Joel Rubin, former deputy assistant at Secretary of State & president of the Washington Strategy Group, joins Cheddar News to break down the latest between Russia and Ukraine.

Cheddar Politics

Russia, Ukraine Hold Second Round of Talks

politics is back. Everyone in baker machado in new york and more on our top story, Russian forces have overtaken the city of Harrison, which lies just in the south north of Crimea, which Russia annexed back in 2014. Also. Big news here. The number a million Ukrainian refugees have now fled their homes because of the Russian invasion. Thus far, most of them heading to the polish border. That's where they're trying to stay warm and fed. This all comes as delegations from Russia and Ukraine are meeting as we speak on a second round of talks in Belarus. So joining us now is our friend Joel Rubin, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and president over at the Washington strategy group, Joel Great to see you as always. A number of updates taking place overnight in Ukraine. But let's start first with the new york Times reporting on this credible interesting thing about the olympics here basically saying that China knew about Russia wanting to invade Ukraine. But as Vladimir Putin to hold off until the olympics were finished. What's your thoughts on that? Does it sound like China was more aware about this baker. It's great to be with you and it certainly is a condemnatory of china's behavior reckless support for Russia at this moment and it will be a stain on china's reputation going forward. If this is accurate. But everybody knew, let's just step back for a second. Everybody knew that Vladimir Putin was going to invade Ukraine. And the american position, a biden administration, what's continually putting out information uh declassifying intelligence from our intelligence community saying that. So for china to kind of cajole Vladimir Putin forward, it's even more devastating to them and their reputation considering that they basically allowed it to go forward without any pressure to resist it. That is deeply concerning Joel, Russia and Ukraine, as I mentioned, are continuing their diplomatic talks as we speak right now in Belarus. Clearly, the two sides very still far apart on their terms. How optimistic are you about these talks? Will anything bear fruit here? And you think anything good might come from them? You know, baker people are very frustrated in Washington and what's happening for many reasons. But the biggest one is because Vladimir Putin does seem to be on a mission and influencing that vision of his, which is to devastate a democratic ally of the west, to kill its civilians without any without any cause to take over that country. That vision, he still seems to want to go forward regardless of the impact on his on his economy in his country. So we're going to see more and more pressure. I think there's a very broad consensus here in D. C. As well as quite frankly across the country for punishing sanctions. Hopefully this task force to go after the oligarchs will have an impact. So there's a lot of pressure, but in the bubble that Vladimir Putin lives in right now, that pressure has not yet seem to hit him. And that's very concerning. So let's talk about maybe what the next level of sanctions could be, there has been some talk on Capitol Hill, at least from the murkowski joe Manchin side of things of getting rid of Russian oil in this country, of the import there Nancy. Pelosi and her press conference earlier, just a while a little while ago, she said she actually supports that, which is really interesting because you have Kamala Harris and even Ronald claim the chief of staff will try to kind of brush that aside, even though Russian oil makes up only about 3% of the oil imported in this country. What do you think that that would do? And you sort of think that that's the next sort of level that we should take here, even if it does raise gas prices as a result. So, a couple of thoughts on this to try to break it apart first, is that in my engagements with the administration, it's clear that the way they're viewing sanctions is trying to make sure it does as maximum impact on Russia as possible, and minimum impact on the United States as possible as well as our our allies. So, the energy sanctions have kind of been put to the side, because that could upset the balance that's part, a part b is Congress loves to do something and Congress has had a hard time figuring out exactly what to do, there is broad bipartisan support for sanctions. So if that's the target that's available, that's the target that's available. I think that the administration though, they're going to make the argument that we have a lot of pressure right now through freezing the central bank assets, through going after the oligarchs, through export controls, that are really going to damage the the economy significantly in Russia. And let's give it a little bit more time before we go in the other route, which could have blowback back here at home without men with with modest impact on the actual sanctioning of the Russian economy. And as you mentioned, look, there's multiple sanctions, the Obama administration has been doing theirs even more today, more on these oligarchs, especially those that have their big super jumbo yachts that they have as well. We've seen the Yeah, we've seen the ruble, literally, yeah, the rubble is literally about a penny now compared to the US dollar right now. But none of this is deterred. Vladimir Putin at all. At what point do you think these sanctions basically forced Vladimir Putin's hand to basically stop what's happening in Ukraine? Yeah, we're sort of in the in the zone of the most worst case scenario, nightmare scenario that one could envision, which is we have a leader of a autocrat fascist leader, a dictator who basically is walled off from his people and he has nuclear weapons, which he likes to remind the world about every now and again when he feels the heat and so the sanctions on the Russian economy, those are going to impact the Russian people directly, Russian industry, the leaders that are in the Duma, they're going to hear it. But does it impact Vladimir Putin directly? Not so clear at all. But what will impact him is the fact that three quarters of his military is currently enmeshed in a struggle in Ukraine with 40 plus million angry Ukrainians who are getting supplied by our side by France by Germany with javelin missiles and in a protracted battle. So that impacts Putin. If it didn't, he wouldn't have sent mobile, mobile, mobile uh basically vehicles to incinerate the bodies of dead Russian soldiers. So they wouldn't go back to Russia. I hate to say that, but that is what is being reported. So it's going to take a little bit more time though. And that's that's the challenge here for him to feel that heat. But this military resistance by Ukraine plus these sanctions, which are powerful and taking the economy that is device that we're trying to trap Vladimir Putin into to make him pull back from his his grotesque offensive. Where do you sort of think this goes from here within the next couple of weeks? I mean, not to be hyperbolic, but Fiona Hill, you know who I'm sure a lot of people know on the hill, who knows Russia a lot. She has basically now said that this is World War Three. And we don't even know about it. I mean that might be hyperbolic and taking it to another level. But is this World War Three because now you have the Russians already invoking nuclear arms already. Right, Well it's not World War Three and President biden said it the other night, we're going to be okay. And I think what we see in the president is a man who frankly grew up in the Cold War. He's a nuclear weapons expert. He was for decades in the Senate. He handled the Vladimir Putin nuclear threat exquisitely and calmed everyone down. And I think what this means is that we have a strong hand at the tiller right now in the United States, but we certainly have a hot war in the heart of europe and these refugee flows a million plus people now are very, very destabilizing. But it's this unity that the United States is organized with our allies. That is crucial to preventing a World War Three is crucial to ensuring that we're all on the same page. That mistakes aren't made. World War start for many reasons. But one big reason is major mistakes and miscalculations that can't happen. And I think that's why we see the unity purpose in terms of the biden administration, how they're organizing. It is so critical to this effort to keep together and block Putin deal with these fights as we're watching them. But to not let it explode further than this theater, Joel Rubin, former deputy assistant secretary of state and president of the Washington strategy group. Always good to have your insights here, Joel, thanks as always for joining us.