♪♪ >> Hello and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer, and today we are coming to you from Munich, Germany, site of the 59th Munich Security Conference.

This annual gathering of heads of state, defense ministers, and private sector leaders had an urgency that we have not seen since the end of the Cold War.

At the top of the agenda, of course, the war in Ukraine now entering a second deadly year, but there was no shortage of security concerns to confront from climate change to the dangers of artificial intelligence and growing threats to democracy itself.

I'm bringing you interviews with two of the most prominent voices in Europe.

Estonia's Prime Minister, Kaja Kallas, has been called Europe's new Iron Lady and says, "No Russian war crime should go unpunished."

And NATO's Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana offers a candid assessment of a war that has no clear end in sight.

Later, foreign fighters on the front lines in Ukraine.

But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

>> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... ...and by... >> Will he or won't he?

That was the most critical question at last year's Munich Security Conference as Russian president Vladimir Putin pushed troops closer and closer to Ukraine's border.

On February 24, 2022, we learned the real answer.

>> Distinct sound of explosions on the horizon here in Kyiv.

>> Gunfire and explosions have been heard.

>> Kharkiv residents scrambled to find shelter as Russia's brutal assault unfolds.

>> For many of us, this act of rogue aggression was not a surprise.

What happened next, however, might have been, especially to the Russian president himself.

The first European war in decades breathed new life into NATO, a transatlantic alliance that had been struggling to remain relevant since the end of the Cold War.

Do you remember this?

>> NATO is obsolete.

It's old, it's fat, it's sloppy.

>> Well, if you said it as bluntly as then-candidate Trump, he wasn't alone in his criticism of the alliance.

But in 2022, NATO got its groove back.

Sweden and Finland applied for membership after decades of thinking it was safer to stay neutral.

Germany announced a huge increase in defense spending and walked back their own red line of sending weapons to conflict zones.

In 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, and only three of NATO's then-28 members met the target of spending 2% of GDP on defense.

Now, nine countries do, 19 more have plans to hit 2% by 2024.

>> 2% is increasingly seen as the floor, not as the ceiling.

>> It's a hard argument to make as global inflation limits the buying power of those military budgets.

And despite the cohesion, there is tension brewing.

NATO members have very different ideas about how far to go in supporting Ukraine.

They blame each other for delays in weapon deliveries and Turkey, of course, still holding up Finland and Sweden's NATO membership.

Not to mention there's a limit to global trust and information sharing.

With all this as backdrop for our conversation, I spoke with NATO's Deputy Secretary General, Mircea Geoana, about the lessons learned during year one of the war and what comes next.

Mircea Geoana, wonderful to see you on "GZERO World."

>> A pleasure.

>> So as we kick off the Munich Security Conference, on the one hand, I am hearing publicly a lot of people that are very committed to doing whatever it takes for Ukraine, and privately, I'm hearing people ask me a lot of questions about "How do we ever get out of this?

Are there any off-ramps?

How does the war end?"

How do you square those two things?

>> I have to say that, politically, we just had the defense ministers of NATO meeting in Brussels.

Politically and practically, I see tremendous unity.

I mean, there is a real, real, real commitment to help Ukraine for the long haul.

But we know that eventually all wars end around the negotiation table.

We also know that very much will depend on the situation on the battleground, and for the time being, speaking of potential off-ramps, we see the two sides, President Putin on the one side, President Zelensky on the other side, being so far apart in terms of what they would imagine as an acceptable solution that we see.

And we believe that this war will continue, and I think we are there to help them all the way because helping them is also helping us.

>> Now, it's been almost a year.

It feels like we're just seeing, at this point, further escalation, further escalation from the Russians in terms of the new offensive that we seem to be seeing on the ground right now with a lot more troops, also further escalation from NATO in terms of what they're willing to provide to the Ukrainians on the ground.

Is that accurate?

And do you think that's likely to continue over the coming months?

>> I would not call this escalation.

I would call it dynamic adjustment to a changing situation on the battlefield.

So let me be very, very clear.

>> Yeah.

>> The fundamental job of NATO is to defend allies -- territory, population, soon to be 32 allies.

Okay?

That's our number-one job.

The other thing that we do in NATO and also ally nations individually and partners of NATO individually is helping Ukraine in a dynamic way.

There's no escalation.

There is a changing nature of the battlefield, and it's normal in a way that this kind of support we give them reflects the reality on the ground.

Helping them means also to help them with the things they need according to this stage and future stages of the war, but also avoiding the risk of escalation between Russia and NATO, and that's something that we do.

It's sometimes a fine line that's sometimes complex in terms of political and strategic things, but we do that simultaneously, defending allies, helping Ukraine and avoiding escalation.

I come back to the idea of escalation.

There is no intention from our side to escalate this into a war between NATO and Russia.

And secondly, we see no capacity from Russia to escalate in a conventional way with us.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> We see not the intent and no other capabilities.

Of course, we see the nuclear sabre-rattling around nuclear and the communication around that, which is dangerous in itself, but we don't see a real risk of Russia having the intent or the capacity.

They barely -- They barely resist in Ukraine.

How can they think that it can engage with a much more potent alliance, which is NATO?

>> Obviously, the Russian military have proved itself to be vastly less capable than a lot of people in the West believed.

One year into this war, what are the principle lessons that NATO has taken away from Russia's fighting capacity, and what do you think that means going forward?

>> It's clear that we have seen on the one side, the remarkable capacity of the Ukrainian people and military and leadership to basically just move to a heroic resistance and capacity to mobilize the energy of the nation.

I would say we're not that surprised on the Ukrainian side because we've been training Ukrainians since 2014, since the illegal invasion of Crimea.

And Ukrainians are also very good, other than being very brave, because they have adopted already NATO standards, command and control.

You see this kind of agility at the local command.

On the Russian side, we don't see much of lessons learned in terms of the weakness of the post-Soviet era doctrine and also a very, very stiff and rigid vertical of command and control.

But we also see -- and this is why we say don't underestimate Russia -- As overestimating Russia was a mistake, underestimating Russia could also be a mistake.

They're still a big country.

They can mobilize people.

They have, let's say, a relative immunity to loss of lives because of the regime they have.

So we are really now bracing for a very significant and violent new phase of the war with the offensive start again, with the Ukrainians preparing their own counteroffensive, which is something that they do.

>> Now, you mentioned that the Ukrainians are now fighting and training at NATO-level standards.

Ukrainians are being invited into the European Union.

No one was going to do that before the war.

There wasn't a process to bring Ukraine into NATO before the war.

It was a basically stalled process.

Do you now see that changing?

>> So, nations, allies and partners are doing the lethal aid.

NATO is doing the non-lethal aid.

We continue to help them with interoperability, with education on anti-drone and things like that.

The process of enlargement of NATO historically in the last 30 years has been a policy of open door.

And of course, Ukrainians and President Zelensky and some of the allies argue that we should engage with Ukraine on an accelerated path towards membership.

I have to say that today there is no consensus on this one.

So I think what we should do is to help Ukraine win the war, and then we'll look into the broader security arrangements that we'll need.

We applaud the fact that EU is moving forward with Ukraine.

That's a very good thing because it's also part of anchoring them in the European and transatlantic families of nations, and it's up to Ukraine, it's up to us to decide when and if NATO membership would be eventually granted.

For the time being, the number-one focus for us is to help them win the war, and we applaud the fact that EU is giving them a European perspective, which is helping them anchor themselves to the West.

>> Last question for you, and this is one that we've been talking about for a long time at Munich, which is NATO members are not all committing the levels of expenditure that they need to, that they've promised to.

There's been recently a stepped up effort to try to convince everyone a minimum of 2% GDP spend on military expenditure if they want to be NATO members in good standing, but they're under massive economic pressure given the war, given the pandemic, given inflation levels, given the recession.

Do you feel like this process is moving in the direction you need to see it?

>> We are insisting because we know that there are economic difficulties.

We know there's always a difficult trade-off for political leaders between social, economic investments and defense-related investments.

But the reality that we are living in a very dangerous world.

We just cannot afford not to be stronger also in terms of security and defense.

So our aim, and we are optimistic that in Vilnius, we'll be having the 2% basically as the floor and not the ceiling, and we see more and more allies getting towards that thing.

Let me give you a number for the American public.

Since 2014, European allies and Canada have added to our defense budgets 350 billion additional U.S. dollars, 350.

>> Turning point.

Yeah.

>> It's a turning point.

It's a beginning of a strategic awakening in Europe, and if some allies mainly from Western Europe, have been, you know, hesitant about how much to spend on defense and how much on other things, now this brutal awakening of all of us is making the alliance understand, and our public opinion I hope to understand that this is money that is well-spent because our defense, our security cannot be taken for granted anymore.

>> Mircea Geoana, thank you very much, sir.

>> Thank you so much.

♪♪ >> And now to Kaja Kallas.

She became Estonia's first female Prime Minister in 2021.

And since then she's been one of the strongest voices in the world, condemning Vladimir Putin and Russian aggression.

She's not backing down.

Kaja Kallas, thank you so much for joining us.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> Here in Munich, topic number one, two and three is the war.

We're almost one year in.

Tell me just for a moment, how do you actually think it's going?

>> It is going much better than we thought a year ago.

So, even less than a year ago when the war started, there were predictions that it's not going to last that long, but Ukraine has survived and fought very hard, so it's going better than we thought it was back then.

But to look into the future, how is it going in the future?

Do we see any way out of this?

It's very hard to say.

We are constantly monitoring everything that is going on in Russia.

Is there any change in the mind-set of backing off from this war?

We don't see that.

So they are, in poker terms, all in.

>> And it is a poker analogy.

It's not a chess analogy.

Everyone said that Putin was a great chess master.

No, he's a poker player with a weak hand and he's just pushed all the chips in the middle.

>> Yeah, it seems so.

Yes.

Cronies around him are questioning a bit, "Are we going to the right direction?"

Because they are feeling this also.

The sanctions and everything, they are feeling this.

And the army, is the army happy?

Well, that's the question because the support for the war has been high, but if people feel it on their skin sort of, then the support will go down.

>> You are a frontline state and you've been hit by massive cyberattacks before.

You know what it's like to be under the gun from Russia.

Have you felt any escalation in asymmetric warfare, other national security threats to your country?

>> Well, the cyberattacks have increased and we have been under severe cyberattacks, but we have also, since the 2007 when we were first hit by cyberattacks, we have invested a lot in cybersecurity.

So our people don't know about those attacks because they don't go through.

But of course, they are learning and trying to use new tools to attack our e-governance.

Of course, we are monitoring the Russian influence within our society and trying to divide our society, and this is what they do elsewhere as well, but I think that our society's actually more resilient to this because we know to look for this.

And we have already, since the war started, we have sent people who don't have the right to be in Estonia, we have sent them away back to Russia, and we constantly monitor when such people come up.

So I think that we are actually more resilient than some of the countries that have much better neighbors and feel that Russia is a faraway country.

Well, no, they're working everywhere.

>> When I think about the last year, one of the most extraordinary things is that you've had 27 European Union states vote for nine rounds of sanctions.

>> Yes.

>> You've had them all support Ukrainian accession to the EU.

You are a frontline state.

And all three Baltics, the Nordics, Poland obviously have a different perspective on national security when it comes to Russia, than, say, Spain, right?

How are you feeling the honest tensions inside the coalition?

Not the fact that you get the votes, but is it getting harder?

Are you seeing the potential for that fragmentation?

>> In 2014 when Crimea happened, I was a member of European Parliament, and in the European Parliament, you have people who are directly elected from different member states and represent different views, and you could see what their public opinion is.

And I was so shocked how fast it went to that direction that, "Let's forget about it, let's move on."

And this time it's different.

In order to influence the decisions of leaders of democratic countries, you have to work with their public opinion, that they see the picture the way we see.

And I think keeping this unity has been a very big achievement for the European Union, but also NATO, and it's getting harder.

That is true because new worries come in, high inflation, all the worries that we have in our domestic politics.

One of the prime ministers from one country that is not close to that war at all said to me that, "My public opinion is not supporting this at all, but I'm doing this because I want to be on the right side of history and I'm trying to bring my people on board.

This is right."

>> And you don't want to tell me what country that prime minister is from?

>> No.

>> I can start guessing.

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no.

It's like one anonymous state in the European Union.

>> Should there be limits to the military support that's provided to Ukraine or really no?

Is it whatever the Ukrainians need that should be made available?

>> I think the message should be very clear that as long as the war is going on, we haven't done enough.

That means we haven't given enough military support and we have to continue supporting Ukraine that they can defend themselves.

Planes and tanks, they get more attention than ammunition that is really, really needed.

And that's why I made last week a proposal that how we can procure the ammunition to be sent directly to Ukraine so that the military or the defense industry in Europe would also boost their production like the Russian military industry has.

So I think that is actually more important than one or two planes.

But coming to your question, I don't really think there are limits, and we have overcome several taboos on the way of this one year.

>> Now, how do you think about the world differently now than you did a year ago?

>> Europe is a small region and we think that we know each other.

We actually don't know each other's history that well.

We have to talk about this, but we also have to listen other experience.

Everybody understands that war is bad and peace is good, but there is also a difference between peace and peace.

We had peace after the Second World War and France and Germany had peace, whereas peace in France and Germany was that they built up their countries, their well-being of their people, societies.

>> And you were a captured nation.

>> And we were deported, killed, our elites were erased, our language, culture pressed down.

That was the peace as well, and this is the peace that is going to be on the occupied territories.

And what is really making me worried is that for 50 years when we were occupied, we were not really missed, and we missed you.

I can tell you, being from the occupied country.

Those countries that really share the same values and want to be in the European family, that we stick together and we don't close our eyes and ears to what is happening.

>> So last question for you.

After a year, is the United States, my country, more trusted?

>> Yes.

>> Kaja Kallas, thank you so much for being here.

>> Thank you.

Short answer.

>> No, I was good with that.

♪♪ As we mark the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, GZERO's Alex Kliment brings us this report on the important role international volunteers are playing in battle.

>> If you're a Ukrainian soldier patrolling a forest near the front lines, how can you tell if Russian troops are nearby?

Ask the birds.

>> If the birds are quiet in an area, if you walk past a tree, smells like urine, this means someone's in that area.

>> This is Jay, a former Special Forces soldier from Denmark.

Over the past year, he's fought for Ukraine on all the major fronts of the war, but now he's doing something equally important -- training Ukrainian troops.

>> I want to see you move like this, slow, silent, smooth and deliberate.

>> Because for all the headlines about tanks, HIMARS and fighter jets from the West, Ukraine is still in dire need of simpler things like personal equipment and basic training.

Foreigners are helping to fill the gap.

Thousands joined Ukraine's International Legion when the war began, and the hardest core are still there.

The training work is especially important because so many Ukrainian soldiers today are people with no prior military experience.

>> A lot of the people that are absorbing a lot of these fights were bakers, dentists, doctors.

>> Michael is an American who cofounded Task Force 31, a group that relies on crowdfunding to help train Ukrainian troops.

>> The fact of the matter is there are still plenty of Ukrainians that are getting sent to combat without sufficient training and/or equipment.

>> It's not only training that makes a difference.

It's basic equipment too.

>> It's down to the most basic things that's needed.

Good helmets, good body armor, good clothes.

>> René, an International Legion soldier, is an example of how that effort is playing out on the ground.

Before the war, he was a bike messenger in Germany.

But now, he's a drone operator and he also helps his unit to get and maintain critical equipment like these trucks, crowdsourced from Europe.

>> Normally this car wouldn't be any near to street legal in Germany or even in America, but this is Ukraine.

>> Life as an international volunteer in Ukraine is not easy.

>> This is not a "mercenary" job.

We pay everything we have.

We sacrifice everything we have to be here.

>> And the possibility of having to make the ultimate sacrifice is never far from their minds.

>> This fear, I've never experienced before in my life, never.

I don't know if I am existing in two weeks.

So we'll see what the next day brings.

>> But to the volunteers who are still there after a year of war, it's worth it, to feel that their dedication and knowledge will outlast their time there.

>> We don't always need to be shooting to be fighting.

So when we train other people, we help them become better, and that way we create a wave of new knowledge that can make a big impact in this war.

So you're going to lead the way for the rest of the guys from now on, and you are always going to be the examples for these guys who have not been doing this training.

I'm just here to give you guys the tools to keep building your toolbox bigger and bigger.

>> In the end, guys like Jay, Michael and René know that Ukraine's fight won't end any time soon.

>> If there was a cease-fire tomorrow, Russia's not going anywhere.

This will happen again maybe, five years, two years.

I don't know.

>> For "GZERO World," I'm Alex Kliment.

♪♪ >> That's our show this week.

Come back next week and if you like what you see or even if you don't but you kind of hope eventually peace will break out on the continent, why don't you check us out at gzeromedia.com?

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... ...and by...