Tangle - The war in Ukraine.

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

Three months since our last coverage of the conflict, we revisit. 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.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, about all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be talking about the war in Ukraine and giving a brief update on what's been going on there and what people are saying about it. Before we jump in, though, as always, we'll start off with our quick hits. First up, two former Pennsylvania judges were ordered to pay $206 million in the infamous Kids for Cash scheme,

in which they sent children to for-profit jails in exchange for $2.8 million in kickbacks. Both judges are already serving lengthy prison sentences. Number two, Rudy Giuliani appeared before a Fulton County, Georgia grand jury over alleged interference in the 2020 election. Number three, former President Donald Trump has raised millions of dollars from supporters after the FBI search on his Florida home. millions of dollars from supporters after the FBI search on his Florida home. 4. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky called for a restructuring of the organization after the botched pandemic response.

5. The U.S. and Taiwan released plans to hold formal trade talks this fall after a recent visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress. Six months into Russia's attack on Ukraine, both sides are suffering heavy casualties, yet seem unable to gain the advantage. Ukrainian authorities holding nuclear disaster response drills amid shelling at Europe's largest nuclear power plant, which was captured by Russian forces in March. Whilst Russia can win the battle of artillery, the Ukrainians are going to be in a position now to potentially launch either an eastern, a new eastern offensive, or potentially a new southern offensive. And if they succeed in

doing that, it may break the Russian positions. It has been three months since we dedicated an entire newsletter to the war in Ukraine. With Congress on recess and the President and Vice President on vacation, we thought it was a good time for an update. We are now in day 176 of the war. Estimates on how many Russians and Ukrainians have died in the war vary widely based on which country or media outlet provides them. The Russian government has not updated how many soldiers it has lost since reporting 1,351 killed in March, but the U.S. government estimates the number of Russian soldiers who have been killed or wounded to be roughly 75,000. However,

it has become increasingly clear that it is not necessarily the Russian military doing much of the fighting or dying, but separatist militias based in the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. In the first four months of fighting, an estimated 20,000 Ukrainian troops were killed or wounded. About 100 to 200 troops were being killed per day in June. Since Russia invaded, the war in Ukraine has moved to the east and south of the country and is largely being described as a war of attrition. A series of brazen attacks by Ukraine on a Russian-occupied Crimea could send the war into a new phase. Moscow had vowed that if Ukraine attacked Crimea, it would face Judgment Day, and Vladimir Putin considers Crimea,

which he annexed in 2014, a sacred place. But that didn't stop Ukrainian forces, who executed a series of huge explosions at a Russian munitions depot on the peninsula. Russia's defense ministry called the blast an act of sabotage, acknowledging the war has spread into what Moscow considers Russian territory. Meanwhile, the U.S. involvement in the war has spread into what Moscow considers Russian territory. Meanwhile, the U.S. involvement in the war remains steadfast. In May, Congress passed a $40 billion package to support Ukraine with financial, military, and medical assistance. The bill also replenishes U.S. stock, funds its troop movements in Europe, and puts money into global humanitarian relief. Meanwhile, the United States has already sent about $9.8 billion in direct aid to Ukraine in the form of military and financial assistance, including a $1 billion package Biden pledged earlier this month, the largest security package yet.

In that package and recent military deliveries, the U.S. has included high-tech weapons called HIMARS, High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems. mobility artillery rocket systems. This is a system that can fire a variety of rockets as far as 50 miles with extremely precise targeting capabilities, the kind of weapons Ukraine has so far lacked on the battlefield. Biden was initially hesitant to provide the weapon since it's capable of striking inside Russian territory. But as Putin kept shelling civilian areas west of the battlefield, Biden and NATO allies relented. Meanwhile, public polling in the U.S. has shown a slightly declining appetite for supporting Ukraine. According to Morning Consult, the share of U.S. voters who say their government has a responsibility to protect Ukraine from Russia has fallen to 41%, the lowest percentage since the war began. Belief that the

U.S. government has a responsibility to support Ukraine is highest among Democrats, 57%, and lowest among Republicans, 31%. About 33% of independents say the government has a responsibility to help protect Ukraine. Today, we're going to hear some commentary on the war from the American perspective. You can find our previous coverage of the war, including international perspectives, in past podcasts, or with a link in today's newsletter. First off, we'll start with what the right is saying. The right is worried about the extent of the resources we are committing to the war, and some continue to call for an America-first style intervention. Some argue Ukraine has the momentum and the U.S. should put the pedal to

the metal in helping them defeat Russia. Others criticize the Ukrainian government for trying to thought-police U.S. citizens who write favorably about Russia or criticize U.S. support for Ukraine. In National Review, Nate Hockman asked who our Ukraine policy is for. When asked about the growing number of Americans who don't think the country should be spending so much money on a war in Europe when there are so many problems domestically, Zelensky responded that Ukrainians were, quote, fighting for absolutely communal values and that therefore inflation is nothing, COVID is nothing. Ask those people who lost their saying, of course, that for Ukrainians fighting for their lives, the financial concerns of Americans struggling to make ends meet here at home

would seem trivial, Hockman wrote. But Zelensky was talking about U.S. foreign policy. He wasn't only arguing that inflation and COVID didn't matter to Ukrainians in the face of Russia's invasion. He was arguing that, relatively speaking, it shouldn't matter to Americans. With respect to Zelensky, he is not the one who gets to determine American foreign policy. Call me old school, but I tend to determine American foreign policy. Call me old school, but I tend to think American foreign policy should be oriented towards serving the interests of the American people. We can unite in solidarity with the Ukrainian people's struggle against Putin's aggression, providing aid to help with their war effort, but our assistance should

be dictated by and directed toward the American interest. If Zelensky wants to make a case for continued American support, he should explain it in concrete, material terms without abstract appeals to vaguely define communal values or sideswipes at struggling working and middle-class Americans who are already predisposed to wonder how sending billions of their tax dollars to a conflict in a faraway country is serving their communities. In the Washington Examiner, John Sweet said it's been a good week for Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia's invasion. Momentum can be difficult to measure in finite terms on the battlefield. Still, you know when you see it, and we are seeing it right now. A combination of artillery, cruise missiles, special operations,

and good intelligence has shifted momentum in Kiev's favor, Sweet said. At the forefront of this momentum shift is the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS. HIMARS has given Ukraine an extended operational reach. A successful strike on Zaki Air Base in Crimea may have destroyed as many as 21 aircraft and four ammunition depots. The source of the attack remains unknown, which only heightens the anxiety of Russian soldiers occupying bases in Crimea. This attack was followed by a second strike against a military installation in Crimea. In the Krasnoblast, bridges spanning the Dnipro River have been damaged by Ukrainian artillery, essentially cutting off upwards of 20,000 Russian soldiers on the west bank of the river from their leadership and supply lines. This leaves them more or less to fend for themselves

in the face of a Ukrainian counteroffensive to retake the city of Kherson. Die-in-place missions aren't good for morale, Sweet said. Success instills confidence as failure instills doubt. Time will determine if these setbacks to Putin's special military operation alter the course of the war, but they certainly are a step in the right direction. Sustaining success is the challenge. The U.S. and NATO should help Ukraine keep its foot on the gas pedal.

In The Federalist, Sumantra Maitra criticized Ukraine for trying to censor critics of the war and U.S. support. On July 14th, the Ukrainian government published a bizarre list of academics, politicians, policymakers, and contrarian journalists who are allegedly propagandists for Russia. The list includes sitting U.S. senators such as Rand Paul, the Republican from Kentucky, former politicians like Tulsi Gabbard, and military theorists such as Martin Van Cravald and Edward Lutwak, as well as perhaps the most foremost living international relations theorist of our time, John Mearsheimer. Given that the Ukrainian government is being subsidized with billions of American dollars, this censorship amounts to American taxpayers paying the Ukrainian government billions of dollars to blacklist American citizens for thought crimes. As Dan Caldwell,

the VP of Stand Together, tweeted, let's be clear. This is an attempt by an increasingly illiberal Ukrainian government to silence, intimidate, and smear several prominent American foreign policy scholars whose views are increasingly shared by the American people and policymakers. The State Department should condemn. Caldwell is, of course, succinct and correct. Except the Ukrainian government, the country's assorted lobbying network, and the relentless war propaganda blinded us to the fact that culturally and tactically, there is no difference between the two warring sides, Maitre wrote. The same people who are the most vocal about the Russian threat to democracy are the same ones currently arguing that systemic racism is a major threat to U.S. national security. And these are the very same

forces that argue that anyone who wants to remain neutral in a war on the furthest periphery is a Putinist. Alright, that is it for what the right is saying, which brings us to the left's take. The left is divided on where things are, with some arguing that Putin needs to step back from the war and others worried about a long-term engagement. Some fear there is no end in sight. Others suggest Russia and the U.S. need to be negotiating a way out. In the Washington Post, Michael McFaul said the realists have it wrong. Only Putin, not Zelensky, can end the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gets a lot of advice on how he can end the war in his country,

and most of it pushes in one direction, swap some sovereignty for peace. If only Zelensky would give Russian President Vladimir Putin another chunk of Ukrainian territory, the argument goes, the war would end, McFaul wrote. Strangely, few in this army of advisors direct their wisdom toward Moscow. Why does no one offer Putin advice for how to end his invasion? To those claiming to make the case for diplomacy in alleged opposition to the case for war, please detail how you would persuade or compel Putin to stop the conflict. Real diplomacy takes two to tango. Recommendations for peace that instruct only Zelensky to capitulate are not only repulsive, but also highly unrealistic. The repulsive part should be obvious. Putin was

not provoked into invading. Russia faced no security threat from Ukraine, McFaul said. History teaches that wars tend to end in two ways. Either one side wins or a grinding stalemate is reached. Neither of those conditions exist yet in Ukraine. No matter what Zelensky says or gives, Putin will not stop fighting until his army can no longer move forward. The real party of peace is not those advising Zelensky to give Putin more land. It is those pushing the West to supply Ukrainian army with more and better weapons as fast as possible. Without stalemate on the battlefield, Putin will never negotiate.

The faster Ukraine's army can stop Russia's, the sooner Putin's war will end. In the New York Times, Spencer Bocot-Lindale asked if there was any end in sight. The quickest and least bloody path to ending the conflict runs through a settlement negotiated by both sides. At the moment, though, that path seems firmly closed off, he wrote. Last month, Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said that Russia was determined to get rid of Ukraine's unacceptable regime, suggesting that Moscow's war aims remained unchanged. Likewise, the Ukrainian government still has no intention of ceding territory it has lost to Russian forces. This is just a question of who beats whom, Oleg Danilov, the head of Ukraine's National Security Council, recently told the Times. With the recent arrival of Western-supplied

long-range rocket systems, Ukrainian officials are hoping that they can, first, by expelling Russian forces in the south during their anticipated counteroffensive. If the Ukrainian counteroffensive succeeds, Putin could come to deem the cost of victory too high, he said. Russia has committed 85% of its volunteer army to the fighting, a U.S. Defense Department official told the Times, and is struggling to find recruits. American officials and outside analysts both agree that if Russia wants to move beyond the Donbass, they will need to take a step they have been unwilling to do, a mass mobilization, the Times' Julian Barnes said last month. Russia will need to conduct a military draft, recall soldiers who previously served, and take politically painful steps to

rebuild their force. So far, Putin has been unwilling to do so. In Jacobin, Ben Burgess said we should have listened to Bernie Sanders on Ukraine. Sanders condemned the impending invasion without equivocation, clearly identifying Russian President Vladimir Putin as the man most responsible for this looming crisis and calling for targeted sanctions on Putin and his associates if they went through with their plans, Burgess wrote. But he was also clear that however morally and legally indefensible, Russia policy was grounded in ordinary geopolitical motivations. It's worth remembering that concerns about increased American influence on Ukraine and about the possibility that Ukraine might one day join NATO were expressed by Putin's predecessors long before he came to power. This is exactly the kind of reasoning now widely denounced as

whataboutism, and the prohibition on whataboutism is, in practice, an excuse not to apply consistent standards to the actions of rival powers. The invasion of Iraq, for example, was grotesquely unjustifiable, but I wouldn't have wanted Russia or China to start by arming the Republican Guard to the teeth and then to openly signal a willingness to be more and more directly involved in the conflict. For example, by Chinese intelligence sources bragging to the People's Daily that they'd been involved in operations to assassinate American generals, Burgess said. What I would have welcomed, though, would have been any last-minute attempt by one of those powers to broker peace talks to head off the disaster. If Sanders had been president back in February,

he would have tried. Maybe the effort wouldn't have succeeded, but it's infuriating that Biden didn't even attempt such an approach before pouring tens of billions of dollars into a proxy war whose ruinous effects have been felt all around the world. All right, that is it for the right and the left's take, which brings us to my take. Above all else, it's just a tragedy. It may be easy to read numbers like 75,000 dead Russian soldiers or 1,000 Ukrainians dying per day in a detached, news-consuming manner. But it's much harder to pause and meditate on that. Hundreds of thousands of lives have already been lost. Hundreds of thousands of families in ruin. Millions of people, friends, family, colleagues have been directly impacted on both sides,

knowing someone who has died or been wounded in the war. That's to say nothing of the physical destruction. Countless historical sites in Ukraine are now in ruins. Homes, churches, schools, and hospitals are destroyed. Beaches are being evacuated. Families fleeing the country. A generation of children who now, and maybe forever, will view the other side as the enemy. The damage of war is incalculable.

And in this case, it weighs even heavier when you ask why. Why was it necessary? What has been achieved? What was gained? Who was helped? In that regard, and after six months of war, my view has not changed. This war did not need to happen. You can write all the op-eds about NATO encroachment or US colonialism or corrupt Ukrainian officials that you want.

But the fundamental truth of the war is that Putin chose it. Ukraine was not a threat to Russia, militarily or economically. It was not provoking Russia. It was only fighting for contested territory that Putin had already annexed or invaded. There was no world in which Ukraine was going to one day take over Russia or even try. What Ukraine wanted was freedom from Russia. What Putin wanted was to bring Ukraine back under Russia and his control. from Russia. What Putin wanted was to bring Ukraine back under Russia and his control. That dynamic is the undeniable moral center of the conflict, however complicated the factors around it are. And what has Putin gained? Again, nothing. He's lost tens of thousands of his own

citizens, reaffirmed and strengthened the Western alliance against him, sent his neighbors scattering to join that alliance, and further isolated Russia on the global stage. And he's not even winning the war, not any closer to quote denazifying Ukraine or reuniting it with the motherland. Of course, all this horror is a good reason to want to end it. The two sides need to begin negotiating and soon. And however uncomfortable it is for me to concede, those negotiations might mean Ukraine giving Putin some of what it does not deserve to lose, namely territory in the eastern part of the country. I also don't blame Americans who have no interest in watching our government funnel billions of dollars into a faraway conflict with so much of our own country suffering. How could anyone? I can recognize that caring about the war in Ukraine and being invested in its outcome is

a privilege. It necessitates financial bandwidth that I'm grateful to have. It necessitates personal stability that makes it easier to swallow seeing your tax dollars going to weapons for a foreign nation. It necessitates faith that the cause of some nation's independence you have never been to and may never go to is worth the cost. I have all those benefits, and I'm lucky to. But the case for supporting Ukraine and supporting the U.S. government's investment in Ukraine is the same now as it was on the first day of the war. People should be free to choose their own government, free to decide their leaders and their future,

and free from violence at the hands of other nations. That's a fundamental American principle. The counterpoints of our involvement are, of course, true. The United States has inserted itself into wars to conquer, to colonize, to obtain resources, to overthrow governments, and even to dismantle non-existent nuclear weapons. We have participated in wars simply out of spite and vengeance. Yes, funding this fight will make the war machine even richer. Yes, it will drag the war on, and yes, in a sick and twisted way, that's a great thing for the US powers, who certainly want to see Putin stretched thin and battered by someone

other than US troops. Yes, more of that money could be better spent on schools or rural broadband or violence prevention here at home. And yet, if there was ever a just intervention, one where we could say we were taking a moral high ground, keeping our own people and allies safe, and fighting for a decent cause, this is it. Our national interest in this war is that we are a global power with unthinkable resources and reach, and if we want to live in the post-World War II world where autocrats can't simply decide to conquer other nations, we can't merely sit on our hands and watch this aggression unfold. So for that, I support the cause to back Ukraine, however hard it is to watch it drag on. All right, that is it for my take today. We are skipping our reader question because this podcast got pretty long,

but if you want to submit a reader question, remember you can always write in to me, Isaac, I-S-A-A-C, at readtangle.com. You can also fill out the form, the question form, that's linked to in every newsletter. All right, next up is our story that matters. On Wednesday, a federal judge ordered three of the nation's largest pharmacy chains to pay $650 million to two Ohio counties because of the opioid epidemic. The ruling against CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart came alongside a November jury ruling that the companies continued to dispense mass quantities of prescription painkillers

while ignoring signs they were being abused. It's the first ruling by a federal judge to assign a firm monetary figure against the pharmacy chains. The money must be paid in installments over 15 years, the judge ruled. All three companies vowed to appeal. The New York Times has the story and there's a link to it in today's newsletter. All right, that is it for our story that matters, which brings us to our numbers section. First up, the number of U.S. forces stationed in Europe after Biden increased deployments in the wake of the war in Ukraine was 100,000. The number of people who have left Ukraine since the war began, according to the UN, is 11.1 million.

The number of Ukrainians who are internally displaced is 6.3 million. The pre-war population of Ukraine was 42 million. The number of border crossings into Poland was 5.4 million. The pre-war population of Ukraine was 42 million. The number of border crossings into Poland was 5.4 million. The percentage of Ukraine that was controlled by Russia in early June, according to President Zelensky, was 20 percent. All right, and last but not least, our Have a Nice Day section. A new California law is doing something every teenager has always dreamed of, pushing the school day's start time back. A law went into effect this month that says school days should

begin no earlier than 8 a.m. for middle schoolers and no earlier than 8.30 a.m. for high schoolers. Sleep scientists have long argued that the typical structure of school start times with high schoolers going in earlier than elementary school students was backwards, and that both should start later. Up to an hour later, start times have been shown to improve grades, reduce student auto accidents, decrease truancy, and reduce behavioral issues. NPR has the story about this welcome change, and there's a link to it in today's newsletter. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast.

Before you go, a quick reminder if you want to hear from us tomorrow and unlock friday editions you need to subscribe to become a member of tangle you go to readtangle.com membership that is readtangle.com membership if you just select one of those memberships the month of your yearly one you will start getting friday editions in your inbox. That's it for now. We'll be back on Monday, same time. Peace. 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. Bye.