The Daily - Inside Ukraine’s Invasion of Russia

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

Warning: this episode contains descriptions of war.When Ukrainian troops crossed over into Russia two weeks ago, it appeared at first to be a largely symbolic gesture. But in the time since, it has emerged as a potentially pivotal moment in the war.Andrew Kramer, the Kyiv bureau chief for The Times, explains what’s behind the audacious Ukrainian operation, and Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief, explains how Russia’s response could reshape the conflict.Guest: Andrew E. Kramer, the Kyiv bureau chief for The New York Times.Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times.Background reading: Planned in secrecy, the incursion was a bold move to upend the war’s dynamics and put Moscow on the defensive — a gambit that could also leave Ukraine exposed.President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to hold Russian territory as leverage in future talks. In Moscow, many doubt the strategy.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

My name is Andrew Kramer. I'm a reporter for the New York Times. I'm standing on the highway where Ukrainian troops are moving tanks and armored vehicles into Russia. Every few minutes we have tanks, trucks with soldiers rumbling past and in the direction of Russia. From the New York Times, I'm Michael Bobarro. This is The Daily. Ukraine sliced through the border area, pushed through minefields and thinly manned defenses, and has been pressing deeper into Russia.

When Ukraine's military crossed over into Russia two weeks ago, it appeared at first to be a largely symbolic gesture. But in the time since, it's emerged as a defining moment in the two-year-old war. This is the first major military incursion into Russia since World War II. Today, Andrew Kramer on what's behind the audacious Ukrainian operation, and Anton Troinovsky on how Russia's response could reshape the conflict.

It's Wednesday, August 21st. It's Wednesday, August 21st. Andrew, I wonder if you can take us back to the moment when you discovered that this pretty unimaginable thing had occurred. Ukrainian troops entering Russian territory and turning the basic equation of this war upside down. What the entire operation was shrouded in secrecy. So the first reports were actually from Russian social media posts and everything was a little bit vague. We were seeing reports of fighting along the border, but nothing indicating the scale of what was to come. The secret was very well guarded. but nothing indicating the scale of what was to come. The secret was very well guarded.

It wasn't clear until the second day that this was more than a border skirmish, that this was a full Ukrainian military invasion of Russia and that Ukraine had taken control of a rural area in the southwestern part of Russia. So what do you do there in Kiev, where I imagine you're absorbing this information, once you realize that such

a major turning point in this conflict has just begun to unfold. Well, we decided to head out to the border region in northeastern Ukraine and have a look at how this appeared on the ground. And this required a little bit of logistics. We used an armored car that the bureau has. I don't think I knew that we had an armored car that the Bureau has and I don't think I knew that we had an army car We do and initially we were watching and talking to soldiers and officers about this incursion And then also creeping forward toward the border to get a firsthand look And we drove you know over a very high plane where the road passes into Russia

And it's a very rural area of corn fields and country roads. And then ahead of us was the border, completely unguarded, seemingly deserted, at least from a distance. So this was a remarkable moment. As somebody who covered Russia, the idea of the Russian border being open and deserted by the Russian military was really remarkable.

And once you get inside, what are you seeing? We got out of the car and looked around and saw really a tableau of destruction. This was a Russian administrative building, maybe three stories tall at one point before it was bombarded. Now sheet metal was just flapping in the wind. All the windows were blown out. And we looked around and there were craters in the ground from artillery and debris.

Shells from a firefight were tinkling underfoot when we walked and there were customs forms and other administrative documents blowing on the ground. And a little bit farther on, there was a sign over the road that said Russia. It was a very eerie scene and what we were looking at was the detritus of a lost battle to defend the Russian border. So we walked around this site and we noticed some Ukrainian soldiers who were wearing surgical masks, and it became clear

that what we were seeing was a grim task by these soldiers of clearing the bodies of dead Russians from this building that had been destroyed in the initial attack on the Russian border. We watched them load bodies and zip them into body bags. And this was really, you know, a grim scene of just what a difficult fight and losing fight this had been for Russian border guards at this site. This section of the border had likely been chosen in part because it was guarded by Russian conscript soldiers.

And these are very green, inexperienced soldiers who've been drafted after high school. And in almost all cases that we know of, they retreated, abandoned their positions, or they surrendered. There were small arms, cartridges, and there were sandbags in this location, firing positions. But there was no indication that they were expecting an army to come across the border at them. So after about 40 minutes, we decided it was time to go and got back in our armored car and drove back into Ukraine, back into the relative safety of the cities far from the front line. Once you return to Ukraine, Andrew, what do you end up learning about the scope of this operation? Clearly you had just witnessed one place where

Ukrainian troops had crossed the border and clearly done a significant amount of damage to the Russian administrative border crossing, but how much territory was involved in this and how many Russian troops were killed or taken? The ultimate scale of the invasion was significant. By some estimates, about 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers were involved. This one border post was not the only target. They crossed in multiple locations and once they had breached the border, quickly fanned out on the highways and captured towns and villages.

Ultimately, by now occupying about 400 square miles of Russian territory, around 120,000 Russian civilians were displaced. More thousands, although we don't know the precise number, are now under Ukrainian occupation. And the fighting has continued, moving both deeper into Russia and also spreading out along the border to widen this area that's under Ukrainian control.

What you're describing in no way feels like a gesture or something that's meant to be fleeting but clearly something longer term, this invasion of Russia. Do you have the sense, Andrew, that this kind of operation at this scale was allowed under the terms of the West's military aid to Ukraine? We've talked a lot about this on the show with you, with our colleagues who cover Russia, that it's been understood that Ukraine could not really use Western military equipment as it has done here clearly to go after Russia itself with very few exceptions. Well the fact is Zelensky has said he didn't tell the US in advance of this operation. He didn't ask permission. The

Biden administration's policy is to avoid escalation. Russia is a nuclear armed country and to allow American missiles, American weapons to be used inside of Russia was a significant step. But once Ukraine launched this operation, this ground invasion of Russia, we heard from the Germans, we heard from the Americans that this was in fact in their assessment within the bounds of using Western weaponry to defend Ukraine. There had been an exception that weapons could be used in the border region for defensive purposes and this was interpreted in that light. Soterios Johnson Interesting. Well, with that in mind, what do we know about Ukraine's objective

here, its goals for undertaking such a risky invasion of Russia. The Ukrainian government didn't initially articulate any goals, but it's clear there were several layers to this. One was strategic and military. The Ukrainians wanted to strike where Russia was weakest and force Russia to divert its troops and its weapons from inside Ukraine to defending its own territory inside Russia. It was a strategy of taking the war to Russia and in this way relieving pressure on their own soldiers who are fighting desperately in Eastern Ukraine to hold territory. So basically to strengthen Ukraine's own hand on the main battlefield, which is Russian

occupied Ukraine. That's right. What else? You said this is multi motivational. Well there seemed to be another larger geopolitical goal and this was a goal to hasten the end of the war. There was a sense that if they were to strike inside of Russia, if they were to capture territory, this would provide leverage in possible peace talks. Right because for the first time Ukraine has something that Russia wants, not the other way around.

Exactly. And there was also an idea that this could have an effect on public opinion in Russia, that by showing Russians what it's like to be occupied, what it's like to be attacked, Putin could no longer present to his society the operation in Ukraine as something distant and something that would continue even as they live their ordinary lives. Right. We know that Ukraine has pursued that approach before bringing the pain of this conflict

to Russia through sporadic drone attacks on Russian communities, even in Moscow, but this seems by far the most ambitious and successful version of that tactic, a whole other order of magnitude. Exactly. Ukrainians I talked to said that maybe this is what would be needed to end the war, to show Russians what the war was like inside of Ukraine. I spoke with one woman who said that only when the Russians hear what it's like to hear a child crying in a bomb shelter would they want an end to the war. So this was the Ukrainian sentiment. This was a bold military move that would help them in their war.

But it's an open question whether this will bring Russia to the bargaining table or just more pain to Ukraine in a Russian retaliation. After the break, Anton Tronofsky brings us the Russian side of the story. We'll be right back. Anton, you cover Russia for the Times and you have been tracking the Kremlin's response to this large-scale invasion by Ukraine. So how has Russia reacted to this, especially once the dust settled and this sneak attack was more or less over. Well, let's start with the military response. There it was clear that Russia was completely unprepared for this.

Ukraine was able to march miles deep into the country facing minimal resistance and was able to take, it appears, hundreds of Russian soldiers prisoner. In the two weeks since, Russia has been able to dispatch forces there, but Russia is not mustering the forces necessary or maybe able or willing to use the firepower necessary to end this quickly. And in the meantime, Ukraine is obviously getting the opportunity to dig in and this is increasingly looking like a longer term occupation of Russian territory by Ukraine.

Wow. So this is not the kind of massive military response that you would expect pretty much from any country being invaded, let alone a country as obsessed with those borders as Russia is. Yeah, it's pretty stunning how two weeks in, Ukraine controlling Russian territory has already become routine. How does the Russian government explain that reality to the people of Russia, that they are for now letting Ukraine occupy all this Russian territory. Well, they're not really trying to explain it, but that does sort of bring us to the kind of political media PR aspect of the Russian response, which has been really to treat this

as a natural disaster more than as part of this war. So can you explain that? How are they treating it like a natural disaster? If you turned on the Russian TV news in the days after the invasion started two weeks ago, you were seeing pictures of pallets of water being delivered to displaced people. You were seeing footage of candlelight vigils around the country and people saying things like, Kursk, we are with you. But it was not cast as part of or let alone a consequence of Putin's invasion of Ukraine

that started in February 2022. So I think the choice has been made so far to just play this down. You know, they're calling it the situation in the Kursk region on Russian TV. So the strategy is kind of self denial. If Russia doesn't treat this like an invasion, it's not an invasion. A little bit reminds us of what Putin has said about invading Ukraine. Yeah, special operation, not a full-scale invasion of a neighboring country. Yeah.

And remember, Putin is the president of an autocracy in which there is basically no free media at this point. So he does have the luxury to take this kind of tack and does not have to think very much about short-term public pressure on his actions. But while Putin hasn't responded forcefully yet, it doesn't mean he isn't planning something or it doesn't mean he won't still respond. Think back to last summer when the pre-Goshen mutiny march on Moscow happened in June and two months later, pre-Gosian's plane fell

out of the sky in what we believe was a Kremlin assassination. So there could still be a response that comes later, but his non-response or slow response so far does remind us of how Putin has in many ways been cautious throughout the last two and a half years to not have this become a wider war. Understood. Given Russia's response so far and understanding that that response may be delayed, how should we think about whether Ukraine is actually achieving its goals for this invasion?

Diverting Russian troops from Ukraine, who in theory would rush back to protect Russia's borders, drawing Russia into peace talks with Ukraine, and finally bringing the pain of this war as deeply as possible into Russia itself. So the jury's still out on the attempt to draw Russian troops out of eastern Ukraine and over to Kursk. That does not seem to have worked so far. We have reports of some Russian troops leaving, but not really that many. And we are seeing that Russia is still pushing ahead in the Donbas region in Eastern Ukraine.

The fight there for the Ukrainians is really tough right now. We're not seeing the Russian pressure let up in eastern Ukraine and on the contrary we're actually seeing them taking more of Ukraine. That seems very important because the entire assumption of this invasion would seem to be that Putin's response would have to be to protect Russian territory. So far that doesn't seem to be his overall imperative and now you're suggesting that instead he's using it as a chance to push further and further into Ukraine. That would seem like a Ukrainian miscalculation.

Right. So we don't know what's going to happen going forward. But for now, that part of the calculation seems to not have come through. But then there's other aspects here. So on pressuring Russia to go into bona fide peace talks with Ukraine, where Russia would be ready to move back from its maximalist aims, there we still have to see. I mean, for the first time, Ukraine is holding Russian territory. And for the first time, you can now imagine a deal in which Ukraine pulls back troops in exchange from

Russia pulling back troops. Right? So, Ukraine absolutely has a new kind of leverage here. The problem is that Putin is not someone who likes the optics of folding under pressure. But there is one test case that we're watching closely. Our colleagues at the Washington Post have done some good reporting on this and that is negotiations around both sides committing to not striking each other's energy infrastructure. There was supposed to be a round of talks about this potential deal this month after the Kursk

incursion, Russian officials have said, we don't see a point in negotiating with Ukraine for now. So they're not ruling it out entirely, but they're saying, for now, we won't talk. So if this invasion was supposed to represent a potential major breakthrough in the peace talks with Russia, based on the evidence so far, that is not happening.

But what about that third prong of Ukraine strategy, inflicting pain on the Russian people in their own country? That seems self-evidently to have already happened. Yes, this is really a humiliation for Putin. That's clear. We are seeing yet again that Russia's vaunted security apparatus has failed in its basic task of maintaining security inside Russia's borders. But at the same time, you have to remember that Ukraine occupies a few hundred square

miles of territory right now. That's a very, very small sliver of the Kursk region and obviously microscopic if you think about the six plus million square miles that Russia occupies on the globe. So Russians have become more worried, have become more anxious, but it's not a drastic, dramatic shift. Well, Anton, that makes me wonder if there's a universe where Ukraine pushes day after day, bridge after bridge, mile after mile, and starts to take so much Russian territory that this message gets delivered to all of the people of Russia very, very

loudly and in a way that becomes pretty hard to ignore. I mean, so one problem here is that there's another potential response you could see from a public in this kind of situation, which is the rally around the flag effect, right? That as Ukraine pushes forward, more and more Russians might actually become further energized to support Putin's war. We haven't seen a ton of that yet, but that's certainly one other thing to watch. And the other question mark is, at what point do Ukraine's Western allies step in here and try to get the Ukrainians to stop or pull back because they are worried about escalation

risk? I think that that concern still clearly does exist in Western capitals. The Biden administration obviously so far still hasn't allowed Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike Russian territory beyond the immediate border areas. So we'll have to see about that. But certainly you now hear President Zelensky saying that Putin's lack of response over the last two weeks shows that in Zelensky's words, this whole idea of Russia having red

lines that can't be crossed is naive. So it feels like at the moment, two weeks into this invasion, there are two, let's call them fictions, for lack of a better word, guiding how everyone is seeing and responding to this military action by Ukraine. The first is that Putin's acting as if this invasion never really happened at all and how long can he really keep that up? And for Ukraine the alleged fiction here is that there really is a red line that they can't cross in bringing this war back to Russia and the Russian people without triggering a wider conflict. So far Ukraine seems to be saying that that red line doesn't exist and we just proved it.

So how should we think about those two fictions together? Well, for one thing, they show how unpredictable this war is, just like who could have thought that we would be sitting here in August 2024 talking about a Ukrainian invasion onto Russian territory and talking about Putin doesn't seem to be all that concerned about it. So you're seeing this competition between these two big, almost guiding principles for these two men fighting this war.

Putin's constant signaling that he's ready to bear more costs to get what he wants. And Zelensky's showing us that he's willing to take risks and do the unexpected and take the fight to Russia and test what some thought would be Russia's red line. And that just reminds us of how intractable this war is, how two and a half years in, people still don't understand how it ends or when it ends. Perhaps the invasion brings us closer to that, or perhaps it extends it even more. Well, Anton, thank you very much. Thank you, Michael.

We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. The Times reports that President Biden has approved a highly classified plan to, for the first time, reorient America's strategy for deterring nuclear weapons to focus on China. The plan is an acknowledgement of China's rapid expansion of its nuclear arsenal, which will rival that of the United States and Russia over the next decade. And. over the next decade. And... Yeah!

Ladies and gentlemen, we are here tonight to officially nominate Kamala Harris for president in... 5 July, another round of shots! D.H.C. turn out for what? On the second night of the Democratic National Convention, Vice President Kamala Harris was formally nominated by her party's delegates during a jubilant roll call featuring the rapper Lil Jon.

A few hours later. Something wonderfully magical is in the air, isn't it? Yeah. You know, we're feeling it here in this arena, but it's spreading all across this country. We love a familiar feeling that's been buried too deep for far too long. You know what I'm talking about. It's the contagious power of hope. Former first lady Michelle Obama and former president Barack Obama forcefully endorsed Harris in back-to-back speeches.

America's ready for a better story. We are ready for a president, Kamala Harris. If you want more news, and I suspect you do, check out our other daily news show. It's called The Headlines. It brings you the day's top stories, along with analysis from Times reporters, all in about 10 minutes or less. And you can subscribe to it wherever you get your podcasts.

Today's episode was produced by Nina Feldman, Luke Vanderplug, and Muge Zadie. It was edited by M.J. Davis-Lynn, contains original music by Rowy Nymisto and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansfork of Wonderly. That's it for the Daily. I'm Michael Boborio. See you tomorrow.