How Russia’s Ukraine threat galvanised western alliances

This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: How Russia’s Ukraine threat galvanised western alliances

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Gideon Rachman
Hello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times. In this week’s edition, we’re looking at western diplomacy and the Ukraine crisis. As wars threatened, there’s been a flurry of western leaders visiting Moscow: President Macron of France, Chancellor Scholz of Germany and the British foreign and defence secretaries. And there also have been calls between President Biden in the White House and President Putin in the Kremlin. To make sense of all these initiatives, I’m joined this week by Charles Grant, the head of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think-tank. So when it comes to Russia, just how united is the west?

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In an impassioned speech this week, President Biden said that 150,000 Russian troops now encircle Ukraine. And he appealed to President Putin not to take the path of war.

Joe Biden
If Russia does invade in the days and weeks ahead, the human cost for Ukraine will be immense, and the strategic cost for Russia will also be immense. If Russia attacks Ukraine, it will be met with overwhelming international condemnation. The world will not forget that Russia chose needless death and destruction. Invading Ukraine will prove to be a self-inflicted wound. The United States and our allies and partners will respond decisively.

Gideon Rachman
But President Putin continues to deny any aggressive intent. Here’s what he said this week, just after receiving the German chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Vladimir Putin
(Speaking in foreign language with overlapping English translation) Whether we want to have a war in Europe or not, of course we don’t. And this is exactly the case why we have proposed to have a talks process. The result of those talks, those negotiations, should be an agreement on equal security, including our country. Unfortunately, and we have already mentioned that, there has been no meaningful, constructive response to our proposals. We haven’t received them.

Gideon Rachman
Chancellor Scholz, for his part, emphasised the responsibility of all leaders to avoid war.

Olaf Scholz
(Speaking in foreign language with overlapping English translation)
We have not yet exhausted diplomatic solutions. We need to make sure to work towards a peaceful solution of the conflict. We’ve heard that some troops are being withdrawn, and that is a good sign. We hope more troops will be withdrawn.

Gideon Rachman
Fears of war have certainly not disappeared. And western leaders remain very reluctant to cede to Russia’s demands on Ukraine and on Europe’s wider security order. So I started my conversation with Charles Grant by asking why many believe that the home security of Europe may hinge on how the Ukraine crisis is resolved.

Charles Grant
Well, if Russia does take parts of Ukraine and hang on to them, then it’s a real rejection of the so-called Helsinki principles, the principles agreed in 1975 by the Soviet Union and western countries whereby everybody agreed to respect the territorial integrity of other countries, not to use force to solve problems. It’s more back to the old Yalta ideas of 1945 when Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill carved up Europe between them. This is the Russian sphere of influence; this is the western sphere influence. So it’s about spheres of influence, and Putin would have struck a blow against Helsinki in favour of Yalta. More specifically, I think if Russia invades Ukraine, then we would see the US right back at the centre of European security much more committed to it. Despite, ever since Obama, the US wanting to sort of focus more on Asia, Europe has to be a focus for the US. Here’s Nato, a clear, unambiguous and reinforced mission of territorial defence. Everybody knows what Nato is about. It’ll push the European Union to take defence a bit more seriously. It’ll push Russia much closer to China, in my view, because if Russia does invade Ukraine, its relations with the west will be so bad that it’ll be forced to nestle up close to China as part of the sign of its fear, I reckon, in the long run. The OSCE, the Organisation Security and Co-operation in Europe, will come to be seen as irrelevant because Russia would be abandoning it and the principles of Helsinki. And finally, I think it will help to bring the Europeans together.

Gideon Rachman
But does what Putin is threatening to do, at least by the disposition of forces, if not rhetorically, really tell us something new about him? And after all, he went to war in Chechnya. He went to war in Georgia in 2008. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Why is this so much bigger than what’s happened before?

Charles Grant
Well, in a sense, it’s not a lot bigger. But the remarkable thing really is that with a very small economy about the same size as Spain, Russia has emerged as a very important European power that people are scared of. Despite having a small economy, it’s got armed forces that are quite fearsome that he’s prepared to use, and Russia shows that it’s able to act decisively and in a very focused way to achieve its ends. It’s become a very influential diplomatic and security player, not only in Europe, but also in the Middle East and parts of Africa. I think Putin is testing western reaction to how he behaves. He’s finding that he can push the west a long way before it stops. And of course, if he invades Ukraine, it won’t stop him. You can argue about whether the sanctions may deter him, but I think there’s two sides to Putin, really. One is the sort of the cool, calculating KGB officer who is very good at working out costs and benefits and is quite a rational operator. But there’s another side to Putin, which is the emotional man who believes that the Russkiy Mir, the Russian-speaking world, is based on Ukraine, Belarus and Russia historically and culturally. He won’t forget that it was on his watch, when he was president of Russia, that Ukraine seemed to slip the way out of his grasp into the west’s grasp. So the worry is that he will act in ways that reflect his emotions rather than the rational analysis. Indeed, you and I, Gideon, were in this seminar recently when a senior Russian said that his worry was that Putin is surrounded by people who, like himself, believe that Ukraine is not really a separate country. That Ukrainians would, most of them like to be part of Russia, and that the information in the Kremlin about what’s going on in Ukraine is perhaps quite weak.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah, so how is Europe responding and the western alliance as a whole? Because obviously one of Putin’s goals will be to see if he can sow division in the west. How successful has he been so far?

Charles Grant
Well, I think at the moment, the western allies are holding together quite well. I mean, the Americans are fairly happy that the Europeans are going to come up with a big package of sanctions that’ll be quite tough on Russia if Russia does invade Ukraine. The British, the Canadians, the European Union, the Americans are all in a fairly similar place on that. There are, of course, nuances, particularly amongst the Europeans. The Germans are the most reluctant to supply arms to Ukraine or supply troops to neighbouring countries, but they’ll go for very tough sanctions, I think, and perhaps spend more money on defence. I don’t think Russian invasion of Ukraine would make Germany shift its strategic culture towards being more willing to use force in the way that the British and French were accustomed to do. But I think certainly in terms of economic aid for Ukraine and diplomacy and sanctions, the Germans will be there with their allies. The French, like the Germans, are willing to give diplomacy every last chance to see if it works. Macron seized the chance to emerge as Europe’s pre-eminent leader in this crisis, replacing Angela Merkel, who’s retired, of course. But I think he has emerged as that leader. He has the energies, the ideas, self-confidence and the contacts to really take a lead. He’s going to have to work hard to convince his European partners that he’s really working for Europe rather than just French interests. But he’s very dynamic and very often very effective, and he hasn’t achieved much yet, but let’s wait and see.

Gideon Rachman
How much, though, is that French initiative welcomed because it seems to me there is a residual suspicion not just in the UK, but particularly in eastern Europe, that France may push things too far in the search for a rapprochement with Russia, that it may freelance?

Charles Grant
I think there’s always a concern about French freelancing, because it is a tradition of French diplomacy to do things on their own, but to be fair to Macron this time he has consulted quite widely on what he’s up to. Unlike in 2019, when in the summer of 2019, he announced he was going to try and bring Russia closer to the rest of Europe. He didn’t even tell the Germans before he went off and took that initiative, which they were quite annoyed about. This time he has spoken frequently with the Germans and the Americans and even to the British, with which he doesn’t have a great relationship. So I think he’s not really going off and doing his own thing. He certainly likes to be seen to lead, certainly likes to be seen to take initiatives. And I think that there are concerns in parts of eastern and central Europe that he might be a bit too willing to kind of push Ukraine to accept neutrality or something. But he can’t do that on his own and the Russians know that. And he certainly hasn’t got anything much from the Russians so far, but he’ll keep trying.

Gideon Rachman
You mentioned pushing Ukraine towards neutrality. And you know, I was in Berlin last week, and although they probably wouldn’t say so publicly, some quite influential Germans will say, well, actually, surely that’s got to be the solution. How strong is that idea within, if you like, Europe strategic culture as a solution?

Charles Grant
Well, I think clearly if the Ukrainian government suddenly said we have no intention of joining Nato that would probably solve the crisis immediately. That would be enough for the Russians to go home without a fight. But of course, that contradicts the basic principle of Nato which all European governments, including France and Germany, signed up to, which is that it’s an alliance which is open to all European countries if they wish to join. So the way of squaring a circle to somehow convince the Russians that in practise, Ukraine is not going to join Nato, but in theory it has the right to do so, that’s not enough for Putin at the moment. But maybe there’s some very clever form of words that can give the Russians some of the reassurance they need without taking away Ukraine’s freedom to do what it wants with its foreign policy. By the way, I just saw today that in 2002, Mr Putin himself said that, talking about Ukraine, said it must be free to choose its own foreign policy trajectory in the future, as he himself has hardened his position over the last 20 years.

Gideon Rachman
And what about Germany? I mean, again in Berlin, it was interesting one or two people said to me rather wistfully, you know, this probably wouldn’t have been happening if Angela Merkel was still around. But do you think that Germany is slightly less certain in its handling of this than one might have expected in the Merkel years?

Charles Grant
Yes, but I think it is a coincidence that this crisis has happened after Angela Merkel retired, and I don’t think the German domestic politics and that’s important to the Russians, but certainly Germany has not been looking confident and in command of what it wants to do in the world. Scholz, to be fair to him, is not experienced on foreign policy issues. He’s not an eloquent talker like Macron is, and he has to worry about his three-party coalition at home and keeping it together, which is very difficult. So he’s not really shaping opinion in Germany at any great, or indeed trying to lead the west to any great degree, either. And Germany’s image has taken a knock in some countries because of its lack of leadership it’s shown so far. But I think, clearly, Germany remains the second most important country after France on this. The Russians know Germany is important, and Scholz is working very closely with Macron at the moment, as far as we know.

Gideon Rachman
And what about the American role? Because as you say, this crisis happened at a time when the Americans were very focused on China. That has been something they’ve been working on for a decade, but Biden really seemed serious about it. Are they now back as the central players in European security? And do they have the stomach for it?

Charles Grant
I think as of the moment they seem to have the stomach for it. I mean, certainly, I’m quite impressed by the degree to which the Americans have consulted the Europeans and what they’ve been doing and what’s going on. They’ve been very open and transparent towards the Europeans, which they weren’t when they pulled out of Afghanistan last summer. And they weren’t obviously when they did the Aukus deal with Britain and Australia to build submarines, which annoyed the French and some of the Europeans. So they seem to have learnt some lessons from those episodes. They are consulting closely. They obviously are the most important player in European security because they provide the forces and the commitment that the Europeans can’t able to provide on their own. But at the moment, I think the Americans are, at least with Biden around and his chief assistants, are actually being very diplomatic and trying very hard to bring the Europe into it, particularly, for example, in preparing sanctions.

Gideon Rachman
And Britain, maybe it’s kind of telling that we’re well into the conversation before it even comes up, but Britain does seem to be a bit peripheral to this. Or is that unfair?

Charles Grant
It’s probably a bit unfair. I mean, the British have been talking tougher than most countries, supplying lots of troops to certain countries in the region, to Poland, Estonia and others, sending arms to Ukraine. They’ve been very visibly active and involved with lots of personal diplomacy from the foreign secretary, the defence secretary and even the prime minister as well. A lot of things are going on here, Gideon. One thing, of course, is that traditionally the British security establishment is very tough on Russia. It always has been, probably always will be. That’s just the way the British people see Russia. They believe you have to be tough. But there’s also some politics going on, of course. For Boris Johnson with his severe domestic problems at the moment, this is a diversion that gets people talking about something other than the parties that took place in 10 Downing Street. So there is party politics going on, but also the British are clearly trying to show the US that they are, despite Brexit, a good and loyal ally, perhaps more reliably tough on Russia than some other European countries. And better, even more important, I think the British are showing to friends in the region, notably Poland and the Baltic countries and some others that we may have left the EU, but we haven’t left our commitment to European security, and we can be trusted to help defend freedom and democracy against aggressors. So I think there are all sorts of reasons why the British are being tough.

Gideon Rachman
Sure. You point out that Britain and indeed the Germans and the French and the Americans are all sending more troops to eastern Europe and to the Baltic states and so on. But when you compare the numbers, they’re pretty small, aren’t they? When compared to, you know, the 100 to 130,000 Russian troops around Ukraine, we’re talking a few hundreds, I think in the American case, maybe a few thousand. Is this essentially a symbolic gesture that’s happening?

Charles Grant
I think the troops that western allies are sending to countries in the region are symbolic. It’s just to remind the Russians one thing in particular, which is if they do choose to invade Ukraine, if they do even not invade Ukraine, but just leave the 30,000 troops in Belarus that are currently stationed in Belarus as a more permanent deployment, then the Nato countries will respond. They will abandon the principle of 1997, when the Nato-Russia Council was set up, by which they agreed not to have permanently stationed forward forces in the new Nato members. They will actually have more permanently based forces in the Baltic countries, Poland and others. They’ll increase their military deployments to these countries to protect them against possible Russian aggressions. I think the western countries want to make a point to Russia, if you don’t like Nato countries massing on the so-called new members of Nato quite close to Russia, then don’t invade Ukraine.

Gideon Rachman
I mean, it’s striking, though, isn’t it, that we’ve talked about nation states really throughout of Britain, France, Germany. What we haven’t talked about is the European Union as a coherent whole, and I know EU defence is something you’ve worked on over 20 years and more. Yet it’s still very vestigial, isn’t it? Why is that?

Charles Grant
Well, more than 20 years ago, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac got together at St Malo in France and said, let’s give the European Union the capacity to develop autonomous defence capabilities. And the next year, the first high representative, Javier Solana, was appointed to represent the EU in foreign policy. Ten years later, we have the external action service created, an embryonic EU foreign ministry. And there have been some modest successes over the last 20 years, the Iran nuclear diplomacy, the EU has played a useful role. Perhaps, you know, making peace between Serbia and Kosovo, the EU has been useful. There’ve been peacekeeping missions, anti-piracy missions. And there’ve been sanctions, including the sanctions against Russia, because of what happened in Ukraine in 2014. So the EU is not irrelevant as a security actor, but clearly it’s better at producing strategy documents, planning staffs, committees, plans for intervention forces, defence agencies and satellites like Galileo, satellite systems like Galileo that are actually intervening in other parts of the world with force. I doubt in the near future the EU is going to become a serious defence or military player that kind of scares other countries. Partly, the EU doesn’t spend enough money on defence. Partly, that with a few exceptions like France, the EU countries don’t have an interventionist culture. Partly because some of the Atlanticist countries in the EU, particularly the Poles and the Balts, don’t really believe in the EU defence in case it undermines Nato’s strength. So I think that there’s a limit to how far that you can go in defence, though, to be fair, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, is pushing this all the time and is trying to get the EU to do more on defence, and I wish him luck. But on foreign policy, the EU is a bit unwieldy to be a decisive foreign policy actor because it requires unanimity. And if, for example, the EU wants to criticise China on human rights, Hungary can be guaranteed to veto that motion or that statement. So getting this 27 together is actually quite hard on foreign policy. Plus, of course, the big member states, often France and sometimes Germany and others, don’t actually want the European institutions leading the Europeans. They’d rather the big member states sorted them out themselves. That’s why we’ve had fairly weak high representatives appointed since Javier Solana: Cathy Ashton, Federica Mogherini and Josep Borrell. They’re good people in many ways, but they’re not very heavyweight figures who other countries are going to be scared off. And finally, Gideon, I have to say that Brexit hasn’t helped because the British leaving, you take away one of the two most serious military countries in the EU, and you take away a lot of foreign policy capability, and that, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, makes the EU less weighty on foreign and defence policy.

Gideon Rachman
But as you said, the one thing they did do during the Crimea crisis quite effectively was economic sanctions. And it seems like, if Russia invades, sanctions will once again be to the fore. You know, they talk about devastating sanctions. How prepared are we? And what kinds of things might we expect to see happen to Russia?

Charles Grant
Well, they’ll clearly go for stronger sanctions than they did in 2014, when the Ukraine crisis first blew up. I think there are three sorts of sanctions that matter. But whether they are able to deter Mr Putin from invading, we just don’t know. In the first sort of sanction is more of what we’ve seen already, which is targeted sanctions on individual people, on some of the people in the Russian security establishment who are guilty, as the west sees it, of organising bad behaviour, abusing human rights, plotting invasions, whatever. They’ll have their bank accounts in the west frozen, and they won’t be able to travel to the west, which if you apply the sanctions to their families as well as the individuals concerned, might be quite a powerful weapon for some of them. The second and more important set of sanctions, I think the technology sanctions particularly affecting the oil and gas industries and affecting the most advanced sorts of microchips. The Russians do need to import some equipment for their oil and gas industries and the most sophisticated sorts of microchip. And I think they’re, of course, the European Union matters less than the United States on these technologies. But I think the Russians will face quite severe sanctions on technology. And thirdly, financial sanctions. I think if Russian banks are cut out of the dollar financial system, it’d be very hard for the Russian banks to operate effectively. And the Russian currency reserves, many of which are in dollars, could not be sold and used, couldn't be sold for other currencies and couldn’t be of much use to the Russians. So I think it’s very strong financial sanctions that would make the Russians think twice before invading Ukraine. That’s all I can say.

Gideon Rachman
OK, well, I’m tempted to ask you the impossible question, but it is impossible. How is this all going to end? I suppose I’ll ask you a modified version of this. Do you think we’ll still be talking about all this in a couple of months’ time? Or is this a crisis that one way or another is going to come to a head quite soon?

Charles Grant
I think if I had to bet money on it, I said, we’re going to be talking about it in two months’ time. It may be a crisis that goes into a kind of limbo stage of neither a proper invasion nor a kind of reduction of tension and the withdrawal of the troops. It may go on for some time. Military experts say the Russians could keep their soldiers, or quite a large number of them in place for quite a long time. It does cost money, of course, but it’s not impossible. My own instincts, Gideon, is that probably more likely than not the Russians will not mind a full-blown invasion. I mean, some military experts do say they don’t have enough troops to invade the whole of Ukraine. I mean, they’ve got a hundred or 130,000 troops near Ukraine. The Ukrainian army is about 300,000 men and women. And of course, although the Ukrainians don’t have much of an air force or a navy, it would be quite hard to hold on a country with the number of troops there at the moment, especially if the Ukrainians fight back as I think they probably would. And that’s one reason why I’m sceptical there’ll be an improper invasion. The other reason is people in Moscow do say that public opinion is not being prepared for an invasion. The media are not going on about the imminent war, and I don’t think psychologically the Russians are ready for war. So if there was a war, although I’m sure most Russians or many of them would blame the west for it, they don’t actually agree there’s a very good idea to kill a lot of Ukrainians because they do believe Ukrainians are their cousins or their brothers and sisters in many ways. I think a big war in Ukraine is not what public opinion would like, and then I do think that the sanctions do matter a bit, and I think the economic cost to Russia would be considerable. Even more, I think the political isolation of Russia would be considerable. Now you may think Putin doesn’t care about that, but I think the fact that Russia has very poor relations with most countries in the world, China excepted and one or two other dictatorships excepted is not where most Russians want to be. It is probably not where Putin wants to be. For all these reasons, I think Putin will hesitate before invading Ukraine, and I think if he can be given an off-ramp that allows him to claim some success with some diplomatic benefits, then he’ll take it.

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Gideon Rachman
That was Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform ending this edition of the Rachman Review. Thanks for listening. And please join me again next week.

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