WEBVTT - Putin vs. Ukraine’s Forgotten War 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Crash Course, a podcast about business, political, and 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:08.760 social disruption and what we can learn from it. I'm 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:14.560 Tim O'Brien. Today's Crash Course Putin versus Ukraine's Forgotten War. 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.920 In early twenty twenty two, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:22.760 a full scale invasion of Ukraine, a sprawling, brutal follow 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.480 up to his land grab of Crimea in twenty fourteen. 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.480 Casualty figures are hard to assess precisely, but tens of 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:32.320 thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed or wounded 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:34.760 on both sides of the war, with the full tally 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:37.760 estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands. The war 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.800 initially produced in a national show of support for Ukraine 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:45.000 and its embattled leader, Vladimir Zolensky. After all, the broader 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:47.839 fate of Western Europe hung in the balance, a consequential 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.720 geopolitical reality for the United States as well, and Ukraine 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:55.480 itself fought back courageously, beating back waves of murderous assaults 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:59.640 and defying expectations that it would quickly buckle. But wars 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.760 are trench, stubborn things, and as Putin's troops, missiles and 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:07.319 tanks laid waste to Ukraine, and as Ukraine responded in kind, 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.200 a military stalemate has settled in the Gaza war has 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:16.120 now captured the world's attention and headlines, diverting attention from Ukraine. Further, 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.040 financial military aid for Ukraine from Europe and the US 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:22.200 has dried up. Yet the stakes haven't changed and the 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.360 world remains at risk. Joining me today to discuss the 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:28.640 Ukraine War is Mark Champion, a columnist with Bloomberg Opinion. 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.080 Mark has lived and worked in Russia, reported from Ukraine, 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:35.160 and has covered foreign affairs extensively for a number of 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:39.000 leading publications. He is wise and shrewd, and he joins 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:43.479 me today from our London office where he's based. Greetings, Mark, time, 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:46.120 so tell me a little bit before we get into 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:50.160 the specifics of Vladimir Putin's journey as Russia's president and 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:53.200 the war in Ukraine, a little bit about your own 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:56.320 journey as a correspondent, particularly the time you spent in 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:59.120 Russia and what you learned from those years. 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:00.480 Yeah. 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:03.880 Well, I first went to Russia when it was still 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:06.600 the former Soviet Union and was there for just at 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.919 the very end before the collapse, and then went back 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.120 right afterwards and stayed for about seven years. So this 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:15.040 was the time of Yeltz and it was the time 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:19.280 of great hope in some ways for reform. There was 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:26.119 a big pro Western sentiment among especially younger urban Russians. 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:29.239 And privatizations, privatizations, privatizations. 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:32.480 And very quickly, you know, economic pain and disappointment, resentment, 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.440 you know, across much of the country, which really suffered 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:39.040 terribly as the whole system came apart economically and so on. 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:42.760 But I think, you know, looking back, there are two 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:46.440 things that really strike me as things I didn't quite 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:49.840 understand the important stuff at the time. One was that 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.120 had many friends mostly almost all of them would have 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:56.680 been younger and kind of pro Western. But I remember 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:58.720 that whenever you would start to talk about Ukraine, it 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:02.240 was almost always there was a skepticism that it really 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:05.520 was a country, and that I think is important to 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:09.119 remember among younger Russians, the younger Russians, you know, just expats, 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:11.880 but Russian not at all. Now it's about Russians, and 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:13.760 you know, I think it's important to remember when we 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:15.720 talk about this as Putin's War and so on, and 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.000 we wonder as to why he has support for some 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:20.360 of the things that he's doing. It's just important to 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.200 remember that what it is to be Russian, what it 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:25.760 was to be Russian, was very confusing at the time. 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:28.960 You know, it was the first time in centuries there 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:31.560 had never been a Russian state in the borders that 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:33.960 existed in nineteen ninety one, and so that was a 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:36.640 confusing time. And then where Russia stopped what it was 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.400 to be Russian. These are things that have been getting 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:42.960 worked out ever since nineteen ninety one, and in many ways, 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:45.920 I think that is exactly what's happening now, and sometimes 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:47.840 it's difficult for us to understand it. We tend to 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:49.640 be so self obsessed. We think it must be about 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:51.840 something that we did or we didn't do, and we 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.720 forget that other countries have histories and agencies. So looking back, 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.160 that's very important. And I think the second thing that 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:00.720 I would say is, you know, it was a really 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:03.960 huge moment in nineteen ninety three when you may remember 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:05.840 that Boris j Elsen blew up the parliament. 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:07.920 About one hundred and fifty people. 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:11.200 Died just under and there was days of fighting, and 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:14.760 we all remember that as a constitutional crisis, struggle for power, 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:17.920 which essentially it was. But what's often forgotten is that 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:20.600 one of the other reasons, one of the reasons that 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:26.000 that parliament was made up predominantly of Communist Party, members 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:30.480 of the New Communist Party and also nationalists, and one 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:33.360 of the things that they had consistently clashed with the 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:37.200 elsinover was that they refused to ratify what were called. 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.280 The Beelavisia push Accords. 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.960 And what that was was that was the moment when 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:46.799 Jelson with some other leaders, leader of Ukraine in particular 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.720 and of Beelarus, they dissolved the Soviet Union essentially, and 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:54.640 the Parliament was refusing to ratify that. And we forget 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.600 that right from the beginning, there was a resistance throughout 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:02.200 the system, in much of the population, to this idea 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:04.800 that the Soviet you know, they had to accept the 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:07.560 loss of empire. 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:11.760 And everything that goes with that prestige, self esteem, absolute 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:14.839 economic wealth, military power, et cetera, et cetera. 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:17.560 So, in many ways, I think what we are seeing 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:22.719 is the delayed playing out of all of those unresolved issues. 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.200 A response to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.840 putin really his rise is in the wreckage of all 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:32.880 of the moments around that from the dissolution of the 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.239 Soviet Union to botched privatizations, where there was a feeling 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:40.720 among average Russians that the privatizations really benefited a kind 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:44.640 of financial and political eat in Moscow and not in 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:48.520 other parts of the country. Right, Yeltsin brings Putin in. 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:53.560 You know, always mysteriously to me why he never recognized 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:56.520 that Putin could potentially be a threat or had the 0:05:56.560 --> 0:06:00.479 appetites in him to end up where he's at it up. 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:03.880 But at the time, Yeltsin was a dysfunctional leader, essentially 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:05.560 struggling with alcoholism. 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.039 Is that a fair He had issues with alcoholism, He 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.200 had heart trouble, he had heart surgery. 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:11.440 He was at the end. 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:16.080 And then Putin essentially moves in and very quickly. This 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:16.839 is in January of. 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.080 Two thousand exactly, So he takes over in two thousand 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:22.279 and you know, ninety nine is the end of Yeltsin, 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:28.040 and puts In takes over this young, much younger, much fitter, dynamic, 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.919 but kind of yes enigmatic character. We didn't know a 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:34.000 lot about him. Russians didn't know him. They'd only really 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:36.120 come to have any kind of recognition of who he 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:38.480 was as a result of the Second Chechen War that 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:40.720 began towards the end of you know, in the second 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.720 half of nineteen ninety nine. It's just a very rough war, 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:47.880 and that really put in on the map. 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:51.919 And he embodies these resentments against the loss of empire 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.560 and sort of I think what he regarded as a 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:56.120 pernicious Western influence. 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:58.719 Yeah, well, there was definitely a kind of progression in 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:01.719 fact that you know, he was doing his marathon an 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.920 your kind of Q and A session, and he kind 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:07.640 of mused about this, you know, and he talked about 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:10.880 how he was naive at the beginning. He'd thought that 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:13.160 he could make friends of the West, the West, would 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.080 work with Russia, would make room for Russian interests, and 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.600 all that sort of thing. And so that's the narrative 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.480 that I think he would like us to see, which 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.520 is that he had the best of intentions, that it 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:27.280 wasn't his fault, it was the West fault that they 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:30.760 didn't treat Russia properly, didn't give it respect or room, 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.560 tried to humiliate it, and therefore we are where we are. 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.400 That's his narrative. I think the whole idea of a 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:42.240 career KGB officer who then cut his teeth in Saint 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:47.080 Petersburg in a basically mafia like environment, that he was 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:51.840 naive and put upon and so on by wiley Western 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:55.320 leaders and diplomats kind of unlikely, but there is something 0:07:55.360 --> 0:08:00.280 to the fact that it took time to recognize exactly 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:02.720 what it was, you know, the West was willing to 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:07.960 accept and you know, what they saw as legitimate Russian interests, 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.000 and that those were absolutely not the same as the 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:15.000 ones that he figured that he needed to further and protect. 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:19.960 And presumably very early on Ukraine and his own imagination 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:24.120 and his practical day to day affairs as a Russian leader, 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:26.040 Ukraine is a thorn in his side. 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.040 He has been obsessed with Ukraine for a very long time, 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:32.839 and the first time it really kind of burst onto 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:36.120 the scene was with the two thousand and four Orange Revolution, 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:41.560 and he saw this as a threat to Russian interests. 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:47.360 These were basically pro Western, pro democracy and therefore pro 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:52.000 Western protests against a leader who Russia had been comfortable with. 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:55.720 So that's two thousand and four. You had this big fight. 0:08:56.440 --> 0:09:01.080 Viktor Yanikovich wins the election, but through for all in Ukraine, 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:05.240 you then have these big protests and he's forced to 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:09.200 redo the election, loses with a real count, and then 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:11.880 is replaced by somebody who is kind of pro European 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:15.079 and setting Ukraine on a different path, and to Putin 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:18.120 who does not believe in popular agency. You know, it 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:21.600 is leaders who make decisions. He saw this as a 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:26.640 threat and he spends the next decade trying everything through energy, blackmail, 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:31.280 giving money, giving cheap energy, taking it away. He tried 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:35.959 everything to maintain Ukraine within his sphere of influence, keep 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:38.760 it out of the US and European sphere of influence 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:41.160 the way that he saw all this, And you know, 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:45.600 finally twenty fourteen, you have another big protest revolution on 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:48.760 the streets. Again it is Yanikovich, who is Putin's guy, 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:51.960 who gets thrown out. And that was it, that was 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:55.720 put In deciding that I can't do this through these 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:58.160 various different tools, economic tools and so on. 0:09:58.200 --> 0:09:59.280 Are going to have to use force. 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:01.920 Tell me during the you know, the arc of that 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:04.720 first decade and a half after Putin comes to power 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:10.079 in two thousand, how did Ukrainians generally see this? Because 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.360 it wasn't with a unified voice. There were parts of 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:13.839 the country that remained. 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.360 Strongly pro Russia absolutely. 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:18.000 And there were significant, obviously parts of the country that 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:22.000 also were looking west, away from Moscow and away from Putin. 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:27.400 How were these popular uprisings generally received within Ukraine itself? 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:32.880 So Ukraine was a very divided country, and you could 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:35.800 see that in pretty much every election. You know, you'd 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.040 see it just kind of split down the middle, or 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:41.240 actually what you saw was a moving line. If you 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:44.960 think of the country's politics and colors, the orange color 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.280 has been for the Orange Revolution two thousand and four 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:50.439 and ever since it's been the color of often the opposition, 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:54.400 but of the kind of pro European, pro Western track, 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:57.600 and blue has been the color of the more pro 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:01.360 Russian track, and that was the overtch Is party color. 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:04.439 And you could see when you had these electoral maps, 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:08.599 you could see the zone of orange creeping from basically 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.160 being more or less in the west and more than 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.439 half the country blue, and it just kind of crept across. 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:18.520 It overtook all of Kief and you know, the central 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:22.120 parts of Ukraine. But the thing that really changed everything 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.480 was twenty fourteen. It was the decision to a next 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.600 crimea and then to ferment a conflict in the east 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.480 of Ukraine. I was in Crimea at the time. I 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:35.160 went to the Dombas region at the time, and it 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.920 was really clear what was happening. But at that time, 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:41.480 for example, I was in Mariopaul a number of times 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:45.440 twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, and Mariopaul was really a solidly 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:49.240 pro Russian city, but diancecorso nearby it and all along 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:52.120 that southern coast. You know, people have very divided loyalties. 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.840 They'd always voted solidly Blue. And I went back just 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.480 before the war, but you got eight years after that, 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:01.920 you know, after twenty fourteen, Crimea has taken begins this 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:04.200 war that really kind of there's a ceasefire, but it 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:06.800 continues at a low level for eight years. So I 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:10.000 went back just shortly before the invasion began in February 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:12.440 twenty two. So I was there in January, early February, 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.560 and I went back to Marioopol spent a bunch of 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:19.520 time there. It was transformed. Whereas it had been really 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:24.000 a solidly pro Russian city. Now even the people from 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.920 the Blue parties were not pro Russian. They might not 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:30.800 like the Orange parties in Kiev that didn't like them 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:33.640 at all. Wouldn't vote for them. They had their own parties, 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:36.560 but they did not want to be part of Russia, but. 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.240 Would slow down for a second. That point was that 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:42.600 because of the twenty twenty two invasion, or had that 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:45.280 sentiment already solidified. 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.040 Before that, This was before so specifically when it gave 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:47.600 rise to it. 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:49.840 You know, why did an area that had been so 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:53.360 deeply blue, so pro Russian gets swept up into the 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:55.640 Orange Revolution and affiliation with Ukraine. 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:56.840 There are a number of things. 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:00.200 One was that the annexation of Crimea and and then 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.920 the violence that followed in the East. Over time, those 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:07.800 started to be deeply resented. And you have to remember, 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:10.480 you know, just the front line that the ceasefire created, 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:13.760 and there were trenches where there's daily firing. There were 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:16.440 only like one hundred meters apart in many places, the 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.600 Russian and the Ukrainian trenches through the eight years, and 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:24.040 there's constant firing, constant fighting, constant body bags. And it's 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:28.040 I think that it's twenty about twenty kilometers from the 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.719 center of Mariyable, you know, just not far from the suburbs, 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:34.640 and people died, you know, they were shelling into the city, 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:39.720 and people got killed, and over time a resentment built. 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:43.160 And also they could see what happened in the occupied 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.160 parts of the Dunbass. You know, parts of the Dunetsk 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:50.800 and the Luhunsk regions were successfully occupied and behind the 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:54.160 by the Russians, well by the Russians and separatists. Yes, 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.920 they were behind these trenches and Ukrainians could see what 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:00.880 was going on behind there, and it did not look pretty. 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.520 It was run by a mix of clowns and mobsters 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:09.040 with Russian agents as the first Defense Minister was a 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.040 Russian former military intelligence if there is such a thing 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:16.000 as a former intelligence officer. People understood that this was 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:17.760 a very manipulated situation. 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:18.400 You know. 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:20.520 It did not produce anything good for the people who 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:23.200 were living there. It didn't look like a future that 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:24.720 people in Ukraine wanted. 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:29.920 And presumably Putin saw the annexation of Crimea as a 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:32.680 sort of warning shot to the rest of Ukraine. I'm 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:35.800 asserting my authority in the region. If you stay in 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:39.280 this direction, I will come in and fix this for myself. 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:45.520 But in reality, what the annexation did was solidify opposition, 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:49.960 at least in Crimea in southern Ukraine against Russia and 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:53.560 turned what had been a solidly blue area orange. 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:56.840 Yeah, I mean Crimea itself of course was gone. And 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:59.480 it's the only part of Ukraine, the only province of 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:03.080 Ukraine it had a majority of ethnic Russians living there. 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:07.280 The whole east and south is predominantly Russian speaking, but 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:10.800 the Hessan region, for example, which has been fought over, 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.920 and the Russians took Hesson. It was the only provincial 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.880 capital that they took, you know, in this latest invasion, 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:20.720 and then they lost it. But that region was fourteen 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:25.080 percent ethnic Russian, but almost you know, entirely heavily Russians. 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:28.120 And the huge mistake that Putin made was to think 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:32.280 in twenty twenty two that he was invading the Ukraine 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:37.400 of twenty fourteen, and secondly that if people are Russian speaking, 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:41.880 they must be basically Russian. And he wrote a long 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:44.720 essay before the invasion, you know, a year before the invasion, 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:48.040 is five thousand word essay all about you know, the 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:51.680 connections between Russian Ukraine and his version of the history 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:54.920 very dubous. But nevertheless, they spent a lot of time 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:57.480 clearly thinking about it. And it's clear he wrote it 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:01.880 not some flunky, and that that showed how he thought 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.920 about Ukraine and explains a lot about why he got 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:05.320 it wrong. 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:08.360 And what was the clear takeaway from that essay in 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:09.160 your mind. 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:15.640 That his belief was that Ukraine was essentially, along with Yalarus, 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.840 a part of Russia, of the Russian people, and during 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:22.160 the Russian Empire it had always been called, you know, 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:27.040 little Russia, and Ukrainians were little Russians. So his view 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:31.040 was that these are really one people and they belonged together. 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:34.720 As he said, the borders, you know, Ukraine was created 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:38.280 by Lenin when they drew the borders, and before that, 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:42.040 Ukraine hadn't really existed, and it's all, you know, Lenin's fault, 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:46.040 and that's all in there. Of course, Ukrainians have a 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.120 national history. They've just been part of an empire for 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:52.440 centuries and mostly unwillingly. 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:55.560 And they see it as their specific history. Yeah, and 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:57.960 that they owned that history and it's not going to 0:16:57.960 --> 0:16:59.400 be expropriated by anyone else. 0:16:59.440 --> 0:16:59.760 They do. 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:02.400 And that version of history that put In wrote was 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:04.560 the version that everyone was taught, you know, throughout the 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:07.239 Russian Empire and the Soviet Union and so on, and 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:10.119 so Ukraine, just as much as Russia was having to 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:12.240 work out up to nineteen ninety one, what it meant 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:14.320 to be a Ukrainian, Where was Ukraine? 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:16.600 What was Ukraine? Just as Russians were. 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:20.400 This is a process that's been going on. 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:22.000 On that note, Mark, I want to take a quick 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:23.560 break to hear from one of our sponsors, and then 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:31.720 we'll come right back. I'm back with Mark Champion, a 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:35.359 Bloomberg opinion columnist, and we're discussing the war in Ukraine. Mark, 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.399 you were laying out quite eloquently and with great specificity, 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:44.159 the context for Putin's paranoia about Ukraine, his desire to 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:49.040 reassert Russian control over Ukraine, and how the Ukrainians themselves 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:51.720 saw all of this. And one thing you pointed out 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:54.400 on the top of the show was that whatever Putin's 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:58.320 goals were when he annexed Crimea, he ended up getting 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:03.119 the opposite result. He didn't tamp down an interest in 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:07.480 independence among Ukrainians, and he didn't make Ukrainians more loyal 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:11.000 to Russia. But apparently he didn't learn that lesson very 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:14.720 well because in twenty twenty two he amounts a full 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:17.320 scale invasion, maybe because he didn't get the results he 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:20.919 wanted in twenty fourteen, But he certainly scenes to have 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:24.679 expected something very different in twenty twenty two than what 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:25.200 he got. 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:28.920 Correct, absolutely, I mean, we know for a fact that 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:31.880 when the Russians came in and columns, you know, not 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.160 only did they not form the columns in the way 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:37.040 that you would if you were going in to fight 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:41.159 a war, which left them very vulnerable, they also carried 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.119 parade uniforms with them and only a few days supply 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:48.879 of food. Clearly, the idea was that they expected to 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:52.920 more or less march into the major city's takeover the administration. 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:56.280 There wouldn't be much fighting, if any, and it would 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:59.440 all be done very smoothly, rather like in Crimea, which 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:03.520 is an un bel believably successful operation virtually without bloodshed 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:05.000 and very very smooth. 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:07.520 How did he get it so wrong? Because so many 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.800 things have emerged since that invasion. You know, the mighty 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:16.080 Russian war machine was inept and bedraggled and poorly led. 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.960 The machinery itself wasn't in top condition that he was 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:24.320 relying on, and he clearly underestimated the kind of opposition 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:27.879 that he would encounter and that his military would encounter. 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:31.040 How did that happen? Given that Putin is a well 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:35.760 known control freak and scoops up as much information as 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:39.240 he can about the things he oversees. Yet there appear 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:41.600 to have been massive gaps in his knowledge. 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:44.920 Yeah, I mean, I think the best explanation of that 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:48.800 is that he built a system and coacherie around him 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:54.439 entirely based on loyalty rather than merit, etc. And over time, 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:58.240 as so often happens in these kinds of regimes, people 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:01.440 stop telling him things that they don't think he wants 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:03.880 to hear. And so I have no doubt that there 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:07.520 were people in the Russian intelligence Service, precisely because they 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:12.679 were deeply penetrated into Ukrainian security agencies, etc. Who knew 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:16.240 what was going on. But the question is what rises 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:19.880 through all the way to the people who actually engage 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:22.640 with Putin and what they are willing to tell him 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:24.880 and what story they want to tell him, because they 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:26.840 may have an agenda of their own in terms of 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:29.639 what they want him to actually do. So, you know, 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:31.159 there's a lot of talk also about that. You know, 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:33.800 there was the COVID period when he was very very isolated. 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:37.639 I think it was Lavrov, who once supposedly equipped, you know, 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:41.680 not quite recently, Sergaylvro, Sergailavrov, the foreign minister, when someone 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:43.520 asked him, you know, so who does put and take 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:47.240 advice from, and he just mentioned three different stars and himself. 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:49.280 I think there was a big element of that. 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.200 Were you surprised when he invaded? 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:54.879 Well, the reason I went to Mariopaul was that I 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:58.439 was convinced that he would not because I had some 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:02.160 special insight or anything. But it was very clear that 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:03.879 there were two things going on. One was that the 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:07.119 Americans were shedding a lot of intelligence, making your public 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:09.000 and saying very clearly that this was going to happen. 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:12.480 And while I'm not a huge believer in everything that 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:15.560 American intelligence says, this made a lot of sense. And 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.040 there was so much going on on the ground that 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:20.800 only made sense if they were going to go in. 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:23.320 This was the second year in which they had piled 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:26.520 up troops against the border, and so it didn't surprise 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:29.359 me at the moment it happened. What was interesting was 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:32.880 talking even to people I've known for frankly decades who 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:38.600 advised the Kremlin and are talking to them, they genuinely, 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:41.240 I'm absolutely convinced that that they weren't sort. 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:41.679 Of making it up. 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:44.359 They genuinely did not think he would do it, because 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:48.440 in their view, it was not rational, and it would be, 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:50.560 as one of them put it, just a week or 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:53.040 two before the invasion, a couple of weeks, you know, 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:55.600 it would be catastrophic for Russia's interests. 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:59.400