Front Burner - The Ukraine-Russia crisis escalates

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

NOTE: This episode was recorded before Putin’s declaration on Wednesday evening that Russia would conduct what he called a “special military operation” in Eastern Ukraine. For months, tensions have been escalating between Russia and Ukraine. But this week, they ratcheted way up after Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the expanded territorial claims of two Russian-controlled breakaway regions in Ukraine and ordered troops into the two territories. Today, Andrew Roth, The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, joins us to break down a major week in the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. For the past few months, tensions have been escalating on the Ukraine-Russia border, with many analysts and Western governments warning of a potential Russian invasion.

I've been absolutely clear with President Putin. He has no misunderstanding. If any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion. According to the U.S., since November, Russia has moved up to 190,000 troops to areas around the Ukrainian border, as well as tanks, missiles and medical equipment, including blood supplies. Along the highway leading to Ukraine's border, a visible and intimidating display of an arsenal that's been building for months. A line of trucks carrying soldiers towing artillery that just seem to continue on and on. Then, this week, tensions ratcheted way up.

First, Russian President Vladimir Putin officially declared the independence of two Russian-controlled breakaway regions in Ukraine, recognized the expanded borders claimed by separatists there, and ordered troops into the two territories. The two regions in question are Donetsk and Luhansk, and diplomats warn that recognizing these as independent states would give Russia the justification it wants to send in troops under the guise of protecting its own citizens. And late Wednesday here, early Thursday morning Moscow time, Putin authorized what he called a special military operation in eastern Ukraine. Today, we're going to catch you up on what has led to

this now incredibly perilous moment in the Russia-Ukraine crisis, explain a bit about what may be motivating Putin, talk about how regular Ukrainians and Russians are viewing what's been going on. I'm speaking to Andrew Roth, the Guardian's Moscow correspondent, and just a note to say that we spoke on Wednesday afternoon, Toronto time, before Putin announced the military operation. Hi, Andrew. Thank you so much for making the time. Hi, Jamie. Thank you for having me. I know this is such a busy time for you. And on top of that, I know you're losing your voice right now. So again, we are incredibly, incredibly appreciative.

And before we get into the updates from this week, I want to talk a bit about these two breakaway areas of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions, because they're really central to what's going on right now. And can you just explain what exactly these regions are for me and what kind of control Russia already has there? Sure. So Donetsk and Luhansk are these two regions that are in southeast Ukraine. And I think the first thing you should know about it is that it's just it's a pretty kind of tough industrial area that's always been this kind of coal mining corner of the country. And so in 2014, when there's a big revolution in Ukraine and Kiev, these two areas in particular are very opposed to it. You know, they're known to be more pro-Russian.

People there speak mainly or almost exclusively Russian at the time, more than Ukrainian. And, you know, in this area that's already kind of opposed, there's also a lot of strong Russian influence. You know, it's sort of a place where Russia sees that it can have an impact on what's going to happen next. And so what happens in 2014 is that first there are protests in these two areas in southeast Ukraine. And then those protests turn into something more like an armed rebellion. So we're with a couple of thousand pro-Russian protesters in Donetsk.

On Thursday they took the prosecutor's office and they looted a lot of police equipment, shields, helmets, body armor, and now you can see they look a lot different. They're armed themselves with the stuff they stole the other day and they look a bit more organized. There's a lot more orders being shouted around. I've even seen a couple of guns. So things have kind of ratcheted up a little bit. And this is where it becomes a little bit hazy because at a certain moment it goes from

just a kind of local rebellion to something that's really starting to be fueled by Russia much more. There's a big influx of weapons, not just small arms, but we're talking about tanks and artillery. And by the middle of 2014, these areas are fully at war with Kiev, with the kind of rest of the country. And they're basically able to carve out a kind of small Russian-backed separatist statelet for themselves. And there're basically able to carve out a kind of small Russian-backed separatist statelet for themselves. And there's two of them. They're called the Luhansk and the Donetsk People's Republics. And for the last eight years, these places have existed outside of the control of Kiev. But what's changed this week is that Vladimir Putin has said, these places are not part of Ukraine anymore.

They're independent states and we recognize their independence. And that's why this week has been so important. And I understand in addition to recognizing their independence, he also recognized these expanded borders that these two proxy states claim are part of their territories. So why would all of this coming from Putin this week be such a big deal? Right. So this sounds like a technical question, right? What are the exact borders that were recognized? What's so important about this is that it means the difference between a kind of stalemate, Russia goes in to defend those borders, to something more like a war of conquest. Russia

goes in to help them gain more territory. And so when Putin came out this week and said, we recognize the expanded borders, the bigger borders, that means that rather than this just being a kind of stalemate, it means it's much more likely that we're going to see these places go to war with Russian help to try to expand their territory. He's setting up a rationale to take more territory by force, in my view. And if we listened to his speech last night, and many of you did, I know, he's setting up a rationale to go much further. And for Russia, which might have much bigger designs on Ukraine, it's a reason for what could be a kind of full-fledged war in the future. Mm-hmm. I wonder if you could explain for me, like, on a map what this looks like, the current borders of these proxy states versus like what they're what they're claiming sure it's it's a little bit like a circle inside of a circle

right uh with the right side being russia you know russia's to the east of these territories but then there's a bunch of territory to the west of them that's under ukrainian control under government control. And so imagine that you kind of drew a bigger circle around the first one. They want to occupy that bigger territory. We're not just talking about towns or villages or fields. I mean, there are serious kind of large cities within those territories as well. The biggest one is Mariupol, which is a city of about 500,000 people. biggest one is Mariupol, which is a city of about 500,000 people. That's a very serious claim, because as opposed to fighting in a field, the idea of really, you know, urban combat,

of taking a city in Europe in 2022, is something that we haven't seen in years. You know, you would have to think back to the wars in former Yugoslavia, I think, to really find something similar. And this conflict would likely be much bigger. Putin ordered troops into Luhansk and Donetsk on what his government calls a peacekeeping mission. I want to emphasize this, Putin said, that all the controversial issues will be resolved during the negotiations between Kiev authorities and the leadership of these republics. But he added that Russia would be willing to use the military to help them fight for it. that Russia would be willing to use the military to help them fight for it. And I'm wondering if you can just help us understand the significance of this move.

Obviously, it's an escalation, but when Western governments warn about an invasion of Ukraine, is this what they're talking about? It's a complicated question because when we think about invasion, I think that we think about something like, you know, World War Two style, blitzkrieg, you know, over the top kind of tanks rushing across fields, invasion. But there's so much kind of politics and I think interest in the kind of language around what's going on, because it has very serious consequences. What kind of sanctions get put on Russia as a result? You know, what is recognized as a violation of international law? So for the last eight years, Russian troops have fought in this region, but they've done so secretly and to a relatively small degree.

To a relatively small degree. And the difference now is that if there's a real peacekeeping mission, and that obviously is a loaded political term because you could call it an invasion as well, we would likely see a much larger Russian deployment into the region. We're talking about tanks, artillery, rocket artillery, Tanks, artillery, rocket artillery, really a lot of really heavy equipment that would turn this kind of already pretty militarized area into, that this is the first time in this area that Russia is occupying Ukrainian territory formally. You know, before they had their troops there secretly. But now if they do officially send a large group of troops in, we're still waiting to see what they send in. This will be more like a formal occupation.

in. This will be more like a formal occupation. And that's a word that I think is worth using, because it's a little bit more accurate in terms of what would be happening and what we would see. We would see a kind of large group of Russian troops occupy Ukrainian territory. That doesn't mean that a larger invasion isn't possible. And it's not clear if what's happening right now is the endgame or if it's just the kind of middle of what's going to happen in a kind of larger conflict. The nightmare scenario, the worst case scenario, is that the Russian troops on the border don't just go into this region, but they really start to go into a lot of regions of Ukraine from various sides. You know, they can come up from the south, from the east and from the north as well

because they're in belarus and so in in the worst case scenario the one you hear about on the news that you might hear joe biden or justin trudeau talking about make no mistake this is a further invasion of a sovereign state and it is completely unacceptable um that's what they're talking about, sort of Russian tanks heading straight for Kiev, for Kharkiv, for these big cities. And that would be, you know, unprecedented since World War Two, it would be the biggest invasion we'd seen since then. Yeah, I hear all the rhetoric around this, this potential broader invasion. But do we have any clarity or evidence that this is what Putin is planning to do? There's only really two ways to look at it. One is to look at the military positioning of his troops. And the second is to look at the political rhetoric.

From the military point of view, the build-up on the russian side on the ukrainian borders is fairly unprecedented uh russia has deployed about 60 of its ground forces and maybe more to within 100 kilometers of the ukrainian border and in many cases much closer you know when i wake up in the morning when i'm reporting the one of the first things I do is I look at sites and accounts that do OSINT, which is sort of like open source intelligence. These are people who are looking literally at TikToks, of contactia pages, which are like Facebook, to see what locals in these towns and villages are kind of posting, what kind of videos. are kind of posting, what kind of videos. And what we see is that, you know, there are troops that are not just, you know, at bases, but are fanning out and getting quite close to the actual border itself in attack positions. We're talking about five or 10 kilometers away from the border. One of the issues is that it's not near the area we talked about, Donbass. It's not in the southeast.

It's in the north. it's in the Northeast. And the only reason that these troops would play a point, the only reason that they would, you know, kind of be used there for an operation is for a much larger attack. But we obviously don't know a hundred percent if there is a decision to go or not, is it a threat, uh, or is this actually what's going to happen in terms of the politics, in terms of the kind of diplomatic speak, we've kind of hit a dead end in terms of what Russia wants and what the West wants and what Ukraine wants. So Russia, for its part, really wants Ukraine to say it will never join NATO. It wants Ukraine to demilitarize, is the term that it uses.

And to a certain degree, it wants Ukraine to accept a Russian sphere of influence in the region, to recognize that Russia's interests have to be taken into account when it makes its policy. And to do that, it wants it to speak directly with these two regions, Donetsk and Lugansk. That's something that's not going to happen. You know, the government in Kiev says that these are proxy states. You created them. We're not going to negotiate with them. We want to negotiate with you.

So negotiations have come to a dead end. Those states say that they want to take back the rest of their territory that's in Ukraine. And the only way to really square the circle is to basically have a war in order to decide the issue. So it really does seem like we're getting to a pretty dangerous point at the moment. I love you. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income?

That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I just want to emphasize this NATO question for a moment. The Ukrainian government wanting to join NATO has been called a red line for Russia. I think it might be hard for people to grasp a lot of time why NATO membership is such a big deal to Putin.

But, you know, I was looking at this map on the website Statista where you can see how NATO membership has expanded in Europe from a few countries on the western edge of the continent to include most of Europe. And that actually, if Ukraine did join, a pretty good chunk of the countries on Russia's western flank would be members. So is it fair to say that Putin is seeing that possibility as a very real military threat to Russia? Yeah, I think from his perspective, I mean, there is an argument to be made that NATO membership for Ukraine is a security risk to Russia. For Russia, the story with NATO is one that really goes back to the 1990s and has always

been a kind of thorn in the side of Russia. You know, originally it was NATO on one side and the Soviet Union on the other. And NATO was basically an anti-Soviet Union, anti-USSR alliance. When the Soviet Union fell, there were all these negotiations and requests from the Russian side that NATO not expand. That NATO basically not take advantage of this moment um when you know russia was weak when moscow was weak uh and there is even a historical debate about whether or not you know there was anything signed and i think the consensus basically is that there was nothing formal but maybe there were some some assurances given you know that nato

wouldn't expand what happened over the next 20 years is that NATO did expand and fairly quickly into Central Europe and then into Eastern Europe. And some states that were formerly in the USSR, like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, also joined NATO. These are countries already on Russia's borders. Today we proudly welcome Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. We welcome them into the ranks of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. For Putin, if we believe what he says, and I think in this case we should, you know, this is seen as a kind of existential threat that's combined with this kind of embarrassment or aggrievement over what's happened in the last 20 or 30 years.

What kind of sentiments are you hearing from regular people on both sides here? From Ukrainians and from Russians as this ratchets up? The main thing you hear, you know, talking to Ukrainians right now is how tired they are of the situation. It's such a bleak environment at this moment this young woman says i don't know how good the decision is and if it will lead to peace i'm very worried actually i was not worried three or four days ago but now i'm very worried so i hope somehow the west the world can stop him. The fact that they're ready to fight and the fact that there are very few people, I think, who sympathize with the Russian point of view at this moment.

Anybody who is kind of on the Russian side there has more or less crossed over in one way or another. On the Russian side, it's also an interesting moment. I was here in 2014, and there was this real surge of patriotism, a little bit scary at moments because it was such a strong public sentiment about annexing Crimea. You know, people vacation there as kids. There's a lot of history with it, both religious and just historical, and always the sense that Crimea should have been part of Russia.

Right or wrong, that's the way it was. That's the way that Russians talked about it. I don't think that there's a very similar sentiment about Donbass, about Donetsk and Luhansk. I don't see any sense in taking Ukraine, this woman says. For what? You know, I spent a lot of time there. They're really tough places. You know, I from personally i'm from new york and i think the closest uh comparison i would have is like

west virginia or pennsylvania a very tough kind of industrial coal mining uh and smelting and other operations place so on the russian side I think there's a lot of people, you know, standing around and saying, we're about to be sanctioned for what? You know, for Donetsk, for Luhansk, for these places I never want to visit and don't feel much connection to. And so I think there is some confusion

and the Russian government is trying to make this popular. But I don't think it's really working. It feels very much like an elite decision and not like a public decision you mentioned people in russia are like what am I being sanctioned for? Let's talk about those sanctions for a minute. The response from Western countries so far, as we're recording on Wednesday afternoon, the U.S., the EU, the U.K., Canada have all announced sanctions

on a number of Russian individuals and organizations, including banks. U.S. sanctions imposed now on several Russian banks on sovereign debt and tomorrow targeting rich Russian elites and their families with money in the U.S. The U.K. and the European Union each laying out sanctions on Russian banks, defense interests and wealthy citizens. And the U.S. and Canada have banned their citizens from doing business in Donetsk and Luhansk, among other measures. All these countries are warning that they're ready to go like a whole heck of a lot further with sanctions if need be.

And so what kind of impact are these measures likely to have on on Russia, if any, I guess? Yeah, I mean, from the perspective here, I think that the sanctions really don't have much of an effect so far. You know, there are these individuals who are sanctioned, who knew they would be sanctioned, so it doesn't really matter. And the banks that were sanctioned also knew they would be sanctioned. In some cases, they exist as kind of holding banks to be sanctioned. So it's really not going to have much of an effect uh the thing that russians will really feel and they already are feeling is the exchange rate um every time we see one of these interventions attacks uh the ruble drops against the dollar and other currencies and that in effect means that russians need to pay more for iphones they need to pay more for any kind of goods that

are ordered from the west uh they need to pay more for travel kind of goods that are ordered from the west uh they need to pay more for travel you know and if you left the country and went to europe right now you would all you know realize that you're far poorer than you were before um and i think this is a place that just most russians didn't see themselves 10 years ago if the sanctions get worse um and you see them really start to go after the banking sector, I think it's possible Russians will start seeing much more that they can't even pay for things because they can't transfer money, you know, to use it. And I think that will become really painful. Andrew, final question.

And I want to thank you so much for taking the time today, especially because you're losing your voice. It's so kind of you. Yeah, I'm sorry. No, no, we're so grateful. You've talked about us being at this incredibly perilous moment. And I wonder if you could just game out a couple scenarios, possible scenarios for me here. I realize that negotiations are an impasse,

but is there some other diplomatic way out of this? Or is there a scenario where other Western countries come to the aid of Ukraine militarily? So I don't think that Western countries will come to the aid of Ukraine militarily. And they've made that pretty clear that, you know, for all the help they want to give through sanctions or economic support, that the U.S. and other countries are not going to put boots on the ground. And that the most they would do is put boots on the borders to prevent the conflict from growing. It's really difficult to game out what's going to happen because so much of it depends on the Kremlin. One option is that this is a bluff.

And that Russia basically says, we, what we needed to do. We have a win. You know, we recognize these these separatist states. Keep that in mind. Now, you know, we're going to continue talking, but just know that we can have an invasion sometime in the future. That's a possibility. But it doesn't really show how Russia has gotten what it wants. You know, they've basically shown that they bluffed and backed down. Option two is that they start to increase pressure. The conflict kind of increases in this area in Donbass. And, you know, every couple of days they say, are you ready to talk yet? Well, you know, maybe we'll turn up the pressure a little bit more.

And they would hope that Western countries would come in and put pressure on Kiev to make an agreement, basically to concede. That would be a very controversial move if that happened. and attacking Ukraine's military. They put so much pressure on the Ukrainian military and so much pain that Ukraine would really be forced into some kind of armstice, you know, or be forced to make some really serious concessions. We saw this kind of happen in 2015 when Russia forced Ukraine to sign a peace deal

by encircling their troops in a city called Debaltseva. But once again, you know, in the end, that peace deal fell apart. So it's not clear why they would do that. And the last option that has been mentioned by U.S. officials that I find difficult to imagine and I very much hope doesn't happen is a very full on assault, a full-on invasion of the country including attempts to either encircle or take major cities you know cities like harkiv that have 1.5 million people kiev that has 3 million people or more um i don't even know what to say about it to be honest uh the military experts i talked to say it's possible uh that they would be able to overrun any kind of resistance the ukrainian officials i talked to say that there would be a major

resistance following the initial battle we're talking about partisan warfare that people are ready to fight the truth is that nobody knows what this would look like um because we just haven't seen anything like this in such a long time. And, you know, I'm here in Moscow, and I'm quite worried about what's going to happen. My friends in Kiev are terrified. My friends in Russia are terrified. So I very much hope that that's not the direction we're going.

But to be honest, nobody really knows right now. And that's where we're at. Okay. Andrew, thank you so much for this. We're so appreciative. Thank you. Thank you. All right.

That is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow.