Former MI6 chief predicts how the war in Ukraine will end

resolution where we have through military a Diplomatic Security effects made it abundantly clear to Putin that he cannot Prevail in Ukraine militarily might force him um at least into um uh finally abandoning his um Ambitions to um stop you know stop Ukraine being a country which is what it wants that that is phase one and we are not there yet we've spent a lot of time discussing the many challenges facing us at home but what of the ever-growing tensions abroad Russia's war in Ukraine continues and the Chinese regime continues to cause concerns over both politics in Taiwan and the security of our politics here in the UK so how should these policies politicians and officials be reading the constantly changing foreign policy and security landscape joining us now is Alex younger who until two years ago was the chief of the secret intelligence Service uh better known perhaps as MI6 thank you very much indeed for joining us just want to start by asking you about all the various stories about Liz truss's phone being hacked by the Russians about zuela bravman not following protocols concerning secrecy as a cabinet minister what is your understanding of what should be expected of ministers and indeed prime ministers in terms of their official work and their contacts and in in the electronic media well I think there's a broader issue here and I encourage us not to be throwing Too Many Stones at the moment about the general levels of cyber security that exists around the all of the critical functions in our country um levels of Education aren't high enough um and I don't think people are are focusing enough on on the risks to their security and their devices because these are hidden threats that aren't properly understood I think that's as true of ministers as anyone else and there's a premium on making sure that they're properly educated and then there are a set of rules of course I don't know the detail of these cases and I can't really say one way or the other what the transition any transgression might have consisted of I would be extremely surprised by the way though if the sort of material that we handle in the agencies so secret intelligence material gets anywhere near mobile devices connected to the internet in ministerial hands or otherwise I had one expert say this morning that basically they should only be using so-called secure phones and secure computers both for their personal and their official business would you agree with that there's no such thing so if something's connected to the internet it's inherently vulnerable one way or the other it's about management of risk and so I would steer away from statements quite as blanket as that but I certainly think that people should understand the risks and by the way I think we should avoid the seductive idea of a completely um secure device there's there's no such thing if it is connected to the internet that goes back to the education point I was making earlier so Alex given what you've just said and about managing risks do you think that ministers should be taking their phones into meetings with Nations representatives from Nations that were not necessarily overly friendly with again I mean I I think it's important to be providing people with simple and clear advice and what I would want is for them to understand the vulnerabilities of doing that just to be clear how would you assess the level of threat I mean are you basically saying that the Russians the Chinese the Iranians are just out there constantly trying to hack into these channels of communication yeah I think what we call the attack surfaces going up all the time a lot of our life has lived in the digital domain which is intrinsically vulnerable and the um the techniques and tools available to offensive cyber operators are becoming more sophisticated and the issue here by the way is also a sort of proliferation one it's not just the state threat the sort of thing I would have been dealing with um if you look at Pegasus the notorious mower created by the NSO group an Israeli company uh that that for a while could be good onto your phone through a vulnerability in the um iMessage that in a way that didn't even require you to do anything stupid it's what we call a zero click attack so a lot of this is about risk management about understanding what can be done about understanding the need to just do the basics right and make yourself as low a Target as possible um and and as I say us all being reasonably humble about about the need to educate ourselves better on all of these issues now the British and American Security Services in the run-up to the conflict in Ukraine took the unusual decision of making a lot of material intelligence available so that the world could see what was going on uh now that there is a terrible war going on in in Yugoslavia is that still the policy that I'm incredibly proud of the way my former colleagues used intelligence there's a there's a fact that often the the sources and methods used to get that intelligence are very delicate um we should not be in any way Cavalier about the way in which we use such material but equally um it's collected for a reason often um employing people putting themselves at personal risk to do so and it's incumbent on us to make sure it has an effect and it really had an effect in this case they obviously thought extremely carefully about the risk reward balance of of doing this um but what it did is it completely shot Putin's Fox it made any any claim on his part they have been provoked into this war risible and I think it did a huge amount to um pull together that Alliance in a way that was cohesive and in a way that was a huge downside surprise for Vladimir Putin so I think it's good I've always thought that you know we need to remember the purpose of intelligence collection which is not intelligence collection it's uh is to change things that matter and using it including publicly has got to be a part of that tool set so I welcome this development obviously we're not going to make Cavalier about it but this material is there it's it's it's it's collected at cost and risk it's there to be used I'm interested then in your take on what Russia is currently doing talking about the pipeline explosion suggesting that that was something that the UK was responsible for essentially turning turning that into propaganda material do you think that Putin has learned some of those lessons from the early stages of this conflict and is now turning things to his Advantage when it comes to using propaganda well look he's obviously got an intelligence background but the Russians have been doing disinformation um propaganda since the time of the Tsar it's a thing that they appear to attach particular importance to it's absolutely not new and we don't do disinformation what we do is operationalizing the truth that is the big difference but you know they they have been at this for a while and of course in cyber and in the digital domain they've got a whole new set of opportunities now when it comes to the sort of stuff they've been saying recently uh the idea that you know we were involved in the um uh sabotage of the pipeline or that Ukraine's intent on making a dirty bomb that's all rubbish clearly to be absolutely clear there is no grounds there at all but in the Warped World in which Vladimir Putin lives I don't know I mean he's probably this is disinformation but maybe someone's told him it's true you know there's no checks and balances on the way that information is um uh is transmitted within an autocracy I would say sorry can I just carry on yeah please um in the context of the dirty bomb and I think probably also these ludicrous claims around the pipeline uh what there has one been one good um side effect which is that um the Russians got in touch and wanted to talk um and uh that's positive a thing that has really worried me about this war is a complete policy of any real meaningful senior level context and I think I would expect that conversation to allowed the western side to have laid out really clearly in settings for Putin to be defeated in Ukraine and put the Russians on the spot and extract from them undertakings that they will behave with restraints say in the respect of nuclear use now you may choose not to believe those undertakings but it's a start that that conversation even happens what is your best assessment of the state of the Ukraine conflict right now well I think um we're going into a school or Draw at the moment and uh eight months on so if you said to me on 24th of February that that's where we would be now you know I'd have taken it and I would have been delighted and it's massive Testament to the to the will and sheer imagination of Ukraine and its resilience and of course the quality of Western support but it is only a score draw I think we are getting a bit carried away when we imagine that Ukraine is about advance and carry it all before it and certainly Putin goes into the winter with a significant amount of confidence that that Europe writ large will Buckle in the face of his energy blackmail and I think that's misplaced confidence but he certainly doesn't think that he's losing yet so you you feel that it will end up with uh Ukraine having to give up territory I think um uh it's far too early to say that so I think Western policy you know which has been pretty unsettled I would I would completely acknowledge uh is fundamentally uh for this to end in a way that means that it actually has finished rather than just provided Putin with some kind of Frozen conflict where he regenerates his forces and tries again and until there's really clear indication that he's completely given up on any idea that he can win this militarily there isn't a conversation after that there is a conversation obviously um this is that this that is How This Ends but any idea that that's done over the heads of the ukrainians against their wishes which is clearly what Putin's angling for I don't see any appetite for that within the west but do you think it's realistic to suggest that President Putin will ever give up on his military aims I mean that's what you seem to suggest would be a a start of an end point but from everything that we see from Russia that doesn't look like it will ever be possible yeah it's a really good question well I think we need to have low expectations of of meaningful sort of diplomatically endorsed peace while Putin is in power so I think it is more lightly eventually that that he is he has fought to a standstill increasingly tries to impose a frozen conflict and hold on to what he's got in Ukraine with the ukrainians increasingly pressurizing that but as I said the forces are quite evenly balanced I don't think that happens overnight but yeah a sort of change of heart of change in the character of Vladimir Putin yeah you're right that's very unlikely so ultimately if we take that to its logical conclusion really resolution could only come if President Putin were no longer in power I think um resolution that that's that orgas um Russia's reintegration into the International Community the full lifting of sanctions Etc that's absolutely true resolution where we have through military and Diplomatic Security effects made it abundantly clear to Putin that he cannot Prevail in Ukraine militarily might force him um at least into um uh a finally abandoning his um Ambitions to um stop you know stop Ukraine being a country which is what it wants that that is phase one and and we are not there yet finally you you talked about uh the case of Russia being allowed back into International Community do you think really the story of the next few decades is going to be so-called decoupling with both in the tech area uh and militarily basically the West retreating back into its shell and becoming effectively the competitor with China Russia well I agree with the first half of that statement and it's important to notice them I'm old enough to remember at the end of the Cold War we thought democracy was the answer and the only question was how long it was going to take everyone to catch up it's now obvious that was massively over optimistic and the world is diverging into different blogs and there's a competition between value systems and that is going to end in the degree of decoupling in key areas strategic areas like data and and high technology retreating into our shell I would really reject that this is the West's opportunity to remember what it's for double down on its strengths renew its alliances Empower its Innovation these that doesn't sound very much to me like retreating into our shell on the contrary I think it's an opportunity here boosted by the really extraordinary cohesion shown in Ukraine to actually get our act together that sounds like it would be quite expensive though would you look to the government to invest in those kind of Ambitions three percent defense Target for example maybe even more than that no I think um I mean maybe but uh I um uh I think that the things that I want to see happen most importantly of all maintaining our capacity to innovate technically faster than our Authority and Rivals isn't just not expensive the alternatives are very expensive becoming completely dependent on um products goods and services and data provided from other regimes that sounds very expensive to me and finally I have to ask you that there was a story in the last Fortnight of RAF fastjet Pilots recruited recruited to help train Chinese counterparts are you concerned about that well I don't know the truth of that but clearly if that's true it shouldn't be happening Alex for younger thank you for joining us on Sunday morning

Channel: Times Radio

Views: 1,862,802

Keywords: timesradio, ukraine, russia, ukraine russia, russia ukraine war, russia ukraine, russia ukraine news, ukraine russia news, russia vs ukraine, war in ukraine, russia and ukraine, ukraine russia war, ukraine russia conflict, russia ukraine conflict, ukraine war, russia vs ukraine war update, ukraine news, russian ukraine news, russia news, russia invading ukraine, russia war, ukraine russian, ukraine russia border, russia war ukraine, russia ukraine tensions

Id: b73jKB7qxVo

Length: 14min 18sec (858 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 30 2022