Thursday, Mar 24, 2022 • 29min
Ukraine Puts Putin’s Playbook to the Test
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From the outside, Russia’s relentless bombardment of Ukraine looks indiscriminate and improvised. But the approach is part of an approach devised decades ago in Chechnya.
The Times journalist Carlotta Gall, who covered the Chechen conflict, explains why wars fought by Russia some 30 years ago could inform what happens next in Ukraine.
Guest: Carlotta Gall, the Istanbul bureau chief for The New York Times.
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Carlotta Gall
Sabrina Tavernise
Rachel Banja
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Break
Sabrina Tavernise
00:31
From
the New York Times
, I'm Sabrina Tavernise
, this is The Daily.
Share
00:40
Today, to the outside world,
Russia's
relentless bombardment of Ukraine,
looks indiscriminate and improvised. In fact, it's part of a strategic playbook that Russia
first devised 30 years ago in a different war. My colleague Carlotta Gall
covered that war and explains why the Russian playbook used back then, is essential to understanding what happens next in Ukraine
. It's Thursday, March 24.Share
01:24
Carlotta
, you're in Kiev
. And the last time I saw you I had come to your apartment and brought you take out pizzas.Share
Carlotta Gall
01:33
That's right, that was great. And then you had to rush back before the curfew.
Share
Sabrina Tavernise
01:38
I did. So we were sitting at the table and talking, and I remember telling you that at the very beginning of the war, everybody, myself included, thought that the war would be quick. That the mighty Russian military would roll in and take the country in a week or even a weekend. And I remember you telling me that you never believed that. And when I asked you why? You gave me an answer. I kept thinking about, do you remember what you said?
Share
Carlotta Gall
02:10
I think I said that I thought the Ukrainians would fight. But I also I think said reminds me of
Chechnya
30 years ago, nearly 30 years ago. And as you know, I've covered the wars in Chechnya
intensively. In fact, I was the foreign journalist who spent the most time down there in the early 90's. And I saw it firsthand, the Russians crushing of people who are trying to stand up and be independent.Share
02:37
And of course it was a formative experience for me as a young journalist, but it's stuck with me ever since. And I have this great feeling of recognition and familiarity already. The sounds are some of the same, the bombs that they're dropping, but also this terrible feeling of dread of what this is going to turn out to be.
Share
Sabrina Tavernise
02:60
Right. You said that the most important point of reference for understanding what's happening in
Ukraine
today is understanding what happened in Chechnya
in the 1990s. So bring us to that time and place, Carlotta
, what was the situation?Share
Carlotta Gall
03:17
It all began with the breakup of the
Soviet Union
, you know, the end of communism. And there was suddenly freedom, freedom of speech, movement and so on. And a lot of the former Republics of the Soviet Union
became independent and then this little territory which was still part of Russian Federation
. But it's sort of, it's own region, Chechnya
declared independence.Share
03:44
There are only one million living in this mountainous area in the
North Caucasus,
muslim. They had been deported on mass by Stalin
in the 40's. So they had a lot of grudges, a lot of sort of tribal solidarity, and they decided they wanted if not independence autonomy, some sort of self-determination. And so Chechnya
declared independence, and they started arming and training an army and that's when I think Russia
and the Moscow
authorities, decided they had to act, and so they started preparing to look like to take back control. And as tensions rose, I went into Grozny
which was the capital of Chechnya.
And you know booked a hotel, and so I was there in December 1994. Just as it was all building up.Share
04:44
We could feel there was an intensification. You could tell that the troops were getting closer and gathering, building up around the city. Report that there was going to be a final assault. And then it came on
New Year's Eve
.Share
05:05
Russian tanks entered
Grozny
Saturday and began firing.Share
Carlotta Gall
05:09
What happened was just so extraordinary that no one could have foreseen. The Russians, you know, did their operation, they bombed from the air, and then they set off in columns, armored vehicles and tanks into the city. Their intentionally was to go to the presidential palace and unseat the president of the
Chechen Republic
and seized control.Share
05:35
It's approaching midday in
Grozny
and this is the very center of the city, the presidential palace is behind me. The Russians claim they control it, it's obviously not the case, they.Share
Carlotta Gall
05:44
And they never made it on the way in, especially one brigade coming from the north, they got ambushed by Chechen fighters who actually knew the city very well. Most of them were on foot or on small in small vehicles, and they trapped and ambushed the Russian columns as they came in. Bombing and firing these shoulder held rocket launchers at the tanks.
Share
06:09
We hear that there are hundreds of Russian dead and many, many tanks have been burned out, also-.
Share
Carlotta Gall
06:15
The Chechens burnt the tanks, then they hit all the vehicles in between. They trapped them, if they tried to get away downside streets and knocked them out.
Share
06:24
There is what someone described as a tank graveyard where-.
Share
Carlotta Gall
06:29
There was an absolute wipe out.
Share
Sabrina Tavernise
06:34
Carlotta
, why did the Russians fail that time in Chechnya
? Why did they get stuck?Share
Carlotta Gall
06:39
Well that was interesting because it seemed they were very ill-prepared. You know, ever since
World War II
and defeating the Nazis, they had this great huge army of tanks and massed troops. And they thought they could just walk into Chechnya
and take it over by, you know, by morning. The president at the time, Boris Yeltsin
had intended to have a small victorious war to boost his ratings and to do, you know, show a bit of strength and clear up a problem in the southern regions. And of course they were suddenly faced with this massive defeat and then there was a couple of weeks where everything seems stalled, everything was in a sort of stunned silence.Share
07:26
But what in fact was happening was that the Russians were maneuvering around, and they started flanking the city, digging in with big guns and artillery. And I remember standing on the northern reaches behind Russian lines then and when a few weeks later, when they really started to basically bludgeon the city into submission.
Share
07:56
The firepower, once it was all in position, was just unbelievable.
Share
08:08
You just hear these boom boom with these huge guns fired into the city. Artillery and shells and aerial bombardment.
Share
08:21
Shells screamed into the city center at a rate of up to 10 a minute.
Share
Carlotta Gall
08:27
They hit everything, I mean everything. The presidential palace of course was in the central square was the main target. But you know, there was the theater opposite, the cultural center, they all got smashed. And an apartment buildings all down the central avenue with a beautiful tree lined central avenue, every building got smashed.
Share
08:48
Weeks of continued bombing and shelling by the Russians have reduced much of this city to rubble. This is a lesson the Chechens won't easily forget.
Share
Carlotta Gall
08:57
And as it came closer, the shelling the Chechen fighters would pull back because they just couldn't sustain the lines under such heavy fire bar. And so for months we followed the march of this incredible onslaught of bombardment coming steadily towards the center from the north.
Share
Sabrina Tavernise
09:19
What did
Grozny
look like after these massive bombardments? When you went around the city, walked around, what did you see?Share
Carlotta Gall
09:31
That was a lasting memory, I don't think I'll ever forget it. There's something horrendous about when a city is bombed like that, all the roads disappear because they're covered in debris. You end up climbing over things or driving through mud and dust and rubble and then everything goes really black, filthy black from sort of, I suppose, the gunpowder and so on. So we'd go into the basements to see, and you'd find a lot of people were hiding down in the basements.
Share
10:02
And then the most gut-wrenching thing was just to see these apartment buildings shorn off. And so you'd look up, and you'd see a couch hanging out the window or a picture on the wall, but all skewed and things tumbling out of apartment blocks. That was people's lives just cut in half and falling out the window. It was just that I remember it was always really shocking.
Share
Sabrina Tavernise
10:29
So how did this bombardment strategy worked out for the Russians?
Share
Carlotta Gall
10:34
Well, they took the city in the end, I mean, it was an almighty battle, it took about three months. But they did take it, they flattened it and at some point, the Chechen fighters pulled back into the countryside and up into the hills. And the Russians established control over the city, and then they started moving into the countryside to pursue the fighters. And the war went on in the countryside and up into the hills and into the other cities and went on for most of that year.
Share
11:03
And so by the end of 1995 the Russians had pretty well control of the whole territory. But the Chechens were still around, and they were a guerilla force, and they were moving and mobile. The predicament for the Russians is then they pretty well taken every part of the territory, but then they had to hold it.
Share
Sabrina Tavernise
11:24
Yeah, I mean, taking control of a territory is one thing, but holding it, running it is an entirely different set of challenges.
Share
Carlotta Gall
11:33
Yeah, absolutely and that was the most amazing moment for me to see.
Share
11:40
In August of 96, so 18 months after the war began, the Chechens came storming out of the mountains and seized control of
Grozny.
And they surrounded and attacked every Russian position and the Chechens blocked them, bombarded them, and they basically trapped the Russians in their own city and brought the Russian army to a standstill. It was extraordinary and eventually they negotiated a withdrawal and the Russians pulled out.Share
Sabrina Tavernise
12:17
So how does
Russia
respond?Share
Carlotta Gall
12:18
Well,
Russia
took time out to prepare, but they basically didn't give up the plan to return and take control of Chechnya
. And we saw the rise of Vladimir Putin
who, in 99, was deputy prime minister to Boris Yeltsin,
and he started to get very involved. And he then made Chechnya
a key aim, I think, to establish power to show his strength. He also brought a ruthlessness that went the whole way. He didn't stop, but didn't pull his punches.Share
12:56
In
Chechnya
today, Russian rockets founded an oil refinery and ground troops advanced on the republic's capital, Grozny
.Share
Carlotta Gall
13:04
He went back to war in
Chechnya
with a much better organized operational force. So he went in with a great deal of weaponry and forces to retake the territory.Share
13:17
As Mr.
Putin
settles into his new office here in the Kremlin
. He's already made it plain that the tactics being employed in Chechnya
which have caused such suffering to the civilians, there were entirely his own.Share
Carlotta Gall
13:27
But he brought another element which introduced another chapter as it were, to the Russian playbook which is not just mass force, but also political, and even I would say an ideological approach to controlling the people.
Share
Sabrina Tavernise
13:46
And
Carlotta
, what did this repression look like exactly in Chechnya
, this new Putin
chapter?Share
13:53
Smoke rises from the ruins of a Chechen village, more evidence of the unselective nature of Russian bombing.
Share
Carlotta Gall
13:59
It was as sinister perhaps or even more than the bludgeoning with artillery and bombs because it's back to almost Stalinist repression.
Share
14:09
Where the Russian army is accused by human rights organizations of gross violations. Following the discovery of mass graves and the disappearance of dozens of Chechen men.
Share
Carlotta Gall
14:20
Some arrests, disappearances, executions, Human rights violations. It became to the point where Chechens who are pretty fearless brave people who have a very strong culture and self-respect, became terrified to lift their heads, you know, or to go outside their houses. So it became a really, really frightening regime of suppression and brutality, and it's still like that. It's now rebuilt so that the city of
Grozny
now looks like a modern provincial town, but the people are shadows of their former selves. It's very sad.Share
Sabrina Tavernise
15:10
What you saw there,
Carlotta
, you know the playbook and its evolution with Putin?
I guess, I'm thinking, to the outside world it must have looked improvised and indiscriminate and kind of erratic. But it sounds like what you're saying is that in a lot of ways it was really quite deliberate and intentional. And in its own cruel way it was effective, it sounds like from what you're saying, this became Russia's
template for taking over a place it wants to control.Share
Carlotta Gall
15:42
Yes, and I think it's a
KGB
template, I don't think Putin
necessarily invented it. But he employed it in sort of living memory, and we saw how he did it and I think it's not erratic, I think it's super calculated. It's ruthless, but it's effective from their point of view, which is have complete control and have no one challenging the power at the center.Share
16:11
That's what the Chechen, you know, war was about for
Moscow
. They didn't want any domino effect, you know, or any spreading democracy or movements for self-determination or independence. And this is the playbook that we now seem to be seeing play out in Ukraine
.Share
Sabrina Tavernise
16:47
We'll be right back.
Share
Break
Rachel Banja
17:28
Hi, my name is Rachel Banja, and I'm one of the producers on
The Daily
. A little while back, we made an episode about a funeral director in Spain
whose job is to take the bodies of migrants who have drowned in the Mediterranean
. Figure out who they are through their clothes or little items and return them to their families. What he does is so meaningful to these families, he gives them a chance to have closure in a situation where that's almost impossible.Share
17:57
This is a very difficult story. But it felt like really important work. We really wanted to get our listeners up close to the realities of migration.
The Daily
has this really special opportunity. We get to add dimension to New York Times
journalism by bringing you voices and stories of people living the news. If this kind of journalism is important to you, you can support it by becoming a New York Times
subscriber.Share
Sabrina Tavernise
18:28
Carlotta
, you've been describing this Russian playbook for war and how it developed in Chechnya
and I guess I've been thinking about how much it does feel like this is what we've been seeing in Ukraine
. So walk us through that, where are you seeing it most vividly?Share
Carlotta Gall
18:45
I think you have to say first that the burning tanks, that's the extraordinary scene that I remember so vividly. But we've seen a couple of weeks ago this column that came down from the border trying to drive straight into
Kiev
and take the city by force. And the Ukrainians managed to ambush it on the way and stall it and not in just one place, but in several places, and we've seen them, they're lying on the roads, they're burnt out.Share
19:15
Some of them still have Russian soldiers lying dead around them, an unbelievable image which we saw all those years ago in
Chechnya.
That it happened almost the same again today and like in Chechnya
, they took stock, they regrouped, there was a lull then we understood they were moving out into the countryside digging in. And then we saw this onslaught of artillery and firepower on the civilian areas of the city.Share
Sabrina Tavernise
19:46
Right, so these real kind of attacks on civilian targets that we've been seeing, right the mall in
Kiev
, the apartment buildings on the outskirts, the theater in Mariupol
, these are civilian targets, and it looks similarShare
Carlotta Gall
20:03
Absolutely, and they, you know, you don't know what they're thinking, whether they think there's really important people inside or it's to terrify the population. But it's certainly a signature of the
Putin
, I would say, wars that he has waged, which is show the brute force to show who is in charge and to absolutely subjugate a people and there's also a sign of the next level.Share
20:39
Tonight as Russian air attacks ravaged more cities, Ukrainian and US Officials say
Putin's
playbook will likely increasingly include the systematic kidnapping of local leaders.Share
Carlotta Gall
20:49
There are several towns and cities that have been occupied by the Russians.
Share
20:55
Ukrainian authorities say at least four mayors have already been captured.
Share
20:58
Russians grabbed
Melitopol
, mayor Ivan Federov.Share
Carlotta Gall
21:02
And they took the mayor of
Melitopol
.Share
21:04
Who officials say was whisked out of City Hall wearing a bag over his head.
Share
Carlotta Gall
21:08
He actually returned, but we don't know quite what went on. When they took him away.
Share
21:13
Ukraine's prosecutor general is accusing
Russia
of kidnapping a Ukrainian journalist who was covering the invasion.Share
Carlotta Gall
21:20
We've had some journalists who had to one who, you know, disappeared and was detained. Some others who've had to escape because they were being on a list of being wanted.
Share
21:31
The two associated press journalists, in a new harrowing account, they described their escape. The Russians were hunting us. They had a list of names, including ours, and they were closing in.
Share
Carlotta Gall
21:42
And then we've also seen this amazing demonstrations that have been going on in the city of
Kherson
which is occupied by the Russians.Share
21:48
Cameras captured the moment Russian troops fired into a crowd of demonstrators in
Kherson
.Share
Carlotta Gall
21:53
And they started to use tear gas and shoot at the protesters. So we're still in the early stages, but there's some very familiar tactics going on.
Share
Sabrina Tavernise
22:10
Okay, so just as in
Chechnya
, the playbook evolves in the face of obstacles. But I guess we also really have to wrestle with the fact that Ukraine
of course is not Chechnya
. So I'm curious how does this strategy play out in a different country with different circumstances and different people?Share
Carlotta Gall
22:30
Well, that's what we're all watching for now. And of course it's only just playing out, but it's, there's many differences.
Ukraine
is a huge country, it's 40 million, Chechnya
was just one million. It's also an independent country, so it has its own army, they mobilized the entire male population as well.Share
22:49
The other thing that I think is really key for any guerilla war, because that's probably what it is already evolving into. And that is having a border with a sympathetic country where they can get out for rest and recuperation medical help, and then also they can bring in supplies.
Share
23:08
And it has the recognition, Western recognition, and that results in there getting military aid and support from Western countries. The whole sanctions regime, but really the moral support as well. So that's huge, but they've also, I think, got Western advice on how to fight and how to defend the city's against the missiles and so on.
Share
23:31
So
Chechnya
had none of that, they were on their own, they were almost landlocked, and they never had international recognition for their cause. They had sympathy in the media and in the UN,
but they never had this sort of support. So, Ukraine
has some advantages. And what's really interesting is the Ukrainians, they know intricately the Russian playbook.Share
23:54
I mean, that's what really strikes me talking to the Ukrainians is they have a deep understanding of
Putin
and of Russian power. And they have this expression, we've got to break his teeth, break the teeth of Putin
to really show him, you know, where the power is and force him out.Share
Sabrina Tavernise
24:14
And what does that look like right now in
Ukraine
? Breaking the teeth.Share
Carlotta Gall
24:18
Well, that's what's very interesting. As we see, the Russians start to move around the city of
Kiev
and to encircle and use this horrendous bludgeoning of with artillery and air power. Instead of waiting, the Ukrainians are taking the fight out to the Russians.Share
24:38
They've just launched the second counter-attack in a week, against some of the Russian positions around the city, and in other cities they're doing it. And that it's a very important method of attack that you don't sit and wait for the onslaught. You go out and you sally out, and you take the fight to the the aggressor.
Share
Sabrina Tavernise
25:04
Meaning, go on the offensive, go on the offensive.
Share
Carlotta Gall
25:07
Go on the offensive, yeah. Don't just guard your capital, but you actually have to go out and defeat the Russian forces as they're gathering around as they're trying to dig in and start there, you know, assault on the city. So that's what we've been seeing the last few days. It's not clear if the Ukrainians are being successful, they're claiming some success, but it's a tough fight, of course.
Share
Sabrina Tavernise
25:35
It sounds like what the Chechens could never really accomplish and what the Ukrainians stand a better chance of accomplishing is really striking back against
Russia
and disrupting the playbook. I mean kind of rewriting it.Share
Carlotta Gall
25:50
Certainly that's their ambition. I mean, that's what they're talking about, and they're saying they'll do, and they think they understand that this is necessary. The only way to do this is to take the fight and defeat
Putin
and his playbook. It's very ambitious, have no idea if they're going to succeed, but they've certainly got the desire and certainly on the ground now they're fighting like mad. And some of these experts who have been watching these wars as long as I have are talking about this. This could be the moment that Putin
has overreached and gets his comeuppance, well, we'll have to see it's, I think it could still be weeks and months of fighting though.Share
Sabrina Tavernise
26:33
But as you said, either way, win or lose, this strategy is going to have an extraordinary amount of misery in store for the Ukrainians. I mean by design, it's patient, it's brutal, and it emphasizes destruction and repression.
Share
Carlotta Gall
26:52
It's a very dirty war as well. It's already brutal, as we've seen, you know, the casualties are horrendous on both sides already. And you know, one thing I've learned watching
Putin
is he doesn't care how many people die, he doesn't care how much destruction. In fact, he doesn't mind destroying and then leaving it destroyed.Share
Sabrina Tavernise
27:12
Carlotta
, that brings me to wondering about you and kind of how you're feeling right now in this moment. I mean, you're in Kiev
knowing what you do, based on your experience in Chechnya
, you know, what's coming for the people in Ukraine
in some ways, because you've witnessed this Russian strategy firsthand. How does that feel?Share
Carlotta Gall
27:37
Yeah, you have this pit in your stomach the whole time, this sort of dread. The hardest thing is actually interviewing people here, who won't leave the city because they want to stay at home, and they don't want to go, and they've got nowhere to go. And I find in my questioning, I'm slightly wanting to shake them and say, don't you realize, you know, it's going to get worse. So yeah, it's a very, very grim feeling. You can admire the beauty of
Kiev
as you drive around, but the others, this lurking dread in the back that won't go away.Share
Sabrina Tavernise
28:19
It's like you're cursed with the knowledge of the past that's telling us something about the future.
Share
Carlotta Gall
28:27
Maybe we should learn from our mistakes, and we should learn what's come before. I think the Ukrainians do know, you know, they've seen
Chechnya
. So I think what's amazing is they're convinced that they've got to fight and do it. Not only for them and their country when they keep saying this to us, we're doing it for the rest of, you know, Eastern Europe
and Europe
and the Free World
. So they're very, very convinced and that's extraordinary, I mean, really admirably extraordinary.Share
Sabrina Tavernise
29:04
Carlotta
, thank you.Share
Carlotta Gall
29:07
My pleasure, good to talk.
Share
Sabrina Tavernise
29:25
We'll be right back.
Share
Break
Sabrina Tavernise
30:01
Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday,
Madeleine Albright
, the first woman to serve as US Secretary Of State
, died of cancer at age 84. Albright
was named by President Bill Clinton
as America's top diplomat, in 1997. She dealt with the war in the former Yugoslavia
and promoted NATO
expansion into former Soviet Bloc
countries in Eastern Europe
. A Czech refugee who fled the Nazis and the Communists, she had a moral clarity in a job that often favors real politic. In her last essay for the New York Times
, she wrote that Vladimir Putin
, whom she described as quote, "So cold as to be almost reptilian, was making a historic mistake in Ukraine".
Share
30:50
And the
Biden
administration made a formal determination that Russian troops have committed war crimes in Ukraine.
Speaking on his way to Brussels
for an emergency summit of NATO
leaders, Secretary Of State
Antony Blinken
said he would share the information with allies and partners. Meanwhile, NATO
estimated that between, 7,000 and 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in 4 weeks of war in Ukraine
. A senior NATO
official said the estimate was based on information from authorities in Ukraine
and Russia
and from intelligence gathered from public sources. By way of comparison, Russia
says it lost a total of 11,000 service members in nearly a decade of fighting in its war in Chechnya
.Share
31:43
Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipco, Asthaa Chaturvedi and Sydney Harper. It was edited by Patricia Williams and Lisa Chow, contains original music by Marion Lozano and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brumberg and Ben Lance Ork of Wonder Lee.
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32:08
That's it for
The Daily
. I'm Sabrina Tavernise
, see you tomorrow.Share
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Sabrina Tavernise
Carlotta Gall
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