Speaker 1: Welcome to Crash Course, a podcast about business, political, and
Speaker 1: social disruption and what we can learn from it. I'm
Speaker 1: Tim O'Brien. Today's Crash Course Putin versus Ukraine's Forgotten War.
Speaker 1: In early twenty twenty two, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched
Speaker 1: a full scale invasion of Ukraine, a sprawling, brutal follow
Speaker 1: up to his land grab of Crimea in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: Casualty figures are hard to assess precisely, but tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed or wounded
Speaker 1: on both sides of the war, with the full tally
Speaker 1: estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands. The war
Speaker 1: initially produced in a national show of support for Ukraine
Speaker 1: and its embattled leader, Vladimir Zolensky. After all, the broader
Speaker 1: fate of Western Europe hung in the balance, a consequential
Speaker 1: geopolitical reality for the United States as well, and Ukraine
Speaker 1: itself fought back courageously, beating back waves of murderous assaults
Speaker 1: and defying expectations that it would quickly buckle. But wars
Speaker 1: are trench, stubborn things, and as Putin's troops, missiles and
Speaker 1: tanks laid waste to Ukraine, and as Ukraine responded in kind,
Speaker 1: a military stalemate has settled in the Gaza war has
Speaker 1: now captured the world's attention and headlines, diverting attention from Ukraine. Further,
Speaker 1: financial military aid for Ukraine from Europe and the US
Speaker 1: has dried up. Yet the stakes haven't changed and the
Speaker 1: world remains at risk. Joining me today to discuss the
Speaker 1: Ukraine War is Mark Champion, a columnist with Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 1: Mark has lived and worked in Russia, reported from Ukraine,
Speaker 1: and has covered foreign affairs extensively for a number of
Speaker 1: leading publications. He is wise and shrewd, and he joins
Speaker 1: me today from our London office where he's based. Greetings, Mark, time,
Speaker 1: so tell me a little bit before we get into
Speaker 1: the specifics of Vladimir Putin's journey as Russia's president and
Speaker 1: the war in Ukraine, a little bit about your own
Speaker 1: journey as a correspondent, particularly the time you spent in
Speaker 1: Russia and what you learned from those years.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, I first went to Russia when it was still
Speaker 3: the former Soviet Union and was there for just at
Speaker 3: the very end before the collapse, and then went back
Speaker 3: right afterwards and stayed for about seven years. So this
Speaker 3: was the time of Yeltz and it was the time
Speaker 3: of great hope in some ways for reform. There was
Speaker 3: a big pro Western sentiment among especially younger urban Russians.
Speaker 1: And privatizations, privatizations, privatizations.
Speaker 3: And very quickly, you know, economic pain and disappointment, resentment,
Speaker 3: you know, across much of the country, which really suffered
Speaker 3: terribly as the whole system came apart economically and so on.
Speaker 3: But I think, you know, looking back, there are two
Speaker 3: things that really strike me as things I didn't quite
Speaker 3: understand the important stuff at the time. One was that
Speaker 3: had many friends mostly almost all of them would have
Speaker 3: been younger and kind of pro Western. But I remember
Speaker 3: that whenever you would start to talk about Ukraine, it
Speaker 3: was almost always there was a skepticism that it really
Speaker 3: was a country, and that I think is important to
Speaker 3: remember among younger Russians, the younger Russians, you know, just expats,
Speaker 3: but Russian not at all. Now it's about Russians, and
Speaker 3: you know, I think it's important to remember when we
Speaker 3: talk about this as Putin's War and so on, and
Speaker 3: we wonder as to why he has support for some
Speaker 3: of the things that he's doing. It's just important to
Speaker 3: remember that what it is to be Russian, what it
Speaker 3: was to be Russian, was very confusing at the time.
Speaker 3: You know, it was the first time in centuries there
Speaker 3: had never been a Russian state in the borders that
Speaker 3: existed in nineteen ninety one, and so that was a
Speaker 3: confusing time. And then where Russia stopped what it was
Speaker 3: to be Russian. These are things that have been getting
Speaker 3: worked out ever since nineteen ninety one, and in many ways,
Speaker 3: I think that is exactly what's happening now, and sometimes
Speaker 3: it's difficult for us to understand it. We tend to
Speaker 3: be so self obsessed. We think it must be about
Speaker 3: something that we did or we didn't do, and we
Speaker 3: forget that other countries have histories and agencies. So looking back,
Speaker 3: that's very important. And I think the second thing that
Speaker 3: I would say is, you know, it was a really
Speaker 3: huge moment in nineteen ninety three when you may remember
Speaker 3: that Boris j Elsen blew up the parliament.
Speaker 2: About one hundred and fifty people.
Speaker 3: Died just under and there was days of fighting, and
Speaker 3: we all remember that as a constitutional crisis, struggle for power,
Speaker 3: which essentially it was. But what's often forgotten is that
Speaker 3: one of the other reasons, one of the reasons that
Speaker 3: that parliament was made up predominantly of Communist Party, members
Speaker 3: of the New Communist Party and also nationalists, and one
Speaker 3: of the things that they had consistently clashed with the
Speaker 3: elsinover was that they refused to ratify what were called.
Speaker 2: The Beelavisia push Accords.
Speaker 3: And what that was was that was the moment when
Speaker 3: Jelson with some other leaders, leader of Ukraine in particular
Speaker 3: and of Beelarus, they dissolved the Soviet Union essentially, and
Speaker 3: the Parliament was refusing to ratify that. And we forget
Speaker 3: that right from the beginning, there was a resistance throughout
Speaker 3: the system, in much of the population, to this idea
Speaker 3: that the Soviet you know, they had to accept the
Speaker 3: loss of empire.
Speaker 1: And everything that goes with that prestige, self esteem, absolute
Speaker 1: economic wealth, military power, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3: So, in many ways, I think what we are seeing
Speaker 3: is the delayed playing out of all of those unresolved issues.
Speaker 1: A response to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and
Speaker 1: putin really his rise is in the wreckage of all
Speaker 1: of the moments around that from the dissolution of the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union to botched privatizations, where there was a feeling
Speaker 1: among average Russians that the privatizations really benefited a kind
Speaker 1: of financial and political eat in Moscow and not in
Speaker 1: other parts of the country. Right, Yeltsin brings Putin in.
Speaker 1: You know, always mysteriously to me why he never recognized
Speaker 1: that Putin could potentially be a threat or had the
Speaker 1: appetites in him to end up where he's at it up.
Speaker 1: But at the time, Yeltsin was a dysfunctional leader, essentially
Speaker 1: struggling with alcoholism.
Speaker 3: Is that a fair He had issues with alcoholism, He
Speaker 3: had heart trouble, he had heart surgery.
Speaker 2: He was at the end.
Speaker 1: And then Putin essentially moves in and very quickly. This
Speaker 1: is in January of.
Speaker 3: Two thousand exactly, So he takes over in two thousand
Speaker 3: and you know, ninety nine is the end of Yeltsin,
Speaker 3: and puts In takes over this young, much younger, much fitter, dynamic,
Speaker 3: but kind of yes enigmatic character. We didn't know a
Speaker 3: lot about him. Russians didn't know him. They'd only really
Speaker 3: come to have any kind of recognition of who he
Speaker 3: was as a result of the Second Chechen War that
Speaker 3: began towards the end of you know, in the second
Speaker 3: half of nineteen ninety nine. It's just a very rough war,
Speaker 3: and that really put in on the map.
Speaker 1: And he embodies these resentments against the loss of empire
Speaker 1: and sort of I think what he regarded as a
Speaker 1: pernicious Western influence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, there was definitely a kind of progression in
Speaker 3: fact that you know, he was doing his marathon an
Speaker 3: your kind of Q and A session, and he kind
Speaker 3: of mused about this, you know, and he talked about
Speaker 3: how he was naive at the beginning. He'd thought that
Speaker 3: he could make friends of the West, the West, would
Speaker 3: work with Russia, would make room for Russian interests, and
Speaker 3: all that sort of thing. And so that's the narrative
Speaker 3: that I think he would like us to see, which
Speaker 3: is that he had the best of intentions, that it
Speaker 3: wasn't his fault, it was the West fault that they
Speaker 3: didn't treat Russia properly, didn't give it respect or room,
Speaker 3: tried to humiliate it, and therefore we are where we are.
Speaker 3: That's his narrative. I think the whole idea of a
Speaker 3: career KGB officer who then cut his teeth in Saint
Speaker 3: Petersburg in a basically mafia like environment, that he was
Speaker 3: naive and put upon and so on by wiley Western
Speaker 3: leaders and diplomats kind of unlikely, but there is something
Speaker 3: to the fact that it took time to recognize exactly
Speaker 3: what it was, you know, the West was willing to
Speaker 3: accept and you know, what they saw as legitimate Russian interests,
Speaker 3: and that those were absolutely not the same as the
Speaker 3: ones that he figured that he needed to further and protect.
Speaker 1: And presumably very early on Ukraine and his own imagination
Speaker 1: and his practical day to day affairs as a Russian leader,
Speaker 1: Ukraine is a thorn in his side.
Speaker 3: He has been obsessed with Ukraine for a very long time,
Speaker 3: and the first time it really kind of burst onto
Speaker 3: the scene was with the two thousand and four Orange Revolution,
Speaker 3: and he saw this as a threat to Russian interests.
Speaker 3: These were basically pro Western, pro democracy and therefore pro
Speaker 3: Western protests against a leader who Russia had been comfortable with.
Speaker 3: So that's two thousand and four. You had this big fight.
Speaker 3: Viktor Yanikovich wins the election, but through for all in Ukraine,
Speaker 3: you then have these big protests and he's forced to
Speaker 3: redo the election, loses with a real count, and then
Speaker 3: is replaced by somebody who is kind of pro European
Speaker 3: and setting Ukraine on a different path, and to Putin
Speaker 3: who does not believe in popular agency. You know, it
Speaker 3: is leaders who make decisions. He saw this as a
Speaker 3: threat and he spends the next decade trying everything through energy, blackmail,
Speaker 3: giving money, giving cheap energy, taking it away. He tried
Speaker 3: everything to maintain Ukraine within his sphere of influence, keep
Speaker 3: it out of the US and European sphere of influence
Speaker 3: the way that he saw all this, And you know,
Speaker 3: finally twenty fourteen, you have another big protest revolution on
Speaker 3: the streets. Again it is Yanikovich, who is Putin's guy,
Speaker 3: who gets thrown out. And that was it, that was
Speaker 3: put In deciding that I can't do this through these
Speaker 3: various different tools, economic tools and so on.
Speaker 2: Are going to have to use force.
Speaker 1: Tell me during the you know, the arc of that
Speaker 1: first decade and a half after Putin comes to power
Speaker 1: in two thousand, how did Ukrainians generally see this? Because
Speaker 1: it wasn't with a unified voice. There were parts of
Speaker 1: the country that remained.
Speaker 3: Strongly pro Russia absolutely.
Speaker 1: And there were significant, obviously parts of the country that
Speaker 1: also were looking west, away from Moscow and away from Putin.
Speaker 1: How were these popular uprisings generally received within Ukraine itself?
Speaker 3: So Ukraine was a very divided country, and you could
Speaker 3: see that in pretty much every election. You know, you'd
Speaker 3: see it just kind of split down the middle, or
Speaker 3: actually what you saw was a moving line. If you
Speaker 3: think of the country's politics and colors, the orange color
Speaker 3: has been for the Orange Revolution two thousand and four
Speaker 3: and ever since it's been the color of often the opposition,
Speaker 3: but of the kind of pro European, pro Western track,
Speaker 3: and blue has been the color of the more pro
Speaker 3: Russian track, and that was the overtch Is party color.
Speaker 3: And you could see when you had these electoral maps,
Speaker 3: you could see the zone of orange creeping from basically
Speaker 3: being more or less in the west and more than
Speaker 3: half the country blue, and it just kind of crept across.
Speaker 3: It overtook all of Kief and you know, the central
Speaker 3: parts of Ukraine. But the thing that really changed everything
Speaker 3: was twenty fourteen. It was the decision to a next
Speaker 3: crimea and then to ferment a conflict in the east
Speaker 3: of Ukraine. I was in Crimea at the time. I
Speaker 3: went to the Dombas region at the time, and it
Speaker 3: was really clear what was happening. But at that time,
Speaker 3: for example, I was in Mariopaul a number of times
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, and Mariopaul was really a solidly
Speaker 3: pro Russian city, but diancecorso nearby it and all along
Speaker 3: that southern coast. You know, people have very divided loyalties.
Speaker 3: They'd always voted solidly Blue. And I went back just
Speaker 3: before the war, but you got eight years after that,
Speaker 3: you know, after twenty fourteen, Crimea has taken begins this
Speaker 3: war that really kind of there's a ceasefire, but it
Speaker 3: continues at a low level for eight years. So I
Speaker 3: went back just shortly before the invasion began in February
Speaker 3: twenty two. So I was there in January, early February,
Speaker 3: and I went back to Marioopol spent a bunch of
Speaker 3: time there. It was transformed. Whereas it had been really
Speaker 3: a solidly pro Russian city. Now even the people from
Speaker 3: the Blue parties were not pro Russian. They might not
Speaker 3: like the Orange parties in Kiev that didn't like them
Speaker 3: at all. Wouldn't vote for them. They had their own parties,
Speaker 3: but they did not want to be part of Russia, but.
Speaker 1: Would slow down for a second. That point was that
Speaker 1: because of the twenty twenty two invasion, or had that
Speaker 1: sentiment already solidified.
Speaker 2: Before that, This was before so specifically when it gave
Speaker 2: rise to it.
Speaker 1: You know, why did an area that had been so
Speaker 1: deeply blue, so pro Russian gets swept up into the
Speaker 1: Orange Revolution and affiliation with Ukraine.
Speaker 2: There are a number of things.
Speaker 3: One was that the annexation of Crimea and and then
Speaker 3: the violence that followed in the East. Over time, those
Speaker 3: started to be deeply resented. And you have to remember,
Speaker 3: you know, just the front line that the ceasefire created,
Speaker 3: and there were trenches where there's daily firing. There were
Speaker 3: only like one hundred meters apart in many places, the
Speaker 3: Russian and the Ukrainian trenches through the eight years, and
Speaker 3: there's constant firing, constant fighting, constant body bags. And it's
Speaker 3: I think that it's twenty about twenty kilometers from the
Speaker 3: center of Mariyable, you know, just not far from the suburbs,
Speaker 3: and people died, you know, they were shelling into the city,
Speaker 3: and people got killed, and over time a resentment built.
Speaker 3: And also they could see what happened in the occupied
Speaker 3: parts of the Dunbass. You know, parts of the Dunetsk
Speaker 3: and the Luhunsk regions were successfully occupied and behind the
Speaker 3: by the Russians, well by the Russians and separatists. Yes,
Speaker 3: they were behind these trenches and Ukrainians could see what
Speaker 3: was going on behind there, and it did not look pretty.
Speaker 3: It was run by a mix of clowns and mobsters
Speaker 3: with Russian agents as the first Defense Minister was a
Speaker 3: Russian former military intelligence if there is such a thing
Speaker 3: as a former intelligence officer. People understood that this was
Speaker 3: a very manipulated situation.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It did not produce anything good for the people who
Speaker 3: were living there. It didn't look like a future that
Speaker 3: people in Ukraine wanted.
Speaker 1: And presumably Putin saw the annexation of Crimea as a
Speaker 1: sort of warning shot to the rest of Ukraine. I'm
Speaker 1: asserting my authority in the region. If you stay in
Speaker 1: this direction, I will come in and fix this for myself.
Speaker 1: But in reality, what the annexation did was solidify opposition,
Speaker 1: at least in Crimea in southern Ukraine against Russia and
Speaker 1: turned what had been a solidly blue area orange.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean Crimea itself of course was gone. And
Speaker 3: it's the only part of Ukraine, the only province of
Speaker 3: Ukraine it had a majority of ethnic Russians living there.
Speaker 3: The whole east and south is predominantly Russian speaking, but
Speaker 3: the Hessan region, for example, which has been fought over,
Speaker 3: and the Russians took Hesson. It was the only provincial
Speaker 3: capital that they took, you know, in this latest invasion,
Speaker 3: and then they lost it. But that region was fourteen
Speaker 3: percent ethnic Russian, but almost you know, entirely heavily Russians.
Speaker 3: And the huge mistake that Putin made was to think
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two that he was invading the Ukraine
Speaker 3: of twenty fourteen, and secondly that if people are Russian speaking,
Speaker 3: they must be basically Russian. And he wrote a long
Speaker 3: essay before the invasion, you know, a year before the invasion,
Speaker 3: is five thousand word essay all about you know, the
Speaker 3: connections between Russian Ukraine and his version of the history
Speaker 3: very dubous. But nevertheless, they spent a lot of time
Speaker 3: clearly thinking about it. And it's clear he wrote it
Speaker 3: not some flunky, and that that showed how he thought
Speaker 3: about Ukraine and explains a lot about why he got
Speaker 3: it wrong.
Speaker 1: And what was the clear takeaway from that essay in
Speaker 1: your mind.
Speaker 3: That his belief was that Ukraine was essentially, along with Yalarus,
Speaker 3: a part of Russia, of the Russian people, and during
Speaker 3: the Russian Empire it had always been called, you know,
Speaker 3: little Russia, and Ukrainians were little Russians. So his view
Speaker 3: was that these are really one people and they belonged together.
Speaker 3: As he said, the borders, you know, Ukraine was created
Speaker 3: by Lenin when they drew the borders, and before that,
Speaker 3: Ukraine hadn't really existed, and it's all, you know, Lenin's fault,
Speaker 3: and that's all in there. Of course, Ukrainians have a
Speaker 3: national history. They've just been part of an empire for
Speaker 3: centuries and mostly unwillingly.
Speaker 1: And they see it as their specific history. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that they owned that history and it's not going to
Speaker 1: be expropriated by anyone else.
Speaker 2: They do.
Speaker 3: And that version of history that put In wrote was
Speaker 3: the version that everyone was taught, you know, throughout the
Speaker 3: Russian Empire and the Soviet Union and so on, and
Speaker 3: so Ukraine, just as much as Russia was having to
Speaker 3: work out up to nineteen ninety one, what it meant
Speaker 3: to be a Ukrainian, Where was Ukraine?
Speaker 2: What was Ukraine? Just as Russians were.
Speaker 3: This is a process that's been going on.
Speaker 1: On that note, Mark, I want to take a quick
Speaker 1: break to hear from one of our sponsors, and then
Speaker 1: we'll come right back. I'm back with Mark Champion, a
Speaker 1: Bloomberg opinion columnist, and we're discussing the war in Ukraine. Mark,
Speaker 1: you were laying out quite eloquently and with great specificity,
Speaker 1: the context for Putin's paranoia about Ukraine, his desire to
Speaker 1: reassert Russian control over Ukraine, and how the Ukrainians themselves
Speaker 1: saw all of this. And one thing you pointed out
Speaker 1: on the top of the show was that whatever Putin's
Speaker 1: goals were when he annexed Crimea, he ended up getting
Speaker 1: the opposite result. He didn't tamp down an interest in
Speaker 1: independence among Ukrainians, and he didn't make Ukrainians more loyal
Speaker 1: to Russia. But apparently he didn't learn that lesson very
Speaker 1: well because in twenty twenty two he amounts a full
Speaker 1: scale invasion, maybe because he didn't get the results he
Speaker 1: wanted in twenty fourteen, But he certainly scenes to have
Speaker 1: expected something very different in twenty twenty two than what
Speaker 1: he got.
Speaker 3: Correct, absolutely, I mean, we know for a fact that
Speaker 3: when the Russians came in and columns, you know, not
Speaker 3: only did they not form the columns in the way
Speaker 3: that you would if you were going in to fight
Speaker 3: a war, which left them very vulnerable, they also carried
Speaker 3: parade uniforms with them and only a few days supply
Speaker 3: of food. Clearly, the idea was that they expected to
Speaker 3: more or less march into the major city's takeover the administration.
Speaker 3: There wouldn't be much fighting, if any, and it would
Speaker 3: all be done very smoothly, rather like in Crimea, which
Speaker 3: is an un bel believably successful operation virtually without bloodshed
Speaker 3: and very very smooth.
Speaker 1: How did he get it so wrong? Because so many
Speaker 1: things have emerged since that invasion. You know, the mighty
Speaker 1: Russian war machine was inept and bedraggled and poorly led.
Speaker 1: The machinery itself wasn't in top condition that he was
Speaker 1: relying on, and he clearly underestimated the kind of opposition
Speaker 1: that he would encounter and that his military would encounter.
Speaker 1: How did that happen? Given that Putin is a well
Speaker 1: known control freak and scoops up as much information as
Speaker 1: he can about the things he oversees. Yet there appear
Speaker 1: to have been massive gaps in his knowledge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think the best explanation of that
Speaker 3: is that he built a system and coacherie around him
Speaker 3: entirely based on loyalty rather than merit, etc. And over time,
Speaker 3: as so often happens in these kinds of regimes, people
Speaker 3: stop telling him things that they don't think he wants
Speaker 3: to hear. And so I have no doubt that there
Speaker 3: were people in the Russian intelligence Service, precisely because they
Speaker 3: were deeply penetrated into Ukrainian security agencies, etc. Who knew
Speaker 3: what was going on. But the question is what rises
Speaker 3: through all the way to the people who actually engage
Speaker 3: with Putin and what they are willing to tell him
Speaker 3: and what story they want to tell him, because they
Speaker 3: may have an agenda of their own in terms of
Speaker 3: what they want him to actually do. So, you know,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of talk also about that. You know,
Speaker 3: there was the COVID period when he was very very isolated.
Speaker 3: I think it was Lavrov, who once supposedly equipped, you know,
Speaker 3: not quite recently, Sergaylvro, Sergailavrov, the foreign minister, when someone
Speaker 3: asked him, you know, so who does put and take
Speaker 3: advice from, and he just mentioned three different stars and himself.
Speaker 2: I think there was a big element of that.
Speaker 1: Were you surprised when he invaded?
Speaker 3: Well, the reason I went to Mariopaul was that I
Speaker 3: was convinced that he would not because I had some
Speaker 3: special insight or anything. But it was very clear that
Speaker 3: there were two things going on. One was that the
Speaker 3: Americans were shedding a lot of intelligence, making your public
Speaker 3: and saying very clearly that this was going to happen.
Speaker 3: And while I'm not a huge believer in everything that
Speaker 3: American intelligence says, this made a lot of sense. And
Speaker 3: there was so much going on on the ground that
Speaker 3: only made sense if they were going to go in.
Speaker 3: This was the second year in which they had piled
Speaker 3: up troops against the border, and so it didn't surprise
Speaker 3: me at the moment it happened. What was interesting was
Speaker 3: talking even to people I've known for frankly decades who
Speaker 3: advised the Kremlin and are talking to them, they genuinely,
Speaker 3: I'm absolutely convinced that that they weren't sort.
Speaker 2: Of making it up.
Speaker 3: They genuinely did not think he would do it, because
Speaker 3: in their view, it was not rational, and it would be,
Speaker 3: as one of them put it, just a week or
Speaker 3: two before the invasion, a couple of weeks, you know,
Speaker 3: it would be catastrophic for Russia's interests.
Speaker 1: Like firefighters who run into burning buildings instead of out
Speaker 1: of them, Mark is a foreign correspondent who runs toward
Speaker 1: a looming war rather than run away from it. I
Speaker 1: think it speaks to both his incredible dedication to his
Speaker 1: job and his courage. When you were in Mariupol, were
Speaker 1: you also surprised in any way by the sentiments you
Speaker 1: were encountering among Ukrainians themselves that gave you an inkling
Speaker 1: of how courageous and purposeful their own response to the
Speaker 1: invasion would be.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think so.
Speaker 3: I mean, there were a few things that struck me.
Speaker 3: One was that, you know, if you talked to over
Speaker 3: sixty fives, you know, in the suburbs there was still
Speaker 3: a pro Russian kind of current there. So that's one
Speaker 3: thing that struck me, was that it's not like everybody
Speaker 3: had changed their views. The second was that, as I
Speaker 3: mentioned before, this sort of huge change compared to a
Speaker 3: time when it had been just solidly pro Russian and
Speaker 3: even the mayor, who was, you know, from the Blue Party,
Speaker 3: he was very much pro Ukraine and so on, and
Speaker 3: it was clear that they would fight.
Speaker 2: Clear to me.
Speaker 3: But also what was very striking is that in the
Speaker 3: entire time, I don't think I met anybody who thought
Speaker 3: among the Ukrainians, and certainly Zelenski the president, didn't think
Speaker 3: that the Russians were actually gonna invade.
Speaker 1: And Zelenski himself turned out to be a much more
Speaker 1: capable and courageous leader than some thought he might be
Speaker 1: when the war first started. But also at least it
Speaker 1: was curious to me how torn some Western powers were
Speaker 1: at the time about whether or not to commit themselves
Speaker 1: to support Ukraine in its struggle against Russia, particularly Germany,
Speaker 1: which I think was a little bit slow off the
Speaker 1: mark early on, and other European nations. What accounted for
Speaker 1: some of that early hesitation.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's different for different countries. I mean
Speaker 3: Germany is a really good example. Germany just had so
Speaker 3: far to travel. They had an Ostpolity because they called
Speaker 3: it for a very long time, which was always about
Speaker 3: engaging Russia. Economically kind of drawing it in so that
Speaker 3: it would have an interest in being cooperative rather than disruptive.
Speaker 3: And they stuck with that long after. You know, many people,
Speaker 3: especially in Eastern Europe, were warning them that this wasn't
Speaker 3: really working, and there was, for example, with the annexation
Speaker 3: of Crimea, there was some evidence there to say that
Speaker 3: it wasn't. But nevertheless, and all the while becoming heavily
Speaker 3: dependent energy experts exactly on Russian energy, and a huge
Speaker 3: investor in Russia, so with a great deal to lose.
Speaker 3: So when this happened, that when the invasion happened, that
Speaker 3: policy just suddenly was incinerated. But they just had so
Speaker 3: far to travel to get from that kind of oss politique,
Speaker 3: all the way over to Germany post war Germany actually
Speaker 3: arming a country to fight Russia. They just had a
Speaker 3: really long way to go. And actually, you know, in
Speaker 3: terms of Germany, I think they moved a lot faster
Speaker 3: than I.
Speaker 2: Would have thought.
Speaker 1: Eventually, the West did develop a coordinated response, and I
Speaker 1: shouldn't say just the West. Japan was an active participant
Speaker 1: in the response, but arms, money, and economic sanctions eventually followed,
Speaker 1: all in an effort to support Ukraine isolate Russia and
Speaker 1: tried to bring the war to a conclusion. NATO became
Speaker 1: more fortified, which I think is something Putin didn't want
Speaker 1: and probably didn't expect out of this action. And it
Speaker 1: went so well for Ukraine in some of the early stages.
Speaker 1: That's putting aside all of the deaths that the country
Speaker 1: has had to absorb and all of the grotesque aspects
Speaker 1: of warfare that accompanied those deaths. But it did not
Speaker 1: only make a strong stand, it actually began progressing towards
Speaker 1: the Russian border in its own military efforts, which I
Speaker 1: don't think anyone expected. Here we are now, it's reached
Speaker 1: a stalemate, and all of these countries that have supported
Speaker 1: Ukraine till now are definitely wavering. I'm not saying they're
Speaker 1: turning their back yet, but the tens of billions of
Speaker 1: dollars in financial and military aid that has flowed from
Speaker 1: Western Europe and primarily the UK and Germany and then
Speaker 1: the United States, tens of billions of dollars more is
Speaker 1: up for grabs. How did we get there? How did
Speaker 1: we end up in a place where people are having
Speaker 1: doubts about whether or not to continue to support Ukraine?
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Well, I think there are two ways to look at this.
Speaker 3: If you look at it from outside, from the point
Speaker 3: of view of the Americans, the Germans, French, the uk etc.
Speaker 3: So from that point of view, I think there was,
Speaker 3: as so often in these cases, a mismatch of expectations.
Speaker 3: So the expectation was set, you know, after Ukraine started
Speaker 3: to do well that the measure for winning was actually
Speaker 3: it was to take the territory back, and of course
Speaker 3: that was encouraged by the Ukrainians who wanted their territory back. Politically,
Speaker 3: it became impossible to say we're not going to take
Speaker 3: it all back, so you had Zelenski saying we're going
Speaker 3: to carry on fighting until we take back Crimea, and
Speaker 3: we're right back to the borders in twenty thirteen, you know,
Speaker 3: right back to the nineteen ninety one borders when we
Speaker 3: had everything those expectations who were unrealistic from the start,
Speaker 3: And the reason you need to sort of look at
Speaker 3: it from two sides is that from the Ukrainian point
Speaker 3: of view, they were unrealistic because the West chose to
Speaker 3: drip feed arms to Ukraine. So at the moment when
Speaker 3: the Russians were unprepared and when they were losing territory.
Speaker 3: They hadn't dug in and the Ukrainians had momentum, and
Speaker 3: they even had more personnel in the field than the
Speaker 3: Russians did at that moment. The Ukrainians did not have
Speaker 3: what it would take in order to push their advantage
Speaker 3: all the way through. They didn't have enough combat jets,
Speaker 3: they didn't have enough tanks, they didn't have enough longer
Speaker 3: range missiles. They just didn't have enough of anything. If
Speaker 3: they'd had everything they have now back in last fall,
Speaker 3: then this would have been over. That's the Ukrainian point
Speaker 3: of view. The reason that the stuff was drip fed
Speaker 3: was that there was always a concern in the US
Speaker 3: in particular, which was really calling the shots that escalation management.
Speaker 3: You wanted to make sure that the Russians didn't panic
Speaker 3: and push a red button, you know, of one kind
Speaker 3: or another. So they really wanted to kind of stage things.
Speaker 3: We don't know, for example, what conversations the Americans might
Speaker 3: have been having with the Chinese. You know, we know
Speaker 3: that the Chinese have had something influence on the Russians.
Speaker 3: Do not want this to turn into a nuclear conflict,
Speaker 3: and so on. There's stuff that we may not know
Speaker 3: until archives are opened about you know, everything that went
Speaker 3: on behind the scenes. But it's clear that escalation management
Speaker 3: was a big deal and that it governed how things
Speaker 3: were distributed at what pace.
Speaker 1: Mark, let's take a quick break on that note, and
Speaker 1: then we'll come back to this very interesting conversation. I'm
Speaker 1: back with Mark Champion of Bloomberg Opinion Calumnist, and he
Speaker 1: is educating me about what a stalemate in the Ukraine
Speaker 1: War might involve. On that note, Mark, the idea of
Speaker 1: a stalemate, what's at stake for Europe and the US
Speaker 1: specifically in addition to you, of course, if military aid
Speaker 1: and financial support doesn't continue. Packages have been held up
Speaker 1: recently in the United States, Republicans in Congress have blocked
Speaker 1: about sixty billion dollars in usaid to Ukraine, and more recently,
Speaker 1: Hungry blocked a package of about fifty five billion dollars
Speaker 1: in euaid to Ukraine. That's life support literally and figuratively
Speaker 1: for Ukraine. What are the consequences of drawing all that down?
Speaker 2: I mean they are severe.
Speaker 3: So I think if we start from the point of
Speaker 3: view of what happens on the ground, the important thing
Speaker 3: to understand and categorically to understand is that the consequence
Speaker 3: of stopping support for Ukraine is not peace. The consequence
Speaker 3: is lost, and it will be many human lives lost,
Speaker 3: it will be territory lost, and it will be sovereign
Speaker 3: independence of country lost. The Russians have made this very
Speaker 3: very clear. Putin has made it clear. The Russian ambassador
Speaker 3: at the UN said, you know, we're happy to talk
Speaker 3: to Ukraine about a ceasefire, but it will require their capitulation,
Speaker 3: and Putin reiterated what our goals are. He was asked
Speaker 3: for what would it take to have peace in Ukraine
Speaker 3: and he says, well, we'll have peace in Ukraine once
Speaker 3: our goals are achieved, same as he said in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two. It's denatification, which means regime change, it's demilitarization,
Speaker 3: which means disarmament. So one has to kind of bear
Speaker 3: in mind that the option for a peace and cease
Speaker 3: fire where everybody just stops fighting does not exist because
Speaker 3: Russia is very confident now. They now believe that they
Speaker 3: can win. Having been kind of humiliated for a couple
Speaker 3: of years, nevertheless, they can ultimately win.
Speaker 1: I think in that same speech you reference from Putin,
Speaker 1: he said he believed that momentum was on his side,
Speaker 1: and he is.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's correct.
Speaker 3: What's happened this year is that the Ukrainians to the
Speaker 3: counter offensive and it ran into sand. There is a stalemate,
Speaker 3: but those can be easily broken, and the Russians are
Speaker 3: the ones who are on the offensive now across the east.
Speaker 1: For Europeans and Americans who are saying, how does it
Speaker 1: really hurt us to stop paying for this war? Why
Speaker 1: should we? There's all sorts of social needs in our
Speaker 1: own countries that we could use tens of billions of
Speaker 1: dollars for. Why keep paying for this effort? How do
Speaker 1: you answer that kind of a question.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the first one is have some perspective, right, So, yes,
Speaker 3: fifty five billion dollars from Europe, something similar maybe a
Speaker 3: bit more from the US. There's a group called the
Speaker 3: Ramstein Group, which is since the beginning of the invasion,
Speaker 3: it's been meeting to organize what to get to Ukraine.
Speaker 3: The combined GDP of the Ramstein Group is forty to
Speaker 3: seven trillion dollars. This is affordable. So the first thing
Speaker 3: is that when people start saying, you know, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: fifty billion in EU. This is again a multi multi
Speaker 3: trillion dollar economy, so fifty billion is affordable. The second
Speaker 3: is that it's not we pay it or we pay nothing,
Speaker 3: because the consequences of having a Russian victory mean that
Speaker 3: you will then have to deal with and prepare for
Speaker 3: all kinds of new eventualities which are created by facts
Speaker 3: on the ground, the fact that as in Beelorus, where
Speaker 3: the Russians have said they're stationing their nuclear missiles, now
Speaker 3: the situation in Ukraine will be very different. I mean
Speaker 3: Putin said he was talking about you know what was
Speaker 3: Russian and so on, and the Odessa is Russian in
Speaker 3: his view, so that also is unfinished business. If he's
Speaker 3: an Aandeessa, he's right next to Transnistria, which is a
Speaker 3: breakaway pro Russian piece of Moldova. The Russians have spent
Speaker 3: billions to try and destabilize Moldova. They will go in.
Speaker 3: Then they're on the border of Romania, which is an
Speaker 3: EU country. It changes everything, Like you know in a
Speaker 3: game of risk, when you control different pieces of territory,
Speaker 3: it changes the nature of the game. And Europe and
Speaker 3: the US will have to pay to prepare and adjust
Speaker 3: for these different things.
Speaker 1: So if they don't pay now, they'll pay later.
Speaker 2: They will pay later, and they will pay more.
Speaker 1: I'm curious about how this has all affected Putin's standing
Speaker 1: in leadership within Russia. There was a lot of speculation
Speaker 1: that if he was to be removed from power, it
Speaker 1: would have to involve some sort of an internal coup
Speaker 1: or meaningful opposition at the highest levels within the Kremlin,
Speaker 1: and that if this war dragged on for a long time,
Speaker 1: over time, perhaps his invincibility would erode and you might
Speaker 1: see action against him. That certainly appears to have changed
Speaker 1: as well. But maybe this is just reading tea leaves
Speaker 1: without any real certainty. But I'm curious how you think
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 3: To me, this idea that he was at political risk
Speaker 3: has always been a fantasy. He's never been at political risk.
Speaker 3: He's not dumb politically. He made mistakes in Ukraine, strategic mistakes,
Speaker 3: and he has some i think misguided ideas about foreign
Speaker 3: policy and Russia's place in the world what it needs
Speaker 3: to be. But politically he's not done at all. He
Speaker 3: built a system, he understands it's completely and it's not
Speaker 3: for nothing that he called this invasion. By close to
Speaker 3: two hundred thousand troops, a special military operation, and not
Speaker 3: a war. He wanted to sell this to Russians as
Speaker 3: something that he's got in control. It's not existential, and
Speaker 3: we have this. So I think even if he had
Speaker 3: had to settle and stop, he would have been fine. Politically,
Speaker 3: he'd be fine. Now, of course, he's got the bit
Speaker 3: between his teeth again. He has the opportunity to show
Speaker 3: that he didn't make a mistake, that Russia is capable
Speaker 3: of being the kind of great power again that he
Speaker 3: was trying to demonstrate in the first place. So he's
Speaker 3: in a stronger position he's been for a while.
Speaker 1: He's been willing to essentially put tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: troops through a meat grinder, sending them on to a
Speaker 1: battlefield almost as cannon fodder. Russias emptied out its prisons
Speaker 1: to populate its military forces. There had been one argument
Speaker 1: that if there wasn't any kind of a coup against
Speaker 1: Putin at the very top, there might be popular sentiment
Speaker 1: that gained so much momentum once average Russians and grandmothers
Speaker 1: saw their sons disabled or killed in this war, that
Speaker 1: you might see at ground swell from the bottom up.
Speaker 1: But I take it. You don't think that's likely either, No.
Speaker 3: Not at all. I mean, Putin understands his own military
Speaker 3: very well. He knows how they fight, and you know,
Speaker 3: once did it all become clear this is going to
Speaker 3: be a proper war, he knew how ugly it will be.
Speaker 3: And for that reason he has not issued a general
Speaker 3: mobilization which would affect the children of the elites and
Speaker 3: the middle classes in Moscow and St. Petersburg, et cetera.
Speaker 3: You know, the recruitment, as you say, has been in prisons.
Speaker 3: It's also been in predominantly in provinces, in villages where
Speaker 3: not only is sort of political power more dispersed, so
Speaker 3: it's less likely that you're going to get, you know,
Speaker 3: a coordinated protest. Also, families are being offered quite significant
Speaker 3: compensation when their sons or husbands and fathers die, you know,
Speaker 3: relative to the salary that someone can expect in a
Speaker 3: small village in Siberia. These compensations are very significant. So
Speaker 3: that has all helped to make sure that there isn't
Speaker 3: a big blowback, and so far he really hasn't seen it.
Speaker 1: If he emerges as a victor in this war in
Speaker 1: Ukraine and slowdifies control over the entire country. What do
Speaker 1: you see as the first steps he takes in the
Speaker 1: wake of that, strategically and tactically, like, what would his
Speaker 1: next moves be.
Speaker 3: Well, I think he is now convinced that he is
Speaker 3: at war with the West, he is at war with
Speaker 3: the US, he's at war with Europe. So I think
Speaker 3: if he succeeds, I suspect the first thing as part
Speaker 3: of that success, I think he would move into Moldova,
Speaker 3: so he would have that done through the battlefield, if
Speaker 3: you like. And at that point, I think there would
Speaker 3: be a considerable pause as he reconsolidates militarily and so on.
Speaker 3: I mean, Russia is now on has rejigged its economy
Speaker 3: so that it is now a war economy. They're producing
Speaker 3: three and a half million artillery shells a year now,
Speaker 3: and that I am quite convinced would continue, if not
Speaker 3: quite at the intensity that it is now. The budget
Speaker 3: for twenty twenty four, I think it's close to forty
Speaker 3: percent of the budget is defense, so it might not
Speaker 3: be quite that level, but it would continue at a
Speaker 3: high level, and he would re equip and get ready
Speaker 3: in his view, because he's at war with the West. Remember,
Speaker 3: and that now Finland is part of the West is
Speaker 3: a joint NATO and Sweden, et cetera. The whole kind
Speaker 3: of strategic situation in the Baltic Sea has changed.
Speaker 2: So he would be.
Speaker 3: Preparing for the worst that his generals can imagine can happen.
Speaker 3: So they would be a build up of forces along
Speaker 3: the Finnish border, and there would be a big build
Speaker 3: up in the Baltics, I think. And what would happen,
Speaker 3: you know, would he destabilize and make efforts to destabilize
Speaker 3: the Baltic States?
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm quite sure.
Speaker 3: Would he invade I'm not so sure about that. He
Speaker 3: probably would feel he doesn't need to. You know, when
Speaker 3: you invade a NATO country, that's a pretty high stakes move.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty four will be in an election year in
Speaker 1: the US. Do you see a material difference in how
Speaker 1: the US responds to Putin in a Biden administration versus
Speaker 1: a Trump administration.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: That would have been a different question if we were
Speaker 3: seeing the first Trump term. You know, if we remember,
Speaker 3: you could see Trump's instincts doesn't care about NATO. It's
Speaker 3: quite friendly towards Putin, you know, it's totally disinterested in
Speaker 3: the kind of strategic game in Europe. But you know,
Speaker 3: he had people around him, generals and someone who he's
Speaker 3: appointed to his own administration who had a much more
Speaker 3: traditional view of US interests. If he comes to power
Speaker 3: a second time, none of those people will be there.
Speaker 3: Only loyalists will be there, and they will be pre
Speaker 3: vetted to make sure that they will implement the policies
Speaker 3: that he wants, and you know, those may be fairly erratic.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that Trump has a specific sative foreign policies,
Speaker 3: but they will be there to do his bidding.
Speaker 1: Mark. I always like to ask guests what they've learned
Speaker 1: about topics that we're discussing, and as a veteran observer
Speaker 1: of Russia and putin, what have you learned in recent
Speaker 1: years about him and his country's aspirations in the world.
Speaker 3: Well, I have to say, so, I became a journalist
Speaker 3: because I wanted to go to Russia. I wanted to
Speaker 3: go to the former Soviet Union. Didn't want to be
Speaker 3: aspire a diplomat to do that, so I had to
Speaker 3: be a journalist, and I'm glad I did so. I
Speaker 3: obviously had a pretty deep interest and fascination for love
Speaker 3: for Russia, lived there for seven years, had a wonderful time,
Speaker 3: got married there, etc. The process since has been one
Speaker 3: of gradual loss of hope and disappointment. And by this
Speaker 3: point I see it, it's very difficult to imagine, even
Speaker 3: post Putin a regime that's very different from the one
Speaker 3: that we have now in Russia in my lifetime and
Speaker 3: the turning from the West. I think it's going to
Speaker 3: last a while. It's not permanent, but it's going to
Speaker 3: last quite some time. It will become quite deep, I think.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it's rather depressing, and unfortunately I do believe.
Speaker 3: I don't think I would have said, you know, some
Speaker 3: years ago. I do believe that this is an empire collapsing,
Speaker 3: unhappy like all empires are, with its collapse and resisting it.
Speaker 3: It's always ugly if you do not make it clear
Speaker 3: to Russians and to Putin in particular now, but Russian's
Speaker 3: more generally, and whoever succeeds him that it's over with
Speaker 3: the empire. They need to learn to live in their
Speaker 3: new skin. Then we will be fighting versions of this
Speaker 3: conflict for quite some time to come.
Speaker 1: We're out of time. Mark, Thanks for coming on today.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mark, Champion is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. You
Speaker 1: can find his work online at the Bloomberg Opinion website
Speaker 1: and on the Bloomberg terminal. You can also find him
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Mark Champion One. Here at Crash Course,
Speaker 1: we believe the collisions can be messy, impressive, challenging, surprising,
Speaker 1: and always instructive. In today's Crash Course, I learned that
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin is much more entrenched and as much more
Speaker 1: warewithal as a dictator, military force and swear of minds
Speaker 1: within Russia than I thought at the beginning of the
Speaker 1: conflict in Ukraine. What did you learn? We'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can tweet at the Bloomberg Opinion
Speaker 1: handle at Opinion or me at Tim O'Brien using the
Speaker 1: hashtag Bloomberg Crash Course. You can also subscribe to our
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Speaker 1: was produced by Anna Maserakis, moses On Dam and Me.
Speaker 1: Our supervising producer is Mangos Hendrickson, and we had editing
Speaker 1: help from Saige Bauman, Jeff Grocott, Mike Nitze and Christine
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Speaker 1: original theme song was composed by Luis Gara. I'm Tim O'Brien.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with another crash course.