The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - What Does a Trump Presidency Mean For Ukraine?

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

With Donald Trump poised to return to the presidency, what will this mean for the war in Ukraine? Will Canada and other western nations step up? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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you didn't know you could become. Exciting, isn't it? Visit tvo.org slash giving Tuesday to make your donation today and discover your two point TVO. Today, November 19th, 2024 marks a grim milestone for the Russia-Ukraine War. Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II has reached its 1,000th day. Now with U.S. President Joe Biden authorizing Ukraine to launch American long-range missiles into Russia, and incoming

President Donald Trump's promise to end the war, where does that leave things for these two adversaries? Let's find out from in Odessa, Ukraine, Michael Bosterkew. He is a geopolitical analyst and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. In Montreal, Quebec, Maria Popova, Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University and co-author of Russia and Ukraine, Entangled Histories, Diverging States. And with us here in studio, Timothy Snyder, the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and the author of On Freedom.

And Lukin Ahmed-, distinguished professor of democracy at U of T and co-director of the Petro Jassik program for the study of Ukraine and we're grateful to see you two here in our studio and to Michael and Maria in Points Beyond thank you for joining us on TVO tonight. Just before we start our discussion let's just get some of the latest stats on the record here if we can and I'll ask our director Sheldon Osmond to bring up these graphics. According to the Council on Foreign Relations,

Center for Preventive Action, since Russia's full-scale invasion more than two years ago, Ukraine has recaptured 54% of occupied territory, while Russia still occupies 18% of the country. Since January of 2022, so almost three years ago, Ukraine has received about $278 billion in aid, including $75 billion from the United States. Fighting and airstrikes have inflicted

more than 30,000 civilian casualties, while 3.7 million people are internally displaced and 6.5 million have fled Ukraine altogether. In total, 14.6 million people need humanitarian assistance. And we should add that United Nations and Ukrainian officials say the figures are actually probably much higher, given the difficulty in verifying deaths and injuries, especially in areas such as the devastated port

city of Mariupol that are now in Russian hands. And let's flip over to this map if we can, Sheldon, because Michael is joining us from Odessa in southwest Ukraine. It is the third most populous city in Ukraine, a major seaport on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. And there were Russian missile attacks just the other day in Odessa, 10 fatalities, many people wounded, lots of buildings damaged. So we cross our fingers, Michael, for your safety and your participation here. Let's start with you in Ukraine. The 1,000th day, as we've indicated, how, in your view, have the Ukrainian people withstood so much bloodshed.

Great to be with you. Thank you for having me. Well, as you might have guessed by the visual I'm sitting in the dark as are probably millions of Ukrainians at the moment because of the heavy pounding from Russian strikes on critical infrastructure in Ukraine. Odessa is a world port city, should be seen that way by the global community. Many countries as you know rely on the food that comes out of Odessa ports but yet a small group of men in the Kremlin have been able to have been given free

reign to decide what comes in and out of the port and how much of Ukrainian grain feeds the world and they're also reported to be constraining trade in the Red Sea through the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. So, you know, I think a lot of people here, it's fair to say, on this 1000th day, a lot of people in Ukraine are saying, where is the global outrage? Where is the outrage when the Russians stop food going from Modesto, when they're pounding people into the Dark Ages literally. So having said all that especially Odessa which is historically an entrepreneurial city

built by many different nationalities there is what I've always called a irrepressible resilience. People go on no matter what whether it's in terms of fighting or in terms of fighting or in terms of volunteer work, in terms of keeping their businesses going, but there is a weariness, a tiredness happening and in a way that's going to put pressure on the Zelensky administration to find some way to end the war. And kind of to wrap up, I mean no one here that I've met feels that any territory should be given up. They want everything to go back to 1991 lines, whether that would happen at the negotiating

table we don't know. But it is fair to say also that a lot of worry what will happen the next hours and days now that attack comes are being used, what kind of response will that bring from the Russian side? In which case, Maria, let me follow up with this. Is Ukraine, in your judgment, more vulnerable now than at any time since the war began? And if so, why do you believe so? Yes, it's probably more vulnerable, in part because we have the Trump administration coming

in about eight, 10 weeks. And Trump, as you mentioned in the intro, has promised to settle this in a day. Now he will find out that it is very, very difficult to settle this. First because Putin has really not shown any realistic signs that he is ready to back off from the very maximalist gains, very maximalist goals that Russia has in this war, which is taking Ukrainian sovereignty. So we do speak a lot about what territory may be on the negotiating table, but I think we really need to remember that Russia is fighting this war not for territory,

but to take Ukraine's sovereignty. And we're in a dangerous moment because it's not clear that the Trump administration understands that. Timothy, how would you gauge Ukraine's vulnerability at this moment? I think in a way it's a mistake for us to define it as Ukraine's vulnerability because what's happened in the last three years or so is that Ukraine has taken all of our vulnerabilities upon itself. We forget that. We define Ukraine as a problem, when in fact Ukraine has been a solution.

It's the Ukrainians who have been defending a rules-based world order. It's the Ukrainians who have been showing that nuclear blackmail doesn't have to work and in that sense deterring nuclear proliferation. It's the Ukrainians who have been showing the Chinese how difficult offensive operations are and thereby deterring them. It's the Ukrainians who have been fulfilling essentially the entire NATO mission all by themselves with a certain amount of assistance from their allies. All of those are things that the Ukrainians have done.

So of course, if we let Ukraine lose, Ukrainians are going to suffer. But I think the part that we have to remember, talking about this from a distance, is that the whole world order, whether we're talking about nuclear weapons, deterring China, international law, depends on how this turns out. I appreciate the distinction you're making there,

but I raise the issue, of course, because Donald Trump has been pretty clear, Lukan, in saying he's certainly not gonna go to bat for Ukraine the way Joe Biden has. So that's the question about feeling vulnerable at the moment. What do you say? Yeah, well, certainly Ukraine is made vulnerable by Trump. I think there's an hope within Ukraine that because of Trump's unpredictability that he will be able to convince him, that they will be able to

convince him to change his mind. But I agree that that's unlikely. But I want to, you know, just second Tim's point that a lot of people see this war as kind of about Ukraine and that, you know, that's really not sort of in our sort of interest or doesn't really affect us directly. But I think the point is that, you know, if Russia is allowed to win in Ukraine, it will start attacking the rest of Europe, obviously the Baltics, Eastern Europe, but even more broadly, that if Russia succeeds, we will return to an

era not too long ago, you know, 70 or 80 years ago, when countries regularly invaded one another because they had terrible designs on their neighbors. So in other words, we have to think, you know, so what's at stake is much bigger than Ukraine. It's much bigger than Putin, than Russia. It affects obviously Taiwan. It affects nuclear proliferation.

So if we don't defend a Ukraine, you know, in these smaller countries that face attacks, what are they going to do? They're going to get nuclear weapons. Michael, we should put on the record here that Russia has announced this morning that Ukraine, I guess now that Joe Biden has given permission to do so, has fired long range missiles into Russia. How do you think that changes the state of affairs? That's right. Although I noticed that Foreign Minister Lavrov has backpelted a bit and said

we can't confirm it. But I think it's a signal of how quickly these attackings can be ramped up. I did notice that they did struck in an area adjacent to the Kursk region, which is where apparently the United States has so far limited the use of these weapons by the Ukrainians but I will venture to guess that the Ukrainians are very very eager to strike far deeper into you into Russia after all the Russians have been able to exploit this delay this trip-feet approach that the United States has instituted to move their weapon way far back to move the fighter jets far back and I would also venture to guess that the Ukrainians would be very eager to use these high capacity missiles to strike

at Putin's pet project, the Kerch Strait Bridge, not just because it is his pet project, but also because it is a vital conduit of military aid from mainline Russia to Crimea. If I could also add one more thing, I neglected in the first answer to just tell you how horrible the incoming missiles have impacted Odessa and Sumer and other cities. Steve, we're talking about apocalyptic scenes. Twice in the span of one week on Odessa, hundreds of apartment buildings flattened,

fires and deaths and injuries. And the Russians are now using high payload drones that previously might have only struck a few apartment buildings, but now can take an entire apartment building in one follow swoop. So I mentioned this because you can imagine the feeling of

the Ukrainians and their eagerness to strike back and neutralize these very launch pads in Russia where these missiles and drones are coming from. Let me follow up with Timothy on that. Why do you think 1,000 days in Joe Biden has now given the green light for Ukraine to attack deeper into Russia? Okay, I'm first going to use up the incredibly pedantic and point out that Atacams are short-range missiles. The entire international press calls them long-range missiles, I think, because that makes the thing sound spectacular.

But they are, in fact, short-range missiles. And you are now going to break this story. I think, I mean, to echo what Michael was saying, or sorry, the Biden administration's rollout has been incredibly slow. It's almost as though it's been designed for the Russians to know what comes next so they can make preparations for it. I think the fact that they know that Trump is coming has changed their calculus a little

bit. Not only have they done this, they've also taken steps to make sure that all of the allocated weapons will be delivered to Ukraine by the middle of January of next year. I think the Biden administration does understand at this point that there is a legacy issue here, and that if they are going to have any sort of foreign policy record at all, it will have to do with having done the right thing for Ukraine. And that, of course, is very welcome, although, of course, in my view, it's taken way, way, way too long. Maria, can I get you to weigh in on this notion that Mr. Biden's got two months left in the presidency,

and he's got to do something in that time if he wants to make a dent in history here? That's good. Yeah, it's a little too little too late. He probably is doing it because there is a window in which of course Russia will not escalate in any dramatic way because it's waiting for a friendlier US administration and it just has to sit out the next few weeks. But it really underscores that the Biden administration has been incredibly conservative, very, very slow, and very, very overcautious.

And the fact that they only now feel ready to take the step, which is not a major step, let's face it. We discuss it a lot, but it is not a hum step, let's face it. We discuss it a lot, but it is not a humongous change in Ukrainian capability. The fact that they've only now dared to take this step really shows that they've been self-limiting their steps all along and they're not really, haven't really been committed to Ukrainian victory but to only keeping Ukraine in the fight. And this will be their legacy.

It's not going to dramatically change their legacy. Having said that, Lukin, does it open the door for England, for France, for other European countries to similarly open the door wider for Ukraine? Well, I certainly hope so. I think there is a concern the United States is basically kind of irreplaceable in terms of given the size of the military. You know, all the Democratic West accounts for about half of military spending of the United States, so it's going to be hard to replace.

But I do want to sort of speak to the issue of, which was kind of implied in your question about escalation. Obviously, the Biden administration has restricted, put incredible restrictions on Ukraine because it says, as Biden said, we don't want World War Three. And I think a lot of sort of people are saying, well, we can't give Ukraine what it needs because Russia will nuke us. But I think what people forget is that, in fact, this kind of restraint is itself escalatory. If you tell your opponent you will not suffer consequences for aggressive behavior, they will engage

in more aggressive behavior. It's that simple. So I really worry that in his effort to prevent escalation, the Biden administration has actually escalated the conflict much more than it would have been if they had allowed Ukraine to respond right away. Timothy.

I mean, I think what what Lukin just said should be published as an op-ed, like around the world. That's a very important and profound point. Looking back at a war a thousand days in, I think the strangest thing about this war, the thing that historians will notice, is that the aggressor has been allowed to set the

rules of engagement. That is historically unprecedented. One country invades another country, and then the country that invades gets to make up new rules about what the invaded country is allowed to do. That has never happened before. And the oddest thing about this conversation is the way that we have all internalized this, the way we all think, OK, we have to wait and see what the Russians think. That's not how you fight a war.

You fight a war by making sure that the aggressor country is no longer able to continue it. It's not a therapeutic session for Mr. Putin. It's a normal hot war in which things have to be arranged such that they can't fight any longer. Having said that, Michael, how seriously do you think the majority of Ukrainians take the threat from the Kremlin to use nuclear weapons if this thing persists? Well, first of all, if I can, on a word on the deterrent factor, even the Southern Military District of Russia. Even the way the news leaked out was projecting weakness. Mr. Biden did not give a formal announcement, calls from the media to confirm this were not answered. And I'm not calling for Mr. Biden to imitate Ronald Reagan in 1987 as he did to Gorbachev and said,

tear down this wall. But I think he should have said at least we will stare you down, we will meet your missiles with our missiles and you're not going to be able to pound or pummel Ukraine into darkness and deteriorate its sovereignty. In terms of the Ukrainians, I think this has been quite the morale boost, but it's what our one of our panelists said as well, is that it's a little bit too little too late. And, you know, whether you go to military cemeteries in Odessa, in Lviv, in Kiev, they are now overflowing a lot of them.

The Ukrainians have spilt a lot of blood, as our other panelists have said, on behalf of the world, because indeed this is a globalized war and it's becoming more so. I think the Ukrainians finally will also tell you that the Russians can set any red lines they like, but look at the red line the Ukrainians crossed when they invaded Kursk during the summertime. Look at the lack of robust response from the Russian side. I think it points to how hollowed out the Russian defense ministry has been over the

years because of corruption. It could point also to disagreement within the Putin circle and to disorganization among the various agencies that were tasked to push the Ukrainians back. So I think it's a big illusion as well, how much strength the Russians actually have to meet any of this type of response from Ukraine and the West. Lukin. Yeah, so I mean, Russia already assumes

that the West is going to attack it. So sort of the idea that somehow by, you know, short, long range, 100 kilometers, 200 kilometers, that's gonna make any difference at all, I think is completely wrong. What Russia is held in by is its own capacity. So we have to reduce its capacity to strike. That will limit the escalation on the Russian side.

Maria, I wonder though, the recent American election, the majority of Americans voted for a presidential candidate who was very clearly on the record. Not majority. It was not a majority. 49.9% It was not a majority. 49.9% It was not a majority.

Okay. Close. 49.9% is that right? That's where we are now. Okay, appreciate the correction. 49.9% with still some votes to count, but okay, let's say 49.9%. Let's say the largest plurality of Americans clearly voted for a candidate who wants this war over and does not certainly show any signs of going to bat for Ukraine in the

way that his predecessor did. If the larger chunk of the American public is not behind this war, does that hamstring what America will do going forward? You know, polls actually show that a big majority of Americans support Ukraine and want Ukraine to win, a bipartisan majority of Americans, almost over two-thirds. I think the reason this doesn't seem to show up or to be reflected in the presidential election is Americans don't really vote on foreign policy. This was a domestically driven outcome. So I think actually President Trump will end up realizing that his fantasy about negotiating a solution in a couple of days is not going to work. And then he will have to react in some way to the fact that he will not have a deal.

And Americans will be watching and they will not want Ukraine to be betrayed. Timothy, is there any possibility that Donald Trump could be on the level when he says, I can solve this in a day? Is that imaginable to solve this in a day? Well, we already know that didn't happen because his promise was actually that he would solve it within a day after the election, not a day after his inauguration. So he's already failed and he has to fail. And Maria is entirely right. What has happened thus far has been Russia ritually

humiliating Trump by showing his wife naked on television, by escalating when he says he told them to de-escalate, by denying a phone call took place when Trump says a phone call took place. That's what we're going to see. I mean, in my view, and others can disagree, but in my view, the Russians perceive Trump as so weak that any offer he puts on the table

can be made better by bullying him more. The optimistic scenario, which I will just give voice to, the optimistic scenario is that Trump at some point recognizes that he's being bullied and humiliated and feels like he has to respond. That's the most, that's as good as it could possibly get. Personally, I'm quite skeptical of that. I think Mr. Trump's ability to be subservient to Putin probably doesn't have a floor.

And he surrounded himself by people, including Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who are quite clearly pro-Putin type folks. Michael, can I get you to weigh in on that? Sure. I think that one of the problems we're faced with not only during the election period, but then in the weeks leading up is the Americans have done a very poor job, the Democrats especially,

in terms of enunciating what could be the knock-on effects of this war escalating, especially when it has the potential to hit Americans' pocketbooks, as I referred to earlier, blocking off the Black Sea to wheat and sunflower exports, that type of thing. So I think if especially European leaders take it upon themselves to start screaming louder that perhaps we're not going to see Mr. Putin strike really hard on Ukraine, but I think they're going to turn to more nefarious ways, cutting submarine cables that are described as accidents,

or poisoning opponents on foreign soil, blocking GPS signals, trying to put explosives on commercial aircraft, meddling in elections, the list goes on and on and on. And this will eventually make life a lot more dangerous in a lot of democracies around the world. That's the message that really needs to get home to voters and don't forget we have a lot more elections happening later you know in the next few months in various democracies around the world so really important to get that out. I want to let's just do a little shift in course here and

Luke and I'll start with you. I want to get to, in particular, the two Canadian based academics here to weigh in on this. How effective an ally for Ukraine has Canada been? Well, I think it's really in some ways on its best, although it's on a per capital level Canadian aid. I mean, of course, in absolute terms, Canadian aid is much lower than the United States, but it's a much smaller country, but even on a per capital level aid to Ukraine has been lower than the United States.

And I think, you know, just, you know, there's certain limitations in Canada's military capacity that sort of limit the extent to which it can aid Ukraine in the war. Maria, can I get your view as I add to the record here the fact that the deputy prime minister of the country has a Ukrainian background and has obviously been extremely seized of this file. How strong an ally have we been? We have been a strong ally rhetorically, but not so much in terms of delivering what Ukraine needs. As Lucan mentioned, part of this is because we're not really spending a lot on our defense anyway, so we don't have a lot to give. But we are bottom of the pack, let's face it, in terms of actual contribution.

So I think in order to make a bigger difference, knowing that our capacity is limited, we should either have started investing more in defense, or we should really have put more effort into pushing through our diplomatic ability as a mid-power to really push for some things that are not related to defense spending. Push more to confiscate Russia's frozen assets, for example. Become a leader on this file and really get the allies around the idea that this needs to be done. This, for example, would have been something that might have compensated for the fact

that we cannot allocate much military aid. OK, a little over five minutes to go here. And I want to get all of you to weigh in on whether you agree or disagree with the statement I'm about to make. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, will have to compromise with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, because neither country has yet to demonstrate that it can militarily defeat the other on the battlefield. We agree or disagree, Timothy, on that?

I just want to make sure that somebody says North Korea before this show is over. We have there are 10,000 North Korean troops fighting now in Europe. There could be 100,000 in the next few weeks. If Canada and other Western democracies are going to think about this situation, the fact that East Asian troops are now essentially invading Europe is something that ought to be kept in mind. I disagree with that formulation

because I think wars are won and lost. I think no one ever has to negotiate because of some abstract reason. You win a war or you lose a war. Those of us who want Ukraine to win have to do what we can to make that possible. And those who want Russia to negotiate have to do exactly the same thing. Michael, your view on whether it is incumbent upon Zelensky to compromise harder, given the state of play?

Well, I think it would be very difficult for any Ukrainian president to give up anything that the Russians are demanding or that the vice president-elect has parroted on behalf of the Kremlin and basically freeze the lines where they are, demilitarize zone, and freeze Ukraine's NATO bid. So I don't know how we could get around that, but perhaps it will take more massive intervention from Turkey, from Qatar, from Saudi Arabia, who have been quite effective on and off during the conflict in terms of POW exchanges and that sort of thing. And I should also add that perhaps Mr. Trump won't be able to solve this in a day. He's shown he hasn't been able to. But

I think the one person who could pick up the phone, because he has him on speed dial, to call Mr. Putin and demand that he stop the war is Xi Jinping of China because of their relationship and because China is the bigger guy in the room. And quickly, as the Ukrainian-Canadian on the panel, I have to say that I'm very disappointed that not only on the Ukraine file but others as well, Canada is no longer punching above its weight. Our stature on the international stage has been very, very weakened in the past while and we see that for example by Mr. Trudeau seemingly

wanting to be not only Prime Minister but Foreign Minister as well, appointing a weaker deputy on the foreign affairs file. And finally, it saddens me too that so much time was lost at the start of the war when Mr. Trudeau, I think mistakenly, put so much stock in sanctions against Russia where other means could have been provided, for example, weaponry and training from the get-go. Understood. Okay, Lukan, come on in on this issue of whether Zelensky needs to compromise harder

to get a solution done. So a few things. First, I think there has been this sort of framing that somehow Zelensky has it in his capacity to end the war. That is simply not. One person has it in their capacity. That's Putin. And Zelensky cannot by himself end the war.

I think, I think sure it's, I think it's actually conceivable. I mean, given the sort of shifts in Ukrainian public opinion that sort of Ukrainian public would sort of accommodate itself to reduction in territory, but only, and this is where the West is central come in. If there is a plausible, viable security guarantee. That is the most important thing going on right now. The minute you can only really begin to talk about negotiation, when the West comes up with a mechanism, NATO is the

most obvious one, but NATO doesn't work, call it something else, call it whatever, as long as Russia is effectively deterred from invading because until then negotiations are pointless because you can negotiate long as Russia is effectively deterred from invading. Because until then, negotiations are pointless because you can negotiate endlessly. Russia is just going to endlessly invade and the like. Maria, there's a G20 summit taking place in Rio right now. Should we have any expectation that something useful will come out of that as it relates to this? No, not really. There seems to be a proposal by Erdogan that's being discussed, but the Russians immediately shut it down, even though it was quite useful for them, you know, freezing,

proposing to freeze Ukraine's NATO accession for 10 years, freezing the territorial realities. But the Russians showed very clearly, yet again, that they're not willing to compromise right now. So I think that's the reason why the formulation about Ken Zelensky, will he need to compromise, is really a moot point because there's no compromise being offered. There's no compromise on the table right now. And Ukraine needs to somehow be in a position to even begin to compromise because what is what the Russian side is offering right now is Negotiations on the term of surrender. That's all Timothy has often been said when two countries are at war that we know what the final outcome is going to look like We just can't get there from here. Do you agree with that?

Do we know what the final outcome is going to look like when it's all said and done? We just got to figure out how to get there Do you agree with that? Do we know what the final outcome is going to look like when it's all said and done? We just got to figure out how to get there? Wars are very, any historian will say, wars are very unpredictable. And a competent historian of the world since 1945 will point out that in general, the smaller country beats the bigger country, and the anti-colonial country beats the colonial country. Who wins this war is going to depend largely on how we think about it. That is those of us who are in a position to help.

If we think that Ukraine is doomed, then that's bad. But if we think that Ukraine can win, as of course they can, then we're in a position to make sure that they get to a military situation where Russia has things to think about. And then as Lukin and others have said, there has to be political support so that Ukrainians can see their way into a future in the European Union, in NATO, a world where they can feel like, OK, we can move forward. Because for them, that's what this has always been about.

Two countries, yes, but it's also two visions of the way the world works. A Russian vision in which anything which is democratic, future-oriented has to be stopped in the name of one oligarch. And a Ukrainian vision which is more like people should live the way they want to live, the future should be open. That's what's at stake. I want to thank all four of you for coming on to TVO tonight, particularly Michael Borsakiu,

who did so under considerable difficult circumstances in Ukraine. Thank you so much for joining us. Michael from the Atlantic Council, Maria Popova, associate professor of political science, McGill University, Timothy Snyder, Yale University, and please check out his newest book, On Freedom, which is an excellent read, Lukin Ahmed-Wei, University of Toronto, distinguished professor there for the study of Ukraine. Thanks so much to the four of you. Thank you.