Tensions rise in the Ukraine-Russia crisis

The West is hoping the threat of severe economic sanctions will stop Russia from invading Ukraine. Sanctions expert Dr. Maria Shagina with the Finnish Institute of Foreign Affairs, and Nathalie Tocci, director or the Italian Institute of Foreign affairs, will help make sense of what is on the table for Russia.

Also in the programme, you may not have heard of it, but the seventh annual Mabati-Cornell Kiswahili prize for literature was just awarded in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Last year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Abdulrazak Gurnah, joins us to explain if this award is helping to raise the profile of writers in African languages.

To discuss this and more, Julian Worricker is joined by Elif Shafak, an award-winning Turkish-British author and women’s rights activist, and professor Sir Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group.

(Photo: Ukrainian soldiers. Credit Levin/Reuters)