Examining Russia’s goals in Ukraine and the prospects for annexation

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• Nick Schifrin:

  For more on this, we turn to Andrew Weiss. He served in the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations at the Pentagon, National Security Council staff and the State Department. He is now vice president for studies at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank.

  Andrew Weiss, welcome back to the "NewsHour."

  Let's start with that announcement, a possible deal that would allow Ukraine to once again export food out of what has been the blockaded port of Odessa. Remind us, what has been preventing Ukraine from exporting food?

  Andrew Weiss, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: So the Russian government is trying to strangle Ukraine's economy.

  And one of the key exports of the Ukrainian economy is grain, which it sells primarily to countries in places like Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. So, the impact on global food insecurity from these blockades of Ukrainian ports has been quite significant. And the Russians have also bombed port facilities and grain storage facilities in Southern Ukraine.

  So the question is, have the Russians suddenly had a change of heart where they no longer want to destroy Ukraine's economy and its ability to feed the world? I'm going to remain somewhat skeptical go about that. This is an extremely delicate stage, obviously, the final moments before this announcement tomorrow. We will see what the actual agreement consists of.

  But it does require a certain suspension of disbelief that suddenly the Russian government is negotiating in good faith.

• Nick Schifrin:

  If the agreement is signed tomorrow, though, how significant is that?

• Andrew Weiss:

  We will see the implementation.

  So Russia has been a master and these kinds of conflict situations of saying it's going to do the right thing, and then proceeding to do the exact opposite. There are so many complex issues bound up with opening up the ports. Namely, can you find commercial shipping operators that are going to put themselves at risk and send their crews into an area that's heavily mined, as well as the question of, will the Ukrainians be willing to remove mines that they have put in place to try to protect, for example, the port of Odessa from a possible Russian invasion?

• Nick Schifrin:

  Let's shift back to the question of Russian war aims.

  How significant is it that Russia is now out loud saying that its aims go beyond the Eastern Donbass region and include the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions?

• Andrew Weiss:

  Russia's foreign minister has now indicated that, because the West has come to Ukraine's rescue and provided significant military assistance, Russia now needs to seize even more territory and basically annex parts of Ukraine itself, Ukraine proper, that were not part of the source of war and tension in the 2014-2015 period.

  So Russia has now basically tried to excuse what it's about to do, which is carve up the territory of a neighboring country, and blame it on the West. This is classic Russian blame-shifting. But annexation, if it happens, is a major escalatory move.

• Nick Schifrin:

  We heard John Kirby earlier in the segment use the words annexation playbook. What are we likely to see Russia actually do?

• Andrew Weiss:

  So the Russian government right now is preparing for regional elections in regular parts of Russia. And those elections are set for September 11.

  The question is, can you dress up what's happening in these regions? The Donbass region consists of two oblasts, Donetsk oblast and Luhansk oblast, as well as what's happening in nearby Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

  Can you come up with enough of a stable environment where Russia can conduct a referendum? They did that in 2014 in Crimea, but that was not a war zone. What's going on in Southern Ukraine, which would be this land bridge that Russia has wanted for a long time to connect mother Russia to Crimea, as well as what's been going on in Donbass, is a very heavily fought-over, very dangerous area.

  So the idea that you're going to have voter turnout, you're going to have kind of a cooperative local populace that wants to participate in this kind of stuff is, to me, a big stretch. But, for whatever reason — and I think this comes back to the sort of lunacy of this war in the first place — Vladimir Putin seems to want some shred of legitimacy for what he's doing.

  And he thinks that if he has a staged vote, that that will be enough. It may please North Korea, but I doubt it will please anybody else.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Is there anything you believe the administration can be doing to try and prevent annexations?

  Ukraine, of course, is asking for a lot more long-range artillery.

• Andrew Weiss:

  Yes, so I think the administration every day is looking at what they can do to help the Ukrainian government be effective on the battlefield.

  We have also seen the beginnings of insurgency-type actions in areas where the Russians are dominant, like in Kherson oblast. So I think you're likely to see the administration giving Ukraine — Ukraine's government and the people of Ukraine the tools they need and the support they need to defend themselves against this invasion.

  The problem is, is that the both sides are in a war of attrition, as Secretary Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Milley indicated the other day. This is a grueling, long-term battle. And I think there's been a notion circulating in the world that somehow both sides are going to get exhausted and then, based on that, there will be a pause.

  I mean, there may be pauses, but that doesn't mean this conflict is close to resolution. We're nowhere near that point.

• Nick Schifrin:

  Andrew Weiss, thank you very much.

• Andrew Weiss:

  Great to be with you.

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