LEILA FADEL, HOST:
President Trump says Russia has until Friday to wind down its war in Ukraine. Otherwise, he'll levy new sanctions. Trump also said he has repositioned U.S. nuclear submarines after former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made a veiled threat about a retaliatory nuclear attack. Trump is dispatching his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, for talks in Moscow this week. Could this actually pressure Russia? Joining me now is Russia expert Sergey Radchenko, a professor at Johns Hopkins University. Good morning, and thanks for being on the program.
SERGEY RADCHENKO: Morning.
FADEL: So I want to start with this back-and-forth between Trump and the former president of Russia, and the U.S. moving these nuclear submarines. How significant is all this? Are nuclear strikes between Russia and the U.S. actually a possibility, or is this a game of brinksmanship?
RADCHENKO: Well, it is - it's both. Obviously, it's a game of brinksmanship. It's a form of nuclear signaling - that nuclear war is always a possibility, however insignificant. In this case, it's not clear where Trump has repositioned those submarines. There are always submarines patrolling the oceans.
FADEL: OK.
RADCHENKO: And some of them are armed with ballistic nuclear missiles that obviously could be used to retaliate against Russia. So I don't see anything new here.
FADEL: I mean, is it significant, though, that they were moved?
RADCHENKO: I - you know, there are various ways to signal nuclear posture. For example, there - the United States has something called DEFCON, which was used during the Cold War - defense condition, which is - which can be brought up and down. For example, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was brought up to DEFCON 2, which is one short of nuclear war. We're not even there, so it's just basically Trump tweeting something on the social media. We don't know the implications, but one interesting thing is that that has never been done. You know, submarines have not been moved before due to something read on Twitter, so that's a new one.
FADEL: Now, as I mentioned, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff is headed to Moscow. I mean, what do you expect from that visit, and what might be achieved?
RADCHENKO: I don't expect much. Steve Witkoff has gone to Moscow, to Russia, to St. Petersburg, as well, to meet with Putin a number of times. Obviously, President Trump has imposed a deadline on Russia to come to a ceasefire in Ukraine. There's no evidence at the moment that Putin is seriously entertaining a ceasefire. He feels that the war is going his way. Russian forces are making progress on the battlefields of Ukraine. And he feels that by keeping at it, he can actually force Ukraine into the kind of peace that he would want and not the kind of peace that President Trump would want to bring him to.
FADEL: OK. So let's say the Friday deadline comes and goes, and Trump levies new sanctions. What would that actually do?
RADCHENKO: It's very difficult to see how, for example, China, which is the major importer of Russian oil, is going to stop importing that oil in response to additional tariffs from the Trump administration. So I expect problems to result in Sino-American relationship as a result of that. India is an interesting one. So Trump has been lashing out at India recently, saying that they are basically sponsoring the war in Ukraine by buying Russian oil, which you can make - you can make this case. It's very difficult to see how India would capitulate to these kinds of demands on the part of President Trump.
FADEL: So it doesn't sound like you're anticipating a huge breakthrough by Friday.
RADCHENKO: I'm not anticipating any breakthroughs by Friday.
FADEL: That's Johns Hopkins University Professor Sergey Radchenko speaking with us from London. Thank you for your time.
RADCHENKO: Thank you, Leila. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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