i recently spoke with anne applebaum, staff writer at the "atlantic" and author of "twilight of democracye seductive lure of authoritarianism." well, there's a lot of speculation on what causes putin to do one thing or another. what can we know about the state of the world and the balance of power from what has alread happened, that's not speculative? >> actually, we know a lot about putin. we know a lot about how he thinks and we know what his goals are because he's told us and he's told us over and over again over many years. he has told us that he believes the destruction of the soviet union was a terrible mistake and a disaster. he's told us that he thinks democracy activism and democracy movements of the kind we've seen in russia and ukraine and elsewhere around the world are fake. he thinks they're an element of a tool of western foreign policy. they're not authentic. and we know that he thinks ukraine is not a real country, that it's a fake state that needs to be dismantled and it should be part of russia. and all of those things together should help us understand both what he's do

the committee called the pulitzer prize-winning historian anne applebaum, an expert on authoritarianisme u.s. needs to do more to combat russia's authoritarian leader. >> western sanctions alone have no impact on autocrats who know that they can continue to trade with one another, accusations from human rights organizations mean nothing to dictators. -- instead of always reacting to the latest outrage, we need to change the rules of the game altogether. >> joining me now is anne applebaum, a staff writer at "the atlantic" and pulitzer prize-winning historian. thank you for being with, us ms. applebaum. you said change the rules of the game, that we have to stop being reactive. in this context of the russian invasion of ukraine, how would you have seen it going differently and how, in the middle of the game, do you change? >> so, there is the famous irish joke about, if you want to get too done leery you don't start from here. so i would have pushback not just against russian kleptocracy but also russian kleptocracy many years ago. we could have changed our laws to make it impossible to

let's talk about the blackout and how to get around it with ann applebaum, she just testified to thepeter pommer ranz authors of "nothing is true and everything is possible" the senior fellow at the johns hopkins university. ann, your message was about fighting autocracy, do you think the past month the war in ukraine has woken up americans and many others in the world about what president biden talks about democracy versus autocracy in a hypothetical sense feels very real now and maybe folks are paying attention. >> yes, i do think this is a really galvanizing moment, we can see both what kind of damage a brutal autocracy like russia can do but also how ill prepared we have been for it and now naive we were about it. you're right to focus on this information piece because it's been clear for a long time that we needed better ways to communicate not just about russians but also with other people who live inside autocracies. we don't really have the ability to do so. we have pieces of that, possibility in different parts of the u.s. government, we have radio for europe and radio liber

very coordinated by the west, and anne applebaum a man whose legacy built on lies, power built on lies now undermined by the lies all around him. >> yes. actually one of the basis of putin's regime is his ability to confuse russians to build cynicism and apathy by convincing people that not only that they don't know what's true but can never know what's true. there's no truth available. they don't want anybody to find anything out. the u.s. i think by having used its intelligence before the war, by the way, almost nobody believed at the time. you know, in order to warn people, to illustrate what was going to happen and having been proved right, now has that credibility perhaps even in russia and in russia's inner circle in putin's inner circle that it didn't have before. one of the best responses to the russian style disinformation, which involved this kind of firehood of falsehoods telling lie after lie after lie is show something authentic, have a different and better story, and that's what the u.s. is trying to provide. >> yeah. so ian, interesting. even in the negotiations, you hav

i'd like to welcome anne applebaum, an accomplished journalist, pugh litzer prize winning historian, author, political analyst, current senior fellow at johns hopkins and staff writer for the atlantic magazine. the threats facing open society and liberal democratic ideals. throughout her illustrious career ms. applebaum has written on nationalism, corruption, xenophobia, be disinformation, politics and history and russia's actions on the world stage over the past three decades. her writing is timely, incisive and a significant contribution to our deliberations at this critical moment in modern history. welcome, ms. applebaum. it's a pleasure to have you with us. i would like to introduce dr. twining, the president of the international republican institute where he leads the institute's efforts to advance democracy and freedom around the world. dr. twining served as counsel to the president, director of the asia program at the german marshall fund. at a member of the secretary of state's planning staff and as the foreign policy adviser to my friend and former colleague the late u.s. s

joining me right now is analyst cedric leighton, also with us anne applebaum. she's a writer.you see where mariupol is. it's a key city in the southern part of the country. it's been a target for days. why would a maternity hospital be a target? >> that's an area that's absolutely prohibited, an area of target prohibited under international law. it should be off the table completely. the issue is it's obviously terrorizing the entire population. these attacks are typical of what the russians have been doing, and this is another example, if proven, that there is absolutely no way in which the russians are following national standard targeting procedures in this war. >> what we're showing right now, you might not be able to see it because this is brand new video. i'm seeing it for the first time along with you, a different perspective of outside what looks like a very large complex. you can see smoke billowing, a completely bombed-out car. it is completely and utterly devastated, from what we can see. it's shocking that building is even still standing, as i'm looking at this. pu

as anne applebaum writes, it should be a ukrainian victory.ic." >>> as we go to break, a report from the "guardian" highlights the global outreach under way by ukraine's first lady, olena zelenska. wriing in a newspaper, the 44-year-old thanked france's first lady and the spouses of other leaders for helping to ensure sick children reached safety. she also paid tribute to europeans who have been caring for ukrainian refugees, saying they deserved the collective nobel peace prize. her social media channels are packed with inspiring stories of survival and raw images of what the ukrainian people are enduring. when asked about the role of women in the war, she replied, our resistance, as our future victory, has taken on a feminine face. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need? like how i customized this scarf? check out this backpack i made for marco. only pay for what you need. ♪liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.♪ we're hoping things will pick up by q3. yeah...uhhh...

anne applebaum, we were speaking last hour about replacing the words no-fly zone with declaration ofly zones would be impossible at this time. >> i think the difficulty is that it has been a very long time since we had a proxy war with russia. i think the last time was probably the war against the soviet union in afghanistan in the 1980s and it was a completely different situation where there was no threat of nuclear war. so i understand why people are worried. they don't know what the rules are. we don't have the same kinds of hotlines. we don't have the same knowledge of the inner circle of putin that we once had of the soviet politboro. on the other hand i believe we have allowed putin to determine what is escalation and what is not. i would like to see us be much more creative about what we do. we could start military exercises in the baltic sea on a major scale and draw russian troops away from ukraine. we could start more intensive training of ukrainians outside of the country and bringing them in. i think we need to begin thinking creatively about how to win the war, how to ke

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with me now, keer simmons and ann applebaum.der if you are getting a sense of how much of the reality of what's happening in ukraine, including the just extravagant violence, but also the failures on the part of the russian military are bleeding into the ears and eyes of russians inside of that country. >> i think it must be done by one russian, and that's vladamir putin. and that image you showed of him giving his speech today, he was quietly boiling. clear that he is furious, just by his -- by the way that he appears. and also determined. honestly, right now, joy, i think we're at a point where hope is hard to find. economic hope, military hope for the russians, but also for the ukrainians frankly. because despite the fact that they have had these setbacks, i heard cal talking earlier on this show, well, we heard from the french president who spoke for 90 minutes to president putin, that he believes the russians want to take the whole of ukraine, and i think that president putin clearly is determined to do that. that's all the

. >> you were speaking to anne applebaum there.an military was underestimated. the russian army, russian military was overestimated. now it seems as if putin is making an about face, saying i'm just concerned about western ukraine, because ukraine could feezally be winning this war, holding off russian forces. >> yeah, and winning in by this definition means that ukraine would hold around kyiv, the capital. they would certainly keep the west. and they would fight russia to a standstill in the east and south, forcing putin to the bargaining table to maybe only carve off part of crimea or part of donbas, the region in the east. this would be a fantastic scenario first and foremost for ukraine which is fighting its heart out against the russians, but to connect to theprieve yg question, it would be good news for the rest of the world. russia and ukraine account for 25% of the wheat exports. corn exports as well, 10% of those globally. so it would be fantastic for the global economy and for global welfare for the war to end, and for in

we have the atlantic's anne applebaum here with us, and she has a question for you. anne. >> mr. invasion. can you talk a little bit about how the territorial army is dealing with them? >> we are 24/7, first of all, i'm really happy to see you again, and thank you for your firm position. this is extremely important for us. point number two, the soldiers, all around ukraine, 100,000 ukrainians i lifted in territorial defense battalion, and we are here in kyiv 24/7 regime for the protection of kyiv, and only in our battalion we already lost three soldiers, and that was the attack of this type of group, but subversive activity is high, and we definitely -- the unity we demonstrate, this is the very easy for us to deliver to the secret services and to present it that we are not give them any chance to destabilize the situation in kyiv. i'm really proud of that. i'm really proud of my people, and i'm really proud of people from kharkiv, sumy, mariupol. >> mr. president with the exception of the no fly zone, what is the greatest military need right now today with the russians at the ed

i'm joined now byjournalist and author anne applebaum who yesterday addressed the us senate's foreign. thanks forjoining us. 21 days of conflict and so much bloodshed in ukraine, what does a victory in your view look like for vladimir putin? victory for putin is clear, he said victory is conquering ukraine and re—incorporating it into some kind of post soviet empire. whether that means making it part of russia or simply installing a puppet regime, we are not sure, but he has said and russian propagandists have said that is what he wants. it russian propagandists have said that is what he wants.— is what he wants. if that is what he wants, is what he wants. if that is what he wants. that — is what he wants. if that is what he wants. that is _ is what he wants. if that is what he wants, that is not _ is what he wants. if that is what he wants, that is not necessarily - is what he wants. if that is what he wants, that is not necessarily what| wants, that is not necessarily what he might get because as we have heard, the ukrainians have put up a hell of a fight. heard, the ukrainians have

their sense of history he's reacting the way he is reacting, but we do overlook the fact -- and anne applebaumk about it -- stalin killed over 2 million, 3 million ukrainians, systematically starved them to death. there are people alive today who lost parents and grandparents in the great famine and in the stalin purges where russia was not a friend. russia was actually, you know, stalin was actually a brutal dictator that killed 2 million, 3 million of their people. >> yeah. putin has lost this already. he will presumably take kyiv and inflict hideous amounts of loss on the poor people of ukraine, but his problems, as you said, joe, then begin. the question for the west is does our resolve hold. if we get into a kind of frozen situation in ukraine where people are -- there's an insurgency that's a low level but he has his puppet government installed in kyiv, then how does the west keep up the pressure? then how does the west keep up its own unity? it remind me of, you know, 2008 john mccain said, we are all georgians now, but we weren't. >> it is different. >> could we keep it going? this cou

council on foreign relations, richard haass, jonathan lemire and staff writer at the atlantic, anne applebaum president zelenskyy has addressed nato. what do you expect to see coming out of this, to use the term deliverables from president biden, from the other european nations. what changes as a result of this gathering? >> i actually think the deliverables will be rather modest, you might have a slight increase in sanctions. they won't make an appreciable difference, hopefully more military supplies, maybe things that have been in short supply. antimissile systems, drones, anti-ship systems to get at the russian vessels in the black sea. i think the most important thing may not be a deliverable but contingency planning. nato has got to basically prepare itself for the possibility of the war widening against poland or some other nato country. they have to prepare for cyber attacks and how to respond. they have to prepare themselves for such things as chemical, biological or nuclear weapons used in ukraine, and then they've got to figure out not just what they threatened, to deter it, not jus