The NPR Politics Podcast - After Ten Days Of War, The View From The Ground In Ukraine

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

Ukraine continues to hold out against a Russian invasion, as the U.S. and its European allies debate military aid and banning Russian oil imports to further constrain the petrostate's economy. NPR's Ryan Lucas is reporting from Ukraine and shares how the people there are experiencing the Russian invasion.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, correspondent Ryan Lucas, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson.Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. It is 2-11 on March 7, 2022. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Ryan Lucas on assignment in Ukraine. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And Ryan, you just said you're in Ukraine, where there is a war underway. More than a million Ukrainians have fled their country as the Russian assault continues. Two ceasefires designed to allow more people to evacuate failed to hold over the weekend. Russia continued to attack civilians. A Ukrainian official said that hundreds of schools, hospitals and residential buildings

have been destroyed. The Russians and Ukrainians are holding a third round of so far inconsequential talks today. Ryan, tell us about the situation there now. Well, it's fairly calm in western Ukraine, where I am, calm in the sense of there isn't fighting, but certainly everyone here is on a war footing. There are checkpoints on the roads. There are men with guns at the checkpoints. People are a little jumpy. They're wrapping up statues in central Lviv to protect them in case the city does indeed get hit by Russian strikes. But as far as the war goes, most of the fighting is happening in central Ukraine, in the north. The cities of Kharkiv and the capital Kiev, areas around there, are just getting pounded relentlessly by Russian missile strikes and shelling. Cities in the south, like Mariupol, are basically under siege.

Civilians are running out of food. They tell us that there's no heat, there's no water, there's no electricity. So the humanitarian situation in many places is getting absolutely dire for people there. And you mentioned the ceasefires that were set up over the weekend to try to get civilians out of some of the hardest hit areas. Those ceasefires broke down pretty quickly. Ukrainian officials said that Russians opened fire on evacuation points. We actually spoke to somebody in Mariupol who told us that when the time came for civilians to gather, they got shelled. They got shelled. And there were pictures from a suburb in Kyiv where

several civilians were killed. They were out there with their suitcases. And they were killed on the side of the road waiting to evacuate. So the situation is difficult. I will say that the Ukrainian forces have put up a tremendous amount of resistance, much more than I think anyone expected, except for perhaps Ukrainians themselves. Yeah, let's talk about that. Because there were a lot of expectations that Kiev would have fallen by now expectations from, you know, US military officials and intelligence officials. And instead, the Ukrainians have put up quite a fight. And you're reporting and others, people are volunteering, people are getting out there. improved drastically in the past eight years since Russia invaded Crimea and areas in eastern Ukraine. But civilians have entered what's known as the territorial defense forces. These are the sorts of people who are manning the hundreds, if not thousands, of checkpoints that dot the

roads around Ukraine at this point in time. But there are also people from overseas who are coming to Ukraine to fight the Russians. President Zelensky here actually invited foreigners to come in and take up arms and fight the Russians along with, well, to come join the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion. And thousands of people have answered that call and have come here to do exactly that, take up arms and fight the Russians. Ryan, do you see signs that Western arms are getting to the Ukrainian resistors? You know, it's hard to see that. One, they obviously want to keep those sorts of rat lines bringing weapons in as quiet as possible for obvious reasons. They don't want them to become the target of Russian strikes. But certainly the Western powers led by the US, but I mean, you look at almost NATO countries across the board, they are answering President Zelensky's appeal for weaponry to help them. But, you know, the Ukrainians keep on saying, and they keep on reiterating this, that they need more. Yeah, and Mara, you and I spent part of this weekend

tracking down some of that on the U.S. side. In particular, President Zelensky of Ukraine held a call with members of Congress, a large bipartisan group of members of Congress, making requests, including for Poland and other Eastern European countries to supply Soviet-made aircraft or Soviet-era aircraft to Ukraine to help in the fight. And it seems as though there is bipartisan support for that, right, Mara? What's happening in the U.S. is there's a $10 billion aid package that's working its way through Congress that has bipartisan support. You just mentioned this idea of getting Poland to transfer Soviet-era MiG planes to Ukraine. These are planes presumably that Ukrainian pilots already know how to fly. And then the U.S. would kind of backfill Poland

with replacement weapons or planes. But then there's also lots of talk about an oil ban. One thing the U.S. and its allies haven't done yet is literally ban the purchase of Russian oil and gas. Now, the United States only gets anywhere from 3% to 10% of its imported energy from Russia. That's not a huge amount. But the idea of banning the purchase of Russian oil and gas has a lot of support, and I expect that will happen. This is not sanctions, by the way. International sanctions would require the U.S. to punish other countries who buy Russian oil and gas. And, of course, Europe is much more dependent on Russian energy. We'll get into some of the domestic political calculations behind that in a bit. But Mara,

there's a lot of diplomacy going on. We know that President Biden had a call today with several European leaders. It seems like he's on the phone almost every day with someone. And also, the Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to visit the Baltics. And later this week, Vice President Harris is going to Poland and Romania. What are they trying to accomplish? Well, they're trying to keep the allies together. That's been the number one diplomatic goal this whole time. And Joe Biden has really succeeded in that. Remember, NATO was pretty much left in tatters when Trump left the White House. You know, he called NATO obsolete. He talked about maybe pulling out of NATO. But NATO is united and an alliance needs constant tending. You know, it's a garden that needs constant watering. And that's what they're doing.

And on some of these things, it's been difficult. You know, all of a sudden, you know, overnight deciding to multiply the amount of money it spends on defense, stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. And that's, you know, that's what Blinken and Harris are going to be working on when they go over there this week. All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, more on the war between Russia and Ukraine. And we're back. And in the past year, the U.S. has delivered a lot of military assistance to Ukraine. The White House is, as Mara said, asking for $10 billion more. Some of that would be humanitarian assistance. A lot of it would be military assistance.

Ryan, what does Ukraine need from the United States? That's a big question. I mean, it's... And what they can practically get might be quite different than what they would like, I guess. Right. I think what we have heard consistently from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in these sort of impassioned speeches that he gives on his Instagram account multiple times a day is a no-fly zone. That is what he has been asking from the U.S., from the West, because of the strikes that are happening on Ukrainian cities.

I'm really curious to hear from you guys what the view of that is from Washington. I mean, I've certainly seen and heard concern about not wanting to get into a direct confrontation with Russia, and Putin has warned that he would take that as a direct intervention in this war. But is there any sort of bipartisan support for doing anything like that here? Antony Blinken was on Meet the Press yesterday, at least that's where I caught him. And he made the case that setting up a no-fly zone would set up a situation where the U.S. might have to shoot down a Russian jet and all of the implications that would flow from that. So it doesn't seem like the Biden administration has any appetite at all. Right. And that is not, I think, a huge surprise here, despite the impassioned pleas that we've heard from

Ukrainian leaders. I think they will take any and all military support that they can get at this point in time, certainly anything that will help protect them against Russian airstrikes. Although surprisingly, even, you know, the second week of the war at this point in time, the airspace over Ukraine is still contested. And that is something that I think has surprised a lot of military analysts that Russia does not have complete domination of the skies. I want to come back real quick to the oil and gas imports. In the White House description of the call that President Biden had with the president of France and the chancellor of Germany and the prime minister of the UK, it says that the leaders affirmed their determination to continue raising the costs on Russia for its unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine. One way to raise those costs would be to stop taking imports of Russian oil. Mara, how big a deal would

that be for the US? And it does seem like there is bipartisan congressional support for it. Certainly, there's growing support. What they're talking about now is each country individually banning imports of Russian oil and gas. The US.S. doesn't get very much, so it wouldn't be that hard for them to do this. But any time you take energy out of the equation, you risk the possibility of gas prices at the pump going up. We've already had inflation. That's a real political problem for Joe Biden. Yeah, let me just say, I'm on the AAA website right now. Current average price for regular is $4 a gallon. A week ago is $3.60. People are going to be shocked when they fill up their tanks. big majorities, then they say, well, what if it costs, if it means that your price at the pump goes up, the support goes down a little bit. Now, people, it's hard for people to answer honestly, when they've just been asked, you know, about, about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But there's no doubt that Republicans who have already weaponized inflation against Biden

will, if the US bans Russian oil and gas, which is something Republicans are for, they will certainly turn around and blame Biden for any additional price hikes at the pump that that may cause. There's not a whole lot of domestic political upside for Joe Biden here, even if he does all the right things to defend Ukraine. Ryan, you are our man on the ground there right now. What are you watching for in the days ahead? to allow civilians who are just getting shelled and running out of food and have no heat, whether they will be able to get out and seek safety elsewhere in Ukraine. That is one of the most immediate concerns. In the longer term, what I'm curious to see is whether the sort of unity that we have seen from the West and American allies kind of writ large,

whether that unity will hold together as this conflict drags out. Because there is no sign here that this is going to end anytime soon. Saying that, I will also say that the clock is ticking here. Is NATO and the US, are they going to be able to get support in here fast enough to help Ukraine hold off the Russian advance? All right. Well, we are going to leave it there for now. Ryan, thank you for staying up very late to talk to us. Or is it now you're just up early? There's no sleep. There's a lot going on. There is a lot going on.

Dovah Zayn. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Ryan Lucas in Ukraine. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.