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0:06

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0:08

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0:11

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0:30

The New Statesman. I'm

0:34

Megan Gibson, foreign editor in London. I'm

0:37

Katie Stallard, senior editor, China and Global

0:39

Affairs in Washington, DC. It's

0:41

Thursday, the

0:42

1st of June. You're listening to World

0:44

Review, The New Statesman's international

0:46

news podcast.

0:51

This week, we discuss the drone attacks that have

0:53

targeted Moscow. Is the war coming

0:55

home to Russia? Now, as

0:57

we know, they have gone as far

1:00

as drone attacks. This

1:02

is a clear sign of terrorist activity.

1:06

Then, we look at how Erdogan's election

1:08

victory might affect Sweden's bid to

1:10

join NATO. Will Erdogan continue

1:13

to block Sweden from joining the military

1:15

alliance?

1:16

We've applied for NATO membership

1:19

because we realize we need

1:21

to defend freedom and democracy

1:23

together, but also because

1:26

we want to bring our own

1:28

capabilities to common use.

1:30

Thank you for joining us. Let's begin.

1:38

In the early hours of 30th of May, a drone

1:40

attack was launched in Moscow. According

1:43

to Russian authorities, eight drones were

1:45

involved in the attack, though some Russian

1:47

media outlets have said that the number of drones was

1:50

roughly around 30. Now, this is by far

1:52

the largest wave launched against Russia since the

1:54

start of its war against Ukraine. Russian President

1:56

Vladimir Putin has called it a terrorist attack

1:59

by Kiev.

2:00

So Katie, I'm going to start with

2:02

you. I know we've talked about attacks within

2:04

Russian borders quite frequently now on

2:06

the podcast, but what do we know about Tuesday's

2:09

attacks so far?

2:10

So I think one of the main things

2:12

that's important about it is the location

2:15

of these attacks. So there were

2:17

multiple neighborhoods targeted,

2:20

but specifically including one called

2:22

Rublyovka, which is this absolutely

2:25

expensive suburb on the outskirts

2:28

of Moscow where the richest of

2:30

the elite live and some of the most powerful politicians.

2:33

So that's where the former president, Dmitry Medvedev,

2:35

lives. It's where the current prime

2:37

minister, Mikhail Mishustin, lives. And

2:40

it's one of these

2:40

areas where you sort of drive down a main

2:43

road through all these sort of bucolic forests

2:46

and you just see huge security gates

2:48

fencing surrounding these massive compounds.

2:51

So that's really the heart of the Russian

2:53

elite.

2:54

And at least one of these drones was intercepted

2:57

over that neighborhood. It's also

2:59

pretty close to where Putin has his

3:01

residence on the outskirts of Moscow,

3:03

which is thought to be, although nobody knows for sure,

3:06

where he spends the majority of his time.

3:09

So this would seem to be in

3:11

part an attempt to take the war home to sort

3:13

of influential high profile individuals

3:16

within Russia and

3:17

to really send this message

3:19

of, you know, this war is coming to you

3:22

and your families too. Because this follows

3:24

really intense bombardments of

3:26

Ukrainian cities and particularly

3:29

Kiev since the start of

3:31

this month. And actually during one of the

3:33

latest raids,

3:34

Vitaly Klitschko, the mayor of Kiev,

3:37

went on television and said, why should

3:39

Ukraine be a hell

3:41

when people in Moscow are sleeping soundly

3:44

in their beds? So I think this is an attempt to

3:46

do that and to really shatter

3:48

this sort of veneer of normalcy. Particularly

3:51

for the elite in the Kremlin. But beyond

3:53

that, the Kremlin's version of events

3:55

is that everything was successfully

3:57

dealt with, that five were shot

3:59

down.

3:59

three were intercepted by electronic

4:02

countermeasures.

4:03

Putin has come out and said the air defenses

4:05

worked well, we need to increase some of the density,

4:07

but basically we've got this, we're

4:09

on top of this. But some of the videos that we're seeing

4:11

coming out of Moscow suggests that's not the case.

4:14

There is damage to high-rise buildings, people

4:16

were evacuated overnight, you know, perhaps

4:18

that's from debris rather than direct impacts.

4:21

But still the message that sends to

4:23

regular people in Moscow is

4:25

that the war is coming here. These

4:27

drones were

4:28

able to penetrate these supposedly

4:30

very formidable

4:32

defenses surrounding the capital. So

4:34

again, I think this is part of the effort to just

4:36

shatter that sense that the war was something that was

4:38

happening on TV, in Ukraine,

4:40

and that you could get on

4:42

with your life as normal if actually

4:45

attacks are happening in Moscow and

4:47

more may come. And what has been

4:50

the response so far? I know you

4:52

said Putin has said, you know, we shot everything down,

4:54

it's fine, our defenses are strong and good.

4:56

Has there been any counter to this within,

4:59

whether it's the Russian media or, you know,

5:01

Russian military bloggers which have become

5:03

hugely prominent within this war?

5:05

Have

5:06

we had any statements from Progosion,

5:08

the head of Fognogru?

5:09

Yes, Progosion, predictably, has

5:12

used this as a chance to go after his very

5:14

familiar enemies at the top of the Russian

5:16

military command. I'm saying this is

5:19

evidence of those defenses not working

5:22

and that these people who have, they're

5:24

some of the ones who have these beautiful compounds

5:26

in their Rilovka neighborhood. This is coming

5:28

for them because of their own incompetency. And

5:31

yes, similarly on some of the pro-Russian military

5:33

channels, also some dismay

5:35

about the degree to which these attacks

5:37

were able to penetrate Moscow's air

5:39

defenses, which are not

5:42

really designed to intercept drones.

5:44

You know, these are primarily dating

5:46

back to sort of Cold War era, you know,

5:49

looking to target fast moving intercontinental

5:52

ballistic missiles or long range nuclear

5:54

bombers coming towards the Russian capital. They're not really

5:56

set up

5:57

for drones, which are

5:59

very small, can fly very low

6:02

and which, you know, as some military

6:04

experts explain it, basically if you focus the

6:06

radar

6:07

so tightly on objects that are as

6:09

small as drones, then you're also picking up

6:11

all the geese flying around Moscow. It's very, very

6:13

hard. And Moscow is an absolutely vast

6:16

city.

6:16

It's very, very hard to

6:19

protect all of that circumference

6:21

against these very small drones. So Ukraine,

6:23

I mean, Ukraine formally denies that it's behind this,

6:26

but I think it makes sense that these

6:28

are Ukrainian directed attacks and

6:30

they seem to be exploiting those vulnerabilities.

6:33

So we did see, I mean, earlier this year, we saw

6:36

surface to air missile systems being installed

6:38

on the roof of the Ministry of Defense, for instance.

6:41

And there are also these Pantsir, these truck

6:44

based surface to air missile defense

6:46

systems that are now in operation around

6:48

Moscow and which are being credited with shooting

6:51

down some of these drones

6:53

on Tuesday. But yeah, I think there have to be real

6:55

questions about the extent to which these

6:57

defenses

6:58

would hold up against a longer or

7:01

more continued attack. And I think

7:03

that's probably part of the point too, you know, as we're all continually

7:06

waiting for

7:08

this much wanted Ukrainian counter offensive,

7:11

one of the messages this sends

7:13

is that you need to redirect

7:15

resources, attention, personnel,

7:18

perhaps equipment to protect major Russian

7:20

cities. The same is true of

7:23

the incursion that we saw in the Belgorod

7:25

region last week. You know, a lot

7:27

of Russian border guard units, there was

7:29

Guardia, have

7:30

been sent to fight in Ukraine.

7:33

So part of the message of that is you

7:35

are going to need to redeploy these personnel

7:38

to defend your own borders. So it's really

7:40

bringing the war home in a psychological sense,

7:42

but also shifting some of the focus in

7:45

a logistical sense, and creating

7:47

real dilemmas, real issues for

7:50

the Russian military chain of command, which is already

7:52

it's floundering, it's not

7:54

able to fight effectively in Ukraine.

7:57

But now it also has to think about how to defend.

7:59

Russian territory too. A few things

8:02

that Kiev's response said they

8:04

have nothing to do with it, which they also

8:06

said about the drone attack on

8:08

the Kremlin a few weeks back.

8:10

But something that I have noticed in

8:13

a lot of Western media and Western

8:15

military analysts commenting on

8:17

these is they've kind of just

8:19

shed any illusion that Ukraine

8:22

is behind this and that it is part of Ukraine's

8:24

larger war effort against Moscow.

8:27

When we talked about the drone strikes on the Kremlin,

8:30

we injected, I think at the

8:32

time, a reasonable degree of skepticism about

8:35

was this Ukraine or was this a

8:37

false flag attack, which Russia had significant

8:39

form for perpetrating. The whole thing

8:42

that seemed so cinematic with

8:44

the shots of the drones exploding right above the Kremlin,

8:47

that there was real confusion

8:50

at the time as to who was behind that. And it

8:52

looked

8:53

most likely that it was Ukraine, but Ukraine

8:55

was very strongly denying

8:57

it. The logic that this was a kind of false

8:59

flag attack was that this was then going

9:02

to justify some sort of major escalation

9:04

on Ukraine from Russia. And yes, we

9:06

have seen repeated terrible aerial

9:09

bombardments since then,

9:11

but nothing that would play into that pattern.

9:15

So it did not seem to fit this narrative

9:17

that it was a premeditated Russian designed

9:20

attack. And I think

9:21

on the Ukrainian side too, there has been a desire

9:23

to sort of feed this narrative that it's not Ukraine,

9:26

it's Russian partisans acting

9:29

within Russia who are sympathetic to

9:31

Ukraine, again to sort of so confusion

9:34

and fear within Russia. I think

9:36

it is becoming increasingly clear that,

9:38

as in the Belgorod case,

9:40

some of the people involved may be

9:42

Russian citizens, but they are

9:45

backed, they're using

9:47

vehicles supplied by, they are acting

9:49

in concert

9:50

with the Ukrainian forces. And I think with the

9:52

drone attacks

9:54

on Moscow that we're seeing now, we're also seeing quite

9:56

an interesting reaction here in the United States,

9:58

which is to say we're We don't in

10:00

general support attacks within

10:03

Russian territory and certainly

10:05

not using US supplied equipment.

10:07

There's still that concern here that if US weapons

10:10

are used to attack

10:11

Russian territory, then

10:13

that can lead to an escalation and that could bring

10:15

the US more directly into

10:17

the war.

10:18

But in the same statement, the White House press secretary

10:21

said, but we need to understand there have been 17

10:23

air raids on Kiev so

10:25

far this month. So I think there

10:28

is a little bit more of a sort of understanding

10:30

of, yes, we don't want you to do this with

10:33

our weapons, but we understand why

10:35

you're doing it. So I don't think there's going to be, you

10:38

know, there aren't, I'm sure, strong phone

10:40

calls going in from here to say, listen,

10:43

stop this. It's a terrible idea. I think everybody

10:45

understands the situation that the Ukrainian

10:47

government is in and what they're trying to achieve

10:50

here.

10:50

James Cleverley, the UK's foreign secretary

10:53

said, I believe yesterday evening, he

10:55

said,

10:56

well, he couldn't comment on the specifics of this case because

10:58

he had no background intel on who

11:00

was behind it. But he pointedly said,

11:02

you know, Ukraine reserves

11:04

the right to defend itself

11:07

outside of its borders if that is what

11:09

it takes. Paraphrasing, but

11:12

it was along those lines he made clear that

11:15

Ukraine essentially could bring the war to Russia

11:17

if that's what it took to defend themselves.

11:19

So I think there's a real softening

11:22

of that line, even just within the course

11:24

of the last few weeks from what we expected.

11:26

I wanted to ask you, Katie, about the coming

11:28

spring counter offensive that we've been,

11:31

it feels like we've been talking about for so long

11:33

and it's been much hyped. Could this be

11:35

part of it? I mean, it certainly could be part

11:37

of the preparations for it. I mean, I think our experience

11:39

last year of waiting for the Curzon

11:42

offensive and then actually the

11:44

main strike in the first instance was in

11:46

the Kharkiv region is that we

11:49

may not know when it has

11:51

started. It may already have started. This may

11:53

be part of it and it may well not look

11:55

like what

11:56

we're expecting. So I think

11:58

with all of the focus on Curzon.

11:59

on last year that

12:02

did cause Russia to redeploy units

12:04

southwards and that left them exposed,

12:07

which Ukraine then

12:08

exploited very successfully. So

12:11

I think

12:12

we shouldn't expect it to be sort of

12:14

one

12:15

solid, you know, great big arrow moving

12:18

down a map as the illustrations

12:20

tend to show it. I think we should expect this to

12:22

be multifaceted. And

12:25

one of the strengths of the Ukrainian military's

12:27

approach to this war has been their flexibility

12:30

and their ability to fight using unconventional

12:33

means at times and to really utilize

12:35

much better intelligence than the Russians

12:38

have and to exploit Russian vulnerabilities.

12:40

That's how they have fought in one so far. So

12:43

that's what I would expect them to do going

12:45

forward. But I think this is also that it's part of this

12:47

attempt to puncture Putin's

12:50

approach. His theory of victory

12:52

has been and still seems to be, look,

12:54

we can do this forever. We can do this for years

12:57

and years and years

12:58

beyond your ability to sustain this war

13:00

and certainly beyond the West's ability

13:03

and the West's patience and the West's fickle

13:06

attention span to support you. So we can outlast

13:08

you.

13:09

We can do this. This isn't undermining

13:11

you. My position in Russia is secure. I can keep

13:13

going longer than you can. And I think

13:15

this is part of an attempt to shock that

13:18

and to say, this is not going to look like

13:20

that. This is not going to be a

13:22

war on remote control that's

13:24

happening on TV screens.

13:27

If you want to continue to fight this war, this is

13:29

what it's going to look like. So

13:31

you can't get so comfortable and

13:33

you can't be as sure that

13:35

you can maintain this over a large

13:38

number of years if you're on citizens

13:40

are going to start to feel the costs more directly.

13:43

So could we see further

13:46

escalation within Russia?

13:48

I mean, we certainly could. I think it's certainly

13:50

likely that we'll see

13:53

more targeting of facilities

13:55

supporting the military operation. So we've already seen

13:57

earlier today, we're recording this on Wednesday.

14:00

a fire at an oil refinery in

14:02

the Krasnodar region in southern Russia. I think

14:05

we will see as and when

14:08

they can hit logistics facilities

14:10

and anything sort of behind the Russian lines, I

14:12

think we should expect them to do that.

14:15

But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if this is

14:17

not the last attack on Russia

14:20

or on other major Russian

14:22

cities because Moscow has

14:24

very significant

14:25

air defenses. It's not clear whether

14:28

St. Petersburg, which is Putin's hometown, is

14:30

as well defended as Vladivostok

14:33

or some of the other. One of the issues

14:35

is the further you get from

14:37

assuming that, with all

14:39

the caveats that Ukraine says this is not them, the

14:42

further you get from Ukraine, the

14:44

harder this is to sustain. So a strike

14:46

on a city in Siberia or if I was sort of being

14:48

flippant about Vladivostok in the Far East

14:51

is likely beyond the current capabilities,

14:53

but it's not just Moscow that

14:55

the Kremlin needs to be thinking currently about

14:58

defending. And I don't think this is likely to

15:00

be the last strike of its kind.

15:02

We'll be discussing this again, as we say,

15:04

as a regular catchphrase now

15:06

on the podcast, but I'm sure it will be

15:09

returning to this and we'll be returning to the story.

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16:20

Turo is the world's largest car sharing

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16:24

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16:57

On Sunday, the 28th of May, Recep

16:59

Tayyip Erdogan took 52.16% of the vote

17:01

in the second round of

17:04

the presidential elections against opposition

17:06

leader

17:07

Kemal Kilic Derola, who only

17:09

took 47.8%. Erdogan,

17:12

who's already spent more than 20 years

17:15

in power in Turkey, has

17:16

now secured his presidency for at

17:18

least another five. While many expect

17:21

that his hold on the country will

17:23

tighten,

17:25

some analysts now think that his

17:27

foreign policy approaches, especially towards

17:29

the West, could soften.

17:31

Megan, let me jump in here to ask

17:33

you a question as our resident Scandinavia

17:36

expert. Firstly, can

17:38

you just situate us in

17:40

the background to this?

17:42

What is Erdogan's objection

17:44

to Sweden joining NATO, and

17:47

what steps has Sweden taken to

17:49

address that?

17:50

So, yeah, this all began last year when

17:53

Finland and Sweden simultaneously decided

17:55

to throw out decades,

17:57

but in Sweden's case, centuries.

17:59

of military non-alignment and

18:03

asked to join NATO.

18:05

Most of the Alliance welcomed

18:07

them with open arms and said they were

18:10

very happy to hear that. Erdogan is the

18:12

president of Turkey, which is a powerful

18:14

NATO ally, was very quick to

18:17

throw up his objection. He initially

18:20

objected to

18:21

both Sweden and Finland, but his

18:23

criticisms really kind of focused on Sweden.

18:26

He was particularly angered

18:29

by the fact that Turkey in general says

18:31

that Sweden harbours militants

18:34

from the banned Kurdistan Workers Party, the

18:36

PKK, which took up arms against the Turkish

18:38

state in 1984 and is considered a terrorist group,

18:41

not just within Turkey, but within the

18:44

EU and in the US. So Finland

18:46

got approval by all NATO

18:48

members in March and

18:51

it gained approval from Turkey

18:53

by kind of changing some of its policies.

18:56

It didn't have to do much, but it tightened some anti-terrorism

18:58

laws and it lifted an arms embargo

19:00

on Turkey.

19:02

Sweden has also taken

19:04

steps to calm Erdogan's

19:06

fears. There was a loophole

19:08

in Sweden in immigration policy

19:11

that essentially Kurdish

19:13

people were able to get in.

19:16

Obviously no one who was designated

19:18

officially as a terrorist, but people who could

19:21

have had some kind of affiliation

19:23

with members of the PKK. So that

19:25

loophole has now been closed and officially

19:28

takes some effect during

19:30

the first, but it is not

19:32

yet clear if that will

19:34

be enough to classify Erdogan.

19:37

Erdogan is notorious

19:39

for using whatever

19:42

leverage he can to get

19:44

himself the best deal possible.

19:47

Some may say that makes him a very effective

19:49

politician, but he was

19:51

particularly adamant in the run up to the election

19:53

to portray his strong

19:56

man appeal, and a lot of that was

19:58

talking about how he was.

19:59

absolutely blocking Sweden. He would never,

20:02

never wanted to see Sweden join NATO if

20:05

they were going to harbor terrorists that were

20:07

particularly against the Turkish state.

20:10

Now that he's won the election

20:12

and doesn't really need to project that

20:15

kind of position to his

20:17

domestic audience, there are some analysts

20:20

who think that he could kind of scale

20:23

that back, but

20:25

he's still likely to want to try and get

20:27

to sweeten the deal a little bit more in his

20:29

favor. So Katie,

20:31

I'll come to you on this, because

20:34

we've heard a lot about the F-16s that

20:36

Turkey is desperate to have, but

20:39

it is a bargaining

20:41

tool that Biden has in his arsenal. So

20:44

I'd kind of wanted to come to you about where

20:46

Congress is on this and what's

20:48

the likelihood that Erdogan could

20:51

get those jets.

20:53

Yeah, so just the context to this is Turkey

20:55

wants a package of US F-16

20:58

fighter jets, and that deal is currently

21:00

being held up by Congress. We

21:02

know that Biden spoke to Erdogan

21:05

on Monday, nominally to congratulate

21:07

him on his reelection, but he said

21:09

they discussed the fighter jets, which Erdogan

21:12

still wants, and that Biden said to

21:14

him, well, we want a deal with Sweden, so

21:17

let's get this done. The difficulty

21:19

for the Biden administration is that they don't

21:21

totally control that. As

21:23

events have repeatedly demonstrated over

21:25

the last two years, Congress is a separate

21:28

arm of the government and is want to

21:30

do its own thing, to put it diplomatically.

21:33

And there was a sort of sequencing issue

21:35

here where

21:36

Erdogan has said that Congress

21:39

should green light the F-16s,

21:41

then we can talk about Sweden joining NATO,

21:43

and Congress has said Turkey needs

21:45

to agree

21:46

to Sweden joining first. But

21:49

I think there is some degree of

21:51

optimism here that as you

21:53

very eloquently explained, there

21:56

was an understanding here of this is how domestic

21:58

politics works. This was a...

22:00

real talking point for Erdogan

22:02

during the election. They understood that

22:05

he wanted to be seen to be

22:06

absolutely tough and uncompromising

22:08

on terrorism,

22:10

but know that the election is over. That's

22:12

where they see the scope for movement

22:16

and for more concerted pressure. So we've

22:18

also seen

22:19

Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State in

22:22

Sweden on Tuesday, talking

22:24

about, you know, this is the time to move forward,

22:27

let's get this done, and talking

22:29

about potentially being able to get it done by the

22:31

NATO summit that is coming in Vilnius on

22:33

the 11th of July. So

22:36

I think we're going to see a real concerted push from

22:38

here and from other Western allies

22:41

to try to do that. But

22:42

I guess the real question is whether Erdogan

22:45

still thinks he can extract something

22:48

more from himself

22:49

in the process. Yeah, that's the thing. Erdogan,

22:53

it's too tricky to really try

22:55

and put too many expectations on him

22:57

because he can be quite

22:59

a wild card. I know Sweden's

23:01

Prime Minister, Olkurtysson, was kind of looking

23:03

forward to the opportunity to maybe speaking

23:05

with him tomorrow and Thursday at the European

23:08

Political Community Meeting in Moldova.

23:11

But Erdogan has just said today, Wednesday,

23:13

that he will not be attending

23:16

after all. So it's still unclear

23:18

if he will actually

23:19

shift position, especially in

23:21

time for the Vilnius summit. But

23:24

there is more optimism now than there was, I

23:27

think, two months ago.

23:32

On that uncharacteristically for us optimistic

23:34

note, that's all the time we have for today.

23:37

If you're a regular World Review listener and you haven't already

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subscribed, please do so. Please also rate

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us five stars and leave us a great review. Our

23:44

producer has been Nisha Frankl-Davolve. Thank

23:46

you for listening and until next

23:47

time.