Joel Rubin, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and president of the Washington Strategy Group, joins Cheddar Politics to discuss the latest developments in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Cheddar Politics

Putin Being Misled by Advisers on Ukraine, U.S. Intelligence Says

Welcome back to cheddar politics. The biden administration declassified intelligence this week that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been misled by his military advisors on the state of the invasion of Ukraine. The release came amid a week in which peace talks between Russia and Ukraine yielded a promise of de escalation from Russia. That promise was quickly broken as Russia has continued attacking major cities like Kiev ever since. So joining us now to dig in on this and everything that's happening in the conflict in Ukraine is Joel Rubin, friend of shatter politics. Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and president of the Washington strategy group, Joel. It's so awesome to have you back. Let's talk about this intelligence. We know that his U. S. Intelligence british intelligence backing it up. Putin is not hearing what he should be from his advisers. How should we be reading into this? The president not willing to comment on this at a separate press event on Wednesday. Yeah, Megan. It's a brilliant move by the administration that they have deployed this before. If you remember back towards the end of last year, the beginning of this year. Uh there was a declassification of intelligence and across the the inter agency all the spokes people started talking about how Russia was going to invade and they're putting troops along the border and Russia denied it. But that really appears to the bubble of disinformation that Russia loves to execute. So it's happening again because clearly there are divisions in Russian leadership. There are people running around afraid of being poisoned by Vladimir Putin, who knows what they're afraid of from him. But there are obviously in disarray and this is done to try to accelerate that and make sure that the Russians at the top understand that they are in a losing situation and they made a strategic error by invading Ukraine. One of the things that we've heard a lot about Vladimir Putin in sort of the run up to ultimately the invasion is that he has really become increasingly isolated and this happened a lot during Covid too. He was very afraid of the virus which he ultimately contracted. There's a famous picture of him in like a full body hazmat suit in a hospital. I want to kind of get your take on what that means when you're trying to strategize with the president about a war in a separate country when that president is increasingly isolating him or herself. I mean, first of all, it's a far cry from joe biden, isn't it? Who got his second booster shot and engagements with people directly. My goodness, Vladimir Putin wouldn't even meet face to face with the leader of France, the leader of Germany except for through a long table or across a long table isolated. Leaders are dangerous leaders, let's just be very blunt about that. Leaders need real information, they need real contact, they need to understand the world as it is to make decisions and the further isolated Vladimir Putin becomes, the more he becomes like kim jong un of the north Korea who is essentially disconnected from the world. It makes crazy decisions at a moment's notice. And and so that is the big fear that a country with the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet has a leader disconnecting himself or being disconnected from reality by his aides and and that can make for a very scary outcome. And I think that's also part of what's happening with the White House and the administration and telling the world that this individual is disconnected and he's not getting the real information and hoping that maybe there are other avenues to get his brain back on track because he clearly is a dangerous person right now. You know, we had a whole kerfuffle after President biden spoke in Warsaw over the weekend about his use of the nine words for God's sake, this man cannot remain in power and I personally and I'll share this did not take it that way to me. I took it sort of as the same way you just mentioned continuing to isolate Putin, continuing to sort of take away his global influence, right? Not his role as president of Russia. I don't think they can pry that away from him. He loves it so much, but let me ask you this if he is not in touch with what's actually happening on the ground other than knowing that he wants Ukraine and kind of Moldova as well, how much of a good faith partner can Russia actually be using the term loosely at the negotiating table because already this week they have promised one thing, done something totally different and the Ukrainians have said that they think that they used these promises much like they did during the diplomacy and again, loose terminology of january and february to get ready to invade. So, you know, at some point, why does Ukraine keep showing up to the table? Yeah, look, you you framed it pitch perfect. It's tragic that we can't be confident in the Russian leadership right now and its ability to negotiate. But this is not something that is isolated in terms of of their their inability to actually follow the words that they're saying. Russia was gaslighting for months about not wanting to invade Ukraine and did so anyways. But for the Ukrainian people to your last question, they really have no choice. President Zelensky wants to end this war, doesn't want to end it in a manner that helps Moscow succeeded in its objectives and he needs Moscow to commit to leaving the country and that means continue to engage, continuing to go. But what what we're seeing is Russia is essentially playing some countries for dupes and is trying to disconnect the Western alliance and and break the unity, which has been incredibly powerful at keeping the pressure on Vladimir Putin through sanctions and diplomatic isolation, we even saw some cracks this past week, where the argument that Russia was leaving a bit around Kiev and pulling back somehow caused the french to think, well perhaps we can reduce our sanctions and that is what Vladimir Putin wants. He cannot be allowed to have that. I do think just going to also your nine words point about President biden, he spoke from the heart, he spoke what's real and he said the right thing and uh he really did an effective job last week and bringing our allies together. Russia sees it and that's why they're trying to flail about and break up our unity. But it is very concerning if you can't have confidence in your negotiating partner at the table across me at the table, because these do have to be implemented decisions at some point. And right now, unfortunately, that confidence is very low until I have less than a minute. But I have one last question for you and it's about this new package of $500 million in aid to Ukraine Ukrainian. President Vladimir Zelensky would really love a no fly zone. That's a nonstarter for the U. S. Would really love polish jets nonstarter for the US. What else can he ask for at this point other than continued kind of money and ammunition. But there's a lot of coastal defense enabling the Ukrainian military to defend its territory against those ships off off the coast that are attacking more javelins, more air defense systems support as well as more drones and american support for that. There's a lot of military supply that is in the pipeline that's being pushed out and that we can continue to push out. And of course the most important thing is secure humanitarian corridors. Because this is a humanitarian crisis of tragedy. Half the Ukrainian people have been affected four million of refugees. So that is always going to be top of mind as well, Joel, thank you so much for that insight. We will have you back on soon. Joel Rubin is former deputy assistant secretary of State and president of the Washington Strategy Group. Thank you again.