 and welcome to this special Lowy Institute panel for International Women's Day on the War in Ukraine. I'm Natasha Kasan, Director of the Institute's public opinion and foreign policy program. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which the institute stands, the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, as well as the traditional owners of country throughout Australia. I'd like to pay my respects to their elders past and present. The world has been transfixed on the war in Ukraine, from the brutal invasion by Russia to the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people. This war, a tragedy in so many ways, brings together many of the most worrying trends and looming concerns in 2022. We've seen the targeting of civilians, the potential for nuclear escalation, the use of economic sanctions as a theater of war. The rapid pace of events are hard to keep up with, ceasefires have held for mere hours, nuclear reactors have been shelled and international reactions have changed by the day, partially as a result of a mass outcry in international public opinion. To unpack some of these dynamics to date and where to from here, I am pleased to introduce this special panel. We have Dr Olga Olenikova, a senior lecturer and director of the Social Impact Technologies and Democracy Research Hub in the School of Communication at the University of Technology, Sydney. She is named among Forbes's top 40 global Ukrainians, Forbes's 30 under 30 in Asia, and researchers diaspora and democracy in Ukraine. Zoya Shevtolovich is a contributing editor and reporter at Politico and the editor of their Brussels and London playbooks. She was previously a technology reporter in Brussels and has also worked as an investigative journalist in Australia. She has written about her experiences growing up in Ukraine through the Chernobyl disaster and has been covering the crisis in Ukraine on what seems to be a 24 hour basis. Dr Maria Repnikova is an assistant professor in global communication at Georgia State University. She is the author of two books, Chinese Media Politics and Chinese Soft Power, both with Cambridge University Press. Her research looks at the role of media and governance in authoritarian states with a focus on China and Russia. Now Zoya, let's start with you. Can you please tell us more about the origins of this crisis? For many in our part of the world, this war started last week, where this conflict has much deeper roots. So can you take us back to where these tensions between Ukraine and Russia start? That's a difficult question to answer because it's a question of how far back we go. You could go a very long way back to the fall of the Soviet Union, but I think perhaps we go back to 2014, which was when the Maidan Revolution removed a Kremlin mole in the Kiev government, who was previously acting in a pro-Putinist agenda. And the Maidan Revolution, which was a popular uprising in Ukraine, saw the removal of that government and the replacement of that government with Petro Poroshenko, who was a more pro-Western force who was looking to get Ukraine to join the EU, who was looking to get Ukraine to join NATO. And at that point for President Vladimir Putin of Russia, that was a quite unacceptable move from Ukraine, where he felt his influence would be diluted and where he felt that his grip on power in Russia also would be diluted. And in response to that initial Maidan Revolution, that was when Putin's forces masked as they were as local separatists essentially invaded Crimea and Donbass and annexed Crimea and installed the Luhansk and Donetsk so-called People's Republics, which were really just essentially pro-Kremlin pro-Kremlin separatists who were looking to rejoin with essentially what was the form of USSR. In response to that, there was, I mean, at the time, the West did not react in the same way that they have reacted now. Essentially, in response to that, the sanctions were minor, the reaction was minor, and that would have emboldened Putin to come back and finish the job later. Then when we fast forward to 2019 and the election of the current Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, who is pro-Western, who ran on an anti-corruption platform and who has in the period since his election, cracked down on Kremlin influence further in Ukraine and who has essentially attempted to get rid of some of those Putin cronies and Putin puppets from his government and from the Ukrainian parliament. In response to that, Putin has essentially been watching that unfold and has been essentially poised to act. And I think probably the final, well, the second to final nail in the coffin was the crackdown in Ukraine against Medvedchuk, who is a Putin loyalist, who is his daughter, is Putin's goddaughter Daria. When Zelensky started a crackdown on Medvedchuk, when he started to investigate him for corruption and for profiteering off of the invasion of Crimea, and when he banned his pro-Russian TV channels, that was probably a really key moment. And then, of course, we had the Afghanistan withdrawal that the US and the West did in 2021, which would have emboldened Putin greatly because what he saw there was an abdication of responsibility from the West and the Taliban rolling back into Afghanistan and being welcomed with open arms. So that to me, those are probably the key moments that have led us to this hot war in Ukraine. That is a remarkable potted history. Olga, I want to bring you in on this. Do you kind of see these factors as the same? And do you attribute the kind of, I suppose, the point of these tensions to the Remedon protests? Yeah, I think Zoya provided a super fantastic overview of what was actually happening. And she pointed out that everything started what we have today basically in 2014. Yeah, we can roll back in history further down, but probably the most pivotal moments were happening in 2014. I also agree that definitely there was all the facts. And probably I think maybe there'll be a different reaction of Ukrainian people if all this happened in 2014. If we look into exit polls, a lot of Ukrainians were against NATO at that time. Support for NATO was very small. There were more pro-Russian attitudes that were dominating based on the exit polls. If he would pursue this type of scenario in 2014, who knows what it will get to. Now it's a completely different story. If you look into some exit polls, but again, they're not, you know, it's not a national referendum, but they give some indication of the attitudes. People are more, of course, pro-NATO, more than 60% want Ukraine to be part of NATO. Now probably the rhetoric has changed in the last couple of days, because Zelensky is seeing he's not getting enough support. And there's a lot of, as well, disappointment probably with the NATO actions in Ukraine. And we see a shift in dialogue from Zelensky's side against NATO. Is it again, is it a result as well of the peace talks that they had recently in Belarus on the border? Or what exactly it's leading us to? I think we'll see in the next couple of days. But definitely I think the situation could be potentially different in 2014, just even if we look into the national support. And maybe Kharkiv, you know, the small pro-Russian cities would be more welcoming, because now there is full-blown resistance. Anti-Russian sentiments are everywhere, even in eastern Ukraine. So it's very hard, like it's very hard to convince people to love Russia again, because it's how you would do that after all of this. And I don't know, it's a very risky adventure for Putin to do it now. Maybe he did not estimate that this type of risks, that things will happen like that. And Ukraine is definitely showing a huge, you know, patriotism and huge, huge, I don't know, self, I don't even want to find the words for it, because it's just a heroism what people are doing on the ground. And the whole mobilization of Ukrainians globally as well, the aspers are really pushing, love being interests of Ukraine here, they're asking for military support. You know, as you can see in Australia, Scott Morrison did a lot of positive statements, and they sent as well the jets into Ukraine, I think, yesterday, or maybe, yeah, maybe on Friday, I'm not sure. But yeah, plus there's a lot of companies that are closing down the operations in Russia, or they are trying to remove the services in two to Russian users. So there's a lot of mobilization as well, not just inside Ukraine, but outside. And this acts as a super global force that hopefully will we can't we can't compensate the actual NATO support or, you know, proper response from Western countries, additional to sanctions, but definitely this civil mobilization, I think, does a huge work in supporting Ukraine in this fight. And yeah, we can just project, and I think we'll discuss today what will be the future, right, how the future can look for Ukraine at this stage. Yeah, absolutely. I think we'll want to talk about that, talk about NATO and the Ukrainian public, as you say. But I want to bring in Maria at this point, one of the perhaps more surprising elements that we've seen has been protests in Russia against this war, you know, and people facing quite significant penalties and incredible risks in that system to protest in that way. Is there a way to know how the Russian public are reacting to what has happened? Yeah, it's a tricky question because serving public opinion in authoritarian context is always very difficult, right? We have certain numbers and public opinion surveys coming in about the reactions to the war, but there are some caveats. So latest survey, it's the state affiliated survey that was carried out by an agency called SOM. They found that about 60% of these surveys support the war, but there are various caveats. So, for example, the war is not described as the war, it's called military operations. So it's much more contained, you know, efforts of the framing of the questions already yielding certain responses, like it's kind of influencing how the response is being framed. But then also, there's a generational divide and a colleague at Exeter University at Exeter University just analyzed the statistically he found that actually younger people don't tend to be supportive. And that's why we also see, I think, more younger people coming out in this protest, especially in big cities like St. Petersburg and Moscow, and some gender divide as well, which is interesting, more women against the war than men. So we see that as well. So there's some shifts, but again, it's quite difficult to capture the entirety of public opinion. The images we see from big cities don't necessarily represent the other towns and cities and Russian propaganda is still quite forceful and, you know, arguably persuasive, especially for older generations who are watching it. Yeah. Yeah, it's really hard to keep track on, but it is amazing in this moment that we are kind of seeing what is happening on the ground in Ukraine and on the ground in Russia kind of via 24 hours social media, you know, the the war is on TikTok, so to say. Zoya, you know, I've been reading your updates, which are of course a public service. And it feels like in about a week, you've gone from headlines about Ukraine slamming the inaction of the West to reporting on sanctions. As Olga just said, we've seen President Zelensky go from, you know, being quite supportive of NATO to now perhaps being more critical of NATO. How do you think the international reaction has changed in such a quick time? And what do you think is driving that? I think the images that we're seeing out of Ukraine as this war develops and as Putin gets more and more cruel and more and more destructive have really galvanized people. I think part of the thing that makes this war so visceral for us in the West is that these streets look like our streets. This isn't some foreign place that you can't possibly imagine yourself in. You're seeing shops, Western shops, you're seeing people who look like they're just going about their daily business, all of a sudden having their lives entirely turned upside down. I think that narrative has been very powerful and it doesn't feel far away because it's in Europe, it's on the continent of Europe, it's neighbors with EU countries that we're seeing attacked in this way. So I think there has been a huge mobilization of people who are interested in this area who are horrified by the scenes that they're seeing coming out of Ukraine. I think there's also a general feeling of, so I think in the initial stages of this attack, what I was seeing and what I myself was expecting was a swift and brutal end to this war. When I first heard Putin announce that he was going to be essentially declaring war on Ukraine, it was around, it was in the mid-afternoon in Australia, I was editing, I'm the editor of London and Brussels playbook, I was editing and just listening to things, I'm always looking on Twitter, I've got Twitter up on my screen and I saw this what looked to be a Putin speech and I turned on the sound on my laptop, I usually have it off and I'm just watching. I heard the words that Putin said and I knew immediately that this was a declaration of war and when I called my boss in Brussels to wake him up, it was the middle of the night, it was around about four in the morning in Brussels time and I said, hey, Lisa and Putin has just declared war and the conversation that we had was that probably Kiev would fall within 24 hours and we were planning for that and the fact that then when I woke up the next morning and Kiev was still standing, Zelensky was still in Kiev and he was giving these incredible speeches from on the ground standing on the streets of Kiev, that I think has really increased the amount of global attention because I think if it had been over quickly, if we hadn't seen these scenes that we're seeing, both of the heroism on the ground and also of the brutality of the Russian attack, things would have been different. In terms of how things have changed, I think everyone is quite shocked by the speed and the severity of the Western sanctions and the way the world has really gotten behind Ukraine in this but now I think what everyone is waiting for is for a no fly zone. That's really and that is the gift of NATO. I understand why it is proving so difficult and I think a lot of people don't necessarily see, look, do I think it's the right thing to do to implement a no fly zone? I think probably yes because I think what people are not recognizing at the moment what the West doesn't seem to be willing to admit is that this is not a war of Russia versus Ukraine. This is a war of Russia versus the West and Ukraine is a proxy of the West that Russia is using to, Putin is using to essentially push forward the kind of worldview that he is looking for. So my feeling is that one way or another NATO is going to get involved and the question is how many people have to die before that happens. That is a personal opinion, that is not something that, you know, that is, it's not something that we make the call on obviously, us journalists, we just have to see what's happening and call it like we see it but I think there has been this shift in opinion where people are asking, hey, why isn't there this no fly zone? Why are we allowing cluster bombs to be essentially dropped on civilian areas? And I think that's a question that NATO and that Biden and that EU politicians are asking themselves also, how long do we wait? When do we draw the line? And I mean, it's probably a conversation for another day, but what you say about this idea that people can kind of see themselves in a place like Ukraine and it looks like their streets, it really, you know, points to this longstanding issue in our policies where, you know, here in Australia we've just had the government say that there's plenty of space for Ukrainian refugees, but of course there isn't plenty of space for other kinds of refugees. And I think, you know, we have to kind of understand the many thick reasons why this has captured the global moment. But part of that is certainly, as you say, the speeches of Zelensky, the kind of heroism of the Ukrainian people. Olga, you know, I wrote an article that you wrote in 2017 talking about Ukraine as a young democracy that had to prevent its economy from collapsing, had to secure international support to defend its territory. You know, how do you see the kind of the way the Ukrainian people have pulled together in this moment and, you know, how do you think that they've responded in Ukraine and internationally to this moment? Yeah, yeah, so many years has passed since 2017 and so many things have changed. The main thing that hasn't changed for Ukraine, what we're seeing at this moment as we are seeing how war is unfolding, is the mobility and the people are just using every effort, both in politics and parliament in there through the NGOs, through their pro-democracy groups, to actually pull Ukraine out of ex-Soviet past and to try to escape the neo-imperialism, which is basically unfolding now from the Russian side. Ukraine, yes, it's a young democracy, but, you know, there's a lot of criticism as well. There was a lot of criticism before the war started, right, about how Ukraine was called deficient democracy by Volga Merkel, for example, one of the leading scientists in democracy area, that, you know, of course, Ukraine, some people called even Ukraine a failed state, because Ukraine failed to fight corruption and it reminded a lot about, it reminded a lot of the parliament reminded a lot of oligarchic networks that, you know, have their own representatives and then they try to fight for the power. But all of these skepticism, I think, and all of the challenges Ukraine has stood against in the, especially since 2014, being, you know, caught in this war, because I think we should call what was happening since 2014 a war already. Now we see just another escalation probably, a hard, a full-blown war with military equipment and, well, we can say the trash is really there, right, on the ground, because before that there was a lot of denial of this. It was challenging for Ukraine to, of course, to maintain its economic stance. If we look into GDPs, what was happening in Ukraine since 2014, it was really dropping. Yes, the Ukraine population didn't get richer. Yes, you know, we have problems in democracy as well. We have problems in freedom of speech. There was as well some, I think, some movements from the Ukrainian government to harsh as well on cracking down on their position media resources. Yes, it's a work condition. But again, you know, if we want to maintain and live by the democratic, you know, pluralistic rules, we still have to have some element of that voice present, at least other opinions. And Ukraine was criticized for this as well. But, you know, you can't, you should, we should all pay credit to Ukraine and to the presidents, actually, Poroshenko as well as Zelensky for where Ukraine got itself, right. We got visa free regime with European Union countries since 2017. We, yeah, this, this was some more moves, you know, in for Ukraine to join you more than just association agreement. But again, it's still in process. Hopefully the recent letter of Zelensky to you will result into EU membership. But again, it's not about security. It's more about it's not guaranteeing Ukrainian security. It doesn't guarantee the support of the West, you know, in military stances, but it solidifies the Ukrainian Western position, I think, and it it shows that Ukraine has moved quite far from its post Soviet past from the communist past. So there's a lot of challenges as well internally in Ukraine. It was, there were many challenges, right, since 2017. But I think, you know, I don't know what could be possibly done differently because having such neighbor Ukraine is a country that can't, you know, geographically just stand up and leave this space geographical space. So we are neighbors with Russia, we will have to deal with their imperialistic attitudes. And how we do that, that's the huge challenge, right? And I think for Zelensky now it's a very big challenge because I think he wants to save lives and probably maybe do some peace agreements with Russia. Again, right, if because how can you withstand Russian even quantity of the army and how you can, you know, fight for long with such a big powerful from military side of things in even by just by quantities neighbor. I think Zelensky has now challenges, what to do to actually accept some idea of the rules or demands, right, that Russia is posting or is it's going to be super bloody and it's already super bloody, but do we are they going to fight until the last, you know, Ukrainian or what's what's the the logic there, right? So it's pretty scary. And I think it's getting now scarier for me personally as well, because I start to see my friends posting on Facebook on LinkedIn how the friends some of the friends are dying. It becomes more personalized thing that then just, you know, some headlines. Plus, you know, how my grandparents and Kiev as well, you know, and they have this all the medical, you know, pharmacists, chemists shops are closed, you know, in the 85 the list they live through Second World War. So imagine, do they really need this at the end of their lives with no access to medication to food even. And and the Kiev is doing okay, relatively right, comparing to Mariupol and to Harkiv at the moment. Again, can like I couldn't even imagine that we will have these problems in 21st century and Ukraine will go through those problems that they'll be knowing not enough food, there'll be no water electricity and so on. So I think for Zelensky it's really hard as well to because he understands I think that West probably wouldn't step in. I don't think maybe no fly zone will be introduced because Biden made some, you know, statements maybe he'll change his mind, but it looks like West will, you know, yes, they'll do sanctions will be pressure, hopefully it will exhaust Russia, it will put more pressure on Russia economics and so on. But you know, is it enough to, you know, help Ukraine stay in its composition? Because what actually Putin did yesterday, I don't know if you saw if any of the experts here saw his speech last night, where he said that, you know, he's basically giving a last warning to Zelensky and that it will mean a loss of sovereignty for Ukraine. If Zelensky does not, you know, do any moves to what, because what they're saying is that, you know, all this vacation corridors that they're creating in Mariupol Russian side says that it's Ukrainians who are bombing, right, the vacation corridors and people just can't get out. But it's not them who are for, you know, shelling and doing, you know, killing the civilians. So it's really hard, they're whole rhetorics on both sides, I would say, as well as hard because on Ukrainian side as well, there's a lot of fakes. And I understand, of course, you know, to keep patriotism high, you need to keep, you know, momentum and say that, you know, we are winning and so on. But again, as well, we, I think we are here, you know, in Australia and globally, we don't really understand what is happening on the ground, how many people are dead, all this reports that are coming now in and Russia just recently released their reports, right, because it was always Ukraine who was saying, who was putting forward numbers for civilian deaths and for military deaths. But Russia just stepped in, I think, two days ago as well and announced their estimations, which are different to Ukrainian. So it's really, it's so hard to tell and probably the reality is different from both, you know, of these figures. So it's, it's really tough situation. And yeah, I, yeah, I really, my biggest question would be, you know, what the future of Ukraine looks like, will there be this Ukraine, this composition, or will it be, you know, will East join Russia and will Kiev and the West stay a small Ukraine that will be part of the EU? Is that the future or what's, you know, will Ukraine be able to secure its territory as it was before, before this war? Again, I'm not sure about that. So that's, you know, we're just all watching how it all unfolds and yeah, I can just, you know, analyze what we see. But what exactly is happening? I don't think we have a full understanding of actual dynamics there. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And part of, you know, our roles as analysts far away is to kind of look at the big picture and look at the politics, but the real personal costs are, you know, often, often they missed in the conversation. I'm so sorry about your family. And yeah, it's, must be really, really difficult. The point about the information space, I think, is a really interesting one. It is hard to know exactly what's happening. I too feel as though I'm only getting this kind of Ukraine is winning side of the story. Maria, I wanted to go to you and ask about your views on Russia's management of the information space. You know, as a China scholar, I kind of seeing a lot of what we expect from China's management of public debate with, you know, banning Twitter and Facebook. So what do you think about the way in which Russia has been managing the information space? Yeah, I mean, first of all, I wanted to echo Olga's comments about just how differently Russian media presents the whole conflict. If you watch it on a daily basis, which I've been trying to follow just for research purposes and curiosity, it's just stunning how the propaganda operation has, you know, manufactured the crisis in a completely different way. I mean, you see the same story being told from opposition or completely opposite framing using very emotional narratives, characters, it's almost like a theatrics, you know, like you see so many different characters, you don't know if they're real or fake. I have no idea, you know, we can't really document exactly, you know, whether this is real footage. So lots of really, lots of challenges just tracking to what extent this coverage from Russia is genuine or how much of it is 100% propaganda. I think it's hard to discern. But in terms of just overall management of information space, up until this past week, I think Russia and China were actually quite different when it comes to information governance is something I've been writing about for a while is that there's kind of a different form of state capture of the media in Russia and China. So in the context of Russia, most of it is through economic means, most media that are quite influential that are owned by the state or they're friends of Putin. So you have this kind of capture that's primarily done through economic tools, and even the more independent media can be easily controlled through various like tax police, accusations and economic means basically to threaten to shrink media media coverage and to shift its coverage to be more pro-Kremlin. So you have this various targeting, but in the context of China, we have much more institutionalized control, where the media actually is owned by the party directly. And it's a bit similar to Soviet Union. We have ministry or propaganda type of thing, but there was all kinds of institutions that control the media directly. So it's much more direct, institutionalized, and more intense control overall. So up until again, last week, we saw a lot more space. Even it's a small island of media outlets, but they were able to report and critique Putin and critique a lot of sensitive issues, including this conflict. But now, of course, we saw that many media either left or were forced to leave, and there's almost no one left. I think Nova Gazeta is one of the only ones that is still there, but it's, it had to censor its coverage. They actually publicly made a statement about, you know, they're not able to really report fully because otherwise they're facing various threats from the regime. So we are seeing like some shifts in some ways that make Russian media landscape look a little bit more like China, especially on social media as well. You mentioned Facebook and Twitter, are banned. They've been banned in China for a very long time as well. But still, I guess, in the context of China, there's also content filtering and even on, you know, Chinese language sites, like their own Facebook, they have their own copy of everything that we have here in the West, their domestic platforms, they're also very intensively, intensely censored. So I think Russia is still a little bit freer in that sense, but the space is shrinking and it's been quite just overwhelming to watch this dramatic shift in the past week. Is this forever or is this temporary, you know, or goes over it up and it was a long-term future for Ukraine was a long-term future for Russia, right? Is this it in terms of any media freedom or is this something that's going to revert back once and when? I don't know when this is going to be over, of course, but is this like kind of a way to shrink the entire space for media and civil society through this mechanism of war, right? Because this is a way for Putin to maintain even more power. Or is this a short-term, medium-term kind of a policy? And of course, many journalists have fled. I've been also watching on Twitter, some of my acquaintances and friends of others literally leaving and crossing the border even by foot, you know, trying to leave to the Baltic States and other places just to get out. So are they going to come back? You know, all of this is quite uncertain, but the space has certainly dramatically changed, you know, over the past nine, 10 days. Yeah, I think that's it's really interesting to see the way in which that's changed. And one of the things that I think is really important to hear, you know, out in other places in the world is the kind of information environment that people are being exposed to. So maybe if I could just stick with you for one second, could you tell us how is the war being justified in Russia? Like what are the kind of messages that people are receiving? Yeah, well the primary message is, well there's several messages, but I guess one of the key framing devices is to basically accuse Ukrainian and Ukrainian governments of representing Nazi forces, fascist forces. So the word fascist fascism and Nazi Nazism is being kind of co-opted and completely redefined by Putin. So the notion of, you know, these fascists and Nazis, they're ruining not only Ukraine, but they're threatening Russia because of their alliance with the West. So, you know, as I think Zoya and maybe Olga also mentioned that this is not just the war against Ukraine, it's the proxy, you know, the war against the West. So constant notions about the West. It's the West that's threatening Russia and the very independence and territorial sovereignty of Russia. So it's not just about Ukraine and combining and unifying the two, but it's also about just overall kind of long-term future of Russia. So Putin is really positioning it as an existential crisis for Russia, which I found, you know, interesting. And people are reacting, those who believe it react very emotionally, as if, you know, Russia is under threat, Russia is the one that's, you know, being suffocated by the West. And the military threat in particular, the border, you know, the borders, NATO, putting equipment and various threatening signals, military signals coming out through Ukraine. So Ukraine is a proxy and the way he's describing Ukrainian people is that they're either on the side of fascists and Nazis or they're co-opted and basically they're gullible. So they've been brainwashed. So he's kind of feeling so either feeling sorry for Ukrainians who are, you know, co-opted or he's accusing them directly of joining this very wrong movement that's going to be crushed. So yeah, so it's sold in very uncompromising terms. We have to win or else Russia itself is going to lose any significance, any meaningful existence. So the victory has to take place. It's something that we cannot resort to failure. So that's the message that I'm getting from Washington's speeches. And I mean, Zoya kind of paradoxically, you could argue that Putin launched this war to try to limit the expansion of NATO, to limit the expansion of the EU and the opposite has happened. His oligarchs can't access money all over the world. You know, we've seen pretty remarkable things, right? Switzerland joining in on banking sanctions, Sweden sending military aid. Like these are things I would not have expected in Europe. I wonder if you could tell us about what Putin's goals are now and whether they've changed, what would be acceptable from his point of view? It's really hard to predict that. I think the thing that you've got to understand about Russia is that there is no free media. There is no free speech effectively anymore. And so Putin is able to shape the narrative in whatever way he wants. The picture of the war that Russians are getting, as Maria said, is entirely different to the reality on the ground, which is expected in war times anywhere, but is extremely so in Russia. Putin can essentially turn around and say whatever he wants. And that will be the narrative that Russians for the most part swallow, those who are left in Russia. Because at this point, not only are journalists leaving Russia, but I've spoken with many, many people who are doing everything they can to try to get out and paradoxically are struggling because of all of the bans on flights in various spaces. It was actually very difficult for the Russians who want to leave to be able to leave. They can't use their visa and their mastercard. So in some ways, these sanctions have been quite difficult for the people who are actually trying to get out of Russia to who don't support this stuff and who want to leave and go somewhere else. But the point that I'm making is that essentially if Putin decides that victory looks any particular way and presents that as a victory on state TV and on state radio, it isn't going to take very much to convince Russians that he has won. In terms of what personally for him will be acceptable, I think, again, it's a very difficult question to answer. I think the thing that he wanted more than anything else was for the war to be very, very quick for it to be relatively bloodless and for him to be able to replace Zelensky with someone he likes and who he is able to control. Having failed at that, the question then becomes what is he going to be able to accept in terms of like as a man with a giant ego, as a man who genuinely believes Ukraine and Ukrainians are inferior, that it's a country that's being ruled by a clown. How does he then respond to that and what is a win for him that he feels he can take? I think unfortunately at this point, I'm not sure that anything other than the destruction of Ukraine is going to be enough for him because I think he's committed to a particular path at this point. Once you destroy the cultural heritage of a country, once you attack a country, once you make the sort of statements that he has been making, you can meet yourself down a path that is very difficult to deviate from because the fact is that these sanctions will remain. So it's not like he can say, oh, whoops, overplayed my hand, pulling back my troops, all the oligarchs get their money back, Nord Stream 2 gets switched back on and we're back on track. At this point, Russia has taken the economic hit, it's been priced in. And now it's a question of what does he, what can he achieve? Now, what he really wants to achieve is to get rid of Zelensky. And the question is, are his mercenaries going to be able to find him and kill him? And if they do, what then happens to the image of Zelensky? Does he then become a martyr around whom everyone essentially is able to coalesce and unite? And the interesting thing is the reinvention of Bandera in this because this is, I mean, the thing, so one of the things that Putin frequently says about Ukrainians is that they are Banderas. And he is talking about a Ukrainian nationalist who fought against, well, many, many different things, but he fought against the Soviets. He was a pretty, well, he was a fascist. He was a far right nationalist who was responsible for killing a lot of people in the 50s, a lot of Poles. The Poles hate him, a lot of Soviets. He also killed a lot of Jews. And this is where we're getting some of these Nazi fascist things from. This is where Putin is getting them from. The Ukrainians have now re-coopted Bandera. And I'm speaking to people on the ground, to Jewish people on the ground who are not fascists. I mean, they can't possibly fascist fascists in general, because fascism and Judaism aren't incompatible. But these are people who, until very, very recently, would have viewed Bandera as a terrorist, but who now are suddenly using that image of Bandera as a unification kind of symbol that has lost some of its previous taboo and has become something very, very different. Zelensky is sort of a figure of that heroic kind of lionistic nature that people can band around. But anyway, look, I think I really struggle to see what an acceptable path here is for Putin, because I think objectively speaking, whatever happens now, Putin has taken a huge hit in every possible way. I mean, his, the economic sanctions are going to cripple the Russian economy in the long term, and they're not going to be going away if he stops. So then why would he stop, really? Because all these things that he's doing are giving him an excuse, giving him the ability to crack down further on civil society, giving him a reason to shut down dissent in camps like the Navalny Camp, who is the opposition leader who has proven himself extremely adept at social media and at galvanizing opposition. I mean, this is all kind of a gift for him in that sense, because he doesn't care about money. He has more money. I mean, the Russian state is, there is no distinction between state money and Putin's money now. Everything in the state Putin can take. So it doesn't really matter to him what happens in the sanctions front. And sure, it'll matter in the long term, but in the short term, it isn't something that he cares about. What he cares about is maintaining power. And in some ways, what this has done, what this war has done is allowed him to squeeze ever tighter all of the freedoms that Russians have been able to gain over the years since the Soviet Union. But just on that, you mentioned that there's no free media and that the information space is so restricted that a win can look like whatever Putin wants it to look like. The flip side of that equation is that these sanctions are affecting people, right? They can't use these are in Mastercard. We've seen runs on ATMs. You mentioned people can't leave if they want to. And surely that's got to be of some concern where even if people are seeing and hearing things on the news, their everyday lives are being so dramatically affected by sanctions. I think definitely, look, everyday regular Moscovites, they're going to be sitting there and feeling the difference. But I was talking to someone who lives in a small town in the country. And essentially, in his words, as long as a Russian can get his vodka and grow his potatoes and watch Russian TV, those sanctions are going to take a very long time for those everyday Russians to feel them. And in the meantime, Putin can exercise his control of the propaganda to say to Russians, hey, this is just the West trying to kill our spirit. And look, I grew up in the Soviet Union. I know what this is the thing Soviets were and Russian slavs suffering is baked into the DNA. I mean, I remember being hungry. I remember the water only being switched on for one to two hours a day. And my mom having to fill the bathtub with the kettle so that we could have a bath once a week because you couldn't really predict when the water would be turned on. I remember waiting for four or five hours as a small child to get moldy macaroni, because there was nothing else to eat. This stuff is not new to to many, many of these people. They're used to it. So it's just kind of returning to something that's like an old hug from childhood business kind of almost an nostalgia about it. I remember my grandmother when we migrated to Australia, saying, oh, life's so boring here, you can just go into a shop and get anything you want. There's no trick to it. So there's this, it's a completely different mindset. And for a lot of people, look, yes, if you're a relatively wealthy person in Moscow who can't get an iPhone, it's probably going to suck a little bit. But for a lot of people who never really quite left behind the poverty that they had always been surrounded by, this is just kind of a return to an old normal that they remember how to deal with. Yeah, and also a quick jump in on statistics, right? More than 80% of Russians, they never left Russia. They don't have even foreign passport. So they don't care that they don't, you know, they won't be able to travel for them. You know, okay, no travel. I don't need, they probably don't have visa master cards, most of them. So they don't feel that. And I think Putin is what can show to this, maybe more wealthy groups, you know, like Moscow and St. Petersburg, that they can go to China, probably, you know, they can do something in the, you know, with the other Eastern partners. And there are other options, you know, to live, probably get the iPhone somewhere from there. I don't know, right? So they will still probably, I think there are ways that they can find the access to the lifestyle that they had. But again, yeah, they'll definitely experience some problems. But the ordinary majority of Russians, they don't really, they don't. And I think Putin knows that. That's why he acted so decisively on this, because for him, support matters a lot. I think he really worries about his rankings and, you know, how people react to him, despite the fact that he made himself almost, you know, in power forever by the new laws. But yeah, but still he cares about the love, I think, of ordinary Russians. Yeah, that's just a quick comment. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's really interesting. And one of the other places that we've seen Putin reaching is to China, you know, in this part of the world in Australia, a lot of the democracy versus autocracy arguments that have been played out about Ukraine and Russia here, they're very much focused on China. And many reacted to the meeting between Xi Jinping and Putin a few weeks ago as the start of some kind of new alliance. Maria, maybe you could tell us a little bit about China-Russia cooperation, you know, it predates this recent period. And as Olga just mentioned, you know, closer ties to China might be one way in which the Russia avoids some of the brunt of international sanctions. Could you tell us a little bit about that background? Sure. So in terms of the background of the relationship, it's been ongoing kind of increasing closeness over the past, I guess, two decades or so, at least at the very least a decade. So this meeting that we saw between Xi and Putin is not something completely new, but the declaration of boundless friendship, the words they use rhetorically, at least symbolically, they're quite strong. So it alerted many Western leaders and media about, as you say, kind of this formation of an autocratic alliance or alliance of, you know, Russia and China versus the West. So there's, you know, there's a few points to make here. I mean, first of all, the relationship has gotten closer economically, militarily, politically and culturally. So there's different, you know, domains to this relationship with the increasing trade, military cooperation, Russia supplying more of the newest military weapons to China, military and kind of exchanges, media summits, journalist exchanges. We also see some geopolitical cooperation at the UN, of course, the Security Council resolutions. Most of the ones that China ends up, you know, voting against or voting down or vetoing, Russia joins in, I think 13 out of 16 of the UN Security Council resolutions were basically cojoin between Russia and China. So definitely, you know, that level of collaboration there, as well as, you know, various visions, for instance, about the internet, internet sovereignty, the idea that only governments should be managing the internet, not, you know, NGOs or civil society. So opposite vision to internet freedom that's supported by the US and the West is being supported and expanded by Russia and China and of course, some Central Asian governments as well, and many others, some in Africa also. So we see this kind of degrees of, you know, closeness and collaboration. But I think at times, Western leaders and commentators have to exaggerate how close this relationship is and take the symbolism to mean some kind of a very substantive partnership. If you look closer at the numbers, for instance, Russia is not even top 10 of China's trade partners. So, you know, they do have a closer relationship than they did before, but it's not nearly as important, for instance, to China than the United States, right, in terms of trade, economic relations and so forth. So it's not the most important partner in that realm. And also, they're still increasing and continuing suspicion of one another. So in terms of culture, but also just understanding of each other, there are very few or fewer Russia experts in China and there's some China experts in Russia, but the focus of say Chinese foreign policy establishment is still very much on the US and the West more broadly and the neighboring countries. So maybe they have more Australia expertise than Russia wouldn't be surprised. So you see this from the Russian perspective, even though, yeah, maybe some of the elites might travel to China, I don't think that's their first destination. Most of their kids, if they want to send their kids somewhere, I think it's Europe, and maybe US, I don't know about the other destinations. I don't think it's China. So I looked at some of the numbers of just how many students are currently based in Russia, China, respectively. So we have think about 48,000 Chinese students in Russia and only I think 20,000 in China. So it's not they're not very big numbers, you know, if you think about the larger numbers, I think there are over 80,000 students from Africa alone studying in China. So the flows kind of the people to people exchanges are not as developed as they could be. And trade in terms of how complementary the two economies are is also not as developed as it could be. So in my view, I guess there's less substance or maybe not as much substance to this partnership or I wouldn't really call it an access as much as you know, maybe some would like to call it as such. And when it comes to rescuing Russia from the sanctions, I think China can mitigate some of the impact, but it can't rescue it entirely. We haven't seen it fully rescuing it from the previous sanctions. I don't think it's going to happen now. In fact, some Chinese companies are also withdrawing from Russia, even TikTok has has just stopped operations in Russia. So there were a lot of sarcastic tweets today about how, you know, even China's Chinese company that's actually there's so much censorship in China itself is leaving because of censorship. There was all kinds of ironies about that. So, so yeah, so I would just be cautious to what extent China can really be like the rescuer or kind of it can save Russia from the from the harsh impact of this of the sanctions. So, so yeah, does China's kind of quiet support for what Russia has been doing? Does that matter in Russia? Does it matter to Putin? I mean, you look, for example, at the UN General Assembly vote and most of the world has condemned Russia's behavior with, I think it was about 30 countries that abstained. The only big countries on that list were China and India. Does that matter for Russia? It definitely matters. It matters in several ways. Firstly, it matters because it's part of the narrative. So it's this East versus West and China is Russia's neighbor on the other side of Europe. So it is presenting some unity from against the West in the face of Western sanctions. So I think it matters on a political level. I think it matters on an economic level. This is something that Putin actually said he said, look, bring on your sanctions. We can get stuff from China. They've been looking to replace some of the manufacturing that they've been losing from China. And also they're looking to sell some of that oil and gas that they currently can't move for love nor money to China. So there is an impact from that relationship both on an economic level and also on a on a propaganda level, because you can sell this as the, you know, as these communist brothers in arms against the West, because I think it's also a familiar stance. Once again, like this is all, it goes back to Putin seeking to reinvigorate the Soviet period alliances and those alliances involved China and Russia banding together in the face of the West. But I do think that we, when we see what we are seeing from China, I think the message of support have been tempered quite significantly and particularly recently when we're seeing some of the more intense bombing from Russia of the civilian areas in Ukraine. I think the thing that China doesn't like is it doesn't like instability. It doesn't like having to choose between its various friends and partners on the world stage. Got some friends who live in China and some real close China watchers as well, who've been sort of sharing some of the messaging. We've got a reporter in our newsroom called Stuart Lau who's a real, he's from Hong Kong. He's a real China pro. And there the indication that I'm getting from China is that they're not particularly happy with this course of action that Putin has taken. This isn't, I mean, this isn't the dream. I think there's a lot of speculation about whether Putin may have warned Xi about the fact that this invasion was coming. I think if we look at the facts and if we look at some of the reporting of some of the better known sources, I think chances are probably there was a heads up given. But the question was what did he what did he tell Xi was coming? Did he tell him it was going to be a protracted hot war where he was going to be carpet bombing civilian areas? Or did he say, oh, we're just going to do this quick military operation in and out. It'll be done in a jiffy and then there won't be any sort of long term repercussions. So I think we do have to read between the lines of some of those statements that we're seeing coming out of Russia. And I don't think anyone could pretend that Xi is ecstatic about the course. I mean, certainly he's happy when there's instability in the West and division in the West. But actually what this is showing is a real unity in the West in many ways. And I think that is somewhat problematic. And certainly the instability is very problematic for China. Yeah, Maria, what do you think about that? Because I agree. I think that there's been a lot of change in China's responses. And one of the things I've been particularly interested in is the way in which Putin recognized the so-called kind of separatist republics. I mean, separatism and secession, that's the deepest fear that China holds. So the way in which Russia's gone about this has to be a little anathema to China. What do you make of China's reaction? Yeah, I mean, overall, echoing some of the comments Zoya has made in terms of the more cautious and not necessarily very happy stance on the Chinese side. We see very different media reporting of these statements from the Chinese government and of the conflict in general. And the Russian side, it's glorified. The idea that China is standing by Russia, I've seen quite a few comments coming out by top officials in Russia saying that China is with us. It's one of our allies. On the Chinese side, we don't see that kind of commentary in Chinese media. If you look at Chinese media, the conflict is actually kind of obfuscated or sort of downgraded, and the domestic news are taking precedence. So it was just striking from the beginning to now, there's more coverage now of scenes directly from Ukraine, but still not nearly as much as say Western media coverage is doing. And when it comes to just on the ground reporting, but overall, the key story right now is China's key party Congress, you know, major party Congress is opening its sessions, and it's primarily about China's domestic economy and staying cautious and on track with its own development and very much kind of head down towards so-called rejuvenation as being closer to China dream and accomplishing more self-sufficiency, you know, so becoming as kind of buffered against potential shocks, right from the West as possible, because they're looking at Russia and I think they're, you know, clearly horrified, I think in part because of the unity of Western reaction, but also just how hard hit Russia's economy has been through these sanctions. That's not something Xi Jinping ever wants to see in China. So, you know, I think it's easy to kind of say, well, yeah, they're very happy about disorder and so forth, and they're standing by Russia, but is this a lesson they're really like deriving from this? I think the lesson that I'm seeing from the commentary is coming out, not just by officials, but on social media as well, is that there's a lot more kind of caution reflection on China's path that I have to be smarter and stronger to develop themselves, you know, to the extent that they don't have to depend on the West as much, and that seems to be the kind of line of commentary I'm seeing. So, but separatism and accessionism is obviously extremely sensitive issue, and it's underplayed, absolutely underplayed, this whole dependence claim is underplayed in Chinese media, but we also see many social media commentaries looking at Taiwan as a possibility, right? So, some of the nationalistic sentiments were actually like, well, you know, Taiwan is this like, Ukraine is Taiwan for us, right? So, basically, like, we need to protect and at some point unify with Taiwan. So, that's a very sensitive topic. Like, are they going to be, you know, are they going to be more militaristic with Taiwan as a result of this or less? And that's something that's up for debate. We don't have very clear answers yet, but there is a lot of discussion on social media equating Ukraine with Taiwan, which I found interesting. One of the reasons that equation is happening is because of the way Ukraine's being held up as this kind of democracy. Zoya mentioned the lionizing of Zelensky. So, Olga, I want to come to you here. You know, so many people are seeing this as a struggle for democracy versus autocracy. You know, do you think that's helpful? And how do you think this plays out for Ukraine's democracy in the future? Yeah, I think it's one nexus from which you can see this war. Another nexus, which was mentioned here, East-West easily, right? So, we are just, you know, in between this proxy, you know, of the West at the moment. So, we are stuck in between this origins. It's not that simple. Yeah, it's not just, you know, democracy and autocracy fights. It's a more complex issue, right? What I can say here is that it's very hard to, you know, to say how situations will unfold and, you know, what will bring, what will happen right next and who will be the triggers in this process. Definitely agree with Zoya and Maria Wright. You mentioned that yeah, basically Ukraine did, you know, Ukraine is similar to, you know, Taiwan. And as well, there are some parallels between South Korea and North Korea. You know, I just actually met another expert and we discussed, you know, how Ukraine could be potential. What can make, you know, Ukraine a successful economic political state like South Korea, a wealthy state, right? Facing North Korea, right? Mapping some parallels between Russia and North Korea. Will we see that Russia will be closed as well, will be as closed as North Korea in itself? Probably who knows, right? It actually, there are some signs that the economy will close on itself. And yeah, if I'm not an expert in China, but from what I'm hearing from, from the other experts in China, China probably is not very happy, right? Of the unfolding of the situation and Russia has huge hopes in using it in the narrative, right? To support, to have some support from the East, but again, how realistic that is. What I heard as well of some projections and, you know, there's just one of the versions is that what Russia will do, because as we just mentioned here, you know, sanctions and, you know, ordinary Russians, they're ready for the situation, probably. So sanctions did not have a huge effect. So Russia will do pursue the long term, you know, bloody war. And Biden, I think a couple of days ago, he as well warned the world, he said that, you know, after his talk to Putin, he says that it's not a fast-tracked operation, right? It will be a long-lasting actually war happening on the ground. If he wins, if Russia wins, again, I'm, you know, even my grandma, who, you know, has, you know, some Russian past because she, you know, lives through all of that. She even told me yesterday, oh, maybe Russia will lose, you know. So even if she mentioned that on, you know, giving her background, I think that's very interesting dynamics, which is happening. If Russia will win, what will happen is probably in Ukraine, right? If they will, if what I'm saying is win is that, you know, Ukraine will not exist in its, you know, borders. It will probably be, let's say, part of Russia. Okay, yes, West will react to it, sanctions will be in place, but, you know, Europe cannot last, so Europe cannot find a substitution of the fuel and all the gas resources that Russia has in the next five years. So probably what will happen is that, yes, West will say how bad all the situation is, but they will, you know, they will refresh their economic ties and they will keep buying, you know, gas and maybe Nord extreme two will be, you know, switched on and Russia will end up in a kind of win position. That's what I'm hearing from a kind of Russian, you know, side and actually some experts in Ukraine as well talking about that. On the other side, if Ukraine wins, which is likely as well, right, because, you know, Putin did not expect this type of, this type of resistance from military from as well civilians. And there's more military aid that is happening and happening now to, it's been delivered, right, from the West to Ukraine at the moment. So there'll be more, there'll be more power to fight. Yeah, so if Ukraine wins, there'll be a difference. That would mean huge problems for Russia in general. And Russian experts probably would know better, you know, what it will turn into for Russia, probably like North Korea, maybe even worse, I don't even know. So this is two scenarios which can happen. But because, you know, NATO and West, they don't step in into this conflict openly, right? Yes, they support us, but they don't declare war on Putin. If they would actually, I think she'll disguise for us, that would be as Putin, I think treats that move as the announcement of war from the West. And then the situation will evolve. That's why they're not closing the sky. And that's why I don't think they will do that, because they don't want the full blown conflict and war, right, in the whole European region. I talked to some friends as well in Czech Republic and Poland, they receive a lot of refugees at the moment. And what as well is happening on the national level is their fears as well that, you know, Russia will as well, this whole situation will impact them, not just in terms of refugees and economic burden, but it will as well have some other possible effects on their even sovereignty and so on. So this war is crippling, like, you know, even closer to that, you know, Western borders and into the Western countries. Who are you members? Even Finland, right? I think they, they, they asked to be a NATO member, or they accelerated, right, the application to NATO. They're just, they're just, they're having meetings, they're not, they haven't joined NATO. No, no, they haven't, but yeah, immediate sounded like, you know, all like Finland, you know, started to, you know, getting into scare positions and they start to, yeah, to, to look for NATO for support, for potential, right, risks. Yeah, so yeah, I forgot the question, but yeah, but the situation is really horrible. And I don't know, like, what the solution is, should, you know, or will all the guys, you know, between 18 and 60 die there fighting Russia for what, right, for against the ambitions, right, of Russia, of Putin? What's the future? And for me personally, it was really unexpected. I was thinking that he will, okay, he will take the territories, Donbass and Luhansk, they will join part of Russia and that, that will, where he stops. But I think going into the mainland and, and yeah, just doing all of this mess there, I, I was super shocked that actually this is happening. And I'm still shocked that this is how things are evolving. It is, it's incredibly shocking. I think so many people have been so surprised by this. You know, as you say, Russia has been surprised by the strength of the Ukrainian response and also by the international response. So I wanted to ask you, you know, here in Australia, we've made a series of announcements, leaf, filet, visas, sanctions. I mean, is it enough? What more can countries that aren't, you know, in NATO or in EU do, from your perspective? I think at this point, the, you have to cut yourself off of Russia, of everything. So there needs to be no gas, no oil, nothing. What the Ukrainians really are desperate for is aid from the, from the skies and whether that's in the form of fighter jets that the Ukrainians can use, whether it's in the form of anti aircraft missiles, whether that's in the form of the no fly zone. That's really what Ukraine is looking for. I spoke with a member of the resistance just yesterday. I was, she lives in Western Ukraine. She's actually a Romanian national who lives in Ukraine, who's organizing a lot of the, she's essentially running a, a hub from where they're importing things that the Ukrainians need from the Baltics and from the East, sorry, from the West and bringing it into the East. And what they need is also medical supplies. So they're desperate. She was telling me they're absolutely desperate for gauze, for bandages, for anti, for clotting medication, for things that their troops need as they're getting injured. So there are still things they desperately need. They need things to help them defend their skies. They need medication. Some countries, for instance, Moldova has placed an export ban on medication from the country. So this organization who's who I was talking to yesterday, she was saying they bought up lots of supplies. They got a big grant of money. They bought up lots of medical supplies from Moldova. Now they can't get them into Ukraine. So it's pressure onto those countries that are currently standing in the way of some of that aid getting through to Ukraine into the places that they need. That's also quite helpful. So I think there are still things that Australia and that others in the West can do that don't necessarily involve setting up a no fly zone. And I think that's the other thing. Like when we're talking about a no fly zone, we have to be real about what that is. A no fly zone means that it would be NATO shooting Russian planes out of the sky. So that is what a no fly zone is because the moment a no fly zone is announced, Putin will be testing that no fly zone to test whether it is in fact what NATO is saying it is. And so it will be essentially having to kill Russian troops and to shoot down Russian planes. And I think that is the reality of what the situation is. Now, if we're not willing to do that, if the West is not willing to say, hey, this is what we're going to do, we're going to effectively, as Putin himself said in his speech, if you put in place a no fly zone, that is a declaration of war from NATO or from the West. If we're not willing to do that, then there are other things that we can do such as pressuring neighbouring countries to ensure medication and supplies are getting through, ensuring that the correct supplies are getting through, that they're getting through quickly and that the Ukrainians can do what they need to do on the ground. Because there are not sufficient supplies yet. And for instance, I mean, I was talking to this woman last night and she was saying they are absolutely desperate for medical supplies now. There is so much more to do. But as you say, a no fly zone feels just that little bit closer to unfathomable nuclear war. It's very terrifying times. You mentioned the role of some of these women. It is International Women's Day and I feel that it's important for us to remember war has a disproportionate effect on women and children. We've seen babies born in basements. We've seen women and driving supplies through and attacked and killed by Russian troops. We've also seen women in Ukraine take up arms and join the civilian resistance, members of parliament. It is really remarkable to see. Unfortunately, we're out of time though. So Olga, Zoya, Maria, thank you so much for joining the Lowy Institute for this conversation today. Thank you to our audience for tuning in at home. I'd like to thank my colleagues, Andrea Pollard, Josh Coding, Sasha Fegan and Connor McEwen for their assistance with the event today. Head to the Lowy Institute website for more of our events and research, including to catch up on Prime Minister Scott Morrison's address at the Lowy Institute or tune in this Thursday for an address by the leader of the opposition, Anthony Albanese.