'Rogue Lukashenko could be disastrous for Russia' | Hamish de Bretton-Gordon

I I think the war hangs on Crimea and um it is looking likely that if Ukraine can break through this this defensive line of the Russians I don't think there's an awful lot to stop them uh in Crimea because the Russians have they're all in if you like we heard reports on the uh mod intelligence update today that they're trying to get together some mobile reserves but uh we know they've lost so much military equipment so much Manpower that they're scrabbling around at the moment so yeah Crimea to me is is absolutely key and I think uh we'll hear more and more about it in the coming days and weeks reports from Poland that Bella Russian helicopters had violated its airspace flying low and avoiding radar Poland's been sending more troops to the Border because of possible hostilities of Wagner troops in Belarus how should Poland and NATO react to this latest escalation well this is a really interesting piece because you know Belarus which is Russia's really only Ally in the area a butts NATO country Poland you know any incursion into Poland is Article Five now uh lukashenko that rather a comical uh leader in Belarus um I I think he's a bit unpredictable and and dangerous um I am sure that uh NATO and Poland are being very careful not to create a a scenario that could escalate to Article Five so yeah I think it is it's probably the Rogue lukashenko trying to play the big man but actually um it could be disastrous for Belarus and and and disastrous uh for Russia as well so yeah I I think with all these sort of complex battles that are going on um what a military commander will want to do is to give the opposition lots of different things to think about and and maybe that is behind the lukashenko piece uh but the polls you know I've got a hugely powerful hugely capable military that could roll got Belarus you know in a couple of days I expect I think it's just part of you know lukashenko's rather eccentric approach to this war and um I don't think it'll come to any great sort of uh end piece how is Ukraine's counter-offensive progressing we've heard some of some successes around back Moot and of a renewed push on the zapparicha front really since the get-go Ukraine has been fighting with at least one arm behind its back um they have this massive Russian trench system to break through which the Russians have been preparing probably for the last eight or so months and because Ukraine didn't have the the Deep strike the Storm Shadow and the high Mars artillery that people are getting familiar with in Continental recently the Russians could pretty much prepare unhindered and then it comes to the complexity of actually breaking through uh this line and that they're attacking over many hundreds of kilometers trying to find the weak spot and get through but they're also lacking air cover and what I mean by that the much wanted f-16s that we hear about yeah I had the experience of a tank commander going through the breach in the first Gulf War um which then only took a few days because we had overwhelming our air power protecting us so why it's being so slow is that the ukrainians need their tank mime plows and other kit to get through these minefields and also the trench system and the the Dragon's Teeth these concrete bollards uh but all the time they're being attacked by Russian aircraft and Russian Attack Helicopters which makes it even more difficult and even slower however we have seen their preparation of the deep Battlefield as we call it destroying Russian Logistics hubs um ammo dumps etc etc and I'm sure that they are getting close to finding the weak point which they'll flow through and I think then they will take uh Crimea but what they don't want to do is commit their Force to an area which they won't be successful which is why it's so important that the International Community mainly NATO mainly the US and ourselves give them everything they need you know it's no good having storm Shadows Saturn shells in the UK or or high Mars sat in the US they need it and ideally they need f-16s they should have had the months ago so that's why it's happening slowly but it I think things have been relatively quiet recently and generally when they're acquired it means that Ukraine military you know are putting the accelerator down so yeah it's really hard fighting it's really difficult but I think they're making progress and at some stage I gauge fairly soon they will break through in a torrent and you mentioned Crimea there um we did actually hear reports yesterday of explosions near Military basins Festival of course in Crimea um which had come after a Russians had claimed that they'd shut down a Ukrainian drone there as Ukraine pushes South towards the age of sea do you think we're likely to see Crimea kind of been pulled into this conflict more well I think it is one of the objectives and president zelensky has said this is to retake Crimea um Crimea is vital ground which in military terms means it is Grand that you must maintain or take so if Russia loses Crimea I think it pretty much loses this war and if Ukraine takes Crimea it the counter affects it will be successful so I it is it'll unlock a huge amount of things I think psychologically for the Russians Crimea is key you know it's it's a great summer holiday place um that uh that a lot of wealthy Russians go to it's where a lot of the Russian forces are a lot of their Air Force and of course it's the Black Sea Feast Fleet in Sebastopol which is fundamental to the Russian military capability so I I think the war hangs on Crimea and um it is looking likely that if Ukraine can break through this this defensive line of the Russians I don't think there's an awful lot to stop them uh in Crimea because the Russians have they're all in if you like we heard reports on The Mod intelligence update today that they're trying to get together some mobile reserves but uh we know they've lost so much military equipment so much Manpower that they're scrabbling around at the moment so yeah Crimea to me is is absolutely key and I think uh we'll hear more and more about it in the coming days and weeks and you mentioned some of the um equipment there um Ukraine has actually said that U.S cluster bombs help them to make progress in this in their more recent pushes um what more do you think might the West do to support Ukraine's push well I think first of all the cluster bombs however unsavory it is and and of course Britain uh has signed the ban on them but actually cluster Munitions in this sort of warfare you know will will probably tip the balance in effect these are hundreds if not thousands of mini Munitions many explosions which against dug in infantry and trenches can be hugely effective that they're terrible when they're used in civilian areas because um young kids and others pick them up and we see see that happening in places like Afghanistan and Africa and elsewhere but what else is required it is more more Precision artillery like high Mars and Storm Shadow and of course ultimately air power it is the air power that Ukraine Lacks and it is very difficult to operate on the ground if you're being dominated by the sky so it's those f-16s that solenski and the ukrainians have been screaming for for the last year which will make the difference and um you know what one of the things I think we'll learn the West will learn uh is is the decisions we've made to give Ukraine kit have been right but they mean far too late and military leaders always want to make decisions at the earliest opportunity however politicians want to make them at the last opportunity and you've got a digression there that's why we've seen things uh become unhinged so really they need those f-16s we know they're on the way but they're a few months away had there been F-16 Flying over the Ukraine forces at the moment I think the counter-offensive would be far more advanced than it is at the moment and speaking of politicians um a familiar name perhaps Dimitri medfordev Deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council has come out recently threatening the use of nuclear weapons if Ukraine's successful in the counter-offensive but is it really within Russia's nuclear Doctrine to use nuclear weapons on territory they claim is theirs and also this close to their internationally recognized borders well mediev has threatened nuclear weapons I believe 60 times during this conflict he is a rather pathetic figure these days he was once the prime minister of Russia he's now a you know a second-rate politician uh the deputy to a defense committee so you know he has a fall from grace and when you listen to his rantings um people claim that you know he he he likes his vodka but if you look at his his stuff on social media it is it does seem the rantings of somebody's had too much vodka it is absolutely ridiculous uh when it comes to Russian Doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons in in theory or in Russian Theory they could use them because one of the one one of the parts of the doctrine says that if Russia is attacked itself directly um and faces an existential threat they can use nuclear weapons now Russia claims that Crimea for instance is part of Russia so if they lost Crimea in theory they could however um I wrote an extensive paper last year for the U.S government on this particular issue and the conclusion was that actually the Russians cannot use their nuclear weapons nobody thinks we're going to have Global Armageddon with intercontinental ballistic missiles firing around that just won't happen that that there are too many checks and balances when it comes to the tactical nuclear weapons these smaller Battlefield nuclear weapons the mediev is talking about well um there are a lot of us who think they don't work anyway like a lot of Russian kid there are a lot of people who think that those who man these missiles and bombs would refuse to uh use them because of the impact that they have and thirdly and probably most important these weapons need to be moved very close to Ukraine because they have a short range and it is very clear that American and British intelligence are tracking them very closely and I cannot believe that we would allow them to fire a nuclear uh missile into Ukraine um quite simply you know there are a number of capabilities that we have and the Americans have cruise missiles that could take them out on the ground without causing a nuclear detonation the one nuclear area that I am concerned about and have been trying to help ukrainians with is the zaparita nuclear power station which actually is you know just north of Crimea um if if that blew up and the Russians have threatened to do it a number of times and the ukrainians think they might do it then the contamination from that could severely affect the counter-offensive but but more importantly could severely affect Europe because similar to Chernobyl back in the 80s a lot of the contamination covered Europe so mediev threats I think are completely baseless and spineless he he is you know a has been um who should really be ignored and you know should really not be allowed out in daylight I would have thought but uh yeah I know people are really worried about it but I think the nuclear issue is is probably a distraction and we should not worry overly about it it was an intelligence report today by the UK Ministry of Defense um saying that Russia is forming new armies I believe you mentioned it before that could be deployed to Ukraine possibly but is this something Ukraine needs to be worried about or is this actually kind of a sign of something larger a sort of long-term standoff with NATO I think there are two things here it would would appear that um Russia is Thinking Beyond this conflict and realizing that I mean it's been hugely weakened by the War uh it was supposed to last a few days you know we're well into the second year and Russia has lost an unbelievable amount of equipment you know well over 4 000 tanks when you think the British army has a hundred tanks you sort of get the scale of it um so the the Army is decimated and would be a no position to oppose NATO perhaps you know for the next decade so yes they have got to reform their military um in order to provide some sort of deterrence where in their perspective deterrence to Nato um quite a part I you know I I don't think Ukraine needs to be too worried because you can only build a certain amount number of Tanks every every couple of months or so you can only train and get soldiers again over a longer time and uh you know the the conscription that's happened I mean these are untrained predominantly ethnic minorities from the East and they're tens of thousands who are just thrown up to the front uh with a weapon and very little training so I think Russia is probably now looking um to the Future so yeah something for NATO to be concerned about in future but I wouldn't have thought these forces would be ready to operate in Ukraine for you know months if not years uh but but it is something that you there will be life in Europe at the end of this war and there will still be Russia um hopefully it'll be under a new regime that is not quite as um uh as radical and wants to expand like Putin has but you know looking back at Russian history it's probably unlikely probably somebody pretty similar to Putin will take over but what Putin has done is decimated the Russian military so um yeah it makes sense from a military perspective to rebuild but I don't think it's anything we should concern ourselves about unduly at the moment speak more about Rush ER we've seen several drone attacks on Moscow this week what impact could this have on Putin's regime and perhaps more importantly on the Russian people I think the Drone attacks um you know whether they come from Ukraine I can't think where else they would come from are really a strategic military Master stroke because the elite and the oligarchs uh in Moscow um really the war hasn't touched them at all um it's it's not their children who are dying on the battlefields it's it's not them being affected uh by um sanctions and lack of food yeah they pretty much carried on as normal admittedly they can't go on their superyachts in the Mediterranean they they can't swallow around in San troupe etc etc but suddenly they're under attack in their own homes now that wasn't part of the deal that they had with Putin and although um you know there are only one or two drone attacks a day where there are thousands of missile on drone attacks a day in Kiev and places like that you know for the Russians who think that Moscow is their safe haven and always has been suddenly they're under attack and I I can you know there are lots of reports about you know Mosque of ice been terrified yeah I'm I'm sure there are uh because you know a couple of big explosions in the city you know everybody thinks it's coming for them so I think from a military perspective that's a that is a master stroke it's bought the war in the donbassan Crimea onto the streets of Moscow where where nobody thought it would be um I think interesting as well is that about 50 of these drones are getting through whereas in Ukraine Ukraine are you know knocking down 80 90 what this will mean and we hear it you know the muscovites are calling on person to get get troops and air defense back from the front to protect Moscow well you know they do that admittedly Putin and and the Russians don't seem to care much for the the soldiers fighting the war um they're not even picking a lot of them off the battlefield um but it will further weaken the Russian fight down uh in the donbass and elsewhere and you know terrified oligarchs in Moscow you know are not gonna not gonna support personnel I would have thought for much longer so really you know really interesting times tipping points you've got the counteroffensive that could just explode into success your people getting very unhappy in Moscow suddenly realizing that this uh this adventure is a disaster um and and put in our strap scrabbling away for a peace deal you know the the African Peace deal that he is now saying he'll look at I mean is ridiculous um it says you know sure there'll be some Russian troop withdrawals But it includes also um taking nuclear missiles out of Belarus and I'm pretty yeah I don't think they're there anyway and it also means that um the international criminal court would will drop charges against Putin I mean that's never going to happen so yeah but I think you know strategically a a good move um from Ukraine and no doubt it will carry on and as you mentioned there we have also seen Russian strikes in Ukraine um on Tuesday night as well grain facilities in Odessa were hit whereas in Kiev drones were largely like you say stopped their strike was largely stopped by air defenses is there a way that the west or Ukraine could do more to defend these grain storages in the way they've defended major cities in Ukraine well I think I I think we must do I mean the the grain issue is a global issue you've got 40 million tons of grain coming out of Ukraine predominantly to the poorest countries in the world you know Putin's new friends in Africa um you know they can't afford to eat now and and grain is what keeps them going so we should be protecting it but I in it there is a limited amount of air defense available and hitherto it's been focused on protecting civilians now the Russians are not supposed to you know the international rules of War uh Outlaw attacking civilians directly but as I saw in Syria that's exactly what the Russians do so one has to try and protect civilians first but the UN and NATO I think really must focus on the grade now because it it's such a strategic Global issue and protectors it can you know with their defense and others and enable the export of that grain as well I I would like to see NATO ships or certainly I'd like to see the UN get out of its Ivory Tower in in New York and actually do something rather than talk about it and enable those ships to go through the black seed to the Bosphorus and onwards and um you know create sort of no-fly zones around them um yeah I don't think many Russian Pilots would attack grain ships if they're shot out of the sky by some f-16s so I know that uh you know there are a lot of timid leaders around the world at the moment who want to give just enough but that's that's not enough you know we have got to make sure this uh prevails uh we've got to make sure that the grain gets out there um you know virtually at all costs so this is the next thing that we need to look at and I think hitherto the UN has been pretty ineffective and if it really needs to stand up and do its job which is you know providing peace around the world hey Mr Brighton thank you very much for your time today pleasure

Channel: Times Radio

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Id: w-N8i9u840s

Length: 21min 20sec (1280 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 02 2023