Putin’s ‘meat grinder tactics killing between 900 and 1000 Russian soldiers a day’ | Philip Ingram

Putin’s ‘meat grinder tactics killing between 900 and 1000 Russian soldiers a day’ | Philip Ingram

it’s it’s more vulnerable as we’ve seen to attacks from the air um it’s more vulnerable in the front line because it doesn’t have the indirect fire capability with the high Mars rockets and um with artillery ammunition to deal with the groupings of Russian forces as they prepare to come in but it’s still killing between 900 and a thousand Russian soldiers a day you 20 to 40 pieces of Russian equipment today you know 10 to 20 tanks a day are being destroyed that’s sign ific you Russia is using meat grinder tactics to just punch up against the ukrainians and almost whenever you’re getting into that point where they don’t care about the casualties um no matter how much ammunition you’ve got they’re just going to push through at some stage Ukraine hasn’t quite got the engineering assets to be able to um deliver different layers of defensive positions to fall back on solely whilst waiting for this um ammunition and the rest of the military material to come forward you mentioned Philip Russia’s meat grinder tactics and obviously you need fresh troops to feed into the meat meat grinder as it were are you expecting to hear more potentially from Putin after his inauguration today about a fresh wave of Russian mobilization yeah I think he he he’ll do everything he can to try and mobilize by stealth so he’ll he’ll find different ways of finding more people to come through but as as it gets worse and it will get worse for him you know he’s going to have to come into more public mobilization and we’re beginning to see the rhetoric behind that um it’s been building up for quite some time you know describing this conflict as not being a conflict um against Ukraine it’s a conflict against the West he’s trying to defeat NATO it’s NATO that’s attacking Russia Russia is under um threat and even with this speech that he gave today at the end of his inauguration he was talking about um you Russia’s Collective response and Collective responsibility to to deal with the threat so he’s he’s building it up in in in people’s minds that this is bigger than um you the issue that he started and he’s blaming everyone else for it want to get your thoughts Philip on something we discussed on yesterday’s episode of Frontline I was joined by George baros from The Institute for the study of war and he was saying that he thinks it is feasible for Ukraine to launch a new counter offensive against Russia in 2024 and he said there would be significant advantages to having one sooner rather than later to launch one potentially in the Autumn of 2024 as opposed to in 2025 do you agree I I I do and I don’t um you know I think Ukraine needs to make sure that they are ready to launch the counter offensive and what what’s made the Contra offenses that they launched last year not work they didn’t own the air so you know they couldn’t create areas of air superiority for the ground forces then to fight through in they didn’t have the engineering assets to deal with the massively complex defenses that Russia had built around the suan lines that that are there um and um you they didn’t have the ammunition stocks and and the numbers of troops ready to properly exploit that so what have the ukrainians done they’ve they’ve effectively allowed the front line to freeze and they’re hollowing the Russians out from behind with what I’ve described before in this program as S soe Type tactics General banov the head of the um gu or H as as they’re called as well um the head of the military intelligence is carrying out attacks on Russian oil refineries on logistic basis and command and control he’s been behind the sinking of almost 50% of the Black Sea Fleet you know air defense sites are being attacked Russian um airfields are being attacked um and everything else that’s hollowing them out so when the ukrainians are ready to punch through um they hopefully those defenses are going to be an awful lot weaker because what’s behind them there’s little substance but he needs to get the Western aircraft in the pilots need to have the ammunition they need to have the experience in the aircraft to be able to provide that local Air air defense um U or air superiority bubble around any ground defensive that’s in and then there needs to be the all- armed um fight and we haven’t seen the ukrainians use their armored forces in a mass way yet and that’s how we’d see them used from a a western perspective we’ see a brigade or a division level attack we’re seeing the ukrainians using the tanks in ones or twos and we’re seeing the casualties coming through in ones or twos that’s the old Soviet style tactics that the Russians are using um and there’s a lot more to go so they could potentially go this year the Autumn’s not the best time because the ground gets too soft for Western tanks and Western armored vehicles but I think it’s probably more likely and possibly better for them um if they can continue this hollowing out um late spring early summer 2025 you mentioned Philip Vladimir Putin and his increasing rhetoric of a war not just with Ukraine but against the west and I wonder if that feeds into the fact that we’ve now got European intelligence agencies warning that Russia is planning and I quote violent acts of sabotage across Europe as part of a more aggressive and concerted effort against the West what form do you think those attacks would take oh yeah that’s a $6 million question um you Russia has attacked the West it’s attacked the UK you it’s attack the UK with Weapons of Mass Effect you you look at the poisoning of um lenko with polonium 210 um if you look at the poisoning of sergy scrippal um his daughter Julia in Salsbury with novichok um you know it’s f it first um use of of a nerve agent on the on the streets of the UK or the streets of Europe or the the first one that we’d um discovered at that stage looking back it seems the Russians have been using it beforehand and we’re getting stories coming through of um companies that are linked to Ukraine um their their warehouses and other things mysteriously catching fire in London now um the Russians have got the ability through um their uh organizations associated with their their their Military Intelligence um the gru um to um put sabots in different places whether those sabots are going to carry out more novit type poisonings or whether mysterious fires are going to come out or whether it’s going to be something more serious we see a growth in terrorism that’s a uh a possibility a greater possibility um and probability is what we’re going to see is Russia trying to um stimulate other groupings that are operating across Europe and in the UK to carry out more violent acts so you potentially um Isis or Al-Qaeda um islamist related Terror organizations suddenly find that they’re getting um training and help and sponsorship and access to weapons and explosives from a source that they don’t know that Source would likely be Vagner which is linked to the Gru and of course um they’re operating throughout Africa so I’ve got the links into the command and control that there is in these Terror organizations and we’ll we are already seeing what Russia is doing in the information domain we shouldn’t underestimate the power of the information domain to create protests to create um uh disruption and all the rest of it across across the country we’re seeing the protests um in support of um the Palestinians causing disruptions in many countries across the world and causing real political dilemmas Russia will be behind a lot of that that’s something that people don’t realize they’ll be funding a lot of what’s going on and helping to stimulate it because they can see a a fracture they can see political influence and they’ll put the proverbial knife in and wiggle it to see how far it goes so I think we’re already being attacked it’s interesting you mentioned that example of the the business in London that that its Warehouse was attacked I think it was a Ukrainian owned uh parcel delivery um business uh there was also a Depot in Spain I think that was targeted and it was Ukrainian owned and previously they had helped with the transportation of humanitarian Aid to Lviv at the very outbreak of the war so interesting that that was that that was targeted but also interesting that that reportedly the person um one of the people involved was recruited by Vagner do Vagner still have much of a role these days Vagner have got a huge role um and the a couple of people that have been arrested for that Arsen attack have been arrested under um the new um uh secrecy laws that there are on the UK so you that that that points to something really quite interesting Vagner never really went away um they moved when pran’s coup if it was a coup failed um they moved more into Africa they they’ve been underpinning um a lot of the oligarchs business interests um Collective oligarchs business interest in Africa with um uh mines with um wood with uh you propping up governments and other natural resources that that are around and that’s where the real influence is and Moscow has taken more central control of Vagner um it was set up as you know a private Army to do the dirty work on behalf of Putin in different places across the world before Ukraine had happened um they the first bit of dirty work they did was get involved in um the capture of Crimea in 2014 um but you their their power has been us used elsewhere Putin has wrestled them back into more central control after what pran had done uh pran was it attented C it was probably more him protesting the fact that the relationship that he had with the defense minister um wasn’t right and ammunition was being withheld this is a spat between oligarchs um that is being played out in the military activity that’s going on and it’s criminal fighting criminal um and of course the criminal and chief um is the head oligarch and the head oligarch in um in in Moscow in Russia is Vladimir Putin himself so if we’re going to see an increasing number of these acts of sabotage against Western Nations what should the appropriate response be from the West philli ah well we can send another stiff letter to the United Nations or um get our ambassador to deliver one to the Kremlin in Moscow um it’s very difficult to attribute it um and I I think what we’ll find is that our intelligence Services who are very good indeed um you these sorts of attacks will be you know in the same sort of guise as terrorist attacks and and other bits and pieces potentially um we have since the horrible attacks in 2017 um you our our intelligence services in the UK have stopped almost 40 lit stage attacks because they’ve got the finger in the pulse um and we’ll find that our intelligence services are redoubling their effort to look at this as a potential new threat and and deal with it from that perspective so I think we should have confidence that you the majority of it there there will be a handle on it it’s just worrying that if the Russians are doing it and they put a lot of resources behind it um they only need to be successful once or twice whereas our intelligence Services need to be successful all of the time to stop this but it’s it’s a it’s a worrying development uh we just have to monitor it closely thank you for watching Frontline for times radio more click subscribe on our YouTube channel you can listen to times radio and you can read more about the war in Ukraine and Global Security with your times digital subscription

“Ukraine are killing between 900 and 1000 Russian soldiers a day through 20 to 40 pieces of Russian equipment.”

Putin’s push to gain ground before the arrival of US aid in Ukraine is costing Russia dearly in manpower losses, Military Intelligence expert Philip Ingram tells #timesradio

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