Leaks reveal Putin could use tactical nukes and China strike plan | Maj. Gen. Rupert Jones

is fascinating these papers aren't they um uh so I think there's a number of things I me the first thing is as you allude to the papers are from there I think about 10 years ago so so they're not that they don't reflect necessarily current thinking not least to your point about China uh Russia and China have coed up considerably since then although we shouldn't be under no Illusions who's who's the daddy in that relationship it's China it's not Putin um far far from it um so so guess that Dynamic has changed the second thing is um yeah you could have if you like doctrine that sets out in theory in the case of a war game what are the circumstances in which you would go to tactical nuclear weapons of course the Practical reality is it's never as clearcut as that and ultimately President Putin would would be would be making judgments advised by gasimov uh his head of the Armed Force and and labov his defense secretary sorry his foreign secretary others um 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 Major General Raper Jones who is previously Britain's most senior commander in Iraq rert always a pleasure Welcome Back to Front Line James Delight to be with you thank you can we just start by getting your summary of what we're seeing on the front line at the moment obviously we've had the Russians capturing a diva it seems like their offensive operations in that region maintaining quite a high intensity what is your assessment of where we are currently yeah I I think we need to be clear r that at the moment and probably for the first time uh in the War uh could take a view on that it feels so the Russians have uh they have the upper hand on on the battlefield at a at a land tactical level they they've got a bit of initiative i' be clearly that was you know um that was a disappointing you might use the word tactical defeat for the ukrainians um you know normally it's perfectly valid on the battlefield to give up ground you trade space for time it's a perfectly valid tactic um of course for the ukrainians they can't ordinarily do that because it's their Sovereign territory every inch of Ukraine matters to them and so that's taken away some of their tactical options so so some of like ABA they hold they hold they hold when in all in pure military terms you might want to kind of give it up so anyway in this case they have given it up um and it does feel as though the Russians are trying to Double Down they're trying to exploit that and and build a bit of a momentum around I wouldn't overplay it um but but you know this is it's not great from a Ukrainian perspective they want to they want to stem that tide I spent what they're doing is falling back to to Fresh defensive positions uh hopefully those defensive positions are are strong and they'll be able to they'll be able to block any further Russian abots yeah just just talk me through the logistics of of Ukraine finding those new defensive lines to the west of a diva and and making sure they can hold them yeah so again what you would normally do is when you are going to trade some ground in the military Parliament You' make sure the position you're falling back to is as strong as possible so you're falling back onto a bit of ground that you have pre-identified that is readly defendable you've put in place all your defensive um fortifications trenches and and the like and the critically you pick the ground that you're goingon to you're going to fall back to um I'm confident the ukrainians will have will have done that I don't have um uh absolute in Insight on that but of course what the Russians will be trying to do is the flip of that is so they'll be trying to build up momentum against the ukrainians as the ukrainians are in the process of falling back almost open up the tide and flood through I'm confident the Ukraine's won't allow that to happen but it's a competition that's going on and it was interesting president zalinski saying over the weekend that that he expects Russia to launch a full scale offensive in the late spring and and presumably The crucial thing now is for Ukraine to stop that momentum building on the russing time yeah you know it feels very different doesn't it from this this time last year here we are just beyond the two-year anniversary this time last year all the talk was about the you know the coming Ukrainian offensive I think zalinsky is very sensibly playing the narrative in the other direction now playing down uh Ukrainian uh aspirations in the short term playing up Russian Uh Russian opportunity um and I suspect he's right you know the the Russians one of all at A T land tactical level not strategically at a land tactical level have a little bit of momentum and I think president Z is right the Russians always to take advantage of that not least of course because there is the uh the fox election about to take place in Russia so you know Putin wants as much as he wants his tail up as much as possible as he goes into uh you know the the false the false election and how big an issue is it at the moment for Ukraine just the lack of Supply the fact they're having to husband their material and ration supplies ammunition Etc oh it's absolutely brutal nobody should underestimate what a big issue this is um and you know this has been building for a considerable period of time you know this the seeds of what we face now you can play back to you know so 16 odd months ago so we're talking late 2022 when there was the you know the the in-depth discussion going on around the Nat table do we don't we want we provide to the ukrainians and for me that that was the moment where you know for me in the earliest months of the campaign NATO leaders played a clever Nuance balance in terms of supporting president zelinski but but not going too far because they were mindful of escalation you know the the risk of Russia uh going nuclear felt real uh you know as the months of 2022 went on became clear that that was I mean not impossible but highly unlikely and it was then that some leaders were saying right we need to double down our support to Ukraine go all in with tanks go all in with fast Jets and and and and as you recall through that winter we lost months of wrangling about to provide tanks not to provide tanks provide D not pride artori and those were the months the ukrainians needed to really exploit their own their own momentum so so that that was the seeds of the problem we saw through 2023 uh and and here we are now where the PO ukrainians are fighting you know not not just one hand tie behind their back and they're kind of hopping on one leg at the same time because they just don't have uh the Munitions this is a highly industrial War the war that some commentators uh who don't pay that much interest to to war routinely thought was over you know we're into a new Brave era it's all about cyber no it's not war is brutal war is industrial Wars typically take a long time and when you're going to go toe-to-toe between two industrial Nations like Russia and Ukraine don't be surprised when the war is Industrial in its nature and and the ukrainians just don't have the ammunition to back that up and Western nations are trying but they are struggling to gear up their Industrial base to keep Pace with the sorts of amounts of not least artillery ammunition uh that has been used and you know I've seen some commentators saying you know the Russians are able to deploy about six times more artillery ammunition than the ukrainians I mean with those sort of ratios it is almost impossible for the ukrainians do anything except hold their hold their ground you simply can't go onto a ground offensive when you know just picture it you know these great big explosions picture World War I you know when your troops are on the wrong end of that and the outgoing fire is a sick of what's coming at you your your freedom drop rate is very significantly uh reduced yeah and obviously there's the Manpower Advantage as well that that the Russia enjoys over Ukraine just on that you mentioned NATO a moment ago we've had these interesting comments from president macron of France in the past 48 Hours where he sort of suggested that NATO troops are at the very least troops from NATO countries could be used on the front line in Ukraine now it's worth saying America the UK Germany have come out and sort of dismiss those claims and the Kremlin has pushed back against it very strongly saying they would consider that a major escalation but what was your reading of his comments yeah it's fascinating isn't it because I mean let's not get ourselves if NATO troops are deploy to Ukraine in anything other than where how they are now in a kind of an advisory capacity then of course that's patently a huge escalation in the war doesn't assum it's wrong but it is an absolute an escalation of the war and there is no NATO consensus like about the idea of putting forces into Ukraine that that's the first thing to say h categorically not so so why did why did President macron uh do it uh who knows I mean the French the French and Macon in particular you know has a slight propensity for you know putting these things out there um does he do it because it was uh kind of off the Cal comment possible but doesn't seem terribly likely he's an extremely smart Statesman um is he doing because he's just trying to um put it out there and see how it lands see how the ripples settle is he doing a little bit of socialization because he thinks Downstream it could become a possibility so he's just trying to gently put it on to the public Consciousness hard to tell I think on balance I meane there's two ways of doing it there's one one thing that like it's unhelpful because it shows a lack of with within NATO and Putin exploits that on the other hand you know just just putting their things on the table to trigger a little bit of conversation isn't always always a bad thing it's interesting because I've heard some analysts make the point that it maybe it was a mistake from the outset that that NATO ruled out putting boots on the ground in Ukraine because even if you don't seriously have any intention of doing it by stating that publicly you're showing your hand to your enemy and then actually maybe it would have been better to keep that as an option I I think I think it's a it's a very valid uh conversation to be had there um I think I think um looking back maybe maybe that did close down an option um uh precipitously and it's given Putin a bit of an out um because he's confident that NATO aren't going to do that I think again to be fair you go back to where the conversation was when when Russia first invaded um or invaded second time round in in uh 2022 I think it is probably reasonable that NATO collectively and its member nations individually took that line you know it's it's easy with with the Ben hindsight to say yeah and it wasn't really an escalate was it well it kind of didn't feel that way at the time so so yes there you know you always typically at both a diplomatic level but certainly a military level you you try and keep your powdered as dry as possible to keep your adversary guessing um and am I ruling it out you know that you've taken away a little a little bit of your some of your options I guess but you can but you can come back to it um and argu that's what maon is doing and on the topic of potential escalation we had I think it was last month the interesting comments from General cpatrick Sanders the head of the Army in the UK implying that there might be at some point a need for a kind of Citizen Army that will fight Russia at some point down the line now we've had the the head of the Armed Forces Admirals Tony Rakin basically slapping him down or slapping down those comments just talk us through what what the latest is on that rert yeah I mean I think there's a couple of really interesting things in that I mean firstly to say General spatrick Sanders uh is a very fine Warrior uh he's he's a he's a friend he's a colleague I have the utmost respect for him and I I think his comments were well chosen uh a number of our NATO uh allies have a much more involved Society in in their National Security conversation we don't uh we walk the Streets of London we think we're Untouchable and it and it's it's out with our experience I think what what Patrick is pointing to is well is that still right and he wasn't saying hey we need a conscription he was putting the conversation on the table to trigger a debate and I think the debate that followed was quite an interesting largely well-informed debate of course some people go off on tangents with it but he put the debate on the table seems to me that's what our national leaders should be doing and Patrick Sanders is one of is the leader of one of our national institutions and so I I for me he was right to put it on the table oh by the way as far back as 2014 the then chief of the general staff General Senate Carter in the after from out of Afghanistan was trying to say the government if you'll be ready for future War you need to get your uh your your munition uh uh production up you need to get your vehicle spare parts industry up a and you need to look at how you regrow the British Army in time of Crisis so Patrick is circling back to a debate that is not new in the British Army and I think it's an important debate to abber Ran's response I'm going I'll be really clear I thought was a deeply unhelpful intervention by the chief of the defense staff yesterday for a number of reasons uh firstly I don't think it's helpful for the chief of the defense staff to come out and you know the the language is SLA down at the head of the army totally unnecessary he could have used much more nuanced language if he just wanted to box the debate a bit more so so I thought that was I mean the only person who wins out of that is Putin so I thought um with the greatest respect to the chief of Defense staff that was a really unhelpful intervention I also fundamentally disagree with what he said this is about the defense of the realm and it's right that we trigger a conversation in socii about it and that's what Patrick uh was doing closing it down saying this is a private matter I'm afraid doesn't wash I also don't buy his line that said hey look everybody relaxing you okay uh we're not about to be invaded no of course we're not but but you're missing the point about NATO an invasion of one an attack on one is an attack on all so it doesn't have to be an attack on UK If you go to Tarin and Estonia the threat feels pretty real where we've got British troops out by the way so so no London isn't necessarily about to be physically attacked but but the threat is real elsewhere in NATO that's what NATO did deterence is all about so I'm I'm afraid I thought it was I thought it was a clumsy and unhelpful um uh intervention by by by the chief of defent staff you know we need to be taking this threat very seriously and we need to socialize the British public gently that that the world order has changed and that will have implications it doesn't mean we're all going to war tomorrow but it has implications and you need to ease Society into into that conversation so that's quite a quite a strong worded response but but I think this is a really important issue uh and and we need the likes of Patrick xanders while still in uniform he retires soon we don't want him saying it when he retires we want him saying while he's in uniform and uh hats opt him for doing so and if there were an escalation with NATO let's say Putin decides he wants to move on Estonia or ltia or or where have you how soon do you think that could happen I mean how how immediate would you say the threat is I don't think I don't think it's especially immediate hey look I'm no no longer provy to you know any inside information but you know we can see the Russia military are Are Holy fixed by what's going on going on in Ukraine um the idea that they could in any meaningful way uh concurrently you know Mount uh an incursion into say Estonia I I think is is ho un likely that is not to say they can't do other things you know if you think back to when they went into Crimea in 24 2015 it wasn't a big ground incursion you know people all forgot about the little green men you know there's other things that they can do where they flirt around the edges of article five uh and and you that that is possible do I think it's about a happen right now no I don't but but make no mistake President Putin is an opportunist and if you if you present him with an opportunity he will walk straight through the door that's why in back into 2015 time we put forces into Estonia into Lavia into Lithuania into Poland to make really clear to President Putin there is no opportunity and the reality is NATO is only as strong as its as its members and the United Kingdom has historically been behind the United States the second biggest Nation we need to keep stepping up to that plate and again what's behind some of these conversations is a is a sense that we're not stepping up sufficiently to the plate we can't expect the lik of Denmark I didn't pick on Denmark for any particular reason to to lean in if the United Kingdom that assist you know along with France as you know the biggest defense nation in Europe if we don't take some pain and lean in you know why would Spain why would Denmark why would the Netherlands and so on and it's interesting on Denmark because you know it's quite a good example actually to pick out because we've had them coming out recently saying they're going to give over their entire artillery Supply to Ukraine so or be that quite a small thing in the grand scheme of things symbolically that is a massive commitment from Denmark which which probably lays down a marker for France and the UK to do our bit as well I I think that's absolutely right um you know I get it our budget is under huge pressure of course it is you know inflation you know I get it but but you can't as a prime minister or as a politician keep saying the number one responsibility of the government is is security of the nation and they're not commit to that and to not to recognize that the the European security situation has changed and that requires some really hard choices and his predecessors were moving towards a 3% conversation uh of of GDP it doesn't matter whe it's it does matter whether it's 2.5 or 3% but the bottom line is the current budget is insufficient the British Army in particular that the Navy and the Air Force can point to some quite uh positive um capability programs the British army has been underinvested in really since the end of aan Afghanistan its vehicle Fleet is in a really poor poor State you know if we're going to go to to as an army the entry standard is deplo what we call a war fighting division that's how you gain influence with the Americans that that's the unit of measure and if you put in a war fighting division then the likes of Denmark and Estonia will give you forces to come in under your umbrella if the United Kingdom can't put a war fighting division in the field uh as part of the deterrence mechanism then then what do the rights of Denmark and the Netherlands do they can't put a a a division in the field you know because historically they don't have that capability so if you UK isn't going to do it well well kind of who is uh Germany's going to increase their defense spunding but spending with without take time France potentially can of course the Americans can but again it's not good enough for uh our politicians or indeed for the chief of Defense staff to be saying we had these quiet conversations in private they don't work they don't work uh and you know Ben Wallace was frustrated when he didn't secure the budget he felt he felt he needed he now talking about that very publicly I get it I understand our senior uniform Chiefs have got to run a run a careful line but but to to speak in public and say there's nothing to see here we're all good that's not that's not okay because I don't judge our Armed Forces to be fit for purpose for for the threats we face today uh and that should be that should be real a serious National conversation going in going into this election just wanted to ask you Rupert in the event of a future conflict with with Russia invading let's say the Baltic states how important do you think kaliningrad could be I mean could that be one of the justifications Putin uses I mean he he likes to present offensive operations as a defensive mechanism you know the dentification of Ukraine as as he would say it was presented as something defensive could he justify Mighty justify an incursion into the baltics defens yeah forgive me listeners who are not familiar with um kenrad it's a little it's a little island of Russia uh that is that is cut off from the rest of Russia um uh and you know over by the kind of Poland area for those Northern Poland up around there without going into the drunk F too much um and it's a it's a um it's a strong defensive Bastion for the Russians they've got all sorts of very very uh high-end defensive capabilities there um uh and he can he can achieve a land bridge across to kenrad that's all you know um a an established thing but of course he could potentially use that uh as a it's no long acceptable for me to have a landbridge I've got a secure gingr there's any number potential pretexts he could use so you know he could say hey look there's a big Russian diaspora in in Estonia they they want back in Mother Russia I'm just coming to their agid you know so there any number of false narratives that that he can he can potentially use if we show him weakness if we show him strength I'm confident he won't do that he might play around the edges but I'm confident he he won't do that and you know again to to the the British listeners um be very clear you know there there's there's significant numbers of British troops up in Estonia for to deter uh President Putin if Russia probes into Estonia the under no Illusions those British soldiers will will be fighting to defend themselves uh so this is a very very serious conversation we don't put troops up into Estonia lightly we put them up there as say around 2015 and we're saying why did we Britain most people W remember this but I do because I was involved in it why did we pick putting our troops in Estonia not laa or Lithuania really clear because the estonians fought alongside Us in Helman province in Afghanistan we had Estonian troops under command and they were fighting and dying with British troops and simplisity there a kind of blood Deb so I we go to Lao or Lithuania when we fought with estonians and if I can just see a little vignette that that that tells you how serious this is for the estonians so in late 2012 I was in taring I was B on the British forces in Afghanistan and so I went to have meetings in Estonia to understand you know what you know their their National position and I was having Lux with a senior official in their Ministry of Foreign Affairs and I said look I'm Shing really naive we love having Estonian troops with us in helmond you're fantastic great Fighters that you know you're not a global you don't have a global footprint what's in helmond for you why are you there with us and he looked me in the eye and he said it's Article Five we're binding you in so if we ever come under attack my language not his this a set of blood debt you know that was that was way back when nobody thought Putin posed a threat at all the estonians were clear out about it we will get on the global stage with NATO we'll go to Afghanistan because when the time comes we need to buy buy you into our our own defense that's how serious these countries take this threat that is genuinely fascinating that that's really really insightful um I wanted to ask you ruper whilst we've got you just about a story that that's come out in the last 24 hours or so the times has been reporting on it leaked Russian military documents showing moscow's criteria for the use of tactical nuclear weapons which of course has been one of the kind of fears that we've all had ever since this conflict started and what's interesting is the files describe hypothetical situations in which Russia could use them and two big takeaways for me but I'm Keen to get yours first of all that includes an invasion by China which probably raises a few eyebrows and secondly just the fact that sort of the the criteria that they're using seems to be seems to be a lower threshold for the use of tactical nuclear weapons than perhaps we previously thoughts yeah it's fascinating these papers aren't they um uh so I think there's a number of things well the first thing is is you need to the papers are from there I think about 10 years ago so so they're not that they don't reflect necessarily current thinking not least to your point about China uh Russia and China have coing up considerably since then although we shouldn't be be under no utions who's who's the daddy in that relationship it's China it's not Putin um far far from it um so so I guess that Dynamic has changed the second thing is um yeah you could have his right doctrine that sets out in theory in the case of a war game what are the circumstan in which you would go to tactical nuclear weapons of course the Practical reality is it's never as clearcut as that and ultimately President Putin would would be would be making judgments advised by gasimov uh his head of the Armed Forces and and labov his defense secretary sorry his foreign secretary and others um and I think what we should um despite these papers we we should really reflect that that we sort of don't know the circumstances in which they would use go back to your early question about you didn't they kind of cut away an option by saying early on they wouldn't use uh put troops in into Ukraine in a way the same sort of applies um you don't want to set out to your adversary too clearly the circumstance in which thresholds might might be crossed because you want your adversary guessing and of course that's exactly what happened at the front end of the Ukraine uh Invasion NATO are kind trying to work out where's the threshold are we going to cross an invert red line with with Putin and we concluded on the whole no we weren't um so these papers are interesting um uh but but but I think we should you know we we we shouldn't read too much into it in any conflict you know our very very senior decision makers both military and political would be trying to trying to judge we used to talk talk about the zone of uncertainty around a an action if we take an action towards Russia what their counteraction might be and you know you're trying to predict that their their reaction to your action but you don't know we got the Z the zone of uncertainty by the time you get up to the nuclear threshold that zone of uncertainty is is pretty broad because there was always that F particularly in the the beginning of the fullscale invasion you know Putin's potential use of tactical nuclear weapons as one of the great justifications for trying not to escalate the conflict further and it's interesting maybe in recent weeks we've heard some language that implies that the West is is more prepared for escalation if it comes to that I thought it was interesting that you know obviously we've got the situation with the aid package held up in in US Congress hopefully that gets approved soon but there's a report that if that does get approved one of the first things that the US will give to Ukraine is longer range attack and missiles which previously the justification for not giving those was it might provoke escalation further because they might be used in Crimea or even within Russia so do you sense a change there that maybe the Western fear of escalation is diminishing a bit yeah I would do I mean I think I think as as I touched on earlier I mean I think the um you know this this is a compet I and we don't know what Putin will do but but you know the Nations have got intelligence they've got diplomatic assessments um and and they're making judgments all the time and I think that broad judgment has been for some time that Russia isn't about to escalate uh very significantly and very unlikely to go towards tactical nuclear weapons and that undoubtedly gives Western decision makers more options again for my taste they have still been too cautious so leave aside frankly the disgrace of what's been going on in US Congress that is frankly nothing to do with Ukraine at all it's everything to do in Russia to to do with American domestic politics leave that aside uh I think Nations some Nations have been too cautious in offering those more capable weapon systems you know I'm confident if that if if um President Biden for example says to zalinski look we're going to give you this this uh this long range capability but word be you if you use it into Sovereign Russia I'm pretty sure zinsky will will stand by those those uh those requirements he's not stupid and he knows that America will know as soon as that that rule is broken so you know you you can get you can give these weapon systems with with criter criteria I it was just saying any um because we haven't touched on it yet you know if we touched on the fact that the the Russians appear to have a bit of tactical momentum on the land battlefield but that is not to say that the kind of the overall momentum of the war has has swung you know Ukraine is still thinker doing a very impressive job at holding Russia at risk by striking into into Russia's depth that is that is um that is lending the lie to uh Putin about you know spe milary operation at so I think that's good and secondly as we know they've been doing really impressive things into the into the Black Sea in terms of uh damaging and threatening uh the Russian black Black Sea Fleet so you know whil on The Grubby nasty muddy cold trench ridden Battlefield of the front line small games and that about the small games are more in Russia's favor than in Ukraine's favor if you lift back up from that um you Ukraine is still are still playing some some really impressive cards the the the debate will be what happens through 2024 so zelinsky you know saying well Putin might be about to do a do a conduct an offensive I I think zalinski and indeed Western leaders will play down at any Ukrainian options this year because they don't want to raise expectations again and that'll be one of two reasons firstly because they're going to do something and they don't want us all talking about it and that would be a perfectly valid thing and I clearly have no insights as to whether or not that the case or not or because they genuinely are not in a position to do anything in in 2024 and they need to play a long game build up through 24 to be ready to do something in 2025 for sake of I if that is the case zalinsky and his team will be thinking very carefully The Hub band already about okay what do we do we can't just sit and take it on on the battlefield you know you can't just defend the military we always say the best form of defense is attack so so where do you where do you attack to keep keep the pressure off your own forces even if you don't have any great expectation of of a big breakthrough on the battlefield Major General ruper Jones we always appreciate your Insight and expertise thank you so much for joining us it's been an absolute pleasure James thank you thank you for watching Frontline for times radio for more on Global Security and the war in Ukraine you can listen to times radio take out a digital subscription to the times and click subscribe on our YouTube channel

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Id: boRAOc0iqAQ

Length: 34min 5sec (2045 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 28 2024