(upbeat music)

- On the Brink of War.

- As of this moment,
I'm convinced he's
made the decision.

- [Yamiche] President Biden
warns the president of Russia

has decided to invade Ukraine.

- I am here today, not to start
a war, but to prevent one.

- [Yamiche] But diplomats
continue to scramble

for a peaceful
solution, meanwhile.

- There was much in
the president's remarks

that I appreciated.

- [Yamiche] Some
Republicans support

President Biden's
handling of the crisis.

- This is not our
fight, we got other

fish in the fry
pan, so to speak.

- [Yamiche] The
concerned remained

about a military conflict.

Plus former president Trump is
ordered to testify under oath

about his business practices

as investigations
intensify, next.

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- [Announcer] Once
again from Washington

moderator Yamiche Alcindor.

- Good evening and welcome
to "Washington Week".

As of tonight, President
Biden says he is convinced

that President Putin has
decided to invade Ukraine.

Though President Biden is
continuing to stress that Russia

can still choose a peaceful
diplomatic solution.

Yet the people of
Ukraine are bracing

for a possible invasion.

US officials are saying as
many as 190,000 Russian troops

and separatists are gathered
in and around Ukraine,

a significant increase
over the last few days.

And this week at NATO
headquarters in Brussels

defense secretary Lloyd Austin

said Russia is making
war time preparations.

- We see them fly in more
combat and support aircraft.

We see them sharpen their
readiness in the black sea.

We even see them stocking
up their blood supplies.

You know, I was a soldier
myself, not that long ago,

and I know firsthand that you
don't do these sort of things

for no reason.

- Yet Kremlin
continues to insist

it is not planning
to invade Ukraine.

In response Republican
center, James Risch

said this on the
"PBS News Hour".

- The Russians lie and I
don't know how they can look

in the camera and tell the
world they have no intention

of invading and they
have amassed the
largest invasion force

that the world is
seen in decades.

So look, the world
doesn't believe it.

- Meanwhile, Russia's
government expelled

a top US embassy
official from Moscow,

a state department official,
the state department rather

called the move "
escalatory step."

Russia also warned it will take,

"Military technical measures
if the US refuses to roll back

the NATO presence
in Eastern Europe."

A lot to talk about tonight,

joining me to discuss
it and all is Dan Balz,

Chief Correspondent for
the Washington Post,

Francesca Chambers, Senior
White House Correspondent

for McClatchy, David Sanger,

White House and National
Security Correspondent

for the New York Times.

He's also joining us

from the Munich Security
Conference in Germany.

And Barbara Starr, Pentagon
Correspondent for CNN.

Thank you so much all
of you for being here.

David, I wanna start with you.

You're in Germany,

where there are a lot
of key players here.

We of course heard
President Biden come out,

and say that he is convinced

that Putin has
made his decision.

Talk a bit about sort
of what you're hearing

on the latest on this situation.

And also I'm wondering

how great is the
risk of war now,

given the path that
President Putin is on?

- Well, Yamiche I
think we are seeing,

as you suggested at the opening,

one of those rare moments

where it looks
like we could have

a very major land war in Europe.

Just a few months ago,
that near discussion

would have seemed
extremely strange.

The Biden administration
came to office worried more

about China and its ability
to be an existential threat

to the United States because
of its technological, economic,

and military prowess.

And &all of a sudden dealing

with the great disruptor,
Vladimir Putin.

the United States began to
see this buildup in October,

sent the CIA director, Bill
Burns to warn President Putin.

Who he only spoke to by phone

because Putin has been so
isolated, largely thanks

to COVID prevention.

And ever since that time,

they've just been on
a steady path upward,

until we hit the
point this week,

where the number is somewhere
between 150 to 190,000 troops.

That's more than, we had
in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And very hard to explain as
you heard Secretary Austin say,

except if you're
planning to invade.

Now it's possible, despite
the president's warning

that Putin's using this just

for diplomatic leverage
seems increasingly unlikely.

It's also possible
that he won't do

a single massive invasion.

And that's been the
discussion here today

at the opening of Munich
Security Conference,

which is the largest security
conference in Europe,

an annual event.

And it happens to
be taking place

in the middle of the largest
security crisis in Europe

in many decades.

- Yeah and David you're
talking about this sort of

steady upward trajectory,
with all that going on,

the president of Ukraine
is supposed to be coming

where you are to the
Munich Conference,

but there is some concerns
from the white house

about whether or not there
might be an opening there

if the president of
Ukraine leaves the country

for President Putin to invade
while he's out of the country.

What are you hearing about
the latest on whether or not

the president of
Ukraine will be there?

Whether or not those worries

about him being
out of the country

are sort of grounded
in anything.

- Well, he's coming here to
see vice president Harris,

who's here with secretary
of state Tony Blinken,

and they're supposed
to meet around midday.

I've run into many members
of the US delegation

who are here, a very
large delegation led
by speaker Pelosi,

but many of the armed services

and intelligence
committee members.

And most of them have said
to me that they think that

it would be a crazy thing
for President Zelenskyy

to leave the capital now at a
time that intelligence reports

suggests that the
Russians are lining up

people to go replace him.

They don't doubt he could
get out of the country.

They wonder whether
he could get back in,

and they fear for
his personal safety.

We don't know yet
whether he is coming.

I wouldn't be surprised if
at the last minute he decides

that isn't a wise
course of action.

But it tells you just how
fragile this situation is.

And I thought the most
interesting moment of the week

was when secretary Blinken
was at the United Nations,

and basically said, yes, it
sounds to the whole world,

like we are saying that
the sky falling in,

but we would rather reveal
all of this intelligence

and offer this
warning and be wrong,

and force Putin to back down
and take the criticism for that

than to stay silent and
let Putin run right through

what is the second largest
country by land mass in Europe.

- Yeah, and Francesca,
the president's words

were really grave today,
you almost had to listen

to it twice to get the idea
that he really is saying,

he thinks the president of
Russia has made up his mind.

What are you hearing about

the white house's
latest thinking here,

and also do is there a sense

that Putin is on this path and
that there is no turning back

at this moment, or they
still possibly thinking

diplomacy could work
behind the scenes?

- Well, president Biden said
today that he still hoped

that diplomacy could work here,

but Yamiche as you
were just saying,

we've heard an escalating
message from President Biden

this week about what's at stake.

Just the other day, we
heard him put in stark terms

to the American people.

What they could potentially
expect in terms of how

a conflict could
affect gas crisis.

He told Americans in Ukraine

that they needed to
leave the country.

Then he gave a direct
to camera message

to the Russian people
essentially begging them

not to go to war with
Ukraine and saying

that he did not think
that this is something

that the Russian people wanted.

So trying a number of
tactics as the white house

sought to get in
front of this conflict

and for the American
people to understand

really what's at stake
here, both from speeches,

from President Biden
that he's made,

but also in remarks that
press secretary Jen Psaki

has been making daily
from the podium.

- And as Francesca was
talking about sort of

the increasing rhetoric here,
Barbara, I wanna come to you.

What's the Pentagon
view of all of this.

And also I wonder,

could you talk a little
bit about your reporting

that you have on how
president Biden is able

to have this
intelligence to make

this statement that Russia
has made up its mind.

- Well, you know
the US military,

the US intelligence community,

and I think intelligence
services across Europe

have been keeping such a
sharp eye on all of this.

So what does the
US have at hand?

Look, it starts with
satellites overhead.

They are able to
collect imagery.

We've seen a lot of
commercial satellite images

on social media.

They can collect imagery.

They can understand
what conversations

and communications
are taking place.

You also have manned aircraft
that have been flying

over Ukraine for weeks now,

they will have to stop flying.

If a conflict breaks out, the
Pentagon is very a concerned

that US troops have no
contact with the Russians.

You will see drones flying.

These are the kinds of things
that are able to collect

intercepts all the way to
Moscow that are able to see

the heat signature of
weapons being turned on

and potentially moved around.

The Pentagon, even
keeping a sharp eye

on weather forecasts
in the region

to see how long the ground
may stay hard and freeze,

where it will be soft and muddy,

where it will be hard
for Russian troops
to maneuver around.

They have all of this in hand.

And what's so
interesting in this case,

they're letting the world know
it, it's an information war.

What the Pentagon
has been hoping to do

for the last several
weeks is make sure

the world understands
the information at hand.

The state department as well.

Make sure they understand the
so-called Russian playbook,

what the Russians
could get up to,

and hope that that would be
enough to persuade Putin,

it'll be too hard to
carry something out.

But as we sit here tonight,
I think everyone agrees,

there's just simply no
indication that Putin

is about to change his mind.

And we have this bottom line
situation where the world

is holding its breath based
on what may be going on

in the mind of just one man.

- And Dan, certainly
as Barbara just said,

the world is holding its breath.

I wonder when you talk about,

or when we think about
this information warfare,

that's going on between
two nuclear powers,

we have to remind folks that
it's information warfare,

but it's between of course,

two countries that have
nuclear capabilities here.

Talk a bit about how
President Biden sees this,

and in particular,
why he doesn't see
it as an US' interest

to send in troops to
defend the sovereignty

of Ukraine at this time.

- Well, Yamiche there's no
appetite in this country

for the United States to
enter into a new conflict.

We saw with the botched
withdrawal from Afghanistan

that while the public judged
President Biden harshly

for what happened,

they were supportive of
the decision to get out.

And the idea that we would
now send troops into Ukraine

in one way or
another is something

that the Biden administration
clearly understands

is off the table.

But I've been struck
by the degree to which

they have very skillfully used
intelligence and information

as part of the deterrent.

I've talked to
several people today,

and the only analogy that
people came up with was

the Cuban Missile Crisis.

When Adlai Stevenson
famously showed at the UN,

the pictures of the
Russian missiles in Cuba,

the Soviet missiles in Cuba
then, but for the most part,

the US intelligence
community does not want

public discussion
of what they see,

and what they believe and
what their interpretation is.

And this has been a case
in which as David said,

Bill Burns went to Moscow

last fall to basically
say to Putin,

we know what's going on.

The administration began
sharing this with our allies

in Europe, in part, I think
to help bolster the alliance,

and to get people on board
that this was very serious

and it had to be serious.

And then they have started
on an almost daily basis

to reveal everything
they seem to know,

or most of what
they seem to know,

again, so that there is no
surprise if something happens.

You know, there was a surprise

when the Russians went
into Crimea in 2014.

I think one of the
efforts is to avoid

that kind of problem now.

- Yeah, and Barbara
Russia, of course,

is talking about taking these
military technical measures.

The white house
also accused Russia

of carrying out cyber
attacks in Ukraine.

I wonder if you could
sort of talk about

what retaliatory military
technical measure could mean.

It's a mouthful.

What does that
actually mean, Barbara,

and sort of is the future
of war here cyber as well?

- Well, I think
that is a good deal

of what is going on already.

The US tagging the Russians
for cyber attacks in Ukraine,

and actually quite worried
that the Russians could come

to the United States shores
with cyber tax against US banks,

US power structures, that
sort of thing, huge worry.

What we're talking about,
I think in the Ukraine,

immediate area of
Ukraine is a conventional

Russian attack to some extent.

These troops, these
thousands of troops,

the weapons, these are
conventional heavy weapons.

We're talking tanks,
artillery, rockets, mortars,

hundreds of ballistic missiles,

helicopters, attack aircraft.

And what the Pentagon
has calculated,

the human disaster is just,

you can't wrap your
head around it.

If they go in with a full blown
invasion north from Belarus,

east and south from
Russia, from Crimea,

if they go after population
centers inside Ukraine,

the calculations is
tens of thousands

of civilian casualties wounded.

It will just be horrific
beyond on belief.

And there is a good deal of
effort to make that very plain.

It will be just appalling.

Now there are US forces
across the border in Poland,

which is a NATO member.

The US is sending troops for
deterrence and reassurance

against NATO's
eastern flank members.

But you know, in the year 2022,

we're talking about the
possibility of people,

including Americans,
still in Ukraine,

trying to escape
across the border,

into Poland with their lives.

And it just seems extraordinary
that that's where we are.

- Yeah, and David Afghanistan,

it's hovering over all of this.

The lessons learned there,

but also I'm thinking at the
same time that President Biden

has talked so much about China.

I wonder if you could bridge
those two things for us,

the lessons learned,

but also when you're
looking into the future,

what they're looking
on the horizon on

when it comes to
sort of adversaries

that they wanna keep an eye on.

- That's a fascinating
question, Yamiche.

So first of all, I think
they learned from Afghanistan

that the details matter,
even as Dan suggested before,

I think accurately,

the most Americans supported
leaving Afghanistan.

They didn't like the
way it was coordinated.

This has been the opposite.

If anything, there's been,

an oversharing, an
over coordination
because they realized

that they needed to keep
all of the allies together.

That said there are two
things that I think really

distinguished this conflict
from any that we've seen before.

The first we've hinted at.

And that is that this
is the first major,

potentially major war
if the Russians go in

that is taking place in a world
of open source intelligence

where we don't need the
government satellites.

Back in the Cuban
Missile Crisis,

it was just the right
analogy that Dan used,

the government had to
decide to declassify

the satellite photographs.

They were propped up
behind President Kennedy

when he gave this famous speech.

In this case, we're all
getting satellite photographs

every morning from
companies like Maxar

that are as good as what
the intelligence agencies

had just a few years ago.

And so in some ways that makes
the US information war case

a lot easier because every day,

there's an unclassified backup
to show what's happening.

The second thing that
distinguishes this

is the cyber capability,

because the Russians have a
way apart from nuclear weapons

of reaching to Western Europe
or to the United States,

if they wanna retaliate
for the sanctions.

That didn't exist
in the old cold war.

- Yeah, well, thank you
Barbara, for joining us,

we really appreciate
you coming on.

And this week, President
Biden also warned Americans

could feel the effects
on their wallets

if Russia invades Ukraine.

- I will not pretend
this will be painless.

There could be impact
on our energy prices.

So we are taking active steps
to alleviate the pressure

on our own energy markets
and offset raising prices.

- Now across the US gas
prices have been surging.

And this week, according
to the energy department,

those costs hit an
eight year high.

Dan, I wanna come to you
talk a bit about sort of,

you wrote this
week about sort of

all of the different
challenges that Democrats face.

I wonder if you could sort of

talk to us a little bit about
what the cost to Americans

could look like here and how
that might impact the midterms.

- Well, let me answer the
second part first, which is,

it's very difficult to
predict what this might mean

for the midterms, because
we ultimately don't know

what Putin is going to do
if there is an invasion

exactly what that
invasion would look like.

But let's say there is one,

as the president said, he
believes there will be one.

In that case, we know that oil
markets will be in turbulence

and that there could
be a substantial spike

in the oil markets,

which would substantially
increase gasoline prices

here at home and elsewhere
around the world.

That is a big problem
for the president,

and for the Democrats heading
into the fall campaign.

We know at this point,
despite many of the successes

that the administration has
chalked up on the economy,

a significant lowering
of the unemployment rate,

a substantial increase
in the number of jobs

that it is the rise in prices

that is the most sensitive
issue to voters at this point.

And if those gasoline
prices go higher,

that will have a negative
impact on the president,

and on Democrats running.

Which is why there is talk
about trying to do something

about it, try to
mitigate in some way.

But it's not clear that
this administration

or any administration, frankly,

has major tools that
can substantially change

what the markets are doing.

And so I think that their
hands are a little bit tied.

They have to look like
they are doing something,

but the question is how
effective might that be?

- Yeah, and how
effective it might be

is the critical question.

Francesca, Americans often
aren't focused on foreign policy

when they think of sort
of domestic politics,

but look to Afghanistan,

and the fact that President
Biden's poll numbers

never really recovered
after that withdrawal,

that he defended and
continues to defend.

I wonder what you're hearing
from the white house about

how this, in terms of inflation

and all of these things could
be handled by the white house,

but also how that sort of
ghost of the Afghanistan

withdrawal is
continuing to impact

their thinking about this.

- Well, I actually asked
the energy sectary,

Jennifer Granholm about
that this morning Yamiche.

And she said a
couple things here,

that in the longer term,

this is part of the reason
why the Biden administration

is focused on trying to develop
clean energy initiatives

to reduce the reliance
on fossil fuels.

But in the short term,

she did mention how they have
tapped into the strategic

petroleum reserve in the past.

And she also mentioned
in the context

of the potential conflict
between Ukraine and Russia,

the United States is working
with its allies globally

to try and increase
the oil supply,

so that supply
would meet demand.

Because that is one of
the big questions here

in terms of the
crippling sanctions

that the United States says
that it would put on Russia

in case of a conflict.

Even if the US does
not directly sanction

the oil and gas industry,

there are still
plenty of sanctions

my sources are telling
me that are indirect,

that could have an effect on
costs in the United States.

- Yeah, and Dan, a
quick question to you,

we only about 45 second left,

but we have to of course
talk about the fact

that the former
president President Trump

that he was ordered
by a New York judge

to testify along with
two of his children.

What's the significance
of that as we see

all these other
investigations intensifying?

- Well, it's a very
significant moment

for the former president
and his family,

that they're gonna
be forced to testify

in the legal undertaking that's
going on in New York state.

He's had a number of legal
setbacks since he left office.

And this is just the latest.

Now whether that the
prosecutors will be able

to get anything out
of him and his family

is another question.

They obviously can take
the fifth amendment

and say nothing.

But given that he had
been very, very hard

to avoid this moment,
this has to be considered

a major setback for him.

- And David with the 30
seconds that I have left here.

Obviously, of course you focus
on national security issues,

but you covered President
Trump, just like me.

Talk a little bit about
sort of the other thing

that happened this
week, which is that,

a judge ruled that former
president Trump can be sued

because of the
January 6th attack.

What does that mean?

What does it mean
for this white house

that this will continue

to be something that
they'll deal with?

And again, we only have
about 30 seconds left,

but I wanna give it to you.

- Sure, so, I mean, I
think the remarkable thing

about this Yamiche is
that President Trump

has believed that he
was basically immune
from court review

of anything he did
during his presidency.

And that ranged from his
personal business of work

to of course his role in
speaking to the protestors

just before they went up
and launched the riot.

And he's just discovered,
he's not protected.

- Yeah, well, a
lot to talk about.

We'll definitely be talking
more about the former president

and of course this tension
going on in Russia and Ukraine.

Thank you so much to
Dan, Francesca and David

for joining us and
sharing your reporting.

We will continue
our conversation

on the "Washington Week Extra"

this week's topic,
Domestic Challenges,

find it on our website,
Facebook and YouTube.

And for the latest
on the tensions

between Russia and Ukraine,

tune in to the "PBS
News Hour" on Monday.

And finally, as part of
this black history month,

I wanna honor former
"Washington Week" moderator

and trail blazing
journalists, Gwen Eiffel.

in 1999, she made
history on this show

when she became the first
African American woman

to host a nationally televised
public affairs program.

Gwen was of course deeply
loved by her family and friends

and by people she
made time to mentor.

- I very much embrace the
idea of being a role model

and I set out to be, and to
let you see from what I am,

that you can be that too,
that to me is role model.

And I will listen and
advise and encourage

every opportunity
I get young people

who are trying to figure
it out for themselves,

but there's nothing more
powerful than my just doing it

and doing it well.

- And she did, of
course do it very well.

I met Gwen through a mutual
friend Athelia Knight,

a long time, Washington
Post reporter.

Gwen and Athelia, two
exceptional black women,

both inspired me to pursue
a career in journalism.

And they helped me navigate
the path that ultimately

led to my becoming the
moderator of "Washington Week".

It is a deep honor to follow
in the footsteps of Gwen.

Thank you so much
again for joining us.

Goodnight from Washington.

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