0:00

You and Me Both is a production of

0:02

I Heart Radio, I'm

0:08

Hillary Clinton, and this is You

0:10

and Me Both. Over

0:12

the course of this season of the podcast,

0:15

we've been looking at the challenges

0:17

democracy faces right here

0:19

in our own country,

0:22

from the relentless assault on

0:24

voting rights in the States to

0:26

an ideologically driven Supreme

0:29

Court whose decisions have dire

0:31

consequences for our civil

0:34

rights and freedom. Today,

0:36

we're taking our exploration of the

0:38

battle to save democracy abroad,

0:41

unpacking the motivations behind

0:44

the brutal, unprovoked invasion

0:46

of Ukraine by Putin's Russia.

0:49

The war in Ukraine has captured the

0:51

world's attention since Russia began

0:54

its assault on February.

0:57

I don't know about you, but my heart just rakes

1:00

watching the Russian military shelling

1:03

cities, destroying apartment

1:06

buildings, community centers,

1:08

religious institutions, homes,

1:11

lives, everything in their

1:13

way. And yet my heart also

1:16

soars while I watched the Ukrainians

1:19

bravely persevere in the

1:21

fight against this attack

1:24

to preserve their country and their

1:26

freedom. There has been

1:28

incredible reporting from

1:31

the front lines that is keeping

1:33

us informed. But I want

1:35

to do something a little different today

1:38

and take advantage of the expertise

1:41

and insights of two

1:43

Gats I know and admire, to

1:45

talk about how we got here, where

1:47

this may be heading, what this crisis

1:50

has to do with us and with our

1:52

democracy here in the United

1:54

States as well as elsewhere.

1:58

Later, I'll be speaking with Mike

2:01

McFall, who served as ambassador

2:04

to Russia when I was Secretary

2:06

of State. We both had a front

2:08

row seat to Putin's return to power

2:10

in twelve and we

2:13

both have some interesting stories

2:15

to share from that time. But

2:18

first, I'm talking to historian

2:20

and journalist An Applebaum,

2:24

and has been writing about Eastern Europe,

2:27

the Soviet Union, democracy

2:29

and authoritarianism for years.

2:32

I don't think it's hyperbole to say she's

2:35

one of the smartest journalists out

2:37

there, particularly when it comes

2:39

to what's happening right now.

2:42

You may have seen or read one

2:44

of her many books and articles. She's

2:47

currently a staff writer at The Atlantic.

2:50

I've often looked to Anne to bring

2:52

a wide lens and historical

2:55

context to the current events

2:57

in Europe and Russia. Uh

3:00

and I was eager to talk to her about

3:02

what's happening now. And

3:05

lives mostly in Warsaw, Poland,

3:08

but she's currently teaching a course

3:10

un Democracy at Johns

3:12

Hopkins University. So for

3:15

this conversation, we reached

3:17

her in Baltimore. Hello

3:20

and hello Hilary. How

3:22

nice to see you. It is really nice

3:24

to see you. I have to say You've

3:27

been a constant source of

3:30

information and explanation

3:33

for me over a number of

3:35

years, but particularly over the last

3:37

few years. And I'm delighted that you

3:40

can take some time to be on

3:42

this podcast. So welcome, Thank you. I'm

3:44

flattered to be asked and very happy to join

3:46

you to get us started. You

3:49

know, there's been a lot of speculation

3:51

about Putin's mindset,

3:54

and I have my own experience

3:56

as a Secretary of State and apparently

3:59

one of his favorite people on the planet.

4:02

Um, and you are an expert

4:04

on authoritarianism, democracy,

4:06

Eastern Europe, and so much else. You

4:09

wrote a really prescient, very

4:11

smart piece three weeks before

4:13

the invasion in the Atlantic called

4:16

the Reason Putin would risk

4:19

War? So and unpack

4:21

that for us. What do you

4:24

know about Putin that enabled

4:26

you to see that when so many other people

4:29

were happy to put their heads in

4:31

the sand. So, first

4:33

of all, thanks for having me, and thanks for that particular

4:36

question. Um, there is a relevance

4:38

to you, which I which I'll get you in

4:40

a second. Um Putin

4:42

is someone who was very shaped by the

4:44

events of in

4:47

the way that all of us were. But he was shaped

4:49

differently from from you and me and many

4:52

listeners. We I was in Eastern

4:54

Europe and nineteen nine I watched the ballin Wall

4:56

fell. It was a moment of great excitement,

4:58

feeling of liberation, uh In, when

5:01

the Soviet Union came to an end, that felt

5:03

like a possibility for a new beginning. It was

5:05

a great moment for Russia. Um Putin

5:08

experienced all those events from exactly

5:10

the opposite point of view. So he

5:12

saw the Berlin Wall. To him, he saw

5:15

democracy activists, demonstrators

5:17

on the street, forced the

5:20

legitimate government out of power and forced

5:22

him to make this humiliating retreat.

5:25

You know. There he was, you know,

5:28

a member of the Imperial Police,

5:30

you know, policing East Germany with which is

5:32

where he was based at the time, the KGB

5:35

headquarters in Dresden. They had to burn their papers

5:37

in the courtyard. Um They called

5:39

Moscow for reinforcements. None came,

5:42

and they understood the empire was over. He's written

5:44

about that and spoken about it several times, so we

5:46

know he remembers that. You

5:48

know, he then retreated back to Russia. UM,

5:51

where he was part of this, you know, his

5:53

generation's extraordinary

5:55

theft of resources. Actually they stole money

5:58

from the state, they then laundered in the

6:00

West. UM. They then brought it back to Russia,

6:02

and they brought themselves back

6:05

to power. But he's always harbored this, this

6:08

memory of that humiliating defeat, and

6:10

for him, it was both a defeat of the empire, but

6:12

it was also the victory of what he

6:14

sees as a kind of Western virus,

6:17

you know, and um, an anti autocratic

6:19

ideology. You know, the language of democracy,

6:22

the language of freedom, the language of rights,

6:25

the language of anti corruption. UM.

6:27

These are the things that he thinks are the most dangerous

6:29

to his form of power, and he fears

6:32

that it could bring him down exactly

6:34

the way that it brought down the Soviet Union.

6:37

You figure in this because inn

6:40

when there were genuine democracy

6:42

protests in Moscow, UM, and these

6:44

were I stipulate, grassroots demonstrations

6:47

organized in Russia by Russians.

6:50

His reaction was the United

6:52

States and the CIA and Hillary Clinton

6:54

have organized these in order

6:57

to take me down um. So he sees

7:00

all of that language and all of those movements he

7:02

perceives as being somehow orchestrated by

7:04

the United States. It comes from the West, it's

7:06

being done secretly. He can't believe

7:09

that it's authentic and real. And his

7:11

hatred of Ukraine comes from exactly

7:14

this, because Ukraine is a country that has been

7:16

trying for three decades to achieve

7:18

independence, democracy, freedom

7:21

and sovereignty, most recently

7:23

in teen when another enormous

7:26

grassroots democracy movement forced

7:28

an autocratic president who

7:30

is breaking the Ukrainian constitution, forced

7:33

him to flee the country. And that is

7:35

what he is most afraid of. And so Ukraine

7:38

for him is this representative of

7:40

a set of ideas that he doesn't like.

7:42

I mean, there may there is a historical

7:45

component as well, and this, you know, this kind

7:47

of traditional Russian feeling that

7:49

Ukraine is not a real country and it's just part

7:51

of us. But it's also what's truly

7:53

motivating him is that this is the language, the

7:55

language that's used by the Ukrainian president that we're

7:58

all hearing him using now is

8:00

a problem for him personally. This is

8:02

what he's afraid of. Russian's hearing and

8:04

adopting a successful, prosperous

8:07

democratic Ukraine would be such a challenge

8:10

to his form of government that he can't tolerate it.

8:12

How do you think, you know, Putin

8:15

judged this time. You know,

8:17

obviously he had

8:20

an incredibly wonderful experience

8:23

with four years of Trump, who was parroting

8:25

everything that he wanted

8:27

to hear. Why now do

8:30

you think that this has happened?

8:33

So it's a it's a good question. It's actually

8:35

clear from the nature of the attack that this is

8:37

something he's been thinking about for a long time. Um,

8:40

He's been planning it for a long time. He's even

8:42

been planning the propaganda around it for a long time.

8:45

UM. It was not a spontaneous attack provoked

8:47

by something Joe Biden said, or

8:49

Zelinsky said, I think he chose

8:52

the moment for a reason. I think there are a few

8:54

things going on. One is that I think during the Trump

8:56

administration, Putin believed

8:58

that he might have a way to at Ukraine

9:01

back, or to weaken Ukraine, or to undermine

9:03

Ukraine, maybe even using the United

9:06

States. Um, he hoped that Trump would be an

9:08

accessory to that. And I think Putin

9:10

hope that it may be in a second Trump term, um,

9:12

that task would be completed.

9:15

UM. I think he also imagined both that America

9:17

was more divided and also that American

9:20

Europe were more divided than they are. He did

9:22

not expect the reaction of the alliance.

9:25

So it's not just the United States as the United States

9:27

plus Europe plus other allies. Actually Japan

9:29

has been very supportive as well, who are

9:32

joining in the sanctions, who are helping with

9:34

military aid. You know, he has a narrative

9:36

about the West being degenerate and the West

9:39

being finished um in the West, you

9:41

know term in power being over.

9:43

And I think he believed his own narrative um,

9:45

and so he thought that this, this would be a good moment

9:48

to strike. I agree with that. I think

9:50

that, as you say, this is something

9:53

that he's long been planning, and it

9:55

was opportunistic. Now, as

9:58

shocking as it is to see that invasion,

10:01

I think a lot of people are similarly just

10:04

totally confused and frankly heartbroken

10:07

about the brutality. Anybody

10:10

who followed what Putin did in Czechnia,

10:13

or in Syria or even in

10:15

you know, the parts of Ukraine that he

10:17

seized. I think ten thousand people have died

10:20

since and ongoing

10:23

fighting with Russian proxies as

10:25

well as the Russian military. So what

10:28

do you think is the best case

10:30

outcome here? The best case

10:33

outcome is that Ukraine wins

10:35

um and by winning I mean that the Russian

10:38

troops are forced out of the country.

10:40

You're exactly right to point to the

10:43

behavior of Russian troops in previously

10:46

occupied territories in the past. What

10:48

we know about occupied Crimea is that they

10:51

came in, they arrested anyone who they

10:53

thought might be a dissident. They expelled people

10:55

from the country, People were disappeared, people

10:57

were kidnapped on the street who they thought might

10:59

be political opponents. As the Russians

11:02

move into eastern Ukraine, they are

11:05

behaving like the nkb D, which

11:07

was the precursor of the KGB did

11:09

in Eastern Europe. Sometimes

11:11

I have this horrible deja vu

11:13

because I wrote a book about exactly that period,

11:16

and they came in, they had lists of people

11:18

to arrest, they terrorized the population,

11:21

and they brought in a regime of terror. And my

11:24

guess is that the Russians will do the same. And this

11:26

is why I say this, because this is why

11:29

the Ukrainians are fighting, It's not just about

11:31

sovereignty. It's also that they know their entire

11:34

way of life will be destroyed if the Russians

11:36

come um and for that reason, the only

11:39

positive outcome that and I

11:41

think the one outcome that the United States should

11:43

be working towards, is that the Russians

11:46

withdraw. Any remaining Russian

11:48

presence in those territories is going to be pure

11:51

hell for the people who live there. Right, I

11:53

agree with that completely, certainly in any

11:56

communication I've had with anybody in any

11:58

position to influence our policy,

12:01

I think that is exactly what we

12:03

should be aiming for, which means that we need to have

12:05

even more lethal aid flowing

12:08

into Ukraine to help support

12:10

them. Where do you stand on this whole

12:12

issue and about you

12:14

know, direct NATO involvement, particularly

12:17

direct American involvement, in doing

12:19

more than providing equipment

12:22

and obviously intelligence and

12:24

financial support to help the Ukrainians,

12:27

uh, you know, defend themselves. So

12:29

I understand why the

12:32

White House and NATO are reluctant

12:34

to have a direct confrontation between

12:37

NATO troops and Russian troops. You

12:39

know, I understand where that comes from. I understand

12:41

that people. It's not just that people are

12:43

afraid of nuclear war. It's also that, you

12:45

know, we haven't had a proxy war with Russia since

12:47

Afghanistan in the nineteen eighties, which was a completely

12:50

different war, completely different era, not

12:52

the same stakes in terms of you

12:55

know, in terms of nuclear weapons and so on, and

12:57

people just don't know what the rules are. I mean, what counts

12:59

as galactian? What's a provocation? You

13:02

know, I don't think we have the same kinds of back channels.

13:04

There's no polit bureau, there are no intermediate

13:06

institutions with which we have relationships.

13:09

Um. It's not clear even that ambassadors,

13:12

you know, have any influence in this, you

13:14

know, in the Putin regime, so it's we don't

13:17

have any contacts with them. Um. So I understand

13:19

that reluctance. However, I also

13:21

worry that some in Washington and

13:24

elsewhere haven't really understood what the stakes

13:26

are here. I mean, I don't think we

13:29

can allow Ukraine to be defeated.

13:31

I think that it would have such

13:34

catastrophic consequences for us

13:36

and for our allies, um, you

13:38

know, both in inviting Putin to come

13:40

into those territories and in terms

13:43

of what it would mean for you

13:45

know, for the self confidence of NATO

13:47

allies, but also other allies around the world. I

13:50

hope that people in Washington are beginning to be a

13:52

little bit more creative that if a

13:54

no fly zone is out, then um,

13:57

you know, are we thinking about doing big

13:59

millet verry exercises in the Baltic Sea

14:01

in order to draw Russian troops away? Are

14:04

we thinking about ways of training

14:06

and army Ukrainians that we haven't tried before.

14:10

One of the things that you've done so effectively

14:13

over the last couple of years,

14:15

particularly is to link what

14:17

the stakes are between this

14:20

rise of autocracy, particularly the

14:22

aggressive disinformation campaigns

14:26

of Russia, but linking it to arise

14:29

in either an indifference

14:32

or contempt or rejection

14:34

of democracy on the part of

14:37

too many people in my view, in

14:39

Europe and in the United States. Do

14:42

you think that this could be a turning

14:44

point in waking

14:46

people up as to what is at stake

14:48

and what could be lost if we don't protect

14:52

our freedom and our our democratic

14:54

institutions. I think all

14:56

of the people who took democracy

14:58

for granted in our society and

15:01

in in our in Allied societies

15:03

suddenly realized how much they would have to

15:06

lose, and how much value there is in

15:08

the institutions that we have, and why

15:10

we need to protect them and reinforce

15:13

them. I mean, it's been actually very interesting to watch

15:15

how some of the pro Russian politicians

15:18

in Europe have been embarrassed.

15:20

Salvini, who is the leader of the Italian far

15:23

right, went to the Polish border a few days ago

15:25

where the mayor of the local town shouted

15:28

at him on camera and and waved

15:30

a T shirt that he'd worn in Moscow,

15:32

which which is a sort of pro Putin T shirt

15:35

and said, you know, Mr Salvini, do

15:37

you want to wear this when you're talking to the refugees.

15:41

There is a feeling that these, you know, these pro Russian

15:43

politicians who were very often taking

15:45

money from or at least accepting kind

15:48

of pr help from the Russians, or

15:50

had interactions with the Russians, are

15:52

part of the problem. They did have influence and a

15:54

lot of societies, and the feeling

15:56

that they are partly responsible um

15:59

is now quite widespread. I mean, Nigel

16:02

Farage in the UK is under attack, you

16:04

know, Marine Lapin in France is under attack,

16:07

so many many of them are now being seen

16:09

as having been irresponsible. And of course these

16:11

are the same politicians who say

16:14

they hate liberal democracy and you know,

16:16

have autocratic leanings and would

16:18

destroy institutions if they if they came

16:20

to power. Well, in fact, you're currently

16:23

at Johns Hopkins University, UH

16:26

teaching a course appropriately

16:28

titled democracy. And I'm

16:30

just curious, you know, with the Cold War having

16:33

ended before most, if not all, of your students

16:35

were even born, how do they view

16:37

this war in Ukraine? What kind of questions

16:39

do they ask you about? You know what it all

16:42

means? Um, it's You're

16:44

right, It's a fascinating moment. I was thinking about

16:46

how shaped my worldview

16:49

this war I think plus January the six

16:51

is going to shape the world view of a lot of Americans.

16:54

These will be the two big events of this

16:56

era for for people who are just coming of age,

16:59

and I think they do see it, you know,

17:01

very much the way we've we've just discussed as

17:03

a as a moment when a democracy

17:06

is fighting back against an autocracy, suddenly

17:09

issues that seemed very vague or hard

17:11

to understand become black and white.

17:14

I think it's also very important that this

17:16

war kills a kind of myth

17:19

that we had in the West, which was the myth of

17:21

inevitability, that somehow liberal

17:24

democracy is inevitable, that it will always

17:26

be with us, that it will always win the battles,

17:29

and that there's nothing in particular that we need

17:32

to do in order to support it or keep

17:34

it going. This was particularly damaging in the United States,

17:36

where it seemed like, you know, we could just

17:38

let the professional politicians go and

17:40

do their jobs, none of us

17:43

had to really participate in anything because our democracy

17:45

was just fine. I think this this and as

17:47

I say in January, the six are a

17:50

moment when people see that that's not true, that

17:52

there may have to be more public participation,

17:54

that you might have to involve yourself

17:56

in politics and ways that you didn't expect, just like the

17:58

Ukrainians are right now. We're

18:03

taking a quick break. Stay with us, you

18:14

know, and I recently wrote an essay

18:16

for The Atlantic where your work appears

18:19

about how republicans in our country

18:21

undermine democracy at home and

18:24

that helps autocrats like Putin

18:26

or jin Ping. You know, we're

18:28

seeing this play out in real time,

18:31

as you point out. In Europe,

18:33

there has been a shaming

18:35

of a lot of the political

18:38

leaders who supported and praise Putin.

18:41

Here in this country, you have followed

18:44

how we've had our own leaders

18:46

praising Putin as they call him

18:48

an anti woke hero and

18:51

a warrior in the culture wars. And

18:54

the Russian government even broadcasts

18:56

Tucker Carlson, who appears on Fox

18:58

News because of what he says in

19:01

support of Putin or casting doubt

19:03

on those who are seeing

19:06

with our own eyes what Putin is doing. How

19:09

do Russian viewers actually

19:12

get information and how do you

19:14

think Russia views somebody like Tucker Carlson

19:17

and the other Trump apologists, both

19:19

in the US and in Europe. The

19:22

role of the Trump apologists is truly

19:25

interesting because, of course, for me, it evokes

19:27

the role of left wing apologists

19:29

for communism, you know, in the in the last

19:31

century. And I think their behavior

19:34

comes out of something similar their

19:36

dislike of their own country, of

19:38

the United States. The nature of modern

19:41

America is so strong that

19:43

they're looking for alternatives anywhere,

19:46

even if those are autocratic alternatives,

19:49

and they're willing to overlook the true nature

19:51

of those autocratic states if

19:53

that gives them a kind of stick with which they

19:55

can beat their own country. And so the idea,

19:58

first of all, that Putin is a Christian or that he represents

20:00

some kind of white Christian um,

20:03

you know, anti woke spirit. I

20:05

mean, it's absurd on all kinds of levels. Very

20:07

few Russians or Christians, almost none of them go to church,

20:10

very few of them have ever read the Bible. You know.

20:12

One of the features of this war has been Russian

20:14

bombing of cathedrals and churches,

20:17

you know, but of course the Russians themselves encourage

20:20

it. I mean, I don't know exactly where Tucker gets

20:22

his information, UM, but some of

20:24

it is quite specific. He's made specific

20:27

comments about, you know, things that

20:29

the Ukrainians have done. That somebody is

20:31

feeding him information about how he should describe

20:33

the war and giving him ideas UM.

20:36

And then of course that information is

20:39

very very useful for the Putin regime to play

20:41

that back on Russian television. UM.

20:43

Tucker Carlson appears quite frequently, and

20:46

it's you know, used as evidence that we

20:48

have support in America. UM.

20:50

And so he is literally a useful idiot.

20:52

I mean, he is getting his information from

20:55

someone with ties to Russia. I don't know who it is, and

20:57

I don't want to speculate that information

20:59

is then being reproduced. It is then useful

21:01

to the Russian regime. So he's acting as a conduit

21:04

for Russian propaganda, which is extremely

21:07

useful to them. Um, it's it's a really

21:09

ugly thing to see, you

21:12

know. I I like a lot of people

21:14

only knew about President

21:17

Zelenski from Afar, but

21:19

what we've seen has been truly inspirational.

21:23

And I think but for him and his leadership,

21:26

we might not have the unity and the commitment

21:29

that we need to keep supporting

21:31

Ukraine in this fight. Have you

21:33

ever met him, an and and if so, can

21:36

you give us some idea about

21:38

how this former comedian and

21:40

actor has grown into the principal

21:43

defender of democracy and freedom

21:46

in the world right now? Um,

21:48

The first time I met Zelenski or saw

21:50

Zelenski was not that long after he was elected.

21:53

There was a conference, a sort of big event

21:55

in Kiev. I was invited. He was speaking

21:58

there and he when he spoke, he

22:00

did a kind of performance. I mean, it's you

22:02

know, there was some comedy routine. One of his comedy

22:04

troops came and pretended to be him, and you

22:07

know, then he stood up. You know, it was it was funny,

22:09

It was very well done, and afterwards

22:11

people said, well, that's I guess it's nice that

22:13

the president of Ukraine is amusing, but you

22:16

know, this is a country war with Russia.

22:19

Maybe we need something more. And people were really worried

22:21

by that Um and they didn't know how

22:23

he would react in the case of a crisis.

22:26

One of the really interesting things about him,

22:28

though, is how he got elected. So he was in

22:30

a television series that he wrote and

22:32

produced called Servant of the People,

22:35

in which he played an ordinary school

22:37

teacher who accidentally becomes president

22:40

Um. And it's it's a long story and the plot

22:42

it's complicated, and you know, and but a lot

22:44

of the the television series does is it makes fun

22:47

of how Ukrainians are overrespectful

22:50

of power. You know, once he was a sort of, you

22:52

know, an ordinary guy. He becomes president.

22:54

Suddenly people start genuflecting to him, and you

22:56

know, he's mystified by that and so on. And

22:59

I think one of the things that he's understood

23:01

is that the way to reach people

23:04

is to be an ordinary person, to have

23:06

ordinary emotions. And in a country that's

23:08

used to feeling distance

23:11

and sort of fear from the state and

23:13

from power, which they've had for you know, several

23:15

hundred years. Really he has

23:17

broken through and he you know, HiT's

23:20

what he's wearing. He's wearing a T shirt,

23:22

not not fatigues. He's not pretending

23:24

to be a general. He's just an ordinary person who's

23:26

fighting this war, like so many are. He

23:29

uses the language of ordinary people. He

23:31

doesn't talk in kind of pompous tones.

23:34

Um. He uses his own phone

23:36

to make the videos that he's showing to people, so

23:38

they're sort of it's unprofessional. I

23:40

mean some of that is orchestrated, but it's

23:42

orchestrated with a desire to be

23:45

authentic, and it works because it is authentic. Um.

23:47

And so I think his the he's

23:50

trying to inspire people with bravery

23:52

by acting out bravery himself. This is

23:54

what bravery looks like. Look here I am, here's

23:57

my chief of staff, here's the head

23:59

of the parliament, and we're all here. We're

24:01

in Kiev. We're not going anywhere, you

24:03

know, we're not leaving the country. That was his first big

24:06

video, you know, the first or second night of the war, and

24:08

I think that has been really transformational.

24:11

I know that people in Ukraine now turn him on every

24:13

night, you know, he now makes a nightly video and there's a kind

24:15

of national However, people are now

24:17

getting videos because you know, whether it's through

24:19

a telegram channel or some other app but

24:22

people are getting them, watching them, and

24:24

they're inspirational. I would say only one thing though,

24:26

which is that Ukraine has a long history

24:29

of being a kind of grassroots up

24:31

country rather than a leadership down

24:33

country. And I do think that even

24:36

if anything happened to him, that they would keep

24:38

fighting. So, you know, it's

24:40

it's a it's it's it's what you're

24:42

watching is this kind of self organization,

24:45

you know, this territory army that people all kinds

24:48

of people are now joining who have no experience

24:51

fighting in the past. That's not just

24:53

because of him, it's also you know, he

24:55

is he is learning from them as much as they

24:58

learned from him. So I think they would they

25:00

would be fighting even without him. And

25:03

what about Russia. I know it's so difficult

25:05

to get accurate factual information

25:08

if you're in Russia, and we've seen a

25:10

lot of protests, we've seen people being

25:12

arrested. Latest numbers I saw were you know,

25:15

in the you know, fifteen thousand plus

25:17

area of people have been thrown in

25:19

jail for protesting. I

25:21

mean, it's it's ironic that in

25:24

a time of so much technology

25:27

about information being conveyed, we're

25:29

having a harder time getting accurate

25:32

information into Russia now

25:34

than we did back in the Cold War,

25:36

the Soviet times, when we had

25:38

you know, radio free Europe, we had short

25:41

wave, we had lots of other,

25:44

you know, ways of getting information. How how

25:46

do Russians get accurate information so

25:48

that they have some sense of what Putin is

25:50

doing? So that is an excellent question

25:53

and a very very interesting one. I testified

25:55

in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and

25:58

said exactly this that one of the things

26:00

we should be thinking about doing now is hiring

26:02

all of those Russian journalists and television

26:04

producers who are fleeing Moscow and

26:07

employing them to create a Russian

26:09

satellite channel that could reach people,

26:11

um a little bit better. The Russians

26:14

are trying to cut off all access

26:16

to the outside world, sort of app by

26:18

app and station by station. All

26:20

of the Russian journalists have now been expelled from

26:22

Moscow who had any independent standing. I

26:24

spoke yesterday actually to a friend

26:27

of mine in Moscow who is

26:29

she's sort of the last liberal journalist standing

26:31

and she says she doesn't want to leave her book collection,

26:34

which cash,

26:38

but everyone she knows has gone. Everybody's

26:40

leaving, and so you know,

26:42

I really think it's the task now for our

26:44

administration and for other European governments

26:47

to figuring out what we're gonna

26:49

do. Do we need Russian satellite

26:51

station? As I discussed, do we

26:54

need to be thinking about digital samise

26:56

dot? Should there be people who are trying to

26:58

organize community cations inside

27:00

Russia through email chains or

27:02

through other kinds of connections, Um,

27:05

what is the best way to reach Russians? I mean there's a lot

27:07

of creative thinking going on right now, you

27:09

know, at the sort of lowest possible levels, as people

27:11

try and figure out exactly this problem. But um,

27:14

but it's not easy to solve. I mean, one almost wishes

27:16

for short wave radio is back, because at least

27:19

at least there was one channel, you know, on which

27:21

it was possible to hear things. Well. In fact,

27:24

I think I heard the BBC was going

27:26

to dig out their old shortwave you

27:29

know, the radio communications

27:31

equipment to see if they could actually

27:34

get into Russia. Well, and I

27:36

just have to close by number one thanking

27:38

you because honestly, you are such a

27:41

clear and level headed source

27:43

of insight and knowledge when

27:45

it comes to this part of the world. But

27:48

I also have to ask, as

27:50

you look at the threats to our future, not

27:52

just coming from Putin, but sadly

27:54

sometimes coming from ourselves, given

27:57

your understanding and appreciate

28:00

creation of history, are

28:02

you optimistic? So

28:04

I am naturally pessimistic. I think

28:06

anybody who spends their life studying

28:10

Soviet history has you know, has

28:13

some issues. But one of the conclusions

28:16

I've recently come to um, and this is

28:18

particularly true in our country, is

28:20

that it's very irresponsible for someone

28:22

like me to be pessimistic about

28:24

our country and about the future of democracy, because

28:27

really what happens tomorrow

28:30

depends on choices that we make

28:32

today. So nothing

28:34

is inevitable. Liberal democracy is not inevitable,

28:37

but also decline is not inevitable.

28:39

Autocracy is not inevitable, And

28:41

so I think we owe it, particularly

28:44

to younger people, to continue to be optimistic.

28:47

It's only by thinking about

28:49

a better and more positive future and

28:51

then figuring out how to get there that

28:53

we will be able to achieve it. So I

28:56

remain an optimist. I believe that people

28:58

are good and that they want to create better

29:00

societies, and that people instinctively

29:03

understand what's justice and what's

29:05

injustice. And you know, I

29:07

do believe that if we try, and if we

29:10

if we want it to happen, that Ukraine

29:12

can win and liberal democracy can prevail.

29:15

From your lips, my friend, I

29:20

cannot thank you enough and apple Bomb,

29:22

and I hope you wouldn't mind if I set

29:25

up my own channel with you to stay in touch

29:27

with you, because occasionally I do get

29:29

a chance to, you know, kibbits

29:32

with those who are making these literally

29:34

life and death decisions for Ukrainians,

29:37

for our future. And I

29:39

so value your insight and I

29:42

look forward to continuing the conversation.

29:44

Thank you. It was a real pleasure to speak

29:47

to you. Thank you so much. And

29:53

Apple Bomb's newest book is called

29:55

Twilight of Democracy The

29:58

Seductive Lure of a Oraitarianism.

30:01

I hope you will all pick it up and recommend

30:04

it to your friends. There's a lot that sadly

30:07

applies right here in our own

30:09

country. We'll

30:15

be right back now.

30:27

I know our next guest pretty well.

30:30

Mike McFall served as America's

30:32

ambassador to Russia, starting

30:34

when I was Secretary of State. Before

30:37

that, he served on the National Security

30:40

Council at the White House. He's

30:42

a professor of international relations

30:45

at Stanford University and

30:47

also an international affairs

30:49

analyst for NBC News.

30:52

Hello, Mike, see

30:55

you. Oh well, please call me Hillary my

30:57

friend. I

31:00

could call you ambassador, you could call me secretary.

31:03

We sound very official. I

31:05

think I do that. Well.

31:07

It is so great to have on

31:09

this podcast, Ambassador Mike

31:11

McFall. And to get us started,

31:14

I I want to set the stage for our

31:16

listeners. Can you describe

31:19

what our relationship with Russia

31:22

was like when you and I joined

31:24

the Obama administration in two thousand and

31:27

nine and how it has evolved.

31:30

Well, first, it's great to see you again. Um.

31:34

So, when we came into the government, everybody

31:37

needs to remember there was a different president. President

31:39

Vieira was the president. Putin was the prime

31:42

minister. Russia just invaded

31:44

Georgia in August two thight,

31:46

and US Russia relations were at a at

31:49

that time, at its lowest point ever

31:51

since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Um,

31:54

the Bush administration had

31:56

a pretty tepid response. I think it's fair

31:58

to say, uh, they did not sanction

32:00

anybody. They didn't send military assistance.

32:03

You can think about all the things we're debating

32:05

now they did not do. And

32:07

we came in several months later under

32:10

the banner of the Reset, as you know. Well uhm.

32:13

But but I think it's been misunderstood

32:16

what the reset was about. The reset was about trying

32:18

to get some things done that we're good for the American

32:21

people and good for our security interests.

32:23

And you played a central role

32:26

in that. Things like the New Start Treaty

32:28

reducing you know, thirty percent

32:30

of the nuclear weapons in the world, new

32:33

supply routes for our soldiers in Afghanistan,

32:36

uh sanctions on Iran the most comprehensive

32:39

sanctions ever multilateral

32:41

at that time. I add

32:44

one more thing to that early period

32:47

that I think is important for your listeners to understand,

32:50

is that why we were doing all that cooperation,

32:52

we were not checking our values at the door.

32:55

You personally and in particular, I want to

32:58

make make sure people understand that that us

33:00

to say that when you traveled

33:02

to Russia, you met with

33:05

the government and med Vieta fin Putin,

33:07

but then you also met with human rights activists

33:09

and civil society leaders. When President

33:12

Obama did that. He did the same two

33:14

thousand nine, his his first trip there

33:16

as president. He first day was government,

33:19

second day civil society. That was

33:21

our policy, right, dual track engagement.

33:25

And by the way, when all that was happening in the mid VIETA

33:27

f years, it was no big deal. You know. Obama

33:29

had a roundtable with all the chief

33:32

opposition leaders, so did you, and it was kind

33:34

of no big deal. It was not it was not news.

33:37

It's important to remember we were at least

33:39

in a position where we were

33:42

talking with and even negotiating

33:44

with the then president

33:46

of Russia. What happened?

33:49

How did we get from there to here?

33:51

In your expert opinion, two

33:54

things changed, very consequential. One,

33:57

Putin decided to run

33:59

for re election to become president again.

34:02

He thought, you know, mid vietnif was drinking

34:04

too much reset kool aid. From his point of view,

34:06

he's getting too soft with us. And

34:09

then in between the time he announced

34:11

that he was running, So he announces in September

34:13

two thousand eleven, the elections in March

34:16

two thousand twelve, and in between there

34:18

was a parliamentary election and it was

34:20

stolen kind of you know, falsified

34:22

five kind of the normal

34:25

levels. Just so you know, I remember

34:28

sitting in the situation room. It's like, there's no big deal.

34:30

There's just a normal Russian election

34:32

under Vladimir Putin. But two

34:35

things happen, and one of them was

34:38

you were directly responsible for one.

34:41

You issued a statement about

34:43

those elections not being free and fair. I

34:45

think you were in Vilnos at the time, if I'm

34:47

not mistaken. I was actually at an os

34:50

c E meeting, So that's right.

34:53

You know, the Organization for Security and

34:55

Cooperation in Europe, and one

34:57

of the goals of American to

35:00

plomacy literally since post World

35:02

War Two was to promote and protect

35:04

free and fair elections exactly,

35:07

And I remember it vividly. Just say, you know, Hillary,

35:09

because I was at my son's football

35:12

game in Maryland and trying

35:14

to find a quiet space to speak to your

35:16

eight at the time, Jake Sullivan, because

35:19

I was the guy that cleared that statement

35:21

for the White House on a Saturday, and

35:24

your statement plus Russians

35:27

going out onto the streets to protest

35:29

that uh falsified election. Right

35:31

first, five hundred and five thousand, and hundreds

35:34

of thousands of people protesting.

35:36

First time you've seen that kind of protesting

35:39

in Russia since nine the year

35:41

of the Soviet Union collapsed, and Putin

35:44

put those two things together and he

35:46

said, ah ha, there's a threat to my regime

35:48

here, and it's Hillary

35:50

Clinton's fault. It's the West fault.

35:53

And I really think, you know,

35:55

he's paranoid about democracy, right

35:58

with with good reason, by the way, but

36:01

that became the drama that

36:03

leads to the events today because two years

36:05

after those protests, there were

36:08

major protests in Ukraine. By

36:10

the way, I think you're in another meeting in Europe

36:13

when Yanakovich was supposed to come sign

36:15

an EU agreement and he

36:18

got cold feet at the time, and he's,

36:20

you know, because Putin put a lot of pressure on him. By

36:22

that time. I was working in Moscow and I remember

36:25

they gave him a big financial

36:27

aid package to not sign that agreement.

36:29

And Covi was that at that time, the president

36:32

of Ukraine. So that for people who

36:34

may not know right, right, and he was coming

36:37

to and I want to say another meeting

36:39

that you were at, if I'm not mistaken, Yeah,

36:41

I was in Ukraine. I actually I remember

36:44

I was. I was in Ukraine, and

36:46

you know, there was such a sense

36:48

of hope and optimism, particularly

36:51

among young Ukrainians, and you

36:54

know, their hopes were to

36:56

move toward Europe. They wanted to be part

36:58

of the European Union and that

37:00

was a separate issue from NATO, that they wanted

37:03

to be considered Europeans. Uh,

37:05

They're in literally the largest

37:07

landmass country other

37:10

than Russia that is in Europe, and they

37:12

wanted to look west right.

37:15

Well, and that's exactly what happened. Janakovic

37:18

did not sign that accession agreement

37:20

with European unions and a

37:23

journalists then turned parliamentary in his

37:25

name is Mustafa got onto

37:27

Facebook and said this is outrageous.

37:30

We are European. He said, come

37:33

to the streets, and eventually, uh,

37:35

they came to the streets, and that was

37:37

again for putin there. It is

37:39

again mass mobilization.

37:42

He doesn't believe that people can do this on their

37:44

own. There's got to be the hand of the

37:46

United States and the CIA. It

37:49

then got violent. As you remember, by

37:52

this time you were no longer Secretary of State,

37:54

as I recalled, but that I left February

37:56

one, right, right, So this had

37:58

happened, you know, after Secretary Carrey

38:00

was in place. But the mobilization

38:03

again. That's what they called the Revolution

38:05

of dignity. Janikovich fled

38:08

and Putin decided, okay, here's

38:11

the the hidden hand of the Americans

38:13

again, and that's when he invaded

38:16

Ukraine. The first time. Sees Crimea supported

38:19

the separatists, but ever since

38:22

he's been trying to undermine that

38:24

democratic government that took over, ever

38:27

since, through all kinds of different ways. And

38:30

as he said the night before he invaded,

38:32

I watched that speech. It was just rant

38:34

all over the place. Took fifty eight minutes

38:36

for him to make his argument um.

38:38

And by the way, you know, as a professor, let

38:41

me say, if you need fifty eight minutes to make your argument,

38:44

you don't know what your argument is, um.

38:47

But there were two seeds of it in there,

38:49

and to this day, this is what it is about. He

38:51

said, we're gonna destroy the Ukrainian

38:54

army and we're gonna do denazification,

38:57

which means to kill Mr Zelenski,

38:59

to pipe out his government. So this is

39:01

about him trying to roll back the Revolution

39:04

of dignity from two thousand four. Mike,

39:07

I want to I want to go back a little bit because

39:09

I know you were born and raised in Montana.

39:12

How did you become interested

39:14

in Russia and become a Russian

39:17

expert? Wow, we're going way

39:19

back. Uh so

39:21

yeah, I grew up in Montana, never

39:24

been to California, let

39:26

alone abroad, until as

39:28

a seventeen year old kid, I flew

39:30

to Stanford. I was an undergraduate at Stanford, but

39:33

I got interested in Hillary in high school. I

39:35

was on the high school debate team, and

39:38

my junior year in Bozeman Senior High

39:40

the topic was to improve

39:43

US trade policy, and so my

39:45

partner and I ran a case, as they're

39:47

called in debate, to grant

39:50

the Soviet Union most Favored Nation status.

39:53

That was our case, by the way, something I later

39:55

disagreed with, but at the time that's

39:57

how I got interested. And when

40:00

I showed up, you know, it was the fall

40:02

of nineteen eight one, so President

40:04

Reagan had just been elected. Uh

40:07

he was talking about, you know, the Evil

40:09

Empire, and it felt like a very

40:12

scary time to me as a young kid.

40:15

And so fall quarter of my freshman

40:17

year I enrolled in two classes

40:19

that really had a big impact on my life.

40:22

First year Russian, which I then took

40:24

you know for many years, and then you

40:26

know, of course, on how nations deal with each other.

40:29

And I was animated by an idea

40:31

that that, you know, in different ways, has

40:34

been a part of my thinking ever since.

40:36

You know, I wanted to see the Soviets

40:38

themselves. You know, I was wondering, well, what

40:41

is this about the evil Empire? And I'm not

40:43

sure I believe Ronald Reagan, and

40:45

so I wanted to get to the Soviet Union. And

40:48

so, you know, most kids at Stamford

40:50

they go to London, Paris, Florence

40:52

for their junior year abroad. At

40:54

the end of my sophomore year, I went

40:56

to Leninggrad. I went to Leningrad State University.

40:59

And you gotta remember, like this is imagine

41:03

that phone call to my mom. H

41:07

you thought that California was a communist

41:09

country, you know, and suddenly her

41:11

sons going to you know, the evil Empire.

41:13

But and you

41:16

know, basically ever since that, that was how I got

41:18

kind of interested in thinking about the place. That's

41:21

really an interesting story because you've been evolving

41:24

ever since, and you ended

41:26

up being our ambassador to

41:29

Russia. And I remember

41:32

very well the challenges that you

41:34

and your family faced, because I

41:37

think, Mike, you also

41:40

posed a real challenge, a real,

41:42

in their view, threat to their

41:45

mentality starting with Putin, but

41:48

going on down, you wanted

41:50

to live your life. Your kids were with you.

41:52

Initially, you were engaged

41:55

in the community, you were on social

41:57

media, and then we started

41:59

to get very troubling, you know, messages

42:02

about how the government

42:04

of Russia and that had to start with

42:06

Putin was really making life

42:09

hard for you. Can you talk a little

42:11

bit about that, because I think again,

42:14

people who are just for the first time maybe

42:17

tuning in because Ukraine is so dramatic

42:19

and so horrific, may

42:21

not have at all the background

42:24

that you certainly do about how we ended

42:27

up where we are. Um

42:30

So, remember we left out a few

42:32

chapters of my history and I'll go through them quickly.

42:35

But you know, my initial time

42:37

in the Soviet Union, I was like, Oh, this place

42:39

isn't so bad. I went back

42:41

in eight five understanding

42:43

Russian better, and I got deeper into the society,

42:46

and then I came out a militant

42:49

anti communist and a militant

42:51

pro democrat. And then I

42:53

lived in the Soviet Union. Um

42:56

I was a fulbright scholar. You

42:59

know, that's when there was mass mobilization,

43:02

democratic movement, and I worked with a group

43:04

that you probably know, the National Democratic

43:06

Institute, and it was just a you

43:09

just got to remember. It was such a euphoric

43:12

moment. I remember because you

43:14

know, the Berlin Wall fell in nineteen

43:17

eighty nine and then the years

43:19

you're describing um led

43:21

to the fall of the Soviet Union. So

43:24

at that period, groups like NDI

43:27

and and you know, I then opened the office

43:29

in Moscow, the

43:31

National Democratic Institute funded

43:34

by the United States government, actually yes, and

43:36

it's affiliated with the Democratic Party, and we were

43:38

there to help do political

43:41

party development. But we were not We

43:43

were there at the invitation of the government.

43:46

I think that's the part that people get wrong. They

43:48

wanted us there, and you know, I

43:50

was a rock star. We were these young,

43:53

idealistic people and got

43:55

to know, you know, people that later

43:57

became the opposition to

43:59

Putin when I showed up two

44:02

decades later. And I tell you that piece because

44:04

Putin knows that. But fast

44:07

forward to when I showed up as ambassador.

44:10

You know, before I had gotten there, these

44:12

massive protests had been taking place, and

44:16

Putin went out of his way to

44:18

criticize you personally. He

44:20

said that you had sent a

44:22

signal to those protesters,

44:25

and so I arrived right in the in

44:27

the as that was all happening. And

44:30

you know, I just I remember

44:33

my last meeting with you before I left. You

44:35

told me three things, he said, be

44:37

strong, don't forget about our values.

44:40

And you are the person that told

44:42

me to get on Twitter. I don't know if you remember

44:45

that, but you said, you said, And

44:48

I'm still on Twitter, by the way, and it's

44:50

an important platform for me. But

44:52

but your argument was, we gotta reach

44:54

out to Russian society, we gotta engage

44:57

with them. So I did that,

44:59

but the conditions and change, right. It

45:02

was one thing to meet the opposition

45:06

when mid Vietnef was president, when

45:08

we traveled together, Um, you

45:10

probably don't remember, but one of the times we traveled

45:12

together, like I want to say, two thousand

45:15

and ten or so, I was

45:17

actually meeting with a group of opposition

45:19

leaders in the hotel room and you walked

45:21

by, and I grabbed your eye

45:23

and you came over and you you you did

45:26

a vodka shot with them all. One

45:28

of them. One of them is a guy named

45:30

Boris and himself who who five years

45:32

later was assassinated. But you made a huge

45:34

impression on them. And it was you know, but it

45:37

wasn't dangerous then, you know that

45:39

that was a different era. By the time I showed up as

45:41

ambassador, Putin was completely

45:45

you know, nervous about his regime.

45:47

So they used me as a target

45:50

of you know, to say that I was sent

45:52

by you and Obama to go orchestrate

45:55

the revolution and so that that was

45:57

my faith. Yeah. No,

45:59

I mean, his his paranoia just

46:02

seemed to grow and grow. And

46:05

you know, there's been a lot of armchair psychologists

46:08

trying to figure out what's happened

46:10

to Putin? Why Putin is

46:13

so aggressive and really

46:15

risk taking right now? Does he have

46:17

some health issues physical mental?

46:20

Some people who said he looks puffy, looks

46:22

like he's taking steroids. I mean, do

46:24

you have any um, I

46:26

don't know about insight, maybe too you

46:29

know, too much to ask for, but any observations

46:31

about what's going on with him personally. So

46:34

a couple of things, and it's speculation,

46:37

of course, right. But one remember,

46:39

even when I was ambassador, we were

46:41

writing lots of cables back explaining

46:44

how isolated he was. Back

46:46

then. That's eight years ago, right, Uh,

46:49

you know, when when you came out to see him as Secretary

46:51

of State. We had to drive out this compound.

46:54

Right. We didn't meet in the Kremlin. That's

46:56

because because he always met all

46:58

of his people out in his country state,

47:00

and he would sit out there, this is several

47:03

years ago, barely meet with his advisers,

47:06

not meet with many foreigners. It

47:08

was a major deal that he would meet

47:11

with you. Very few leaders

47:13

in the world even back then, had

47:15

FaceTime with him. And he's

47:18

been in power for twenty two years, right, So

47:21

when you get to be in power that long, you don't

47:23

think that anybody can tell you anything. And

47:26

COVID added to his isolation.

47:29

Uh, he doesn't get very good information. He just

47:31

gets this secret information from the KGB

47:34

guys, and it's all distorted

47:36

about Ukraine. You know, he's already removed

47:39

some of his intelligence generals because

47:43

because he got bad information about

47:46

how the Ukrainians were going to receive them. So

47:48

I think he's been very isolated for a long time,

47:51

has been starting to believe his own propaganda.

47:54

And then you know, has this other

47:57

piece that I think is important for people to understand.

48:00

He thinks of himself as a great you

48:02

know, Catherine the Great, Peter the Great

48:05

Restorer of the Russian Empire, wants

48:08

to bring the Slavic people's together,

48:10

as he explained before he invaded Ukraine,

48:13

and fundamentally doesn't understand Ukrainians

48:16

like he just doesn't understand they aren't

48:18

just people with an accent but basically

48:20

Russians, right, that's what he thinks. Um.

48:24

And he drastically miscalculated

48:27

in thinking that this was going to be a cake

48:29

walk. And you can see he's

48:31

he's gradually getting more and more angry,

48:34

saying more and more crazy things, talking

48:37

about the internal they call it the

48:39

fifth column, right, the people inside

48:41

Russia. That's an all communists

48:43

sort of Leninist Stalinist term, is

48:46

exactly it is. That was scary, especially

48:49

because I think of, you know, my Russian friends

48:52

who he's thinking of, um, and guys

48:54

like Mr Novaldy, who's you know, in

48:56

jail right now and from jail

48:59

calling on Russia to protest this horrible

49:01

war. So he feels like he's getting

49:03

more and more unhinged. Um.

49:06

I don't think he's suicidal. So I

49:09

think we should be you know, we need

49:11

to be firm and not you

49:14

know, these threats he's making about nuclear

49:17

weapons. We we should make sure that they

49:19

haven't changed their policy on that. But

49:22

we should also not overreact to his

49:24

threats. I think at times, you

49:26

know, he says, well, if you if we send these

49:28

planes, these MiG twenty nine, he'll

49:31

escalate. Well, what does that mean?

49:33

He's going to escalate? Like, I think we need to

49:35

be a little stronger and more confident.

49:37

I agree with that. So I agree

49:40

with that. Yeah, No, I mean, in fact, that's what I

49:42

wanted to ask you. I think

49:44

that the Biden administration um

49:46

and like like you, I've I've talked to

49:49

some of the people in it. Many of them were in the

49:51

Obama administration, even the Klinton administration.

49:53

So more for you, they're they're

49:55

all I think about it,

49:57

They all for you. Yeah, and they're they're full

50:00

that we know and respect. And I

50:03

thought that the initial phases

50:06

of their reactions were really

50:09

very strong, and I

50:12

was impressed by their willingness

50:14

to release intelligence in order to

50:16

undercut what was clearly

50:18

a plan of Putin's for a false flag

50:20

operation to make it seem like somehow

50:22

the Ukrainians were attacking Russians and

50:25

therefore he had to go in and protect the Russians.

50:28

So I do think that the accelerated

50:31

pace of providing lethal

50:34

weaponry to Ukraine

50:36

is really important. But what

50:38

do you think, Uh, Mike, again,

50:40

it's just you and me kind of you know, throwing

50:43

stuff up on the wall. See what we'll stick. Um,

50:46

what should the US and NATO be

50:48

doing in the days and weeks and months

50:50

ahead? And second part of that, have you

50:52

been surprised at how strongly,

50:55

Um, the Ukrainians have defended

50:57

themselves. Well, let's let's lilip

51:00

around. Let's start with the Ukrainians and then what we should

51:02

do to help them. So I'm it's been

51:05

amazing, right. I mean the

51:08

institute I run out here at Stanford, Hillary,

51:10

we actually have been training activists

51:13

in Ukraine starting in two thousand five.

51:15

We had our first fellow from there from

51:18

Ukraine. We're up to we had now have three hundred

51:20

a lums throughout Ukraine. So

51:23

people think of me as a Russia guy. But um,

51:25

you know, I wrote my first book about

51:27

Ukraine in two thousand and six, and because

51:30

of that network, I've been in touch with Ukrainians

51:32

throughout this entire war. UM.

51:35

I hosted presidents a Lensky here at Stanford

51:37

last September, the only place he spoke

51:39

publicly. Is first Ukrainian

51:42

president to come to California, so

51:44

I got to know him. You know, we had a great day together,

51:46

and he's a very engaging guy, and he's

51:48

funny and you know, but nobody

51:52

knew how he would respond in this moment. Right.

51:54

He's a new guy to politics, and

51:56

I just think he's a heroic figure. I

51:58

spoke to him just fourth five days ago. By chance.

52:01

I was hitting the Skype button to talk

52:04

to one of our alums who

52:06

works for him, his name Serge, and

52:08

the screen came on just like we're talking, and there

52:10

was Zelensky and his bunker and

52:13

he said, Mike, you look just like, yeah, you

52:15

looked what I was in California. I said, Mr President,

52:17

you don't, uh, you know, he's got his scraggly

52:20

beard and his T shirt. Um. But

52:22

Hillary, let me tell you honestly, that was

52:24

not by accident. I was speaking

52:26

to two members of Congress just four

52:28

hours later, and that shows you some of

52:31

their savvy of their public communications strategy.

52:33

They knew that, and they knew twenty

52:37

minute conversation with Zelenski before I

52:39

went to join Speaker Pelosi would

52:41

have an effect on what I said, and it did so

52:44

the battlefield, they're doing

52:46

heroic work on the battlefield. I also think

52:48

in terms of public communications,

52:50

the speech he gave to Congress brilliant,

52:54

and that's why, in my view, we

52:56

should do everything we can do to

52:58

help them win. And by win, I mean to

53:01

fight the Russians to a stalemate, so

53:03

they have to negotiate. And what I would say on

53:05

the strategy so far, I'd

53:08

say three of the four things they've done really

53:10

well, uh and they have to keep doing it.

53:12

So strengthening NATO, moving

53:14

our forces and material to our frontline

53:17

states great A plus

53:20

military assistance historic

53:22

levels. We've never done something as big. I

53:24

always wanted more. I think they should have sent those

53:26

big twenty nine for instance, and they should

53:29

have done that quietly, not in the public

53:31

back and forth, but but but

53:33

generally that I support that. And

53:36

the sanctions. Very impressed with what

53:38

they've done on sanctions, that's been terrific.

53:40

But I would say two things. One the communications

53:44

inside Russia we're

53:46

not doing as well as we need to. We need to

53:48

get mothers of those soldiers

53:51

to understand what's going on to Ukraine

53:53

so that when the next draft date comes up,

53:55

and it's coming up I think April one. They

53:58

say, you know, I don't want to give my kid to

54:00

this, this horrible war. And that's

54:02

hard. I don't want to trivialize how hard that

54:04

is, because they're closing down that space. But

54:07

we got to get more creative on that. And

54:10

as you know, the professor that I am, when

54:13

I talk to my our colleagues in the government,

54:15

I say, okay, you've got straight a's

54:17

right now. But that was just the first

54:20

midterm. We got ways to go here,

54:22

folks. And um, you know

54:24

you put six hundred oligarcs on the sanctions list,

54:27

Well there's a list of six thousand, um,

54:29

and so you've gotta keep at it, and

54:32

especially on the weapons and and

54:34

sanctions. It's not sufficient

54:36

just to hold. You've got to keep ratcheting up

54:39

the pressure on the economy and keep

54:41

giving them the weapons to defend themselves. Oh.

54:44

I completely agree with that, Mike. Um. Specifically,

54:46

what more could be and should be

54:49

done in terms of getting information

54:52

into Russia. We know, you know the

54:54

Kremlin is trying to block any kind

54:56

of channels, but there's so much I

54:58

mean, this is not you know fifty,

55:01

there's lots of ways of getting information

55:03

in so specifically, what would you advise

55:06

not just the American government,

55:09

but all the NATO governments, any allied

55:11

government and and individuals as well

55:13

as corporations. Yes, well, one

55:16

thing we should do immediately is

55:18

to help too. In particular,

55:20

I can be very specific. TV Rain and

55:23

Echo musk V the radio

55:25

station. By the way, you were on Echo Musky. I remember,

55:28

I remember we went to the studio. I remember

55:30

they have your photo on the wall, just so you

55:32

know. After that, so when I would go there

55:34

as ambassador, I would walk by it and

55:37

that, you know, just to for people

55:39

who don't know, this is the number one

55:42

radio multimedia companies

55:44

started in this iconic

55:47

Echo Muscovy. I mean everybody listens

55:49

to millions of listeners throughout the country.

55:52

They just were shut down a couple of weeks ago, and

55:55

TV Rain is the last independent

55:57

TV program. Their reconst

56:00

tuting themselves outside of the country. And we should

56:02

support them and they'll figure

56:04

out through VPNs and you

56:06

know, various ways to how to penetrate their

56:09

cyber wall. It's not as good as the Chinese,

56:11

they're not. They don't have that in place. UM

56:14

even more creatively, text messaging

56:17

is a very important information

56:19

push. We know that from our elections, right. Um,

56:22

opposition knows that inside Russia we're

56:25

not doing enough in terms of that kind of messaging.

56:28

And that's that's complicated, and

56:30

you know who does it and what messaging.

56:32

But I think in this moment, that's

56:34

another place that we we want to

56:36

be present. You know, Arnold

56:38

Schwarzenegger did this video a few days

56:41

ago, and you know he's

56:43

very popular in Russia. That's what I've heard,

56:46

and the video was really power. You've seen

56:48

it, Yeah, I just saw it. I saw

56:50

I saw it on Twitter. Yeah, well there you go.

56:53

Umuh. And by the way, Twitter's

56:55

blocked, but there's still through VPNs

56:58

those all those platforms book on tact

57:00

Day their Facebook

57:02

like platform. I worry about

57:05

YouTube. By the way, YouTube is a very important

57:07

platform inside Russia. I

57:10

predict that will be the next one that that Putin goes

57:12

after. But back to Arnold like that, he's

57:15

an iconic figure in Russia, so for him to do

57:17

that, pieces of that interview

57:19

will eventually show up on people's smartphones.

57:22

Um, And we gotta think of other ways

57:24

to do kind of you know, creative things like

57:26

that. One other thing that's happening.

57:28

For instance, just to give you a flavor of what Ukrainians

57:32

and Russian opposition folks are doing. They're

57:34

saying, go on to restaurant

57:37

websites and when you give reviews,

57:40

start writing, stop the war, right,

57:43

So the little things like that, just

57:45

you gotta you gotta be full in. That's

57:47

the part I think we need to do more work on. Well,

57:50

you pass that on, I'll pass it and we'll see if

57:52

we can get you know, more of a reaction.

57:58

We'll be back right after this quick

58:00

break. Can

58:09

you really describe

58:12

for Americans why we

58:14

have so much at stake in

58:16

what's going on in Ukraine? Assuming

58:19

that Ukraine continues

58:21

this heroic resistance we're

58:23

facing, you know, weeks maybe

58:26

months of attacks and

58:28

stalemates and everything that

58:30

goes with it, continuing threats from Putin?

58:33

Why should Americans keep caring? Why

58:36

should they be willing to

58:39

sacrifice whether it's increasing

58:42

gas prices or other

58:44

economic blowback from these

58:47

very comprehensive sanctions.

58:49

Yeah, great question and

58:51

a hard one to answer. But let me frame

58:54

it the way I think about it. This is a fight

58:56

between autocrats and democrats. Uh,

58:59

it is a fight of ideas as

59:01

we're talking about before. Putin was

59:03

never was never really threatened

59:06

by NATO expansion. He was threatened by

59:08

democratic expansion, and

59:10

he always got h you know, it was always democratic

59:13

expansion led to him complaining about NATO.

59:15

So this is a fight about that. And let

59:18

me just paint two scenarios. If

59:20

Zelenski wins and and there's

59:23

a stalemate and Putin is repelled,

59:26

that has lots of important

59:28

positive consequences from American national

59:31

security interests. Right. First of all, our

59:33

NATO allies will be less nervous

59:35

than they are today because he'll be pushed back.

59:38

Our allies and friends in

59:40

Asia will feel more secure.

59:43

Uh, Shijing Ping better think twice about

59:46

invading Taiwan. Looking

59:49

at what a fiasco what he thought

59:51

was the third most powerful army

59:53

in the in the world, one that he

59:55

cooperates with, one that they have a lot of weapons

59:57

systems together, right Uh, And out

1:00:00

look at how morally they're performing in Ukraine.

1:00:02

And if they lose there, that's good

1:00:04

for deterring China from invading Taiwan.

1:00:06

And by the way, if the sanctions

1:00:08

help to keep the pressure on the economy,

1:00:11

she's better thing twice about invading and

1:00:13

facing those sanctions. That's

1:00:15

a good thing, but the opposite

1:00:18

is also true. If Putin wins

1:00:20

and those fighting for democracy lose

1:00:23

inside Ukraine, that has negative

1:00:26

consequences all around the world as well. Our

1:00:28

NATO allies will need more reassurance,

1:00:31

and that means more military spending

1:00:33

from US to help make sure

1:00:35

that Putin doesn't attack them. Our

1:00:38

allies in the Middle East will be nervous,

1:00:41

uh and start hedging their bets. You

1:00:43

know, maybe we need to work with the Russians because

1:00:45

we can't. These Americans are not so reliable.

1:00:48

I'm thinking of Israel first and foremost, and

1:00:51

out in Asia the same thing, like um,

1:00:53

you know, those are fence sitters. Will think,

1:00:55

well, maybe we better lean more towards the Chinese

1:00:58

because the Americans didn't prevail.

1:01:02

So I think the consequences actually are much

1:01:04

bigger than just in Ukraine. Winning

1:01:07

has a very positive consequence

1:01:10

in terms of how other people will

1:01:12

deal with us in the future. Well, that's

1:01:14

very well said, and I agree completely

1:01:17

and the and the only additional point

1:01:19

I would make is that I think it's also good for

1:01:21

our own democracy here at home because

1:01:24

the apologists and

1:01:27

frankly, shall we say, fellow travelers

1:01:30

of a nationalistic, even

1:01:33

violent opposition as we saw

1:01:35

in January six in our own country will

1:01:37

have to think twice. Their

1:01:39

base will be rattled and

1:01:42

uh, those who promote undermining

1:01:45

our institutions, ignoring the rule of law,

1:01:47

trying to undermine our elections,

1:01:50

everything that we know, unfortunately

1:01:52

is part of the agenda of the opposition

1:01:56

in America. I think that too will

1:01:58

be you know, shape absolutely.

1:02:00

I mean, don't forget. I don't

1:02:02

need to tell you, but maybe your listeners have forgotten.

1:02:05

Putin's been trying to undermine democracy

1:02:08

for a long long time, including our own democracy,

1:02:11

including undermining you personally during

1:02:14

our elections. For a reason. I

1:02:16

mean, you know, small D democratic

1:02:18

ideas, small L liberal ideas

1:02:20

are a threat to him, and leaders

1:02:23

around the world, including you, that

1:02:25

support those are threats to him. And

1:02:28

for years he's been cultivating ties

1:02:31

with I call it the illiberal international

1:02:33

rights populist nationalist leaders

1:02:36

you know, Urban and Hungary, Salibanian,

1:02:39

Italy, Lepin and France Farage

1:02:41

in the UK and Mr Trump and his you

1:02:44

know, the people around him, the Steve Bannons of the

1:02:46

world. They have been He's been making

1:02:48

progress. I think the good news out

1:02:50

of this horrible crisis is

1:02:52

it's like you just said, it's a lot harder

1:02:55

to play those games and line

1:02:57

up with Putin, But that's all the more

1:03:00

important if he if he wins victorious,

1:03:02

all those kind of groups will now you know,

1:03:04

start sprouting again and say, well he's

1:03:07

evil, but you know he's a strong leader.

1:03:10

We can't we can't let them go back to that

1:03:13

we've got. That's why Putin has to lose

1:03:15

in Ukraine. And I guess the final

1:03:17

thing I would ask you, Mike, is does does

1:03:20

Putin and his regime survived

1:03:22

this win or lose? So?

1:03:26

Um? You know, I'm a political scientist, and I

1:03:28

would say we're not very good at predicting the future.

1:03:31

Um. I also worked five years in the government.

1:03:33

I'd said, the CIA is not very good at it either. Just

1:03:36

so so we they didn't

1:03:38

get the Green Revolution in Iran, right, or the

1:03:40

Arab spring rights, or the Russian protests

1:03:43

are Ukraine. But so, but with that humble

1:03:45

caveat, let me let me say two things

1:03:48

I know I'm very certain of one.

1:03:50

I'm absolutely sure that

1:03:53

the Ukrainians eventually will win. I

1:03:56

don't know when they were gonna win but Putin

1:03:58

doesn't have the army to occupy

1:04:00

this country, the largest country in Europe forty

1:04:03

million people. Stalin had millions

1:04:05

in the Red Army when he put his puppet

1:04:07

regimes in place after forty five. Putin does

1:04:09

not have that capability, and he doesn't

1:04:12

have the ideas. Stalin was repelling

1:04:14

real fascists, and when he liberated

1:04:17

countries, he said he could make the

1:04:19

argument, we're building a new society communists,

1:04:21

and he attracted just enough lackeys

1:04:24

to help him build those places. Putin

1:04:27

doesn't have that. So Ukrainians

1:04:29

will fight door by door with

1:04:31

guns, acts of non violence, civic resistance.

1:04:34

There's no doubt on my mind. Eventually though,

1:04:36

they will repel putin soldiers.

1:04:39

I just don't know when that should be. We

1:04:41

should hasten that. But you asked a different question,

1:04:43

yes, about Russia, And here's

1:04:45

the way I think about it. It reminds

1:04:47

me of the bresne era. You

1:04:50

know, Bresnef was in power for almost

1:04:52

twenty years, one of the longest serving

1:04:54

general secretaries in the early phases,

1:04:57

you know, he was he was kind of he did okay

1:05:00

in the sixties, and then the seventies came along,

1:05:03

and he went on this run victories

1:05:06

where communist regimes, we're

1:05:08

taking over the world, right, so Vietnam,

1:05:11

Cambodia, Laos and then

1:05:13

Angola and Mozambique

1:05:15

in Africa, Nicaragua,

1:05:18

even in our hemisphere. That

1:05:20

was seventy nine and so he had like five

1:05:22

wins. And by the way, Hillary, we

1:05:25

kind of looked like we did recently,

1:05:28

right, We were divided amongst ourselves, lots

1:05:30

of you know, civil rights movement, anti

1:05:32

war movement, Nixon. These

1:05:35

were times where we didn't look like we were

1:05:37

so strong ourselves, right, So a lot of parallels.

1:05:40

And then bres overreached. He

1:05:43

invaded Afghanistan and he

1:05:45

thought it was gonna be a k k walk, you know, Kazakhstan,

1:05:48

Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan. We're just gonna

1:05:50

add one more stand to They called

1:05:52

it the Sixteenth Republic, and we all

1:05:54

know how that ended. It was a disaster for

1:05:57

the Soviet Union. And it was one,

1:06:00

not the only factor, but it was one of the factors.

1:06:02

That was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union.

1:06:04

Took a decade, but but it

1:06:07

it helped unravel things. And I think

1:06:09

this is the beginning of the end of of Putinism.

1:06:12

Even if Putin survives in power,

1:06:15

which he may very well do, it's a pretty

1:06:18

horrific dictatorship. But he's

1:06:20

lots the elites, Hillary, I gotta tell you,

1:06:22

like, I'm in touch with Russians all the

1:06:24

time, including people that were

1:06:27

kind of pro Putin. Right, he violated

1:06:29

the contract, which was I'll be your

1:06:31

dictator in return for a stable

1:06:34

economy. Well that's over now, and

1:06:37

I just think it will eventually,

1:06:40

you know, maybe it'll take one more leader

1:06:42

that won't have the authority. But I

1:06:44

do think this is the beginning of the end. I

1:06:47

just don't know how long that process will be.

1:06:49

But it's very hard for me to imagine

1:06:53

a Putin like figure in power

1:06:55

in Russia twenty years from now. I

1:06:57

think that's really unlikely. So that's a

1:07:00

sliver of good news. We just don't know when that

1:07:02

good news gets delivered. Yeah, no,

1:07:04

And we just have to keep our nerve

1:07:06

and be patient and be smart

1:07:09

about, you know, the strategies we

1:07:11

employ and absolutely

1:07:13

stay the course. Well, I can't

1:07:15

tell you what a delight it is for me to have

1:07:18

this time to talk with you, Mike, and I

1:07:20

really look to you for you

1:07:24

know, interpretation and guidance about

1:07:26

how we can stay the course. And thank

1:07:28

you so much for you know, sharing this

1:07:30

time with me and our listeners, really

1:07:32

enjoying Hillary. Let's do it again sometime. Thank

1:07:35

you. Bye. Mike

1:07:41

mcfall's most recent book is From

1:07:44

Cold War to Hot Peace,

1:07:47

an American Ambassador in Putin's

1:07:49

Russia. You can also follow

1:07:51

him like I do on Twitter at

1:07:54

McFall. Recent

1:07:57

events have proven what we know to be true.

1:08:00

We are all connected, that what

1:08:02

happens abroad matters here at

1:08:04

home, and that an attack on democracy

1:08:07

anywhere is a threat to

1:08:09

democracy everywhere. So

1:08:12

as we stand with the people of Ukraine

1:08:15

in the difficult weeks and probably

1:08:17

months ahead, it's also

1:08:19

important that we stand with one another

1:08:22

and stand up for our democracy

1:08:25

right here at home. Before

1:08:30

I go, as a reminder, I'll be answering

1:08:32

your questions on a future episode

1:08:35

of You and Me both with a special

1:08:37

guest. Maybe you've got more questions

1:08:40

about what's going on with Ukraine and Russia,

1:08:43

or what's happening with attacks on our

1:08:45

democracy right here in America, or

1:08:48

maybe there's something more personal or

1:08:50

lighthearted that you want to ask me. No

1:08:53

matter what your questions might be, right

1:08:56

to You and Me Both pod

1:08:58

at gmail dot com, or

1:09:01

you can leave a voice message at two

1:09:03

oh two seven eight oh seven

1:09:05

five one five and who knows,

1:09:08

I might just answer your question

1:09:11

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1:09:13

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