Tangle - It's happening.

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

Vladimir Putin has invaded Ukraine.The Washington Post put it like this: “Russia launched a broad attack on Ukraine from multiple directions early Thursday, bombarding cities, towns and villages and advancing toward the capital, Kyiv, as Ukrainian forces tried to stem the onslaught of Russian ground forces and air power.”You can read today's podcast here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast. Today is a kind of odd and somber and frightening day.

You probably noticed that we didn't run our intro music. I am not really sure how to approach this podcast on a day like today. Frankly, I feel kind of nauseated and a little bit fearful about what's happening right now. So I'm just going to jump in and talk about where we are. It started early this morning. The Russian assault on Ukraine began with missile attacks on key targets. This was an airport. Also breaking news this morning, Russia's invasion of Ukraine officially now underway. And President Biden says the U.S. will respond in a united and decisive way.

Okay, and with that, we want to bring to you a bit of breaking news that we're getting from the White House right now. Press Secretary Jen Psaki saying the president is closely monitoring the developments in Ukraine and he will continue receiving regular updates from Jake Sullivan, his national security advisor. Vladimir Putin has invaded Ukraine. That is the lead. The details are somehow even more horrifying. A flurry of reports started around 5 p.m. Eastern time last night. First, Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, made a dramatic televised speech pleading with Russia to avoid war. The Ukrainian people want peace, he said. Shortly after, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a full-scale invasion was imminent and that our intelligence agencies believed a military incursion was hours, not days, away.

At 9.59 Eastern, I got a text from Markian Kuzmowitz, a Ukrainian disinformation researcher who has contributed to Tangle, saying Putin just released a video declaring war on Ukraine. By 10.30 PM Eastern, the New York Times push notification was out. Putin had announced the decision to carry out a special military operation in eastern Ukraine. What happened next didn't take long. Russia began initiating strikes with long-range missiles across Ukraine, targeting airports, ammunition depots, warehouses, and radar centers. Then, the 190,000 soldiers that had reportedly been amassing along Ukraine's border began to march forward. The ground push came from Belarus, Kharkiv, and up from Crimea,

which Putin annexed in 2014. This morning, a large Russian air assault took place on Antonov International Airport, which is just outside the capital of Kyiv. It's tough to properly put into words what is happening, but it is safe to say this is the worst-case scenario. Just two days ago, Putin said he was sending peacekeepers into eastern Ukraine. By 3.30 a.m., a visual with all the confirmed Russian attacks in Ukraine made it clear it was much more than that. Red dots span the map. While the portion of eastern Ukraine Putin had pledged his incursion was going to be

limited to is just a small fraction of where the Russian attacks have taken place. There are horrifying videos from the airports outside Kyiv. The reports have become more scattershot and are coming from every corner of the country now. Russian forces were, quote, pouring in from Crimea, reportedly reaching 60 kilometers inside Ukraine. Footage of traffic jams across the country became widespread on Twitter as Ukrainians fled the border attempting to leave the country. Then there were the truly startling images of fighter jets engaging each other over suburban Ukraine. It was surreal. Ukraine's president responded with a call to fight. We will give weapons to anyone who wants to defend the country. Be ready to support Ukraine in the squares of the city, he said.

By early morning, the first reports of dead soldiers began. Russian planes were being downed. Ukrainian planes were being downed. Then the horrifying images of the dead soldiers started. A video of a cyclist being hit by an artillery shell in Uman. The images of Russian soldiers raising the flag over a hydroelectric power plant in Khakova. The faces of young Russian soldiers who were captured by the Ukrainian military. These were the faces of boys, not men. And this is war. Hundreds are already reported dead on both sides. Many thousands surely will be by the end of the week, if not the day.

This is war, and it is here. A normal Tangle newsletter did not feel sufficient today, but I'll do my best to tell you what I think and to tell you what others think, and to make sure that you leave this piece understanding where we are. It should first be said that a lot of people did not think this would happen. Our foreign policy experts have been raked over the coals for being wrong so many times that it's easy to understand the public skepticism. They were wrong about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria. They've ignored atrocities by Saudi Arabia and been feeble on the Uyghurs in Xin and Afghanistan and Syria. They've ignored atrocities by Saudi

Arabia and been feeble on the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. And they thought the Afghan government could stand for months or even years on its own two feet. But they were absolutely right about this. They warned again and again that Putin's ultimate plan was to retake Ukraine, and that his every move was a step toward re-establishing a Russian empire that spanned the previous Soviet states. To doubt this now would require a level of delusion that is tough to put into words. It turns out the 190,000 soldiers on the border of Ukraine were not a trick. They were not a mirage or a negotiating tactic or saber-rattling. They were a man preparing to go to war against his neighbor.

In a way, it is confounding to think that we convinced ourselves there was any ambiguity here. We saw hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the border and asked if what we were witnessing was merely a military exercise or really what it looked like. Two days ago, Putin declared two regions of Ukraine independent Russian states and then sent Russian soldiers in, and President Biden rightly called it an invasion. But the media crew that has made a living off of being heterodox thinkers or questioning the mainstream narrative immediately jumped on this declaration. The definition of the term invasion is being curiously muddled, Michael Tracy tweeted. Does it now mean any time a foreign military force enters another sovereign territory without authorization? I don't remember many people declaring that the U.S. invaded Pakistan during the bin Laden raid in 2011. Glenn Greenwald,

a writer I have often admired, followed suit. The problem is that the CIA told the U.S. media to tell everyone that they knew exactly what Putin was saying and deciding, and that he had decided on a full invasion of Ukraine, so they have to call it an invasion, otherwise this whole media government act will seem like a fraud, he said. Does it count as an invasion now? This whole shtick is a good reminder that being heterodox is, in and of itself, an ideology, if you become so committed to it that you cannot see what is plainly in front of your face. Many on the left and right, from Tucker Carlson to Crystal Ball to Aaron Maté, suggested that we were being lied to when our intelligence agencies told us what was right there for the world to see. Sometimes, in fact, more often than not, the mainstream narrative

is the one most rooted in truth. That is why it is mainstream. How we got here, though, is another question. I've tried explaining the history behind this moment, but the general thrust is this. Putin believes Ukraine is a breakaway state, one that belongs to Russia, even though the Ukrainians are more than 30 years into their independence. They've had five presidents in the time Putin has been in office, and their current president, Volodymyr Zelensky, won a fair and free election after a career as a comedian on television. Ukrainians overwhelmingly want independence and to be aligned with the West.

They want to live in a democracy. They want security and peace. Putin views this as a threat to Russia's future and has viewed NATO's expansion of influence in Eastern Europe as a threat to his own influence. Putin and some of his supporters have made the case that all he really wanted was a pledge Ukraine would never formally join NATO, an action that would give them the military protection

of the Western alliances. But this invasion is proof positive that it is and has always been something much greater than that. There is plenty of blame to go around. Some have pointed to three decades of warnings that by building NATO bases near Russia and courting former Soviet states, we were always going to force Russia's hand. One widely shared quote today came from George Kennan, the American diplomat largely credited for helping contain the Soviet Union, that he said 20 years ago. I think the Russians will gradually react adversely and will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake, he said about NATO expansion. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the founding fathers of this country turn over in their graves. Don't people understand? Our differences in the Cold War were with the Soviet communist regime,

and now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then the NATO expanders will say that we always told you that this is how the Russians are. But this is just wrong. Kennan's point was that in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States made a mistake by expanding NATO into Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and all nations that had formerly been a part of the Soviet Union. Once those nations joined NATO, the United States was obligated to defend them. And at a time when Russia was weak and NATO was strong, this decision was seen as an act of aggression. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases.

What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. In 2016, former Defense Secretary Bill Perry said this, In the last few years, most of the blame can be pointed at the actions that Putin has taken. Secretary Bill Perry, said this, Russia. At that time, we were working closely with Russia and they were beginning to get used to the idea that NATO could be a friend rather than an enemy. But they were very uncomfortable

about having NATO right up on their border and they made a strong appeal for us not to go ahead with that. Some have even equated it, however unrealistically, to the idea of Russia putting troops and bases in Canada and then demanding that we not view it as an act of aggression. Caitlin Johnstone, a fierce critic of the, quote, U.S. empire, has said we created this problem. Her argument is both that the U.S. is much worse than Russia, given the wars we've launched ourselves and the death and destruction we left behind, and that we essentially poked the bear.

The U.S. is the very last government on this entire planet who has any business talking about respecting the sovereignty of other nations. Absolute dead last, she writes. It's not actually legitimate to constantly violate international law all around the world and then cry when another nation does it. It's not sad that NATO powers didn't make the very easy and completely reasonable concessions needed to prevent this. It's not unfortunate or regrettable. It's enraging. It deserves nothing but pure, unadulterated, white-hot rage. The blame spans the decades and administrations. As Alexander Vindman recently wrote, in 2004, under Bush, the West could have embraced Ukraine's Western aspirations, accelerated an EU association agreement, and a NATO membership plan, and help protect Ukraine. In 2014, under

Obama, Putin annexed Crimea after Ukrainians forced out the Russian lackey running their country. We could have responded by investing in a strategic security partnership with Ukraine that would have made the cost of a Russian offensive prohibitively high. Yet none of this came to pass, Vindman said. Under Trump, the posture towards Ukraine was scattered and inconsistent. The former president famously threatened to withhold military aid while bluntly asking Ukraine to launch an investigation into the Biden family. Trump's sporadic praise for Putin, which has continued from his 2016 campaign into this morning, was viewed as deleterious for Ukraine's standing on the world stage. For many of Trump's supporters on the right, Ukraine is now viewed as a corrupt nation, indistinguishable from Russia,

despite their obvious differences. And now there is Biden. As recently as December, the Biden administration was holding off on a $200 million package of military assistance for Ukraine that was desperately needed. They declined to provide advanced weapons systems to Ukraine. They attempted to rally NATO allies to the defense, but with the threat of U.S. military might off the table, it appears it has done little to deter Putin. The sanctions, to many, came too late or are still not yet adequate. However you cut it, the combination of the Biden vice presidency and presidency has now overseen the annexation of Crimea and a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Again, as Vindman put it,

U.S. leaders cannot absolve themselves of guilt by claiming they did all they could to prevent another invasion, he wrote. They offered a necessary response, not a sufficient one. Like every administration since the end of the Cold War, Joe Biden's fell victim to wishful thinking about the Kremlin's ambitions in Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin's basic commitment to international norms. In doing so, the Biden administration continued the decades-long practice of allowing deterrence to erode. The paths to prevention were not taken. As Ukrainian MP Alexei Goncharenko put it, Ukraine is the only nation over the course of history to ever give up its nuclear arsenal, which was the third biggest in the world in 1994, with guarantees from the U.S., It's hard to imagine what happens next.

As I've been writing this newsletter, the bad news has continued to pour in. Russian troops are trying to capture the Chernobyl plant, Lord knows why. But the fighting is taking place not far from the plant, and fears are rising quickly that nuclear waste may be disturbed. Independent journalists in Ukraine are reporting that Russia's goal is to occupy the territories and remove Ukrainian authorities, then attempt to have its puppet government sign a bilateral agreement with Russia. It's not hard to imagine a world where there are mass arrests, or worse, executions. As troops have moved in, there have also been disturbing reports of cyber attacks. Ukrainian websites have been knocked offline, and some Ukrainian soldiers have reportedly received mass text messages encouraging

them to flee or surrender in an attempt to degrade their morale. Russian warplanes seem to be expanding beyond simply strategic targets, too. One video shows a warplane launching missiles as it does a flyby over a residential area with the cries of a young child in the background. It is truly, unambiguously horrible, and the potential for things to worsen is very real. What are the odds this spills over into other European countries? If Putin is willing to invade Ukraine, what about Lithuania? Its government has already declared a state of emergency. What about Poland or the Czech Republic? If the U.S. decides to completely remove Russia from the global banking world, as some have speculated they will, the Russian government would view it as an act of war. Then what? China, of course, watches and waits. The

same foreign policy experts who warned us of this pending invasion have said unambiguously and repeatedly that our reaction to this would factor into China's decision on whether to attempt an invasion of Taiwan, an independent state they also view as a breakaway nation. With the U.S. and NATO standing firm that their soldiers will not enter Ukraine, will China view this as an opportunity to make its move? On a personal note, I am sickened. There is blame to go around, yes, and we could spend days or weeks or months or years writing about American imperialism or Biden's weakness or Trump's incompetence or the ineffectiveness of NATO and the United Nations

and all the organizations and people we've been told would stop this. In the end, all of this would be mostly noise. This is Putin's war. It belongs to him. The idea that a pledge from Ukraine not to join NATO would have stopped this is farcical. Putin clearly wanted much more than that. He also wanted nearly every former Soviet Union nation to leave NATO, and he wanted Ukraine to submit to his rule. He did not have to invade. Russia's security was not being threatened. He leads a nuclear-armed state with a huge landmass and a giant, well-funded military. Nobody was trying to take his country down or kill him or his people. Ukraine certainly couldn't have done so.

Ukraine wanted independence, not war. They wanted the right to choose their own leaders, not fighter jets in suburban neighborhoods. They wanted security, not a class of oligarchs deciding how the country would be run. War is a terrible, unthinkable thing. For Russia, the brunt of this war will fall onto the shoulders of young soldiers. Baby-faced men who are 17 or 18 or 19 or 20 will go die for something they almost certainly don't understand. In Ukraine, it will be all hands on deck. Fathers, mothers, teenagers, and grandparents will stand side by side with their military. They will take up arms and fight, and many of them will die violent deaths. This will be the result

of Putin's decision to invade, based on the absurd notion that a nation of 40 million free Ukrainians belongs to him. Globally, democracy continues its descent. It has declined for 16 straight years. Only one in five people now live in a free country. Ukraine is a beacon, a nation trying to determine its own fate in the modern world, to leave its corrupt past behind, to usher in an era of self-governance and self-determination. This is not fluff or propaganda or some detached western lens through which to view what is happening. It is reality. The people are taking up arms to fight a war they will almost surely lose

because they believe so strongly in a future where their country functions more like ours or the ones in Europe and less like Russia's. Let their fight be a reminder of the good fortune those of us in free nations have and a reminder that however flawed and broken we sometimes seem, there are, right now, millions of people willing to die for a chance to live in a country committed to the ideals of democracy, the kind of democracy we ushered in into the modern world. Now we watch and pray and hope that Ukraine can stand. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. Yeah, I don't know what to say. As always, if you want to share this, please do. Spread the word. There's links in the podcast

to support our work. And if you are not a Friday subscriber, you will hear from us on Monday. We are going to be off the podcast for a couple weeks, but I'll explain that on Monday and what's going on, and we'll have some content for you then, I promise. Thank you all for tuning in, and please stay safe. Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul, edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle's social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who also helped create our logo. The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn,

and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca.