Ukraine could use F-16s in major counteroffensive in 2025 | Lord Dannatt

Ukraine could use F-16s in major counteroffensive in 2025 | Lord Dannatt

and there is a chance that a major counter offensive with a beefed up set of Ukrainian forces perhaps with um f-16s available by that stage might have the chance of launching a new counter offensive in 2025 but you know this is turning out now to be a long war and let’s get the views now two distinguished former commanders uh welcome to Lord Dan General Lord danut former head of the British army hello to you Richard John good evening good to be with you again welcome to have you have you back and also welcome to re Admiral Chris Parry former NATO commander and director General at the defense Ministry hello to you Chris good evening hi can I come to you first uh Lord danet now what do you make of where we are with the war so far talk about a Russian push towards H going on I’ve seen interpretations that this is more about creating a buffer zone than a big push to se’s massive territory how do you weigh it up well I think it’s all of those things but I think it’s um it’s mostly a reflection of well what Anthony blinken was talking about he talked about a delay I think it’s a catastrophic delay that um the hold up in the US Congress has resulted in 6 months ago that 60 odd billion dollar package could have been available and frankly if it had been and the ukrainians have been able to have the artillery ammunition the air defense missiles the long-range cruise missiles and so on that they have needed then a lot of Ukrainian soldiers would not have died so um this um internal squabble that’s gone on for six months um in the US I think it’s actually verging on the pretty disgraceful but um well on blink for least turning up and saying that America will will will stand with um with Ukraine but as far as what’s going on the battlefield today yes the um the Russians are making the most of the opportunity that they’ve got yes they’re pushing um from the border uh in the KH area they’ll be pushing elsewhere they want to exploit the opportunity uh that the forcity of ammunition has provided them and the difficulties that it’s put the ukrainians in so um the next few weeks months until that supply of flow of supplies comes through is going to be critical now what about the war aims now I was listening to a one of your your your fellow former Army generals General Sheriff saying that the need now the mission now should be to defeat Russia in Ukraine to seize back all of that that Ukrainian territory is that possible do you think Lord D well Richard Cher has been saying that for quite some time and he thinks that uh that NATO should be much more offensiv minded as far as the war in in in Ukraine is concerned and I can understand where he’s coming from I think John if you reflect on the conversations that you and I having a year ago we were saying that when the Western uh main battle tanks armor personnel carriers self propelled artillery in sufficient numbers comes forward then the ukrainians have got an opportunity of launching a counter offensive which might give the possibility of pushing the Russians back out of Ukraine well that hasn’t happened and we know why it hasn’t happened and frankly I can’t see the prospect of that happening this year now if if the west and particularly Americans um and goodness Graces me it could be Americans under Trump um by the end of the year are still willing to stand for square with the ukrainians then there is a chance that a major counter offensive with a beefed up set of Ukrainian forces perhaps with um f-16s available by that stage might have the chance of launching a new counter offensive in 2025 but you know this is turning out now to be a long war and Grant shaps is right to say that it’s not up to us to pressure the ukrainians to think about a negotiated settlement but um I wouldn’t mind betting that that’s what’s going through Putin’s mind at the present moment he probably has come to accept that he can’t defeat Ukraine completely he knows that the West is standing for square with Ukraine so he may be trying to improve his position so that his bargaining position may be better but will zilinski ever negotiate I don’t think he will all right General Lord Dan thank you and it’s time you now to you if I can Admiral Chris parry and talk about SE power because the defense secretary has announced six new warships three are being built three as it were will be will be planned and he says they will be built as well will that sort of increase in Sea power add up to a significant increase in our capabilities at Sea uh Chris no um we’re simply playing catch up for all the capability that we’ve lost since uh 2010 um I think uh we’re seeing the number of holes being reduced I think the amount of capability uh restores some of what we had before uh and’ll go some way also to supporting the carrier groups that have been envisaged uh but what I’m concerned about is that a lot of these platforms are are designed to fight yesterday’s Wars and unless they have the systems and uh weapons and uh sensors that fit them for the next 20 years is uh they’re going to be obsolete before they come into service yeah well they do seem to my to my sort of Layman’s mind to have some some Weaponry which is which is all about the future laser guns according to the defense secretary I had no idea such things existed are we talking about weapons Chris which are recognizable from sci-fi fiction down the years uh well John I wrote a book in 2014 that said that directed energy uh would be the next thing I also said that it would be the counter to drones so I’m afraid to say that been there for quite some time again we’re playing catchup the Americans already have laser weapons at Sea they’re proven and you’ll see them proliferating I mean the key thing about them is if you look at the targets being U uh put down in the Red Sea the drones from the hoties and their missiles uh it’s taken you know a missile typically a standard missile from an American warship cost of over a million pounds each to take out a drone that costs about 40,000 so the cost ratios of prohibitive what uh director energy will give give us is uh taking those drones and those missiles out of the sky for less than $15 a shot well and that that really is the critical issue um but you know Direct Energy Yep they’re part of the future uh but we’ve got to talk about all sorts of other Technologies as well surface ships are going to be uniquely vulnerable uh in the next 10 to 15 years uh you consider that in five years for example nothing on the surface of this planet uh won’t be detectable either from space from its infrared signature or other just think of the data exhaust that we put out from all our electronic devices yeah so given the fact that everything is going to be detectable that means everything’s going to be Target targetable and another thing you will have heard about John is Hypersonic missiles that go up to seven times the speed of sound um and uh that’s going to change the face of warfare in future so what I’m hoping to see is these sh are what we would call Modular so that you essentially they they’re sort of empty hulls in many ways that you fit modular capabilities to yes like containerized systems so that you can do technology insertion at the speed of uh technology development and you know as Lord danet will know this is not not just about what’s happening at Sea uh you don’t want a huge tank formation in the middle of nowhere uh about to be targeted as we’ve seen in Ukraine um so we’ve got to couple that with a deceptive Technologies things that actually displace ships on people’s sensor devices and things like and cloting devices as well okay

“There is a chance that a major counteroffensive with a beefed up set of Ukrainian forces, perhaps with F-16s available by that stage.”

Ukraine could launch a new counter-offensive in 2025 with its new Western weapons, says Lord Dannatt, former head of the British Army.

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