Welcome back to Cheddar politics.
One of the big developments on the
international response to Russia's war in Ukraine
came in Iowa on Tuesday when President
biden called Russia's actions in Ukraine genocide.
Not once but twice we have foreign policy and national security analysts
are er mesh to break down the latest developments in the war.
Thank you so much for joining us here. Ari I want to jump right into it.
The first thing I want to ask about is President
Biden's choice to call what is happening in Ukraine genocide.
He explained his reasoning by saying Russia was trying
to destroy the very idea of being Ukrainian.
Now, in your view, are we witnessing a genocide in Ukraine? And
how big of a step is it for the biden White House to start calling this a genocide?
Watching what the rhetoric is,
the rhetoric coming from the Kremlin and the
rhetoric coming from Kremlin allies on Russian media,
there is certainly a tone being set that Ukraine is not an independent nation.
Ukrainians are not independent,
independent people and they are an extension of Russia
and the Russian federation of and of Russian people.
Now, what has happened on the ground in Ukraine, the brutal atrocities and also
the plan now to try to annex the Donbas region,
Donetsk and Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine
and pretty much uproots what is left of Ukrainians and Ukrainian speakers,
there is definitely reminiscent of ethnic cleansing and perhaps genocide.
Now, the President, the President has used a specific term genocide 18.
USC 1901 federal law in the U. S. Code nine section 1901
um specifically defines what genocide is.
And so in addition to a particular and specific definition
for what genocide is against a particular group of people,
religious religious group,
ethnic group or a group with a certain nationals or nationals,
you know sort of a particular nation.
Um it also creates another issue and a challenge and that is the duty to protect.
And now when the President of the United
States the United States determines that genocide is
actually and in fact taking place in a
place that calls for America's duty to protect.
How do we do that? Are we going to intervene?
Are we going to actually intervene directly?
But but with with by sending boots to the ground which the President has said
multiple times he won't do that. Are we going to set up a no fly zone which again
has been a red line for the administration or no.
Are we going to protect the Ukrainians by providing more arms,
sharing more intelligence and providing
more defensive and offensive capability?
Especially now that we've seen the Ukrainian
military and Ukrainian volunteers are so good
at fighting and defeating the Russians and the key front of north,
defeating the Russians almost down south.
And the only sort of victory the Russian army has had
so far has been in the eastern theater where the in the
in the Donbas region,
much of which had already been occupied by pro
Russian or Russian backed separatists since 2000 and 14.
So, again,
the the defeat of the Russian military in the Northern theater in the Northern Axis.
And they're they're sort of 40 miles convoy, not just getting pushed back,
but now they're retreating and refocusing on a whole new front
is a great testament to the Ukrainians that there will defied. And also
a great sort of testament in a in the opposite direction.
The lack of coordination, lack of logistics, poor planning and a terrible,
terrible um, sort of strategy in Ukraine by the Russian military.
And we saw, I mean, the the officer is sort of a kid that is completely uh,
poor quality and had very little control of what was going on.
So we saw not only a bad sort of operation in terms of a bad operation,
but also we saw acts of brutality and war crimes taking place.
And, you know,
I also want to ask you about the genocidal rhetoric that's coming out of Russia.
The Washington post is reporting uh,
shift in state owned media towards dehumanizing language,
including advocating for concentration or re education camps for Ukrainians.
Now, do you think that this is a fundamental shift in how Putin is
talking about his own people about the war.
You know, we've seen that before,
but now it's getting to become a lot more concentrated and a
lot more focused and a lot more mainstream in the Russian media.
Yes, that the 2-2 in order to carry out genocide in order to kill and uproot, uh,
indiscriminately against men, women and Children.
You have to dehumanize the so called enemy or the population
that you're going to uproot an uplift from the land.
And that is exactly what's taking place by
you know, first and foremost,
the justification for this war was the not certification of Ukraine,
whatever that means.
But that was Putin's justification for invading Ukraine.
Well, clearly, Ukraine does not have a nazi government.
President Zelensky is a jewish president of Ukraine,
the first jewish president of Ukraine and many people in his cabinet,
or are actually no one in this cabinet is even close to being a Nazi.
So that was completely a a sort of a red herring on the,
on the Russian part.
But again, in order to go a step and sort of beyond just normal acts of war,
you have to dehumanize the enemy and dehumanize dehumanize the other.
And that's exactly what the Russian media is doing.
And so again,
when you see these such acts of brutal acts taking place
in various places in north of Kiev and other battle grounds.
Uh, it's not just something that happened overnight,
but it's also been years of Russian propaganda building
up to have this effect on it's sort of,
you know, boots and soldiers on the ground.
But yes,
I I fear that sort of the worst is yet to come in Eastern Ukraine in the Donbass region.
Especially now that the Russian military has
experienced a humiliating defeat up north.
They're going to focus the resources and their will and
their might on taking over most of east Ukraine,
sort of the Donbas region and linking it to the southern region to Crimea.
So the city of Mariupol, which is now under immense assault,
will probably face most of the sort of the Russian onslaught in the days to come.
And one last question I have for you about just 30 more seconds or so. Um the U. S.
Is providing an additional 800 million in weapons to Ukraine this time,
including a lot more offensive weaponry to prepare for a different
kind of fighting in the eastern part of the country.
Now, what about this shift in fighting to the Eastern Donbas region of Ukraine?
That makes this conflict so different
Really quickly.
Right now we're just up to now, we're worried about the Ukrainians losing the war.
Now we actually can we can we can see the Ukrainians win the
war and push the Russians all the way back to the Russian Federation.
Last but not least,
average spending for Ukraine or average military aid
to Ukraine was 3-400 million in years past.
Since since Biden became president.
It's 1.7 billion since the war started in February 24,
it's been 1.3 billion plus another 800 million.
A lot more weapons are going to go in.
A lot more weapons and capability should go in and this should be Putin's last war.
Thank you so much for your insight.
There are er Amash is a foreign policy and national security analyst.
Thank you so much for joining us. Sorry.