00:00Joining us now is New York Times Kyiv bureau chief Andrew Kramer. Andrew, great to have you with us
00:03once again and want to get into this and all matters. But let's just start with what we've
00:08seen here over the last 24 hours, a couple of attacks on energy facilities in Ukraine. Get
00:13us up to speed sort of on where things stand here on this Saturday morning in New York.
00:18Sure. Thank you very much for having me on. I'm here in Kyiv and I've heard a number of
00:22explosions already this morning. The drone and missile barrages, which is now a two-way street,
00:30it's going both ways, have continued. And we're seeing it through the weekend and we saw it last
00:38week as well. What was your take watching all the mass donations and meetings here at the UN? There
00:43was a lot going on and this comes amid some inconsistent messaging from the White House,
00:49kind of pressing them to have a meeting. You also had this messaging from President Trump
00:52because of the gas prices we were just talking about, because of the midterm elections coming
00:57up and what pressure point that's putting on his party, basically asking Zelenskyy or saying
01:01out loud he would like them to stop targeting Russian oil production facilities. I'm wondering
01:06how that was received in Kyiv and how the trip overall to UNGA and all those meetings is being
01:11perceived in Ukraine. Yeah, thank you. This is definitely relative to what you were discussing
01:18earlier about gasoline and diesel prices in the US, but not the primary cause of high diesel prices.
01:28Most experts have assessed that the disruptions to logistics in the Middle East are the primary
01:35reason for rising diesel prices. But it is a testament to the effectiveness of Ukrainian strikes that
01:42that hitting oil ports, oil infrastructure and refineries have definitely put a dent into Russia's
01:53ability to export energy. And just a clarification on the meetings, if I understand Ukraine's position
02:00correctly, Zelenskyy has expressed willingness to meet with Putin. The response from Russia was that the
02:08meeting would have to take place in Moscow, Zelenskyy has offered Kyiv, and anywhere else in the world
02:16but not Moscow. So that's where that stands on a potential leader meeting.
02:19Sounds like the UAE being floated is a potential venue for that as well. I want to ask you about
02:24your
02:24most recent piece for the Times, and that really centers on this transition that we've seen here in
02:28recent months from a war being waged on the battlefield to one that's being waged economically. And
02:33Christina just a moment ago mentioning the attacks that we've seen on energy facilities, yes, in Russia,
02:37but in Ukraine as well. Talk a bit, if you could, Andrew, just about the motivating factors for
02:43that, that the impact this conflict, this continued conflict is having on the economies of both of
02:47these nations, Russia and Ukraine. Sure, thank you very much. And it's not just Russia and Ukraine.
02:52Unfortunately, just if we look at agricultural products, for example, both Russia and particularly
02:59Ukraine are major exporters of grain and oil seeds and other agricultural products. 35% of all the
03:07world's grain is exported on the Black Sea. And now Black Sea commerce is essentially frozen to
03:12both Russia and Ukraine because of attacks on ships. Both countries have the ability to halt
03:18shipping to each other's ports. And that is now being done. This is with various new weapons,
03:24including drone boats and aerial drones. The shift to the economy comes, we're now in the fifth year of
03:33this war, more than four and a half years in, and the battlefield is essentially frozen. Russia has lost about
03:42half of the territory that it captured in the initial invasion, but then recaptured in the subsequent three
03:48years of the war, about 1% of Ukrainian territory, 1.5% of Ukrainian territory. But there's essentially a
03:54frozen conflict. And the latest efforts seem to be more focused on the economy. Russia has hit a lot of
04:03Ukraine's economy since the first days of the war, economic assets such as oil storage tanks and
04:10refineries and other assets. But now this really is the focus. And it's also the focus going the other
04:15way with Ukraine's homemade drone arsenal, which was developed during the war. It's now quite effective
04:22at hitting oil refineries. So each is aiming for the weak point in each other's economies.
04:28For Russia, it's really a petroleum-dependent economy, earning about a billion dollars a day
04:35in natural gas and oil exports. And so hitting that is effective for the Ukrainian side. On the other
04:42hand, Ukraine's economy is dependent on a number of exports, a major grain, largest sunflower oil
04:50exporter in the world. So agricultural products, but also consumer spending has been a major issue,
04:56a major driver of Ukraine's wartime economy because of foreign aid coming in and this trickling down to
05:04military salaries and then also other types of salaries and spending. So hitting warehouses,
05:10locomotives for the exports, and disrupting sales by keeping air alarms on. So we've had air alarms,
05:18in effect, almost continually for the past three or four weeks. Very focused on the economy. It's
05:25the war of attrition, and the economies are the targets. You're taking the words right out of my
05:31mouth. That was going to be my next question. If you're looking at not only a war of attrition,
05:35but an asymmetric war of attrition, we talk a lot about the military elements of that. But now it seems
05:39like there's also this financial element to it as well. And Zelensky talked about trying to hit
05:44Russia's finances, specifically when he was here at the UN. We're going to play some sound.
05:47Our target is Russia's ability to finance this war, to drag it out, to make it more brutal and
05:56more destructive. Russia's finances and Russia's production are what must be stopped if Putin is to
06:05be stopped. Is that a realistic goal? There have been some surprises in how durable Russia's economy
06:12has been, despite the sanctions, despite things like being kicked off the Swiss system.
06:17Russia's economy, for the most part, has kept chugging. Now, we're seeing maybe some elements
06:22of it being hit with these strikes on the oil and gas facility. What can Ukraine do,
06:27and do they have the capacity to make a difference to the Russian economy before their own starts to
06:31falter?
06:34Well, it's, you know, time will tell what the threshold is for Russia. It's an open question.
06:42But the strikes, you typically have to fire about 10 exploding drones to get one through. So
06:51in order to have an impact, you have to have a large volume of exploding drones that you can send
06:56into
06:56Russia in the order of hundreds every day in order to start whittling away at the oil industry,
07:03the oil and gas industry. But the Ukrainians do claim that they've hit enough that Russia is
07:09actually shutting in wells in Siberia, which is an important issue for Russia's taxation is based on
07:16the mineral extraction tax and the primary benefit for the central government. So the less oil coming out
07:21of the ground and less money the central government has, it's a difficult task to plug all of these
07:26different export routes for Russian oil. It's sort of a web of pipelines. But by hitting refineries,
07:36by hitting ports, and by blowing up ships, you know, more than 100 ships, I think, over in August were
07:42blown up. And the Novorossiysk, Tuopse, and a number of other important oil ports in the Black Sea
07:47were now essentially out of, you know, out of operation, 12, I think, out of operation,
07:52or close to it, you can shut in oil production. So maybe a million barrels, maybe more shut in on
08:01the Black Sea, a similar amount on the Baltic Sea by hitting Uzluga, other oil ports, important oil
08:09ports in the Baltic Sea to force this shutting in of some of the capacity in Russia. And this does
08:17have,
08:17this does, it hits the bottom line, and will start hitting the economy. So they do have that
08:23ability, it might just take some time.
