Ukraine War: Counteroffensive points to a 'very long conflict'

well that's moved to the war in Ukraine now where there are allegations that the mercenary Wagner group is plotting subversive activities in the country the group whose leader was supposedly exiled to Belarus or reportedly building a tent city around 15 miles from the Ukrainian border well let's get more on this with the former commander of the Joint Forces command General Sir Richard Barons good to talk to you this morning um what do you what do you make of this fact that this tent city is is appearing to pop up I mean it's no surprise that Wagner is operating out of Belarus no you're right Varga has moved to Belarus and it remains active in Africa it's got some new uh leadership and it does represent a very powerful instrument for the Russian government if it can be harnessed to the Russian government so it may be coming back into favor and if so then the sort of subversive activity that's rumored is entirely to be expected but we've also seen activity on the Polish Belarusian border as well I mean is that saber rattling should Poland be concerned no I don't think Poland is really concerned we are beginning to see signs in all sorts of ways of people threatening to extend this war beyond the boundary of Ukraine for example the strikes by Ukraine on the on the Russia's Black Sea Fleet but there really isn't any military capacity in Belarus that Poland is going to be worried about today when we look at what's actually happening inside Ukraine the counter-offense of the much vaunted counter-offender that we talked about for much of of the winter is it is it failing or is it actually having success do you think so it's underway it's it's not failed it it is clear that breaking through the formidably uh well-constructed Russian defenses is hard and brutal and is going very slowly so so far the counterfeits of in the South has made about five miles of progress It's not yet got to even the first line of three Russian uh defense lines and there's 60 miles to go to the Sea so it's not failed but it is making very slow progress and that's actually way better than launching a big Ukrainian force and just smashing it to bits on the front end of comprehensive Russian defenses I mean Ukraine would say of course that it wants more support from the West the speed of this counter-offensive then you don't think the slow speed is is a justification for them to ask for more help no absolutely think we are going to have to wrestle with the realization that the counter-offensive in 2023 is going to make some progress and and Russia isn't going to take much more territory don't really doesn't appear to have the capacity but what we're going to have to discuss now is what do we need to do in order to make Ukraine stronger and Russia weaker in order to succeed on the battlefield in 2024 and that means more air defense more ammunition more equipment more training and to build Ukraine and Air Force and at the same time continuing to keep the pressure up on the front line over the winter which will be hard and to wear away the Russian positions in depth with missiles like the UK stormshadow this is really all pointing to this war if it continues going on for a very long time meanwhile according to the Minister of Defense Putin is trying to equip his National Guard was Heaven heavy Weaponry to strengthen the security of his regime what do you think that would mean for the war so it might mean there's actually a little less equipment in Ukraine if the National Guard is getting heavy equipment in order to protect a a fraying regime in in Russia and this really points to the the big issue that we're focused on the battlefield where progress is slow but a big part of this war is eroding the Russian World to continue to fight and and that happens in Russia as much as it does anywhere in Ukraine while we have you on uh General Sir Richard we learned yesterday that the UK's electoral commission was hacked there's also been a security leak of data in Northern Ireland revealing the names and locations of police officers how concerning do you think both of these things are in in a security point of view so I think these are quite different the the Northern Ireland League was was was was was just um a mistake on the back of a Freedom of Information and it's a serious mistake and people will regret it at leisure and what that shows is things like the data protection act and good cyber hygiene in any business or institution remain fundamentally important that's how you remain safe and effective in in the digital age that the hacking and they've been uh are obviously hacking every single day means that every one of us every citizen every business every Enterprise has to maintain rigorous basic cyber hygiene standards or they will get done over reports this morning that British intelligence service thinks that Russia are behind the attacks is that who you think is most likely to be well we know the major cyber actors in the world today are Russia and and Russia aligns with a lot of really um very effective organized criminal gangs that that do cyber attacks proficiently but there's also intelligent cyber attacks led by China uh North Korea looking for money and Iran looking to be mischievous and to steal information and money so there are a number of actors in the world that mean the UK and its citizens and its institutions serious harm and and the state can't protect us all we have to play our part in protecting ourselves General Sir Richard Baron's former commander of the Joint Forces command uh good to talk to you thanks a lot thank you

Channel: Sky News

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Id: zLuv7aJsfPU

Length: 5min 41sec (341 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 09 2023