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The Current Transcript for February 24, 2022

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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[Foreign speech]

MATT GALLOWAY: After weeks of increasing tensions, U.S. and U.K. intelligence services warning of war and Russian denials of an imminent attack. Russian forces invaded Ukraine last night. Vladimir Putin says his goal is to demilitarise Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine will defend itself as the world wakes up to this conflict and assesses its response reaction this morning from Canada's ambassador to the United Nations, Bob Rae. Former foreign policy adviser, Roland Paris. Ukrainians in Canada and more. We begin in Kiev with a special edition looking at the attack on Ukraine. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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A special edition looking at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – Part 1

Guests: Mark MacKinnon, Alexandra Chyczij

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[Foreign speech]

MATT GALLOWAY: is Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an attack on Ukraine, what he called a special military operation. And with that, the world's worst fears about an imminent escalation of violence were confirmed. This just as the U.N. Security Council was meeting to try to find a last minute plan for peace. U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres spoke after the meeting.

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This is. The saddest moments in my tenure as secretary general of the United Nations, I started these meetings of the Security Council addressing President Putin and telling him from the bottom of my heart stop. Your troops from an offensive to Ukraine give peace a chance because too many people have already died. During the meetings, President Putin announced a special military operation in the Donbas and required the Ukrainian troops to lay down their arms. So in the present circumstances, I must change my appeal. And the most say President Putin in the name of humanity: Bring your troops back to Russia. In the name of humanity, do not allow to start in Europe. What could be the worst war since the beginning of the century.

MG: Reports of gunfire, explosions and casualties on both sides came quickly. Mark MacKinnon is a reporter for the Globe and Mail. He's in Kiev. What's happening where you are right now?

MARK MACKINNON: Right now, I am with a lot of other foreign correspondents and business people, some ordinary residents of Kiev. We're in a shelter under our hotel near the centre of Kiev. It's the second time today we've been. The alarm has gone on. We've been told to go into the shelter here. Based on, I guess, municipal alert that there is an incoming wave of airstrikes or other attacks as there's footage that I'm seeing of helicopters somewhere outside of the on the outskirts of the capital.

MG: What are you hearing about what's happening across Ukraine?

MARK MACKINNON: It is very hard for us, obviously under ground here to see what's going on above, but when I was able to walk around the city earlier today during sort of a a pause, it was a very strange scene. You know, Kiev, throughout all this, has been remarkably laid back and relaxed until last night, of course, or this early this morning. Today, the only pedestrians you really saw in the streets were people lined up at banks, the city centre to remarkably empty because people as soon as this began and people saw the scope of what was happening. A lot of residents of Kiev and other cities of Ukraine, of course, got into cars and started to flee. The roads are absolutely choked. The roads going out of town really choked with traffic right now. And at the point where it's just kilometres and kilometres of cars that aren't moving as the Russian forces approach the city from the north from Belarus. And there's also push is coming up from the south, from Crimea and from the east, where the main Russian forces are massed. At this point, the airstrikes and rocket attacks seem to be largely targeted at airports. The main airport appears to be disabled, based on our information and again, we're in shelters or can't confirm anything. And military installations around the country there have been some very large attacks on the Port of Odessa, on the Black Sea and the nearby naval base of Kiev, which was a base that Vladimir Putin named twice in his speech earlier this week, where actually laid down his cause, especially his reasons for war.

MG: We know that Ukraine has declared martial law. The president, though Vladimir Zelensky, has called for citizens to remain calm in the face of this invasion. How are those citizens in Kiev and in other regions reacting as far as you know?

MARK MACKINNON: You know, in terms of what Ukrainians want right now, I think they would just want this to end, I think a lot of people are genuinely surprised this morning by what's happening. They, you know, their government until very recently was messaging them not to panic. There's no reason to panic. We don't believe an invasion is imminent. We don't believe an invasion will happen. This is just sort of political posturing. This is, you know, it's an international game. And then only in the last really of the last few days, and especially last night, did the last 24 hours of the Ukrainian government change the tone, dramatically, ordering a call up of reserves declaring a state of emergency in the border areas. And you know, it just simply wasn't enough time for most people here to prepare. So a lot of this had a lot of Ukrainians are on the roads right now, which is a very dangerous place to be or like me taking taking shelter wherever they can find it.

MG: What's your understanding of how Russia and Ukraine's militaries compare in terms of force?

MARK MACKINNON: In terms of, you know, Mr. Putin stated, aims here are to demilitarise Ukraine. He's which obviously sounds a lot like he's going to destroy the Ukrainian military or take action to destroy the Ukrainian military. It is, you know, the Ukrainian military is much stronger force after eight years of war in the Donbass region, but obviously simply not capable of challenging one of the world's most powerful forces in the Russian army. And we don't have the Air Force or the or the air defences to deal with what we're seeing right now. You know, Mr. Zelensky this morning, the Ukrainian president, in his own speech said, you know, this is an attack on Ukraine's democracy, it's an attack on democracy everywhere. And he compared what Mr. Putin has ordered this morning compared to the invasions that Nazi Germany carried out against its neighbours at the start of the Second World War.

MG: What about the so-called breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine? How much of the population there supports a Russian invasion and how much of that population is opposed to that?

MARK MACKINNON: OK. I mean, the breakaway regions, to be honest with you, are not really the issue right now. Those have been- they don't breakaway in the first place. Those are Russian controlled areas and have been for the last eight years. People there are living in Russian, you know, Kremlin information sphere. So yes, they think that they were a threat because of the Ukrainian army. There is a bunch of staged attacks in recent days and weeks to sort of create a cause, especially for Mr Putin, to use this army that he already had massed around Ukraine, as one Ukrainian former defence minister made a joke the other day, that Ukraine decided apparently decided to wait until they were surrounded on three sides by the Russian army before staging a bunch of attacks. You know, just not know what happened here. So people in the breakaway republics yesterday, they, you know, they broadly believe they were under threat from the Ukrainian army. That's at odds with reality. I was the front line myself twice in recent days and the shelling was all coming from the separatist controlled area into Ukrainian territory. I mean, this is, you know, it's been set up and staged, and now we're seeing what what the plan was all along, I believe.

MG: We know that the G7 is meeting today. Various countries are promising tougher sanctions against Russia in the wake of this invasion. What are Ukrainians looking for from the rest of the world right now?

MARK MACKINNON: Also, the G7, I mean, you know, I understand why in the West, it seems like it's very important to proceed to focus on which sanctions are available and what steps and action they are. And it is important to to sort of in terms of making sure that there's a response that Mr. Putin understands. But I think what you Ukrainians were hoping these sanctions would come before the military action before their country was being torn apart. They're very grateful for military aid that they got from countries like the United States and Britain, and finally, in the end, Canada. But I mean, the NATO's really backed up and drew a red line on the far side of Ukraine. And I think Ukrainians, especially those around me right now, feel rather deserted by the West.

MG: Mark, thank you. Stay safe and appreciate you speaking with us.

MARK MACKINNON: Yeah, a good thank you very much for having me on. I appreciate it.

MG: Mark MacKinnon is a reporter for the Globe and Mail. He was in Kiev in a shelter in the basement of his hotel. Russia and Ukraine's ambassador to the United Nations were both at the U.N. Security Council meeting last night, and in the middle of that meeting, about half an hour into it, Russia's ambassador announced that his country was sending forces into Ukraine. Ukraine's Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya, elite Gaslighter, responded,

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Well, as I said, relinquish your duties as a chair. Call Putin, call Lavrov. Stop aggression. And I welcome the decision of some members of this council. To meet as soon as possible to consider the necessary decision, it would condemn the aggression that you launch on my people. There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell, Ambassador.

MG: There are more than a million people of Ukrainian descent in Canada, and they are following every move in this conflict. Alexandra Chyczij is the national president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. Alexandra, hello.

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: Good morning.

MG: What was your immediate reaction when news of this invasion broke?

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: Oh, there was an aura of disbelief, even though we all knew that it was coming. We, our board of directors, was meeting at the moment when the news started to coming, coming in on our Twitter feeds about bombing throughout Ukraine.

MG: Have you been able to speak with friends or family in Ukraine?

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: Yes, I have been in touch. Some of them are in areas that are under attack. My family is many of them are in Ivanov. Long at the airport there, which has a military base, also was taken out last night.

MG: What are people telling you again? The Ukrainian leadership has asked people to remain calm, but also said that people will be standing up and will defend their country. What are people saying to you about this?

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: They have no choice but to fight now. All diplomatic avenues have failed. And they know that they can only rely on themselves now.

MG: And so when the defence minister calls on citizens to take up arms, you see that happening.

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: Well, Ukrainians have been preparing for that. I think we've all seen the news of territorial defence units, preparing civilians, preparing grandmothers, learning to use weapons because they are determined to defend their homes, their towns, their villages, their cities and the country.

MG: As you said, there was, it seems, an inevitability to this despite Russian denials that an attack was imminent. The tensions have been rising for months. Given that, was this at all a surprise that this would have unfolded?

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: Well, historians will tell you that it is not a surprise and should not have come as a surprise. This is following, well, we can learn the histories of the Second World War, how in 1939 it was Poland that was invaded. This time it's Ukraine. And historians will tell you that this is not going to stop with Ukraine. This will threaten the rest of the world. And that's why we are calling upon any nation that truly believes in the right of Ukraine or any other nation to its sovereignty and territorial integrity. The world must act now.

MG: Do you see this as an attack on democracy itself?

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: Absolutely. It has been partially about Ukraine, about Putin's ambitions, around reconstituting the former Soviet and Russian Empire. But this is, there is no doubt that this is a threat to democracy in the world.

MG: As I mentioned, there are more than a million Canadians of Ukrainian descent here in this country. What are members of that community here doing to help those who are stuck in the midst of this conflict?

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: We have focussed our efforts around humanitarian aid. The Ukrainian Canadian Congress, along with the Canada Ukraine Foundation, has established the Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal. Yesterday, we received a very generous donation from the government of Alberta and the amount of $1 million. Other governments, like the government of Saskatchewan, have stepped up. We're waiting word from others. Some of our philanthropists in our community have also stepped up to the plate, and we will be delivering that aid through an agency in Ukraine. Unfortunately, Ukrainians have a lot of experience with the delivery of humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

MG: What specifically would be the need right now? Where would that money be going and where? What specifically are people on the ground desperately looking for now?

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: Well, we're foreseeing it. Perhaps today these conditions don't exist, but we foresee the need to secure food, medicine and medical supplies.

MG: There has also and Mark MacKinnon was hinting about this when he's talking about the roads being jammed out of Kiev. There has been real concern around a refugee crisis and people fleeing Ukraine to neighbouring countries. What are you hearing about that?

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: I think that's what Mark is seeing on the roads. Everyone who can leave the cities that are being attacked is doing so. We spoke with Minister Sean Fraser yesterday. Canada has anticipated evacuation points along the western border of Ukraine and that sooner or later that will start happening.

MG: That being Canada removing and evacuating citizens from Ukraine?

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: Well, yes, I think we will see a flight of Ukrainian citizens into Western European countries. Poland apparently has agreed to accept up to one million refugees and then ultimately the international community will have to deal with those refugees. And Canada, of course we know, will step up to the plate. But more immediately, I think right now, the international community must deliver the sanctions from hell, as President Biden has said, and provide Ukraine with some ability to defend itself from the air. That is Ukraine's weak point. So provision of anti-air systems and of course, to deal with to make Putin and his cronies in the Kremlin the international pariahs that they are. Ambassador Bob Rae, our ambassador to the UN, spoke about the responsibility to protect that exists under the UN Genocide Convention. And what we see here is the beginning of a genocide. Putin has declared his intention to destroy the Ukrainian people, and he is now acting upon. And the world must prevent a second genocide from happening in Ukraine.

MG: So those are that's very strong language and saying that this is the beginning of a genocide, what would lead you to say that?

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: Because it meets all the requirements under the international definition of genocide, which is the intention to destroy a people in whole or in part?

MG: And is that what you believe? Vladimir Putin has said that he wants to demilitarise Ukraine, but he has no plans to occupy the country.

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: Well, anyone who believes what Putin says, does so at their own risk.

MG: What specifically do you want to hear from the international community? Leaders are beginning to speak around the world in the wake of this, and certainly there will be further responses from Canada and from the United States. What specifically do you want to hear from them?

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: Well, as I've said, we want to hear that those devastating economic sanctions be imposed today. We expected that that would happen yesterday. And to some extent, Putin takes his signals from the West. He has been allowed over the last 20 years to increasingly encroach upon territories of other countries. He did it in Georgia, he did it in Ukraine. He's done it in Moldova. He's been allowed to behave like an international terrorist that he is, committing crimes on the territory of sovereign countries like the poisonings of Lehtonen and the Skripals in the UK. And it's time the world stopped him.

MG: Why do you believe the sanctions will have any effect?

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: Well, it's all we've got left. Unless the West is prepared to assist militarily, that is the only weapon that the West has left.

MG: Would you like to see the West, would you like to see NATO's or other countries send troops in to fight with Ukraine?

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: Look, Putin has the world by the throat, he has already threatened a nuclear response to any country or nation that seeks to help Ukraine. But if the world believes that Putin is going to stop at Ukraine, I believe it does so at its own peril.

MG: What's at stake here?

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: The international world order, this is- history has changed forever.

MG: Tell me more about that just in the last minute or so that we have that to say that history has changed forever.

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: So the Europe that was whole, free and at peace ended yesterday when Russia attacked Ukraine. And so the free world must rally to prevent and stop Putin. He will not- We do not believe that he is going to stop at the borders of Ukraine.

MG: And you want to see a commensurate response from the international community.

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: Well, sooner or later, the international community will have to respond because the provocation will continue. And if Ukraine is allowed to fall, then Putin will understand that the West is not prepared to respond to him.

MG: And is there a peaceful solution out of this now or is that is it too late for that?

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: I believe that time has passed, Putin is a bully. He understands strength. He is not afraid or says he is not afraid of our sanctions. He has been preparing economically for that. Eventually, the international sanctions will wear him down, but that will take time. It's not going to happen overnight. And right now, Ukrainian lives are at risk.

MG: Alexandra, it's good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

ALEXANDRA CHYCZIJ: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Alexandra Chyczij is the national president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress or CBC. News is next with the latest on this story, and then we'll continue our coverage of the attack on Ukraine. Bob Rae, Canada's ambassador to the U.N., Alexandra referenced him. He'll be here to talk about what the international community can and should do. We'll also hear from a historian about how we got to this point. That's coming up in about six minutes. My name is Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

A special edition looking at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – Part 2

Guests: Bob Rae, Roland Paris

MG: Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

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MG: We are focussing on the biggest story in the world this morning: Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Overnight, Russian troops breached Ukraine's border and began a far ranging assault on targets all over that country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has declared martial law and promised We're ready for anything. Will defeat everyone because we are Ukraine. We'll spend this morning talking about what's happening and how the world is and should respond. We begin with the view from the United Nations.

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MG: Bob Rae is Canada's ambassador to the United Nations ambassador. Good morning.

BOB RAE: Good morning, Matt.

MG: There were extraordinary scenes at the U.N. Security Council last night. The Ukrainian ambassador was speaking directly with the Russian ambassador in real time about what was taking place as the invasion was beginning. Had you ever seen anything like that before?

BOB RAE: No simple answer. I think it was unprecedented because the meeting had been called as an emergency and it was the second meeting in a week. And obviously after a quite emotional day in the General Assembly. And I think everybody was stunned that the Russians were in the middle that just just as this is all happening, that would be when they when the invasion would take place. But it also, I think, shows the extent to which lying and duplicity have been have been elevated to an art form by what's taken place.

MG: On Twitter last night. You said Vladimir Putin is a war criminal. That's a very strong language. Why did you use it?

BOB RAE: Because he's killing civilians, and it's an unprovoked attack on an innocent people. I don't know how else you describe it. What he has done is a breach of every international law, the charter, but also the way in which they're conducting themselves is is is going to lead to massive destruction of life and creating millions of refugees, creating huge hardship for for the people of Ukraine and also for the people of the world. And he will have to live with the consequences of what he's doing.

MG: Do you believe this is an attack not just on Ukraine, but on democracy itself?

BOB RAE: I do. I think it's an attack on democracy, I think it's most from a U.N. perspective, it's an attack on the very fundamental principles of United Nations that all nations are equal, that powerful nations don't have the right to attack smaller nations because they're smaller, because they don't agree with them. And there were great hopes at the end of the Second World War that there would be a new a new order that would be based on the rule of law. That's obviously been shattered in a number of places and times in ways since 1945. But this action by a permanent member of the U.N. is in direct conflict with with a neighbour isan assault on a lot of things and including democracy itself, because it's very clear that what Putin fears more than anything is the fact that when given a chance to succeed people like democracy, they like social democracy, liberal democracy, that's what they like. And he clearly wants to make the world safe for autocracy. And that's what this is, what his efforts are all about.

MG: What exactly can the United Nations do in this scenario again? The Russian ambassador announced in the midst of this emergency meeting that the invasion has begun. Russia has a veto on the Security Council. And so what exactly could the U.N. do?

BOB RAE: Well, the veto is is the poisoned chalice of the structure of the U.N. and the fact that the Russians can use it and various countries can use it. The five permanent members means that there are many, many situations where the Security Council can't get authorise, the kind of necessary response that it can authorise in other situations. And that's a real structural failure of the system. The U.N. General Assembly still has some residual powers, and we're going to see how we can mobilise those in the next few days in the face of the Security Council not being able to do to do much. And that, I think, will provide us with an opportunity to see whether what extent we can put more pressure on the Russians to change course. The sanctions are not going to be carried out by the Security Council. Security Council sanctions are the most effective because the Russians would veto them, obviously, as the. Nevertheless, there is the sanctions policies being carried out by by the G7 and by the G20 and by the EU, and by the British and all governments of our governments and others that we'll see what impact that has and how and how serious the sanctions are. And frankly, we'll have to see how serious all together, what the what that impact is. But as for a military response that that's not going to come from the United Nations, do you

MG: believe that sanctions work? I spoke with the Russian ambassador to Canada a few weeks ago, and he said sanctions never work and they won't work in this instance.

BOB RAE: Well, it's not true that they never work. They do work in some situations and some have some impacts. I think if you ask the South Africans, they would tell you that they had a major impact on ending apartheid. There were other examples. But in order for them to work, they have to be strong and they have to be universally applied and they have to be and a direct assault on the power structure in the in the country in question. And the real issue is that what's going to happen if we had the sanctions were strong enough, I think they would have a very serious effect. But we'll just have to see what what is decided amongst all those countries that are going to be imposing sanctions and how effective they will be if you

MG: believe that Vladimir Putin is a war criminal. What sort of response does that demand? What sort of response to do his actions demand?

BOB RAE: Well, I think it's going to require a lot of a lot of discussion within a number of countries that what more can be done. I mean, I do believe that what he is doing and what he has done, not only in Ukraine, but in Georgia, in Syria and elsewhere, really does pose a threat to the peace and security of the world. And the whole premise of collective security is that is that we don't let these things get out of hand and I think they are getting out of hand. But I think that's something that we're all going to have to reflect on in the in the next to that in the days ahead. We may not have much time to do so well to reflect seriously on it.

MG: It speaks to how we got to this point. I mean, there was a former German defence minister who tweeted this morning, I'm so angry at ourselves for our historical failure after Georgia, Crimea and Donbass. We have not prepared anything that would have really deterred Putin. What do you make of those comments?

BOB RAE: Well, I don't think this is necessarily the time for us to look back and say, you know, to do a history class and say, this is what happened. It didn't happen. I don't have the luxury of doing that. I think what we have to do now is learn from our experience. But we have to apply it in new ways. What I've tried to call out as clearly as I can is that this takes us into what I would call rogue territory, where you have an individual swaggering around saying not only am I going to do this, also, if anybody tries to interfere with my doing it, then they will pay a price that has never been paid before in human history, which is almost word for word, what President Putin said said yesterday. And that really does take us into the into the despot world, the world that ironically. For a guy who says he's one of the purposes of his mission in Ukraine is de-Nazification. He is he is reflecting what we associate with with with the 30s and 40s, with what the Nazis and what Hitler was all about. It was the- It's that's this is the territory that Vladimir Putin is now entered and it's the end. It's it's the territory of a despot and it is it's a it's a terrible legacy that he's leaving for his people and he's leaving for the for his neighbours and for the rest of the world. It's this is going to be a very, very tough period in world history and it's it we have to ascribe it to what President Putin has decided he can do. And it's having terrible consequences.

MG: And again, I take your point about not having a history lesson. But I guess the the question is whether, given what we have seen already, has diplomacy failed us here?

BOB RAE: Well, diplomacy doesn't. Diplomacy is the human structure. War fails us, too, I mean, all we can do is apply the lessons that we need to learn, and that is if you don't stand up to dictators, you pay a heavy price. And that, I think, is a true lesson from history. You have to stand up to these despots and dictators who who flagrantly ignore the rule of law and and who rant and rave about how they're going to beat anybody up who crosses a line. This is this is what we have to stand up to. And if we fail to stand up to it, we'll pay a heavy price next time. And that's that's surely something we could all learn and apply in it. How we respond politically, diplomatically and in every other way to to what I see is as an assault on not only on Ukraine, not only on democracy, but on an ordered world in which we've tried to create over the last 75 years.

MG: What needs to be the message from Canada this morning

BOB RAE: that we are clear, a clear and active partner with Ukraine, that we are clear, an active partner with with our allies, and that we're going to stand up to in the face of these terrible decisions that have been made by President Putin.

MG: And do you think Putin cares what Canada says for the rest of the world, cares.

BOB RAE: I think that he'll have to care because I don't think that it's possible in the world to conduct yourself in a way where you think you can control all the consequences and there are no other consequences. It's up to us not to threaten it, but to do it's what we do in the next over the next days and weeks months that's going to determine what the outcome will be. And that's really what we have to think about more and more clearly is what are we going to do to stop this process, this dictatorship in its tracks? And that's something we all have to take very seriously.

MG: Paul Barry, good to speak with you, as always. Thank you very much.

BOB RAE: Thanks a lot, Matt. Good to talk to you.

MG: Bob Ray, Canada's ambassador to the United Nations role, Roland Paris is the director of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. Former senior adviser on foreign policy to the Prime Minister of Canada. Roland Paris, good morning to you.

ROLAND PARIS: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Are you at all surprised by what's unfolding?

ROLAND PARIS: Not surprised because Putin has been building up towards this moment, so obviously for the last several months, but surprise in the sense that what we've witnessed is, as Barbara was just suggesting a reminder of the worst of European history, the kind of behaviour that many thought that we or hoped that we would never see again. And I suspect that historians will look at this moment as a milestone in modern European, if not world history, as a moment symbolising the end of Europe's post-Cold War security order and the start of something else, but still unclear.

MG: What's different this time? I mean, Russia has had troops on the Ukrainian border before and then pulled back, at least partly. What's different about what we've seen in the last several hours?

ROLAND PARIS: The scale and the brazenness of it. If you compare this to 2014, when Russia had denied that it was involved in the intervention in Ukraine, it had its so-called little green men turned out to be Russian special operations troops who had no insignia. It was all done as a kind of subterfuge operation. And it was limited in scope. What we've seen now is Putin brazenly, in a way that's completely unpremeditated, simply declare war, a war of conquest, on his neighbour. And that's precisely what it is because he won't stop, I believe, until there is a puppet regime in power in Kiev. And until Ukraine is under the thumb of of Russia.

MG: what do you make of what I was speaking with Bob Rae about in terms of what unfolded last night at the Security Council, where as the meeting, an emergency meeting is unfolding, the Russian ambassador says the invasion has begun?

ROLAND PARIS: I was watching that, and part of me was following the events as they were unfolding. Another part of me was thinking about how this gets written about in history books, and it was quite a dramatic moment. But beyond the drama, the sheer it was just another indication of Putin's contempt for the the the the concerns and the horror at at his own behaviour that he would he would effectively broadcast what was apparently a pre-recorded message of his declaration of war in the middle of a United Nations Security Council emergency session. Now, nobody expects the United Nations Security Council in and of itself to be able to stop a major power from doing something. But the still the symbolism of him doing this at that time and the symbolism of the frustration of those around the Security Council captured that moment in world politics.

MG: And so yesterday you tweeted that if Putin launches a further invasion of Ukraine, as seems likely now, it will be a milestone in modern European and world history and events that future historians will use to symbolise the end of Europe's post-Cold War security order and the start of something else. What are we entering into?

ROLAND PARIS: Well, you know, you think about the Cold War period lasted about 40 years, and for those of your listeners who were around and awake at the end of the Cold War, there was a sense that that period was definitively over, that Russia would no longer pose a threat to Europe, that many of the countries that had been part of the Warsaw Pact, or countries that had gained independence that had been part of the Soviet Union, could choose their own path forward. That Naito was more of a mutual reassurance mechanism rather than an external defence mechanism that the European Union represented a kind of community of nations that had moved beyond the prospect of war. That all of that those feelings, those thoughts that kind of defined the immediate cold post-Cold War period, that that's gone now. And what comes next is unclear. But I think that there's no denying the threat that Putin continues to pose, particularly to territories in Europe that had been part of the Soviet Union. And I'm talking about the three Baltic countries here and even potentially countries beyond that that he may see seek to disrupt. And that's what he's going to continue doing disrupting, trying to divide, trying to undermine. He is resentful that resent resentment came through so clearly in his recent speeches. He is angry. He wants to regain the glory of Russia. This is an imperial move. He is, in effect, reconstituting a kind of Russian empire.

MG: I was going to say I spoke with the Latvian prime minister and one of the things he said was in many ways, if Ukraine falls than those Baltic states could be next. But also, he said specifically that this is about reconstituting an empire.

ROLAND PARIS: I think there's no doubt there's imperial thinking in Putin's mind. It has been appearing more and more over the last decade in his speeches, and it was just brazen and blatant in the speech that he gave on Monday, a long harangue, but also a stylised history lesson that was basically saying that the collapse of the Soviet Union again, as he said before, was a great historical tragedy and talking about Russia's greatness. And at this point, all of this makes it all the more important for the countries of NATO to reinforce all of their members so that those members can have the reassurance of knowing that all of NATO's stands with them. And Russia understands that there is real deterrence in terms of trying to disrupt or, you know, even worse within NATO countries.

MG: Let's talk about the response. Leaders like Joe Biden and Boris Johnson have apparently already spoken with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And after that, Boris Johnson addressed the British people. Take a listen to what he said.

SOUNDCLIP

Ukraine is a country that for decades has enjoyed freedom and democracy and the right to choose its own destiny. We and the world cannot allow that freedom just to be snuffed out. We cannot and will not just look away.

MG: Roland Paris, what does Ukraine need to hear right now?

ROLAND PARIS: Well, Ukraine would like would like to have the West come to its military defence, but that is not going to happen. Joe Biden and every other member of NATO have been saying that they're not going to go to war against Russia over Ukraine. And short of being willing to go to war against Russia over Ukraine, economic sanctions and other methods that can be used to increase the costs for Vladimir Putin are unlikely to dislodge him from Ukraine if he has knowingly made the decision to do a full scale invasion of Ukraine, which appears to be the case and has been told again and again by Joe Biden and others the kinds of costs that Russia would face, and they will face enormous costs. He's already in effect, baked in the cost that Russia will face into his decision to invade. However, it's so important that those costs be as high as possible, and that's why we need to be looking over the next day at what countries are doing in terms of economic sanctions. Very severe ones, I would hope to see on cutting off Russian banks entirely from the international financial system. Cutting off Russian access to advanced technologies. Of course, this gigantic gas pipeline, the Nord Stream two, I think that that's dead. But, you know, depending on what happens in the fighting in Ukraine, if the Ukrainian armed forces are against all hope able to sustain themselves in some way, then there may be ways of covertly supporting resistance within Ukraine as well. In the meantime, we also need to be reinforcing NATO, and that's something that Canada has been doing of late.

MG: Are you confident that those sanctions and again, we'll hear more about the as Joe Biden has called them, sanctions from hell that are going to be announced later on today? But are you confident that those will actually bite, that those will actually do what sanctions in past have not done?

ROLAND PARIS: Well, you know, as I said, I don't think sanctions alone are going to force Vladimir Putin to declare the end of his military intervention in Ukraine and withdraw. However, sanctions could put an enormous pressure on the Russian economy and on Russians themselves. And, you know, the U.S. and its allies have been negotiating for weeks about what will happen if Russia invades now. What we'll see over the next day probably is how much of those negotiations actually bear fruit and how strong those sanctions will be. And it's vitally important that the sanctions be strong, not just because of Ukraine, but because Russia has been going step by step by step in terms of chipping away at lines that have been drawn. And now there can be no doubt about the danger that Russia poses. So we will see over the coming days. But Putin is also had the time to prepare for these sanctions. He knows the kind of sanctions he's likely to be hit with, and I expect that he's trying to find he's already has in place ways to mitigate them in part.

MG: This feels, I mean, the scale of this really feels like something, doesn't it?

ROLAND PARIS: Yes, it is. There's no question about it, it's we've broken through a barrier here and and we're not turning back to the way that Europe was before. And that doesn't mean that there's the prospect of a larger war in Europe, but it does mean that the way we think about European security won't be the same going forward. And I expect and hope that we'll see a repositioning of of Naito and of European countries so that they're in a position to resist Russia's ongoing attempts to divide and disrupt the West and to demoralise democracies. Because this is not just an expression of Putin's resentment towards the West and his irritation and anger with the what he sees as the upstart Ukrainians for wanting to choose their own path. It is, as Bob Rae was mentioning, a reflection of his fear of democracy movements. He has an interest in undermining democracy. We have to see that very clearly, and we have to defend ourselves.

MG: Roland Paris, good to speak with you again. Thank you very much.

ROLAND PARIS: Thank you.

MG: Roland Paris is director of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. Coming up after your regional update, more on Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We'll hear from longtime CBC producer Alex SuperSprint, who has been studying Russia and knows some of what's going on, certainly within the Russian people and how they are reacting to this invasion. We'll get his thoughts coming up in just a few moments. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. Back in 90 seconds. Stay with us.

A special edition looking at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – Part 3

Guests: Alex Shprinsten

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current, this is a special edition of the programme on the attack on Ukraine. Joining me now is Alex Brinson. He is a CBC producer and documentary film maker. Alex, hello. Alex, are you there? Looking to speak with Alex Shprinsten, and we're just going to get him back on the line to get the latest on what's going on, Alex, are you there now? Hello. Hello, Alex. Can you hear me? Yes.

ALEX SHPRINSTEN: Great, I can hear you. I could just disappeared for a second.

MG: Not a problem. Thank you very much for joining us. I know it's a very busy time. What's your reactiono what you're learning about and seeing in the last several hours?

ALEX SHPRINSTEN: Well, it's horror. Absolute horror. There's no other word for it. I mean, we're talking about a 21st century, a country attacking its neighbour. And it's a very big country. Lots of people are going to die if this continues this way. There's no that's the biggest problem.

MG: What are you hearing? I know that you have family in Kharkiv, and that's one of the cities that is under attack. What are you hearing?

ALEX SHPRINSTEN: Well, I spoke to I have cousins there, they seem to be safe at the time that I spoke. I actually talked to I have classmates, I grew up in parking lot. I left when I was 12 years old, so I I've stayed in touch with my classmates. One of my classmates told me she I've literally watched a missile with my above her. It's a there's an apartment building just outside Hakim that was hit very close to a military airport, that's probably what they were after. But the Russians over the years, whether it's the war in Afghanistan or the war in Chechnya, have not been very accurate at times. And so even if they, as they claim right now, they're just trying to hit specific targets doesn't mean they're going to do it. I mean, they hit a large apartment building just outside.

MG: We spoke with a reporter on the ground who said that people in Ukraine in some ways feel abandoned by the world. And if you were on social media last night, you were able to see in real time people who were staying up all night who knew felt as though something was coming and felt as though they had to be awake because they knew of the inevitability of this. Is your sense that people there feel abandoned by the world?

ALEX SHPRINSTEN: They do feel abandoned. They feel abandoned, largely because of what while on one hand the West has spoken, stopped a very good game. The West is not in a position to help them militarily. They're not part of Natal. And without that, it certainly has been said repeatedly by by the Americans and by the Europeans that they will not be sending troops. And in their minds, that is the only way to withstand it simply because of Russia's, you know, as much as Ukrainian army has actually become much stronger over the last eight years. Russia has a much larger and more modern army. So it's they're on their own, and the other the other thing is that there's a certain degree of scepticism in Ukraine about the sanction. The West didn't do very much eight years ago after Russia to Crimea, after they started through its proxy, the war in Danbas. And that's. And Ukrainians feel that the sanctions that are being promised just around the corner should have been put in much earlier deterrents. And so they they have good reason to be sceptical.

MG: What about people in Russia, what is your sense of what they make of this and are they supportive of what their president has done?

ALEX SHPRINSTEN: It's very hard to know when you over the last, I've actually been watching very carefully. Russian propaganda shows because we're actually doing a story tonight on the national on that. The Russians are almost in denial whenever they're asked or saying, there is no I'm saying the present tense, this is a few days ago, three days ago, two days ago. There is no way that Russia is going to invade Ukraine. There's no way we can fight a war. We were neighbours were the same people as Putin put it in his address at the same time. Russian propaganda shows are showing Ukrainians as less than human, they are claiming that the Ukrainian language is not a real language, that Ukraine is not a real country, it's never been a real country that Ukraine is full of Nazis, despite the fact that its president is Jewish and there is a kind of demonising of the Ukrainian regime, while at the same time talking about how wonderful the people are now. When you have that kind of propaganda and that propaganda essentially started this particular brand of it about Ukraine eight years ago. It tends to work at a certain point. So there is, for example, I have my wife has relatives in Moscow who are seemingly reasonably educated people and thoughtful people. And when we speak to them, they buy into this. They buy into the idea that, for example, Ukrainians are doing something horrible and then but that they're committing genocide. There's no record of that. There is no proof of that. There's nothing that even remotely suggests that. And yet when you repeat something, many, many times we've seen this or many examples in history going back to the very country where this is happening, the Soviet Union, where this worked. And so while we can't know what would happen if, for example, Putin somehow lost power entirely possible that that happens, we suddenly discover that they didn't believe it. But at this stage, whether they believe it or not, they're not interested in resisting any of this. And I think that's the key thing.

MG: So when you hear some opposition figures calling for Russians to come out onto the streets and protest against this war, one of those opposition figures now says that she was arrested. You see that as unlikely.

ALEX SHPRINSTEN: Well, I think that there might be a few dozen people, I mean, there was one when the Soviet Union dated Czechoslovakia 1968, eight people came out onto Red Square. They were immediately arrested in prison and the regime right now is not very different from that. So there probably will be a few brave souls in various cities. But there is nothing. There's no mass movement. It is inconceivable to think that's going to happen.

MG: We've been talking about why this is unfolding right now and as you understand it from the work that you have done and the the research that you have been involved in. What do you think is is is Putin's mindset here? Why is he doing this now?

ALEX SHPRINSTEN: Well, it's you know, I knew that he'd probably be doing something else. It's very, I can tell you this. I've been watching Putin for 23 years, since he has been in power, and I've particularly been watching very intently in the last, let's say, three or four weeks. And there is a kind of he's like a man possessed. There is a strange feeling about him. He's not this- This is not- It doesn't seem like a rational move. He's just decided that he was going to do this. He wrote a very long 5000 word essay which talked about Ukraine and 17th century trying to prove. And I put the quotes around that that Ukraine and Russia are the same people. One of the reasons that a lot of people think, and I think it's a very plausible one, is that Putin's greatest fear is, because it's an authoritarian regime that's illegitimate. There is no, there's no, there are no free elections. There's no democracy. People like that tend to be dethroned by people around them or by the people, and he has seen what has happened with Saddam Hussein. He's seen what happens with Ceausescu in Romania. He's seen what happened with Gadhafi, and he's obviously seeing what happened in Ukraine. And I think his biggest fear is that this is going to happen to him and Ukraine being a similar country to Russia, even though it's not the same people, but it is similar. They speak similar languages. They they do have some history together. If Russians were to see a successful Ukraine, a prosperous Ukraine, it isn't at this stage, but it is a democracy. If Russians were to see that, they would get the wrong kind of ideas and this is what haunts Putin, probably every single day. Now there are other guesses as to the imperial ambitions of Putin, I don't know, I sometimes think that those kinds of things are just projected because people are struggling to understand something that is incomprehensible, why a country just out of the blue for no reason whatsoever would invade another one and risk putting aside the fact that a lot of Ukrainians are going to be killed, that they're going to be Russian soldiers, they're going to be killed. So that's the most I can give you.

MG: At this point, then, given that what do you think it would take to stop this invasion?

ALEX SHPRINSTEN: It's very difficult to imagine anything happening in the in the short term. I mean, sanctions, as your previous guest mentioned, they are there, they would be useful. You've got to just because it's the right thing to do. You have to deter you try to punish. But it's very difficult to imagine that Putin has not calculated to some degree the fact that the idea that the West will sanction Russia, which the kind of sanctions that are being discussed are going to hurt Russian people. It's not something that Putin or the people in his entourage care that much about. They're not accountable to any elections. They don't have to. There's no feedback. However, obviously over a course of time, I don't know could be years. It's very unpredictable how things happen in places like Russia. But it could. It would be a kind of attrition and there could be people from inside a kind of palace coup, which is much, much more likely than anything, any sort of rebellion from the people themselves. But the truth is that the only way that this can be stopped is if there was a stronger force fighting leaving, if NATO's help in some way with more weapons, possibly even with troops, but that's not going to happen, so it's if he could stop on his own. One thing, by the way, that we don't know is What is this? What are his intentions? We don't know. We really don't know it. Maybe when he went to Georgia in 2008. What he did was he bombed for a few days. He went into the capital and then he left. He taught them a lesson, so to speak. And then he started negotiating with them, and it's a possibility he'll do this too. We don't know the logic of war as such that it's very difficult to predict how it'll turn.

MG: Alex, I appreciate this. Good to speak with you and thank you very much, we'll be watching.

ALEX SHPRINSTEN: Sure. My pleasure.

MG: Alex Shprinsten is a CBC producer and documentary filmmaker. He was in Washington, D.C., this morning.

To understand Russia's invasion of Ukraine, look to the Soviet Union's breakup, says professor

Guests: Paul D’Anieri

SOUNDCLIP

[Foreign speech]

MG: Ukraine is not just a neighbouring country, says Vladimir Putin. It is an integral part of Russian history, culture and spiritual continuum. Russia's president made those remarks in an almost hours long televised address on Monday, two days before launching an attack on Ukraine. Paul D'Anieri is a professor of political science at the University of California, Riverside and the author of Ukraine and Russia From Civilised Divorce to Uncivil War. Paul, good morning.

PAUL D'ANIERI: Good morning.

MG: What are you thinking as you're watching events unfold this morning?

PAUL D'ANIERI: You know, your previous guest said horror, and I think that's the word I was would use as well. This is a disaster. It's a and it's a tragedy. You lived in Ukraine and in eventually for Russia

MG: when you lived in Kiev as well.

PAUL D'ANIERI: I've spent a lot of time in Kiev and I lived in for a year in Vif in the western part of the country. Right.

MG: And so to see those cities again in the crosshairs must be incredibly unsettling for you.

PAUL D'ANIERI: It's it's very disturbing, you know, you know, people there and you're emailing with them or texting and you're just hoping people will be safe. But you know that a lot of people are going to not be safe.

MG: Vladimir Putin has said that he launched the attack on Russia to demilitarise the the community in Ukraine and that he does not plan to occupy Ukrainian territory. And yet we heard on Monday one of the key points that he was making in that speech was that Ukraine is really part of Russia, that its creation as an independent country is somehow illegitimate. Tell me more about this. How do we how do we read his words in the context of what we're seeing right now?

PAUL D'ANIERI: Yeah, it's very difficult. And as you pointed out, there's sort of this contradiction between this incredibly expansive notion of Russia's ownership of Ukraine that he gave us in that speech on Monday night, and that he's expressed previously with what he's saying now, which is, this is, you know, an intervention. It's not about occupation. He has a strange habit of sometimes saying exactly what he intends to do and sometimes being incredibly dishonest about what he intends to do and sorting out the truth from the falsehood is is quite difficult.

MG: In that speech, he said, it should be noted that Ukraine actually never had stable traditions of real statehood. Where does that narrative come from that Ukraine isn't really a country?

PAUL D'ANIERI: It's a pretty standard Russian perspective that that alludes to the history that over the centuries, Ukraine was repeatedly invaded and captured by outside actors, generally by the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union, but also going back centuries by the Polish, Lithuanian Commonwealth and actually the western third of the country or so was was part of the Austrian Empire prior to World War One. So there's been an independent Ukrainian culture and people in language going back to the 10th century. But since about the 13th century when the when the the Mongols actually conquered Kiev, other countries have occupied and controlled Ukrainian territory.

MG: So when he talks about Ukraine being integral to Russia. Are there communities in Ukraine that would see the relationship the same way? Obviously, there is a fiercely independent spirit and we're seeing that come out now in the wake of this invasion. But are there people in Russia, in Ukraine who see that relationship the same way with Russia?

PAUL D'ANIERI: There are. It's a relatively small number, and it's gotten much smaller since 2014, in part because the people who felt that way live tend to live either in Crimea or in the places that Russia invaded in 2014, but also because, you know, many people in Ukraine had a sort of an attitude that is we're Ukrainians and we want to be in our separate country. But we do have historical ties to Russia, and we'd like to have good relations with Russia. There's nothing inherently about being Ukrainian that would necessarily make one hostile to Russia. But what's happened in in through history and especially over the last eight years, has moved a lot of Ukrainians in that direction to basically say, at least for the time being, this is an enemy. This is a country that wants to conquer us.

MG: People are reading that speech that he gave on Monday very carefully, in part because it seemed to telegraph the actions that we're talking about now, but also in terms of its tone. One of the things he said was You want decarbonisation very well. This suit such suits us just fine. But why stop halfway? We are ready to show you what real decarbonisation would mean for Ukraine. What is he talking about there?

PAUL D'ANIERI: I think what he's talking about there is this idea that the the border between Ukraine and Russia, as it exists today, is the border that existed between the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic of of of 1991. That border was drawn by Soviet demographers in the 1920s, when the new Soviet government under Lenin, which was still weak at that time, was trying desperately to convince Ukraine and Ukrainians to to stop fighting against Russian rule. And the idea was, we are going to give you a republic within this larger federation. And that was Lenin's strategy. That's where all the 15 Soviet republics came from that are now the 15 post-Soviet independent states. And and so basically what he's saying is, if you want the communist nation, we're going to erase all those borders that the Soviets put in place that became international borders in 1991. And I should say that the implications are quite far reaching not only for Ukraine then, but for all of Central Asia and for all of the caucuses and for Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which are members.

MG: Were you surprised at how critical he was of Lenin? And it's in terms of that relationship?

PAUL D'ANIERI: He'd said things along this line before, but never quite so stridently. He had said a while back, something to the effect of that when the Soviets created this federal system, they put and I think the word he used was an atom bomb under Russia. And so what he was really expressing more clearly Monday than he has before is this notion of of of really not thinking about going back to pre 1991, but going back to pre 1970. He really established himself as a Russian nationalist and as a Russian imperialist as opposed to a Soviet revanchist.

MG: Tell me more about that because in the book, you make the case that the crisis has its roots in some ways in The Break-Up of the Soviet Union.

PAUL D'ANIERI: It does. I mean, the Soviet Union turned out to be, in many ways, a continuation of the Russian Empire. That was true territorially, but it was also true in a lot of the ways that things got that wrong. A lot of old Czarist institutions got converted into into Soviet institutions and the Soviets, especially when things got tough during during World War Two. They they started trying to merge Soviet ideology with traditional Russian nationalism as a way of motivating people during the war. And so when the Soviet Union collapses in 1991, there is a sense amongst much of the Russian elite that, well, the Soviet Union has to go, but not Ukraine, and to some extent, not Belarus. And so, you know, Boris Yeltsin, for example, way back just as the Soviet Union is breaking up something that he supported, said, and I'll just read you a quotation real quickly from December 1991, he says, we must, without fail, work out a viewpoint that will prevent our three Slav states, by which he means Russia, Belarus and Ukraine from splitting apart no matter what happens. So that was sort of the most pro-Western pro of our anti-communist leader that that Russia has had in its recent history, still saying, Yeah, but Ukraine's got to stick with us.

MG: So when you hear people like the prime minister of Latvia say that what Putin is doing is trying to reconstitute an empire, it's dismissed by some people. But is that really what's going on here, do you think?

PAUL D'ANIERI: That is at least a part of it, I think, trying to to sort of definitively state what Putin's motivations are. Is a very tricky game and I wouldn't want to go too far. But but certainly rhetorically, that is what he is doing. And I think that on some important level, that does inform him that sense of the natural borders of Russia are in a much different place than where they are right now.

MG: What does that mean, then, for the other countries, that might have been at some point in time under?

PAUL D'ANIERI: I think they should be worried.

MG: And those countries need those countries being countries like Estonia, Lithuania.

PAUL D'ANIERI: Yes. And one of the things that that worries me is if you go to the borders of the Russian Empire up until World War One included much of today's Poland, including the city of Warsaw, it was a much bigger empire than than it is today. So it's hard to know. Do I really see them invading Poland and trying to retake Warsaw? No. But I'll tell you what, a couple of years ago I didn't see this happening either.

MG: The other part of this is going back to the issue of rhetoric and trying to untangle some of the rhetoric. Is that in declaring the attack today, Vladimir Putin said that Russia would d not suffi Ukraine. What does that mean? What is he talking about the Nazi fighting in Ukraine?

PAUL D'ANIERI: Well, it's been a favourite theme of Putin and of the Russian government ever since 1991, but especially since the Orange Revolution in 2004 that Ukraine is full of Nazis and it was a favourite theme of of the Soviets, as well as a way of quelling Ukrainian nationalism. And of course, Ukrainian nationalism was a problem in the 1950s, in the 1960s and so on for the Soviets. At the end of World War Two, after the Soviet Union pushed out the Germans and occupied Berlin. Ukrainian nationalists fought a an insurgency against Soviet reoccupation that the Soviets didn't completely extinguish until 1950. And here but here's where the Nazi thing comes in, because it's one of these things, right? There's just this little tiny grain of historical truth that he then builds this vast edifice out of, which is, the Soviets did some pretty horrible things to Ukraine. In the 1930s, roughly five million Ukrainians starved under a Soviet agricultural collectivisation policy and a whole bunch were either just shot or sent off to the gulag. Then Stalin did this deal with Hitler and Hitler invaded western Poland and the Soviet Union, invaded eastern Poland and viciously repressed the Polish population and the Ukrainian population. And what was eastern Poland so that when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941, there were some people who hoped that the Germans were going to be the liberators from the Soviet Union. And so there were some Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with the Nazis, as there were some Russians and there were some Ukrainians, as there were in all of the countries that the Nazis occupied. There were Ukrainians that took part in the Holocaust, and there is a long history of anti-Semitism in the region. But that's pretty ancient history. It's pretty ancient history. But it it it resonates incredibly well with a Russian citizenry for whom World War Two and the fight against Nazis is so incredibly important because that war was both immeasurably for us catastrophic. I think it's hard for us to in North America to realise how catastrophic that war was for Ukraine and Russia, but also then how heroic they felt about it in the end. And so it's very shrewd propaganda on his part, but it's got little connexion to contemporary Ukraine, as I think maybe one of your previous speakers pointed out, Ukraine's president is Jewish, and for a while in 2019, Ukraine was the only country in the world besides Israel that had a Jewish president and prime minister. So I'm not saying there's no anti-Semitism in Ukraine because there's anti-Semitism pretty much everywhere. But Ukraine is not full of Nazis. It's not full of Nazis. But it's a great challenge to make because here I am on on radio talking about Nazis in Ukraine, which is exactly what Putin wants to be doing.

MG: So in the last few minutes that we have understanding his view of this region's history and how that view perhaps has led to the actions that we're seeing right now is de-escalation. It's still possible for what we're seeing right now.

PAUL D'ANIERI: I think the short answer is no, he's all in now. What we don't exactly know what his 'what all in' means. Some of the rhetoric and some of the early indications we have in particular, there's some this attack on this airbase outside of of Kiev, give us a sense that the the goal might be. So far, what it seems is the goal is to simply capture the Kharkiv, which is a major city in eastern Ukraine, and maybe to to get into Kiev enough to depose the government. What the game is after that is hard to say, and here's where- he's obviously very shrewd and he's got a lot of people infiltrated into Ukraine. The big question will be if that's the strategy, can toppling the government give him control of the country? And I'm pretty sceptical about that. And so we'll see. He says he doesn't want to occupy the country.

MG: He also said he also said he wasn't going to invade.

PAUL D'ANIERI: Exactly. So that's either just a whopping lie or it's wishful thinking. And what he's hoping, he may be hoping, that if he topples the government, most Ukrainians will just fall into place because they want to get on with their lives. We will see. We will see. I think there's a small but difficult number of Ukrainians that will in some way or another fight back in some form of insurgency. That's my best guess, and we'll see how that goes.

MG: Paul, good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

PAUL D'ANIERI: Thank you.

MG: Paul D'Anieri is a professor of political science at the University of California, Riverside and the author of Ukraine and Russia From US From Civilised Divorce to On Civil War. We reached him in California that is The Current for this Thursday. And of course, the latest developments on the invasion of Ukraine can be found at cbcnews.ca On CBC News Network. And of course, right here on CBC Radio one, over the course of the day, we'll have more on this tomorrow on The Current. Coming up next on CBC Radio one, it's q and Tom Power is sending off our friend Carol off. She is wrapping up her incredible run hosting as it happens. Of course, that will be the subject of great discussion in terms of what's happening in Ukraine tonight on as it happens. But coming up in a few moments, Carol, we'll talk about the arts and how the arts have a special place on the programme and in her life, providing some balance and a bit of a different way in understanding the world. If you have listened to As It Happens, you'll know that some of the most powerful interviews that they're replaying right now are with artists and musicians who give us some insight into the world that we live in. That conversation with Carol off and Tom Power coming up in just a moment on CBC Radio One. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current, and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

Thursday February 24, 2022 Full Transcript

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