Ukraine intensifies strikes on Russia as South Korea considers sending arms | Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan

Ukraine intensifies strikes on Russia as South Korea considers sending arms | Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan

ukrainians undertaking the operations to shape the environment for the entry of f-16s we’ve seen over the last couple of months in particular the ukrainians are hitting Russian air defense missile sites very hard uh whether you know it was even the S500 site in Crimea recently but S400 s300 sites have really taken a beating in the last couple months as well as their Air Command and control aircraft so the ukrainians are doing everything they can to let the playing field for when these f16s and their Western weapons arrive hello and welcome to front line for times radio I’m James Hansen and today we’re talking about the latest on the war in Ukraine and I’m delighted to be joined by Major General Mick Ryan who served for 35 years in the Australian Army commanding troops in East teamour Iraq and Afghanistan he’s also an author strategist and keynote speaker General Ryan always a pleasure welcome back to front line Thanks James great to be with you again I wanted to get your assessment first of all of what we seem to be seeing on the front line currently Russia appears to be intensifying their offensive operation in in denet O blast decreasing the rate of attacking in Northern harv o blast does that suggest you that the recent offensive in the Northeast in in hariv was primarily designed to fix and distract Ukrainian forces I think that was certainly a key objective of the HEV offensive but I don’t think it was the only one clearly Putin felt a domestic imperative given the two attacks into the belgorod region that the ukrainians had undertaken in the last year so he felt some domestic pressure there to be seen to be doing something about that and he had forecast the establishment of the buffer zone there so I do think that was also an imperative but I think the main military aim was to try and draw off Ukrainian reserves so that the Russians could focus on their main effort which is these offensives in the east the buffer zone theory is an interesting one because Ukraine has still been able to strike Targets in belgrad even whilst Russia have been having this offensive in in harv so does that really hold up not really but at least Putin can say to he’s people he’s trying to do something about it um you know at the end of the day when you have a neighbor that is right next door you don’t have any kind of air or sea Gap it’s very hard to totally close down that border as the Russians have of course the US continues to prohibit Ukrainian forces from Strike it legitimate military Targets in Russian territory within range of haar’s rocket launches they have eased off some of their restrictions but but how much of a hindrance does that remain the fact that you know some would say Ukraine are fighting with one hand tied behind their back no they they definitely are fighting with one hand tied behind their back this restriction on how farther ukrainians can Target their atacam missiles from high Mar’s launchers inside Russian territory and I think it’s about 100 km at the moment well the Russians just go fine we’ll put our headquarters and airfields 150 km away um you know at the end of the day Ukraine needs to be able to strike into Russia where the key targets are regardless how far that is they are not talking about marching on Moscow they’re not talking about marching on St Petersburg they just want to be able to hit military targets that launch aircraft that strike Ukraine why is the US so reluctant though to to allow them to strike such targets I mean they’ve eased off a bit as we’ve discussed but they are still being quite restrictive why do you think that is does this go back to this fear of escalation yeah I think so I mean all the way through this war we’ve seen this fear of escalation you know we can’t give the Ukrainian self-propelled artillery that’ll be escalatory okay let’s give it to them and we’ve seen it with tanks we’ve seen it with f-16s we’ve seen it with high Mars um you know I just think at every step there’s been this nervousness at the Strategic level now of course as a superpower you always have to think about another country potentially using nuclear weapons but the escalatory risk of these weapons being used to strike uh military bases uh within Russia is is very minimal indeed and they should be allowed to do it and how do you assess the risk of Putin using tactical nuclear weapons uh it’s never zero because he has them uh but I think it’s a very low possibility and at the end of the day the one question Putin has to ask his military commanders in thinking about this is would the use of tactical nuclear weapons fundamentally change the situation on the ground in Ukraine if they can’t give him a definitive yes and they cannot um it would be very very unlikely indeed that he’d want to use them because the Strategic and political costs are very very profail well it might fundamentally change the situation on the ground but not in his favor because it might actually provoke a fullscale war with NATO and actually having Nat troops on the ground in Ukraine that’s right and these are part of the profound you know impacts of the use of nuclear weapons not just with NATO there’s a massive environmental cost there’ be a cost to his own people I mean a lot of the Fallout would blow back over Russia and it may just you know uh fix some of those mobilization or Personnel problems Ukraine’s having because anyone who had doubts about joining the Ukrainian would no longer have those doubts but it’s interesting the the impact of the continued restrictions that the US are putting on on Ukraine in terms of the use of its weapons I mean according to the institute for the study of War Russian air defenses will reduce the effectiveness of Ukrainian f-16s if the US does not allow Ukrainian forces to use attacks to destroy Russian air defense systems in Russian territory I mean as you mentioned general you know there’s been this frustrating pattern throughout this conflict of Ukraine requesting something with whether it’s anti-tank missiles whether it’s the f-16s or whatever finally being granted them and a lot of people saying well if only Ukraine’s allies were one step ahead as opposed to one step behind Ukraine would be in a fundamentally better position at the moment no I think that’s the case you know I think the end of 2022 will be a great case study of this in particular I mean we rung our hands over the provision of things like tanks in the back half of 2022 and and other military materials and just when the ukrainians the Russians on the back foot they we kind of uh took their boot our boot off the Russians neck and they were able to entrench in southern Ukraine and the rest is kind of History I think there’s a lot to learn from a strategic decision making in this war in NATO and I would Hazard a guess that the Chinese are watching very closely at the kind of red lines the Western governments impose on themselves during war time just hypothetically and I appreciate counterfactual are of course you know have their own flaws but what where do you think we would have been now had we treated things differently at the end of 2022 yeah I mean I we could be in the exactly the same place right but you know it’s interesting to speculate that you know potentially the ukrainians might have been able to continue harrowing the Russians after they withdrew from hon now that’s highly speculative because the Russians actually withdrew in pretty good order out of house on and uh you know I think the r the ukrainians would have had a pretty hard time of it but it’s interesting to speculate that you know they might have been forced been able to force the Russians into a much smaller part of their territory in southern Ukraine we’ll never know talking of the the f-16s we’re still waiting for them to be deployed when do you think that might happen and how much of a difference will they make well I think what we’re seeing at the moment is ukrainians undertaking the operations to shape the environment for the entry f-16s we’ve seen over the last couple of months in particular the ukrainians are hitting Russian air defense missile sites very hard uh whether you know it was even the S500 site in Crimea recently but S400 s300 sites have really taken a beating in the last couple months as well as their Air Command and control aircraft so the ukrainians are doing everything they can to level the playing field for when these f-16s and their Western weapons AR I mean there’s been so much hype around the f-16s is there a danger that we are overhyping them as such that you know people talk about them almost as a gamechanging weapon but is there such a thing in the context of this war as a gamechanging weapon I think there’s such a thing as a gamechanging weapon um you know I think High Mars did that um but the a gamechanging weapon is very different to a silver bullet that can you know uh turn the war and win the war all by itself s those kind of weapons just don’t exist they never have and we do need to be careful about overhyping these things I mean they will clearly improve the performance of the Ukrainian Air Force which will help it to support the Ukrainian military on the ground but are f-16s going to win the war for Ukraine no they are not and even the ukrainians don’t believe that so if you were General zi and you had to compile almost a military shopping list at the moment what would be on it well the first thing would be to be able to recruit as many people as I I need for the front line I mean I think that’s a really first order issue for the ukrainians I mean the mobilization debate went on for way too long now they’ve got the legislation they’ve wanted but they still need to be able to recruit people for that I think that’s still going to be an issue that would be Priority One uh the second priority is an assured supply of Munitions from the West it’s great to have this uh reestablished flow from the US and the Step Up from Europe but the last thing the ukrainians would want is to step off on an offensive in early 2025 only defined that that’s all the ammunition they’ve got for the rest of the year because the Congress is again debating about another package to Ukraine so I think that would be uh number two and then three would just be really expanding the defense industrial base in Ukraine so it can produce its own Munitions its own drones it can produce its own armored vehicles maintain the armored vehicles that it’s had so you know my sense is they’ be the big three uh for General cerski at the moment uh but you know he’s probably got a 100 priorities at the moment trying to balance them all he’s got a very difficult job and the defense industrial base I mean one of the things we discuss a lot on the front line is a general frustration that Europe not so much the us but certainly Europe has been so slow to ramp up its military production that you know we’ve been supporting Ukraine now for more than two years and yet you know the West defense industrial base just hasn’t kept pace no I think that’s a that’s a fair criticism uh we have been slow to turn but to be fair I think Europe has turned probably hasn’t uh gained speed out of that turn just yet uh but certainly you’ve seen a lot of countries step up their defense spending step up the amount of support they’re providing to Ukraine um and you know you’ve seen the Americans expand their capacity you know they’ve more than quadrupled artillery production what we need to do across the board in Europe in uh the united states and countries like Australia and Japan is Step Up production of things like Precision Munitions of drones of counterd drone Munitions and these kind of things we’re not there yet we’re on a journey there uh the question is can we do it fast enough the point about drones is fascinating because obviously ever since the the fall scale Invasion Ukraine have been really really Innovative in how they’ve used commercial drones essentially in a battlefield context but do you think in a way that’s almost you know some in the west have maybe taken that for granted and thought well they’ll be all right they can use these lowc cost drones that they’ve that they’ve adapted whereas actually yeah that they’re doing very well but with a weapon with many limitations well I think the ukrainians are kind of stolen a march on a lot of Western countries we’ve seen this um drone Warfare coming for some time now I think both the ukrainians and Russians are in this very sophisticated adaptation battle to continue developing a whole range of different drone classes not just in the air but on the ground and at Sea and these things will have application in every war moving forward now it will depend on geography it’ll depend on terrain the Western Pacific is very different to Ukraine so it’ll need different drone classes but even in the Western Pacific there’s big bits of land where these kind of things will be useful uh I just wanted to get your response General to some comments made by the leader of the right-wing Reform Party in the UK the other day Nigel farage I’m not sure whether he’s a figure you’re familiar with in Australia but he’s a big figure over here a big Ally of Donald Trump shares similar politics and talking about the war he said that the West had provoked the war in Ukraine by allowing the EU and NATO to expand Too Far East and in response president zalinski has said farage and others have been infected with the Putin virus what do you make of such comments when you hear words on that from Nigel farage but from other Western politicians yeah I mean they they’re speaking uh directly from the Russian uh playlist to be quite Frank these are all talking points from Russia you hear them rolled out in other countries around the world from politicians who aren’t giving this a lot of thought I mean the facts are that Ukraine in 1991 voted for its independence uh it was overwhelming that they did so and ever since then they’ve been working on the EU and NATO which is their right as a Sovereign Nation uh if that is provocative to authoritarian States who don’t want to see an example of a healthy prosperous and vibrant democracy on their borders well uh that isn’t our fault that’s the authoritarian fault so this uh was a very misguided comment it’s wrong uh factually and quite frankly it’s morally questionable to make these kind of statements as well I think uh from someone who wants to be the leader of a democracy how much of a concern is it that we are seeing potentially a rise in political parties in the west mainstream political parties who are skeptical about supporting Ukraine we’ve got upcoming parliamentary elections in France the populist National rally party who traditionally have been more sympathetic towards Russia are expected to do very well I mentioned Nigel farage potentially doing well in the UK and obviously Donald Trump we wait to see what happens in November how much for concern is that that maybe in a year’s time you know the political leadership in the west that so far has been very steadfast in support for Ukraine could look very different no absolutely it could um you it will really depend on uh the the will of the voters at the end of the day I mean they get the politicians they vote for there’s clearly a mood amongst a proportion of the electorate in many countries where people purely want to focus on tackling things like inflation cost of living house rent cost of groceries and these kind that that’s a natural thing uh but at the end of the day uh wealthy countries democracies need to focus Beyond just their own needs because democracies exist within a network and that entire network has to be healthy and if one democracy is in Peril all democracy is in Peril we can’t afford not to protect Ukraine to support Ukraine or any other countries that come under threat like Taiwan and if democracies exist in nwork what we’ve seen in last week is that autocracy increasingly Opera in a network as well obviously we’ve had Vladimir Putin’s trip to to North Korea to visit Kim Jong-un what did you make of that um you know it says to me when you’ve got to make friends with someone like the leader of North Korea things aren’t going terribly well for you that’s not a sign of strategic success to be quite Frank um that you have to be friendly with that kind of regime with that kind of awful repulsive leadership um but at the end of the day as Freedom houses found over the last few days democ last few years democracy is in Decline there are more countries with more authoritarian Tendencies but the big four of Russia China North Korea and Iran represent an authoritarian quad uh they may not have a formal onon or Alliance but they certainly have a shared worldview which is to push back and collapse the uh the global Arrangements that have been in place since the end of the second world war that you know your predecessors and mine fought very hard to establish and fought very hard to sustain over the last 70 years do you think it was a strategic mistake almost or a strategic blunder from Putin to to go to North Korea and make such a play of that because you know there’s now talk of South Korea arming Ukraine and doing more to support Ukraine so in that sense is it a strategic error from Putin I think so but Putin’s never been a strategist he’s an opportunist not a strategist and he’s really kicked himself in the pants with this North Korea Arrangement because as much as North Korea might provide the support that South Korea could provide to Ukraine is even more important um they are the producer of large numbers of modern Weapons Systems from tanks to artillery to Munitions in quantities that no Western Nation comes anywhere near so I think this is a very significant strategic misstep from PU um and you know I think it could well hurt him over the next year or so and the Munitions that that North Korea is able to provide to Russia for use in Ukraine how effective are they yeah I mean there’s a lot of talk about quality at the end of the day most of them work and that’s all you need they they’re not Precision Munitions by and large they’re the kind of Munitions you need for artillery regiments that you uh you know the kind of ballistic missiles that the Russians don’t really care if their circular error probabilities larger I mean the Russians don’t care about civilian casualties so they do the job but I would sense too that the Russians are probably providing technical assistance to the North Korea and intelligence feedback to improve the quality of their Munitions and that could well be part of the feedback or at least the Russian part of this deal be interesting to see what else the Russians are providing I wanted to ask you General you you wrote an article recently about so-called turtle tanks um just tell us a bit about and what are they first of all yeah we started seeing these things in April they’re basically a um an armored vehicle mostly tanks but other forms of armored vehicles that have these massive uh turtle shell like uh metal enclosures on top and we’ve seen subsequent Generations at electronic warfare counter measures mine rollers uh cages over the the the metallic exterior they have several missions uh they’re used to basically cross that d dangerous Zone be between uh your assembly areas and the forward line of enemy troops from a Russian perspective they’re used to carry Uh Russian troops they’re used to breach uh Ukrainian electronic networks they’re used to uh ensure that drones can’t take out other armored vehicles so I think what we’re seeing is the Russians experiment with a few Mission sets in these turtle tanks I think the turtle tanks themselves are an evolutionary dead end but they’re experimenting with some functions that we might see distributed among other vehicles and other units on the battlefield in future that’s interesting what what kind of functions do you think could be picked up by the by the units well I think a more distributed and automated approach to countering Ukrainian drones you know fpvs are clearly a very dangerous threat to the Russians I think more protected means of getting troops across uh you know from your line departure into the forward troops of the adversary obstacle clearance clearly that is a big deal whether it’s mind detection and clearance or other kinds of obstacles so there’s a few different functions here that we might imagine that could be distributed with uncrewed ground vehicles and and and other vehicles in future you say it’s in the grandest sense an Innovative dead end how much Innovation are we seeing in tank warfare at the moment I mean if you look at you know the second world war for instance there was huge Innovation and huge developments over the course of that war how how much Innovation are we seeing currently I think we’re seeing a lot of innovation from both sides um you know we only see a small proportion of the battlefield sometimes I feel like we’re looking at it through a straw um but you know I think with tanks you’re not seeing Mass tank warfare we haven’t for some time but we are seeing tanks used for indirect fire support and these kind of things you know they’re constantly on the Move they’re used in small groups um you know what we saw in the Gulf War in 1991 or in the Battle of alamain or in Western Europe just isn’t happening so we are seeing innovation in tactics but at the end of the day at the moment the defense is the stronger part of war and I think both sides are really struggling to come up with the Innovative new tactics to get back on the offense you can’t win the war you can’t win any War by staying on the defense permanently you need some kind of offensive capability at attack IAL or operational strategic level and I think both sides are kind of struggling to come up with a new approach to that just to go back something you mentioned earlier General you talked about the the issue of mobilization and and the need from a Ukrainian perspective just for more boots on the ground do you think we will see I mean zalinsky already earlier this year lower the age of conscription from 27 to 25 you know we’ve talked about this a lot of Frontline people saying well well fine but why only 25 why can’t it be younger still well I think what you have to do uh when you have that conversation is have a look at the Ukrainian demographic tree uh unfortunately you know at the end of the Cold War there was a massive decrease in birth rates in many countries including Ukraine so what that means if you have a look at the Ukrainian demographic tree at the moment that that those groups between 15 and 30 are very very small indeed particularly if you compare them to say Britain or Australia or America it’s it’s a concave part of their tree so they don’t have large numbers of people in this age group uh on top of that you know Ukraine lost about 10% of its population as refugees at the start of the war they’ve also lost a huge number of casualties they need to be able to keep their population growing postwar so they’re balancing off all these considerations as part of the national demography now and in the future so when you have a look at it from that perspective I think these kind of age limitations do make a lot of sense but you’ve really got to have a look at Ukrainian demogra demography for it to make sense and morale presumably is a serious concern as well because throughout this conflict you know we’ve seen a highly motivated Ukrainian forces and yet you know now we’ve got some stories and they may be exacerbated but but you know you hear stories of deserters or draft Dodgers or whatever and the narrative around Russia making progress in the Northeast and the the Ukrainian counter offensive having stalled is that a big concern uh it’s part of every war I mean this is nothing new to be quite Frank even the greatest Generation uh as it fought its way through the Hedge through to Berlin and uh across the Pacific towards Tokyo they still had malingerers and deserters and this kind of behavior going on it’s just part of any military organization in any country in peace and War I mean clearly you don’t want too much of it and good leadership uh good direction is part of avoiding it but at the end of the day there’s always going to be a proportion of your force and a proportion of your population in any country that is going to engage in this behavior when do you think we may see a fresh Ukrainian counter offensive yeah I’ve been pondering this a lot I I don’t know that we’ll see it this year I mean I think there’s a lot of reconstitution going on I think there’s a lot of leading the Russians to occur yet this year um and you know at the end of the day Russian brigades on the front line are are really having a tough time with getting sufficient people and dealing with these Russian offensives I think at some point we’ll see this Russian offensive that’s been going on for months now culminate they’ve still got a little while to go there may be opportunities there for limited offensive operations but any large scale offensive operation I just can’t see that happening uh you know for at least six months potentially next year but you know there’s a whole lot of ammunition to sort out there’s a whole lot of people to recruit and there’s a whole lot of tactics to fix up so you can successfully undertake offensive operations Major General Mick Ryan it’s always a pleasure thank you so much for joining us today on front line Thanks James great to talk to you

Ukrainian shaping operations have intensified as key Russian targets and air defences are struck to make way for F-16’s and other Western weapons, Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan tells Frontline

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