Russia’s Post-Rebellion Moves, NATO’s Vilnius Summit, Europe’s 21st Century Woodstock, and More

MCMAHON:
In the coming week, Russia grapples with internal divisions, NATO prepares for its summit in Vilnius, and Denmark hosts the largest musical festival in northern Europe. It's June 29th, 2023, in time for The World Next Week. I'm Bob McMahon.

ROBBINS:
And I'm Carla Anne Robbins.

MCMAHON:
Carla, we have to start with Russia. A week ago, when we were taping this, we were not forecasting anything about Russian domestic upheaval, and yet, that has been the story of the week. Of course, I'm referring to the mercenary, Wagner group's move on Moscow. At least it was a temporary move. Yevgeny Prigozhin directed his forces against what he called, "the corrupt and greedy people" running the military, and then turned it all around and sort of struck a deal. He called off his troops, he's now fled to Belarus. How is President Putin dealing with the fallout?

ROBBINS:
So Bob, for all of the schadenfreude for Putin's hard times, first, we got to keep in mind there are no good guys in this story. I know these are scorpions going after each other in a bottle.

MCMAHON:
Well put.

ROBBINS:
And right now, I'm preoccupied with three questions. First, why did Prigozhin think he had a chance to bring down the Russian military brass, or maybe even Putin? He had, at most, 25,000 troops up against hundreds of thousands of Russian military, assuming they were going to stick with the government. Second, why did Putin, who, as we well know, is not a forgiving man, let Prigozhin go? Once again, assuming he has let him go, because as of Thursday morning, when we're taping this, he's yet to be seen in Belarus. All we have is the word of Lukashenko, the head of Belarus, who, as we all know, is perhaps not the greatest truth-teller, says he's there. And the third question is, what happens now with the Wagner group in Belarus? Why would Lukashenko, who has apparently given them an abandoned military base, some eighty miles outside of Minsk, feel safe having them there? And what about the Wagner group around the world?

We've talked about this before on the podcast. They've been wreaking a lot of havoc in a lot of countries in Africa. Putin appears to have won for now, but I think the main lesson from all of that is that the strong man's control is a lot less certain than everybody thought. We weren't the only ones to fail to predict this. I know I sound defensive here, but Prigozhin's folly may tempt a lot of other people, unfortunately not democrats, to try to ... The same thing in coming weeks or months with more success. If something were to happen, it's far more likely to be a military coup or couped by the intelligence services, but Putin doesn't look very strong right now. 

As for what Putin now does try to do to consolidate his power, he has a long history of settling scores with his opponents in especially nasty ways. So if I were Prigozhin, I wouldn't drink any tea, or turn a doorknob, or come too close to any windows. I'd watched for a purge of anyone aligned with Prigozhin, or anyone who even appeared to be aligned with Prigozhin. It's remarkable how few members of the military elite, or the oligarchs who were completely indebted to Putin spoke out during the hours of this uprising. This general, who's very closely aligned with Prigozhin, has apparently been arrested, although we're not actually sure he was, Surovikin. We're going to have to watch the space, and perhaps most interestingly is what does it mean for the war in Ukraine?

Most of the smart people I've spoken with are predicting that Putin will try to double or triple down in Ukraine to show he is in charge, hitting civilian infrastructure, maybe even ... This is really terrifying, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. I suspect there are going to be a lot of warnings from Washington, which went out of its way to say that we were not taking sides on this one. There's got to be a lot of warnings to Putin to not get even crazier than he is. So if there's any good news in this, the Prigozhin uprising could rally flagging popular support for Ukraine and Europe, and here in the U.S., 'cause one thing that we can take away from this is that perhaps Putin isn't forever, and that it's worth holding on, so it's going to be really interesting, Bob, to see what the next round of polls say in the coming week.

MCMAHON:
And by polls, you mean the ones that emerged from Russia, from European populations, or-

ROBBINS:
The Poles in Poland. I mean, public opinion polls.

MCMAHON:
Yeah.

ROBBINS:
I mean, as we know, in the United States, support has been flagging for Ukraine, and there have been rising doubts in Europe as well, about how long to hold on. I think the notion that Putin is not forever, which I think is one of the lessons here, should very well rally more support for Ukraine, particularly at a time when the counter offensive is going very, very slowly.

MCMAHON:
I agree that what has played out in the past week in Russia is fascinating, and as many experts have said, is not over for whatever that means, it bears a closer look at the possible impact in Ukraine, whether it's a morale blow, whether any sort of capable Russian military leadership has been sidelined in this regard and what impact that has. Reporting from the field and from the front lines in eastern and southeastern Ukraine indicates that there's pretty rough fighting going on in a few areas, both fighting pressed by the Ukrainian side and fighting pressed by the Russian side. In the midst of it all, there was a missile lobed by Russia into a popular pizzeria in Kramatorsk, where the death toll is at least a dozen and rising, another really awful, cynical attack in a city that's near the front lines, it should be said, in a city that hosts Ukrainian military operations, but still, I think we're going to see a lot more of that, but at the same time, it will be very interesting to watch how much territory is gained by either side in this area of offensive and counter-offensive.

ROBBINS:
Right now, it's very hard to tell what's going on. Everyone has predicted this is going to be a very, very hard thing to do, this counter-offensive Russians incredibly, deeply dug in. There's an enormous number of mines, and there were people who were saying, "Take advantage of this moment of chaos." If you get a lot of mines there, you get a lot of trenches there, very hard to take advantage, and while people are saying that the Ukrainians are making some very small gains, these are being measured in yards, so very slow-going for this offensive. The Western trained troops, Western equipped troops are getting into the fight slowly, and we'll see what happens in coming weeks, but I do think that this chaos in Russia, these threats to Putin, I think should rally a considerable amount of support for Ukraine, at least going into the NATO summit, which I think is the next thing we're going to be talking about, Bob.

MCMAHON:
Yes, indeed, Carla. There's been some attention on, unsurprisingly in this part of the world, about what the U.S. response was. Can you talk a little bit about what was going on from The policy circles in Washington as this was playing out, the thirty-six-hour kind of surprise?

ROBBINS:
Well, Biden and co. went out of their way to say very little while the crisis was playing out, to make clear that this was an internal matter. The last thing you want to do is up the ante with the Russians. It's bad enough, and there's been a lot of reporting that say they sent the same message via diplomatic channels, but one hopes that they've also been discussing inside, how can they deter Putin from taking the worst possible steps, whether it's creating an environmental disaster with Zaporizhzhia, or even doubling down, tripling down potentially, once again, this fear of using tactical nuclear weapons. In the past, they've sent messages of a catastrophic retaliation, even potentially intervention on Ukraine's side, if Putin were to take the worst, but finding this sort of balancing set of messages at a period of time when Putin is getting ever more paranoid, rightfully more paranoid, is a very challenging intelligence exercise and a very challenging diplomatic exercise, but they and all the NATO leaders have sort of controlled the chortling, at least the public chortling, controlled the public schadenfreude, because they know that this is a particularly dangerous time, dangerous for Ukraine and dangerous for everybody.

MCMAHON:
It's been noted, especially from the European analyst, that it was important for Washington to kind of galvanize discussions amongst European officials on sort of what to look for, what are potential contingencies. Our colleague, Liana Fix, has a short piece up for CFR.org about how this should be a wake-up call to the European capitals to start planning in the event of somebody to Putin's right, potentially taking over, and what does that mean in terms of the blowback from Russia, whether it's humanitarian or security related? So a big wake-up call, an important moment, and yeah, something that's going to create a lot more attention. I'm not sure whether Belarus is going to get any more attention or not, given its little role in this affair, Carla, but we'll have to see.

ROBBINS:
One wonders about Lukashenko stepping in there, why he would want to have the Wagner group on his own territory. He's not the most politically stable of situations either, but I'm sure he enjoyed that brief moment there, in which he was the senior member of the alliance with Putin, but lots more instability to watch for, I fear. Although, when I say that, I do think schadenfreude. There's a certain amount of delight in this, but I suspect things will get worse before they get better in Russia. 

So Bob, let's stay in the region and talk about the July 11th NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. We're jumping ahead a little bit because on next week's podcast, we'll be featuring our special summer reading episode. NATO has a lot to talk about, the Ukraine counter-offensive, Kyiv's bid for membership. And a speech to his parliament on Wednesday, Zelensky said he wants a signal at that meeting, that after the war, Ukraine will be a member of NATO, so he's making lots of demands as he gets ready. It also needs to discuss its own reform plans and the sudden threat of instability inside of Russia. What are you going to be watching for in the summit?

MCMAHON:
Well, first, there'll be a bit of important housekeeping, which appears to be the case, that there will be an extension, a one-year extension for Jens Stoltenberg, as NATO secretary general, which is very important. He's been pretty widely considered to be a very strong leader in that respect, and if there's a divisions over who to succeed him, this isn't the time to get into a row over that, but rather stick with someone who's widely respected, so I think you'll see references to him staying on until, let's say, the next summit, which, I think is the seventy-fifth anniversary summit of NATO, and then also, further attention on whether or not Sweden is going to join as the thirty-second member. This will be the first summit for Finland, which joined as the thirty-first member, and so the issue of Sweden, which has been held up by both Hungary and Turkey for different reasons, is going to be out there. It seems a bit doubtful, although there's a last minute press, but it seems a bit doubtful Sweden will be cleared beforehand, but we'll see. Then, the really, really big question, as you alluded to, is what about Ukrainian membership?

I do think it is safe to say we're not going to see a timetable for Ukrainian membership, but at the same time, we will see a very strong affirmation of support for Ukraine, for bringing Ukraine closer into consultative circles with NATO, and there's various steps that NATO members can take to bring Ukraine further into its chambers and discuss all sorts of things, discussing a reaffirmation of support for Ukraine, discussing things like the commitment of NATO members to their own defense budgets, which will allow them to both support Ukraine, as well as improve their own defense capabilities, because a bigger, broader issue that's going to be watched closely, Carla, is with all the aid provided for Ukraine, and this is everything from missile defense type capabilities to tanks, to just armaments, it's become clear that the NATO members are not producing enough arms, certainly not enough arms that can be mutually used in various defense systems. I think there's going to be a lot of sort of nuts and bolts to talk about, how do they ramp up their armaments capabilities, and this is ammunition, this is sophisticated rocket launchers and so forth, and so I think that will be really important to watch coming out of Vilnius.

ROBBINS:
There's this whole 2 percent thing, this defense investment pledge. I think I saw that, actually only what seven out of thirty members met the standard in '22, and actually, that's one fewer than in '21. Big wake up call here with Russia. Should we believe them? Yes, people are definitely rattled, rattled, understates their reaction to what's going on in Ukraine, but they all have domestic politics, and there's a real long history here of free-riding. Why should we take seriously any commitment they make here on defense spending?

MCMAHON:
That is a really big issue, and you're absolutely right. I think Finland joining ups that number, 'cause I think Finland has met that threshold of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense. Sweden would also meet that if it was able to join by this summit, but that's still a third of membership at a time of the biggest European war since World War II taking place, and a great deal of unease about what's playing out on that Ukrainian front in general. There was the big pledge at the 2014 Wales Summit by the NATO leadership to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense spending, and here we are. Even with the very strong efforts by President Trump in all sorts of ways, in using very blunt language, still here we are with this low commitment level.

I think you will see expressed commitment towards increasing that, Carla, but I think the proof is in the pudding, and I think we're going to still see this sort of sluggish response, maybe gradually increasing that number. Maybe we'll get to half in a few years' time, but for the reasons you said, and potentially the Ukraine situation, maybe reaching some sort of a status quo stalemate, I think that could ease up that pressure to increase those levels. So it's a big issue. Ukraine, by the way, points out that its membership should be really front burner for the benefit of NATO. It's not just NATO coming to Ukraine's aid, but Ukraine actually being a frontline against Russia, Ukraine being an armaments factory for NATO as well. They're making strenuous points in that regard, so I think that's going to be a very interesting dynamic, in addition to this discussion of broader spending.

ROBBINS:
So when I was down in DC with you last week, I spent a lot of time talking to U.S. officials about Ukraine's bid for NATO membership, and at the time, they seemed absolutely adamantly opposed even to offering a fixed calendar, which is what Poland and the Balts have been pushing for. What U.S. official has been saying, what they're willing to agree to is this Stoltenberg idea, that Ukraine would be waived out of what is the so-called step-by-step membership action plan, in which would require regular assessment of Ukraine's progress on defense and political reform. Why is the Biden Administration so fiercely opposed to this? I mean, Ukraine, yeah, they're not ready and nobody would want them in in the midst of a war, but boy, they really are a frontline state and they're spending more than 2 percent of their GDP on defense right now.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, I do think it is the midst of the war issue, because we don't know how long this is going to be going on, and I think there's a great deal of concern that a NATO commitment to, like any sort of a clear timeline at this point, provides further fuel for Russia to say, "This is about us against NATO. This is a war against NATO," all hands on deck, and it becomes civilizational, and you start getting the nuclear rhetoric ratcheting up and things like that. That's obviously the extreme worst case. Others have said there's been plenty of red lines that have been crossed, and Russia hasn't done anything, but as we saw with the explosion of the dam, which seems to be tied to Russian sabotage in Ukraine, it was a devastating move, mainly ecological, but also to various livelihoods in Ukraine. The next step from that could be, as you said, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is a level of magnitude far beyond Ukraine in terms of the impact of something like that, and then you get to the threat of using tactical news.

If Russia isn't in that kind of frame of mind, we don't know, so I guess I'm just highlighting a bit of concern that I've seen expressed about this escalation with a firm date, as opposed to, "We've got your back, Ukraine. We'll give you your armaments you need to defend yourself," and so forth. That seems to be the way they've kind of couched it right now, Carla.

ROBBINS:
I mean, the U.S. and several other countries are willing to give the Ukrainians long-term security guarantees, if that's a distinction for Moscow, I'm not sure, but one of the other things that Zelensky, who's really not in the mood right now to mince his words, and interestingly enough, seems to be focusing his ire right now on the countries that are going to decide whether or not to make this commitment. The other thing he said in this speech was, "This can be called an absurd and shameful self-limitation of sovereignty because Ukrainians prove that Russia should not be feared." I mean, if anybody has to worry about the tactical nuke, about the Zaporizhzhia and all of that, it's Zelensky, and he seems pretty fed up with waiting right now. I was never a big fan of NATO expansion, but you got to have a lot of empathy for his position right now.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, and I would point to another piece that was on our site this week, Carla, by our colleague Steve Sestanovich, about kind of the legacy of some of the NATO declarations that has gotten tarnished over the years, from '94 when Russia joined the U.S. and other countries, and Ukraine, saying that Ukraine gives up its nukes, its sovereignty will be respected. That certainly went out the window in 2014.

ROBBINS:
I was at that signing.

MCMAHON:
Oh, were you really, '94?

ROBBINS:
Yeah.

MCMAHON:
So that was sort of the beginning original sin of these declarations. There was the Bucharest Summit, in which there was some clear promises towards membership and the membership action plan approach, and then there was the Minsk agreements that were supposed to end the crisis and the fighting over the annexation of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. So there's a whole host of things that are leaving a very sour taste in the Ukrainians' mouths right now, but I would imagine there are great many conversations they've been having, running up to Vilnius about what to expect, what could be coming, and we'll see what happens, but there could be still some very blunt language coming out of Vilnius. We'll have to see. 

Carla, I want to turn us a totally different direction, although we're going to stay in Europe. It's going to be northern Europe, and it's going to be what's called, in some quarters Europe's Woodstock, and that is the Roskilde Music Festival. It's the biggest music festival in Denmark, certainly. It showcases a wide range of performers, draws on a huge international audience, and we're in the festival season now, and when you get to summer festivals, it's Lollapalooza and it's Glastonbury, but what sets Roskilde apart?

ROBBINS:
I find this festival especially cool for its Woodstock for the twenty-first century vibe, more than 120,000 people camping out in a huge field, twenty miles outside of Copenhagen for eight days, listening to, as you said, a wide range of artists and discussing among many other topics, the significance of music for the Iranian fight for freedom, which is a discussion tomorrow, Friday at noon. There's also an onsite lab to allow young entrepreneurs to test and develop so-called circular solution products for a young audience. Yesterday, there was a drag school for anyone into glitter, sort of face painting for grownups. There's also an official graffiti gallery and a curator, and a whole lot more. It's this small city of progressive people, so that is very cool, but this is, of course, first and foremost a music festival.

This summer's headliners at the central stage, which is a large arched orange tent that's a symbol of the festival, includes Kendrick Lamar, Lizzo, Lil Nas X, and one of my favorites, Rosalía, and if you haven't heard her, she fuses classical flamenco with R&B, hiphop and Latin pop, and you really do have to listen to her. Other artists going to be there was Rina Sawayama, a British-Japanese singer/songwriter, who's best known for singing duets with Lady Gaga and Elton John, but she really has a powerful and beautiful voice, and she really writes complex lyrics, and Japanese breakfast a.k.a. Michelle Zauner, who sings alternative pop, and she's also the author of a bestselling memoir, Crying in H Mart, which is, she's gotten a lot of attention. 

But really, it's also a place for people whom I haven't heard about, and to tip us to some of the other artists worth paying attention to, we turned to two great resources: iur researcher, Sinet Adous and my daughter, Annie Gugliotta, a visual designer and my personal musical programmer. They have recommended Villano Antillano from San Juan, Puerto Rico, who is the first transgender and non-binary artist on Spotify's top 50 global charts. Rema, a twenty-three-year-old singer/songwriter from Nigeria whose music mixes Afrobeat, R&B pop with Arab and Indian influences. His song, "Calm Down" with Selena Gomez, hit number one on the Billboard Global Excl., the U.S. Chart, Burna Boy, also from Nigeria, described as a world ambassador for the Afrobeat genre, and one that I was just listening to, the electro-pop duo, Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul, I think I'm pronouncing that correctly. Pitchfork says about their work, "If you don't get its bright, assertive takedowns of racism and xenophobia, you're not paying attention," and we're going to post links to all of them on our podcast page. So there's a lot of very cool artists that I didn't know about who were going to be performing there, so between that and the discussion about art, there's also insight into octopi, so lots to listen to there in this small city of very cool people.

MCMAHON:
How much in advance does one have to sort of sign up for tickets for this? We just went through the wrenching spring of trying to see if Taylor Swift tickets were available for my daughters, so I'm just curious about how this kind of a festival is accessible.

ROBBINS:
I don't know when they sold it out, but this is a thing, and this is a thing that's been going on for a very long time. Over the years, they've had an incredible number of artists. They've had the Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, they've had Bruce Springsteen, they've had Bob Dylan twice, Wu-Tang Clan, and it's also got some very unfortunate attention because in 2000, during a performance of Pearl Jam, nine people were crushed to death when the crowd pushed toward the stage, but overall, it sounds like an extraordinary experience. It's a nonprofit and it's donated more than $60 million to a host of progressive causes over the years, since it's founding in 1971, and I can't decide if that's a lot or a little money when you think about it, 'cause it's been around for more than fifty years. $60 million, probably not a lot because supposedly artists and this whole project is pretty expensive to pull off.

MCMAHON:
No, that sounds actually a low, but this is fascinating. I'm looking forward to some reels being shared on various social media, Carla, at the very least. I'll note the Glastonbury, the most memorable reel I saw from this latest period was Rick Astley playing drums and singing an AC/DC song, so I can't wait to see what comes out at Roskilde.

ROBBINS:
You're really dating yourself, Bob.

MCMAHON:
This was this summer, I'm telling you.

ROBBINS:
AC/DC lives. So Bob, I think it's time to pivot and discuss our audience figure of the week, which listeners can vote on every Tuesday and Wednesday at CFR_org's Instagram story. This week, Bob, our audience selected, "Zambia's $6 Billion Debt Deal." What's this all about, and is this the rare upbeat audience figure, and that is as upbeat as a debt story can be?

MCMAHON:
I think if you're in Zambia, it probably is because of the real sort of shackles on their country that they've been enduring for the last several years since they defaulted in their debt payments, the first country to default in debt payments during the COVID pandemic, and it's $6 billion, the majority of which is owed to China, and a big deal here was that China was agreeing to allow this repayment agreement to take place, and China, with an extensive lineup of countries that it has lent money to, is going to be looked to more and more to be part of such deals, especially in Africa. 

Zambia was not alone in trying to seek payments from official creditors to try to build up infrastructure and so forth. There was a lot of concern that a lot of that money was lost to corruption, and the country found itself defaulting. One of the things that does is it dries up rather quickly any sort of investment, any sort of a willingness of outside investors to throw good money after bad, and so by having a repayment agreement in place, it does open the way towards some investment finally. The country has also reached a bailout agreement with the IMF, and it needed to restructure its debt under that deal. It also has private creditors that it owes billions to as well, so to answer your question, Carla, partially some good news, which I think maybe is why our audience chose it.

ROBBINS:
The Chinese are a big part of their money that was owed. Our country's beginning to see that China lending is in some sort of a debt trap.

MCMAHON:
It's a very good question, and I think certainly in Africa, you're starting to get a sense of that, Carla. You're starting to get government ministers pushing back, especially in countries that might have a little bit more wherewithal, but still in all, China has a widespread presence in Africa. It has been out early with its checkbook in terms of setting up, you name it, rail infrastructure, roads, and the other types of big projects that these countries simply cannot pay for, and we're not getting any sort of quick action on from, let's say the West, so seeing the way China deals with these and seeing that the hard line it takes, I think has given pause to some of these countries. It's going to be very interesting to see the aftermath of this deal, how this reverberates, really across the continent, though, and again, it's why this did make such a splash, I think, in terms of China, with apparently some hard lobbying by France, among other countries, China did agree to this repayment agreement and potentially kind of eased the way and maybe opened the door towards a new way of dealing with countries that owe it billions of dollars. 

Well, that's our look at The World Next Week. Here's some other stories to keep an eye on. The UK takes over the presidency of the UN Security Council, the Tour de France bike race begins in Bilbao, Spain, and the Black Sea Economic Cooperation organization holds a Board of Governors meeting.

ROBBINS:
Please subscribe to The World Next Week on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review while you're at it. We really do appreciate the feedback. The publications mentioned in this episode, as well as a transcript of our conversation and links to the music, are listed on the podcast page for The World Next Week on CFR.org. Please note that opinions expressed on The World Next Week are solely those of the hosts, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. 

Today's program was produced by Ester Fang, with Director of Podcasting Gabrielle Sierra. Special thanks to Sinet Adous and Jiwon Lim for their research assistance. Our theme music is provided by Miguel Herrero and licensed under Creative Commons. Be sure to tune into our special summer reading episode next week. Until then, this is Carla Robbins saying so long.

MCMAHON:
And this is Bob McMahon saying goodbye, and happy summer.