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Speaker 1: Good morning everybody. Welcome to the Daily Ods. Another week

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Speaker 1: comes around. Happy Mondays, the twenty eighth of February, last

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Speaker 1: day of the month. Joining me today is Tom Crowley

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Speaker 1: to talk all things reactions from the rest of the

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Speaker 1: world in regards to this situation in Ukraine. We're going

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Speaker 1: to talk through the economic reactions and of course the

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Speaker 1: announcement from the Australian government yesterday. Tom, what is the

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Speaker 1: latest from Kiev?

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Speaker 2: Thanks Sam So. There have been clashes between Russian and

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Speaker 2: Ukrainian troops in Ukraine's capital, Kiev, as residents have been

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Speaker 2: placed under a curfew. Roughly one hundred and twenty thousand

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Speaker 2: Ukrainians are believed to across the Polish and Moldovan borders

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Speaker 2: to escape the conflict, and from today Ukraine's borders with

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Speaker 2: Russia and Belarus will be closed.

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Speaker 1: Meanwhile, in domestic news, millions of residents in southeast Queensland

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Speaker 1: and northern New South Wales have been impacted by major

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Speaker 1: storms and flooding. It's been very wet, with Queensland Premier

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Speaker 1: Anastasia Paliche requesting people in affected areas stay home and

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Speaker 1: avoid roads. There's in fact also one hundred schools who've

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Speaker 1: had school counseled. Today, the floods have claimed six lives

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Speaker 1: and more wet weather is forecast for the rest of

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Speaker 1: the week.

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Speaker 2: Back to international news and on Sunday, North Korea held

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Speaker 2: its eighth missile launch test in twenty twenty two. In

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Speaker 2: a statement, South Korea's National Security Council said the launch

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Speaker 2: was undesirable at a time while the world is trying

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Speaker 2: to resolve Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and they hold deep

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Speaker 2: concern and severe regret over the launch.

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Speaker 1: And after what has been quite a heavy news bulletin

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Speaker 1: this morning, the good news today is that Ireland have

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Speaker 1: waived all visa requirements for Ukrainians fleeing the country, with

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Speaker 1: citizens able to seek refuge in Ireland and take ninety

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Speaker 1: days to complete any required paperwork that's needed. There are

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Speaker 1: hopes that other European nations will follow suit. Yesterday Prime

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Speaker 1: Minister Scott Morrison announced Australia will provide money to Ukraine

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Speaker 1: via NATO to purchase arms in what Morrison called the

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Speaker 1: provision of lethal aid. Here's a little bit of that announcement.

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Speaker 3: We are already providing significant support in terms of non

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Speaker 3: lethal aid. But I've just spoken with the Defense Minister,

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Speaker 3: and we'll be seeking to provide whatever support we can

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Speaker 3: for lethal aid through our NATO partners, particularly the United

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Speaker 3: States and the United Kingdom, and we'll be working through

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Speaker 3: those channels because that's the most effective way to do it.

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Speaker 1: So this comes after the government said earlier this week

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Speaker 1: their support would only be in the provision of non

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Speaker 1: lethal military equipment, think things like helmets and armor. But

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Speaker 1: obviously with so much changing every day in the area,

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Speaker 1: the government is now stepping up their pledge. They have

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Speaker 1: also offered cybersecurity assistance to Ukraine. Tom Australia's response has

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Speaker 1: changed a lot in the last week. What are we

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Speaker 1: seeing from other parts of the world, well, Sam. One

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Speaker 1: of the big talking points among Ukraine's allies in the

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Speaker 1: West over the last few days has been about economic sanctions.

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Speaker 1: So WEN leaders, including Australia, including the US, including European

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Speaker 1: countries have been escalating the economic penalties that they've placed

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Speaker 1: on Russia over the last couple of weeks, and one

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Speaker 1: of the big talking points over the last few days

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Speaker 1: has been whether to extend that to the international banking

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Speaker 1: platform Swift. So Swift is a payment system that pretty

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Speaker 1: much most banks in the world use to make pretty

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Speaker 1: much any type of international transaction, and so that payment

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Speaker 1: system is really kind of essential for importing and exporting.

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Speaker 1: It's much much much harder to import or export anything

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Speaker 1: when you can't use SWIFT. Previously, in twenty twelve, Iran

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Speaker 1: was banned from Swift because of its nuclear program, so

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Speaker 1: there's some precedent for that, and there's been a conversation

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Speaker 1: about whether it would be appropriate to ban Russia from

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Speaker 1: using SWIFT. There's been some debates on both sides of this.

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Speaker 1: One of the challenges with economic sanctions is that they

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Speaker 1: kind of bite both ways. If you prevent Russia from, say,

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Speaker 1: trading with you, that doesn't just hurt Russia, it hurts you.

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Speaker 1: And so there's been some reluctance from some Western economies

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Speaker 1: to take on the economic pain themselves involved in these sanctions.

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Speaker 1: In particular, there was some objection from Germany and from Italy.

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Speaker 1: But just in the last day or so, there has

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Speaker 1: been agreement among Europe, the UK, the US and Canada

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Speaker 1: to remove several Russian banks, at least partially from SWIFT.

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Speaker 1: The details are still being worked out, but when it

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Speaker 1: was announced by the President of the European Commission Ursula Vondalayan.

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Speaker 1: She said that basically this would effectively block Russia's imports

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Speaker 1: and exports, so pretty significant economic penalty. There are some

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Speaker 1: ways that Russia has to get around a ban of

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Speaker 1: this kind, but certainly it's a really significant escalation as

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Speaker 1: far as the if you like, the kind of economic

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Speaker 1: warfare that the West has tried to wage to deter

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Speaker 1: Russia from its actions. So you said before that this

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Speaker 1: had some precedent with Iran in twenty twelve. Does it

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Speaker 1: give the West much room to move in terms of

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Speaker 1: further economic sanctions or is this really as bad as

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Speaker 1: it gets. It's not quite as bad as it gets.

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Speaker 1: There are still sort of some steps that can be escalated. Again,

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Speaker 1: as I say, it's not exactly clear whether this will

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Speaker 1: apply to all transactions on swift, and as I mentioned,

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Speaker 1: it only applies to a certain number of Russian banks,

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Speaker 1: and that list is also still to be worked out,

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Speaker 1: so there are still some sort of high levels to go.

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Speaker 1: There's been some conversation about the ability to put individual

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Speaker 1: sanctions on Vladimir Putin himself and his financial transactions.

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Speaker 2: I think that's been discussed in the UK. So there

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Speaker 2: are some additional kind of steps that the West can

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Speaker 2: take from an economic perspective. But as I say, the

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Speaker 2: sort of the further you get along this line of

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Speaker 2: penalizing Russia economically, the harder it is to avoid a

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Speaker 2: a little bit of blowback and hurting your own economy

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Speaker 2: and b sort of hurting individual Russian citizens. And that's

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Speaker 2: something that in the discussion about sanctions that leaders have

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Speaker 2: been having over the last few weeks, they've been really

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Speaker 2: clear on targeting Russian oligarchs, Russian elite, members of the

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Speaker 2: Russian government, and kind of the big Russian banks, but

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Speaker 2: trying not to hurt individual Russian citizens and punish them.

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Speaker 2: That's kind of the fine line that you're treading when

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Speaker 2: you're considering sanctions. And so, you know, I think that

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Speaker 2: there is a limit to the effectiveness of sanctions, and

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Speaker 2: we may be getting fairly close to it. Clearly, you know,

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Speaker 2: there are other ways that the West could intervene, such

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Speaker 2: as with their own military, that there's no sign that

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Speaker 2: that's something that's been considered. And so yes, eventually, as

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Speaker 2: the West escalates its economic penalties, it runs out of

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Speaker 2: ability to do much to influence this conflict.

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Speaker 1: And do we know what the reaction has been from

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Speaker 1: Asian nations such as China and India.

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Speaker 2: We do so, As is often the case in big

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Speaker 2: global conflicts, the kind of positioning from countries depends a

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Speaker 2: lot about the diplomatic and economic position that they find

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Speaker 2: themselves in. And there are certainly a lot of countries that,

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Speaker 2: as you could say, are hedging their bets at the moment,

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Speaker 2: and China and India are among those. So I'll start

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Speaker 2: with China. China is an ally of Russia. The two

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Speaker 2: countries are very close economically and diplomatically. China has been

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Speaker 2: using fairly balanced language so far, saying things along the

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Speaker 2: lines of urging caution on both sides and reluctant to

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Speaker 2: directly condemn Russia's actions in Ukraine, just sort of calling

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Speaker 2: for peace in a general sense rather than kind of

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Speaker 2: taking a side, if you like. And there was a

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Speaker 2: resolution that went before the UN Security Council to condemn

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Speaker 2: Russia's actions in Ukraine. Now, China is one of the

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Speaker 2: countries that has the ability to veto any resolution, So

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Speaker 2: in other words, China can choose to make any resolution

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Speaker 2: fail of its own accord. That's a power that China, Russia,

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Speaker 2: the US, the UK and France have China didn't use

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Speaker 2: its veto power, so it didn't kind of again pick aside,

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Speaker 2: but it did abstain from the vote, so it refused

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Speaker 2: to express a view in that context. Again a sign

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Speaker 2: of the line that it's trying to tread here, I suppose,

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Speaker 2: almost as much as it can to keep itself out

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Speaker 2: of it. China has been very clear that it doesn't

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Speaker 2: like sanctions and it's criticized the West for the sanctions,

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Speaker 2: which it says are illegal, but it's also urged kind

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Speaker 2: of peace and restraint in words that can be taken

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Speaker 2: to apply to Russia.

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Speaker 1: And so tell me about the Indian reaction.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so India is also a member of the Security Council.

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Speaker 2: It doesn't have veto power, but it does have a vote.

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Speaker 2: And India also abstained, which was a very interesting decision.

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Speaker 2: India is militarily quite close to a lot of Western countries.

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Speaker 2: It's been engaging recently in the quadrilateral security dialogues with Australia, Japan,

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Speaker 2: and the US, and so there have been sort of

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Speaker 2: signs of growing military ties between India and the West,

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Speaker 2: especially because of India's concerns about the rise of China,

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Speaker 2: but India has historically had a close relationship with Russia.

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Speaker 2: That's something that dates back to the Cold War and

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Speaker 2: to the twentieth century when India gets a lot of

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Speaker 2: weapons and has other economic relationships with Russia. And so

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Speaker 2: for that reason, India seems so far again to have

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Speaker 2: tread a little bit of a middle ground and to

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Speaker 2: be careful about making strong condemnations, and their statements as

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Speaker 2: well have tended to be along the lines of urging

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Speaker 2: restraint on both sides, that kind of middle path without

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Speaker 2: specifically calling out Russia's actions. And so in contrast to America,

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Speaker 2: which it sees its relationship with India is a really

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Speaker 2: important one, there has been a lot of frustration from

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Speaker 2: America in particular about India's kind of reluctance to condemn

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Speaker 2: Russia's invasion in the same way that Western allies have a.

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Speaker 1: Lot's happening in this situation. Tom I think for news

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Speaker 1: readers who are struggling to keep on top of the

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Speaker 1: steady stream of information, it's really important to kind of

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Speaker 1: boil down these ideas into buckets. And it's really helpful

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Speaker 1: that you've taken us through the ways that other countries

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Speaker 1: are reacting. I think all eyes are going to be

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Speaker 1: on the Ukrainian capital for the next few days at least.

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Speaker 1: That seems to be the focal point of the conflict

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Speaker 1: right now and obviously has some major strategic importance if

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Speaker 1: it was to be taken over by the Russians. We'll

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Speaker 1: be continuing this coverage throughout the week. Tom, What are

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Speaker 1: you focusing on this week as a journalist?

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Speaker 2: So certainly we've been putting a lot of time over

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Speaker 2: the last few days into making sure we're covering all

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Speaker 2: angles of this story as it unfolds. Of course, it's

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Speaker 2: something that the whole world is wrapping its head around

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Speaker 2: in real time, but as the conflict evolves, we're really

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Speaker 2: keen to add a little bit more depth and historical

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Speaker 2: context to our coverage, and that's one of the things

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Speaker 2: that we're going to focus on this week. So I'll

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Speaker 2: be speaking here on the podcast to a couple of

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Speaker 2: international relations experts to get a sense from them about

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Speaker 2: how to do world end up here. What were the

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Speaker 2: series of events over the last decades and years that

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Speaker 2: brought us to a position where Russia has invaded Ukraine

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Speaker 2: and what does that history tell us about what might

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Speaker 2: come next so some of that really interesting material we'll

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Speaker 2: be turning to the experts for and bringing you their

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Speaker 2: perspectives on how we ended up in this position and

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Speaker 2: where it might take us next.

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Speaker 1: Looking forward to it. Another big week of news coming up.

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Speaker 1: Happy Monday, everybody, and we'll speak to you tomorrow