jane coastonI’m Jane Coaston. Alexander Vindman was three when his family fled Ukraine to build a better life in the United States. In the four decades since then, Vindman has been an officer in the U.S. Army, studied Ukrainian affairs at Harvard, and served as a member of the White House’s National Security Council specializing in Eastern Europe. And it was in that last role that America came to know Vindman’s name.archived recording (alexander vindman)On July 25th 2019, the call occurred. I listened in on the call in the situation room with White House colleagues. I was concerned by the call. What I heard was inappropriate. And I reported my concerns —jane coastonHe was the first White House official to testify about the July 25th call between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, a call that would lead to Trump’s first impeachment.archived recording (alexander vindman)It is improper for the president of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen and a political opponent.jane coastonAfter Trump’s acquittal, Vindman was fired from his job at the N.S.C., and he retired from the Army the following year. He has an absolutely singular perspective on what is happening right now in Ukraine — what we can expect, how we got here, and maybe most importantly, what we’re still getting wrong.[MUSIC PLAYING]Alexander Vindman, welcome to “The Argument.”alexander vindmanThanks for having me on.jane coastonFirst, how are you doing? How are your family and friends in Ukraine?alexander vindmanSo I have friends there. But fortunately, I guess under the circumstances, I don’t have any close family. All the close relatives have emigrated. We came as refugees.But friends, it’s tough. I had some conversations with some friends this morning, dealing with the circumstances as best they can, firm resolved to continue to stay there, whether they’re working nonprofit side or just trying to live their lives. And then, of course, the folks in government absolutely resolve to keep the country intact, sovereign and independent.jane coastonAs you said, your family were Jewish refugees that fled Ukraine. You’ve spent your career studying Ukraine and Russian relations. You spent time in the military, significant time in the military and in the White House. And you were on the record early saying that an invasion was likely when other people were saying that it wasn’t or that it was impossible or that U.S. intelligence was incorrect, even as much as five days ago.alexander vindmanYeah.jane coastonSo what has surprised you most about the events of the past week?alexander vindmanWell, it’s interesting. I got to say that I did feel like at times, you know, when you make some weighty calls like that, you feel like you’re out on a limb. And I kept questioning and hoping I was wrong, frankly.jane coastonRight. This is the kind of thing where being right sucks.alexander vindmanYeah. Being right sucks, and I felt it was more important to really try to get the U.S. government to pay attention and take early steps to avoid it rather than preserve my credibility, which, frankly, is why people so often head to their analysis. Because they don’t want to be wrong on something like this, and then what they say is questioned. But it was too big. It was in my face. It was coming. But I’m not Nostradamus, and I have been off on a couple of things.But what is amazing, what is shocking is the flawed assumptions of the Russian government. The Russian military is not incompetent. They’ve proven themselves in smaller contingencies. They’re professional. They’re exercised, which is different than being well-trained. But they’re pretty well-exercised. But they were operating on this very, very flawed assumption, that they would face little resistance, they may be welcomed in. And it looks like they rolled in as if they were going into a peacekeeping operation into a training area instead of rolling into combat.And the resistance that they’re faced is fierce from all across the country. We’ll find out eventually how much of this is designed and how much of this is fortune. But I would imagine there’s quite a bit of design from the Ukrainian side. They didn’t fight every inch. They let the Russian forces funnel into major cities, many, many miles away from their logistics, many, many miles from safe haven, and then stalled them and started to destroy Russian forces, and then punish the supply lines to maintain those forces in the fight. And that’s something that is both a massive misjudgment on the Russian side.And the fierce resistance from the Ukrainian side is not something that I think anybody really counted for. And that includes me, because I did actually think about resolve and the willingness of the Ukrainians to fight. And I thought that they would put up a valiant fight, but this is a whole different scale.It’s a long way to go. And it’s a really, really precarious situation. It is day by day, hour by hour. But you can almost see Ukraine leaving this war with its sovereignty and independence intact, which is hard to imagine when facing, by all accounts, the second most powerful military in the world.And this is all them, by the way. This is not like other allies coming in. This is Ukrainian fighting on their own. They’re getting equipment now, probably later than they should have. They’re taking more losses than they need to, but they’re getting it. And they’re going to be able to sustain themselves probably. Question is, what does Russia do?jane coastonRight. This seems like it has not gone at all the way that Putin may have wanted. You’re seeing these tank formations, these long columns of tanks that are breaking down, just lacking fuel. So as you said, it did look like they either expected to be coming in welcomed. They expected to be coming in so quickly that there would be no defense.There have been a lot of people talking about how this is a different Vladimir Putin. Marco Rubio tweeted this weekend, “we are not dealing with 2008 Putin.” There’s been a lot of conversation about that.And I don’t like doing remote psychology, but can anyone be confident in our assessments of his decision-making? And what’s different about the version of Vladimir Putin that invaded Georgia, that took the region of the Caucasus, and this Vladimir Putin, in your view?alexander vindmanSo let me start with talking about some of the military operations. Because we shouldn’t underestimate the Russian military.jane coastonAbsolutely.alexander vindmanThat’s dangerous.jane coastonRight.alexander vindmanWe should not underestimate him as a paper tiger and discount them. Because their capabilities are advanced. They’re definitely underperforming, but I think a lot of that has to do with the political leadership. This is just my analysis. What we’ll likely find out is that Putin gave explicit guidance on doing at least a light touch on the cities. So initially, the aerial bombardments and the cruise missile strikes were on military targets and not on populated areas. That’s now shifting. So that’s the political leadership’s fault.On the military side, they’ve clearly been way too rigid. So those airborne operations were intended to go in uncontested. In fact, that was clear almost immediately that the Ukrainians were going to resist, and those forces were annihilated. But we also see that the Russian military operates in a consistent way, where they seem to realize that there is no appetite from the Russian population for anything more than a peacekeeping operation, or at least it wasn’t before. They did not want to communicate to their soldiers that they were going into a hostile environment in Ukraine.And the POWs that are being captured consistently say, we were on a field exercise, then we were pushed across the border as peacekeepers. And they were not expecting a fight. A lot of them didn’t even know that they were going into Ukraine until they arrived in Ukraine, which is shocking. From a Western military perspective, to not share that kind of stuff, to not prepare your force for combat, would be the highest form of negligence. So that’s on the military front.But for Putin, I’ll tell you that Marco Rubio frankly doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’s kind of frustrating to watch him spout off. What we would call as, you know, like secret squirrel. He’s got some secret information that he’s sharing the most watered down version to indicate that he’s in the know as some sort of political tool. But it’s kind of meaningless, except for the fact that could be significantly misinterpreted.For Vladimir Putin, over the course of his tenure, he’s become increasingly belligerent. He thought he had Russian power on a side to achieve influence in his region. He tried to muck around in Ukraine’s elections, resulting in the Orange Revolution in 2004. Then he started to use his military force because economic coercion wasn’t working. Political coercion wasn’t working to retain a sphere of influence.So he went to war in Georgia to substantiate that Russia deserves a sphere of influence. And over the course of the next, more than decade, he’s been increasingly, increasingly aggressive with little response. And the reason he did that is because he just wasn’t facing significant opposition. He basically believed that there was a lack of resolve to face up to him.And really, what we see unfolding today is a combination of both a deep misconception of the West to defend its interests, because it was inconsistent to say the least in the past, and then a deep misunderstanding of Ukraine’s independence and willingness to resist, and all of these things coming together into a huge, huge trap for Vladimir Putin. He’s consolidated the entire free world against him in condemnation and inaction.So that’s the sanctions that are unfolding, and these weapons provisions that are unfolding. And that’s something that ultimately, he might be remembered for, both this horrendous war, but also for bringing the democratic world together in defense of our values.jane coastonAnd you’re seeing it from unexpected places. A colleague of mine, Peter Baker, tweeted that “in almost every way, Putin seems to have achieved the opposite of whatever he ostensibly wanted.” There are more American troops back on the continent. The West is more united. You’re seeing Luxembourg and Switzerland getting involved, which if anyone’s paid attention to world wars, Switzerland getting involved is a pretty big deal.alexander vindmanYeah.jane coastonSo what should the United States be doing now? We see broad support for sanctions. We see broad support for the types of economic means that are taking place right now. What should happen now?alexander vindmanSo first, we should probably understand that this is still early days. And Russia is getting deeply frustrated. And all of that seeming restraint is going to evaporate. We see that today already unfolding with bombardment against Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, with a population of almost 1.5 million, a beautiful city that’s just minutes away from Russia’s border. And the Russians have been attacking it for five days with little success.And now they’re starting to press with MLRS — Multiple Launch Rocket Systems — and stuff like that and aerial bombardments. And they’re going to start using things like thermobarics, which are like firebombs and fire-based kind of artillery, to put it in layman’s terms. And these are going to inflict significant casualties and collateral damage. And of course, they’re also doing this nuclear saber-rattling, which we need to keep in mind. The nuclear saber-rattling shouldn’t be completely discounted. Of course, we need to be mindful of it, mindful of what it means for the regime that Putin feels like he’s getting backed into a corner and that he needs to make these kind of warnings.But we should also be mindful of the fact that there is deep precedence for this kind of behavior. There is deep precedence for the Soviet Union and Russia and for Vladimir Putin, who’s a Cold Warrior with a deep memory of the Soviet Union and the Cold War. The use of this kind of nuclear saber-rattling, it’s a deterrent. It’s meant to signal both a seriousness, but it’s also meant to achieve an outcome. It’s supposed to make our minds in the West race to the worst case scenario and self-deter.So the things that they can’t accomplish through force, they could accomplish through coercion. We need to be mindful of it. We need to take the proper posture. We need to make sure that we’re serious. But we also can’t simply buckle on the things that are so dear to us, because now this is not just a fight between Ukraine and Russia. This is a fight between good and evil. This is a fight between democracy and authoritarianism.And right now, the ability to kind of roll back sanctions is going to be contingent on Russian actions. It’s not going to be contingent on Russian threats. You asked what we should be doing now. We should be locking down the sanctions. We’re basically almost at the limits of sanctions. We’ve gone a long way, but they’re still able to accumulate resources through the trade of oil. But if we develop alternatives, we could probably sanction that and really crater the entire Russian economy. It’s really devastating, and that’s why the markets haven’t opened. That’s why the ruble is at an all-time low by a wide margin.And then on the military side, I think it’s important to point out the kinds of things that are critical and deep need by the Ukrainians. So they actually need something as basic as helmets and body armor. They’ve had tens of thousands of people volunteer. And they’re not equipped to provide body armor and helmets to these new civilians that are now going to take up arms. So they need that kind of stuff. They need more anti-tank capabilities, because the Russians still have more resources. They need more air defense capabilities.So these stingers — the U.S. is now providing them directly, which behind the scenes, I’ll tell you, this is something that I thought we should have done a long time ago. I was advocating for it in government. And again, I was getting those quizzical looks. Why? And my response is because the Ukrainians are going to need them. But we’re past that now. We need to drop these incremental approaches that are intended for kind of peacetime environment. We’re in a new Cold War. And we need to flip the switch.If the Ukrainians are asking for resources, we give them these resources. We’re not parochial about, oh, we don’t know if you could use this capability. If they say they want it, and they’re fighting, and we’re not — they’re the ones that are bleeding — we give them what they want. That’s where we need to provide some additional help.jane coastonI wanted to ask about the economic question here, because we’ve seen Russia’s economy go into freefall before in the late 1990s. And as the ruble destabilizes, my concern here is that putting the Russian economy into freefall makes Putin all the more powerful in some ways. If everything is going wrong for Putin, doesn’t the nuclear option become more attractive when you have him trapped in a corner, so to speak? Does that make him more of a risk?alexander vindmanThe answer is yes. The answer is absolutely yes. But that’s because Putin started a war. This is why I was jumping up and down about doing more to avert this, not waiting until after the war started to start sanctioning, but doing some graduated options along the way to signal a seriousness. In hindsight, when the history books are written, we’ll have discovered that we fell well short of what we could have done to avoid this. We’re now in it. And because there’s a war, the risks have increased.But what are our options? Think about from the U.S. perspective. Are we on the ground? No. Are we providing substantial material support? No. We have no place to go. Our alternative is to apply pressure on Europe. And of course, we played a significant role on the sanctions front. That’s not to be negated.But there is not much room for us to kind of backpedal. We don’t have a lot of room to reverse course. And we can’t do it under our fear of Russian provocation. What we need is some clarity and some signaling from Russia that they’re prepared for off ramps. Because we can start getting into our own heads and start offering things that may be meaningless.We will be negotiating ourselves, which is everybody knows is the worst thing to do. Now what we need to do is we need to keep signaling the fact that we’re open to conversations. We’re open to some different discussions. That is a door that Putin could choose to walk through, but we absolutely cannot negotiate against ourselves. Because we don’t know what’s going to be effective. As soon as Putin indicates that he’s realized that he’s not going to be able to achieve his military objectives, that the base of his support within his population is crumbling, which is not clear yet.There are protests, but we’re not there yet. But he’s ruled for this long on, really, the basis of two promises — one is no war, and the other is stability with some economic prosperity. Now he’s failed to deliver on both. He’s basically brought around the worst thing that Russia’s experienced in many decades. It may very well end up being worse than the troubled ‘90s, as they’re known. So it is a very, very difficult situation that Putin’s putting himself in. He’s definitely getting backed into a corner. And our job as a US government is to indicate that there are ways out of this thing. It’s not going to be what he wanted. It’s going to be far from his maximalist solution. He may even have significant reversals. Even those Russian controlled territories of Luhansk and Donetsk might very well have to revert back. So it’s something that’s much, much less.But I guess, I’m giving you a bit of an optimistic view that we’re past this. Russia has an enormous amount of combat power. And it’s going to get brutal, and this fight is going to get real, real ugly. Ukraine is still outmatched in terms of capability. They have much, much greater morale, which accounts for a huge amount of the success on the battlefield. But it’s not a done deal, and Ukraine needs all the support we can get.jane coastonI’m curious. How is Twitter and social media changing the conflicts? We’re seeing videos and comments being taken out of context. But it almost feels like Russia’s losing control of the misinformation, disinformation war on the internet.alexander vindmanThat’s another really interesting question I’ve been thinking about for a long time. So what was interesting that we saw unfold over the weeks preceding Russia’s war is every time Russia was preparing to conduct an information operation or some sort of attack or a provocation, the U.S. very, very quickly declassified the information and allowed the media to kind of magnify it. It’s been highly effective. You have the U.S. closing off options for Vladimir Putin, undermining his ability to indicate that Russia is fighting a just war, which is required for his own population, and undermining the pretext for war. And that is going to be something that we learn from and carry forward.On the information and disinformation stuff, we’re in the fog of war. I’ve been victim too, a couple of these types of things. I pick up on something, and I do what I guess I’ve always done. I take some personal risk and don’t look to protect myself to the maximum extent. I just try to get information out. And that’s going to result in some mistakes. But we’re in the fog of war, and I’ll take the hits.jane coastonSo let’s talk a little bit about the domestic implications of the invasion. Most people know you from your testimony in President Trump’s first impeachment trial, which was, of course, about Ukraine. Thinking back on that phone call you observed between Trump and President Zelensky in 2019, how do you think back on that call now, knowing what’s happened?alexander vindmanIt really does put everything in a whole new light. So it was always about national security. For me, there was no political angle, whatsoever. It was always about national security. It was always about the inevitable conflict of Russia against Ukraine, Russia seeking to retain control of Ukraine, to pull Ukraine back into its sphere of influence, and Donald Trump, undermining U.S. foreign policy, U.S. national security. Because I understood that this would be really dangerous for the U.S. for Russia to conduct a large war against Ukraine, and that the Ukrainians needed to be armed to defend themselves to deter Russian aggression.And when Donald Trump basically froze — I mean, not basically, when he froze security assistance, he was sending a signal to Vladimir Putin that it’s OK to attack Ukraine, that the U.S. isn’t resolved to protect Ukrainians’ interests, that Ukraine is isolated, that Ukraine is vulnerable. That sent a signal to Vladimir Putin, kind of incrementally adjusting his calculus. Is this opportunity real? Because the needs always have been there, right? He started this war in 2014. The need to hold Ukraine back in was there it’s the opportunity that was unclear.And initially, he started to take the temperature checks certainly under the Trump administration. With the Ukraine scandal and the president’s corruption and abuse of power, when the Senate failed to hold Donald Trump accountable, that opened the aperture for opportunity. By the time you get to the insurrection, that’s it. That was probably right about the decision point. He knew that he wouldn’t have Donald Trump as president. He knew that he wouldn’t have Donald Trump willing to break NATO. There’s wide reporting now that Donald Trump was keen on pulling us out of NATO.So that’s what Putin was looking for. And in the absence of that, the insurrection was probably — I mean, we’ll see. These things will have to get declassified eventually. But I think that was a big tipping point, because he saw an immense of vulnerability in the United States. He assessed that the U.S. was distracted, enfeebled, paralyzed, that the U.S. wanted to focus on long-term confrontation with China and was looking to normalize the relationship with Russia. And that’s when he started to build up. That’s clear.He started to build up in the spring of 2021. And that this operation has been planned for more than a year. And he was taking the temperature of the Biden administration. And he is seeing if he could extract concessions from the Biden administration. There was a summit in December 2021. He started ratcheting up the pressure. And last thing to mention on this domestic politics, we are a superpower. What we say matters. What we say is meaningful, not just domestically, but around the world.And when Fox News, when Donald Trump, when Mike Pompeo, when Tucker Carlson encouraged Vladimir Putin, encourage Russia, that’s meaningful. That’s meaningful, because it again opens the aperture of opportunity. It’s what drives Putin’s calculus to conduct this operation. And it’s what undermines deterrence.So when President Biden talks about powerful sanctions coming, when we start providing assistance to Ukraine in the December-January time frame, counterbalancing that are these anti-Americans. Because they’re fighting against American national interests. That is what ultimately takes us to the point where Putin was already thinking in that direction.He sees the opportunity. Deterrence is undermined. And I imagine that somewhere, we’ll learn that he gave a go order, maybe even weeks ago. And we’re putting the last pieces together.jane coastonI’m curious as to your thoughts on that, because we have seen this seemingly rapid change of opinion from a large swath of the — what I would call kind of the anti-anti-Putin right, where it’s so much so anti-Biden and so much anti this administration that it becomes supportive of Putin —alexander vindmanYeah.jane coaston— this idea that he is secretly very strong and secretly very wise, which goes back to Trump and goes back to this idea of a strongman. But I do want to know like, what influence do you think that those viewpoints will have? They’re not the majority, to be clear, among Republicans.alexander vindmanYeah.jane coastonBut what influence do you think they will have on American interventions? And how does anti-war sentiment play into what America does next?alexander vindmanSo let me start with saying that this is a moment for unity. This is a moment where we need to invite the Republicans, even the ones that were denouncing Ukraine days or weeks ago. It’s time to invite them to redeem themselves and to provide support to defend U.S. national security interests. This is the moment.But I could also tell you that there will be a reckoning. It’s like these folks, for some reason, missed all the telltale signs of the fact that they’re walking into an ambush. And that’s what they did. They walked into an ambush. They were touting and elevating and idolizing Vladimir Putin days, hours before the attack. And they’ll pay. They will pay for that at the election booths, absolutely. Because they own it.I explained that Vladimir Putin was taking the temperature check to figure out if this is something you could do. And they gave all the signals, so they have blood on their hands. This war is on Putin, but they are in part responsible. And they will be held accountable. I think it’s hard to not see every channel, including Fox News cover this.And this may be a way that it starts to lift the fog of Trump and Trumpism. At least I hope that it’s the case. I think this is actually a turning point maybe for us too.[MUSIC PLAYING]jane coastonWe have this tendency sometimes, as Americans, to make everything about us. And to see everything as being secretly about us, that like Russia invaded Ukraine, because people use gender neutral pronouns. Can you de-Americanize this conflict? Is this as much about us or Trump or Biden or Obama’s action or inaction in Crimea, which is a separate point that I think is interesting about whether that gave Putin some sort of a green light in some way?Is this as much about American involvement and America as we think it is? And can you help me calibrate the degree of responsibility America should have in this conflict?alexander vindmanSo it is not about us. It is not about us. We help explain the why now, not the why. The why is between Russia and Ukraine, between Russia and the Western world, between Russia and the fear of democracy. It’s the Ukrainians’ desire and drive towards democracy and Western integration and a lifestyle that is responsible for this conflict. It’s the clash of two ideologies.Putin cannot accept the perpetual fear and danger of a thriving Ukraine on his border because the population would inevitably say, why do we not enjoy those freedoms? Why do we not enjoy that prosperity? That’s the direction Ukraine has been consistently heading in.And with regards to Donald Trump and Biden, I wouldn’t say Biden was weak. I’d say Biden was resolved and firm in defending U.S. interests and values. But he also was probably a bit myopic. Because we have 20 years of bilateral relationships that caused the administration to look at this relationship through a soda straw, so the options were limited. And the things that we were open to doing, even five days ago, were much, much more narrow than they are today.But President Biden deserves a lot of credit within the bounds of U.S. foreign policy of 20 years for holding the line and for now stepping up and doing the right things. I think there’s more to do. I think at the end of this, Ukraine is going to need — again like, this is just to show orders of magnitude. There was a supplemental request for I think $6.4 billion. Multiply that by 10. That’s what it’s going to take to rebuild Ukraine. That’s what it’s going to take to realize a Western Ukraine that’s earned its place, I think, amongst the great nations of the Euro-Atlantic alliance.Now let me deal with this Trump nonsense. Because it is ridiculous, this idea that somehow, he would have prevented this war. Yes, he would have prevented the war because he would have attempted to give away Ukraine. He would have ended NATO, and Russia would have unleashed a long-term hybrid warfare that would have probably, ultimately culminated in a military confrontation anyway. We’re in this situation where there is a major war in Europe. He contributed to that in a major, major way, and he owns that.jane coastonSo is this the beginning of a strategy by Putin to attempt to forcibly recreate the Soviet Union? We see the language that he’s using about what he believes Ukraine to be, that he does not recognize Ukrainian identity? Do you think that Ukraine would be enough for him?Is there an endgame here, especially if it’s not about Ukraine? There’s been this idea like, oh, Ukraine bullied Russia, which no, no. I can read a map. I understand how bullying works, but that Ukraine is Russia, and that all of this is Russia. With that in mind, what is the end game?alexander vindmanSo it’s interesting. I mean, there’s a lot that we could learn from history. Frankly, the reason the Soviet Union looked the way it did with these 15 republics is in large part because of Ukraine and Georgia. There was a strong nationalist sentiment as in sense of self, sense of language, sense of culture. And Lenin had to accommodate that. And instead of recreating a communist empire, he established a Soviet Union to allow for space for that.Vladimir Putin is not interested in that kind of enterprise, at least, not ultimately. And it’s hard to understand where he wants to end up. But he certainly wants Ukraine under his thumb within his sphere of influence. There is a small chance that he could have rolled in as a peacekeeper, put in a puppet regime, and rolled out. That was his objective.And that puppet regime that would slowly kind of migrate Ukraine back into Russia’s sphere of influence on the template of this like union state that Belarus and Russia have established, where it continues to get closer together until boundaries become so muddled and so transparent that it’s basically one state. So that’s part of the enterprise, because for Vladimir Putin, his ideology is greater Russia, followed by little Russia, which is Ukraine, followed by Belarus.But it likely doesn’t end there, because if he’s successful in establishing that core, then irredentism and his desire for power would continue to manifest with acquisitions in Georgia at minimum, who’s been a thorn in his side. I mean, in the worst case scenario, Ukraine could still fall. It would be a catastrophe.But it would fall in a way where Russia would have to maintain forces and conduct counterinsurgency operation for years. That would be supplied by European allies. So slowly but surely, they’d be probably bled white. It’s not what he had envisioned. Under all situations now, it doesn’t end the way he had conceived.jane coastonIt seems like this is in Russia and for Russians, a lot of people are referring to this invasion as a gamble. How big of a risk do you think he’s taking here, especially domestically? I mean, there have been at least 6,000 people arrested in protests across Russia. This war is incredibly unpopular. You’re hearing rumblings of objection in the Duma, oligarchs sort of speaking out. You’re seeing the oncoming crash of the Russian economy. The ruble is at an all-time low.Do you think that he underestimated the degree to which this invasion would be unpopular? Or do you think he cared at all?alexander vindmanI don’t think he cared that much, but that was another major miscalculation. You make decisions based on assumptions. A fundamental assumption was that the Ukrainians would roll over. A fundamental assumption was that the West would be weak in its response. A fundamental assumption would be that the Russian population would take it, because security services and repression of dissent. Those are three massive, massive miscalculations.Part of that is that he’s been so insulated and unaccountable to anyone that there had to be people that understood that this would be unpopular or that it wouldn’t be a cakewalk with regards to Ukraine or that the West wouldn’t come back with some serious repercussions. But these are fundamental assumptions.And I think this is the beginning of the end of Vladimir Putin. What we haven’t started to bake in yet, and what the Russian public hasn’t start to bake in, is this devastating human toll. This is the fact that Ukrainian cities are being bombarded. Civilians are being killed.And if, in fact, there are 4,500 Russian dead and those body bags start coming back, or mothers start to ask about their children, that’s going to be untenable. That is going to cause shockwaves in Russia. It’s an earthquake for Russia that potentially reformats Russia in a different direction.jane coastonI think my last question for you is, everything is a breaking news headline right now. I will not lie to you, I also have Twitter open. Because I was joking with our producers, like something is going to happen while we are doing this. And we’ve already seen horrifying news of the bombardment of Kharkiv.alexander vindmanYeah.jane coastonWhat is the thing we should be focusing on? We’re going to be getting so much information and misinformation over the next hours, days, weeks. What should we be focusing on?alexander vindmanYeah. So I’ll tell you that we’re in the fog of war. We’re not going to be able to get it all right all the time. I think, unfortunately, we need to get ready for a world where there are a lot more civilian casualties. There’s going to be more nuclear saber-rattling and threats. Because Putin, we have to remember, has not faced serious opposition for 22 years. His mind is kind of locked in into a particular direction. Now he’s facing it. And his instinct is going to be to double down.So we’re facing an acute situation. But our fight or flight reaction, we need to fight that urge to flee. Because the stakes are too high here. If we don’t hold our ground here, we are setting ourselves up for even more serious confrontation down the road that doesn’t have to do with Ukraine, something closer to home.And what we need to remember is that there are precedents for this. He’s not suicidal. He’s not a madman. He just needs to be recalibrated. And that’s what is going on here.jane coastonIs there anything else you want to tell me? Anything else that you think is important for our audience to know?alexander vindmanI would just lastly say, my thoughts and prayers go out to the Ukrainian people that are living this. They’re fighting for their homes. It’s tough to think about that, tough to think about the personal cost. But there are millions of people under threat right now. And they’re fighting for our values and our interests. Sounds hokey or something, but I think we’re all Ukrainians at the moment.[MUSIC PLAYING]jane coastonAlexander Vindman was director for European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council from 2018 to 2020 and a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel. His book is “Here, Right Matters.” Finally, I think a lot of news coverage and the way we talk about Ukraine is, as I’ve said, Americanized. So if you’re not American, especially if you’re Ukrainian or Russian, I’m wondering how you feel about what’s happening and how you’re taking everything in. Leave me a voicemail— 347-915-4324.“The Argument” is the production of New York Times Opinion. It’s produced by Phoebe Lett, Elisa Gutierrez, and Vishakha Darbha. Edited by Alison Bruzek and Anabel Bacon, with original music and sound design by Isaac Jones and Pat McCusker, mixing by Pat McCusker. Fact checking by Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Special thanks this week to Kristina Samulewski.[MUSIC PLAYING]