War in Ukraine: Putin lashes out against West | DW News

We Begin the day with the war in Ukraine according to Vladimir Putin today in Moscow in a rare partly unscripted public discussion Russian President Putin attacked the West accusing it of using the military and money to undermine Russia's national security and its International standing Putin accused the U.S and its European allies of fueling the war in Ukraine he doubled down on his commitment to securing the donbass region in eastern Ukraine and still referring to the invasion as a special military operation Putin went down the list of reasons for the conflict but there was a noticeable Omission Putin said nothing about his goal of cleansing Ukraine of its neo-nazis he also made it clear who qualifies now as an ally to Russia topping the list China which has declared a No Limits partnership with Russia and there is also something personal here for Putin as well the day he called Chinese president Xi Jinping a close friend here is part of what Vladimir Putin said today he begins by lashing out at the West the historical period of undivided dominance of the western world affairs is coming to an end the unipolar world is becoming a thing of the past we stand at a historical Frontier after all quite recently we thought that we were turning into a semi-colony we could not do anything without our Western Partners we can't make Financial calculations we won't have Technologies we won't have markets all you have to do is click and everything falls apart but no nothing fell apart and the fundamental foundations of the existence of the Russian Federation turned out to be much stronger than someone thought about it maybe we ourselves thought [Music] well my first guest tonight is Bill Browder he's the CEO of Hermitage capital and is also head of the global magnitsky Justice campaign bill is considered an authority on all things Vladimir Putin bill it's good to see you again I want to get your take on on some of the things we heard today Putin said today that Russia stands for multi-polarity and for Traditional Values who was he speaking to today and I dare say that his intended audience may not have been sitting right there before him in Moscow uh definitely not so so um his audience is actually sitting or his his hopes for audience uh is sitting in America and so basically if Vladimir Putin is in a very tough spot right now because he's losing the war um he's losing the war primarily because the ukrainians have been fighting so well and also primarily because he's the the ukrainians have been getting a huge amount of military support from the United States of America and of course Western Europe but if if Putin can somehow convince the United States not to support Ukraine then he'll be in a position where he can actually win the war and so what is he doing right now he's trying to um reach out to the Grassroots of the far right in America in hopes that in 2024 um with the next presidential election uh there will be a Groundswell of support not to have Ukraine be funded by him America and so this is kind of a almost a Hail Mary if you will because he's doing so badly in the war well there is this concern in the U.S if Republicans win control of Congress in the midterm elections next month that that will be the beginning of the end of of this incredible U.S military support for Ukraine how much would you say that Putin is counting on this GOP um grenade to explode on Capitol Hill come November well it says it's his only hope really because he can't win the war militarily at the moment um he's lost 65 000 troops according to the ukrainians he's lost a lot of territory he's taken the people he's replaced are not experienced soldiers they're getting bombed by uh ukrainians using Western Equipment and so he really is in a he's he's really playing dice now he's just hoping and praying that he can somehow make the U.S not support him and I I don't think that in the end I mean I think that there's been a few words spoken by Uh Kevin McCarthy but on the on the Republican side Mitch McConnell is directly contradicting Kevin McCarthy and so I I don't think that America is going to pull out of their support for Ukraine but that is Putin's only desperate hope right now and you know for the first time a majority of Russians say that they favor opening peace talks with Ukraine that is according to a poll by The Independent lavada Center um the greatest support for this is among young adults who also happen to oppose Putin's mobilization of reservists the most did you see these Trends reflected in any of Putin's comments today but Putin says he's open for negotiation but the only problem with his negotiation that he's open for is he wants to negotiate to say that he gets all the Ukrainian territory that he's already occupied that's not negotiable and so so everything that he's um I mean he's now sounding like kind of a weak desperate man saying he wants to negotiate and getting various proxies to say that there should be negotiation and and getting people to criticize Ukraine saying they're not negotiating of course they're not negotiating on the terms that he set out that the terms that that should be negotiated are a full withdrawal of Russia from Ukraine and of course that's not even on the table as far as Putin is concerned and Vladimir Putin um today we saw this again he continues to shower Chinese president Xi Jinping with words of affection but this often seems to be something like an unrequited love uh Putin looking less like a Russian Bearer and more like a panda bear do you know can you explain what what's going on here well so when before this war started Putin was in Beijing with the Xi Jinping at the Olympics and he he probably whispered in in Gigi Ping's ear um this is going to be a three-day War we're going to humiliate America and the West this is all going to be great um and it's turned out to be an eight-month war and and um he's been the one humiliated and prices of oil and gas have gone up for China and and it hasn't been this this uh friendship forever thing that Putin has hoped for it's not like Chinese companies are going in to Russia because they don't want to be sanctioned in the west and it's not like China has done a whole lot of anything other than buying a bit of discounted Russian oil and so this is kind of as you say unrequited love Putin is is trying to put that out there in in the same kind of desperate way as he's trying to reach out to the far right in America hoping that that somebody is going to come to his Aid because he's suffering right now he's flailing yeah the far right in America and then Xi Jinping in Beijing wow those are two opposite ends of the spectrum there that he's trying to work Bill Browder is always good talking with you we appreciate your time and your insights tonight thank you thank you the new U.S defense strategy published today highlights China as the greatest strategic security threat for America now the 80-page document lays out the Chinese threat and then outlines what a future U.S military response should be China may be the 21st century Nemesis of the west but right now Russia continues to get in the way here's the U.S defense secretary Lloyd Alston on the national defense strategy known as the NDS at the same time the NDS bluntly describes Russia as an acute threat and we chose the word acute carefully unlike China Russia can't systemically challenge the United States over the long term but Russian aggression does pose an immediate and sharp threat to our interests and values I want to bring in Bradley Bowman now he's senior director of the center on Military and political power at the foundation for the defense of democracies Bradley it's good to see you again secretary Alston saying that Russia is only an acute threat I mean that that sounds a little bit it smacks a little bit of Barack Obama's assertion that Russia is only a regional power is that is that the message that you're hearing thanks for the opportunity to join you and thanks for the question you know the uh uh it's important to know that the original draft of the national defense strategy that was released today was done before February 24th and then reality as it often does intervene uh and it had to be largely Rewritten and so we find ourselves with words like acute being attributed to the threat from Russia and the pacing challenge or pacing threat for China the bottom line here is any strategy worth its name tries to coordinate ends and means America's means are extensive but they're not unlimited so we have to allocate finite resources so you have this Administration I'd say laudably establishing priorities any strategy that doesn't establish priorities really isn't a strategy and they're saying very clearly that China is the number one threat more so than Russia and the primary logic behind that from their perspective and I think it stands up to Merit to scrutiny is that uh the relative economic power of China when you combine the Hostile ideology and economy roughly this eyes of the United States and a military modernization effort uh never seen in the history of the People's Republic of China that all comes together to constitute a threat unlike anything the United States has seen in modern history and as serious as the Russia threat is the threat from the People's Republic of China is more serious that's what the Biden Administration is saying and I think they're right on that secretary Alston today was asked yet again about the the nuclear threat posed by Russia and he said again that he sees no sign that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons I'm wondering you and I we've spoken about this before are we playing into Putin's Playbook here by amplifying this threat simply by talking about it so much you know uh the essence of deterrence is trying to affect the thinking of your adversary so they do or don't do what what you want and Putin is clearly throughout this uh this Invasion since February 24th has been rattling his new nuclear saber to try to impact uh the actions of Ukraine the United States and our European allies uh they're conducting a another nuclear test recently it was fairly standard but in the context of the invasion of Ukraine and Putin's comments it's concerning I think we have no choice to talk about it but I think the Bible instruction has handled it roughly right delivering as far as I can tell very serious messages behind the scenes while being relatively cool in public and saying there would be catastrophic consequences but not being too specific I think that's about the right move Ukraine's president zielinski today described Russian efforts to capture the eastern city of bakmut as crazy given the the high cost of this attack um and the little strategic value that the city presents um what do you make of a Russian strategy at the moment you know the the Russians have been uh getting pummeled uh and have been uh we've seen them getting routed and and in in serious Retreat and the more we learn about the state of their forces uh it's just uh not good at all and all the momentum has been with Ukrainian forces is because of their agility the skill the Western weapons that are being provided and and the high morale and so a Putin you know annexed these quote unquote Annex these four regions uh even as his forces didn't control all of them and were Retreat and that's a very awkward thing for Putin as he's trying to make this look more successful than it really is and engender fleeting support within Russia and so there's been this tension between Putin at the political level and as military leaders as military leaders are saying we have to do an organized Retreat we're getting pummeled here if we don't it's going to look like what we've seen around kharkiv and yet Putin didn't want that so you have the Wagner group in there trying to be more successful and so there's an interest on Wagner's part to show more success but the bottom line is this is just a distraction I'd say the overall narrative continues and that is momentum on the Ukrainian side Bradley Bowman with the foundation for the defense of democracies Bradley as always we appreciate your time valuable analysis tonight thank you thank you

Channel: DW News

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Length: 13min 30sec (810 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 27 2022