The NPR Politics Podcast - Russia Recognizes Parts Of Ukraine As Independent, Escalating Conflict

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

Putin appears to be establishing a pretext for a Russian invasion of Ukraine, as hopes for a diplomatic resolution to the context dwindle. It remains to be seen whether a Russian invasion will unite NATO allies or drive a wedge between the European powers and the United States.This episode: congressional correspondent Susan Davis, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, and international correspondent Frank Langfitt.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

Hi, this is Lauren and Franny from Brooklyn, New York. We just celebrated Franny's second birthday and wanted to wish Auntie Sue a welcome back to the pod. This podcast was recorded at... Oh man, now I'm like crying. It is 2 26 p.m. on Monday, February 21st. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Okay, here's the show. Sue, it's great to have you back. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast.

I'm Susan Davis. I'm still clearly feeling a lot of those mom hormones, and I still cover Congress. I am Frank Ordonez, and I cover the White House. And today, we've got NPR international correspondent Frank Langfitt on the line from Ukraine. Hey, Frank. Hi, Sue. So Vladimir Putin is signaling that Russia will now recognize two separatist areas of Ukraine as independent, possibly as pretext for actually entering the country. These are areas where Russia has been financing insurrectionist violence for years. So Frank, what is the significance of this move? Well, I think it is, as you describe it, this is sort of the next step we've been watching. I mean,

really a buildup, Sue, since October of last year. And people have been watching to see what Putin would do next. And the thought is that by saying he's recognizing these two areas, that he could then use this as a pretext to send in Russian troops to defend them, as he will probably describe it. few days for false flag operations in which they could try to blame atrocities on Ukrainian troops, again, as a pretext for being able to invade and to sort of portray the Russian troops as on a humanitarian mission to defend these small, very pro-Russian areas. Frank, last week on the podcast, we heard from Joanna Kakissas, who said things felt almost eerily normal there. What are things like in Ukraine right now? That's a great question. I think that Joanna is absolutely right. I mean, I think as a reporter, you find when you talk to people, they don't react to this. And the reason they will tell

you they don't react to it is because they feel they've been at war with Russia for eight years. And it's exhausting because they never know what's going to happen, whether it's cyber attacks, whether it's fighting out in the east, those sorts of things. And my senses from talking to people is they're so tired and so exhausted by the uncertainty that they wait to see if something very visible happens. And that's what they'll be doing tonight and tomorrow, certainly in the days ahead, looking out east to see what's happened. I will tell you, though, that there was a little bit of a change last night, I went out to Independence Square, in which there was a memorial service for people who had died eight years ago, actually fighting a and ultimately toppling a pro Russian government here that was trying to take the country back towards Russia instead of towards Europe. And people there who had fought and at that time fought with police, people I talked to there did say they really expected war and they

were very sober. And I think the tone felt different last night to me. It'll be very interesting tomorrow when people wake up here in Kiev, what the tone sounds like with this new news. Franco, this sounds like a move of escalation. What do you think it means in terms of chances of finding a diplomatic solution, or the talks around a possible US-Russia meeting? I mean, it certainly shows that time is running out on finding a diplomatic solution. Frank just pointed out, and this is kind of the scenario that the administration has been talking about for the last week. I mean, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was at the United Nations last week on Thursday, and he talked about these steps. He talked about the false flag operation, and that's the idea of Russia kind of creating a

scenario that looks like Ukraine was falsely attacking Russia or Russia needed to defend its people or supporters. You now have that shelling over the weekend in the east, followed by what Blinken said was an emergency meeting that Putin would likely call an emergency meeting to address kind of a crisis. You know, that's kind of what's happening now with the speech that Putin is giving and raising these concerns. What the White House says is going to happen next is the attack. So some very serious, alarming stuff. Now, I will note that the White House insists that they will keep the window of diplomacy open until they actually see tanks rolling. But just to be clear, and from the president on down, no one is very optimistic about that happening.

Franco, you just got back from a trip to Europe with the vice president. What's your takeaways from that trip? Well, you know, she was there for a few reasons. The big reason was to meet with allies and give a speech about the crisis and really, really, you know, talk about the importance of the alliance and the United States and the allies in the West sticking together to, you know, kind of reinforce that everyone needs to be on the same page about tough sanctions, the package that allies plan to impose if Russia invades. You know, she described, you know, the threats from Russia as a direct threat on European security. She was also there to meet with the Ukraine president,

Volodymyr Zelensky, and that was, you know, a big important meeting because not only was she showing her support for him, but it sent a message to Russia and the Ukrainians that the United States is behind Zelensky and Ukraine. Ukrainian President Zelensky also gave a speech in Munich. What was their reaction in Ukraine? Oh, I think very positive. And I've got to say that even Zelensky's critics, and there are many of them here, he doesn't have high ratings, felt he was really forceful and really articulate and was sort of balanced in a way of sort of showing a lot of motion, but also really standing up for his country. And, of course, he said at one point, you know, why aren't you doing this now? Why aren't you doing sanctions now? Look at this threat that's been here for, as Ukrainians will say, when people talk to them about this situation, they say, this has been going on for eight years. This is what we've been dealing with.

I think it's interesting also when you talk to people here on the street, and I found this last night when I was out at Independence Square, is one woman I talked to who said, you know, we're very grateful for the weapons that the Americans have been sending, I think, on a daily basis to the airport here. At the same time, there's this frustration that they would like to be, they want to be a part of the European Union, they want to be a part of NATO, the polling is over 60% for both, and it's been growing for many, many years. And there's a frustration that they can't be a part of that club, especially being a part of that club. If they were part of NATO, you know, they would feel like they really had protection. All right, let's take a quick break. And we'll talk more about Ukraine in a second.

And we're back. And Franco, I want to start with you. I mean, how much concern is there from the U.S. perspective on what a Russian incursion could do to sort of drive a wedge between the U.S. and its European allies? Well, I'll say that from the U.S. perspective, or from the U.S. messaging, they certainly like to say that they are more unified than they ever have been. And there's, you know, likely some truth to that. There's definitely alliances on both sides of the aisle that say that the alliance is more together than it has been in many, many years, particularly, you know, since, for example, the Trump years. At the same time, there's definitely some daylight. I mean, the Prime Minister of Italy, you know, was saying over the weekend that sanctions shouldn't

include energy. You know, that's one of the key parts for strong financial sanctions that are, you know, intended to put real harm on Russia. The other one is, you know, the Nord Stream pipeline, the gas pipeline that goes directly from Russia to Germany. The Chancellor of Germany has not said very clearly what would happen after the sanctions. You know, the United States certainly indicates that Germany would be on board. But you know, there's some, you know, it's not certain there. The big one I will point out of daylight is, you know, the White House announced over the weekend that the allies are not going to kick Russia out of SWIFT. That's the global banking system that was, you know, kind of called the nuclear option. And they did not do that. So I think it poses

some uncertainty about while they are aligned, there are certainly areas where there is some daylight. Frank, you mentioned earlier that Ukraine wants to be part of NATO. I mean, what's the view from Europe on this? And how high is the concern there that this could really test and weaken potentially the NATO alliance that has essentially been the core of the post-World War II global peaceful alliance? Well, I think Putin may have a variety of goals and strategies here, but one would be to try to weaken NATO. For instance, if he's able to continue to effectively invade this country, a sovereign nation, without any penalty, and of course, in terms of military penalty, and President Biden and others said they have no intention of putting boots on the ground here. He could try to use that as a way to say to other countries, look, you know, NATO is toothless, they don't do anything. However, if he does more than an incursion in the east, it all depends on

really what he does and how it plays out, which of course always is unpredictable with military action. The United States believes there could be a mass invasion. That's the kind of thing that could really galvanize NATO, because it would frighten a lot of nations and they wouldn't know, well, how far is he going to go? And it could be a catastrophic war. So it'll be very interesting to see, does he continue to do sort of limited actions, which are going to cause great suffering? Or is he going to try to take a large chunk of this country? And I think that will determine how NATO, perhaps how NATO responds. I will say, having covered NATO for a little while, you know, the Russian invasion of Crimea was seen as actually

extremely helpful to solidifying NATO. It's an organization that certainly after the end of the Cold War has had basically a rolling identity crisis, not always knowing exactly who it was supposed to counter. And every time Vladimir Putin does things like this, it sort of refocuses NATO. So it'll be very interesting to see what the response is in Brussels in terms of what the Russians do in the coming days. Putin at least seems to be operating as if he is the leader with the better hand here. It seems like he's making all the offensive moves and the U.S. and European allies are making all of the defensive moves. I mean, I think the reason for that is this. I mean, if we look at, you know, why is Vladimir Putin doing this now?

We don't know. And everybody always speculates about what he's thinking. But some thought is that the evacuation and the retreat from Afghanistan may have persuaded him that now is a very good time to do this sort of thing, that the Americans aren't going to do anything really about it in terms of if he takes a certain amount of land. Also, oil prices, as we've been talking, energy prices are very high. That's very helpful to him. There have been periods when oil prices were low that he might not have risked something like this. So Frank, if we are building towards Russia

moving troops into eastern Ukraine, what would happen after that? What are you looking for if Putin does take that step? I think the question is, how far does he go? You know, what are the losses in terms of human life, of course? It's like, how aggressive is he going to be? People will be watching very, very closely. Is this simply a matter of President Putin trying to just continue to damage this country? What people here feel he wants to turn it into a failed state instead of an aspirational democracy that's tilting towards Europe? Or does he want to go a lot further? And does he want to replace the government here in Kyiv? The view here, and I think this is also the view in London and in Washington, is if the Russians were to come in here in a full-scale invasion, it would be a disaster.

Kyiv is a city of three million. Most people in Ukraine do not like Vladimir Putin. Eighty percent don't like him. A lot of people here have guns. The idea of 190,000 troops being able to really take control of the country, of people who don't want you here, it could be an awful scenario. And it could be a huge problem for Putin. It also, I think, will look in the West as really shocking because at this moment, the Ukrainians, as far as we can

tell, have done absolutely nothing to provoke an attack. They've been telling their soldiers to avoid that. And so the idea that there would be an unprovoked invasion of a democracy and one that would come at a high cost of human life, you know, that's going to go over very, very badly and really upset a lot of people in Europe and perhaps in the United States. All right. Let's leave it there for now. Frank Langford, thanks. Great to talk. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Frank Ordonez. I cover the White House.

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.