The Sunday Show: Crimean Political Prisoners Freed, Russia’s Presidential Race, Fighting Corruption

✅ Chatham House Calls For Engagement In Ukraine

Britain's Chatham House has released a new report on “The Struggle for Ukraine.”The international affairs think tank argues that the biggest threat to Ukraine is internal — backroom corruption, powerful businessmen who influence politics, and a stagnant political establishment with a Soviet legacy — followed by Russian aggression in a close second. So what needs to happen to save Ukraine? Hromadske speaks with one of the report’s authors.

Orysia Lutsevych

Manager of Chatham House’s Ukraine Forum

✅ Crimean Political Prisoners Freed

Russia has freed two Crimean Tatar leaders impresioned for their opposition to Moscow's 2014 annexation of their homeland. Akhtem Chiygoz and Ilmi Umerov, two deputy heads of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis assembly, returned to Kyiv earlier this week. They were freed by a secret order of Russian President Vladimir Putin and deported to Turkey after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan negotiated on their behalf. We tell the story of their return.

✅ Anti-government Protests Drag On

Over a week ago, protesters gathered outside Ukraine's parliament to call for the “great political reform”— the creation of an anti-corruption court, an end to parliamentary immunity, and electoral reform. But this was hardly a “third Maidan.”What began with over four thousand protesters petered out over the course of the week. Hromadske looks at what happened?

Gulliver Cragg

Correspondent for France 24

✅ Is This Russia’s Next President?

Depending on who you ask, it was either out of left field or entirely predictable. Russian opposition journalist and socialite Ksenia Sobchak announced last week that she is running for president against incumbent Vladimir Putin. Politically, Sobchak has an unusual and contradictory pedigree. Her father, Anatoly Sobchak, served as the city of St. Petersburg's first democratically elected mayor and was a mentor and father figure to Putin. But for the last several years, Sobchak has been a member of the Russian opposition. So is Sobchak truly running for president? Or is her candidacy a Kremlin ploy to make Russia's 2018 presidential election look more democratic?

Oliver Carroll

Moscow correspondent for The Independent and The London Evening Standard

✅The Interwoven Threats: Russia and Corruption

Dr. Michael Carpenter served as a foreign policy advisor to former United States Vice-President Joe Biden and as Russia director of the National Security Council. Now he is watching the Trump administration's policy on Ukraine and Russia with concern. He believes that separating the threats of Russian agression and corruption is a mistake. Rather, corruption provides an avenue for Russia to interfere in Ukraine. Here's what he had to say. Dr. Carpenter spoke with Hromadske about the challenges facing Ukraine.

Michael Carpenter

Senior Director at the Penn Biden Center