Are Russia and NATO's 'red lines' in Ukraine's war shifting? | Inside Story

both Moscow and NATO have so-called red lines that could trigger outright war between them the conflict in Ukraine now involves many countries with Western weapons being used against Russia so are these red lines shifting and is there a greater risk of a wider War this is Inside Story [Music] hello and welcome to the program um FIB batibo Russia has launched its biggest attack of the war in Ukraine this year killing at least 50 people while Ukrainian forces have hit Targets in Russia Keys forces remain in Russian territory in the Kirks region after crossing the border a month ago the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II has brought Russia and the West closer than ever to direct confrontation Russia says it's already fighting a proxy war against NATO whose members are arming Ukraine yet the White House has said it doesn't want war with Russia so what are the so-called red lines for each side and could breaking them lead to outright war between Russia and NATO we'll be discussing this with our guests shortly but first this report from Sarat body bags carried away in Lviv the city in Western Ukraine close to the border with NATO member Poland an injured man one of dozens is comforted while people cry as they look at the enormous Damage Done to a historical neighborhood we'll move residents of at least six buildings to other places two schools and two medical centers were damaged it's tough several people died in this latest Russian bombing less than 24 hours after the highest number were killed in a single attack this year on the other side of the country the city of pava was hit by two ballistic missiles killing more than 50 people and injuring hundreds Russia will be held accountable and once again we urge everyone in the world who has the power to stop this Terror air defense systems and missiles are needed in Ukraine not in the warehouse somewhere long range strikes that can defend against Russian Terror are needed now not sometime later every day of delay unfortunately means more lives lost Ukraine's incursion into the western region of KK nearly a month ago took Russia by complete surprise the risky crossborder move was the most significant and bold since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 Ukrainian soldiers have occupied dozens of villages across more than a thousand Square met we want to make this training Mission as pragmatic and easy as POS the eu's top Diplomat has pressured Ukraine's International backers to allow strikes on targets inside Russia the EU previously largely seen as an economic and political trading block is now intensively involved in training Ukrainian soldiers is the m sucessful training mission that the European Union has ever performed it has trained 6 ,000 soldiers and today the ministers agreed on raising the purpose the target to 75,000 adding 15,000 more by the end of the year this is also a good new we'll do more Ukraine is requesting this war requires a constant adaptation to the modalities of the war Russian president Vlad Putin has again warned Ukraine and its allies we can't allow hostile structures to be created near us which hatch aggressive plans against us and constantly try to destabilize the Russian Federation discussions have been held in the Kremlin about changing Russia's nuclear Doctrine to allow the possibility of using nuclear weapons French president Immanuel macron has also floated the possibility of Western troops being sent to fight in Ukraine that notion been dismissed by its Partners in NATO at least for now s Al jazer for Inside Story well Western Nations have shifted their policy on the supply and use of their weapons by Ukraine the US first aimed to assist Ukraine but avoid war in Russia yet it's now supplied it with around $175 billion worth of Aid including military supplies since the War Began those arms were first restricted to use on Ukrainian territory that changed in May when President Joe Biden said Targets in Russia could be hit if link to defending the city of KV since May France and the UK agreed to allow Storm Shadow missiles to include targets inside Russia for defensive purposes instead of solely inside Ukrainian territory Germany initially refused to allow its leopard tanks to be supplied to Ukraine Chancellor Olaf Schulz you turned on that in January last year and after initial reluctance the US sent attack arms missiles to the country short range versions given a year ago switched to longer range versions in April that can strike targets 300 kilometers away the US says they can't be used offensively inside Russia but they've been used to attack Russian Annex Crimea Ukraine has repeatedly asked for advanced Western aircraft again after initial reluctance President Joe Biden allowed F-16 fighter jets to be sent with the first batch arriving in in July well let's bring in now our guests for today's show in Moscow Dimitri babage is the Deputy foreign editor of the kolaya Pravda newspaper in ke Peter zalmayev is the executive director of the Eurasia democracy initiative and in Berlin Ben Aris editor of business news Europe gentlemen welcome to the program thank you very much for joining us on inside Peter uh in ke let me start with you president zalinski has asked Western leaders to ignore President Putin's so-called red lines after the attack on Tuesday Ukraine is now asking for more powerful weapons and the right to use them deep into Russian territory first of all how much concern is there in keev today that support may drop as this war grinds on that's been our you know perennial sort of concern and fear simply because we're dealing with electoral democracies unlike Vladimir Putin's Russia and his allies Iran and China and North Korea and so there are these vagaries of electoral democracies where different political forces come to power with different ideas about who to support or if to support allies at all uh so that's always a concern will remain a concern the money that the US Congress has appropriated a few months ago is still there uh much will depend on who once again gets elected in November uh but be that as it may I think NATO continues to send signals that it simply cannot afford to let Ukraine uh fall at the same time having said this with this continuing Terror against civilian areas today uh seven people dead in leiv the day before yesterday pava over 50 people dead Ukraine needs to boost its air defense systems as soon as possible and we need to get uh finally this permission to strike at Russian targets deep inside territory territory of Russia to strike at these missile complexes before they are fired I was going to ask you Peter specifically which weapons does Ukraine want today uh to use inside Russia and how is it going to use them well in fact we're already using these same weapons so we're talking about attacks missiles for one we just need to have a longer range attack Miss that the US would give Ukraine has identified jointly with its Western allies as many as 250 such potentially crucial sites uh inside Russia's territory the neutralization the destructions of which while not put an end to this war will significantly hamper Russia's uh continuing designs to destroy Ukraine okay let's get the Russian perspective Dimitri babage in Moscow Ukraine has said that the kremlin's threats of retaliation are nothing but a bluff and by invading Russia itself last month as we saw the the offensive into uh K Ukraine it was thought had crossed all of the red lines of Russia and yet there was no reaction from Moscow why is that well I don't think there was no reaction from Moscow uh of course this was an escalation on the side of the Ukrainian government uh let me tell you that basically uh this area was a peaceful was a peaceful area during these two years two two and a half years of the War uh there was a kind of an agreement uh Gentleman's Agreement T agreement between Russia and Ukraine that the main fighting is going to be fought in donbas uh which is populated by ethnic Russians and which had been a problem uh political problem for Ukraine for many years so the fact that now belg K to Russian border regions are bombarded uh by Ukrainian drones sometimes by Ukrainian missiles of course this is bringing new uh escalation to this war just as well as the attacks by attack missiles against Crimea right what Demitri let me just ask you what are Russia's red lines today they seem to have shifted so so many times in the course of this conflict what is today the ultimate red line for Moscow well the problem is that uh the West continues to pressure Russia it has been pressuring Russia since the early 90s forcing us uh to adopt new red lines uh let me remind you that uh the crossing of the red lines started in 1994 1993 when President Clinton despite previous Promises by the United States announced that NATO would expand and since then Russia had to move its red lines further and further to the east uh of course Russia is weaker than NATO so one of the ways for Russia to defend itself is to have a strong Presidential Power just like in the United States presidential Powers increased during the uh 20th century the Congress no longer has the power to um declare war the president can start the war without consulting with the Congress in the same way in Russia presidential poers increased and red lines became blurred because this is one of the ways uh to uh resist a stronger opponent you do not uh show your cards you do not uh uh immediately announce uh what you will do but as a straty I want to finish it it's very important uh in the western position there is a very important contradiction at the same time the Western media and the Western politicians say that Russia is unpredictable that President Putin is dangerous uh you never know what he will do and at the same time uh they say he's not going to do anything uh just don't be afraid of him uh strike Russia deep inside its territory if nothing happened to NATO countries before that nothing will happen in the future so in that sense the West is behaving irresponsibly and there is a huge gap between uh propaganda you know demonizing Russia and the actions uh which are U you know which have been taken as safe Russia uh would never put up any resistance this has already led us deep deep into this terrible conflict which is a tragedy for both Russia and Ukraine Ben let me bring you into the conversation Dimitri said there that the the West is behaving irresponsibly Ukraine as we've heard is asking for more powerful weapons from from NATO from Western allies what are the chances that uh Ukraine's allies will do as president zalinski is asking and loosen the restrictions that have been in place so far it's confused I mean on the one hand you've got borell uh the foreign minister effectively of the EU saying like give them the weapons let them strike deep into Russian ter territory on the other hand you got Jake suan the National Security advisor saying that our policy hasn't changed and that we won't give that permission and I think to understand what's lying behind this we we should be clear about what we mean by Red Lines what what happens if you cross that what is this ultimate red line and yence Stenberg the Secretary General of NATO said at the very beginning of the conflict we have two priorities first one well the second one is to Aid Ukraine and and not let it get defeated by Russia but the first one is to void World War I and this red line if you cross it what what's lying behind this is the fear a that Russia will then attack a NATO country in spark third world war Article 5 Etc and B that it will use a nuclear weapon and at the moment the Russia's been rattling its nuclear saber repeatedly Putin's had exercises he's moved some nukes into belus and they're just talking about revising the nuclear policy but what it says is Russia may use First Strike nuclear weapons if there is an existential threat to the country so what do you mean by existential and I think as a working hypothesis you can basically take that to mean that Russia believes it's losing and what is losing look like I mean if there's a complete collapse of the Russian army and they are in Retreat that would be losing but I think at the moment while they're holding back on these um longrange missiles for Ukraine is that the White House is scared that losing will look like if you suddenly start hitting all the airfields and missile missile launch sites pushing back Russia's forces away from the Ukrainian border that's what zilinsky wants okay so so just to clarify Ben just to clarify what are the so-called red lines for for NATO and the West today in this conflict two years on I mean we've seen shifts and changes uh the there there's clearly been uh uh some shifts in in these red lines and the Western position what is it exactly today and you know how how do you expect it to evolve and how much why has it changed so much well if you look at the policy I mean I I think DEA said it that you know there's a confusion on the western side um that they have supported Ukraine and there has been a steady creeping escalation on both sides and the weapons you said in your Preamble you know that Schultz didn't want to send the leopard tanks and they did theyve been dragging their heels for ages over the f-16s have just arrived there be only 10 of them but that's the point they've always sent some but not enough and they've sent 10 plates when zalinsky was asking for 120 and so this creeping es escalation means we're moving closer to red lines but it's always being done on the on the western side so that you don't cross this line so you don't provoke a war so that you can continue to say but we're helping Ukraine defend itself because the fear is the kran will turn around and say actually you're using NATO weapons to attack Russia and therefore we're entitled to retaliate and this is why the curse incursion was so scary because you now have Western weapons Western supplied weapons inside Russia and this could con you know the gem could take this as an attack on Mother Russia and then retaliate on NATO and so we've come up again pushed the red line back again but as I said before I think the ultimate red line for Putin is if he thinks Russia is losing the war and then he will retaliate the White House is trying very hard to make sure that that doesn't appear to be happening okay Demitri I'll ask you uh in a moment whether you agree with uh what Ben Aris has said there about this ultimate red line for for President Putin but I just wanted to come back to you Peter and ask you your thoughts about what Dimitri said uh he talked about the West acting irresponsibly and also ask you why is it that Ukraine has seemingly not been as concerned about Russia's so-called red lines what what is emboldened Ukraine well it's embolden Ukraine the fact that Russia has you know every time that these supposed red lines have been crossed has not really uh done anything that it hasn't done already since the very start of this war this Terror continually has rained on our cities uh regardless of K or not K and you know what let me just come back to this idea that there's some kind of terrible red line that's been crossed uh uh by Ukraine occupying parts of the Cur territory similar to what Putin is doing elsewhere in Ukraine I mean Putin himself recently suggested that he might be ready for peace talks if Ukraine withdraws from K well how is it let me ask you how is it different from Ukraine Waging War to reclaim its territory in the donbas OR in Crimea according to the Russian Constitution these areas are already part of Russia so is there some kind of a slight distinction some kind of a Freudian you know sort of slip uh of the rhetoric on the part of Putin because you know according to the Constitution ksk or crier or the donbas it's all the same they're all part of Mother Russia so it's telling you that even Putin realizes uh that simply according to international law there's simp no justification for occupying the territory of Ukraine the West the sooner it stops caring about any of Vladimir Putin's red lines you know the sooner he will be motivated to come to the negotiating table unless Russians start to feel the brunt of this war in their territory Putin will be enable to wage this war endlessly he has enough money to do it as long as Russia let's get dri to respond Dimitri your response to what uh Peter has just said there well first we must get our facts straight uh Putin did not say he would have negotiations if Ukraine withdraws from psk after the Ukrainian incursion in ksk in the ksk region Putin said that there would be no negotiations he viewed this as a very dangerous installation uh that puts uh the government of uh zinski you know makes it unable to hold negotiations uh I think these are all tragic tragic developments because the sooner this madness cold war ends the better for everyone and uh Putin has been saying before the incursion in PK that uh we could have negotiations if Ukraine agreed is that these four regions uh don lugans you know zapar roia and and and Heron uh you know which Russia declared its territory if they left uh to be Russian territory by the Ukrainian side now after the attack against K region Putin said that if there will there will be negotiations if there are negotiations the Russian Position will be tougher uh the idea to put the war to the homes of Russians we have heard it many times from many American officials I think it's not a good idea it reminds me of the I'm sorry of the ideas of islamist extremists who Justified the attack against the United States in 2001 this terrible terrorist attack uh they said that okay we have war in the Middle East we have it in Afghanistan it is all supported by the United States let's bring the war to the United States uh that didn't help anyone I think it was a terrible tragedy what happened in 2001 but there there were also several tragedies that PO right you don't do it to a nuclear power if you if you bring War to the homes of citizens of a nuclear power something terrible may happen to the whole world but President Putin has threatened to to use nuclear power and and as uh uh Ben said earlier there's a talk now in Moscow of of revising the nuclear Doctrine is is it clear what form that revision may take and just how serious is the Kremlin about this well that's the point uh uh uh there is a policy of certain ambiguity and Russia is not the first country to use this policy of ambiguity the United States was ambiguous about it weapons Israel has been ambiguous many countries are ambiguous about what they're going to do if something happens so that's not something new in in modern politics uh but so far Russia's actions on nuclear power they were all about exercises here agree with Ben there was there were no real strikes there was no real use of these terrible weapons Russia just reminded the world it tries to remind the world that it has this weapons but the Western officials act as if these weapons never existed I mean listen to uh Jose Boro he he says that it would be a good idea to lift all restrictions on strikes against Russia well I understand that Jose Boro is an old man probably he doesn't want to leave much longer uh but this is very responsible uh on the side of the European Union this is the head me let me ask Ben about this this threat Ben of nuclear blackmail how is it being viewed it in western capital in Germany for example people don't like it uh I mean there's a fear that that Putin could he's done extreme things at every turn in this War I mean just crossing the border being the most extreme right at the beginning but each time he Surprises by choosing extreme options and so possibility of him using a nuclear weapon is nonzero and there's graduations of that too Russia has these ta iCal nukes is kind of small nukes which they could use and it would take out the whole of downtown Kiev but it's not that big and it's actually do the same amount of damage it's a conventional weapon but it would be nuclear and so they could do that um in as a warning um I think the chances of Putin actually using one a very low um because it would make Russia Pariah forever in history um but do you think we're closer now given the tensions given the developments we've seen in the last month or so are we closer to direct confrontation uh between uh you know the countries that are helping Ukraine today and Russia well I already said there's been creeping escalation and the lines are getting pushed back um the latest one I mean look to understand this thing with the nuclear weapons um the real danger is not that he's going to use one it's the possibility and then the effect that has and so you're asking about the effect here in Berlin and and in Washington the effect of the possibility has been this russal aids to Ukraine some but not enough because in effect the White House has imposed a nfly ban over Russia on Ukraine whereas Russia is as we saw last week with the massive missile barrage Russia has freedom to bomb anything and anywhere in Ukraine that it wants to and why would this the U us follow this perverse policy refuse permission to use these long-range missiles in inside Russia at legitimate targets that are firing missiles into Ukraine the reason is is part of this escalation management policy yeah thank you Ben what's the risk today Peter uh of of the war spreading and engulfing more countries and and what direction is Ukraine going to take the war now uh we've seen a a cabinet reshuffle a major cabinet reshuffle uh after the the attacks recently where is the the war going as far as Ukraine is concerned uh yes uh well uh listen uh the situation in the east of Ukraine in the donbas is very uh continues to be very difficult Etc but as difficult as it is keep in mind Vladimir Putin's goal remains pretty maximalist and that's controlling the entire territory of Ukraine making Ukraine a failed State Etc uh simple simply uh I'll just say that militarily Vladimir Putin has shown that third third year into this war he's unable to do this he's huffing and puffing he's uh portraying his army as Victorious and unbeatable KK has shown that it's not the case that's been at least one use of this operation uh so uh the it is the psychological warfare being waged against ukrainians against the West to try to convince them that no matter what they do Russia will walk over Ukraine Victorious that is the I think where the main uh battle right now is continuing uh if Ukraine continues to get enough supplies from its uh soldier from its uh uh allies if it continues to mount successful recruitment efforts it will be able to continue uh you know fighting violently against the Russian incursion and once again I don't see how Vladimir Putin will win this war in the long run unless you know we and the West capitulate uh and start believing uh you know his uh his lies and uh you know and his sort of make belie reality that he's trying to impose on us Dimitri I'll give you the the final word what's the end game now for Russia and and will Russia fight for complete Victory how do you see this War ending basically uh well the more uh uh the West talks about bringing the war to the homes of Russia and the more adventurous the actions of the Ukrainian government such as the incursion psk the bigger the risk for Humanity not only for Russia and for Ukraine but for Humanity so I think we should all uh come back to our census cooler heads should Prevail on both sides and we should stop talking about winning this war we should start talking about uh ending the War uh ending the War uh in in in a way that would leave Russia more less secure because otherwise there will be no end Russia will not compromise its security because people like borrow and people like Donald Trump and and I'm sorry Joe Biden are on the other side these people are irresponsible and unpredictable okay we'll leave it there thank you so much gentlemen for a great discussion Dimitri babage Peter zv and Ben Aris thank you and thank you too for watching you can always watch this program again anytime by visiting our website. al.com for further discussion go to our Facebook page that's facebook.com AJ insid story and of course you can join the conversation on X our handle is at AJ Inside Story from me fib bbo and a whole team here in Doha thank you for watching bye for now [Music]