Enemy at the Gate: What to do about Russian aggression

Enemy at the Gate: What to do about Russian aggression

Elina Kent: Welcome to the Kyiv Post Podcast, where you can tune in to stories that give you a deeper understanding of Ukraine. 

I’m your host Elina Kent. I’m a multimedia producer and lifestyle journalist here at the Kyiv Post. Last week’s episode called “Putin a Killer? Let us count the ways” covered acts of violence and aggression that Putin and the Kremlin were behind since the start of Putin’s rise to power. This week we continue to look at Russia’s aggression, specifically the recent build up of Russian forces on the Eastern Ukrainian border, with more troops than ever since the start of the conflict in 2014.  

Now this new act of aggression has not gone unnoticed. Ukraine and the West have pushed back. We have seen signals of support, with President Joe Biden and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s phone call, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaking with Ukrainain Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Brussels this past week, Biden speaking to Putin, calling him to de-escalate tensions and proposing to meet with him in a third country to discuss the confrontation and other US-Russia issues, and the most recent sanctions against Russia that the White House announced on April 15. 

To discuss this situation I sat down with Former Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor and Former Assistant Secretary for European Affairs and Sanctions coordinator Daniel Fried about Russian aggression and steps the West could and should take. 

Welcome Ambassador Taylor. 

 Bill Taylor: My pleasure Elina.

EK: Many people are paying attention to the buildup of Russian troops in the east and the fact that it’s the highest amount since the conflict. Obviously its garnered international attention. People are worried that there will be another Russian invasion. How would you assess this situation?

BT: So my assessment changed yesterday with the announcement of the sanctions and with the explanation of the phone call between President Biden and President Putin. I, like you, Elina, and many people are very concerned about this big build-up on the border. And not just in the border, also in Crimea, also in Belarus and so from three different angles, three different directions Ukraine was threatened by Russian forces. And I think as you say it drew a lot of attention and there was a lot of diplomatic activity as well as some military activity, as well as some financial activity in terms of sanctions. So there are a lot of attempts, a lot of measures taken to deter the Russians from doing what we were all concerned they might do. That is to invade Ukraine again.

And this international effort led frankly by the U.S. I am very pleased that the Biden administration has been so active with phone calls of course with President Biden and President Zelensky and Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken and the foreign minister, and the secretary of defense to the defense minister, the national security advisor to his colleague, all of these contacts were great. 

And then NATO as well, [NATO Secretary-General Jens] Stoltenberg and the discussion there in Brussels, all of that. Capped by a very smart move by President Biden to call Putin and we now know that call had 3 purposes. 

One was to warn Mr. Putin not to invade, not to threaten Ukraine, and to stand down on this big buildup.

The second purpose we now know as of yesterday, was for Mr. Biden to tell Mr. Putin, “sanctions are coming.” Mr. Putin was not surprised yesterday. When the treasury, the secretary of state, U.S. government more generally rolled out these sanctions, because he heard it from President Biden 2 days before. 

But the third thing that that phone call did was to check, maybe not checkmate, but certainly to check the Russian ability or willingness, political ability to invade Ukraine. 

While there was a lot of concern and that concern prompted a lot of action, to deter, those actions did deter, and that I think the capstone of that deterrence was that phone call that Mr. Biden put into Mr. Putin and said “Don’t do this and the offer of the summit means that Mr.  Putin can’t invade Ukraine at least for several months while he gets ready for this summit. He knows that if he were to invade Ukraine as he was threatening to do, Summit’s off. 

EK: The summit, as in a potential meeting between President Biden and President Putin. 

BT: Summit’s off. And Putin clearly wants that summit. All to say I think that the international response has led to successful deterrence at least so far, like i said it’s check it’s not checkmate. It’s check for now. I think that it was a good effort. 

EK: I am very glad to see these signals. Whether it’s signals of support or Biden and Zelensky’s call two weeks ago, or Blinken meeting [Foreign Minister Dmytro] Kuleba in Brussels and Biden’s phone call with Putin. When there are talks between U.S. officials and Ukrainian officials, yes there are talks about eastern Ukraine, but there are also talks of reform on corruption. What does Ukraine need at this point? 

BT: So Ukraine needs to continue its strong position. One of the undoubted purposes of the Russian buildup was to threaten Ukraine particularly, specifically to threaten Mr. Zelensky, to try to push him back, to try to intimidate him. Because he’s been taking some steps particularly to threaten Mr. Zelensky to try to push him back to try to intimidate him. Because he’s been taking some steps along the lines you just described. 

Some pretty strong steps, sanctioning corrupt oligarchy Medvechuk, shutting down russian oriented TV stations on anti terrorist grounds and anti terrorist financing grounds. But taking strong steps. And those are the kind of steps to answer your question that Mr. Zelensky needs to take, that the Ukrainian government, stay strong, don’t be rattled by this attempt on the Russian part to intimidate, and Mr. Zelensky has stood up to it. And good for him. 

You mention reform, and of course that’s important. And that will certainly help. Boost the international support, the continued international support for Ukraine that Mr. Zelensky enjoys right now. And I think that he has taken some good steps, there is obviously a lot more to do. Cracking down on corrupt oligarchs is really important, we see how corrupt oligarchs are very important. Even corrupt have influence over the constitutional court of Ukraine! And other courts, up and down the judicial system. That’s a big problem, and the Ukrainian government needs to go after that.

But the immediate threat from Russia as I say I think has been checked by a combination of the strength of the administration, in Kyiv but also the international community. 

EK: Thank you, Ambassador.

BT: Absolutely glad to see you. 

EK: The White House released its new set of sanctions against Russia due to its past actions and recent aggression in eastern Ukraine on April 15. Former Assistant Secretary for European Affairs and Sanctions Coordinator Daniel Fried wrote an article in the Atlantic Council titled “What if Russia invades Ukraine (again)? Consider these options for sanctions escalation” just a few days before. Now he is here to speak to the Kyiv Post about what these sanctions mean and if they are enough, thank you for joining us. 

DF: Sure.

EK: In 2014, there were sanctions placed against Russia, which you worked on as the sanctions coordinator during the Obama administration. How are these sanctions different from the previously imposed ones?

DF: Basically this morning’s announcement was a solid piece of work, and it continues the efforts we made during the Obama administration, that the Trump administration sort of fumbled. Not because all of the people were bad, but because the President wasn’t bought into his own administration’s policy. Happily, we don’t have to deal with [ex-President Donald J.] Trump much further, this was a solid set of sanctions.

The centerpiece was the new executive order, which was quite interesting. Because in it, the President and it’s his executive order, says look there are different strands of Russian malign behavior, election interference, cyber-hacking, bounties of US troops. Just aggression against America’s friends, generally and this is a problem for us. And we are going to push back against it. And that executive order had a whole bunch of sanctions potential. Including, by the way, the authorization for sanctions against the Russians if they use energy as a weapon. That ought to be in the context of Nord stream 2 that’s of interest to Ukraine and ought to be an interest to Poland. 

It means, for, example, if the Russians decide to cut off gas transit through Ukraine, we can hit them. And that’s not there by accident. I looked at that and I smiled. Because of course the Ukrainians are right, and the Poles are right about Nord Stream 2. It’s a bad idea. But also in the sanctions package, you notice that there are sanctions announced against Russian persons in companies because of their involvement in occupied Crimea. And those sanctions were joined, the Americans were joined in their sanctions by Europeans and other governments.

So that was a coordinated step, all of which means to get back to your original point about your Ukrainian friends being worried, it means that the Biden administration is not asleep about Putin. And about Putin’s threat to Ukraine. And it means that the potential for additional sanctions and heavier sanctions should Putin attack, or do something else. Putin may not attack, there may be something else against Ukraine, but there will be consequences. And earlier this week I wrote about those possible consequences because I was just tired of hearing from some Americans that we’ve maxed out on our Russia sanctions and we can’t do anymore. Oh, garbage. Oh, stop it. There’s a lot more we can do. That’s why my buddy, Brian O’Toole, and I wrote up a menu.

EK: The recently announced sanctions include new restrictions on Russian sovereign debt issuance, sanctions against six Russian tech companies tied to Russian intelligence and 32 entities for interference in 2020 U.S. elections, and eight individuals and entities related to the Russian occupation of Crimea.

DF: But the point was yeah shut up with no more room for escalations. There is plenty. Ukraine will not stand alone. Ukraine will not stand alone. If the Russians attack, Ukrainians will fight. They will make a fight of it, I’m not seeing they will win, but there will be a real battle. And under those circumstances Europeans and Americans would not stand by. I’m not talking about military assistance in terms of US troops, I’m talking about assistance to help the Ukrainians defend themselves. 

But I’m not sure Putin wants that kind of war, because we know it’s not popular in Russia. We know this. We know this because Putin does not make heroes out of the Russians fighting in Ukraine he pretends they’re not there at all. Which means the images, and there would be plenty of Russians fighting Ukrainians. Would go back to Russia and a lot of Russian’s wouldn’t like this, which is by the way I mentioned Putin might do something else other than a full-scale attack. 

He could decide after threatening and threatening and using the Kremlin propaganda machine to ramp up the hysteria to say out of the goodness of my warm heart and out of love for all those oppressed Russians under the heel of the Ukrainian fascists, so called, such as the propaganda, I’m sending in Russian peacekeepers into the Donbas. He could do that. 

Or he could decide to recognize the independence of the breakaway republics, the way he so-called enclaves the way he did South Ossetia Abkhazia after the Russo-Georgian war in 2008. So let’s not simply assume that Putin is signaling his ultimate moves, maskirovka right? No need for Americans to tell Ukrainians about what they know they know! We need to be prepared to respond and not be idiots and be fooled. Ok? One other point to make. 

Putin didn’t attack Ukraine just to grab Crimea and the Donbas. He did it so that Ukraine would not become a successful free market democracy with respect for the rule of law, so it would not, pardon the expression, Europeanize itself, the way the Baltic states did after ’91 or the way Poland did in ’89. 

Because if Ukraine does this, and they’ve made progress, Ukraine’s a democracy now, and they are not where they need to be in terms of rule of law, the oligarchs, they are not there. But if they got there, that would be great for Ukrainians and actually great for Russians too. 

Because they would look and say “Wait a minute” people who speak Russian, Ukrainians mostly do, who are православний (Orthodox) not all but a whole lot, they are making this work! They are making this democracy rule of law thing work. Which means why can’t we do it too. I remember one of Zelensky’s public statements said just about this. “If we can do it then the Russian’s know they can do it too. The “it” being a transformation of the country.” 

EK: The two main issues of focus that many talk about when looking at Ukraine, especially with receiving further support from the West are, Russia’s aggression and Ukraine’s own reform, the internal and the external conflict. 

DF: Exactly.

EK: Helping with this external conflict will give Ukraine some breathing space to make these steps that we are seeing Zelensky do with his sanctioning of oligarchs, and shutting down of Russian TV channels. My intuition is that the reason why we are seeing this new aggression in response to the further steps taken from both Ukraine and the West, such as Germany and the Biden administration, and now these sanctions. I was wondering how effective do you think they can be? 

DF: Well first ask yourself the question, what would Putin conclude if we did nothing? If we had done nothing in 2014, no sanctions, what would Putin have concluded, why he would have concluded back then that he can proceed with his Novorossia concept and grab not just the Donbas and Crimea but 40% of Ukraine or more.

We pushed back, now the Ukrainian people pushed back, they resisted, and we helped. And Putin pulled back from his most extravagant and most aggressive plans. But he didn’t pull back all the way, he’s kept Crimea, he kept the Donbas. Partly because we in the west did not push hard enough I think. Partly because Putin looked at Ukraine and said “Well, maybe they will collapse. Maybe they’ll fall apart. The orange revolution started well and didn’t end so well. Maybe this Ukrainian attempt of transformation will end like all the others, badly. So why should I give up? I could still win. 

Which is my way of saying what you already said because I agree with you. The issue is whether Ukraine can take the time it has earned by the sacrifice of its soldiers and Ukrainian patriots, and use that time to make itself a better country internally, you said this the internal struggle as well as the external struggle.

In the end, the internal struggle is at least as important, the external struggle is necessary, because if the Russian’s control then it’s game over, but it doesn’t do any good to have the Russian’s simply exerting their control indirectly through corrupt leaders. Sovereignty comes from well-functioning institutions. That’s not just a civics class or political science principles, that’s reality.

EK: So these sanctions, would you say they are enough to stop Kremlin aggression? And if not, what more can be done?

DF: Well look, the Kremlin needs to know that we have sanctions escalatory options, that are strong enough to hurt and not so strong that we’d never actually use them. They have to be serious, and they have to know that we’re serious. Which is why I wrote that paper. And I suspect that the Biden people are talking to the Europeans about what we would do. 

Because you don’t want to have the Russian tanks roll in and finger scratching thinking “well what do we do now?”. They have to be ready. They have to be ready and I think that the Biden people are getting ready. Is that enough to stop Putin? If I said that I would be arrogant. But it’s a sense of resistance, maybe he will factor it into his calculations. He’s KGB trained, he’s not stupid, that training is to calculate the resistance. It’s what Lenin said “trust in the bayonetta” — if you encounter fat keep pushing if you encounter steel, retreat. 

He will calculate the resistance, both actual and potential. He’s not irrational, he’s a smart guy. He needs to know that the Ukrainians will fight, and that the West will resist. 

EK: Thank you for speaking with us. 

DF: My pleasure. 

EK: That was this week’s episode of the Kyiv Post podcast. I’m your host Elina Kent. You can subscribe to our podcasts on all streaming platforms and follow the Kyiv Post website. As always, stay safe, stay home, and subscribe to the Kyiv Post.