Timothy Snyder on Ukraine, Russia, America—and What’s at Stake

Conversations with Bill Kristol

News, Society & Culture, Government, Politics

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 8 March 2024

⏱️ 55 minutes

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Summary

Two years into the war, where do things stand in Ukraine? What are Vladimir Putin’s war aims and how is attempting to undermine American commitment and resolve? To discuss these questions, we are joined by Timothy Snyder, a Yale historian and leading expert on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe. Noting impressive successes in recent weeks despite the lack of weapons supply from the United States, Snyder argues that “this is still a war that Ukraine can win. But it depends upon whether they have allies who are capable of seeing the political stakes and capable of behaving in a way which is consistent with simple military logic, which is what do you need to do to help your ally to win.” Persuading Americans that Ukraine cannot win, or even that a Russian victory would be preferable, is an integral part of Vladimir Putin’s war strategy. According to Snyder, Putin knows he cannot win on the battlefield if the West musters its collective energy to Ukrainian victory, but believes he can win by influencing our political debates about international engagement and support for the war. Defeating Russia, Snyder explains, is vital not only for Ukraine, but also for America and our allies. Kristol and Snyder also discuss how understanding fascism might help us to comprehend contemporary Russian politics and other political developments around the world.

Transcript

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0:00.0	And the Hi, welcome back to Conversations. I'm Bill Crystal. I'm very pleased to be
0:18.9	joined today by Tim Snyder, Professor of History at Yale,
0:23.4	Distinguished Scholar of Ukraine, Russia,
0:26.2	Central and Eastern Europe,
0:27.7	author of the definitive work, Bloodlands,
0:30.0	and also on
0:33.6	author of more popular works on Russia and European history and also on tyranny, freedom,
0:37.8	and other big and important topics.
0:40.5	Unlike many professors, Tim Snyder's scholarly books are accessible to the rest of us and
0:46.0	its popular books are based on scholarships, so that's a good combination.
0:49.5	And but just last week, what your class on, was it Hitler Stalin and us or something like that, was disrupted at Yale, but you've survived that well.
0:58.0	Anyway, Tim, thanks for joining me and let's discuss Ukraine.
1:03.9	Okay.
1:04.3	Glad to be with you.
1:05.7	Let's do it.
1:06.7	Let's do it.
1:07.7	So two years into the war, where do we stand in your judgment in terms of both the military situation and the broader
1:14.6	geopolitical situation and that we can go back and look a little bit at the sort of what
1:19.5	happened before and then what might happen next.
1:22.1	Okay, I mean I guess the military situation, there's sort of the objective and the subjective side.
1:26.8	I think subjectively, if you're an American, the strike, there are sort of two problems. The first is that the Biden administration, although it's generally in my view, has done the right thing and has made a number of adjustments and has been capable of rethinking. In 2022, when things were really critical and
1:48.0	sensitive and when the tide of work could have been turned, we were, we spent too much time making decisions and our decisions were based too often on
	...

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