Ukraine prepares for strikes on staging areas in Russia | George Barros

we also don't assess that the Russians have uh sufficient forces in the belgrad area to be able to uh wage an effective uh campaign against hardc oblast any sort of offensive in that area of the theater would likely be targeting the much uh the much weaker luhansk oblas sector where again there's only about 12 Villages that prevent the Russians from having the whole provins um we think that if the Russians do indeed conduct any kind of a major attack into hard oblas that would likely be a potentially designed to pull away some strained Ukrainian Defenders away from what would be the main area of attack for the Russian forces um but for the time being Haru seems to be uh relatively safe what about the targeting by Ukraine of vonish where there is a military Air Base yeah um the Russians of course have a tremendous number of forces that they've arrayed within Russia across the border including in vores belgrad um have a lot of permanent bases and Military infrastructure that is in vores um and the ukrainians rightfully seek to degrade those and Destroy them because uh as the border of the current conflict the Frontline has in many cases become the international border and the staging areas have become within Russia itself hello and welcome to front line for times radio with Me Kate Jabo and today we're catching up with George baros from The Institute for the study of War which has become a leading Authority on the war in Ukraine George is the team lead and the geospatial intelligence team lead George welcome back to front line thank you for your time Kate thank you so much for having me once again it's good to see you and in the recent update or a recent update by isw it reports on Russian claims that its forces are preparing to launch a new offensive in the coming weeks once the ground freezes in eastern and southern Ukraine what can you tell us about those reports and how credible they are sure thing so as your listeners might know uh seasonality impact the way that fighting patterns happen in Ukraine uh fighting happens when the weather and ground conditions permit it and in the winter there's a decent chance that you'll get a good season for fighting once the ground uh freezes the ground becomes hard that previous fall mud becomes Ice uh and track vehicles can maneuver over it and right before you get the spring thaw when it goes back to being mud um right now the weather forecast shows that it's going to go below zero and consistently stay below zero in late January early February uh we currently forecast that the Russians are likely uh setting conditions to be able to exploit that anticipated freeze in order to conduct a large scale offensive operation um this would make a lot of sense to conduct this operation at this time uh unfortunately since the ukrainians were unable to achieve what they sought to do with their uh summer and fall counter offensive uh the ukrainians have largely lost the initiative throughout the theater in Ukraine uh everywhere except one place in southern Ukraine where they're trying to cross the Nea River and of course it is now an opportunity for the Russians to try to exploit their initiative uh and retake some territory in terms of pattern of fighting now is also a very logical time for the Russians to attack of course this is exact same time last year in early 2023 the Russians conducted large offensives uh against Vadar and also in lanso blast so this is all the factors and all the indicators are lining up and do you see any evidence of military repositioning or activity which supports these claims yes uh in recent weeks we've seen the Russians reconstitute units they've conducted some operational level rotations uh they've decreased the intensity of their attacks uh since around new years's likely in order to rest some units in order to prepare for another major undertaking and within luhans go Blas specifically there's only about a dozen or so uh villages that the Russians do not control so if President Putin seeks to create a political and informational Victory uh to bolster his popularity ahead of his staged planned March 2024 re-election he could potentially say the war is going well Russian forces managed to recapture an entire province which they previously claimed to Annex and so this could be one of the objectives for uh that particular Russian effort in luhan's Gold blast a Ukrainian intelligence official reported that Russian forces lack the necessary operational reserves to conduct simultaneous offensive efforts in more than one direction in Ukraine is that an accurate assessment we agree with that assessment and that's been the institute's assessment really since the last time we've seen the Russians attempt to do uh simultaneous um offensive operations we've not seen the Russian military have the strength to advance a multiple areas of Advance ever since the first attempt to capture Kev back in early 2022 since then the Russian military has had bandwidth constraints that they've only been able to really prioritize um offensive operations in one concerted area at a time uh which is which is quite an achievement on the behalf of the ukrainians and we've not collected any evidence that uh has led us to change our assessment uh about Russian capabilities in the current short term given that we don't expect Russia to conduct a fullscale mobilization until until after the presidential elections is this the how we are going to see uh the Russian strategy continue at w with no major push on more than one front until after the presidential elections and How likely is it that that will happen after that yeah so this is a really great question because it it is could assume that the Russians would actually practice uh best practice military practice and know their constraints and operate based on those constraints but unfortunately for the Russians unfortunately for the ukrainians uh the opposite has been true we've seen time and time again the Russians fail to learn from their mistakes stretch themselves too thin and attempt to conduct simultaneous operations and really they don't actually have the means to be able to do it effectively um of course as we all know we're watching the fighting in divka um and Denco Blas the Russians have been conducting major attacks against that particular uh uh town in City since October um there's a viral piece of combat footage just came out the other day of an American Bradley beating up a Russian T90 tank uh in theka area um so the Russians are still conducting operations there um it's unclear to me that the Russians actually have the force necessary to be able to simultaneously attack in luhans sko blast and of divka however currently it appears that they are setting up to do exactly that thing um and of course if they're unable to do one then they try to do both then they're more likely to fail at both so what will the cost be to Russia if they try to do both if they attempt to do both um they might be able to for Brute Force some tactical gains at tremendous uh loss of equipment and loss of human life um which of course is not particularly uh a particularly effective way of waging the war um so the Russians might be able to generate some informational gains but at a certainly higher price than they normally should have paid and of course that systematic attrition of the Russian military is good for the ukrainians as it it it further uh opens the prospects for the ukrainians to be able to still win this war when the Russians are waging it poorly and how well prepared is Ukraine to defend itself and push back against a new Russian offensive um that's a great question uh as you know the Institute does not study uh Ukrainian capabilities in the same depth of which we we collect and study on the Russians we don't collect on our allies um so we don't have any concrete indicators however if past performance is any indication I would say I would expect the ukrainians to be able to successfully defend these Russian attacks um they did the same in Winter 2023 at the same time abiva still has not Fallen um and uh the ukrainians obviously are also warning about this anticipated attack so they are not going to be surprised when the Russians conducted quite a big uh win for Ukraine um in recent days has been the shooting down of this A50 longrange surveillance aircraft over the sea of azov and the damaging of the il22 Airborne Command Post aircraft um what does that do to Russian capabilities yeah it degrades Russian uh capabilities in the air domain uh because those aircraft might have been helping uh survey uh Ukrainian uh air objects they could also be helping with coordinating the command and control and it's a really it's a high value Asset um the Russians only had a handful of such uh A50 uh planes Ukrainian officials alleged the Russians only had about I remember correctly uh but six six of them so losing one can constitute you know up to 20% of the loss of that sort of high-end capability um it will degrade their overall effectiveness and it makes me curious whether or not the ukrainians specifically targeted uh that airframe uh right as the ukrainians are preparing to in the near future deploy f-16s um perhaps they want to degrade the Russians ability to surveil uh the airspace uh as the ukrainians seek to employ that system in the near future and and will the impact be on Aviation operations solely or will it have any particular impact on the ground uh it can also have effects on the ground uh those stations that those systems are capable of collecting on uh a variety of Ukrainian indicators a variety of Ukrainian forces um and of course because it's it's it's such a rare asset uh it's it's a quite a big blow for the Russians across multiple domains but more importantly arguably than the actual airframe itself are are the operators the crew that was inside the plane um I mean when you have those radio operators they are espcially trained technicians specially trained uh professionals uh of which there are a limited number um and so in many ways losing the Personnel who know how to read the radar signals operate that specialized Machinery um that's a really big loss for the Russian military of course you you need those guys to train the next guy so honestly in a lot of ways losing the men was was just as if not more important than the hardware um on the ground Ukraine appears to be making good on zin's promise to take the war to Russia uh with reported drone attacks in vones um and also in belgrod the latter has reignited Russian nationalists to call for this major offensive in h to create a protective buffer zone to protect Russia um what do you make of the strikes at the moment that have been conducted on H are they retaliatory um or are they prep preparations for something bigger they're likely retaliatory um a lot of the strikes that we've documented in harke have been against confirmed civilian uh targets such as uh a prominent hotel where a lot of international journalists had been previously staying a Gynecology Hospital Gynecology Clinic um a variety of targets that that would not um not make any uh substantial difference to support a military operation we also don't assess that the Russians have sufficient forces in the belgrad area to able to uh wage an effective uh campaign against hardc oblast any sort of offensive in that area of the theater would likely be targeting the much uh the much weaker uh luhans oblas sector where again there's only about 12 Villages that prevent the Russians from having the whole Province um we think that if the Russians do indeed conduct any kind of a major attack into hardke of oblas that would likely be a faint potentially designed to pull away some strained Ukrainian Defenders away from what would be the main area of attack for the Russian forces um but for the time being Haru seems to be uh relatively safe what about the targeting by Ukraine of vonish where there is a military Air Base yeah um the Russians of course have a tremendous number of forces that they've arrayed within Russia across the border including in vores belgrad um you have a lot of permanent bases and Military infrastructure that is in vores um and the ukrainians rightfully seek to degrade those and Destroy them because uh as the border of the current conflict the front line has in many cases become the international border and the staging areas have become within Russia itself the ukrainians uh should strike those and the ukrainians are developing capabilities uh to strike those objects and have struck those objects um I anticipate to see those sort of strikes uh continue especially as the ukrainians are developing their own homegrown indigenous capabilities for for longrange strikes um the ukrainians for example are developing and are currently producing uh drones kamakazi drones with a range of up to a thousand kilometers uh Ukrainian volunteers are also working on creating their own uh drones that are jet propelled that they can mass-produce in high quantity to overwhelm Russian air defenses and the ukrainians have made it clear that their intent is to uh take the war to Russia uh to strike Russian military objects within Russian territory uh in order to help the ukrainians uh Liberate the territory at the front in Ukraine how important a capability do you think that would be in the war for Ukraine as the battle space compresses uh as we've watched over over the last uh two years of conflict um the staging areas are going to go further and further out and farther away so during the Battle of Kev the staging areas um in bellarus um and in Northern parts of Ukraine um those were closer and the ukrainians were able to strike those uh but as and of course when the ukrainians went to go fight into har even even last September those staging areas were in Northern and and Eastern harie and the ukrainians could strike those but now if you look at the current Front Line the space where the Russians uh H are able to have all of their Logistics it's compressed and it's gone deeper into Russia itself and so it's increasingly important that the ukrainians be able to actually strike uh objects uh within Russia proper and I expect that if the ukrainians are successful in driving the Russians further out of Ukrainian territory then the necessary uh areas that the ukrainians will have to Target will increasingly include Uh Russian territory and of course the Russians will seek to exploit this um the Russians will have claimed and will continue to claim that uh they find completely unacceptable any kind of strike against Russian territory um they will warn that they will use nuclear weapons but of course um within the norms and means of international uh armed conflict uh the ukrainians do have the right to strike legitimate military targets within Russian territory interesting that um that you say this is going to be a development how much that do you think we are going to see of those kind of strikes increasing inside Russia in the approach to the election and what effect do you think that might have in terms of the public I don't have a good read on uh how many of these long range Precision strike assets the ukrainians currently have in the ET I know they're currently developing them and it's unclear to me when the ukrainians are going to decide to employ them um and how and how they're going to employ them they might use them in small quantities to try to poke in Pro Russian air defenses to learn about how to effectively uh defeat them or the ukrainians may decide to go out and conduct uh large mass attacks to just straight up overwhelm them and it's unclear to me which tactic they're going to pick um but it is going to become uh it is going to become important and it's but depending on the development timeline it's unclear to me if they'll do it before after the elections and just want to ask you about um the long form study that you're working on you mentioned bellarus just a moment ago um it's about uh Russia's efforts to effectively Annex bellus can you tell us a bit more absolutely so I think um with the Russians have done in bellarus is quite nefarious and it's it's been under reported and under observed for the last three years years because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine but we know that um the Kremlin has a strategic objective to regain control over bellers but it's not chosen to do so with overt uh military force but rather through a much more Insidious campaign of what they call political military cultural economic integration um Russia and bellarus have a supernatural uh National Organization called the so-called Union State and this this is a a structure that was uh created on paper in a 1999 treaty and essentially it is a federal structure that stipulates the fusion of Bel the integration of bellarus and Russia into one federalized entity complete with its unitary uh executive body a unitary legislature and a unitary Judiciary um over the last three years the Kremlin has uh made substantial gains in uh trying to solidify uh this integration uh to coer uh the president of Belarus Alexander lucenko into accepting Uh Russian terms and the Russians have successfully substantially increased their military footprint in Belarus five years ago the Russians did not have freedom of movement within bellus uh lucenko was always a staunch advocate of Belarusian sovereignty he still is but he's on the he's actually on the back foot now but now the Russians have free reign in bellarus the Russians have of course deployed tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus um they conduct a lot of training in Belarus and bellarus just by nature of its geography is extremely important for the NATO alliance and NATO's Eastern flank because of that strategic soak Corridor between the Russian exclave of kaliningrad uh and bellarus and where uh Lithuania connects with Poland now that the Russians have successfully achieved freedom of movement within belus and are working slowly um but but quite effectively at de facto bellarus become a western uh government of Russia um uh the prospects for Belarusian sovereignty are are increasingly becoming quite dim um and unfortunately we all remember the the 2020 protests when uh the brave bellian opposition decided to rise up against lucenko um and in order to restore legitimate democracy in bellarus and unfortunately their prospects of if the Kremlin is successful in annexing it um the prospects of any free uh and fair uh democracy in bellus are quite quite blight and what is the focus exactly of your study are you trying to work out what the consequences will be uh for NATO or is it more about how we got to where we are my paper uh studies the and assesses uh the Russian objectives for their integration efforts um where they seek to take the integration what does the kremlin's desired end State look like I then assess uh the current progress that the Kremlin has made um where the where the different uh poit iCal military and economic integration lines of effort stands sort of in terms of what what they've gotten what they seek to achieve um and then I lay out some of the implications uh for NATO uh and the bottom line is that uh the Russians have made tremendous gains in bellarus and it requires a fundamental rethink um in NATO's defense requirements for deterring a Russian attack on NATO's Eastern flank and if necessary what it would take to defeat a Russian attack on NATO's Eastern flank um the isw has also looked at how Russia may also be preparing for attacks on countries other than Ukraine can you explain what is happening in the baltics in particular laia sure we've seen the Russians uh and Russian President Vladimir Putin in particular in recent days intensify rhetoric uh about uh supposed mistreatment from Baltic countries against uh Russian ethnic or Russian speaking minorities within those countries um and of course this is very important because Putin has specifically used uh these arguments in order to manufacture his justifications for war against many uh many states in the former Soviet space um it happened in 2008 with Georgia this was of course the Crux of his argument about why the Russians had to intervene in Ukraine in 2014 and then again in 2022 and um Putin has constantly uh tried to trivialize the sovereignty of of the Baltic states um he refers to those lands as uh um essentially part of Russia's historical lands or as part of the place where there are uh uh Russian comrades abroad that need protecting um and he's explicitly stated about how the former Russian Empire the former Soviet Union this is all part of the so-called Russian World the rusi Meir um he gave a really big speech um late last year outlining uh his concept of Russian uh identity which actually transcends being ethnically Russian it has to do whether or not you feel a kindred spirit to the Soviet Union on the Russian Empire you live on these territories that the Russians used to control so um we've seen no specific indicators that the Russians have the capacity now to wage war against the Baltic states um or that there's any indication that they seek to do so in the immediate future but it's very alarming to see the Russians uh spin up these information operations that they've used to then later attack other states and of course such a process is always uh a long run um the Kremlin began running its information operations about ethnic Russians in in Ukraine uh in the 2000s only to then uh conduct their first attack in 2014 so it's quite alarming where else do you see them uh looking to spin these uh ethnic Russian protection uh messages yeah um you know part of the former Soviet Union and the former Russian Empire is also of course Central Asia uh in recent days we've seen Russian nationalists uh increasingly complain about how Kazakhstan um has been attempting uh to uh in the Russian framing uh destroy its own previous self-identity by uh reasserting the pre uh the prominence of the kazak language as opposed to the Russian language um there have been recent efforts to try to rename I think like uh bus stops and and railroad stations within Kazakhstan into kazak language names as opposed to Historic Colonial Russian names and the Russians have have uh really reacted quite vinant against that kyrgistan another Central Asian State they recently abandoned Russian Soviet style um hard science mathematics textbooks and then they instead uh adopted textbooks published by I believe Cambridge University um and Russian nationalists also uh saw that as an anathema as well so the Russian claims um uh pertain not only to Eastern Europe but to the previously Russian occupied areas of Central Asia as well and just to look at the war in Ukraine what are you expect in the coming months is it about the I know that the institute for the study of war is now focusing very much on on as well on Ukraine's um efforts to build its industrial base and develop that um is it about the race to resupply and keep the supplies of weapons coming for as long as possible and make it very sust sustainable for Ukraine yeah I I think the ukrainians understand that right now they're waging a long War um and that this war will likely continue for many more years they understand that their Achilles heal currently is the propensity for the Western coalition to be prepared to continue supporting Ukraine in the long run of course um there's a giant policy debate right now in Washington about uh whether or not to continue funding and supporting uh security assistance for Ukraine and even if we do pass the current uh spending bill which is up for consideration uh it's unclear that the United States uh will do so next year the year after that uh and so on and so forth so the ukrainians have a strategy um and their strategy is predicated on uh reinvigorating and building out Ukraine's domestic capability to produce weapons at scale um all manner weapons artillery ammunition fighting vehicles uh large guns uh Small Arms body armor food rations Etc the ukrainians are building this up within the physical territory of Ukraine but they are also quite importantly uh building up uh through joint production cooperation agreements a defense industrial base based within uh NATO states in Central and Eastern Europe um Poland Germany uh czechia um and others are currently uh engaged in joint production of weapon systems with the ukrainians and of course this is very very important because we see now the Europeans really stepping up um and getting serious about European Defense it's almost as if Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been a wakeup call um for Europe and they understand that Europe's atrophied defense uh manufacturing capacity is not capable of actually uh meeting the demands of a high-intensity war against the Russians and of course rebooting and restarting a defense industrial base it's not something you can do on a short timeline this is a a process that takes months and years to fully uh spin up so it's quite good that the Europeans including the ukrainians are doing this and of course as these capabilities and as this production uh ramps up over the coming years that will alleviate the defense requirement on Ukraine uh for it to go to the United States and the UK and others uh to fund a lion share of its own defense which will of course off-ramp that and hopefully make Ukraine's long-term defense more sustainable but of course as the ukrainians spin this up it does require that initial uh high amount of investment to help uh Kickstart it you could go one step further on Europe and its capability to continue supporting Ukraine with it supplies and it's actually cleared out its military store cupboards Russia having spent the last two years developing a war economy and a conscripted population at the Davis World economic Forum the chair of NATO's military committee Robert Bower said NATO's military uh NATO needed a warfighting transformation that anything can happen that the tectonic plates of Power are shifting what are you going to be looking for in your future analysis in that light yeah um it's a very interesting statement uh I think what we're going to be seeing is you know de facto the War uh that the Russians are waging against Ukraine uh it's not it's not one State against another state it's increasingly becoming a coalition of of dictatorships North Korea China Iran Russia waging a war against the Coalition of uh the free democracies with Ukraine um uh and the United States uh and and Europe um it's unclear to see exactly how these coalitions are going to develop um but I expect to see the Russo Iranian uh Sino Alliance becoming uh more closely aligned of course the Chinese have a Keen Eye on what's happening in Taiwan um the Iranians are waging a a major proxy war in the Middle East right now that has now transcended the conflict that was happening in just Israel and Gaza now of course what's happening um uh in Yemen um so the these things are all connected and these wars I think have exposed how unprepared uh the Western Coalition is uh to fight against uh to fight and deter and defeat these authoritarian threats so we're we're heading into uh uncharted waters and yeah I agree anything can change George bars good to speak to you thank you so much for your time thank you so much for having me Kate always a pleasure you've been watching Frontline for times radio with Me Kate shabo my thanks to our producers today Lis sites and Morgan berdick and for you for watching if you'd like to support us you can subscribe now or you can listen to times radio for the latest news and in-depth analysis or go to the times.co.uk for now though thanks for watching bye-bye

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Id: KeSjfjlDqiU

Length: 28min 41sec (1721 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 19 2024