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Speaker 1: So the Ukrainians have taken advantage of American weapons and

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Speaker 1: fired long range missiles inside Russia. Sergei Lavrov, who's the

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Speaker 1: Russian foreign minister at the G twenty a few moments ago,

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Speaker 1: said we will take this as a new phase in

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Speaker 1: the war from the west and we will respond. Dmitri

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Speaker 1: Goreenberg is a Russian security expert. He's got expertise on

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Speaker 1: the former Soviet Union in Russian military. He was with Harvard,

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Speaker 1: now with CNA. He joins us this morning. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: the show, Thanks for having me, thank you for being here.

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Speaker 1: How do you think Russia will respond to something like this?

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Speaker 2: Well, I don't think there's going to be a very

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Speaker 2: strong response, and for a couple of reasons. One, they've

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Speaker 2: been expecting this for a while, so it's kind of

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Speaker 2: already kind of baked in. They did respond initially to

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Speaker 2: the reports with a large barrage of missiles in the Ukraine. Uh.

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Speaker 2: And then the second part is they're waiting for the

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Speaker 2: Trump administration. They see that Biden administration is at this

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Speaker 2: point is on its way out, and they think that

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Speaker 2: they can maybe get some more uh you know, changes

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Speaker 2: in policy out of out of Trump. So I don't

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Speaker 2: think they're gonna want to escalate too much in the

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Speaker 2: next you know, in the next couple of months.

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Speaker 1: What's your theory on why Biden did it now? Is

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Speaker 1: it the North Koreans or is it because Trump's coming? Well? Both,

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Speaker 1: I think both. Uh.

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Speaker 2: They they want to get as much in place before

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Speaker 2: Trump comes in. On the theory that you know, while

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Speaker 2: Trump wouldn't potentially wouldn't approve this, uh, he's also potentially

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Speaker 2: not going to reverse the decision if it's already been made. Uh,

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Speaker 2: And they want to you know, set up the Ukrainians

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Speaker 2: for to have as much uh yuh, you know, leeway

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Speaker 2: and and success as possible.

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Speaker 1: In terms of potent laring the threshold for the use

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Speaker 1: of nuclear weapons and signing that symbolically overnight got anything

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Speaker 1: to do with this or is that I mean, obviously

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Speaker 1: it's been well signaled, but should we read much into that.

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Speaker 2: I think that I wouldn't be surprised if they were

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Speaker 2: holding in their back pocket and waiting for something like

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Speaker 2: this to to pull it out and say, Okay, here's

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Speaker 2: here's what we're doing. The overall change in nuclear doctrine

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Speaker 2: does have kind of writ larges related to Western supplies

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Speaker 2: of weapons and long range missiles and things like that.

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Speaker 2: So because one of the things they're afraid of is

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Speaker 2: you know, long range conventional strikes from the US. So

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Speaker 2: that's part of the change in the doctrine. But it

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Speaker 2: doesn't have anything specifically to do with this decision. It's

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Speaker 2: just kind of the larger confrontation having Russia in the West.

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Speaker 1: How does this end? In your mind? There's been talk

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Speaker 1: of a DMZ being set up potentially between Russia and Ukraine,

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Speaker 1: you know, Ukraine agreeing not to join night for twenty years,

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Speaker 1: US weapons at the border manned by NATO soldiers, etc.

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Speaker 1: Does Putin do a deal like that?

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Speaker 2: Well, I don't. You know. All this talk of negotiation

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Speaker 2: right now is predicated on Russia actually being interested in negotiations,

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Speaker 2: and I don't see much evidence of that, to be honest,

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Speaker 2: because right now they see themselves as having great deal

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Speaker 2: of success on the battlefield, so they'll be happy to

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Speaker 2: participate in negotiations that result in what is essentially Ukrainian capitulation.

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Speaker 2: But the Western sides and even you know, whatever we

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Speaker 2: may happen with the Trump administration of the Europeans and

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Speaker 2: the Ukrainians themselves are not willing to go for that,

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Speaker 2: so I think I wouldn't expect a quick end.

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Speaker 1: What on earth is his end game for Russia?

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Speaker 2: The well they want to I mean they've they've stated

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Speaker 2: a quite clear they want to have a sphere of

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Speaker 2: influence over the former Soviet territory, and you know Ukraine

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Speaker 2: is the most important part of that for them. So

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Speaker 2: I think that plus showing that the West or NATO

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Speaker 2: and you know NATO alliance is weak and can't stop this,

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Speaker 2: that's that's the goal.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for your time to make sure. Gourenberg,

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Speaker 1: Russian security expert formerly of Harvard, now is CNA for

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Speaker 1: more Familily edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to news talks.

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Speaker 2: It'd be from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 2: on iHeartRadio