Putin risks losing the initiative as US aid brings end to Ukraine shell rationing | Scott Lucas

you know I I know our YouTube friends are going to come in here like they always do and some of them always said oh Russia will win Russia will always win you know the reality was up until the end of 2023 um you know Ukraine had the initiative now it was moving very slowly on the Eastern and Southern fronts but it had the initiative but as Vladimir Linsky said this week you know after the US vote he said we lost that initiative we lost that initiative and what this means is first of all that we can check the Russians because where we were the Russians again were still not taking a huge amount of ground in the East but what they were doing is is that they were taking some Villages they were slowly making them move especially in the denet region towards a place called chavar which is a strategic a very important strategic position and there was a threat they could take chavar there still is which is there and at the same time they were ramping up the aerial assaults ESP as you mentioned on harv now harv is Ukraine's second largest city 1.3 million people it's about 30 kilometers 19 miles from the Russian border it had with stod in 2022 the Russians wanted to grab it in 2022 and along with the defensive keev that was a huge success story in preventing Putin getting a quick Victory well here we are two years later and what the Russians have been doing is trying to wipe out the energy infrastructure around Haru and those have been very devastating attacks uh they've taken out thermal power plants um as well as conventional power plants uh yesterday they took out the television Tower snapped it in half so what they're trying to do is not only break the infrastructure they're trying to break civilian resistance had the usaid not been forthcoming you know it's not just a military question it's a psychological issue that I think harv would have been under that threat this wasn't just simply Ukraine crime wolf to get the assistance this was very much a reality um I mean I've got a lot of friends who work in the security in the military communities and I would say probably since February was when the the alarm started sounding it wasn't as much that the Russians had taken out defa that wasn't that important a town it was the fact that the Russians were able to gather more shells put more shells out there and it was the use of guided bombs something we could talk about maybe in a later program why they're so important what it meant was the Russians were not exposing their aircraft to air defenses because the guided bombs could be fired from a further distance away um and then directed towards some of these targets including the energy infrastructure up in the Northeast as soon as it became clear that the house was going to pass the aid package and of course the US Senate will then confirm that passage this week before Joe Biden sounds it then it switched from optimism to anger and deep concern um and all of a sudden the House Republicans who switched and voted for the package had become traitors um they're not going after Trump they still think they can get Trump back as it were right so they're not going after Trump but what's interesting is they're going after House Republicans generally and they're praising margorie Taylor green to come back to what we talked about earlier the number one Republican legislator who is being promoted by the Russians now is MTG because they think she's the disruptor uh I should add that it's not just a case of margerie Taylor green objecting to Ukraine Aid she along with two other legislators Thomas Massie of Kentucky Paul goar of Arizona are threatening they they're trying to uh bring a motion to the house floor to remove Mike Johnson the speaker now just at this point there's only three of them but the Russians are hoping that effort will snowball because of course they see Mike Johnson as being their ultimate traitor in terms of Russian Cong in terms of the Congressional politics since he switched sides in the last few days what is fascinating is that in interviews Vladimir Putin says that he would rather have Joe Biden in the white house after the next election and I is that purely him being mischievous Scott or is there actually some truth that he sees Biden actually as more of a rational actor and that you know he fears Trump's unpredictability he's stirring because remember when he said it that's the key thing about this this occurred I think back February and you might remember that before Biden State of the Union Address which has actually changed the narrative around the election the runup to this in February was that Joe Biden was you know poor memory uh that he was absolutely losing it uh that he was going to collapse on the campaign Trail all of which is untrue for reasons we could talk about but the US media had bought into this narrative which the trumpets were pitching have been pitching for years and so Biden looked to be almost done for in terms of the US Media or much of the US media at that point and what Putin thought he could do is he could Pile in and say oh I'm backing Biden here and then those Center voters in the United States you know those voters who are not necessarily Pro Trump or anti-trump they might say oh you know if Putin if Putin is is supporting Biden right maybe Trump isn't so bad and also it means that Putin could superficially cover up Russia's you know continued attempts to interfere in the US elections which are on behalf of trump because he could always point to that statement say well you know our trolls are Bots what are you talking about all these accounts that support Donald Trump no no no look at me I I said Joe Biden was the guy I preferred that's so interesting um where where do you see things going in the next few months Scott I mean this is such a big question but I mean in terms of the aid that's been approved do you think we will see a material difference on the front line or do you think for the time being at least the immediate priority for Ukraine remains just holding ground the immediate priority in one aspect of this war and we'll go to the others in just a second but in one aspect of this war is is is holding the front line um and I should say as part of that that in preparation for the possibility that the Y could go through uh the US Military and other agencies had moved um some of the American weapons into European storehouses so some of those weapons don't have to come all the way from the United States they don't have to be produced you know from scratch they can be moved to the front line within weeks um how much we're still waiting to see but yeah the priority is showing up the front line in the East and that means getting getting more shells there it means getting uh more uh other weapon systems there and it also means getting air defense in there right and of course that's air defense not just for the East but for other parts of the country because of course the Russians for example are trying to knock out the port facilities in Odessa so you get all of that in there at the same time that Europe is ramping up its own assistance to Ukraine um and then what you do is is if the Russians the window I mean the window for the Russians is whether they can try to mount that offensive that you're talking about before a lot of the aid gets there so I think we're really talking now of a window which is the rest of the spring um I think if you get into June and July and the Russians haven't made the push uh Ukraine's going to take a not g to completely breathe easier but it's gonna think all right first stage we made it through there then I think when you go through the summer and the Autumn then you got to match it up to the other phases that are taking place here uh remember that Ukraine uh while it's been having to be on the defensive on the line has been hitting the Russians hard really hard uh behind the front lines again just to reiterate and because they knocked out another warship a few days ago now it wasn't the most important warships it was a recovery vessel uh but that and by the way the oldest Russian uh warship on active service in the world for trivia Buffs out there you know the fact is Ukraine's knocked out almost a third of the Black Sea Fleet and that's pretty significant and as we said you know that broke Russia's grip on part of the black SE already uh they have hit Russian air bases uh significantly they hit a whole series of Russian oil refineries now they had paused those attacks interestingly at the start of April because there was noise from the Biden Administration which was stop it we don't want you hitting the oil refineries and but interestingly I won't get into the ins and outs here but I think there's some connection here as soon as the aid package was on its way to passing the H Ukraine carried out its first significant attacks on Russian infrastructure since the start of April and they were major attacks they hit oil Depots and they hit electric uh electricity substations right so they have the potential to ramp those up the Americans as part of the aid May it's not confirmed but it has been recommended by the house that the aid package include uh longrange missile systems they're called atacms systems aack systems uh so up to this point the Americans had limited those systems to I think 165 kilometers in range the new systems if the administration goes ahead with the supply are up to 300 kilometers in range I think they'll come with the Proviso that you cannot use them to hit Russian territory but you can hit Russian occupied territory with them which is significant in areas like Crimea so that aspect is that if Ukraine can degrade Russian capabilities behind the front lines it then effect of course is the front lines affects the front lines itself affects the Russian economy as well and that's the other aspect of this is which is Russia continues to try to superheat the economy to try to escape the grip of the sanctions they have been partially successful in escaping the grip of the sanctions but not completely successful in doing so there is still a great deal of economic pressure on Russia so for them to keep on trying to ramp up the production and for them to keep on producing the manpow to try to break through the Ukrainian front lines that's also in play here if we get to the Autumn where you have a combination of the front lines have stabilized and where Ukraine's able to hit the Russians behind the front lines then I think and at least this is the way zalinsky is talking then you look at the prospect of can we regain the initiative again and put pressure on the Russians the way that they did of course with the counter offensive in the Autumn of 2022 through roughly through the summer of 2023 uh which takes us all the way around you and I talked about this not a Sprint this is not a Sprint it is it is still a marathon and what was significant here is is are you in it are you in it for the marathon the big thing about the USA symbolically is that the Americans wouldn't be in for The Long Hall now we still don't know if they're in for the Long Haul because we still got the elections to come up but at least it means they're in there for the next few laps and that was significant of course because we're talking part of an international effort if the Americans are back in then it's going to bolster the Europeans it's going to bolster other countries like Canada Japan Australia and it's going to weaken the Russian propaganda line because all along just a quick reminder especially to the proin activist out there Putin's play February 2022 was that no one would come to the defense of Ukraine that he would attack he would break Ukraine within a few weeks and the West would either choose not to help Ukraine or it would not carry out it would not Rally itself in time he failed he failed with that but what he was thinking is maybe I can do it in 2024 and symbolically that USA package when it's probably signed by Joe Biden on Friday is going to be a big defeat to that immediate ambition that Putin had

Channel: Times Radio

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Id: GwH4mOixrZU

Length: 12min 47sec (767 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 25 2024