CNN’s Clarissa Ward on a Ukrainian Counteroffensive, Putin’s Next Move

Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove

Guest

Clarissa Ward

Clarissa Ward is a CNN correspondent who recently returned from Ukraine and discusses her conversations with Ukrainian officials and Putin's possible deployment of tactical nuclear weapons.

Episode Summary

Ukraine welcomed the first arrival this week of sophisticated tanks, as well as armed personnel carriers from the United Kingdom and the United States. They arrive on the battlefield just in time for a long-anticipated counteroffensive by Kyiv. As heavier military support begins to trickle in from western allies, Russian President Vladimir Putin weighs another political calculation of his own - if and when is the time to deploy tactical nuclear weapons. He set off alarms abroad when he announced in recent days that some nuclear weapons would be moved to Belarus. CNN's Clarissa Ward recently returned from Ukraine and sits down with One Decision to discuss these latest developments, her conversations with Ukrainian officials, and what Putin might be thinking of doing next.

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Transcript

INTRODUCTION

Mcfarlane: You're listening to One Decision, the podcast that looks at the key choices made today shaping our world. I'm your host, Julia McFarlane. The Russian president Vladimir Putin has not had a great year so far. While he did get to welcome Chinese leader Xi Jinping to the capital Moscow earlier this year, a rare show of solidarity, he was forced to mark one full year of his invasion of Ukraine, not counting, of course, the years of fighting in the Eastern Donbas region. Putin's army has suffered immense loss, both of lives and of hardware. And in the full glare of the world's media, the tiny Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, representing the front lines of the conflict, is still, despite the full might of the Russian military, in Ukrainian control, at least for now. Perhaps now running out of options, Putin decided it would be a good time to announce the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to neighboring Belarus, Russia's only real ally in this fight. Now it will still take some time before any nukes are likely to be deployed outside of Russia, but the saber rattling calls into question what confidence Putin may have that victory may be near. Chief international correspondent for CNN, Clarissa Ward, has spent much of the invasion so far on the ground in Ukraine, in many of the conflict's key frontlines, meeting Ukrainians from all walks of life up to the highest levels of leadership. As the war begins to move to a precipice and awaited spring offensive, she joined me and my cohost, Sir Richard Dearlove,

INTERVIEW

Ward: to talk about the mood she observed in Kyiv earlier this year. I had the impression that Ukraine is probably facing the toughest moment since the invasion. They have been losing a huge amount of men, particularly in Donbas, in Bakhmut. The Russians, of course, have been losing even more and are willing to lose even more, but the Ukrainians have been hurt by the fighting there. And I don't think it's a secret, even though you will not hear the leadership speak publicly about it, that there is some daylight between the military leadership and the political leadership inside Ukraine as to whether it makes sense to continue to expend a huge amount of manpower in a place like Bakhmut, which arguably doesn't have any really impactful strategic significance. What it has more is huge symbolic significance, which obviously then explains why the political leadership has been so keen to continue the fight for it. The expectation from some outside of Ukraine was that this much vaunted offensive really should have been underway in March. And then it became clear that it was being pushed to April. Now there's even discussion about May. As always, with these things, it's a little difficult to know when they will begin in earnest. There's a lot of secrecy for obvious reasons, and there's often quite a bit of subterfuge as well. We've seen the Ukrainians in the past say, look over here at Kherson, while they'll then double down on an offensive in Kharkiv. But the broader understanding is that this offensive, when it does happen, is likely to focus on the Southeast, down from Zaporizhzhia towards the currently occupied city of Melitopol with the end goal ideally for the Ukrainians of trying to put pressure on Crimea because their understanding or their hope is that because that is such a sensitive point for the Russians, if they can put a lot of pressure on it, that they might then be in a stronger position to come back to the negotiating table or really not even come back to, but to sit down at the negotiating table and try to hammer out a political solution. But, and this is a big but, I think there is still a huge amount of trepidation within Zelensky's government about sitting down at the negotiating table, not just because they can't take president Putin at his word, which is understandable, but also because any kind of political negotiation is going to necessitate some form of concessions. And I think that President Zelensky understands that making any concessions at this stage in the environment that Ukraine is in right now will be very, very difficult for him politically.

Mcfarlane: I mean, there's been increasing talk certainly in the European corridors of power that it is likely to be inevitable that Zelensky will have to cede a loss of territory to the Russians. I don't know what the likelihood of down the line buffer zones, peacekeepers, you know, you say rightly that they don't trust Putin as at his word, but perhaps the presence of peacekeepers or a buffer zone could make it really difficult for him to relaunch another offensive down the line. But that is getting down the line. And I think the talk about carving off slices of Ukraine for Putin. European leaders might be talking about this, Richard, but is that something that they really when you take a second to think about what that means, they can really condone because, essentially, Putin will have won. He will have been able to take territory by force.

Dearlove: I don't think at the moment you have the preconditions for negotiation. I mean, my understanding is that actually Zelensky might favor some sort of negotiation with the Russians, which wouldn't often concede on any points of principle. But I think that what I'm told is that Ukrainian people just wouldn't accept at the moment any negotiation which conceded anything to the Russians at all because they've had to pay such a high price for where they are now. And it's not clear what the military outcome is gonna be. I mean, the Russians have quantity and resources. They have very little potential. The Ukrainians have potential, but the Russians, you know, but they don't have the resources that the Russians can draw on. So the longer it goes on without any clear resolution, it's gonna favor Putin. And, you know, one could end up with a situation which I think is completely unacceptable in terms of European security, where he's sitting on permanently on a chunk of Ukraine. But the fact is the outcome, really, I mean, is where I think the West hasn't quite got it. It depends on the degree of commitment that we're prepared to make to support the Ukrainians. And we haven't, for example, European economies are not geared up at the moment to fight a proxy war with Russia. I mean, we aren't still taking it seriously enough in understanding where this is going. I don't know. You may disagree with me, but I mean, it's going in the right direction, but it's going so gradually.

Mcfarlane: We just have to step up massively our support to the Ukrainians. You say the Europeans don't have the capacity to fight proxy war with Russia. Do you mean politically? Because we do

Dearlove: Well, capacity is there, but they aren't geared up to do it. I mean, we should Logistically, politically

Mcfarlane: Well, both. Emotionally.

Dearlove: All all of those things. I mean, who if you went out into the street now and said to the nearest person, you know, what's your view? You know, they would say, well, this is a distant war in a foreign country. It doesn't really concern me. But are our armaments industries in the UK geared up to supply the Ukrainians at the rate that they need to be supplied? I don't think they are. But could they? Easily. I mean, if we had the resolve and the determination. But at the moment, we're almost living hand to mouth. And I mean, you know, how many Challengers are we sending? 18? That's not gonna make a difference.

Ward: I think the challenge as well is that Putin understands the longer this conflict plays out, the more difficult it is for the West to keep its constituents actively engaged and enthusiastic about this conflict, particularly in Europe where, you know, it is hard times economically. You hear more and more, a year ago, people were saying, go Ukraine. This is outrageous. Something's got to be done. We need to support them. I think you do still hear that, but you also hear a lot of people now saying, hold on a second. I can't pay my new mortgage bill. I can't afford x, y, or z. Why are we sending all this money? And for the first time in an interview he gave, I think, just yesterday or recently with the Associated Press, president Zelensky talked about his fear about the American public essentially beginning to splinter on the issue of Ukraine and what that would portend for Ukraine on the battlefield. Because politically, it has started to become kind of a wedge issue, which it wasn't before. There was broad bipartisan support for president Biden's take and strategy on Ukraine. Now you see people like, obviously, president Trump, but also Ron DeSantis, who is emerging as a sort of major contender for the Republican nomination, talking about Ukraine as a kind of distant territorial dispute that shouldn't really interest Americans. But he got quite slapped down by some serious players in the Republican establishment. But as is the case that, you know, president Trump has made so clear to us, there is a chasm between the political establishment and between the Trumpian base, which is a very important voting bloc in terms of how engaged they are with any international issues. And so President Zelensky said, listen, if the US takes its foot off the gas even a tiny bit in terms of support in Ukraine, it's over. It's curtains. So why then isn't president Biden stepping up support given that he has a window of opportunity now to do things that may be more difficult as the next presidential election cycle gets underway? I think that president Biden has always and his administration have always been searching for this elusive Goldilocks spot, right, where you're giving just enough weapons to keep it going and keep the momentum on the Ukrainian side, but you're not giving so many weapons or the type of weapons that it's going to escalate too quickly out of your control or that you're going to risk some nuclear conflagration. And I also think that part of that strategy has allowed them some flexibility in deciding internally what their strategic objective is. Because if you push the White House now on what the end goal is, they'll talk about the importance of a strategic defeat for Russia. But they haven't really articulated specifically what does that look like? What does that entail? Is this an outright victory for Ukraine? Is Crimea part of an outright victory for Ukraine? Which is a crucial question. And they fall back on this no Ukraine without Ukraine. Right? We're not gonna talk about Ukraine without Ukraine. So we're not going to make any policy decisions without Ukraine being a part of those conversations, which is a nice bit of sophistry. But underlying that, of course, there are very real conversations happening about how this should end. And interestingly, that same dynamic that I described in Ukraine with a little bit of disagreement potentially between the military and political leadership, I think also we've seen reflected in the US with the Biden administration pushing for a very forceful approach and the military establishment also pushing for that forceful approach. But on numerous occasions along the line, when Ukraine has had major success in an offensive, you will also hear Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley say, okay, now it's time to sit down at the negotiating table. And part of the rationale for that is, as any military man will tell you, if you don't see an obvious route to an all out victory on either side, then you want to preserve the life of your men, and you want to try to look at what a political solution

Mcfarlane: could potentially look like. What did you make of the announcement recently that Putin intended to now deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. There's obviously the building of a nuclear storage facility in Belarus in order for them to have that capability. And the Russians claim it should be ready by the July 1. A lot of experts have cast a bit of doubt on that sort of timeframe. And I came across this situation in Kaliningrad, where there's apparently been a nuclear storage facility that they have been trying to upgrade and renovate since 2016. And even yet, it's still unclear whether that facility has any nuclear weapons contained into it. I mean, what do you make of he's obviously raised the prospect of him using it. He's now going a bit further by saying he's moving some of these to Belarus, whether it's accurate or not that he can have that in place by summer. What did you make of that announcement?

Ward: I tend to view this as a lever that president Putin tries to pull on whenever he feels he needs to reinject fear onto the battlefield. Because the Russians understand the power of fear. I think they're concerned that they have lost that at certain points through, frankly, the ineptitude of their own military. And so he wants to try to continue to dangle that threat. But when you talk to anyone of the sort of various analysts and people who study this who have gamed out a number of different scenarios and who view Putin as still being a rational actor within the context of his own universe, no one seems to feel that there is any strongly compelling reason for Putin to introduce the use of, let's say, a tactical nuke onto the battlefield. Because while you may certainly reintroduce fear, the fallout from it is going to be such that ultimately, it will probably hurt Russia more than anything else it will achieve. It will certainly spook the Chinese who appear to be mulling over, as I said, taking a more proactive approach in this conflict. It will very much upset the entire international community. It will render that piece of territory that they take by virtue of launching a tactical nuke a no go zone. So it's not even necessarily helpful in terms of expanding territory. And obviously it will kill a lot of people, although depending on how it's used and where it's used, numbers can vary a huge amount. So I tend to view it as a threat that he uses, that he understands is still powerful and still important and that no one can afford to underestimate, even if it seems very unlikely. Because what is clear when you look at the sort of war games that have been played out on this issue is that if someone does cross the Rubicon and use some kind of a nuke, whether it's a tactical nuke or otherwise, very quickly it escalates to a point of arguably of no return.

ANALYSIS WITH SIR RICHARD DEARLOVE

Mcfarlane: Richard, Clarissa was speaking earlier about how president Putin has really tried to control the narrative and the optics of the war in Ukraine. You said recently that you do believe that this is an existential battle for Putin, and it's obviously not going very well. It is costing him a huge amount of lives. He may be swelling his war chest through the trade relationship with China and making a lot of money through hydrocarbon exports and everything. But he has not yet or has he started to pay a political price for the fact that his three day military operation has celebrated its first year anniversary. What do you think is happening behind the scenes? I mean, what have your contacts and colleagues told you about what is happening in Russia and the mood? And when are the screws gonna be tightened on him?

Dearlove: I think this is largely guesswork. I'm not gonna claim any inside view. I just cannot believe that there isn't tension inside the Kremlin. I mean, having met and dealt with a long time ago, some of the people who are still there and very key figures.

Ward: Patrushev?

Dearlove: Well, Patrushev in particular, who was head of the FSB way back and was certainly an occasional interlocutor. I mean, these are not stupid people. They must know that they're in a tight corner militarily, and that politically, they must be struggling to control public opinion. And I think in Russia, you probably have to look at sort of two levels of public opinion. There is a sort of sophisticated elite who probably understand very well just how badly things are going. And then, you know, there's a much greater mass of the Russian population who are exposed to very sophisticated media control and therefore really don't understand. But that's sort of elite Russian group, whether it's people around oligarchs, you know, many of the less sort of Putin supporting oligarchs of left or their families are out of Russia. I mean, there's no question there's a problem. But whether it's a big enough problem yet to trigger political and social consequences in Russia, I think we just don't know. I would speculate that if there is a successful Ukrainian offensive and it really begins to go very badly for the Russians militarily, then maybe you have the preconditions for some sort of political upheaval and political change in Russia.

Ward: And the one other thing I just wanted to circle back on about Bakhmut, which I think, you know, Sir Richard raised, which is really important, is the idea of, you know, what a strategic defeat in Bakhmut would mean for the Russians, because we've been talking about the military, it was also huge strategic defeat potentially for Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner, the private military contractors who have, you know, really inserted themselves into this battle. They've attracted a lot of headlines, recruiting in prisons, recruiting murderers and rapists and sending them to the front lines. And if that has failed and he has lost a huge amount of manpower, which he cannot easily backfill because the Russians are no longer allowing him to recruit in prisons, that is also victory on a symbolic level for the Ukrainians.

Mcfarlane: Yeah. I mean, there are reports now that since he can no longer recruit out of prisons across Russia, he's now going to martial arts centers and dojos across Russia for his recruitment. I mean, Russia doesn't have that many dojos to replace

Ward: Well, judo became quite popular after president Putin sort of, you know, excelled in it. And But I mean, Prigozhin has clearly,

Dearlove: to an extent, fallen out with the military leadership. Yeah. I mean, there's clear signs of tension there. So I think his star perhaps is waning. And I should think Putin is probably thinking about distancing himself.

Ward: It's an interesting one because he's gambled a lot on this conflict, and he has seen that there's a gap in the market from hardliners who, for the first time ever, have been critical, not directly of Putin, but of all the leadership around him and of all the military efforts in Ukraine. And he has become a very vocal critic himself, which for a man who I've been doing stories on for years and you couldn't even get a statement because officially, Concord Catering wouldn't even respond to you. Who is the what is this Wagner that you talk about? This doesn't exist. And who is now such a vocal presence and such a thorn in the side of the Russian military. I think that he has made more enemies than he has friends. And possibly this is sort of he's on a knife's edge now, I would counter, although I can't, you know, it's anyone's guess as to what his political future would be. I think he thought for a minute there that maybe he actually could turn his personal fortune into a political future, which is really the only way in Russia of guaranteeing

Mcfarlane: your personal fortune. Because I would have thought that would have been the most dangerous thing about him for him. The fact that, you know, not that he has criticized the Russian military, but that he hasn't really tried to disguise the fact that he has political aspirations of his own, which is a very dangerous thing

Dearlove: in Russia to have. He might well find that he's one of those people that's fallen out of a high window in a Moscow building I understand. In which there have been rather a number recently, you know, accidents

Mcfarlane: like that. Clarissa, I wanna ask you about the China element because another thing that happened recently was, of course, the state visit to Moscow of president Xi, and lots to talk about that. But firstly, I thought it was quite interesting that Zelensky recently appeared to suggest that perhaps Putin's announcement of deploying tactical nukes to Belarus may have been because that summit with Xi did not actually go down as well as he had hoped. It was a bit of a nothing burger. And in fact, the last time they met face to face just before the invasion in 2022, they had that announcement of a friendship with no limits. And there wasn't really quite the same theatrics, the same sort of rhetoric that passed after this. It seemed quite perfunctory. You mentioned that China is mulling sending more lethal aid to the Russians. How did you think that state visit went? Do you think Putin got what he wanted out of that visit?

Ward: I think the very fact that it happened, that president Xi went to Moscow, that was what Putin needed. Right? He is feeling very isolated right now. He had just been indicted for war crimes by the ICC. Two thirds of the countries in the world have signed up to the Rome Statute with the ICC, which means that technically, they would be obliged to hand him over if he set foot on their territory. We can have a separate discussion about how much teeth the ICC actually has. But nonetheless, I think symbolically, it speaks to the isolation in this moment of the Russian Federation. So to have the Chinese leader visit and extend a hand and show support, I think, is hugely valuable for president Putin. I think what was clear when you looked at the dynamic there is that president Xi almost sees Putin as sort of Russia is the junior partner in this alliance. That's obviously slightly wounding to Russia's pride on a number of levels. On the other hand, they're not in a position right now where they can be turning down any handouts that they might be given. And I think more broadly speaking, for the US, the possibility of China playing a more active role in this conflict is frankly pretty terrifying, would dramatically change the dynamic on the ground, but also geopolitically across the globe. And so it's a very powerful card for Putin to have in his back pocket. Now, I say it, you know, have in his back pocket. He doesn't have it in his back pocket. It comes with a lot of preconditions. The Chinese are not willing to just gamely go along with whatever Russia wants to do. And we've seen instances before. There was a summit in Samarkand in Uzbekistan where it was very clear that the Chinese and the Indians, but more concerningly, I think the Chinese for the Russians, were actually quite critical of Russia's inability to wrap this thing up, basically, which is how I think it had been originally presented to them as something that would be quick and swift and efficient. And about the dangers of having this turned into a protracted conflict with all that that would entail for the global economy as well. But if US intelligence is correct and if China is seriously considering supporting Russia with lethal aid, that would be a major shift in this conflict, and it would be a major advantage, needless to say, to the Russian side.

Mcfarlane: Richard, I'm really interested in what Clarissa said about Russia sort of smarting at being the junior partner to president Xi's China. And I think that is a really, really interesting dynamic. There is a lot of, has to be said, there's a lot of racism in Russia against Asian people. It's one of the reasons why the Siberians are really sidelined in Russian society. I'm told that one of the reasons that Shoigu, among other reasons, could never be a serious contender for leadership is because of his ethnicity for one. But I mean, Russia and China compete in a lot of strategic areas and they are uncomfortable partners. Are they not? I mean, there are still places on their border where they have sort of rockets pointing at each other sort of historically that they haven't really bothered to change position. There are a lot of states in Central Asia which are in Russia's orbit that Russia does not want to see sort of oscillating towards China. I mean, what Putin is doing, the price that he's paying for president Xi's support of his war is going to have effects that will last long beyond his leadership in Russia, and it is going to mean something for Russia and the future of Russia. If it is going to effectively bow down to the Chinese in a lot of these strategic areas where they do actually compete, does he think it is a price worth paying if he cannot essentially defeat the West, which is how he frames this war in Ukraine. What he can do maybe is then support the Chinese in their long term strategic goal of essentially and eventually replacing the US as world hegemon.

Dearlove: Well, obviously, this relationship is crucial to one's interpretation of, let's say, future international politics. And I mean, stated simply, Russia is in post imperial decline, I would say. So it's going through that anxiety of having been, you know, a powerful world player, and it's on its way down unquestionably. Of course, China is going in the opposite direction, and the future of global security is gonna be some sort of deal between the United States and China, not between the United States and Russia. I mean, Russia is going to be a bit player, and it may not accept that yet, but I think that's more or less inevitable. And historically, the relationship between China and Russia has actually been problematic since the eighteenth century. And, you know, bear in mind that there are large swathes of Russia which were part of China. And I'm sure that China's ambitions to dominate the world by 2049 or whatever the statement is in the papers that came out of the twentieth party congress would probably in Chinese minds include the recovery of bits of territory which are hitherto Russian.

Mcfarlane: Vladivostok? Well,

Dearlove: it yes. And, I mean, I don't I can't describe precisely the geographical lines, but you can look at a map and imagine which bits they might recover. Look. Chinese policy towards Russia at the moment, I think, is packed with ambiguity. And Xi and the leadership of the Communist Party will be looking at this situation saying, what is in it for China? How can we exploit this to our advantage? Now that, as Clarissa's described, plays to an extent into Putin's hands. And obviously, if you're ambitiously contesting US dominance in the world, it's natural given the politics of those two countries that there should be some sort of relationship and alliance. But I think Xi at the moment is treading carefully. And, you know, simultaneously with him, as it were, being nice to Putin, we do see signs that he's behaving a little less aggressive internationally than he has been up to the twentieth party congress. The fact is that I think if you take a longer term view, the entwinement of the Chinese and the Western economies is much more important strategically to China than the relationship with Putin. But you can see why at the moment that relationship is being handled differently. I mean, the Chinese have great subtlety in the way that they exercise their foreign policy options. And we've been through a rather extraordinary period where they've been very, you know, surprisingly aggressive in and I think at the moment, you can see a little bit more caution in the way that they're conducting themselves. So this is a very complex issue.

Ward: Can I just ask one question? Because I'm so curious what your read is. Because again, the US did something that would have been considered extraordinary a few years ago. They released some of this intelligence saying that they believe the Chinese were preparing potentially to give lethal aid to the Russians. We saw them do that, obviously, at the beginning of the war, telegraphing in real time intelligence. What's your take as an intelligence man? What's your take on this strategy? It's obviously a real departure from how the US or the UK or any of the Five Eyes would normally go about things. But it seems to have been effective, would you say?

Dearlove: Yeah. I think it's well, I think that's, I'm sure someone's gonna write a book about this pretty soon because it is unprecedented. Well, not completely unprecedented. It was very, very unusual that intelligence has been deployed in this conflict so publicly. I mean deployed in relation to Ukraine pre invasion, deployed in relation to, you know, discouraging China from being a two front foot in their support for Putin. Yeah. I think we live in a world where if you can use intelligence without prejudicing sensitive sources, and that's obviously a key calculation, it can be put in the public domain. I mean, the problem is how you collect it and whether you can use it. I mean, intelligence that you collect and don't use, however sensitive it is, is useless. I mean, intelligence is not collected to be stuck in a cupboard, you know, in a top secret file. It's there to support a policy and a series of decisions. And I think the US government, the UK government recently have become much more adventurous. But you would then have to speculate why they've been able to use it. But intelligence has a political currency nowadays,

Mcfarlane: and governments are facing greater demands for transparency and for accountability. And so the intelligence is there also to justify policy actions

Dearlove: Well, to an extent. I mean, policy usually depends on an amalgam of considerations, or an amalgam of knowledge in which the intelligence, you know, might be one chapter out of 14, but it might be the crucial chapter. It often depends

Mcfarlane: on the nature of the issue. But it's also a power play also, isn't it? To say, look, we can see what they're up to. It's a very public

Dearlove: To an extent. But I mean, the other thing is that intelligence has a date stamp on it very often. And, you know, if you don't use it, it expires. And okay. It's a body of knowledge may be quite useful. But and a lot of collection now, of course, is technical. So if you're clever in the way that you collect, you can probably use it more easily than you can human intelligence, which is prejudicial to the source because the source has to have access. So there's a sort of theorization behind this, which is quite academic in a sense. And it's why, you know, intelligence studies in universities now has become such a big deal. I mean, it didn't exist when I was sort of growing up in my career originally. No one Well, your whole department didn't exist back in the day. It was let's say it was buried deeper than it is today.

Mcfarlane: We're almost out of time, but I have one final question for you Clarissa. Richard said that China's interests are playing into Putin's hands in the war, but I wanted to ask you a bit more on that because essentially, you could sort of guess that perhaps Xi's interests in the Ukraine war may be for the West and the Ukrainians not to win, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's in his interest for Putin to win either. I mean, it would work out quite well for him, would it not, if the war would actually continue and for the West to stay preoccupied and expending a lot of resources into supporting Ukrainians, taking their eye off the ball on things like Taiwan and such like?

Ward: I think a tough one to answer because it's difficult to know exactly what President Xi's most pressing factor is in terms of dictating what the policy is. So it could well be that China's priority for now is to protect its own national interests and that it does serve a certain purpose to watch the conflict grind on, to watch the West expend huge amounts of money and political capital potentially trying to keep the war effort going. But the point about the intertwined economies is an important one because ultimately, I think China is a country that looks at its bottom line economically. And the war in Ukraine is not really doing anyone any favors anywhere on that front. So, yes, they might be able to get cheap oil at the moment. But in terms of trade and, you know, the sort of broader economy, they, like everybody else, are paying a price. And it's a price that's only going to get more painful if this conflict grinds on interminably. So I think that when you look at it from that perspective, I think there would be a reluctance, therefore, to see this conflict turn into what it already has really effectively turned into, which is a war of attrition that could last many, many years. And I think it's important at this point just to remember that while we have been very focused on the last year of this war, this war has been going on since 2014. I think that's a really important point. And, okay, it was largely a frozen conflict. In a sense, though, there was not a lot of movement on the front lines. But still, it was grinding on in the background for many years. And so I don't know what the answer is or where things go next. But I do think, obviously, there's strong concern about ensuring that we don't just see a momentary cessation of hostilities, which then translates into another decade of the occasional back and forth on the front lines, but no real meaningful political settlement.

Mcfarlane: Do you think it's really getting to the stage where it's Xi who will call the shots, given how much Putin has had to cede a lot of his political capital. If he is the junior partner, is it really gonna be up to Xi to lean on Putin to say, you need to take this settlement?

Dearlove: I haven't got a clear answer to that. Maybe. I mean, Xi obviously is going to be a consequential player in how this plays out over time. Because it's the one partner country with Russia that has a predominant influence. There's no one else quite in that position. So Xi must have a role. But at the moment, you know, the Chinese peace plan is not realistic and it's designed not to be realistic. I think it's just the Chinese as it were playing diplomatic games to sort of demonstrate to, let's say, the global south that they have a solution.

Ward: But it, you know, it isn't a real solution because it doesn't offer practical options to either side really at the moment. Although it was interesting, I thought, and this is perhaps a slight tangent, that they were able to pull off this Iran, Saudi Arabia rapprochement, which, again, ten years ago, inconceivable that the Chinese would be brokering that kind of

Mcfarlane: a deal in the Middle East. Is that more about China or more about how pissed off the Gulf nations are with president Biden?

Dearlove: Well, it's sort of Mohammed bin Salman's style to, as it were, upset the United States. But on the other hand, I still think that that Saudi US relationship is pretty fundamental to Saudi interests. And, okay, the Chinese see an opportunity coming from the side. Salman gets to tweak Biden's tail because they, you know, don't like the idea that the agreement with Iran has been sort of potentially reopened.

Ward: And I think that also comes back to this idea as well that, like, for the Chinese, this is not ideological is the point. Right? For the Americans and for the Europeans, this is really ideological. This is about a way of life. This is about the future of liberal democracies and their ability to stand as a bulwark against authoritarianism. So there is a huge amount at stake for the West here if this doesn't go right. And for China, it's more about picking your moments, seeing how this can serve your national interests. You ask if, you know, Xi would have the last word, and I don't think it's the Chinese style to stand in front of other world leaders and wag their fingers and read them the riot act and tell them what to do. I think they're much quieter and much more subtle in their approach, which doesn't mean to say that they're less effective. It's just that they're more discreet, let's say. But ultimately, this isn't an existential question for the Chinese in the way that it has become for the West and certainly, I would argue, not necessarily for Russia, but for president Putin.

Dearlove: I agree with that.

Mcfarlane: That's it for this week's episode of One Decision. We drop new episodes every Thursday. Like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Drop us a line. Tell us your thoughts. What decisions have impacted you and where you live? You can write to us. Our email is 1decision@1decisionpodcast.com. From me and the team, thank you for listening, and see you next time.