Reuters World News - Remember the other war?

Episode Date: November 4, 2023

The world is watching every development in Israel and Gaza. A thousand miles to the north, Ukraine wages an exhausting counteroffensive against Russian forces. We sit down with our journalists covering the war as it enters its second winter. Hear the latest from the frontlines, as well as what daily life is like in Kyiv and Moscow. Plus, we examine the impact of the Middle East conflict on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy and how a fight in Congress over aid affects Ukraine's ability to fight. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the world turns its focus to the Middle East, fighting continues 1,100 miles away in Europe. This special podcast takes us to the front lines of the Ukraine War. We speak to our correspondence covering Kiev and Moscow, and the bloody counter-offensive being waged in between. What does life look like for ordinary citizens as they head towards a second winter at war? What effect is what's happening in Israel and Gaza having on this conflict?

And are there any signs of a road to peace? I'm Kim Vinal in London. And I'm Jonah Green in New York. Israel and Gaza have occupied the headlines ever since Hamas's deadly rampage on October the 7th. In the meantime, Reuters Ukraine and Russia journalists have continued to cover the battlefield bare, the corridors of power in Moscow and Kiev,

and daily life for ordinary Russians and Ukrainians. So today, me and my kids, co-host Jonah Green. Say hi, Jonah. Hello. Are joined by three journalists with long experience covering the region. Mark Trevelyan and Andrew Osborne are lead writers for Russia and Tom Baumforth is the Ukraine Bureau Trief. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks. It's good to be here. Thanks for having me on the podcast. So the world has turned its gaze to Israel and Gaza. What effect has that had on the war in Ukraine? Let's start with Mark.

I think it has an impact in several ways, which are mainly helpful to Russia. Quite simply, it's distracting the attention of the rest of the world from the Ukraine war. It's also helpful to Russia in the sense that makes life more difficult, I think, for Western countries who are trying to press neutral or non-aligned countries to align with them against Russia over Ukraine. And the reason for that is that when Russia is bombing and attacking Ukrainian power stations, cutting off water and so on, the West has consistently been saying, well, these are war crimes that need to be condemned. But in the context of Israel and Gaza, Israel is also depriving the Palestinians in Gaza of fuel and supplies, it's laid siege to them, and yet Western countries are lining up

behind Israel and saying Israel has the right to defend itself. So that gives the opportunity for Russia to point to what it would say is a Western double standard there. And diplomats from some of these non-aligned countries also have clearly said they find that messaging troublesome and contradictory from the West point of view. Andrew, do you want to jump in? Just touch your Mark's point about Gaza. I mean, I think there's no doubt that Moscow hopes that this will result in less aid, less financial, less military aid for Ukraine. That's something that they've wanted for a long time. Now that this Middle East crisis is unfolding, clearly they can see that Israel has needs and they believe that Israel and Ukraine will be competing with each other for American

ammunition and weapons, and they hope that will be in their favor on the battlefield. And Tom, what's the view from inside Ukraine over this shift in attention? Clearly, the Ukrainians are really worried that Ukraine is going to drop out of their headlines. I think this is speculation. I haven't actually heard this said, but I'm sure it'd be harder for Ukrainian officials to get in touch with Western partners with the war in Israel unfolding. They would have become a sort of political football during the election campaign next year, but I think that there's a real danger of that. With aid hanging in the balance, US President Joe Biden must now convince Congress that funding Ukraine's fight is still worth it.

And that challenge has only grown more daunting as the Republican-led House increasingly makes it clear is not interested in spending billions to keep Ukraine armed. Patricia Zangeli is at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. Patricia, what is Biden trying to do here and what kind of wall is he up against? Biden is trying to convince Congress to approve $60 billion in new aid for Ukraine. It's part of a $106 billion package that includes Israel, the Indo-Pacific, humanitarian aid, some of which would go to Israel and Gaza, and border security. I think the wall that he's up against is that in some parts of the Republican Party, being against, aid to Ukraine is in danger of becoming almost a litmus test, where you're not a real Republican if you favor military assistance for Ukraine. And he has to overcome that. And it's become a lot harder

because the new Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has so far proven very much to be part of that farther right caucus. On Monday, the Republicans introduced the first big bill of Johnson's brand new speakership. And it was a bill that would provide aid only to Israel. That bill is not going to go anywhere. What is Biden's message as he sells this aid to lawmakers and to Americans in general? It's natural to ask, why does this matter to America? Biden's main pitch in arguing that the United States should support Ukraine is that the United States is the leader of the free world and that the United States must be. push back against autocrats who are seeking to expand their territories through violence.

If we don't stop Putin's appetite for power and control in Ukraine, he won't limit himself just to Ukraine. And another thing he's tried to do, and advocates for the package who tried to do from the very beginning, is to make the point that of that $60 billion for Ukraine, about half of it will stay in the United States. because it's going to go to U.S. companies, U.S. defense companies. When Putin invaded Ukraine, he thought he would take Kiv and all of Ukraine in a matter of days. Well, over a year later, Putin has failed. So, Andrew, what is Russia's view of what is happening in the U.S.? There's no question, I think, that Russia is watching this very closely,

and clearly is hoping that there will be a problem in terms of giving Ukraine more aid. So the fact that Israel is seen by some U.S. lawmakers as more deserving of American aid is definitely something that is welcomed in Moscow. Russia has, of course, for a long time, been calling on the United States and on the West in general to wind down its aid, its military aid to Ukraine, because it says that there's no point. It argues that it will win the war and that the aid is just making it longer and more painful and causing more deaths. So I think it's fair to say that anything resembling political chaos or difficulty in passing laws in Congress, making decisions, uncertainty, all that kind of stuff is something that Moscow looks on as being to its advantage because it obviously seized United States as its number one rival and enemy. So anything which causes problems and slows things down and makes things more difficult is something that the Russia definitely welcomes. Tom, is there a concern other capitals in Europe will follow something? suit if the US pulls back?

Yeah, well, I think there is clearly always a concern in Ukraine. They're watching very closely to see if there are any signs that other countries are kind of getting cold feet about continuing military supplies. But I think they have more fear. It's really about the question of whether Europe is able to maintain the level of military assistance that it has been supplying so far during the war, just simply because they don't have huge stockpiles and they haven't upped production at the speed with which Ukraine would have wanted.

In terms of big picture, really, the United States, is the United States. the key player here. That's where the lion's share of military assistance has come from. And I think that's, if the United States does pull military support for Ukraine, then I think it really will have no option but to make some difficult cause about how it is able to actually continue fighting. The resilience of Ukrainians is demonstrated in moments captured on hours of footage shot by our videographers and photographers throughout the conflict. This video from the summer shows some lighter moments of life in the capital.

a kid's skateboarding, teens rocking out to Deep Purple, a young dad playing a piano on the street to his toddler, swimmers bathing during an air raid siren, but we wanted to really understand what daily life is like now in Kiev. So we called up our correspondent there, Dan Pellishuk. Well, I think anyone would hesitate to use the word normal, but it's normalized within reason. I think, and that's kind of the way it's been for quite a while.

I think everyone kind of finds their own way of seeking out a normal rhythm amid the circumstances. It certainly helps that air raid sirens. In Kiev, anyway, the Capitol have been, there's been much less of them in the past weeks. In fact, I think one could probably count on one or two hands, which is very much a departure from, say, the summer, and certainly a departure from around this time last year, which is when Russia began its campaign of airstrikes against critical and energy infrastructure. But there is a sense of kind of hunkering down among people because everyone had been through last winter.

They know how difficult it was amid the widespread blackouts and water cutoffs. And so everyone, I think, is bracing for that kind of possibility, for that kind of reality again this year. But are people going out? Are they just going about their daily lives? Definitely. I mean, life is pretty much as active as it.

could be. People are having coffee dates and partying and going to museums and restaurants and there's kind of a steady flow of foot in auto traffic around the city. And it seems quite normal. And I think that everyone sort of sticking to their own routine is the best in a most straightforward way for people to cope with kind of the bigger picture that Ukraine is facing. So you definitely do sense that veneer, I guess you'd say, of normality. Give us a sense visually of the kind of daily reminders you might see walking around town that there is in fact a war being raged, you know, just a few miles away. There are lots of visual reminders everywhere and they're not necessarily kind of leaping out at you, but they do kind of, they are, you know, fairly scattered throughout. So for instance, you see

placards dedicated to either fallen soldiers or kind of encouraging Ukrainians to kind of remember the sacrifice. You see lots of recruitment posters. You see, of course, men in uniform kind of throughout lots of different sort of public places, whether it's in restaurants or post offices or out on dates, which is always quite encouraging for me personally when I see them. And so they're out and about and it's something that you definitely see. And it is kind of one of the clearest reminders, especially in the absence of something like constant air sirens in the past few weeks. It is a constant reminder that there is a war going on and that it's being fought by great many people. Far from the relative calm of the capital, video released by Ukraine's third assault brigade

showed a battle on the outskirts of Andrivka, which they captured last month. Another video shows an injured soldier climbing into a trench, his face, leg and hand, soaked in blood. He's given water to drink as he tries to catch his breath. And Blahodotene, Ukrainian soldiers wearing face masks poked sticks along a deserted country road. They're searching for the bodies of Russian soldiers. Vasili, a civilian volunteer, says they hope to exchange the bodies

for their own comrades, living or dead. Soldiers called this deserted country road the road of death after the number of Russian soldiers killed there, when Ukrainian forces retook the southeastern village of Blahadne at the start of their counteroffensive in June. Andrew, where are we in Ukraine's counteroffensive? I mean, we're nearly five months into this Ukrainian counteroffensive, and I think many people, obviously, including in Kiev, in Washington, in other Western capitals, expected that Ukraine would have made much more progress.

Instead, we've obviously seen pretty modest gains, and the conflict really has kind of become, a very slow-moving kind of one of attrition and very heavy losses on both sides. But instead of Ukraine being the one, if you like, with the initiative, what we're seeing now, what we've seen in the last few weeks, certainly, is that Russia is the one on the offensive in eastern Ukraine. They're pushing very hard around the town called Avdivka. And they have made some gains.

I mean, they are fairly modest in the overall scheme of things. But still, this is certainly not where people in the West or in Ukraine thought we would be or hope we would be. So it's quite a different kind of dynamic in the conflict right now. If you take a kind of big picture view, Ukraine recaptured a huge amount of territory in the first year of the war. And if you look at this year, I mean, essentially the front line hasn't really changed much since November last year when Ukraine recaptured Kherson. Russia captured Bahmoud over the winter. And Ukraine's recaptured, recaptured sort of more than a dozen small settlements in the south and east.

But I mean, if you take the big picture, it really hasn't changed a great deal. And maybe that tells us something about where it's all going. And maybe it also changes obsessions of the horizons of this war. I mean, it's fairly wonderful before the counteroffensive it was going to be over really quickly. I think it's pretty clear now that neither side

east looks very close to being in a position to deal, knockout below, to the other side, quickly on the battlefield. So if you look at it through the prism of the front line, the movement to the front line, it hasn't been very successful. Ukraine just said that Russia still has 400,000 troops inside Ukraine, which is a huge number. But if Ukraine was able to reduce that lumber and it could force Russia, for instance, to sort of step up its mobilization efforts, which I think would be kind of politically unpopular in Russia.

So I think it's kind of a tale of two counter-offences, if you like. There's no question, I think, that the Ukrainian counteroffensive on land has been disappointing, has been underwhelming for Ukraine and for the West. But it's a different story really when it comes to the counteroffensive, which has been launched by sea against Russian forces in Crimea and the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which is based in Crimea. They've had some success on that front. They forced Russia to move quite a lot of its warships out of Sevastopol. That's the main port in Crimea. The Russian Navy has had a base there for over 200 years. The Ukrainians have been conducting successful drone strike, sabotage operations. They've targeted a dry dock. They've had these sea drones,

which have been launching attacks. This has all made Russia very nervous and suddenly feel very vulnerable in a place where it thought really it had built a fortress. So I think it's fair to say that Ukraine has had considerable success when it comes to this counter-offensive, which is waged by sea. In Kyiv, a bakery owner installs a 160-watt generator donated earlier this year from supporters in Norway. The bakery, called Good Bread from Good People, is a non-profit which feeds those living in war-ravaged parts of Ukraine. And winter is coming. 20 months after Russia's invasion, this time around Ukrainians, like the bakery director, Natalia Shadrina, know what to expect.

She says her employees are prepared for a repeat of Russia's campaign of air strikes on civilian infrastructure and the widespread power outages that come with them. Last winter, there were attacks on energy infrastructure in Ukraine, and it was a bitterly cold and difficult few months for Ukrainians. It also shifts the pace of fighting on the battlefield. What should we anticipate as winter sets in this year? So obviously Ukraine is really worried that Russia is going to continue. conduct another campaign of airstrikes and destroy the Ukrainian power grid and energy facilities.

And Ukraine is going into this winter with its energy system not at full capacity because they still haven't managed to repair all the damage that was raw last year. And yet, at the same time, they have more air defenses supplied by the West. So that is obviously a plus. And I think the other interesting factor in this theme is that the Ukraine actually has much more significant strike capabilities itself. So it's got attackums from the US. It's got these storm shadows from Brits.

It's developed a lot of its own drones, which, as we've seen, are able to fly all the way to Moscow. D'Salensky actually just said Ukraine will strike back against Russia if it conducts another winter bombing campaign of its power grid. Mark, how does this all end? Where are we in terms of any diplomatic resolution to this bloody conflict? Well, really, there isn't serious peace process to speak of at the moment because neither. side is interested in pursuing peace. I mean, the Ukrainians are quite clear that their precondition would be that Russia stop the fighting and withdraw from all of the parts of Ukraine that it occupies. And Russia's point of view is, on the face of it, it's saying, yes, we're willing to talk,

but it's clear that it's only willing to talk on its own terms. So it uses the expression, new realities, meaning in order for talks to happen, Ukraine would have to accept the situation on the ground where Russia has claimed that the four southern and eastern regions of Ukraine are now part of Russia. And clearly that's unacceptable to Ukraine. And I think the other point to make is that Russia seems to feel that time is on its side and it can afford to sort of wait this one out because they are hoping that with the the US election coming up with some other changes that we've seen recently, such as the election in Slovakia of a leader who is opposed to providing more aid to Ukraine, they think these

developments are working in their favour over time and will lead to a reduction of Western support for Ukraine. Yeah, I think Mark's 100% right about that. The Ukrainian goal has been to hold a global peace summit involving all of the leaders of all of the countries that has managed to win over to this vision of peace, and they wanted to hold that Global Peace Summit this year. To be honest, that now looks extremely optimistic in light of the war in Israel, because a lot of countries are kind of now able to appoint to sort of double standards. And I think this kind of Western and Ukrainian diplomatic offensive to kind of win over those countries is now, is really undermined by what's happening in Israel.

So the Russians have been saying for a long time that Ukraine is a proxy of the West, they're fighting a war on behalf of the United States and the West, and that essentially what will happen is that they will fight to the last Ukrainian. So this is a kind of a phrase that comes up time and time again from Russian officials. And that is what they're referring to, this whole kind of population equation. They just think the numbers are on their side and that Russia has a much bigger population. It can sustain greater losses and that time, therefore, is on Russia's side. They also think that, financially speaking, that things are on their side as well. Russia is ramping up its defense budget. Next year, it's due to increase

by over 70%. They're really spending big on military hardware, on ammunition. And at the same time, of course, they look at Ukraine and they see that Ukraine, obviously, its economy is crushed. It's very highly dependent upon Western defense help in the United States. They see the political turmoil in the United States. So they think that they're in a position to kind of keep supplying their own army with equipment in a much better way than Ukraine is. Tom, is this population question something that worries Ukraine? Ukraine has obviously realized that they can't fight Russia man for man for exactly the reason Andrew Raises. And I think there have been some comments, I mean, I remember specifically

Budanov, the head of the Ukrainian military intelligence agency talking about this and saying that Ukraine needed to find some kind of creative, kind of asymmetrical way to fight back. it's not really clear to me how they do that. I mean, I suppose in a way you could argue that what they're doing in Crimea is quite asymmetrical, creative. But yeah, it's something they're thinking about. I'm not sure they have a solution to that at this point. A special thanks to Tom Ballnforth, Andrew Osborne, Patricia Zangarly, Dan Palshuk, Malik Trevelyan and all the journalists on the front lines working to cover this conflict.

We'll be back tomorrow with our daily show on everything you need to know in 10 minutes. Our podcast team is made up of myself and Jonah, as well as producers, Chris Wall Jasper, Tara Oaks and David Spencer. Joshua Summers is our maestro sound designer, Carmel Crimmons is our senior producer, and Lila Decretzer is the editor-in-charge. Don't forget to subscribe on your favourite podcast player or download the Reuters app.