In this episode of Sages of the Sun, we sit down with one of our star reporters in Europe, Anthony Grant. We talk World War III rhetoric, separating fact from fiction, whether Rupert Murdoch is gunning for a bigger war, plans to arm Ukraine for the long haul, and the sources of President Macron’s unpopularity, among other topics.

Caroline Vik:  Anthony, you sent me a lot of thoughts yesterday.  I would love to just get started and have you open with the stories that you’ve been covering. 

Anthony Grant:  Well, there are a lot of things going on.  We could start on a heavy note like the possibility of World War III or a lighter note like President Macron of France getting pelted with cherry tomatoes at the marketplace.

Vik:  Are they cherry tomatoes and not full tomatoes?

Grant:  They were apparently just cherry tomatoes.  I’ve been sourcing some of the French media.

Seth Lipsky:  How do you say “cherry tomato” in French?

Grant:  Tomate Cerise.  

Lipsky:  Got it.

Grant:  Voilà.  The British papers made it sound like it was these big hulking tomatoes, but the French were more specific as to the nature of the vegetable, or fruit in question.

Lipsky:  Why are the French so down and the man they just elected president?  I find it amazing. 

Grant:  It’s very interesting that the place where the incident happened was in a Parisian suburb called Cergy-Pontoise which is part of what the Parisians would somewhat hotly or I should say derisively call it “banlieues” which is sort of the not so beautiful areas outside of Paris’s working class.  This particular suburb voted strongly for the far-left candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, in the first round of the elections on April 10th.  So he was going into kind of hostile territory and I would say that he probably was trying to follow up on his pledge to be “le président pour tous,” the president for everyone, even those people who didn’t vote for him.  I think he wanted to show that he’s with all the French regardless of political strife.  But the French, you know, when they have a certain opinion of someone they’re not shy about expressing it hence the tomatoes were thrown.  There’s a comic aspect to it and kind of a sad one.  It’s sad that that would happen — that the guy who just won another term in office and that is going to be certified or I think it already has been by the French electoral authorities — but it’s just a little bit sad that that’s the reception he would get so soon after that victory.  What that means for his posture ahead of the fact he has to choose a prime minister in the coming days so he’s got that to think about.  The legislative elections are coming up in June and he needs to do his best to try to get a lock on the French Parliament and if not he could be looking at a period of legislative gridlock in the months after June.  France is deeply divided.  The tomato throwing kind of underscores the fact that he’s sort of tolerated.  He’s not particularly well liked.  Maybe he comes off as a bit arrogant to some and he’s going to have problems I think.

Vik:  I hear a lot that he’s seen as arrogant.  Where does that come from?

Grant:  The fact that he’s French could be…

Vik:  Well why do the other French care?  They’re all arrogant.

Grant:  That’s the funny thing because when I see the reports that he is perceived as arrogant and let’s face it, the French as a nation don’t have the reputation of being the humblest of people which is okay.  That’s part of their charm, right?  I think part of that arrogance is that I think one of his role models is Napoleon, who of course, was the ultimate French military strategic icon since Louis XIV.  I think he sees himself as at the vanguard of a new European sensibility at which France, he believes, should be the motor of that along ostensibly with Germany.  He’s a young guy.  I think he is 44-years-old if I’m not mistaken so this is a very young guy.  He’s got a lot of hubris that just comes from being that age and a Gallic male.  He’s smart.  He’s sharp and maybe, you know, it’s impossible to carry all that without a certain kind of arrogance.  But for the French working class, the kind of people that live in Cergy-Pontoise, that would be kind of off-putting to them I think.  They’re looking for someone who cannot just talk the talk but walk the walk and bring down the cost of living, address inflation, and maybe not be on the phone with Putin so often, and focus more on the problems of average working class Parisians.  France is a beautiful country and it’s an expensive country too and now with all the energy crises that are rippling because of what’s happening in Ukraine, I’m sure the cost of living is going to be going up and up as it is in Greece and other European countries right now.  It will be interesting to see if he raises his media profile at the June legislative elections or if he tries to keep it low-key after the tomato incident.  There’s a rumor that he is going to select a female prime minister and that probably will stand him in better stead in terms of public opinion.  No word officially on who that might be, but it would stand to reason that he might try to sort of break his image as being kind of cold and aloof to choose a member of the opposite sex.

Lipsky:  As I understand it, if he doesn’t get a majority of parliament then he has to pick from the opposition, right?

Grant:  The mechanics of that…you may be right.  It could lead to what’s called a “cohabitation” or having an opposition party candidate who could be the prime minister.  That would cause a deadlock which happened in the past with Chirac and Mitterrand.  As far as what that would involve for France is one thing, but the impact that it could have on European politics is the more interesting thing I think in the long-term because as this war in Ukraine drags on and the European response is becoming rather disjointed I would say compared to the American and British response.  How much is someone like Macron going to be hobbled or enabled by the state of domestic politics in France?  There’s a lot of things that are kind of percolating and Russia is a big part of that.

Lipsky:  What do you make of the fact that some of the Mélenchon socialist voters turned around and voted for, in the second round, Madame Le Pen, the rightist figure?

Grant:  It’s possible that they were just sort of turned off by Macron and have seen Le Pen as being maybe less above the far-right candidate than a right or moving towards the center-right.  That could be one explanation, you know, like kind of a protest vote, even realizing that she wouldn’t have clinched it with their support because of how she was tracking in the polls.  Her performance in the debates was seen as lackluster.  I think it just underscores how things in France are in a state of flux as often has been the case in French history.  A lot of generational crosscurrents at Marine Le Pen and her anti-immigrant stance and so forth being part of her party’s DNA, but also sort of going for the traditional French values aspect of her approach to politics.  Whereas Macron does see himself, I mentioned the polling before, he sees himself as at the vanguard of this European sensibility, which a lot of traditional French people are not always that sold on.  There are a lot of French people that probably would still prefer to use the French Franc and not the Euro.  They see that Brexit has not really done anything to hurt Britain’s economic standing, maybe it’s even enhanced it.  So there’s a lot of Euroscepticism.  Marine Le Pen embodied that skepticism.

Vik:  Do you think that’s growing?  Is there a chance we see a “Frexit” or whatever we would call it down the line?  Someone mentioned to me the other day they thought the split that was more relevant was globalists versus nationalist more than right versus left.  Would you agree with that kind of assessment?

Grant:  I would tend to agree with that.  The Sun, we reported that Macron’s victory speech in front of the Eiffel Tower was sort of symbolic not just as the French monument everybody knows, but you know, he didn’t go in front of the Arc de Triomphe.  He didn’t go in front of the Palace of Versailles, you know, or some traditional French building like Marine Le Pen did in the pretty chic district of Paris.  It’s not something that everyone thinks “Oh, France.  The Eiffel Tower, fun vacations, French finesse, French flare.”  That’s that global sort of patina that he trades on.  I would say that the European Union project is seen by a lot of people as being bogged down by bureaucracy, policies, being determined by bureaucrats, or Eurocrats I should say.  It doesn’t sit well with a good percentage of the population.  I don’t know what the exact numbers are, but it’s not a universally liked international apparatus for lack of a better way to put it.  As a demonstration of that you have another war in Europe, a really nasty one and what did the EU do to avert it?  Nothing really.  I think there could also be some resentment towards Macon’s overtures to Putin that came under scathing fire from the leadership of Poland and perhaps in Hungary, but definitely the Poles who have just said that they’re going to find alternative sources to the Russian oil that will no longer be flowing.  It’s not a unified picture in Europe right now and Macron has those challenges that he’s going to have to grapple with.

Vik:  Very interesting.  So in terms of the broader war that’s happening in Europe, you had a number of fascinating points from the rhetoric of World War III in separating fact from fiction to the role of the media.  Can you share a little bit of that?  

Grant:  I tried to see how people, Americans in particular, are looking at the events happening here from American shores.  I’m not on those shores right now, but the media picture is international and you do see a lot of rhetoric about World War III, you know, how things could escalate.  I’ve seen headlines in a lot of the British tabloid papers which are widely read.  There was something, I think, in the Sun yesterday about Putin.  He threatened nuclear strikes if there’s more western interference in Ukraine.  I look at some of these headlines and up until this very moment, I’ve seen a disconnect between some of these screaming headlines that are very escalatory and the actual quotes that are coming from the Russians, which certainly they’re not sending in warm and fuzzy remarks to London and Washington, but the Russians are not stupid.  They choose their words carefully as well, but when those remarks are cherry picked for the sake of an expedient headline, I think it’s quite inflammatory and it doesn’t actually help the situation.  It helps sell newspapers.  It helps people tune in to the news broadcast, but I haven’t seen the language of those kinds of direct threats coming from the Kremlin.  The more responsible thing is to take the language that is coming out of the Kremlin and report it exactly and not what our idea of it is.  I’m a child of the Cold War.  I grew up in the 80s when everything was about, you know, Red Dawn and all the movies so having been through that and having had some kind of semblance of hope that with the breakdown of the USSR and the arms treaties, that fall might be behind us.  To see it coming back, the fear, if nothing else is quite disappointing.  And again, I haven’t seen this kind of rhetoric in the French press or in the Italian press.  It seems to be sort of the old poles of opposition: America, Russia.  I feel like obviously what Russia is doing is nasty, brutal, and horrific.  There’s no denying that, but again, there are very canny in the Kremlin and I think it just bears a greater scrutiny from all sides. 

Lipsky:  You know, the Telegraph in London just moved a headline that says “Why the Chances of World War III are Greater Than We Realize.”  It’s not just the tabloid press in Britain. 

Grant:  I saw that.  I actually was reading that.  You know, that is a very nicely written opinion piece.  There’s a lot of cogent points raised in that.  To the Telegraph’s credit, they obviously are very strong backers of Boris Johnson and the British effort to arm Ukraine and be on President Zelensky’s side is, I think, admirable especially considering what until very recently has been the lackluster German response and the British have stepped up to the plate.  But again, saying World War III is upon us is a very sexy thing to say.  It grabs people’s attention.  I think what’s actually a lot more interesting is the nuances that are happening on the ground as we speak.  This has the hallmark of a global conflict.  Obviously there’s so many countries already involved, but the question is it just the toxic state of play on the international arena right now or is it really heading into something that is more dangerous?  

Vik:  What are some of those nuances that you’re following and think we should be paying attention to?

Grant:  Well for me, and I’m certainly not the only one, I think what’s quite fascinating and alarming in a way is the fact that Ukraine is now, not for the first time, I think that it started in April, has gone on the counteroffensive by going after Russian targets within Russia.  I keep trying to look for examples of this since World War II, and if there are, I’m coming up short.  But it’s very audacious of the Ukrainian Army to be doing this and they are being supported in this with the British support.  It’s publicly known.

Vik:  What targets are they hitting?

Grant:  They’ve gone after, from what I’ve gathered and what’s been reported, oil depots, a very large one actually only about something like 30 to 40 miles north of the Ukrainian border in the sort of central northern part of Ukraine.  I think it’s called Belgorod, it’s a Russian region opposite the Ukraine border.  They started some huge fires there with some kind of attack and that was only a few days ago.  It’s quite brazen and what’s happening right now, well, the whole Moldavian-Transnistrian question is also very murky right now as far as…

Vik:  Hold on.  I really want to dig into that, but before we do, you were saying that these attacks on Russian soil were with British support?

Grant:  Reportedly and absolutely with moral support.  In terms of logistics and intelligence support, I think it is likely.  As far as what weapons were used and how many of those weapons are old from Ukrainian stocks and how many are weapons of British or American providence, I think it’s safe to assume that western arms shipments that have been coming in are being used.  Whether those are being used in these attacks across the border in Russia or within the Donbas for example, this is the global dimension to the conflict which is undeniable.  The question is how much can you poke a bear before it starts to show its claws?  That’s the question that everybody is kind of starting to wonder.  That’s a real escalation of threat.

Vik:  Interesting.  I feel like that hasn’t gotten as much coverage as it sounds like it deserves.  

Grant:  I think that maybe one of the reasons for that is that the details of these attacks are sometimes sketchy.  There is the fog of war element which is certainly happening right now with the Moldova situation even though Moldova borders Romania, a NATO member country. I don’t think there are a lot of reporters there.  

Vik:  What’s happening in Moldova?  What do we know?

Grant:  As of now, what we know for sure is that on Monday there was a rocket-propelled grenade attack on an administrative building in the breakaway republic of Transnistria which is basically a sliver of land along the banks of the Dniester River there which is Russian-backed.  It has been a part of a devolved kind of cease-fire arrangement from years ago.  The fact that there’s about 1,500 Russian troops is nothing new, but the question is if the agitation that’s being stirred up there is Moscow’s sort of signal that they want to open up a new front on Ukraine from that direction, in other words from the west.  Do they want to actually take over Moldova as some have suggested and one rogue Russian general has suggested?  That I see as unlikely, but then again, a lot of things that seemed unlikely in January have now come to pass.  The Russians are excellent at spinning information, pumping out the disinformation, and misinformation.  I think the Ukrainians are half as good at it.  The Russians have a lot more practice.  It’s hard to find out what’s happening, but there’s definitely something going on.  The fact that there was a strategic bridge that was bombed out by the Russians in the past couple of days.  They hit it on two consecutive days.  This is south of Odessa.  Rail traffic from Romania to Ukraine has now been cut off.  Romania is a member of NATO.  I think this is a dangerous turn.  It shows that regardless of speculation in whatever sense, the Kremlin is putting the squeeze on Ukraine from the south.  Mariupol is basically gone.  They’re trying to create a landbridge and what that means for a city like Odessa which has been relatively calm is unsettling to say the least.  I think that just like in the beginning part of this war, there was a lot of media fixation on that big long column of tanks that was trying to get into Kyiv and that was going to be the thing that was going to destroy Kyiv.  Well, it turns out that that kind of fell apart.  The Ukranians, very jointly, picked off one tank after another.  The Russians retreated.  Now there’s been a lot of focus on Donbas and how the Russians are putting all the energy into seizing that, but does anyone really think that Putin is going to be content with just grabbing that eastern region even though it’s an industrial heartland?  I don’t think so.  They’re in it for the long haul.  When you look at the world from the perspective of Moscow and you’re the big guy on the block you’re not going to be deterred by some bad press.  It’s going to be, I think, a very bumpy ride from here until the start of the summer and let’s face it, the fighting gets easier the warmer it gets.  It’s pretty warm in Europe today.  It’s warming up.

Vik:  I know it’s too early to say, but what’s your sense of what we might be facing in Moldova?  Is it just about that breakaway region?  Do they have total control over it now?  Are they trying to solidify control or do you think it’s going to be a broader effort?

Grant:  I just learned from a credible European news source that the able-bodied men in Transnistria are now proscribed from leaving the breakaway country.  So the men are now being told to stay put.  I don’t see that as a potentially particularly bright sign.  What that means in the context of Ukraine, I think it’s still too soon to tell, but I think that Russia is kind of playing with that region like a cat is playing with a mouse.  They may not want to gobble it up.  I’m not convinced that they do, but I think that they are trying to taunt and they’re also, by doing that, they distract from what’s happening in Mariupol.  They distract from what’s happening in Donbas north of that.  They also just are flexing their muscle against those arms shipments that are coming in, distracting from perhaps attacks that they’re planning and have done on some of those arms shipments by bombing railway stations inside Ukraine.  So again, I don’t think they’re doing anything by accident.  That might be one small reason to have a little bit of hope, not a lot, but that things maybe won’t blow up, literally, beyond the region.  The Russians are very deliberate, not necessarily reckless although you could say that a war is reckless obviously.  But seeing within the scope of Putin’s diabolical yet strategic aims, things do tend to make a certain bizarre sense even under the fog of war, which Moldova is now in that fog.  It’s rolling over that place right now.

Lipsky:  Tony, how long have you lived in Europe?

Grant:   Well I have lived off and on in Europe and the Middle East for a number of years in dribs and drabs.  I lived in Paris from about 2004 to 2008.  I’ve been here in Athens for probably about three and a half years and in Tel Aviv for four years before that.  I spent a summer in Russia once only the weather was so depressing I left after four months.

Lipsky:  How would you characterize the outlook today compared to what you expected when you were a young man living in Europe?

Grant:  Like many Americans, I idealized and had this sort of rosy vision of Europe growing up in the suburbs of southern California.  Although it didn’t take long, when I was in college I spent a semester working in a French newspaper.  I could see all the different signs of France that you don’t see in a two week vacation, but you know, I wouldn’t say it’s part of the charm, but the problems of Europe are part of that European fabric.  I just read that there’s a 600 percent increase in the number of Americans who are booking trips to Europe this summer over the previous summer.  The Americans, I think, still love coming to Europe as an alternative to familiarity and a sense of history.  What’s happening now is that we’re seeing history changing at a very fast pace.  I don’t know if I’d be booking a trip to Romania or Poland right now.

Lipsky:  Do you think that’s related to, what?  The end of Covid relatively speaking?

Grant:  Yeah, I think there’s definitely a thirst for travel after people have been cooped up for many months.  Despite the fact that airfare is going up dramatically, traveling in Europe and hotels and such is still relatively cheaper than it would be in New York City or Las Vegas so you can still find deals.  The Europe that most Americans will see is not going to be the kind of things that are being seen in Ukraine or across the border in Poland with refugees.  There’s a risk that things could spiral, but for now I am sure that if you’re in a cafe in Paris or in Rome you can sip your espresso and sort of pretend that it’s somewhere else.  Being in Europe I’ve seen the direct impact.  I’ve seen an electric bill of my own go up something like 45 percent in the space of three months.  The cost of living, and a lot of those costs will be passed along to tourists because of air conditioning, powering trains, the cost of inflation and food.  This may well be the last summer of relative affordability in Europe for some years to come.  Maybe this is the time to book that trip.

Vik:  Travel aside, you also mentioned Kazakhstan.  What’s happening there?

Grant:  One of the interesting things that we recorded which is the same thing that happened in Transnistria, they canceled that May 9 victory parade.  You might say why would Kazakhstan schedule a parade that’s basically a Russian parade?  Well, Kazakhstan and Russia are part of a regional treaty alliance so to speak.  I don’t have the exact name although it’s in the story.  They’re big neighbors before Ukraine came along and the Russian invasion.  It seemed like they were on relatively good terms.  Russia did get involved in January in the political upheavals that were happening in Almaty which is the business capital in Kazakhstan.  It’s hard to figure out if the Kazakhstan government was thrilled to have Russia step in or if they felt there was no other way to sort of keep a lid on whatever was going on there.  But politically, things are calm in Kazakhstan.  The fact that this episode with the Russian TV presenter who was controversial from the start because he’s, if not a close personal friend of Putin, one of his biggest supporters.  His wife is the editor-in-chief of RT which is the Russian propaganda channel that’s been blocked in the European Union.  He probably will be barred from entering Kazakhstan not that he was planning a trip there, but he was trying to incite and stir up the sentiments of the Russian speaking people in Kazakhstan against the legitimacy of the Kazakh government.  He did it in a taunting kind of way.  The fact that Kazakhstan canceled that victory parade, that made him sort of say, “Look at what happened in Ukraine.  If you keep going down that road, guess what’s going to happen.”  So that was seen as a threat.  Now he doesn’t represent the Kremlin officially but considering his ties, he’s not saying much without realizing who’s looking over his shoulder and that’s Putin.  Putin has said, in 2014 around the time of the takeover of Crimea, that Kazakhstan has no right to stay put.  So 2014 is the bat of an eyelash ago in terms of time because here we are.  This other invasion of Ukraine, it’s a space of a few years.  So if you look at any map of Russia, you can’t ignore Kazakhstan.  It’s one of the biggest countries in central Asia.  Maybe it is the biggest country in central Asia.  I’m not sure.  There’s a lot of natural resources there as well.  It’s definitely on Putin’s radar.  I don’t know what that means in terms of his battle plan so to speak, but I think if he could wake up one morning and call Kazakhstan “Russian,” he’d be a happy dictator.  

Vik:  What other countries are on Putin’s radar in terms of his belief that they really shouldn’t be independent countries?

Grant:  Well there’s always the question of the Baltics.  I think if I were in Estonia right now, or Tallinn, or Latvia, I’d be very happy that Germany is sending tanks to Ukraine.  I’d look at that as something of an insurance policy.  The fact that Sweden and Finland are going to be applying for a full NATO membership is also something that I think has a lot of impact on the overall situation, but would Putin invade the Baltics?  I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.  Maybe he would love it.  Do I think he would actually do it?  I don’t think so.  I think that what he saw in Ukraine was the fact that here’s a country without NATO guarantees, a fledgling country in many respects with Russian speakers peppered throughout, with a major city like Odessa which was founded by Catherine the Great more or less, and an easy target because of what happened with Crimea.  He took it.  President Obama, for all of his good points, was probably weak on the Crimean fronts.  There wasn’t much momentum or push back.  In this part of the world when there’s weakness, the wolves come out and take advantage of it.  I think maybe some in Washington don’t have a full grasp of that.  Certainly in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv they do and in Moscow they do.  I think President Biden’s response has been pretty good in terms of the arms commitments and all that, but it’s an ocean away.  That’s always been a situation of goings-on in Europe.  I mean, it’s a mosaic here of different countries, and different people, and rubbing shoulders not always amicably.  When you’re in America, this is the “over there.”  From over here, I could say that a lot of Europeans and a lot of European capitals — not just in the Baltics, but in Paris, and London, and Athens — they’re nervous.

Lipsky:  If you were president of America, would you admit Sweden and Finland to NATO?

Grant:  I would most likely be very happy to admit Sweden into NATO.  As far as Finland goes, I would think very carefully about how its inclusion would be perceived in Moscow.  Finland shares an 840 mile long border, if I’m not mistaken, with Russia.  I do not feel that Finland without NATO protection is in any particular danger from Russia.  That’s my impression.  I was in Finland briefly over the summer.  I know circumstances internationally have changed.  I’m not saying I would be opposed to Finland joining NATO by no means.  I just think I would study the ramifications very carefully with top military advisors, the top, and weigh the impacts and make a decision based on that.  I don’t think I would be qualified enough to say “Yeah, let’s go for it 100%.”  Sweden is a different story.  Finland has always been a special case and a very special history with Russia with its ups and downs, but I think I would have to study it in really great detail.

Vik:  Well on that note, thank you for taking so much time to talk to us.  This has been really interesting.  Thank you everybody for joining.  I hope you join us next week.  Thank you again, Tony.  This was super fascinating.

Sages of the Sun is a weekly podcast produced by The New York Sun. The Sun is committed to upholding the finest journalistic traditions and staying true to our motto, “It Shines For All.”

Seth Lipsky is a seasoned veteran of the news business, and among the most revered American editors. He previously spent 20 years at the Wall Street Journal, launched the Jewish Daily Forward, and first revived the Sun back in 2002.

Caroline Vik has more than a decade of experience in policy-making, with years spent on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, at the Department of Defense, and on the National Security Council.