Ukraine will destroy Putin’s combat power with UK weapons | Tim Cross

Ukraine will destroy Putin’s combat power with UK weapons | Tim Cross

we have in a way to allow them to strike deeper into Russia to try to disrupt their lines of communication a build up of any combat power that they’ve got um you know moving up from inside Russia and so on so in a way I don’t want to be unfair about this because I don’t know the whole story but in a way one could argue this is a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to how things have developed in Ukraine over the last few days or weeks Western policy appeared to shift today as Lord Cameron of chipping Norton the foreign secretary said Ukraine has the right to fire missiles supplied by the UK into Russia the Kremlin has accused Britain of a direct escalation of the war Dimitri Dimitri pesov the Kremlin spokesman described Lord Cameron’s remarks as a concerning development said there was a very dangerous trend of Western countries edging towards conflict direct conflict with Russia so I’ve been speaking about this with Major General Tim cross I asked him if he thought um how far this was a shift in Britain’s policy towards Ukraine I think it is a change um and I’m not sure whether we’re doing this in conjunction with the US and the other NATO allies or not um I sense what’s happening is that people are getting really quite worried about the situation in Ukraine and um in a way we can share some of the well blame not be might not be the right word but because we’ve been very reluctant and very reticent about giving Ukraine sufficient combat power in time in order for them to achieve for example the counter offensive last year or indeed to defend themselves over the last few months few weeks of this year um not just because America prevaricated over the budget allocation but in other ways too and we’ve taken the line thus far that we collectively didn’t want Ukraine to um attack too deeply into Russia and now clearly what it would seem anyway that that that is changed now why would that be the case well I think because uh we recognize we the UK NATO recognizes that Ukraine is on the back foot at the moment and we have in a way to allow them to strike deeper into Russia to try to disrupt their lines of communication a build up of any combat power that they’ve got um you know moving up from inside Russia and so on so in a way I don’t want to be unfair about this because I don’t know the whole story but in a way one could argue this is a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to how things have developed in Ukraine over the last few days or weeks what signals do you think we should look for from the French who sent the Ukrainian scalp missiles which could penetrate deeply into Russia and the US with the ATA CMS uh weapons as well um to work out whether or not our BR British position is aligned with theirs well I think we’d have to wait to see whether there’s any public announcement we know president macron has gone from in a way one end of the spectrum to the other and is’s far more bullish now than he was previously in uh in Ukraine I mean I think at the end of the day my own view is that Ukraine is fighting for its survival here it’s a major conflict with Russia Russia have been firing deep inside Ukraine and that there’s never been any reason in my mind why Ukraine should not be allowed to retaliate deeply into Russia um now there have been reasons why people have refrained from that Pol political reasons and concerns in terms of how Russia may or may not respond but I just think the time has come where Ukraine has got to be given a free hand to be able to retaliate and take the fight to the Russians in any way that they can yeah interesting to get the response from Chancellor Schultz of Germany who says it would be irresponsible to send tourist weapons to Kiev uh they’ve got a range of over 310 miles and uh we’ve heard today that the kremlin’s Dimitri pesov says David Cameron’s words represent a very dangerous Trend and a direct escalation of tension that could pose a danger to European security now he said this kind of thing before how seriously should Britain and the Americans and others take his warnings now well he has said it before and Putin and many others have commented on this and in one sense why would why wouldn’t they make these comments you know it’s been fairly relatively easy for Russia because they have take they have invaded Ukraine they have taken the fight into Ukraine deeply into Ukraine and the ukrainians have been very limited in their ability to respond they have done some things as in you know attacking the fleet the Russian Fleet in in the Black Sea and also uh attacking Crimea but you know Russia has has been in a relatively safe position over this so they won’t be best pleased if Ukraine does have the ability to strike deeply into Russia and disrupt those lines of communication and be able to engage in a much deeper battle than they have been able to achieve so far so my own view is frankly I’m not surprised the Russians would say this but I wouldn’t take it well I wouldn’t say I’ve dismiss it entirely because they may be able to ramp up you know in some sort of escalatory way but that’s something they’re going to have to live with and and and Ukraine you know need to be able to do this so Germany’s reaction I’m afraid is a recognition of the way that Germany is reacted to this almost from the very beginning they’ve been very reluctant uh to engage and positively support Ukraine initially they’ve been drawn into it very reluctantly further down the line and they are worried and and historically understandably maybe they are worried about how Russia will react to this but you cannot conduct a major conflict that Ukraine is going through by continually holding them back and stopping them from being able to take this fight to the Russians in my view yeah so in a way it’s inevitable that we’ got to where we are the question is really is this too late well yeah this is really interesting because um you know David Cameron Lord Cameron has promised uh3 billion pounds every year in military uh equipment for the ukrainians for as long as it takes um and the Americans the 60 billion that was locked in Congress is now on its way um but by the time it gets to to Ukraine will it be too late how much more damage might Russia have done indeed indeed and um you know what does that equipment look like the bottom line the bottom line is we and many others are running short of our own material stocks in order to support Ukraine we were very late in setting up our production lines our our military production lines as in you know defense companies and so forth while the Russians move to a move to a war production line in in terms of their uh procurement and so forth quite a long time ago so if Ukraine can hold out for a number of weeks if not months into this you know into this year it may well be that this does make a difference that the the uh the supplies coming from America and and elsewhere can continue to hold the line but I I mean and I don’t want to dismiss that that that is possible but that it is also possible that if Russia uh responds to this by ramping up their offensive operations by attempting to uh you know in increase their combat power quickly and and engage as they have been doing over these last few weeks in a serious offensive it’s not beyond the bounce of POS possibility that Ukraine could uh stumble that was Major General Tim cross retired uh talking to me earlier this evening now

“We have to allow Ukraine to strike deeper into Russia to try to disrupt their lines of communication.”

Lord Cameron allowing Ukraine to fire UK supplied weapons at Russia will help destroy their “build up of combat power”, says Major General Tim Cross.

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