The Daily Signal - What Could Be Next in Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

Moscow—and much of the rest of the world—expected Ukraine to fall quickly after Russia invaded it. Why hasn't it? How are the Ukrainian people effectively fighting the Russians, and what could be next? Will Russia invade the Baltic States next, as some have predicted? And are American sanctions enough to weaken Russia?  The Heritage Foundation’s Luke Coffey joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to answer those questions and explain how likely a Ukrainian victory is. Coffey also explains why Ukraine has not yet been made a member of NATO.  We also cover these stories:  The first wave of foreigners arrives to fight the Russians in Ukraine.  South Dakota passes legislation banning telemedicine abortions.  U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy demands data on COVID-19 "misinformation" from several major tech companies. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, March 4th. I'm Doug Blair. And I'm Virginia Allen, Russia. And much of the world expected Ukraine to fall quickly. So why hasn't it? The Heritage Foundation director for the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy, Luke Coffey, joins the show today to discuss how the Ukrainian people have managed to stand against the Russian invasion so far. Luke also explains how sanctions are affecting.

Russia and the likelihood of Ukraine's success in defeating the Russian invasion. But before we get to that conversation with Luke Coffey, let's hit our top news stories of the day. As Ukraine continues to fight back against the Russian invasion, CNN reported on Thursday that the first wave of foreigners had arrived to fight in Ukraine. In a video posted to Facebook, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that at least 16,000 foreign troops were making their way to fight in Ukraine. Ukraine is already greeting foreign volunteers.

The first 16,000 are already on their way to protect freedom and life for us and for all, said Zelensky in Ukrainian. In addition to thanking the foreign fighters, Zelensky also praised countries who continued to provide Ukraine with arms and ammunition. But while Zelensky was positive about foreign troops and arms, French President Emmanuel Macron sounded a warning about Russian President Vladimir Putin's intentions in Ukraine. Following a Thursday phone call between Macron and Putin, a senior French official said, our analysis of the military operations is that the Russian ambitions are to take control of all of Ukraine. The official added, there is nothing in what President Putin said that should reassure us. South Dakota is banning telemedicine abortions on Wednesday. The South Dakota Senate passed legislation banning the distribution of chemical abortion drugs

online and by mail. Governor Christie Noam says she will sign the legislation into law. Licensed physicians will still be able to distribute abortion pills. Last year, Noam issued an executive order in South Dakota banning telemedicine abortions. She also signed eight different pieces of pro-life legislation into law. The governor's office said in a statement that they want to ensure that we have the strongest pro-life laws on the books in South Dakota. Over the past 10, 10 years, abortions have declined by approximately 80% in South Dakota, according to the governor. On Thursday, U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murty sent a request demanding data on COVID-19 misinformation to several large tech companies.

Per the New York Times, Murty requested data on exactly how many users saw or may have been exposed to instances of COVID-19 misinformation, as well as demographics information on who had been exposed. In a statement to the New York Times, Merti said, technology companies now have the opportunity to be open and transparent with the American people about the misinformation on their platforms. This is about protecting the nation's health. Per Merti's request, companies have until May 2nd to provide the information. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Luke Coffey as we discuss how Ukraine has managed to prevent Russia from taking over its country. I'm Zach Smith.

And I'm John Karl O'Conaparo. And if you want to understand what's happening at the Supreme Court, be sure to check out SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast. We take a look at the cases, the personalities, and the gossip at the highest court in the land. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you find your podcasts. It's SCOTUS 101. Russia and much of the world expected Ukraine to fall to Russia in just a few days. But that is not what has happened.

Here with us to explain why is the Heritage Foundation's director for the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy, Luke, thanks so much for being back with us today. It's my pleasure. It's been over a week since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. How has Ukraine been able to stand up against Russia and actually withstand this full-on military invasion? Well, it's widely accepted that the Russian... military has not made the advancements that it was hoping to have made at this point in the campaign. But that being said, the situation in many places around the country are becoming desperate.

But the Ukrainians are putting up a very stiff resistance. They're fighting very bravely. They're using a lot of the weapons that we have provided with them very effectively against the Russians. And perhaps most importantly, they have very strong leadership at the top in the form of President Zelensky. and morale is high. And not only do they have the strong leadership at the top in the form of President Zelensky,

but also there are hundreds, if not thousands of Zelenskies in every Ukrainian village and town and city, that they're mobilizing defense, they're leading resistance against the Russian invaders, and they're delivering many tactical victories against the Russians. But again, we're in early days, and it looks like that the Russians are really increasing and upping their use of indirect fires. So, altillery, rockets, airstrikes. And many of these weapons systems that the Russians are now using are not precision guided. So we see hospitals, apartment blocks, schools, kindergartens being hit by Russian artillery and missiles. So it's becoming a very, very deadly business in Ukraine right now.

Yeah, we are seeing a lot of civilian casualties. So you're saying that we don't necessarily know that that's intentional, that that could just be Russia's sort of launching these missiles. They're trying to hit military targets and they're accidentally hitting civilians? Well, it's intentional in the sense that they know they're using weapons that are not precise and they're firing them into areas that are densely populated. And this is part of the Russian playbook. We saw this in Grozny in the 1990s.

We saw this more recently in Aleppo in Syria when Russian and Syrian forces went into Aleppo. Devastated it block by block, really. And now we're seeing that play out in two major cities and, well, three significant cities in Ukraine. Kharkiv, which is an eastern, northeastern Ukraine. Predominantly Russian speaking, lots of ethnic Russians live there. They're only 15 miles, 20 miles from the Russian border. Russia, I suspected, thought they were going to roll in and be received as liberators. But then when the Russian troops got there, they found the exact opposite.

And the Ukrainians have been holding out very strongly there. And also, I should point out, that's Kharkiv is Ukraine's second largest city. So it's a major population center. And then in Mariupil, which is a port city, in the south, close to the existing front lines with Russia, that city is the 10th largest city, and it's now completely surrounded. And my sources tell me that unless something drastically changes, they probably have a few more days. And then, of course, Kiev and the capital in the north center of the country, they're also

resisting very bravely. Russia is mounting a, is about to mount another major attack. against the city. Commercially available satellite imagery shows a very large Russian convoy heading slowly south to the capital. But everyone in the capital is in high spirits. Food and water is not a problem yet, although I suspect it will be a problem. And everyone is armed to the teeth. And we can talk about what civilians are doing to resist the Russians later. No, I think that's been really fascinating to see civilians jumping and taking up arms, if you would, share a little bit more about that. Well, the Ukrainian society has completely mobilized in the face of

Russian aggression. And you have, you know, sports personalities, actors, musicians, members of parliament, and just your average, you know, moms and dads and uncles and aunts and brothers and sisters who are taking up arms. The Ukrainian government recognizes the severity of the situation. They have been handing out assault rifles to anyone who wants to grab one. They're giving training on how to use them. And in urban warfare, like we would see if and when, I should say, Kiva is attacked and forced by Russia. You don't have to be a sniper. If you're just firing out of a hole in a building, that's going to be frightening, at least mentally, psychologically, to the Russian invaders.

Every single day new fortifications are built in these major cities, the one of the ones. ones that are existing are fortified even more. Pubs and breweries and wineries are being turned into Molotov cocktail manufacturing facilities. The Ukrainian Ministry of Interior has instructed everyone around the country to remove all street signs and house numbers and to contaminate gas where possible, you know, with sugar and things like you can find in your house. So the Russians who are desperate for fuel, won't be able to use it. But it's, it has really energized and mobilized the Ukrainian society, and they are there to fight for their country. Make no mistake about it, that's exactly what they're, what they are doing. Yeah. And this seems to have come as a surprise

to the Russians. Why, why didn't Russia attack initially with more force than they did? Well, that is a very good question. And there are a lot of debates being had right now about Russia following its military doctrine and we just don't understand their doctrine. This is how they would normally behave. And then the opposite being, well, they haven't been following their doctrine because normally their doctrine would require the, you know, the upfront use of these indirect fire weapons to flatten areas to destroy areas, softening the targets before attacking. And they didn't do this. There's also an issue with logistics. It's been, you know, again, this feeds into this debate. On one hand, you have experts on Russian military doctor and say,

well, that convoy that's moving slowly south to Kiev, it might look like it's moving slowly to the outside world, but that's how they do it in a very systematic manner. They sit up fuel stops, the convoy pulls up, refueles when it needs to, then the fuel stops move further and further. So it's a very slow process. But on the other hand, there's plenty of evidence showing that Russian vehicles are running out of fuel in other places of the country. I mean, you have these incredible situations where Ukrainian civilians, farmers are using their John Deer tractors

to haul away $25 million Russian air defense systems. Wow. I mean, it's incredible. Russian tanks have been abandoned. Ukrainians are putting videos up on social media of them just playing around, looking at these tanks,

just left in the mud, left because they're out of fuel. And, you know, social media is able to show us at least through, you know, video and photographic evidence of at least more than 500 Russian armored vehicles and tanks and trucks that have been either captured, damage, or destroyed. And I suspect what's available on social media is just a very small part of what is happening. So that's why you see Ukrainians running around in blue jeans, tennis shoes, and an assault

rifle on their back. they are literally defending their lives and their families. Well, and it's been interesting to hear some of these reports. You mentioned earlier that there was sort of this assumption on behalf of the Russian troops that Ukraine would kind of welcome them with open arms. That's obviously not what's happening. Is that a huge shock to the Russian people? I mean, do the Russian people really understand what's happening here?

What Putin is doing? Well, I think for the young 18, 19, 20-year-old soldier, it probably has been a big shock. And there's interviews that have been done with Russian soldiers that have been captured where they were, you know, saying we thought we were on a training exercise. We had no idea what's going on. Many of them say that, you know, they don't want to be their Ukrainians. They're allowing them to face time with family members back at home. Parents are shocked. but I'm not so sure how much Russian society really knows what's going on.

In Russian state media, when they talk about the war, they talk about just that the two areas in southeastern Ukraine that have been contested for eight years now, Luhansk and Donetsk. But in this day and age with the Internet and social media, it's only a matter of time before, A, people in Russia become, self-informed by what they see out there on the internet, even with firewalls and everything else.

Information can still travel. And secondly, the coffins that will be coming home. Now, the Russian government yesterday released official figures for deaths at 498. That's the official number of Russian soldiers. If you believe that number, you'll believe anything. The general consensus among Western intelligence services who are providing post. public information is that the number is probably more around 5,000. And the Ukrainians claim it's 8,000. So it's probably somewhere in between around 5 and 8,000. And we're only at day 8.

So the, and of course we shouldn't pretend that Ukraine isn't suffering as well. You know, I suspect thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have died. Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have died. But I think that what the Russian soldiers are quickly discovering is that there's no better motivating factor for a soldier than defending their homeland. Not just a soldier, you know,

like a father, you know, or a brother or a sister to defend their house or a mother to defend her children. And that's what is happening now in Ukraine. Yeah. Well, and we've seen that Ukraine's president, Zelensky, he has

said, okay, at this point, what would be so helpful to them is if they could join NATO. And now I know that there's a whole process involved in that. So what are the requirements that Ukraine would need to meet in order to be able to join NATO? Ukraine has wanted to join NATO with vigor and enthusiasm since 2014. Ukraine was first, it was first announced by NATO that someday Ukraine could join back in 2008. But it's a long process. NATO is an intergovernmental security organization of democracies.

There are 30 countries that are inside NATO. For a country to join NATO, according to the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, you have to be a European country. And you have to meet whatever criteria is set out by the other members of the alliance. And then the alliance has to agree unanimously to allow you in. So firstly, when we talk about NATO adding new members, the words we use are important. You often hear this idea of NATO expansion. Empires expand. NATO doesn't expand.

NATO enlarges adds new members who willingly join the alliance. No one's putting a gun to Ukraine or Georgia or Bosnia's head and saying you must join our alliance. Whereas, you know, it's quite the opposite with Russia. In the case of Ukraine, quite literally putting a gun to the country's head saying you better not join the alliance. Of course, President Zelensky wants Ukraine to join NATO. Many Ukrainians want to join NATO. But NATO has very high standards in terms of criteria and reforms in democracy and economic reforms and reforms in the military. And also, Ukraine hasn't met the standard yet.

And also another problem that Ukraine has is that it's involved in a war with Russia and it has been since 2014. and no one really wants to bring a new member into the security alliance if they're already at war. And Russia knows this, and they've actually used this to their advantage. They've perfected the formula to keep countries out of NATO. They invade, and then they partially occupy their neighbors. Same with Georgia, same with Moldova, same with Ukraine. But this idea that Russia says about NATO enlargement has threatened Russia, undermines Russia, in my opinion is complete nonsense.

Yes, three countries of the former Soviet Union, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, joined the alliance in 2005-2006 timeframe. But for the last 16 years or so, only four countries have been added to the alliance. And the nearest one to Russia is 900 miles away. Of all of Russia's land borders, and Russia has the largest set of land borders, in the world because it's the largest country in the world, only one 16th of Russia's land borders border a country that is a NATO member. And of course, NATO is a security alliance. It's a defensive alliance. It's not going to attack Russia. There's never been plans to attack Russia. This is all

Russian propaganda. So is Ukraine ready to join NATO now? The answer is no. And that's why we don't have U.S. ground forces in Ukraine because we're not obligated by a treaty to defend NATO. or defend Ukraine because they're not in NATO. Okay. But, you know, of course, the world's not black or white. You know, the only alternative to doing nothing isn't to deploy the 82nd Airborne Division. You know, there's a huge space in between.

That's where we are now and that's where we need to be. So talk a little bit more about that then. With sanctions that we have imposed on Russia, we've been targeting Russia's largest banks, their companies, their wealthiest citizens. During the State of the Union address, President Biden said Russian planes, are no longer allowed in U.S. airspace. How is Russia feeling the effect of these sanctions right now? Well, right now, the markets in Russia, the central bank in Russia is starting to fill it. I don't think your average Russian has started filling it yet in any meaningful and impactful way

other than the inconvenience of not being able to use Apple Pay or you can no longer watch Netflix. But make no mistake. That's a big deal, the young people. I know, I know. I tell me about it. I mean, I saw one report saying that Concor, you know, the law businesses use this for expense reports and stuff. They pulled off Russia. And I was thinking to myself, having someone who has to deal with Concor, it would be a threat to make them use it, actually. We're doing them a favor back. But in all seriousness, though, you know, big multinational companies from the West are leaving Russia. They're divesting their portfolios away from Russia. These sanctions that are in place are historically unprecedented. There's never been a larger

or more powerful set of economic sanctions placed on another country. And it is putting pressure on the Kremlin now is putting pressure on the oligarchs who have made a fortune due to corruption and dubious investments because they get protection from the Kremlin. It has had an impact. Now, my problem with this is that we should have been doing these sanctions before Russian tanks were on the outside of Kyiv. I feel like the White House and many of our European partners just waited too long. We should have been doing this before. And there's still scope for expanding these sanctions. And we hear some officials say, well, we got a few more things in our back pocket.

This isn't time to keep things in your back pocket. I mean, the people of Ukraine are literally fighting for their survival. When is the best time to employ these additional sanctions, when Russian tanks are in Kiev, when they've, you know, started to occupy some of these or try occupying some of these major cities, we should be fully sanctioning the Russian Central Bank without any waivers or exceptions, like there are a few in place now. We should stop importing Russian oil and gas, Russian oil, and we should sanction the Russian energy section completely.

we should be encouraging our European partners to fully disconnect Russia from the Swift financial system. Swift is a system that allows for banking transactions to take place internationally. It really cuts off a country when certain banks are not allowed to do this. This is why Russian, like at the most basic level, this is why if you travel to Russia today or if a Russian was using an internationally brand credit card or debit card like a MasterCard or Visa, they cannot use it, right? And there are, there's more, we've started with the swift disconnection, but there's more we can do to wholly disconnect the Russian financial system

from the international global system. And we need to do this. And we should be confiscating, and we've started to do this, but we need to do more of it at confiscating this ill-gotten wealth held by these Russian oligarchs. You know, it's well known that these senior Russian officials have mistresses in London and Paris and Geneva and in New York. They have these big apartment blocks and yachts.

These should be confiscated. This wealth should be frozen. And frankly, I think it should be used to fund weapons to Ukraine. That would be great. I don't think people understand the severity of the situation we're in. We're in the largest war in Europe since World War II. And again, now's not the time to keep things in our back pocket. Now it's like all hands on deck maximum pressure.

So then why are things being kept in the back pocket? I mean, especially those things of, you know, really, really levying heavily these effects on Russia's wealthiest oligarchs. But then also, like, why are we still importing Russian oil? Well, the U.S. is importing Russian oil because of completely mismanaged energy policies pursued by the White House that brought back a lot of bureaucracy and red tape on oil and gas exploration and drilling. mainly focus, of course, on green energy, this sort of thing. And then also, you know, reducing pipelines and shutting down American pipelines that connect us to Canada. So we've had to fill – it's actually a very small gap. I mean, last year, Russia provided the United States only 3% of our oil, but it should be 0%.

The idea that the United States of America should have to rely on a single drop of oil from the Russian Federation is preposterous, especially now with this current situation. So why are we holding back on some of this stuff? Well, for many European countries that rely on Russian energy, they have to keep houses warm, they have to keep cars moving, and they're kind of stuck in a difficult spot. The faster we can ramp up production, get more exports to our European partners, the faster the Europeans can start truly divesting away from Russian income. energy dependence.

Okay. So let's talk a little bit about what could be next. Last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference, I spoke to Katie McFarland. She's the former Deputy National Security Advisor. And she said that in her estimate, probably she thinks that Ukraine will sadly ultimately fall to Russia. And she said, if and when that happens, then she sees Putin going after Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

what does that mean for for America and for the world if Russia takes Ukraine and then goes on to take these other three Baltic countries? Well, firstly, on the point about the Baltic states, they're in NATO. So a Russian attack on Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, would in terms of the 1949 treaty be treated as an attack on Tallahassee. So Russia would really be crossing a red line, I mean, literally a line on a map, to attack a NATO country, because then the full force of the 30 members of NATO would come to the rescue. And I don't think Putin will do that. I mean, when you look at many of the shortcomings experienced by the Russian military in Ukraine, the idea that they would now pick a fight with a NATO country, I think, is unlikely, at least in the short term. Let's not forget that, according to publicly available information, Russia mobilized almost 75% of its ground forces around Ukraine, of the whole Russian Federation. So of these 75% or so of Russia's ground forces is estimated that 80% of them are now involved in the fighting in Ukraine.

And they're getting a stiff resistance from Ukraine, right? So I actually foresee Ukrainian forces resisting strongly, continuing to resist. Perhaps you might see Russian tanks in the center of Kiev, but that will not be the same as holding or controlling the capital. So you think that Ukraine can withstand this full-on invasion from Russia ultimately? I do not think that Russia can occupy Ukraine. A country of 44 million people that's so big from east to west, it's about 8 to 900 miles. It's like going from Washington, D.C. to St. Louis. And you have a very energized, motivated population, which that could change if, you know,

Russia continues using weapons to target civilians. But even in Kiev itself, a country of 4 million people, if 1% took up arms, that's 40,000 people. You know, Russia, all in today, Russia and Ukraine has about, you know, 150, 160,000 troops. And they, you know, they're on the outskirts of, they're approaching the outskirts of Odessa, which is Ukraine's third largest city and largest port on the Black Sea. I have contacts and friends in Odessa who tell me that morale is high. They're building beach obstacles and defenses because they're expecting an amphibious landing. To quote one of my friends there, he said javelins are now arriving in bulk.

And javelins are these very effective anti-tank weapons that the U.S. has been providing to the Ukrainians, proving very devastating for the Russian forces. And you'll see Russian turrets completely disconnected from the chassis of the tank. And you see these Russian, they're called cope cages, these these these, these, these, these, uh, they're called, Russian tanks where they put these metal cages over the top thinking that that's going to protect from this from from the javelin. They call them the nicknames a cope cage to allow the crew to cope with with with the javelins. And they're about as effective as wearing a cloth mask. Oh, interesting.

To stop the spread of COVID, right? So you're seeing a huge amount of Russia's military allocated and devoted to Ukraine. but you're seeing the Ukrainians resisting and fighting. So I don't think they can pacify the country. I think if Russia wants to hold on to any part of Ukraine, I pity the Russian soldier that has to be part of the occupation force. If I made just one more point on this issue, there is this video of this Ukrainian soldier speaking to the Russian invaders.

And he says a lot of very tough and patriotic things, and it makes for great like social media content, and it's retweeted a million times and everything. The one point he said that really stuck out, when he's speaking into the camera to the Russian invaders, he says, you don't even know where you are, you have no knowledge of the terrain. I grew up here, this is my home.

I know every road, every village, every town. And that kind of sums it up. They're fighting for their homes, and they know the area in a way that the Russian soldiers never will. Wow. Luke, how can we continue to follow your work and you're reporting on this. Well, of course,

heritage.org is a great place to find a lot of the work we are doing. I'm also on Twitter at Luke D. Coffey, and that's C-O-F-F-E-Y, not E-E. That can be found there. And, of course, I would love the followers. Amazing. Luke Coffey, Heritage Foundation's director for the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy. Luke, thank you for your time. Thank you, my pleasure.

And that'll do it for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. You can find The Daily Signal Podcast on all your favorite streaming apps, Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review at a five-star rating and encourage others to subscribe. Thank you all again for listening and we'll see you right back here on Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Virginia Allen and Kate Trinko, sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, please visit DailySignal.com.