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Episode: A Sudden Escalation in Ukraine Before Trump Takes Office
Author: The New York Times
Duration: 00:26:36
Episode Shownotes
President-elect Donald J. Trump has promised a radically different approach to foreign policy from that of the Biden administration. In Ukraine, he has pledged to end the war in a day.But just weeks before he’s set to take office, the war has taken an unexpected turn.Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau
chief for The New York Times, discusses the conflict’s dangerous new phase.Guest: Anton Troianovski, the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times.Background reading: Tit-for-tat moves this week included the use of American-made ballistic missiles to strike inside Russia, and new nuclear threats from Moscow.As Ukraine fires U.S. missiles, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has sent a chilling message.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Summary
As tensions rose in the Ukraine conflict just weeks before Donald Trump's inauguration, the situation became increasingly volatile. Ukraine's military actions extended into the Russian Kursk region, prompting a military alliance with North Korea and major shifts in U.S. policy under the Biden administration, including permission for Ukraine to use American-made missiles for deeper strikes into Russia. In response, Russia revised its nuclear strategy, heightening global risks. Both nations are now navigating complex negotiation dynamics amid ongoing territorial struggles, foreshadowing a challenging new phase in U.S.-Ukraine relations under Trump's presidency.
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Full Transcript
00:00:01 Speaker_06
From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. President-elect Donald Trump has promised a radically different approach to foreign policy from the Biden administration.
00:00:17 Speaker_06
Perhaps nowhere more so than in Ukraine, where Trump has pledged to end the war in a day. But just weeks before he's set to take office, the war has taken an unexpected turn. Today, my colleague Anton Trinovsky on the conflict's dangerous new phase.
00:00:44 Speaker_06
It's Monday, November 25th. So, Anton, we've seen this real ratcheting up in the war in Ukraine over the past week. Help us understand what's going on.
00:00:59 Speaker_04
Well, we've seen a bunch of new developments that are really quite dangerous, quite escalatory. We have seen missiles flying across the border between Russia and Ukraine in a way we haven't seen before.
00:01:15 Speaker_04
We have seen the Biden administration taking steps that they have not been willing to take before. And we've seen a new kind of rhetoric from President Putin in Moscow.
00:01:29 Speaker_04
And what this all adds up to is that the war is becoming more dangerous, more volatile. And specifically, what's happening is that we're getting closer to this war in Ukraine turning into a broader war between Russia and the West.
00:01:49 Speaker_06
So, Anton, this is very striking because, you know, just a few months ago we were talking about the Russians digging into positions in eastern Ukraine and it was this protracted trench warfare. How did we get from there to here?
00:02:05 Speaker_04
The turning point was early August. The unthinkable for many Russians is now a reality. Their homeland invaded. Ukraine broke that stalemate by invading Russia.
00:02:21 Speaker_01
It's the first time there's been a foreign incursion of Russia since World War II.
00:02:27 Speaker_04
Ukrainian troops went into Russia's Kursk region on the border, captured about 400 square miles of territory, and delivered this huge embarrassment to Vladimir Putin, who, it turned out, couldn't even protect what was internationally recognized Russian territory.
00:02:46 Speaker_03
Ukraine is proving that it truly knows how to restore justice and is providing the exact pressure needed.
00:02:52 Speaker_04
That incursion into Kursk was a big morale boost for Ukraine, but it came at a cost.
00:03:00 Speaker_02
Russians are making gains, capturing partially destroyed villages, raising the Russian tricolor flag.
00:03:08 Speaker_04
In order to do it, Ukraine had to thin out its troops in eastern Ukraine, where Russia was advancing. They just don't have the personnel to hold all this territory.
00:03:21 Speaker_04
And as a result, Russia was actually able to push forward in eastern Ukraine at a much higher clip than before.
00:03:32 Speaker_06
In other words, for the first time in a long time, the front line was actually moving. And it was moving to Russia's advantage.
00:03:37 Speaker_04
Exactly. And then this fall, Vladimir Putin pulled out his own surprise.
00:03:46 Speaker_02
The Pentagon confirmed that there are North Korean troops now in Russia, especially in the region of Kursk.
00:03:53 Speaker_04
Bringing in North Korean troops. Reportedly, there's something like 10,000 troops from North Korea that are fighting or getting ready to fight on the Russian side.
00:04:06 Speaker_06
And that was a really remarkable moment, right? Because suddenly it's about more than just Russia and Ukraine. There's a third country involved.
00:04:13 Speaker_04
Exactly. And think about North Korea, how important that country is strategically as a nuclear armed adversary of the United States.
00:04:22 Speaker_04
And what it shows about how close the strategic relationship between Russia and North Korea has become, that has sent shockwaves really around the world.
00:04:42 Speaker_06
OK, so you've laid out this pretty major shift in the war. But of course, all of this was happening in the months leading up to the US election, won, of course, by Donald Trump.
00:04:52 Speaker_04
Exactly. And Donald Trump's victory in the election is going to have enormous repercussions for the war. Remember his campaign. He refused to say that he wanted Ukraine to win the war.
00:05:05 Speaker_04
He promised to end the war in 24 hours, which was widely seen as him being open to a deal that could essentially sell Ukraine out. to Russia. He brought on J.D.
00:05:18 Speaker_04
Vance as his vice president, who has been extremely critical of American support for Ukraine. So you've had so many signals coming from the Trump camp that his presidency will be much tougher for Ukraine than the Biden presidency was.
00:05:37 Speaker_06
So Trump's election, in other words, was very bad news for the Ukrainians because the Americans and Biden in particular was their biggest ally. And he's gone.
00:05:47 Speaker_04
Yes. So when Donald Trump won President Zelensky in Ukraine. swung into win over Donald Trump mode. And, you know, he was one of the first world leaders to have a phone call with him. He tweeted congratulating Trump on impressive election victory.
00:06:06 Speaker_04
And so there's a hope in Ukraine that Trump will still want to support their fight, that supporting Ukraine will be kind of a way that Trump projects American strength globally. But still, I think there's a huge amount of concern among
00:06:28 Speaker_04
supporters of Ukraine everywhere, that Trump will just see it as much less of a national interest for the U.S. to allow Ukraine to keep fighting and somehow defeat Russia in this war.
00:06:42 Speaker_06
Right, which by definition is good for Russia. So tell us how Putin and Russia are thinking about this Trump win.
00:06:49 Speaker_04
So to step back for a sec, Putin's fundamental bet throughout this war has been that at the end of the day, Russia cares more about Ukraine and is willing to sacrifice more to win in Ukraine than does the West, than do the United States.
00:07:10 Speaker_04
And so to Putin, Trump's victory shows that at the end of the day, many Americans don't care enough about Ukraine to continue sending tens of billions of dollars of weapons there and to be in a situation where Russia is threatening an escalation that could draw the U.S.
00:07:31 Speaker_04
into a direct war with the world's other nuclear superpower. At the same time, it also brings Putin closer to something he could call victory in Ukraine. Because Putin's primary goal at this point is not to capture more territory.
00:07:48 Speaker_04
His main goal is some kind of deal that would allow him to end the war and say he won it.
00:07:56 Speaker_06
Okay, so basically with Trump's victory, it really seemed like things were on a glide path to exactly the kind of outcome that Putin wanted.
00:08:04 Speaker_04
Not quite, because for one thing, Donald Trump is not in power yet. And the Biden administration has been very clear on seeking to continue to support Ukraine.
00:08:16 Speaker_04
That became even more clear in the last couple of weeks when President Biden made a really important shift in his own policy. For the first time, he allowed Ukraine to use American missiles to strike deep inside Russian territory.
00:08:39 Speaker_04
These missiles are called ATAKMS. They have a range of 190 miles.
00:08:45 Speaker_04
Ukraine has been asking for months, if not longer, to be able to use these missiles for those kinds of strikes inside Russia in order to disrupt Russia's ability to build up its forces, resupply its forces and wage this war.
00:09:01 Speaker_04
The Biden administration has resisted that because they feared that that would be the kind of thing that could really push Putin to escalate the war in a new way. But then Putin brought in those North Korean troops that we talked about.
00:09:18 Speaker_04
And that apparently, as our colleagues in Washington have reported, is what pushed President Biden to change course and allow Ukraine to use those American missiles for strikes inside Russia.
00:09:32 Speaker_06
And how soon does Ukraine make use of these long-range rockets? Just about immediately.
00:09:38 Speaker_00
Tonight, anxious hours after Ukraine fired American-made long-range missiles called Atakoms.
00:09:44 Speaker_04
Last Tuesday, they fired these Atakom missiles and hit an ammunition depot in the Bransk region of southwestern Russia.
00:09:52 Speaker_04
And then on Wednesday, Ukraine fired Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which are these British-manufactured long-range missiles, into the Kursk region. Neither of those, as far as we know, did massive damage, but the symbolism was enormous.
00:10:12 Speaker_04
For the first time, Ukraine was firing Western-provided missiles deep into Russian territory, leaving everyone asking, what does Putin do now?
00:10:34 Speaker_05
We'll be right back.
00:10:56 Speaker_04
The first thing we see is early in the week, less than two days after the news comes out that President Biden is going to allow Ukraine to strike Russian territory with those American-made missiles, Putin approves Russia's revised nuclear doctrine.
00:11:17 Speaker_04
What does that mean? So it sounds bureaucratic, but it's actually pretty serious. The nuclear doctrine defines how and when Russia would consider using its nuclear weapons. And remember, Russia has a massive stockpile of nuclear weapons.
00:11:35 Speaker_04
So, Putin revises this doctrine to lower the threshold at which Russia would consider using nuclear weapons. And not just that, he also updates it to say that an attack from a non-nuclear state
00:11:51 Speaker_04
if backed by a nuclear power, will be treated as a joint attack on Russia.
00:11:57 Speaker_06
A looser trigger, so to speak. And specifically, it relates to Ukraine because Ukraine, not a nuclear power, but the United States is a nuclear power.
00:12:06 Speaker_04
Exactly. Putin has this enormous nuclear arsenal, but he hasn't been able to figure out how to use it effectively as a deterrent against the US. And so that's what this new doctrine is about, finding a new way, basically, to scare Americans.
00:12:24 Speaker_04
And it seems that it did, in a way. Last Wednesday, the U.S.
00:12:30 Speaker_04
Embassy in Kyiv issued this urgent warning saying that Russia might launch a significant air attack and closed its embassy and told employees to shelter in place, which was a really rare move.
00:12:43 Speaker_04
Obviously, Kyiv has been attacked many, many times during the course of the last almost three years. For much of that time, the embassy has been operating. So closing the embassy was another signal that things were getting even more dangerous.
00:13:04 Speaker_06
So what happens? Was there an attack?
00:13:07 Speaker_04
So on Thursday, there was.
00:13:10 Speaker_00
Russia raised the stakes in the war against Ukraine by firing an experimental ballistic missile.
00:13:17 Speaker_02
And it's the first of its kind to be used in this conflict.
00:13:20 Speaker_04
Russia does something it hasn't done since the start of the war, which is to use a new missile, something similar to the kind that's used to deliver strategic nuclear weapons.
00:13:32 Speaker_00
It has a range of 3,000 miles. That means it's a weapon that could be capable of reaching targets across Europe.
00:13:39 Speaker_04
We're talking about something that would be used for a large-scale nuclear attack. And it uses this missile to strike in a Ukrainian city, Dnipro. This is a kind of missile that releases multiple warheads.
00:13:52 Speaker_04
So you see in videos of this attack these multiple glowing orbs kind of dropping one after the other. It's the kind of missile developed to do really massive damage. To be clear, this particular missile didn't have nuclear warheads in it.
00:14:14 Speaker_04
But think about the message that that's sending. And on top of all that, these warheads are designed to attack at hypersonic speeds, meaning multiple times the speed of sound.
00:14:28 Speaker_06
Interesting. So air defenses don't work against them.
00:14:31 Speaker_04
Exactly. And so it was all about sending this signal that Russia was ready to respond and ready to escalate further.
00:14:46 Speaker_06
So Putin keeps trying to get the West to listen, to pay attention.
00:14:49 Speaker_04
Absolutely. And he doesn't just launch that missile. He then gives a speech, a televised speech to the nation of the kind he delivers very rarely.
00:15:04 Speaker_03
He's sitting in what looks like the same wood-paneled office as where he was when he launched the invasion in February 2022.
00:15:07 Speaker_04
He looked pretty tired, pretty weary. aggrieved, and he says, we consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities.
00:15:41 Speaker_03
Oof.
00:15:45 Speaker_06
In other words, a direct reference to what happened with Biden allowing the use of the ATAKOMs.
00:15:49 Speaker_03
Exactly. Last week.
00:15:54 Speaker_06
And so it sounds like what he's saying here is that he would be willing to attack the U.S. Yeah.
00:16:00 Speaker_04
You know, it's the kind of threat he's made throughout this war kind of vaguely, but this is the most explicit we've heard him say this. And toward the end of the speech, he lays that out and then comes back with yet another threat. He says,
00:16:21 Speaker_04
I would like to emphasize once again that it was not Russia, but the United States that destroyed the international security system. And by continuing to fight and cling to its hegemony, they are pushing the whole world into a global conflict.
00:16:37 Speaker_03
We have always preferred and are ready now to resolve all disputes by peaceful means,
00:16:47 Speaker_04
But we are also ready for any turn of events. If anyone still doubts this, make no mistake, there will always be a response.
00:17:01 Speaker_06
So this is pretty remarkable and seems pretty frightening. What did you make of it, Anton? I mean, you've been following Putin for a long time.
00:17:11 Speaker_04
Yeah, I mean, Putin has been making threats toward the West, including with references, veiled references to his nuclear arsenal since day one of the invasion. But what makes this situation, I think, particularly concerning is the specificity of it.
00:17:34 Speaker_04
You know, Putin's previous threats have been quite vague. And so that's the concerning thing here.
00:17:42 Speaker_06
So what does all of this mean for the possibility of an end to the war, of a settlement like we've been talking about?
00:17:49 Speaker_04
Well, it's definitely a strange moment because people have been talking more seriously about the potential for a settlement and how that would look than really at any point since the early months of the war.
00:18:03 Speaker_04
And so as that's happening, you know, you have Putin going essentially all in on this escalatory threat that if he continues to make good on it, would clearly make it harder for Donald Trump to actually engage in some kind of negotiations with Putin.
00:18:25 Speaker_04
You know, think about, obviously, God forbid, if there were to be a direct Russian attack on any kind of American facility, how could Donald Trump at that point do something that would make it look like he is doing Putin's bidding in Ukraine?
00:18:42 Speaker_06
Right. But I guess big picture here, Putin does want the war to be over, and he seems to be in a pretty good position to achieve that.
00:18:51 Speaker_04
Yes, he does. But there's still a few weeks to go before Trump comes in and starts trying to end this. And so in the meantime, there's this
00:19:00 Speaker_04
pretty frantic, incredibly bloody effort by both sides, by both Russia and Ukraine, to try to grab as much territory or hold on to as much territory as possible before potential negotiations begin.
00:19:16 Speaker_04
So, what you're seeing, for one thing, is Putin pushing really hard to get the Ukrainian military out of Kursk.
00:19:22 Speaker_04
And that, of course, is also where Ukraine is using those new American and British missiles to try to slow the Russian counteroffensive there.
00:19:33 Speaker_04
And then you've also got Russia really pushing hard in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, trying to grab as much territory as they can, despite those casualty rates of a thousand people a day or more that Russia is losing.
00:19:50 Speaker_04
So there's definitely a lot of jockeying happening ahead of the expectation that when Trump comes to power, he'll at least try to create the conditions for some kind of settlement.
00:20:03 Speaker_06
Okay. So fundamentally, we are now likely looking at the beginning of the end of this war with Putin as the winner.
00:20:12 Speaker_04
Well, he's still got to get a deal. And ultimately, he'll still need to sit down at some sort of negotiating table to get that. He's been pretty explicit about what he wants.
00:20:24 Speaker_04
He's made clear that he will not give up territory, the territory that Russia has captured, that's for sure. But what Putin clearly cares more about than territory is the political aspect and the geopolitical aspect of some kind of agreement.
00:20:43 Speaker_04
So most important is that Ukraine will never join NATO. And then on the other end, of course, Ukraine clearly is going to have a say in this as well. For Ukraine, what's become clear is that For them also, territory is not the most important thing.
00:21:02 Speaker_04
You know, it does look like there's more and more acceptance that in order to bring this war to a close, Ukraine will have to accept Russian occupation of part of its lands.
00:21:14 Speaker_04
So what Ukraine cares about the most is what are referred to as security guarantees. How Will Ukraine feel assured that Russia won't just reconstitute its forces and attack again a few years from now?
00:21:29 Speaker_04
So then the question is going to become, how can Ukraine get security guarantees without being part of the NATO alliance? Will countries actually sign up for some kind of
00:21:43 Speaker_04
agreement in which they'll be treaty bound to come to Ukraine's defense if Russia attacks again?
00:21:52 Speaker_06
Right. If there's anything we've learned over the past few weeks, it's just how tenuous that Western support can be.
00:21:58 Speaker_04
Yeah, definitely. You know, Russia and Ukraine actually did sit down at the negotiating table together in the first few weeks of the war.
00:22:07 Speaker_04
And one of the reasons we've reported that that negotiation fell apart back in the spring of 2022 is that they couldn't actually figure out a mechanism for those security guarantees for Ukraine that would work. How do you make Ukraine
00:22:24 Speaker_04
feel reasonably safe from a new Russian attack, that was never solved back then and it's clearly going to be the biggest challenge now.
00:22:35 Speaker_06
And that's a really hard problem to solve. The West is tired and it clearly does not seem very inclined to come to the aid of Ukraine, this country that is the obsession of this very tenacious and very dangerous leader, Putin.
00:22:51 Speaker_06
So at the end of the day, Anton, is Putin getting away with it?
00:22:58 Speaker_04
Well, let's remember first of all that both the West and Putin have been surprised repeatedly during this war by Ukraine's tenacity and Ukraine's will to fight.
00:23:11 Speaker_04
We have not seen much sign at this point, even though Ukrainian soldiers are clearly very tired and Ukraine is struggling to get enough men on the battlefield, but still we're not seeing that Ukraine is actually ready to stop fighting.
00:23:26 Speaker_04
And that means you could even imagine a scenario where even if Trump tries to force some kind of peace deal, Ukraine might try to continue to fight. But big picture, Sabrina, you raise an important point.
00:23:40 Speaker_04
Putin has been waging the biggest war of aggression that Europe has seen since World War II. It's a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives in terms of killed and injured soldiers and not to mention the civilians that have died in Ukraine.
00:23:58 Speaker_04
But despite all the Western sanctions and the tremendous amounts of weaponry that Ukraine has received from the West, Putin is still going. Domestically, he's as powerful as he's ever been.
00:24:10 Speaker_04
And globally, you know, he may be a pariah in the West, but outside the West, Russia continues to have a lot of influence. So as we approach the three-year mark of this war,
00:24:21 Speaker_04
It is time, I think, for serious questions about what the West has and hasn't been able to accomplish in supporting Ukraine. The West has been able to keep Ukraine in the fight, but it has not been able to stop Putin.
00:24:53 Speaker_06
Anton, thank you.
00:24:54 Speaker_04
Thank you, Sabrina.
00:25:05 Speaker_05
We'll be right back. Here's what else you should know today.
00:25:15 Speaker_06
President-elect Donald Trump has picked Scott Besant to serve as Treasury Secretary.
00:25:21 Speaker_06
Besant is a billionaire hedge fund manager who once supported Democrats, but now endorses the Republican agenda of cutting taxes, rolling back federal regulations, and enacting the sweeping tariffs that Trump has promised.
00:25:34 Speaker_06
He'll also oversee trade talks with China. The selection came after weeks of debate by Trump and his advisers about who should win the most prominent economic job in his administration.
00:25:51 Speaker_06
Today's episode was produced by Rob Zipko, Aastha Chaturvedi, Michael Simon-Johnson, and Will Reed.
00:25:59 Speaker_06
It was edited by Maria Byrne and Patricia Willings with help from Michael Benoit, contains original music by Marian Lozano, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Rundberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for the daily.
00:26:27 Speaker_06
I'm Sabrina Tavernissi. See you tomorrow.