Putin's army will 'wither on the vine and die' if Crimea bridge taken out | Maj. Gen. Chip Chapman

they've removed one of those potential blows with the dam being gone but there are still multiple options open for the ukrainians but the key thing it seems to be in this Ukrainian main effort will be something to do with cutting the land bridge to isolate Crimea and make things more difficult for the Russians because the ultimate theory of victory for the ukrainians is that you wouldn't have to necessarily fight in Crimea but the uh the operational success by making potentially the Russian army Wither on the vine and die leads to this situation rather like the 1905 and 1917 revolutions where either an army walks off the battlefield or the Russians have a change of regime hello and welcome to Frontline for times radio with Me Kate Chapo and today we're talking to a former British military advisor to Central Command after 33-year service Major General chip Chapman has authored the book notes on a small military and is a well-known commentator on geopolitics and security General Chapman great to have you on front line thank you very much for your time today you're here to talk about Ukraine and as its forces appear to be carrying out shaping operations as part of any counter-offensive what exactly do you think they'll be looking to establish well you have to understand the framework of the battlefield to answer that question and in terms of the battlefield we look at Deep operations and that is the strikes to try and ensure that Russian combat power can't be brought to bear and to degrade its Logistics sort of train and that is exactly what the Russians are also trying to do on the other side to the ukrainians if you look at for example what the the number of strikes in Kiev or attempted strikes in May which was 20 that is trying to degrade the the moral component of the Ukrainian people and destroy their will to resist I don't think that that will be successful that's what the Deep battle sets out to do what we're seeing the incipient parts of at the moment is the close battle that's the contact battle between an offense which is taking place not the offense or the sort of uh small at scale at the moment Ukrainian cancer attacks in uh certainly in back Moot and towards villador I think that optic in offensive activity is being noted by U.S satellite activity so you can say offensive operations are taking place at the moment whether that is the full frontal assault we'll we'll wait and see because one of the things which led to success in 20th century Warfare was reconnaissance uh pull that is that your offensive recce establishes the weak points which you need to then break through to have operational level maneuver and the final part of the framework of the battlefield which is relevant to the UK in particular and European NATO is the rear area is where you seek to really have a respite in the sense of the framework of the battlefield at the moment we are of course training in operation interflex along with nine other nations Ukrainian forces 15 000 train and they don't have those psychological strains when they're in the UK as they would in in the Ukraine so that's how the framework of the battlefield were works I think largely the Deep operations are over from the Ukrainian side they'll continue to do that because you need to continue to sort of shape the battlefield but it's that operational maneuver maneuver Warfare as we call it which will ultimately lead we hope to what would be classified as winning big from the Ukrainian perspective winning big would be catastrophic success either a collapse of the Russian army a collapse of the will of the Russian people that's unlikely at the moment or the infighting in the Kremlin because of decisive battle Battlefield may not actually be the terrain of Ukraine it may be in the Kremlin and put into all of that the situation in the Curson region at the moment after the explosions at the karkova dam desperate situations accusations and counter accusations as to who is responsible how it could possibly have happened do you think we are now entering into a much more dangerous phase of the war where there will be attacks on increasing attacks on infrastructure and ones that infect the environment well that's a really interesting point because if for example you look at zelenski's 10 point peace plan which he first illuminated at the G20 Summit in November 22.8 of zelenski's Peace plan is the prevention of Eco side that is the destruction of natural in the natural environment by deliberate means that is what we've seen at least as the outcome of what's happened in nervical kovca uh you know regardless of who kind of did it what we do know for certain is that there was a structural failure whether that was from benign or deliberate neglect by the Russians uh I.E that's mismanagement or whether it was by explosive means internally to the dam we don't know yet I think we will find out because one of the parts of intelligence which most people aren't aware of is a thing called nazint that's measurement and Signal signature intelligence so there are means to find out by that along with for example siggins signals intelligence if the Russians were talking about this at the time of the attack um it I don't think we're going to see more more attacks on infrastructure in that sense you could argue that the Russians tried that in 2022 on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine and indeed that was their deep battle and now Ukraine has started to export electricity again so they've survived that that was really the three parts of what um Putin tried to do in 22 2022 with the politics of energy the politics of uh of hunger with the grain deal and that's relevant to one of the parts of the Cocker that the Nova kakov kardam which we can talk about the other one was of course the politics of fear which is still there in terms of any future escalation particularly with the nuclear weapons and people's fear of that yeah you said we could talk about the effects on the grain I mean how serious do you think that this explosion is going to be on that production with ramifications for the rest of the world well what we do know is of course the agricultural sector will be affected by the flows of the water we think there are 400 000 hectares of arable land uh the loss of irrigation to that land uh and of course all the things which come from that both in terms of employment and lack of water in that area so one of the sort of knock-ons really is we'll see Refugee flows again both from that area either westwards because uh you know there are people on the Left Bank and right Banker who are affected by this so some will probably go east some will go west because they've got no other alternative depending on what splits the bank Russia at the moment the real knock-on is that Russia at the moment sees no Prospect of an extension of the grain deal which negotiations recommend in the UN on the 9th of June if the Ukrainian offensive is big in the next month and it delivers up operational level success and that could still be a lever that Russia uses for the future in the politics of green could still be played in the future back to what's been happening happening in the class on reason region there are reports that Russia shelled those actually fleeing the flooding um is this a sign that that each side is prepared to take more Desperate Measures do you see it going that way well let's go back to the the fact that the dam is down for the moment um if it was the Russians and there's a prob high probability of that that itself would be a war crime that would contravene article 56 and protocol 1 of the 1977 um additional protocol to the 1977 Geneva Convention which came in in 1949 where Dam stikes and Electric electrical stations electricity generating stations particularly nuclear power plants are not to be made objects of War now if you've already committed 81 000 war crimes which is the number that the Russians have the last time I looked you're probably not really that fussed about how many recording genocides are there and particularly if you've got a Neo Imperial Outlook so that's the context that we need to look at this in so the Russians haven't got a good attitude to how they treat their soldiers some of the soldiers may have been in trenches on low-lying ground and they didn't inform them you know they've got no compassion in war either for their own soldiers or for the Ukrainian so we shouldn't necessarily be surprised by anything the Russians do and that's one of the problems in trying to analyze them for the future in lots of ways because you know you're looking often through a National Western perspective when this is a country which is different than us and often can think differently and that is the real key problem of ultimately trying to analyze what Putin and his acolytes might do in the future a spokesman for the Ukrainian military says that the Russian troops were already retreating some nine miles back from the Negro River before that dumb explosion what does that say about their intentions in this area are they abandoning it well they certainly would be nice so the timing again if the Russians did it was it happened stance or deliberate if they were already retreating then that would be deliberate now it wouldn't be the word retreating so you have to understand the significance I think of what both sides really wish to do in workers and comes into play on that so the Russians main goal really is to prevent the retaking of Crimea person of course is the closest in geographical terms to Crimea and if they could have got across the liver and exploited in detail and obviously a big river is often a problem in terms of sustaining um sustaining uh your logistics for the future then you know that would have been disastrous so as that's one of the axis of approach that ukrainians could use by making sure that the ukrainians can't use that in the future that releases your troops to be plugged elsewhere and at the moment the attack which is developing whether that is the main effort of ukrainians or not we don't know around the area of background and I think that will be a Thrust ultimately South towards Mario Pole to try and cut the land bridge to Crimea but it makes sense from a Russian strategic perspective to release the troops who are really doing not much but are in a holding position of Curson because their offense offensive there petered out and ultimately they wanted to go towards Odessa that was never going to be sustainable and so they made the decision obviously to pull back to the uh to the Eastern side of the denipro river so it makes sense now to release those men to go elsewhere where they think the main thrust will be of the ukrainians in the future because certainly in the short to medium term it cannot be across that sort of person area at the moment uh let's just talk briefly about the nuclear power plant at zabarisha we're told in the event of this explosion that there's no immediate danger in terms of cooling it with water but there is potential for it to be used in another way is the nod that it might be deliberately damaged to cause even greater destruction than we've seen at the dam do you see that as a possibility or a risk um I would hope it's not a risk and of course our International bodies and international monitors who are supposed to be there at the moment from the iaea but rather like the um the dam at the moment there was damage to the dam as there has been damage to the zaparesia nuclear power plant so although the head of the iaea has said that there's no immediate um concerns and of course the um the cooling ponds next to the site do have a water supply which is further up the Upstream as it were from the dam and the nuclear power plant is currently in a code situation it still does need water so there is always the danger of something you know a provocation accidental damage being turned into deliberate damage in the way that this may have been something which occurred at the dam and of course the consequence of that as we know could be horrific if there was a meltdown and a nuclear fallout started gang but of course the direction of the wind also has a is a variable here in Crimea I.E what Russia sees as its own uh territory and people could be part of that but it's also worth saying in terms of this battle for the narrative which we see going on you know who did it and for what reason you know it's the Russians no it's the ukrainians there wasn't op-ed in 1986 from Tas which was in every newspaper in the former Soviet Union saying that it was a provocation and nothing happened at a place called Chernobyl indeed um times Reports say there have been sightings by Don yet's rebels of leopard tanks near the zapparisha front which comes alongside speculation that this could spearhead the ukrainian's offensive do you see it that way or are you more thinking that Bahamut will be the focus I don't think that will be the focus back might be the sort of Anchor Point when you you go south that route is only significant for its symbolic significance it is not where the ultimate decision will be made it's the area to the South but one of the things the ukrainians need to do is put the Russians on the horn so the Dilemma where is the main blow blow to be delivered they've removed one of those potential blows with the dam uh being gone but there are still multiple options open for the ukrainians but the key thing it seems to be this Ukrainian main effort will be something to do with cutting the land bridge to isolate Crimea and make things more difficult for the Russians because the ultimate theory of victory for the ukrainians is that you wouldn't have to necessarily fight in Crimea but the uh the operational success by making potentially the Russian army Wither on the vine and die leads to this situation rather like the 1905 and 1917 revolutions where either an army walks off the bat feel or the Russians have a change of regime now a change of regime in in Moscow does not necessarily mean that you're going to have a democratic liberal leader to begin with but it might be that there is something there which leads to either some sort of form of negotiation but at the same time it could lead to escalation or it could lead again to a long game strategy from the Russians and that is also one of the concerns so all these things there are no certainties there are only scenarios and anyone who thinks that they know what the linear outcome would be on this where we go from point A to B to C to B is kidding themselves in terms of how War being the greatest contest and the thing which you can never legislate for how things are going to go Yeah you mentioned that that potential for change of regime in Moscow more than once How likely do you think that is because there are people who say very unlikely yeah I wouldn't give it a high probability [Music] um you know terms at the moment you do look at probably topics in in look looking at in intelligence variables really so it is not highly likely so not highly likely is way below 50 at the moment and the notion for example that Putin would be a assassinated I don't think is likely at all at the moment just because of the way that the organization which deals with his personal security works that is outside of the major organs of the uh the intelligence agencies in Russia and you've got to get through that organization to get anywhere near him but it's always been the case in any kind of Revolution or change in Russia that some of the intelligence agencies in Russia have been involved so that will be one to look for for the future but the variable at the moment of the three that I've said about you know the either the population uh just fed up because things are going south or the um there's Elite defections or the military it's the military which is probably the weakest uh linchpin here because if we've got a special military operation which will now into month 17 and you're not sure why you're fighting annual morality is low then things can quickly um go south and you can be in a situation where um defeat does become catastrophic we saw this really in 1917 with what was then termed the karensky offensive by the Germans why where in four months two million Russians just walked off the battlefield the timing of any counter-offensive by the ukrainians we've been told is dependent on Ukraine feeling has the necessary weapons and the necessary quantity of weapons that it needs are we seeing a kick getting through and the training up to speed I think we are my one worry would be that um the the kit going to the ukrainians has been a realistic approach and the final part of the gradualist approach from the things we always see going on at the ranch line conferences is the move towards providing combat air power particularly the f-16s now again in terms of the variables and things which led to success in 20th century Warfare the first one was control of the air and of course the ukrainians don't have air superiority and neither do they have guaranteed process support neither do they have probably enough aircraft to do air interdiction that is part of the deep battle so that would worry me because of course the breach which they would have to to go pretty deep in terms of recapturing lots of territory the defensive lines a number of defensive lines which the Russians have built it that's something the Russians about is not necessarily something that they can't do if you don't cover an obstacle by either observation or fire it merely remains a engineering challenge which if you you've got enough assets enough air defense enough leopard tanks or other Western tanks enough artillery you can punch through but the Russians still have you know Precision guided Munitions they have anti-tank Garden Munitions they still have air they have loitering Munitions they have landmines covering those and they still have plentiful artillery so nothing is a given in war it's still going to be in terms of the close battle all those things that we know about the nature of War being visceral people get killed it's a pretty horrific thing to be involved in so to think that just by itself deep maneuver and punching through the Russian lines and then using what we call the expanding torrent to Fan Art and cut the lines of communication which often leads to this catastrophic collapse of the enemy force that is not going to be done like a video game when no one no one gets killed lots of people are still going to get killed I think there are reports that Australia is willing to donate fa 18 Hornet fighter jets to Ukraine if the US gives its permission that is reported to be a possibility how much of a difference would these fighter jets make do you think and how soon would they be available well that's that's the key thing they're not going to be available for this offensive because it's one thing to train a pilot and of course you've already got lots of truck pilots who are trained so the first thing if you already had Ukrainian trained pilots and they are trained in uh you know mid-29s and various former Soviet plans so just converting them in terms of flying an airframe could be done in two months fighting an airframe in terms of the weapon systems and all the avionics and things like that is a different order of Captain Fish really so it's not going to be probably in this fighting season now that comes on to this thing about how long will this last now both on the western side we have said we'll be supporting um supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes but also one of the theories conversely if you flip the coin on the other side of the Russian theory of Victory is that this is still a nutritional kind of battle where ultimately military economic and diplomatic activities to exhaust Ukraine and its Western backers will be used and if they can't do that by um conventional means in Ukraine that's when the indirect approach comes into bear you know the The Gray Zone and all those things that people worry about about undersea cables and cutting those in terms of the energy infrastructure in either the baltics or or see all those things there's still lots of variables and lots of scenarios about way the way that ways this could go and that's why we talk about branches and sequels when we look at campaign planning not linear projections from A to B to C to D what do you think Western Authority should be considering then if you're if you're talking about the the prolonged War where we're all going to be affected in other ways what kind of planning do you think should be going or is going on already in terms of contingency planning for this well we know that planning's going on particularly in that sphere where NATO have a number of new new committees in terms of the gray Zone looking at the protection of that sort of infrastructure that I mentioned in either the North Sea or the Baltic but we also need to remember that we from a from a Russian perspective the West NATO America have crossed Russian red lines a number of times and nothing has happened so I don't become one of these sort of maximalist people who kind of say oh we're going to go straight to the release of nuclear weapons and I don't really think that's going to happen because what's really pertained at the moment is a mutual deterrence um you know Russia have had enough problems fighting Ukraine on its own you know the reason that Russia has not attacked any of the lines of Supply that come through NATO countries is that if that elicited an article 5 response from NATO I think Russia would be knocked out of Ukraine in pretty short order but quickly with American Air power which is just of a Quantum of quality and quantity which you know most people don't understand if you then add in all the combined Firepower of NATO uh you know this thing would be over in pretty short order so in terms of neutral deterrence that is work that is also why NATO uh wrong Russia has done nothing for example with Finland joining NATO which obviously shares a long land border with Russia neither is it doing anything at the moment work for the session of Sweden which is likely to be in the next month or two almost certainly because it looks like being a deal to do with the pkk which was the sticking point with the Swedish authorities between Sweden and turkey if we could just focus for a moment on the partisan attacks have been taking place by Russian fighters in Russia itself Keith continues to deny any involvement in that around the belga road region um that's by the volunt Russian volunteer Corps and the freedom for Russia Legion the time supports say they could circle around the back of Russian army forces in Ukraine if they're pushed back by a Ukrainian Advance do you think that's a possibility well they think about partisan Warfare is really that it in the width and depth of the um occupying Force as much as anything it is to sow fear amongst people now what's really happening and this is the key thing again that most people don't understand about war there's both a physical bit to it you know people get killed but there's a psychological bit to it and it's the collapse of the psychological will to resist either of a population or a army which is the the key thing and it's these psychological ripples which have sort of happened in a way to both sides that's you know the draining thing that the Russians have done recently to the the population of Kiev and the uh the missile attacks which I mentioned but it's the psychological ripples of these attacks which have happened in in Russian territory Russian Sovereign territory which brings a sort of Lie to the myth that it is a special military operation the fact that Russia has had to move people out of some of the board border regions and there have been attacks in Moscow these incursions also show the vulnerability of the Russian defensive lines so all this adds to the Dilemma for the Russians the partisan attacks particularly in Belgrade in a way put them on the horns of that dilemma about do they reinforce those areas with troops what does this mean in terms of where they take them from and it's those things that start degrading your Force it's also worth saying that when the war started we used to talk at the time our analysts used to talk at the time of the war after the war that is that if Russia had succeeded quite quickly that throughout that depth and breadth of of Ukraine there would be attacks on Russian people which would erode their will to resist in the same way that occurred in in Afghanistan with the occupying Russian forces and what we're really say in all these things is that there can be an eroding stalemate and in terms of you rain Ukrainian armed forces are providing the power the people who are providing the will and NATO is providing the training and support if you degrade either the power of the Russians or the will of the Russians then that leads to dilemmas for the elites of Russia where this doesn't look like a special military operation it looks like all-out war and one of the things recently certainly by Avril Haynes who's really promising papyrus in briefing present Biden in America is that unless Russia is a can mobilize at least another four or five hundred thousand people and have a third-party supplier of weapons it will not be able to do any offensive major offensive operations in the future and trying to mobilize that number of people without societal fractures in Russia is going to be extremely difficult for President Putin to pull off and that is one of the dilemmas he faces at the moment so this um eroding stalemate that you speak of do you think that this is potentially the best way for Ukraine to secure victory it is and one of the things about this is it actually comes quite quickly in the end so you can never say it's going to happen tomorrow but one of the things about authoritarian States is they always seem secure up until the moment that they're not and we saw this in the late 80s in for example Romania with chachesco and other regimes um when the sort of Berlin Wall was coming down and that's exactly what happened in Afghanistan the the first use of that term that I came across was in 2019 in Afghanistan by American the American analyst who used to report to the president of course that's exactly what happened in 2021 so I do think the eroding stalemate is one of those things that can happen but what I do hope will happen the first one is that there is a decisive military victory in that Ukraine win big that is that they recapture all their Sovereign territory all the Russian troops leave winning small is also something that the ukrainians could do this fighting season that is they capture some territory and not not you know as much as they'd like the worst option for them is if we don't have this eroding stale mate but there is just a stalemate when people say well hang on then nothing looks like it's happening one side's there the other side's there maybe we need to go to some negotiated peace but a negotiated peace while the Russians still occupy at least for the old blasts and Crimea from 2014 is neither a just piece nor a better piece it rewards the Russians as an aggressor is against sort of international relations and again it's um kayakawa the Estonian prime minister who again best articulated this at the weekend in terms of her appearance of the shangri-lab dialogue which is the one in Asian countries and she said um at stake in Ukraine are the fundamental principles of the UN Charter and how in International territorial integrity and sovereignty work the right to exist as a country for Russia it is the acceptable to conquer and colonize and if you take the view that Russia is trying to do that and and get rid of Ukraine as an identifiable country then you're going to say that of the view that that is actually what the Russians are trying to do as a veteran of the Falklands conflict you know exactly what it's like to retake a territory but for the ukrainians um it's not an overseas territory it's it's their Homeland that they're fighting for how much of a motivational difference does that give them how much of an advantage does that give them it gives an incredible advantage and indeed I from what I just said about kayakala you then go back to back to one of the anomalies in the UN Charter is under article two brackets four close brackets the UN doesn't really tell you what wants people to avoid going to war it only gives two circumstances when you're permitted to go to war the first one is when authorized by un Security Council resolution and the second one is under under article 51 which is um self-defense your territory is being attacked both in the Falklands and in Ukraine Sovereign territory has been attacked and that is a motivator to go there and kick people out it was a big motivator for the British forces in the way it should have been if you believed in the conflict for the argentinians we had a greater professionalism greater will to win and believed in what we're doing and uh you know will is one of those uncontifiable things which is difficult to measure but it's absolutely a really key point when you're at War Major General chip Chapman has been a pleasure talking to you thank you very much for your time today you've been watching Frontline for times radio with Me Kate chabo my thanks to our producer Louis Sykes and to you for watching bye for now

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Id: xdjWzEHVStc

Length: 31min 32sec (1892 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2023