‘Putin simply can’t do it’ as Kharkiv collapse leads to Russian ‘retreat’ in Crimea | Robert Fox

‘Putin simply can’t do it’ as Kharkiv collapse leads to Russian ‘retreat’ in Crimea | Robert Fox

it looks as if the ukrainians are succeeding in making the Russians think that Crimea the defense of Crimea air and land is of a cost on on the military budget of Munitions and reinforcement too far and that they are really psychologically in Retreat there hello and welcome to front line for times radio with M chabo and this time we’re joined by a defense editor with 55 years experience as a broadcaster and journalist Robert fox has reported from several conflicts including the Faulkland the first Gulf War and the bulans he’s worked for the BBC The Daily Telegraph and authored many books and he’s now the evening standards defense editor Robert Fox great to see you again welcome back to front line let’s start with the battlefield situation in Ukraine and in a recent interview with the Philadelphia inquir Inquirer Ukraine’s head of military intelligence said that the Frontline situation will remain difficult till at least mid July until Western military assistance arrives at scale he said there’d be no Armageddon those so where is the greatest threat in your view on the front line well I think you’ve had a very eloquent account from kirov budanov but kirov budanov is probably the most Adept around in psychological warfare he is absolutely brilliant at Now You See Me Now you don’t uh a friend of mine went into to be to interview him uh just a few weeks ago and he has a wonderful map which shows uh Russia as an imploding volcano this is very much budanov but he’s right I think there’s a lot more going on and it’s very interesting that he doesn’t want to say I mean he’s one of the real brains by the way behind um the uh the defense and the military initiatives in in in Ukraine he’s at least as important as the commander-in-chief C what I think that they’re W watching is an extraordinary play out of the reverse of what happened last year last year we saw um a real attempt at a summer offensive uh too comprehensive too wide by the Ukrainian forces and it ran out of steam we’re seeing the same from the Russians this time and it’s running out of steam but for very very different reasons and it’s it’s very strange I’ve just been reading an assessment by Mick Ryan the retired Australian General a very good military analyst and he comes up with one simple statistic Russia is using losing far more on the battlefield than it can possibly replace at least in the short term now mix view is that in the medium to long term that situation gets worse so what Putin is facing is a long drawn out war and a long drawn out stalemate both sides are readying for it on paper Ukraine is the weaker psychologically it’s the stronger so um accepting what Mick Ryan’s analysis is it would be right to say that Armageddon isn’t the Russian goal along the front line at the moment because simply it can’t do it anyway so is its goal to stretch the Ukrainian forces where it can absolutely uh that’s why the is much activity along the front we’ve had a real push around kiv which seems to have run down now uh Ukrainian forces are actually slowly gaining ground back Russia is slowly nibbling away and ground uh the further west you go a lot of activity uh around zapara a lot of activity out of adva and uh bakut the big Battlegrounds of of of last year and some pressure in the west which is of course as we know is critical on Theon front which is a very very damaged environment because they they they flooded the the the the the area there and where the dam burst uh it’s not good fighting uh ground so this is the grand War we’ve got to add two more things to it what’s going on with crier the Black Sea and the Sea of azof the Marine factor and what is happening in the air where there are very very big question marks but to go back to your piece is that um that there was a real effort over kiv I don’t think they ever wanted to take kiv they wanted to possibly bypass it invested it’s a very big place to bypass it’s the second largest connation uh in in in Ukraine now what has happened there is that the uh the American lifting restrictions on attacking into Russia has really helped they’re using long range medium to long range Weaponry which is really having an effect as far as I can see on the Russian logistical effort to resupply the front line so in fact the Russians in the kiv sector are going back but what they’re trying to do elsewhere and they’re playing the game but the most interesting one is the battle in and around and access to primere at the moment because by the latest reports and that is over the last few days that again the ukrainians are neutralizing access to Crimea across the the kch bridge and they’re not necessarily doing it with blowing things up although they’ve had a good go at that they’ve done it by computer hacking and the traffic control computer seem to have been very badly damaged there’s also a lot of activity in the sea of azof the inlet to the northeast of of Crimea when Russians have been launching from ships uh a scander missiles medium medium range cruise and uh uh uh ballistic missiles and that seems to be a Target area can I conclude because I think there’s a rather dramatic conclusion to this is that it looks as if the ukrainians are succeeding in making the Russians think that crier the defense of crime air and land is of a cost on on the military budget of Munitions and reinforcement too far and they are really psychologically in Retreat there so what do you see happening in the coming weeks with Crimea I think that the uh the ukrainians will keep going it’s where they’re showing that they’re the most at their most innovative they’ve been very successful with surface water drones and with undersea drones um I think we’ve been very COI in that there’s been a lot of British and Royal Navy assistance and training there there’ve been very successful Commando operations in an around crime crime so much so that they have really begun to write down as we seen with the strikes right in the center on the Old Port of Sebastapol and so on that they’ve managed to to really write down the air defenses quite a lot too so if the ukrainians are are delivering sorry to interrupt but if if the ukrainians are really delivering a psychological blow to to Russia over Crimea what do you think Russia will do do you think they’re going to decide it is it is not worth the cost of Defending it there’s two problems there one is to the military assessment which may say that we want to make our main effort elsewhere and we don’t want to divert too many naval and other and air resources to Crimea because it takes it away from from the main front which they still intend to push on but it’s also a fixation with Putin it was his first big gain when he annexed a Crimea and sort of you know Crimea is his sort of maruda Cal you know written on my heart it seems that and it’s go one cannot see Putin and it’s not appeared in any of his rather strange offers for uh peace negotiations one cannot see it him ever conceding the possibility of giving up uh CRI crime if he does by the way it means he’s also lost the Black Sea um so it’s it’s a really difficult one and it’s where I think the Ukrainian forces can balance their very obvious weakness which is in Manpower above all they’re finding it very difficult to conscript it’s going badly a lot of people are dodging um the the forces on the front line are exhausted but my friend Luke Harding of the Guardian who’s just come back from the front in the cariv sector and he said as happens often in these things morale gets higher as you get closer to the fight curiously they know it’s very difficult they know that they’re outgunned by the Russians at the moment but but they’re they’re still doing uh in Ingenuity that is the point about doing the Ingenuity piece is that the ukrainians seem to be tactically so much more Innovative than the Russians although the Russians have adapted in very big and important areas particularly electronic warfare so on that subject of the battlefield shortages that Ukraine is suffering um it’s according to the the Associated Press has done a report saying that they’ve extended the dra the draft uh to include prisoners some 3,000 already been released on parole and apparently 27,000 could be eligible but no convicted rapists it says or those who’ve murdered two or more I mean what do you think of this this move desperate moves I mean they they’ve got to do something they know that because a lot have gone into hiding a lot of young men have have escaped the country they get temperamentally not suited I me it’s such a an interesting and strange War because I mean Luke gave uh at a presentation this week uh such a graphic account last week a graphic account of the Battlefront and one minute he was talking World War II and World War I genuine trench warfare revets and and so forth and the next minute it’s all drones it’s all electronic warfare and he had seen he’d seen on the monitors that the Russians are finding it as would in the this happened with the ukrainians last year you cannot move tanks and um armored personnel carriers let alone dismounted infantry across open ground in any shape or form if there is a significant air and drone presence and that’s what Ukraine has really got to build up and that’s where the allies and particularly the Americans have been neglectful in their onoff approach to supporting it but the f-16s are arising soon there’s not nearly enough of them but it could change the quality of the air battle which is critical let’s just talk about the Glide bombs because president zalinski has renewed calls for more air defenses long range weapons he says um they’ve been targeted by more than 800 guided aerial bombs in a week and that this U he wants the US position to shift to allow Ukraine to strike deeper into Russia to hit the aerodromes where those planes carrying those Glide bombs land uh I mean do you think that is likely to happen anytime soon at the moment they can reach perhaps with drones but what he really wants is a longrange missiles to strike them I think it they’ve got the long range missiles or they could arrive very soon uh the problem is bidenisms embarrassment he’s got to play on that but actually they’ve got smart people yeah I I find this absolutely lud and I think you know the second guessing by the American commanders the American advice strategic and tactical advice advice has been absolutely excellent but the Strategic when it becomes mil pole military political has been ludicrous you don’t run Wars like this it’s you know you you could do this up to a point with a really good weapon but by the way you’ll have one hand tied behind your back it’s it’s it’s been and it’s been pointed out to the Americans by their allies not least the Brits and the French and I should think the nordics if you are trying to restrain things at the moment because you don’t want to provoke Putin you’re actually lying laying in store possibly an even worse and tougher battle in in the future and by the way uh this is where I disagree with a lot of the commentators I don’t think it’s going to change that much with Trump I think Trump will try and change it and I think his military the overwhelming military advice and there are things that his allies can say to him that you know that you we’re not going to play at all your own way you’ve got to come into the middle you’ve got to support us I mean what Trump trump doesn’t know or or refuses to know I’m sure he does know by the way is just the effort that that powers like the poles the fins the nordics and the Brits and the French have really put in they put a lot of people in to help help in Ukraine in and around Ukraine and I think that has to be said now they’re not fighting but they’re advising they’re supplying they’re they’re looking at plans as much as the ukrainians will let them look at the plans they didn’t let them look enough at the plans last year by the way and that was a problem because they’ have said no no no but I think that that um Trump against his better in Instinct if he does become president again in November will have to be more Collective will’ll have to be more uh he will he will need allies because he needs allies above all for the Pacific for the Target date of 2027 and Chi and China and possibly you know the date to to really make a military effort on Taiwan and America can’t do that alone it really need needs friends right across the world um Robert let’s talk about um Russia’s new Security deal with North Korea because I know you’ve written about it it included a deal to send engineering and construction troops uh to Russian occupied parts of Ukraine what does this tell us about in turn about Russia’s Manpower problem it’s it’s it’s it’s terrible and there are terrible reports uh coming out from the occupied areas of of the donbass uh just in the last few days since the North Korea visit where they’re they’re getting civilians where they’re threatening them with taking all rights access to medical facilities away you’ve got to have a Russian passport you’ve got to have it seems in cases that they’re transporting particularly children of course as we know uh back into Russia it’s a mess by by all accounts that you discount some of this to o obviously people like budanov who we’ve mentioned the intelligence Chief effectively the number two in the cor uh in in kiev’s forces in the order of battle of o o of Ukraine they’re making the most of it but the reports from inside are really pretty Dreadful they’re having a dreadful time in in the occupi in in the occupied dumbass hence your point about military uh personnel and I think other Personnel I think that what um Putin was wanting I think probably tens of thousands of North Korean laborers to go in and help out because it isn’t just the security on the Ukrainian front where he boasted involved in the Ukrainian campaign there are now three4 of a million but they need a lot for the security in the enormous itated stretched out security problem that they’ve got going right across deep Russia particularly as they face the borders with China it’s not that they’re facing confrontation but they are facing civil unrest and disorder in a in a lot of these places in in in the in in the Deep step and I think that that’s what they’re saying they need lifters they need logisticians they need lowlevel security guards and I think that it was so clear that they trumpeted the big deal uh with with pongyang when he went to visit Kim Jong-un that was all known about we knew they were getting weapons they knew they were talking about uh Mutual defense agreements and they were very clear to say this is only for defensive and not offensive uh uh uh purposes and then you got these Whispers you got these unofficial account oh they’re talking about Labor they’re talking about getting people in which I think didn’t please the Chinese too much too you described that security agreement as a dance of the desperate um but for those who do get get alarmed when Russia does its nuclear saber rattling how advanced do you think North Korea’s program is because the fear is is the in needing help from North Korea how far will President Putin go in helping North Korea’s nuclear program quite a lot I think um and I think I think that that that that’s what Kim wanted uh because they have made advances but have you looked at the latest um firings of of of missiles they not be going too well from from North Korea um there there is something Mega I mean something megalomaniac about um uh Kim’s posturing and they they do want um these Global missiles they they want technology from China and I think China by the way been very careful about it but very very long range missiles now if they get into bed with Russia on that I think that that is extremely worrying we’ve heard a lot um in the propaganda about the hypersonics um the kinal Miss for instance it hasn’t been that effective in Ukraine that’s the kind of thing that they’ll be working on together because it is a main effort by the uh North Korean uh arms industry I just don’t think as I said I just want to add it as the footnote and it’s not a little footnote I don’t think China can be too keen on all this sort of the dance of the death desate between the between th th those two because China has a very clear strategy and it’s much more focused in some ways even than Putin because Putin drifts off into fantasy with his strategic thinking and planning at sometime China really does know what it wants and it doesn’t want that strategic view of the world that strategic plan upset by loonies frankly tell me about U about belus um because I mean its defense Ministry is now claiming that Ukraine is reinforcing its trop presence along its border with Belarus something of course that Ukraine dismisses how do you see what’s going on here I mean they they’re also you know saber rattling with their potential use of tactical nuclear weapons Etc even if they have them um I mean is this part of Russia’s extended information campaign do you think that them saying this or is it is it preparations potentially for a false flag operation it’s been a flaky Ally Belarus but I think they like having it there because in a way bellarus and now Georgia is what Putin uh really wanted Ukraine to do under Victor yanukovich remember him who was out oued in in in 2014 it was to be a hollowed out semi-independent satellite that effectively is what bellarus has become very poor in a terrible mess quite physically and we should not forget chab bill here where Dreadful things have have been going on and Dreadful things happened there at the very beginning of the invasion of Ukraine which has just come to the four they stationed troops there and we’ll talk about that in a minute and some of them were probably just dead now from from from from radiation they’re doing the same in Georgia by the way with this this pro- Russian stance anti-foreigner anti- NGO it’s exactly what um he had hoped yanukovich would do turning Ukraine to Greater dependence on Moscow instead of uh being forced by by vote to associate closely to more closely to the EU as it was by that time your point about bellus that bellus is saying that it’s usually quite it’s usually quite the reverse um the idea that zalinski is going to invade belus but what they’re going to make damn sure and it’s very clever again and this must be the thinking of syi who um uh who is now the commander-in-chief in in in um in Ukraine who was very adroit in the defense of Kiev which was masterly and it was really wonderful improvisation they knew roughly what they had to do but the Improv The Improv in the first six weeks of the war is really is is is going to be a textbook studied for ages now what CI and budanov and zinski and their team must be saying for God’s sake we mustn’t be open to a sudden attack just walking across open ground coming in from bellus in the way that they did in kiv earlier this year where they came round the defenses and there wasn’t enough there wasn’t there weren’t enough defensive forces remember the Russian concept of operations is masarov where you you it’s deception gross deception um in a pure tactical military way you you probe here you push there you pull back you move there you punch and you faint you know you sting like a butterfly or float like a bee no it’s float like a butterfly sting like a bee mam Muhammad Al Ali said and they thought psychologically you see this is where gasimov got the the the Russian Commander got his name well oh did it brilliantly with the Invasion the infiltration of the little green men in in Crimea this is where these people like Zushi before CI they were schooled in Soviet Doctrine so they are watching watching the deception game and I think that they must worry there are three centers that that Putin has been open that he wants to attack karv Odessa KV and they say they are saying to themselves we won’t take our eye off the ball with the defense of Kev and that’s why they will reinforce the border and they hope to Rattle uh uh um the the the the the the regime there which is not as steady as it looks and I said this reporting that’s come out lately is what happened to those troops they stationed forward troops it was it was a forward um uh uh a forward mobilization base in chabil and they went even into the Red Zone which is polluted and reports have been reaching reaching me in the last week that some of those soldiers there are now dead from radiation there’s going to be so much uh that comes out still to come on the reporting of the consequences of this war um in the years to come I’m sure of that um let’s just talk about um briefly about the French parliamentary elections because the first round of voting puts Marine Le Pen’s populist right National within within touching distance of power for the first time now a lot of it if her party I mean it’s not it’s not not one yet but if her party wins a majority if Trump is president again with Kremlin friendly Victor Orban of Hungary now presiding over the EU presidency who can Ukraine count on yes the new the new Secretary General of NATO he here I about to say pdon the P he’s a fox Mark R 57 he he said oh we you I’ve had it with r he never did do that he’s very laidback he is the onlooker who watches the game before he acts he he will be very good he won’t be as in your face as the very forceful Scandinavians like ratson and particularly stoltenberg have been we know he knows how to work around people like fito Robert fito who he squared away for his candidature and Victor or Orban and I think that Mark will see his role um as really pulling NATO together as a credible Alliance and what he will be telling the Europeans is that you’ve got to be really credible in a way to turn down um regalo 5 on the macron rhetoric won’t be a bad thing at all he’s been a touch a Napoleon e uh I don’t think it you know this strutting uh young figure telling Europe what to do and he did see himself as the leader of the EU pillar of European security we won’t have that now the European EU security depends on NATO and that will be absolutely clear and somebody like Mark Rutter understands that very well because he was very cautious about Ukraine at first and then through absolutely the weight of the Dutch government and even the new one that’s just come in as we are speaking I don’t think it will pull back from support for Ukraine after all they’ve been on the front foot in supplying the f-16s I think that um that uh the French situation uh is not as bad as people make it out to be I think part of the real problem which will drive people nuts dealing with them is that French politics for the rest of the macron presidency will be quite incoherent because I doubt if um Leen and badela will get a majority gosh we’re waiting till next Sunday and we’ll and we’ll know and the awful thing is forgive me my Italian friends but they’re going to end up with an Italian solution the Italian solution would go like this that they have frequently had non-majoritarian governments this means and they may well face a similar situation though from a different direction in the Netherlands where a government cannot stick to a program but has to put it happens with minority government each measure each time and can stand and fall by that um and I think that that’s why there will be a cohabitation but but it’ll be a cohabitation of the of of the weak in France and um it’s going to be very difficult because one of the things that has not really come to the four about macron’s difficulties is how in debt they are I mean he could talk we’ve got to talk a big fight and it’s the same with the Brits and the Germans the Germans put a 100 billion um euro into defense but they’re all running out of money now and this is simply not good enough the UK budget as we speak that the the Chiefs are being told to consider a billion pounds worth of cuts in order to facilitate this guarantee year after year three billion for for Ukraine it’s pretty powerless at the moment Putin will have a field day on the propaganda front with all of this Sor will and we’re speaking um Robert a we a week before NATO’s 75th Anniversary Summit um Mark Rutter who you’ve already talked at length about but in his final speech he did urge support for Ukraine at the summit what what do you think is the best outcome next week for Ukraine because it needs a lot more than just warm words doesn’t it yes and I hope that they don’t go into the tepid bath of warm Words which they generally do on these occasions I think the real work has to be done behind the scenes and the real work has to be done between between the Twin Towers sorry the twin pillars of Brussels it has to be done between the EU and NATO it sounds mad to say this uh uh uh two and a half years into the war in Ukraine they need a strategic plan for Ukraine it’s been hand to mouth oh Biden says we can’t do that this week and it’s been all over the place one feels very sorry for the ukrainians they’ve going to say we need to do this this and this to hold the line we need to do this this and this to bring the military uh situation to a culminating point where the Russians realize they can go no further and we need to do this this and these this to stabilize and ensure a dynamic future for Ukraine and and at the moment what’s being offered from Russia that you you will be we’ll get rid of the government uh well I’m prepared to have peace Putin was saying we’ll get rid of the government we don’t want zinski neo- Nazi rubbish and um we we want uh um uh we want a bit more territory and we want a guarantee forever that you won’t join NATO or possibly even the EU he has no idea how Sovereign Nations operate in that way because he is just fixed on Putin Russia do you think there’s any chance having do you think there’s any chance of having this strategic plan anytime soon that you talk of I think it’s going to depend on somebody like Mark rter some really shrewd I old bird he’s not an old bird he is really quite young I think you get bright people behind the scenes in small teams doing it these sort of 60 70 Nation peace possible conferences in Switzerland you get a bit of money out of it but generally it’s a lot more bureaucracy it’s vapid and that’s the sort of thing that’s got to stop because we’ve got actual crisis proliferating and how they will go what will happen look at the Synergy of Georgia say mova more activity in the Balkans are they going to do something something provocative out of the cola peninsula in the north the Russians and you’ve got Gaza and Lebanon as well this is what they’ve got to take on board and the other thing is where they’ve got to accept the reality is that um that it’s rather like the boasts in the British uh defense papers like the integrated review we’re a global power no the alliance stops being being local now it has Global interests and will need to have Global reaching there are things that it will have to do for instance I’m talking about NATO now the reinforcement of Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean now it’s being directly threatened by a ballistic missile attack from Iran and the alliance of disruption Iran North Korea throw in a few others Russia China and that’s what it’s got to address it can’t look back on 75 years of maintaining glor ious piece in the Euro Atlantic area from from the Atlantic to the eurals as it said no it goes far more and it goes above and below it goes into space it goes into cyberspace and the sub Aqua domain is absolutely vital now but it’s got to be practical rather than rhetorical Robert Fox I think you just booked yourself for another 10 conversations with me in future it’s been so great talking to you thank you so much for your time thank you’ve been watching Frontline for times radio with me K chabo my thanks to our producers today Louis syes and Morgan berdick and for you for watching if you’d like to support us you can subscribe now or you can listen to times radio for the latest news and in-depth analysis or go to the times.co.uk for now though thanks for watching bye-bye

“the Ukrainians are succeeding in making the Russians think that Crimea, the defence of Crimea, air and land, is a cost…too far.’

Russian offensive collapse north of Kharkiv has caused stagnation across Putin’s offensive as Ukraine’s attacks on Crimea deepen, Robert Fox tells Kate Gerbeau on Frontline.

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