The Daily - The Risks of a New U.S. Approach in Ukraine

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

As the horrors of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have became clearer, the Biden administration has pivoted to a more aggressive stance, with officials talking about constraining Moscow as a global power.But that is an escalation, and escalations can go wrong.Guest: David E. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times. Want more from The Daily? For one big idea on the news each week from our team, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: The United States toughened its messaging on the Ukraine war, saying that the American aim was not just to thwart the Russian invasion but also to weaken Russia so it could no longer carry out such military aggression anywhere.The change in stance could signal a situation that pits Washington more directly against Moscow.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. Today. From the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the United States took pains to avoid the appearance that it was entering a direct confrontation with Russia. This week, that may have begun to change. My colleague, David Sanger, on the new U.S. approach and the risks it carries.

It's Friday, April 29th. So, David, we've seen a lot of activity by the United States over the past week in regards to Ukraine. And I want you to walk us through exactly what the U.S. has been doing. Well, Sabrina, the most important thing that happened was seeing senior American officials walking around Kiev and meeting with President Vladimir Zelensky. You know, there had been a succession of Europeans who came into Kiev, including Boris Johnson and a number of other European leaders. But the Secret Service would not let President Biden go into an area that the Russians could easily shell. So they decided that the next best thing to do was to send Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary, in together.

They actually landed a military plane in Poland. They left their press corps there. They got onto a train where the windows were blackened and they had the train take them in to Kiev with a complete news blackout so that the Russians wouldn't know when they were coming. And so this was the first time that we had actually seen Americans there. And then they left the country, returned to Poland on a train, and met up with their small press corps. This was, in our judgment, an important moment to be there, an important moment for Ukraine, for the war. And Secretary Blinken and Secretary Austin held a press conference.

And that's when things got sort of interesting, Sabrina, because at one moment... Are you defining America's goals for success any differently in Ukraine now than you were at the beginning of this war? And if so, what are those goals today? Secretary Austin was asked about their objectives. And what he said was... We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can't do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine. So it has already lost a lot of military capability

and a lot of its troops, quite frankly. We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can't do the kinds of things it has done in invading Ukraine. So, David, this sounds pretty serious. I mean, weaken Russia to the point that it can't do what it's done in Ukraine again. But is this the official White House position?

Well, it may be. It actually set off a fairly frenzied reaction in the White House. They came out and said, don't read too much into what Secretary Austin said. And that's because previously American officials, they noted, had simply said that they wanted Russia to emerge from the Ukraine conflict in a strategically weakened state. But no one knows what that means. I mean, it could be economically weakened. It could be their reputation's been sullied. It could be that no one thinks their military is 10 feet tall anymore after all the mistakes they made.

But Austin did something a little bit different. But Austin did something a little bit different. By saying the words that the United States wanted to make sure that the Russian military can't do the kinds of things it has done in invading Ukraine, he seemed to suggest that the real goal of the United States is to degrade Russian power, and certainly Russian military power, for years to come. Now, presumably that means at least as long as Vladimir Putin is in office. And David, this sounds like a much more aggressive stance toward Russia. So help me understand that.

I mean, what was the Americans' position at the outset and how is this different? Well, at the outset of the war, it was more about Ukraine than it was about Russia. It was about trying to get the Russians to pull their forces back away from the borders. It was about trying to get the Russians into a negotiation, a diplomatic process with the Ukrainians. It was about trying to impose economic sanctions to increase the pain on the Russians, including export controls that were directed at the Russian military, keeping them from getting microelectronics and so forth that would feed into their weapons production. But it wasn't really about degrading Russian power.

Right. It felt strategic and limited to the war. It was specific to Ukraine and specific to resolving this dispute. Because remember, President Biden's goal from the beginning was he didn't want to make this about the United States versus Russia. He wanted to make this about Ukraine's sovereignty and a violation of international law. And then as the horrors of the invasion became clear, he wanted to make it about the war crimes that he believed Putin had been responsible for. But he had not previously talked about constraining Russia itself as a global power. That was a new message.

That was a new strategic objective for the United States. So, David, was there anything that the U.S. did beyond Lloyd Austin's statement that showed this more aggressive stance? beyond Lloyd Austin's statement, that showed this more aggressive stance? Well, they certainly showed a more aggressive stance in trying to drive Russia out of Ukraine. They announced a very large additional aid package. They announced that 40 countries were putting together a contact group that would resupply Ukraine with military hardware over the long run. They announced that Ukraine would, over time, begin to use the kinds of weapons that NATO uses. Why? Because the alliance was running out of old Soviet-style and Russian-style weapons

to give to the Ukrainians, which is, of course, what they'd been trained on for many years. And they talked about moving far more quickly than they had ever moved before in placing these armaments in Ukrainian hands. In cases where Ukrainians needed to be trained, they actually flew some Ukrainians out of the country to train them on weapons and then flew them back in. So this is an effort unlike, I think, anything we've seen since World War II. It's more akin to what Roosevelt did with the arsenal of democracy, right, where he was trying to go rush weapons to the British to fend off Nazi Germany. But it's happening here at a pace and on a scale that we really have not seen in decades, if ever.

So, David, why is the U.S. pivoting to what seems like a much more aggressive stance toward Russia now? I think because they see the chance for Ukrainian victory. You know, Secretary Blinken said at one point, the Ukrainians have already won. They've defeated the Russians' initial objective of taking over the entire country. Zelensky's still there and on the radio every night

and showing up in selfies and, you know, remains in the capital. That the Russians had to go retreat, that the Russians took huge casualties, that their generals have been killed at a high rate, that they lost the Moskva, the flagship of their fleet. So they see a moment where the Ukrainians have momentum and they want to keep that momentum going. But this is an escalation and escalations are inherently risky. And this one's got more than the usual number of things that could go wrong. We'll be right back. So, David, you mentioned the risks of this new American approach. Lay them out for us.

Well, Sabrina, I think there are three main risks. And the first one is, you know, the fundamental question, is this plan doable? Do we have the industrial capacity to do it? Can we do it without diminishing our own stocks of weapons? For now, it's been pretty easy because the U.S. has had a lot of outdated gear that the Army and others have been happy to hand off to the Ukrainians and order something newer, bigger, and better. But, you know, we're running up to the point where there really aren't many surplus weapons left. And then even if you can keep up this rate of resupply, there's the question of

can you keep your allies on board? Remember, everybody unified around the idea of defending Ukraine. This wasn't a hard case, right? It was an unprovoked attack. It got worse as we saw the human rights violations, as we saw the summary executions in Bukha and other places. So the question now is, if your goal is actually broader, if your goal is to try to permanently set back Russian power, will the Germans go along with that? Many in Germany have avoided provoking Russia for all the obvious reasons. They need their gas. They need trade. They see no advantage in poking the bear, particularly with an unpredictable Vladimir Putin around. So has Putin reacted at all to Secretary Austin's comments about weakening Russia?

He may have, Sabrina. We're not certain. But on Wednesday, the Russians announced through Gazprom, their energy giant, that they were cutting off Poland and Bulgaria because those countries refused to pay for their fuel in rubles, which would be the easy Russian way to evade the sanctions. So we're now headed into the next vulnerability where the Russians believe they can split up Europe, which is as they cut off some countries and threaten to cut off others, Germany and Italy are the two countries most dependent on Russian gas, that they would have the opportunity to finally fracture that European unity that we've all been celebrating. Right. And there's probably a real risk of that unity actually fracturing. So what's the second risk of this news stance, David? Well, the second risk is that if this becomes a contest between Washington and Moscow,

rather than a contest over the fate of Ukraine, it plays right to Putin's greatest wish, which is to portray a Western alliance led by the United States that's trying to suppress Russian greatness. And his hope would be to provoke Russian nationalism. If he's successful at doing that, Sabrina, what's it mean? It means that the anger would be directed at Joe Biden and Washington and NATO and not at Vladimir Putin for starting a disastrous, misbegotten war. Right. And in some ways, we've already seen this happening, right? I mean, we've done an episode about this with our colleague Anton,

who was telling us that Russians feel like they've been ganged up on. That's right. And so far, it doesn't look from the polling like Putin has paid a price for the war that he chose to start. So, David, what's the last risk of this new, more aggressive stance? Well, the big risk is any escalation by the West could well lead to an escalation by Putin. For example, the gas cutoffs that we were talking about just before. And now there's some signs that things are moving beyond Ukraine and spilling over into other parts of Europe. There have been explosions in a disputed area

of Moldova, a natural next target for the Russians. And of course, one of the most obvious escalations we might see could be the use of chemical or nuclear weapons by Putin. could be the use of chemical or nuclear weapons by Putin. No one really wants to dwell on this much, understandably, but there have been a lot of warnings that you've heard from the U.S. government in recent days about the possibility that he might employ a chemical weapon, perhaps blaming it on the Ukrainians themselves. And then, of course, even more worrisome is that we've had a sequence of Russian officials, most recently the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, talking about the increased risk of nuclear war. that they'd been watching very carefully to see if the Russians are moving any of their tactical or battlefield small nuclear weapons with the thought that maybe Russia would try to conduct a test or a demonstration blast,

maybe over the Black Sea, maybe someplace in Ukraine, to basically send a stay-away-from-us message. send a stay away from us message. And on Wednesday, we even heard John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, say nobody wants to see this war escalate any more than it already has. And he added, certainly nobody wants to see or nobody should want to see it escalate into the nuclear realm. Well, that's exactly what the Russians are talking about. They may not mean it, but we don't know that for a fact. So, David, the risks you're describing here, I mean, this, you know, rise in nationalism in Russia,

increased risk of nuclear weapons being used. You know, these are real. And in some ways, they play into Putin's narrative, right? It's precisely what he had been arguing to Russians, that, you know, the U.S. is after us, the West is after us. So why does the administration think this new stance is worth that level of risk? Well, it's a really interesting question. One thing the administration has said from the start is that this is really about a fundamental principle. They don't want Russia to emerge from Ukraine thinking that they paid a fairly modest

price for what could be a pretty big territorial gain in the South and the East. And that's exactly what the Russians believed after they annexed Crimea in 2014. It's exactly what they believed after they conducted the election interference two years later, where the price was the expulsion of, what, 35 spies, most of whom were under diplomatic cover, and the closure of a couple of diplomatic compounds in the U.S. So, so far, they haven't paid much of a price for any of their adventurism. The Ukraine war is the first time in post-Soviet history where Russia has actually begun to pay a steep price.

actually begun to pay a steep price. Right. The message up until now to Russia has been, you know, the West will eventually get distracted. The West will eventually lose the thread and go on to other things. And, you know, there won't really be a price. That's right. And that the West can be divided. That while there'll be some who think that Russia should pay dearly, as long as the Germans who are the heart of NATO in Europe and other European powers don't want to provoke Russia, they will forgive almost anything. Yeah, they'll put some sanctions in effect, but they won't ruin Vladimir Putin's day. Don't ruin Vladimir Putin's day. David, since the beginning of this conflict, the Biden administration has had a pretty clear red line.

It says it wouldn't cross. And that line was no U.S. troops would be committed that, you know, Biden has said that would trigger World War III. This was not going to happen. So in some ways, do you think that what we're seeing right now from the United States is sort of inching up toward that line? How do you understand what the U.S. is doing right now? It's a really great question because the U.S. has not been very clear in describing its strategic objectives, as you could tell from the way that Secretary Austin's statement triggered such confused reaction.

But the United States and its allies are clearly now willing to do some things that eight or nine weeks ago they wouldn't think about doing. The Germans are sending heavy weapons and armor. They rejected that just a few weeks ago. The United States said that it wouldn't allow MiG fighters to be flown into Ukraine from a NATO base because that made the NATO base part of the conflict.

But now we're shipping extraordinarily effective heavy weapons artillery at high speed into Ukraine. The Russians consider this to be an offensive act. And you've got to imagine that at some point, the Russians are going to say, we're lifting our own restrictions and we're going to begin to go after some of those shipments inside NATO territory. And that's the really fraught moment, because at that moment, you would have Russia attacking inside NATO territory. You heard President Biden say repeatedly that he would defend every inch of NATO territory.

And so we are certainly headed into a pretty perilous moment here right now, where both the Russians and the U.S. are pushing the boundaries that seemed so clear just a few weeks ago. So David, you're describing these risks, and I guess what I'm left with is wondering whether the American actions potentially are leading us down a road that they said they wanted to avoid, precisely this path to nuclear war, this World War III that they said that they were worried about. You know, one way to think about that, Sabrina, is that when President Biden brought it up, he was making it clear to Vladimir Putin that was his greatest fear. And Putin is turning around with rhetoric to try to play on that fear. Now, so far, fortunately, we haven't seen one iota of evidence that the Russians are moving their nuclear weapons, are thinking about employing them.

We've only heard the constant talk about it. The problem is, when that changes, it could change very quickly. And that's the big gamble that Joe Biden is taking. It's one American officials don't like to talk about publicly very much, because the whole sound of nuclear war with Russia is a scary subject. And we don't think that the likelihood of it is very high. But I've been doing this now for more than a quarter century in Washington. I've had more discussions with people in the United States government about what they're looking for in the way of nuclear movement in

Russia in the past three months than I had in the past two nuclear movement in Russia, in the past three months than I had in the past two and a half decades. David, thank you. Thank you. On Thursday, during a press conference at the White House. Good morning. I just signed a request to Congress Thursday, during a press conference at the White House. Good morning. I just signed a request to Congress for critical security, economic and humanitarian assistance to help Ukraine continue to counter Putin's aggression.

President Biden said he was asking Congress to triple U.S. assistance to Ukraine to $33 billion, an extraordinary escalation in the American investment in the war. This assistance would provide even more artillery, armored vehicles, anti-armored systems, anti-air capabilities that have been used so effectively thus far in the battlefield by the Ukrainian warriors. Biden was asked about the specter of nuclear weapons and about Russia's contention that the war in Ukraine

was actually a war with the West. Thank you. How worried are you by a growing number of Russian comments in the media and on some of their officials painting this conflict as actually already a conflict between NATO, the US, and Russia? They're painting it in very alarmist terms to be nuclear weapons, saying it's a life-or-death struggle, et cetera.S., and Russia. They're painting very alarmist terms to the nuclear weapons,

saying it's a life-or-death struggle, etc. And just separately... Biden denied the characterization. They're not true. No one should be making idle comments about the use of nuclear weapons or the possibility of the use of that. It's irresponsible.

Mr. President, on that, Mr. President... We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Here's what else you need to know today. On Thursday, the drug manufacturer Moderna asked the Food and Drug Administration to authorize its coronavirus vaccine for children under six, making it the first company to request approval for the country's youngest children. The vaccine would cover 18 million children, the only group that is so far not yet eligible for vaccines. Today's episode was produced by Sydney Harper and Eric Krupke, with help from Jessica Chung

and Chelsea Daniel. It was edited by Michael Benoit and Patricia Willans, contains original music by Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Alicia Baitube. Our theme music is by Jim Rumberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lindsay Garrison, Claire Tedeschetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon-Johnson, Brad Fisher, Larissa Anderson, Chris Wood, Jessica Chung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Lee Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Mark George, Luke Vanderplug, MJ Davis-Lynn, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Michael Benoit, Liz O'Balin, Aastha Chaturvedi, Caitlin Roberts, Rochelle Banja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schruppel, Anita Barajo, Rob Zipko, Alisha Ba'itub, Chelsea Daniel,

Moosh Zaidi, Patricia Willans, Rowan Nemisto, Jody Becker, Ricky Nowetzki, and John Ketchum. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Schumann, Cliff Levy, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Sophia Milan, Des Ibequa, Wendy Doerr, Elizabeth Davis-Moore, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Barelli, and Maddie Messie-Yellow. That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you on Monday.