The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Untold Story of The War in Ukraine.

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

Much has been made of how the Russian forces are botching their invasion of Ukraine.  What isn't being talked about, and should be, is how effective the Ukrainian defence forces are.  So veteran war correspondent Brian Stewart takes us into that angle and it's fascinating.   And Dr Sam Nutt is with us for her take on the refugee situation which is overwhelming an unprecedented exodus.  

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge, the untold story of the war in Ukraine. That's our focus today. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here in Stratford, Ontario. Welcome to this Tuesday episode of The Bridge. You are probably one of the people, the millions of people, who around the world saw an incredible picture taken over the weekend and published by the New York Times. And it was seen literally around the world because of the nature of the picture.

It was taken by a New York Times photographer, Lindsay Adario, who was in Ukraine covering the war. She was caught over the weekend in a bombardment of civilians. She wasn't far away, 30, 40 meters away from the strike point. And what was struck? A family. A young family fleeing or trying to flee Ukraine for the safety of one of the bordering countries, probably Poland.

The family didn't make it. They were all killed. And Lindsay's picture taken just seconds after the attack was of that family lying in the roadway. It's a horrible image. The kids still carrying their little backpacks. The parents pulling their little roller bags lying in the street. And to Lindsay, that symbolized

what has become of this war. Russians attacking civilians. And so, horrific pictures and images are taken every day by still photographers and camera people from networks around the world. And most of those horrific images don't make it into publication because editors say, you know what, that's too much.

But in this case, Lindsay Adario argued with her editors in New York at the New York Times that this had to be shown, that this is what this war had become. And after apparently a number of hours, maybe even a couple of days, the decision was made to publish. And publish they did, and they have had the impact around the world that you can imagine. Now, for a lot of people, it's too much to look at. And that's why there are warnings of graphic pictures ahead on networks, in newspapers, online. But this whole episode reminded me of something that I meant to write in my book off the record. And maybe if there's ever a second edition, I'll do that because there are a lot of stories I never got to. But here's one of them. It happened in the early 1980s when one of our star foreign correspondents, and we had some great ones in those days, the head of the pack was always Joe Sussinger.

And Joe was in El Salvador. He'd been there for a month or so covering that brutal civil war. And on one of the days, he was caught in this little town outside of the capital, San Salvador, that had been taken over by the rebel forces. And Joe was there and, you know, shooting a story on what had happened in this little town,

when suddenly you could hear the roar of the helicopter gunships coming in, the government troops from El Salvador. They were coming in to, in their words, liberate the town from the rebels. They came in in force. Joe had it all captured on video. They came in and they basically slaughtered the rebel forces. But that wasn't the end of the story. The end of the story was when the government troops decided

it was appropriate to not only kill the rebel forces, but then to dismember and desecrate the bodies of those rebel troops. And they did some horrible things to the body parts. And Joel had all that on video too. So when it was all over, he went back and his crew went back to san salvador to the hotel they were in and he put together his item for that day and he sent it up to us by satellite and he called us first to say look there's some difficult pictures in here,

but I think it's important to run. And we said, fine, we'll see it. And I can remember that night because I was filling in. It was early 80s. I was filling in for Knowlton Nash as host of the National. We were sitting there at the desk watching the satellite feeds come in, and Joe's item came in. You could hear a pin drop.

And you could hear a lot of heads turning away from the screen because it was horrible. And a few minutes later, the phone rang and it was Joe. And he asked, well, so what did you think? And the producer that day with the agreement of those on the desk, said, Joe, you know, it's too much. We can't run those pictures.

They're just too graphic. And so we're going to have to do a little bit of an edit, but there's enough material that we can edit around it. Well, Joe never took edits well, and he certainly didn't take this well, and he was furious. And he said, listen, damn it, I've been here for three weeks.

At the beginning, you were running my items every day, and then you got tired of the story, and you started telling me, well, there's no room today for a story. Meanwhile, we're here covering this hellhole, which is what it was at that point. And this is what happened today. And this is what war is.

It's not pretty. It's not like the movies. It's awful. It's ugly like the movies it's awful it's ugly people die and they die horrific deaths and you've got to run this story you've got to run it as it is as we sent it because this is what war is like

and people have to understand that this is what war is like. And people have to understand that this is what happened today. Well, I've kind of cleaned up the language in that phone call, but let's just say Joe made his point. And we decided to run it. And run it we did. And I can tell you this. Not a single person called or wrote to say thank you for running that.

I have a better understanding now of what's going on in El Salvador. Nobody thanked us for that. We had a torrent of audience response in the opposite direction. People were furious that we put this on their television sets. Furious. But you know what? Joe was right. There are times, and they can't happen every day or it'll become meaningless, but there are times when you have to show what the story is really like.

You can't cleanse the story. You can't edit out the reality of what happens. And that's probably somewhat similar to the conversation that took place at the New York Times over the last few days. And Lindsay Adario, she knew the pictures she had would startle, would horrify, but also would transmit the reality of what's happening on the streets of Ukraine. All right.

In the opening to today's episode, I said the untold story of the war in Ukraine. Well, here's the untold story. Obviously, this has gone on longer than a lot of the experts thought it would. We're already near the end of the second week of the war, the fighting, the conflict. And it's still an open question as to what's going to happen. Everybody assumed the Russian forces were so strong they would overpower within a matter of days the Ukrainian forces.

Well, that hasn't happened. And the focus, therefore, has been on, well, what's the matter with the Russians? What's taken them so long? And the focus hasn't been on what's so good about the Ukrainian defense force? Well, that's what our friend, a foreign correspondent, also from those days of the early 80s, but then carried on through the 90s and the early 2000s, and still today in his retirement, watches very closely conflicts like this in different parts of the world, and gives his assessment of what's happening and why it's happening. And he's, you know, he'd shy away from the term military expert,

but this man has studied, I know him, he's one of my best friends, has studied military maneuvers for decades since he was a kid in university. So he's been watching this one very closely over these last couple of weeks. And I wanted to get his sense, his take, on what we should think about what we're witnessing. And try to answer some of the questions of why is this happening the way it's happening, the way it's unfolding. So here's my conversation with Brian Stewart. So, Brian, the question that everybody seems to be asking who's trying to follow the military aspect of this Ukraine story is what's taking the Russians so long? Well, two things are taking them so long. One is their logistical maps is just horrific. It's a disaster, a scandal.

I'm sure after this, there'll be a number of generals either shot or poisoned in the Kremlin. But it's a bad situation. But really, what has surprised the world to a great degree, and certainly the Russians even more, is the defense the ukrainians themselves not only are putting on a very skilled and very brave very intelligent defense but they are one of the biggest armies in europe people forget we do we don't see much in the news coverage because obviously we're covering the incoming fire and cities and the refugees. But we don't see much of the fact that this is a quite well-armed military that's one of the biggest, I think in Western Europe,

it may be the biggest, and has been preparing for this war solidly for, well, really 10 years, but eight years in great effort. And in the last two or three years, it's been absolutely dominating their thinking. So they've well prepared, but behind the preparation, behind the intelligence, behind the direction, is a very big, large, well-armed military

and ground army. And as it's been said of Ukraine, Ukraine is a wash in arms. It has a lot of arms to use and it's using them very well it seems well you know you have to wonder how did the russians so miscalculate that i mean they the russians must have known what the ukrainians had in terms of equipment and armaments in terms of the ukrainian army i think they what they probably miscalculated was they they uh they thought the ukrainians were ramshackle they were using a lot of old equipment which is true to some a very large extent and that they couldn't stand up to their highly

professional uh military that have been out there in maneuvers for months on end. But their intelligence really let them down because the Ukraine is not only a consumer of weapons and an acceptor of weapons. It was just 10 years ago one of the fourth largest armaments exporting nations on Earth. It was number four in the world. It's now down to about 12, but only because it's been producing armaments for itself, not for overseas sales. I mean, there are Ukrainian arms being used by the Saudi Arabians, the Indians, many countries buy their armaments,

and not because they're ramshackled and old, but because they're very good. The Ukrainians in particular have a great talent for taking older weapons, say, of the Soviet era and upgrading them, making them basically modern weapons through upgrade. Upgrade is their particular genius, and they get a lot of respect internationally for what they're able to do. So they have been not do so they have been

not only they have these weapons they have let's say example for instance they have 800 tanks that's a lot of tanks some of their tanks like the T-84 are amongst the fastest in the world and

they're very impressive I don't think they're using much because they're very vulnerable to attack from above and from rocketry. They have lots of artillery. They have thousands of armored vehicles, and they've trained with them in their field with top trainers from the United States, from Britain, and certainly from Canada that is training them not to fight in deserts or in jungles, Up in trainers from the United States, from Britain, and certainly from Canada.

That is training them not to fight in jungles, but in their own backyard. We imagine that. So they have territorial units that have trained in the area they're likely to fight for years now with some of the better equipment of the world. And what is making them so successful right now is a lot of people are talking well why didn't we arm them with more modern uh fighter planes and top tanks and all that no the most relevant armament they can have are anti-air and anti-armor and that is what they're getting in the thousands. You have many more anti-armor, anti-tank shoulder fire missiles than the Russians have tanks and armor. They can take out not only tanks and armor, but also supply trucks, which they're hammering. That's one of the things they're able to hammer away at that stall convoy just north of the capital.

These very weapons they've got. They manufacture their own small arms, which are of excellent quality, very high precision sniper rifles, machine guns. They have very modern mortar groups. So if you think of, say, sending a unit of a thousand territorials into action in one area, they would have all the weapons

you would think you would want them to have backed up by the tanks and the armor of the army if they're needed. If they have to, they would go into action with shoulder-fired missiles.

They can take out Russian tanks and take out their armored vehicles, which cause high casualties because there are often eight or nine soldiers inside them, and can take out those vital targets, the fuel tanks and fuel trucks of the Russians. This is a very effective force. And they have the anti-aircraft, like the U.S. Stinger, that can bring down an aircraft at 11,000 feet very accurately.

And clearly, it seems the Russians are very worried about this weapon in particular. They also, I should say, have an older generation, SAM missiles. Remember those names the s the 300s they have lots of brigades that are armed for anti-aircraft fire this is one of the main reasons we're not seeing a lot of russian aircraft coming in they've been losing craft um and it's it's a very frightening target to take on, because before you can really hammer away at targets very comfortably,

you have to take out the anti-air, and that's a lot of anti-air that they have to take out. So all of it really adds up to a formidable armed force. Now, the Ukrainians have been very coy in showing it off. They don't do a lot of showing their weaponry they certainly will if they win this war because the ukrainian brand believe me is going to be a very highly sought after one well i gotta tell you though i gotta go back to my original question which is how the russians could have so miscalculated when you think about it i mean the way we were you know kind of told at the beginning of this thing two weeks ago was that

the generals had more or less whispered and putin's here we can do this in three or four days and you know we'll have kiev and we'll have a new government installed um and you know quite frankly there were a lot of western experts not all of them but some of them who were basically suggesting the same thing but the picture you're painting now is considerably different it doesn't it doesn't mean that the russians can't eventually prevail uh but it's much more of a fight than we originally thought. Absolutely. But you put your finger on a very interesting question here. If one goes back into the military think tanks and armaments magazines months before the invasion,

you'll find intriguing articles by military experts who are actually predicting that if the russians invade the ukraine they're going to have a lot more problems than they think they're going to have they're going to have a lot of problems with air i have hold so i found all sorts of quotes from six months ago four months ago saying exactly this factor they'll have trouble in the air they'll have trouble in the ground they're going to run into a lot of heavy fire from very skilled ukrainian forces and they could have a real slog of a ground war not an air war a ground war if this happens well as you ask the question how could the russians not have known this is open source intelligence you don't need to have a the finest intelligence service in the world

to to be reading this kind of stuff i think what really strikes me about this when i go back is about a week before the invasion there were stories that retired russian generals were coming forth with real complaints saying we've seen the plans because the americans have them and the americans are sort of revealing a lot of them and we don't like the because the Americans have them and the Americans are sort of revealing a lot of them and we don't like the look of it at all. And apparently there were complaints inside the Kremlin that generals were very uneasy. They weren't, in fact, except for maybe these two top cronies or three saying we can make an easy job of this. But it seems to me, from everything I can read, is that Putin wasn't taking a lot of advice.

He wasn't reading. He wasn't listening to his intelligence services on this. So I would bet, after this war is over, if there ever is an investigation of how they were badly misled, you'll find out we have a tyrannical leader, an autocrat, who wasn't listening to his intelligence and wasn't listening to his more insightful generals. But of course, we can always turn that around. You remember very well, I'm sure, Peter, before the Iraq invasion of 2003,

a whole slew of top retired American generals, very well thought of among the best, were coming forth to Congress and saying we recommend against doing this we're not prepared for this war and we don't have the proper plans so very frequently when the smartest generals complain about troubles ahead they get dismissed and this is a problem i wish all leaders would remember but certainly putin has misjudged this more than anything else how much he just demanded from his people that they give him a plan that he's confident in. I guess that's it. The other thing, of course, is the old truism about military affairs.

You know, it's funny how things always work on maneuvers and in training. Somehow the generals always manage to take the blue force or the red force. They manage to capture the big city but then they go into action and gee it's not as easy as they thought i mean we talked about the russians not able to take kiev yet the americans took over 30 days sorry they took three weeks to take baghdad we tend to forget that. It wasn't the overnight sweep that we tend to think of when we look back at old newsreels

and that or old footage. So it's always harder. It's always a mess when you get into war. Plans often don't work. There's a fog of war. But the Russians should have seen this coming. They've had a monumental failure of their military force up to this point

and of their intelligence and obviously of their military force up to this point and of their intelligence necessary and obviously of their leadership brian's always good to talk to you thanks for keeping an eye on this for us and uh we'll talk again my pleasure peter nice talking brian stewart the uh great former correspondent foreign correspondent war correspondent uh for the CBC and NBC News throughout the, well, as I said, the 80s, the 90s, the 00s. Great guy and somebody who, as long as this thing keeps going on, we're going to draw on his resources and his observations, and we'll try to keep those for Tuesdays in the weeks ahead.

Now, if you go back to that story I told earlier about the picture that Lindsay Adario from the New York Times took, keep in mind who that family was. That family was refugees. They were heading to the border to get out of Ukraine. And so are thousands, tens of thousands, in fact, millions of other Ukrainians. And that refugee story is one the world has to pay attention to.

And we're going to talk to somebody who's been in battle zones, war zones for most of the last 20 years, Canadian, Dr. Samantha Nutt, to give us a sense of what's happening on that refugee story and what isn't happening. We'll do that right after this. And welcome back. Peter Mansbridge here in Stratford, Ontario. You're listening to The Bridge on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, and on your favorite podcast platform. As promised, let's get right to it.

The refugee situation dr samantha nutt from uh the founder and executive director of war child canada and she's been monitoring this refugee situation so let's get her take on where we are well sam there the numbers right now seem to be somewhere around two million if it hasn't already passed that uh in terms of refugees coming out of Ukraine in a very short period of time, in a couple of weeks. So, first of all, put that in context for us. You know, how does that compare in terms of the kind of general refugee story that we've witnessed for decades? The big difference here, Peter, is the speed at which this has happened. As you said, there are almost 2 million people now who have fled across the

borders in a very short period of time. So that means responding to their urgent needs, finding shelter for them, making sure that they're safe and secure becomes even more challenging. It requires a tremendous mobilization of resources, both human and then in terms of just food and basic supplies, medicines, and tending to their other needs. Putting it in context, though, I mean, we are throughout the world facing the worst displacement crisis that we have seen, and that's been going on for many years. But since World War II, with more than 80 million people throughout the world displaced from their homes by comparison we saw seven million people flee the war in syria but again it's the intensity of this and the quick period of time over which it's transpired that's making

it even more logistically challenging one of the things we've seen um in these past two weeks is the incredible response, especially at the Polish border. I mean, that's where most of the media has been generated, but it seems like they're totally prepared for this. They seem to have things organized. Is that an accurate reflection of what we're seeing there? Certainly compared to other crises that I've seen throughout the world. So, for example, we were very active, Warsaw has been very active on the Ethiopian border. seeing there? Certainly compared to other crises that I've seen throughout the world. So for

example, we were very active, Warsaw has been very active on the Ethiopian border for those who are fleeing the crisis in Tigray and as well as Syrian refugees. I mean, this seems to be what's happening in Europe right now is well coordinated, it's well organized up to a point. Obviously, the more people you have coming across, the fewer places you have to be able to put them, the fewer relatives, for example, that can house this many people, then you're going to start to see some real complications. And we are seeing that in a few strategic border areas where they are really running out of safe spaces to be able to put people. And on top of that, being able to register these refugees is incredibly important because we

need to know who they are to especially to ensure that children are safe and protected because we do worry about things like human trafficking when we're not able to keep track of the numbers and then there's an opportunity for greater abuse and for refugees to not get the services that they need. Let me ask this follow-up to that carefully. How much of the organization seemingly in good shape in handling these refugees is because they look like us? In other words, they're white. And that's been a significant criticism, and we've certainly seen that. There are reports of people who are non-Ukrainian citizens, African nationals. In fact, Nigeria has criticized the border officials, particularly with Poland and Hungary, with respect to this, singling out those who were not Ukrainian nationals who were trying to flee the war and get across the border. Even if you compare the scale of response to what transpired last summer with the Taliban in Afghanistan, where Canada pledged to take 40,000 Afghan refugees, we've so far accepted around 8,000. You know, certainly we are seeing a tremendous disparity in the outpouring of

support and accommodation for Ukrainian refugees. Now, we can dig into some of the reasons around that, both in terms of the ease with which the international community can respond because of their geographic location, because they're in Europe, it is easier to mobilize supplies, to mobilize personnel, to be able to house them safely and effectively. You're dealing with many, many logistical challenges when you're talking about countries like Afghanistan and Syria, particularly for international

humanitarian aid organizations. It is much easier and faster to mobilize when you're based in Europe than it is in other locations. But we do need to ask ourselves, I think, some very hard questions around, you know, why is it that we can step up and help to the extent that it's required in this situation, but we so often fail in other situations. And it's certainly something that the international humanitarian sector is talking about. like Afghanistan and Congo and Ethiopia, where they're calling us and saying, well, what's going to happen now to our visa applications now that, you know, we're again being sidelined and, you know, these other refugees are being prioritized. And these are legitimate concerns. It's something we have to pay attention to. Is there a sense yet of just how open our doors are, Canada's doors are,

to Ukrainian refugees who want a new permanent home. I mean, let's face it, most of these refugees feel that somehow they're going to be back in a matter of weeks or months, that somehow the war will tilt back in their favor for any number of different reasons. But for those who may be looking for permanent new homes, how open are our doors? So far, not as open as people would like so ukrainians coming to canada still require a visa and remember a lot of refugees arrive with very little they have very little in the way of passports identity papers because you're fleeing and you don't always have a chance to to find everything that you need to provide the paperwork

and supporting paperwork to be able to make your refugee and your asylum claims. Most of them, as you mentioned, want to remain local because they're hopeful they'll be able to go back. Hopefully not in the not too distant future. Plus, the European Union has been so open. They've reactivated their their what's called their temporary protection directive, which allows Ukrainians who can provide proof of citizenship. They're allowed to go into other parts of Europe. They'll be allowed to work for up to a year. They'll be provided with housing and health care and this kind of openness since the war in the Balkans,

to come to Canada doesn't make a huge amount of sense unless you have direct family members who are here. Who's on the ground in Ukraine helping the situation? I mean, you're no stranger to being in war-torn countries or countries at war. In terms of this situation that happened stressed upon us so quickly who's on the ground in ukraine in terms of you know aid agencies or ngos or what have you the red cross is present and doing some work uh as is global medic which is a great canadian organization the unhdr world food program world food program right now has an appeal for $500 million to be able to provide essential food supplies to Ukrainians who are in extremely vulnerable areas, who are struggling to access food. And they have kits that will provide up to five days of resources.

They have convoys going across the border all the time, including into some of the very challenging areas where there's a lot of armed conflict. Having said that, Peter, I mean, when you look at the commitments to even that 500 million requests from the World Food Program, globally right now it sits at about 50 million. Canada hasn't contributed anything yet to that effort. So there are great organizations doing important work, both with refugees and within the Ukraine itself. Having said that, what's been extraordinary with this response is just how local it is. You've got local families, you've got local community groups, churches who are immediately responding. And so there's a tremendous opportunity to give directly. If you know people who are living in those countries who are responding, who are helping, they'll need help with things like

food and fuel and blankets and those kinds of supplies. And so this is an opportunity for direct giving, I think, in an unprecedented way. So I would strongly encourage people who are interested in supporting. They can support those big organizations, but there are great local networks, too, that are active and doing important work and in some cases you can double your donation because of matching funds on that that's correct last point um what worries you most right now on the ukraine story what worries me the most is that this is uh we're we're in a situation where this is it's already horrendous it can still get a lot where this is already horrendous. It can still get a lot worse.

There is always the risk that this draws Europe into a much broader conflict and yet another proxy war by shipping a lot of arms and various other things to the Ukraine. And we could see a very long very protracted crisis uh with tremendous civilian casualties i think that we we've already seen them in the thousands i expect it to be in the tens of thousands before this is over uh again mass migration of people up to potentially seven million ukrainians becoming refugees at least 18 million uk Ukrainians right now are at risk within the country. I mean, this is devastating and extraordinary. And unless there is a real movement towards providing safe access humanitarian corridors, we could be witnessing a humanitarian disaster that is really unprecedented in terms of the last several decades.

At the very least, though, you know, we right now, because there is security in neighboring countries, we're able to, the international community is able to respond to provide those kinds of appropriate humanitarian interventions and protection programs and this kind of thing. But the longer this drags on and the more devastating this conflict, the more desperate Russia becomes, firing into cities, residential neighborhoods. The death toll from this and the humanitarian fallout, it's going to be absolutely devastating. It already is devastating, but I expect it to get a lot worse, unfortunately. Dr. Samantha Nutt, we thank you for your time as always. Thanks. Thanks, Peter.

You know, two of my favorite people, two people who I admire so much, our guests today, Dr. Samantha Nutt, who you just heard there're lucky to have people like Brian who have literally decades of experience on covering stories like this. You know, I keep telling Brian, Sam's already written her book and I'm sure she's got many more to write. I've talked to Brian many times about, you know, Brian, you got to write. I've talked to Brian many times about, you know, Brian,

you've got to write your story. I mean, this is a guy who's been everywhere around the world. Not just covering conflicts, covering some of the big stories of our time. When I was in Berlin

for the fall of the Berlin Wall, Brian was there. He was working for the journal at that point doing a piece. But, you know, he knows South Africa well. He knows all of Europe, and he knows history. And when I talk to young journalism students about their careers,

I say, use your time when you have it to understand your world. And part of understanding your world is understanding history. Because history does have a tendency to repeat itself. Not necessarily directly, but certainly in terms of some of the patterns, some of the trends that we've seen in the past come up again and again. And, you know, if you don't know your history, you can be in a fog. So I'm always encouraged when I hear from young people

who are, you know, reading their history. And in our case, we don't know enough about our own history, about Canadian history. And we've had that debate and that argument before about generations past in Canada who didn't have a chance to learn their own history because of various school curriculum. So know your history. Brian knows his history. Samantha knows her history in terms of the professions they're in. And we should all.

And that's why I do this podcast every day that I'm in Stratford anyway, and the days that I'm in Toronto, surrounded by history, because I do it in the kind of area of my home that I have my books in. And being able to reach out at an arm's length to just go over a pattern or a chapter or a story from our past or the world's past always helps me. Anyway, we're going to wrap it up for this day. Tomorrow, Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth, Bruce Anderson will be by. And as often happens on the Tuesday,

I don't know what we're going to talk about, but I do know we will talk about something and it will be engaging. So we'll do that tomorrow. Thursday's your turn, so get your mail in, the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com. And Friday, of course, good talk with Chantelle Hebert and Bruce Anderson. I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been The Bridge.

Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you again in 24 hours.