Piecing Together Russia’s Road to War

Welcome to Shield of the Republic a podcast sponsored by The Bulwark and the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, and dedicated to the proposition articulated by Walter Littman during World War two, that a strong and balanced foreign policy is the absolutely necessary shield of our Democratic Republic. I’m Eric Edelman, counselor at the center for strategic and budgetary assessments, a Bulwark contributor and a nonresident fellow at the Miller Center. I’m normally joined by my partner in crime, Elliot Cohen, the Robert d. Ozgood professor of Strategy at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in the early Berkshire of strategy at the center for strategic and international studies, but Elliott is traveling. So I am so lowing today with our very special guest Owen Matthews, who has been a historian, a journalist, author of thrillers, which we’ll get into in a minute.

But also most importantly, the author of the newly released book by HarperCollins Overreached the inside story of Putin’s war against Ukraine. Owen has been not just a historian and a journalist, but he’s been the Moscow correspondent bureau chief for Newsweek and the Istanbul chief as well, I believe. And Owen, welcome to the Shield of the Republic.

Great to be on. Thank you, Eric.

Before we delve into overreach in the book, You’ve spent a lot of time in Russia. You are essentially a native Russian speaker studied at Oxford. But you have a family history and family roots in Russia that could you tell our shield listeners a little bit about how you came to spend so much time in Russia?

Yeah. That that’s I was born and and raised in London, but my mother is indeed Russian or as I used to tell people, and my mother is Russian from Harkiv. No. That’s actually become rather controversial thing to say these days because when my my mother is still with us, I’m glad to say. Was born in nineteen thirty four, Hardikov was the capital of Soviet Ukraine.

So in fact, whether Harkiv is whether you can, in fact, be Russian from Harkiv has become something of a of a cultural war with a new great because as we know, one of the great fault lines which underpins this war is that divide between Russian speakers and Ukrainian speakers in Ukraine and her family, my mother’s family, the b b cups, are actually a really interesting example of how complicated that relationship is between Russia and Ukraine and how complicated it’s been historically. Because the DB curves were a Russian noble family whose involvement in in Ukraine began in the end of the eighteenth century. And one of my ancestors was involved in catching the great’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula when the Crimean, the last Crimean Harm basically surrendered his territory to the Russian empire. Another one was a Russian governor of Kyiv in under Nicholas the first in the eighteen thirties and eighteen forties. But the point of all this history is to demonstrate a really important point, and that was that Kiev, Ukraine and Russia, has have historically been sufficiently culturally close that from the eighteenth century onwards, they had basically interchangeable elites.

In other words, like, you know, senior members of the Ukrainian elite will go on to be courtiers in Saint Petersburg and vice versa, you know, Russians, will come from subpoenasburg and be integrated into the, you know, into the administrative and cultural elite of of Ukraine. But they’re sufficiently different that when the senior, when the imperial dominant partner of Russia becomes weak, then they there’s sufficient difference for them to split. So what we’re talking about is certainly a colonial situation whereby a powerful neighbor, conquers and colonizes a smaller neighbor. But it’s not like England and India. It’s like England and Ireland.

It’s like England and Scotland. You actually have two countries that are actually, you know, rather close, but nonetheless different enough that now, you know, once conflict flares up, you get this what you might call as, you know, the vanity of small differences where it’s not vanity. I mean, people with the Ukrainian take it very seriously. That they that their culture has been suppressed for centuries, which is certainly true, by the way. The Russian empire and the Soviets, the Soviet Union did see danger in Ukrainianness.

But the thing that’s pertinent for the situation today. The important thing about all of this history and why we should be thinking about it today is that there is a significant proportion of modern Ukrainian society that speaks Russian as their first language. Vladimir Zelensky, the president literally speaks Russian at home till he hits. That’s his native language. It’s a native language of up to forty percent of of of Ukrainian people.

And what the war has done is drive a wedge between European, as I said, Russian speakers, and people who identify as Russian. And one of, like, Putin’s major mistakes when he launched that war, is that he didn’t see that there was a difference between those two things. He thought Russian speakers would be pro Russian. That was maybe true before two thousand fourteen when Putin and the next Crimea. But it’s definitely not true now.

I

wanna get into all of that, but I’m just curious Actually, my maternal grandparents were from Odessa and of course were Russian speakers. And if they were alive today and you asked them, I’m sure they would say we were Russians. They they wouldn’t identify themselves as Ukrainian. They left in nineteen nineteen. But I’m curious, did you did you grow up speaking Russian at home because I had two Russian speaking parents, but we were all the children were all encouraged to study French.

Russian became the privileged language of adult communication in our household. And I only started studying Russian when I was in my early thirties on my way to Moscow as a part of the US embassy in the late eighties there. But I’m just curious, did you grow up speaking? Or or did you study cool.

I I did I did grow up. I did grow up speaking in here. So that’s right. And and and my my mother is a is a is a is a was spent a career as a team Russian language and literature. So I had, you know, so I had the full sort of Soviet, you know, style, you know, homeschool experience of having Russian grammar drilled into me.

But that must have been a great asset for you as a journalist, both in your time at the Moscow Times and with Newsweek. In terms of your access to Russian officials and also just Russian citizens in day to day life.

Yes. That’s certainly true. And actually, yes, I I’ve filled an admiration for that there are foreigners that speak near near through in Russian. I frankly didn’t know how they do it from scratch. It’s an amazing different language.

But I have an unfair language, indeed. I have it’s it’s literally my my my mother tongue.

Well, let’s talk a little bit about before the that we get into the war, and I wanna go back to twenty fourteen, but also, obviously, the current war that you write about so brilliantly, frankly, in this book. Talk a little bit about your observation of the evolution of the Putin regime. And quite famously, I worked in a American administration where that president Bush forty three met with inflammatory Putin in two thousand one in the spring in Slovenia and said, I’ve looked into this man’s eyes and seen his soul and I liked what I saw and I could do business with him. And a lot of us winced, frankly, when we heard him say that. But there was a sense of optimism about the Putin regime initially, but it’s gone on a trajectory that has taken Russia in very dark direction.

I’m just curious when did you see this dark direction developing? How did you see the whole trajectory going during your time observing?

It’s interesting. Well, for for a start, we actually need to recognize it’s important to recognize that there is a is a trajectory. That Putin has changed and that actually Putin of the into whose eyes bush looked as a different Putin to the Putin today. Because I think there is a there’s a tendency. I remember having having a big debate argument, I would say, with the rather slow of rather slow Sikorsky, the former former fin Polish interior defense minister.

I’m doing an intelligence squared debate a few months ago. And for people like Sikorsky who have always been extremely hawkish about Putin, he has said you know, basically, I knew that Pouchin was a Russian imperialist from, like, the two thousands. It was clear to me that this, you know, plan of Imperial domination was always Putin’s agenda. Now, actually, I I don’t think that’s the case. I think it’s actually demonstrably not the case.

I don’t think Putin or rather let’s unpack this. Putin was always a Soviet nostalgiaist in certain ways. He always had a sense of grievance about how Russians who have been stuck outside the borders of the Soviet Union were treated. And if anyone knows a single quote from Vladimir Putin, it’s from his statement to the Russian Duma in November two thousand and five when he famously said that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of twentieth century people, but people forget the first half of that sentence. What Putin said back in two thousand five is for the millions of Russians who found themselves trapped outside the borders of their homeland.

Comma, the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of twentieth century. Now that’s a kind of different message. I mean, it’s the the the The point is I think that for a long stretch of Putin’s career, his priority was in fact to be accepted by the West. To be a member of Western Clubs, he was enormously proud and made a huge fast of hosting the g eight. And Petersburg.

He was extremely sensitive always about being sort of left out and not consulted. But nonetheless always, we would continue through, you know, critically perhaps. You always continue to refer to my Western partners. I mean, they that that that that was a long period of business career. I would say probably until about two thousand and thirteen, two thousand twelve.

When Fujian was convinced that that that that that was basically a deal to be done, that there was respect to be one that Puxin could integrate Russia into the world on more on more respectful terms. I think that broke down when he returned from his four year hiatus or third time as president, when Puggen returned as president in two thousand twelve and was fronted with, for the first time in his career, massive popular demonstrations. And I think to him, that was because we I think he’s sincerely convinced. We was sincerely convinced then that this was the work of the State Department. You know, of your colleagues and vice president.

Well, I was out of government then, so I don’t take any responsibility for it. But Yes. It was a certain Clint, I think who he blamed, actually.

Right. Sure. And and for him, this was a clear sign that The West were not willing to accept him on his own terms. And by that time, of course, in two thousand twelve, he’d already invaded Georgia in two thousand and eight. So, you know, already the light of wheels have sort of more or less come off the bus at Corporation.

But nonetheless, the Obama administration did attempt a a final reset with with with with the Gremlin. But the I think the the the change comes when Putin decides that the west wants him gone and his regime over. And from then on who starts to move in a pretty inexorably anti western direction. And the ruling passion. The rulings of fixed idea in his mind, I think is is that he is fighting against a concerted Western plot to overthrow him.

It seems to me that that may be dating it a little late in the sense that In two thousand four, five, with the orange revolution, he clearly has taken it back by the Shinko, Yanacovich election in in two thousand four, and then the protests that put Yushinko force a second running and put Yushchenko in the beginning of the Color Revolution. And then later, his speech to the Duma, which he talks about, Conrad will referring to the United States and then the two thousand seven, of course, Munich, the security conference speech, which also seems like declaration of wars may be too strong, but but certainly a a Jeremiah against the US led, you know, unipolar world. I wonder what you make of the theories of my late colleague Karen Dowysha and Katherine Belton that that really Putin’s regime from the get go is sort of, if not a conspiracy, but a sort of concerted effort by elements of the security services, particularly the KGB, and particularly those around Putin and Saint Petersburg to to take back the Russian state from the hands of the quote unquote Democrats, you know, into whose hands it’s fallen after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Do you do you think that’s too conspiratorial? Or is there some element of truth in that?

No. I I I think I think that’s that’s entirely on the money. I mean, I think it’s it’s very clear that that, you know, right from the the beginning. In fact, even from the days when Putin you know, before Putin makes it to the presidency. Already as prime minister he he surrounds himself off with his closest allies, you know, from the nineteen nineties, politically in the presidential administration then as head of the FSP.

And his prime minister and then his president have been the same tiny bunch of guys who he’s been working with since the nineteen seventies. I mean, that’s really unprecedented in the history of government or barely unprecedented. But actually, a ruling elite would have actually been, you know, known each other for for nearly half a century and worked with a seven, nearly half a century. And the KGB takeover of the state was already complete when Bhutan came to power because he immediately put some of his most powerful. So, you know, in in store, so some of his old Hindi, basically.

Filled the key positions, particularly in the security state with his old cronies. And the difference was that I think in the early two thousands, there was a conflict and and there’s, you know, every administration has has has different voices whether it’s Russian or or whatever it it may be. There was a certain pragmatic. What what has been various is described as sort of, you know, technocratic or Liberals or, I mean, I don’t think we’re liberal. But the people who had generally described as the technocrats in the Beijing regime were at least recognizably post Soviet, unlike Putin himself, and his cronies, Nikolay publishing is the secretary of the security council And, listen, listen, listen, the board we took who said, yeah, has been these these are completely remained in the outlook and that we are doing that in the fundamental ignorance and and lack of understanding or the mechanisms of how the world and the west works.

These are little homeless vedicus people. But they there was there were activists in the room. And I think indeed, you’re right in identifying the the the orange revolutions as a kind of turning point. That sort of was a major trigger for the for the for the for the paranoia. But already, I mean, the the the the Puggen administration in his early two thousand two, two thousand three, when they were they they when they finally when they’re moving against me, Harald Ochoskin, finally arrested him in two thousand three.

You know, already that’s in a pure KGB tactics at work. So there’s never there was never any doubt of whether they were really the the whether the KGB, you know, had had had taken charge. I think there is there is some debate about what they wanted where they wanted to get to. And you mentioned the two thousand seven Munich speech, which indeed was considered a real considered a real landmark moment. It was Putin’s answer to that series of color revolutions, which Putin himself and his his inner circle construed as you know, Western inspired salami tactics to undermine the the the the Russia’s power and influence over it’s near near abroad.

But there’s a really important point, a nontrivial point about the Munich speech is that actually if you read it, you see that what he’s appealing, he’s indeed railing against American hegemony, but he’s appealing to Europe. To make its own arrangements with him. So I mean, it’s it sounds and it seems now, like, you know, after all this sort of storm and drying. It’s like a sort of, you know, but but it’s actually more than a than an obscure historical point. I think the relationship with America broke down long before because he believed that it was America that was exclusively and mostly behind the color revolutions.

I think he held out much more hope that he could build bridges with the Europeans. Because with the repair with the Europeans had obviously obviously a more fraction of a fraction of a fractionalized leadership that he could make deals with individual governments, divide and rule, and so on. So, you know, from right up, basically, think until, you know, more or less twenty twenty when the whole sort of sort of have a launch of events that really that that leads to war. I I I think there was hope that he could do do deals with Europe.

I wanna turn to twenty fourteen and, you know, you’ve mentioned, of course, in two thousand eight, Putin invades Georgia that’s, of course, an immediate aftermath of the Bucharas summit, which debated the question of Georgian and Ukrainian membership in NATO, even though in those days, under president Yanukovic, there was not much of a a push in Ukraine for NATO membership. And the NATO summit came to us after intense debate because there was a lot of opposition to Georgia and Ukraine as potential NATO members. The the actual issue at at stake at the time was whether to give the membership action plan, which had only been awarded to countries that ultimately had become members of NATO to Georgia and Ukraine. The opposition from France and Germany blocked that But the compromise that came up with was to not give them the membership action plan. But in the communicate, state authoritatively that Georgia and Ukraine would someday become members of NATO, which obviously, you know, was like waving a red flag at Putin.

But it seems like the twenty fourteen seizure of Crimea and then destabilization of of Eastern Ukraine, the the Don Bosch, Lugans, and Denejetsk, is really a function of what appears to be Ukraine’s turn towards Europe. It’s not even NATO. It’s it’s the EU that becomes the sort of potential causes belli for Putin. Can you explain to our listeners how all that transpired and how it set the stage for twenty twenty two?

Well, you’ll completely write that to if you if you ask a Russian or if you were to ask Putin, Natus’ aggression agression and it’s indexable expansion are like front and center. It’s the the main thing that they always talk about. But in fact, one of the most revealing quotes from Putin’s inner circle was this guy, which is old of, who’s a former head bodyguard Bhutan who now heads the Russian national guard who who said a a few years ago. Ukraine isn’t important. Ukraine happens to be where the border between Russia and America lies.

So NATO is really a proxy for American expansion in the Russia’s mind. And the problem is that everything that the Russians say about NATO expansion internationally is true. They Nato did expand. There were certain assurances that were given, certainly, not formally, but definitely informally, there’s been a lot of academic writing about this, the sources back in nineteen ninety one. There was undoubtedly some informal assurances given by the United states that NATO would not expand.

It expanded. There was the BUKORA Summit, which indeed declared definitively that NATO would enlarge. And so All those things are factually true. However, what the difference between the the the the the but, you know, what I or most Western commentators would say, was that, actually, in practical terms, I didn’t think there was really any real possibility or probability of you Crane ever joining NATO, not least, because there is actually a in the in the constitution of the North Atlantic future organization, there is a clause that says that no country where disputed borders can join. That so even legally, Ukraine could never join.

So the question becomes why does NATO actually continue to engage so profitably in with with with with Ukraine. And here you sort of really get into the into the thick weeds. Because in fact, the answer is, I mean, you no better than I because of your experience with the defense part, the defense and so on. But there is a distinction between NATO, the rather small Brussels based bureaucracy, and the actual strategic desire of the members of NATO. So, you know, the the the people who are in nature headquarters, you know, have you know, need to push their pens.

They need to think of, you know, this this this this framework of engagement in that program. And and, you know, there’s a lot of, you know, bureaucratic noise that comes up, which gives the impression that NATO is actively expanding. But, actually, unfortunately, and this is something that’s almost impossible to to to to explain to Russians because they dismiss it as as as as as just bluster. But the the the the reality is that, actually, the the the the real engagement of NATO in Ukraine was extremely limited. And when you have that phone call between Trump and Zelensky back in two thousand nineteen where Trump appears to, you know, down in half to to to to draw an equivalence between continued military aid and Zelensky’s help with getting in a deep dish in the desert on Hunter Biden.

How much money are they really talking about? And the answer is four hundred million bucks. So I mean, given that the US spends about over two billion dollars a day on defense. That’s what, like, five hours of US defense spending. It’s like it’s like it super cheap.

Yeah. Yes. I think the the the technical term of art and the Pentagon for that is budget dust.

Budget dust. What exactly? To answer your question about the annexation of Crimea, I think it’s it was clearly, the decision on Putin’s part was made very quickly. There was no real lead up to this. There was no deep need either in Crimea or Russia to an ex Crimea.

It had never been a thing to put it bluntly. It was it was not in any way, in anyone’s consciousness, just to do that. It wasn’t done on a whim. And I think that the proximate cause was indeed in order to stop Ukraine from joining NATO. But actually, I think the primary tactical consideration was to actually prevent a future Ukrainian administration from canceling the lease on Sebastianpok, which is the Russian naval base, which was shared by the way with with between Ukraine and Russia and was on Ukraine and territory, but at least by by Russia.

So the fear of NATO expansion of Ukraine becoming, you know, part of NATO was, you know, obviously, central supporters thinking all along. And by the way, it’s it’s not that massively different from in a Jeff Kennedy’s thinking about Cuba. Commercial missiles and Cuba were functionally or the prospect of Cuba joining the Warsaw pact, by the way, which was discussed. Was considered to be an unacceptable risk to Americans underbelly. So, I mean, the logic is the state.

I I mean, I would say though that the circumstances are somewhat different in the sense that, well, to go back to some of your earlier comments, you know, my my Johns Hopkins colleague Mary Sarati, who would be quite cross with me if I didn’t point out that, you know, a lot of since she’s quoted by by you in the book. That these assurances which Russia got about NATO not expanding one inch to the east were in the context of the unification of Germany. And it wasn’t within the purview of the Bush forty one administration to promise anything about what its successors might do. I was actually a party to the negotiations between Stroke Talbot and the Evgenie Primarkov about the NATO Russia founding act in in nineteen ninety seven that paved the way for the first enlargement of NATO. When it was the attempt was being done to do it in a way that was cooperative with Russia.

And in any event, in the period we’re talking about twenty fourteen, there wasn’t a single US tank in Europe, you know, at the time of the seizure of Crimea. So whatever fever dream Putin had about Ukrainian near term membership in NATO, which as you and I have both been discussing, was not really in the in the cards. It was also in the context of NATO that imposed no military threat, per se, to to Russia. I mean, you can imagine a perceived political threat in the context of all the things we’ve been discussing, but the military threat just wasn’t there.

I think I I’m I’m not sure that Russians would see it that way. Obviously, they didn’t I mean, the the the point is that when you have a country that is, you know, straddles your border without any natural feature or without any kind of natural border. And and shares a is it sixteen hundred kilometer long border with Russia? I mean, it’s an enormous border, land border. When that joins a a military alliance that is literally formed for the purpose of containing you, then it’s not completely unreasonable for the for the for the for the for the for the for the Russians to be concerned about it.

Yeah.

But that was in the that was not on the table. Own. Right? It wasn’t in the cards in in two

Yeah. It wasn’t it wasn’t the the but but they thought that it was, and it and it it’s it was you know, they were they were not totally diluted. I mean, they were you know, the the the the the the the statement of the the booker summit was pretty unequivocal that I Ukraine would eventually join. So the the the question is, you know, what could NATO have done? I mean, if if we just turn this whole debate on its head, at what point could native said, like, oh, you know, sorry we didn’t mean it.

You know, let’s just back off. You know, we’re not gonna do that. The the the the problem is that both sides consider the other to be constantly escalating. And so from the so so so well, the logic that I described about, you know, the view from Russia that they think that NATO is expanding. It’s encroaching.

The view from NATO is precisely the same. What they see is a NATO is is a Russia that’s getting more belligerent. Is building up its troops is in two thousand eight, you know, we have a seminal moment where you have, you know, the invasion of of of of Georgia, of not just this the the breakaway Republics of Georgia, but actually Georgia. Okay. Some tanks on the road to Tbilisi.

I was there. So the the question is, you know and and they And the the whole tragedy of the situation is that it’s it’s it’s a it’s a dialogue of a deaf with both scientists seeing constant escalation on the other’s part. And crucially, the missing part is actually sort of good faith dialogue. On the part of the Kremlin because, actually, as we know, Putin lives in an information bubble. He’s extremely paranoid.

He’s surrounded by people who are actually even anything more paranoid and more aggressive than himself. So you just who were also completely convinced that the the lifelong main adversary I. E. The United States is hell bent on their destruction. And with in that in that context, there’s actually almost nothing realistically, I think, the the the United States or needed could really have done to launch that or to reassure the the the the the Russians.

And especially when you see that kind of complete these sort of looney tunes demands in January and February as discussed in Geneva, which in your, you know, your colleague

Tony Blanco.

Is it is it like Lincoln? Yeah. It’s a but Lincoln and and Lageroff. And, you know, and it’s and it’s completely off the wall. Like, NATO should, like, retreat to nineteen ninety seven positions, two thousand

seven positions,

and it’s completely nuts. So this is nothing close to serious diplomacy. It’s just it’s it’s just in a projection of this sort of constant resistance and anger and resentment against NATO expansion. I would think the one thing that actually could have been done, but I and actually almost was done because this is kind of on the table. In the run up to the two thousand twenty two war was some kind of non native security arrangement for Ukraine.

And Zelensky did indicate clearly that he said that, like, you know, we don’t have to join nature, but we just want to have security guarantees. And that shouldn’t be fine except your interlocutor is not looking for fine. He’s looking for something else. He’s just looking for, you know, more evidence that, you know, his his his his enemy is trying to trick him.

You talk about in the book, I think, you know, brilliantly, sort of, what brought Putin to go to war in in twenty twenty two. I mean, I suppose we could when you say what could NATO have done. I mean, one thing in twenty fourteen, given the fact that Russia had, at that point, violated both its bilateral treaty with Ukraine by seizing Crimea but also the multilateral budapest memorandum, which you talk about in the book. The assurances given to Ukraine when Ukraine gave up its claim and it was a claim because nuclear weapons left on its territory after the breakup of the Soviet Union still remained in the hands of the Russian strategic rocket forces. But there could have been a war in in, you know, nineteen ninety two or ninety three over these weapons as they were being, you know, withdrawn.

There was an agreement the Russians violated it. Could NATO, the US, NATO, the West, responded more firmly to What happened in twenty fourteen? Would that have made a difference, do you think?

Sure. Of course, it would have. I I think yes, it would have. But, again, it’s we we we get into that sort of, you know, high school history debate, you know, at what point, you know, should should should the allies have stopped or should the French have stopped the Germans much into the world? You know, should we have, you know, stood up drawn the line of the sedating line.

Should we be drawing a drawn line of muting and so on I I I I I I I I checked the you know, at what point could you have stopped I think the the as a historian, I’m rather wary of historical knowledge. So, yeah, I I I don’t think I don’t think it is actually a particularly good historical knowledge because you know, Hitler had had his plan for reversing Versailles and winning his Libens realm. You know, right from the get go. He describes it completely. He he has, like, literally a written manifesto in the form of his his prison name, but the the mine can’t which is not Putin’s case.

Putin kinda, like, gets gets to that extremely aggressive position in the end. The thing that the the the the the the situation in nineteen fourteen was so to it’s probably didn’t slip in nineteen forty. In two thousand and fourteen was ambiguous in one important sense. And if we I think Putin has proved I’m pleased with his invasion of of twenty twenty two that he is definitely not the strategic genius that many commentators, including myself, considered him to be falsely credited him with being But there is one thing that Putin did very consistently and very smartly, and that is that all of his military operations, his overseas military operations were in the kind of moral grade zone. You know, in my in in in in in two thousand fourteen okay.

He and Exus Cremia, but on the other hand, it’s bloodless. It’s also clear that, you know, for all the illegality of the annexation and the subsequent referendum and the Kremian taught us being beaten up in that. So I think it would be very hard to argue that the population of Crimea will be aware opposed to the Russian, the the the the becoming Russian. People tend to forget that in nineteen ninety two, the Ukrainians, the the the the the Ukrainians voted not just to leave the Soviet Union. They did leave, but earlier, they had also voted to leave Ukraine, so it’s in nineteen ninety one.

They put in the population of Crimea voted to create a to recreate the sort of semi independent, Soviet or autonomous Republic of Premier in in in in the spring of of nineteen ninety one. So That was a gray zone attacking Syria, sending warplanes into Syria, like, you know, he’s supporting the allied regime, but he’s attacking ISIS. You know, in in dumbass, you know, it is the population seems to be not pro care if they that seems be some real sympathy. I was in dumbass at the time. I mean, there certainly was some sympathy for for for for for Moscow and hostility to to Kiev.

So with with every stage, he’s kind of kept on the shadow side. He’s like, it’s always shades of gray. You know, none of these things taken discreetly is anything that the United States or the Western world would fight World War three for. You know, whether Crimea is Russian or Ukrainian. It’s as as George Clooney, Brittany says in in Syria, Yes.

No. It’s complicated. You know, it’s always complicated. But then suddenly, in twenty twenty two, it’s not complicated. He just steps out of the gray zone, into the black zone, and suddenly, all bets are off.

It’s a terrible strategic mistake. But the the and to go back to your original question of what could have been done in two thousand fourteen, well, what could have been done in two thousand fourteen. We could have imposed stronger sanctions. That’s certainly true. We could the the Germans could not having said at the beginning of in the aftermath of the Premier, of the Premier relaxation.

And then the medical insists that this will not stand. That’s unacceptable But, you know, territorial land grabs are not part of our sort of European civilization in two thousand fourteen. And then fourteen months later, signs a ten billion dollar gas deal with gas deal. I mean, they could’ve not done that, for instance. So, you know, I think, the the the in the end, the message is that, you know, what what Putin hears is you know, frankly, these Europeans are just, you know, their words, their rhetoric is just, you know, blah

blah blah. It’s all lip service essentially as far as as he can tell. Yeah.

And and and so in in that sense, there there there there there is a sort of fatal fatal weakness that’s been demonstrated there. But on the other hand, it’s not that the Europeans did not act. What they thought they were doing with the men’s squad and men’s to was actually creating a framework whereby they would actually I want, you know, the the central plank of mint mints of both missed agreements was a referendum in the in the in the rebel republic. You know, that seems pretty sensible. Right?

I mean, why not do that? So it it they thought they’d fix the problem. And furthermore, and it’s very easy to forget now that actually in right up until twenty twenty. The position of the Kremlin concerning the rebel republics of the dumbass was that they were part of Ukraine. Right.

They repeated that. But, like, but this is Ukraine. We want them in Ukraine. I mean, the reason why they want to them in Ukraine was, you know, a hundred percent evil. They wanted them to, like, you know, mess up Ukraine.

They wanted, like, a little bit of thought on the side of Ukraine. There was them as, like, a drag anchor to stop them going westwards. They want they supported the territorial integrity of Ukraine minus Crimea for all kinds of, like, bad imperial reasons. But nonetheless, they never said, this is our territory. And that changes very abruptly at the beginning of twenty twenty two.

Let’s go there. What you as I said in the book, you I think have a masterful explanation of what it is that leads Putin as you say to move from the gray zone into the black zone. Tell us, you know, recount a little bit. You know, the factors you see that lead him to do this in the twenty twenty to twenty twenty two period and and the timing if you could come a little bit about what is it that drives the timing of all this?

Well, I I think I think five things happen. One, he well, for a start, he starts the war because he thinks he can win it. What does he think he can win it? Because America has just been humiliated in in Afghanistan. Angela Merkel has stepped down as the chancellor of Germany.

They he’s spent eight years investing seven percent of GDP in his army. The only time that the Russian army and the Ukrainian army have actually met in the field in in Hilarayas in in two thousand fourteen and in development in two thousand fifteen. The Russians have kicked the Americans backside. The Zelensky, he believes, is a weak leader. And Furthermore, he is convinced that the European sanctions and he’s built up a war chest large enough to support.

Sanctions. That wasn’t five, that was seven. But anyway, the the point is. But underlying all of that, he’s the reason why he decides to that only an invasion will do is the more important question. I think because by the beginning of twenty twenty, it’s clear that there’s the the Russian strategy that we just talked about, that having the dumbass republics inside Ukraine, messing things up and preventing that to westward drift.

That strategy that they’ve been trying to pursue for at that point six years isn’t working. It’s not working. There’s just basically no way that they can make that happen. Largely, in fact, not because the dumbass republics don’t want to vote. They do want a vote.

In fact, they agreed to have a vote in two thousand nineteen. It’s the ultra Jonathan Last in Kiev that are stopping Zelensky in October two thousand nineteen from doing that. So basically, by the beginning of twenty twenty, they just think, you know, it’s over. We need to come up with a better solution. And I think the real tipping point was why, you know, why invasion as opposed to sort of engagement disruption, all the sort of dirty tricks that Russia has been up to since I mean, arguably, you know, since nineteen ninety one, but, like, you know, acutely since two thousand and fourteen, is what happens in Belarus.

And actually, I think it’s one of the flaws in the book, because I didn’t really write quite as much as I should or emphasized that quite as much as I should. Is that actually in the summer in August of twenty twenty, Belarus is rocked by these enormous and extremely violent demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people. I mean, far wasn’t anything that that that portions ever ever saw in two thousand eleven or two thousand twelve with a much smaller population. So therefore, actually, you know, you have, like, ten percent of the population out on the streets eventually. And that’s really and and again, entirely consistently with with his reaction to the velvet revolutions to the my dominant revolution.

So prudent things that this is like the dust of the hand of America just in it. And and, you know, the salami has has has has taken another slice. And and I think at the at that fatal juncture where, like, the whole strategy, Russia strategy in with the Ukraine is breaking down. The the

the

bellarist protests are breaking out, overlapping that COVID breaks out, and Pudgin goes into, like, deep isolation. And spends, as far as we can tell, he’s, you know, spends at least two years in, like, sort of deep paranoid care of it isolation. You know, not not just sitting behind six meter tables, but actually, you know, forcing everyone who meets him in, you know, to quarantine for for at least ten days. I mean, this is about document spending hundreds of millions of dollars in life, sort of, you know, COVID, sanitation facilities, and quarantine facilities around it.

You know, you talk in the book, you cover very well the events of the the war, the initial thrust towards Kiev, the frustration of that by the Ukrainians. Just Interaglia, I don’t want to go down this particular rabbit hole, but as a former US ambassador, to Finland who has spent some time studying the winter war of nineteen thirty nine forty. It’s like, you know, deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra said, and then it’s looked very similar. And in military terms. But you also talked then about the Russian offensive in several units in the spring of twenty two and and then the counteroffensives in the fall by Ukraine that ultimately drive the Russians out of Karkiv province back into Leklotsk and and then the no.

I wouldn’t say equally successful, but the forced evacuation of Kershun by by the Ukrainians. And when your book ends, I mean, even though it obviously, you finished writing several months ago, the truth is the battlefield hasn’t moved much since then. So what what do you think the prospects are here. Of course, a lot of discussion given all the US military assistance and training of Ukrainian forces of a forthcoming offensive. There’s been the constant assault by Pregoja’s Wagner group private military company along with MOD troops in Bakmut, which seems to Ukraine seems to seem to have decided to make that an effort to just a a trip and waste the Russian forces to some effect.

I mean, losses have been quite astonishing. What do you see going forward? How does to borrow the phrase that David Petrella has asked Linda Robinson, one of your colleagues in the fourth estate about the war in Iraq. Tell me how this ends.

Yeah. I I I think I think several things are clear. Zelensky has one shot. I don’t think there’s gonna be, you know, a spring twenty twenty four Ukrainian offensive. I don’t think there’s gonna be a a sort of winter twenty three twenty four hopping around by Zelensky.

I think the in in in that sense, I think Putin’s calculation that the West will lose interest or will start to sue for peace at least is unfortunately pretty well founded. You already see, you know, the cracks are already running in the Republican party alerts such as still a minority of GMP senators and congressmen. Who have signed up to that letter, you know, it’s still sort of the margetailer Greens there of this world who are still, you know, passionately opposed But already, you know, Ron DeSantis, you know, he then he, you know, he criticized AT Ukraine, and then he kind of uncreticized it and sort of, sorry, we’re not on it. Sorry, kind of, way. But nonetheless, you know, the the, you know, the Overton window, the the the window of possible debate is definitely moving against Ukraine in the in the United States political discourse.

That’s really clear. The crack’s also running in Europe, and and the crack is not, you know, is is not that people are gonna suddenly start hating Ukraine and lovings putin. That’s not the split. The split is in peace and justice. And you have large constituencies.

Who were not pro Putin, by the way, or not anti Ukraine, but they are just pro peace. In certainly, the Italian right, that, you know, in Germany, it’s caused major economic damage, especially the the the to to the German chemical industries, I would Europe’s energy prices have now gone down to pre war levels or have they’ve they’ve been done that for some time. But nonetheless, pre war levels were still high in a normal three times higher than they had been in the tiers prior to that in twenty nineteen. So you know, this that debate of a peace every peace versus justice is do we just bring it into this war and the bloodshed and just draw the line? Where, you know, along the line of control career style?

Or do we as a shrinking proportion of Europeans believe continue to fight to the bitter end and ensure that Putin is punished, that justice has served that. That as Zelensky has has called for that Russia gets thrown out of to to to and out of all of of of the territory it’s taken. But I tend to agree with the assessments that we’ve seen on the Discord leagues. Then actually, the United States government appears to be somewhat skeptical about the prospect of a Bulwark Ukrainian victory. And you can kind of see why because the you know, if if you just look at the numbers, the metrics of it, there have been approximately fifty levered tanks delivered from twelve challenger, two tanks from Britain.

I think it’s nearly up to fifty leopard tanks from Germany, the Netherlands, and so on. The Russia still has, even by US DOD estimates, at least half of its main battle tank fleet still intact. And that’s at least fourteen hundred main battle tanks. So, you know, the Ukrainians have got fifty more tanks under Russia, you know, versus fifteen hundred, and they are attacking. The Russians are defending.

We know how that goes. I’m not a military expert, but I mean, obviously, I I speak to people who who are The it’s the the the the country is is flat, but actually has been deeply defended. Behind the Russians. So unfortunately, I don’t really see any realistic prospect of Ukraine actually taking back all the territory that it has lost to Russia. It will take back a lot as I mean, it will take take back as much as it can.

But already you see, even today, I I just read that the EU has called for the former policy chief has called for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia, quote unquote, from a from a position of strength. I mean, decode it, what does that mean? It means, you know, give it a go, take as much as we can. And then, you know, sorry, we’re just, you know, pulling the plug on this at a certain point. Which is not a terrible outcome, by the way, because there have been several Ukrainian politicians, including Zelensky’s first foreign minister, Vadim, please Tycho is now it was filed in two thousand nineteen and is now it was punished by being sent to London as a Ukraine ambassador.

But in two thousand nineteen, he was part of that. Yeah. But but but his Tycho said in two thousand nineteen, that actually we need to, you know, discuss whether there is any good that’s gonna come to Ukraine from owning donbas.

Yeah.

Maybe we should just amputate it like a gangrenous limb and just like say goodbye to dumbass that if they don’t wanna be with us, then they don’t wanna be with us. It’s like, fine. We should repair ourselves for the fact that they that that he was talking about in the context of a vote, of course, not in in the context of a non aggression to be fair to by Dean, but the you know, that that’s a a genuine question. You know, why why didn’t they just let dumbass go and just And the answer the greatness will give is moral hazard and practical hazard that we leave an enemy, you know, wounded and humiliated, but not being incapacitated. And furthermore, you know, we’re rewarding a progression because whatever, you know, because Putin will still have, you know, end up with the Ukrainian land.

So in that sense, it’s such a somewhat insoluble solution, but I think the only answer is essentially a career a Korean type situation because no Ukrainian leader, whether Zelensky or anybody else, can ever survive signing off an alarm for peace deal. That’s completely inconceivable. It’s not in Unsurvivable for any inconvenience to do that.

Particularly after the last year and the war crimes and the horrors that have been visited done, on Ukrainians by the occupying Russian forces, I think make make that all the more the case. We’re we’re get we’re really running low on time and and before we lose you, I there are two two other topics I wanna quickly get get into. One is I’m gonna read the epigram from I think it’s the last chapter of your book, which is a quotation from the Russian poet and critic Dimitri B Koff. In in which he says, the Putin regime is all about stealing wealth that is buried under the earth, and one of the deepest buried resources in Russia is the profound conservatism of its people. Their lack of education, loyalty, resistance to change, ignorance and hostility to anything foreign or new is also a kind of oil laid down in very deep and ancient layers.

It is something valuable that can be mined and exploited like any other natural resource. And I I read that quotation because when one watches Russian TV news, when you see Margarita, see one on or your old playmate, Soul of Yuff. Whose television show, you frequently would appear when you were in Moscow And I think it’s only fair to tell our our listeners that you were upholding truth and right very vociferously in those conversations. Which was even in those days, you know, kind of surprising that they would let that go on. Although it tells you a little bit about how much things have changed, But now what what now what you see in the, you know, in the nightly on on Russian television is precisely an effort to mine what Bikov talks about.

Really frighteningly, eliminationists, xenophobic, rhetoric. And I wonder since you have so much experience on Russian television, what did you make of that? And what is it for Ten for the future of Russia?

Well, the some things haven’t changed. The the sort of hysterical anti Ukrainian ramps were exactly the same when I would go on, I guess, over two thousand seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. I went I did nearly a hundred shows of that nature. The the reason why I did it was because, generally, it was rather interesting to actually talk to these people. They’re they’re definitely not first ranked people, but they’re you know, people like, you know, the heads of senate committees, do my faction chairman, you know, deputy heads, deputy ministers.

There’s kind of, you know, it’s not the back carrying class. It’s not top class. But, you know, there are people who are sort of, you know, in in in serious senior positions in and government. So, journalists, it’s kind of interesting to be, you know, in the room with them and we would chat, and it was basically way of of of sneakingly interviewing these guys. Secondly, I did it because I was interested in how the Russian propaganda machine worked.

And thirdly, I was interested to actually, if not me, then who, because I speak fluent in Russian and I’m able to debate, including under that incredibly high pressure environment where everyone’s like, screaming at you. It’s it’s really very adversarial. But anyway, to answer your question back then, the reason why they got me on as a foreign journalist, I said things, by the way, because I was a foreigner that no Russian would be allowed to go on and say, for instance, almost every time I went on these shows, it became like a sort of a mis signature thing. It’s like, I would say, like, by the way, you do realize that, you know, the regime is, you know, invading Syria or doing this thing in dumbass because to distract you from the fact that they’re sort of wholesaling stealing your country from you, you know that. Right?

And they would be sort of no one ever told me what I shouldn’t shoot or shouldn’t say. But because I was able to say, things that, you know, where the words sort of are rigorously anti Putin all the time. Actually, because they’re smart, because this this is this is produced by extremely smart, very cynical people. My opposition, in fact, as I came to realize, kind of actually reinforced the illusion that this was an objective show. I mean, and they could say, like, oh, look, but we have Owen Matthews of Newsweek on And here he is telling us that, you know, you know, Vladimir Putin is rubbing out country blind and and and this is all just a distraction.

And unfortunately, you know, my position on that show kind of validated that illusion, which is why I stopped doing it in fact. But as you rightly observed, after the beginning of the war, it just sort of kicked into a different into a different key. It just became, you know, frankly, hysterical. And, you know, terrifyingly said, The the the question is actually and it’s not entirely clear to the extent to which this is entirely topped out. And having spent you know, having been on these shows and talked to the producers, you know, sort of had dinner with them and sort of known them somewhat socially.

These talented cynical people who put this appalling propaganda product together. You start to realize that, actually, for most of the time, they’re kind of just winging it. You know, they don’t get a phone call every morning for the Kremlin and say, like, you know, today, Conrad, the party line is ABC. No. Actually, no.

And quite often, they get it wrong, but they go too far. Even. So they’re they’re they’re they’re all just sort of like a bunch of needy school kids kinda clamoring for the attention of of of of of teacher. You know, by trying to do and say the right thing.

Oh, and we we’re gonna lose you in a couple of minutes, but I do wanna at least for our listeners, touch on not just this terrific work of non fiction that you’ve produced, but also some works of fiction that you’ve written Bulwark Sun and Red Red Trader Black Sun, I believe, is about Andres Sakhranov, can you tell the our listeners a little bit about what what it was that drew you to the thriller genre and why you decided to do that in addition to, you know, writing these, you know, quite scholarly books that you’ve written on Stalin’s children and and other topics. Nikolai Azeroth and others.

Yeah. It it was it was poverty. It must I just did it for fun. I’m cash. It’s the only thought.

Well, that’s fair enough. But I I wanna commend them to our listeners as as well since this is not to go fund me campaign, but, you know you know what, we we need to do everything we can to support good journalism these days. Our guest has been Owen Matthews. Owen, thank you so much for for your time. I suspect as this goes on, you’ll have to write an epilogue for the paperback edition of Overreach.

The inside story of Putin’s war against Ukraine, published by HarperCollins. And when you do the epilogue, we’ll have to have you back. Thank

you. We make great play pleasure and privilege.