The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Putin Talks "Freeze" in the Ukraine War, What Does That Mean?

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

Is the Russia, Ukraine War at a hinge moment? Vladimir Putin's use of the word "freeze" has people talking. Including Janice Stein who makes her regular weekly appearance on the Bridge to give us her analysis. The Munk School director also gives us her latest update on the situation in the Middle East, plus the tense situation in the waters off Taiwan.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. When Putin says freeze in the war in Ukraine, what does he actually mean? Janice Stein. So welcome to our weekly conversation with Janice Stein, who is now the, once again, the director of the Munk School at the University of Toronto. Janice is one of the founding directors of the Munk School at the University of Toronto. Janice is one of the founding directors of the Munk School and has been in a number of roles since then. Kind of retired, although in Janice's world, you're never retired. She's always involved.

And we draw upon that involvement and that knowledge every week for basically two reasons. The war in Ukraine, between Ukraine and Russia, and the Middle East situation, which continues to unfold in a direction that nobody really is very happy about. So in both those cases, we look for Janice's direction. But back at the University of Toronto, with the director's chair empty at the moment, they've asked Janice to come back and sit as an interim director while they sort things out on that front. But she said, absolutely, I'll do that, but I can't miss the bridge and and I know that you agree with

that so she's here and we'll get to her in just a moment because there's lots to talk about on on both those friends plus a couple of other things as well but first of, before I do that, question of the week time. And we're going to revert to our general question for, at least for this week, if not for a couple of weeks, which is what's on your mind? And you can throw anything out there. It could be about domestic politics. It could be about domestic politics. It could be about foreign affairs.

It could be, well, it could be anything literally that's on your mind. So why don't you think about that one and throw the question into the mix or throw your answer into the mix of what's on your mind. Quick reminders, name, location you're writing from. Keep it fairly brief, please. You know, a good paragraph is usually the best way to go about this. And I look forward to reading yours. Send it to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, themansbridgebridge Podcast at gmail.com, the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com

and we'll see what we end up with by the end of the week. Well, not the end of the week, the middle of the week. 6 p.m. Eastern Time, Wednesday is the close out for What's On Your Mind this week. So please don't hesitate. Look forward to receiving that. A couple of reminders about next week. We're approaching June 6th,

one of the circle days, at least on my calendar, every year is Remembering D-Day. And this is one of those big years. It's the 80th anniversary of D-Day next week. And as a result, we're going to do two special shows next week. One of them will be with James Holland, the British historian. You may listen to his podcast, We Can Make You Talk, which is a great podcast in terms of history.

They've just completed a series on D-Day. And I'm going to drop on his expertise. If the name doesn't immediately ring a bell, you can be sure that you've seen James or heard James on any radio or television documentaries about, especially about the Second World War. He's an expert on history and he's a great talker, very anecdotal and wonderful to hear from. So we're looking forward to chatting with James.

Somebody who you absolutely will remember is Nala Ayyad. Nala worked with me at the National for years, traveling the world, the hot spots, telling gripping stories about what was going on in these different assignments that she was on. She's now the host of Ideas on CBC Radio, has been for the last few years. Does great work on that. Well, she's also a writer.

She just finished a book, The War We Won Apart. And it's D-Day related, and it's about a couple of Canadians. And their heroics behind the lines during the Second World War, and especially just before D-Day. And so we're going to talk to Nala about her book. So those are two shows next week, Monday and Tuesday. I'm not sure which order we're going to talk to Nala about her book. So those are two shows next week, Monday and Tuesday. I'm not sure which order we're going to go in yet. But Monday and Tuesday of next week as we lead up to June 6th.

And I'm absolutely looking forward to both of those programs. And I hope you will as well. But let's get back to today's topic. And today's topic is Janus Stein. So let's get right at it right now. So we didn't talk about Russia and Ukraine last week, which gives us an opportunity to spend a few minutes on it this week. I want to start with a new word that Putin is throwing around.

At least it's new to me. I hadn't seen it before. This comes at a time when they seem, the Russians, seem to have the upper hand in the fight over Ukraine, and yet he's talking about a pause or a freeze. His freeze, I guess his term for a ceasefire. Should we believe any of this or is this just word game? Well, people usually make these proposals when they've got the upper hand and they resist these proposals fiercely when they're losing. So I don't want to dismiss this entirely, Peter.

And the origin of this story is five Russian sources who spoke on background to Reuters. That's not nothing, that's for sure. But it's also conceivable that, you know, they coordinate the five sources to go and talk on background with a message. We're interested in a freeze. We want to freeze the ceasefire lines now. We will reach an agreement. And in addition in the messaging was, one, we are not interested in seizing any more NATO territory, any NATO territory for that matter. And Putin is worried about nuclear instability.

Well, let's take that last one for just a minute. This is the same Russian president who 10 days ago conducted exercises to practice the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. That usually happens when he's alarmed. That's only happened twice. Every time he's been alarmed. And what set him off? Macron's statement several weeks ago that NATO forces should be deployed to Ukraine, followed by a U.S. statement that it might be necessary for U.S. troops to train, trainers to go to Ukraine directly

because the Ukrainian army is so stretched that they might have to be deployed to train on the battlefield. So I think he is concerned. He does not want to see NATO directly involved and the United States deploying even trainers on the ground. So I think there's a very small chance there may be some interest here, and if I were Blinken, I would be exploring through back channels. Is there any?

Now, one would then flip it over and say, okay, well, how's Zelensky going to look at this? Obviously, a freeze of existing lines would be, you know, the admission of a real defeat on his part in terms of territory. So there would have to be some work done there. But he looks like he's trying to get some work done as well. There's a peace summit of some sort in Switzerland coming up very soon, next month in June, so starting next week somewhere. And he's looking for support at that summit. He is, Peter. And so what you're

seeing now, you're seeing maneuvering on the battlefield to dictate the conditions for the negotiation, which appears increasingly inevitable, frankly. And that's the bigger picture here. Ukraine cannot push Russia's forces out entirely. There's virtually no scenario. There's no military analysts who think this is credible. He knows that. Zelensky knows that. So some kind of negotiation is inevitable. For Putin, it would be a long, hard slog and an expensive slog still ahead. So we're heading toward a negotiation sooner rather than later, but sooner can be months and months ahead and lots of battlefield casualties ahead as well. At that peace conference that you talked about, Russia is not invited. So this is really an attempt to build a coalition around the terms of the negotiation. You know, where are we if the lines were frozen right now? Ukraine has recovered until the current counteroffensive, depending on how you measure it, between 17 and 20 percent of the territory that Russia gained after that initial invasion.

So, yes, it's a defeat if you go back to January 2022. It's not a defeat if you go back to March 2022. And you can actually, Zelensky could claim that he is recaptured. Some of what Russia occupied, bigger picture, would he survive this? I don't, I think it would be impossible for him to survive. You know, elections are postponed as long as the war goes on. Were he to concede this much, it would be, I think he would have enormous difficulty winning any kind of election. But this is an exhausted Ukraine.

Not enough soldiers having trouble mobilizing, you know, troops that can't be rotated out of the front even for rest for R&R. This is an exhausted, exhausted Ukrainian army. That is the hard reality that they're facing. And so that pushes, I think, towards some sort of win. You know, one thing that's happened seemingly all of a sudden is there are a lot more players on the, I was going to say battlefield, but not on the battlefield, on the playing field on this issue. You mentioned Macron a bit ago, and he's been kind of a constant at different times. But Viktor Orban got on the field in the last little while.

Hungry member of NATO, but Orban saying, you know, we're only going to go so far here right now. We're uncomfortable with the NATO position, and we may pull back. What impact does that have? You know, right from the beginning, Viktor Orban has kept an open door to Putin, trying to build a bridge back. And there's always been that threat of disunity inside NATO with a small number of members.

I think beneath the surface, Peter, Germany also wants a negotiated settlement to this conflict. It's always been reserved. It's never been comfortable with taking on Russia, frankly. And so, you know, this is at the same time as Jens Stoltenberg came out with a statement. Yes, we should, Zelensky should be able to use long-range American missiles to attack over the border into Russia. great at any cost because they view anything but a defeat of Russia as, frankly, a terrible precedent for NATO. That's one group at one end. At the other end are the Viktor Orban's, Olaf Scholz in the middle. There are these gradations of tone, again, which open the door, at least for political negotiations.

You hear it inside our own government. Yeah, we do. Yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, you have those who feel very, very strongly that defensive Ukraine is an absolute must and there should be no compromise and there's no trust in Russia. And there are others who argue there is no prospect of a Ukrainian victory on the battlefield. Absolutely no prospect, by which we mean no prospect of pushing Russian forces back all the way to the border before February 22nd.

Well, I'm sure there are people in a number of different countries, NATO countries, who would love one of these crises off the table, whether it's Russia, Ukraine, or Israel and Mosul, would love one of them off the table. At the moment, I mean, it's just seemingly, you know, I watched, the reason I'm so intrigued by the Putin move is I saw him getting off a plane at some meeting this weekend. And here's a guy who's had a rough couple of years, right?

But not lately. He looked, you know, he was wearing jeans, kind of a, you know, a sports shirt, like a golf shirt, a blue blazer. He looked very in control of himself and of the situation. I hadn't seen him looking that way for a long time. This was a guy who was almost toppled a year ago, right? Prokosin and his people. But he looked pretty comfortable there. And you see some of the analysis suggesting the Russians are re-equipping

in terms of artillery shells at three times the rate the Ukrainians are. And, you know, the news from the battlefront, not good on the Ukrainian side. So all these sort of indicators pointing in Russia's favor, and as you said at the beginning, it's when things are looking good on the battlefield is the time to play it. That's absolutely, you know absolutely the most likely time. There was a fascinating article, Peter, published by one Russian-Ukrainian scholar and an American scholar together, where they looked at the negotiations in the first month of the war. In the first month of this war,

and they came very, very close, the Ukrainian and the Russian teams, to reaching an agreement because, you know, there was pessimism on both sides. The Russians hadn't gone where they thought they were going to go. Oh my God, it wasn't a walkover. And Ukraine understood then how tough the fight was going to be. That's when you get these breakthroughs.

So a confident Putin is better. His back is not against the wall. But Russia, even under ideal circumstances, has not. Yes, it is pushing right across the front. Yes, there's breakthroughs. Yes, I think it's going to take longer for Ukraine to get the American supplied munitions to the front. Then the most optimistic Americans think it is not easy. But this is the moment of greatest advantage for Putin before that resupply comes onto the battlefield.

If he's going to make any kind of offer, it's going to be now. So I think those feelers were trial balloons. Can he get any interest from anybody through a back channel? Well, you know, images are just images. They don't necessarily mean anything. But those images of Putin, when you contrast them with the images this weekend of Zelensky, who looks tired and gaunt and dark and unshaven, you go, you know, to your earlier point, you know, elections have been delayed, but they'll eventually come.

You wonder, depending on where Ukraine's going to end up in this, whether he'd even want to run again. And those images do matter, Peter, right? It was a hollow eye. Zelensky gave a long and very despairing interview to the New York Times about how desperate conditions were. Now, you might say that's hype because he's trying so hard to get the ammunition moving. But boy, look at that picture. That is not the Zelensky that we saw 18 months ago. Whereas Putin, as you rightly said, this is a good moment for him.

As for the White House, what do they want? They just want this over? I mean, they pumped all these billions of dollars, either directly or indirectly, in Ukraine's favor in the last month or so. But nobody seems to be suggesting that's going to do anything and make anything change. You have to ask your Secretary of State, Peter, and you're trying to keep your finger in the dike in Ukraine, and you're involved in this frustrating, frustrating exercise in the Middle East where you don't seem to have any leverage at all with anybody some days.

And it's endangering the president's free election. And then we'll talk about later, we look at China and Taiwan. This is a full plate for any American administration to manage, especially as we move into election season. My sense is if one of these could be moved to the back burner, there would be a lot of relief. All right, let's move to the other one, then, the Middle East. You know, as we're recording this, Hamas is sending missiles into Israel towards Tel Aviv,

which is not a good sign. They haven't done that for some time. You know, the great hopes of two weeks ago seem long gone and basically forgotten. The situation in Jerusalem at the Israeli cabinet level still seems a bit of a mess, but I guess there's another week before the deadline that Benny Gantz has given Netanyahu. What's your assessment of where we are on that?

I mean, the other thing is, too, you've got Trump trying to get involved in things by saying, as he said a couple of times in the last few days, all the hostages are dead. Forget about the hostages. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't quite that definitive, but that's what it came off like. Yeah. So where are we?

So, you know, there's two conflicting pushes going on right now, Peter. There was the ICC decision, the criminal court that indicted Netanyahu and gone. Predictably, upsurge in the poll for the beleaguered prime minister standing against the world, the rally around the flag effect. You could have predicted it. Right. And that's why I was critical, so critical of the timing of that. Just the worst timing without any real reason for that timing, he could have weighed in. The next decision, very different, the ICJ decision, which happened this week, which was very, very precise. It said, you shall, which is a strong word for a court, you shall not engage in any action in Rafah, only in Rafah. So again, that matters.

That may jeopardize the survival of the Palestinian people according to the Genocide Convention. So that may, that's another word that leaves a lot of room for people to argue about. And people are arguing about it in Israel. But nevertheless, that is a blow. And there's a sense that is now pushing the other way, that the world has lost patience. The world has lost patience and that there's a huge political price to be paid.

Now, marry that up not with Trump's comment, the hostages are dead, because frankly, how does he know? He's not getting those briefings. But the former spokesperson for the IDF, Conroycus, made a statement saying, I think the hostages are all dead. It's very unlikely that any of them will have survived this. So we have this, you know, very, very conflicted public inside Israel right now. There would be strong support for ceasefire if there was a guarantee the hostages would come home,

even those that remain alive. However, whatever that number is, and none of us know with any accuracy, although it's much smaller than we thought it was. Were that deal to be made, I think there would be overwhelming support for ceasefire. But if all the hostages are dead, that's a different world. Then the anger over that and the sense of being embattled and that rally around the flag would push entirely in the opposite direction to keep going until those four Hamas battalions are defeated. You know, I think that's not a convincing military objective.

These battalions will leave. They'll melt into the population. They won't stay in formation. This is not a conventional battlefield. But public opinion in Israel is genuinely, genuinely divided. And the criminal court blew up the impending attack from within on Netanyahu that was gathering stream. All I would, and I'm by no means an expert in any way on this, but the only thing about the hostages that I would venture is Hamas was hoping to get as many as, you know, a thousand or more prisoners released in exchange for hostages.

If they're all dead and something must have gone horribly wrong. Yes. Fairly recently. Yes. You're absolutely right. The hostages are the most valuable asset that Seymour has. That's why he launched this whole operation, to get hostages and use them to bargain for the release of Palestinian prisoners and to pull Israel into a war, which is doing what he hoped it would do,

which is to inflict a massive public relations disaster on Israel. It's hard for me to believe they're all dead because he has some around him, which he's literally encircled by them, and they must be alive. But I think there are many more that are dead. And if enough are dead, he's not going to get the thousand-plus prisoners that were one of the primary motivations for this.

It's called lose-lose, Peter. Yeah. Well, it's been lose-lose since, well, since October 6th, you know, the day before. After that, it's been lose-lose ever since. Yeah. And it gets increasingly harder to figure out if there is any way out of this. Well, you know, thespire negotiators are back i'm not any more hopeful than you are frankly um but some of them feel and they've got a vested

interest in saying this frankly so but some of them are saying this is the last best chance to get a deal because the RAFA operation is going to take another two weeks, three weeks. Then we're into the day after, whether it's your plan for it or not, it's the day after. And Hope will die completely for the hostages. So even for Sinoir, if he wants to use those hostages, his time is now actively working against him. Boy, if I had a nickel for every time we've heard lost best chance. Well, let's see. Let's hope.

Yeah, we can hope. We're both skeptical, I think. But it is true that those sausages are of diminishing value now. As the intelligence community says louder and louder, many, many are dead. Okay. We're going to take a quick break, and we come back with a couple of really other interesting things that fall under the what are we missing headline that's right after this and welcome back you're listening to uh the bridge the Monday episodes with Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School, University of Toronto. We should mention that Janice is now, once again, she was the founding director of the Munk School.

She's now back in the director's chair. They say interim while you're filling in for somebody who's our friend Peter Lohan, who's off to, where is he going? Cornell? Cornell. Cornell University well good for him um but meanwhile somebody's got to run the monk school and so guess who's back we'll see for how long and of course there's nothing happening just a demonstration grounds but moving on to other things um this is another one of those kind of banner moments in the China-Taiwan story with the Chinese really, you know, circling the island and looking very threatening. Very.

So what do we say about this? You know, Peter, this was in response to a speech by the newly elected president of Taiwan in which he used the word sovereignty. Taiwan is sovereign, he said, and line with China to talk about sovereign. Whereupon the Chinese launched probably their most threatening exercise in and around Taiwan. When Nancy Pelosi went to visit Taiwan, what the Chinese did was practice a blockade of Taiwan. So they deployed their navy and the air force, but it was clear it was a practice for a blockade, which we call a squeeze strategy on Taiwan. And a blockade would be a huge issue for a small island country like Taiwan. This is one step up.

It was an outright attack. It was practice for an outright attack on Taiwan. And that was, you know, this is signaling with your Navy and your Air Force. Don't even talk like this, much less think like this, because we're going to walk down this road. We will stop at nothing. You know, the Biden administration, and here's an example where the president has said four times we will defend Taiwan and four times the people around them walked it back within the first hour because there's ambiguity in the treaty relationship between Taiwan and the United States.

But there's no support in the administration. Nobody supports the active pursuit of sovereignty or independence by Taiwan. That has always been an issue that the United States tried to tamp down. So frankly, this is the last thing that the United States wants to see. It had to have alarmed Japan. It had to have alarmed South Korea when we see this vigorous, vigorous deployment. And you could see on the pictures, on the satellite pictures, you know, completely encircled Taiwan. The disparity of forces is so enormous.

Size matters. Size matters. wonder how serious this is. Some of your colleagues, your other well-known international foreign policy experts and foreign affairs experts have said for some time that, and we're talking some time, three, four, five years now, that if there was going to be a third world war, it wasn't going to be as a result of something like we've witnessed in the last couple of years in Ukraine and Russia or in the Middle East. It was going to be China and Taiwan. That's how seriously this situation is regarded. And as you said, we've never seen it quite as serious as it looks, at least this week. You know, and that's in a sense, when we were talking earlier about the divided attention

that the United States has right now, frankly, the Middle East, whatever happens in the Middle East, no longer a strategic threat to the United States. It's important and it's got domestic political ramifications. People in the world look at what the United States is doing, but it's not strategic. You could argue Ukraine more important because of Russia, but the overwhelming, you know, major theater of strategic interaction for the United States is China and the Indo-Pacific. All the growth in the global economy virtually in the next two decades will be in the Indo-Pacific. China is the only country in the military that's growing faster.

China is expanding its nuclear weapons. And it is an economic rival to the United united states the second largest economy in the world and it's um it's a technological competitor peter so that is the focus and when you have a week like this you know it drives it drives attention to what is the big one. You look at Tony Blinken. We talked about Zelensky and Putin. He looks exhausted. He looks absolutely exhausted.

You know, he performed on a guitar in Kiev. He plays rock. He actually looked more comfortable doing that than he has on his other missions of late, which have been, you know, not to say he's been doing a bad job, just to say that he's given it everything and it just isn't working. You could tell his voice was hoarse. He's tired. Right.

And, you know, voice was hoarse. He's tired. Right. And, you know, there's a cost. One of my colleagues who writes about international security said, we have an attention economy. There's only so much attention to go around at the highest levels of a senior team. And when you divide that attention the way it's been divided for the last two years or more there's a real cost to be paid and the team is the senior team is exhausted they're just exhausted well last point and it's a lost situation you know there's probably not many of us including me who, who before the last couple of days, we'd heard of New Caledonia,

but we probably couldn't place it on a map. Well, if you're still at that point, if you take out a world map, New Caledonia is an island nation which is east of Australia, north of New Zealand. It's, you know, obviously we don't hear about it a lot, but we're hearing about it right now because there's a degree of civil unrest there. It's pretty ugly. There's a lot of death and destruction going on.

It's the head of state of New Caledonia is actually Macron in France. And now look at that map again and see how far France is from New Caledonia. Well, if you don't think Macron was worried about the situation, he should worry about it because he flew all the way to New Caledonia, which is, if you look at the map, it's probably like three-quarters of the way around the world to get there. Is this something that is a one-week wonder, or are we looking at more of a problem here?

Well, you know, it's interesting because you're right. Most of us don't know where it is and wouldn't be paying attention. But it's actually a story I think that Canadians would really appreciate. What is this about? This is about sovereignty association. That's really the story here. It's been going on since 1980s the indigenous people, the Canuck people

wanted independence, there was a civil war and in response to that really and it flares up, it never quite goes away Peter, it comes back and in response, Macron promised three referendums. Well, the first two were held, 47%. Evoking any memories here?

The third one, canceled during COVID. And then what does Macron do? Passes an amendment in Paris that changes the voter rolls and changes the rules for who's eligible to vote in the expectation that it's going to tip the last referendum against sovereignty. Well, it exploded. The streets are barricaded. Food and fuel is not getting through. And with Macron's sense of grandeur, he flies his way around the world for a small territory that is still French.

Not many left, but that's one. And he says to them, there'll be a new deal on the table if you take down the barricades. No success. No success. The independence movement, he came, he left. The barricades are not down. They're mobilized. You know, the demand for sovereignty and independence, part of history and culture never completely goes away.

And that reflex of the goal and goalless grandeur never goes away in Macron either. All right. It is your duty, aside from all the other new duties you have, is to come up with something good in the water we're missing for next week. You have to find a story somewhere, because this is a pretty depressing one today. But as always, Janice, your insight is important

and has given us lots to think about. So take care. Actually, next week is D-Day week. And I've got two special shows on next week. So unless, you know, barring a catastrophe of some kind, we're going to take the week off from our conversation. Okay, but I'm going to listen to the D-Day shows. Oh, they're good.

They're good. For sure. James Holland is one, the British historian I'm a huge fan of. And Nala Ayyad is the other. And Nala's just written a book. Oh. I don't want to let it all out of the bag.

It gets published later this week. But it's a story of basically two Canadian heroes who were behind the lines. One woman, one man. Special agents dropped in just days before D-Day. It's a great story. And, you know, of all the stories we all know, this is one we don't know. I'm so glad you're doing this, Peter, because, of course, it's a huge moment.

We're still living with the consequences, but also because Canadians played such an extraordinary role behind the lines, in the front lines during that war. And not enough people know and not enough people remember any longer. So it's really great that you're telling these stories. Good. Glad you approve. And we'll do that. So we'll see you in two weeks' time, Janice.

See you in two weeks. Hope for a quiet world. Yes, we will definitely hope for that. Cheers. Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School, University of Toronto. Lots in that conversation, as there always is every week with Janice. I've got to say, she gives you so much to think about and so much to debate yourself.

You may not agree with this, that, or the other thing, but it's all encouraging to listen to in the sense that it makes you think. What else makes you think these days? Well, one of them is our domestic situation and an election at some point in the next year. A couple of weeks ago, we had author, journalist, writer, Paul Wells on the program to talk about his new book, Justin Trudeau, On the Ropes,

which gives you a glimpse of the current prime minister. Well, tomorrow, we've got Andrew Lawton, another author and journalist, on the program because he's just finished his book and it's on Pierre Polyev. It's called A Political Life. So we wanted to get a sense of what's Andrew learned about this guy who could very well be the prime minister, the next prime minister of Canada,

at least if he believed believe in the polls, because he's got a huge lead at the moment. And we'll see what happens over the next year or so. But obviously, this is somebody we probably know, most Canadians probably know very little about. Well, what are we going to learn in the new book by Andrew Lawton? We'll find out tomorrow when he's our guest right here on the bridge. Until such time, we're done.

Keep in mind your questions, or sorry, your answers to the question, what's on your mind. Looking for them, send it along to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com by 6 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday. Include your name, your location you're writing from, and, you know, a brief filling out of the, like a paragraph or so of what's on your mind. It can be anything, any issue you want.

Put it down. That's it for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in a mere 24 hours or so.