assault, but that number is likely much higher. Today, I am talking with Nadiia Volchenska, co-founder of the Sylni foundation, which was founded soon after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in...

This week’s episode is about the ongoing protests in Georgia in response to the country’s ruling political party, Georgia Dream, moving forward with its “foreign agent.” Officially titled “On the Transparency of Foreign Influence," the bill, if passed into law, would require organizations in the country receiving more than 20% of their funding from overseas to register as “foreign agents” or face large fines. Protesters say it is similar to laws spearheaded in Russia by Vladimir Putin. Here...

#ukraine #russia #putin #warinukraine #blackdiplomats #ukrainianhistory #history #harvard  Terrell J. Starr spoke with Havard Professor of Ukrainian History Serhii Plokhii about Putin’s obsession with fake Ukrainian history, Ukrainian resistance against Russian colonialism, Stepan Bandara, fighting Kremlin disinformation and more. Host: Terrell Jermaine Starr Guest: Serhii Plokhii Producer: Mike Hull Support us financially! Venmo: @BlackDiplomats  CashApp: $BlackDiplomats PayPal:...

#crimea #crimeantatars #ukraine #russia #ukrainianhistory #history Terrell spoke with Tamila Tasheva, the Permanent Representative of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea about liberating Crimea, human rights violations on the peninsula, Crimean history and what people get wrong about what’s happening there.  Host: Terrell Jermaine Starr Guest: Tamila Tasheva Producer: Mike Hull Support us financially! Venmo: @BlackDiplomats  CashApp: $BlackDiplomats PayPal:...

#ukraine #russia #putin #zelensky #warinukraine #blackdiplomats Terrell J. Starr spoke with Ukrainian security expert Maria Avdeeva about Russia’s ongoing missile attacks against civilian targets, Germany’s reluctance to send Taurus missiles, why Russia doesn’t want peace, her own work documenting war crimes and so much more. Host: Terrell Jermaine Starr Guest:. Maria Adveeva Producer: Mike Hull Support us financially! Venmo: @BlackDiplomats  CashApp: $BlackDiplomats PayPal:...

#ukraine #blackdiplomats #foreignpolicy #un #unitednations #nobelprize  Terrell Jermaine Starr speaks with Ukraine’s first Nobel Peace Prize Winner Oleksandra Matviichuk about her work as a war crimes documentor, the broken United Nations system, why it’s not possible to have peace with Russia and building solidarity with Africans and Palestinians.  Host: Terrell Jermaine Starr Guest:. Oleksandra Matviichuk  Producer: Mike Hull Support us financially! Venmo: @BlackDiplomats  CashApp:...

I spoke with Christopher Shell and Nola Haynes about Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats, why Black people should care about foreign policy, Andrew Tate’s arrest, uncommitted voter movement and more. Host: Terrell Jermaine Starr Guests: Christopher Shell is a fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Nola Haynes is a national security and foreign affairs analyst.  Producer: Mike Hull Support us financially! Venmo: @BlackDiplomats  CashApp: $BlackDiplomats PayPal:...

#ukraine #russianinvasion #foreignpolicy #trump #nato This week, Terrell Starr and Ukrainian journalist Olga Tokariuk discuss how Ukrainians are reacting to the possibility of Trump winning the U.S. election, her curiosity over Black support for Trump, NATO’s relationship with its Eastern European members and her trip to South Africa that convinced her Ukraine needs to build solidarity ties with Africa.  Host: Terrell Jermaine Starr Guest: Olga Tokariuk  Producer: Mike Hull Check us out on...

Terrell J. Starr and guest Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon discuss the second year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the African students who faced discrimination while fleeing the war, House Speaker’s Mike Johnson’s refusal to bring the U.S. Senate’s bill to the floor for a vote, how MAGA’s racism is blocking Ukraine military aid and Alexei Navalny’s death. Host: Terrell J. Starr Guest: Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon (Book her here) Producer: Mike Hull Support us financially on Venmo:...

Greetings, everyone.   This week, I was a guest on Andrea Chalupa’s Gaslit Nation podcast, where we discussed Alexei Navalny’s death and how we should all be reflecting on it.  This recording is from her most recent episode.  We also talked about how New York State Attorney General Tish James and Fulton County  District Attorney Fani Willis are defending American democracy from Donald Trump’s attacks on our democratic institutions.  Thanks for listening! Show notes: DEFIANT Fani Willis HITS...

This week, we’re replaying our May 10 show about Palestine. We’re pretty sure you’re aware of the terrorist attacks Hamas committed against Israeli civilians October 7 and Israel’s response. What is making matters worse is the massive disinformation that is going around on social media. Twitter is a cesspool of disinformation, where even the best and most seasoned reporters are being tripped up by false accounts and videos. Black Diplomats wants to fight against the disinformation by...

The fifth and final episode of “Liberating Iran” features Priscillia Kounkou Hoveyda. She talks about being Black in Iran and the racism she and other Black Iranians face under Tehran’s brutal theocracy. This episode is one of the few pieces of reporting that deals with the lives of Black Iranians in any meaningful way.  There is pretty much no reporting on Black Iranians, but this episode does address some aspects of how they are experiencing the uprisings in Iran. You can learn more about...

The fourth episode of “Liberating Iran” features Yegi Rezaian, who tells us about her life as a reporter in Iran and her efforts to free her husband Jason, with whom she was falsely imprisoned after he was accused of being a U.S. spy in July 0f 2024. Please go and buy his book, “Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison―Solitary Confinement, a Sham Trial, High-Stakes Diplomacy, and the Extraordinary Efforts It Took to Get Me Out” This is the fourth of five episodes that will publish each...

The third episode of “Liberating Iran” features Nahid Siamdoust, who takes us through the history of Iranian feminism and the decades of female musical expression that defines today’s protests in Iran.  Please go and buy her book, “Soundtrack of the Revolution: The Politics of Music in Iran.” This is the third of five episodes that will publish each Saturday, with the final show airing September 2. Next week’s episode, the fourth of the series, will feature Yegi and Jason Rezaian , who’ll...

The second episode of “Liberating Iran” deals with the 1953 CIA coup that overthrew Iran's leadership and how that event provides better context for Washington’s relationship with Tehran—not the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover.  Historian Pouya Alimagham helps us understand how devastating the West’s role in undermining has been to fostering better relations with Tehran’s leadership and why Americans have been fed a false narrative on Iranian people and its history. Please go and buy Pouya’s book,...

The first episode of “Liberating Iran” drops today.  Assal Rad breaks down the Iran Deal and the political history between the U.S. and Iran that explains why relations between the two nations are so frayed.  Please go and buy Assal’s book “State of Resistance: Politics, Culture & Identity in Modern Iran."  This is the first of five episodes that will publish each Saturday, starting August 5 and ending September 2. Next week’s episode will feature historian Pouya Alimagham who’ll break...

Coming July 29: A five-part series about Iran through the eyes of Iranians - protest, history, music, Black Iranian struggle, what the U.S. always gets wrong, and how we can get it right this time. Join host Terrell J. Starr as he unlearns years of media hype to find out the real history of Iran.

Good evening from Kyiv! Today’s show is all about the ongoing and ever-changing newscycle revolving around the aftermath of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed mutiny of the Russia’s Ministry of Defense. I break down the aftermath of how Russian President Vladimir Putin is responding to everything and the need to not try and predict what’s coming next. The following segment deals with Ukraine’s top intel chief’s claim that Russia mined the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and there is a real chance...

This week on Black Diplomats, I start off with news about the Kakhova dam explosion in the Kherson region that has claimed at least 5 lives and is causing a massive ecocide in the area.   For on the ground coverage, please read these articles that break down what is going on: The New York Times: U.S. Official Says Spy Satellites Detected Explosion Just Before Dam Collapse The Moscow Times: Norwegian Seismologists Detect Explosion Signals From Ukraine Dam The Kyiv Independent: Zelensky:...

On this episode of Black Diplomats we're doing something different. Terrell is on his way back to Ukraine so he sat down with BD producer Michael Hull to talk about his plans for the summer, some special projects we have coming up, and what the media needs to do to help the world survive the 2024 election cycle. Plus - what does Terrell do for his mental health? Can't have a Black Diplomats interview with asking the guest what they're doing to stay healthy! Please give us 5 star ratings on...

What are we to believe nowadays? It’s a question most of us have asked since social media platforms began competing with traditional media outlets in the 2010s. Everyone has the power to push out information and that is actually a good thing. We saw the power of citizen journalism during the Ferguson Uprisings and how they helped to push out culturally competent narratives when local and national media failed to do so. But what happens when people abuse, say, Twitter to spend lies that most...

Terrell J. Starr opens up this week’s episode of Black Diplomas with his thoughts on Great Britain’s likely shipment of long range missiles to Ukraine, weapons Kyiv have long requested. He also talks about the disinformation fog that will precede the upcoming Ukrainian offensive. From there he talks with Sudanese human rights scholar Mutasim Ali about the violence in Sudan. Terrell concludes the show with Palestinian human rights lawyer Diana Buttu and independent journalist Sharif Abdel...

Producer’s Note: We need your financial support! Please give us 5 star ratings on Spotify, iTunes or wherever you listen to us. Also support our work financially on CashApp at $BlackDiplomats,Venmo @BlackDiplomats and on PayPal at paypal.me/BlackDiplomats.  This week on Black Diplomats, where everyone can be a diplomat, I breakdown Russian President Vladimir Putin’s no-so-certain in-person attendance at this year’s BRICS Summit in South Africa’s, GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy’s brave...