Monday, Feb 7, 2022 • 14min
In Moscow And Washington, European Leaders Attempt To Lower Tensions Around Ukraine
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is in Washington and French President Emmanuel Macron is in Moscow as the two leaders attempt to resolve tensions between Russia, Ukraine, and Europe. The leaders, whose countries have strong economic ties to Russia, have been more receptive than President Biden to Vladimir Putin's security concerns.
This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, and Moscow correspondent Charles Maynes.
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Talking about
Speakers
(3)
Scott Detrow
Mara Liasson
Charles Maynes
Transcript
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Break
Speaker 2
00:20
Hi, this is Katherine and joe Mauer. Given recent international political news, we've decided to name our new robot vacuum Vladimir scoop. This podcast was recorded at
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Scott Detrow
00:32
It's it's 2:12 eastern on monday february 7th.
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Speaker 2
00:37
Things may have changed by the time you hear it. Okay, here's the show.
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Mara Liasson
00:44
That's pretty good. I wonder if the cat rides on top of it.
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Scott Detrow
00:48
Is the cat
NATO
then mara?Share
Mara Liasson
00:49
I don't know.
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Scott Detrow
00:51
Hey there, it's the
NPR
politics podcast. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the White House,Share
Mara Liasson
00:55
I'm Mara Liasson, national political correspondent.
Share
Scott Detrow
00:58
And we've got
NPR's
Charles Maynes
with us from Moscow
. Hi Charles.Share
Charles Maynes
01:02
Hi there.
Share
Scott Detrow
01:02
So that vacuum should listen in because today we are going to focus on
Ukraine
and we're going to do that because there's some high profile meetings happening Charles where you are in Moscow
and where mara and I are here in D. C. So in Moscow
french president Emmanuel Macron
is their meeting with Vladimir Putin
and here in D. C german Chancellor Olaf Scholz
Brand new Chancellor took over from Angela Merkel
earlier this year is at the White House right now as we tape, he's in the oval office meeting with Joe Biden
and these meetings are taking place amidst rising fears that Russia
will invade Ukraine
Charles. We've been talking a lot about how the west has responded lately, particularly these thousands of american troops that President Biden
is sending to europe. How has Putin
reacted to all of that?Share
Charles Maynes
01:49
Well he's not happy about it. I mean you know they his spokesman said that this escalates already tense tense situation around
Ukraine
. Russia
has repeatedly accused the west of hyping the threat of a Russian invasion including by sending these troops into europe. They insist in in Russia
and Moscow
that they have no intention to invade. And yet clearly Russia
is using this build up of its military and the credible threat of an invasion to negotiate these broader issues. What Russia
is calling its security proposals and that includes a ban on NATO
membership for Ukraine
and a rollback of the alliance from eastern europe completely at least certainly the military installations. You know, the problem is that all these diplomatic meetings with the U. S. And NATO
over the past month have all stalled. They're really talking past one another which was maybe the point. These were mostly non starters in Moscow
knew it Charles.Share
Mara Liasson
02:39
If we assume that
Putin
hasn't quite decided yet whether he's going to mount a full scale invasion or not. Among the things that the west has offered as possible off ramps or concessions are any of those do you think enough for Putin
to say yes to and reverse possibly.Share
Charles Maynes
02:59
I mean these are things that
Russia
says it wanted has said it wanted many times in recent years. The problem is that they've raised the stakes. So this is no longer just about renegotiating some lapsed nuclear missile tree. These are things that Russia
wanted, although the US
says that they left these agreements because of Russian violations. Um but they know that they're no longer the big ticket items. You know, what Russia
is looking for is this rollback of NATO
, this kind of renegotiating of the end of the Cold War. Um so for Russia
, it's very much tied into this sense of deep humiliation from the 1990s, a sense that they were taken advantage of whether that's legitimate or not. And that's that's essentially been the driving force behind these demands, including what they want to see happen with Ukraine
.Share
Scott Detrow
03:44
So,
Biden
has said most of these demands are non starters, that's generally been the view of much of NATO
as well. What is there for Putin
and Macron
to talk about today?Share
Charles Maynes
03:54
Well, you know,
Macron
comes in here presenting something of a third way. I mean, he's sort of writing a very fine line between a certain degree of unity among Western nations about how to handle any potential Russian invasion of Ukraine
at the same time, Macron
is saying, you know, we don't we can we can find ways to negotiate.Share
04:14
Um so certainly as
Macron
comes in now, he's talking about trying to and he says that Russia
has some legitimate security concerns. That's something that he that Putin
hasn't been hearing from Washington
. Um and he also comes in of course, much more aware of the damage that sanctions or sanctions war with Russia
could do to europe's economy.Share
Scott Detrow
04:33
And Mara were talking right now,
Biden
and Scholz
are meeting as we speak, but we're recording this before we hear from them in a joint press conference. But one interesting dynamic to all of this, you know, Biden
has repeatedly stressed NATO
is on the same page, but Germany
is kind of an outlier and it's a really important outlier because it's such an enormous part of the european coalition. What's the general way to explain why Germany
has been more hesitant some of these other countries to aggressively push back against this, this Russian uh circling of Ukraine
.Share
Mara Liasson
05:07
Well, there are a couple of reasons and Charles can probably add some too, but
Germany
has tremendous economic ties with Russia
, you know, nord stream to this gas pipeline that hasn't quite gotten operational, but that sends Russian gas to Germany
.Share
05:23
Um and there are also, there's a longstanding sentiment inside
Germany
that while not, I wouldn't call it pro Russian is kind of Russian, empathetic, you know, understanding and saying that Russia
has interests to uh Olive Scholz
is also from the more left wing party than Angela Merkel
, but I think Germany
is really key here because if Putin
is going to be successful at splitting the west, splitting the NATO
allies, it certainly would happen, Germany
would be taking the lead in that effort.Share
Charles Maynes
05:55
I think part of it also is this debate, you know, you know, the U. S. Has gone in with this position that there's an impending invasion is almost, you know, assumed that
Russia
will invade the, you know, the Germans and the french are not so sure. They think there's a lot of room here to negotiate. They think that and and certainly this raises questions of what say if Russia
did take some action but far short of an invasion of Ukraine
, would that merit the same level of sanctions that the US
is after?Share
Mara Liasson
06:22
That's the big question. I mean, the question number one is will
Putin
launched an invasion and will it be a huge mistake on his part, or will he succeed in splitting the West? But the second question is, what if he does something less than a full fledged invasion? The allies have never been clear on what kind of sanctions, what kind of measures they would take in that scenario?Share
Charles Maynes
06:42
And just one final point,
Macron
came here today talking about a new european security order. Well, that's kind of what Putin
is talking about when he has all these demands. What he's after is different of course. But there does sense that there's a sense that these two men have some sort of common ground that's missing in the conversations that have been going on between the US
and Russia
over these past several weeks in worth flagging here a couple of things.Share
Scott Detrow
07:05
First of all, we have had several colleagues in
Ukraine
covering the story the last few weeks really aggressively, you can find all of that coverage on NPR dot org. One of the storylines they've been really focusing in on is the fact that it's worth reminding everybody that that Russia
has been at war with Ukraine
since 2014 when it invaded Crimea
when he began aggressively backing separatists in the eastern part of Ukraine
. Parts of that country have been in war for years. Now, the question is not whether or not Russia
will invade, but whether this will escalate to the largest european land war that we have seen in generations. And that is the key question going forward, we're going to take a quick break and talk more when we get back about how each country is viewing this just a little bit differently.Share
Break
Scott Detrow
08:34
So we are back in mara, we've been talking about, you know,
Germany's
internal politics here. Let's talk for a minute about the US
internal politics because they're different than than what had been just a few years ago, by and large, the Republican Party
. Is that a long track record of being a hawkish party that would be incredibly supportive of any sort of efforts to bolster Ukraine
deter Russian attacks on that country. That's the case with a lot of Republican lawmakers, but it's really not the case with big chunks of of kind of the party as a whole. And the activist types, the loud voices in right wing politics right now. What's going on there?Share
Mara Liasson
09:12
This is the lasting effect of trump. Trump was a remarkably
pro-Putin
Republican president. He found Putin
sympathetic. He praised him. He once said that he believed him more than he believed his own intelligence agencies. He willingly took help from Putin
. He said publicly, he'd be happy to have help from Putin
in the 2016 campaign. But I think what you see happening is that the Republican Party
, the establishment was all ready to accuse Joe Biden
of not being tough enough on Russia
when it came to Ukraine
. But there are these loud voices from the grassroots and also from right wing media like Tucker Carlson
who questioned why we would take the side of Ukraine
instead of the side of Russia
, you've got Josh Hawley
, a sitting Republican senator who said maybe it would be a good idea.Share
10:00
Two say flat out that
Ukraine
had absolutely no possibility of ever joining NATO
, which is of course something that Joe Biden
has completely ruled out. So the Republican Party
is splitShare
Scott Detrow
10:13
Charles, has that dynamic come up in
Moscow
as as Russians try and weigh how the U. S. Would respondShare
Charles Maynes
10:22
There, certainly promoting this idea in Russian media and certainly by the Kremlin that that, you know, the west and
Washington
in particular is being hysterical about the threat of the possibility of a Russian invasion. Strangely enough, I think in some ways we we still don't know what Putin
will do, but it does provide a certain out in the sense that, you know, if the if the argument here is from coming from the West, is that Putin
will, you know, it's all but certain that he's going into Ukraine
and then he doesn't, then they can always point to the US
as sort of being this kind of shrill screaming child and and that's and that's a media point that works really well here.Share
Mara Liasson
10:58
So that's something that, you know, you might look at as we're looking at for possible scenarios playing out, you know, and speaking of media coverage of this, you mentioned that several of our hosts have been to
Ukraine
and the portrait that they brought back is of a pro western country, an imperfect democracy for sure. But a pro Western country getting ready for war, a war they don't want. Our hosts have not been going over there and finding a lot of Russian sympathetic voices. This is not Crimea
or Donbas, you know, So if you're talking about the principle of national sovereignity and self determination, even if people don't really care much about Ukraine
, um this is supposed to be what NATO
and the West stand for, right?Share
Charles Maynes
11:41
I think it's worth pointing out that this is not because of something that saved Vladimir Zelensky did that, the Ukrainian president, this is because of
Russia's
own actions in Crimea
in 2014, in the Donbas, where it's backing the separatists Uh in this kind of proxy war. You know, if you go back to 2012, it was only about a quarter of Ukrainians who wanted to join NATO
. And of course, now it's a majorityShare
Scott Detrow
12:02
And Charles. Last question for you, there's been this consensus that that
Putin
would probably wait till after the Olympics ends, because first of all, that's what he did in 2014, secondly, you know, Xi Jinping
is one of his few remaining close allies on the world stage. And the thinking is he wouldn't want to upstage this big show, this big moment for China
, given that what are you looking for over this next week and a half or two weeks to to give you an indication of which way this could go Well, for for one, we're looking at the media coverage.Share
Charles Maynes
12:33
If you go back to 2014, there was this really intense campaign to paint
Ukraine
as a sort of a fascist junta. Um, and really, really appealed to Russian sense of World War II
of kind of, you know, rising up once again to prevent fascism from taking over the continent. I mean, it sounds over the top, but that's what was happening. And we don't see it this time. You know, it's, you know, Ukraine
news is there, but it's about 2nd 3rd item. Um, so I'll be looking at the media, I'll be looking for more information about Russian volunteers and fighters going into the Donbas. I was just down in Rostov
on Don. This is in the southern, in southern Russia
near the Ukrainian border, Um, talking to people that were part of this militia, this kind of Russian volunteer group that was intermingling with Russian mercenaries and Russian Army
units in in East Ukraine in 2014. And they're telling me that some people are going back in now. I mean, the idea is that the Russian argument here is that it's Ukraine
backed by Western arms, that's now confident enough to try and retake these separatist territories. Whether it's true or not, that's certainly not the message you hear from Kiev
but that might be the kind of thing that could set off a pretext for war or send send start off some kind of skirmish that could get out of control very quickly mara.Share
Scott Detrow
13:47
What else could
Joe Biden
do over the next couple of weeks if this does escalate, is there anything in particular you'll be looking for other than you know, increased statements or speeches focused on this?Share
Mara Liasson
13:59
Well, I think the biggest thing that he can do is keep the alliance together. This is what he said in a kind of in politik moment uh in his first, his second formal press conference where he said if
Russia
does something less than a full scale invasion, I don't know if I can keep everyone on board but I think I'm just going to be watching for whether he can keep NATO
and the US
on the same page. NATO
is the U. S. Uh and in particular what we're hearing is that in total contrast to the trump years, the amount of co communication and coordination that the Biden
white house is doing with its european allies is extraordinary and unprecedented. And maybe that's one of the reasons why at least so far the west has seemed even more united than people expected it to be. Now. Of course it could all fall apart. If Russia
does something less than a full invasion then all the splits will be will be revealed. But right now they look united and I'll see. I'll be watching to see if Joe Biden
can keep it that way.Share
Scott Detrow
14:58
Alright. That is it for today.
Charles Maynes
. Thanks for coming and talking to us.Share
Charles Maynes
15:02
Happy to do it.
Share
Scott Detrow
15:03
I'm scott Detroit, I cover the White House
Share
Mara Liasson
15:05
And I'm mara liasson, national political correspondent.
Share
Scott Detrow
15:08
We'll talk to you again tomorrow. Thank you for listening to the
NPR
politics podcast.Share
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Mara Liasson
Scott Detrow
Charles Maynes