Today, Explained - Life on the Russia-Ukraine border

Episode Date: January 6, 2022

Russia has kept its military at Ukraine’s doorstep for almost a decade. But a recent escalation on the border is creating fears of a full-blown invasion. Today’s show was produced by Victoria Chamberlin, edited by Matt Collette, engineered by Efim Shapiro, fact-checked by Laura Bullard and hosted by Haleema Shah. 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

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. It's Today Explained. I'm Halima Shah. This past Christmas marked 30 years since the fall of the Soviet Union. And today we're seeing unrest in the republics that formed or re-emerged in the aftermath. Kazakhstan is seeing some of the biggest protests in the country's history,

and dozens of civilians were killed today. And a conflict that's been simmering since Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea is erupting along the Ukrainian-Russian border. Russia has for weeks been massing troops and tanks along the Ukrainian border, prompting Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania to call for more Western sanctions against it in fear of an invasion. The villages along Ukraine's border with Russia have been disrupted by military checkpoints and Lithuania to call for more Western sanctions against it in fear of an invasion. The villages along Ukraine's border with Russia have been disrupted by military checkpoints and shifting contact lines for almost a decade now. But escalating conflict in recent weeks has these communities living in constant fear.

In short, in recent weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin stands accused by the West of amassing more than 100,000 servicemen next to Russia's border with Ukraine. Sarah Sinkirova is a human rights journalist. She reported from the Ukrainian side of the border for Al Jazeera. And security incidents such as shelling and shooting in the war zone have intensified in the war zone since November 2021. And a Ukrainian soldier was killed in December. We think it is extremely important now to send a clear message to Russia about reducing tensions, be transparent and avoid any type of escalation of the situation in and around Ukraine.

Tensions further rose after Vladimir Putin set out security demands that NATO rejected immediately. And meanwhile, on the ground, along the contact line, people suffer and lose hope. Many of them hear shelling and shooting on a daily basis or on a weekly basis, and they are simply terrified. Sarah said the region has been hollowed out by eight years of conflict. The contact line is the line that divides the government-controlled area from the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. And it's a 400-kilometer-long line that goes through villages and settlements. This region is, for the most part, a very rural region.

While I was there in December 2021, it was also very, very cold. It was minus 14 outside, which makes it all the more difficult for the local populations to survive there right now. And when you drive through the region, you will see that there's signs warning against landmines, which makes it very, very dangerous, particularly for children or anyone really that's playing or walking outside or in the woods. You know, some of the villages and some of the towns have been completely destroyed by the war in 2014 and 2015.

And you can see signs and writings on the gates and on the houses where people marked, please do not shoot because people live here. And some of the villages have been completely destroyed. So who did you see and speak to when you were there? One of the particular aspects of the Ukrainian conflict is that there is a very high percentage of the elderly Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operation, there's 3.4 million people in eastern Ukraine who are in need of humanitarian assistance and 1.3 million elderly persons. So oftentimes these very, very vulnerable elderly people live in abandoned houses,

in villages or towns that essentially look like ghost towns because they had been entirely destroyed by shelling and shooting. I interviewed a woman named Vera. She was 76 years old and lives near the town of Chasivyar in eastern Ukraine, that is very close to a shooting range where military personnel kind of train and shoot guns and machine guns. And Vera told me that she heard shooting all the time, all day, every day, and she was essentially terrified of it.

And she also had some health problems. She became blind in 2014 after being a victim of heavy shelling. And like many other people in this region, she was really going through a depressive episode and she was talking about suicide. Unfortunately, like many other people whom I interviewed who have been living in this war zone for nearly eight years now vera because she was blind was also telling me that she was in a

particularly vulnerable position because people people stole money of her right it was very difficult for her to hide her money to keep her money to go outside, to buy food. And she was telling me, she was describing how, you know, the only thing she could think about when she woke up in the morning was where to find a piece of bread. And for me as a journalist, this was, honestly speaking, the first time that I've seen a woman crying and telling me, I have nothing to eat, I'm starving. I've been starving for years.

Wow. What happened to Vera's family? Who can she turn to at this point? So, Vera never had her own children, and her husband had already died, so she was pretty much left alone. And she received some help from local volunteers and social workers and NGOs. Also, many of the families and many of the people who live there do have relatives in the separatist regions. So families and friends have been divided and some

of them cannot see each other, especially right now because the contact line is closed, it's not possible to cross to the separatist regions. There used to be a crossing point in Stanislawansk, but it was closed recently due to COVID. And so some of the people are also very isolated because their family lives on the other side of the contact line. So people who are living along the border are exposed to frequent shelling and might even be cut off from their families because the contact line basically runs through their community. Have a lot of people fled the region because of this conflict? So there has been a massive, massive displacement crisis following 2014 and 15 events when a lot of people fled all across Ukraine. I myself have done a reporting trip in a border town called Uzhgorod, which is very close to the border with my home country, Slovakia. And I've spoken to dozens, if not

hundreds of internally displaced persons who fled more than 2000 kilometers just to flee eastern Ukraine and who fled toward the west of the country um right now i would say the situation is slightly different because as i mentioned it's mostly the most vulnerable people or people who cannot or do not want to leave because this is another aspect of it um is that many of the elderly people don't necessarily want to leave. I've interviewed a lady who lives directly on the contact line and it's to me was one of the worst places on earth that I've ever seen because she has trenches near her garden and there's you know signs warning against snipers and landmines everywhere and And she was telling me, I've lived

in this house my entire life and I'm almost 90 and I don't want to leave. I simply don't want to leave. So right now the situation is slightly different because most of the populations who now live on the contact line are people who do not want to leave or are unable to leave because they are in a particularly vulnerable condition. It doesn't seem like we have indication that this conflict will end anytime soon. How are people coping with it stretching into its eighth year? We should not forget that these are people who have already been heavily traumatized in 2014 and 2015. So many of these people are kind of reliving the same trauma

over again. And so we are really talking about a war zone and about a conflict that is affecting the most vulnerable of the most vulnerable people. This elderly couple, their names were Alexandra and Ivan, and in Ukrainian we would say babushka and djedushka, which means grandmother and grandfather. And it was very, very touching for me, because these people have a lot of resilience and sense of humor, and they are very kind. This old lady, Alexandra, she was so happy to see, you know,

to see me and to see another person because these populations and these people are very, very isolated as well. So oftentimes when you go to these villages as a journalist, people are very happy that they see someone new. And the old lady immediately told me to come and sit next to her. And she said, don't worry, I'm vaccinated. So you can come and approach me and sit next to me and take a picture. And when I sat next to her, she immediately hugged me. And, you know, it was Christmas Day. So it was a particularly special moment. And it was so sad to leave this place and this war zone as a journalist. You know, this happens oftentimes that you leave a war zone

and you are kind of worried for the local populations who have to stay there. You can only hope that nothing worse will happen to them. After the break, the decades-old roots of this conflict and why it probably won't end anytime soon. Thank you. and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to

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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 iGaming Ontario. Amy McKinnon, national security reporter with Foreign Policy magazine. A lot of this conflict along Ukraine's eastern border can be traced back to eight years ago when Russia took over Crimea. But there is another historical marker to think about here, which is that this past Christmas marked 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

How is that playing into this conflict? So 30 years ago, when the Soviet Union collapsed, it was the collapse of an empire, but it was also the birth of over a dozen countries, some of them for the first time, some of them had previously been independent before. As the epicenter of what was the Soviet Union, Moscow has grappled with that ever since. On many levels, what does it mean culturally? What does it mean for their identity? But also in a large way, what does it mean for Russia's security? And a central source for Russia's anxieties and a key sticking point in Russia's relationship with both Europe and the United States since the collapse of the Soviet Union has been the question of NATO expansion.

NATO has expanded in several waves, starting in 1999, to include former members of the Eastern Bloc, as well as former states of the Soviet Union, the Baltic states. And this is something which, you know, Moscow has turned to again and again. As recently as late December, in his annual press conference, Putin said that the West had lied, that they'd been betrayed. The strengthening of U.S. and NATO military groupings this current buildup and the saber rattling that we're seeing. This buildup of Russian troops along the border, how different is it from what Ukraine saw in 2014?

It is different in that they're incredibly surrounded now because of the positions that Russia has. You know, we've been getting maps from the Ukrainian defense ministry, from officials there that they're using to brief allies. And it, you know, looking at these maps, it really lays clear just how much a huge part of Ukraine is really encircled by either Russia itself, or there's a huge border with Belarus, which is an incredibly close ally of Russia, which has deep's a huge border with Belarus, which is an incredibly close ally of Russia, which has deep, deep military ties with Russia, but also Crimea itself, which is now under Russian control and has a substantial Russian presence there as well to the south.

So Russia has several pressure points. You know, if you look at it on a map, it's almost kind of a pincer, several pressure points from which it could extract real pain on Ukraine if it wanted to. I mean, there's very deep and very real concern about Russia's intentions. I mean, during the Cold War, Russia proved more than willing to invade members of its own security bloc, members of the Warsaw Pact, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. And, you know, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it's proven more than willing to invade its neighbours. This was the scene early on August the 8th, 2008, as Georgian rockets pounded the breakaway region of South Ossetia. It was the opening of a devastating five-day war between Russia and Georgia, with each side blaming the other for setting it off.

It went to war with Georgia in 2008. 2014 annexed part of Ukraine, Crimea. It supported separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. We are orthodox Russians and we are Russian speakers living in Donbass, this commander says. We don't recognize the Ukrainian government. I'm defending my family, my world, and my authenticity. The concerns around this buildup are built on a very real history about the lengths that Russia is willing to go

to influence the geopolitics of its neighboring states. Amy, there's been years of conflict here. Why does it seem like it's all coming to a head now? There's kind of many layers to it. The election of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019, I think, was a contributing factor to this. Volodymyr Zelensky arrived to his inauguration on foot. The crowds delighted with the man they've known for years as a comic touch on their TV screens. He stopped for selfies and high fives.

You know, he campaigned. He was a political neophyte. He was a comedian. He campaigned on a platform of resolving the conflict in the Donbass and eastern Ukraine. I think the Kremlin saw somebody who they perceived to be weak and that they could manipulate and maybe push into making concessions, which would be damaging to Ukraine's sovereignty and give Russia more leverage. But actually Zelensky has proven to be a pretty shrewd politician. The military does everything possible to defend our country and to maintain the ceasefire. But when our soldiers are attacked and when there are casualties, it's clear to everyone that the army responds.

Whilst there were some glimmers of hope in the very early days of restarting peace talks, I think the more that he dealt with the Russians and the more the Russians dug their heels in, he started to harden his attitudes and it became clear that he was not going to be a pushover on this issue. I think the Kremlin has increasingly realized that the situation is not going in their favor, that one of the ways to basically force it to head to their favor may be using force. And then I think there's the broader international context as well. I think when the Kremlin looks to the West, looks to the Europe and the United States, it sees chaos, it sees division, you know, partly from the pandemic, but also from our own domestic political crises. He looks to Washington, which is, you know, very, very laser focused on the China challenge right now.

And I think that the Kremlin has just seen an opportunity at this moment in which I think it feels it may be able to force the West to the negotiating table and to get some key concessions on European security. And is response from Western and NATO allies different this time around than when Russia first invaded the Crimean Peninsula back in 2014? I think the one advantage that the West has had this time around is they've had a long buildup. If Russia does invade, there has been several months to rally allies and partners in Europe and to try and build a response. Because a lot of countries were just caught completely off guard

in 2014 when Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula. Events escalated really quite quickly. But this time around, I mean, we had a little bit of a preview in the spring when the Russian military buildup started along the borders of Ukraine. There's always been a military base here, but it is massively expanded in the last few weeks. From the satellite imagery, there are more than 500 military vehicles currently based there. From us just driving past, it would appear that there are even more. Over 100,000 troops, most of them stayed. Some were pulled back, but the vast majority stayed in the region. And then this buildup began again in the late fall. And very early on, what was interesting was in the spring, of course, there were, you know, any kind of unexplained mobilization like that causes alarm.

But very quickly in the fall, people in the U.S., U.S. officials here in Washington, started to use the word invasion. America's top diplomat sending a direct warning to Russia, if you invade Ukraine, there will be severe costs and consequences. That's what they were worried about, was they were worried about renewed invasion. And so clearly the U.S. is seeing some intelligence, which has it very, very spooked. And they were very quick off the bat to start sharing that with Ukraine, first and foremost, but also with allies in NATO and in Europe to really get everybody on the same page about what Russia's intentions may be

and to start formulating that response. Does that mean Ukraine is better prepared to fight the Russian military today than it was in 2014? They've had more time this time around. The army is better prepared. They've had much more support in bolstering that army. They've received substantial defensive weaponry from the US, including anti-tank Javelin missiles,

which was something the Trump administration provided. That had been seen as a red line in the Obama era for fears that it would provoke Russia. But they've been given substantive support. Morale is, of course, very high. This is an existential crisis for the Ukrainians. I mean, they know, someone said to me a few weeks ago, the Ukrainians know why they're defending their country.

They know why they're fighting this war. Can the same be said for Russian soldiers, which may be sent across the border? That's not clear. That said, earlier we heard from a reporter who said that people who are living in these border regions are really starting to lose hope after about eight years of conflict. They're not particularly hopeful that they're going to see an end to this anytime soon. I think nobody sees an easy roadmap out of the current buildup and out of the current crisis. Ultimately, if US and European officials are saying they still don't think Putin has made up his mind on what he wants to do, but the sad reality, I think, for Ukraine

is that ultimately Ukraine's security, its geopolitical direction, whether it moves closer to the West or remains in Russia's orbit, those questions mean far more to Moscow than they do to Washington. And if Putin decides that he wants to invade, there's not a lot, you know, the Ukrainian military is much stronger, much more formidable than it was, but, you know, they're still greatly outmatched by the size of the Russian forces. And how likely is Russia to actually go there to invade the entire country with its full force? I would not put money on that. I get asked that a lot. It's obviously the big question on everybody's mind. And I just don't know and that even even that you know scares me in the spring during the build-up I felt like okay this is

clearly funky something's going on but I didn't feel like it was headed for an invasion but this time around just seeing the sheer alarm from U.S. officials whatever they're seeing is clearly alarming them. And by extension, that's definitely alarming me. I think a lot will become clearer next week, where there's a series of talks between U.S. and Russian officials in Geneva on January 10th, and then at NATO and at the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. And I think it will be interesting to see there whether or not they make any progress, because Russia has made these demands for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. And I think it will be interesting to see there whether or not they make any progress because Russia has made these demands

for security guarantees, but there's kind of two baskets within those demands. The first set of demands really centers on NATO, that there'd be no further NATO expansion, that NATO not put troops and material in countries that joined after 1997. And I think that's going to be a non-starter. You know, both NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, many member states have said

Ukraine has its own right to determine its own security organization and, you know, what alliances it wants to join. NATO's relationship with Ukraine is going to be decided by the 30 NATO allies and Ukraine, no one else. But the second basket of issues is about broader issues of European security. That's arms control. That's the balances of forces in Europe. That's something which it may also be in the U.S. interest to have conversations with Russia about and to see if there's a way to kind of alter those balances, which could make

both sides feel safer. Could things escalate to the point that Western leaders intervene beyond sanctioning Russia and having tense exchanges with Putin? No. The U.S. has been pretty clear. President Biden has been very clear that send troops or U.S. forces to support the Ukrainians in this. And I think other European leaders have been pretty clear that that's also not on the table. Ukraine means more to Putin than it does to the West.

He's willing to send troops to fight and die to keep Ukraine within its orbit. But that's just not something which is on the agenda, I think, for Europe and the West. Amy McKinnon is a national security reporter for Foreign Policy magazine who has reported from across Eastern Europe. Sarah Sinkirova, who we heard from earlier, is a freelance human rights journalist.

Today's show was produced by Victoria Chamberlain. I'm Halima Shah, and Sean Ramosvaram will be back with us next week. It's Today Explained. Thank you.