Ukraine’s Surprise Attack: An Update on the War With Russia

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

• Ukraine’s Surprise Attack: An Update on the War With Russia

  THIS IS AN UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT

  Hello, I'm John Milewski, and this is Wilson Center NOW, a production of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. My guest today is Jennifer Wistrand.

  
  Jennifer is deputy director of the Kennan Institute Wilson Center's Kennan Institute, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. She joins us to talk about the latest from Ukraine. Jennifer, welcome. Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much for having me. So, you know, when I anticipated speaking with you a couple of weeks ago when we book this interview, Ukraine had not launched its sneak attack into the region.

  
  And that certainly provides the focus for where we should begin. Did anyone see this coming and what are the implications of this move? It's an excellent question. And I would just echo what you said when you asked me to speak with you a couple of weeks ago. I thought, well, we're going to be in a quiet period in August.

  
  And here we are one week into what I think many think is an unanticipated offensive, whether or not we should find that had anticipated as a big question as to whether we saw it coming. And I guess that would depend upon who you ask. I think a lot of people did not see it coming. There had been a great deal of talk that morale was low in Ukraine because of the fact that the war was not turning in its favor.

  
  You have another school year coming to celebrate a third school year. The kids who left with their families are not going to be in southern Somalia low. And then this happens and the implications are yet to be determined. On the one hand, it's the first time that the Ukrainian military. So let's go back to morale. I think it has boosted morale internally in the country.

  
  Brant, you had for the first time in the last couple of weeks, you had some of the Ukrainian population talking about, you know, do we need to think about going to the negotiating table? And that certainly had not been on the table for the past two and a half years and people had finally started thinking, do we have to do that?

  
  Now I think you have potentially a chance to see that flip and say, actually, this demonstrates we don't have to go there. Or other people are saying maybe Ukraine still has to go to the negotiating table. But maybe the impetus for the surprise attack or sneak attack is that it gives them a bargaining chip. They've got some territory now in Russia.

  
  So I think it still remains to be seen what the outcome is. You know, when you said the third school year since the invasion began, it really struck home. But I remember when this all began. Well, certainly Russia thought it would be quick. And over here we are two and a half years later, and there's no end in sight.

  
  The on this incursion, the Ukrainian foreign ministry says not interested in holding territory, but it also says it will continue its offensive in Russia until Moscow agrees to peace. There seems to be a notion from comments from the ministry, comments from President Zelensky, that this will somehow force Putin to the negotiating table. Do you see any indication that that's a realistic expectation?

  
  that's a difficult question. I mean, I myself, as you probably were doing the same, listening to the news or the actual live reporting coming out. And if you listen to the Ukrainian side and the Russian side, it's par for what has been for the past two and a half years. Right. You know, Russia saying that this is an offensive by, you know, the aggressors to start with, and they're defending themselves.

  
  And so were to motivate Putin to come to the negotiating table, under what premise would he be coming there? I think that's unclear. I think what will be interesting, I could only see him being motivated in some respect if he starts to see his own population on that flank that's being attacked right now, disseminate information further into the country.

  
  Right. Thus far, there's been kind of an endemic support for him and his positions. But it's the first time you see, you know, internally displaced people spreading throughout Russia where that's been the norm throughout Ukraine. Right. Is that going to happen? People in literally the mayors and towns out there requesting a Putin to send help and saying, you know, you're not supporting us.

  
  Walter is bolstering us the way you said you would. So if he were to feel threatened in some respects, could that cause him to want to negotiate? I suppose. But again, it's been two sides with two very different dialogs the entire time. It's difficult to see how that would result in any meaningful end game. So you mentioned earlier that this may have been a response to the need for a morale boost.

  
  Is that ultimately what this is about? You know, I've looked at the analysis from the military experts to see if anyone views this as a game changer on the battlefield. And I haven't found anyone. Maybe you have who has thought that's the case. But morale keeps coming up as something that could be that it within Ukraine could be one of the the benefits of this incursion.

  
  Where was morale before this? As you mentioned, there was a bit of a malaise underway. Other things like Gaza, the NATO's summit, the U.S. election, we're stealing headlines away. And the war had sort of drifted into this almost chronic condition. Is this a jolt to the system? Is this something that was needed to break it out of this chronic stage?

  
  Yeah, excellent question. So I'm kind of breaking into several parts. You know, first you mentioned is this any type of significant military incursion? Again, I think we have to wait to see, but we still have to step back and look at, you know, present time Russia occupies what, somewhere between 15 and 20% of Ukraine. So they still obviously have a significant foothold in Ukraine.

  
  There's nowhere that this and a small part of the Kursk region is anywhere comparable, nowhere comparable to that yet. From a morale perspective, absolutely. Has this. It's the first time that Ukraine has been able to cross into Russia. Obviously, it's not coincidental. This is coming after it's been able to kind of receive a significant influx of military equipment from the West.

  
  That also was a morale boost, I think, for Ukraine, which have been waiting for quite a long period of time and then did receive that and now has the capability to actually move more assertively as opposed, you know, defensively, as you pointed out, to kind of media fatigue develops with any number of crises. Right. That's a recurrent problem around the world, whether it's Afghanistan, whether it's Sudan, whether it's Haiti.

  These conflicts end up in the news and then they tend to fade. And I think Ukrainians have long fear that that's going to be their case, too, and that that would be to Russia's advantage. Right. If this kind of drifts into the, you know, as opposed to NATO's kind of perennially bringing this up if this kind of slips away.

  
  So I actually do think, at least right now, the morale seems to be kind of the ones I can say. I certainly can't speak for President Zelenskiy or any of us what motivated it, but does seem that maybe that's the byproduct of it. That's the greatest kind of result from the system morale boost. So what can you tell us about the mood in Ukraine?

  
  You know, beyond the morale question and just about daily life, what do we know about, you know, when we view it geopolitically or we view it from a distance, we don't really get the visceral sense of what it's like to live with the constant threat of a potential drone attack or bomb attack or whatever it might be. How stable or unstable is daily life in Ukraine and how does that look when you go from region to region or city to city?

  
  An excellent question. I would say we, the Kennan Institute, are very fortunate that we have a number of colleagues that are either based inside of Ukraine or the Ukrainians who are now based elsewhere in Europe, for example, in Italy. And then we also have Russian colleagues who have fled with the Russian the full scale invasion into Ukraine and also based in parts of Europe and corresponding with their Ukrainian colleagues.

  So we're very fortunate to be able to get actual information coming out of what's going on in the country. And I think, again, there too, it's it depends on what aspect of someone's mood. Why might you ask them about. I circle back to family separation. It's a huge issue, right, in terms of displacement takes many forms in the way this conflict came about.

  Most of the men were staying and not all, not exclusively around. A lot of the men know there's a mandate for certain age groups to stay in the country, Right? The initial and even second and tertiary boxes of people who left the country were women and children were heading into a third school year. So you have a lot of family separation that it's now becoming long term and in some cases is leading to some kind of family separating what could be longer term.

  
  And so that's obviously not a positive for people. You have for a while the economic concerns domestically right there. The the fear is that going to default and is the country going to default on some debt? So now there's been help that they're going to be able to restructure their debt. So obviously, the day to day economic concerns.

  
  But then it's incredible. And the government can instead we have I mean, people writing on the arts, writing on the culture, all these other areas that have been able to maintain a presence throughout the conflict. You just have the Ukrainians that competed in the Olympics, right. Brought a lot of pride for their country. So there are things that are, again, keeping people's spirits up, but on a day to day.

  
  And you also a question on regionally, obviously, certainly if you're in the eastern part of the country, you're much either in an occupied area, much closer to the front lines than if you are in the west. So that's going to be a big difference as well. In Kiev, you know, you're the site of the capital, which is obviously a target for the Russians, some of the other big cities as well, Kharkiv.

  
  So I think it's difficult to say on a day to day kind of what aspect of someone's day to day, you know, do they feel. So the summit we've talked about idea fatigue. Is there any concern about ally fatigue or support for Ukraine? Where does that stand now? Certainly it got a huge boost from the NATO summit, which made strong statements in support and beyond talk.

  
  There were actual changes in what kind of munitions and other weaponry that was provided to Ukraine. Is there any concern within Ukraine about support for Ukraine in countering the kind of fatigue we've been talking about in these other areas? Yeah, I think that also is always is a perennial concern. Again, you circle back to like in Afghanistan and other situations, but it ends one, it ends up in the news and then it disappears from the news.

  
  Or two, there's initial support and then that support dissipates because we need to support broader humanitarian aid elsewhere. So I think certainly you look at a number of countries, again, let's say, you know, human mobility, people who flag refugee is very well welcomed in many cases, other countries claim Why weren't our refugees welcomed in the way the Ukrainian refugees were?

  
  But now a couple of years later, certain countries are starting to say, well, why should there be programs for the Ukrainians to go back? Or is this somehow, you know, kind of a difficult hand on our country's soil? You've had certain countries that have pushed back against, you know, policies with respect in Ukraine being able to get its grain out right, saying why are they getting preferential treatment?

  
  And then we're not so I think there could be fatigue, ally fatigue at some point. I don't foresee that coming, let's say, on the military equipment side, because obviously it's in Europe's interests, right, for Russia not to advance further into Europe. So they would not want Ukraine to somehow completely fall to Russian control. So I don't see that going on.

  
  You know, the narrow stronghold part of it. But again, kind of on that day to day aspect of it, if the everyday person in a certain town that's either had an influx of people or they feel that their economic livelihood is impacted, yes, that could that could have a long term impact. Well, let's shift gears and look at Russia.

  
  I most of my questions all of my questions so far have been about what's happening in Ukraine. What do we know about Russian the Russian population? We know what the propaganda machine says. We know what Vladimir Putin says. We know that there's almost total control of media. But what do we know about what the populace in Russia thinks about this this war?

  
  That's a very good question. And again, I think if we were to look in Kennan Institute, we're very fortunate to have programs of support. Russian media in exile. And one of the big objectives of these Russian journalists who are in obvious Europe or elsewhere is able to hopefully try to penetrate back into the Russian populace and be able to tell them what is actually happening.

  
  Because as you stated, we know that the media is controlled within the country. I think, again, you're going to have different perspectives based on, you know, the socioeconomic strata you're looking at. Right. Certain people and the Russian economy has actually been able to withhold against sanctions more than people anticipated. It's actually still growing. Yes, it has inflation. Yes, it has high interest rates, but it's actually been able to stay in its favor, one, because it's function in a wartime economy.

  
  But also it's just that it has, you know, countries, China, India, Central Asian states, Turkey's other that are supplying it with goods that it would need. So economically, if let's say your middle income are higher, you've probably been okay. It's going to be your lower income that's impacted in terms of conscription, right. That we know that there's a lack of people to go to the frontlines.

  
  Russia's been going through, you know, kind of a lack of regard for its own human life in terms of the war machine. And so there's been a lot of forced conscription, especially from the republics kind of on the periphery. Right. And and so you've seen some uprisings in certain areas in reaction to that. So I think that could increase with time, certainly if Russia feels it has to send more troops.

  
  Now there, of course, for other regions. So you could have again, kind of more uprisings in those peripheral republics within Russia. So I think it really depends geographically where you're looking socioeconomically, where you're looking.

  
  But final question I have for you is about what will be what will you be looking at as we move forward? You know, I know we'll be soon heading toward the falcon and the winter.

  
  And in the past, there were some discussions about the impact of troops and equipment on the ground when the when ground starts to freeze and all those things happen. What are some of the road marks you'll be looking at ahead that might give us some indication of how things are trending? Yeah, obviously, that's an excellent question. The winter obviously poses difficulties, one for just landlocked in that that poses an issue, but also just for day to day life.

  
  But what's been fascinating and again, we get this coming out of reporting we get from our colleagues based in Ukraine or elsewhere in Europe, are that Ukraine has been so and just very creative in the way they've responded to the type of problems they've had here, creating small generators that are down in subways that you can run a school on, you know, subway station.

  
  And and and they've responded to the fact that they anticipate there will be electricity outages or other things. And so they've developed mechanisms, again, whether it's for day to day life, whether it's for schooling, whether it's for military. So I think, again, talking about the back, you're going into the third time over. On the one hand, yes, you'll see those same problems.

  
  But there's a lot of capabilities that have been built up over the past two years. So I think the weather will be one. But I really think we just have to see what plays out from this past week. Right. Is Ukraine's objective in launching this this you people kind of sneak or surprise attack? Is it just that just to be a sneaker surprise attack or is it intended to go further?

  
  And if it's going to go further into Russia, what's the long term goal there? It's going to be tactical, just going after, you know, power plants or other things, or is it going to be that just as Russia has done an enormous area, is it going to be to take over regions and be planting a Ukrainian flag? And I think that's going to tell kind of the story that we're looking into moving into the fall in the winter?

  
  Well, I know that whatever happens, you and your colleagues at the Kennedy Institute will be staying on top of it. Thank you for joining us today and providing us with this update. Thank you very much. We hope you enjoyed this edition of Wilson Center now and that you'll join us again soon. Until then, for all of us at the center, I'm John Milewski.

  Thanks for your time and interest.