Angry Planet - ‘Putin’s Revenge.’ Lucian Kim on Why Russia Invaded Ukraine

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comIt’s hard to read the mind of a dictator, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying.When Russian President invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, there were a million columns, videos and podcasts explaining “the real reason” for such a “crazy” move.Well, anyone who tells the story from February 2022 is missing decades of Russian interference in Ukraine, with low points coming during the Orange Revolution of 2005 and then in 2014. The Euromaidan protests ended with the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych and Russia’s annexation of Crimea.But what made Putin take that next step eight years later?Lucian Kim is a journalist with vast experience in the region, working in Berlin and as NPR’s bureau chief in Moscow. If you can trust anyone to know what brought the world to war, it’s him—hell, he wrote a book on the subject: Putin’s Revenge: Why Russia Invaded Ukraine.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. First of all, just to say we are talking with Luchin Kim, who I've actually known now for almost 15 years, I believe. It's been a long time and beyond that, he actually is friends with Alan Chin, who has been on the show as well. You are listening to a show about. an angry planet. Unfortunately, it keeps getting more angry, and that's just the way it is. Long story short, Lucian, you are here to talk about your book, which has been greeted. It's not just that the reviews are so good. It's who wrote these reviews. The book's called Putin's Revenge, Why Russia Invaded Ukraine. And you have Fiona Hill, you have Michael McFal. I mean, Just some of the people who really know Ukraine and Russia are the best, writing about your book, that's got to feel great, right? Oh, sure.

That is a good feeling. And I hope more people will read it now. Well, can you tell us basically a bit about who you are and then tell us what the book's really about? So I am a journalist who has been working as a foreign correspondent. since the late 90s. I basically had two stints in Berlin and two stints in Moscow, sort of alternating. I've written for the Christian Science Monitor in Moscow for the Moscow Times, the English language daily, which is still surviving to this day. I worked for Bloomberg News in Moscow covering the Russian oil and gas industry at the peak of the

Russian oil boom. I also covered Vladimir Putin when he was prime minister briefly. I then covered the beginning of the Ukraine war in 2014, which is really when it all started. A lot of people tend to think it started in 2022, but of course there's a long prehistory to that. And then I returned to Moscow in 2016 and basically for Donald Trump's entire first term and the beginning of Joe Biden's presidency, I was based in Moscow. And I returned to the United States in late 2021 with my family and established myself in Washington where I took on a fellowship at the at the Wilson Center. And when the war, the all-out war broke out, I realized I was in a best position to write on the origins of the war. I was not in a position to necessarily cover events as they were unfolding.

But I certainly knew the prehistory, and I was already aware that there would be a lot of debates in the future about why this happened in the first place and why Putin took this very fateful decision in February 222 to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And we've actually had people give explanations over the last couple years that are simplistic and others that look to history and histrionics and all that. How do you see it? I tried to come at this story without an agenda, but as someone who was very close to the events as they unfolded in 2014. Also as someone who has covered both Russia and Ukraine since Vladimir Putin's first term in office. So my book begins with the 2004 Orange Revolution.

That was when Ukrainians went out onto the street Amas to protest a rigged presidential election in which a Russian-backed candidate, Victory Yanukovych claimed victory. That was a turning point for both Russia and Ukraine. I can get into that a little bit later. But I continue my book right up to the point where Putin takes the decision to launch the full-scale invasion. I do not go into the details of the war once it turned into a full-scale, all-out war in February 22.

That's where the book ends. And I try to look at the basic facts, and I think history will show that the main drivers of this war were a Russian imperialism, this belief that Russia should be at the core of a Eurasian empire, whatever you call it, the Russian Empire, you call it the Soviet Union, that doesn't matter, but that Russia has sort of a sort of a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, you know. civilizational mission as an empire and that Ukraine belongs in that empire as an important or as a you could say a vital peace in that empire. And a second driver for this war, I would say, is Vladimir Putin's rule himself, the fact that it lasted so long and that Russia descended into dictatorship. And I think you could say all out dictatorship. It was also a gradual decline. It didn't start like that when he took office in 2000. I don't think he had these kind of designs. But he changed as a person. He changed as a leader. And the more autocratic

he became, the more paranoid he became about his grip on power. And he began to believe, looking around the world, that the West led by the United States was interested in regime change in Russia and that Ukraine was simply sort of the last domino before the West would come knocking at his door. So those are the two main factors. I also address a very popular idea, not only in Russia, but also in many quarters in Europe and in the United States, that NATO or the U.S. somehow provoke this through NATO enlargement, that NATO approaching Russia's borders that they were just asking for trouble. And I tried to examine what NATO was actually doing and what the United States was doing in all these years.

And while, of course, Russia was very unhappy about NATO enlarging. and getting closer to its borders. My conclusion is certainly not that NATO or the United States somehow provoked it. Putin provoked himself to invading Ukraine. I can also go into more details on that. Can I ask, do you think that there is a lot of argument and discussion about why the war even started? I think every time, I think there is a lot of discussion, the short answer. and I think that there's a lot of discussion.

There will be a continuing discussion. Look, guys, we are, you know, 100 years out from World War I. People are still writing books about why World War I started. And what I find interesting is that every time a Russian official, such as Vladimir Putin, but also his deputies in the foreign ministry, when they begin talking about this war, they always say it started with the Western-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014. And this is part of the Kremlin narrative,

and I think certainly people in the West have picked up on it. The film director Oliver Stone made a film about this a few years ago, in which he, of course, interviews only a handful of people, Putin, Victor Yanukovych, who was the last Russian-backed leader of Ukraine and his interior minister. And so that's a narrative that also has a lot of appeal, I think, in the far right and in the far left and the west, this idea that the U.S. has a history of meddling, of interfering and and conducting regime change. And it fits the idea that that the U.S. installed a leader in

Ukraine, a anti-Russian leader in Ukraine, certainly fits that narrative, even if it does not fit the facts. Can you take us through 2014? I think a lot of people weren't really paying attention to what was happening in Ukraine at that point, but it turned out to be crucial. So can you sort of take us through what it was all about? Absolutely. I will try to be as brief as possible. In my book, which has 11 chapters, I devote three chapters only on what happened in 2014. So it's obviously a lot of ground. It was a critical year. As I mentioned before, the book opens in 2004, 2004 with the Orange Revolution. That was when you could have.

Ukrainians really had a peaceful people power revolution in overturning a rigged election and preventing a Russian-backed candidate from coming into power. That candidate was Viktor Yanukovych. And he did win a legitimate and fair election six years later in 2010. And Victor Yanukovych, I think it's worth briefly pausing and reflecting on who he was. He's often characterized as a pro-Russian leader of Ukraine. I would dispute that. Victor Yanukovych was very happy to be the president of an independent country.

And with all the wealth, that brought him personally and just all the trappings of being a president of a country. So, Victor Yanukovych was very opportunistic. He looked for where the money was. And he was actually interested in the European Union in the sense of how it could help him. And under Viktor Yanukovych, arguably, he did, up to that point, he probably did the most in bringing Ukraine closer to the European Union. And this raised many hopes among Ukrainians that this was sort of the direction the country was taking, whether it was ruled by someone who was not necessarily Ukrainian nationalist, but still happy to be Ukrainian.

I always say about Viktor Yanukovych that he was not pro-Russian. He was pro-Yanukovych. He was looking out for himself. Yanukovych was sort of this a big man a little bit I mean he's still alive but he's now in exile in Russia sort of a klutzy figure very inarticulate he came from eastern

Ukraine where he was also had been had started his political career he did have a criminal conviction in his past in his youth which which annoyed a lot of people he was kind of seen as this ophish, ofish man from, from Eastern Ukraine, Eastern Ukraine having the reputation of being very industrial, kind of a rough and tumble, a rough and tumble place full of coal miners

and steelworkers. So that was, as I said, he actually came into office legitimately in 2010 in an internationally recognized election. And so he started this kind of game, seeing where he could get the best deals. He first went to the European Union. Ukraine was suffering from the aftermath of the global financial crisis, like a lot of other countries, and not doing so well financially. So he was also looking wherever he could for some handouts. And he came under extreme pressure from Vladimir Putin to back out.

of an association deal with the European Union. That was going to go ahead at the end of 2013. And Russia poured on the pressure. They basically launched a trade war, which might now, in today's context, sound familiar. But really, a trade war to Russia and Ukraine were so closely intertwined as trade partners, in some ways like the United States and Canada, that this trade war was very damaging. and Victor Yanukovych backed out at the last minute of this agreement with the European Union. That in turn sparked street protests that were reminiscent of the Orange Revolution 10 years earlier.

Only these protests, and I think people will remember the so-called Maidan protests of 2014, because they lasted for months and they became violent very quickly. I think people will remember scenes of burning tires, of fires, of protesters holding up clubs and fighting back riot policemen with shields and water cannon. These were very dramatic times in Kiev, and it was in some ways had become more than just a protest about Ukraine's closer association with the European Union, but really, a protest against Viktor Yanukovych, who many Ukrainians were beginning to view as a Russian tool because he had succumbed to Putin's pressure. A long story short, that protest became more and more violent. And in February of 2014, there were a couple of days where dozens of people were killed.

and in the aftermath of that bloodshed, Victor Yanukovych fled Kiev. And this is, of course, a crucial moment. The European Union had stepped in to try to broker a deal between Yanukovych and the opposition, and they had actually reached a deal. But Yanukovych, in the midst of this chaos in Kiev, fled.

Now, they're different... Certainly different views on what happened, but I think it's undeniable that after that bloodshed on the Maidan, Yanukovych lost his power base. So what happened was deputies, representatives of his own party in the parliament began deserting their president. A lot of his ministers were starting to flee the country. It was a collapse of the executive branch. and their allies in the legislature that happened. And the president disappeared for many hours after his disappearance. People didn't know where he was. And he showed up in the eastern city of Kharkiv.

And people thought he might try to rally support in his political homeland, which was eastern Ukraine. And he didn't find any support anywhere he went. He didn't find support in Kharkiv. He then went down to that. Danyetsk, and he began this hairbrained trip by car, since he couldn't even fly anymore. The border guards would not let him fly out of the country. He began a hairbrained trip by car to Crimea, Crimea being the most conservative part of Ukraine

and certainly the most, you can say, pro-Russian. And of course, the Russian Black Sea Fleet was based in Crimea. So I describe in my book how he escapes. And the Russian narrative on this is neo-Nazi thugs with American support, launch a coup, and Yanukovych is forced to run away. And we, the Russians, the Kremlin, we stepped in to save Yanukovych. And this is all laid out in a, actually, highly interesting propaganda film, maybe worthy of Leni Riefenstahl, which came out a year after

the Crimean annexation, in which Putin himself describes these dramatic events and how he was involved in evacuating Yanukovych. And the Kremlin narrative is we had to save Yanukovych from these neo-Nazi thugs. And then at that moment, we began. to think about what would happen to all the Russian speakers in Ukraine, and we realized that we needed to save Crimea, the most pro-Russian region of Ukraine. We needed to save them from neo-Nazi reprisals. And that's how, that's the origin story according to the Kremlin. And I really try to deconstruct that narrative. Even if you watch this propaganda film that the Kremlin put out, if you read between the lines, you see that it was not so much a rescue of Yanukovych,

as much as a kidnapping of Yanukovych. The Kremlin at that point extracted him from Ukraine and brought him to Russia. Yanukovych, after his extraction, himself says that he had very little to say about this. He finds himself in Russia. He voices thanks to Vladimir Putin. But once he is extracted from Ukraine, Putin has no need for him anymore. He doesn't meet with Yanukovych, which Yanukovych expected. Yanukovych is in the provincial town of Rostov near the Ukrainian border.

And at that point, really, the Kremlin has only two uses left for Viktor Yanukovych. The first use is for him to sign off on a puppet Russian government in Crimea. And the second use is for him to sign off on a request for Russian military aid. Two things which happen. We don't really know how much Viktor Yanukovych wanted to do these things, but he was essentially a hostage of the Kremlin. And he still is based in Russia, of course, where he has nothing to say. So that was one narrative I tried to kind of deconstruct and show how Russia was involved in this.

and the narrative is what happened afterwards. In Crimea, we had to save the Crimeans from reprisals. Well, I was in Crimea in 2014. I was there during these events. Certainly there were no, it was actually surprisingly peaceful and sleepy there. There were no gangs of Ukrainian nationalists coming from the mainland who were beating up people or threatening people. But there were certainly a lot of fear, and there was Russian propaganda,

already doing its work and stirring up the population. And Putin used this idea that Crimea was on the brink of or already undergoing these reprisals as an excuse to seize Crimea. And Crimea, of course, fell. Well, fell is maybe not the right word because there was no battle. The Russians were already based in Crimea because of the Russian black, Sea Fleet was leasing facilities from Ukraine. And so they already had boots on the ground. And they simply swept over the entire peninsula and barricaded the Ukrainian troops based there on

their basis. And it seemed like such an effortless takeover. What I also show in my book is that, yes, it was effortless, but it was also prepared. It was not a spontaneous act by the Kremlin that happened after Yanukovych fled. The Kremlin had laid the groundwork for this annexation of Crimea before. Kremlin emissaries had already reached out to pro-Russian figures in Crimea to kind of gauge their interest in joining Russia in this kind of scenario. I know that I'm going into a lot of detail. I will just say one more thing.

So, you know, once we have Yanukovych fleeing, then Crimea falling within a matter of days, the conflict then spreads. And I also tried to focus on some of the personalities that were behind the Russian seizure of Crimea. One of the key figures, his name is Igor Girkin. He was a retired. FSB colonel, who then takes his war to eastern Ukraine, where I also worked during that time as a

journalist, and I'd show what role Russia played in fomenting an insurgency in eastern Ukraine that lasted for eight years until the full-scale invasion in 2022. Can I just say, Igor Gurkin is probably my favorite character, quote unquote, in the conflict, I think is absolutely fascinating. And you can kind of trace, I think, a lot of Russian thinking about the war and kind of chronicle the conflict through him and what has happened to him. Can you tell the audience, and there's so much to him, where he is now? How is he doing? How has he been rewarded in recent times for his loyalty to the Kremlin? That's a great question.

So Igor Girkin, he was also known by his Norm de Gur, Igor, Igor Strelkoff, and so some people might know him as that. He appeared sort of out of the shadows during the 2014 insurgency, and he had his, the peak of his career was when he was the, became the defense minister of the self-proclaimed Donets People's Republic during the summer of 2014. His most infamous moment was that he presided over these rag-tag rebel forces when Malaysian Airlines flight was shot down over Danyetsk by his guerrilla forces using a Russian anti-aircraft missile missile. It was a mistake.

they were clearly trying to target a Ukrainian military transport plane and brought down a civilian airliner instead. In fact, I think he, I believe he celebrated the shooting down of Ukrainian craft online before realizing that they had screwed up. Russian state media also reported on a, in the beginning, reported on a Ukrainian transport plane that had been brought down. and then suddenly the story changed radically. So that is sort of Igor Gierkin's claim to fame. He started the violent uprising by taking a small band of like-minded people into the Danyetsk region. Then there was the conflict escalated. There was a tragedy of the Malaysian airliner.

And actually shortly afterwards, he was taken back to a... he was recalled to Moscow in August 2014. He had a very short-lived career. I wanted to just say, I do think Igor Kierkin gets quite a lot of attention in my book, and I think he is really an important figure to look at because he was not a fan of Vladimir Putin. He was actually extremely critical. He was an ultra-nationalist slash imperialist. He belonged to the wing of Russian nationalists who believed that Russia should be an empire.

It should be a monarchy. He wanted to reconstitute the Russian empire under the Tsars. He was deeply skeptical of Vladimir Putin. He thought Vladimir Putin ruled over a very corrupt regime. And he describes how the events. in Crimea raised his hopes that suddenly there would be, you know, that finally Putin was doing what he was supposed to do from the very beginning. He was going to restore empire. And Igor Girkin describes that. And I think in some ways, Igor Girkin is interesting because

he doesn't lie. He tells it as he sees it. And so he gives a very good lens into this extreme kind of thinking. For the Kremlin, he was a freak. And I think what we need to understand at the time, and what we have to understand is he was very useful. A lot of what happened in Crimea and later in Eastern Ukraine was done by freelancers. Igor Gyrkin didn't have an assigned order from Vladimir Putin to do this. It was all through intermediaries, people close to the Kremlin. And in fact, one of Gyrkin's handlers, an oligarch named Constantine Malofaev, was actually against Girkin going into Eastern Ukraine. So there was an unclear idea in the Kremlin exactly what to do in Eastern Ukraine. There was a very clear idea what to do about Crimea, but not so much about Eastern Ukraine.

But people like Girkin created new facts on the ground, and all of a sudden you had this separatist, well, you had two separatist statelets, the Danesk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic, on Ukrainian soil. He created, he helped create those facts on the ground. He was recalled because he was becoming too troublesome.

He didn't actually follow orders from anybody. And he returned to Russia and he became sort of a celebrity in in far right imperialist circles in Russia, and he became more and more critical of the Kremlin. He became, he was very open about his own role.

I think he was, in fact, proud of his role, and he bragged about how he was, quote, the trigger man of this horrible conflict. And briefly, to answer your question, he is now in jail. because he criticized the conduct of the full-scale invasion, and he was becoming too much of a nuisance, and he's landed up in prison like anybody in Russia who shows any kind of initiative, whether it's whatever the ideological motivation is,

anyone who shows any motivation of their own and doesn't take orders from the Kremlin, in the end we'll probably have their wings clipped. One important point about Igor Gierkin. I described him as a freak in 2014, that the Kremlin viewed him as a freak and as a tool that they could use and see, you know, what can he bring us? And always having the shield of, you know, this credible deniability that we don't know who this guy is to protect them. He was a freak and the opinions he voiced were really out there. what I try to describe in my book is how Vladimir Putin, by February 2020, when he launches a full-scale invasion, he becomes Igorkin.

They use the same language about restoring this lost Russian glory. It's clear that Vladimir Putin believes in autocracy as Russia's form of government, at least as long as he's the autocrine. So it's an evolution or you could put it a different way, degradation on the part of Vladimir Putin. He started his political career saying he wanted to be compared with European countries. He wanted to get for Russia to have a per capita GDP the same as Portugal's. And which was a completely realistic goal. he was presiding over an oil boom. There was no reason why Russia shouldn't have become a normal middle-income country.

But Putin makes this long transition, you know, becoming more and more isolated and seeing the West more and more as his enemy. And by the end of that long journey, he becomes Igor Kyrkin himself. You describe him as a freak, and I just really want to highlight a couple things for the audience. So they really like get the picture here. This is a guy that he's a cosplayer or was. He's in prison now. That was, like, was posting on his VK account photos of himself in, like, Roman Legionaire's outfits, dressing up like a soldier in the Russian Civil War,

like participating in those kinds of mock battles. And before going to Ukraine had, like, written these weeks. weird pseudo memoirs that were full of self mythology, kind of mixing up. Do you know how much of his military background prior to Ukraine was like real and how much was just made up? Do you have any idea? I don't is the short answer. But we do know that he had, I mean, I don't know if you can call it necessarily military background, but he had a fighting background because we know that he was a student. He was interested in history. And I believe right after his graduation, he went off to a fight in Transnistria, a little-known territory in Moldova that was, after the

breakup of the Soviet Union, wanted to stay aligned with Russia. And so he went and fought on the pro-Russian side. Then we also know from his own accounts that he was in Bosnia, fighting on the Bosnian Serb side during that terrible war. And that he ended up then in Chechnya, I believe working for the FSB during the Russian campaign to subdue Chechen independence. So I think these data points, you know, whether he self-mythologized or not, he is certainly someone who wanted to be in those places and who glorifies war, the idea of fighting. And he certainly, with great gusto, put on that mantle in Danyest. So talking about self-mythologizing, I was wondering if you can help us understand how Putin became who he is now.

It does seem, you were talking about, you know, I mean, he was a modernizing autocrat. I mean, he was going to. He listened to the cosplayers. I'm just kidding. No. I mean, so, you know, sometimes in novels and maybe in history, someone will, you know, a king will have a terrible feat. and they'll wake up as a different person and become evil in a way they'd never been. Is it, in Putin's case, more just like he's been hanging around too long?

I mean, he was always, and he was an intelligence. Like, come on. He was, but it's not the same thing necessarily as, anyway, Lucian, I'm going to, I'm going to give it to you rather than Matthew. Well, I think there's also some truth in what Matthew. was saying, but I would agree fundamentally that yes, he was hanging on too long. And I think any leader

that stays in power so long the bubble, and this can happen in a democratic country as well, right? I mean, your bubble of advisors and people you listen to closes and you're less receptive to any kind of criticism. And of course

Vladimir Putin in that sense is a very old-fashioned dictator. He was uninterested in the internet. He saw dangers in the internet. I mean, dangers to his own security in the sense that he did not use computers or does not use computers because he doesn't want to be surveilled. So his intelligence reports, you know, come in red folders and, you know, typed out briefings. that's how he gets his information and of course his information has been filtered i think the best

example of how distorted his information is is the fact that he decided to uh launch a full-scale invasion in february 2022 um i mean anybody could have just taken a trip to ukraine and they would have known that ukrainians are not going to receive russian soldiers with with flowers and chocolates. I mean, this was evident to anybody who, you know, had their eyes and ears open in Ukraine. And it looks like the intelligence that he was getting was massaged, to put it mildly. And it had to fit ideas that, the preconceived notions that he already had. So I think it was a I think it was a long sort of degradation. And of course there were there were some key events that that happened shortly before the full-scale invasion, which I discuss.

I think COVID played a big role in the sense that Putin became even more isolated. And his circle of advisors and confidants became even small. And it was restricted then to really just a handful of people who had very extreme views on what the United States was about, and particularly in what the United States was purportedly trying to do to Russia. And I think that was one of the main factors. And another factor is that in October 22, Vladimir Putin was going to be 70. And anniversaries, I cannot stress this enough, anniversaries for Vladimir Putin are extremely important. He almost seems to have some kind of superstitious belief in dates like that.

And I believe on his mind was this idea that I can go down in history as the Russian leader who, in quotes, lost Ukraine, or I can go down in history as the one who reconquered Ukraine. And we know that he likes to compare himself with Russian czars who added new lands, Peter the Great or Catherine the Great, these larger than life figures in history. We know that he thinks he belongs in that pantheon of Russian leaders. And so he believed what he was being told, that Ukrainians were simply waiting to be liberated from the Zelenskyy. regime, as they call it, and that he could march in and that this would be a matter of, of, of, of, you know,

weeks, if not days and that the Zelensky was hanging on by a thread and that, you know, that he would probably run away or that he could be, um, he could be assassinated without too much, uh, trouble. What does Putin want after Ukraine? Let's say, I mean, Does he still, first of all, think that Ukraine as a whole is something that can be conquered by Russia, meaning like, you know, the full territory? And if that's successful, you know, the NATO line and fear is, you know, Latvia is next or Lithuania is next. So what do you think, what do you think he believes? What does he want? we of course don't know and obviously we often hear from people in the baltic countries especially

which were part of the soviet union against their will and which were also part of the russian empire for for for centuries obviously they're extremely afraid and and and rightfully so but what he really wants and if he's really planning to attack nato nexus is another issue. Just to break that down. So as far as Ukraine is concerned, I don't think the goal was ever to incorporate large parts of Ukraine into Russia. In Putin's own words, when he began the invasion, he said, we are not, we don't plan to occupy Ukrainian territory. His idea was creating a puppet government in Kiev and having a government that was dependent on Russia, much like Belarus. They can call themselves an independent country, but they need to take

their orders and especially their policy on foreign and security policy needs to be in line with Russia. So he wants to control it. He doesn't care about certain territories. And I think this is also going to be a crucial, if we do enter some kind of people, talks and understanding is that this is not about territory, this is about control. And where exactly that border ends, I mean, within Ukraine, I don't know. The second part of that is what happens, even if he gets what he wants in Ukraine, will he continue to go further? I certainly think that Europe will become a much more unstable place and Russia will be more tempted to test the NATO alliance.

And certainly after utterances by Donald Trump, people in Eastern Europe have reason to fear that once again they will be thrown under the bus, that the West will not come to their aid if Russia tries to take their territory. And I can imagine what we see already right now is a, as a case. campaign of sabotage, a Russian campaign of sabotage within Europe, which is often hard to pin down, which is maybe doesn't really cross the boundary of a military attack, but certainly attacks on infrastructure. And I think the danger for for the West is that this line will constantly be tested. And I think arguably now with Donald Trump coming in.

into office, NATO is an extremely fragile position. I think under Joe Biden, at least there was no doubt that this Article 5, the guarantee of, that an attack on one was an attack on all, that that will certainly come under doubt under Donald Trump. And I think there will be a great temptation to see just how strong the NATO alliance and its unity is. How worried are you about nukes? I think any time we're talking about fighting a war with a nuclear power, especially a very personalist nuclear power like Putin's Russia, we should be concerned about nuclear weapons. I say personalist power, or that we should

be specifically worried about that, is that, of course, Putin could be. inflates himself with Russia and his own interests with Russia's interests. So if he feels like his regime is somehow under threat, well, for him, that might be an existential account as an existential threat for Russia itself. So I think we should always be concerned by it. What I think maybe has happened in the West is that these concerns are made public. And we are,

we are, supposedly we are open democracies. It's good to talk about these things. We need to talk about these things. And obviously political, political leadership means discussing risks openly. But on the other hand, I think there's an argument for what's called strategic ambiguity

about not necessarily announcing everything that you're going to do. And so I think that's a very, that's a very difficult question. It's very, extremely delicate, but I, I think we should be concerned

as long as we're talking about Vladimir Putin and nuclear weapons. I have another, this is a big question. And Jason, unless you've got something else, this is maybe one

that can take us the rest of the way. It depends on how good a question it is. Let's find out. Let's find out. You, your career in, Russia, reporting on Russia is long. You know, five years as NBR, Moscow Bureau Chief, a pool reporter for Bloomberg. How has that country changed in the last 20 years? How different is it

from when you started reporting on it? Thanks for that question. I actually first traveled to Moscow in 1991. It was the last year of the Soviet Union. I was a student at the time that was an unforgettable trip. Going there as a young American and interacting with Russians, I often describe it as a reunion with long-lost relatives. We were so happy to see each other because there was that iron curtain between east and west. And it was a moment of great hope on both. sides that finally, finally this iron curtain was over and we could be friends. And the future looked

bright. I think people understood that there were a lot of barriers along the way. I mean, also in terms of Russia's development. Russia was in a very difficult position in the early 90s economically. But there was a great sense of optimism in Russia. And I think also in the West, I spent a lot of time in Europe also since the 90s. And certainly in places like Germany, there was a great feeling of optimism after German unification that this was sort of a final chapter, that this was supposed to happen, that good defeated evil. And that was a widely held view.

Russia is a very different place from then. We're now more than 30 years. years out from the fall of the Soviet Union. And none of that fascination with the West is there anymore. I think there's a widespread disappointment. And I described this in my book as well, that Putin represents a generation of Russians who became deeply disillusioned by the West. And they might have had certain hopes. Russians certainly wanted to be accepted by the West. And there was a feeling that they were never going to be fully accepted. Was that the West's fault?

I think there are certainly legitimate criticisms you can make of the way the West behaved towards Russia. But I think, as I mentioned at the very start, one of the drivers here was, for this development was Russian autocracy and the return of Russian autocracy, and Russia's failure to become a democracy. And I remember when I left Moscow in 2021, it was at the end of August 2021, so just about half a year before the Fulsive Foundation, I was happy to leave. Russia had become a very dark place.

Alexei Navalny was in jail. The political opposition had been shattered. it had become impossible to protest on the streets. People were being put in jail for really for anything, for tweets, just for what we would consider normal expressions of opinion. It had become a very dark place. I felt like my job as a journalist was almost impossible. Because you could stay in Russia and report on

just continuing repressions and injustices. And that's not something you want to spend all your time doing. So I've found Russia in a very dark place when I left. But I also see some cause for optimism. As I described in my book, one of the big surprises I had when I moved to move back to Moscow in 2016. was not Putin's autocracy. That was not the biggest surprise. The biggest surprise for me was a new generation of Russians

who were free in their minds. They had grown up completely free of Sylvia ideology or even some kind of resentment, the kind of resentment that people of Putin's generation keep inside them. They were free of all that. They were free thinkers. They had grown up on the Internet. They had grown up even traveling.

And these young Russians, for the most part, although there was an exodus of politically active people after the full-scale invasion, most of those people are still there. Most of the people, young people I dealt with when I was in Russia are, of course, still inside the country. And this is one reason I think one reason I think we can hope. Of course, the longer that this war goes on and the longer that the Putin regime hangs on, of course they will do their best to brainwash a new generation of Russians. And I think that is, of course, one big danger that we have to deal with is that there will be, however way this ends, that there will be a feeling of new resentment. towards the west, depending on how the outcome of this war ends up.

Lucian Kim, thank you so much for joining us. His book is Putin's revenge, Why Russia Invaded Ukraine. And we hope you rush out and buy it. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you so much, Jason. Thanks to you too, Matthew.