Brave Ukraine halts Russia in Kharkiv as Kyiv conscripts youth to help ‘weary’ ageing troops

Brave Ukraine halts Russia in Kharkiv as Kyiv conscripts youth to help ‘weary’ ageing troops

[Music] [Music] the situation on the ground is finely balanced in that um we have seen during the course of this year the initiative at the Strategic to Tactical level um moving back to Russia and as I’ve said before this is mostly because of the things Russia has been doing and and partly because of the things the West has not been doing um they sore off the Ukrainian offensive in the Autumn of last year and they remain very confident that they are not going to lose territory it’s it’s beyond the reach of the Ukrainian military at the minute and they also saw um in the short term this wobble in the US and to some degree in Europe about the provision of support to Ukraine partly because some people argue that the only that that this war can’t be won and it’s unreasonable to keep fueling up Ukraine to fight a war with its people if he can’t be won so and the difference is Western support so stop and settle um and that’s not a view that Ukraine broadly shares but what Russia has done is really three big things it’s found more people so it doesn’t have a problem it’s recruiting to about 85% of its targets and essentially it’s taking a lot of Eastern Russians SL you know the yeah Asiatic Russians and paying them a lot of money to fight a lot more money than they get for whatever they do in the Eastern Russia so so they can find people they they need equipment and they’re solving that by um refurbishing an awful lot of old stuff and they have sheds of ancient Soviet equipment so they are refurbishing that and um getting it to the front and that stock runs out at some point midl of next year so they know they’ve got a window opportunity and then they have dialed up their defense industry to make more stuff particularly more missiles and more artillery ammunition and they’ve got stuff from their friends so drones from Iran and missiles and lots of artillery ammunition from North Korea and on the Ukrainian side Ukraine had two big problems neither of which are fully solved one is uh they they had a very tired Army even if it’s 800,000 strong because they’ve been in the front line for two years and and as we said before the average age 43 you know they’re a bit weary and and they’ve been wrestling with the fact they’ve run out of volunteers and so they have to conscript and that that’s a hard thing to do and much harder when you your Ukraine with the oldest population in the world so they are having to go I’m going to use this word deliberately to their breeding stock their 20s somethings and order them to fight and you can see in their latest campaign they’re they’re trying to sweeten the Pill by the fact that you know Choose Your Own Adventure well everyone would choose to sit in keep flying a drone not many will choose to be in a trench in the dbass uh in the face of a of a Russian um onslaught um so they’re short of people but they they’ passed the legislation but but they are now in a race to get enough people to keep the Army um able to cover the ground and and fight and then secondly they are absolutely still short of ammunition and equipment so the the the delay on the American Aid with the the long stop being the American election and Putin’s bet that if Mr Trump wins then the tap will be turned off from this game over um the European Union gave 50 billion but it’s not military aid so it’s still important Euros but um Nations including you know Germany are giving a lot of a lot of stuff but no no European effort could make up for that 60 billion of American military aid which is mostly buying ammunition and weapons from American Factor so it’s military kesm really um but in there is 1.3 million artillery rounds and High m rockets and so the the reason the front line is so brittle is on the one hand you have a Ukrainian military that’s a bit weary and only able to fire perhaps 2,000 artillery rounds a day not the 7,000 that they would like to so they’re rationing their ammunition and coming at them are are ever larger um uh Russian forces and the Russian forces are coming in two it’s a blend of two interesting it’s almost like a blend of two armies there’s a professional Army so trained equipped and experienced and then an awful lot of people who are have had very little training but they’ve got a helmet and a rifle and they’re basically pointed at the enemy and they mix those things up to create Mass so they can absorb casualties and they don’t care but enough of them will make it to the Ukrainian trench line but then the two key advantages have been in artillery ammunition because they can fire five times as many now and if the USA doesn’t turn up it’ll be 10 times as many by the Autumn so that’s a crushing weight of fire and then they’ve done things like take stocks of old bombs um which basically dumb bombs and fit them with guidance packs which have a range of about 40 kilometers so in some cases you know um 2,000 kilos of bomb is arriving on a Ukrainian Trend and the Ukraine then has two further problems first it doesn’t have the air defense defense to shoot down Russian aircraft that are going to bombit because the air defense is all over the cities and the power stations and secondly it is inhibited by the West with exception now of the UK on on firing into Russia you one of the crucial advantages in the battle of the kiv is the Russian forces are forming up about 40 kilometers from Kip in Russia so they were able to organize themselves concentrate mass in safety because Ukraine could see them but wasn’t allowed to fire at them and and the so the distances are are are really short and we know what the Russian strategy is which is to um break the Ukrainian military to separate it from Western support that’s about the supply of arms and and equipment to eject the government or remove the government in ke in ke and replace it with a Russian supporter uh um to occupy the oblast that he claims to have annexed and crucially in there is obviously Crimea and the landbridge through Mar pole um and its stretch objective is kiv and its stretch stretch objective is adessa still which isolates the Ukrainian economy and essentially cripples it um you know terms of its functioning Logistics so Putin has smelt weakness in Ukraine he has smelt um vacillation in the west he’s pretty confident that if that Trump’s going to win and and then that’s a decisive play on Tony off support um and he is dialed up for a summer offensive and we are seeing we we we are seeing the um first moves in that so um there was the pressure in the dbas so taking territory slowly in the in a way the ukrainians can’t stop until they get more ammunition then secondly the assault in hariv which um could be for one of a number of reasons it might be because they really think they can get there and it it’s it was once the capital it’s a big it’s a big prize but secondly Ukraine can’t afford to lose kib so it’s going to have to shift ammunition and Reserve as it has to protect K that weakens the dbass the the NATO analysis has tended to be that the Russian Machinery um whil it’s bigger is not good enough to break the Ukrainian competent Ukrainian defense there’s a lot of effort going into in in into that and and as you know if you’re on the defense you should be able to see off an attacker that’s three to five times bigger than you are if you’re if you’re well prepared and you’ve got enough ammunition and you’re resilient enough whereas when Ukraine goes on the fence the ratio goes back the other way which is why the counter offensive is so difficult so so NATO uh quite confidently believes that Russia will not break through that it will take more territory um but it won’t break the Ukrainian line and it won’t get to ke and it won’t take kiv and then and then then that Russia would have shot its bolt by next year when that stock of equipment has been used and a lot of people have become it’s taking 800 casualties a day killed wounded and missing that’s a huge number and that all NATO all the West is just keep supplying Ukraine while Ukraine finds more people to fight come back to that um and and the supply of military aid ramps up in particular that Europe picks up the slack if the US walks away for all that it is still not the most likely outcome it is the most dangerous outcome that Russian forces have cracked through the Ukrainian defense and they are moving mov towards the Nea River or or or turning back up to to keep and when that happens Ukraine won’t have much left in the locker um and and at that on the and the day that happens they will demand um a no-fly zone which however you choose to dress it up it still means NATO goes to war with Russia you’re shooting down Russian airplanes over Russia lashing out happens in number of ways so so we recognize that this confrontation with Russia isn’t just military it touches all leevers of power so it’s it includes um um sanctions um including sanctions on you know Russia oil and gas which have not been particularly successful um you know Russia is operating its 70% of Russia’s civil air traffic is being operated with Boeing and air brass aircraft which they were meant to have given back yeah so these are profoundly important issues but then of course there’s cyber and organized crime and proxies so there’s a whole range of tools that are in play every single day now and think to Ukraine where Russia can try to upset destabilize uh the west and and as you know it’s its targets are um us and European politics so the US election will be subject to Russian um manipulation where they can um you saw that recently in the way Russia spent apparently $20 million or so feeding lines to those Republican congressmen that were in the way of the 60 billion yeah and that would have been the best 20 billion they’ have ever spent if they succeeded compared to you know the massive massive billions that go with fighting a war so if what Russia were to break through Ukrainian Armed Forces you have Russian forces that are moving Westward through Ukraine and Ukraine can’t stop them so that poses big questions about the the viability of Ukraine as a functioning State whether they get into keev or not whether they get into kiv or not you know that it looks like they’re being undone now when that happens Ukraine says to the West well this has happened because you didn’t support us they’re not entirely wrong um and and and the fight is coming your way so so one option is we simply watch Ukraine we say uh we’re not going to risk will you watch Ukraine go under that’s going to have terrible consequences for um this the the influence of the West for the Next Generation if that if that if it happens so then that makes people reach for um the easier measures and the one that always comes up is a no fly zone and a no fly zone means is that Russian aircraft can’t fly within the Zone however you define it nor Russian missiles go through that airspace so you can’t just say well this is a no you have to enforce it and to enforce it um you you would have to be be able of shooting down um ballistic and cruise missiles that come from Russia and are heading for Ukraine um and to shoot down the aircraft that are releasing those missiles um and uh that that that is an act of War there you just can’t it’s not one of those things you could be half pregnant about you’re doing this and those are the consequences and and then because the no fly zone is is about what happens in the sky um if you were Poland Hungary I guess Bulgaria maybe maybe not Hungary so much but definitely Poland you you will worry about well where do this Russian where does this Russian occup a stop are they going to close up to the Polish border um and they might want a buffer zone so uh so um they’ll mobilize their armed forces and when they do that they’ll want at least an article I would think they want an an article five discussion which only ever happened once and that was after 911 when America called it which is to my slightly odd thing to do but but NATO is then going to have to gear up to deter Russia from going into NATO but the gray area there which is where president macron is so on point is at that point does NATO decide to go into Ukraine to say enough is enough and um every time that Spector arises within an hour President Putin generally raises the question of tactical nuclear weapons which is a bluff but a bluff nobody wants to call and if if you look at um if you if you if you look at big examples in history so in um you know in in about um July 1914 the New York Times wrote something along the lines of does anyone seriously think there was ever going to be a big war in Europe and a month later you had the first and and that’s because you get a head of steam and events um spiral in a way that actually you end up fighting even though know it was a d outcome [Music]

Brave Ukrainian forces hold Russia in Kharkiv, “allies must help or risk ‘most dangerous outcome”, a military expert has warned.

Sir Richard Barrons, a former General in the British Army urged Ukraine’s allies to do all they can to supply more weapons and ammunition to Ukraine.

Read more:
Dramatic vids show ‘first terrifying firefights of Putin’s Kharkiv push’ as stunned Ukrainians say ‘It’s the Russians!’
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/27903724/terrifying-firefights-of-putins-kharkiv-push/

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