Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We'll talk about the war in Ukraine now, which many people see as entering a decisive phase and also about the longer-range prospects for US support if the war drags on, with the risk that Americans could lose interest as outcomes become murky, as other news stories rise to the top of people's agendas, and that all could help Russia, especially if the Republicans gain control of Congress in November, because the Trump wing of the party supports Putin. We'll talk about this now with Julia Ioffe, founding partner and Washington correspondent for the journalism site Puck News. She has an article called 'Putin's DC Waiting Game'. Julia, always good to have you on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Julia Ioffe: Hi, Brian. Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Before we get to Putin's DC waiting game and that longer-term picture, first on the short term, I'm reading from the Washington Post here from two days ago, "US military officials have assessed that the coming weeks could bring a decisive phase in the war. General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the next several weeks will be very, very critical for the outcome of this battle that's shaping up." How much is that a consensus opinion, and how much does it look like that to you, as a journalist following the war, that the next few weeks are going to be decisive in some respect?

Julia Ioffe: I'm hearing that they could be decisive, but that it could just be maybe the end of another phase and that the war will drag on for quite a while. I'm not hearing as much in DC about a coming of an end to this. What I'm hearing is people readying for a longer, much longer slog in Ukraine, because it seems like, you're already hearing noises from Moscow that, should they win in the Donbass, they're going to try again for Kyiv and I can't see that taking a short time.

Brian Lehrer: Just a few weeks, yes. President Biden on Tuesday confirmed that the United States is sending medium-ranged advanced rocket systems to Ukraine after officials there requested such weapons. I'm still reading from that Washington Post article, I should say, but Biden saying they were necessary to fight back against Russia in the country's east. Can you give us a sense of the state of US aid right now and how close that is to what President Zelenskyy is asking for?

Julia Ioffe: It seems that the US is giving a lot in its own opinion where, you're continuing to see this tension, right, where the US feels it's giving a lot to Ukraine and Ukraine feels, I think, justifiably that the US is always a couple of steps behind of what Ukraine needs and when it needs it. There's this constant tension between what will help Ukraine win and what will be seen by Russia as escalatory, which I think is very frustrating to the Ukrainians, because from their point of view, again, justifiably, you can't escalate really any further. They've been invaded at full scale. They've been-- atrocities committed, cities have been wiped off the face of the earth. They can't-- from their point of view, you can't really escalate any further. I can see also justifiably from Washington's point of view that you don't want to get into a full-on conflict with Russia. You want to keep this as a proxy war. The problem is that this is a classic problem that you saw in Syria, that you saw even in the Spanish civil war in the 1930s, is that you can give an ally enough not to lose, but that doesn't mean it

gives them enough to win. If you do that, it makes the war drag on for longer and makes it much bloodier and more costly.

Brian Lehrer: Sometimes this escalatory argument falls apart for me because there's no scenario in which anybody's trying to take over Russia. It's not that kind of a war, two countries fighting each other to have the whole pie. It's only Ukraine trying to defend its own territory. Yes, it might be US weapons being used against Russian weapons, but then, Putin would have to decide that he wants to go invade some NATO countries in order just to take over Ukraine.

Julia Ioffe: Well, this is the thing. You've seen Ukraine hit towns on the Russian side of the border, killing people in some cases, creating quite a bit of damage. I can see why the White House would be worried that if one of those hits comes with a rocket that came directly from the US, that Russia might decide, "Screw this. We're going to hit Latvia, or we're going to hit Poland, or we're going to hit a transit hub, for example, of weapons and materiel that the West is sending to Ukraine. We're going to hit it on NATO territory."

Brian Lehrer: Ah, I see.

Julia Ioffe: How do you respond to that? The argument coming from Poland and from Ukraine and from the Baltic states is like, you're afraid that Putin is going to invade or attack NATO, but with what army? They're barely getting by in Ukraine. I don't know, it's--

Brian Lehrer: I guess they could always use missiles, for which you don't need an army.

Julia Ioffe: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Why do they attack inside Russia? Why are the Ukrainians doing that? Is it because it's an outpost for troops and they need to kill a lot of Russian troops to defend their country?

Julia Ioffe: I think it's that. It's also just giving the Russians a taste of their own medicine that, if you invade our country and cause damage in our country, we can do the same to you. It's also showing how close they are, how close they've gotten to the border in certain places like where they pushed Russia back from around Kharkiv all the way back to the Ukraine-Russia border. Now, you have residents of those villages appealing to Vladimir Putin to stop the war. I think it's more about bringing the war home to Russians.

Brian Lehrer: Pressure on Putin. Listeners, if you have any thoughts or questions about the state of the war in Ukraine for Julia Ioffe from Puck News, 212-433 WNYC, 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer. Your article called 'Putin's DC Waiting Game'. Is he waiting for the Trump wing to rise after the November elections?

Julia Ioffe: I think he's waiting for that, and the Trump wing has been quite vocally anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia, because there is a real genuine ideological alignment with Putin. The American right sees Putin in some ways correctly, in some ways

incorrectly, as this Christian nationalist quasi-fascist authoritarian leader, that he's unapologetic about being white and Christian and an alpha male. He's this kind of aspirational leader for them, but I think it's not just the right because, sure, they're growing and the Republicans are set to take power in November and maybe in 2024. Axios had a story yesterday about how there was a 22-fold decrease in social media mentions and engagements of stories about Ukraine, compared to where it was at the beginning of the war, where everybody was just tripping over themselves to condemn the war and help Ukraine and Ukrainians. Americans seem to have lost interest.

You saw people running in the Republican primaries and taking stances against the 40 billion aid package to Ukraine that president Biden signed a couple weeks ago. I think you're going to be seeing more of that in Europe and in the US as things get tougher economically, or even if they stay the same and people just don't feel like carrying the burden anymore for some country far, far away to which they have no real connection. I think that the longer the war drags on, the more things are likely to tip Putin's way in the sense of domestic politics in Europe and the US where people just don't see why we're sending all that money somewhere else and why we should be suffering for this country that we can barely find on a map. Again, that redounds to Putin's benefit.

Brian Lehrer: Even though the $40 billion passed Congress overwhelmingly, you have moments like this. Here's a clip of Donald Trump, and you write a lot about Trump and Tucker Carlson and Christopher Caldwell and that whole wing of the right being opposed to more USA to the war. This is one of the things that Trump said when he spoke to the Conservative Political Action Conference a couple of weeks ago.

Donald Trump: We need to expand funding, recruiting and training for police departments nationwide. This is not a matter of money. This is a matter of will. If the United States has $40 billion to send to Ukraine, we should be able to do whatever it takes to keep our children safe at home.

[applause]

Brian Lehrer: Correction. I apologize. That was not what he said at CPAC. That was what he said just this past weekend at the NRA convention in Texas. He didn't explicitly oppose the funding there, Julia, but he was making a point that if we can afford $40 billion for Ukraine, we can afford $40 billion for police basically, and other things like that. I think at other times he's explicitly said that that $40 billion to Ukraine is stopping us from affording things we should afford here, right?

Julia Ioffe: Right. You have fully a quarter of the house GOP conference agreeing with him and 20% of the Senate GOP conference agreeing with him and voting against this package and saying things like this. The thing is that in American politics, especially in the last 20 years, there's such fatigue from foreign intervention. It hasn't even been a year since we got out of Afghanistan. That was a disaster and a costly one at that. There's a real fatigue of involving ourselves abroad and funding these

things endlessly and a questioning, even though these are different pots of money and different people working on this. It's not like the national security advisor could be working on the baby formula crisis.

It's very hard to explain to American people why we're still doing this. You're seeing a fatigue of that on the left as well. You have the New York times op-ed page saying it's time to compromise. It's time to-- You're seeing it both on the left and the right. It's time for Ukraine to compromise and just wrap this war up, which is in my view a very selfish view. It should be up to the Ukrainians, whether they want to compromise or whether they want to try to get their land back, but that's another conversation.

Brian Lehrer: What compromise did the New York Times editorial page call for? Was it basically giving up land in the eastern part of the country?

Julia Ioffe: Yes, and you saw also Henry Kissinger calling for it. There are definitely voices on the left. You have Peter Beinart also calling for this. The problem is that Ukraine ended up giving up land in 2014. It lost Crimea without firing a shot. It lost big chunks of the east and that didn't stop Vladimir Putin from invading again now. It would just kick the can down the road and not resolve this conflict because, as we have learned, this is not about territory. This is about Ukraine itself.

This is about annihilating Ukraine as a sovereign nation. Ukraine, the idea. Ukrainianness as a concept. Putin has made that clear, Russian state media has made that clear. They've been purging textbooks of the very mention of Ukraine and Ukraine as a sovereign country. If your goal is to wipe Ukraine off the face of the earth, what do you give somebody like that to make them change their mind and say, "Okay, actually you're allowed to be a country."?

Brian Lehrer: I guess that's the debate. I guess the other side could argue that it proved so hard for Putin when he thought it was going to be much easier, apparently, to go into Kyiv and actually take over the capital and cause regime change, that if he were to get areas of the Donbass region in the east, what's the scenario under which, even though he would like to have all of Ukraine and even the idea of Ukraineness, as you say, that he's got no real prospect of doing that that's been proven militarily? What would the argument against that be? Go ahead.

Julia Ioffe: I think the argument against that would be what's happening right now. The reason they couldn't take Kyiv wasn't just because the army was poorly prepared and didn't have the morale. It was also that it was tactically a mistake. They were spread out too thin. They tried to attack an area that was far too long. Now that they've pulled back from Kyiv, they've been pushed out of Kharkiv.

They're making real advances in the east because they're just all focused there. The supply lines are shorter because they're close to the Russian border. They're making real advances there. I think if a cease fire was called and some signing away of territory was made, I think it would just give Putin time to regroup and attack from a different angle and take even more land.

I don't think it would be seen by him as an end to the war, but as an advantageous

pause to regroup and strike again. I think if they take the Donbass, regroup and focus everything just on Kyiv, they might be successful. They weren't successful because they were spread too thin before.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC-FM HD and AM New York, WNJT-FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are a New York and New Jersey public radio, and live streaming at wnyc.org at a minute and a half before 11 o'clock. A few minutes left with Julia Ioffe, founding partner and Washington correspondent for Puck News, who covers the war in Ukraine very closely.

Let's get a couple of calls in here for Julia before we run out of time. Julia, here, I think, is going to be an example of what you were saying about people on the left skeptical about long-term funding of the war. Kai in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Kai: Hi, Brian. I just heard Miss Ioffe mention how conservatives are using the giving of the $40 million aid package to Ukraine, I guess, as a political statement. I'm on the far left and I do see that giving that much aid to Ukraine is offensive, it's wasteful. There are lots of things happening in this country that that money could go to. Everything from gun safety to reparations for African Americans, native Americans and I see it as a white thing. Many of my friends do as well. Ukrainians are getting special privileges on the border, fast-track admission. I heard a podcast about a woman from Cameroon who's been down in Mexico for three years waiting to get over. The only difference is she's Black. I know you've mentioned these things, but like we're just giving money, money, money that could go elsewhere.

Brian Lehrer: Kai, thank you very much. Julia, how would people on the other side of that argument respond to her?

Julia Ioffe: Personally, I think that narrative has a lot of merit, but there are problems with it. I think there's certainly a lot of racism in the discrepancy between how Ukrainian refugees are received in places like Poland and Hungary and Slovakia, places that were not willing to take any Afghan, Syrian, Iraqi refugees. These are some of the most xenophobic countries in Europe. The thing I would say, though, is that I don't think Putin-- we know Putin won't stop in Ukraine. He has already said that he-- and his press has already said that they plan to take Transnistria, which is a part of Moldova. They plan to link that up with the Donbass and Ukraine's Black Sea coast.

If he's successful there, where does he go after that? I think the argument that doing something now would prevent something more costly later is a very good one. The other thing is that, this is a pot of money-- This is a technocratic argument that isn't very sexy or convincing to people even though it's true. This is a different pot of money and it's money that is not just cash going to Ukraine the way we saw pallets of stacks of American dollar bills [chuckles] going to Afghanistan. This is money going to American arms manufacturers who are providing jobs and income for Americans here. The fact that it was approved in a bipartisan way, it doesn't mean

that this money would be allotted to gun safety or American schools as we saw.

It was impossible to get Build Back Better through Congress because there's a good chunk of our political system that doesn't think that money should be spent on these things. It's not as easy as saying, "If we don't send that $40 billion to Ukraine, we can use it for this," because of the way our political system is structured. We just won't be able to use it for the other things that Kai mentioned. I do hear her frustration. I think that is going to spread and grow, and that will redound to Putin's benefit and to Ukraine's loss. The other thing is, just because Ukrainians are white doesn't mean that they should be subject to atrocities and rape and murder and get their cities wiped off the face of the earth. I think we are right to be helping them.

Brian Lehrer: One more call from Karen in Brooklyn, who, I think, does see this as more of an existential threat beyond Ukraine and is supportive of longer-term support. Karen, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Karen: Hi, Brian. Thank you so much for taking my call. Yes, I am extremely passionate about this. I have always considered myself a progressive. I'm really disappointed in the progressives who are saying that we don't need to do this. We do need to do this. The Wall Street Journal had a great opinion not long ago that said, "This is no time to go wobbly on Russia." They said the free world that won the cold wars, remembering how to fight, rediscovering our values, that's bad news for Putin and the other dictators watching closely, because, believe me, they are watching closely, and if Putin gets away with this, they're all going to get away with what they're doing. It's not just Putin.

It really is a struggle between civilization and 'might makes right', and a lot of Americans know that. A recent poll showed 72% of Americans said we're either doing the right amount or not enough for Ukraine. You may remember, Mitch McConnell himself, he got together Susan Collins and a little clutch of Republicans and he went to Kyiv.

He stood next to Zelenskyy and he said, "We're going to do this. We have to do this. We are with you." It's a large portion of the Republican party. Yes, you have the MAGA people who are against it, but I think the split in the Republican party, honestly, can be a positive thing for Democrats this fall. Again, the support for Ukraine is very broad in America. Yes, it's more money spent and it drags on, it may drop a little bit, but I've never seen anything so strong. A lot of people get this. It's us against 'might makes right'.

Brian Lehrer: Karen, thank you very much. This is an argument that's going to go on for a while, it looks like, because it does look like the war is going to be a longer-term thing. We thank Julia Ioffe, founding partner and Washington correspondent for the journalism site, Puck News. Her always thoughtful reporting is most recently her article 'Putin's DC Waiting Game'. Julia, thanks.

Julia Ioffe: Thank you, Brian.

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