The Daily - Russian Troops Advance

Episode Date: February 22, 2022

This episode contains strong language.On Monday night, as tensions deepened between Russia and Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin sent troops into two regions in eastern Ukraine where separatist forces are friendly to Moscow.With dispatches from our reporters on the ground, we analyze why the crisis has deteriorated in the past few days and whether the orders are a precursor to a wider war.Guest: Valerie Hopkins, a correspondent based in Moscow 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 moves by Mr. Putin were his most blatant yet in a confrontation with the West that threatens to escalate into the biggest military action in Europe since World War II.In a speech to Russians on Monday, Mr. Putin buoyed his case for the invasion of rebel territories by arguing that the idea of Ukraine statehood was a fiction.Here’s what to know about the Russia-Ukraine crisis.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 Sabrina Tavernisi. This is The Daily. On Monday night, Russian troops crossed into two key regions in eastern Ukraine, controlled by forces friendly to Russia, in a possible precursor to a wider war. This is Lindsay Adario in the village of Novoluhansk. We're being shelled. We're lying face down.

The day before, I'd landed in Kiev, the country's capital, and joined my colleagues who've been reporting from the ground. A train is expected to depart full with refugees, and joined my colleagues who've been reporting from the ground. They've been in the East, sending dispatches about rising tensions there. It does feel like from the Russian side, a kind of case for going to war is being established, even though the public at large here, I think, is really just not prepared for this kind of war. Today, I spoke to one of those colleagues, Valerie Hopkins, about what led to this moment and what's coming next.

It's Tuesday, February 22nd. Valerie, so I arrived in Kyiv on Sunday, and it's turned out to be a very significant weekend in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Walk me through where this most recent escalation began. Where did it start? Walk me through where this most recent escalation began. Where did it start? So it all starts in this region of eastern Ukraine called Donbass, where pro-Moscow forces have been in charge since March 2014. They violently took control of the government and set about trying to create their own statelet. I remember that fighting really well because I covered that war pretty extensively in 2014. And it was really violent at first, but then it just settled into this slow grinding rhythm. Well, exactly.

After that, the fighters on both sides dug into their positions. Sometimes they lobbed mortars back and forth. People did die, but it was really slow burning. But starting on Thursday, it started to feel different. Thursday morning, we started to see reports that there was intensified shelling on the front line. And the shelling hit a kindergarten and a civilian school and actually injured some ordinary people. And by the time my colleague got there, it became clear that that wasn't the only place being shelled,

that there was actually shelling all across the front line. So by Thursday evening, it became clear that this was a serious escalation. And the shelling only intensified on Friday. Artillery shells were hitting civilian targets. My colleague Andrew Kramer was on the front line interviewing civilians who said they had been hiding in basements, hiding their babies and very scared of an escalation. And at the same time, the U.S. increased their estimate of Russian troops, putting it at 190,000 Russian troops in and around Ukraine's borders. And then there was a series of events that dramatically raised the stakes. Good day. So I cancel my plans. I'm on my way back to see if I can figure out what's going on. Right now it looks like it was just a car bomb. But the Russian media is playing it big.

Reports that began to emerge that a car bomb had gone off in the center of Donetsk, this self-proclaimed capital of the secessionist republic. And there were reports that this was the car belonging to the chief of the security services there. Rumors immediately began to spread on social media channels that were loyal to these Moscow-backed leaders, saying that this was evidence of a Ukrainian attempt to, you know, escalate tensions and invade. In the other republic, the Luhansk People's Republic, there were reports that a gas pipeline had exploded, which would be very damaging.

And within hours, both leaders announced that all of the civilians, all of the women and children living in these two republics needed to be evacuated immediately, urgently to Russia. Wow, so those are three things, bam, bam, bam, right in a row. Yes. And everything was happening so fast as my colleagues and I were trying to confirm the car bombing. Shortly thereafter, there was news of this pipeline explosion. We can't get into these

separatist republics because they have a very strict vetting process for journalists and they do not want us poking around there to see what was happening. But we were already looking out for signs of what is called a false flag operation. The White House and the State Department have been warning for weeks, if not months, that part of any buildup to a further Russian invasion of Ukraine would involve a false flag attack, which is something that would be designed by Russia, but engineered to look like it had been perpetrated by Ukraine. And when we started looking into these incidents, it turned out that this car did not actually belong to the

security chief. And this video that was circulating widely of the gas explosion was actually something from a totally separate incident that happened in July. Oh, wow. So months before. Yeah. But the people were being evacuated nonetheless. And, you know, I've been in Moscow watching all of the news for the last few months, and the state-owned channels have been preparing the Russian people for a possible war by showing images of suffering citizens in these two separatist republics. They've been, you know, talking about even using the word genocide against what Putin estimates to be four million people living in these two territories. And anything that would allow them to show that there was this suffering of their people and a humanitarian crisis that they need to step in and protect.

And that's exactly what we could see from the images that started to emerge on Friday night of civilians, women and children trickling over the border in buses, being put up in hastily improvised tent camps, you know, sleeping all together, hundreds of people on cots. You know, the images are quite alarming. But the problem is, is that, you know, the Ukrainian government has repeatedly denied any plan to attack this territory, any plan to, you know, further inflame tensions. And while we're frantically trying to confirm these reports. Today, I made two vital calls.

President Joe Biden addresses the American people. We have reason to believe the Russian forces are planning to and intend to attack Ukraine in the coming week, in the coming days. We believe that they will target Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million innocent people. We're calling out Russia's plans loudly and repeatedly, not because we want a conflict, but because we're doing everything in our power

to remove any reason that Russia may give to justify invading Ukraine and prevent them from moving. I've just watched Joe Biden say that he believes that Putin has made a decision to invade and that that includes attacking Kiev, a city of 2.8 million people. And I don't know what to say. I think a lot of people in Kyiv and in the rest of the country will not really be sleeping well tonight. So what happens next? So on Saturday morning, I woke up after not a lot of sleep,

following Biden's comments, and got on a Ukrainian military plane to go to the east and see the front line for myself. And we flew to the east and then we got into a military convoy heading to the region of Svitlodarsk, which is one of the last towns along the front line separating sort of ukrainian held territory from no man's land held by the separatists on the front line and we were accompanying a delegation of ukrainian ministers and parliamentarians who were also visiting the front line in a show of solidarity and as part of a fact-finding mission and I was with a group that was led by a party leader from President Zelensky's party,

who had, like President Zelensky, really been tamping down any kind of comments, especially American comments, that a war was imminent, that Putin had made up his mind to invade. My family stays in Ukraine, everybody's in Ukraine, we live normal lives. We have no extra, you know, security measures and so on. Six kids.

Six kids, right. In Kiev. In Kiev. You're not moving. Not moving. You were yourself a refugee. So with him and a small group of other international journalists, we went to a tiny military outpost that was in the village of Novoluhanské

that had been shelled that morning. And actually one of the mortars that had come over from the separatist fire had injured one soldier whose arm would have to be amputated. And I interviewed the commander of this local post, which before the war was just a place where they repaired old tractors. And he basically said, this has been happening. This is going to continue to happen. We are not returning fire. We are just going to endure it because we cannot afford any kind of pretext or any kind of messaging that we're involved in this. And also, we don't want to damage the civilians on the other side. You know, the Ukrainian government still hopes and maintains an aspiration that they will reincorporate this territory, the separatist-held territory, back into Ukraine.

It's about 7% of the country. So they showed us these holes in the ground where the mortars had fallen. And we had a short conversation, and then they told us it was time to go. And there was this intense rush. It wasn't clear to me what was really going on, but they said, you need to get out of here right now. So we jumped into the car that was being driven by this 28-year-old soldier, Denise, and he just floored it.

And almost immediately, on the place where we had just been standing 10 seconds before, we could hear an explosion. Go, go, go! Fuck, dude! And then another one. And then another one. That's the fourth one since we arrived. And Dennis was just saying, just be calm. It's going to be okay. Be calm. And he was just driving as fast as he could over these potholed roads to get us out of there as more and more shells started going off.

out of there as more and more shells started going off. And then we got back into the town and we went straight into a Ukrainian military facility where we had to seek cover as more shells rained down. The shelling has just continued to intensify. It's not stopping. I think I've counted eight since we drove away so far. And it later emerged that my group was not the only group that had to run and hide from this fire. Another group of journalists accompanying the defense minister also had to seek cover when they came under fire. the defense minister also had to seek cover when they came under fire. And all of this is happening as the world is watching Ukraine and also watching Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky,

leave the country the day after President Biden said Russia was poised to attack and go to the Munich Security Conference, where he delivered a speech where he basically said, Ukraine wants peace. Europe wants peace. The world says it doesn't want to fight. And Russia says it doesn't want to attack. Someone is lying. We'll be right back. So, Valerie, what happened after that day of intense shelling? Well, on Sunday, there was another ominous sign. The Belarusian Ministry of Defense announced that due to the unrest in eastern Ukraine, military exercises that have been going on, joint military exercises in Belarus with Russian troops,

which were scheduled to end on Sunday, would be extended indefinitely. And this, for all of us who are watching, caused great alarm. Everyone had been looking at Sunday as the day that could prove decisive because we had repeatedly heard from Russians and also from the Belarusian leader that once the exercises were over, the troops would go home. And this was an ominous announcement with no end date that the troops are going to stay there. I mean, it's Russia's biggest international deployment of troops since the end of the Cold War. Ukraine has a very long border with Belarus. And not only that, but some of the exercises were very close to Belarus's

border with Ukraine. And that's only about 150 kilometers away from the capital of Kyiv. and that's only about 150 kilometers away from the capital of Kyiv. Okay, so from what you've told me, you're seeing Russian separatists firing shells to the Ukrainian side. And then the Ukrainians you're talking to are saying they're not firing back because they can't afford to escalate the fight with Russia. Yet Russia's using the unrest in the east, unrest that appears to be completely driven by Russian separatists, as a reason to keep its troops on the ground in Belarus. Yes. The Ukrainians are pointing out, actually, that we haven't seen any credible evidence of civilians in either of these two separatist-held territories being killed. But reporting by me and my colleagues on the ground has shown that there are soldiers and civilians

being shelled and even killed almost every day on the Ukrainian-held side of the territory. On Monday, my colleague Andrew Kramer documented one area near the separatist region that had just been hit by 12 mortar shells. I'm in the village of Robivka in the aftermath of a mortar or artillery strike earlier today. And windows in some of the houses around have been blown out. There are branches on the ground.

People are sweeping up glass. He visited a woman. And when he spoke to her, she was so anxious, she was totally shook up. You know, and she showed him a video that she made while the shelling was going on. You can see how scared she is. At a certain point, she falls down. At another point... The whole video just goes black, and you can hear her calling out for her mom.

And she says... I'm sure they've hit us, they've hit my house. And then, later in the day, Putin delivered a fiery, hour-long speech about Ukraine. You know, he's expressing all of his grievances against Ukraine. The situation in Donbass has once again become critically acute. He's expressing why he basically thinks that Ukraine doesn't really deserve to exist as an independent state. He's saying it's a creation of Soviet leaders. And, you know, he starts trying to lay out an argument for why Ukraine is actually not a great place to live and why throwing your lot in with the West is not what Ukraine should be doing.

And near the end, he pointed to these eastern regions, where there's been so much unrest, and where thousands of people have been evacuated in the last five days. He accused the government in Kiev of not honoring these people's wish to speak Russian in their native language. And he essentially said that the government in Kyiv was committing a genocide against these four million people,

while the West turned away and pretended that it didn't know about it. And that was why, he said, he would honor the requests of the two separatist leaders to recognize them as independent republics and signed a decree with both of them present, recognizing them. These two documents will be prepared and signed in the nearest future. And what did you make of that? Well, we were all wondering what it could mean, you know.

And we got a partial answer less than an hour later when the Kremlin announced it had ordered Russia's defense ministry to deploy what they were calling peacekeepers into the two republics whose independence Putin had just recognized. So if there was any question about what the last four days were building toward, question about what the last four days were building toward. It sure seems like now at 1.39 a.m. in Kiev that they were building toward what looks like an invasion. Absolutely. As we speak, Russian soldiers are rolling in to what constitutes 7% of Ukraine's territory. And we don't really know what they're going to do next. We don't know if they're going to stay there. We don't know if this is the beginning of a long-feared,

full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. But if this escalates, and if this results in a full invasion, it's going to be the largest military action in Europe since World War II. And we don't know where this is going to stop, but in Putin's speech, he made it clear that this is about more than just these territories in the east. just these territories in the east.

He said that if the Ukrainian side did not de-escalate, the complete responsibility for the possibility of a continuation of bloodshed would be fully and wholly on the conscience of the regime ruling the territory of Ukraine. And that, sitting here in Kiev, has sent shivers down my spine, and I think down the spines of many of the people watching that. Valerie, thank you. Thank you, Sabrina.

On Monday night, the United States said it would impose economic sanctions on the two regions of Ukraine that Russia has now recognized as independent. But the U.S. stopped short of imposing sanctions directly on Russia, saying it would reserve those penalties for if or when Russia pushes further into Ukraine. We'll be right back. Here's what else you statement to the House. On Monday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was ending all of the country's remaining COVID restrictions and entrusting British citizens to learn to live with the virus. And Mr. Speaker, it is time that we got our confidence back. We don't need laws to compel people to be considerate to others.

We can rely on that sense of responsibility towards one another. The announcement puts Britain well ahead of most European countries in seeking a return to normalcy. And it came as the country's 96-year-old queen disclosed that she had been infected with COVID. So far, according to Buckingham Palace, the queen's symptoms are mild. And the top court in Colombia has ruled that abortion is no longer a crime, a decision that paves the way for the procedure to become widely available across the country. The ruling follows a similar court decision in Mexico, which, like Colombia, is a historically conservative and Catholic country where abortion had long been outlawed. where abortion had long been outlawed. Today's episode was produced by Claire Tenesketter and Lindsay Garrison.

It was edited by Michael Benoit and Larissa Anderson and was engineered by Chris Wood. It featured original music by Dan Powell, Marian Lozano, and Alicia Baitu. Our theme music is by Jim Brumberberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. Special thanks to Andrew Kramer, Lindsay Adario, Anton Trajanovski, Ivan Nichiparenko, Valerie Hopkins, and Tyler Hicks. That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you tomorrow.