Inside Biden’s Ukraine War Room

Welcome back, I'm Julia Ioffe.

It’s been three weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine, and the horror is only accelerating. On Monday, we learned the fate of the pregnant woman we all saw being carried out on a stretcher from the bombed maternity hospital in Mariupol, a besieged city that was once home to over 400,000 people. According to the Associated Press, her pelvis had been crushed in the attack and one of her hips had become detached. Doctors delivered her baby by C-section, but it was too late. When she realized that her child was not responsive, the woman screamed, “Kill me now!” She died a short time later.

It feels like Vladimir Putin is punishing Ukrainian civilians for his own miscalculations and his army’s lackluster performance. He is clearly deploying the strategy he perfected in Syria and Chechnya: bringing maximal destruction and suffering to a population in order to force them into unconditional surrender. In Syria, he reenergized Bashar al Assad’s hold on power. In Chechnya, he installed Akhmat Kadyrov, a local leader loyal to Moscow, to keep control of the restive Russian republic. Kadyrov was assassinated in 2004, and since then, his son Ramzan has ruled Chechnya through sheer terror and indescribable cruelty.

This seems to be what Putin is planning for Ukraine, if he can take it. We’re already seeing reports from areas captured by the Russian army of kidnappings and arrests, as well as Russian soldiers terrorizing villages and resorting to summary executions. In Melitopol, according to the Guardian, the mayor refused to cooperate with the Russians and was last seen being marched out of his office with a bag over his head. (He was freed a week later.) TV and radio stations have quickly been switched over to Kremlin propaganda, which tells the occupied residents—thousands of whom continue to protest the Russian army in their towns—that they have been liberated from Nazis. In Kherson, the only major city that the Russian army has captured, there is talk that Russia plans to create a Kherson People’s Republic—just like those astroturf breakaway republics the Kremlin created in Donetsk and Luhansk—and to push through a referendum on the Kherson region breaking away from Ukraine, just like they did in Crimea in 2014.

In the meantime, Russian state media and Russian representatives in the U.N. are amplifying a conspiracy theory that first appeared on a right-wing social network before being inflated by the likes of Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard. The thoroughly debunked theory is that the U.S. is helping Ukraine develop chemical and biological weapons. According to Russia’s U.N. ambassador Vasily Nebenzya, Ukraine and the U.S. are planning to unleash the weapons on Russia through birds and mice who will specifically target ethnic Slavs. (It’s a super strange accusation given that both Ukrainians and Russians are Slavic, which is why Putin wrote about how they are one nation.) But given Russia’s experience using chemical weapons in Syria—and then blaming the attacks on the victims, the Syrian opposition—there is growing worry both in the Biden administration and in European capitals that Russia is preparing the ground to stage a false flag chemical attack in Ukraine.

And yet, as bad as things are now, the worst is, somehow, still yet to come. As Russian forces surround Kyiv, some military experts are predicting that a battle for the city would be the largest urban battle in history, dwarfing the battles for Aleppo, Grozny, and even Stalingrad. I’m not sure what the West should or can do to help Ukraine avoid this outcome without getting into a direct war with Putin. At the same time, it’s hard to see how this can end without this—especially since Putin seems to want it so badly.

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Finally, a quick interlude before I share my latest reporting. On March 3, TV Rain, the last independent TV network in Russia, was forced to shut down. Their crime: telling Russians the truth about the war Putin was waging in Ukraine. Dozens of TV Rain journalists had to flee the country and are now stuck in foreign countries, with no access to their bank accounts back home. Many of them are my friends. They are committed to rebuilding TV Rain so they can continue doing what they’ve done for the last 12 years: reporting fearlessly and honestly, and providing Russians an alternative to the lies on Kremlin TV. But they need to survive these next few months.

I have started this fundraiser because the good people at TV Rain don’t want to ask for help and pull resources away from Ukrainians, who need it so much more. If you’re feeling generous and want to support brave, independent Russian journalists—who are themselves victims of Putin’s war—I would be very grateful, and I know they would be, too. Thank you.

Inside Biden’s Ukraine War Room

Joe Biden’s former Ukraine advisor reveals how the White House assesses Putin’s military objectives, his sanity (or lack thereof), and the best- and worst-case endgames for the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

JULIA IOFFE

I first met Anna Makanju in September 2016 at a nondescript Le Pain Quotidien near the White House, where she was working as then-Vice President Joe Biden’s advisor on Russia, Ukraine, and NATO. Before joining the Vice President’s office, she was the Russia director for the National Security Council. Her first day in that job was the day Russian-backed separatists shot down Malaysian Airlines flight 17, filled with nearly 300 civilian passengers, all of whom were killed. She had also worked in the Pentagon’s office for NATO and Europe. (Anna was a true believer: she began as a volunteer on Barack Obama’s campaign, and, unlike most political appointees who leave the administration after a couple years, Anna worked for Obama all eight years.)

Shortly after our meeting, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton and Anna, despite our blossoming friendship, did what so many young people who had followed Obama to Washington were doing that winter: she left town. Still, our friendship has grown and deepened over the years and, along with a core group of friends who originally came together over our shared experiences in Russia and the former Soviet Union, she has been one of the people I have spoken to most about the slow-motion winter crisis that is now a full-blown war.

So I decided to ask Anna, who is still in the private sector and has only ever given a couple press interviews, to talk to me—and, by extension, to you. We talked about the war, her connection to Ukraine, her experience advising Biden, and what comes next. Our interview has been edited for length and clarity. I hope you find it as interesting as I did...

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