Part One: The Ballad of Ivan and Anna

We meet Ivan and Anna, who fall for each other at a club and later marry. Ivan dreams of adventure but confronts the reality of life in the military, and Anna worries that Ivan’s talents are wasted in the army.

Ivan gets a corrupt new commander, “Pig,” who brings conflict and a demotion. After a visit with friends in St. Petersburg, Ivan and Anna plan for a new life.

In “The Deserter,” the journalist Sarah A. Topol reports the story of Ivan, a deserter who served as a captain in the Russian Army, fought in Ukraine and then ultimately fled the war and his country with his wife, Anna. (Ivan and Anna are pseudonyms used for their protection.)

Topol spoke to 18 deserters while reporting in eight countries across four continents over the last year and a half; their experiences helped inform a vivid picture of the Russian war operation and its corruption, chaos and brutality.

This audio version is in five parts and is narrated by Liev Schreiber.

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