The Daily - Four Paths Forward in Ukraine

Episode Date: March 17, 2022

It has been three weeks since the war in Ukraine began. The fighting grinds on and there is no clear end in sight. But what are the potential paths forward in the coming days and weeks?On Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an address to Congress, proposed one such path, though it is an incredibly unlikely one: a no-fly zone over Ukraine.Elsewhere, Times reporting has suggested four other potential scenarios — a diplomatic end to the conflict; protracted monthslong fighting; China coming to Russia’s rescue; and President Vladimir V. Putin expanding the conflict beyond Ukraine’s borders.We explore these scenarios and consider which of them is most likely to occur.Guest: David E. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times.Have you lost a loved one during the pandemic? The Daily is working on a special episode memorializing those we have lost to the coronavirus. If you would like to share their name on the episode, please RECORD A VOICE MEMO and send it to us at [e-mail]. You can find more information and specific instructions here.Background reading: The United States accurately predicted the start of the war in Ukraine, sounding the alarm that an invasion was imminent despite Moscow’s denials and Europe’s skepticism. Predicting how it might end is proving far more difficult.In a speech to Congress, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called for a no-fly zone and more weapons to combat Russia’s assault and implored President Biden to be “the leader of peace.”Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, as Ukraine's president implores the United States Congress to intervene in the war, I spoke with my colleague, David Sanger, about the potential paths forward in the war and which of them is most likely to occur. It's Thursday, March 17th. David, we want to talk to you about the paths forward in Ukraine, what happens next in this war. And the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, just proposed one such path forward in a speech to Congress.

And I want you to describe it. Well, the scene in front of Congress, Michael, was really quite remarkable. Thank you very much. Madam Speaker, members of the Congress, ladies and gentlemen. As you would imagine, President Zelensky showed up in what is now his uniform, which is his Churchill in a t-shirt look, right, where he is clearly calling in from an embattled presidential office at a moment that his capital is under siege. Right now, the destiny of our country is being decided.

The destiny of our people, whether Ukrainians will be free. He immediately invoked images that he knew would resonate with his audience, Democrats and Republicans. Remember September the 11th, a terrible day in 2001 when evil tried to turn your cities, independent territories in battlefields, when innocent people were attacked. And the unspoken message of that was that just as the world rallied with the United States and the U.S. rallied with the West then, you must do it now. Russia has turned the Ukrainian sky

into a source of death. And then he made a request. A couple of times in the speech for a no-fly zone. But it was an ask that... I have a need. I need to protect our sky. But it was an ask that... Thank you. Slava Ukraini. Even as he received the warmest, most unanimous applause from Congress you've heard in recent times, everyone in the room, including Zelensky himself, knew he wasn't going to get it. Well, explain that. How exactly a no-fly zone works and why it's not an option.

You know, no-fly zones sound so passive. It's as if you lay out on Google Maps an area where no aircraft are allowed. Right. The way downtown Washington, D.C. is known to be a no-fly zone for commercial aircraft and private aircraft. But the fact of the matter is that to enforce a no-fly zone for commercial aircraft and private aircraft. But the fact of the matter is that to enforce a no-fly zone, you have to do two things. You have to patrol its perimeter and be willing to shoot down any plane that is coming in to violate that zone. And the second thing you have to be ready to do is to take out the anti-aircraft batteries down on the ground that might shoot up at planes defending the no-fly zone.

And in the case of Ukraine, the Russian anti-aircraft batteries are in Russia. So there would be no way to enforce that no-fly zone without conducting a military attack on Russian bases and Russian territory. And that is, as President Biden has said multiple times now, the road to World War III. So given that this is not going to be the path forward, a no-fly zone enforced by the U.S. and its allies in Ukraine, we want to talk through with you the other possible paths forward for how this war may play out in the coming days, weeks, maybe months. And we've come up with four scenarios based on your reporting and the reporting of our colleagues. The first scenario is whether this war can be brought to a conclusion through diplomacy. For the past few days, Russian and Ukrainian officials have been meeting

to try to achieve a diplomatic solution. The leaders of countries like Israel, Germany, and France get on the phone with Putin, it seems, every other day to try to find a diplomatic solution. What might a diplomatic end to this conflict look like? So let me paint a scenario for you about some of the possibilities for a diplomatic end from people I've talked to. First, the Russians have a set of three demands for Ukraine and for President Zelensky, even though President Putin's commitment

that he would end the war even if President Zelensky agreed to these demands is not entirely clear. But here's what the Russians have said Ukraine would need to agree to. The first is they would have to give up any claim to Crimea, the territory that Russia invaded in 2014 and then annexed. The second demand is that the two eastern self-declared republics of Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, where there's been this grinding war being fought for the past eight years, would have to be recognized as completely independent states by Ukraine. And then the third is that Ukraine would have to publicly declare its neutrality, probably along the lines of a country like Austria, which has a military but not much military capability. And they would have to say that they would never again seek to join NATO,

even though that's written right now into the Ukrainian constitution. So the constitution would have to be amended. And David, do we think that Zelensky might be open to those demands? Well, he's indicated that he's open to discussing at least some of them. For example, he has said that he's moved beyond the hope that NATO was going to let Ukraine into the Western alliance anytime soon. So you could imagine how he might be willing to accept neutrality. But giving up Crimea and those two eastern republics, boy, that's a much further reach because he would essentially be ceding to Russia roughly a third of his country. So, David, let's assume for a moment that Zelensky does agree to several of these Russian terms. I imagine Russia might still need some kind of assurance that these crippling sanctions that

have been imposed by the United States and Europe will be relaxed as part of any diplomatic solution. Well, that's absolutely right. The Russians would insist that these crippling sanctions, which are likely to send them into default in coming days and have plunged the ruble to its lowest levels and really begun to bite on ordinary Russians, they would need an assurance that those would get lifted. So it was interesting that on Tuesday night in an interview with NPR, Secretary of State

Blinken said that for the sanctions to begin to lift, the Russians would have to withdraw completely from Ukraine and irreversibly. That is to say, there would have to be some method of assurance that in the next two or three or five years, the Russians couldn't just turn around and go back and do this all over again. And so now you're suddenly discovering that while this is a negotiation between Russia and Ukraine, there are a lot of other players in it at this moment. Right. So, in short, a diplomatic solution to this is very tricky. Very tricky, but ultimately necessary. It's hard to imagine this war ending without some kind of diplomatic solution.

Okay, David, let's turn to the second potential path forward. Let's say there is no diplomatic solution for now. Ukraine and Russia can't get on the same page. It feels like, almost by definition, this then becomes a long grinding war of attrition that lasts many more weeks, maybe many more months. So let's talk through that possibility. Michael, I'm afraid to say that's a very strong likelihood. What you've seen is constant bombardment. And that suggests that Putin believes that if he just keeps battling on and can grab some more territory at whatever human cost, even with civilians targeted directly, that he would be in a better negotiating position whenever that diplomacy comes to fruition. Unfortunately, that would come at the cost of thousands,

if not tens of thousands of lives. But that does not seem to be bothering President Putin or the Russian forces right now. The only thing that might get in the way there is that Putin himself is taking very big losses. There are disputes about how big those losses are, but the Pentagon said last week that thousands of Russian troops have been killed or were casualties in some way. So it does suggest to you that he's under some pressure because sooner or later, people are going to discover that their sons and daughters in the Russian military died on the way into a war that the president of Russia only described as a special military action.

And is it our understanding that Putin would be willing to do that, incur the losses to his own army, and destroy much of Ukraine, which, by his own account, is an extension of Russia, you know, and a place he wants to draw back into the Russian sphere because it's beloved. So why would he want to destroy it? This is a central mystery about what's going on in Putin's mind of how he's hardened in his view about the Ukrainians. But, you know, Michael, the question of how far he would go in order to seize this territory and realize his dream is so central to the argument taking place now in the United States and among the NATO allies. Earlier on Wednesday, there was a phone call between Jake Sullivan, the president's national security advisor, and his Russian equivalent. And that phone call is the first contact that we're aware of between the White House and the Kremlin in the three weeks that this war has gone on. And what did Mr. Sullivan do? He spent a good

deal of it warning the Russians about the consequences that would flow if they used chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine against the Ukrainian people. Hmm. David, in this scenario you're outlining, where there's a long grinding war, and the Russian forces are willing to do almost anything to win control of Ukraine. We have always imagined that at some point they would prevail in a technical sense and probably take Kyiv and remove the government of Ukraine and that an insurgency would start in Ukraine, a low-level attempt by Ukrainians to keep the fight going. And in the event of that, how far do we think the United States would be willing to go to try to fund that insurgency and arm it and seek that it prevail over time?

It's a really interesting question, Michael. Let's play that out for a moment. Let's assume that the government of President Zelensky has to flee Kyiv and sets up, say, in Western Ukraine. What would the United States and its allies do? I don't think there's any question that they would fund and arm an insurgency that would make the price of this for the Russians as high and as bloody as it could be. But boy, that would be really back to the old proxy wars of the Cold War. really back to the old proxy wars of the Cold War. It would have images on very different terrain of what the United States did when it helped fund the proxy war in Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation. But this would be a lot bigger effort. So it sounds likely that the United States and Europe would become effectively silent combatants in a long Ukrainian insurgency. Is that right? I think it's a relatively high

likelihood. I don't think we would be a silent participant. I think we would be a very vocal one. I think the Europeans would be a very vocal one. I think the Europeans would be a very vocal one. I think they would feel particularly invested in this because it's the view of many Europeans, not all, that this is a struggle they cannot lose. Because if Putin gets Ukraine and if he then manages to reform his military and diagnose what has gone wrong here,

that they will be on the front lines next. We'll be right back. David, the long grinding war scenario assumes that Russia has the wherewithal to keep fighting in Ukraine indefinitely. The military strength, but also the financial resources. And there are doubts about both. And that brings us to a third possible scenario we want to talk to you about, that Russia gets help from China. What if China comes to Russia's rescue? Michael, you know, it's a really important and live question. It's asked at many press conferences and background sessions at dinner parties. And it asked at many press conferences, in background sessions, at dinner

parties. And it's really important, Michael, because on Sunday, the United States made the decision to reveal some intelligence that Russia has already gone to Xi Jinping, China's leader, and asked for economic and military aid. And the reason is pretty clear. Putin was stunned, I think, by the breadth and depth of these sanctions, which basically froze the money even that is in his central bank that he thought was his best guarantee against effective Western sanctions and efforts to cripple his economy. So now he needs the world's second largest economy, a country with which he just signed something that was pretty close to an alliance in the days leading up to the Beijing Olympics. And China's clearly the only nation with the resources and the motivation to come help bail him out.

Well, talk about that motivation. Why would China, in theory, accede to this request from Putin and bail out Russia financially and militarily at this moment? Well, at this moment, the Chinese get only one thing from Russia, which is a significant nuclear-armed partner in the effort to set up a global power center that's in opposition to the West. The Chinese and the Russians have some common complaints about the West over the past 70 years. It's that the West sets the global agenda, 70 years. It's that the West sets the global agenda. That it's that the West runs the global financial system. It's that the West runs the internet and runs it on Western values.

But the question of bailing the Russians out right now in this situation, in these scenes of brutality, that's a hard one. And the other day in congressional testimony, you saw Bill Burns, the CIA director and a former American ambassador to Russia, say that he thinks the Chinese are a little bit shaken about what's going on here and having a hard time deciding what to do. Explain that.

Why would China be shaken given the context you just explained, which is that China and Russia together become a powerful axis against the West? Oh, Xi loves that part. He loves the idea of being an alternate axis of power. And he loves the idea that the Russians are willing to do things to threaten disruption of Western economies, conduct cyber attacks, menace NATO in ways that China wouldn't want to and with Russia there doesn't have to. But China cares about its image around the world more than the Russians do because it's trying to attract allies as well in Latin America, in Africa. And if they're tainted with this brutal attack on Ukraine, just three weeks after the Chinese themselves said at the Munich Security Forum, their foreign minister declared that China believes in sovereignty and the importance of respecting national borders,

and that that includes Ukraine. And then Putin goes and does what he does. But look, if you're China right now, there is something to be said for standing back and letting the United States and Russia, the two other major superpower adversaries, battle it out while the Chinese go ahead doing what they are doing.

So given that, how likely is a Russia-China alliance in this moment? From what you're saying, it doesn't sound hugely likely. I think there's going to be some form of Chinese backing for the Russian effort here. It may not be direct and highly visible. I think the Chinese are a little bit concerned about how far they want to follow Putin right now. They're probably wondering a little bit about his judgment. But they also want to make sure that their new friend, Vladimir Putin, doesn't lose in a humiliating way here because they're going to need him in the future for other bigger ventures that are more central to China's view of its own role in the world.

Fascinating. So I want to end with a fourth potential path forward here. with a fourth potential path forward here. And this is one where Vladimir Putin, for a variety of reasons, perhaps including getting the backing of China, feels emboldened and decides to expand this conflict beyond the borders with Ukraine. So let's talk through that.

Well, that's a significant concern. And I would say that a week or two ago, what I heard the most in Washington was the worry that Putin would take Kyiv and then keep moving west, keep expanding in the south, maybe grab a city like Odessa, a big Ukrainian port city, and then that he might move into Moldova, another former Soviet bloc country that is not a member of NATO, and that therefore NATO would not come to the aid of. So in other words, he would keep rolling. Right. In other words, he would do to Moldova what he did to Ukraine,

knowing full well that he probably wouldn't meet resistance from the U.S. or Europe. That's right. But you don't hear as much about that anymore, Michael, because Putin has run into so many blockades to his plan. He is running so far behind schedule. He is taking so many casualties that it's a big question right now whether he can really take Kiev.

Got it. So that does not seem all that likely. I want to recap everything now and figure out which of these scenarios seems the most likely and what that means for the next state of this war. You have told us that a diplomatic solution does not seem all that likely in the next few weeks, that a long grinding war feels likely, and that the U.S. is going to be committed to aiding a Ukrainian insurgency. China doesn't want to leap headfirst into this conflict with Russia, but it might be willing

to assist it. And as you just told us, Russia doesn't want to expand this beyond Ukraine's borders. So where that seems to leave us is with a lot more of the same, which is the destruction and death we've been seeing across Ukraine, right? I think that's right with a couple of additional elements to it, Michael. I think that the chances are that Putin will continue this barrage in the hopes that when diplomacy finally does happen,

that he'd be in a much better negotiating position. There's another shoe that hasn't dropped here yet, though, Michael, that everybody is sort of worried about in the long term, which is that clearly President Putin Putin is angry and stewing about these sanctions that have been far more far-reaching than he thought and which he's got to think is directed at threatening him. He can't reach back and attack our financial system the way we attacked his. His only way back at our financial institutions is to begin a series of cyber attacks or ransomware, something where he can make Americans feel like they are paying a price beyond the price at the gas pump. And so when you talk to American officials about what they are worried about, it's the combination of the grinding ground war in Ukraine and an accelerating cyber war that involves the U.S.

Interesting. So since a long grinding war is the most likely scenario here, what everyone is most worried about is what an unhappy and frankly unsuccessful Vladimir Putin does in response. and frankly unsuccessful Vladimir Putin does in response. Now, one way to think about this is that Russia may well emerge from this entire awful set of events a weaker power than it entered it. That, you know, a few weeks ago we thought the Russian military was 10 feet tall. Today we don't think so. A few weeks ago we thought that Putin was a 10 feet tall. Today, we don't think so. A few weeks ago, we thought that Putin was a truly canny tactician. We now have our doubts. A few weeks ago,

we thought that sanctions might not actually impress Putin. We now know he's worried about it. What we don't know is, what does that leave you with? what does that leave you with? The fear is that a cornered Vladimir Putin could be the most dangerous version of Putin that we've seen in the past 20 years. Well, David, thank you very much. Thank you. The American people are answering President Zelensky's call for more help,

more weapons for Ukraine to defend itself, more tools to fight Russian aggression. On Wednesday, following President Zelensky's speech to Congress, President Biden gave a speech of his own, promising to deliver $800 million in military aid to Ukraine, but offering no support for a U.S.-enforced no-fly zone. In his speech, Biden warned that the war in Ukraine would likely be drawn out and deadly. Now, I want to be honest with you. This could be a long and difficult battle. In Ukraine, according to government officials, Russian attacks killed dozens more civilians, including a group of 10 people waiting in line for bread in the city of Chernev.

A separate Russian attack struck a theater in the city of Mariupol, where about 1,000 civilians had been inside. So far, it's unclear just how many survived. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. As expected, the Federal Reserve lifted its key interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, taking its first decisive steps towards trying to lower inflation by raising the cost of borrowing money. With inflation at a 40-year high, the Fed predicted six more similarly-sized moves over the course of the year. moves over the course of the year. The chairman of the Fed, Jay Powell, said he believed the U.S.

economy was strong enough to withstand higher interest rates without sliding into a recession. Today's episode was produced by Aastha Chaturvedi, Michael Simon-Johnson, and Stella Tan. It was edited by Patricia Willans and M.J. Davis-Lynn. Contains original music by Dan Powell and Alisha Ba'etub and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily.

I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.