Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / "Will Europe Stand Firm?" with Nathalie Tocci

Transcript

"Will Europe Stand Firm?" with Nathalie Tocci · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

• 0:00
  Well, I'm on holiday in Thailand. I'm lying in a large comfortable bed,
• 0:09
  in a fancy resort in Puket and it's spectacular weather and there's an infinity pool
• 0:15
  overlooking an idyllic beach with palm trees on it and the glistening blue endermen sea stretching
• 0:23
  as far as the eye can see before me. I hope that made you feel some combination of jealousy
• 0:32
  and also a wistful yearning to get back to travel. I'm taking time out of my holiday
• 0:41
  for the provision of some wonderful podcasting material as you can tell. I pre-recorded this episode,
• 0:48
  so all I need to do now is talk to you here about an insightful about, I guess, the insights
• 0:54
  that I've gotten from traveling to Thailand and how they pertain to COVID. This is a sort of a
• 1:01
  microcosm of what is wrong with the bureaucratic, well I suppose right hand wrong with the bureaucratic
• 1:06
  approach to the coronavirus at this late stage in the game. It doesn't feel like a late stage in
• 1:13
  the game in Thailand, they're currently experiencing their biggest surge ever which is nothing like
• 1:19
  the kinds of surges that we saw in the United States or even in Australia over the southern summer
• 1:25
  when Omicron was going crazy and everything was open as a proportion of the population. I think
• 1:30
  they're getting about 25,000 new cases a day but they've got 65 plus million people and you know
• 1:37
  New South Wales, the state that I live in in Australia has seven million people maybe eight
• 1:42
  and was getting almost 100,000 cases a day so they're one tenth the case load of New South
• 1:52
  Wales at its worst. But nonetheless they're taking it very seriously and masks everywhere including
• 1:59
  outside, technically theoretically on the beach, not honored thankfully such madness. Gloves,
• 2:07
  they love the gloves, what's the what's the glove thing about? You go to the buffet and you know
• 2:12
  you try to pick something up without a glove, not a piece of food, I mean a tong or a spoon, a ladle
• 2:19
  and some little helper come scurrying up, so I think hands you a glove which they've then
• 2:29
  touched and I've now touched and so I put the glove on and the glove is covered in whatever
• 2:33
  our hands were covered in and then the glove touches exactly the same things that my hands otherwise
• 2:39
  would have touched. Not sure, not sure of the point of that unless I'm going around coughing into my
• 2:46
  hand and blowing my nose into my hand and then immediately touching things and the glove comes
• 2:52
  on in between the cough and then I never cough into the glove, then I suppose it has utility,
• 2:59
  doesn't seem like a good cost benefit tradeoff to me but nonetheless. This whole thing
• 3:05
  seems a little surreal to me, I mean covered the whole pandemic, the whole coronavirus is somewhat
• 3:10
  academic at the moment because as many of you know I got covered within the past six weeks,
• 3:16
  I'm triple vaccinated, I got a PCR test on arrival in Thailand so I'm both the least dangerous
• 3:24
  and least endangered person I could be, version of me that I could possibly be. So all the rules
• 3:31
  and the and my obedience to them is purely a sort of formality, it's just me being nice and going
• 3:36
  along with the flow, I don't think there could be a less dangerous person at this point than I am
• 3:42
  right now. So the idea of putting masks on my kids so that they can play in the kids club
• 3:49
  seems peculiar, especially when they've just tested negative the day before but hey I'll roll with it.
• 3:56
  What's interesting though that I'm reluctant to roll with is Thailand's peculiar way of
• 4:02
  testing you when you arrive and I think you'll be interested in hearing about it just as evidence
• 4:08
  of how topsy-turvy things can get when countries back themselves into bureaucratic corners of
• 4:13
  their own making. So last year Thailand created this experiment called the PUCAT Sandbox, PUCAT is
• 4:21
  their most popular tourist destination, it's an island so it's easy to contain, they said why don't
• 4:26
  we use it, why don't we do a sandbox program in PUCAT, people will be able to get a negative
• 4:30
  test vaccinated, people will be able to get a negative test in our home country, come in, get a
• 4:35
  test on arrival, stay in a COVID, what they call an SHA or SHA plus accredited property,
• 4:43
  and only go with tour guides who are approved by the government to be COVID safe and only use
• 4:48
  airport transfers that are COVID safe. So we create a kind of quarantine on this island and for
• 4:54
  the first seven days for the first week you can change hotels and you can go and do things but
• 4:59
  only within this ecosystem of COVID approved vendors essentially, you can't just start going
• 5:05
  backpacking through the hills and staying in little villages and spreading your COVID everywhere.
• 5:10
  Then they realized that maybe that was a little harsh because you also had to get a second test
• 5:14
  on day six I think it was and then on day eight you were able to be released and travel around
• 5:21
  the rest of Thailand which seemed onerous. So they introduced a parallel alternative system in
• 5:27
  the rest of Thailand called Test and Go which meant that upon arrival you would be tested either
• 5:34
  at the airport or you would be taken in a government approved vehicle to a hospital to be tested
• 5:40
  and then taken in the government approved vehicle to your hotel which again had to be one of these
• 5:45
  registered hotels and you would have to stay in your room until the test results came back
• 5:49
  or could be up to 24 hours but they were they're fairly efficient so it was six hours eight hours
• 5:54
  something like that and then you're allowed to go and then on day five you have to do a negative
• 6:00
  antigen test and then you have to upload that to an app and you know being a developing Asian
• 6:06
  country everything is more bureaucratic than it needs to be so of course there are forms that you
• 6:10
  need to fill out at every step of the way and there's a contact tracing app that you're supposed
• 6:14
  to have downloaded by the time you arrive but when you arrive everyone seems rather confused
• 6:18
  about whether it's this app or whether it's actually another app that's not a COVID tracing app
• 6:22
  but is in fact a COVID information app that the Thai King wants everyone to have downloaded
• 6:27
  so you know when everyone gets confused and it gets too much they just hand you another form to
• 6:31
  fill out in triplicate and ask you to sign in 17 different places and then they
• 6:35
  whisk you away to somewhere else but all that being said this new test and go program essentially
• 6:40
  replaced the sandbox program for visitors from a list of safe countries which is basically most
• 6:47
  most western countries but and then they decided and then they decided it was a little bit of
• 6:53
  overkill to have to require people to be getting their PCR test in their home countries before
• 6:58
  they depart you know within three days of departure and then also testing them on arrival
• 7:05
  into Thailand but oh and I should add that what happens if you test positive to coronavirus after
• 7:12
  arriving in Thailand is not simply that you have to stay in your hotel room until you know
• 7:16
  longer infectious you they still have a mandatory quarantine program so you'll be physically
• 7:23
  taken by guards of the state I believe to what they call a hospital the COVID hospital but I mean
• 7:30
  if you're not even sick and symptomatic they still take you there so it's not really a hospital
• 7:33
  it's a mandatory quarantine facility essentially that may be a wing of a hospital and you're locked
• 7:39
  up for two weeks including all of the close contacts who you're traveling with so that's that's rough
• 7:46
  you don't want to arrive in Thailand and test positive on that first day I've tried I've tried
• 7:51
  the food in economy class on Thai airways and I imagine the food in a Thai hospital COVID ward
• 7:58
  may not even be that good and that let me tell you my friends is a very very low bar
• 8:04
  so they decided this might be overkill testing before you get on the plane and then testing you
• 8:08
  as soon as you get off the plane but I think I think they figured that it would be a loss of
• 8:14
  face to deconstruct the entire test and go apparatus and so what they've done now as of the
• 8:21
  1st of April is they've abolished the requirement for a pre-departure test but not the requirement
• 8:28
  for a test on arrival so you get on the plane without having been tested they let you come all
• 8:36
  away to Thailand interact with all of the people at the airport interact with all of the people
• 8:43
  in transit to your hotel and at the hotel then test positive and then then you're their problem
• 8:51
  to take care of in quarantine for two weeks with all of the people you're traveling with
• 8:58
  wouldn't it be simpler just not to have the test on arrival and catch the COVID positive person
• 9:04
  before they got on the plane in their home country this this to me seems very bizarre and it was
• 9:12
  rendered even more threatening by the fact that when I that I got food poisoning in the lounge at
• 9:18
  Sydney Airport what I now think is food poisoning because while I was on the plane I started
• 9:23
  getting enormous fatigue and stomach cramps and what felt like a fever kind of shivering cold
• 9:31
  sweat so it's great by the way enduring this while you've got two four-year-olds to look after
• 9:37
  on a plane my partner Sean was in business class because I was being nice to him
• 9:43
  well not that nice I'm going to go in business on the way back this is the way we try to get a
• 9:46
  little bit of a little bit of fancy without breaking the breaking the bank or using too many
• 9:51
  pre-conflier miles so I'm there in economy class for nine hours with the kids shivering and shaking
• 10:00
  and swooning in and out of consciousness consciousness like some 1950s femme fatale in a movie
• 10:07
  who just can't handle the heat or the cold or whatever it might be and when we get to the hotel
• 10:14
  in Pouquet I start to taste in my mouth a very recognizable metallic taste like I've been sucking
• 10:26
  on a rusty nail someone once put it that kind of unmistakable taste of having a cold
• 10:34
  where you sort of you can't taste things quite as well as you normally would taste a little bit like
• 10:39
  you've you've sucked on a coin or something I definitely had that when I got covered so I had
• 10:45
  that I had a temperature I had cold sweats stomach cramps and fatigue and I thought
• 10:51
  holy shit this test is going to come back positive and my whole family is going to end up in a
• 10:58
  tie quarantine isolation facility for the next two weeks and I musted my best is in and I thought
• 11:08
  case arasra baby if it's going to happen it's going to happen and I can't tell you the relief
• 11:18
  when I woke up at 4am there's a four-hour time difference from Sydney so that was 8am in Sydney
• 11:24
  when I woke up at 4am naturally and I checked my email and I had I had four emails from the
• 11:30
  tie health department saying that coronavirus was not detected in our systems nonetheless
• 11:37
  seems like a perverse stressful and expensive and convoluted and complicated way of doing things
• 11:44
  try to catch every single individual who's arriving in the country and then funnel them into this
• 11:49
  system instead of testing them before they get on the plane but hey who might have told the
• 11:53
  king of Thailand how are on his country I love you sir and all that you stand for
• 12:00
  if you're not aware disrespecting the king in Thailand is a crime so I'm definitely not doing that
• 12:06
  no sir no sir rebob all respect your highness your royal your very royal and beloved highness
• 12:18
  any who I suspect that such strange and peculiar and convoluted systems of governance would
• 12:24
  it be less likely to arise and less likely to endure if someone within the echelons of power
• 12:31
  was willing to say maybe instead of just retaining through inertia the system that we devised at
• 12:37
  one point in the pandemic we should be nimble enough to course correct and even if it even
• 12:44
  if it costs us a little bit of face even if it doesn't feel quite right even if it seems like
• 12:50
  we've wasted a lot of resources on a misbegotten white elephant venture perhaps we should do things
• 12:56
  a little bit differently but that would require someone willing to buck the trend that would
• 13:00
  require someone willing to stand up for having conversations that are awkward that might get them
• 13:09
  fired that might make other people laugh at them conversations that are in a word uncomfortable
• 13:26
  today on the show when the ukrain crisis first happened and pooping invaded and I was shocked
• 13:33
  I hit up some of my European friends to say who should I speak to about what the hell is going on
• 13:39
  who is the best who is the most knowledgeable about international affairs and especially how
• 13:45
  Europe can and should respond to this because I've always believed and still believe that
• 13:50
  really ultimately the solution here at the way to either avoid or blunder into global calamity
• 13:57
  is going to come from Europe from European solidarity that's that's that's where the rubber meets
• 14:04
  the road in terms of Ukraine Russia and the West and several people said you must speak to Natalie
• 14:12
  Tachi she's an Italian political scientist she studied at university college in Oxford she got her
• 14:20
  PhD in international relations at the London School of Economics and she went on to work in Brussels
• 14:26
  where the EU is headquartered at the centre for European policy studies and she was a research fellow
• 14:32
  on EU relations so very very learned about the ins and outs of the way that the European union
• 14:39
  knits itself together and trades it's and the trade-offs that are necessary to keep those
• 14:44
  coalitions alive and to keep a certain steadfastness and comedy between members and she's
• 14:51
  very knowledgeable and was very active during the periods that have stressed the EU
• 14:55
  from the financial crisis and the euro crisis and on into Brexit in 2014 she ceased being an
• 15:04
  academic and became an adviser in the Italian government in the foreign ministry the equivalent
• 15:10
  of the State Department and she advised on sort of top foreign policy issues when she was working for
• 15:18
  the EU's foreign policy chief as well basically you know bouncing around all of these very high
• 15:24
  powered positions in Brussels at the EU and in Italy and the Italian government she now has
• 15:31
  she has a column for Politico she has all kinds of awards on European foreign policy issues non-Ary
• 15:38
  professor and she really gets it specifically the stakes that currently exist for Europe and for
• 15:48
  the West let alone for Russia and of course for Ukraine I hope you enjoy her insights this is one
• 15:55
  of those conversations where I don't really need to do terribly much because she knows so much
• 16:00
  but one and only Natalie talked to you
• 16:13
  yeah I have cereal and coffee and juice that sounds great
• 16:22
  and it's raining oh tell me about the rain it is it's been incredible here in Australia I don't know
• 16:28
  if it's made the news over there but there are huge floods yeah I know I saw that yeah yeah it's
• 16:34
  really really nasty after we had huge bushfires and now the floods yeah well yeah one can only
• 16:43
  expect this to continue yeah exactly I know that's what everyone feels like is this a new normal now
• 16:49
  exactly yeah yeah let's just let's get straight into it I'm interested in your thoughts about
• 16:57
  let's start with worst case scenarios what I keep my I find myself always thinking
• 17:03
  what if what if Putin wins and what does that look like well I can't to be honest with you I can't
• 17:12
  actually see Putin winning which does not mean that I don't see catastrophic scenarios in fact
• 17:18
  in some respects I see catastrophic scenarios almost as a result of that you know of him being
• 17:27
  defeated and I think this can go in two different and very dramatic directions I mean
• 17:33
  scenario one defeat against Ukraine and what I mean by defeat against Ukraine is in a sense what we
• 17:42
  are already seeing meaning the goal of this invasion was in a sense proving that Ukraine does not
• 17:51
  exist it is not a nation it would be over and done with in a few days well in that respect you
• 17:59
  know beyond what you know what happened I think in the sort of days and weeks ahead I think we
• 18:05
  can already say it's a political defeat for Putin and so then the question is you know what does
• 18:12
  that political defeat imply and I think so let me know scenario number one well political defeat
• 18:19
  against Ukraine for someone who obviously thinks of himself as being Vladimir the greats you know
• 18:25
  is pretty humiliating and if you really do have to lose a war well you know for the great Russian
• 18:34
  empire it's more dignified to lose a war against the West and so you know catastrophic scenario number
• 18:41
  one is one in which Putin has an interest and I think in some respects people already been seeing
• 18:47
  signals of this of transforming this and articulating this as not a war between Russia and Ukraine
• 18:55
  but a war between Russia and the West and of course the way in which this can spill into you know
• 19:02
  various catastrophic scenarios of course the nuclear one being the most horrific is something that
• 19:11
  you know you one can you know sort of in a sense imagine and then catastrophic scenario number two
• 19:18
  again as a product of that defeat is one in which you know it may not not happen today or tomorrow
• 19:27
  but you know I think that this will accelerate political change within Russia and I fear that
• 19:34
  that political change is not one that will see the likes of Alexey Navalny coming to power
• 19:41
  but internal turmoil that could you know either settle into something or it could not settle into
• 19:49
  something I mean you know it could I think go all the way as far as a sort of collapse of the
• 19:55
  Russian state so you know I don't need to say that either of those two scenarios is necessarily
• 20:03
  where we're headed but I think that it would be wrong for us to conclude that from the defeat of
• 20:12
  Putin necessarily something great is going to arise because yeah I mean I fear that that is not
• 20:21
  necessarily likely let's take the first one the nuclear consideration I must say I
• 20:29
  Natalie I hear a lot about that and I can't quite game it out in my head I can't quite see
• 20:36
  how that comes to pass when like explain it to me so Putin has the arsenal that he has the
• 20:43
  conventional arsenal that he has we've seen what he's willing to do in Chechnya he could turn
• 20:48
  Kiev into Grozny he could use chemical weapons he could use biological weapons he could say if
• 20:56
  you're going to take me down then every Ukrainian's going to die with me but at what point does
• 21:01
  it become a rational calculus for him to pull out a nuke I mean I agree that if we use our rationality
• 21:09
  it never would but then again our rationality would have never sort of really conceived this kind
• 21:17
  of war and so you know I think he would only really be a sort of last resort of ultimate desperation
• 21:27
  in which you know let us imagine that he does something biological and that or chemical and
• 21:35
  that is not quote-unquote sufficient to terrorize the population enough for Ukrainians to simply
• 21:42
  stay put and say okay you know we will accept the Russian Congress so you know you can imagine
• 21:49
  an escalatory dynamic where nothing works and you know nothing works to achieve what the original
• 21:56
  objective of this invasion was which was essentially the submission of Ukraine and so I think it's
• 22:03
  only in that kind of logic that you can imagine something as extreme as a tactical nuclear attack
• 22:09
  now do I think that it's likely no I don't think that that is likely I think it's far more likely
• 22:15
  that you know he will try to do other things certainly other things before but I think it would be
• 22:21
  and I think that the reason why he is sort of threatening or raising the nuclear specter is
• 22:31
  essentially more to scare us rather than anything else so I don't think it's likely but then again
• 22:37
  I don't think that we should dismiss it either simply because you know normally dictators you need
• 22:45
  to kind of listen carefully to what they say in the words they use you know because they often end
• 22:50
  up actually doing what they say and this is the most dramatic thing of all so I just think that we
• 22:56
  should be conscious of the fact that you know irrational is it may look like the rationality that
• 23:04
  we're talking about is not necessarily one that that belongs to us which does not I don't mean to
• 23:10
  say that that Putin is irrational I think that the rationality that drives him simply stems from a
• 23:16
  very different idea and and kind of value based on ideology from the one that we think conceivable
• 23:22
  essentially do you think that he has a post-war game plan Natalie because the other component of
• 23:27
  the nuclear option that I don't quite understand is I mean suppose in a best-case scenario for Putin
• 23:33
  he manages to achieve a military victory in Ukraine and somehow manages to to overwhelm their
• 23:40
  military in spite of all the aid that they're getting from the West and he he gets a stranglehold
• 23:46
  on all of Ukraine's territory now he has to occupy a country he has to assume that he's that either
• 23:54
  most Ukrainians are going to go along with that or he's going to be able to so brutalize them into
• 23:58
  submission which largely he did into to Georgians that they will have lost the will to fight or the
• 24:05
  will to live if you have if you detonate a nuke in that territory what are you as he expecting his
• 24:14
  Russian civil servants to be administering a nuclear wasteland I mean I agree I mean I think you
• 24:21
  know if he were to come to something like this it would be really the product of an extreme
• 24:30
  calculus which rather than stemming from you know what am I going to do the day after stems from a
• 24:38
  how am I going to avoid my own demise which of course when we talk about dictators dictators
• 24:46
  demise essentially means death so I think it would really be a kind of a last desperate act if you
• 24:55
  like and therefore not one which is really kind of driven by you know sort of what am I going to do
• 25:03
  the day after but how am I going to survive today maybe even something on the way out the door I
• 25:09
  mean the only conceivable scenario as I hear you talk that I could imagine it happening is if he's
• 25:14
  literally withdrawing and it's it's like well fuck you guys exactly okay so let's go to the
• 25:23
  second horrendous scenario that you pointed to although less horrendous potentially the sort of
• 25:31
  collapse of the Soviet state the end of Putin's reign the replacement of the current government with
• 25:38
  something else potentially a revolution how do we get from here to there what happens in between
• 25:47
  well yeah that's the real I mean that's that's the million dollar question I mean I don't
• 25:51
  know Russia enough to kind of think through how this could play out I guess my my main point here
• 26:01
  is that I I don't really see to be honest with you a revolution you know I don't see
• 26:09
  public opinion being up in arms demanding kind of revolutionary change if I revolutionary change
• 26:16
  we mean some sort of democratic change obviously there is I think a very deep discomfort amongst
• 26:26
  you know certain segments of the population but essentially we're talking about
• 26:32
  numerically at least small numbers so I don't think that I can't quite picture that I can't
• 26:39
  quite picture a revolutionary change what I can picture though is a scenario whereby almost
• 26:47
  regardless what happens and what I mean by regardless what happens is even if
• 26:54
  one gets to some sort of ceasefire unless it's a ceasefire that really sees Russia withdrawing completely
• 27:08
  which I think is unlikely that kind of scenario is one which still I think sees sanctions being
• 27:18
  kept I think that in a sense we've already gone beyond the point of no return in many respects
• 27:25
  with with Putin and until Putin remains in power so here you have a situation whereby you know
• 27:32
  even in the quote unquote non catastrophic scenarios in which some sort of low level warfare
• 27:41
  continues sanctions continue and therefore the sort of pain that is being inflicted
• 27:47
  economic pain on on Russia continues now surely that is going to accelerate some sort of change
• 27:57
  within within the Russian state now it is not obviously a change that I you know one can imagine
• 28:07
  being quote unquote limited to the top largely because the top that we're talking about you know with
• 28:13
  the kind of verticalization the power that we've seen as in a sense the sort of autocratic regime
• 28:19
  has gradually morphed into a dictatorial one so I don't think that it's simply a question of you
• 28:25
  know the inner circle you know someone from the inner circle replacing him because in a sense you
• 28:31
  know that the pyramid has become you know something far more far more vertical you could imagine
• 28:38
  the repercussions sort of you know shaking all the way down and how far down that that means I
• 28:48
  have no idea but you know you do kind of look at Russia and you know this is a country which
• 28:55
  has seen state collapse you know a couple of times in you know not that many decades right
• 29:02
  and there are that many states that have collapsed I mean literally collapsed twice in you know
• 29:10
  Lisel over a century and so you just you know you you look at it and you think you know is this
• 29:18
  really that inconceivable in a situation whereby there has been an utter failure of ultimately the
• 29:25
  ideology that drove this invasion I mean this is not simply some sort of you know tactical mistakes
• 29:33
  you know the reason why Russia has not achieved what it planned to achieve is that the ultimate
• 29:39
  idea that was behind it which was basically Ukraine does not exist and the flip side of that argument
• 29:46
  is you know an idea of what Russia itself is well if that idea of what Russia itself is
• 29:55
  meaning you know a Russia that responds to a very revanchist idea of actually what sovereignty
• 30:05
  means which is essentially some sort of you know ethno linguistic understanding of sovereignty
• 30:11
  well if Ukraine proves that that is wrong and but and yet if you know the ideology driving this
• 30:19
  was some sort of idea of you know Russia is a fragmented state which just needs to be united
• 30:25
  well if that unity has not been achieved what does the say about Russia itself
• 30:32
  and that is why you know the minute in which that idea proves to be not only a military failure
• 30:39
  but a political failure you can't quite see how the the system itself can somehow simply survive by
• 30:48
  you know changing one need to buy another and somehow settling into a new great steady state
• 30:54
  because the ideology on the pinning it has been proved to be a failure yeah but the the
• 30:59
  ideologues never never can see at that point do they I mean throughout history people who have
• 31:05
  self-aggrandizing visions of their own historical victoriousness when proven wrong in by the
• 31:13
  harsh light of reality tend to say that it was the implementation that it was wrong I mean look
• 31:18
  at the way that communists endlessly rationalized communism long after so many communist regimes
• 31:24
  had turned tyrannical it was always just that it was implemented incorrectly I mean even at the
• 31:29
  end of the second world war you know a committed Nazi still thought that Nazism was a great idea
• 31:33
  it just hadn't been done quite right and it was they were stabbed in the back and so on so I
• 31:38
  can also equally imagine retaining a vision of Russian greatness of Russian destiny towards you
• 31:44
  know this this vast ethno Russian empire and in this particular case it was the dastardly it was
• 31:52
  you know Hillary Clinton and George Soros and the and Angela Merkel who who watered Russia yet again
• 32:01
  yeah exactly that's right you know I think you know and that's what I'm saying you know you know
• 32:08
  sort of these are the two catastrophic scenarios that could actually imagine which does not
• 32:14
  necessarily mean that it will end up in in one of them yeah so let's let's move to let let's
• 32:21
  move to how we avoid those and to your field of expertise which is European policy because that's
• 32:25
  probably where the solution to all of this lies ultimately is in European cohesion and steadfastness
• 32:35
  take us to let's let's flip to sort of best case scenarios out of a very bad
• 32:40
  bunch and what those look like and how we get there well you know I think that as far as as
• 32:47
  Europe is concerned well firstly I think it's important to highlight how firstly through the
• 32:54
  pandemic but especially now with this war in a sense Europe and the European Union has really
• 33:03
  found its mojo again you know we had essentially moved from one existential crisis you know jump from
• 33:12
  one existential crisis to the next you know from you know the Eurozone crisis migration crisis
• 33:19
  Brexit etc you know it really looked like we were on verge of collapse you know for what 15 years
• 33:26
  and by the way that sense of being on the verge of collapse I think is really something that
• 33:31
  it viewed this Russian ideology of basically saying you know sort of the kind of weak liberal
• 33:40
  west you know and especially the weak liberal Europe that tries to imagine a different because by
• 33:48
  definition the European Union could never be a nationalist project I mean it would you know it
• 33:54
  was kind of constructed to prove that that kind of idea is a failed idea so you know I think the
• 34:05
  crisis that Europe went through were obviously existential on the one hand for the European Union
• 34:12
  but they were also so dangerous because they really bolstered the kind of idea and ideology that
• 34:18
  drove Putin to do what what he did anyway you know we kind of move them on to you know the pandemic
• 34:25
  refine you know sort of find the refine that magic is a word which is really at the heart of
• 34:33
  European integration which is solidarity and then we really find it again with this war you know
• 34:39
  I think it's really quite incredible how over the course of you know these these first weeks
• 34:49
  you know not only are we now you know on migration and refugee issues from this being a highly
• 34:57
  divisive issue here we are you know sort of implementing a temporary protection mechanism whereby
• 35:04
  Ukrainian refugees can not only come but move freely across the union we are considering what kind
• 35:11
  of economic response you know much like over the course of the pandemic we thought of next generation
• 35:17
  you as essentially a kind of form of debt mutualization in order to emerge from the pandemic itself
• 35:26
  we're now thinking about something likewise to recover from what will ultimately be another
• 35:31
  recession that's basic we're talking about energy independence we're talking about a defense union
• 35:37
  and really stepping up in terms of security defense so basically you see and I think actually
• 35:43
  this comes gets us closer to Ukraine itself we have revived the very idea of enlargement you know
• 35:50
  enlargement was debt in the water essentially and and and through Ukraine we have made this
• 35:58
  fundamental idea live once again so what kind of you know solution could this lead to
• 36:05
  we'll even take time but you can imagine a solution whereby yes you know Ukraine is not going to
• 36:15
  become a member of NATO in a sense it was never really going to to be honest with you and yet it
• 36:22
  will be a member of the European Union the non membership of NATO means that this will need to
• 36:30
  be coupled with strong security guarantees including from European countries of course also
• 36:37
  the United States but European countries you know the ones that are being mentioned France Germany
• 36:43
  Italy as well as the United Kingdom and I think you know again as a side note I think this war
• 36:50
  has also demonstrated to be the first instance of EU UK cooperation post Brexit you know this
• 37:00
  has been a poisonous relationship up until now and here we are in full sync with the United Kingdom
• 37:06
  so I think this is another important piece in the sense of this possible and and so you know
• 37:14
  I think that the the sticky point in all of this is is the territorial one and ultimately the
• 37:20
  territorial one can own I mean a given that one will necessarily need to be wet to the idea of
• 37:28
  Ukraine's territorial integrity I think the territorial piece of this equation is going to
• 37:35
  in a sense be determined by what happens on on the battlefield which is why it is so important to
• 37:42
  actually support Ukraine's defence militarily because of course you know the the territory that
• 37:49
  Russia occupies is very unlikely to de-occupy anytime soon I mean you know we have seen this
• 37:56
  happen not only in Ukraine but across Eastern Europe and the Caucasus right and and Natalie when
• 38:02
  you say the territorial question is the crucial one do you mean that the question of whether or not
• 38:08
  Ukraine can revert to the borders that it had before the invasion or before the Crimean invasion
• 38:14
  is critical or simply that Ukraine has to have some territorial component because I can't see
• 38:23
  I think it's unlikely for us to expect a world in which Crimea and Donbass end up in Ukraine
• 38:30
  well I think Crimea you're right I think Donbass really depends what we mean by Donbass you know if
• 38:38
  we mean by Donbass the territories held by Russia before the 24th of February I return to
• 38:48
  agree with you I think anything beyond that starts getting far more problematic you know so you
• 38:57
  know so you know so I really think it's yeah I mean I really think it depends depends where we draw
• 39:03
  that line right right it's very easy when we're all shocked and horrified by the audacity of the
• 39:11
  invasion to find unanimity I mean I suppose it's not you know we should still we should still applaud
• 39:17
  all of the leaders who've been able to be as steadfast as they have and impose the sanctions that
• 39:22
  they have and supply and speak with one voice on the military questions as they have my concern is
• 39:28
  that if the if weeks turn into months turn into potentially years and there's some sort of stalemate
• 39:33
  or quagmire and peace talks recur and then fail and recur and then fail and Russia insists on
• 39:40
  sanctions being lifted and the West doesn't do it that at some point certain members of the coalition
• 39:47
  start to lose faith start to think it's not worth the effort and you see a fracturing and
• 39:53
  I presume that Putin Putin's most ardent dream is to find those wedges in Western Europe in particular
• 40:01
  and cleave off a few countries is that likely if so which countries would they be how do we avoid it?
• 40:09
  well I think yes you're right and in a sense you know one of the reasons why this invasion
• 40:18
  in the way in which it has taken place has been so surprising is precisely because you know it
• 40:25
  doesn't respond to that kind of logic you know had Putin done something more I mean to use the
• 40:32
  kind of unfortunate expression that President Biden used before the invasion a limited
• 40:39
  incursion you know had that happened well then the division would have already emerged in a
• 40:46
  kind of you know clear and blatant way so and this was why so many of us actually thought that
• 40:51
  he would do something potent for limited because that was you know the easiest route to so
• 40:57
  division which is exactly what happened in Georgia in Ukraine itself in 2014 etc so you know that
• 41:06
  hasn't happened and so the question is you know given that something so large scale has taken place
• 41:11
  how long can that unity be sustained and I think the key to the answer is the speed at which
• 41:20
  we manage and by we I'm here mainly talking about Europeans because of course that is really
• 41:26
  where in so many respects and in particular when it comes to energy we are tied you know we're
• 41:33
  joined at the hip with Russia so I think the answer that question sort of revolves around how quickly
• 41:38
  can we mean off Russian mainly gas I think oil is a slightly different story and then to the extent
• 41:47
  that we manage to do it you know if we indeed manage by the end of this year to essentially
• 41:56
  quote-unquote resolve two-thirds of the problem well then actually maintaining that unity becomes
• 42:02
  easier because you know basically what we end up seeing is a Russia which increasingly looks either
• 42:09
  like a gigantic North Korea or in the best of circumstances the kind of poor small cousin of China
• 42:22
  now you know if that is to happen meaning you know if that interdependence is and those dependencies
• 42:29
  are you know weakened they're eventually severed well then it's easier to maintain
• 42:35
  sort of resolve when it comes to Russia because we've got less to lose how do we do that is it
• 42:42
  is I mean I would love it if there was some plan to hastily replace all Russian gas in
• 42:50
  Western Europe but I don't know how logistically you do that quickly enough for him to no longer
• 42:57
  have leverage well we may actually end up in the situation very very quickly in the sense that
• 43:06
  you know sort of Putin I think as he often does but there's often backfires tried out the
• 43:17
  rubble threat so basically saying you know you Europeans won't thank you everyone if you want
• 43:24
  to trade in energy with Russia you've got to pay in rubles and and I think the reason why he did
• 43:32
  was on the one hand to shore up the Russian rubble which as we know has been essentially collapsing
• 43:39
  over the last few weeks and on the other hand through this move tried to detour essentially sanctions
• 43:46
  now we didn't fall into that trap and we said very clearly well no we were not pay in in rubles
• 43:54
  and long-term contracts mainly gas contracts that we have with Russia actually do not foresee
• 44:00
  those payments to take place in rubles and so we will not do it now at this point what does Putin
• 44:08
  do I mean he either backtracks and say okay fine I was joking which normally he doesn't do
• 44:14
  or he does as Lavrov himself hinted at say well we will in that case interrupt our supplies
• 44:24
  to to Russia so in a sense if to Europe they actually sorry to Europe so in a sense if they act
• 44:32
  on that threat they quote unquote remove the thorny question that we've been sort of scurting up
• 44:42
  until now which is the embargo question because they would basically self embargo right right
• 44:47
  right so you know and that's not that's not catastrophic to Germany I mean I guess we're lucky
• 44:53
  that we're coming into spring and summer and that it's not the middle of winter but Germany
• 44:58
  Germany can would be okay if Russia turned off the spigot completely no we would not be okay I mean
• 45:05
  Germany would not be okay Italy would not be okay that the you know an argument that I make here
• 45:12
  in Italy a lot is you know you you you know one what does okay mean right I mean you know what's
• 45:19
  the point what's the comparison what are we comparing not being okay with and now if we compare
• 45:26
  not okay with the wonderful world in which we thought that in 2022 we were going to grow at you
• 45:34
  know projections here in Italy for example were you know five percent GDP growth well obviously
• 45:40
  we're not going to be okay next autumn I mean the summer's going to be fine but we're not going
• 45:44
  to be okay next autumn where essentially we're going to have to sort of engage in you know rationing
• 45:51
  of different sorts so that's not okay compared to that but if we compare that not okay with the
• 45:59
  rationale of these sanctions and the rationale of these sanctions is stopping Putin because if he is
• 46:04
  not stopped he will continue well the economic cost you know we go back to catastrophic scenario
• 46:11
  who's you know the economic costs of Putin not stopping in let alone the humanitarian one but just
• 46:17
  the focus on the economic costs are even more catastrophic than you know the recession that we
• 46:24
  could end up in but what I mean by what I mean by what I mean by could Germany and Italy would
• 46:30
  they be okay is I mean old people wouldn't be dying frozen in their apartments because the
• 46:36
  apartments weren't heated it would just be it would just be expensive it would be expensive it would
• 46:43
  mean burning coal in a very you know sort of as if there's no tomorrow for you know year or so
• 46:51
  and you've got the coal fired power plants to do that yes yes it would mean that Germany would not
• 46:58
  halt its nuclear power plants as it was expected to do by the end of this year Italy itself you know
• 47:06
  over the last weeks has been you know sort of flying around like crazy you know our energy
• 47:14
  company E and I is very present in North Africa and Africa and you know the contracts that have
• 47:22
  now been signed with Algeria with Qatar with Congo with Angola with Mozambique mean that the
• 47:32
  supplies would actually essentially the supplies would be there I mean the question is more a
• 47:38
  question that has to do with infrastructure we would have to essentially buy and build we cannot
• 47:44
  build that quickly but therefore buy floating LNG facilities very quickly so you know I'm not
• 47:52
  I don't want to suggest that this is not going to be very difficult and and painful
• 47:59
  but we will survive you know so I don't think that as I said you know I think that when Sholtz
• 48:06
  talks about a recession he's absolutely right I guess what I'm saying is that they will probably
• 48:11
  be a recession anyway yeah no I mean that that's gratifying to me because I wasn't sure if it was
• 48:17
  even possible to run these countries without Russian gas but I'm pleased to hear that it could be
• 48:23
  I mean I don't understand why there isn't you know essentially an entirely open wallet just a
• 48:29
  fire hose of money look I don't understand why after Crimea and Georgia there wasn't a fire hose
• 48:35
  of money going to even building giant tables from the bottom of Italy to North Africa and putting
• 48:41
  lots and lots of solar panels coating North Africa in solar panels and just having a huge you
• 48:46
  know really forward thinking ways of ensuring Europe's energy that's completely independent not
• 48:51
  just a breath it's even worse than that it's even worse than that because if you look at the 2014
• 48:57
  2022 period our dependence on Russian gas not only didn't reduce but it increased and so the
• 49:05
  question is might that that happen and I think there are two explanations for this there's the
• 49:11
  sort of historical explanation which is and then this has been there for obviously a long a long
• 49:18
  time and it kind of dates back to the Cold War and basically saying you know somehow energy can
• 49:23
  be shielded from politics and hey you know look at the history of the Cold War itself where you know
• 49:30
  across the Iron Curtain you know energy was being traded between Europe and and Russia
• 49:36
  I'm so union at the time so I think there's that you know sort of historical analogy which of course
• 49:41
  is totally in the space today because you know what one often forgets is that the Cold War was
• 49:48
  obviously a Cold War for reason now it was cold and it was cold also because the hot war meaning
• 49:56
  the Second World War was you know the Soviet Union and European countries meaning you know countries
• 50:05
  of the War War were fighting on the same side and and this is a very different scenario so in a
• 50:12
  sense you know we're no longer in the post-war era we're in a pre-war era so it's a totally
• 50:17
  different sort of war game so but but that Cold War analogy I think informed a lot of the
• 50:24
  optimism when it comes to Russia despite the fact that there was very clearly a political
• 50:29
  deterioration in the relationship and then the second reason why I think we were kind of
• 50:37
  yeah so you know why this massive miscalculation came about was that between 2014 and you know
• 50:45
  essentially October of last year energy prices were very very low the first drop in prices came
• 50:54
  in 2014 actually and and I think in in times of low prices an interdependent energy relationship
• 51:02
  like the one between the EU and Russia means that leverage is on the bias side it's only when
• 51:08
  prices are high that leverage kind of tilts towards the seller's side but we somehow assume that
• 51:15
  here we were transitioning away from fossil fuels and therefore the assumption was that actually
• 51:20
  this meant that fossil fuel prices would be almost permanently low and so you know we could afford
• 51:29
  you know we we had leverage over Russia it was not the other way around and I think it was those
• 51:34
  two assumptions one which is kind of you know political and historical and the other which is more
• 51:39
  recent and and really driven by economics which led to this massive miscalculation and now
• 51:46
  scrambling to make up for it Natalie a lot of people in the anglophone world at least who think
• 51:54
  of themselves has very independent thinkers who question conventional narratives and who are
• 52:01
  skeptical of being misled by propaganda will hear you say that if Putin doesn't stop in Ukraine
• 52:10
  he won't stop and they roll their eyes and say that sounds like Pentagon waffle you know he has
• 52:17
  a particular fixation on Ukraine Ukraine has a particular fix has a particular relationship
• 52:22
  historically with Russia it was part of the Soviet Union here has this long tradition
• 52:28
  and association I mean it's where the Russian Orthodox Church started you know Russia Ukraine is
• 52:34
  Putin's bag and that's ultimately what he wants and there's it's scaremongering to think that he
• 52:40
  would come after NATO just because he got Ukraine what do you say to that well I would say that okay
• 52:50
  now let me be clear I don't think that if Russia is not stopped in Ukraine the following day
• 52:59
  tanks would be rolling into the Baltics I don't see that as being in the sense the sort of next step
• 53:06
  but at the same time what I do actually see is Russia is not stopped in Ukraine and say for example
• 53:16
  or there's suffers in whatever a few weeks a few months who knows right because he is not stopped
• 53:24
  can we are we really confident that something would not happen in Moldova well I'm certainly not
• 53:30
  so I think you know Moldova would be the the the next most likely thing and I think it's totally
• 53:37
  totally kind of imaginable how this would happen if or this I was were to fall and if he's not
• 53:43
  stopped in Moldova what would make him stop there so I think that there is a scenario which actually
• 53:51
  in different ways whether it's Moldova whether it's again you know actually Putin is facing
• 53:57
  strong resistance you know we go back to this you know so this conflict spilling beyond Ukraine
• 54:05
  and he has an interest actually in in sort of drawing NATO into the fight can we really imagine
• 54:11
  that there isn't some sort of attack on an arms depot in Poland and obviously that would not
• 54:20
  trigger a NATO response so as I said you know I don't think that any of these scenarios is necessarily
• 54:28
  likely but I mean you know you can imagine different routes through which this war could in different
• 54:36
  ways spill beyond Ukraine even if you don't take seriously the hypothesis that this entails
• 54:44
  marching into the vortex tomorrow morning right I mean okay Moldova yes but you know most people
• 54:50
  will will chuckle a little bit when they hear about the critical importance of the autonomy of Moldova
• 54:56
  once you once you get Moldova there aren't that I mean you can try for Romania I guess that's
• 55:00
  that's good luck getting across that's a large another geographically large country but fairly
• 55:06
  soon you do hit NATO and the EU and you know that's not to say that Moldova doesn't have a right to
• 55:12
  self-determination but I don't think that that's what is keeping the hawks up at night okay but then
• 55:19
  you kind of look at the flip side of that argument and if and if what one is saying is Russia will
• 55:29
  not stop Putin will not stop up until he hits NATO's borders then the logic of having
• 55:38
  stopped NATO enlargement it kind of crumbles because it basically what we're saying is you know he
• 55:46
  will go as far as he can go and basically go everything up up until NATO you know up until NATO borders
• 55:55
  well then the strategic mistake was that of stopping NATO enlargement right but I mean that the
• 56:01
  uncomfortable part of this conversation is the is the fact that there is a school of thought in the
• 56:06
  West there is a Kissinger style real politic that you hear you know John Meershiner and Stephen
• 56:14
  Walton people who are very who regard themselves as very hard-nosed realists they they would say
• 56:22
  the West has always wanted its sphere of influence and the you know the Soviet Union wanted its
• 56:27
  sphere of influence and that hasn't changed just because the Soviet Union ceased to exist
• 56:32
  America has historically been extremely sensitive about you know nukes being stationed in Cuba or
• 56:39
  it's basically controlled the entire Western hemisphere with the Monroe doctrine it asserted it's
• 56:45
  it's authority over the Western hemisphere and it might not be nice for Ukrainians and it might
• 56:51
  not be nice for Moldovans but ultimately it's hypocritical of us to say that Russia doesn't
• 56:57
  have essentially a claim to that to to its sphere so we get NATO and it gets everything not not NATO
• 57:05
  well I think what's really problematic okay so let me put it this way I have actually been you know
• 57:12
  up until this war fairly sympathetic to the argument you know of sort of western hubris after
• 57:22
  the end of the Cold War and you know not taking seriously what Russia's security concerns might be
• 57:30
  and that yes you know maybe there was a sort of overly hasty enlargement of NATO and perhaps
• 57:37
  even of the European Union so I had in you know sort of full kind of disclosure I had some sort of
• 57:44
  sympathy for that view I have totally changed my mind about this because you know sort of following
• 57:51
  through what I was saying earlier I have now asked myself well firstly is this not the wrong
• 57:58
  question to ask you know I mean it's not NATO that enlarged but it was countries that wanted
• 58:05
  to enter NATO and countries that wanted to enter the European Union maybe because they knew the
• 58:11
  Kremlin a little bit better than I did and and you know so there is a reason why they wanted to
• 58:19
  enter and hey Ukraine proves in a sense that they were right in wanting to enter because you know
• 58:26
  for the sake of argument if Ukraine was a member of NATO now would we be seeing this invasion
• 58:34
  and if surely everyone agrees that what we're seeing is you know absolutely dreadful and could
• 58:41
  for the reasons that we started this conversation with end up in a third well war well you know one
• 58:48
  has to take the argument of was it a mistake to stop NATO enlargement rather than to engage in it
• 58:55
  I think very very seriously so that's one piece of my answer the other piece of my answer is
• 59:01
  what I find which is connected which is what I find really problematic about you know this kind
• 59:08
  of know the geopolitical the realist kind of understanding of it for all this is that it
• 59:15
  well firstly it doesn't take agency very seriously it doesn't take the agency of these countries
• 59:22
  seriously so there's some sort of assumption that you know this is really up to the west and
• 59:28
  Russia to kind of you know figure out and you know who cares who's there in between so beyond the
• 59:35
  kind of ethic you know the fact that I find it from an ethical point of view very problematic but
• 59:39
  I also find it very politically problematic because the assumption is that these people and you know
• 59:45
  when we're talking about Ukraine we're talking about you know over 40 million people so it's not
• 59:50
  exactly you know small countries it's not multiple it's not gorgeous you know the assumption is
• 59:59
  that these countries are simply gonna stay put which I think is you know it's inconceivable I mean
• 1:00:05
  especially it has we are seeing you know beyond the way in which obviously Ukraine's Ukrainians
• 1:00:11
  have been supported militarily by the west but when you see those images of you know those
• 1:00:18
  Ukrainian women trying to sort of stop tax with their bare arms well I mean this doesn't exactly
• 1:00:24
  kind of come across as a country which is going to stay put with a Russian occupation so I think
• 1:00:29
  that even beyond ethics it just doesn't you know not taking seriously the agency of these countries
• 1:00:36
  and therefore these people is just analytically wrong yes it does strike me as extremely self-absorbed
• 1:00:43
  it's funny that both sides of politics in the west seem to to want to superimpose their own
• 1:00:50
  domestic interpretations of things onto the entire globe like you know conservatives will often
• 1:00:57
  criticize progressives in America for supposedly blaming America for everything and they
• 1:01:04
  feel like they're more patriotic and that America can do no wrong but then when they come to talking
• 1:01:09
  about something like this it's as if America is controlling everything and is somehow culpable
• 1:01:13
  for everything that Vladimir Putin does and you know it not only deprives the Ukrainians of agency it
• 1:01:21
  almost deprives Putin of agency by making him a puppet of whatever America's misdeeds were in the 1990s
• 1:01:29
  yeah okay let's just think then briefly about an endpoint to this because we just sort of
• 1:01:35
  touched on best-case scenarios let's talk about likeliest I guess scenarios can you look is there
• 1:01:44
  any point in looking five years out ten years out oh very difficult very difficult I guess five
• 1:01:51
  years out or ten years out I cannot see Vladimir Putin in power so I guess that's one piece of
• 1:01:59
  good news exactly what's going to happen between now and then I have no idea but I can't I can't see
• 1:02:05
  that having said that I can see a scenario whereby we we need to sort of stay the course and so
• 1:02:18
  up until then I think sanctions will remain in place I think that this sort of you know energy
• 1:02:24
  independence that the you is building will proceed so I think in a number of ways the dye has been
• 1:02:32
  cast and then you know the sort of the best case scenario and when and that that dye being cast
• 1:02:39
  also entails Ukraine gradually integrating into the European Union and and I guess the best case
• 1:02:48
  scenario in all of this is you know what do we do when eventually the political conditions in
• 1:02:54
  Russia arise whereby we will be in a position to rebuild that relationship and you know sort of
• 1:03:02
  how to in a sense be clear-eyed about it not be heuristic perhaps about it but you know but
• 1:03:12
  engage in the reconstruction of that that relationship you know I think that that point will come at some
• 1:03:18
  you know some point and indeed you know it could be in in one two five or ten years I don't know
• 1:03:26
  but you know it I think you know sort of the EU and Russia will always share the same continent
• 1:03:35
  so that that question soon or later will I think arise if what Putin wants is a neutral
• 1:03:41
  Ukraine a demilitarized Ukraine an end to sanctions and for Eastern Ukraine to either be part of Russia
• 1:03:50
  or be independent states or autonomous I can see some of those I wonder whether or not
• 1:04:01
  sanctions are a deal breaker whether or not for Putin it would just be beyond the pale for him to
• 1:04:08
  withdraw unless there's a guarantee that sanctions get removed and for the West it's inconceivable
• 1:04:13
  that you would allow him to get away with what he's done without enduring sanctions is there a way
• 1:04:17
  out of that well you know I think that you know if we imagine a deal that looks like neutrality
• 1:04:26
  I think that it's important to highlight that neutrality means that neutrality and demilitarization
• 1:04:34
  are impossible together so you know when we talk about neutrality and we talk about whatever
• 1:04:41
  Austria or Finland well these are countries that precisely because they are neutral they have
• 1:04:49
  you know fairly strong armed forces so you know I think that when Putin talks about neutrality
• 1:04:56
  and demilitarization together he's basically talking about Ukrainian surrender so that is
• 1:05:02
  inconceivable you can go conceive of a solution which sees neutrality plus security guarantees
• 1:05:11
  plus EU membership perhaps even with you know Crimea you know I'm not sure it would be a
• 1:05:20
  full-on recognition of Crimea but let's say Crimea is something and you know Donetsk and
• 1:05:28
  Organisense kind of you know almost park that question I can't imagine it being resolved
• 1:05:34
  anytime soon and Russian withdrawal you know sort of back to the lines of the 24th of February
• 1:05:44
  so that is a conceivable quote unquote piece that words come along with the lifting of sanctions
• 1:05:52
  I guess what I'm saying is that that solution is enough to defeat for Putin
• 1:05:59
  and that is why I struggled to see it right which is why I'm so worried could you I've been
• 1:06:06
  wondering could you have a demilitarized zone in eastern Ukraine could you have a guarantee of
• 1:06:12
  Ukrainian neutrality obviously as you say you can't have neutrality if you don't have an army because
• 1:06:20
  then Russia can take you over whenever it wants to and you have no ability to defend yourself so
• 1:06:25
  but if you is there is there a deal that says okay Ukraine doesn't have Crimea anymore it doesn't have
• 1:06:33
  its eastern states anymore it's neutral and it's gonna have a huge military west of Kiev
• 1:06:43
  but if you draw a line down the country from Kiev down to Crimea along whatever that river is
• 1:06:48
  whose name escapes me we're not gonna have any military that's right we're not gonna have any military
• 1:06:54
  east of that or something yeah I think I think absolutely so long as this also means that they
• 1:07:00
  won't be Russian troops there either yes so it's it's a faulty militarization of the east
• 1:07:06
  absolutely I mean let let's also remind ourselves that in a sense this was what the Minsk
• 1:07:13
  agreement was was expected to deliver and what was that in a way remind us what the Minsk agreement
• 1:07:19
  was the Minsk agreement which was essentially brokered after the the 2014 war so it was brokered in
• 1:07:27
  2015 between you know Russia Ukraine France and Germany essentially had two main pillars to it
• 1:07:36
  and one was the you know with OSE monitoring the withdrawal of Russian forces and on the other
• 1:07:46
  hand or as a flip side to that you know forms of autonomy for Donetsk and Nugansk and the reason
• 1:07:54
  why that agreement was never implemented is that it got stuck into a sort of chicken and egg
• 1:08:00
  situation whereby Ukrainians were not going to deliver on autonomy so long as Russian forces were
• 1:08:10
  there because ultimately delivering one autonomy with Russian forces there you know essentially
• 1:08:16
  amounted to Donetsk and Nugansk being some sort of fifth column basically the Indian state
• 1:08:23
  and and Russian forces did not withdraw because the autonomy was not there so it just kind of got
• 1:08:27
  stuck and and maybe because the sequencing within the Minsk agreement was never actually defined
• 1:08:34
  perhaps they got stuck because it was simply unimplementable because of this you know this
• 1:08:39
  connection between the two but so in a sense though underpinning that agreement is precisely
• 1:08:47
  the logic that we're talking about now the fact that that agreement was not implemented between 2015
• 1:08:53
  and now 2022 and basically Russia sort of killed the the Minsk format and the Minsk agreement
• 1:09:01
  I think you know still raises the question of you know even if we park the Donbas question
• 1:09:07
  is it easily resolvable I'm not quite sure but but I think that there is an element to that
• 1:09:16
  agreement which goes back to this demonetization point which is still very permanent today which is
• 1:09:23
  precisely what you say you know any kind of agreement presumably would not see anyone's forces
• 1:09:29
  in that region I wonder I've been thinking lately about enabling Putin to save face
• 1:09:37
  whilst losing so we don't end up in one of those two horror scenarios that you articulated
• 1:09:44
  at the beginning of our conversation and I was thinking back to the Cuban missile crisis where
• 1:09:51
  JFK didn't give the Soviet Union any outward or public way of of of of saving face but behind
• 1:10:04
  the scenes agreed substantively to remove American nukes from Turkey is there anything behind
• 1:10:12
  the scenes that's conceivable and is if there were would there be any way of even sort of
• 1:10:16
  communicating it to Putin how are we communicating with him at the moment do we have interlocutors
• 1:10:23
  and are there open channels of communication and is there anything that he would want that we could
• 1:10:28
  give him that wouldn't sort of corrode or undermine the scale of his loss in Ukraine
• 1:10:37
  well that's really the million dollar question I mean yes you know obviously the communication
• 1:10:41
  lines are there you know in particular French President Macron has been really sort of front and
• 1:10:48
  center of this but also you know this is really the role that you know countries like Turkey or
• 1:10:55
  even Israel are trying to play I guess in you know if if Putin can somehow turn this around
• 1:11:09
  within his regime I'm kind of less worried about public opinion because I think you can kind of
• 1:11:16
  live you get away with murder but if you can somehow sort of transform this within Russia itself as
• 1:11:24
  something along the lines of yes actually you know it was not really about ideology and it was not
• 1:11:30
  really about you know the Ukrainian people but it was all about security well yes you know then it's
• 1:11:36
  kind of conceivable that there's kind of neutrality plus security guarantees plus you membership
• 1:11:43
  plus you know Crimea plus kind of you know parking Donbass
• 1:11:49
  maybe you know that that is the only conceivable face saying face saving solution that one can
• 1:11:58
  imagine now can I can I you know it is it possible for him to turn around something that so very
• 1:12:06
  blatantly was driven by something else you know by you know the very term denazification I mean
• 1:12:16
  can he really turn this around and rather than its real interpretation which was essentially a
• 1:12:24
  decapitation of the Ukrainian government and not just the government but basically an entire
• 1:12:32
  political system which heads to an idea of a civic nation a nation that kind of strives to live
• 1:12:40
  sort of free and democratic country can he say how somehow somehow transform this notion of
• 1:12:46
  denazification into well you know it's just about some extremist groups within the Ukrainian Armed
• 1:12:52
  Forces well if he can pull it off well okay that was not really great but I'm not quite sure
• 1:13:02
  that is likely all right it's a model Natalie thank you for walking us through it it's wonderful
• 1:13:08
  to get your insights uncomfortable conversations is produced by Stefan Posthuma follow me Josh
• 1:13:21
  Zeps on Twitter and Instagram for all the latest may your day be fruitful your mind humble your
• 1:13:27
  enemies generous and your conversations perfectly sparklingly delectably uncomfortable