Putin's air defence failures mount while Iran could create more problems for his regime | Frontline

and these attacks show um how poor Russia's air defense is I mean it goes back to was it 1972 Matias rust uh was a young German lad who flew a light aircraft into Moscow and landed in Red Square as a stunt and everybody said how could they possibly allow that to happen well here we are you know more than half a century later and it can still happen um a a drone flying low and slow or a light aircraft flying low and slow is a different problem altogether and uh it isn't just the the the tech technology of their systems which isn't very good their own operation of them isn't very good because they've never thought that they would face this they never thought they would face the idea of of attacks coming from you know what used to be part of the Soviet Union into their own deep interior and so the the ukrainians have been extremely impressive it's one of the the few bright spots in the last couple of months in the way that they've been able to Target Russia's facilities but of course there's a high political price to pay for that it's bothering the United States it has upset the Russian refined petroleum products industry the Russians are now going to Kazakhstan to get the kazaks to supply petrol and refined products because their own refining capacity has taken a real hit over you've mentioned um Ukraine's uh long rrange strikes U over the border into Russia itself can you tell us a bit more about the kind of long range drones that they're using successfully to strike deep inside Russia uh from Ukraine and the possibility of this capability being expanded yeah it's very interesting that the ukrainians because they're having to be inventive and they're using drones more and more so they're using a lot of drones at the front line the fpvs the called firstperson Vision drones and they and they are almost like um in Le of artillery shells they're they're using drones far more now uh and most the most of the Russian tanks they're taking out are with those sort of drones tactical drones but um the ones they're using against Russia are a mixture of things some of them are the old tupelov um drone the old Soviet era drones which they've re that used to be U purely non-lethal and they've made it very lethal and it's it's an old Russian jet basically so they've used some of those they've built their own drones with quite a long um range and they've used light aircraft they've now discovered that you can robotically fly a perfectly good little cesna light aircraft pack it with explosives it's got a very big Warhead and so they've attacked refineries deep inside Russia um using all of those different things because a light aircraft um has got such a low radar signature and it fly it can make it Fly slowly and erratically towards the target um and it can all be done remotely and they've been extremely inventive about that and there's some very dramatic footage out there of little light sesar aircraft flying into a Refinery and a huge explosion resulting uh from it that kind of attack and and the one that we saw recently on the second of April where where a drone is reported have traveled 800 miles into Russia um hugely embarrassing for President Putin yeah and these attacks show um how poor Russia's air defense is I mean it goes back to was it 1972 Matias rust uh was a young German lad who flew a light aircraft into Moscow and landed in Red Square as a stunt and everybody said how could they possibly allow that to happen well here we are you know more than half a century later and it can still happen Russia's air defense is scaled against American high-tech systems that's that's their their target and anything that isn't an American Hightech system has got quite a good chance of getting through and so it's a mixture of the wrong sort of Defense systems they've got they've got the and they've got these panser um anti-missile systems got three of them in Moscow that all overlap but they're against incoming missiles um a a drone flying low and slow or a light aircraft flying low and slow is a different problem altogether and uh it isn't just the the the techn technology of their systems which isn't very good their own operation of them isn't very good because they've never thought that they would face this they never thought they would face the idea of of attacks coming from you know what used to be part of the Soviet Union into their own deep interior and so the the ukrainians have been extremely impressive it's one of the the few bright spots in the last couple of months in the way that they've been able to Target Russia's facilities but of course there's a high political price to pay for that it's bothering the United States it has upset the Russian refined petroleum products industry the Russians are now going to Kazakhstan to get the kazaks to supply petrol and refined products because their own refining capacity has taken a real hit over the last two months um another piece of uh optimistic news for Ukraine is this 200 million pound investment by UK and lva um supplying long rrange drones with automatic Target recognition um how will they operate and what kind of difference will they make yeah they they will operate and they can make a difference um drones particularly long range drones always use different sorts of navigation so uh inertial navigation where you just set it set a drone off on a course is the is the obvious thing to do but at some point a drone's then got to look down and see what's there and and map it against what um The Operators know is there to find its Target and so on and of course it can be can be jammed but what the ukrainians are finding is that their own civilian Technologies are better than some of the military Technologies of the West I mean they're finding for instance that American drones that they've been sent or given are tend to be rather clumsy they're not as as capable actually as the ones they've developed themselves and so this British Estonian Arrangement is an attempt also to bring in this very inventive high-tech sector that the ukrainians themselves have got and the estonians are pretty good at to bring that sort of civil technology into long range very accurate drones and ones that can't easily be um jammed because you know in the early days of the war they put a GPS tracker on the front of a drone and that was okay but the Russians are quite good good at at at frustrating GPS GPS trackers over a long distance so if they' got long enough to see the Drone moving they can do something about the GPS signals um in in terms of of David Cameron's visit to the US um it's he's trying to get this uh this a deal that you mentioned the $61 billion US package approved president zalinski has said without it Ukraine will lose the war and he will be wanting to pay paint that worst case scenario won't he to secure that package is he right I think he's right that if he doesn't get that um package that Ukraine will lose this year of the war which means they'll lose more territory um and then it becomes a question of whether zalinski stays in power um what the Russians are hoping for I think is not that they could march to Kiev and take it over this year but that they could put so much pressure all the way round on uh on on Ukraine that there would be um a political coup in effect in k zinski be removed and he'd be replaced by somebody who will do a deal I think that's what they're probably hoping for this year if the American Aid package comes through that almost certainly won't happen if it doesn't come through there's a fair danger that it will happen um and other Aid me the the EU Aid um that is being proposed me 50 billion euros is coming through in stages NATO's own plan this um NATO mission on Ukraine as stoltenberg talks about it is 100 billion over five years and even if that's agreed at the NATO Summit in um in Washington in the summer um that will come in in stages and the problem is that that all of this is drip feeding Ukraine and making life for zelinsky much harder if zinsky could could get the hit of one big Aid package which will keep Ukraine going then he keeps his job if it looks as if for all of his Grand standing around the world the world is still not prepared to support Ukraine enough then his job is on the line and that's really what it comes down to he needs the political popularity of bringing the world to support Ukraine and that's not just a financial issue it's a morale issue if the ukrainians feel that the world is really supporting them the outside Western world is really supporting them they'll sign up to fight but if they feel that the world is turning their back on Ukraine and that they are going to lose anyway this year and maybe next year then why why turn up to fight why not just accept the inevitable and so in that respect this Aid package is really really important one other point um is that there is increasing interest in having Japan step in also to provide Aid because Japan interestingly as an Asian power sees the Ukraine crisis in exactly the same way as NATO sees it and as the Biden Administration in the United States sees it so although Japan is a long way away and the other end of the the other end of the globe from the Ukraine crisis it is not beyond the bounds as possible that Ukraine could do everybody that Japan could do everybody a favor and step in with a a significant financial package How likely is that looking at the moment it's a proposal and um kashida the Ukrainian I keep saying UK I'll say it again it's a proposal and the Japanese prime minister Mr kashida is in Washington I don't think they're going to make any announcements about anything like that but the I think they may be talking about it and discussing it and there's a lot of interest in building on this Japanese determination to help the West keep Russia contained because they know that a an ascendant Russia will also bolster an ascendant China and then the Taiwan crisis gets worse the whole East Asia crisis or East Asia tensions gets worse and so just as the Western world has has as it were at least drawn A Line in the Sand officially over Ukraine Japan seems inclined to draw that same Line in the Sand for the same reasons a line in the sign where do you think Western thinking is on Ukraine is it to give Ukraine just enough to stop short of Victory but enforce a stalemate um so that a settlement can be found it's Unthinkable to many ukrainians but how avoidable is it I think the West feels that if the ukrainians eventually go to some sort of ceasefire or peace talks on favorable terms to them then that will be good enough but only the ukrainians can decide when they're prepared to negotiate they shouldn't have to negotiate under Jess with 15% of their territory being having been invaded by uh a foreign power and so um there is that sort of sense that the the Line in the Sand is to support whatever Ukraine's whatever Ukraine's decision is about what Ukraine decides is effectively the line of Victory but that of course is a rather um movable line and that's one of the problems for the West is that we talk about these terms we'll back Ukraine for as long as it takes we'll do whatever it takes we say that but we don't know in our own minds what that really means as I say I've got a very clear view in my mind what that means but that's not the same as as the um most State people in Europe or even in Kia for that matter that actually Russia um um is nervous uh about groups like Hamas um that it's not just because of its own Restless Islamic things going on um but also um uh because it it for it it wants it wants a foothold in the Middle East but it doesn't want a massive it it doesn't want to clean up clean up Middle Eastern Wars it knows that that's the root root to disaster for it I just wonder as well Roger whether it is possible that part of the motivation for Israel making this strike on on the consulate was to remind its Western allies that whilst there is a lot of legitimate criticism of what Israel is doing at the moment in Gaza when it's taking the fight to Hamas that in essence that is not so much a fight against Hamas per se it's a proxy war with Iran and by focusing attention again on the Iranians that just reminds America and the UK that that that is the wider context yes yes that that's I I share that opinion completely I mean uh they the Israelis are trying also to shape uh the way that Gaza is seen the Gaza conflict is seen in the eyes of the American electorate um and the American electorate you know as as far as Israel can control that at all really uh it can control it by persuading them that Iran is is is uh you know they call it um the octopus you know uh that's to say the the central brain uh uh is is the head and Iran is the head of the octopus and the tentacles which by the way I think I'm not much of an expert and in in octopuses but I think each tentacle has its own own kind of nervous independent nervous system as to say if you cut off one of the tentacles it can grow a new one um um so uh without getting too Tangled in in kind of Nemo like um discussions it that's the point that this is the image you have to you have to persuade the two candidates for American president is the cor one that's to say it's not just Hamas yeah um it's the it's the people who control the various tentacles that are being used to squeeze the breath out of Israel and and that's uh and it's of course it's it's kind of tactical in the medeor age it's tactical to say well yes we perhaps we're not behaving beautifully um uh perhaps we have committed errors and so on but look away from that for now because the the fundamental act that is prompting all this is October the 7th uh the atrocities um um and who was behind October the 7th um uh because Hamas could not have constructed a um uh you know it wasn't an act of Anarchy although it was you know in its execution it was it was anarchic but it was something that had been worked out and and the clear implication is that it was worked out in the knowledge of Iran um Iran denies it other people deny it but that's clearly how it has to work and the same goes for all of the proxies the hotis in Yemen um they were they were always new you know they they had their own tradition of fighting and uh uh uh but Iran gave them the weapons the training and uh and pointed them in the direction that was interesting for Iran so the first thing you know long before the Hamas attack hutis had uh hit a Saudi oil ref refinary with uh with really quite sophisticated drone swarming uh tactics and making making a complete fool out of Saudi Arabia which spends billions and billions and billions on air defense um so uh so it's trying to shift the debate a little bit it's trying to shift the discussion um uh and it does you know Israel does invest a lot in uh in lobbying uh in in America exactly for this reason it it wants to make sure that the debate doesn't move in the way that a lot of the uh the left wing of the democratic party would would want which is um um uh you know arms embargo um uh ceasefire leading to peace agreement um that sees Israel uh you know uh accept the notion of a two um two-state country and and an upgrading of the Palestinian presence none of this Israel wants and so it has to stop the first step um and um and that's and that's why these kind acts happen yeah I you know it would be Madness to think that that uh attack on an Iranian assassination essentially of an Iranian General is the last one it it'll be part of a pattern now to just to prod the memory of the superpowers that Iran is a big problem and it could be and this is without getting too you know tangled up about this but it could be that Russia also accepts this part of the part of the message that that actually Russia um um is nervous uh about groups like Hamas um that it's not just because of its own Restless Islamic things going on um but also um uh uh because it it for it it wants it wants a foothold in the Middle East but it doesn't want a massive it it doesn't want to clean up clean up Middle Eastern Wars it knows that that's the root route to disaster for it couple of quick things to to round up um Roger first of all do you think there is any scenario in which a US government or may be slightly more likely a UK government would suspend the sale of arms to Israel U well it looked for a while that we might go in that direction um and part of the reason reasoning is that people are trying to the part of the reasoning is there are election campaigns across the world yeah and uh no one has quite worked out um what the impact of the mobilization of young voters is um especially in multi uh multi-ethnic societies uh of uh televised and Tik toked uh and youtubed uh depictions of Muslims being killed uh on mass um uh in Gaza or frankly anywhere but but Gaza and uh it it does it does as we saw uh under Jeremy Corbin for example uh have the capacity to bring people out on the streets and uh and to make people care about politics in the way they don't much care about British politics but they do care weirdly uh about um about these particular um uh atrocities so people haven't quite worked out what you know where this leads what what does it mean in terms of lost voters um you know you know or or even in local coun you know will it somehow help sadik Khan you know sadik Khan doesn't doesn't doesn't hold back from saying that you know uh horrible things are happening in Gaza what we're seeing here is is fairly uh simple it's a an adapted ultralight aircraft um believe it's a a22 foxb um essentially a cheap and cheerful um private propeller plane uh which has been adapted for use as a one-way attack uh UAV uh so much as the uh sort of purpose designed Iranian Shahed 136s are a sort of standard component of Russia's air campaign against Ukraine uh Ukraine has been developing a a range of uh one-way attack uavs um from quite small systems uh two things clearly that are adapted from ultrav aircraft which for oneway attack uavs are on the sort of larg larger end of things the the basic relationship between range and therefore reach against targets at distance uh and size is that the larger something is the more fuel it can carry and the more payload in terms of Warhead uh you can pack in for a given um level of performance if that makes sense you always going to be trading off um weight that you can carry and fuel um with performance so if you want something to go uh hundreds of kilometers at quite high speeds it's going to have to be jet powered and that will give you a um a fuel burn that means you're going to end up with something about the size of a cruise missile um at minimum if you want something that is much smaller that will go the same distance you'll typically have to accept a much slower speed um which means that you're dealing with a lot less drag and you're having to put in a lot less power for any given kind of time period uh that means you'll have a lot slower Transit of course um but that is why uh most of these kind of one-way attack systems that are designed to be relatively cheap and and used in large numbers are propeller powered slow and therefore can cover significant distance even though some of them are quite small so the the shead 136 is about 200 kilograms it's not tiny but compared to an aircraft it's it's pretty small um that can go more than a th000 kilometers clearly in this case the ukrainians have taken a uh an ultralight airplane um which typically you might expect to be able to fly for maybe three four hours um that would be with an with an hour of um fuel margin if you were flying it as a light airplane because you have to have a fuel margin obviously for a one-way attack system that's not a concern um and they've put what looks like a probably 20 to 30 kilogram Warhead in there in terms of the the the blast probably closer to 30 um in some ways these systems are are very simple but in the sense that they just need to fly to a given point probably using GPS uh or or glas that the Russian equivalent and then going to the ground at that point on the other hand the the kind of considerations around when they work and and how they work in terms of their effectiveness are really quite complicated because for a start flying slowly may actually help in some cases to get past older air defense systems because Radars use what's called what are called Dopp gates to try and filter out because a radar is sending out um to to try and um detect air threats a radar is sending out energy uh and essentially receiving back all of the Echoes from that energy bouncing off things Radars don't want to have to display uh well you don't want your radar to have to display you know the ground trees Birds clouds depending on the the frequencies that you're using uh they might reflect as well and so essentially most Radars for for air defense work or or for fighter aircraft will use Doppler to basically filter out all the returns that don't exhibit a shift over time from something moving at a given speed so if something's moving either fast towards you or fast away from you there will be a Doppler shift um evident in the in the the returns and so most Radars will simply drop things in other words they won't display they won't track um things that sit outside a given speed range so if it's a if it's an air defense radar you might uh have the radar designed to pick up anything between about 100 100 miles an hour and one and a half thousand let's say um and if it's a ballistic missile radar you'd probably go even faster would go even faster um so if you're dealing with really slow flying things unless operators know that there is a slow flying threat that they need to potentially be concerned about the radar May simply filter it out as kind of background clutter uh and therefore not display so in some cases slow aircraft actually are or slow uavs are actually more difficult to defend against um it is possible particularly with modern radar Radars with a lot more digital uh control over the signal and the processing of it to have really much wider doler Gates and so most Russian systems in terms of the the the most upto-date stuff are actually able to track these things at least most of the time but even then you typically still have to be widening the doler gates more than you'd like uh in terms of making sure you've got that coverage and what that will mean is that there will be a lot more clutter and a lot more kind of junk returns that than operators would like because they're having to to cover for things that are moving pretty slowly and therefore they're getting a lot of returns from other things in in in the um the environment there's also of course the case of electronic warfare so both sides in Ukraine but particularly Russia use electronic warfare extensively um the most common being simply the jamming of GPS uh signals so if you are flying a UAV uh and it navigates using GPS which a lot of commercial uavs and a lot of the commercial GPS software and chips which are used to adapt um whatever it might be uavs light aircraft etc for these these military purposes uh will simply not function if GPS jamming equipment is being used around them um you can play around with a sort of a mix of an inertial navigation system which basically measures or tries to measure distance and speed and heading over time as long as you know where you were when you started then you can kind of um with increasing errors over time you can navigate uh with an automatic system now that might enable you to get through an area where there's quite a lot of GPS jamming and then hopefully once you're past the area where GPS is being jammed as long as the error that's accumulated is not too big then the system may be able to then pick up a GPS signal again and thereby correct its position um so there are ways to navigate through the ew um but it's again a huge constraint on where and and how ubiquitously these sort of uavs from the very small up to the rather larger like this can be used in some ways striking Target in the really deep areas is is perhaps easier because you know this was not one of Russia's key for example bases and so this far inside Russia it's unlikely there'd be much in the way of air defense systems there that there's a finite number of Sam systems that Russia has and and operators capacity so they can't defend everything and it's far enough back that the uh costs of imposing GPS jamming for example in that part of Russia uh were probably assessed as higher than the benefit likely to be gained from any uh you know protection because they didn't think it would come under attack um so yeah the these Ukrainian longrange uavs are something that Russia is going to struggle to completely defend against because you can't put air defense everywhere you can't put ew effects everywhere and certainly not all the time but at the same time it's probably important not to overstate how effective these things can be they impose damage they impose cost but they're not going to have strategically decisive effects you know if you look at Ukraine itself Ukraine has taken about 8 and a half thousand missile and oneway attack UAV strikes over the last two years Ukraine is a significantly smaller country than Russia it was significantly less resilient in terms of the the pre-war State um country than Russia can be um and so you know given that Ukraine is still fighting and of course has taken huge damage but it's is still able to continue the war we probably shouldn't over State how much attacks on secondary targets that are not as worth defending in the depth of Russia that causing convenience how much effect that's actually going to have on the overall War um but you know we've also seen ukrainians use these systems against arguably more important targets uh so for example uh attacks of the last week against a number of Russian Air Force bases uh including their their one of their primary bases for um their s 34 which is the the primary attack Jet which reportedly caused some losses there you would have to use there would be air defenses and so rather than having kind of adapted things like this light aircraft attack where you're just getting a longrange thing with a a clever navigation solution to a distant not particularly defended Target because they can't defend everything if you're going after things like airbases you have to use a large number of weapons and rely on essentially suppression of the defenses through saturating capacity they can't engage all of them coming in at the same time because either they're coming in from multiple directions or and or uh there are just enough of them that the Sam systems in in place run out of ready to fire interceptors and have to reload which will take a while so uh there the systems may be cheap but you have to use a really large number of them in order to have the effect uh because you need to get through defenses and in that sort of complex attack you're much more dependent on what the electronic warfare environment is as well and what your Seekers are because if the Russians know that they're under attack by a really large wave of uavs it's really worth their while um jamming as much of the spectrum as they can for the period that the attack is underway even though it might degrade their own capabilities and potentially expose the location of ew systems um I guess in summary the the more the the the use of us uavs in general in in sort of large scale use of cheap adapted UAV technology can present a lot of Novel problems for militaries and if militaries don't have any defensive capabilities they can be hugely uh damaging but the more you rely on them as a core part of your military effect your sort of toolbox if you like the more worth the enemy's while it is to develop and to use countermeasures at scale against them and if the physics problem essentially that you're presenting the enemy with is how do I deal with lots of small uavs and that's one of their main problem sets that's actually not a hugely difficult one to do so the development of Counter UAV Technologies is probably going to increase dramatically following as the war goes on and following the experiences of the war if you compare that as a challenge to for example ballistic missile defense where you're trying to hit an incoming thing moving at several thousand miles an hour with an incredibly tight window with Les that are extremely difficult to predict ahead of time with another rocket that physically smashes into it you know that as a physics problem is massively more difficult than defending against small uavs the reason they're problematic and seen as so difficult by a lot of Western militaries is there a threat that we haven't really focused enough attention on over the past couple of decades and so we don't have for example ubiquitous short-range air defense systems in most of our Western military U formation that will change I suspect but yeah it's um it's a problem set we haven't looked at for a while one of the political prisoners said that Russia's descended to full tyranny dictatorship in the last two years has even got worse since you and I last spoke last summer so I think he can continue to keep suppression on that we saw the elections were rigged we saw the numbers of votes were mly high whatever it was 8 84 85% he has a very large security machine which contined to stamp down the um opposition has been prely um I don't to use that word decapitated the opposition's been completely demoralized and divided and sent into Exile of imprisoned there is no opposition there are is there are no alternative sources of information inside Russia Russia is doing more and more and the Kremlin to clamp down on the internet and distribution of ideas there's purgings going on um they going after LGBT any other minorities including religious minorities to prop up the regime so unfortunately I think the trajectory is still further downwards and on to complement that there's a extraordinary piece of news in the times this week that President Putin is now portraying himself a bit like Jesus Christ he's explaining his Divine Mission schooling Russia's youth in Traditional Values against the satanic West this was as he um he celebrated the opening of of new youth centers across the country um how is he using religion to prop up his regime and mold the future Generations but I firstly I don't think Mr Putin is particularly religious I mean he never had a great history of of the religious belief but he been used as a sort of tactic to and cynical tactic to buy support from the population 70% of whom say they are Russian orth do so he pronounces himself he portrays sees he's portrayed more in church you know as a a p py he lights candles um he makes statements like you know C religious statements as you mentioned but I don't think he's living a particularly Christian Life in either his behavior or in his heart if you I read thing the Archbishop can wrote about visiting Ukraine about Christian values of love and mercy and Grace the care for suffering the care for little children and and the Wish For Peace none of which Putin's observing but I think he's using religion as another weapon to bind the population to him two years um three years ago they published The National Security strategy and in there was lots of talk about Traditional Values including Orthodoxy and he uses the Russian Orthodox Church as his agent to spread the message of holy Russia Russia under attack in return for their support So Orthodoxy is part of his Messianic mission to make make Russia Great again through sort of muscular Christianity betraying Russia in himself as good and betraying ourselves as evil and you saw that that statement the Russian Orthodox Church adopted in that light then do you see this as as a cynical propaganda maneuver maneuver by the Russian president rather than a sign that he's becoming delusional well I mean we always have this great discussion about what you know how how rational Mr putinism he has been making some pretty strange statements since his re-election both on Election night when his face looked was thought a bit peculiar he's obviously become a bit convinced of his own um his own um he's come he's become convinced sorry of his own um Mission his own destiny that he's a man of destiny that he Vladimir the Great and so I think that statement statements about after the wake of the terrorist attacks in the crocus Hall when he said there was no history of terrorist attacks in Russia his statements about um the church his mission about Ukraine I think will points to should we say somebody becoming convinced of his own PR and I think we should be fracturing that in as he enters his current term just to to talk briefly about um the way Ukraine is fighting the war right now and it is increasingly taking the war to Russia with its longrange attacks on oil refineries and Military facilities supporting Russia's air campaign the attacks on oil refining refineries causing a fuel crisis while ammunition and artillery shortages hamper Ukraine's ability to go on the offensive along the front lines how effective is this yes I think obiously both Russia and Ukraine have be attacking attacking so-call strategic targets so as you said Russia's been taking V industrial complex Commander control air defense uh energy sites and Ukraine has been trying to strike targets behind the front line to gain Advantage now it lacks the tools to do that because of city of weapons and the unwillingness of Germany to provide similar weapons to Ukraine and it's problem the Americans so it's using its drones against these refineries I think personally I think it's a very clever strategy um targets key vulnerability in the Russian system that Russia produces a huge amount of crude oil exports a lot for to other countries including China and it keeps some back to refine for products like unleaded and Diesel and lubricants and aviation fuel all the things we use oil for and those refineries have a single point of fa which is a refining Tower so Ukrainian strikes have both increased the prices and reduced the supply of those products over the last couple of weeks and I think they're a legitimate military Target those products support directly Putin's War Machine the UK and us have targeted those similar facilities in the second world war and the first Gulf War during the Kosovo campaign and the second G War these are known contributors these facilities contributors to mobility and sustainment on the battlefield the problem I worry about is that Ukraine doesn't have the capability to repeatedly hit them so normally in their campaign it's not just want to hit it's second third fourth to make sure these things are knocked out and stop the Russians from rebuilding them so I think the Russians have got problems rebuilding them anyway because La of access technology du sanctions but we'll have to see how it plays through on the battlefield Russia's got ctive supplies from Belarus and could import products from members of its AIS and um as Ukraine um constantly tries to find new ways to uh keep the pressure up on Russia as it waits for those vital supplies of artillery and ammunition um the UK has just signed this framework agreement to cooperate in the defense and arms production Center to help inside Ukraine itself ba systems would for instance conduct maintenance repair and overall light guns on the ground in Ukraine and there have been many drone uh producers present at this conference time though is of the E Essence um in spite of this uh partnership can can it make a difference or is this for longer term I think it's for the longer term I mean I read the speech of General Cavalier the command of Europe yesterday he said at at present Ukraine cannot produce the weapons it needs to defend itself it has to rely on foreign Supply now Germany UK France America and and private business themselves have put in arrangements to do more of the production and maintenance and support inside Ukraine itself but that's going to take a number of years to play through so there's a gap between now where Ukraine's on the back foot being bombed heavily and being ground back on the dbass and the supply coming on and I think that's where the US support 61 billion is absolutely critical without those weapons I think Ukraine's chances of Victory are zero and I think there's a good chance that Putin will can smell Victory given those delays and dithering in Congress now 2024 is a critical year for in this war if we don't support Ukraine this year Ukraine may not be surviving till 2025 you mentioned um in an interview elsewhere that the kind of a appeasement of Putin we've seen by the West would not have happened under Reagan or Kennedy certainly not under Churchill I'm sure but what when you look at the desperate situation today that Ukraine finds itself in formul it's often getting it too late uh it's but it's hanging on and there are rumors of trying to push Ukraine into a negotiated peace settlement where and what gives you the most optimism at the moment there's a lot of Gloom about it I think the optimism I would take is you know the spirit and will of the Ukrainian people to defend themselves defend their their own values their democracy their country have you've seen um not withstanding the difficulty in the battlefield Ukrainian troops are providing stirring defenses um and I think the public and the Ukrainian people behind them so I'm optimistic about that I'm not optimistic about the position the us but things could change I mean I think war is a sort series of episod flows we've had some pretty Grim times in the past in our own Wars which uh turned out for the better in the long longer term but I think 2024 being so important um in the summer if the Russians if the ukrainians have stopped the Russians from advancing if some of these weapons come on line either from America or from elsewhere if Putin's forces themselves suffer continued attrition both The Meta material and grind to Hall I could be a to claim some degree of optimism but I think the moment I'm more half empty CL glass of water now full unfortunately you left Moscow seven months after Russia launched its fullscale Invasion can you just tell me a bit about what it was like living in Moscow at that time and then also what it was what you said when you handed over to your replacement I mean obviously I think last time we spoke about the run up to to the war and the visit of Ben Wallace and just just the incredible pressure we're under and then you know it changed from before the what's going to happen John when is it going to happen to why is it happening what's happening next um and certainly I felt myself in that's so February March April time just you know unbelievable levels of personal pressure see my friends in Ukraine being bombed you know milons people evacuated the thought that Russia might commit hideous war crimes in Ukraine then the evidence coming through P like buter where you could see what Russians been up to and then there's some more you know I spent put the next few months reporting and trying to give balance and objective input into White Hall both on terms of you know what's going on and also on terms of policy for the future but so I handed over after almost three years and I think I said to him in our brief Handover that's I say to most time tach is you're not there to go become a supporter for your nation you need to stay objective and strategic that's what people read if you want ministers to read your reporting rather stay at the ministerial level know your audience back in London there's no pointing to fighting stuff which gets lost so that's one is you know know who you're talking to what they want to know I think secondly you're the only person on the ground from the ministry of Defense now people read an awful lot of stuff online I get confronted with it it sent to me and say John what do you think about this and I dampen down expectations you're the only one who knows what people look like what they will talk to you about what they smell like you know what it feels like on the Metro and the bus what's the mood and I think that's where you provide value above perhaps read all things on ler on Twitter um I said to him to stay close to our FCO colleagues there's no time for this sort of traditional FCO mod headbanging we leave all that to London know very small team no Department rivalry yeah so I didn't want any of that to play through and obviously staying close to the Ambassador and I also said you know to travel if you could to get out of Moscow because Moscow is not Russia people will talk to you if you go outside and you find out their mood and what they think about the situation and you can put build that into your reporting and ultimately don't let the BLS grind you down because as we said that's what they want you to do um but as I said before I read A Memoir of an natache in Russia before the first world war and they had exactly the same problems that I experienced so it's never been a particularly easy posting and it never will be the Russians are moving forward set against that there have been some remarkable Ukrainian successes I for I would highlight for example Ukrainian neutralizing the Black Sea Fleet in sevastopol uh and to do that without Navy has been really clever by the ukrainians they've used drones and longrange precision missiles um so they've been real successes there uh and they are find and of course Ukrainian hits against uh Russian energy infrastructure as well uh but I think we have to be pretty gloomy about the prospects for Ukraine this year and it all comes down to the West not providing the capabilities that Ukraine needs ammunition equipment longrange Precision missiles of course the $60 million package in the in Washington has been stalled by the impact of trump on the uh American runup to the American election and unless Ukraine gets the kit the ammunition and the long range missiles that it needs it is going to continue to go backwards and that is really bad news well let's come on to that because in the last 24 hours we've had the UK foreign secretary Lord camaron visiting Donald Trump in in Florida and of course it is Trump who is seen as being the big kind of blockage in approving this uh renewed US military aid to Ukraine because it would appear that that his supporters in Congress are taking their lead from him do you think Donald Trump is persuadable on the issue of Ukraine um I don't know I don't know that he is I just simply couldn't comment on Trump I mean he's such a uh I I think words fail me when I try and you know there is there is precious little logic there is there is a real irrationality there and I think we have to be very very concerned but the impact of trump on the election um yes of course negative if Trump gets in the potential impacts on NATO will be more than negative but the very threat of a trump election is forcing NATO now to think very hard about Trump proofing itself and so the action so the work taken put together at the uh last week's foreign ministers Summit in NATO for example the putting together of a 100 billion Euro package of measures to Ukraine without Trump without America is really good news and the impact of trump is forcing European members of NATO and I'd also include Canada in that uh Canada shouldn't be exempt to think really hard about how they can Trump proof their their support for Ukraine but there's another Point here it's a strategic Point NATO has provided and America has provided the equipment to to that the decision has been to provide the equipment needed to avoid Ukrainian defeat as we've seen that is not going that's not still not good enough and it's running out of sand and it's been done with current capability there has been no mobilization of the military industrial base no long-term ammunition contracts multi-year ammunition contracts uh uh agreed with industry and the consequence of that is that it's not enough the only thing that is going to work frankly is if NATO switches its strategy not to avoid defeat but to achieve victory over Russia because only victory over Russia is going to provide Ukraine and Europe with the security it needs and Allied to that NATO will have at the same time to put together a very very powerful and strong deterent capability around Ukraine to include Ukraine in NATO and that is something that is is going to be with us for generations to come or at least a generation do we need to be more creative as well I was speaking only last week on Frontline to The Economist Timothy Ash who's been very strong on the fact that he believes now is the time in fact he thinks we should have done this months ago to use frozen Russian assets to fund military aid for Ukraine should we be looking again at that absolutely and I I think Timothy Gart as is is is absolutely on on the money there and and he's it's one of very many measures that need to be looked at and it comes down to boldness taking risk and and and and and sticking heads above parit uh and and this comes back to my points about political leadership and moral courage which which frankly have been lacking I would also go further and say we in in purely in the military sense we've got to be creative uh we should rule nothing out to do what needs to be done including if necessary uh looking at a sort of Scandinavian style limited conscription to overcome the the problems of army manpow all these issues have got to be looked at nothing should be off the table what about what what president macron intimated a few weeks ago about actually sending troops from NATO countries if not to the front line and certainly to Ukraine do you think that is feasible at all I think it's absolutely feasible and I think president macron is absolutely right to be raising these issues um I would say two things one is uh president macron's message would carry much greater weight if France was doing more in terms of supporting uh Ukraine if you look at what Germany is providing France is way way behind the curve in terms of the actual material and ammunition support I think the second point I'd make is that the the the sending of mil of NATO military troops to Ukraine is is in a sense The Last Resort the way to avoid the last resort is to provide Ukraine with the ammunition the long range missiles and the other capabilities it needs so that you don't have have to send uh NATO troops to Ukraine because let's be clear if you send NATO troops to Ukraine in a combat role that means war between NATO and Russia and the only way you can do that is if you're ready for war with Russia and there is no way that NATO is ready for war with Russia right now I mean that is very interesting that that you say that that that NATO is not ready for war with Russia because there might be some who would argue that actually the nature of Vladimir Putin is that you do have have to take him head on that that appeasement of him will not work and that the West should have been more prepared at this point for potentially if needs be taking Putin on head on and I'm one of those the only way to deal with Russia is to show strength any sign of weakness and Russia will probe and continue to probe and take dis take advantage of you that has always been the Russian way and it continues to be the Russian way so the only way the only solution therefore is to show strength is to build up strength is to build up our Armed Forces uh to provide a really cast iron deterrent capability there can be no appeasement appeasement of of of of uh of Putin only leads to further grabs on his part and the only way to offset that is through demonstrating real strength I'd put it this way this war in Ukraine is not just a war against Ukraine it's a war against Ukraine it's a war against the west and it's a war against Ukraine joining the West this is a war if you ask any Russian he'll think this is a war against NATO and if we don't provide Ukraine with the means to achieve Victory be under no Illusions Putin will continue the movement we are in we have in Europe on our eastern border an angry revanchist Russia determined to rebuild a Russian Empire determined to swallow up Ukraine and once it swallowed up Ukraine it will move on it'll move on to mova it'll move on to finish finish off the occupa uh The Invasion uh finish off off off the work it started in Georgia in 2008 and it is quite likely to move on to one of the Baltic states if not all of them all of whom were part of the Soviet Empire and indeed part of the sist Empire so they think of the Baltic states Russians think of it as theirs if that happens that is war with NATO that is every that is war that Britain engaged in an existential fight with Russia how much more effective how much more cost effective to increased defense spending now yes of course it'll impact on infrastructure and transport and and and and education and and the NHS but I can tell you unless we do this we Face the prospect of a total catastrophe and that is why we have to dig deep now and that is why our political leaders need to explain to British people the the British electorate what the stakes are because they're very very high even if Trump does I think I think there's a high chance that even if he doesn't pull America out of the alliance America would become a sort of sleeping partner in the alliance still in the alliance but not exerting the uh providing the full the full Suite of American capability still able to influence things there and that's obviously something we would hope for so even if he doesn't withdraw America from NATO completely he May well well first of all just cease US military at Ukraine but potentially even push for immediate peace talks with with with Russia he said he said he'd end the war in 24 hours and he said he would encourage Russia to attack any NATO member that doesn't meet the spending uh requirements I mean wild wild deeply irresponsible talk and let's be clear ending the war in 24 hours would mean nothing more than another Munich 1938 would rebuild regain retrain a regenerate and have another go at finishing the work he started in 2014 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

Channel: Times Radio

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Id: IG6SLEjSa9E

Length: 56min 49sec (3409 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 15 2024