Hagar Chemali, host of 'Oh My World' on YouTube, joins Cheddar News to discuss the rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

Cheddar Politics

Ukraine Warns of ‘Full-Scale War’

this is back. Everyone in baker Machado and new york tensions between Russia and Ukraine remain high on Tuesday this week. Worrisome words came from Ukraine's President warning any military confrontation with its neighbor Russia would amount to a full scale war in europe. So let's bring in Hagar Tamale, host of, oh my world on Youtube. Hagar. Always a pleasure to have you here on cheddar news. So earlier this week, President Zelensky of Ukraine signed a decree he's going to increase Ukraine's armed forces by about 100,000 troops over the next three years. But I guess it gets to this larger question. We wonder every morning, does war seemed imminent here? I know it's so hard to know um, Baker, this is the $60,000 question, right? Um, and on one hand, you have the Russians who continued to increase their troops and equipment on the border right a month ago, it was 100,000 and now we're at 130, that is a significant increase. Right? And you had a lot of intelligence that was very concerning the United States saying that the Russians were sending operatives into Ukraine to foment trouble to give them a reason to invade. Then you had the UK come out with intelligence saying that the Russians had plans to do a lightning raid on Kiev the capital and put in place a pro Russian leader. So for there are a lot of reasons why we would feel as though an invasion were quote unquote imminent. Now it is, it is perfectly fine for the White House to at one point say that it appeared imminent and to change its mind on that. Not because I don't think they were trying to cause alarm. And if anything, I think they were trying to be transparent and say, you know, this is what we see with the intelligence that we're seeing. This is how we see things going. These are, you know, what we can declassify intent, um and that things are getting concerning, but things may have changed and that's fine. That's normal because at the end of the day, they're trying to communicate to the Russians that the cost of invading would be too high and that's what they're actively trying to do. So maybe some of the messages getting through. Well, the crumbling is now, as of this morning accusing the United States of quote, igniting the tensions of this situation here and the President biden, by the way, announced that he's deploying about 100,000 or a couple of 100,000 troops close to Ukraine, but they're not going into Ukraine. What's the premise or the point of having these troops outside of Ukraine, if they're not gonna go into Ukraine. Right, Well, the you know, it's it's it's so interesting, I think to look at the narrative that President Putin is pushing domestically because Russia is right there economically in a lot of pain right now. They have been for years. Right, Especially since the sanctions that the United States imposed in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea and supported separatists in Eastern Ukraine. Right. So they've been suffering economically, which means they just don't have a lot of cards to play. Yes, they are close to china, they are close to Iran, there close to these other countries. But at the end of the day, this is a country that is struggling to to to show strength and to spread its influence across the globe. Right? And so he's using pliers and Putin is playing his cards very well for somebody who doesn't have the most cards there. And he is using his best card, which is a strong military to try and achieve what he wants. And the narrative is important here because it gives insight into how he thinks when he demands things like NATO not expanding further east. NATO affecting Ukraine and the removal of first strike weapons that are near the Russian border. These are requests that may have been discussed privately in the homes of Russian officials over their kitchen table, but never actually demanded publicly of NATO, the United States, european allies and so on. And so the fact that he's doing that really shows how he views things and what he's trying to communicate to his people, which is that were the threat. NATO is the threat. And he's just putting his troops there to make everybody nervous so that he can achieve his goal. And frankly, he's work, he's achieving it and making everyone nervous. But I don't think he's going to really achieve his demands. The United States and NATO has said, look, well sanctions are really potentially on the table here when it comes to Russia. But the new york times had this interesting story today, essentially saying that Putin over the last few years is trying to sanction proof the country and they're saying he has stockpiled enormous currency reserves, he's trimmed their budgets, he's relied less on the US dollar and is and has more money saved in chinese currency and all these other things. If if sanctions were basically on the table here, how much would Russia be able to withstand any of these sanctions if they came if they came to a head here? So, you know, I love it when I see these articles that say that uh that they're kind of sanction proofing, you really can't sanction proof it's impossible if you are a country that has any international trade or if you are part of the international financial system at all, it is literally impossible for you to sanction prove yourself unless you decide to become completely isolated and even North Korea, which is the most isolated country is not completely isolated from the financial system. And so the fact of the matter is he can do as much as he can try to do, right, He can try and strike deals to trade oil with china and other countries that are willing, he can try to stockpile the ruble, which is, which is the currency that has junk status. Right? So this is not like, But the point is sanctions make it harder, costlier and riskier for the intended target to raise, move and store funds, which then impact has an impact on their ability to pursue whatever nefarious behavior or operation that it might be right. The point of sanctions is not to completely obliterate them. It is to be part of a broader strategy to change behavior, achieve a foreign policy goal, whatever it might be, right. And in this case it's a mix of them, right and sanctions is one tool now, I as somebody who worked in sanctions a long time at Treasury, as you know, um, I am a big proponent that, you know, I'm a big believer in sanctions, but they have to be part of a broader strategy. You can't rest the entire mission and goal on sanctions alone. They are not the silver bullet and the complaint that I've made is that in order for these sanctions to be strong enough, you need europe on board, they will backfire in terms of global oil prices. I want to be very clear about that if we see prices increase here at the pump after our own sanctions, that is directly related. Um, but they need to be tied with europe and they need to be tied also with a show of military strength, which by the way, the president is trying to do. He has shown this week, right, by placing US troops near Ukraine and by sending military equipment and other countries as well. And NATO. They are trying to pretend military strength because they know that's a key part of the strategy hunger. I'm almost out of time, but I want to ask you what the role of china is going to be in all of this because we saw earlier this week, China, the U. S. At the U. N. Security Council meeting siding with Russia. Here we have reports that Vladimir Putin is going to be at the olympics starting tomorrow with Jinping. Where do you sort of see china playing a role in all of this? It's an interesting relationship because the two were not the best of friends in the past. Um they had had border issues, right? They share a border. Um President Putin doesn't necessarily has not come out and say that he supports china's behavior to expand its influence across the south china sea or in Africa or so on and so forth. If anything, those are competing interests for them, right? Like especially in Africa, for example where Russia competes for influence. So they but they are but they certainly find a common enemy. They certainly find themselves both the other side of us sanctions and US tough policies and so they will for sure find strength in being friends. That's for that's for sure when it comes to, for example for trade having an ally at the United Nations. And so I do expect that to continue to be a thorn in our side. I've been by the way mentioning the United Nations supremely disappointed in what the U. N. Has and has not done regarding this crisis. Given that this is literally exactly what the U. N. Was created for was to prevent these situations and they aren't able to do it for a number of reasons we can talk about another day. But having china as a partner does help Russia in in this in this regard because china is very strong militarily economically. Um it's a good partner for Russia to have. It does make things more difficult for the rest of us. Great insight is always for a story that's changing. It seems like by the minute Hagar Tamale host of oh my world on Youtube. Always good to see you Hagar. Thank you so much.