Ukraine Crisis: The Signals Pointing to Russian Invasion
I think a lot of what’s driving Putin um in Russian foreign policy as a result is this desire to have the sphere of influence but even more than that to have Russia whole again Ukraine is really seen as the historical heart of ancient Russia not modern Russia hello and welcome to the g0 world podcast this is where you’ll find extended versions of my interviews on public television I’m Ian Bremer and today we look at President Joe Biden’s biggest foreign policy challenge yet Ukraine Russia has amassed roughly 100,000 troops along the border they’re still expanding they’ve ramped up their cyber attacks on Kiev and they’ve announced joint military exercises in nearby Belarus though the Biden Administration has been trying to build a more stable and predictable relationship with Moscow us Russia relations are right now on knife edge but will Putin invade or is this just a high stakes game of political chess I speak with Alina poova she’s president and CEO of the center for European policy analysis and she thinks that NATO countries need to get on the same page if they’re going to stand a chance against Putin let’s get to it the gz World podcast is brought to you by our founding sponsor First Republic First Republic a private bank and wealth management company understands the value of service Safety and stability in today’s uncertain World visit firstrepublic.com to learn more gz world would also like to share a message from our friends at foreign policy how can Sports change the world for the better on the long game a co-production of foreign policy and Doha debates hear stories of courage and conviction both on on and off the field directly from athletes themselves if Taj Muhammad Olympic medalist and Global change agent hosts the long game hear new episodes every week on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your [Music] podcasts Alina poova thanks so much for joining me today thanks for having me maybe start with the possible question what do you think Putin is thinking right now well I think anybody that tells you that they know what’s going on and Putin’s uh likely somewhat demented mind these days uh doesn’t know what’s really going on you know I think we can look at the facts on the ground to assess what might might be going on his head and what we see on the ground is that he’s slowly positioning forces to really close a noose around Ukraine from the north and from the East and from the south so I think what that signals to me is that he’s thinking about an invasion in in the very near term it’s clear that Putin is displaying an enormous amount of pressure um on the ukrainians and wants to display to the rest of the world that he should be taken seriously um does that equate to you into uh Invasion as likely or does that equate to you to invasion is something he wants to display and it’s possible you know I think a couple of weeks ago I was uh very much on the skeptical side that what the kemin was really planning what Putin really wanted was to you know deploy a huge amount of resources uh against a country which you know is already very much under Russia’s thumbs in many ways you know Russia’s still occupies Crimea um it has forces Russian military forces in the Ukraine’s East in the donbas so it it seemed as it seemed a little unclear as to why now uh why use up all these resources uh at a relatively ten time it seems for Russia the economic situation isn’t great obviously the pandemic situation is ongoing so why uh but you know unfortunately I think the the signals we’ve seen from Russia over the last month and certainly the last several days I think are very much pointing in direction that they have made a decision and a decision I frankly from a strategic perspective doesn’t make a lot of sense uh to use those forces and to do something quite aggressive on the military side against Ukraine and the points that you would make that are that most convince you of that I think a couple of things one when the US tried to have this very expansive diplomatic conversation with the Russian side uh we didn’t see much give you the US came to the table in a series of discussions with the Russian counterparts with NATO at the osc uh and had some real proposals and the Russian interlocutors that Putin sent obviously had no room to negotiate or to even put anything useful on the table and then when they went back uh to give the readout to the man who’s going to make the decision what we heard was just much more uh aggressive tactics aggressive language and they basically have uh walked themselves into a corner they made really unrealistic demands which signals to me they weren’t interested in diplomacy in the first place um and they really had a plan for more military aggression uh rather than even trying the Diplomatic approach because they didn’t get any of their demands met but those demands were so unre unrealistic they must have known that they weren’t going to get anything out of it so before we talk about uh escalation maybe one more off-ramp piece that I want to talk about um which is when the Russians announced that they had arrested 14 members of the reval Cyber criminal gang and that they had decommissioned that organization which happened to be on the same day that presumably the Russians engaged in cyber attacks uh against the Ukrainian government a number of its institutions um do you think that is coincidence or do you think that reflects some uh effort by the Russian government um to provide an opportunity for diplomacy to work you know when that happened my initial thought was this may be a signal of deescalation you know we’ve been trying to get the Russians to do more uh to control the cyber groups that are uh functioning freely inside Russia’s borders um primarily to Russia’s own advantages most of the time and the Russians have you know um kind of slowed uh any progress on that they’ve done almost nothing and all of a sudden you have this relatively significant development uh but of course everything that’s happened since then has been signaling in the other direction once again that perhaps this was a coincidence I mean maybe at the end of the day this group got on the kremlin’s nerves and did something that the Kremlin didn’t want them to do and they put the kabash on it finally um I usually um when people see strategy in something that the kemin does I I usually see uh some some you know circumstantial reasons and coincidence and maybe some incompetence here and there you know so I I think these were two separate events I don’t think the Cyber um you know uh arrests uh a reval actually were connected to the conversations that happening in Ukraine now let’s talk more about where we’re heading from all of this uh talk about how you perceive the European reaction to date both to what the Russians are up to and also American efforts of coordination I think the United States has deployed an absolutely Herculean effort on the Diplomatic side uh to always make sure that allies were informed that there were consultations and coordination uh happening uh with European allies with within the context of NATO with EU member states with the UK as well of course no longer EU member state so I think the US has actually done a very good job leading on the Diplomatic coordination effort here I think the other part of your question is really the key here you know why is it that when clearly Russia poses the greatest direct threat to Europe not to the United States that we have a situation which the United States is once again having to take lead it’s the US that’s expected to send security assistance and Military Support it’s again the United States that has to get you know NATO allies European allies on board unfortunately we it’s impossible to talk about European position right now uh because Germany has been sending very mixed messages between the chancellor and the foreign minister who seem to be speaking uh about two different policies sometimes um and then we have the Baltic St the for Minister taking a much harder line from the green party than the chancellor yes exactly and then of course we have the Baltic states in Poland which have uh had very bad experiences back during the Cold War with uh Soviet occupation raising alarm bells and interestingly the UK really taking that side and doing a lot more um to raise alarm bells to provide security assistance but there is no European position Europe is very divided uh Germany is a key key issue here and this the new government doesn’t seem to have a real stratey or policy in place so clearly I mean the Americans putting a lot of effort in but some obvious divisions between the US and Europe NATO has announced that it is sending more forces uh to Bulgaria to Romania to the Baltic states to the Black Sea that has included countries like France participating in those moves and in fact I think you could argue that NATO has if anything gotten stronger and more aligned because of the Russian Behavior now it seems to me like the one thing that would ensure that NATO is as close-knit and as high morale as possible would be if the Russians engaged in a full invasion against Ukraine um do you agree with that look we’ve seen this movie before in some ways uh you know when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 and then uh launched this hybrid war against uh Ukraine UK’s East that continues to this day we really saw NATO United and we really saw these Russian actions give New Life to Nato you know NATO has had trouble since the end of the Cold War really uh finding its identity again and certainly that is no longer the case and in many things that’s in many things uh because of Russian renewed aggression in Europe so of course what’s happening now again is uh Russia is being a very direct military threat they’re being very escalatory and that is uniting NATO around a common sense of Defense a common sense of community and I think that’s been a very positive development I think I always have to ask myself you know we think the Russians are so great tacticians maybe even great strategists and they keep running circles around us and setting the agenda and forcing the United States and and NATO to constantly respond to them versus the other way around but I have to wonder you know what’s what’s their real strategy here you know if they’re so worried as they say they are about US troops NATO troops um in places like Poland in central eastern Europe more broadly you know this isn’t helping them if anything is having the opposite effect where they’re going to have a much more assertive NATO posture in NATO member states that are closest to Russia and of course now we we’ve heard the US Administration is considering sending potentially 5,000 more US troops to that part of NATO as well we could see Russia as committing a serious strategic miscalculation here but I I also think we may want to acknowledge that they’re willing to accept those risks you know because Ukraine is so important to them that they’re willing to accept a reality in which they have all the things they say they don’t want um in central eastern Europe as long as they get Ukraine because of course it’s not just a question of NATO being united but the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian government is much more anti-russian today than it was in 2014 because of the steps that the Russians took and that continues a pace today and and I I sort of wonder what is the Russian endgame here I understand why they would want to get rid of zalinski the Ukrainian President Putin thought he was going to be able to work more effectively with and he can’t I absolutely see why the Russian government would say let’s just get rid of this guy but that’s very different from we want to have control over Ukraine I don’t know how you get from here to there I think there’s a couple of things at play here one on um you know Ukraine as a a country is an incredibly emotional issue not just for Putin but for many Russians you know there’s a vision of the the Russian World um that many certainly in the kemin Russian officials subscribe to that isn’t limited to Russia’s political borders it goes far beyond that it’s Belarus it’s Ukraine um and really Ukraine is really seen as the historical heart of of ancient Russian not modern Russia and I think Putin looking at probably his legacy as really the maker of modern Russia at this point after you know more than 20 years in power you know sees that he cannot leave a legacy in which Russia doesn’t regain some of that territorial Imperial vision of itself um and I think there’s a few things of play here that are not you know rational in that sense of the world or strategic from a military sense I think a lot of was driving Putin um in Russian foreign policy as a result is this desire to have the sphere of influence but even more than that to have Russia whole again that is how Russian political analysts and Russian State Control television talk about Ukraine as a part of Russia and I think when we see it from that perspective the risk they’re willing to take um in this potential Invasion uh make a little bit more sense in some ways when we don’t see this as a complete military strategy but really something that Putin sees as part of his legacy and the future of Russia to the extent that you say that this is not just about National Security but it’s also making Russia whole again then I wonder if that makes it less of a threat to the United States to the Europeans none of whom are considered to be part of the Russian Nation for Moscow and let’s this is in China where they’ve been growing growing growing over the last couple of decades and are going to be the largest economy in the world I mean the Russian economy is smaller than the Canadian economy right now they got a lot of nukes and they’re they’re willing to take some risks but I mean in reality when pre former president Obama called them a regional power I mean I wish he hadn’t said that publicly but they’re kind of a regional power I mean should should that thinking at least be part of the discussions that the Americans and the NATO allies are having when they think about how to respond to this Ukraine crisis you know I I think that’s the million-dollar question there because at the end of the day the way I would answer this is to say that what’s happening today in Ukraine isn’t just about Ukraine and we cannot assume let’s say in a terrible hypothetical scenario you know we just say okay we’re not going to get involved our priority is China and the Indo Pacific let’s Shore up NATO and the security of NATO member states and Ukraine bellarus okay what can we do we’re not going to expand all of our resources to protect these countries that are non native members at the end of the day which functionally has been the NATO response on belus so far exactly exactly but you know Ukraine is a democracy that wants to be part of Euro Atlantic institutions and bellarus is a dictatorship at least with the regime that doesn’t want to be part of Eur Atlantic institutions so there is a difference there the ukrainians want to be part of NATO they want to be part of the EU um this is the path the UK Ian people want for themselves and this is what Putin is trying to prevent but again going back to my hypothetical reality you know we can’t assume that once Russia gets a taste and senses that weakness in the west which they’re sensing right now that they will stop because then we have the southern caucuses we have Georgia we have Armenia have aeran you know you could easily see Russian rhetoric shift and suddenly say well we’re not really talking about just Ukraine and bellarus it’s about the former Soviet States why not you know that was Soviet territory uh the entire East block Poland the Baltic states Etc uh so we can’t assume that if we quote unquote give them Ukraine uh that that’s going to be satisfying for them for the long term I don’t think it will be that kind of appeasement never works Putin has of course said that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century in his View um about about as antithetical from the American perspective on geopolitics as one could make in terms of a statement um one one thing of course Alena we have not spoken about so far is Ukraine we’ve spoken around Ukraine we haven’t spoken about Ukraine the Ukrainian government uh no virtually no support inside NATO for allowing them to actually join NATO a lot of support to provide them with military uh weapons um there’s been a lot of challenges in terms of that governance itself um zelinsky’s popularity has Shunk down to the 30s at this point despite um that You’ think with the common threat that he’d be you know sort of seen as more of a wartime president that’s not the case um how much do you think uh the West should be betting on him in terms of his ability uh to be a useful interlocutor uh with NATO countries look I mean zalinsky came into office with no political experience let’s remember who he is he was a a TV star and and a well-known comedian and really one because he had name recognition in the country for playing a president on TV right so let’s just remember who he is um look at the end of the day we have to bet on Ukraine you know in in countries like Ukraine there are such new democracies we can’t forget how really new and fragile Ukraine’s democracy is it hasn’t had 200 years to develop um it’s really had about dir you know um it’s it’s a country that is still finding out what it means to be a democracy and we and despite Z lens’s in experience as a political leader he did win a huge Landslide so he is the legitimate leader he’s not popular but not many the leaders are look at macron’s numbers sometimes look at President Biden’s numbers these days right um I think we have to bet on Ukraine and we have to work with the government that’s in place and absolutely you’re right you know when the Russians say uh we’re they were really worried about Ukraine joining NATO this is a complete falsehood there was no Avenue for Ukraine to join NATO anytime soon as you as you rightfully said so we have to bet on Ukraine and I think we have to bet on Ukraine developing as a democracy in the years ahead with whether that’s with zinski or another democratically elected president president that should be our goal to make sure it is a democracy in this part of the world that’s increasingly surrounded by author States like Belarus and Russia Alina parova thanks for joining us on gz world my pleasure that’s it for today’s edition of the gz World podcast like what you’ve heard come check us out at gz media.com and sign up for our newsletter [Music] signal the gz World podcast is brought to you by our founding sponsor First Republic First Republic a private bank and wealth management company understands the value of service Safety and stability in today’s uncertain World visit firstrepublic.com to learn more gzero world would also like to share a message from our friends at foreign policy how can Sports change the world for the better on the long game a co-production of foreign policy and Doha debates hear stories of courage and conviction both on and off the field directly from athletes themselves if Taj Muhammad Olympic medalist and Global change agent hosts the long game hear new episodes every week on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your [Music] podcasts you’re listening to the gz world with Ian Bremer podcast your weekly geopolitical Deep dive into the world’s biggest news stories featuring in-depth conversations with global leaders and newsmakers to get more of gz’s insights on global politics every morning sign up for our free newsletter gz daily at gz media.com
Tensions in Ukraine are high as Russia builds up its military capacity along the border. Cyber attacks on Kyiv have also increased. Can the US and NATO do anything to deescalate the situation, or will Putin decide to invade?
Ian Bremmer speaks with Russia/Ukraine expert Alina Polyakova of the Center for European Policy Analysis, who believes that based on Putin’s actions, all the signals are pointing to an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine – though that could actually strengthen NATO.
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