Melissa Harris-Perry: The world has changed. 13 Ukrainian border guards on a tiny island in the Black Sea responded to a demand to surrender by saying," Go yourselves." Ukrainian president Zelenskyy became a global hero. [foreign language] Elon Musk responded to a Ukrainian request for assistance by making the Starlink satellite broadband service available in Ukraine. Multiple states and many businesses across the US pulled Russian-made vodka from their shelves. Russian assets are frozen across the globe, their state media is blocked. The European Union for the first time is funding the delivery of weapons to Ukraine. In response to it all, Vladimir Putin has escalated.

Ordering Russian nuclear deterrent forces are on high alert. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry and today on The Takeaway, we begin in a world utterly altered by the events of the last few days. We ask what happens next? With me now is Nina Khrushcheva, who is a Professor of International Affairs at the New School in New York, and great-granddaughter of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Thank you so much for being here, Nina.

Nina Khrushcheva: Thank you very much. What a sad, sad time.

Melissa Harris-Perry: It truly is. On Sunday, we learned that Ukraine and Russia will hold talks at the Belarus border. What is there to talk about?

Nina Khrushcheva: It is very unclear what this talks about, because first of all, the Russian delegation doesn't seem to be at a very high level. They don't seem to be great experts on this talk. We don't know what the mandate is. It is possible, and I hope I'm wrong. It is possible. It's just one of those Vladimir Putin tricks to pretend that he's doing everything to de-escalate, but instead to escalate and then blame everybody else around him for the further development.

Melissa Harris-Perry: As you talk there about Vladimir Putin, I'm reminded you and I used to have conversations fairly regularly eight years ago, 10 years ago. I can remember you always saying, "No, you need to understand Vladimir Putin is not operating with the same rational incentive structures as we can presume relative to other global leaders." I can remember thinking, "I think Nina's maybe like overstating this, but not so much." Can you help me to understand the ways in which what you've been saying now, genuinely, for a decade, at least to me, has manifest on this global stage?

Nina Khrushcheva: Well. This time around, I wish I were much more forceful in saying that we are dealing with a nutty person. This time, I learned to explain and understand his kind of to talk well, despotic idiosyncrasies. Why would he react to certain things? For three months, they've been a conversation about Russia attacking Ukraine and everybody pleased everybody. I talked to an analyst and not an alarmist, but an analyst would say, "Well, this is so against Russian national interest. It's just not possible." I stopped when he recognized the breakaway republics first of Donetsk and Luhansk. I thought that he would stop because there would be proportional response to American own escalation of rhetoric.

Continues to the backing him into the corner saying, "Well, you're going to attack and we're not going to let you." Once you deal with an autocrat, usually when they are doubted, or when they're undermined, of course, they would lash off. That's what Putin did when I first started talking to you in 2014, after the Crimea annexation. This time, it seems to be a really now on the level of megalomania of Stalin-esque [unintelligible 00:04:24] proportion. His behavior really didn't change. It does seem that with attacking Ukraine, with invading Ukraine, he is no longer even thinking in global political terms, what's useful, what's not useful.

He's thinking, like all megalomaniacs about his pet peeves, and when I look at Kyiv, the way it's being bombed by the Russians, by my people. Nikita Khrushchev lovingly restored it after World War Two, and now another Russian leader is bombing it to pieces. That's heartbreaking. It doesn't have a word to even explain how the Russians feel about the war. It's horrible for Ukrainians, but the Russians are crying because it is their brothers. We're killing our brothers.

Melissa Harris-Perry: That perspective, I think is a challenging one for us. Sitting on the global stage watching from the outside, this language of a loving restoration, and then a destruction. What do you think is happening in Putin's understanding of what he is doing relative to Russian interests, given what you've just told us?

Nina Khrushcheva: Well, that's where I'm thinking Mao and all other great dictators, so to speak, it's no longer about national interest about their own legacy. I think that it went that nutty that it seems, I mean, I can't really analyze a madman anymore. It does seem that anytime that there was an opportunity for him to think about the world, about brothers that Ukrainians he talked about so much that we are the same nation and therefore we need to protect them against their, by the way, Jewish president who Putin calls a Nazi. It's just such an Orwellian war is peace, ignorance is strengths and so on and so forth.

It just completely makes no sense whatsoever. The way Putin sees it, I think he's recreating some Slavic brotherhood of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. That's how he's going to go into history by being known as the uniter of the Slavic lands. Which by the way, was originally idea introduced by conservative Russian philosophers, but also by Putin's beloved philosopher and nationalist, Alexander Solzhenitsyn who we know is the writer against Gulag, but also he was a very serious nationalist. For Solzhenityin, that was a philosophy, for Putin, it is a reality. What is happening instead of creating that Slavic empire that he's so willingly now put the world in danger for.

It probably will result in what Afghanistan was for the Soviet Union when the Soviet Union expanded. Soviet Empire went into '79 into Afghanistan got out of there in '89, and collapsed a few years later. It does seem that these expansions clearly damaged the Russian Empire. Which still exists, because there are some territories that are still Imperial and Putin feels of himself as that legacy of an empire. Instead of expanding it, they actually diminishing their capacity and our capacity for rational existence. It's going to end really badly, I think. Not only because that war is such a stain. It's such a shame for the Russians. I mean, we apologize all the time.

The protests in Moscow, people are being taken into detention and they scream, [foreign language] . It's shame on the country and shame on every Russian. I think the result of it will be what Afghanistan was in '89. The result of it is also going to be very, very horrible because empires don't collapse in peace. Unfortunately, they collapse with pain and blood, and horror. Putin feels now that all this blood and horror will be forgotten but does in history. 100 years from now, the great legendary Putin, Putin the first will be known as that uniter of all the Slavic, on the former, on the Slavic original territory.

Melissa Harris-Perry: You point about Afghanistan. I want to dig in here for a moment because that sense that this could be as Afghanistan was for the Soviet Union. The global response, almost immediate global response here, though, is quite different. I hear what sounds like a madman reconnection of the Slavic people. I will say it does seem to have unleashed, although over and against himself and his own decision making global responsiveness to the people of Ukraine that is quite different than what we've seen when the nation being invaded for Imperial purposes was not a European brother, was not a Slavic neighbor. I wonder what you make of this response?

Is this about the world learning and doing better than the globe did in the context of the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan, or is this about a global whiteness?

Nina Khrushcheva: Well, I hate to say, I think it is not to undermine and diminish the Ukrainian suffering and the Russian shame for doing this. I think it is the global whiteness, is the country in Europe that after the United States, so shamefully, I think withdrew from Afghanistan and dropped the Coalition of the Willing and everybody slightly stunned. Now they're all up in arms in defense of the country in Europe, not that they don't have to be, but those warnings. Leave immediately, go away from Kyiv, and so on. I wish these calls were done so loudly in Afghanistan and they were not.

Also if you see, as you see the refugees from Ukraine are being treated very differently from the ones that are from Syria, from Iraq, from Iran. Once again, this has nothing to say of Ukrainians and their struggle but I think the global response is certainly different because it does seem that historically, Europe and America respond differently to the white nation in parallel, the European nation in parallel than the nation elsewhere and you're right. In Afghanistan, there was a different response and it was not a close neighbor because, of course, Afghanistan is further away and that's why what Putin does is more horrible because he keeps saying these are the brothers and the world's response is wonderful but of course, one would say that it's not devoid of certain hypocrisy, of certain White country, white man, White mentality hypocrisy.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Even if Kyiv falls, even if the Russian forces can maintain control of some portion of the land, can you hold a country that, can you actually expand an empire into a place that is resisting at this level?

Nina Khrushcheva: That's why I couldn't believe. Nobody could believe until the last minute that he will do it and I kept saying it myself is that what is he going to do. These are the people that got destroyed. The Soviet Republic, the country was destroyed almost more than anything during World War II. It was demolished, it was deleted and they fought like hell and expecting the Ukrainians today that hate Putin's guts since 2014, since the annexation of Crimea and the early battles for Ukraine then when he was trying to annex parts at that time that they are not going to fight, especially when it was in order to give Ukrainians guns and armament to fight the Russians. I don't understand what was in his head.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Nina Khrushcheva, is Professor of International Affairs at the New School in New York City and the great-granddaughter of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Nina, as always, thank you.

Nina Khrushcheva: Thank you very much.

Melissa Harris-Perry: We have more on Ukraine next as we talk a bit about the rules of urban warfare. It's The Takeaway. This is The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. Continuing our coverage of Russia's ongoing attacks on Ukraine, and focusing on the military tactics currently being used by both Russia and Ukraine. Russia has mounted attacks into at least three different regions of the country and now it's two largest cities. With me now is Earl Catagnus Jr, an adjunct professor in security and risk analysis at Penn State University Brandywine, an editorial board member for Marine Corps University Press. He's also a decorated former Marine Scout Sniper. Earl, welcome.

Earl Catagnus: Thank you for having me, Melissa.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Russia's government is reportedly surprised by the level of resistance that they've encountered in Ukraine and I think much of the world, the globe seems to be responding with a surprise and obviously a lot of global support but I'm wondering if for all of the social media enthusiasm about this, is it possible for a small, mostly civilian group like this to truly hold off Russian troops?

Earl Catagnus: It depends on the resolve of Putin and what he ultimately is trying to do and what his objective is. What you see is negotiations that are going on in the background, that might have been already part of his plan to try to force the Ukrainians to a position where they have to negotiate and particularly taking NATO membership off the table, which was his stated goal. That is all about slowly stopping the Russian offensive and delaying it. There is an inevitability of this if Russia decides to invest as much resources to take a megacity like Kyiv, that it is inevitable but it may be months and months and months if the civilian force could delay, the guerrillas could delay the Russian army that long.

What I think you see happening is, is that overall Putin stated a goal where he said to demilitarize and to de-Nazify. Those are two terms that we've brushed off and have long since tried to listen to what Putin says because he pretty much tells you what he wants. When he's talking about de-Nazification is taking the political leadership out of the game for Ukraine. He may be successful at doing that if he can kill them or push them into exile. If he can do that, then his goal is met and he can walk away winning because for him, it's not about winning in the world.

It's the reality on the ground, and that he is literally already is taking Ukrainian membership of NATO off the table, and demilitarization that Ukraine cannot put up a fight for a decade or so against the Russian incursion if it had to. That's what his ultimate goal is and Ukraine will hold out. You notice that he's not attempting to occupy the entire country and has stated that. This is purely why he called it a special military operation, not only the legal consequences of using that term instead of invasion but he has very specific political objectives to accomplish. It remains to be seen how well he does that in the coming days and weeks.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Okay, I want you to dig into this with me just a bit so that I can be sure I understand what you're saying. Much of the world has responded to the language of Nazi to the de-Nazification and pointing out that Zelenskyy to call him a Nazi given that he is the grandchild of survivors is the problem. What you're saying is listen to what it is that Putin is saying about his goal rather than the discourse. Is that right that what he's saying is for him, he can declare a win not by holding Ukraine but by removing this leadership? Is that what I hear you saying?

Earl Catagnus: That's exactly right. The reason why he chose de-Nazification. One, it's a term whenever you use Nazi it immediately sparks up an emotional and emotive response. What he's saying is it's the leadership he's trying to separate the people from the Ukrainian leadership. Then when he uses Nazi he is invoking. In the United States it's not real, the Holocaust was real but they don't feel it. They don't feel as a population historical feeling of it that Europe does, particularly Ukraine and some of the guilt that Ukraine as a people feel for their participation in the Holocaust. When he's doing that, it's a signal to the Ukrainian people again, it's not going to be effective overtly, but covertly it hits deep feelings of shame of what they did.

When he says that again, it has nothing to do with that there's actually going to be an overthrow because they believe that political leadership is Nazi but in combination with this, it's a long-term discourse, that he and the Russians will then use to legitimize their actions. The reality is they just want to get rid of the leadership and install a Russian not necessarily a puppet. I don't even think that Putin even cares whether this leadership is effective if he does get rid of the current Ukrainian leadership, it's just about trying to make Ukraine benign and that it cannot exert any type of influence on Russian affairs.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me about similarities or dissimilarities that you see here with any of the recent wars in the Middle East, especially strategically. When you're talking about the inevitability of Kyiv eventually falling even if it's weeks or months later.

Earl Catagnus: If this was World War II, you would see massive destruction of property and that is one of the surprising things that most times when Russia does invade if you look at Grozni in the '90s and Chechnya. If you look at Georgia, there was no holding back on destruction of civilian property. The Russian juggernaut just went through and swept through. What is surprising is that, even though there are civilian casualties, for the Russians, there's not that much and the strikes that you do see are very surgical in a Russian sense, not necessarily in our sense but because the way that they do enter in cities and the way they have historically not cared and just crushed an entire block, city block by block, it is surprising to see, but this is not going to be where the Russians are going to go block by block by Kyiv.

They can't, they just can't, unless they're willing to incur mass casualties. What you'll see is that, there'll be eventually a time where the city, the leadership, their focus is on the leadership. They can get the leadership to run, or if they can take them out, then the population will just continue to, will just go with it, but the goal is is that they may not even have to go into Kyiv if they can force through negotiation, Zelenskyy to agree that NATO membership is off the table, and if they can force through negotiation that EU membership might be years later, or if they can actually take him out, or force him to leave, then he wins and they don't have to go all the way in.

That's why I think you see that this is, you'll see raiding parties going into the city to test it, to see what's going on. You'll also see that there are special operations forces and intelligence operatives all throughout Kyiv that have been infiltrated in for months in advance, they're there to locate targets. They are there to do route guidance for when the Russian troops go in. They're there to assault with the attack force if they get an opportunity to do so. we have not seen massive assassinations or elimination of high value targets from them. That might be because the Ukrainians know that there's a mark on their head and they're hiding well or that that plan, there hasn't been a go order yet.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Earl Catagnus, Jr is adjunct professor in security and risk analysis at Penn state university, Brandywine as always. Thank you for joining us Earl.

Earl Catagnus: Thank you, Melissa.

[00:22:07] [END OF AUDIO]

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