Today, Explained - Is Ukraine winning now?

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

A recent Ukrainian counteroffensive seems to have caught Russia on its back foot. That could have consequences for Putin in the war — and at home. The Washington Post’s Mary Ilyushina explains. This episode was produced by Amanda Lewellyn and Miles Bryan, fact-checked by Serena Solin, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and edited by Matt Collette and Sean Rameswaram, who also hosted. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Since Russia escalated its incursion into Ukraine just over six months ago, we've grown accustomed to seeing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky propagandize from a bunker or some undisclosed location on his phone, on a computer. That's how he addressed Congress back in March. That's how he appeared at the Grammys back in April. Remember that? His wartime leadership and propaganda machine has felt a lot like hearing from your boss on Zoom during the pandemic, but not today. Today, Zelensky made an unannounced visit to Izyum, a small town in eastern Ukraine that the country just reclaimed in a hugely successful counteroffensive against Russia.

And he said the Ukrainian flag would return to every city and village in this country. This counteroffensive has a lot of people asking whether Ukraine's winning now. And it's got a lot of people feeling like Putin's blowing it, including a whole lot of people in Russia. More on all that ahead on Today Explained. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. Ukraine, Ukraine Explained.

It's Ukraine Explained. Today Explained, Ramesh Verm here with Mary Alushna, who covers Russia for The Washington Post. She's going to help us understand what just happened in Ukraine and why it's making Putin look real bad. In the past few weeks, Ukraine has been undertaking this counteroffensive and they have achieved some really remarkable results, which it appears that even Ukraine didn't really expect to achieve. Major news from Ukraine tonight, troops driving Russian forces further back. Ukraine's stunning offensive in the east, freeing 150,000 people from Russian rule in just days, according to officials. And they managed to regain more land than Russia was able to take since April. So all these months, Russia has been moving pretty incrementally.

They've been taking smaller villages, smaller settlements, but they have not been able to take any big cities or the key hubs that they were hoping to take much, much earlier in the campaign. And Ukraine retook really important parts in the Kharkiv region. When Vladimir Putin declared war on Ukraine nearly seven months ago, his troops seized massive chunks of Kharkiv. But in just a matter of days, Ukrainian forces have blitzed through Russia's gains, snatching back huge swathes of land. What that means is that they were able to cut off a lot of the supply lines of the Russian military and also deplete Russian forces there that were responsible for

this direction, which makes it really hard for Russia to not even, you know, do offensive operations there in the near future, but also to hold their ground. Where did this counteroffensive come from? You said it's been in the works for a while now? Yes, so obviously one of the goals for Vladimir Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, was to not only kick Russia out, but also retake the lands it already took at the beginning of the campaign. We've already lost too many people to simply cede our territory. But obviously, you know, it needs a lot of preparation because Russia has a very significant

force and Ukraine is outnumbered in many ways. So it took a lot of preparation. And also there was a report by the Guardian that Ukraine also, you know, employed this tactic of saying the counteroffensive is going to be happening any minute and sort of keeping Russia on its toes, but also saying that the counteroffensive is going to take place in different locations than actually happened. The counteroffensive that we're witnessing in Kherson right now is not the only counteroffensive underway in this country. I can't discuss details of any military actions. I think that information silence is important.

So I want that the enemy gets some surprises from us. Sort of tricking Russia into regrouping its forces and sort of spreading them out in a way that allowed Ukraine to concentrate in the Kharkiv region and, you know, achieve all these remarkable gains that they have. And tonight, that surprise paying off. Ukrainian flags flying again over key strategic cities. How did they do it? How did Ukraine take more land than Russia has taken in months over the course of a weekend? You know, that's what's been surprising, obviously, because they moved really, really quickly. And there were reports that sort of Russian forces were really fleeing the area, abandoning a lot of the equipment. So they were definitely ambushed. It's a humiliating defeat for Vladimir Putin's men forced to flee abandoning key supply hubs like Kupyansk and Izium. Also I think what played a

really important part here is that a lot of the problems that have been accumulating in the Russian army really you know came to light here which is that they've been using a lot of the same units for a real long time without letting them rest, which made the force really exhausted. So it's very difficult for them to, you know, launch offensive and, you know, and do counter offensives as well. But also, there were a lot of reports that Russia is losing a lot of equipment. Some of the equipment is really out of commission from the get-go and it's not able to perform really well. They left all their explosives and ammunition here, said this Ukrainian soldier,

as the Russian front line collapsed. These two things sort of happened all at once, which allowed Ukraine to execute this really remarkable operation. The United States provides battlefield intelligence to help Ukrainians defend their country. There's been reporting that the West has helped Ukraine plan this counteroffensive. How much do you know about that? Yeah, it's been reported that U.S. officials and generally the Western intelligence community is helping Ukraine with targets. Ukraine combines information that we and other partners provide with the intelligence that

they themselves are gathering on the battlefield. There's obviously a really important balance here to note is that U.S. especially has been very careful in making sure Ukraine doesn't strike far into Russian territory, because that would mean really a direct attack on Russia and that could have really bad consequences. But they have been helping with intelligence assessments and providing information. The U.S. explicitly has helped Ukraine kill Russians. They provided intelligence that helped the Ukrainians, we are told, shoot down a Russian transport full of hundreds of Russian soldiers.

And that's just one of many examples. It's an important relationship that our sources say has really affected the course of this war. Russia always read it as, look, this is the Washington directly fighting against Russia, and Russia is now up against the entire NATO alliance bloc, because obviously of the weapons supplies, but also this help from the intelligence community. So they're trying to, you know, walk across a really tight rope here in terms of balancing how much they help Ukraine and how much they anger Russia. So whether that balance is going to change after this counteroffensive is a very interesting question, a very important question, whether, you know,

U.S. will be more comforting in doing that or not. Ukraine's counteroffensive has most recently been focused on Kharkiv and the area surrounding it. How important is Kharkiv strategically for Ukraine? It is very important because obviously the Russian border is very nearby. It's next to a Belgorod region, which has been seeing some drone strikes and weird explosions that they've explained as accidental fires. But the understanding is that Ukraine has shown that it can reach into that area. What it also means is that for Russia, it will be quite difficult to take all of the Donetsk region that they've been, you know, hoping to add to the separatist republic there.

And more importantly, it really disrupted the logistics because a lot of the supply lines, there were a lot of key junctures in that area. And for the Russian side, it obviously has been probably the biggest blow of this entire campaign. How are people in this region, Kharkiv, responding to Ukraine reasserting its control? There were a lot of videos emerging of people, residents coming out of their houses and welcoming Ukrainian forces and saying that they've been waiting for them for a really long time. And that is a really triumphant moment.

Relieved residents embraced their liberators and offered the Ukrainian soldiers pancakes for unshackling them from Russian oppression. We also know that there is a certain group of people who collaborate with the Russians there. A lot of those people have fled to the Belgrade region in Russia, which borders, obviously, Ukraine. They did that, you know, out of concern that they might be targeted for helping Russians there. So the population that sort of remained there is welcoming the Ukrainian forces. Kharkiv region has a pretty big Russian-speaking population, but that necessarily doesn't mean that they are welcoming Russian forces

to take their land and, you know, attach it to a different country. Well, what's Russia doing in the short term? How has it so far responded to this counteroffensive? Publicly, Russia hasn't even really acknowledged much of the Ukrainian successes. Russia's official line is that they didn't retreat, they regrouped. And they regrouped to focus in the Donetsk area, the one that I mentioned that they want to sort of regain in full. I asked Russia's deputy foreign minister, with his country losing ground in Ukraine,

was it time to admit that the invasion had been a miscalculation? Clearly not. We're moving forward steadily and consistently to fulfill all the tasks of the special military operation. As we've said several times, they will be achieved. They're responding with more strikes, more aggression, but whether that's actually going to strategically change the situation in that particular area, again, remains to be seen. How important is the timing of this breakthrough from Ukraine, this counteroffensive? I know in Europe, there's a lot of fears about what this war might mean for the winter, for energy costs, for energy availability.

How important is it that Ukraine succeed right now? Well, it's important for both sides. For Ukraine, they need to prove that all the weapons and aid they're getting from the West not only helps deter Russia further, but also shows that their assertion that they can win this war is true and has sort of real basis behind it. Because that's something they've been saying this is crucial for them. They want their whole territory back the way it was before February 24th. Russia has been betting on this war of attrition. They're hoping that, you know, because they obviously have gas and oil supplies and Europe is quite reliant on those supplies, that them

cutting and sort of using it as a bargaining chip will force Europeans to put pressure on their governments to stop helping Ukraine and sort of forget about Ukraine because of their energy bills skyrocketing. That's the bet that Russia is making, and that's their gamble here. We've already heard a lot from Russian sort of state TV anchors and correspondents saying that they've had a really tough weekend trying to cope with the strategic loss that they've had. But by Monday, sort of the beginning of the week, they've recuperated and said that really, you know, the dominance in the overall war is Russia's and that the time is playing in their favor. And what they mean is that they hope to wear out Ukraine, wear out Europe, and they hope that the support for Ukraine will deign. So that's why, again, for Ukraine, it's really important to show that actually they're capable of really, really good

strategic counteroffensives. How humiliating all this is for Vladimir Putin in a minute on Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family, and Aura says it's never been easier thanks to their digital picture frames. They were named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter.

Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give an Aura frame as a gift, you can personalize it, you can preload it with a thoughtful message, maybe your favorite photos. Our colleague Andrew tried an AuraFrame for himself. So setup was super simple. In my case, we were celebrating my grandmother's birthday and she's very fortunate. She's got 10 grandkids.

And so we wanted to surprise her with the AuraFrame and because she's a little bit older, it was just easier for us to source all the images together and have them uploaded to the frame itself. And because we're all connected over text message, it was just so easy to send a link to everybody. You can save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get $35 off Aura's best-selling Carvermat frames with promo code EXPLAINED at checkout. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com, promo code EXPLAINED. This deal is exclusive to listeners and available just in time for the holidays.

Terms and conditions do apply. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with a sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM. And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style, there's something every NBA fan will love about BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your basketball home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM,

a sportsbook worth a slam dunk, and authorized gaming partner of the NBA. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Mary Alushna. You cover Russia for The Washington Post. Let's talk about Russia. How embarrassing is all this for Vladimir Putin?

It is pretty embarrassing because his main brand and the one that he's been building for the past 20 years is that he knows what he's doing. He always gets the job done. In this case, we see even people who are extremely pro-Kremlin, extremely pro this invasion, saying that they don't like the way Russia goes about this and they don't like the planning. We've heard from people like the leader of the Communist Party saying that Russia is not really fighting anymore in the special operation, it is an actual war. And the very use of the word war to describe this mission has been essentially banned by Russia.

You know, people get fined or even jailed for talking about the war out in the open. They have to call it special military operations. So we've definitely seen a lot of criticism coming from the very pro-Putin, very hawkish camp. That is a very new development that we'll have to see whether that will push the Kremlin to change anything in the way they go about this invasion. Tell me more of what we've been hearing in terms of criticism of this war in Russia. Last weekend, just when the news broke that Russia lost a lot of this land and retreated, the usually quite unanimous choir of pro-Kremlin and state propagandist voices was really in disarray.

The politician says those people who convinced Putin the special operation would be over quickly, they took us for a ride. Some people chose to completely ignore the news because they didn't know how to handle it. Some outlets like the Kremlin's official newspaper just did not report on this at all. Some very prominent TV shows started to say that, look, Russia is not just fighting against Ukraine, it's fighting against the entire NATO alliance. That's why they're having such a hard time doing that. We want to defeat Ukrainian army. It seems like it's practically impossible because it's a strong army, really strong army, and Ukrainians are supported by practically all the European countries.

Some people use it as a way to call for more aggression. So they want Putin and Kremlin to be even more aggressive, retaliate against Ukraine, hit civilian targets, and just do more. They believe that the way Russia is waging this war now is not enough. They want general mobilization. They want all country to be set on this war path, and they want to go all out. So there's a lot of really conflicting messaging going on in the camp that is usually really pro-Putin and follows the party line. Some of the liberal and opposition forces have been also trying to seize in that moment.

There's been a pretty remarkable effort from local lawmakers to collect signs among officials on this regional level to call for Putin's resignation and accuse him of treason. And they are already facing, you know, administrative offenses and fines, and the police has launched an investigation. They say that basically their goal, they believe they achieved the goal, which is to tell a lot of anti-war Russians who are still in the country that they're not alone. They know that Putin is not going to read this request and say, look, yes, exactly, you're right, I should stop doing this. But they want to get the word out that there's still some resistance. And even though there are big risks in, you know,

presenting this resistance in the public, they're still willing to do that. Tell me more about Vladimir Putin's decision to not hold a draft, to not conscript more Russians into this war. In terms of general mobilization, the problem with that is it's going to be really unpopular because what has been working so far is that a lot of Russians, you know, we can debate the numbers of how many support or how many are against the war, but the main consensus is that they're trying to tune this out. They try to live their life as normal, putting the whole country, because that means not only drafting all the eligible men, that means resetting the whole economy and making, turning the whole country into this war machine that has to only work for the advancement of the frontline. And that would

have a lot of repercussions because what Putin, again, has been promising Russians for a long time is this concept of stability. As long as you stay out of politics, you can have your house, your job, you can, you know, live a normal life. He came into the presidency at the end of 1999 promising to make Russia a great power again. He was very much in contrast to Boris Yeltsin, his predecessor, as president, who was kind of known as a bit of a drunk. Vladimir Putin represented a fresh face. He didn't drink. Russia was virtually a failed state. Putin was able to restore an element of order out of this chaos, an element of prosperity out of misery,

and an element of international respect out of humiliation. And that's something which a lot of Russians sort of cling on to. And it would be pretty huge political decisions to change all that and take that away. So he has been resisting that. And instead, they have been seeking really alternative and creative ways to draft people. The Kremlin has responded with the launch of an extensive campaign to recruit volunteers to fight on TV, social media and billboards. They've promised huge sums of money and other perks, but many are given little or no training and are sent straight to the front line. And there's a concept of sort of shadow

mobilization that's happening in Russia. What is shadow mobilization? So that means there are several private military companies, they're basically mercenaries that are fighting on behalf of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, but not officially with the defense ministry, even though it is sort of giving them the orders and places them in places where they need them. And they have been responsible for a lot of the very crucial gains that Russia had in this campaign. That also gives Russia some plausible deniability, because there's conscripts fighting and they don't have to really acknowledge them among the losses. And another thing they have been doing is conscripting people from prisons.

So there are multiple reports in there. These military, private military companies go to prisons and they offer people deals. Basically, if they go to the front in six months, if they survive, they'll get a pardon. And they're specifically looking for people who have been accused of murder, of violent crimes. So that's how they've avoided a general draft. Whether that's going to be enough now, again, a big question. Do Russians have any idea that their prisoners, their murderers, and thieves are fighting this war for them in Ukraine? I think majority does not know about this because it's obviously now covered by the national media because it's, you know, very controlled. There are multiple human rights organizations that are working to help these convicts because the convicts are not

given any guarantees because mercenary service is outlawed in Russia. It's illegal. Nothing is written on paper. So their rights are also being violated by this. But a lot of these groups have been recognized as foreign agents in Russia. So they can operate on a wider scale and inform the general public about this effectively. And it's really difficult to do so. So I think the majority does not know about this. Do we have any idea what Putin's plans are to regain footing in Ukraine, if any? The planning is really not public in any way. We don't really even know who is the overall commander of this operation in Ukraine. We know, obviously, there's defense minister, but there's somebody who's supposed to navigate all of that on the ground and be really hands-on.

And Russia has not even publicly announced who that person is. So it's all really, really secretive. And we can glean things from social media, through some of the soldiers who speak out, or some of the intelligent assessments from the other side. So it's quite difficult to analyze what Russia is going to do next. We know that they have some reserve forces, but they're also needed in some other areas. So we don't know exactly if they're going to be sent to Kharkiv to regain any footing. A lot of their battalion tactical groups have been depleted of forces throughout this campaign. And they have been sort of kind of a minced salad. And they've been throwing them together from different parts and trying to reassemble these groups.

But what that means is that the chain of command is really disrupted, and it's difficult to control all these groups because they really don't have any combat experience together. So that makes it difficult for them to quickly respond and efficiently respond to all these targets. How significant is this, all told? I mean, this conflict escalated just over six months ago. It felt like Ukraine surprised the world by making it last six months, though there have certainly been any number of low points for Ukraine throughout. But now it seems like they've got the upper hand.

All things aside, it is obviously very important. What by now appears to be clear is that the fact that Russia thought Ukraine is a really weak country that's not going to sort of rally together and that the Ukrainian forces haven't spent the last eight years training with Western officers in vain, but they actually learned a lot of things and became much stronger than they were in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea. So all these things I think were not taken into account, which is showing now. It's showing. What's going to happen is obviously difficult to predict, especially when we have very little information coming publicly out of Moscow. But I think we shouldn't underestimate it as well.

You know, it's maybe too early to say that this is the end, that this is the turning point, but we should also not underestimate it. Mary, Alushna, Washington Post, our show today was brought to you by Miles Bryan, Amanda Llewellyn, Paul Robert Mounsey, and Matthew Collette. Vox, we were fact-checked by Serena Solon. It's Today Explained.