Anne Applebaum: There is a scenario that I fear the most
WAR IN UKRAINE23.06.2022, 12:45
Dorota Wysocka-Schnepf
I am afraid that Russia, being in Donbas, will at some point decide that it has already achieved enough and will say: we are not going any further, we want to cease fire. And then the West will say, "okay, this is the end of the war." There may be pressure for Ukraine to stop fighting. Russia will control 1/5 of Ukraine, filter people there, deport people, organize concentration camps, and mass murder. And wait. And then, I do not know, in two years, attack Kyiv again - says Anne Applebaum.
Anne Applebaum - writer, columnist, Pulitzer Prize winner, permanent author of The Atlantic magazine, lecturer at SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and author of many best-selling books
Dorota Wysocka-Schnepf: In "Red Hunger" you described Stalin's crimes against the Ukrainian people, you do not have the impression that Putin wants to commit the same monstrous tool - hunger - with the same monstrous tool, but that his plan is even wider and affects not only Ukraine ?
Anne Applebaum: Yes, of course. The Russians are openly talking about it. Two days ago, Russian government supporter Margarita Simonian, who runs RT TV, openly said that they wanted hunger all over the world, and then the West would have to start talks with Moscow. This is their plan at the moment - to lead to a famine in Africa or Egypt, so that the sanctions imposed on Russia will be lifted. So they're deliberately blocking the ports, deliberately doing whatever it takes to prevent
Ukraine from exporting its grain, that's the plan .
Professor Timothy Snyder writes that Putin's hunger plan is supposed to work in three ways, first, it is part of the operation to destroy the Ukrainian state, that's clear.
- Yes.
Two, is expected to trigger refugees from North Africa and the Middle East, destabilizing the European Union. This is a realistic scenario in your opinion?
- This is a real scenario. They have been working on the plan to destabilize the European Union for ten years, so it is absolutely possible. And they also openly talk about it. They openly help political parties that are against the Union, support anti-EU politicians, try to do their best to make democracy shake and the European Union to collapse. So of course it is real.
Only now the question is whether the EU together with NATO, maybe together with the UN, maybe together with Turkey and Egypt, could organize some blockade in the Black Sea and block the Russian fleet so that
Ukraine could export its grain . We'll see. I do not know if we will succeed, because I do not know if all countries are determined enough and will be willing to do so.
Anne Applebaum: We have a sanctions plan, but no information plan to explain what they mean to people
The third point of Putin's hunger plan, the most terrible according to prof. Snyder, is that Russian propaganda needs the death of the masses of people. Because when riots begin in the world due to lack of food and hunger begins to spread, Russian propaganda will blame not Russia, but Ukraine, and then will call for recognition of Russia's territorial gains and, as you said, for the lifting of sanctions.
- They're already doing it. Everything that is happening - high fuel prices or turmoil in trade - they are already saying, both at home, in Russia and around the world, that it is Ukraine's fault and NATO's fault. And it is true that we have a sanctions plan, but we lack an information plan that would explain to people the meaning and necessity of these sanctions. And they deliberately repeat every day that everything bad that is happening is Ukraine's fault. And, of course, some people in the West, and also a large percentage of Russians, will believe it. Many people in the West have already been convinced. I can see on social media that there are also some Poles who bought this propaganda. We must be prepared for this and we should have a ready response to these actions.
Because the sanctions hit Russia very hard, that's a fact, but they also hit the Western world very hard, the question is, will the West be able to cope with them in the long run?
- I don't know. I don't think we have a choice. Because we are either helping Ukraine, continuing this course and maintaining sanctions, or we will have an open war all over Europe. I don't see any other option here. It seems to me that the
defense of Ukraine is an existential task for the West . That there is no way to decide whether we defend or not. No, we have no choice. We have to do this. Naturally, one has to ask what we are doing with the economy and whether we are able to do something else. But indeed - this is a bad time for the West.
Suwalki isthmus. "I don't think Putin will decide to open a second front and attack NATO at this point."
There were fears that Russia might attack the so-called The Suwalki Gap, in order to ensure an overland connection between the Kaliningrad Oblast and Belarus, has recently been mentioned by Putin's leading propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov, about the need for such an overland corridor. Do you think Putin would risk attacking part of NATO territory?
- I do not think that at this point Putin
will decide to open a second front and attack NATO . He does not have such a strong military potential at the moment. But of course, if he won the war in Ukraine, he might consider such a scenario in the future.
You recently wrote in The Atlantic that the only solution that gives hope for long-term stabilization in Europe is a quick defeat, or even humiliation, of the Russian president. weapons and use them not only against Ukraine, but the entire West?
- At this point, it doesn't seem possible to me. First, we are not yet close to the point of humiliating Putin. For now, yes, we are helping Ukraine, but we are not helping it to such an extent that it can win very quickly, not yet enough. The Ukrainians did not get the planes, some of the weapons will arrive now, I do not see such an option, only once.
Second, in fact, at the beginning of this war, I was very afraid of nuclear weapons, I thought the Russians were able to use them. I did not fully understand Putin's state of mind, whether he was really crazy or mentally ill, he was isolated during these two years of COVID. But now I can see that the
Russians have their own scenario and that they are doing rational things according to their scenario- they decided to withdraw from Kiev because this first attack was unsuccessful, but even in the east they are not doing strange or very risky things. So I can see that they are acting according to their rational scenario. And maybe not entirely, but 90% of my fear of nuclear war, because that would be irrational. In doing so, they would not achieve any military goals and would only destroy Russia's reputation around the world. All their allies, China and India, would turn against them. I don't see any sense in this to them, so I'm not afraid of it right now.
But I am afraid of something else - that while in Donbas, they will decide at some point that they have achieved enough, that they have had enough. And they will be sitting in this Donbas, maybe also in the south, in Kherson and Nikolaev, and they will start saying: OK, we are not going any further, we will not fight any longer, now we want to cease fire. And then it may happen that the West says: okay, there has been a ceasefire, this is the end of the war. Then there may indeed be pressure on Ukraine to stop fighting.
In that case, we will have a situation where Russia controls about a fifth of Ukraine and can sit there. And filtering people in Donbas, deporting them to Russia, organizing concentration camps, mass murder. And wait a few more years, and then again, I don't know, in two years, attack Kyiv again. This is the scenario I fear the most.
