Thursday, Mar 17, 2022 • 27min
Four Paths Forward in Ukraine
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It has been three weeks since the war in Ukraine began. The fighting grinds on and there is no clear end in sight. But what are the potential paths forward in the coming days and weeks?
On Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an address to Congress, proposed one such path, though it is an incredibly unlikely one: a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
Elsewhere, Times reporting has suggested four other potential scenarios — a diplomatic end to the conflict; protracted monthslong fighting; China coming to Russia’s rescue; and President Vladimir V. Putin expanding the conflict beyond Ukraine’s borders.
We explore these scenarios and consider which of them is most likely to occur.
Guest: David E. Sanger, a White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times.
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David Sanger
Michael Barbaro
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
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Break
Michael Barbaro
00:30
From
The New York Times
, I'm Michael Barbaro
. This is The Daily
.Share
00:34
Today, as Ukraine's president implores the
United States Congress
to intervene in the war. I spoke with my colleague David Sanger about the potential paths forward in the war and which of them is most likely to occur.Share
01:02
It's Thursday, March 17th.
Share
01:12
David, we want to talk to you about the paths forward in
Ukraine
. What happens next in this war? And the president of Ukraine
, Volodymyr Zelenskyy,
just proposed one such path forward in a speech to Congress,
and I want you to describe it.Share
David Sanger
01:28
Well, the scene in front of
Congress
, Michael
, was really quite remarkable.Share
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
01:33
Thank you very much. Madam Speaker, members of the
Congress
, ladies and gentlemen.Share
David Sanger
01:41
As you would imagine, President
Zelenskyy
showed up in what is now his uniform, which is his Churchill in a T-shirt look.Share
Michael Barbaro
01:50
Right.
Share
David Sanger
01:50
Where he is clearly calling in from an embattled presidential office, at a moment that his capital is under siege.
Share
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
01:59
Right now, the destiny of our country is being decided. The destiny of our people, whether Ukrainians will be free.
Share
David Sanger
02:10
He immediately invoked images that he knew would resonate with his audience, Democrats and Republicans.
Share
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
02:19
Remember September, the 11th. A terrible day in 2001 when evil tried to turn your cities, independent territories, in battlefields, when innocent people were attacked.
Share
David Sanger
02:35
And the unspoken message of that was, that just as the world rallied with the
United States
. And the US
rallied with the West, then you must do it. Now.Share
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
02:46
Russia
has turned the Ukrainian sky into a source of death.Share
David Sanger
02:53
And then he made a request.
Share
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
02:54
To create a no-fly zone, zone over
Ukraine
to save people. Is this too much to ask?Share
David Sanger
03:01
A couple of times in the speech, for a no-fly zone.
Share
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
03:04
I have a dream. These words are known to each of you. Today, I can say, I have a need. I need to protect our sky. I need -
Share
David Sanger
03:14
But it was an ask that -
Share
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
03:16
Thank you. Slava Ukraini.
Share
David Sanger
03:18
Even as he received the warmest, most unanimous applause from
Congress
you've heard in recent times. Everyone in the room, including Zelenskyy
himself, knew he wasn't going to get it.Share
Michael Barbaro
03:31
Well, explain that, how exactly a no-fly zone works and why it's not an option.
Share
David Sanger
03:36
You know, no-fly zones sound so passive. It's as if you lay out on Google Maps an area where no aircraft are allowed.
Share
Michael Barbaro
03:47
Right.
Share
David Sanger
03:47
The way downtown
Washington, DC
, is known to be a no-fly zone for commercial aircraft and private aircraft. But the fact of the matter is that to enforce a no-fly zone, you have to do two things. You have to patrol its perimeter and be willing to shoot down any plane that is coming in to violate that zone.Share
04:09
And the second thing you have to be ready to do is to take out the anti-aircraft batteries down on the ground that might shoot up at planes defending the no-fly zone. And in the case of
Ukraine
, the Russian anti-aircraft batteries are in Russia
.Share
04:28
So there would be no way to enforce that no-fly zone without conducting a military attack on Russian bases and Russian territory. And that is, as President
Biden
has said multiple times now, the road to World War III
.Share
Michael Barbaro
04:46
So given that, this is not going to be the path forward, a no-fly zone enforced by the
US
and its allies in Ukraine
. We want to talk through with you the other possible paths forward for how this war may play out in the coming days, weeks, maybe months. And we've come up with four scenarios, based on your reporting and the reporting of our colleagues.Share
05:08
The first scenario is whether this war can be brought to a conclusion through diplomacy. For the past few days, Russian and Ukrainian officials have been meeting to try to achieve a diplomatic solution. The leaders of countries like Israel, Germany, and France get on the phone with
Putin
, it seems, every other day to try to find a diplomatic solution. What might a diplomatic end to this conflict look like?Share
David Sanger
05:33
So let me paint a scenario for you about some of the possibilities for a diplomatic end from people I've talked to. First, the Russians have a set of three demands for
Ukraine
and for President Zelenskyy
, even though President Putin's commitment that he would end the war, even if President Zelenskyy
agreed to these demands, is not entirely clear. But here's what the Russians have said, Ukraine
would need to agree to.Share
06:03
The first is they would have to give up any claim to
Crimea
, the territory that Russia
invaded in 2014 and then annexed.Share
06:13
The second demand is that the two Eastern self-declared Republics of Ukraine,
Donetsk
and Luhansk
, where there's been this grinding war being fought for the past eight years, would have to be recognized as a completely independent states by Ukraine
.Share
06:33
And then the third is that
Ukraine
would have to publicly declare its neutrality, probably along the lines of a country like Austria, which has a military but not much military capability. And they would have to say that they would never again seek to join NATO
, even though that's written right now into the Ukrainian Constitution. So the constitution would have to be amended.Share
Michael Barbaro
07:00
And, David, do we think that
Zelenskyy
might be open to those demands?Share
David Sanger
07:06
Well, he's indicated that he's open to discussing at least some of them, For example, he has said that he's moved beyond the hope that
NATO
was going to let Ukraine
into the Western alliance anytime soon.Share
07:18
So you could imagine how he might be willing to accept neutrality. But giving up
Crimea
and those two Eastern Republics, boy, that's a much further reach because he would essentially be ceding to Russia
roughly a third of his country.Share
Michael Barbaro
07:37
So, David, let's assume for a moment that
Zelenskyy
does agree to several of these Russian terms. I imagine Russia
might still need some kind of assurance that these crippling sanctions that have been imposed by the
United States
and Europe
will be relaxed, as part of any diplomatic solution.Share
David Sanger
07:55
That's absolutely right. The Russians would insist that these crippling sanctions, which are likely to send them into default in coming days and have plunged the ruble to its lowest levels, and really begun to bite on ordinary Russians. They would need an assurance that those would get lifted.
Share
08:16
So, it was interesting that on Tuesday night, in an interview with NPR, Secretary of State,
Blinken,
said that for the sanctions to begin to lift, the Russians would have to withdraw completely from Ukraine
and irreversibly.Share
08:32
That is to say, there would have to be some method of assurance that in the next two or three or five years, the Russians couldn't just turn around and go back and do this all over again. And so now you're suddenly discovering that while this is a negotiation between
Russia
and Ukraine
, there are a lot of other players in it at this moment.Share
Michael Barbaro
08:54
Right. So, in short, a diplomatic solution to this is very tricky.
Share
David Sanger
08:59
Very tricky, but ultimately necessary. It's hard to imagine this war ending without some kind of diplomatic solution.
Share
Michael Barbaro
09:09
Okay. David, let's turn to the second potential path forward. Let's say there is no diplomatic solution for now,
Ukraine
and Russia
can't get on the same page. It feels like, almost by definition, this then becomes a long grinding war of attrition that lasts many more weeks, maybe many more months. So let's talk through that possibility.Share
David Sanger
09:29
Michael
, I'm afraid to say that's a very strong likelihood. What you've seen is constant bombardment. And that suggests that Putin
believes that if he just keeps battling on, and can grab some more territory at whatever human cost, even with civilians targeted directly, that he would be in a better negotiating position whenever that diplomacy comes to fruition.Share
09:58
Unfortunately, that would come at the cost of thousands, if not tens of thousands of lives. But that does not seem to be bothering President
Putin
or the Russian forces right now. The only thing that might get in the way there is that Putin
himself is taking very big losses.Share
Michael Barbaro
10:20
Right.
Share
David Sanger
10:21
There are disputes about how big those losses are. But the
Pentagon
said last week that thousands of Russian troops have been killed or were casualties in some way. So it does suggest to you that he's under some pressure because, sooner or later, people are going to discover that their sons and daughters in the Russian military died on the way into a war that the president of Russia
only described as a special military action.Share
Michael Barbaro
10:53
And is it our understanding that
Putin
would be willing to do that, incur the losses to his own army and destroy much of Ukraine
which, by his own account, is an extension of Russia
, you know, and the place he wants to draw back into the Russian sphere, because it's beloved? So why would he want to destroy it?Share
David Sanger
11:18
This is a central mystery about what's going on in Putin's mind, of how he's hardened in his view about the Ukrainians. But, you know,
Michael
, the question of how far he would go in order to seize this territory and realize his dream is so central to the argument taking place now in the United States
and among the NATO
allies.Share
11:47
Earlier on Wednesday, there was a phone call between
Jake Sullivan
, the President's national security advisor, and his Russian equivalent. And that phone call is the first contact that we're aware of between the White House
and the Kremlin
in the three weeks that this war has gone on. And what did Mr Sullivan
do? He spent a good deal of it warning the Russians about the consequences that would flow if they used chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine
against the Ukrainian people.Share
Michael Barbaro
12:21
David, in this scenario outlining where there's a long grinding war and the Russian forces are willing to do almost anything to win control of
Ukraine
, we have always imagined. But at some point they would prevail in a technical sense and probably take Kyiv
and remove the government of Ukraine
.Share
12:47
And that an insurgency would start in
Ukraine,
a low-level attempt by Ukrainians to keep the fight going. And in the event of that, how far do we think the United States
would be willing to go to try to fund that insurgency and armed and seek that it prevailed over time?Share
David Sanger
13:14
It's a really interesting question,
Michael
. Let's play that out for a moment. Let's assume that the government of President Zelenskyy
has to flee Kyiv
and sets up, say, in Western Ukraine. What would the
United States
and its allies do? I don't think there's any question that they would fund and arm an insurgency that would make the price of this for the Russians as high and as bloody as it could be.Share
13:47
But, boy, that would be really back to the old proxy wars of the
Cold War
. It would have images on very different terrain of what the United States
did when it helped fund the proxy war in Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation. But this would be a lot bigger effort.Share
Michael Barbaro
14:12
So it sounds likely that the
United States
and Europe
would become effectively silent combatants in a long Ukrainian insurgency. Is that right?Share
David Sanger
14:23
I think it's a relatively high likelihood. I don't think we would be a silent participant. I think we would be a very vocal one. I think the Europeans would be a very vocal one. I think they would feel particularly invested in this because it's the view of many Europeans, not all. That this is a struggle they cannot lose. Because if
Putin
gets Ukraine
and if he then manages to reform his military and diagnose what has gone wrong here, that they will be on the front lines next.Share
Michael Barbaro
15:12
We'll be right back.
Share
Break
Michael Barbaro
16:46
David, the long, grinding war scenario assumes that
Russia
has the wherewithal to keep fighting in Ukraine
indefinitely, the military strength, but also the financial resources. And there are doubts about both. And that brings us to a third possible scenario, we want to talk to you about. That Russia
gets help from China
. What if China
comes to Russia's rescue?Share
David Sanger
17:11
Michael
, you know, it's a really important and live question. It's asked at many press conferences in background sessions at dinner parties. And it's really important, Michael
, because on Sunday, the United States
made the decision to reveal some intelligence that Russia
has already gone to Xi Jinping
, China's leader, and asked for economic and military aid.Share
17:34
And the reason is pretty clear,
Putin
was stunned, I think, by the breadth and depth of these sanctions, which basically froze the money even that is in his central bank that he thought was his best guarantee against effective Western sanctions and efforts to cripple his economy.Share
17:56
So now he needs the world's second-largest economy, a country with which he just signed something that was pretty close to an alliance in the days leading up to the Beijing Olympics. And
China
is clearly the only nation with the resources and the motivation to come help bail them out.Share
Michael Barbaro
18:19
Well, talk about that motivation. Why would
China,
in theory, accede to this request from Putin
and bail out Russia
financially and militarily at this moment?Share
David Sanger
18:32
At this moment, the Chinese get only one thing from
Russia,
which is a significant nuclear-armed partner in the effort to set up a global power center that's in opposition to the West. The Chinese and the Russians have some common complaints about the West over the past 70 years. It's that the West sets the global agenda. That it's that the West runs the global financial system. It's that the West runs the internet and runs it on Western values.Share
19:08
But the question of bailing the Russians out right now, in this situation, in these scenes of brutality, that's a hard one. And the other day in congressional testimony, you saw,
Bill Burns
, the CIA
director, and a former American ambassador to Russia,
say that he thinks the Chinese are a little bit shaken about what's going on here and having a hard time deciding what to do.Share
Michael Barbaro
19:36
Explain that. Why would
China
be shaken, given the context you just explained, which is that China
and Russia
together become a powerful axis against the West?Share
David Sanger
19:47
Oh,
Xi
loves that part. He loves the idea of being an alternate axis of power, and he loves the idea that the Russians are willing to do things to threaten disruption of Western economies, conduct cyberattacks, menace NATO
in ways that China
wouldn't want to and, with Russia
there, doesn't have to. But China
cares about its image around the world more than the Russians do because it's trying to attract allies as well in Latin America, in Africa.Share
20:22
And if they're tainted with this brutal attack on
Ukraine
, just three weeks after the Chinese themselves said at the Munich Security Forum, their foreign minister declared that China
believes in sovereignty and the importance of respecting national borders and that that includes Ukraine.
And then Putin
goes and does what he does.Share
20:48
But, look, if you're
China
right now, there is something to be said for standing back and letting the United States
and Russia
, the two other major superpower adversaries, battle it out, while the Chinese go ahead doing what they're doing.Share
Michael Barbaro
21:05
So given that, how likely is a Russia-China alliance in this moment? From what you're saying, it doesn't sound hugely likely.
Share
David Sanger
21:13
I think there's going to be some form of Chinese backing for the Russian effort here. It may not be direct and highly visible. I think the Chinese are a little bit concerned about how far they want to follow
Putin
right now. They're probably wondering a little bit about his judgment.Share
21:33
But they also want to make sure that their new friend,
Vladimir Putin
, doesn't lose in a humiliating way here. Because they're going to need him in the future for other bigger ventures that are more central to China's view of its own role in the world.Share
Michael Barbaro
21:51
Fascinating. So I want to end with a fourth potential path forward here. And this is one where
Vladimir Putin,
for a variety of reasons, perhaps including getting the backing of China
, feels emboldened and decides to expand this conflict beyond the borders with Ukraine
. So let's talk through that.Share
David Sanger
22:15
Well, that's a significant concern. And I would say that a week or two ago, what I heard the most in
Washington
was the worry that Putin
would take Kyiv
and then keep moving west
, keep expanding in the south, maybe grab a city like Odessa
, a big Ukrainian port city. And then that he might move into Moldova
, another former soviet bloc country that is not a member of NATO,
and that therefore NATO
would not come to the aid of. So, in other words, he would keep rolling right.Share
Michael Barbaro
22:48
In other words, he would do to
Moldova
what he did to Ukraine,
knowing full well that he probably wouldn't meet resistance from the US
or Europe
.Share
David Sanger
22:56
That's right. But you don't hear as much about that anymore,
Michael,
because Putin
has run into so many blockades to his plan. He is running so far behind schedule. He is taking so many casualties that it's a big question right now, whether he can really take Kyiv
.Share
Michael Barbaro
23:15
Got it. So that does not seem all that likely. I want to recap everything now and figure out which of these scenarios seems the most likely and what that means for the next stage of this war. You have told us that a diplomatic solution does not seem all that likely in the next few weeks, that a long, grinding war feels likely, and that the
US
is going to be committed to eating a Ukrainian insurgency.Share
23:40
China
doesn't want to leap headfirst into this conflict with Russia,
but it might be willing to assist it. And as you just told us, Russia
doesn't want to expand this beyond Ukraine's
borders. So where that seems to leave us is with a lot more of the same, which is the destruction and death we've been seeing across Ukraine
, right?Share
David Sanger
24:04
I think that's right with a couple of additional elements to it,
Michael
. I think that the chances are that Putin
will continue this barrage in the hopes that when diplomacy finally does happen, that he'd be in a much better negotiating position.Share
24:22
There's another shoe that hasn't dropped here yet, though,
Michael,
that everybody is sort of worried about in the long term. Which is that clearly President Putin
is angry and stewing about these sanctions that have been far more far-reaching than he thought and which he's got to think is directed at threatening him.Share
24:49
He can't reach back and attack our financial system the way we attacked his. His only way back at our financial institutions is to begin a series of cyberattacks or ransomware. Something where he can make Americans feel like they are paying a price beyond the price at the gas pump.
Share
25:10
And so when you talk to American officials about what they are worried about, it's the combination of the grinding ground war in
Ukraine
and an accelerating cyberwar that involves the US.Share
Michael Barbaro
25:25
Interesting. So, since a long, grinding war is the most likely scenario here. What everyone is most worried about is what an unhappy and frankly unsuccessful
Vladimir Putin
does in response.Share
David Sanger
25:39
Now, one way to think about this is that
Russia
may well emerge from this entire awful set of events a weaker power than it entered it. That, you know, a few weeks ago, we thought the Russian military was 10 feet tall. Today, we don't think so.Share
25:58
A few weeks ago, we thought that
Putin
was a truly canny tactician, we now have our doubts. A few weeks ago, we thought that sanctions might not actually impress Putin
, we now know he's worried about it. What we don't know is what does that leave you with.Share
26:21
The fear is that a cornered
Vladimir Putin
could be the most dangerous version of Putin
that we've seen in the past 20 years.Share
Michael Barbaro
26:34
Okay, David. Thank you very much.
Share
David Sanger
26:36
Thank you.
Share
Joe Biden
26:41
The American people are answering President Zelenskyy's call for more help, more weapons for
Ukraine
to defend itself, more tools to fight Russian aggression.Share
Michael Barbaro
27:02
On Wednesday, following President Zelenskyy's speech to
Congress
, President Biden
gave a speech of his own, promising to deliver $800 million dollars in military aid to Ukraine,
but offering no support for a US-enforced no-fly zone in his speech. Biden
warned that the war in Ukraine
would likely be drawn out and deadly.Share
Joe Biden
27:28
Now, I want to be honest with you. This could be a long and difficult battle, but the American people -
Share
Michael Barbaro
27:33
In Ukraine, according to government officials, Russian attacks killed dozens more civilians, including a group of 10 people waiting in line for bread in the city of
Chernihiv
. A separate Russian attack struck a theater in the city of Mariupol
, where about 1000 civilians had been inside. So far, it's unclear just how many survived.Share
28:21
We'll be right back.
Share
Break
Michael Barbaro
29:00
Here's what else you need to know today.
Share
29:05
As expected, the
Federal Reserve
lifted its key interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, taking its first decisive steps towards trying to lower inflation by raising the cost of borrowing money. With inflation at a 40-year-high, the Fed
predicted six more similarly sized moves over the course of the year. The chairman of the Fed
, Jay Powell
, said he believed the US
economy was strong enough to withstand higher interest rates without sliding into a recession.Share
29:39
Today’s episode was produced by Asthaa Chaturvedi, Michael Simon Johnson, Stella Tan. It was edited by Patricia Willens and M. J. Davis Lin. Contains original music by Dan Powell and Elisheba Ittoop, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.
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30:07
That's it for
The Daily.
I'm Michael Barbaro
, see you tomorrow.Share
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Michael Barbaro
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