Consider This from NPR - Russia Makes Moves Against Ukraine

Episode Date: February 22, 2022

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree recognizing two breakaway republics in Eastern Ukraine and sent troops to the region. On Tuesday, President Biden called the move "the beginning of a Russian invasion" and announced a new set of sanctions. While Russia's actions reverberate throughout the world, no area has more at stake than Eastern Ukraine. That's where NPR correspondent Eleanor Beardsley has been reporting. And despite the escalation this week, U.S. diplomats are hoping to keep Russia at the bargaining table. But as Yale history professor Timothy Snyder explains, a sarcastic tone from Russian officials makes talks difficult. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

We have reason to believe the Russian forces are planning to and intend to attack Ukraine. Wow, we're prepared to respond decisively if Russia moves on Ukraine. Russia has said it does not plan to invade, even though it has an enormous number of forces. I am pretty confident that Putin really doesn't want war. That shows a Russian attack on Ukraine is now likely. After weeks of speculation about what Russia would do on the Ukrainian border, Vladimir Putin has started making moves. In a speech on Monday, the Russian president recognized

two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine as independent. I deem it necessary to make a decision that should have been made a long time ago, to immediately recognize the independence and sovereignty of Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic. Putin sent troops to those regions, not to start a war, he said, but rather to, quote, keep the peace. This was a really, really angry speech. That's NPR's Charles Maines on the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, near the Ukrainian border. Russians here in Rostov and elsewhere woke up this morning to the news and a new reality, you know, that the Kremlin had taken actions that could lead to war or crushing sanctions

or possibly both. And we now have news that Russian tanks are in these so-called republics as part of what Russia says is its peacekeeping force. Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky responded with his own speech late Monday night, calling the Russian move a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty. Zelensky is saying here, this is the moment when Ukraine finds out who its real friends and partners are. So how is the rest of the world responding? Who in the Lord's name does Putin think gives him the right to declare new so-called countries on territory that belong to his neighbors. President Biden, speaking on Tuesday, said Russia has now undeniably moved against Ukraine. So today I'm announcing the first tranche of sanctions to impose costs

on Russia in response to their actions yesterday. To start, Biden said the U.S. is implementing sanctions on two large Russian financial institutions, effectively cutting them off from Western financing. And he pointed to actions by U.S. allies. Germany said it would halt certification of Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline from Russia. Russia will pay an even steeper price if it continues its aggression, including additional sanctions.

Russia's moves also prompted an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council last night, where American Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield addressed members. President Putin is testing our international system. He is testing our resolve and seeing just how far he can push us all. He wants to demonstrate that through force, he can make a farce of the UN. We must act together in response to this crisis. Consider this. We are beginning to learn whether the buildup of Russian troops on Ukraine's border was an elaborate bluff or the precursor to war.

What does that mean for the global order and for people living in Ukraine? From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Tuesday, February 22nd. It's Consider This from NPR. Russia's moves in Ukraine this week have implications around the world, but the place where they have the biggest impact is in eastern Ukraine. Putin sent troops there yesterday after he recognized two separatist regions as independent. And Piers Eleanor Beardsley has been talking with people who live in eastern Ukraine, and she spoke with my co-host Elsa Chang on Tuesday afternoon. So where exactly are you at this moment?

Well, I'm in a town called Kramatorsk, which is in the Donetsk Oblast, or region in eastern Ukraine. It's not far from the Russian border, and it's just over the boundary from the separatist enclave of the so-called People's Republic of Donetsk. This town is now the regional capital of this Oblast because the larger town of Donetsk, which was the capital, has been occupied by the separatists for eight years now. We've been driving around to towns and villages in the area, and it's not easy. Because of this war, this region is carved up and there are roadblocks. You can't get into the separatist enclaves. I had to go through several Ukrainian army checkpoints today. And at the same time, it looks normal. It's flat like most of the rest of Ukraine. There are a lot of old factories, little charming villages, and some lovely golden

domed Orthodox churches. Well, as you're talking to people there, how are they reacting to Putin's speech last night and this decision to send so-called peacekeepers just across the boundary of this region you're in? Right. People told me they're very uneasy. They don't know, for example, if they're going to wake up tomorrow morning and see the Russian troops in their town. So I talked with 32-year-old Anna, who didn't want to give her last name because she was afraid, and she's a chemistry and biology teacher at a middle school. She says she watched Putin's speech last night. She says everyone feels like something's going to happen, and we're all scared. She said she loves her job, she has a lot of friends,

and she doesn't want to leave this place. Some men in the same town told me they would fight if the Russians came. Well, President Putin says the reason for his latest moves, in part, is to protect Russian speakers in this area. I'm curious, what do you make of that justification? Well, everyone here speaks Russian, so that's simply not true. And people here do know that that's a propaganda ploy of Putin's. I actually didn't meet anyone today who was pro-Russian, but I did go to a little village that's divided. It was about 10 minutes from the front line.

And I spoke with a 33-year-old shopkeeper, Roman Zatyaman, who told me about it. Here he is with my interpreter. It's like half people is like pro-Ukrainian, but half people is pro-Russian people. And people are scared to speak normally in the street. You know, he told me that pro-Ukrainians wouldn't talk to the media in case the Russians do come and it changes sides. He said last night pro-Russian people celebrated very discreetly after Putin's announcement. But he said they just want an end to this. The fighting, the division, the deprivation, many of them have children and grandchildren in those separatist places, and they just want to be able to see them. And that's why

they want the Russians to come to end it. Yeah. Well, Eleanor, can you just tell us a little more about this region, the Donbass? What has it been like to live there while this conflict has been ongoing for several years now? Yeah, well, this region was poor before this conflict. It's a former industrial heartland. It's been compared to West Virginia with coal mines and poverty, a lot of hardship. And this conflict is ripping families apart and devastating the economy even more. And I witnessed a very sad scene today. A family at a bus stop, the 32-year-old daughter was getting on a bus to Poland

where she found a job, leaving her 6-year-old child with her parents, and she won't be back until the summer. They were all crying, and the bus pulled away, and the grandparents, and the little boy walked away holding hands. And these people told me they're tired of war and politics. They just want work, and they just want their families to be together. That was NPR's Eleanor Beardsley. American leaders insist there can still be a diplomatic solution to this crisis.

But these diplomatic efforts have gone on for months without any breakthroughs. American leaders insist there can still be a diplomatic solution to this crisis. But these diplomatic efforts have gone on for months without any breakthroughs. In fact, Russian officials have maintained a sarcastic and often dismissive tone towards the West. Like at this press conference the Russian ministry held last week. It was February 16th, the same day U.S. intelligence had predicted Russia might invade Ukraine. Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova approached the podium. Sorry for being a little late. I was just checking whether we were invading Ukraine or not. Spoiler, we are not.

So what's the strategy behind Russia's sarcasm? And does it mean diplomacy is a dead end? NPR's Aisha Roscoe discussed that with Yale historian Timothy Snyder. How long have Russian officials used this kind of almost taunting tone toward the West during moments of conflict? We certainly saw it the last time that Russia invaded Ukraine back in 2014. I remember very clearly President Putin saying at the time that there were no Russian soldiers in Ukraine. And if there seemed to be, it was just people who had bought used camouflage from a local store. You can go to a store, buy uniform. Were these Russian

soldiers? No. So I think we're looking at something which goes back 10 years. It's a kind of postmodern cynicism, trying to put you on the back foot, trying to confuse you. And I mean, part of it is to keep people on edge. And one way to get people really worked up is to tell them to calm down, right? Like that's one I found in my life. Somebody tell me to calm down and I get worked up, right? Like that's like one, or I found in my life, somebody tell me to calm down and I get worked up, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're trying to, they're, they're definitely trying to confuse you. I mean, they, some that used to be, I mean, there are two ways of doing this. You can do nothing and insist you're doing something, or you can do something and insist you're doing nothing. And right now they're clearly doing something. I mean, they have, they have units that should be in Asia, which are normally there to protect against China, all the way over in Europe. They're definitely doing something.

And the combination of doing something and saying we're doing nothing is very confusing. How does this sarcasm from the Russian government compare to the sort of language we hear from diplomats in the Democratic West? It's very, very different. I mean, the contrast with the Americans or with the Germans is very striking. Diplomats in the West are generally earnest to the point of being boring. And I think particularly when confronted with the Russians, they do their best to be extra factual and extra careful about the way they speak, because they want to avoid the trap of being drawn into, you know, some kind of comedy contest or some kind of sarcasm contest. And also, I just wonder, like, who is the audience for this sarcasm? I think it's both domestic and foreign. They're trying to tell us that they're not afraid of us. They're willing to make fun of us. They're trying to show that they're an equal to any superpower and that they can put not doing anything wrong. They're really not planning to invade Ukraine. And it's important to know that at this particular

moment that that's what Russians believe. Russians don't think there is any chance that their country is going to invade Ukraine. Well, and that's interesting because it does seem like, you know, beyond the sarcasm, like Russian officials have continued to make this point that despite this tense relationship that Russia and Ukraine have, that the two countries are actually on the same page when they say Western leaders in the media are overblowing the conflict. Like, what is your assessment of that? What the Russians are doing is they're turning around something the Ukrainians are trying to say. What the Ukrainians are trying to say is that they don't know if Russia is going to invade tomorrow or the next day or not, but that for them, Russia is a constant threat. Russia's already in their territory. The thing that Russia's doing now, we could do again six

months from now or a year from now. And the Russians are trying to take advantage of that in recasting it as the Ukrainians saying that they don't think there's a threat right now. What the Ukrainians are trying to say is that there's a threat right now, but there's kind of a threat every day of the week and every day of the year. Another rhetorical tool that the Russians seem to be using now is modeling language from the Kosovo War. They're talking about ethnic cleansing, a refugee crisis, war crimes. What's the aim there in your view? Well, they need to have some kind of a pretext for invading. So let's remember the Russian people don't think there's a plan to invade. And therefore, you know,

the question of whether Russia should invade doesn't even come up. If there's going to be a major invasion, Russia has to gin up some kind of serious issue, which they can use to at least persuade their domestic constituency that something's going on. Genocide is a code word here. Genocide stands for the Second World War, and it stands for anxiety about the future of Russians beyond the border of Russia. But the thing that worries me about their use of the word genocide is the odd way that the things that they accuse others of tend to be the things that they're about to do themselves. The U.S. has been engaged in diplomatic talks with Russia for months at this point.

Should the U.S. be trying a different tone and strategy and trying to get through to Russian leaders? I think the U.S. is using a different tone. There's something historically new in what the U.S. is doing, which is that they are using intelligence openly to try to describe the things that Russia might be doing. And so far, they've hit the nail on the head. And that has clearly taken some of the fun out of it for the Russians. It's hard to be sarcastic about something that the other side correctly predicts that you're going to do, and then you

actually do it. So I think we should probably give some credit to this new development on the American side. That was Timothy Snyder. He's a history professor at Yale. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.