Russian ‘desperation’ showing as Putin losing ‘1000+ a day’ | Gen. Philip Breedlove

Russian ‘desperation’ showing as Putin losing ‘1000+ a day’ | Gen. Philip Breedlove

what is happening now is the West is beginning to allow Ukraine to fire back I think that adds to the desperation that Russia is facing in this war right now and so what is the weapon that is working the very best for Putin in this war it’s his war of words his war of intimidation hello and welcome to Frontline for times radio with M K Cho and today we are catching up with the former Supreme Ally Commander Europe General Philip Breedlove in his 39 years military service he’s held many other positions including Commander us European command and Commander US Air Forces in Europe he’s respected commentator on the war in Ukraine and we welcome him back to front line General breed love good to see you again thank you for your time let’s talk about Ukraine and that shift in US policy and also that of Germany to Grant it permission for limited use of their weapons to strike inside Russia in the defense of H given the limitations how significant is it well uh first of all thanks for having me back it’s always good to have this nice format that you use um and uh I think the starting point of this conversation should be that we need to remember we’re in the 10th year of this war 10th year of this war started in that late late winter of 13 early winter of 14 and here here we are today and I bring that up because I believe that there’s a lot of HBL about how this decision was made quickly and so forth we’re 10 years late in making this decision we should have never limited uh Ukraine’s use of West Western weapons Russia since day one has been using weapons from all around the world to strike from all around the compass into Ukraine and yet we in the west have limited Ukraine’s response so now let’s Zoom forward to your real question of today so we finally in the United States uh made some decisions that some of our other allies like the UK and others have already made and frankly I think we should have made this decision in this latest War much sooner as well I’m happy that we have finally done this I’m happy that we are beginning to allow Ukraine to have effect inside Russia I’m unhappy that we have done it in such a limited way it is once again an indication of just how deterred the west and specifically my country is by Mr Putin’s war of words his propaganda War uh in trying to affect uh Western policy so here we are we make a decision to let uh Ukraine use our weapons to fire into Russia but we limit it to the very shortest range missiles we have we limit the target set that they can shoot at and we sort of put boundaries on their ability it’s almost like we’re assuring Mr Putin listen we’re going to do this to stop your harke but we are not going to Advantage Ukraine we’re not going to allow Ukraine to defeat you you the basic tenants of this war haven’t changed and I think that’s a sad statement on Western policy and frankly it’s a sad statement on US policy um so we should be allowing Ukraine to use any weapon we give them to attack those forces which are coming to attack them Russia has had this Safe Haven just over the Border where they can amass Logistics and all these things now frankly Ukraine has been developing weapons of its own to start to bring that under attack but it doesn’t have the depth of magazine it doesn’t have the ability to strike in significant numbers and that’s what western weapons give them and we should have made a bigger decision than we made and you have long thought and argued that Ukraine should be able to strike inside Russia in self-defense this though is unlikely to change the course of the war would you like Ukraine to be able to strike deeper into Russia I yes we haven’t given them weapons that can truly stripe deep into Russia our longest range atacam is not what I would call a deep weapon it is a weapon in the operational level of War just over the Border but it would bring Logistics troop formations and uh um Motorway and bridges and railroads that they need to bring Under Fire it would be a great help but even the atacam is not a deep weapon in the sense that we in the west think of deep attack for maneuver Warfare so uh I think there’s much concern about something that really we should have taken this decision a long time ago so what exactly would you like Ukraine to be able to use in attacking inside Russia and what would you like Ukraine to be able to attack so let’s just uh I think all agree that in the provinces all around uh Ukraine and Russia the the Russian military is using all of those spaces to assemble train equip and prepare attack into Ukraine I think anything in that operational Echelon is fair gain and I think that uh Russia is doing a pretty good job of attacking what I would call Strategic items inside of Ukraine the infrastructure for energy the infrastructure for heating oil the infrastructure for transportation um among that they’re also attacking directly as you know the population of of Ukraine and trying to Denude cities and and do all this horrendous damage to the people of Ukraine but I think that Ukraine ought to be able to fire back at those engines of War energy Transportation Supply Logistics all of those things should be fair gain uh for Ukraine as it is when Russia fires into Ukraine President Putin’s reaction was to tell International journ s he could Supply Long Range weapons to Nations so they can strike Western targets how does this kind of threat compare to the repeated ones we’ve heard over nuclear weapons so uh a couple of basic tenants Mr Putin’s military is is failing him to a large degree here is a world superpower that has been at war with a neighbor who gave up much of its military capab ability in agreements like The Budapest memorandum of 94 and so for 10 years Russia has been trying to overrun Ukraine and they haven’t done it yet and so I think there’s a certain amount of frustration in what we see and what Russia is doing with its troops it’s throwing Manpower away we see we hear from very reputable sources from multiple directions they’re losing as many as a thousand a thousand plus day in Ukraine right now that is an is an indication of desperation in my mind so now Mr Putin one of the advantages he’s had in this war is that the West has forbidden Ukraine from firing into Russia and they have allowed the West has allowed Russia to fire at will into Ukraine from all around the the map on the ground and so what is happening now is the West is beginning to allow Ukraine to fire back I think that adds to the desperation that Russia is facing in this war right now and so what is the weapon that is working the very best for Putin in this war it’s his war of words his war of intimidation we told him 10 years ago what we in the west were afraid of we’re afraid of nuclear and we’re afraid of widening the war so what has Mr Putin played back to the West for 10 years but certainly in the last two years he nearly every week makes some sort of a change or a threat in nuclear business and nearly every week he mentions that he’s going to do something like this which is give long range W weapons to other people to fire at the West so Mr Putin is counting on his best weapon which is intimidation we in the West are severely deterred by Mr Putin’s intimidation he has caused many in the west to take counsel of their fears and make policy based on their fears rather than what needs to be done and so this I think is just one more step he’s he’s desperate he sees now that Ukraine is going to be able to take the war to Russia on their own soil and now he’s got to find a new step in the intimidation game to get the West to back down to get Western leaders to take councils of Their Fear again and make changes in policy and yeah his message is also you could argue contradictory because he also has said um almost in the same breath um that it’s dismissed the idea that Russia wants war with NATO so so this is a tricky answer because it’s going to appear that I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth I really don’t think that Mr Putin wants a war with NATO excuse me I think he realizes right now his army has done so poorly against Ukraine that it would be absolutely no match on the battlefield for a determined NATO I think Mr Putin knows that but what Mr Putin wants to do again through his intimidation regime is to snip at and bite at and and grab certain things to show to not only his internal audience but the world that he understands that he has the rest of the world intimidated and he’s going to use that advantage to continue pressing forward I mean if you really uh having just returned from multiple trips over es what is clear to me is that Russia’s gry Zone war in Georgia is is wreaking havoc on the people of Georgia and the government of Georgia I spent time recently with two of the top three um leaders of mova and what Russia is doing in mdova is bordering on kinetic now bordering on breaking out of gry zone so Mr Putin is incredibly active now he’s trying to to redraw water space in the northern Seas he’s recently we’re going to start hearing about it in the news tried to orchestrate a murder in the United States and so Mr Putin is active out there all around the world and he’s counting on this nuclear intimidation to back down Western leaders because it’s been very successful so far could you tell me a bit more about what you learned on your travels then about about Russia’s Greystone activities so I think that um I don’t want to overcharging and that includes some of the larger Western nations are beginning to Tire of these incessant freely free willing Russian operations in their countries we’re starting to recognize what they are doing in our cyber spaces what they’re doing with money moving money around what they’re doing orchestrating deaths in foreign Nations this is uh beginning to now raise the eye of leaders to the point of taking some sort of action and how that will play out maybe that will be a conversation at the Washington Summit coming up soon what what kind of action are you talking about is being considered I don’t I I can’t speak for NATO I can’t speak for uh those people anymore I would tell you that there are folks in these nations that are going to start taking more concrete action I people are starting to talk about seizing using Russian money and and taking those actions where they can make the pain increase for Mr Mr Putin um interesting about what you’re talking about the the awareness of gry Zone activity and um something that did hit the news recently um is uh Russia having been condemned by EU leaders for this provocative Behavior after border guards are moved around 20 boys along the Nava River used to demarcate the Estonian Russian border being seen as part of this broader pattern of hybrid actions by Russia on its Maritime and land borders in the Baltic region um I mean is that how you see and what do you think Russia is trying to do with it well I think this is exactly what Russia is trying to say first of all Mr Putin is having a bigger problem internally he has to show some progress he has to show some success he has to show that he’s standing up to the West he has to continue to lie to and convince his people that the West is trying to attack Russia and that the United States is the great engine of the West in trying to attack Russia and so these niblings like I said before these little niblings around the edges the sea spaces in the north the border with narva all of these things are ways that Putin is trying to show his people that he is strong he’s standing up to the west and the West is the great enemy and I think that we in the west have decisions to make if we allow Mr Putin to do these things in the northern Seas redraw the lines pull up the water buoys he allows these things to ha if we allow these things to happen on the border then Mr Putin will continue to push I was reminded by one of the one of the national leaders on this trip he told me the the story that lyen apparently said that when you are when you face your enemy you fix your bayonet and you push your B into his belly and if his belly is soft you keep pushing if the belly is hard then you pull back and reconsider your options and so Mr Putin is pushing his bayonet into our belly all around the edges of NATO and he will continue to push where we’re soft and he will stop pushing where he meets hard resistance the question is are we ready are our leaders ready to make the tough decisions to present a hard belly rather than a soft belly and and in that particular instance on On the Border area the the water border area between um Russia and Estonia I mean the response really so far has been kind of come and explain yourself Russia I mean it’s not exactly what you’d expect if dis show sort of a a tough stance on that what what do you think the correct response should be well I’m again I learned very quickly as the sacur I wouldn’t tell any one nation what to do Estonia will make some decisions on its own and that’s a great country and they get it uh but again Russia’s going to push until they hit something hard and so when are we going to take those steps to tell Mr Putin no more I understand up there when they moved the boys uh one of the fishermen wandered east of where Russia thought was their Waters and They seized his boat and they still have it and so forth so this is beginning to be a little more serious than just moving buoys around and so I think that uh the West again have some decisions to make today um as a part of the D-Day celebration I was asked to make comment on Eisenhower’s decision and and how hard that decision was and how consequential that decision was and that if it went right thousands would die if it went right thousands would die if it went wrong tens of thousands would die and our history would be very different and and and then sackur number one uh sakur Eisenhower soon later to be President Eisenhower he made a tough decision and knowing that thousands were going to die if it went right my question to the commentator today was do we have Western leaders today that understand what the price of freedom is what the price of democracy is and do we have leaders that are willing to make decisions that we know will cost us but are required to to preserve those freedoms and democracies that we believe in and I think that question is open do we really have have that kind of leadership in the west today I’m going to um ask you another question later on um about your Reflections on this anniversary the the 80th anniversary of dday um but just to return to to actions by Ukraine or reports that in late in late May Ukrainian drones were used to attack Russia’s nuclear early warning system in kador shutting down raadar and that a third in Ork near the Russian kazak border failed what do you think of this this departure so uh I haven’t spoken to the ukrainians about that attack I would love to my guess is that the ukrainians Believe by making that attack it would make it easier for them to attack with aacs and it would in their mind make it harder for Russia to characterize Western response uh I don’t know that’s what I guess I don’t think that Ukraine would attack that just to provoke Russia there are those and some that I really respect who believe that blinding a Russian uh in uh Media or um um strategic level censor is not good uh I I understand that approach but again if the ukrainians believe that this is a radar that is hurting their War efforts and is needed to characterize Ukrainian response to Russia and that’s why they took it out I could also understand that so I’m I refuse to take judgment until I hear why they did it so it’s unclear right now if this is some part of a new campaign of targeting Russia’s nuclear infrastructure I think that’s unclear I I really don’t think that that would be the goal of Ukraine I think that uh trying to affect their operational level fight is much more likely but once again I have not talked to them and I really don’t want to be a part of starting rumors either way fair enough um um the US and we’ve spoken about it being reactive not proactive in its support for Ukraine but that that kind of incident though is going to play to President Biden’s cautious approach isn’t it yes um it it will um we are we in America I won’t speak now to the west but I can tell you we in America are deterred we are uh overly cautious about taking steps that would quote unquote provoke Russia I don’t know how much more provoked Russia has to be you look at this inhumane uh uh illegal um crazy war that Russia is pursuing how much more do we have to provoke them the damage that they’re doing inside of Ukraine is is incredible and so I think that we’re way overly cautious but um I’m I’m not the president of the United States the president of the United States is apparently very very very concerned about provoking Mr Putin and so he’s making decisions of very uh limited nature for fear of provoking Mr Putin and I I think that that we were going to have to at some point put forward that hard belly that stops the probing of the bayonet president zinsky um gave an interview to the Guardian newspaper recently and he expressed this kind of frustration the lack of urgency in supplying Ukraine and he said it’s easy and fast to re-equip the brigades and it’s it’s the speed that the West constantly lacks says that Russia is faster than the West um when you’re at War he says you have different priorities and he says that perhaps the problem is the the the West is at the luxury of feeling safe and I’m just wondering if that is true is is it perhaps a fault that we’re not yet properly feeling uh The Gray Zone attacks that Russia is carrying out that you’ve described is is is it important that we’re made more aware of exactly what’s going on there isn’t the sort of kinetic uh the fighting aspect of War so let me answer your question in a different way and if it doesn’t satisfy come back at me but here’s the way I see it the West right now truly believes that they can keep this war limited to Ukraine and I heard something that is extremely critical but I’m going to repeat it because I sort of agree with it and that is that right now it’s pretty apparent that the West is willing to sacrifice Ukrainian soldiers and the West is willing to sacrifice Ukrainian civilians men and women children and that the West is willing to sacrifice Ukrainian land for Western Safety do you get my point the West is willing to let this war go on in Ukraine because they don’t want it to spill over into the west and I think that soon or later that is going to fail um what we clearly see is Mr Putin is already embolden in all of the gray spaces and now he’s starting to get embolden in some of the not so gray spaces and some of the kinetic things moving buoys changing Maps uh putting people on boarders and so our and I I don’t include me but I would say our uh goal in the west of containing this in Ukraine uh and and trying to appease Russia again in Ukraine by giving them land uh uh in Ukraine I think in the end is going to fail because Russia remember this all started in 2008 our response to Georgia was inadequate to task we rewarded bad behavior by giving them 20% of Georgia 2014 our Western response was inadequate to task and we gave them about 133% of the most important commercial spaces in Ukraine and now here we are in 2024 and we’re once again trying to find a method of appeasement to give Russia more land for peace and it won’t work just like it didn’t work in 08 it didn’t work in 14 it’s not going to work in 24 and so if we reward bad behavior we reward bad behavior and we reward bad behavior and then we expect to get good behavior to follow that shame on us people who believe like that never rais children or GL grandchildren yeah I mean having said that um there does seem to be a slight contradiction in the sense that um when when President Biden re just said recently that he he doesn’t believe in the NATO isation of Ukraine and he explained why that peace doesn’t mean NATO uh but he also said in the same breath that he recognizes the need to stop Ukraine falling to Russia because he said Poland and other bordering bordering nations would go down too would be next so he does seem to understand that the the danger of it spilling far beyond Ukraine yeah this is a contradiction in his discussion it clearly is I think the first part of that conversation is Mr Biden talking to to Mr Putin he’s trying to assure Mr Putin that you know we’re not going to Advantage Ukraine to the point where they could defeat Russia because I do not believe leaders in the west at this point are academically prepared to deal with a defeated Russia Russia has convinced senior leaders in the west that a Russian law would meet all these catastrophic things and the Western leaders have a accepted that as a as a truth and they’re trying to find uh a way out of this war and I would tell you there is no uh Way Forward that capitulation improves the the situation in the world capitulation will just mean further uh invasions 08 14 24 28 32 36 as long long as we allow Mr Putin to to get away with bad behavior by intimidating us he’s going to keep doing it why would he change yeah and the the intimidation I mean it never stops does it because um since this uh this report has gone out that um that France may be sending or may already have sent military trainers to Ukraine uh Sero uh shyu has threatened that they would be legitimate targets inside Ukraine now I presume am am I right in thinking that in itself would not trigger trigger an article five response from nato in defense one one for all basically um what would is there is there any circumstance you can see under which an article five could be triggered inside Ukraine itself um I think that an article four could be triggered um and a consultation could happen but NATO will have to make a decision about whether something that happened to a NATO troop inside of Ukraine is is article five or not and so what is can you just explain an article for sorry and how that might happen so the there are there are three articles that um people talk about but two of them they rarely talk about the first one is article three let’s start there article three in a in Phil breed love words says that defense begins at home uh more precise terms it says that you should invest in your own defense to be able to defend your country and then create excess capacities to support the Allies in the alliance article three defense begins at home article four is that article that says Any Nation at any point could bring to the Knack an issue and say this just happened and we need to consider this in terms of further action possibly Article Five so article four is often called a call to consultation Any Nation can call for an article four and then Article Five of course is when Nations begin to respond uh as an alliance to uh an attack let’s remember that in history The Alliance has not responded to some things but groups of uh nations of the alliance did respond after the the first attacks into um Crimea nations came to the sacur and said we we we need you to respond and the sacur me took uh off options to The Knack which The Knack chose not to take that’s their prerogative so later then when NATO was attacked or excuse me when uh when Russia attacked into the domas those same nations came back to the sakure me again and said okay what are we going to do once again options were taken to The Knack and The Knack chose not to accept those options so what happened in that case is I as the US European commander in consultation with the president of the United States and the Secretary of Defense chose to take us unilateral action in support of the Baltic Nations and others and the minute we did that other nations started piling on the UK and others came immediately to join the Coalition and then days after that NATO changed its entire air policing status to join what the US started doing in a unilateral sense so so we have article three defends yourself article four a nation thinks it has been offended and brings to The Knack for consultation Article 5 response in between article four and Article 5 there can also be coalitions of the Willing of NATO partners that respond when you when you talk about those um moments where you were asked um to show more support it was requested had you been allowed to do what it was requested um what do you think today’s situation would look like um okay now I’m just offering you my opinion you know this is dangerous ground but we offered we offered a scale of options you know and you heard them discussed in the Press things like capping over remember when Ukraine was calling for close the skies closed the skies we offered caps we offered many different options for trying to preclude the war before it started and uh for the reasons that we all understand the Knack chose not to take any of those options their number one reason was this is too provocative it will cause the war to start well we took no action and the war started so we will never know whether if we had taken some action to get NATO cap or some other form of support in there we will never know if the war would have been precluded but what we certainly know is because we took no action the war started again Mr Putin saw a soft belly and he pushed the bayonet in because there was no resistance and just finally um General um you commentated you were saying you you were involved in in broadcasting on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day Landings in Normandy to liberate liberate Nazi occupied Europe president zlinsky has written about this on X and he said the this event in day serve as a reminder of the courage and determination determination demonstrated in the pursuit of freedom and democracy allies defended Europe’s Freedom then and ukrainians do so now and President Biden has also said he’s compared the fight for Ukraine to the fight for Freedom which began on D-Day um it’s a sobering moment isn’t it what should we take from it well um I’m going to sound a little bit like a broken record but at D-Day we had strategic leaders who took strategic decisions that they knew were of consequence again we knew that if it went right thousands would die we knew that if it went wrong it could go horribly wrong and uh and our leaders had the courage to step forward we we are not to the point yet where Western leaders have really stepped forward on Ukraine as you and I just discussed a minute ago I believe many Western leaders are wanting to keep this fight bundle up in Ukraine and again a very critical commentary was that we’re willing to sa sacrifice Ukrainian soldiers Ukrainian civilians and Ukrainian land to keep this bottled up in Ukraine and not let it spill out that’s not the decision that was taken on D-Day the decision that was taken on D-Day is this Landing force and it was bigger than America you remember we had allies on beaches all along and those Nations went ashore knowing it was going to be ugly and they went ashore anyway to make a difference we haven’t come to that point in Ukraine yet the world has not chosen to make a difference in Ukraine the world is still making decisions hoping to keep this bottled up in Ukraine keep it there so that the rest of us can be safe that was not the kind of decisions and Leadership we had at D-Day in World War II we went all in and we went in there and did what we had to do knowing again that even if we won it was going to be ugly but we were willing to pay that price for freedom and democracy we have not made that decision yet in Ukraine we have not made that decision yet in Ukraine General Philip breed good to speak to you thank you very much for your time good to speak to you you’ve been watching Frontline for times radio my thanks to Lou Sykes our producer to support the work off front line hit the Subscribe button you can also listen to times radio throughout the day or read it at times.co.uk thanks for watching bye-bye

“There’s a certain amount of frustration in what we see in what Russia is doing with its troops. It’s throwing manpower away.”

Russia’s increasing loses show the Kremlin’s desperation as they fail to move the frontline ahead of US weapons arrival, Gen. Philip Breedlove tells Kate Gerbeau on Frontline.

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