Missile strikes across Ukraine heighten concerns of Russia’s escalation of its war

William Brangham:

As we reported, more Russian missiles and drone struck across Ukraine today, the second nationwide barrage in as many days.

The renewed Russian campaign, which is largely targeting civilians, drew condemnation from the G7 nations led by the U.S. Despite the frenzied Russian bombing, in an interview with CNN, President Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin is a — quote — "rational actor who has miscalculated significantly."

Nick Schifrin looks at Putin's calculations and the carnage he continues to inflict.

Nick Schifrin:

In the crumpled heap of bricks that was once a home, there's horror and heartbreak. Residents of the eastern city of Slovyansk say a Russian rocket buried their neighbors as they slept.

Person (through translator):

She was still alive. She was screaming, "Help."

Nick Schifrin:

The block lost their homes. The 12-year-old lost his parents.

Person (through translator):

God, punish all those who should be cursed. Why did this happen? A boy has been left an orphan.

Nick Schifrin:

This morning, a dozen Russian missiles hit the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia. This used to be a dealership. Now all the cars are destroyed.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used Russian cruise missile attacks like this to ask the G7, leading industrialized democracies today, for Western air defense.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian President (through translator):

The first point is defense support, an air shield for Ukraine. When Ukraine receives a sufficient quantity of modern and effective air defense systems, the key element of Russia's terror, rocket strikes, will cease to work.

Nick Schifrin:

But the strikes and the mass graves that continue to be found in formerly occupied Ukraine are exactly what some in Russia are demanding jumps.

Zakhar Prilepin, Russian Writer (through translator):

The sooner we occupy the territory we need, the sooner they will come to their senses.

Nick Schifrin:

On Russian TV, pro-Kremlin politicians and officials call for the Russian military to escalate.

Andrey Kartapolov, Chairman, Russian Duma Committee on Self-Defense (through translator): Today, we have come too close to the edge. Beyond it is the cliff. Only together, only with our president, if the motherland calls us and hands us a machine gun, we will take a machine gun and complete the task.

Nick Schifrin:

That wasn't the response just two weeks ago, when Ukrainian soldiers ripped through Russian lines and flags and liberated cities from Russian occupiers. At that point, the same Kremlin allies voiced rare criticism.

Andrey Kartapolov (through translator):

The people know. Our people are not stupid. They see that authorities don't want to tell them even part of the truth.

Nick Schifrin:

Even one of the Kremlin's staunchest supporters, Chechens strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, who has been close to Putin for almost 20 years, criticized the Russian commander who retreated from Eastern Ukraine.

"If it was up to me," Kadyrov wrote, "I would send him with a rifle to the front in order to cleanse his shame in blood."

But after Monday's strikes, one of the largest Russian barrages of the war, Kadyrov wrote: 'Now I am 100 percent satisfied with the special military operation."

And, today, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited some of the 300,000 recruits whom the Kremlin hopes will soon be ready to deploy to the front.

And for more on Russia's strategy and whether military decision-making is influenced by public criticism, we get two views.

Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a former senior intelligence official who focused on Russia and Eurasia. She is now at the Center For a New American Security, a bipartisan national security and defense policy think tank. And Amy Knight has written six books about Russian history and politics. Her most recent is "Orders to Kill: The Putin Regime and Political Murder."

Thank you very much. Welcome, both of you, to the "NewsHour."

Andrea Kendall-Taylor, let me start with you.

How much pressure do you believe Putin was on domestically to escalate after battlefield losses in Eastern Ukraine and this weekend's attack on the bridge linking Russia to occupied Crimea?

Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Center For a New American Security: My sense is that he is under increasing pressure from the hard-line faction with — inside Russia.

And I see that for a couple of reasons. First and foremost are the strikes that we saw yesterday and today. My sense is that this is something that the hard-line factions have been calling on for some time. Their view of victory in this war is to terrorize Ukrainians in order to compel them to concede. I think they misread the Ukrainian public.

But I do think that these attacks reflect their growing ascendancy inside the Kremlin. And I also say that because of the appointment of the new field commander of the army. Again, this is someone that these hard-line factions have been calling on for some time. They wanted to see these changes at the top brass.

So, once again, I do think that Putin's decisions are increasingly being shaped and affected by this very vocal hard-line faction within the Kremlin at night.

Nick Schifrin:

Amy Knight, is there a hard-line faction within the Kremlin, and are they influencing Putin?

Amy Knight, Author, "Orders to Kill: The Putin Regime and Political Murder": Yes, there is a hard-line faction.

But I think Putin is the leader of this hard-line faction. I don't think he needs any kind of encouragement to do what he's doing. He simply has been driven into a corner, and he doesn't have a choice.

And people like Kadyrov, the Chechen leader, and Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group, they are hard-liners who are being very outspoken and very critical of Russian generals. But, at the same time, they are not independent political forces. They have long been known to be basically puppets of Putin. So I think they're their acting as Putin's mouthpiece.

And he wants to deflect blame from himself for the failure of what's happening in Ukraine.

Nick Schifrin:

Andrea Kendall-Taylor, what about that? These hard-line figures are not independent and are, in fact, puppets, as Amy Knight just said?

Andrea Kendall-Taylor:

I still think that those folks are still to the right of Putin.

My sense of what Putin is trying to accomplish with this war is to prolong the conflict, to drag it out. I think Putin's preference wouldn't have been to escalate so significantly if he had the choice. I agree with Amy. He is running out of choices on the battlefield. And that paints him into a corner and it limits his options.

But my sense of what Putin is playing for is a long, drawn-out war. I think he wants to try to wait the West out. He hopes that we will lose interest in this conflict, that our publics, over long, cold winters will grow impatient.

And so my sense is, again, that he probably would have preferred a more gradual, less escalatory response to the strike on the Kerch Strait Bridge.

Nick Schifrin:

Amy Knight, do you believe that there are some in the military and among the elites who are unhappy with the way this war is going?

Amy Knight:

I do.

I — first of all, the invasion itself has turned out to be a disaster for the military. They had this massive mobilization — a modernization program, and the Kremlin spent billions on it. And, basically, the Russian military had such little success. And I think, in part, it's because they were led into a battle that they really couldn't win.

They were fighting on Ukrainian territory. Their troops have not had the same kind of high morale that Ukrainian troops have had. I think that, for the military, they feel recently, like they have just been fighting with very little resources.

So I think there's a lot of unhappiness. And I think, in general, among the political elite, there is a lot of unhappiness with this war.

Nick Schifrin:

Andrea Kendall-Taylor, the obvious question, after that is, bottom line, how secure is Putin's grip on power, do you believe?

Andrea Kendall-Taylor:

Oh, I think it's so hard to judge the timing of the fall of any authoritarian leader. I spent almost a decade in the U.S. intelligence community, and I think the best that we can do is to warn that the conditions for his ouster are improving, meaning the fodder is ever drier for his departure.

We see not just the unhappiness amongst the hard-line faction that we were talking about, but, certainly, in the wake of the mobilization, Putin has awakened Russian society. Hundreds of thousands of Russians have left the country. Up until this point in the war, Putin has tried very hard to portray a sense of normalcy.

But by mobilizing the public, again, he's awakened them to the brutality and the reality of this war. And so I think that public discontent is also growing. Of course, it's hard to see in these highly repressive authoritarian regimes.

So I always say that authoritarian regimes are stable until they aren't. And I think that's where we are with Putin.

Nick Schifrin:

Amy Knight, is there increasing discontent? Can we even measure it?

Amy Knight:

Well, Yevgenia Albats, a Russian journalist, estimated that about 70 percent of the political elite is very unhappy with Mr. Putin, and also the military elite.

And as far as the people, the population at large, I agree that there is growing dissatisfaction. It's going to — it's going to take a while, though, before there is any real public mobilization.

And I think one thing is that Putin may not — it may not be enough for them to conscript 300,000 soldiers. It may be that they will have to extend that mobilization to a wider group. And then, the more people, the more servicemen who are killed, the more conscripts that are called up, the — it's going to be much, much harder for Putin to maintain any kind of public support.

Nick Schifrin:

And, finally, let's turn to international pressure.

U.S. officials believe that Putin has made some moves that we have been talking about, mobilization, annexation, this escalation, in part because of international criticism from Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian President Narendra Modi in the last few weeks.

Today, we saw Putin with the leader of the UAE, who, of course, just a few days ago agreed to a major cut in oil production.

So, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, do you believe that Putin is under pressure internationally and is as isolated as the U.S. believes he is?

Andrea Kendall-Taylor:

Well, I think he's not as isolated as we all would hope that he is. And there still are many fence-sitting countries, like China and India, as you mentioned.

We do see those countries gradually becoming a bit more critical of the Kremlin in the wake of these very brutal attacks. Both the Chinese and Indian governments called for more calm, although they fell short of directly criticizing Putin. So I think he is attuned to the fact that perhaps, as the war continues, that Russia's position vis-a-vis these countries is declining.

I think he's worried that these poor countries will look at him as a declining power, that his position relative to those countries is falling. And so I do agree that part of the escalation could have been in part to demonstrate to these leaders that he still is a strong leader who is worthy of their partnership.

Nick Schifrin:

Amy Knight, does Putin worry that he's a declining power among the countries he considers his partners?

Amy Knight:

I think he definitely is.

And I don't think that the recent Russian actions have ensured that he has any better relations with either China or India. I also think that these threats of nuclear retaliation are something that do not go down well with the Chinese and the Indian leadership.

So I think Putin is walking a very careful balancing line. And I don't necessarily think that showing further outrageous acts of aggression, like the attacks that we have seen yesterday and today, are really a show of strength to the Chinese government, for example. I think it's more they realize that Mr. Putin is getting desperate.

Nick Schifrin:

Amy Knight, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, thank you very much to you both.

Andrea Kendall-Taylor:

Thanks for having us.

Amy Knight:

Thanks for having us.