‘Catastrophically bad’ Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu fired by Putin | Mark Galeotti

what we're really seeing particularly with the appointment of the new defense minister Andre bov who is an economist an economic manager more than anything else is that sense that they're really digging in for the long term and in particular they're Shifting the economy to increasingly being just simply directed towards keeping the war effort going so very much I would say this doesn't necessarily leave Putin stronger or weaker but shows a reluctance to a reluctant admission that there's not going to be an end to this war War at all soon well in his big speech this morning the Prime Minister included Russia in what he called the axis of authoritarianism but is Russian President Vladimir Putin in a stronger or weaker position today after removing his long-standing defense minister Sergey sh shyu well Professor Mark gallotti is an expert on Russia and director of the consultancy mayic intelligence and joins me now hi Mark hello there uh for people who don't know just tell us about uh who sery sh shyo is and why he his removal is significant well look he's a long-standing defense minister who in civil years actually seem to be doing a decent job but he's proven to be a pretty catastrophically bad defense minister in Wartime he's now massively unpopular with with his troops and so there had been quite a bit of thought that he would actually go at some point and given that last month one of his Deputy ministers who's also one of his own cronies was arrested on corruption charges definitely his his time seem be running out but he is also a personal friend of Putin's they go hiking in Siberia together and uh shyu skates on Putin's own ice hockey team and therefore it's not surprising that instead of actually being dismissed entirely he's been moved sideways to a new job and so what does that tell us about how Putin thinks the war is going because it comes at a time when we're seeing uh sort of what appears to be a new push into Ukraine yeah I think from their point of view look in the short term they're actually quite happy with how things are going and this this new thrust we're seeing in the north against the city of khv which is probably really more of a faint and a diversion than anything else shows that at the moment they're happy to take advantage of the fact that they have more troops and more ammunition at present however there's no real sense I think on their part that this war is going to end at all soon and what we're really seeing particularly with the appointment of the new defense minister Andre bov who is an economist an economic manager more than anything else is that sense that they're really digging in for the long term and in particular they're Shifting the economy to increasingly being just simply directed towards keeping the war effort going so very much I would say this doesn't necessarily leave Putin stronger or weaker but shows a reluctance a reluctant admission that there's not going to be an end to this war at all soon uh and then what can Ukraine is there is there anything that Ukraine can do about this conflict to to change up what they're doing I think really a lot is going to depend actually on next year and it's terrible to be thinking about the fact that the fighting in the blood is going continue until that point but really the current plan seems to be that this year especially given just how late American assistance has been coming really they they just dug in and just trying to minimize Russian losses while building up their forces is for a major counter offensive next year they've just passed a new law on mobilization which will allow them to call up more more men to fight and more assistance is coming not just the Americans but there's a Check le initiative to bring ammunition to them which will when be kicking in next next month and so forth so the idea is that next year they can launch a counter offensive in the hope of pushing the Russians back maybe even pushing them out and then perhaps on the basis of of a position of strength be able to open talks with Russia but so much will depend between what happens now and then and so much will depend on whether this counter offensive next year can be more successful than last year's Ukraine's top military commander has admitted that the situation in the northeastern hke region has become difficult Russia claims to have captured several more Villages taking advantage of Ukraine's shortage of both Manpower and weapons Maria a diva is a security expert in h and joins us now good morning good morning thank you for having me thank you for joining us on the program can you just give us an update of of the latest on the ground there given uh those claims overnight yeah during the night seal more Villages were captured by Russian troops this is the villages to the north of harv and around wjan which is a city that lies on the river just on the border with Russia to the uh east north of of the city of harv so this mean that Russian troops are still advancing uh despite uh Ukrainian uh attempt to uh defend H and to to protect the further uh villages and towns on their way uh but there is a hope and I think there are sign that this Advance will be stopped because UK Ukraine is redeploying more troops and Ukraine has more defense lines ahead basically what happened Russia managed to go uh along the first defense line but there's also the second and the third one uh the only problem is that those defense line especially for example the third one they too close to the city itself so in the Bad Case uh if Russian troops succeed in getting closer to the city this will put har the second Ukrainian largest city in the danger of the artillery fire shallon which we have seen uh in the first days and months of invasion and and clearly a really precarious situation there for for people living in that area what happened with the first line of defense you mentioned that Russian troops have made it through that first line of defense there is a second and a third line was was it underpreparedness was it underpowered how did the Russians make it through well the there are different kinds of reports uh one uh one is that uh there is a possibility that the lines of Defense were not built too close to the Border because that was not possible physically because this like area is constantly under the uh Russian uh shelling and it can be seen through so this was the reason to build them some somewhat further uh but and then what makes it uh like most important and most difficult in the situation is all those people uh who live in the area because now they have to evacuate urgently immediately actually they uation is already happening for some time for for two days now they are evacuated to Har because the situation in the city is uh more or less calm uh and this is their second time they have already been through all the horrors of occupation and they know what Russian occupation brings so this is why they are fing now not to go through it again but this is the situation is Waring uh you completely right and how much are there questions being asked about Western Funding and whether or not you know any extra Weaponry could have made a difference here yeah that's the one of the biggest issues and uh I think that Russians are taking advantage in terms of the timing because they know that all that Western weapons were not uh they it wasn't here in time and it's still not here so it the package was just announced and there was not enough time for all these weapons to come to the front lines and this is why Russia is attacking at this moment because they know that uh Ukrainian Army does not have enough and this is a time so they take advantage on that uh if Ukraine had the weapons in time I doubt that Russia will try to attack in this direction we've also seen overnight um reports that Serge Shu has been replaced what does that mean for this conflict well uh if we look at the shifts in the higher Russian leadership this probably mean that uh Russia will bring and flow even more money into the war so meaning that all the Russian economy will work for what effort and this means that Putin and Russia are preparing for a one war and this is why this Ukrainian know claim that this is not only about Ukraine has more grounds because we clearly is that they're like they don't do it just for Ukraine they preparing for for a larger bigger war and this mean that they will go further if Russia succeeds in Ukraine Maria a diva thank you for joining us Maria aiva there a security expert in hke

Channel: Times Radio

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Id: a0qHs7uB5hY

Length: 9min 38sec (578 seconds)

Published: Mon May 13 2024