Angry Planet - Ukraine on the Brink

Episode Date: November 20, 2021

Ukraine. It started with pro European protests in the Winter of 2013. Then came the annexation of Crimea, the little green men, Igor Strelkov, the Donbas, and a long simmering war in the Eastern Ukraine. Things are changing. Ukraine’s president said that Russia has amassed 100,000 troops on the border, Latvia has mobilized its National Guard, and Poland called for an emergency meeting of NATO. To say tensions are rising would be an understatement. Here to walk us through what’s happening is Coffee or Die Magazine senior editor Nolan Peterson. Peterson is a journalist and a former United States Air Force special operations pilot. He’s published a lot of great journalism from the frontlines of the war in the Donbas. His latest is A Brief History of Russia’s War Against Ukraine.Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.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. People live in a world with their own making. Frankly, that seems to be the problem. Welcome to Angry Planet. Hello and welcome to Angry Planet. I'm Matthew Galt. And I'm Jason Fields. Ukraine. It started with pro-European protests in the winter of 2013. Then came the annexation of Crimea, the Little Green Men, Igor Strelkov, the Donbos, and a long simmering war in eastern Ukraine. Things are changing, though. Ukraine's president said that Russia has amassed 100,000 troops on the border, Latvia has mobilized its National Guard, and Poland called for an emergency meeting of NATO. To say tensions are rising would be an understatement. Here to walk us through what's happening is

coffee or die magazine senior editor Nolan Peterson. Peterson is a journalist and a former United States Air Force Special Operations Pilot. He's published a lot of great journalism from the front lines of the war there. His latest is a brief history of Russia's war against Ukraine. Sir, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me on. All right. So let's just get right to it. We usually start with some basics, but I kind of just want to ask this question first. This is like so much has been happening in the last week, even. Is Russia about to invade Ukraine? Well, Russia has already invaded Ukraine. It's simply a matter of whether the Kremlin wants to escalate the conflict and to turn what is now a static, stalemated trench war

into a more mobile conventional invasion of eastern Ukraine. So I'd say that what we're seeing now is definitely troublesome. And I think that it is also emblematic of sort of the ongoing risk of the war in Ukraine. And that is that you have two of the largest land armies in Europe, effectively trading pot shots at each other every day. And there's always the chance that this war could quickly escalate into a disaster that goes beyond Ukraine's borders, which you alluded to when speaking about sort of the broader rise and tensions in Eastern Europe. Can we get a little bit more background on what this buildup actually looks like right now, especially from the Russian side? I mean, what we know anyway.

Absolutely. And I think it's important to note that the buildup that we're talking about is actually when you say 100,000 troops which are positioned sort of on Ukraine's periphery, that's not necessarily a big jump from the amount of soldiers, Ukrainian or excuse me, Russian men and material that have been there for since April, effectively, the last time that Russia sort of, you know, waved its saber in Ukraine's direction, so to speak. I think we've seen about 10,000 new soldiers in that general area since maybe about a month ago. But mainly it's just been the repositioning of units, which I think caught the eyes of some open source intel observers.

There are a lot of Russian units that repositioned near Ukraine for the Zapod exercises earlier this year and also during the earlier escalation or the earlier build of in April. And those units just never went home. But recently there's been the repositioning of some of these units, which initially sort of, got people talking on social media about what was going on. I have to say that, you know, from the, from an outsider's perspective, somebody who's not privy to top secret intelligence anymore, I have to say like on the outset, like that dramatic of a buildup or escalation compared to what is usually sort of poise on Ukraine's borders, which makes me think that there is almost certainly some sort of higher intelligence,

whether it be SIGM or something from the U.S. government that spurred this sort of round of, call it, like, alert messages sent to Ukraine and the NATO partners. Initially, even, Ukraine was downplaying this so-called buildup or Russian forces. They initially said, you know, this is nothing unusual. We're not detecting anything threatening. However, after consulting with U.S. officials, they changed their tune on this. So it signals to me that there's something else, which is driving the concern from Washington. And as far as, you know, the sort of the chances of whether this. escalates, I'd say that those chances are probably decreasing.

Russia had been, as they've been repositioning these forces and slightly building them up, it had been going on rather covertly, much more covertly than you had seen in April, when most of the troop movements and the movements of artillery and heavy weapons were occurring during the daytime, where they were very easily detected by people of dash cameras or dash cameras and whatnot, which all these videos were ending up on social media. but this latest sort of repositioning happened much more sort of subtly than earlier, which suggested that Russia wasn't doing this mainly for political purposes because they weren't advertising it like they did earlier for some political or diplomatic gain. However, if there was some other

intelligence, which is driving this concern now within Washington and in Europe more broadly, perhaps the cat is out of the bag and Russia lost some sense of surprise, which it had counted on, And that, to me, would probably suggest that there is a decreased likelihood of this being a concerted or a pre-planned gambit to escalate the war from Russia's side. You just recently got back from the front lines. And I was wondering if you could not just describe the mood, but sort of describe the mode of war. I mean, what does the war look like? And are they actually Russian troops? or are the officially Donbass independence fighters or whatever we're calling them?

Yeah, without a doubt, it is a very bizarre conflict when you're on the ground. I think that most often people forget that the war is even going on because it is a static, stalemated trench war fought at a low intensity. You know, you might see a Ukrainian soldier killed in combat once every three or four days. So it's not anywhere near the intensity of combat back in 2000. 2014 and 15 when the war was more mobile and you're actually seeing attempts by both sides to take new ground. Right now it is a trench war. Both sides are, you know, firmly stuck in their positions. They're not trying to take new territory. They're simply just holding their ground.

Bizarre in the sense that it is a trench war, like, you know, obviously of a much smaller scale, but it looks and feels like maybe the World War I trenches in the Western Front. very primitive living standards. At the same time, you've got very sophisticated electronic warfare assets operating against the Ukrainians. You've got the use of drones and whatnot. So there's this high-tech edge to a very like sort of antiquated mode of war. And like I said, neither side is, is effectively trying to take new ground. They're sort of, you know, tacitly obeying the rules of the ceasefire. While at the same time, the Ukrainians are mostly weathering sort of daily attacks by the Russian side. And those tax, those tax are perceived as attempts to get the Ukrainians to shoot back to reveal their positions and also as sort of a lure maybe to have the Ukrainians overreact in a way

that might give the Russian side sort of a false flag pretense by which it can escalate the war should it choose to do so. I think the recent Bay Ractor drone strike by the Ukrainians, where they used the Turkish drone in combat for the first time just recently. That was an instance, I believe of sort of, just emblematic, again, of sort of the overall risk of this conflict, which is that you have the Ukrainian side out there weathering these daily attacks, and they're doing their best to not shoot back and escalate. But when they feel like their lives are on the line, they're going to defend themselves. And when that happens, it provides Moscow the propaganda pretense that it can exploit to escalate the war if that's what Moscow's intent is. As far as the

the nature of the forces that the Ukrainians are fighting against. The official intelligence estimates I got from the Ukrainian military while I was out there was on the order of about 2,000 Russian regulars embedded within a force of about 35,000 irregular troops who are mostly Ukrainians drawn from the Dombas region of the Russian-occupied zone in eastern Ukraine. But clearly, you know, it is a Russian war. It is commanded by Russia. It is funded by Russia. It is armed by Russia. And the Russian media line is that these are disaffected Ukrainians who, you know, didn't, they didn't agree with Ukraine's pro-Western

2014 revolution and there's some sort of persecution against Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine, all of which is totally false. The overwhelming majority, by the way, of the volunteer Ukrainian soldiers I met on the front lines are Russian speaking, many of whom are from the Dombas and who witnessed to Russian soldiers showing up in their towns and villages and cities in 2014 and decided that they wanted to fight back against what was essentially a Russian invasion of their land. So the notion that this is a civil war is completely false. This is a Russian orchestrated invasion in which they basically raised an army in eastern Ukraine. Russian intelligence operatives, special forces operatives back in 2014, effectively raised a local army to operate

according to Moscow's bidding in eastern Ukraine. I have what may be an odd question. We had some number of years back, we had Peter Pomeranzov on this on the show. He had been in Ukraine and he'd written about it in his book. And it struck me as you were kind of talking about the stalemated nature of the war and like the massive amounts of electronic surveillance and like these drones kind of flying through by drones. I mean like off the shelf quadcopter things flying around. He said he had the sense that the point of a lot of the conflict was.

was to pose for propaganda. Not to say that it wasn't dangerous and there wasn't death, but that he felt like he was that soldiers were there to generate footage. You know, in this, he felt was something that was expressed on both sides. Do you have any sense of that? Does that make any kind of sense? Yeah, I think I would agree with that assessment in general. There's a certain angle you could look at it.

And I think that the propaganda value, if you want to call it, but the messaging from the Ukrainian. side, I'll say that, you know, from an outsider's perspective, I'm an American citizen, I'm not Ukrainian. I often look at the Dolbos, and I ask myself, why is Ukraine fighting so hard to get this territory back? You know, they haven't had these two occupied zones, these two so-called separatist republics within the governmental fold since 2014. And couldn't Ukraine just say, whatever. You know, if you guys want to be on your own, have at it. We're going to go about our lives and the war, which would increase our chances of joining the EU and NATO and all this

stuff. But I think when you talk about sort of the messaging of the continued war effort, there is a huge population of veterans of this war now in Ukraine. And whenever you see sort of diplomatic pushes or moves to find a political solution of the war, you do see pushback from the veteran community in Ukraine saying, listen, we fought and we have many friends die in this conflict. We're not going to just back away and let this territory be lost to, you know, de facto rushing control. So I think that part of the Ukrainian war effort now is meant to send a message to Ukraine's citizens and the veteran community that, you know, we're going to continue this fight until the end until we get our territories back. So I think from that angle, yes,

there's a sort of, I mean, I want to call it an information war going on Ukraine. From the Russian side, I think that, you know, there's lots of different. opinions about why Russia decided to start this war. I think one of them, an interpretation of what Russia's actions that I agree with is that a Ukrainian democratic success story is a threat to the legitimacy and the long-term grip on power of Russia and President Vladimir Putin. As Ukraine evolves democratically, they, you know, Ukrainian citizens, for example, now can travel throughout the European Union without a visa, which is something that Russians cannot do. And equality of life in Ukraine is generally increasing and improving.

And so I think that, you know, to the Russian audience, to the Russian population, as they see life in Ukraine moving in a positive direction, as they've turned toward the West and toward more democratic values, I think that's a threat towards the Russian brand of autocracy right now. And so I think that to a degree, Russia wants to paint, Ukraine as a failure in order to justify the ongoing system of government in Russia. So yes, there's absolutely messaging going on by both sides. And I think that from my perspective, those are probably two of the most important messages the size are looking to express. I feel like if I were Ukrainian and I first had lost Crimea, then the encroachment by the Donbass,

I would think if I gave up the Donbos, wouldn't that encroachment? the Russians to take Kiev or do something more? I mean, you think that's a legitimate argument? Absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, whether or not, you know, political scientists and military experts could debate that to the end of time. But the perception among Ukraine soldiers is absolutely. And that's something I've heard, I've reported on this conflict since it began in 2014. And, you know, a very common refrain I hear from the Ukrainian soldiers is if we turn around and walk back to our hometowns, Russia will just advance right behind us all the way to, like you just said, like to keep. So there's a sense that they are, although, you know, neither side is actively trying to take ground, they do think that by being out there and maintaining, you know, that static war, that front,

they are keeping the Russian threat at bay and keeping it from metastasizing throughout the rest of the country. You know, in the beginning of the war, you know, Russia, the Russian proxy forces had occupied a much greater amount of territory. And Ukraine's mostly volunteer partisan army was able to take back most of that ground. And it wasn't until in August 2014, when Russian forces, regular forces openly intervene with artillery and tanks and regular soldiers and routed the Ukrainians at the Battle of Ilovisk, that the war kind of, you know, it found its stalemated boundaries at which it remains today. So in the beginning, Ukraine demonstrated sort of the ability to get this ground back. And Russia's original intent, which is to create this sort of political war or this unconventional.

People call it hybrid. I would more like to call it unconventional war because, you know, nothing that Russia did in the Donbosir in Crimea. It didn't invent any of these tools of like false flag operations and patchless soldiers and propaganda and all this stuff. It was just a very sort of modern application of all these different warfighting tools that Russia put to effect. But anyway, Ukraine had the advantage in the early part, and it took Russia's open conventional intervention to put the war in the condition that it's at now. What about some of the other regional players there? How do Ukrainians' neighbors feel? Do I have any sense? Yeah, and I think, you know, that sort of segues into this incredibly

dangerous moment we're in. And I, one thing, I've also over the last eight years had the opportunities to travel and report from the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and as well as in Poland, all of which are NATO members. The Baltic states used to be part of the USSR, and Poland obviously was part of the Warsaw Pact. So in these countries, there is a living memory of Soviet oppression, which is, of course, correlated with Moscow and Russia, Russian oppression. And you see these countries who perceive Russia as an existential threat, particularly after 2014 when Russia began its aggression in Ukraine that is continuing until today. So because of that, there's certainly, I believe, a cleave, an east-west cleave within NATO, in which the eastern part of NATO takes

the Russian threat seriously as an existential threat to their existence. Whereas in the West, in Paris, Berlin, London, you don't see that same level of concern about the Russian threat. And so because of that, there is a risk, I believe, that if the war in Ukraine significantly escalates, there's the possibility that the Baltic states in Poland won't be willing to just sit by idly and wait for NATO, the rest of NATO, or the United States to get the green light to do something to stop Russia and Ukraine. These countries may decide that it's in their instruments. to freelance their own national security outside the bounds of NATO and to do something into intervening Ukraine.

And then you've got NATO countries potentially involved in combat with Russia. And then does that lead to Article 5? We don't know. It's just, you know, I call it, it's maybe sort of a corny thing to say, but it's that I call it like the Franz Ferdinand scenario, right? Like, just a firefight in the Dombaos could escalate to the degree with suddenly you've got NATO countries debating whether they need to intervene in a war against Russia. And so I, you know, from my perspective, I think that we are all, we are at a very dangerous moment where things could

very quickly escalate. Like you mentioned earlier at the beginning of this podcast, you know, those, those countries in the Baltics and Poland are militarizing their borders against Belarus right now. And you've got Russian war planes, nuclear capable bombers overflying these borders at the same time. The intentions are extraordinarily high. And I think that one unanticipated event could very easily spark this domino chain of escalatory tit for tat moves that these countries may not be able to arrest once it's set in motion. You mentioned briefly at the very beginning of the largest military in Europe, Ukraine, right? I think that people who haven't been paying attention don't understand what like Poland's military looks like now, the amount that it spins on it, what

Ukraine's military looks like now, the amount that it spins on it. The things that Estonia has been pioneering in terms of like countering disinformation and what I would call like electronic or cyber warfare, they have been looking towards Moscow for a long time and preparing for this, right? Can you talk about some of the nuts and bolts of like what the military buildup in these places actually looks like. Absolutely. I wouldn't say that, I would say that, you know, Russia in Ukraine are two of the largest militaries in Europe, Russia being the biggest.

But Ukraine being up there, I think in terms of military spending, they're still, you know, far behind a country like France, United Kingdom. But they have, you know, about 200,000 active duty soldiers, which puts them on par with some of the biggest militaries in Europe, without a doubt, the amount of Soviet era weapons and hardware they have put them well ahead of well, well ahead of France, Germany, United Kingdom, as far as just raw armored power they have at their disposal. That said, I mean, what you just, with the point you just hit on is an extraordinarily important point to make. And that is that the sort of the balance of power in Eastern Europe has been completely upheaved since 2014.

It is a totally different picture than what we had before the war in Ukraine began. When the war began, Ukraine could only feel a couple thousand, a few thousand, like less than probably about 5,000 combat-ready soldiers when the war began. And now they've got more than 200,000. And moreover, those soldiers, many of whom, many especially the young officers, have eight years of combat experience against the conventional military that's technologically sophisticated, the modern Russian military. They have more combat experience in Ukraine than any NATO country, far and away,

including the United States. I mean, eight years of combat against trenches, against tanks, heavy artillery, electronic warfare assets, against drones, you name it. Ukrainians have experienced that. And so I think that the Ukrainian military now is probably one of the most combat-capable militaries in Europe and certainly within NATO. When you talk about the Baltics and Poland, Russia's 2014 invasion of Crimea on the Donbass certainly inspired those countries you want to say, it inspired them to increase their defense spending significantly. I'm not sure if it still is true today, but I know for that for the first few years from 2014 onto probably about 2016-17, the Baltics, those three countries were the most rapidly

militarizing on earth as far as their annual defense spending increases. Poland, too, has dramatically increased its defense budget. And like I said, I think, you know, these countries, the closer you get to Russia, the more you perceive Russia as an existential threat. And these countries certainly perceive the possibility of a Russian invasion, like a World War II style invasion, something they take deadly seriously. And beyond just the conventional military spending increases, I think one of the more striking things is you see in these countries, the reemergence of these partisan units, these civilian outfits, which go out, I think in Estonia in particular, that civilian militias outnumber the regular military significantly. And these civilians who are ready to wage a guerrilla

war against a potential Russian invasion. And so it's just like this collective defense mindset you're seeing across the region, which really speaks to the seriousness with which these nations and these countries perceive the possibility of an open war with Russia. It's still kind of a joke, though, the other side. I mean, Russia has about a million troops. Poland has about 100,000. thousand in experienced troops. I think we should probably point out. I don't know the last time Poland was in a war that wasn't World War II. And then you also have Germany now, which is a major diplomatic player. Merkel has gone over and tried to negotiate peace in the Donbos and also with the situation in Belarus. But the Germans have 64,000 troops. If this really turned into a war,

this would be nasty and not exactly what Americans are used to. thank you. Yeah, and I totally agree. I think that if Russia said, you know, we're all in, we're going to try and invade Ukraine or the Baltics, absolutely there, they would have the military power to be successful. I think what's changing, though, is that particularly in Ukraine, the cost and blood and treasure to Russia would be exponentially higher today than it was in 2014. And that has to be a deterrent to Moscow, knowing that you're going to have a lot more had Russian soldiers is going to cost a lot more money. And moreover, you know, I think the scale of the, do I want to call it carnage would be to a degree that most, you know, Russia, many Ukrainians

have family in Russia and vice versa. So I think that if it became that deadly of a war, I think that the Russian people would probably quickly lose their appetite for it. However, to your point, you know, the Ukrainian military does understand that, I mean, I would say their overall objective right now, apart from continuing the war effort in the Dombas is to try to prepare for an outright Russian invasion. That is their strategic lodestar right now is to prepare for that. That said, understanding that they would be unable to stop a full-on Russian invasion, a huge part of their defense strategy are these territorial defense battalions, which are civilian units, which are basically positioned in each major urban center across Ukraine,

which would mobilize and sort of prosecute a, partisan guerrilla war against any prospective Russian invasion force. Interesting to note that some of these units are actually studying al-Qaeda and Iraq tactics, which were used against U.S. troops, as their model for how they would harass Russian forces should they actually try to take new ground in Ukraine. So I think you would see a very, you know, sort of an unconventional defense of Ukraine, sort of a rearguard defense, knowing that, you know, they couldn't stop the initial invasion of Ukraine, but they would fight an insurgency behind those Russian lines. Same goes for the

Baltics. And that's, by the way, sort of the U.S., the American plan for defending the Baltics, should Russia ever invade. We understand that, you know, there's a Rand report a few years ago. They said, yeah, I think Russia could get to the capital of Estonia Tallinn just like 72 hours or something like that. I would say probably even less. But the U.S. plan is we've been, our special forces, Army special forces, Green Berets have been out there for years working with these territories. irregular units in the Baltic states preparing them so that if there was a Russian invasion, the U.S. would send special operations forces, you know, Greenbred, seals, you name it, behind the lines to lead sort of an insurgency or a guerrilla war against the invading

Russian forces. So I think that's instead of that unconventional war plan, that that would be sort of the answer to the fact that Russian military firepower is overwhelming in this part of the world. This is a good segue into something that we talked about a little bit before the show. So America's there in a training capacity, right, and giving aid, a huge aid package, I think just went last week. You said that you've seen some of the training sessions, right? You've been, like you've been there. Do the Americans have anything to teach the Ukrainians, or do the Ukrainians have more to teach the Americans in this region? Yeah, well, I'd say right now when it comes to combat skills, actually like boots on the ground, weapon in your hand skills.

I think the Ukrainians have more to teach the Americans than vice versa. I mean, like I said a few moments ago, Ukrainian soldiers, particularly many of the young officers and the sergeants who have been at war for eight years, they have experience in combat that hardly any active duty American soldiers do any longer. I'm at, you know, when was the last time? Maybe, maybe there were some, you know, tank skirmishes and desert storms. Vietnam, you saw artillery, but I mean, probably not since Korea, did you ever see a really legit conventional state-on-state conflict in which the U.S. was involved? And so I think, you know,

the Ukrainians have a lot to teach Americans in that regard. Moreover, they've seen a lot of these unconventional tactics by the Russians. And I think one of the really striking aspects of the Ukrainian story is how they've been able to improvise. solutions to a lot of Russia's very sophisticated modern weapons and tactics. For example, the electronic warfare threat by Russia is extremely prolific in the eastern war zone. So much so that, you know, the Harris encrypted radios that the U.S. has been providing to Ukraine are excellent at encrypting communications and preventing the Russians from understanding what the Ukrainians are saying to each other. However, when you push the push to talk button on a military

radio, you are basically shining a beacon on your position to Russian electronic warfare assets and they can target their artillery on those radio signals. So in many places, the Ukrainians have reverted to using World War I-style landline communications with rotary phones in some places because they know it's simply safer to stay off the airwaves on a radio and especially cell phones. They do not use them. So I think it's some of these sort of improvised on-the-fly solutions to the Russian modern tactics have been a real advantage to Ukrainians to defend themselves against these technologies and tactics. And I think that a lot of these innovations are things that the United States forces are

certainly looking at and considering as they look to a potential conflict against the near peer adversary, potentially, you know, in the near future. But I think, you know, I had the opportunity to visit the U.S. military training mission in Yavar an old Soviet base in Western Ukraine. I first witnessed this training back in 2015 when the war was relatively fresh, and Ukraine's military was still in the midst of this very rapid sort of reconstruction. For decades, the Ukrainian military had been plundered by corruption and weapons dealers in the post-Soviet era. And at that time, they were trying to reconcilicate their strength and field a regular military, which could hold the line against the Russian threat. And at that time,

the U.S. training in Yavarie was really focused on combat skills, you know, small unit tactics, how to clear a room, how to, you know, basic things, combat skills. I recently went out there a few months ago this year and that training is completely changed. So the Americans are no longer teaching combat skills. You have Ukraine's teaching themselves that and I would say probably also giving intel to the U.S. about what they've been doing out in the East. The U.S. training now is more as far as sort of the professionalization of Ukraine's military to change their command and control structure, their chain of command model. And one of the biggest changes and most notable changes has been Ukraine's divorce from this Soviet style chain of command model in which

decisions in combat were made by higher level officers sitting at rear echelon headquarters without their hide on the line effectively. But now, the Ukrainian model is much more closely adapted, or much more closely resembles the American or Western model in which you give a lot more autonomy and a lot more of a decision-making freedom to frontline commanders. So I'm talking like first lieutenants, captains who are in combat, and when it's under attack,

they have the ability to execute a commander's intent rather than having to call back up to some general and get explicit instructions about what to do. That gives Ukrainian forces a lot more flexibility in combat, increased ability to sort of adapt to battlefield realities without overrelying on sort of a complicated communication structure, which gives them the advantage, obviously, in a high-tech war, where you cannot count on communications that frontline units are able to execute without having to wait for higher headquarters to tell them what to do. do. The risk, however, is that, like I said, the Russian side each day is probing the Ukrainian positions, shooting at them, trying to provoke them to shoot back. And when you have retaliation

decisions hinging on the judgment of a 22-year-old first lieutenant out there in the front lines who is not required to call back and get approval to shoot back, there is the possibility that one of those front-line commanders could overreact and play into Russia's hands as far as trying to provoke the Ukrainians to shoot back. And so that's a risk that the Ukrainians have to have to balance out there, which is to give their troops, you know, the freedom and the autonomy to defend themselves under fire, while also trying to maintain enough control over them to understand that, you know, there is a larger sort of political war going on here and that a Ukrainian overreactual reaction could be exploited by the Russian side as that sort of false flag pretense by which Russia could,

which Russia could use to massively escalate the conflict. You're talking about American tactics and organization that have been brought to Ukraine. I'm wondering about U.S. troops. I'm wondering, like, what kind of commitment do we have to Ukraine at this point? I was thinking about Taiwan where we have strategic ambiguity, right, where we won't actually say whether we'll come to defense of Taiwan or not. And just wondering where we are with Ukraine. I mean, do we have an explicit deal where we will show up like the cavalry? No, we don't.

I mean, Ukraine is not a NATO ally. It's a NATO partner. So they closely work alongside NATO. Ukrainian soldiers served in Afghanistan and Iraq alongside NATO troops. but they are not a NATO country. So the U.S. has no sort of, you know, treaty obligation to come to Ukraine's defense in time of war. There was the Budapist memorandum, which was signed to when Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees from countries, including the United States and Russia, that if Ukraine's territorial integrity is ever violated, we would come to their defense. obviously we didn't

you know abide by that after the seizure of Crimea and the beginning of hostilities in the Donbass but no to answer your question succinctly I think that the United States does not have a you say like a treaty obligation to come to Ukraine's

defense however I think that you know like I have alluded to a few times I think that if there is a major escalation here the chances I think of this war remaining quarantine within Ukraine are low. I think that I, from my perspective,

I think that the Baltic states in Poland would most likely decide that they have to get involved because they don't want this war. They assume that Russia just wouldn't stop in Ukraine. They would just keep on rolling. And so I think that, you know, the United States would probably be in our interest to do something in that case.

But again, you know, that's a very tough call for any American leader because are we going to openly go to war with Russia over Ukraine. I don't know. That's a very tough call to make. Russia is, at this moment in time, probably the single country that poses an existential threat to the United States because of their nuclear arsenal, is it worth it for America

in the long run to go engage in active warfare with Russia over Ukraine? I think that it would probably depend on the circumstance. But I would almost certainly think that if there's an escalation in the dome, Bas, that American troops would not be involved in that. I don't think that would be in America's interest to get involved in that conflict. But army and Ukraine, you know, providing lethal weapons, all these sorts of things are strong diplomatic messages that I think America can make to deter Russia from from escalating. What is, you know, there's a person we've left out of this entire conversation.

Putin. do we what is he saying what is he doing you know what is russia telling its people about what's going on there right now well i think that sort of the the overriding russian message about this conflict has been that the 2014 revolution in ukraine we called the revolution of dignity here which overthrew victor yenukovych who was the pro-russian president at that time in ukraine in favor of a pro-western pro-democratic government in this country. I think that in Russia, that was portrayed as a, that revolution was portrayed as a CIA coup that installed a sort of a neo-Nazi regime in Kiev, which then wanted to go

out and persecute Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens in the east of the country, all of which, like I mentioned earlier, is completely fabricated and completely false. The revolution here was a grassroots democratic uprising against a move by Unicovic to cancel a pro-EU trade deal in exchange for a trade deal with Russia. And that ignited intense opposition from primarily young Ukrainians who don't want a future with Russia. They want a future with the EU and the West. And they went out there on their own accord, not through any prodding from Western intelligence agencies to secure the future that they wanted for themselves. But like I said earlier, I think that that message is one that challenges the legitimacy of the ruling elite within Russia.

And so I think that it was sort of Russia's decision. I doubt it was simply Putin who made this call, but I would say that he probably got a lot of pressure from the ruling elite, which sort of perpetuate his grip on power, that, you know, if Ukraine does this, it's that message will be transmitted to the Russian people. And it would, it could potentially spark some sort of like Arab Spring type scenario where Russians might feel compelled to have their own Maidan, their own revolution of dignity. The Maidon is the other name for Ukraine's 2014 revolution named after Kiev's Central Square, the Maidon. So as far as Putin's intent, I would say it's probably less, I think one

perhaps mistake a lot of Western observers make is to put too much importance on what Putin, the man, wants. I think he is in power, courtesy of a ruling elite. within Russia. And that elite wants to stay in power. Right. And it's not, you know, Putin, you know, they have this myth that is like this KGB chess master who's out there, like moving the pieces around. I think he's more just reactive trying to seize ad hoc opportunities when they pop up. And I think he saw the revolution as a threat to his grip on power, but also was an opportunity to go and prosecute moves within Ukraine that could bolster his grip on power within Russia. He's got a tiger by the tail and he's just trying to hold on.

Yeah. And he saw some, Putin certainly saw a huge boost in popularity after the seizure of Crimea, which has slowly eroded over the years as, you know, especially like, you know, the COVID pandemic has certainly hurt the economic situation in Russia. But I think, you know, Russia's support for Putin, I think, you know, is largely dependent on very sort of ordinary things like the economy, living standards and things like that. I think it's a lot less dependent on this sort of like desire for a new Soviet Union and all this. I think if the Russian people are comfortable and they're making money, their living standards are improving, their healthcare is improving, they're probably happy with Putin. But as those markers decrease, their sort of their

satisfaction with the ruling regime in Russia will decrease. And that could potentially increase the danger for Ukraine and Eastern Europe if Putin feels like he needs another foreign policy success to sort of lower the shroud over the Russian people to perhaps forget their day-to-day problems. So that is perhaps a risk, is that if, you know, as you see, you know, so domestic problems pop up in Russia, a foreign adventure. One theory is that a foreign adventure could be a mode by which Russia of Putin and the ruling elite who support him are able to sort of bolster or entrenched the grip on power. Are you going back?

Of course. I live here. I have been here for eight years. I'm married to a Ukrainian woman. So this is, you know, I first came to this country thinking I'd be here for two years. And, you know, I went out east in 2014 and saw tank battles and heavy artillery barrages and the wreckage of MH17. And I just couldn't believe that a war like that is going on in our time in Europe. and it doesn't get anywhere near the amount of attention that it deserves. Moreover, there's an incredible amount of disinformation surrounding this conflict. And I believe today, just as I have, I did in 2014, that this is one of the most dangerous places in the world because this conflict could very easily spiral into something much worse. And so, you know, I feel like among this, you know, the stories ongoing in the world right now, this is the most important, if not among the,

the very most important stories in the world. And I certainly feel an obligation to stay here and keep reporting on it. Nolan Peterson, you cover this pretty exclusively and thoroughly and well over at Coffier or Die Magazine. Please check it out. Most of their reporting is incredible. Honestly, all of their reporting really is incredible. So should go there if you're a fan of the show, you will like Coffee or Die magazine.

Thank you so much for coming on to Angry Planet and walking us through this. Thank you so much for having me. That's all for this week, Angry Planet listeners. As always, Angry Planet is me. Matthew Galt, Jason Fields, and Kevin O'Dell is created by myself and Jason Fields. If you like the show, we do have a substack at angryplanet.com or at Angry Planetpod.com. $9 a month gets you two bonus episodes and commercial-free versions of the mainline show. The most recent episode we did just came out.

It's about the insecurity of Jijun Ping. It's interesting conversation. I urge you to go and check it out. Again, that's at angryplanetpod.com or angryplanet.substack.com. We will be back next week with another conversation about conflict on an angry planet. Stay safe. Until then.