How Ukraine sunk nearly a third of Putin's Black Sea Fleet with no navy | Admiral Dr Chris Parry

most recently we've had one of their tarantal missile Corvettes um Which packs quite a punch or used to pack quite a punch uh hit by I think probably three of the drones and completely sunk it and and why do you think Russia has failed to protect the Black Sea Fleet better I mean you mentioned that strike only last week that is a pretty significant blow and yet Ukraine have been having success for some time now I think I'm right in saying about a third of Russia's Black Sea fleet has now been wiped out by Ukraine why has Russia been unable to protect it better well U I think we have to um accept that because um uh the boss forus is shut to combatants the Russians aren't able to actually replenish uh their Fleet with new warships from the northern Fleet or indeed the Baltic Fleet so they've got a bit of a problem in that sense hello and welcome to front line for times radio I'm James Hansen and today we're talking about the latest on the war in Ukraine with rear Admiral Dr Chris Parry Chris spent 36 years in the Royal Navy commanding HMS Gloucester and HMS Fearless he's also been on operational and combat tours in Northern Ireland the gulf and the folklands and he's now a strategic foraster and commentator Dr Chris Parry welcome back to front line thank you first of all I just wonder if you can give us your assessment on on where you think we are in the war at the moment I think there was a great expectation last year that possibly the ukrainians would be able to break through to the Sea of Azo for the Black Sea uh cutting the land bridge that the Russians have uh from the East the dbass uh region uh to Crimea that didn't materialize for a number of reasons principally because the Russians had fortified the area uh to the east of jppa river um with about three lines of trench systems mines and other obstructions uh that meant it would be difficult for any army to penetrate that level of fortification secondly um the ukrainians had been essentially trained by their Western allies uh in defensive operations and uh not really in assault and attack um formations um so I'm afraid to say that the very uh minimal capability that ukrainians were able to bring to bear uh didn't have much impacts I'm afraid on the Russian defenses uh and thirdly the Russians actually had learned from their first year or so in Ukraine about how to do combined operations uh and they were joining up uh units and formations much better than they had been in the past and I think finally uh we we must accept the ukrainians didn't have any sort of air control over the battlefield so uh the Russians were still able to bring significant air power to Bear against any sort of um Ukrainian formation including of course a large number of uh Iranian uh and Chinese derived drones I want to come on to the situation in the Black Sea where Ukraine have been having significant success for for some time now in a moment but but first of all Chris what what is your assessment of the situation on the front line itself it feels like we're in this period of very positional Warfare with neither side making significant breakthroughs can you see any change in that in the coming months I think the um ukrainians have been adopting what I would call a porcupine strategy in the Black Sea they've been trying to hit the Russians while obviously trying to remain protected themselves their first task really was to stop the Russians uh getting into the approaches of Odessa at one stage we had about half a dozen Russian amphibia ships that could be seen quite clearly from Odessa uh the r the Russians made the mistake of course of putting the mosa far too close in Shore uh to defend those units and they were hit by anti-ship missiles Neptune anti-ship missiles and also the ukrainians mined the approaches to Odessa and the whole Northwestern part of the Black Sea so it became very untenable uh for the Russians to actually stay there and after the mosow was sunk uh I think their surface Navy was very wary of going anywhere near uh the western part of the Black Sea um the ukrainians Then followed it up with attacks on Russian warships where they found them both with missiles when they were alongside uh but also with surface drones that were able to crash into the side of some of their ships and we saw extensive damage to two uh Landing or amphibia ships alongside in Crimea uh we saw um a kilo class submarine that was in dry do hit with what looks like a Storm Shadow missile and that became a constructive write off several other vessels were hit by uh drones and most recently we've had one of their Taran all missile Corvettes um Which packs quite a punch or used to pack quite a punch hit by I think probably three of the drones and completely sunk it and and why do you think Russia has failed to protect the Black Sea Fleet better I mean you mentioned that strike only last week that is a pretty significant blow and yet Ukraine have been having success for some time now I think I'm right and saying about a third of Russia's Black Sea fleet has now been wiped out by Ukraine why has Russia been unable to protect it better well uh I think we have to um accept that because um uh the boss for us is shut to combatants the Russians aren't able to actually replenish uh their Fleet with new warships from the northern Fleet or indeed the Baltic Fleet so they've got a bit of a problem in that sense um and the montro Convention as I said prevents uh the combatants of any War passing through the uh the Bosphorus um so that's one reason and secondly we are seeing some Innovation here we're seeing these drones which uh would be pretty difficult for anybody to stop whether they're Airborne uh or indeed on the surface they're very low visibility they're normally made of plastic or uh glass reinforced Plastics they're very difficult to detect and we've seen certainly on the cameras of some of the drones the Russians are putting a lot of lead into the water to try and stop them um but of course if you're attacked by more than one that's quite a difficult task particularly uh at night so they're having a lot of success the the other thing the ukrainians have done of course is uh put together this sort of trade Corridor that goes through movan territorial seas and then the territorial Seas of Bulgaria Romania and then turkey which enables them to run obviously Merchant uh traffic down the West Side uh of the Black Sea so they're essentially relying on the fact that the Russians don't want to attack a NATO country's territorial seas in order to keep their trade going just put the success Ukraine have had in the black SE into some kind of context Chris I mean if I told you two years ago that a country with essentially no Navy to speak of in Ukraine would have eliminated a third of Russia's Black Sea Fleet what would you have made of that oh well to be fair this is something a scenario that I put together in a book I wrote in 2014 where I said you don't actually have to be at Sea to exert Maritime power I pointed out at the time that smali pirates were exerting Maritime Power by boarding ships um obviously in the Indian Ocean we could say that the houthis are trying to exert Maritime power from the land in the Red Sea at the moment and so uh this is just an extension of that U Marian power doesn't actually have to be at Sea to be projected at the sea uh and as we've seen with surface to surface missiles with mines uh and with these new drones uh you can actually establish what I would call Sea denial even if if you don't establish sea control and that's essentially what the ukrainians got they're denying the Russians access and the ability to project their own Force into parts of uh the Black Sea and that's entirely consistent with classic Maritime Theory and I take it you think Ukraine will continue their current strategy they will continue to Target ships in the Black Sea where where they can I think there are two reasons why Ukraine will continue doing that one is it is successful and it is keep keeping Russian warships away uh I also think that it's good for Ukrainian morale uh they're actually seeing that's an area uh a sector in which they're being really successful and also at a time when they're being pushed back in the East uh in in many ways you can see the Russians are conducting daily attacks that are gaining ground very gradually in the East and I think we'll probably see a Frozen conflict emerging on land next year once the Russians and ukrainians have probably tried one more offensive to see if they can break through each other's lines it's a really good point it seems to me given how relatively stagnant things are on the front line in the East that Ukraine are looking at different tactics they're continuing their operations in the Black Sea but also now what's been interesting in the last few months is they're targeting quite successfully a Russian energy infrastructure has has that surprised you well it has surprised me because the Russians of course have said if you attack Russia then we're going to put all sorts of things your way that you won't like very much and indeed whenever uh anything is attacked in any sort of strength or depth in Russia you see quite a lot of Russian missiles flying the other way to attack infrastructure and civilian Targets in Ukraine uh so the ukrainians have been wary of that and of course they've been restrained I think by the United States uh in two ways one in terms of policy they said look don't provoke the Russians uh too much and secondly in restricting how the weapons uh that the West has supplied to Ukraine can be used but I anticipate that I think uh come the New Year you'll see increased attacks uh by uh ukrainians on deeper Russian targets and infrastructure indeed I noticed yesterday that pruf who's the head of the Security Council is actually saying look we need to protect ourselves against drone and missile attacks uh from Ukraine and the fact he's saying that publicly means that he he needs resources and he clearly indicates it's going to be a threat from an intelligence point of view how deep into Russia do you think Ukraine could strike with these attacks I mean if they can hit energy infrastructure aroundon Petersburg you'd have thought they could hit what most areas of European Russia I think there's an aspiration for the ukrainians to be able to hit most Targets this side of the eural but to be fair given their limited uh supply of missiles and drones they want to go for Prestige targets which directly affect the battlefield that means Logistics uh and also production sites that are within range I suspect the Kirch bridge is going to come for come in for a bit of attention at some stage uh and the real priority will be to try and cut Russia off from Crimea um you know the whole infrastructure the whole population and its morale depends on supplies from Russia and the key issue is if Ukraine can cut Russia off from crime it's a major strategic blow but it also has a major effect on the Tactical war on the ground how would you assess the strength of Russia's air defenses to cope with these attacks essentially I was watching uh on uh Russian military blog site recently um Storm Shadow um missiles flying past one of their air defense batteries that was N300 battery which is not bad um but all the operators could could do was just stand and swear at these missiles as they went by um so it's got gaps uh there's no doubt about that Storm Shadow seems to be getting through atacam are getting through these land attack missiles that the uh United States have provided but the real Russian strength lies in electronic warfare and I think electronic warfare is being used by the Russians to neutralize quite a few of the drones that the uh ukrainians are using and increasingly I suspect will be applied to any missile that are flying the other way um certainly that's something I've been advocating for the ukrainians to be doing much more of to be able to jam both the drones and the missile systems and I think we've got to bear in mind that if we look at uh the deal that the Russians have made with uh the Iranians they they've bought 2,400 Shahed drones recently uh for 1.5 billion uh they're about sort of $700,000 each uh so these are quite sophistic drones so that's going to cause a lot of damage if the ukrainians can't actually deal with that and of course the Russians have also been trading with North Korea getting ballistic missiles and large numbers of artillery shells for their 152 and 122 millimeter artillery so next year the Russians will be fully tooled up uh with quite a lot of the things they need to apply pressure to uh the whole front against Ukraine uh and it'll be best that we ensure that Ukraine can withstand that attack and also of course undertake an assault of its own well that brings us quite neatly onto the situation currently with the lack of further military aid for Ukraine in particular from the US do you think we are already starting to see the impact of of of the impass in Congress on the front line in Ukraine yes it's quite interesting looking at what's going on at the moment the ukrainians are trying to develop their own defense infrastructure um and production lines obviously they're under attack quite a lot of the time but they they have tremendous expertise before the war started they were well known for producing armaments and also Aero engines which the Russian Air Force used ironically um so that's going well um the uh EU which has already donated 138 billion uh to the war in Ukraine has just authorized another 55 billion Ryme metal and other major arms manufacturers are producing the5 m met rounds that the ukrainians need uh and in many ways Europe is balancing out the deficiencies and delays that are occurring uh in the United States but I anticipate before the campaigning season starts that we'll see a very rapid resupply from the Americans uh of the sort of things the ukrainians need initially to defend themselves but also later uh to assault the Russian uh positions um I think it'll be very interesting as I said to see how it plays out I suspect there'll be one major assault from each side if they're not successful I anticipate probably they'll come to terms next year and when we talk about the military aid that Ukraine needs I mean specifically do do you think it comes down to artillery rounds primarily it it comes down to the effect that you can actually produce on your opponent with whatever you've got it's not just artillery rounds they certainly get through a lot of those there's no question about that because it's flexible you can actually move your artillery positions quite rapidly uh you can use underground you can use camouflage um missiles too are quite important because they are Precision weapons uh and they've had tremendous sort of success particularly on the Ukrainian side uh for to hitting Russian Logistics command and control centers and things like that where do you stand on the impact the f-16s will have once they become a major factor in this war once Ukraine has proper access to them and is fully trained up on them I mean do you think it will have a significant effect on this conflict or do you think perhaps people have been overstating the impact they will have I think the uh effect of the f-16s depends on how many there are it depends which variant is put into the front line in many ways it's not the aircraft itself it's the avionics and the weapons that can be hung on them um and we'll see how that applies I I haven't yet seen what the package is um but the fact of life is they've got to be survivable that's the first thing um and secondly they've got to be able to add something to the battle um they don't fit f16s with long range anti-air missiles so the Russians will be looking for them um I suspect there will be Replacements very much for the mid 29s uh that the um ukrainians have been using and losing of course uh but of course they're much more agile they're faster uh and hopefully the avionic package will give them a greater survival and hit rate uh than we've seen up to date has this surprised you that that since the start of this conflict both the US and the EU have not done more to ramp up military production we believe if this Aid package does get approved by Congress at some point in the next few weeks or months that there will be a significant ramping up of artillery round production but you a lot of people would say this should have been happening two years ago and the same in the UK and the EU has that surprised you Chris it hasn't surprised me for two reasons one is the Biden Administration has been really nervous of tweaking the Bear's very short taale um and uh seeing that the Russians actually act in ways which we wouldn't want them to do including flourishing nuclear weapons of course I think it was always a bluff because the consequence of the Russians using nucle nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be so great not least the fact that the radiation Fallout would drift down wind towards Russia um so that's one one reason why you might want to not use it but there are other deterrence reasons why you wouldn't want to use a nuclear weapon um so there was a bit of nervousness on in the Biden Administration about provoking Russia too much I think that was the uh first aspect but the second aspect simply is we didn't actually have enough in the locker uh one of the big problems I alluded to in a in a book in 2014 called super highway is that our opponents could actually see the bottom of our Locker in terms of ammunition in terms of logistics and in terms of Manpower and I'm afraid to say that in February 2022 uh apart from the Americans the Europeans didn't actually have much Hardware to give we're ramping up production now we're trying to increase our own depth and resilience um but yeah the cupboard was not bare but it was pretty scanty I remember when when Argentina invaded the Faulkland uh I was in a ship off Gibralter we were in an exercise at the time and we were 98% stocked to war stocks um and we topped up to 10% of War stocks from another ship before we went South but it only took us a day to do that there's no way we would do be able to do that now so our alert states have got to improve in future in the face of the threat from Russia and one of the things I've been pressing on MPS recently is everybody's used to a deterrence posture we've now got to move to a defense posture and it's subtly different we have to be prepared to defend ourselves uh in the past you just have to provide enough military capacity and capability uh to make your opponent think it's not worth his while I'm afraid to say with Russia China uh Iran and North Korea now really sounding belligerent we have to be uh as prickly as anybody else in showing how we would defend ourselves and of course make the cost of their aggression uh much more than anything they could benefit by and from those conversations you've been having with MPS in the UK and others do you think people are starting to get it no I don't um I'm afraid uh people have been talking the talk for so long that that they're starting to believe it um I'm afraid we have to recognize that we are in a situation today which is very much like the latter part of the 1930s we're faced by authoritarian in those days of course fascist and communist Powers who wish to do us and our interests harm and I'm afraid you know I've luckily had a life where we've had continuous 70 years of Peace uh my experience as a historian and as a military officer is that peace doesn't keep itself uh and we do have have uh people uh in authoritarian countries who threaten our interests um and they're acting in concert as we've seen Russia China Iran North Korea are trading armaments between themselves uh they're looking out for each other's geopolitical interests uh and I have no doubt that with Russia pressing on Ukraine Iran pressing on Israel in the great and Middle East China on the south and east China Sea and I think probably this year as well North Korea will be putting pressure on South Korea you're seeing uh what I call the axis of autocracy uh putting pressure on the Americans in particular and the Free World in detail and keeping us off balance um happily uh we are starting to wake up and see the threat uh but it is as I said very much like um 1936 to 1939 uh there've got to be uh real there's got to be real recognition that If you deny this threat then you're simply appeasing dictators now just as in the 1930s and we have to again as in that time think about rearmament and putting in place proper defensive measures in order to deter effectively it's really interesting I was only speaking yesterday on on Frontline to Peter RS who's written a new biography of NATO and I asked him that question about you know how does he assess the risk of a full scale conflict between NATO and Russia or indeed the West more broadly and Russia and indeed potentially with with China and Iran and he said he reckons maybe about a third probably one in three he sees as the prospect of a kind of fullscale World War III even if you want to put it in those terms how how would you assess that risk Chris well if you'd ask people back in the late 1930s about assessing the risk they'd have said in conceptual terms High um but I don't see how it's going to happen and I'm afraid that is the case with world wars you don't actually see how they're going to happen it normally is is a trigger that joins up a lot of dots uh right now we've got a lot of dots around the world lots of flash points that could all join up and suddenly we're in a world war it won't be our choice though um the initiative lies with these autocratic powers and if they choose to go to war with us or choose to test um more seriously how how how we want to live our lives how we want to project our interests uh then trotsky's famous quotation applies and that is we may not be interested in war but war will be interested in you uh and that's what we have to worry about everybody funny enough I I spoke to a group of MPS the other night and they they said the same question to tell the TRU James and they said you know when are people going to take it seriously and I said well the same missiles that can hit KF can hit Kent H and when people realize that or indeed when the missiles start threatening Kent uh or or nightsbridge then maybe we will get people paying attention to it um but I can tell you now there's probably a Russian submarine within missile firing distance of all our major infrastructure and sites even now submerged in the Atlantic and it can fire the same missiles at us that it has fire that its sisters have fired at Ukraine that's the scale of the threat we should be tracking that submarine day in day out to make sure that it's marked in case it does something that's the scale of the threat it's made you know I'm old enough to remember the Cold War um you know in the days before mobile phones I used to eat on duty in my house in case a Russian submarine came down the west side of the United Kingdom and we used to go out and track it uh that may be the world we're going to be back in again uh in the near future how then does that need to be communicated to people more broadly because a few weeks ago we had this discussion around whether a form of conscription might be needed in the uken future and a lot of the commentary around it almost scoffed it you know suggested it was hyperbolic and uh completely unrealistic and and maybe you think to a degree it isn't realistic in the short term but but it struck me from the reaction to that that that maybe a lot of people aren't fully aware of the threats that the world is facing well there's no doubt that people aren't aware of the threats or their immediacy uh to tell you the truth but I I must stress the initiative does not lie with the Free World in this it lies with the autocrat who will choose where and when they want to play this game um the point that I made in relation to this is conscription rather confuses the picture what we need to do is say look if we're in any future war against any of these Powers this will be a war by Society against these Powers it'll be uh you you know the whole of democracy trying to defend itself against uh essentially what is an ideological uh opponent just like in the Cold War um so we have to mobilize uh the whole of society in this respect it's not just about the Armed Forces uh so we have to know how we would react for example if our power system was attacked we'd need to be a to declare a National Emergency to make sure that could work if our Railways were attacked so what are the plans for that sort of thing how can we mobilize our Manpower how can we make sure we've got the legislation in place to be able to deal with that uh it's not just a question of of funing people into the Armed Forces my own view is that we as I said earlier we can't afford to let our opponents see the bottom of our locker we need to see an unlimited Chain O of availability of personnel all sorts of specializations uh and technological expertise uh all the way back uh to the millions that work in our civil society um and unless we can adopt a comprehensive approach to that we won't have an intelligent conversation about what is required to defend our society and maintain our security uh and we also won't have the tools available to resist and I'll give you one example you know we're going to need thousands of cyber experts to resist the sort of cyber attacks that we would have in a major conflict um we're going to need to be able to access all our space facilities uh obviously Americans would help with that but how we mobilize and how we energize Society to face the threat is not just something that we do in wartime we should be doing it now because those four states Iran China Russia North Korea are in strategic competition with us every day of the week is not just at War so we're seeing the Chinese the Russians all trying to undermine and attack our infrastructure they're conducting cyber attacks they're also nibbling away uh at various freedoms that we have around the world so if you go into the the Arctic now the Russians Will Shadow you and sty and see you off if you operating in the South China Sea you're going to be hassled by the Chinese it's as simple as that and the Iranians of course with the Iranian revolutionary guard are exporting all sorts of issues uh around the Middle East Red Sea and using their proxies to annoy everybody um they're out there now that's the point and we need to mobilize and we need to focus people's attention on resisting these threats to our freedom Chris we always appreciate your time thank you so much for joining us today on front line thank you for watching this episode of Frontline for times radio for more on the war in Ukraine subscribe to the times radio YouTube channel listen to times radio on your Digital radio or you can read the Times online with your digital subscription or in print thank you and goodbye

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Id: dZPsglTYf2A

Length: 28min 52sec (1732 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 07 2024