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It's August 15, 2024, and time for the world next week. I'm Carlian Robbins. Bob McMahon is off this week in Scotland, Lucky Man, and today we're joined again by our colleague and friend, Miriam Elder. Miriam's a reporter and editor specializing in Russia. She's worked for the Moscow Times and the Guardian, as well as Buzzfeed and Vanity Fair. And she just finished a year as the Murrow Fellow here at CFR. Miriam, welcome back to the show. We are so lucky to have you with us. It's my pleasure and I'm the lucky one. So Miriam, let's start with the Kursk region of Russia, where last week, starting on August 6, Ukrainian forces suddenly broke through Russia's border, surprising not only the Russians, but pretty much everyone else keeps backers in Washington. I think the Pentagon was pretty surprised the White House as well. The Ukrainians have since gained control over a few hundred square miles of territory, and the Ukrainians are claiming around 390 square miles. They've taken more than 100 Russian soldiers prisoner, and this is the biggest attack on Russian military air fields since the war began. Some 130,000 people have fled or been evacuated from Russian towns and villages. What do you think Ukraine is going for here, and do you think it's going to pay off for them? What a stunning turn of events. Like you say, not only has Ukraine taken territory in Kursk, but on Wednesday, they launched a massive drone attack on Kursk, but also on Veronège, Belgrade, Nizhny Novgorod. This is really the Russian heartland. Ukraine has sporadically attacked Russian territory mainly by drone in the past, but we've never seen a coordinated attack of this size since Russia launched its full-scale invasion two and a half years ago. The war has really, as they say, and as Zelensky has said himself, it's really come home. As for what they're trying to achieve and whether it has paid off, that remains to be seen. We're well into the second week of this attack, and Ukraine has not outlined its goals. One theory is that it's designed to pull Russia's attention and resources from a grinding fight in Donetsk and towards this incursion. So far, that does not seem to be happening. There are unconfirmed rumors that Russia will throw conscripts at the battle in Kursk rather than the hardened troops that they have serving in the territory that it is occupying in Ukraine, but we'll have to see how things unfold in coming days. And why does it matter if they throw conscripts at it? I mean, certainly they won't fight as well. Does that help Ukraine beyond that? Well, it helps in terms of Russian public opinion, and that's another thing that experts and the Ukrainians themselves are really watching. Russia, even though it's an authoritarian state, public opinion matters to some degree, and if you'll remember both in the war in Afghanistan with the Soviet Union and then the war in Chechnya, it was the mothers of conscripted soldiers that really formed a significant movement against the Russian authorities. And so there's a lot of fear in the Kremlin against throwing conscripts at the issue, both because, as you say, they are not trained in the way that the other troops are, but also for any blowback in Russian society, that remains the number one goal of Vladimir Putin is his hold on power. And I've been actually really quite surprised. The White House and the State Department, the Pentagon, they've all been doing this dance about are the Ukrainians using American weapons? Are they using NATO weapons? Did they tell you? Did they not tell you? Basically, what people are saying, not for retribution is they didn't tell us. We were surprised as the Russians were. Right now, everyone's doing a happy dance because the Ukrainians seem to be doing remarkably well here and humiliating the Russians. But up until now, and particularly the United States has been really concerned about pushing Putin too hard and what he could possibly do. And this has been, I think, they've held the Ukrainians back to the detriment of their ability to fight the war. Is this dangerous? I mean, could Putin lash out in some really frightening way or have we basically self-deterred too much? And this is perhaps the only thing to do to push them back as hard as possible. I mean, I think both those things are true. On the one hand, there's definitely a lot of concern that Putin can lash out in some unforeseen way. He hates to be humiliated and how humiliating is the fact that the Ukrainians literally just rolled over the border with no resistance. So there is a lot of fear. He's certainly very angry. He had a televised meeting with some officials earlier this week, and it was clear, clear that he was infuriated with them and with the whole situation. Whether, you know, the West has put too many constraints on Ukraine, that can also be true. The Ukrainians certainly think so. The war has not been going their way. Certainly this year, we had the failed counter-offensive and how stunningly have they changed the narrative, you know, literally overnight. How is this playing inside of Ukraine? I mean, people were really despairing, and I think also questioning Zelensky's leadership, because things have been going so poorly. Is this really giving him a big boost at home? It's certainly a morale booster. I don't know that it will change overnight, you know, political feelings about him, but it also sort of doesn't matter, because there are no elections for the foreseeable future. But it's certainly the sort of morale boost that you needed first and foremost within the armed forces themselves, and then within broader society, for sure. Might this affect any future peace negotiations? Zelensky certainly doesn't seem particularly interested in negotiating right now, and the Russians are holding so much of his territory, but is this setting them up for the beginning of peace negotiations, potentially? It could potentially play a role for sure, and I'll give a big if here, but if Ukraine can hold on to this territory, which is a big if, there is thinking that if there were peace negotiations at some point in the future, the Ukrainians could use it as a bargaining chip. There is growing support within Ukraine, or not support, but understanding that this war might have to end in a way that is not just outright military victory, meaning through talks, but there is still a lot of opposition to ceding any Ukrainian territory to Russia. So in theory, if the Ukrainians could hold on to this piece of Russian territory, maybe they could use it as a bargaining chip with some of the territory that Russia is trying to hold. But as you say, there are no talks on the horizon, but we'll see what happens over the coming months. I read this really intriguing quote. I think it was in the Times today. He was a woman in a shelter who had been evacuated from the Khrushkor region, and she said she had been in the shelter since the start of the war. And when she was asked how long that was, what she really meant was since the start of the Ukrainian invasion. And here was somebody who lived right next to the border with Ukraine. And as far as she was concerned, the conflict only began last week. That's by design of the Russian government. There are certain regions that have faced drone attacks and things like that from Ukraine. And there are certainly people who have lost loved ones fighting for the Russian military over in Ukraine. But for the most part, Vladimir Putin's message, the message of the entire media apparatus that he controls, has been, you know, things are fine. Keep living your life. This is the contract that he has struck with the Russian people for decades now. Don't worry about politics. Don't worry about what's going on over here over there. Focus on your life. Let me handle the big stuff. And that's why it's so important that this attack is really bringing the war home to people in a very visceral way. I suppose one final question here, which is we've heard about destruction of some military bases or airstrips. Does this have any, giving the Ukrainian any tactical benefits as well? Are they destroying enough equipment to make a difference in the war? Or is this really mainly psychological? No, I think it's both strategic and psychological and to some degree tactical as well. Some of the airfields that they have struck have been used by Russia to attack certain parts of Ukraine. So I think the idea is also to limit Russia's ability to attack certain parts of the country. But again, you know, I think that it's over time that we'll understand what the Ukrainians are really trying to achieve here just as they launched this attack in secrecy. They have kept the goals, be they strategic tactical, what have you. They've kept everyone in the dark by design. But Carlo, let's bring it back to the United States. So next Monday, August 19, the Democratic National Convention begins in Chicago. The Democrats have endured a long tumultuous campaign season to put it lightly. But the party appears to be enthusiastically behind Kamala Harris. In a virtual roll call, the Harris Wall's ticket secured the support of 99% of the Democratic National Committee delegates. But still, there are a small number of uncommitted delegates and a somewhat larger number of uncommitted voters opposed to US support for Israel in the Gaza war. And thousands of protesters are vowing to make their voices heard outside the convention hall. So Carla, is the Democratic Party as united behind Harris as it seems? We'll see. Of course, Democrats have a long history of forming circular firing squads that didn't happen in the handoff from Biden to Harris. There was no competition for the nomination. There's not going to be a brokered convention. In fact, there isn't even going to be a roll call vote next week. As you said, that was taken care of virtually. And as you note, Harris and their running mate, they secured the overwhelming majority of these votes. But the divisions over Gaza and US support for Israel have not gone away. And it is the most profound division within the party. I think Harris has done a good job as good a job as can be expected, trying to navigate what is really politically unnavigable inside the Democratic Party. Her markedly different rhetoric on the suffering in Gaza and her earlier than Biden call for a ceasefire has earned her another look from some pro Palestinian groups. But just a look, I mean, they want a decision and they're not going to get one. She also got a lot of attention for her steely reaction to chanting protesters at a rally in Detroit last week, which is now being referred to as the Detroit staredown. It's not going to get any easier than that. Certainly not going to be easy next week when thousands potentially tens of thousands of pro Palestinian protesters are vowing to march in Chicago. I think the Democrats worst fear, of course, is a replay of the chaos of the 1968 Chicago Convention, certainly something I remember, probably too young, but I certainly remember it. When police in anti Vietnam war protesters battled it out in the streets of Chicago, there were even brawls on the floor of the convention. I was looking at a clip the other day and security guards roughed up CBS correspondent Dan Rather on camera with Walter Cronkite looking on dismay. And for TV viewers especially, it looked like the war had come home to the United States and the Democrats never recovered from that moment. In fact, given that history that you put those words together, Chicago and Democratic Convention, when I heard that the Democrats had decided to put the convention this year in Chicago, I thought to myself, what the hell were they thinking? And that was certainly before this big split over Gaza. So why did they do it? Well, you know, the Midwest is really important. Big Union city is really important and they decided to go forward with it. But you can be sure that even minor scuffles in the street, you know, President Trump is a big history of attacking so-called Democrat cities as crime dens and hellholes. And he once even said that Chicago was worse than Afghanistan. You know, this is going to be really tricky. It's an enormous challenge-managing protest peacefully. All that is in the hands mainly of local police. Chicago police got really low marks on the way they handled the George Floyd protests. So while it is a policing challenge for Harris, the stakes are really, really high. As for the uncommitted delegates, the times had a really great story this week. They're about 30 of them and they did interviews with some of them. A lot of them said they understand that Trump would be far worse for their cause, but they are still hoping for a full airing of their demands at the convention. You know, they want an arms embargo in Israel and party is not going to put that in. They've been requesting a private meeting for Harris. Maybe they'll get that. They've been requesting speaking time during the convention to make their demands known. Certainly the party wants to portray complete unity on the convention floor. They want to cool things out. We'll see how much they can pull it off. Do we know if the party is planning to address the Gaza issue from the stage of the convention, whether they've invited anybody or anything? Because we know that before that Detroit protest, Kamala Harris met with a couple of the leaders of uncommitted Michigan. Are there any plans to address it head on? There's some discussion about bringing together hostage families as well as political representative, potentially a Muslim city councilman who is not a direct leader of the uncommitted movement, but related to the uncommitted movement, bringing them both, whether it will be on prime time or not, whether that will satisfy the uncommitted, certainly unlikely to satisfy the people in the street itself. But I'm sure that they will make some effort to air some of the concerns. The uncommitted wanted to have a big address by an American doctor who'd been working in Gaza to describe the suffering. I just don't know how far they're willing to go to satisfy these demands. Unity is incredibly important. And I think if you listen to Harris herself, I think she is genuinely moved and genuinely concerned about this. I mean, it's profound. But right now, unity is incredibly important in balancing the demands of the different wings of the Democratic Party. This is one of these things. It's impossible to square the circle, but they're going to really, really try hard to score it this week. And probably the biggest challenge is not going to be inside the hall. The biggest challenge is going to be outside the hall. So we'll have to see whether the Chicago police can pull it off. But even the most minor of scuffling, you can expect the Trump campaign to make a big deal about it. Miriam, let's shift to another US election issue, which is foreign hacking. Last week in the Trump presidential campaign announced that some of its internal communications were hacked by Iran after Politico and the Washington Post reported receiving internal campaign documents, specifically opera research on now GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance. The FBI then put out a very brief statement that had begun investigating in June attempts by Iran to hack both the presidential campaigns. And yesterday, Wednesday, the Google Threat Analysis Group wrote that a group in Iranian Group APT 42 had targeted, quote, "the personal email accounts of roughly a dozen individuals affiliated with President Biden and with former President Trump." What about those emails? Is this 2016 redox? And are we going to do a better job of not getting crazy about it? Well, we've all been kind of waiting for this, right? The hacking of campaigns seems to be a new feature of our politics at least since 2016, as you rightly mentioned. And experts have been warning for months that adversaries like Russia, China, and Iran could seek to influence the election. The specter of Iran was first raised by Microsoft, right? When they revealed last week that a group run by the intelligence unit of the revolutionary guards had hacked into the account of a former senior adviser to a presidential campaign who now appears to be Trump's buddy, Roger Stone. I love this. I love the fact that it's back. Of course it's Roger Stone. And while the FBI is investigating, no U.S. officials have yet publicly blamed Iran. But it would fit with a general pattern, especially when it comes to Trump. From exiting the Iran nuclear deal to ordering the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, Trump has long been an antagonist to the country. And there have been concerns within the campaign that Iran would try to retaliate, not just by hacking, but by harming Trump himself. But back to the cyber stuff. So I guess one way to think about it is what is being done to better protect both campaigns. And the fact that the FBI is investigating is important for a host of reasons. One of them being, you can quote Adam Schiff here who said last week that federal officials have to release all their information because quote, transparency is still our best deterrent against foreign influence operations. And the thing is here, you're dealing with Trump, who's notoriously suspicious of the federal government in general, and the FBI in particular. So you have to wonder how much information they're really turning over, how cooperative they are being. And the campaign, when they first discovered this, they didn't actually even tell the FBI. No, exactly. So I'm sure that there's a secondary concern here, the hacking being first and foremost, but secondarily, when you have a campaign that has structured itself as being so suspicious of the FBI that then they won't call on the FBI when they need their help, you have to wonder how the investigation is going to go over the next few months and whether that leaves the window open for further attacks. I think certainly Iran has good reason to want to make life difficult for the Trump campaign. Although if you listen to Google and you listen what the FBI said, they seem to be equal opportunity offenders. They seem to be going after both campaigns. And likely they are not the only ones, you know, spreading their hacking wares. The Chinese have a long history of doing it. Certainly, we know the Russians have a long history of doing it. Then you've got the fact of the whole domestic chaos, which is. And if I were going to predict trouble in the campaign season, I could spend at least as much time looking domestically on questions of disinformation and people challenging the results of the vote. And so I've got a few questions I want to talk about. I think maybe the first one is to go back to this question. What about her emails? Certainly, I think there's no question about this, that we in the press really, really did a terrible job in the 2016 campaign. And we just went completely nuts about the Hillary Clinton emails. And it was the bright and shiny, you know, object. It was, you know, six-year-olds playing soccer. Everybody chasing this soccer ball. So far, there was the JD Vence Opera research. Do you think we'll do a better job this time if something, quote, more damaging gets hacked and the hack and leak operations show up? Do you think that we've learned our lesson in the media? I think some lessons have been learned for sure. You know, back in 2016, the famous case that came out of that was these emails dropped through WikiLeaks. And suddenly everybody has a story about John Podesta's risotto recipe. You know, does that clear a bar for newsworthiness? No, but also, you know, the field was truly unpracticed then. That was an unprecedented situation. So I have some sympathy for people trying to muddle their way through how to do this. And then you look at what's happening now, which is supposedly what we know from Politico, the Post, and I think the New York Times as well said they got these emails, is that it was opposition research on Vence, but it was all, you know, public statements. So at that point, we haven't seen the reporting coming out of this, because at that point, you know, the hack is the news, right? And the content of it is all out there already. And by using it, maybe you do play into an nefarious operation. So I think we're already seeing the media being more cautious. Now some critics are spinning that as well. The media goes hard on Democrats and is so soft on Trump. I don't think that that's the case here. I think that there has been reflection, probably not enough. I'm sure we'll see plenty of mistakes as we always do. But the way that I've always thought about working with hacked material is, first of all, every single one is a difficult call. But the information has to rise to a certain bar for it to be usable, because you are, at that point, part of some sort of nefarious operation. And certainly you have to always tell your reader, your listener, your viewer who benefits. You know, why have I been given this information? And I don't think that there was anywhere near enough of that going on in 2016. You've got to figure out what the motivation was. And as much as John Podesta is a wonderful cook, and there were other things that were there, I mean, we're obviously much more sophisticated now. But there were these Hillary Clinton speeches to bankers and all these other things. And that everyone acted as if these things were the focus of her alleged hypocrisy and all that. But it was inside the look and the fact that anything was secret, secret becomes news. And I think we're more sophisticated now. But I think perhaps the most important thing is to try to figure out why we're getting what we're getting, you know, who's benefiting from it. And but making the decision of, I mean, there are people out there who say, if it's hacked, you don't report it at all. I don't subscribe to that. No, I agree with you there. And I mentioned the risotto as something that is just silly and fluffy and ridiculous and should not have been published. That's an invasion of privacy. There is no public service. It's just like salacious, a salacious risotto recipe. Whereas some of the stuff is truly newsworthy. And I agree with you entirely about the secrecy issue. You know, remember, in 2016, when we had Trump standing on the stage, I believe it was in Florida, calling directly to WikiLeaks, saying if you have the emails, or to Russia, I'm sorry, to Russia. Yeah, exactly. If you know, and that was public. So people sort of rolled their eyes if it had been done secretly, and somebody had found an email or a note passed across a table, it would have been the scandal of the century here. It was just another thing that Trump spouted from a stage. I agree. And it's one other thing that is since I also believe that that some of the biggest problems that we're going to be facing in the next weeks, I fear, have to do with domestically driven disinformation, as well as all the stop the steel challenges. And you do see things in the scene in this in Georgia right now, this organization that's on local county levels that are developing about people who are going to challenge every result and try to delay the reporting we're seeing this, you know, state by state, county by county, the certain numbers of people who are gearing up for it and people casting doubts on the legitimacy of voting by mail and all the things that we saw in 2020 that are going on. This question of legitimacy of the election, but the FBI, as so far has been saying, is that if there is domestically driven disinformation, that they're not going to be calling balls and strikes, that they will raise alarms about things that are internationally driven, but that for domestic, they're not going to call balls and strikes, because they're not in the truth deciding business itself. That's pretty disturbing, which I think puts more pressure on us as journalists to be fact checking things. And that's one of the issues itself. But there is that other, you know, question here of that the government has to decide, which is it is should be in the business of defending the legitimacy of the electoral process. That's not a partisan exercise. Defending legitimacy of elections is not a partisan exercise. And the Obama administration really was late in raising the alarm. They decided not to raise the alarm, even when they saw the Russian hacking, because they didn't want to cast out about it, because Trump is raising so many doubts about the election. I think somebody's got to raise the alarm when this is happening, and you can't wait till after the fact. And if the FBI is not going to say that, you know, the really serious questions being raised about, you know, and disinformation is being pushed out there, I think it puts a lot more pressure on us in the media. Yeah, I agree. And I think that there's actually plenty that can be done right now. What you're describing, having people on the ground in various states to call out, you know, alleged election improprieties, that's been the entire organizing principle of the Trump campaign. That was revealed in an article in the Atlantic by Timo Bertha that came out a few weeks ago. This is what Trump means when he talks about, quote, election integrity. They have agents all across the country that are going to be ready to flip on a dime and do God knows what. And I think that we could and should see a lot more reporting on what they're really trying to do there. Now there's a few months ahead of the election, let people know that this is coming. One of the best ways to undermine disinformation, be it internationally, domestically, what have you, is get ahead of the story. And that's something that reporters could really be focusing on more now. So Carla, it is time to discuss our audience figure of the week. This is the figure that listeners vote on every Tuesday and Wednesday at CFR underscore orgs Instagram story. This week, Carla, our audience selected Mexico rejects Putin ICC arrest. Isn't Mexico a member of the ICC? So why is it ignoring the ICC arrest warrants for Putin? Well, Miriam, you're the Putin expert, but I think it's very unlikely that he's going to be traveling to Mexico anytime soon. So this issue is likely moot. But as you said, Mexico is a member of the International Criminal Court, and it is obligated to arrest him under an ICC warrant. And it stated refusal is another really depressing reminder, both of the limited power of the court and a really depressing reminder of how Russia is not paying nearly as high an international price as it should for the crimes. And it is committing a lot of them in Ukraine. So why are we talking about this? Mexico invited Putin to the October 1 inauguration of its new president, Claudia Shinebaum. The government's explanation was it invited every country and organization it has diplomatic relations with. And apparently there is no carve out for countries whose leaders are under indictment for the war crime of kidnapping children. And when the news of the invitation got out, Ukraine's government sent a request to the Mexicans that they fulfill their ICC obligation. And Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador Amlo told reporters, quote, "We can't do that. It's not up to us." The court, remember, has no troops, doesn't have bailists, doesn't have anybody. And so it relies on member states to arrest and deliver the accused. And cases can't go forward unless they are brought to the Hague. There's no in absentia. Now, Mexico is not the first one. Other states have failed in its obligations. South Africa hosted Sudan's former dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2015. Jordan hosted the Sudanese former leader in 2017, despite the fact that he was under indictment on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes for his role in that horrific campaign in door four. And he is still at large. But you'd really think that Mexico, given its history with the United States next to war and losing a good amount of its territory to us, would be sympathetic to the plight of Ukraine. And it has voted twice to condemn the invasion, but it also abstained from a UN General Assembly vote on suspending Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. But you really, this latest move, inviting Putin to the inauguration and rejecting their obligation to arrest him, well, there's no other word for it. In Spanish, you'd say it was San Vergoinza, just completely lacking in shame. They should be embarrassed. I saw that they also invited Nicholas Maduro, which seemed somehow even cookier. I mean, that's basically putting a call in on this disputed election, is it not? San Vergoinza. Okay. And that's our look at the world next week. Here's some other stories to keep an eye on. Indonesia celebrates its Independence Day in its new capital, Nusantara, for the first time. And Fiji's Prime Minister, Sichivani Rambuka, wraps up his 10-day visit to China. Please subscribe to the world next week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review while you're at it. We really appreciate the feedback. If you'd like to reach out, please email us at TWNW@CFR.org. The publications mentioned in this episode, as well as the transcript of our conversation, are listed on the podcast page for the World Next Week on CFR.org. Please note that opinions expressed on the World Next Week are silly those of the hosts not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. Today's program was produced by Esther Fang, with director of podcasting Gabriel Sierra, and special thanks to Helena Copens-Johnson and Emily Helle-Smith for their great research assistance. This is Emily's last week. We're really going to miss you. Thank you for all your hard work. Our theme music is provided by Marcus Ekaria. And this is Carla Robin saying so long and Miriam, it's so great to see you again. Great to see you, too, Carla. Thanks for having me. [BLANK_AUDIO]
