Ukraine’s preparatory strikes on Crimea reveal key weakness for Putin | Philip Ingram

Ukraine’s preparatory strikes on Crimea reveal key weakness for Putin | Philip Ingram

if you get the storm Shadows within range and again you get the f16s in that can provide an u a uh a an air bubble around an attack package going in with Storm Shadow or scalp which is the same missile but the French equivalent um inter area where they can launch them um at at the curch bridge then that that’s distinctly possible there’s that magic F-16 again um that that air defense bubble around things that’s that’s the key to everything so there’s a number of weapon systems that they could use to to um attack kirbridge uh the Russians close it every now and again because they see the threat that’s coming in and they could go back to the good old um truck bomb or some form of some equivalent in that you the the Ukrainian SE soe operations are they’re their initiative is fantastic um they don’t need to close it at the minute because I know or I believe that they think that doing that will be a clear indicator for what they’re going to do elsewhere and will cause the Russians to um you know get get more prepared across the whole of the front line so they’re they’re keeping that up their sleeve ideally they want as many different weapon systems that gives them the options to to um uh to close it in different ways um and and ideally destroy it and take a down but ukrainians are concentrating quite a lot on on Crimea at the moment you know their attacks on the sixth Fleet their attacks on air defense um and then that those have been backed up with attacks on airfields and they’re trying to to deny the use of the airfields in Crimea a lot of those airfields have been used to launch the fix wi aircraft that have got the Glide bombs on them there’s a bit of preparation going on at the moment so the indications are that um you Ukraine is starting to prepare the battle space but it it’s it’s a long and very deliberate effort for what’s going to be an exceptionally complex operation and away from the front line are there other things we should be looking out for in terms of ways that Ukraine can take the fight to Russia I mean it was interesting recently the times were reporting how Ukrainian Special Forces are actually involved on the ground in Sudan where there’s all manner of conflict at the moment because Russia also has a presence there and is trying to use smuggled gold to fund the Russian war effort against Ukraine so are there other things we should be looking out for here there are um I think they’re going to be difficult to look out for you Russia has got its fingers in so many different pies around the world um it it relies on the sort of parac criminal or pseudo- criminal Enterprises or completely criminal Enterprises that has got through through throughout Africa and elsewhere to fund the oligarchs or funding what Putin’s doing from a war machine and all the rest of it um we’re also seeing levels of political support and you this um increasing alliance between Russia China North Korea and Iran is really worrying and I don’t think this is necessarily up to Ukraine to deal with that I think this is up to the wider International Community to deal with that because that’s a much bigger threat for every everyone not including Ukraine um is there anything that Ukraine can do specifically themselves I I I think just keep doing what they’re doing and and making sure that they’re Contin to get the Western support because at the minute Ukraine in their tactical fight and their operational fight with the Russians are protecting us in Europe and those in the rest of the free as we describe as the Free World um if Ukraine loses then the financial cost is going to be phenomenal because there’ll be a new Cold War during the the last Cold War defense budgets were at 6 to 7% of GDP our governments are bulking at two and a half our talk of three um and if Russia wins even more um then Russia will prepare to go elsewhere but if Russia’s allowed to win you’ll get other nations like China will turn around and go okay so if we attacked and took Taiwan by force we have to wait 3 or 4 years until the Western political um Hiatus collapses completely and we’ve got away with it so can we afford that let’s prepare our our financial C coffers to do that and that’s what we’ll do and it’ll stimulate more uncertainty and more instability around the world that that would then have a massive effect on our economies as well um you know most of the world’s um semiconductors are made in or the microchips are made in in Taiwan if there’s a war in there just think of the impact that that would have on our Global economies it it’s it’s unbearable and that’s just the start of it so let’s talk this through stage by stage obviously at the moment we are seeing Russia making advances notably in harv or blast what needs to happen in order to limit those advances well this is where Ukraine needs the wear with all to be able to Halt the Russians I think the Russians are making Advantage advances but I think the ukrainians are trading a bit of space for time because rather than holding it hard and suffering large numbers of casualties of person equipment and everything else it’s easier to hold for a bit withdraw slowly um fight a defensive battle whenever you’re ATT trting the enemy um so much more so the Russians have lost since January an average of 966 troops a day um 20 plus tanks 20 plus pieces of artillery and all the rest of it their defense industrial base can’t keep up with replacing that um they have replaced a lot of the stuff that they lost in the first 18 months of the conflict but even at at the rates of me they can’t keep that up so that’s hollowing the Russian forces out and trading a bit of territory that territory is not strategically significant um it’s largely been unoccupied by um the local people and therefore the ukrainians know that they can take it back whenever they’ve got the weapon systems and the military wherewithal to be able to Halt the Russians turn them around and push them back that’s the next step and as zinsky has said time and again you know they need more air defenses more air defense intercept is in order to protect for example har City yeah well the the two elements of that one to protect the cities and protect the critical National infrastructure um we’ve seen that start to get hit um and that’s only in the last couple of months before that the ukrainians were knocking knocking out at least 96% of all Russian attacks now they they’re only been able to knock out 60 70% that’s St to lack of air defense missiles down to lack of ammunition for their air defense guns and everything else that’s where the critical that you the the aid package from the United States and from Europe because it’s not all us our defense meiles is critical and that’s where that needs to flow in quickly and it’s starting to come in um the second bit is uh to be able to then take that air defense uh without denuding what you’ve got over your cities and over your critical National infrastructure but to take a air defense bubble and put it over the front line somewhere so that you’re protecting your land forces from the new weapon that is having maximum effect the new Russian weapon which are the Glide bombs an artillery shell has got um you 10 15 20 kg of of of of high explosives in it the Glide bomb’s got 500,000 kg of high explosives in them and that when it hits a defensive position people don’t survive they don’t get out um whereas your defensive positions are built to withstand artillery attacks they can’t withstand that so until ukrainians can push that threat back and that’s the only way to do that is that air defense bubble we’ve seen them practice by trying to have Patriot missile Ambush sites where they’ve successfully shot down a number of Russian aircraft but that’s left the pitch at missile batteries very vulnerable indeed until they can get something to protect that then you that’s a very dangerous position to be in and the bit that we’re waiting for to prot to get that air defense bubble are the infamous f-16s with the right weapon systems with the pilots properly trained to use them and you know it I think it’s shown the complexity of it that those Pilots have been training now for six seven 8 nine months it takes a lot of time and and a lot of those are experienced Pilots it takes a lot of time to take your experienced pilots and not just teach them how to fly a new aircraft but to fight the aircraft there’s no point in flying it if you can’t fight it and to fight it with all the different weapon systems on it and how they all come together cuz the last thing you want is to get these new shiny their 20 plus year old aircraft but um and or older but compared to what they’ve got new shiny aircraft and you lose half a dozen on your first two or three sorties so they have to be in a position where they can use them from a confidence perspective and it’s creating that bubble once the ukrainians are confident they can create that air defense bubble over the parts of the front line that they want to have an effect on then we’ll see things changing I’m glad you mentioned the f-16s because they are eagerly anticipated could they be the kind of thing that does shift the momentum back in Ukraine’s favor very much so um I I think they are key um and I think that’s why the Russians made their move on um haave where the Russians are um Prosecuting their operations quite hard on the on the front line through the the rest of the front line the front Line’s enormous 1,00 plus kilometers I think the whole of the British military would have difficulty dealing with less than 10% of that um if we deployed everything we’ve got so you know the the scale is enormous um but the Russians saw this very small window of opportunity before the Western ammunition came in before the 16s came in and they know that they will push their ability to fly their fix wi aircraft with those Glide bombs on push them back and possibly out of range of affect affecting the front line and that’s where the Russians went for it as well as splitting the Ukrainian Reserve forces so the Russians would be forcing would be facing um less uh protection on the the front lines elsewhere they haven’t exploited that properly but that’s what we’ve seen beforehand you know even if the ukrainians their defenses are weakened down because they don’t have the the resources there ukra the Russians haven’t been able to properly exploit them thank you for watching Frontline for times radio for more on Global Security and the war in Ukraine you can listen to times radio take out a digital subscription to the times and click subscribe on our YouTube channel

Strike on Crimea and the Kerch bridge will like be at the core of Ukraine’s 2025 plan to capitalise on Putin’s losses over summer, Military Intelligence expert Philip Ingram tells Frontline on #timesradio

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