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My name is Andrew Kramer. I'm a reporter for the New York Times. I'm standing on the highway where Ukrainian troops are moving tanks and armored vehicles into Russia. Every few minutes, we have tanks, trucks with soldiers rumbling past and in the direction of Russia.

From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is the daily.

Ukraine slice through the border area, pushed through minefields and Thinley Man defenses, and has been pressing deeper into Russia.

When Ukraine's military crossed over into Russia two weeks ago, it appeared at first to be a largely symbolic gesture. But in the time since, it's emerged as a defining moment in the two-year-old war.

This is the first major military incursion into Russia since World War II.

Today, Andrew Kramer on what's behind the audacious Ukrainian operation, and Anton Trojanowski on how Russia's response could reshape the conflict. It's Wednesday, August 21st. Andrew, I wonder if you can take us back to the moment when you discovered that this pretty unimaginable thing had occurred. Ukrainian troops entering Russian territory and turning the basic equation of this war upside down.

Well, the entire operation was shrouded in secrecy. The first reports were actually from Russian social media posts, and everything was a little bit vague. We were seeing reports of fighting along the border war, but nothing indicating the scale of what was to come. The secret was very well guarded. It wasn't clear until the second day that this was more than a border skirmish, that this was a full Ukrainian military invasion of Russia, and that Ukraine had taken control of a rural area in the southwestern part of Russia.

What do you do there in Kyiv, where I imagine you're absorbing this information once you realize that such a major turning point in this conflict has just begun to unfold?

Well, we decided to head out to the border region in northeastern Ukraine and have a look at how this appeared on the ground. This required a little bit of logistics. We used an armored car that the bureau has.

I don't think I knew that we had an Arvin car.

We do. Initially, we were watching and talking to soldiers and officers about this incursion, and then also creeping forward toward the border to get a first-hand look. We drove over a very high high plain where the road passes into Russia. It's a very rural area of cornfields and country roads. Then ahead of us was the border, completely unguarded, seemingly déserted, at least from a distance. This was a remarkable moment. As somebody who covered Russia, the idea of the Russian border being open and déserted by the Russian military was really remarkable. Once you get inside, what are you seeing? We got out of the car and looked around and saw really a tableau of destruction. This was a Russian administrative building, maybe three stories tall at one point before it was bombarded. Now, sheet metal was just flapping in the wind. All the windows were blown out. We looked around and there were craters in the ground from artillery and debris. Shells from a fight, a firefight, were tinkling underfoot when we walked. There were customs forms and other administration administrative documents blowing on the ground. And a little bit farther on, there was a sign over the road that said Russia.

It was a very eerie scene, and what we were looking at was the detritus of a lost battle to defend the Russian border.

So we walked around this site and we noticed some Ukrainian soldiers who were wearing surgical masks, and it became clear that what we were seeing was a grim task by these soldiers of clearing the bodies of dead Russians from this building that had been destroyed in the initial attack on the Russian border.

We watched them load bodies and zip them into body bags. And this was really a grim scene of just what a difficult fight and losing fight this had been for Russian border guards at this site. This section of the border had And it had likely been chosen in part because it was guarded by Russian conscript soldiers. And these are very green, inexperienced soldiers who've been drafted after high school. And in almost all cases that we know of, they retreated, abandoned their positions, or they surrendered. There were small arms, cartridges, and there were sandbags in this location, firing positions. But there was no indication that they were expecting an army to come across the border at them. So after about 40 minutes, We decided it was time to go and got back in our armored car and drove back into Ukraine, back into the relative safety of the cities far from the front line.

Once you return to Ukraine, Andrew, What do you end up learning about the scope of this operation? Clearly, you had just witnessed one place where Ukrainian troops had crossed the border and clearly done a significant amount of damage to the Russian administrative border crossing. But how much territory was involved in this and how many Russian troops were killed or taken?

The ultimate scale of the invasion was significant. By some estimates, about 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers were involved. Wow. This one border post was not the only target. They crossed in multiple locations. Once they had breached the border, quickly fanned out on the highways and captured towns and villages. Ultimately, by now occupying about 400 square miles of Russian territory, around 120,000 Russian civilians were displaced. More thousands, although we don't know the precise number, are now under Ukrainian occupation. The fighting has continued moving both deeper into Russia and also spreading out along the border to widen this area that's under Ukrainian control.

What you're describing in no way feels like a gesture or something that's meant to be fleeting, but clearly, something longer term, this invasion of Russia. Do you have the sense, Andrew, that this operation at this scale was allowed under the terms of the West's military aid to Ukraine? We've talked a lot about this on the show with you, with our colleagues who cover Russia, that it's been understood that Ukraine could not really use Western military equipment, as it has done here, clearly, to go after Russia itself with very few exceptions.

Well, the fact is, Zelensky has said he didn't tell the US in advance of this operation. He didn't ask permission. The Biden administration's policy is to avoid escalation. Russia is a nuclear-armed country, and to allow American missiles, American weapons to be used inside of Russia was a significant step. But once Ukraine launched this operation, this ground invasion of Russia, we heard from the Germans, we heard from the Americans, Americans, that this was, in fact, in their assessment, within the bounds of using Western weaponry to defend Ukraine. There had been an exception that weapons could be used in the border region for defensive purposes, and this was interpreted in that light.

Interesting. Well, with that in mind, what do we know about Ukraine's objective here, its goals for undertaking such a risky invasion of Russia?

The Ukrainian government didn't We didn't initially articulate any goals, but it's clear there were several layers to this. One was strategic and military. The Ukrainians wanted to strike where Russia was weakest and force Russia to divert its troops and its weapons from inside Ukraine to defending its own territory inside Russia. It was a strategy of taking the war to Russia and in this way relieving pressure on their own soldiers who are fighting desperately in Eastern Ukraine to hold territory.

Basically, to strengthen Ukraine's own hand on the main battlefield, which is Russia and occupied Ukraine.

That's right.

What else? You said this is multi-motivational.

Well, there seemed to be another larger geopolitical goal, and this was a goal to hasten the end of the war. There was a sense that if they were to strike inside of Russia, if they were to capture territory, this would provide leverage in possible peace talks.

Because for the first time, Ukraine has something that Russia wants, not the other way around.

Exactly. There was also an idea that this could have an effect on public opinion in Russia, that by showing Russians what it's like to be occupied, what it's like to be attacked, Putin could no longer present to his society the operation in Ukraine as something distant and something that would continue even as they lived their ordinary lives.

We know that Ukraine has pursued that approach before, bringing the pain of this conflict to Russia through sporadic drone attacks on Russian communities, even in Moscow. But this seems by far the most ambitious and successful version of that tactic, a whole other order of magnitude.

Exactly. Ukrainians I talked to said that maybe this is what would be needed to end the war, to show Russians what the war was like inside of Ukraine. I spoke with one woman who said that only when the Russians hear what it's like to hear a child crying in a bomb shelter, would they want an end to the war?

So this was the Ukrainian sentiment.

This was a bold military move that would help them in their war. But it's an open question whether this will bring Russia to the bargaining table or just more pain to Ukraine in a Russian retaliation.

After the break, Anton Trianowski brings us the Russian side of the story. We'll be right back.

I'm Julie Turquowitz. I'm a reporter at the York Times. I have been trying to understand changes in migration. So I traveled with photographer Federico Rios to the Darian Gap, this hot mountainous, 70-mile stretch of jungle straddling the border of Colombia and Panama. We're hiking through a river just like, covered in mud. Many used to think that this route was impassable, but thousands have been risking their lives to pass through the Darian, almost all in the hopes of making it to the United States. We nine days hiking through the Gap and weeks building trust and relationships with migrants, with smugglers, with migration authorities, to even be able to do this reporting. We interviewed hundreds of people who have made this journey to try and grasp what's making them go to these lengths to find a new life. New York Times journalists spend time in these places to help you understand what's really happening there. You can support this journalism by subscribing to the New York Times.

Anton, you cover Russia for the times, and you have been tracking the Kremlin's response to this large scale invasion by Ukraine. How has Russia reacted to this, especially once the dust settled and this sneak attack was more or less over?

Well, let's start with the military response. There, it was clear that Russia was completely unprepared for this. Ukraine was able to march miles deep into the country facing minimal resistance and was able to take, it appears, hundreds of Russian soldiers prisoner. In the two weeks since, Russia has been able to dispatch forces there, but Russia is not mustering the forces necessary or maybe able or willing to use the firepower necessary to end this quickly. In the meantime, Ukraine is obviously getting the opportunity to dig in, and this is increasingly looking like a long longer term occupation of Russian territory by Ukraine.

Wow. So this is not the massive military response that you would expect pretty much from any country being invaded, let alone a country as obsessed with its borders as Russia is.

Yeah, it's pretty stunning how two weeks in, Ukraine controlling Russian territory has already become routine.

How does the Russian government explain that reality to the people of that they are, for now, letting Ukraine occupy all this Russian territory?

Well, they're not really trying to explain it, but that does bring us to the political media PR aspect of the Russian response, which has been really to treat this as a natural disaster more than as part of this war.

Can you explain that? How are they treating it like a natural disaster?

If you turned on the Russian TV news in the days after the invasion started, two weeks ago, you were seeing pictures of pallets of water being delivered to displaced people. You were seeing footage of candlelight vigil around the country and people saying things like, Kershk, we are with you. But it was not cast as part of or let alone a consequence of Putin's invasion of Ukraine that started in February I think the choice has been made so far to just play this down. They're calling it the situation in the Khrushchev region on Russian TV.

The strategy is self-denial. If Russia doesn't treat this like an invasion. It's not an invasion. A little bit reminds us of what Putin has said about invading Ukraine, special operation, not a full-tail invasion of a neighboring country.

Remember, Putin is the President of an autocracy in which there is basically no free media at this point. So he does have the luxury to take this tack and does not have to think very much about short term public pressure on his actions. But while Putin hasn't responded forcefully yet, it doesn't mean he isn't planning something or it doesn't mean he won't still respond. Think back to last summer when the Prigozhin Mutiny march on Moscow happened in June, and two months later, Prigozhin's plane fell out of the sky in what we believe was a Kremlin assassination. There could still be a response that comes later, but his non-response or slow response so far does remind us of how Putin has in many ways, been cautious throughout the last two and a half years to not have this become a wider war.

Understood. Given Russia's response so far and understanding that that response may be delayed, how should we think about whether Ukraine is actually achieving its goals for this invasion, diverting Russian troops from Ukraine, who in theory would rush back to protect Russia's borders, drawing Russia into peace talks with Ukraine, and finally bringing the pain of this war as deeply as possible into Russia itself.

The jury is still out on the attempt to draw Russian troops out of Eastern Ukraine and over to Kursk, that does not seem to have worked so far. We have reports of some Russian troops leaving, but not really that many. We are seeing that Russia is still pushing ahead in the Donbas region in Eastern Ukraine. The fight there for the Ukrainians is really tough right now. We're not seeing the Russian pressure let up in Eastern Ukraine, and on the contrary, we're actually seeing them taking taking more of Ukraine.

That seems very important because the entire assumption of this invasion would seem to be that Putin's response would have to be to protect Russian territory. So far, that doesn't seem to be his overall imperative. Now you're suggesting that instead, he's using it as a chance to push further and further into Ukraine. That would seem like a Ukrainian miscalculation.

Right. We don't know what's going to happen going forward, but for now, that part of the calculation seems to not have come through. But then there's other aspects here. On pressuring Russia to go into bonafide peace talks with Ukraine, where Russia would be ready to move back from its maximalist aims, there We still have to see. I mean, for the first time, Ukraine is holding Russian territory, and for the first time, you can now imagine a deal in which Ukraine pulls back troops in exchange from Russia pulling back troops. So Ukraine absolutely has a new leverage here. The problem is that Putin is not someone who likes the optics of folding under pressure. But there is one test case that we're watching closely. Our colleagues at the Washington Post have done some good reporting on this, and that is negotiations around both sides committing to not striking each other's energy infrastructure. There was supposed It's supposed to be a round of talks about this potential deal this month after the Kersk incursion. Russian officials have said, We don't see a point in negotiating with Ukraine for now. They're not ruling it out entirely, but they're saying, For now, we won't talk.

If this invasion was supposed to represent a potential major breakthrough in the peace talks with Russia, based on the evidence so far, that is not happening. But what about that third prong of Ukraine strategy, inflecting pain on the Russian people in their own country. That seems self-evinently to have already happened.

Yes, this is really a humiliation for Putin. That's clear. We are seeing yet again that Russia's vaunted security apparatus has failed in its basic task of maintaining security inside Russia's borders. But at the same time, you have to remember that Ukraine occupies a few hundred square miles of territory right now. That's a very small sliver of the Kursk region, and obviously microscopic, if you think about the six plus million square miles that Russia occupies on the globe. Russians have become more worried, have become more anxious, but it's not a drastic, dramatic shift.

Well, Anton, that me wonder if there's a universe where Ukraine pushes day after day, bridge after bridge, mile after mile, and starts to take so much Russian territory that this message gets delivered to all of the people of Russia very, very loudly and in a way that becomes pretty hard to ignore.

I mean, so one problem here is that there's another potential response you could see from a public in this situation, which is the rally around the flag effect. That as Ukraine pushes forward, more and more Russians might actually become further energized to support Putin's war. We haven't seen a ton of that yet, but that's certainly one other thing to watch. The other question mark is, at what point do Ukraine's Western allies step in here and try to get the Ukrainians to stop stop or pull back because they are worried about escalation risk? I think that that concern still clearly does exist in Western capitals. The Biden administration, obviously, so far, still hasn't allowed Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike Russian territory beyond the immediate border areas. We'll have to see about that. But certainly, you now hear President Zelensky saying that Putin's lack of response over the last two weeks shows that in Zelensky's words, This whole idea of Russia having red lines that can't be crossed is naive.

It feels like at the moment, two weeks into this invasion, there are two, let's call them fictions, for lack of a better word, guiding how everyone is seeing and responding to this military action by Ukraine. The first is that Putin's acting as if this invasion never really happened at all, and how long can he really keep that up. For Ukraine, the alleged fiction here is that there really is a red line that they can't cross in bringing this war back to Russia and the Russian people without triggering a wider conflict. So far, Ukraine seems to be saying that that red line doesn't exist and we just proved it. How should we think about those two fictions together?

Well, for one thing, they show how unpredictable this war is. Just like, who could have thought that we would be sitting here in August 2024 talking about a Ukrainian invasion onto Russian territory and talking about how Putin doesn't seem to be all that concerned about it. You're seeing this competition between these two big, almost guiding principles for these two men fighting this war. Putin's constant signaling that he's ready to bear more costs to get what he wants. And Zelensky's showing us that he's willing to take risks and do the unexpected and take the fight to Russia and test what some thought would be Russia's red line. And that just reminds us of how intractable this war is, how two and a half years in, people still don't understand how it ends or when it ends. Perhaps the invasion brings us closer to that, or perhaps it extends it even more.

Well, Anton, thank you very much.

Thank you, Michael.

We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. The Times reports that President Biden has approved a highly classified plan to, for the first time, reorient America's strategy for deterring nuclear weapons to focus on China. The plan is an acknowledgement of China's rapid expansion of its nuclear arsenal, which will rival that of the United States and Russia over the next decade. And... Yeah.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are here tonight to officially nominate Kamala Harris for President. Five, another round of shots. D. H. Z. Turn out for what?

On the second night of the Democratic National Convention, Vice President Kamala Harris was formerly nominated by her party's delegates during a jubilant roll call featuring the rapper Lil John. A few hours later.

Something wonderfully magical is in the air, isn't it?

We're feeling it here in this arena, but it's spreading all across this country.

We love a familiar feeling that's been buried too deep for far too long. You know what I'm talking about? It's the contagious power of hope.

Former first lady, Michelle Obama and former President Barack Obama forcefully endorsed Harris in back-to-back speeches.

America is ready for a better story. We are ready for a President Kamala Harris.

If you want more news, and I suspect you do, check out our other Daily News show. It's called The Headlines. It brings you the day's top stories, along with analysis from Times reporters, all in about 10 minutes or less. And you can subscribe to it wherever you get your podcasts. Today's episode was produced by Nina Fjeldun, Luc Vanderplug, and Mujdj Zady. It was edited by M. J. Davis Lynn, contains original music by Roey Némistow and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansberg of Wunderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.