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--:-- Halima Shah: It's Today Explained. I'm Halima Shah. This past Christmas marked 30 years since the fall of the Soviet Union. And today we're seeing unrest in the republics that formed or re-emerged in the aftermath. Kazakhstan is seeing some of the biggest protests in the country's history, and dozens of civilians were killed today. And a conflict that's been simmering since Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea is erupting along the Ukrainian-Russian border. Russia has for weeks been massing troops and tanks along the Ukrainian border, prompting Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania to call for more Western sanctions against it in fear of an invasion.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: The villages along Ukraine's border with Russia have been disrupted by military checkpoints and shifting contact lines for almost a decade now. But escalating conflict in recent weeks has these communities living in constant fear. In short, in recent weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin stands accused by the West of amassing more than 100,000 servicemen next to Russia's border with Ukraine.
--:-- Halima Shah: Sarah Sinkirova is a human rights journalist. She reported from the Ukrainian side of the border for Al Jazeera. And security incidents such as shelling and shooting in the war zone have intensified in the war zone since November 2021. and a Ukrainian soldier was killed in December. We think it is extremely important now to send a clear message to Russia about reducing tensions, be transparent and avoid any type of escalation of the situation in and around Ukraine.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: Tensions further rose after Vladimir Putin set out security demands that NATO rejected immediately. And meanwhile, on the ground, along the contact line, people suffer and lose hope. Many of them hear shelling and shooting on a daily basis or on a weekly basis, and they are simply terrified.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: The region has been hollowed out by eight years of conflict. The contact line is the line that divides the government-controlled area from the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. And it's a 400-kilometer long line that goes through villages and settlements. This region is, for the most part, a very rural region. While I was there in December 2021, it was also very, very cold. It was minus 14 outside, which makes it all the more difficult for the local populations to survive there right now.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: And when you drive through the region, you will see that there's signs warning against landmines, which makes it very, very dangerous, particularly for children or anyone really that's playing or walking outside or in the woods. You know, some of the villages and some of the towns have been completely destroyed by the war in 2014 and 2015. And you can see signs and writings on the gates and on the houses where people marked, "Please do not shoot because people live here."
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: And some of the villages have been completely destroyed. So who did you see and speak to when you were there? One of the particular aspects of the Ukrainian conflict is that there is a very high percentage of the elderly people and of disabled people who live in the war zone. According to the Kiev Office of the European Civil Protection and humanitarian aid operation, there's 3.4 million people in eastern Ukraine who are in need of humanitarian assistance, and 1.3 million elderly persons.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: So oftentimes these very, very vulnerable elderly people live in, you know, abandoned houses, in villages or towns that essentially look like ghost towns because they had been entirely destroyed by shelling and shooting. I interviewed a woman named Vera. She was 76 years old, and lives near the town of Chasyvyar in eastern Ukraine, that is very close to a shooting range where military personnel kind of train and shoot guns and machine guns.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: And Vera told me that she heard shooting all the time, all day, every day, and she was essentially terrified of it. And she also had some health problems. She became blind in 2014 after being a victim of heavy shelling. And like many other people in this region, she was really going through a depressive episode and she was talking about suicide.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: Unfortunately, like many other people who I interviewed who have been living in this war zone for nearly eight years now, Vera, because she was blind, was also telling me that she was in a particularly vulnerable position because people stole money from her. Right? It was very difficult for her to hide her money, to keep her money, to go outside, to buy food. And she was telling me, she was describing how, you know, the only thing she could think about when she woke up in the morning was where to find a piece of bread.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: And for me as a journalist, this was, honestly speaking, the first time that I've seen a woman crying and telling me, "I have nothing to eat, I'm starving. I've been starving for years." Wow. What happened to Vera's family? Who can she turn to at this point? So Vera never had her own children, and her husband had already died. So she was pretty much left alone.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: And she received some help from local volunteers and social workers and NGOs. Also, many of the families and many of the people who live there do have relatives in the separatist regions. So families and friends have been divided, and some of them, you know, cannot see each other, especially right now because the contact line is closed. It's not possible to cross to the separatist regions.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: There used to be a crossing point in Stanitsa Luhansk, but it was closed recently due to COVID. And so some of the people are also very isolated because their family lives on the other side of the contact line. So people who are living along the border are exposed to frequent shelling and might even be cut off from their families because the contact line basically runs through their community.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: Have a lot of people fled the region because of this conflict? So there has been a massive, massive displacement crisis following 2014 and 2015 events when a lot of people fled all across Ukraine.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: I myself have done a reporting trip in a border town called Užgorod, which is very close to the border with my home country, Slovakia. And I've spoken to dozens, if not hundreds, of internally displaced persons who fled more than 2,000 kilometers just to flee eastern Ukraine and who fled toward the west of the country.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: Right now, I would say the situation is slightly different because, as I mentioned, it's mostly the most vulnerable people or people who cannot or do not want to leave. Because this is another aspect of it, is that many of the elderly people don't necessarily want to leave. I've interviewed a lady who lives directly on the contact line. And it's to me was one of the worst places on earth that I've ever seen because she has trenches near her garden and there's you know signs warning against snipers and landmines everywhere.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: And she was telling me, "I've lived in this house my entire life, and I'm almost 90, and I don't want to leave. I simply don't want to leave." So right now the situation is slightly different because most of the populations who now live on the contact line are people who do not want to leave or are unable to leave because they are in a particularly vulnerable condition.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: It doesn't seem like we have indication that this conflict will end anytime soon. How are people coping with it stretching into its eighth year? We should not forget that these are people who have already been heavily traumatized in 2014 and 2015. So many of these people are kind of reliving the same trauma over again.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: And so we are really talking about a war zone and about a conflict that is affecting the most vulnerable of the most vulnerable people. People. This elderly couple, their names were Alexandra and Ivan in Ukrainian, who would say babushka and djedushka, which means grandmother and grandfather. And it was very, very touching for me because these people have a lot of resilience and sense of humor and they are very kind.
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: This old lady, Alexandra, she was so happy to see, you know, to see me and to see another person because these populations and these people are very, very isolated as well. So oftentimes when you go when you go to these villages as a journalist, people are very happy that they see someone new. And the old lady immediately told me to come and and and sit next to her and she said, "Don't worry, I'm vaccinated, so you can come and approach me and sit next to me and take a picture."
--:-- Sarah Sinkirova: And when I sat next to her, she immediately hugged me. And you know it was Christmas day, so it was it was a particularly special moment. And it was so sad to leave this this place and this war zone as a journalist. You know, as this happens oftentimes that you leave a war zone and you are kind of worried for the local populations who have to stay there. You can only hope that nothing worse will happen to them.
--:-- Halima Shah: After the break, the decades-old roots of this conflict, and why it probably won't end anytime soon.
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--:-- Halima Shah: Support for this show comes from Macy's. It's almost fall, and that means it's time to cycle your wardrobe to the cold setting. Because while everyone loves a breezy summer outfit, let's be real, layering is even more fun. That's why Macy's Fall Fashion Guide has everything you need to piece together the perfect look for you.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: A lot of this conflict along Ukraine's eastern border can be traced back to eight years ago when Russia took over Crimea. But there is another historical marker to think about here, which is that this past Christmas marked 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. How is that playing into this conflict?
--:-- Amy McKinnon: So 30 years ago, when the Soviet Union collapsed, it was the collapse of an empire, but it was also the birth of over a dozen countries, some of them for the first time, some of them had previously been independent before. As the epicenter of what was the Soviet Union, Moscow has grappled with that ever since.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: On many levels, what does it mean culturally? What does it mean for their identity? But also in a large way, what does it mean for Russia's security? And a central source for Russia's anxieties and a key sticking point in Russia's relationship with both Europe and the United States since the collapse of the Soviet Union has been the question of NATO expansion.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: NATO has expanded in several waves, starting in 1999, to include former members of the Eastern Bloc, as well as former states of the Soviet Union, the Baltic states. And this is something which, you know, Moscow has turned to again and again. As recently as late December, in his annual press conference, Putin said that the West had lied, that they'd been betrayed.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: The strengthening of U.S. and NATO military groupings on Russia's border and the organization of large-scale military maneuvers are a serious cause for concern. That's certainly been a central point of Russian grievances and to a large degree also Russian propaganda justifying this current buildup and the saber-rattling that we're seeing.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: This buildup of Russian troops along the border, how different is it from what Ukraine saw in 2014? It is different in that they're incredibly surrounded now because of the positions that Russia has. You know, we've been getting maps from the Ukrainian defense ministry, from officials there that they're using to brief allies.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: And looking at these maps, it really lays clear just how much a huge part of Ukraine is really encircled by either Russia itself, or there's a huge border with Belarus, which is an incredibly close ally of Russia, which has deep, deep military ties with Russia, but also Crimea itself, which is now under Russian control and has a substantial Russian presence there as well to the south.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: So Russia has several pressure points. If you look at it on a map, it's almost kind of a hint of several pressure points from which it could extract real pain on Ukraine if it wanted to. I mean, there's very deep and very real concern about Russia's intentions. I mean, during the Cold War, Russia proved more than willing to invade members of its own security block, members of the Warsaw Pact, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: And, you know, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it's proven more than willing to invade its neighbors. This was the scene early on August the 8th 2008 as Georgian rockets pounded the breakaway region of South Ossetia. It was the opening of a devastating five-day war between Russia and Georgia with each side blaming the other for setting it off.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: It went to war with Georgia in 2008, 2014 annexed part of Ukraine, Crimea. It supported separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. We are Orthodox Russians and we are Russian speakers living in Donbass, this commander says. We don't recognize the Ukrainian government. I'm defending my family, my world, and my authenticity.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: The concerns around this buildup are built on a very real history about the lengths that Russia is willing to go to influence the geopolitics of its neighboring states. Amy, there's been years of conflict here. Why does it seem like it's all coming to a head now? There's kind of many layers to it.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: The election of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019, I think, was a contributing factor to this. Volodymyr Zelensky arrived to his inauguration on foot. The crowds delighted with the man they've known for years as a comic touch on their TV screens. He stopped for selfies and high fives.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: You know, he campaigned. He was a political neophyte. He was a comedian. He campaigned on a platform of resolving the conflict in the Donbass and eastern Ukraine. I think the Kremlin saw somebody who they perceived to be weak and that they could manipulate and maybe push into making concessions, which would be damaging to Ukraine's sovereignty and give Russia more leverage.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: But actually Zelensky has proven to be a pretty shrewd politician. The military does everything possible to defend our country and to maintain the ceasefire. But when our soldiers are attacked and when there are casualties, it's clear to everyone that the army responds.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: Whilst there were some glimmers of hope in the very early days of restarting peace talks, I think the more that he dealt with the Russians and the more the Russians dug their heels in, he started to harden his attitudes and it became clear that he was not going to be a pushover on this issue.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: I think the Kremlin has increasingly realized that the situation is not going in their favor. That, you know, one of the ways to basically force it to head to their favor may be using force. And then I think there's the broader international context as well.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: I think when the Kremlin looks to the West, looks to Europe and the United States, it sees chaos, it sees division, you know, partly from the pandemic, but also from our own domestic political crises. He looks to Washington, which is, you know, very, very laser focused on the China challenge right now.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: And I think that the Kremlin has just seen an opportunity at this moment in which I think it feels it may be able to force the West to the negotiating table and to get some key concessions on European security.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: Is response from Western and NATO allies different this time around than when Russia first invaded the Crimean Peninsula back in 2014? I think the one advantage that the West has had this time around is they've had a long buildup. If Russia does invade, there has been several months to rally allies and partners in Europe and to try and build a response.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: Because a lot of countries were just caught completely off guard in 2014 when Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula. Events escalated really quite quickly. But this time around, I mean, we had a little bit of a preview in the spring when the Russian military buildup started along the borders of Ukraine.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: There always been a military base here, but it is massively expanded in the last few weeks. From the satellite imagery, there are more than 500 military vehicles currently based here. From us just driving past, it would appear that there are even more. Over 100,000 troops. Most of them stayed. Some were pulled back, but the vast majority stayed in the region.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: And then this buildup began again in the late fall. And very early on, what was interesting was, in the spring, of course, there were, you know, any kind of unexplained mobilization like that causes alarm. But very quickly in the fall, people in the U.S., U.S. officials here in Washington, started to use the word invasion.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: America's top diplomat sending a direct warning to Russia. If you invade Ukraine, there will be severe costs and consequences. That's what they were worried about, was they were worried about renewed invasion. And so clearly the U.S. is seeing some intelligence, which has it very, very spooked.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: And they were very quick off the bat to start sharing that with Ukraine, first and foremost, but also with allies in NATO and in Europe to really get everybody on the same page about what Russia's intentions may be and to start formulating that response.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: Does that mean Ukraine is better prepared to fight the Russian military today than it was in 2014? They've had more time this time around. The army is better prepared. They've had much more support in bolstering that army. They've received substantial defensive weaponry from the U.S., including anti-tank javelin missiles, which was something the Trump administration provided.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: That had been seen as a red line in the Obama era of our fears that it would provoke Russia. But they've been given substantive support. Morale is, of course, very high. This is an existential crisis for the Ukrainians. I mean, they know, you know, someone said to me a few weeks ago, the Ukrainians know why they're, you know, they're defending their country. They know why they're fighting this war.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: You know, can the same be said for Russian soldiers, which may be sent across the border? That's, you know, not clear. That said, earlier we heard from a reporter who said that people who are living in these border regions are really starting to lose hope after about eight years of conflict.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: They're not particularly hopeful that they're going to see an end to this anytime soon. I think nobody sees an easy roadmap out of the current buildup and out of the current crisis. Ultimately, if, you know, US and European officials are saying they still don't think Putin has made up his mind on what he wants to do.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: But the sad reality, I think, for Ukraine is that ultimately Ukraine's security, its geopolitical direction, whether it moves closer to the West or remains in Russia's orbit, those questions mean far more to Moscow than they do to Washington. And if Putin decides that he wants to invade, there's not a lot.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: You know, the Ukrainian military is much stronger, much more formidable than it was. But, you know, they're still greatly outmatched by the size of the Russian forces. And how likely is Russia to actually go there, to invade the entire country with its full force? I would not put money on that.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: I get asked that a lot. It's obviously the big question on everybody's mind. And I just don't know. And that even even that, you know, scares me in the spring during the buildup. I felt like, OK, this is clearly funky. Something's going on. But I didn't feel like it was headed for an invasion.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: But this time around, just seeing the sheer alarm from U.S. officials, whatever they're seeing is clearly alarming them. And by extension, that's that's definitely alarming me. I think a lot will become clearer next week where there's a series of talks between U.S. and Russian officials in Geneva on January 10th and then at NATO and at the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: And I think it will be interesting to see there whether or not they make any progress because Russia has made these demands for security guarantees. But there's kind of two baskets within those demands. The first set of demands really centers on NATO, that there be no further NATO expansion, that NATO not put troops in material in countries that joined after 1997.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: And I think that's going to be a non-starter. You know, both NATO Secretary General Jen Sultenberg, many member states have said Ukraine has its own right to determine its own security organization and, you know, what alliances it wants to join. NATO's relationship with Ukraine is going to be decided by the 30 NATO allies and Ukraine, no one else.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: But the second basket of issues is about broader issues of European security. That's arms control, that's the balances of forces in Europe. That's something which it may also be in the U.S. interest to have conversations with Russia about and to see if there's a way to kind of alter those balances which could make both sides feel safer.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: Could things escalate to the point that Western leaders intervene beyond sanctioning Russia and having tense exchanges with Putin? No. The U.S. has been pretty clear. President Biden has been very clear that sent troops or U.S. forces to support the Ukrainians in this. And I think other European leaders have been pretty clear that that's also not on the table.
--:-- Amy McKinnon: Ukraine means more to Putin than it does to the West. He's willing to send troops to fight and die to keep Ukraine within its orbit. But that's just not something which is on the agenda, I think, for Europe and the West.
--:-- Halima Shah: Amy McKinnon is a national security reporter for Foreign Policy magazine who has reported from across Eastern Europe. Sarah Sinkirova, who we heard from earlier, is a freelance human rights journalist.
--:-- Halima Shah: Today's show was produced by Victoria Chamberlain. I'm Halima Shah, and Sean Ramoswaran will be back with us next week. It's Today Explained.
--:-- Halima Shah: We all have moments where we could have done better, like cutting your own hair. Oh, yikes. Or forgetting sunscreen, so now you look like a tomato. Ouch. Could have done better. Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab. Get market insights, education, and human help when you need it. Learn more at schwab.com.
