With the evacuation deadline looming, Afghans race to Kabul airport in hopes of getting on a flight and escaping the Taliban regime. With help from Jake, an ex-Marine Corps officer, Tariq and his family manage to get in and board their plane for evacuation, after spending a harrowing night outside in a desolate yard. Abdul and his family also make it out ? just hours before a suicide bomber detonates his explosive belt, killing at least 170 Afghan civilians and 13 members of the United States military. You?ll also hear from newlyweds Mohammed and Taara as they confront the possibility that they will be separated, as only Taara has the proper paperwork to flee Afghanistan and fly to the US.

We want to hear from you. Please get in touch via our website, kabulfalling.com, where you can send a voice message, or tweet using hashtag #kabulfalling.

For a transcript of this episode and additional material, visit: https://www.kabulfalling.com

As the US and NATO prepare to withdraw all forces from Afghanistan by the deadline of August 31, the evacuation of Afghan allies and partners quickly spins out of the control of Western governments. There is chaos as desperate crowds try to enter the airport in Kabul, where final evacuation flights are departing. Those lucky enough to make it over the high cement walls wait for hours on the tarmac under the hot sun with no food or water. This includes Fatima Faizi, an Afghan journalist working for the New York Times. Informal networks of foreign volunteers quickly spring up to help their Afghan friends and colleagues navigate the chaos and evacuate the country. Ultimately, for many Afghans, getting out comes down to who is in their WhatsApp contacts list.

We want to hear from you. Please get in touch via our website, kabulfalling.com, where you can send a voice message, or tweet using hashtag #kabulfalling.

For a transcript of this episode and additional material, visit: https://www.kabulfalling.com

With the Taliban back in power, Kabul?s streets were mobbed with traffic as thousands rushed to escape, many heading towards the capital?s airport. At particular risk of retribution were Afghans who had worked with the US Army or the international community, those who'd served in Afghanistan?s government and women who had pursued full lives outside the home. In this episode, you?ll hear how quick thinking ? and chance ? helps former CIA interpreter Abdul and TV journalist Ogai Wardak evade Taliban fighters and pass through checkpoints towards Kabul airport. Amidst the chaos, Tariq, a young father and former US contractor, walks for 8 hours across the blisteringly hot city to get his son from kindergarten and then tries to take his family to the airport. But with huge crowds of desperate Afghans surrounding the gates, there is no easy way in.

We want to hear from you. Please get in touch via our website, kabulfalling.com, where you can send a voice message, or tweet using hashtag #kabulfalling. 

For a transcript of this episode and additional material, visit: https://www.kabulfalling.com

On August 15, 2021, the Taliban regained control of Kabul, nearly 20 years after the US Army and Coalition Forces  had cast them out of power. To many Afghans and observers watching from abroad, the fall of Kabul came as a shock. The news thrust thousands of Afghans into a terrifying journey to flee the country, leaving their old lives behind. In this episode, you?ll hear from Ogai Wardak, a young journalist at a women?s TV station, and Abdul, a former CIA interpreter and father of four, describing how they began planning their escape as Taliban fighters patrolled the streets.

We want to hear from you. Please get in touch via our website, kabulfalling.com, where you can send a voice message, or tweet using hashtag #kabulfalling.

For a transcript of this episode and additional material, visit: https://www.kabulfalling.com

In August 2021, the Taliban regained control of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. The takeover sent shockwaves throughout the country. It forced thousands of Afghans to leave their old lives behind and embark on a hellish journey for survival. In this eight-episode podcast, Afghans themselves will tell you how it happened. You?ll hear stories about big risks, close calls, and unexpected moments of kindness ? or luck ? that changed everything. You?ll meet Afghan women and men from different walks of life, and even a young man who chose to fight with the Taliban ? in his eyes, to protect the country he loves.

This is the story of a home ripped apart ? and of a courageous new beginning. KABUL FALLING, coming August 1.

Bradley Hope sits down with host Nelufar Hedayat to chat about Project Brazen?s upcoming podcast, Kabul Falling.

In this exclusive audio interview, Nelufar talks about what it?s been like working on Kabul Falling, an eight-part series on the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last year, and what makes her connection to it ? as an Afghan-born journalist?so personal and important. 

She shares her own experiences of leaving Afghanistan with her family as a young child, and how the Taliban?s takeover has affected Afghans in the country and around the world.

Stay tuned for KABUL FALLING, coming 1st August. And, as always, you can follow our latest reporting in our newsletter, Whale Hunting. Thank you for listening.

How can journalists, activists, opposition figures, and even lawyers and business leaders protect themselves from the threat of private surveillance? In this Project Brazen Originals bonus episode, co-founder Bradley Hope sits down with Oscar Zero, the managing director of a private counter-surveillance company, to uncover the secrets of a shadowy industry frequently weaponised by intelligence agencies and the ultra-rich.

To watch the full documentary, visit: www.projectbrazen.com/hiddenworlds

A jury in San Diego returned verdicts in the trials against several Navy officers implicated by Fat Leonard. Project Brazen founders Bradley Hope and Tom Wright discuss the latest developments in the case and news about a TV series based on the Fat Leonard podcast.

Tom Wright sits down with Laurel Chor to hear the backstory on the making of her podcast RESISTANCE: Stories from Ukraine. In this audio interview, Laurel shares the experiences she had on the ground as Russia invaded Ukraine and how the conflict continues. She also talks about the surprising similarities she sees in what?s happening in Ukraine today and in her home in Hong Kong, while giving advice to other journalists heading to conflict zones.

This is the final episode of RESISTANCE: Stories from Ukraine. Stay tuned for more series from Project Brazen in the months to come. And, as always, you can follow our latest reporting in our newsletter, Whale Hunting. Thank you for listening.

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?RESISTANCE: Stories from Ukraine? is a harrowing and inspirational journey across Ukraine in the first weeks of Russia?s invasion. While the military wages war on the frontlines, everyday citizens are picking up whatever weapons they can, including their smartphones, computers, sewing needles, and guitars. Photojournalist Laurel Chor travels to cities across the country in the midst of the Russia-Ukraine war, finding extraordinary stories that go beyond the headlines.

For more news, and a complete transcript of this episode, please visit: https://projectbrazen.com/resistance

Escaping a city so close to the Russian border ? and the stories of those who choose to stay. In Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv, a community fights to survive devastating Russian shelling.

Laurel continues following the journey of Larisa, a disabled woman being evacuated from her apartment in one of Kharkiv?s most dangerous neighborhoods. Volunteers race Larisa to the train station for her onward journey to Poland, in hope of refuge and a better future. In a surgical hospital in Kharkiv, Laurel meets civilians recovering from injuries inflicted by shelling. Sheltering in a metro station deep under the city, Violeta, a new mother, explains to Laurel why she stays in the city.

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?RESISTANCE: Stories from Ukraine? is a harrowing and inspirational journey across Ukraine in the first weeks of Russia?s invasion. While the military wages war on the frontlines, everyday citizens are picking up whatever weapons they can, including their smartphones, computers, sewing needles, and guitars. Photojournalist Laurel Chor travels to cities across the country in the midst of the Russia-Ukraine war, finding extraordinary stories that go beyond the headlines.

For more news, and a complete transcript of this episode, please visit: https://projectbrazen.com/resistance

Under devastating Russian shelling in Ukraine's second largest city, a community fights to survive.

Explosions from weapons that could range from Grad rockets and artillery shells to phosphorus and thermobaric bombs have destroyed much of Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine. It?s only 30 miles from the Russian border.

Laurel meets with the locals surviving these attacks. In one apartment complex, a family clears broken glass after the windows are blown out by a recent blast. Downtown, a youth pastor shelters parishioners in the basement of his church. And in one of the worst-hit neighborhoods in the city, volunteers rush to evacuate a disabled woman who has been unable to leave her apartment even as the shelling collapses buildings around her.

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?RESISTANCE: Stories from Ukraine? is a harrowing and inspirational journey across Ukraine in the first weeks of Russia?s invasion. While the military wages war on the frontlines, everyday citizens are picking up whatever weapons they can, including their smartphones, computers, sewing needles, and guitars. Photojournalist Laurel Chor travels to cities across the country in the midst of the Russia-Ukraine war, finding extraordinary stories that go beyond the headlines.

For more news, and a complete transcript of this episode, please visit: https://projectbrazen.com/resistance

Underground artists fueling Ukraine?s wartime production in the midst of the Russia-Ukraine war. Laurel meets seamstresses sewing bulletproof vests, artists welding anti-tank obstacles in Kyiv and even advertising executives using online targeted ads to break through Russian propaganda. Some work alone, in their kitchens or home studios. Others are more organized, building production lines in community halls and co-working spaces. All over the country, people are contributing whatever skills they have to offer to fight back.

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?RESISTANCE: Stories from Ukraine? is a harrowing and inspirational journey across Ukraine in the first weeks of Russia?s invasion. While the military wages war on the frontlines, everyday citizens are picking up whatever weapons they can, including their smartphones, computers, sewing needles, and guitars. Photojournalist Laurel Chor travels to cities across the country, finding extraordinary stories that go beyond the headlines.

For more news, and a complete transcript of this episode, please visit: https://projectbrazen.com/resistance

War stories from four neighbors who fought the Russian occupation despite being impossibly outnumbered and outgunned. The adrenaline from the explosions of battle has barely worn off and this is the first time they share what they lived through. With the war still raging, most people fighting in Ukraine haven?t had the chance to tell their stories yet. But Russian forces have retreated from the small town of Borodyanka, along with nearby Bucha and Irpin, so we hear from four of this town?s defenders.

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?RESISTANCE: Stories from Ukraine? is a harrowing and inspirational journey across Ukraine in the first weeks of Russia?s invasion. While the military wages war on the frontlines, everyday citizens are picking up whatever weapons they can, including their smartphones, computers, sewing needles, and guitars. Photojournalist Laurel Chor travels to cities across the country, finding extraordinary stories that go beyond the headlines.

For more news, and a complete transcript of this episode, please visit: https://projectbrazen.com/resistance

A new film puts a face to the devastation and resilience of everyday Ukranians finding life in the midst of war.

Announcing ?RESISTANCE: Returning Home?, a documentary film that gives a visual connection to the gripping stories we?ve been hearing across this podcast series.

In the film, Laurel Chor travels to the liberated towns outside Kyiv in the days following Russia's withdrawal. It was a raw, difficult time. We witness the heartrending images of Bucha, travel with a couple from Irpin as they return home to their neighborhood for the first time, and we see the absolute destruction caused by the aerial bombardment of Borodyanka.

To see the full film, visit: www.projectbrazen.com/resistance

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?RESISTANCE: Stories from Ukraine? is a harrowing and inspirational journey across Ukraine in the first weeks of Russia?s invasion. While the military wages war on the frontlines, everyday citizens are picking up whatever weapons they can, including their smartphones, computers, sewing needles, and guitars. Photojournalist Laurel Chor travels to cities across the country, finding extraordinary stories that go beyond the headlines.

Voices of those resisting Russia?s invasion through the very ways they think, speak, and sing. In Kyiv, songwriter and producer Denis Musaev makes music to inspire his country?s victory, and Olga, a linguist and English teacher, has abandoned her first language of Russian to embrace Ukrainian instead. Elsewhere in the capital, we meet with Yarmak, a rapper-turned-soldier who has gone from fighting Russian aggression with his lyrics to taking up arms with the Ukrainian military.

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?RESISTANCE: Stories from Ukraine? is a harrowing and inspirational journey across Ukraine in the first weeks of Russia?s invasion. While the military wages war on the frontlines, everyday citizens are picking up whatever weapons they can, including their smartphones, computers, sewing needles, and guitars. Photojournalist Laurel Chor travels to cities across the country, finding extraordinary stories that go beyond the headlines.

For more reporting, and a complete transcript of this episode, please visit: https://projectbrazen.com/resistance

Fighting back with the weapons we all carry in our pockets?our smart phones. We begin in Kyiv with Anastasiya at the country?s largest children?s hospital and Andriy Dubchak from @Donbas.Frontliner. Both Anastasiya and Andriy use their phones to capture different aspects of the Russia-Ukraine war. Anastasiya shares images of civilians wounded by the war, while Andriy is on the frontlines capturing the conflict up close and gathering the news. In Lviv, we meet with young hackers bringing the experiences of war to everyday Russians through cyberspace?and dick pics.

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?RESISTANCE: Stories from Ukraine? is a harrowing and inspirational journey across Ukraine in the first weeks of Russia?s invasion. While the military wages war on the frontlines, everyday citizens are picking up whatever weapons they can, including their smartphones, computers, sewing needles, and guitars. Photojournalist Laurel Chor travels to cities across the country, finding extraordinary stories that go beyond the headlines.

For more reporting, and a complete transcript of this episode, please visit: https://projectbrazen.com/resistance

Photojournalist Laurel Chor travels to the suburbs of Kyiv to meet ordinary Ukrainians who have joined the war effort by becoming soldiers. Journalist Artem and lawyer Oleksandr guard a military checkpoint. PE teacher and two-time war vet Vladimir finds his farm completely destroyed by Russian forces as payback. Ecologist, beekeeper and drag queen Arthur recalls being stationed in Bucha and witnesses the horrific aftermath of senseless killings.

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?RESISTANCE: Stories from Ukraine? is a harrowing and inspirational journey across Ukraine in the first weeks of Russia?s invasion. While the military wages war on the frontlines, everyday citizens are picking up whatever weapons they can, including their smartphones, computers, sewing needles, and guitars. Photojournalist Laurel Chor travels to cities across the country, finding extraordinary stories that go beyond the headlines.

For more reporting, and a complete transcript of this episode, please visit: https://projectbrazen.com/resistance

Project Brazen, a global journalism studio based in London and Singapore, is investigating some of the biggest scandals and stories of our time. This feed, called Project Brazen Originals, will feature those stories, told without fear or favor. Stay subscribed.

Latest Series ? ?RESISTANCE: Stories from Ukraine?
What happens when war lands on your doorstep? Ordinary Ukrainians are rising up and fighting back in every way they can.

?RESISTANCE: Stories from Ukraine? is a harrowing and inspirational journey across Ukraine in the first weeks of Russia?s invasion. While the military wages war on the frontlines, everyday citizens are picking up whatever weapons they can, including their smartphones, computers, sewing needles, and guitars. Photojournalist Laurel Chor travels to cities across the country, finding extraordinary stories that go beyond the headlines.

http://www.projectbrazen.com/resistance

A lot has happened since we wrapped up the first season of the "Fat Leonard" podcast, and host Tom Wright is back with all the updates - the good, the bad and the unexpected. Includes new interviews with whistleblower Marcy Misiewicz, David Loy (Legal Director of the First Amendment Coalition) and Don Christensen (President, Protect Our Defenders). Stay tuned for updates from the trial in the coming weeks.

With Leonard in jail, the Navy investigates hundreds of officers. But they spare top admirals. Tom?s relationship with Leonard reaches breaking point. A major trial of U.S. Navy officers is set to start in February. Watch out for bonus episodes. 

Beaten and angry, Marcy Misiewicz makes a decision that will bring down Leonard, and her husband along with him.

A cocksure Navy officer called David Schaus takes on Leonard. He?s joined by a principled Navy supply official called Teresa Kelly. Finally, they force Navy admirals, who for years have given him cover, to take Leonard?s fraud seriously.

Leonard?s cruel treatment of his Filipina girlfriend, Morena De Jesus, and their children together, exposes his dark side. A fraught relationship with his own father could hold the key to understanding Leonard.

Michael Misiewicz was a rising star in the Navy before Leonard corrupts him with prostitutes, cash and free travel. We see the descent of one officer into graft and violence through the voice of his wife, Marcy Misiewicz.

How Leonard buys his own warship, the Braveheart, complete with a mercenary army, and deploys it to help fight Al Qaeda. He secretly records orgies with Navy officers, causing one of the U.S.?s worst ever national security breaches.

We look back at the Tailhook sexual assault scandal of 1991 through the voice of Navy whistleblower Paula Coughlin. The Navy?s problem with misogyny is deep seated and it set the stage for Leonard?s rise.

Out of jail, aged 21, Leonard begins his career as a defense contractor, just as the U.S. embarks on its Forever Wars. Through skill, bribes and luck, we chart the Wolf of Wall Street-like rise of Leonard, on the back of a product called the Ring of Steel. 

Leonard Francis became the most powerful military contractor in the Pacific, running a mafia organization at the heart of the U.S. Navy. He?s over 300 pounds, and charming. We meet him in jail, and explore why he?s talking exclusively to our host, author and journalist Tom Wright. We explore Leonard?s troubled childhood. It turns out this isn?t his first time in prison.

??Leonard Francis, AKA Fat Leonard, is angry, and he?s talking for the first time. His explosive story will change the way you look at the U.S. Navy forever.