Kursk incursion latest: Putin left 'flustered' as Ukraine seeks to consolidate gains inside Russia

there is a huge question well when one is afraid of escalation like what are you afraid of like we have shown that even if you are Marching into the Russian's territory there is not much of escalation because they just going to according to their plan they keep destroying our energy infrastructure they keep trying to take all our territories and there is like not some big explosion that they are making right away so uh the question is what the world is afraid of we have already been showing that Russia can be punished can be fight fought back and should be fought back Ukraine escalated drone attacks on Russia's central region hitting residential buildings in two cities in a statement on telegram the Ukrainian President Vladimir zalinski called on Western allies to come to the country's Aid let's welcome now the Ukrainian MP Kira rudik hello to you Kira hello John and thank you so much for having me as always you're welcome Kira tell me were you in the city last night and if so what did you see and hear of this raid oh that was a terrifying night right after uh we had our anniversary of Independence over this weekend so the air raid siren started like 300 a.m. and uh with some interruptions today we had like one of the longest ear raid uh Sirens since the beginning of the full scale Invasion so we spent the majority of the day in the bomb shelters and we have heard many explosions throughout out KF mostly from working of our air defense systems however um we also know that there were uh hits throughout Ukraine and uh that energy object were targeted and hit the most um concerning and the most terrifying part is that Russia was targeting um the hydro electric plant that is north from Kiev and it's located over the dam to the river Nipper and if there would be a catastrophe like in novokov kadam like there it will be really terrifying and uh with massive destructions so we know that Russians are trying to push us closer towards the total blackout so after the air R siren started there were blackouts throughout City we did not have energy and water for a long time and right now John we are speaking I'm using diesel generator to have electricity and internet it is it is quite difficult to imagine Kira what it must be like to live under that threat from from here a place like here in in London where we are as it were safe and safe and sound I know you're used to these aerial attacks in in ke and other towns and cities in in Ukraine but tell me Kira what about the effect of all of this over such a period now on the mood of the Ukrainian people there in keev and elsewhere well you know sometimes we think that we have used to going to the bomb shelters or being um under constant threat but the truth is you cannot get used to that you cannot get used to uh waking up in the middle of the night trying to turn on your washing machine and and have your like just prepare for the another day right or to have children study um under the lights of the candle like in olden days because we do not have electricity the truth is still we are full of hope you know today in the bomb shelter I didn't see people complaining or like being mean to each other everyone was trying to be very helpful and we were just hoping that whatever Target was that Russians would not be able to hit and also it was pretty scary because because you are thinking about our air defense um forces and if they have enough of their defense systems to take everything down that going our way yeah and we really hope that they do and me as a politician I'm working on getting them what they need so they would not be facing enemy empty-handed yeah well our best wishes as always go go go out to you when it comes to the the the incursion into Russia into the KK region what sort of of effect has that had on the Ukrainian people has it made a difference in that way oh of course it was very motivating but not only um to to us but I think to many of our allies and partners throughout the world and I think we were able to destroy this uh very dangerous illusion that Russia is Invincible they are not they are not Invincible they can be fought and they can be worn over and this is what we still intend to do look Putin's plan to destroy our Energy System did not change since like two years ago right and they are just going with their plan but we need to do what is up to us and we need to make sure that um that we trust in our generals and they are able to execute on the missions that they find suitable to make sure that it's not that the Russian people are actually feeling that it's not only uh you as attacking when you're launching a war but you will also at some point will feel the punch back when it will be important for our lives to see that we still have a chance to turn the tide in this war and also to work against this idea that all Russians are against the war and it's only Putin's War well we have proven it is not and we want the whole world to see that and I've been looking at reports Kira that uh that that ke that Ukraine you you want your NATO friends your NATO allies to help you out further by by knocking down Russian Rockets where they are close to the NATO border have you hoped that NATO may make that step because it would be a it would be a significant step well today there was another uh crossing of the border to the Polish uh territory and we believe that if the attacks will continue there would be more attacks on the territories of our allies and this is why it's not only for ourselves but we are saying well if you want to take down the missiles because before they reach your territory it's a good time to do that same as with um our allowance to uh to hit Russian missiles on the the Russian territory we need uh the permission from our allies to do that because it's very hard to hit the missile when it's very close to the ground and close to the hitting but much easier when it's just at the beginning of its way yeah it's reported that in the Polish government your neighbor Poland ministers are considering that request to knock down Russian Rockets where they are at the the NATO border but it would involve well pretty pretty indepth conversations with other NATO partners and they would be a fear of escalation but you know that you know that very well of course but first it was not the first time when Russian missiles hit the NATO members borders right there were couple of um incidents with Poland couple of incidents with mova and Romania and again uh it it will continue and I think our friends and Li they know that so there should be a solution to that but then there is a huge question well when one is afraid of escalation like what are you afraid of like we have shown that even if you are Marching into the Russian's territory there is not much of escalation because they just going to according to their plan they keep destroying our energy infrastructure they keep trying to take all our territories and there is like not some big explosion that they are making right away so uh the question is what the world is afraid of we have already been showing that Russia can be punished it's mostly attacks on civilian infrastructure on Water Supplies on energy supplies and it looks as if Russia and Putin in particular having been humiliated by Ukraine's occupation of a big chunk of the kusk region inside Russia is desperately trying to show that they've still got the initiative in this war yeah look now Russia has launched one of its biggest aerial attacks and its ongoing conflict with Ukraine with energy facilities being the main targets of the assault at least six people have been killed and major power outages have been seen across the country it is audio taken during the attack in response Ukraine have launched their own drone attacks on Russian residential buildings amid their crossborder incursion into Russia's southern kurur region in a statement issued on telegram the Ukrainian president zalinsky said Russia's attacks Target tared critical civilian infrastructures and called for aid from Western allies let's speak now to the former ambassador to Ukraine Lee Turner Lee a warm welcome to the show um even hello how how effective has this latest attack been from Russia and and what exactly have they been targeting so they've they've launched what is pretty certain to be the largest bombardment of Ukraine by Russia in the last two and a half years of this war the ukrainians say it was 236 cruise missiles ballistic missiles and lots of these Iranian Shahed drones attacking cities right across Ukraine and you're right uh Kate it's mostly attacks on civilian infrastructure on Water Supplies on energy supplies and it looks as if Russia and Putin in particular having been humiliated by Ukraine's occupation of a big chunk of the kusk region inside Russia is desperately trying to show that they've still got the initiative in this war yeah look Vladimir zeny has issued another plea to Western Partners to step up their assistance will that will that plea be met I think it's uh there's several things we're talking about here one is the idea that Western allies themselves should help to shoot down Russian drones and missiles and zilinski uh referred to the help that the US UK and France gave to Israel back in April when Iran launched missile and drone attacks on Israel and France the UK and the US got involved in shooting down those missiles and zelinsky a good politician he said life has the same value everywhere implying that perhaps we should help with these ones too the difference of course is that the risk of escalation in the Russia Ukraine war is very great and we don't want any kind of shooting war between NATO and Russian forces but the answer is to give the ukrainians the tools to do the job of Defending themselves we need to give them those weapons and we need to help them develop their own weapons there are two very interesting new weapons that Ukraine has developed itself one is this Neptune cruise missile and also a brand new thing something called the panit cruise missile we don't know much about it I'm glad we don't because it's a secret new development but we need to help Ukraine to be able to defend itself because if Russia wins this war it will be emboldened to attack again as it did after the attack of 2014 and moreover every country around the world that Fancy's taking a bite out of its neighbors will be emboldened opening up a kind of Pandora's box of potential global conflict that will cost us far more than supplying arms to Ukraine now yeah look um zalinski is called for Aviation support uh f16s and and air defense systems uh what he is asking for and and and and and and there attack coming two days after Ukraine celebrated it's Independence Day and and as you've leaned into their Lee it comes on the back of a pretty embarrassing incursion into Russia Russia into the KK region um by zelinsky I suppose the question now is um will Russia continue to agitate Ukraine will it continue to make these you know methodical targeted attacks or Vladimir Putin this is an existential War if Putin having launched this war quite unnecessarily there was no threat to Russia not a single Russian had been killed by uh Ukrainian forces before Russia launched this war in 2014 having launched this war Putin has to win it and so he will be Des at to do anything he can to make sure that Russia wins this and we've seen unfortunately strong advances by Russia in the center of Ukraine in the donet region at the same time that Ukraine has been pushing forward in the KK area and I'm afraid the likeliest outcome at the moment looks like a continued War of Attrition what we must never forget of course is that although Russia likes to portray itself as being in Invincible uh as being indomitable of as having Limitless resources none of this is true Russia is running out of weapons and it's also R running out of Manpower there was some interesting statistics came out last week uh suggesting that uh the average age of Russian prisoners of War had increased from 32 to 38 years old over the last two years so we mustn't give Russia the benefit of the doubt in terms of assuming that they have to win this war that's not true at all and I I wonder how comparable the attacks are by both countries to the point where both Russia and Ukraine have denied targeting civilians I mean is that is that is that really the case it's a matter of degree uh when you have a very intensive War like this going on unfortunately some collateral damage or some injuries and deaths of civilians are inevitable but I think the way that Russia in particular has been running this war Russia is of course the aggressor to begin with but we have seen repeatedly in places like uh marup or in bukha or um in other cities that Russia has eventually overrun they have absolutely destroyed those cities and we are guessing that the deaths amongst Ukrainian civilians are in excess of 10,000 civilians who've been killed within the last two years I've seen evidence of Ukrainian attacks within Russia also causing civilian deaths but it's nothing like the same scale I saw I saw a video today uh on the BBC of a Ukrainian missile hitting a a tall building I think in Saratov um but this is not uh a war of annihilation against Russia in the way that Russia's war against Ukraine is exactly that really good to speak to you thank you so much for your expertise on that Lee Turner who is the former British ambassador to Ukraine and author of lessons in diplomacy politics and what we saw yesterday as well is that the ukrainians didn't just uh take this line down they hit back one of the uh largest oil refineries inside Russia with drones of their owns and it looks like they were successful in doing so and we're getting a lot of uh chatter on the Russian military bloggers who seem to think this was a pretty significant strike and they think the damage is quite extensive ukrainians are woken up in the early hours of the morning with air raid alerts as Russia targets the country with another wave of strikes it's a continuation of one of Russia's biggest air attacks on Ukraine in the war so far we're joined Now by Zach Anders a journalist in har in eastern Ukraine good morning to Zach hi good morning just explain then what has been happening yeah this was a remarkable morning we woke up to a mass massive air alert that lasted for 7 hours and we saw some of these strikes heard the Rockets flying overhead in a location at the time I was staying outside keev in a very usually very quiet location so to hear the Rockets flying overhead was a jolt and we saw a power plant to our Southeast by about 50 miles the smoke plume thousands of feet into the air after the strike and uh everyone lost power the main thing that got everybody very worried however was the strike that impacts near the KE Reservoir Dam that's holding back a massive volume of water and if that dam was to breach the KE metro area is square in its sights there would be thousands that uh displaced you don't even want to think about the possibility of uh who could be killed in a rush of water of that scale um so that was certainly the the eye openening moment um but what what as the day went on and we were able to kind of take stock of uh the the attack itself what ended up being remarkable was that the ukrainians actually shot down by their own account uh more than 80% of the missiles and drones that were fired and I've been spending a lot of time in Northern Israel where Hezbollah has been using these same drones the Iranian ma Shahed drones and the Israelis have been having a a horrible time shooting these drones down even though they have the the incredible Iron Dome air defenses uh these drones have been slipping through and evading their air defenses and the Israeli casualties to soldiers in Northern Israel are greater uh there have been more that have been killed by these drones than by any anything else uh so what we saw yesterday here in Ukraine was remarkable because the ukrainians are out they're not using traditional air defense systems to shoot these drones down they have their helicopters up in the air and their U uh machine Gunners on on the W uh the edge of the the helicopter literally shooting these down like uh uh some kind of World War II bomber it's it's uh remarkable to watch this happen um and and I was going to ask um that the Russians seem to periodically Target um par stations parag grids Etc um and how can ukrainians better protect those kind of those installations but but it sounds like that that that is something that they've got better at doing they have and you know you would think if you were a war planner right in the Russian mindset and you're trying to just triple handicap your enemy and get this over with because this war is dragged on now for almost three years uh you would you would go after things like the energy infrastructure well for large part the um the nuclear power plants the dams have kind of been off limit because in certain areas the Russians are using this electricity that is being generated inside Ukraine zapia nuclear power plant is a great example of that um that that right there I mean we have the world on edge with Europe's largest nuclear power plant Under Siege daily um the the concern about what happens there I mean we we should probably the the International Community should be paying more attention to zapia because if if anything was to happen there this would be an incredible nuclear disaster uh but the Russians have largely stayed back from um perhaps advancing with the same strength and uh uh pressure that they put onto other areas of the front lines uh in large part because they're using some of that electricity in some of the occupied territories uh and inside Russia as well pre-war agreements so um the the energy infrastructure has been this this on the sidelines for the most part because neither side has wanted to be inflicted with this uh this kind of damage if can't afford it and what we saw yesterday as well is that the ukrainians didn't just take this line down they hit back one of the uh largest oil refineries inside Russia with drones of their owns and it looks like they were successful in doing so and we're getting a lot of uh chatter on the Russian military bloggers who seem to think this was a pretty significant uh strike and they think the damage is quite extensive so we're we're in a period now of the conflict where it's been eroding for so long in the front lines they've been barely moving in certain places that this this slow erosion is going to probably be a a dam break moment a landslide moment at some point uh and we're going to see a flurry of activity where perhaps things like this happen where Russia is targeting uh this energy infrastructure and trying to really issue some sort of handicap blow just one other issue of course and that is an update on what is happening in KK uh the Ukrainian Advance there do do you know the latest there yeah we're we're kind of staged outside of K right now um we are told that for the most part the movement in the area is good because the Russians have not been hitting very hard uh inside their own territory obviously there's still a a good number of Russian citizens that are still inside there that are now living under uh Ukrainian occupation and the the question going forward is is there going to be any sort of humanitarian effort to move them out um and and you know I you would imagine the Russians don't want to hit this area very hard with as many civilians that they still have in the area that weren't they didn't have time to evacuate um so that's going to be a major question mark going forward it's quiet there from what I've been told I I had a colleague who was just there two days ago he said it was surreal because it was just so quiet on the K on the Russian side and the ukrainians are hurrying and building defenses and trying to hold uh this territory because it's a a great card to bring to the negotiating table of course uh but on the Sumi side on the Ukrainian side of that region they get they're getting hit very very hard and um the regional Governor there said uh over the weekend that there were some 200 strikes there were uh three dead 14 wounded it was a a very bad weekend in that region where the ukrainians are obviously moving a lot of resources and Equipment through daily to try and fortify up uh this kers region Zach thank you very much for bringing us up to dat that is uh Zach Anders uh he is a journalist and he's reporting the more that um zinski can demonstrate to normal Russians that they're in a war that this isn't just some foreign foray that actually they are directly being affected whether it's their young men predominantly and women being returned in boxes or without limbs whether it's uh people being evacuated from the curs region 150,000 people they're going to talk as well and all the sanctions I think it all starts to pile up and potentially erode support for Putin hello and welcome to to front line for times radio I'm James Hansen and today we're talking about the latest on the war in Ukraine and I'm delighted to be joined by the former fighter pilot military analyst and co-host of the red Matrix podcast sha Bell Shan always a pleasure welcome back to front line thank you James always a pleasure to be here it's really interesting because when we spoke a couple of weeks ago the K incursion was in its early phase you were seriously impressed by the Ukrainian operation but you were skeptical about how long they'd be able to maintain their position in kurur have you changed your view on that no I bluntly I I don't I think when we first saw it start it uh looked like about a thousand troops about 20 tanks and it looked like just a probing attack see how far they could go ideally probably to embarrass and humiliate President Putin um but they managed to roll back the Russian defenses pretty quickly so they capitalized it now looks likely they have 10,000 troops in that little onclave it looks like they've blown Three Bridges uh if they were plan to go any further they wouldn't have blown those bridges so looks likely they're settling in and digging themselves in the real surprise is why President Putin doesn't appear to have done anything about it um I think when we discussed before you know one of the options was Putin because he's mred a security he would need to be seen to be dealing with this incursion firmly I mean let's be blunt it's the first time that Russia's been invading since 1941 so um for a man who presents himself as Mr security this is deeply humiliating so the question is why has he not reacted so far and I think what's been interesting a couple of answers to that one of them I come from military where we delegate down so from our Junior non-commission ranks our corporals our senior non-commission ranks our our sergeants they are empowered to take control in a world of ambiguity they understand commander's intent when things happen at a surprise they get on and do something about it whereas in the Russian military that's not the way they operate any surprise is they look to their boss and say what I do now boss their bosses look to their bosses and it Cascades all the way up in this case almost certainly to President Putin and that leads to a sort of strategic Paralysis on the front line until the boss President Putin decides what to do I still think there are two options one of which is to crush uh the ukrainians that are there and that would take battle hardened troops he'd have Russia would have to move them from the front line that would ease pressure on the front line and that's exactly what Ukraine is probably hoping he'll do the other option which I think is playing out at the moment is he's fixed Russia has fixed 10,000 of Ukraine's best fighters in a portion of Russia he doesn't have to do anything about it now he can put a ring of Steel around it deal with that another day meanwhile as a military guy you're always focused on Main effort and what appears to be Russia's main effort is the special military operation sees Crimea the landbridge and the dbass he's done most of that there's a small area of the donbass relatively small he hasn't yet taken it looks like Putin is doubling down on that pvos um tet are the two areas of focused uh and that means he's got 10 to 12 weeks this summer before the winter settles in it becomes much more difficult to fight and that's what we appears to be what Putin is doing at the moment and it's interesting as well he's got his mate Luc shenko in bellus to assemble some troops on the border with Ukraine in gol oh blast of of bellarus so again that that's probably designed to try and divert some Ukrainian troops up there as well it could be I have to say having been watching this closely for the the full scale of the war you'll recall early on in the war Russia had positioned troops in Belarus and there were suggestions that they'd be mounting attacks out of Belarus um and actually using the Belarusian soldiers uh as part of that attack the trouble is lenko is known as the last dictator in Europe and it was pretty clear at the time that the Belarusian military said this is not our War uh we're not going to follow you in there and if you do that would cause all sorts of unrest and potentially lead to the end of lukashenko so uh we I suspect Ukraine has discounted that as a serious threat what lushenko is probably trying to do is he wants to be a buddy to President Putin he wants to demonstrate that he's doing all he can by putting troops at the border it just puts a little bubble of doubt in president zelinsky's mind he's probably got to do something with his resources just to cover off that risk even though it's very unlikely those troops would actually come in and Putin of course hates to feel impotent ever does that explain what we've seen in recent days with these large scale drone and missile attacks on towns and cities across Ukraine because he's he's so far unable to drive Ukraine out of KK what can he do he can launch this bombardment it could be James and that's very definitely one of the explanations for it it could be a sort of Act of petulance I I can't do this I'll do do something over here uh I have to say that um what Putin's done very effectively over the last few months he's got very few long-range missiles left he's buying them from North Korea and from Iran and his defense industrial base is spinning up so he can't afford to waste the missiles he has so even an act of petulance I I'm not sure he'd do that I think what's more likely he does appear to be very focused on the energy infrastructure in Ukraine now in the last previous two autumns that's exactly what Russia's done because it's fearsomely cold in Ukraine over the winter make life thoroughly miserable for ukrainians and potentially therefore undermine their Spirit their will to fight this is a bit early for that what almost certainly this is about is that Ukraine has famously said it wants to deliver a million drones out of its own defense industrial base each year and they are producing some very effective drones they are having an impact in uh in Russia and as a result result it looks likely that Putin's stepping up the attack on the energy infrastructure because if you take away the power then the factories can't work and if the factories can't work they can't deliver this battle winning equipment to Ukraine so whilst it might be an act of frustration from President Putin and I have no doubt that is a factor in this um the way he's conducting the attack does appear to be coherent with a a a continued effort to undermine the defense industrial base of Ukraine and president zalinski has promised a response in turn what do you think that could be could that be further drone attacks on Moscow I mean we've seen them in recent weeks that would fit in with the wider strategy of trying to take the war to Russia it could be James but um I think um what president zelinsky's got to be very careful to do is to play this on his own terms um classically Russia is the larger um combatant here they've got more resources available greater wealth available a bigger defense industrial base more soldiers so if Ukraine was simply to meet Russia on the battlefields of old and Slug It Out you know Russia would win so Ukraine has to find innovative ways to uh fight the battle and that's what they're doing with this incursion it's militarily it doesn't actually make a great deal of sense because you're diverting troops away from the main effort why would you do that politically it plays to the center of gravity of President Putin uh centers of gravity being things that the that that one of the combatant just doesn't want to lose and if Putin knows he's actually put in power by the um the oligarchs the power base if they think there's any chance of this war being lost um they are not currently able to Holiday In Paris they're not able to go across to London uh there's all sorts of sanctions crippling their business and Putin is now indicted by the international criminal court the more that um zinski can demonstrate to normal Russians that they're in a war that this isn't just some foreign foray that actually they are directly being affected whether it's their young men predominantly and women being returned in boxes or without limbs whether it's uh people being evacuated from the Cur region 150,000 people they're going to talk as well and all the sanctions I think it all starts to pile up and potentially erode support for Putin well let's pick up on that how would you assess the strength his position domestically currently it's a it's a very very good question James and I'm impossibly ill equipped to answer that I think what we have seen in history is that um dictatorial leaders get very very swiftly replaced it it doesn't end well generally for dictatorial leaders I think we saw with yeni progan um who rode a tide it felt of public opinion that managed to get him further to Moscow than many would have expected Putin will be worried about that it's very difficult when you Putin controls all the information and for largely for domestic Russians it's a bit like in this country you might have strong political views but frankly as long as it doesn't affect what you do each day get up look after your kids go down the pub you don't really mind who's in powered likewise in Russia they'll believe whatever they're fed as long as they can get on with their lives bring up their families in some sort of security but over time gradually um The Narrative that Putin is coming out with does not connect with the number of people coming back in body bags that they're having to bury everybody will know somebody in a body bag by where of context in the Afghanistan war in the UK only a few hundred were killed several thousand were badly injured but help for Heroes created a huge bow wave across the country of sympathy for our servicemen and women just imagine multiplying that by a 100 maybe a thousand that's the impact this is having in domestic Russia so all of this is gradually nibbling away at Putin's uh Power base when will it crumble who knows but history shows these are often short sharp shocks rather than uh through a process of osmosis that's a really good point and you've also got the issue of not just people coming home in body bags but also people being displaced from their homes and being evacuated in belgrod and in K as well um if you were General sersi then if you were the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's forces what would you do now would you try and consolidate the land you've taken in KK or would you in a few weeks time or whenever try and Stage a tactical withdrawal yeah that's a that's a big question isn't it um the problem with answering that question James is that you have to set that into the context of that's a tactical issue in a whole strategy for the country um if you look at it from a grand strategic perspective um the Ukrainian counter offensive penil for last year didn't really work lots of Western support didn't work um this year the much vaunted $60 billion of us Aid that was meant to come in didn't that left a hole Russia got on the front foot and bluntly it was always going to be a very difficult summer for Ukraine and that is where we stand at the moment Ukraine is on the back foot Russia is grinding forward yes there's the K uh intrusion yes there are um oil refineries in flames you know they've been having effect inside Russia but BL ly where it matters on the front line Ukraine have been struggling I think cki would be very keen to stabilize the front line get to Winter and try then to consolidate and actually get back on the front foot again um I think what's been interesting many the briefings I get from defense officials and colleagues in Ukraine is that neither side really has the capability for a decisive breakthrough this year um so um Russia bluntly has has been um losing at times up to 1,600 servicemen a day um compare that with um the the the battles of last year bahmut particularly that was less than a thousand a day and that was described as the most brutal battle since World War II um so600 a day is far more and even now Russia is losing over a thousand a day why does that matter well Russia does not want to mobilize again that would have a profound implication for Putin's power base he has been trying to recruit people from over Seas with a big Bounty and lots of money salary-wise initially that worked but a lot of them were sent straight through the front line and got killed funny old thing uh far significantly fewer are now recruiting less than a thousand a day so Russia is not sustainable position in terms of Manpower neither is Ukraine both sides are grinding themselves to a bit of a stalemate this year H and in the absence of any breakthrough I suspect it'll be winter when everybody will have a little catch their breath un fortunately that times with the US presidential elections and if president Trump arrives then I suspect President Putin will be rubbing his hands in Glee to see if there's some sort of deal to be done I suppose on the Manpower thing there's a couple of things to note first of all not that it affects the numbers but there has been a pretty transformative effect to Ukrainian morale with the Cur incursion it's given them hope again and also a lot of the the people fighting being captured being killed on the Russian side in kers are conscripts because you can't send conscripts overseas and and whereas there are ex prisoners convicts and migrants dying on the front line in Ukraine when you've got uh conscripts who are very often the the sons of middle class families in Moscow and St Petersburg dying that changes the political equation and then if Putin decides well maybe in order to solve my manpow problems I'm looking at another mobilization you can see the logic in that but that also carries massive political risks Sean uh you're absolutely right James I mean you're absolutely right about the morale piece the curs um incursion undoubtedly not just for the Frontline troops but you fellow ukrainians I was speaking to one Ukrainian journalist last week uh and they said um somewhat with tongue and cheek I can't wait to see a Ukrainian flag planted in Moscow um now of course you know probably more in Hope than expectation but I wouldn't underestimate that it's been an incredibly difficult year and therefore things like that have a huge uh morale fill up but I do wonder militarily I think as you say there's two sides to the Cur evasion from a military perspective Ukraine has said they don't want to hold the ground and actually they can't afford to lose 10,000 troops and all the equipment that comes with it that will be a significant chunk of capability so either you're planning to go further if you go further you create longer Logistics tailes and that's very difficult to support and much easier for Russia to attack unlikely to do that you could hold your ground because the longer you're there the more embarrassing it is for President Putin or as you say at some stage you withdraw and President Putin then looks across the rest of the Border over thousand miles of border between Russia and Ukraine and goes where are they going to strike next and it's really interesting maths then if you do even if you put one troop every six feet which is a pretty sparsely populated that's a thousand troops um a mile that's you know a million troops required just to protect the border and that's only one every six feet that isn't going to protect the border so the the the the implications for Russia to provide a robust border security far outway Putin's ability to actually provide it so what it has done with Ukraine's attack is it s a seed of doubt I fortunately I think historians are going to look back on this period and write some interesting books about the strategy was it Folly by um president zinski or was it a master stroke that helped bring down Putin difficult to today be fascinating to look back at this period And do you think Shan we will see at some point further crossb raids by Ukraine into Russia I think it's inevitable I I I I I do think that in fact I'd be quite surprised if they're not happening already there's been some articles appeared over the last 48 hours about um Special Operations Executives you know the the name that was given in World War II to um areas that were occupied where you know resistance Fighters operated both within Ukraine occupied Ukraine and also in Russia I suspect there's a continued theme Here of making life as unpleasant as possible for Russia and of course once Russia realizes that it can't protect his borders that has strategic I mean the number one priority of any political Master is to protect your people if you can't do that real questions start to get asked why are we in Ukraine all of a sudden more and more people are talking more and more dissent that is very difficult for Putin to manage we're not there yet I'm not suggesting there's going to be a big coup but I am suggesting it's just consistent consistantly undermining President Putin's position and that'll be something that I suspect president zilinski will be do all he can it's an asymmetric tactic and it plays to his strengths I suspect we're going to see more of it and just finally Shan what do you think the appropriate response from the West should be I mean I'm increasingly of the view that one of the objectives of this incursion actually is to send a message from Ukraine to its Western allies of look we can physically invade Russia and the worst case scenario of some drastic escalation and God forbid the use of tactical nuclear weapons by Putin in Ukraine won't come to pass it hasn't come to pass so far we'd only be complacent of course but do you think that's part of the objective here and if so how should the West respond once again James it could be I think we've got to be quite careful though um just because uh I mean Russia is a vast country um although um Ukraine has made an incursion the area of ground it's taken is not point not not 3% of Russian territory so in Grand strategic terms it's tiny um it's not got any significant capability uh their towns cities or whatever so lot of communities so I'm not trying to underplay it but it's not difficult terrain to take uh and therefore is that did they have to fight Fierce battles to get in there no did they have the element of surprise to take it yes is it embarrassment for Putin yes but I'm not sure that there are any big military lessons to learn from from that at all I think what's been interesting is that it has raised the question of these long range missiles you'll know that for the course of the war up to now the West has been leaning forward particularly the UK in providing weapons first of all anti-tank weapons then tanks then long range met weapons and then maybe we weren't providing f-16s we' certainly provided a lot of the training and training for tens of thousands of the soldiers as well and largely we've said to president zeny once you've got it as long as it's used within the limits of law of conflict we don't mind how you use it and in a way Storm Shadow was the same the trouble is now that Ukraine is operating within Russian territory and the caveat there is that Putin always said nuclear is the option if my territory is ever invaded so zinski is calling that bluff and that's a dangerous Bluff to call as soon as um my understanding is the us as a leader in NATO turned around to its fellow NATO colleagues and went look um I know we're all doing our own thing supporting Ukraine but actually if we play into Putin's narrative that this isn't a war between Russia and Ukraine it's actually a war between Russia and the west or Russia and NATO use of longrange weapons could tip that fine balance so rather than individual Nations making a decision do you think it's prudent that we all sit down together and agree a policy and that appears to be what's happened with those long- range missiles I was I was doing an interview with with a Ukrainian uh news they were saying you know surely you should be more robust and I said be careful how how you criticize that UK has been is in a difficult position financially domestically but it's still providing a lot of support for Ukraine we must be careful not to escalate this it's it doesn't sound as if the West was expecting this incursion we've got to be really careful not to play into Putin's hand but so far exactly as you described it Putin's been saber rattling every step of the way but it's starting to sand like crying wolf but when you get so close to operating inside Russia I think inevitably internationally it's prudent To Tread carefully Putin clearly um was flustered by this and they had a number of um shows of him talking to his senior security people and so on and he clearly wasn't in a good mood uh the award thing for Russia this is relevant because the way people talk about dangers of escalation and so on is he needs to play this down I mean the more he talks it up and then it finds it difficult to deal with the more it does seem like a Ukrainian Victory hello and welcome to Frontline for times radio I'm James Hansen and today we're talking about the latest on the war in Ukraine and I'm delighted to be joined by the highly respected historian and academic Professor sir Laurence fredman a Meritus professor of War studies at King's College London he's also the author of command the politics of military operations from Korea to Ukraine and you can read his substack which is called comment is freed uh Professor sorence Freedman welcome to Front Line hi first of all I wonder if you can just give us your assessments of the past few weeks specifically the incursion into K here we are almost three weeks into the offensive what is your analysis of it um so I think what what's happened is that uh Ukraine was in quite a a difficult position at the start of um end of July start of August uh it had been on the defensive all year the Russians were pushing quite hard into detet um which is one of the provinces of Ukraine that the Russians claim for themselves uh and though they inflicted terrible casualties on the Russians it was tough for them too and they were being pushed back um and it was very hard to see how they could take any initiatives of their own um possibly until next year they needed to replenish their AR Army and so on uh and then out of the blue really most people were quite surprised by this on Sixth of August they launched an attack into Russia into into k um and it's got the Russians byy surprise got the Americans byy surprise got a lot of ukrainians by surprise um they they've kept this going now for three weeks um they've taken uh substantial chunk of of territory uh they're still expanding pretty slowly now um and though the Russians are starting to fight back it's going to take quite a long time before the Russians can muster the force and organize it to push them out meanwhile the Russians haven't stopped where they're strong uh and indeed they're Advan has picked up pace so the war is rather curiously poised at the moment you've got a a very strong Push by the Russians uh which may see some success quite soon but you've also got this new inititive by the ukrainians which complicates Russian strategy enormously uh because they it's embarrassing for for Putin to have ukrainians occupying a bit of Russia meanwhile you've also got um attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure um really severe ones on um Monday and Tuesday and Ukraine is fighting back by hitting Russian oil uh so there there's a lot of uh tit fortat going on at the moment uh nobody quite in a position to move towards a victory but a lot of damage and destruction are you clear what the primary objective from a Ukrainian point of view was with the incursion was it designed to divert Russian troops was it designed to humiliate Putin or was it primarily designed to send a message to Ukraine's Western allies of look we can physically invade Russia and all of Putin's talk about red lines will be shown to be Bluff I think all of those things um it was uh I think partly morale sounds like it's not a very good reason but actually it's not unimportant they had to show that they could do something and just to relieve the pressure secondly um and president zalanski talked about this yesterday he wants to create a buffer of some sort there's an issue there's an issue about whether the ukrainians uh feared um a Russian another Russian invasion coming through the Kaki vumi uh they had they tried one in k a few months ago which didn't actually go very well but the Ukraine now say they want a buffer of some sort to make those sort of incursions harder I think they really do want the Russians to move troops out of Ukraine and some have already moved out of Ukraine but fortunately for the Ukraine is not quite the ones that they would wish um uh the ones carrying on the um main offensive at the moment so I think there were there were a number of reasons why they wanted to do it they also again this is not minor they've taken five to 600 prisoners and they've many of them conscripts and they've already swapped um well over hundred of those for Ukrainian prisoners so they call it the their exchange fund um the that uh you don't get much out of the Russians unless you've got something to offer in return and you mentioned that and it is worth noting you know for all the morale boost of of the K incursion that Russia are still making incremental gains in denet around psk and I that is important to note isn't it yes and it's serious I mean it's not um now zelensky said yesterday not that um they could stop the Russians advancing more um even into proos which is the the target City but that they can't take all of the Nets so he's sort of raised the bar a bit for the Russians in terms of what constitutes uh a victory uh it it's a it's a uh I mean there's a question as to whether Ukraine would have been able to get in the people that have attacked um K into positions to do too much about uh the Nets just simply because of the problems of moving people into positions uh the thing about this battlefield is every movement is watched it's very hard to do very much uh surreptitiously even the movement into KK uh was sort of hidden a bit because uh the best explanation I think for the Russians was that this was another the defensive move by ukrainians they didn't just expect the ukrainians would have the nerve to try what they tried um but if you know what they're do what what a a unit is doing and You' got drones all over the place and they soon become pretty vulnerable I heard an analyst say the other day that the curs incursion has sort of shown two different military philosophies almost butting heads you've got General Cy deploying in essence a kind of maneuver Warfare with the Cur incursion you've got Russia still with its incremental gains going for attritional Warfare on the front line in Ukraine do you agree with that to a point I mean I think both the senior Russian and Ukrainian commanders were were were products of the Soviet system um Ukraine just doesn't have the manpower to do it like Russia I mean Russia's tactics are extraordinarily wasteful on human life um that they just throw people uh and fire and at the Target until till they it's overwhelmed the ukrainians just can't afford to do that uh in some places they they've tried and you know the losses have been heavy um so the ukrainians do need to maneuver U more than just rely on attrition or at least rely on attrition uh to the extent that the Russians keep on pouring forward and they can keep on taking them out until the point where they can do maneuver which is people were expecting before the K incursion um maneuver is very difficult though I it it this is what the ukrainians discovered last uh last summer 2023 when they tried quite a big offens towards the south of Ukraine and they just got pushed back they just couldn't break through uh so again you come to the problem of the transparent Battlefield uh that that it's much harder to get surprise you what what you're doing can be watched all the time and these days with modern artillery to some extent aircraft you can drones as well you can direct fire very quickly uh at anything you see so it's quite hard to do maneuver um this is why I think the Cur uh incursion appeared as such an opportunity because they thought they really could get surprised and they could see that the defensive lines were very thin um they probably now got almost as far as they're going to go with that for that reason but they keep on the other thing they can do is is keep the Russians guessing where they might next try something so they've reports this morning that they've been pushing in another Russian Province G belgaro um the a lot of Russian bloggers are worried that if they move troops away from Southern Ukraine the ukrainians will try there so um it's hard to do what the ukrainians want do it helps a lot if you can get Russian troops out of the way before you try yeah I just want to pick up on that point about belgar rod and a potential crossborder attack there I think I read the same report certainly The Institute for the study of War have been noting it um what is the significance of choosing belgrod only that it's a bordering provinces from where the Russians U mounted an attack uh earlier this year against kiv which you didn't actually do that well but but it caught the ukrainians a bit by surprise so if you want to create buffers these are the places to do it I think it's just it's accessible and a way to keep the Russians on their toes if you if you don't want them to pour everything either in the N or curse we'll give them something else to worry about yeah and of course parts of belgaro have already been evacuated as well yeah yeah the Russians are very jumpy at the moment about this uh and this is why it's embarrassing for Putin because the very least you given the way that they started he's not exactly being able to look after his own people there quite a lot of anger um in the in these provinces which bit out of the way they often feel neglected by Moscow anyway uh that they're not uh they're not being protected well let's focus on Vladimir Putin's position and the Russian response first of all has it surprised you sir lawence that it's taken a long time for for I mean we haven't really seen them push back against the ukrainians in K okay we saw these this large scale drone and missile attack in towns and cities across Ukraine in the past 72 hours or so but we haven't really seen a a major counter offensive in Cur have you been surprised by the slowness of the Russian response it's just difficult um so they have pushed back and and there's been some quite intense battles in some places uh and I think the ukrainians uh have had mixed fortunes after the first week or so I mean they're still pushing on because there's plenty of places for them to push but not as much as before so there has been some push back the calculation suggest that for a proper counter offensive the Russians probably need 50,000 troops available um the ukrainians were saying yesterday that they reckon about 30,000 troops have being moved out of Ukraine into the area there difficulty for Putin to use conscripts which is also what tends to be available partly because this tends to be a promise that conscripts won't actually be used in battle uh but also they're just not very well trained so I I think that a number of more serious Russian commentators realized from the start that this was going to take weeks months before they can put it right which is probably one reason why they're just pressing ahead with what they can do at the moment on the grounds that if they if they have if they're stuck with ukrainians in Russia they can at least take a bit more of Ukraine and let's say Ukraine was able to push further into belgrad and launch a fullscale incursion akin to what we've seen in KK how politically embarrassing would that be for Putin to have essentially two o blasts occupied yeah i' would be surprised if they were able to get very far but it it certainly would be embarrassing Putin clearly um was flustered by this and they had a number of um shows of him talking to his senior security people and so on and he clearly wasn't in a good mood uh the awkward thing for Russia this is relevant because the way people talk about dangers of escalation and so on is he needs to play this down I mean the more he talks it up and then it finds it difficult to deal with the more it does seem like a Ukrainian Victory so the tendency is to play it down so this this is what happens in war it's normal we can cope we can manage it's a tiny Slither of Russia we're a massive country and so on um so that's the that is part of his inclination not to not to talk up the danger um until the point where they can deal with it then he'll explain why there's battles going on on Russian territory and he's in a very difficult situation I mean if if if you take your figure of 50,000 troops needed in order to repel the incursion into Cur I mean where is he going to get those from you either have to divert from the front line or use conscripts which as you've outlined Lawrence is very difficult or a fresh wave of mobilization but that's politically very risky for him it is and I think you um I mean that was immediately after the incursion there was quite a bit of talk about mobilization which again I think got got dampened out the basic problem is there's labor shortages now in Russia um to recruit people um they're offering large amounts of money and you know word gets back about what's likely to happen to you if you go to the front line which isn't good so they're finding it harder to recruit people say voluntarily there's fewer people that can be sort of press ganged into Service uh so they can sort of keep it ticking over but but they do have a problem and they're they're are now the economy is overheating they're they're pushing up defense production so they need workers for the for the factories as well public utilities are suffering we saw a few months ago a major terrorist attack um which um indicated you know the interior forces are depleted as well uh so it's a problem for Putin that um the the very wasteful approaches they use to fighting their Wars um mean that they've squandered a lot of their assets and on the point about Russia's Manpower problems I mean we've been talking for for years really on front line about the Russian casualty rate and you know people questioning whether it's sustainable and there has been this sense well it's it's sustainable because they can just keep chucking people into the meat grinder and they're not so bothered about casualty rates and all that kind of stuff but of course something is sustainable until it isn't and now we've seen this incursion into K are we now at that Tipping Point where actually the chickens are coming home to roost and the and the casualties are starting to to be felt I mean you put it correctly I think before it it is until it isn't um and I don't think we've got a very good view of the Tipping Point the public opinion polling in Russia exists but how reliable it is is questionable um it suggests studies of public opinion suggest that it's in Decline um the people are fed up they would like peace I mean they would like the war to be over they're not going to come out and say that Ukraine is a victim and and and we at fault um but the they'd be Keen to to see it over but Putin is in command of the politics of of Russia um he he's got his own people surrounding him there's no obvious contenders for power so even if there's a lot of grumbling and unhappiness there's not a lot um that I think just ordinary people can do about it I think it's more a question of the cumulative pressures of the war building up including on the economy and this may take some time and you know there's a couple of things to watch for first if they are successful in denet have been seriously successful will he use that as an opportunity to say look you know we've done pretty well now this this is the moment uh to strike a deal what's the relevance of the American election a month or so ago I guess he was pretty optimistic that he'd be able to deal with Trump I don't think he finds particularly easy to deal with but at least is is somebody who wants to deal with Putin Harris is a different bet and and no reason why Harris Administration would be any different from the Biden Administration and not be willing to um reward Russia for its aggression so I think it's a cumulative process rather than a particular factor which tips over and it may take some time I mean I've been very wary about predicting how this war will end for some time um neither side is winning um you know the a of the moment is not to lose uh but actually finding a way to win requires political changes in in in your opponent and Ukraine for all its suffering I think will keep going um Russia keeps going so long as Putin wants it to and so long as there's no challenge for him for to him coming from within Moscow and how do you assess the strength of his position in Moscow I mean I appreciate he has obviously complete control of the political structures there but but he will be a paranoid man and he'll be worried about his position all the time so do you think that the Threat Level against him has risen in recent weeks well he you know he's made a point of keeping loyalists in positions including uh at the top of the Armed Forces which is why gasimov really has not had a very good War at all that that their commanderin-chief is still there um and those figures who opposed him coming out of the um of the military conflict prosen Last Summer the head of Wagner sovin who supported Pros in if only indirectly and was by far their best most effective General um is basically been retired now uh so he he watches that and then you've got the technocrats I mean has been remarked a number of times he's got lousy generals but he's got very good economists and they've really done a an impressive job keeping the Russian economy at flat U managing the currency and and all these things uh but you can see they're feeling pretty tested by it all now as well so this is why and and you saw yesterday sansky was talking about a theory of Victory um which I think is optimistic but it was clear he wasn't just relying on Military means to achieve it it's economic which is why they keep on going for oil depos and refineries it's political diplomatic which is why he had Indian Prime Minister Modi visiting and gave him as big a hug as Modi had given Putin and so it's it's a whole series of things that that add to the pressure and when it you know when this works if at all it's very hard for us over here to say how should the West treat this moment is this now the time for the West to further loosen restrictions on how Western supplied weapons can be used inside Russia I think so um and this is a long running debate uh and it's gone through many stages I think initially the administration was nervous that one way or the other they were going to get drawn into a shooting war with Russia uh and that would be very dangerous and I think most analysts probably agree with that that that's very dangerous but you don't and and Putin when he was actually making his more serious nuclear threats it was about NATO coming in side by side with Ukraine every other Red Line they've talked about is now being past new countries joining NATO f-16s are now flying in Ukraine um Russian territory is regularly being attacked Long Range Systems have being provided all of these things have happened and the war carries on without uh it turning into the third world war and so now we've got this one particular thing of whether or not uh Ukraine can use the longer range American systems and the British Storm Shadow French sculp that cruise missiles that have American components in them to attack targets deep in Russia um the ukrainians want to attack care basis it's very reasonable seems to me that they should be able to do so so the pressure is building up on that note that the ukrainians have now got a pretty impressive long range drone um that they're starting to use and they announced yesterday that they've tested a ballistic missile in in the Soviet days Ukraine built lots of missiles it had a big defense industry um so I think that is uh uh over time the ukrainians will do it themselves but it it seems to me unfortunate at this stage in the war that the Americans and the Ukraine aren't wholly in lockstep about what's needed to do to to get this war over and do do you think zinski has a has a point I mean I think a lot of ukrainians are frustrated when they they feel as if their allies have been one step behind throughout this entire conflict that you know first they were told you couldn't have tanks then they got tanks then they were told you couldn't have F16 and they've got f16s now they're asking to use longer range missiles inside Russia my sense is probably the West will move on it but they might say we could have moved on it a year ago yeah I think I think that that view is very strongly held I mean the the the Americans now are saying less about worrying about Russian red lines and more whether this is the right priority it's not matters of of the Long Range Systems around there are useful things to attack um where the Americans don't mind the Americans don't care if Crimea is attack because although the Russians think Crimea is Russian the Americans and the ukrainians don't and so on which indicates just this blurring of the the boundaries here um so there are questions about priorities but I think you get round out by having conversations on on what makes sense what it is that you um how the how the Ukraine could be best supported in what it's trying to do there's another argument which is a bit retrospective which is that in practice uh this has all been very incremental and so the the Russians at each stage have been confronted with a line that's being crossed but isn't quite worth raising the whole temperature themselves about it it seems a small thing uh and then another small thing happen so it's the incrementalism has made it easier to um increase support for Ukraine without getting into a major crisis with Russia again I think there's some truth in that argument uh but the fact is that the ukrainians are paying daily uh the costs of this War uh and uh so long as the ukrainians think that they can uh subjugate the ukrainians they they'll carry on and somehow they've got to be disabused of that notion and just finally sorens and this is a almost impossible question to answer but I just want to invite you to supect at when the history books are written of the war in Ukraine how significant do you think the events of August 2024 and this incursion will be the war goes through stages um and you can identify the stages by an event such as this so um you know September 2022 you had a you successful Ukrainian U incursion which led to Russia doubling down down like to put him doubling down on his objectives mean led to mobilization you have the failed defensive last year if hard Russian offenses so there it's it's an important point in the war um and it changed the conversation uh so in that sense it'll be important if this fails I mean if if the Russians push on in denet and the ukrainians get pushed out of k um with losses in the process then people will say it was a bold and audacious uh move but a bit mad uh if if they managed to establish themselves there and Russia is obliged to take more forces out of Ukraine it will seem great and a very clever thing to do but that that's an argument that's still quite poised so the people that matter the most when it comes to this I think are the oligarchs and the other various power centers around the Kremlin that keep Putin in power at some point if they believe that there is no way that Russia can win and they can blame Putin for this and I think that ukrainians also are attacking the cracks between the uh general staff and the FSB and the other services all these guys all hate each other and and so I think of course ukrainians know this and so I think they're attacking these vulnerabilities as well we're hearing reports of Ukraine attempting a second incursion in the belard region what do you make of this well first of all I would not use the word incursion I think these are all part of a larger Ukrainian counter offensive now of course the Ukrainian government and the general staff are not advertising specifically what they're doing or what their specific objectives are and so we don't know and we're not entitled to know those kind of specifics so I can only speculate what it is that they're trying to accomplish uh but the what started almost four weeks ago this counter offensive in the course direction is not in my mind a standalone thing it's it's part of a broader um multi-domain operation that includes not only creating a bridge head inside of Russia that would push back Russian forces but it also is is uh within the broader context of Ukrainian long range strikes against airfields oil and gas infrastructure Transportation infrastructure this is a big part of that and of course they're still trying to defend poos out in the East and what do you make of um Ukraine's incursion in KK we hear that they're holding around 500 square miles of territory what would be your lasest assessment of this incursion and what do you think would be Ukraine's next steps well again I would would not use the word incursion incursion sounds kind of like a little small cut or something like that um I would use the phrase or the doctrinal phrase of counteroffensive because of the effect that they're trying to achieve and what matters is less how many square miles or kilometers they control or how many villages they control what they're really after is to deny Sanctuary to Russian forces that have been launching attacks against uh Ukrainian cities and civilians uh and they're also trying to change The Narrative of this conflict that somehow Russian Victory is inevitable there's no way Ukraine can win while clearly this counter offensive is demonstrating that Ukraine has once again been underestimated by us so I think their target is as much the uh the people inside the Kremlin in in terms of how they think to put pressure and create domestic problems for them but also uh leaders in the west to to show that Ukraine is is far from uh finished and what would you say would be its impact on the Russian population do you think that that's impacted their perception of Putin this is an excellent question and it's it's something I've thought about for the last two or three years I mean what does it take for Russian people to finally say that's enough now of course um the the leader of the Russian Federation does not have to worry about journalists ask asking hard questions he doesn't have to worry about hearings or having to answer questions from the parliament um and he really doesn't have to answer to voters but that doesn't mean they're not sensitive to what people think about things which is why I believe they have avoided recruiting troops out of Moscow and St Petersburg for example because they don't want to have funerals in the streets of those two big cities the way they are all over the rest of Russia still Russia is not the kind of place where there's going to be rioting in the streets protests um Putin has uh invested a lot of money and effort over the last 20 years to make himself coup proof uh the interior forces of and security forces are very strong so the people that matter the most when it comes to this I think are the oligarchs and the other various power centers around the Kremlin that keep Putin in power at some point if they believe that there is no way that Russia can win then they can blame Putin for this and I think that ukrainians also are attacking the cracks between the uh general staff and the FSB and the other surfaces all these guys all hate each other and and so I think of course ukrainians know this and so I think they are attacking these vulnerabilities as well seninsky says that this operation that he has in cask it's part of a victory plan which he will present to Biden next month what do you think is involved within this plan he's also said that how the um the success of this plan it will depend on Biden and what he can give to Ukraine as part of this plan what what does this plan involve and what does he mean by that the most important thing that the president of the United States could do would be to publicly state it is in the best strategic interest of the United States that ukra wins that Ukraine defeats Russia and pushes them back to the 1991 border and if that becomes the US strategic objective then there'll be no more of this nonsense about restrictions on achoms or uh parceling out Aid or uncertain deliveries of of things instead if we want to win and that's the objective then we're going to push push everything to Ukraine that they need and then I think UK and Germany and France and others would feel more confident doing the same thing so I believe that uh president galinsky's Victory plan um has to convince the American government the American president and his team that number one it's achievable number two that it can be done without leading to World War I or some sort of Russian escalation um and also what I hope president zalinsky will do is convince the American president that the collapse if if Putin's regime collapses that's not a terrible thing that we you know we nothing terrible happened after the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of the Cold War so I think there's an excessive fear in Washington about oh my God the regime might collapse okay well let's let's plan for that let's not do things to stop it I think that's what president jalinski is uh going to try to do seninsky he also said that Ukraine's recently carried out a successful test of a ballistic missile so these missiles that domestically produced what would be the significance of these missiles in Ukraine's war effort well three things number one uh they become much less dependent on others um for for help on these kind of capabilities and and obviously help from the US and the UK and Germany and France comes with caveats so this would um U help Ukraine Break Free of those kinds of caveat the second thing is that it would give Ukraine the ability to kill the Archer you know it's when we're talking about air missile defense it is much better to kill the Archer than it is to try and intercept all of the arrows so if you can strike the bases from which these uh strikes are coming the Russian Air Force taking off at bases deep inside Russia if you can hit them while they're still on the ground then you it's going to be much more effective than trying to intercept you know 100 15200 missiles and drones uh every night and then the third thing that it will do it will um put more and more of the critical oil and gas infrastructure uh within within reach and that really will cause problems for the Russians when they are no longer able to export oil and gas which is what pays for their war effort and then also Russian people will begin to feel the effect and they'll take notice do we have any um knowledge as to the scale and production of these missiles by Ukraine do we know the speed at which they are potentially producing these missiles and when they can come into effect in terms of you know the situation on the ground I certainly do not but I'd be willing to bet it's more and faster than what most people would think I mean we have consistently underestimated Ukrainian capability Ukrainian Innovation uh and Ukrainian will we consistently underestimate it and consistently overestimate Russia's will and capability and I think this will be another case of that that they I mean remember Ukraine was the heart of the defense industry of the Soviet Union when Ukraine was still inside the the USSR so you have a lot of engineering and Technical expertise there still in Ukraine so it would not surprise me that they are developing this kind of capability we've also heard from selsky that Ukraine's used some of the newly arrived F-16 fighter jets that were sent by Western countries what do you make of this if you compare Russia's economy to the combined economies of the West you know we dwarf we dwarf Russia Russia's economy is about the size of Spain with all due respect to our Spanish Ally um so if the West got together you know the the resources available to Ukraine would be endless the problem is we have not demonstrated the political will to do that still uh providing things like f-16s obviously that's important uh I'm reluctant to say it's a turning point you you never know you're at a turning point until it's well behind you and then you can look back and say aha that's when it that's when it happened um there's no downsides to getting f-16s but we should be clear that uh the numbers are still small the ukrainians I think are are going going to get become very proficient very quickly as they build up experience um and of course it will help it's already helping it looks like in their air defense being able to knock down some missiles um that by itself um is not going to change the outcome of the war not yet there is no one system that completely changes everything it's how these things are employed um I anticipate that the ukrainians will be very clever and effective at protecting their bases from which they fly and where they support these aircraft the maintenance required to keep them in the air uh it's it's a it's a system and um I'm pretty sure that they're going to do better than people might have expected but there is no one thing that changes everything in terms of looking at um Russia's um military resources themselves um one of the suggestions about the operation in KK was that it would help to redeploy Russia's efforts um in terms of military and then also resources to that region to take them away from the operations in Ukraine how do we see that situation looking at the moment um I think we're only just now starting to see reports of some Russian troops that are being redeployed from other areas towards the Kur uh Bridge head to help uh help Russian forces address this now it's taken several weeks to get to this point part of that I would attribute to um the Russians being caught by surprise and not being prepared to deal with something like this part of their problem for being slow and uh incoherent in their response goes back to this hatred and rivalry between all the different Services the the general staff is in no hurry to help the FSB here um and then even in the best of circumstances the the intelligence sharing the logistics moving things around is going to be a challenge it's made worse so because of this very um fraught uh command and control system that they have in place and then finally the distances I mean even the Russians who are famous for moving a lot of stuff real far real fast if if you weren't prepared for it didn't anticipate the requirement to have hundreds of rail cars and hundreds of trucks standing by to move several thousand troops and all their kit and ammunition Etc from in the East all the way around to k i mean that's going to take some time and um I think the last thing I'd offer on this is uh for Putin it's much more important to him I think that he be seen as or that they capture what they think is important in the in the donbass and that K if he could ignore it or turn it over to FSB and let them treat it as some terrorist operation versus having to explain to everybody around him that the ukrainians have launched a massive counter fensive into Russia so I think he's hoping that he can solve it these two different problems in in in different ways but I don't think uh I don't think that's going to happen I think the ukrainians are planning to stay there for several more weeks um and it is possible that at some point the Russians will finally have to say they need more capability brought around finally we heard from the British prime minister today as well as the German Chancellor that they will continue to financially economically politically and Military Support Ukraine for as long as NE necessary but yesterday we heard from Sak stama he didn't answer whether the UK will allow Ukraine to use long range Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia what did you make of that well this is unfortunate um but I I would put I mean UK is a sovereign country so the Prime Minister should be able to do whatever he thinks is best but I think there probably is some technical aspect to Storm Shadow that gives the US uh the authority and this is not uncommon um that that the US could say well you cannot use you cannot give Storm Shadow to Ukraine to be used in this particular situation so here um I would blame uh my own government um again this goes back to a failure to make it clear that our objective is for Ukraine to win and if you don't have a clearly defined objective you end up with a lot of bad policy and this is one of those bad policies where we're putting restrictions on ukrainians against striking targets inside Russia particularly those airfields while airplanes are taken off from those airfields that are murdering innocent Ukrainian civilians I I don't know how the hell uh my government your government the German government can just sort of U say well we don't want to have an escalation and the r the Russians are laughing at us I mean they launched 200 missiles 200 missiles and drones in the last 48 hours aimed at civilian targets I I don't understand uh this absolute lack of of of moral courage and strategic back being Putin he always sticks with the old team he's stuck with gazim yeah and he's you know even put his former bodyguard in charge of the counter uh the counter operations in um K Daman and and alexe and they got to such a state that within days of him announcing that said oh no no no after all it's going to be run by a committee of four the defense of the curp pocket um and the troops are not mainstream troops by and large their e SB former KGB in other words security Force troops and U Ros Gardia National Guard johary so there's something that really isn't working there hello and welcome to front line for times radio with me K chabo and this time we are joined by a defense editor with 55 years experience as a broadcaster and journalist Robert fox has reported from several conflicts including the Faulkland the first Gulf War and the Balkans he's worked worked for the BBC The Daily Telegraph and authored many books he is now the evening standards defense editor Robert Fox welcome back great to see you again yes with just over three weeks distance from the Ukrainian offensive into Cur go blast in Russia what is your assessment of the Ukrainian strategy what it's achieved and how effective It is Well the jury's out on this because although both president zilinski and Colonel General cisi have been making stat ments to the Press rather rather belatedly and who can blame them uh and they've said it's really to relieve the pressure on the central front it has certainly hasn't done that but it's certainly doing something because they have shown that Russia even with its resupplies from Iran from North Korea is not winning the Drone War uh although it's attacking like mad with these multiple bombardments of infrastructure dams the uh the hydro stations and very much going for the civilian infrastructure it's not getting through to the extent that it should if you launch 200 drones and missiles and you're getting up to 80% of them knocked down something isn't working I think actually what we're really doing it it's very important we're waiting for the next stage which comes quite quickly it what goes it's what goes on in the next 10 days to three weeks and it's the depth battle ATT it's the battle that supports the bombers and it's the battle that supports the resupply both on the central detet luhansk front and in the KK pocket and that's where they're having a tough time the ukrainians but they're far from losing a at the moment as things stand today Thursday the 29th of August it's being judged as as a very risky but bold bold but risky move I should say uh by the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces why do you think he would do it now he's rolled the dice um and remember it's not only a kinetic War a war on the ground and a war in the air it's an information War as well and this is uh something that he in particularly uh budanov the director of intelligence and the director of an awful lot more including the psychological warfare and he is uh he is really um very sophisticated uh and has learned the from last year they're trying to undermine the confidence of Russia at a grand strategic level they're playing mind games with Vladimir Putin and that is from what one gathers it is having some success there's a much less confident Putin he's going all over the place let's work on this front and that front uh what are we going to do in the Baltic what are we going to do with Mula what are we going to do to upset the elections in Georgia watch this space it's really interesting because it does seem in response Russia has resumed these intense series of drone and missile attacks on Ukraine uh in particular on its energy infrastructure why why the concentration on this for example rather than a push back to defend inside Russia itself this is very difficult because uh it's still on the offensive You've Got A Tale of Two offensives peculiarly at the moment you've got the ukrainians going into Russian territory Cur as we've been discussing and we've got the push forward run PKA uh that that uh the chavea access to push to these hubs which do control a big big Logistics uh Junctions um they're they're working on on that but they're using old tactics they're using heavy metal they're using a lot of infantry and there's a lot of controversy which the ukrainians and the ukra Ukrainian psychological warfare is playing on very heavily that they're bringing up conscripts and getting conscripts to sign on as trained soldiers which they are far from because this is absolutely clear and they understand this and they will work on that the ukrainians Putin does not want to have a general mobilization a general Declaration of Martial law it's a military dictatorship anyway in in in Russia but he doesn't want to State the blindingly obvious because if he States the blindingly obvious and uh our friend zacharova the she's the wonderful uh gobby spokeswoman on Foreign Affairs on on public National media if they have to say well we are at War now and we need a mass mobilization well what the hell have you been doing for the last two and a half years it hasn't been going so well I think that that's the message that the Ukrainian are very keen to get through it's not going so well because most of Russia is still not touched by the aspect that they're in a messy situation which is making their lives worse the the slow advances towards poov in the donbass continues and president zalinski likened that this week to the battle for bahmut and said Russia would throw tens of thousands of troops at it should it want to do you think that President Putin will do this because he actually needs a battlefield success right now he's got to do an audit and he must be doing it but one doesn't know who is informing him you know what is the value of the commitment of troops there really how good is the uh the the the the ordinance the logistics uh the chain the defense industrial aspect of it it's going gang busters uh so much so that currently the Russian economy is assessed at being uh uh growing by 3% but it's an artificial growth it's based entirely on this ramping up of you know 40% of what Public Funding is going towards defense at the moment and really you it should you know that should produce a war machine which should utterly overwhelm Ukraine and yet it's not working of course the Russian defense is actually it's the Weasley West it's all these wonderful weapons but in fact they're they're not as copious as they as as they out to be so to look at Putin Putin Putin's got to find a winning strategy and a winning team and being Putin he always sticks with the old team he's stuck with gazim off yeah and he you know even put his former bodyguard in charge of the counter uh the counter operations in um K damjan and and Alex and they to such a state that within days of him announcing that said oh no no no after all it's going to be run by a committee of four the defense of the Cur po pocket um and the troops are not mainstream troops by and large they're FSB former KGB in other words security Force troops and uh Ros Gardia National Guard johary so there's something that really isn't working there you're right that if fighting continues at this rate uh till the end of the month both sides risk running out of steam and resources pointing what's going on in dbas but also what's going on in kco blast and you point to splits in the leaderships of keev and Moscow what are those splits exactly well the splits are roughly th those that I've described P Putin is now it it's actually um ready to sort of change the me metaphor and make it easier it's gangsters it's a gangster War because you get um you get clicks and you get even in the Ukrainian forces that this is going on it's very interesting that even such an AUST organization that has been copious in its coverage of the um of the Ukrainian War like The Economist I'm sorry to single it out but it has been so important and so dominant in this and it was all for uh Colonel General uh um CI that he was the genius that was seeing everything they were leaking gossip um The Economist CI should be sacked what is going on there that in fact it's very interesting because I think of the genius of people like budano that how Western media have got involved in the internal mind games of what is going on uh in in this war and I just have to say this because this is so important on what cisi and budanov see as what went wrong last year a hell of a lot went wrong the some are offensive which cost a lot didn't come off and they blame primarily this that they blabbed that they briefed the um the the the Western allies leadership um and they leaked to their press and their press said oh the attack is going to come on Kon from the west of of of the front so June June the 6th what happens before it can start they blow up the K the Russians blow up the kovka dam apart from the nuclear threat which we should go into which is enormous it's the biggest ecological disaster in the area in the region since the chabill Meltdown of 1986 frontlines in-depth coverage of the war in Ukraine is made possible by times radio please help support our work by downloading the times radio app the links on screen now and tuning in through the day to keep up to date with the latest news and thought-provoking discussions so since you you mention um the influence of the the media I want to just ask you something slightly related to this um which is the charges in France uh against the Russian born CEO of the messaging app telegram is that likely to have any impact on the war and the way it's communicated yes it's thrown another complication into the picture because uh he is accused um because of the the underground messaging that goes on that it favors organized crime telegram of that that can be small doubt it favors pornographers even child traffickers but it is also the way that Russian dissidents communicate so if it's upon one thing or the other but I think um that it that it that he's been arrested in France or or detained in France and he's under um house detention it's a thing that particularly that code of law happens in Italy that you can do it's you know it it it it's a caution it's a warning you're under uh investigation it would happen in France anyway because actually he's a dual citizen uh of of France but it is one of these things that is actually bigger even than the Ukrainian War because you see that somebody like Elon Musk has sided with him uh you you know you're attacking of the freedom of expression on social media even Zuckerberg has got in in involved in this but what is so worrying and it's going to be prominent again in the American presidential election is the lack of quality control uh on on these media because mus himself Ally um of telegram has downgraded uh um media accuracy uh probity checks uh on X for for formerly Twitter so it's a huge ground I see a lot of it I know I'm only seeing probably less than a tenth of the Battleground but a very real Battleground it is too and by the way that when when there is a real breakthrough in social media in in Russia I think that's when Putin himself gets in trouble but remember thinking of a year ago the thing that really shook Putin was pran was uh you have getting pran's sort of pantomime coup but pan was the master of um the troll Factory known as the IRA the internet research agency so it is right there and it's absolutely clear Harris as well as Trump have been warned that they the by the CIA uh by the intelligence Committee of the Senate that the Russians will be using social media uh in in the election campaign and it shows you that none of these conflicts you know Gaza the West Bank Ukraine uh what's going on in subsaharan Africa what is going on in Libya Sudan and Somalia they're all connected somewhere let's just return to to the situation Direct in Ukraine and in response to the onslaught by the Russian military by drone and missile attacks on Ukraine recent days the US has now said it was going to prioritize its air defense exports to Ukraine Surge Energy equipment to repair its systems and strengthens the resilience of its energy grid how effective is this part of the Russian campaign proving and driving ukrainians from their homes or even out of the country what I understand is that of course you can't have full air defense cover you when you think Ukraine is roughly the size of France plus half of Germany it's an enormous territory it would be um the biggest uh country in Europe say Russia but a lot of Russia's bulk is actually in Asia as you know it is a very big country therefore very difficult to defend and yes H America would say this but I think the real game that they've also got to Ma that with is Strike into Russia where I was looking up the figures just this morning again now there are hundreds of Jones being launched each week into Russia from Ukraine and if Ukraine can hang on it's developing its own ballistic missiles making themelves so so uh Britain America and France don't have a say so whether you can use a longrange weapon or Not by the way I understand that they're being told Now You See Me Now you don't that more or less they're being permitted to use scalp uh better known to us as as Storm Shadow into Russian territory so so okay F first a couple things to pick there um it's it's test fire Ukraine its own ballistic missile it's going to be a while potentially isn't it before it actually has it and never say that about Ukraine never say that about yeah that's true look at the Innovation do you remember the B by ratar T T2 T2 um the the whiz Turkish uh drone it was completely out used very effectively by the ukrainians in the opening stages of the of of the war back in 22 it was completely out of date completely outmoded completely overtaken even by by particularly by Ukrainian technology within within within months if not weeks and they are Absolut they they shame a lot of the Western countries and particularly the British defense uh industry uh set up in the adroitness the astuteness with what they're doing and particularly uh down at the front ballistic missile next year don't count on it I'll bet they'll have a really good go at doing it this year okay so so president zalinski and and we again this week we've had repeated requests from the ukrainians to be able to be used storm Shadows to hit inside to get that permission to hit inside to Russia you're saying you think that's classically kind of on the cards right yes because I think what what zalinsky will bang on about and who could blame him uh was with is is getting permission to use um the various American Equipment like aacom certainly they've been using multi multi-launch rocket system I would think in the battle in the cursed battle so they've been going um into Russia but there is uh the AGM 158 JM JSM which is more power powerful than tourist the German version and Storm Shadow they'd really like to have a bit of a go at that but what can I just quickly say that I think zilinski is brilliant at this because it's you have to think he talking a lot about this let's work out what he's not talking about and I think in air defense they're beginning to get the f-16s really working yeah we saw them working didn't we to to defend ke um only in the last few days in perhaps a small way but it is starting that they were used to to counter these drone and missile attacks and that's primarily their role uh their role is not deep strike um then they're not going to use them I would think primarily in a fight of bomber role the F-16 is amazing play because it's has been over its history incredibly versatile and you can use them for a deep strike but that would be expensive and it would be risky what they want them for I would suspect initially as air Defenders to bring down suco uh uh coming in and launching standoff weapons but they've got to go even further back these heavy bombers the tupelov that are being coming up from bases well to the east of Moscow which is a sign of some success of the ukrainians is that they're forcing the air bases further and further back um I I I would say before we talk next I think watch for a bridge or two more to be dropped I'll bet they really have a at the Kur Bridge again and and try and cut off uh cut off crime a it's going to be a good chat next time isn't it Robert but let's carry on with this time for the for the moment um so um on those attacks on key the recent uh in the last few days um we have also seen uh the former Ukrainian minister of economy uh posting pictures on X reportedly showing the keev Hydro Dam being hit and the dam holds it holds but he said um if it hadn't it could actually put sign ific portion of ke underwater is your assessment the same as that what how how serious is this well I actually I have to be honest since since the War I haven't been there and seen that um and uh you have to you have to worry about this thing the fact that he put it up he's sending a some kind of signal um but I don't want to do the usual U politicians trick of answering a question um by asking another but there are huge infrastructural problem s if I can put it like that because Mr grai of the Ia you know went to look at the KK facility still technically well very much so in Russian hands but in under threat in the war zone but they're very worried about zapia as still uh we have had uh Mr py the professor py the great Ukrainian historian from Harvard who's WR written yet another book and he thinks the nuclear threat has in no way diminished he is very worried because of his recording of the whole story of chab build which of course was plowed up again in this conflict uh even the casual attitude of um Russia to nuclear safety and there are big big things but what I think that as we come up to the meeting of the general assembly this great season of September every September I am concerned that the Western allies are going to be encouraged also by their media to step back they'll be obsessed by Harris Trump instead of seeing what a good colleague and friend of mine Francis Tusa has posed as a question If by accident because the fighting is still so intense we could get ourselves absolutely without without seeing it rather like the hooty attacks on the on the on on international shipping which was not foreseen at all we could get ourselves into what what Francis called an article 5 moment where by hook or by crook by mistake or intent Russia and its allies attack a NATO country I think it is extremely possible I am not sure how the West in depth how well prepared and how well configured it is to meet that what kind of scenario do you envisage I think it would probably be Baltic I think it would be with the Baltic State I think it could be with kinian grad it would be something like that or something silly a miscalculation with a use of force uh by Russia to press their case and their parties and their support in mova because you're very very much on the NATO uh door doorstep there hither to Putin has been very careful despite all the rhetoric not to provoke a direct attack uh on or by with or from a NATO Frontline power and there are NATO front lines and the NATO Frontline has got closer to him which is a terrible mistake a strategic mistake already that he's made with this war he got Finland and Sweden into the NATO alliance virtually turning the Baltic Sea into uh um a NATO Lake it's exactly the same thing that we're seeing in parallel curiously with Iran it is clear that neither Russia wants a full out confrontation nor does Iran want at this stage a full out confrontation but the possibilities of accident the occasions the strange mistakes and turns they proliferate by the day at the moment and every every time we have these concerns about um nuclear use of nuclear weapons for example you you hear from Belarus on this and um interestingly when you talking earlier about uh President Putin's kind of almost scattergun reaction to what's going on in Cur go blast um you also have in conjunction with this Belarusian troops building up up along the border with Ukraine is this part of a useful diversion and part of a way of him just trying to work out the way to to to to divert to develop his strategy going forward no it's a man who's ABS obsessed with tactics to save the moment of the moment and it I think it's symptomatic of no strategy because if he is going to commit uh uh um uh uh lenko to um the battle uh with and he he's done his bit of rhetoric but not much more frankly he hasn't got much of an Army and the ukrainians have worned them off and that's where he could trigger an Insurgency and Insurrection inside bellus itself it's there is in this because he had very good ties there a progan element that's where you get the next prian M Mutiny funnily enough because there are Vagner forces there and they're pretty fed up yeah it's interesting that you said that it could trigger some kind of Insurgency in B and you know like literally in the last few hours we've heard this news about a Shahid drone being shut shot down over belarian airspace which is Russian I mean how's Kremlin going to react to that well um they uh um uh I I will Bluster and I would say initially they will ignore it but um what you will have and I said you have to think of the mindman as well as the The Thinker and the leader you have to think of budanov if if if this has shown a weakness oh boy the ukrainians are going to exploit it they're going to do something with with something with it and by the way um the this is the great thing strategically if we want to um with Putin is he so thin with allies he's been going round and round he's tried to call in the shanhai conference allies tried to call in you know been visiting um the the Caucasus uh sending overtures uh to Georgia but not one of the STS has really stood up to help him in the special military operation save for the the Warlords and gangsters from chatna uh uh led by the clan of ramzan cadiro he has very little local sympathy empathy support and the further east you get which is critical they said don't mess with us we don't want your problem and China above all is saying that and I think that there's there's some kind of uh negotiation diplomacy a a real uh Gambit being launched by zeleny at the moment and somehow what the gesture he made at kff has got something to do with it but it's and he knows the the the the one Capital which we'll really decide we will say enough already because it's damaging what we need to do and the way we see our security and way we see our position in the world and you're just a bit player in it is China and I I think it's when China finally gets fed up with Putin which I'm pretty sure it really will do with because his position is very trump-like at the moment it is getting less and less co coherent by the day and I think that that's where I think things will come to a head I I think we will have some kind of negotiating position and I I I I I I do get the sense of smell that um zeni zilinsky has got could come out of the back of the UN General Assembly but don't count out diplomacy now so Robert um president zilinski is linking the K operation to the second peace Summit in November and saying it's one of the stages to end the war um we can talk perhaps about his plan to deliver that maybe another time when there's more flashing out of all of it but at this stage at the moment how do you think the most likely way is that the war will end I think it will end it has to um in some kind of politics and politics political settlement whether it can be done with the two principles still on the stage zalinski and Putin is is really open to question but what really has to be examined um is the support from the West with either a Biden to or a haris presidency there will be less interest in in Europe but it is like the old adage about war you may not be interested in war but war is interested in you and I think a Harris presidency looking to the Pacific Californian based will find that out very very quickly The Binding of America and Europe is absolutely essential it will have to be refreshed renewed but uh they will not be able to walk away from the Ukrainian conflict which is what the Trump rhetoric has been saying up to now but boy we are getting a tremendous lesson from the Ukrainian forces the conduct of the their war machine for the reform and restructuring of Western military formations Western military structures probably the British more than any of them we're currently in a Ukrainian armored vehicle leaving the city of sui and heading towards the Russian border where we're expected to get an exclusive firsthand glance into the city of sui which the ukrainians recently captured the closer you get to the Russian border the more you see that's destroyed houses hotels residential buildings when I came here previously with a group of soldiers they told me that it's not artillery or drones that are doing the work here it's mainly the massive Russian Glide bombs that they can launch from well over border we just crossed the border into the official territory of the Russian Federation now it's believed the ukrainians control more than a th000 square kilm here and are digging in to prepare for possible Russian counter offensives in the region however the offensive may still expand and more Russian land may fall into Ukrainian hands soon enough they've hoarded us along with all the other reporters and civilians into this bunker right here because they've seen an fpv drone and they're worried that the Russians could see us and H [Music] guys for [Music] we've been down here for maybe 15 20 minutes now which is quite a while we were expecting to be in and out but the soldiers are still quite worried about whatever's flying over here from from us they they've been burned with the experiences of these drones especially in donbass where they're absolutely on the present in the SK the Russians are a bit worried because they've seen an fpv drone in the air and that can often be used to correct or spot artillery fire this is not an uncommon thing in the battlefields in Ukraine and now Russia so Russian use a variety of reconnaissance drones they can spot like movement of soldiers or vehicles or anything basically from five six 7 kilm once they are flying you know and observing what's going on and once they observe something that of course the other units like artillery drones any any other units they see the Feit from the Drone in real time they correct fire they can they make decision basically what to use against which you know which number or like how important is the target so and based on that based on that what can reach the target is it artillery is it fpv Dron if it's something closer if it's something more like long distance stuff they just send that and attack and they know they see in real time where they incoming is happening where explosion happens so they can correct and adjust to make sure the target is hit M so that's why the drones if the drones spot us it is very very dangerous because then they know where we are they can follow us and once we stop once you know we are stationary they can M anything can happen I understand the sign in the background says Mir Ludi which means peaceful people basically it's because we're actually at a humanitarian Aid shelter for Russian civilians who they look you know they seem to have everything they need but they look very stressed they look very tired they look very sad they're mostly elderly people who often do not want to move a lot of others have been evacuated to the city of K or The Wider region as the Ukrainian Army continues pushing into the area Victor that's a good pictory here we were in that basement for more more than an hour but they have finally given us the green light to jump in and leave and we're going to be heading back to sui and Ukrainian here at tree as soon as possible continuing to try and stop the Russians in the East hasn't been working the Russians are making very small advances um they are it's costing them huge numbers of personnel and Equipment you over a thousand troops a day being killed or um injured such that they have to be taken off the battlefield but the Russians are making some small advances therefore to try and dislocate the Russians to try and get the initiative back which the ukrainians have done with their curse incursion they've taken this bold decision now it's not something they'll have planned likely it's not something they would have planned at the spur of the moment something that will have been very carefully planned and worked through um and I remember saying only um last week or the week before on times radio that I thought the curs concurs was phase one of more to come from Ukraine this belgar Rod could be the next phase do you think we can draw any parallels from what we saw with the KK incursion and potentially how Ukraine might Advance with this incursion now well I think what seems to be happening and I'm speculating a little here with the lack of information is that the ukrainians are going to try and take over um a a sort of buffer zone inside Russia along the uh it its northern border um that will probably equate in a similar size to the amount of territory that the Russians are holding in the east of Ukraine so that's um an interesting maneuver and that could be what zelinsky's end game is with this to turn around and say you know you've got some of my stuff I've got some of your stuff we either agree to keep what what we've got um or um we agree to give it back again so um it's a very bold move it's a risky move but I think very well planned and is certainly causing Putin um a real headache with the K incursion it was it was notable how slow Russia was to respond to it do you think that perhaps um Russia could make the same mistake twice are we seeing any evidence of how they are reacting so far well we're not seeing any evidence its very early days with what's going on in belgaro and this could be just another re to dislocate um Russian Russian thinking um but you and given the fact that ukrainians attacked into belgaro twice in the last year um the Russians should be more prepared for an attack into there if the ukrainians make significant advances it shows that the Russians are in a much worse State than we'd even thought beforehand and I'd even thought a week ago um but um it's early days to say exactly what's going to happen I'll be watching this very closely I mean what would be your analysis of the situation in kers at the moment they've got around 500 square miles of territory do we see any advancements there or do we think that Ukraine's going to start putting their effort into this second incursion well the ukrainians have made um significant advances in kers they seem to have slowed down over the last couple of days but that's probably because they're reaching what we call the limit of exploitation um the limmit of uh without thinning out their combat troops too much without extending their logistic lines of Supply too much um and they're putting effort into securing what they've got and we're seeing this greater control over over the same river that will allow the um ukrainians to trap and by dropping the bridges across it they have trapped quite a large number of Russians um to the south of that um and by stopping the Russians putting um uh temporary bridging across they're stopping the reinforcement and they're stopping them from withdrawing so it wouldn't surprise me if we see the ukrainians pushing out to the West um inside the kers region a little bit more capturing all that area to the south of the the river expanding what they've got enormously at at minimal cost um and um the belgar rod could either be a distraction for that or them deciding to push further out to the east um this is significant um and um I think um another Master Stroke by the ukrainians Ukraine has to find innovative ways to U fight the battle and that's what they're doing with this incursion it's militarily it doesn't actually make a great deal of sense because you're diverting troops away from the main effort why would you do that politically it plays to the center of gravity of President Putin uh centers of gravity being things that the that that one of the combatant just doesn't want to lose and if Putin knows he's actually put in power by the um the oligarchs the power base if they think there's any chance of this war being lost um they are not currently able to Holiday In Paris they're not able to go across to London uh there's all sorts of sanctions crippling their business and Putin is now indicted by the international criminal court the more that zinski can demonstrate to normal Russians that they're in a war that this isn't just some foreign foray that actually they are directly being affected whether it's their young men predominantly and women being returned in boxes or without limbs whether it's uh people being evacuated from the Cur region 150,000 people they're going to talk as well and all the sanctions I think it all starts to pile up and potentially erode support for Putin well let's pick up on that how would you assess the strength of his position domestically currently it's a it's a very very good question James and I'm imp possibly ill equipped to answer that I think what we have seen in history is that um dictatorial leaders get very very swiftly replaced it it doesn't end well generally for dictatorial leaders I think we saw with theeni progan um who rode a tide it felt of public opinion that managed to get him further to Moscow than many many would have expected Putin will be worried about that it's very difficult when you Putin controls all the information and for largely for domestic Russians it's a bit like in this country you might have strong political views but frankly as long as it doesn't affect what you do each day get up look after your kids go down the pub you don't really mind who's in powered likewise in Russia they'll believe whatever they're fed as long as they can get on with their lives bring up their families in some sort of security but over time gradually um the narrative that Putin's coming out with does not connect with the number of people coming back in body bags that they're having to bury everybody will know somebody in a body bag by we of context in the Afghanistan war in the UK only a few hundred were killed several thousand were badly injured but help for Heroes created a huge bow wave across the country of sympathy for our servicemen and women just imagine multiplying that by a 100 maybe a thousand that's the impact this is having in domestic Russia so all of this is gradually nibbling away at Putin's uh Power base when will it crumble who knows but history shows these are often short sharp shocks rather than uh through a process of osmosis um but they managed to roll back the Russian defenses pretty quickly so they capitalized it now looks likely they have 10,000 troops in that little Enclave it looks like they've blown Three Bridges uh if they were plan to go any further they wouldn't have blown those bridges so it looks likely they're settling in and digging themselves in the real surprise is why President Putin doesn't appear to have done anything about it um I think when we discussed before you know one of the options was Putin because he's Mr security he would need to be seen to be dealing with this incursion firmly I mean let's be blunt it's the first time that Russia's been invading since 1941 so um for a man who presents himself as Mr security this is deeply humiliating so the question is why has he not reacted so far and I think what's been interesting a couple of answers to that one of them I come from military where we delegate down so from our Junior non-commission ranks our corporals our senior non-commission ranks our our sergeants they are empowered to take control in a world of ambiguity they understand commander's intent when things happen that are surprise they get on and do something about it whereas in the Russian military that's not the way they operate any surprises they look to their boss and say what do I do now boss their bosses look to their boss and it Cascades all the way up in this case almost certainly to President Putin and that leads to a sort of strategic Paralysis on the front line until the boss President Putin decides what to do I still think there are two options one of which is to crush uh the ukrainians that are there and that would take battle hardened troops he'd have Russia would have to move them from the front line that would ease pressure on the front line and that's exactly what Ukraine is probably hoping it will'll do the other option which I think is playing out at the moment is he's fixed Russia has fixed 10,000 of Ukraine's best fighters in a portion of Russia he doesn't have to do anything about it now he can put a ring of Steel around it deal with that another day meanwhile as a military guy you're always focused on Main effort and what appears to be Russia's main effort is the special military operation seiz Crimea the landbridge and the dbass he's done most of that there's a small area of the dbass relatively small he has yet taken it looks like Putin is doubling down on that povos um tet are the two areas of focus uh and that means he's got 10 to 12 weeks this summer before the winter settles in it becomes much more difficult to fight and that's what we appears to be what Putin is doing at the moment and it's interesting as well he's got his mate lcas shenko in bellus to assemble some troops on the border with Ukraine in gol o blast of of bellus so again that that's probably designed to try and divert some Ukrainian troops up there as well it could be I have to say having been watching this closely for the the full scale of the war you'll recall early on in the war Russia had positioned troops in Belarus and there were suggestions that they'd be mounting attacks out of Belarus um and actually using the Belarusian soldiers uh as part of that attack the trouble is lucenko is known as the last dictator in Europe and it was pretty clear at the time that the Belarusian military said this is not our War uh we're not going to follow you in there and if you do that would cause all sorts of unrest and potentially lead to the end of lenko so uh we I suspect Ukraine has discounted that as a serious threat what lukashenko is probably trying to do is he wants to be a buddy to President Putin he wants to demonstrate that he's doing all he can by putting troops at the border it just puts a little bubble of doubt in president zelinsky's mind he's probably got to do something with his resources just to cover off that risk even though it's very unlikely those troops would actually come in do you think Shan we will see at some point further crossb raids by Ukraine into Russia I think it's inevitable I I I I I do think that in fact I'd be quite surprised if they're not happening already there's been some articles appeared over the last 48 hours about um Special Operations Executives you know the the name that was given in World War I to um areas that were occupied where you know resistance Fighters operated both within Ukraine occupied Ukraine and also in Russia I suspect there's a continued theme Here of making life as unpleasant as possible for Russia and of course once Russia realizes that it can't protect his borders that has strategic I mean the number one priority of any political Master is to protect your people if you can't do that real questions start to get asked why are we in Ukraine all of a sudden more and more people are talking more and more dissent that is very difficult for Putin to manage we're not there yet I'm not suggesting there's going to be a big coup but I am suggesting it's just consistent stly undermining President Putin's position and that'll be something that I suspect president zilinski will be doing all he can it's an asymmetric tactic and it plays to his strengths I suspect we're going to see more of it I mean even before the war he was getting increasingly isolated um and I guess it all started with covid when he famously self-isolated himself in the Kremlin and um sort of two years into the pandemic he wouldn't shake people's hands he would only uh meet someone if they've um if they themselves had self-isolated for two weeks or if they've been regly tested for covid so it it started with that that that his Circle um got very close and uh um apart from Children of his allies or his own relatives we've also seen him elevating people who are not uh just close to him familywise but sort of have been close to his physical body including bodyguards for example there was this recent um appointment of a former bodyguard who was a uh Governor just outside Moscow and he was recently promoted to sort of spear um head um the efforts to drive the Ukrainian Army from ksk which obviously is a very sensitive issue because this is the first time um we have foreign forces on Russian soil since the end of the second world war um and yeah you you can see that this is a very sensitive task and he would obviously want to entrust it with someone who um he has a lot of trust with um including this this Deputy um um Duman is is the name and not just the incursion of K but the Vagner Mutiny the the Mutiny of his former warlord and Confidant um to whom he previously outsourced a lot of war in Ukraine even even before the full scale of invasion definitely saw it as as a betrayal of someone he trusted a lot so what what we seeing we just see sort of like recycling of the same people we're not seeing much of a new blood for example if if we um uh go back to the defense Ministry uh the PO person who succeeded his um long-term Ally former Minister Serge shu is someone from um is a former economic adviser who's been working for him for a long time so it's it's sort of about recycling the same old CER of people all over again just pointing putting them from plucking him them from one seat and putting them into another it pains me to say that but right now Belarus is not a fully independent country as we've been seeing since 2020 when the Kremlin threw its weights behind Alexander lucashenko and basically helped him to secure a reelection in Belarus despite um overwhelming Nationwide Pro protests which were about to topple him Belarus sort of became a vasal of Russia we we see that there's nothing going on in Bel without the kremlin's um explicit or implicit orders and uh as we saw at the start of the invasion uh belus served as a springboard for the invasion of on Ukraine in February 2022 this is how Russian troops were able uh to get closer to K because they were um pouring In from from the north from the Ukrainian from the Northern Ukraine border from Belarus and this is where they've been seeing troops amassing again it started with uh um the belarussian president um telling Ukraine off for amassing troops on its side of the border so lukashenka is now playing the victim and saying that you know there's a threat to our border so we're going to move troops closer to that um I would say this is not surprising considering the ongoing incursion Ukrainian incursion into ksk um bellus is is a Russian puppet as we know it and this is this is definitely um uh some some sort of of a threat that uh Russia is brandishing out there of showing to to KF that if we wanted to invade the Kev region again if we wanted to get somewhat close to Kev again we will do it because for most um for most of the war I would say after Russian forces pulled back from the Kev region in Spring 2022 um there was hardly any threat to Ukraine from the belarussian border so with this Russia is basically showing to Ukraine that um you know we could start doing it again and and you are going to have another front um unless you pull back from from ksk or unless you step down and what what whatever you say we have seen stories of uh deflections in the Russian forces not a lot of them to Ukraine um there was this daring Escape of a fighter jet pilot who famously um hijacked his play um into Ukraine I believe in 2023 um this one um is a member of har Troopers if I'm not mistaken uh he apparently coordinated his defection with Ukrainian forces so he knew where he was going after that and where he was do what what he was doing he filmed himself throwing a grenade into um into the barracks he was stationed I believe it wasn't it was a basement of some sort so this this um quite an extraordinary video um making rounds um um a video of that shows an explosion of that grenade thrown into the quarters of his um commanders after that he apparently was able to cross cross the border into Ukraine um the Ukrainian officials were able to coordinate an Escape Route with him and he resurfaced in KF last week and gave a press conference and said that he was very much disillusioned um he's not a conscript he's someone he's a professional Soldier he's someone who's been serving in an army for a while and as he says that he didn't go to to the to the Army to do just that he went uh he he joined the Armed Forces to defend his country from someone and as he saw the Russian army was actually attacking in another country and this is not something he signed up for so um he was able to Def fact I would say my my main concern here is his own personal safety because as um some of our readers might remember that Russian pilot who hijacked the plane into Ukraine um his case was very much um publicized in Ukraine and abroad um he was offered an asylum in Spain after that and a couple of months later he was found dead in a Spanish home so um definitely there's you know I would have a lot of security concerns for that man because it looks like Russia would be would be targeting those um people and as we know Vladimir Putin he has a thing about treason and traitor so for for for him in a way this is um this is this Cardinal scene and he would like to see the government to go after those people to show an example that this is these are the circum these are the consequences for you if if you decide to do that look I mean def defections are happening they're just not that that uh publicized and you know if if I were a Russian soldier I would rather you know want to do it quietly away from the camera so that I you know I wouldn't repeat the fate of that Russian pilot who ended up killed um in Spain um there's this one Russian charity that that has actually been helping Russian soldiers to defact from um all over the country and they are using very creative roots some of them lead to uh Baltic states across uh Northwestern Russia so it's not that that straightforward those def factions are um are few I think we'll were talking about dozens um I would say couple of dozens a month from what I've I've been hearing um but you know it's it's it's been happening and I would say one of the concerns is is Communications because the Russian state is trying to make an example of the the factors that it catches there's um there's a lot of news going around in Russian media about Russian police catching men who are trying to join the Ukrainian Army who are trying to join um Russian Fighters fighting alongside Ukraine p and those people are getting caught uh they are filmed they are put on trial and all of those trials are highly publicized explicitly with the aim to um ward off those those defections as as much as they can