Putin Escalates War, Calling Up 300,000 Reservists Transcript

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization and pledged to annex the territories his forces have already occupied in Ukraine, raising the stakes in the seven-month-old conflict. Joining us now is Bloomberg’s Maria Tadeo. Give us a bit more detail then, Maria, on what we heard from President Putin, because the mobilization starting today, the defense minister talking right now, giving us a little bit more size and scope around that.

Speaker 2: (00:24)
Yes, Anna, and it starts today. And what it means is that it’s not full conscription, but if you did serve and have experience in the Russian army, if you’re in the reserve, then you can get called back to join the front line. And of course, there’s an obligation now to do it. Now, the other thing of course is Vladimir Putin saying that he would consider this region as part of the Russian Federation and the Russian Federation has a right to protect itself. This is not a joke. It’s not bluff. That is the words coming out from the Russian president. Of course, now this is clearly now manifestly an escalation in tone and form. If you thought still there could be a diplomatic solution to this in the medium term after this, you can really kiss it goodbye. And then the other issue is how will the West respond?

Speaker 2: (01:14)
And we have hints. One is they’re not going to recognize this referendum. And then secondly, more sanctions perhaps to come involving or around the people that will put this vote to action. And then thirdly, and this is to me perhaps the biggest question of all is, how will the Russian society react to this? There is a big difference between watching a war on TV and, of course, perhaps rooting for your country and wishing Russia well, to now actually being called on the front line with a day’s notice. This starts today, and that speaks to the urgency too of the Russian army to provide manpower to a very messy front line.

Speaker 3: (01:54)
Maria, good morning. We’re obviously seeing, as you said, we’re now coming around to the view that this is definitely an escalation. We’re talking about an extra 300,000 troops, were mentioning NATO helping the Ukraine forces, which I think is quite a broadening out. And of course we’re seeing Putin saying that they will take whatever means needed to defend those territories. But what are we watching for next? The market is coalescing around an idea this is an escalation. How do we watch this for now? How do we know how much of an escalation? What are we kind of seeing for in terms of moves?

Speaker 2: (02:23)
Well, first of all, to me, we have to wait to see how the West responds to this. And we’re not going to have to wait long because every major Western leader is in New York, a United Nations general assembly. So I would keep an eye, very close eye, on President Biden today. And then of course we have to wait for the votes. Now, if you look at the Russian playbook, like the way that you did in Crimea, some of the events that precipitated the war in February, it’s very clear that this referendum will come with a resounding “Yes, we want to join the Russian Federation.” And I think it’s that process from putting the vote to essentially joining the country that will be key. And that’s where potentially violence may break out with Ukrainians saying “No, we’re not going to allow that. We want to go back to our internationally-recognized borders, going back to 1991.” And for the Ukrainians… And I’ve spoken to many officials on the record, behind the scenes, they always say the same thing. They’re not going to give away a third of the country to Russia this way. They believe everything that was Ukrainian in 1991 is still Ukrainian and should be Ukrainian in the future.