Putin's Panic Surge? With Richard Fontaine

Call Me Back - with Dan Senor

Ark Media

Society, October 7, Hamas, War, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Israel, News Commentary, News, Politics, Elections, Palestine, Dan Senor, Government

4.8 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 September 2022

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Vladamir Putin has announced what he called a “partial mobilization” of up to 300,000 reservists. According to reports, these reservists are basically former conscripts that will need training. Meanwhile, commercial flights out of Russia are apparently selling out, fast. The Russian Duma, on the other hand, is passing a law to clamp down on anyone evading their military service. And then there was Putin’s seeming dangling of the nuclear threat again. All against the backdrop of the Kremlin organizing referenda on whether four occupied regions in Ukraine should fall under Russian sovereignty. And how do we assess US military support for Ukraine? Richard Fontaine is the CEO of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), bi-partisan foriegn policy think tank in Washington, DC. Prior to CNAS, he was foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain and worked at the State Department, the National Security Council, and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He serves on the Biden administration’s Defense Policy Board – which advises the Pentagon. Richard is also just back from a trip to the Middle East – so we also talk at the end about the two-year anniversary of the Abraham Accords (a topic we’ll be returning to from time to time on this podcast) and also the status of the Iran deal negotiations.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The next big shoe to drop would be not a partial mobilization where you call up the reserves but a full mobilization where you forcibly
0:07.0	conscript individuals and send them into Ukraine.
0:11.0	That is about as politically unpalatable a move as one could get.
0:16.2	So this intermediate move is where they are now. Well. Vladimir Putin has announced what he called a partial mobilization of
0:36.1	up to 300,000 reservists.
0:38.9	According to reports, these reservists are basically former conscripts that will need training.
0:44.3	They're not ready to be immediately deployed to the front lines.
0:47.4	Meanwhile, commercial flights out of Russia are apparently selling out. Fast. We did a quick search for economy tickets from
0:56.0	Moscow to London and could only find an Azerbaijan Airlines flight with three
1:01.6	layovers costing $4,500 per ticket.
1:07.0	I guess that's good news for Azerbaijan Airlines.
1:10.0	The Russian Duma, on the other hand, is passing a lot to clamp down on anyone evading their military service.
1:17.0	None of this, of course, is exactly a position of strength.
1:20.0	However, there was Putin's seeming dangling of the nuclear threat again, all against the backdrop
1:26.8	of the Kremlin organizing referendum on whether four occupied regions in Ukraine should
1:32.4	now fall under Russian sovereignty.
1:35.6	One recent historical note, using a similar mechanism, Russia annexed Crimea back in 2014.
1:42.4	And how do we assess U. assess US military support for Ukraine?
1:45.0	While we can debate whether it took too long to ramp up, it did,
1:50.0	US efforts also now seem to be making a real impact. Lots of questions today, so we called
1:56.1	up one of our go-tus, Richard Fontaine. Richard is the CEO of the Center for New American
2:01.3	Security, a bipartisan foreign policy think tank in
	...

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