Putin dethroned as the Russian army could walk off the battlefield | Maj Gen Chip Chapman

Putin dethroned as the Russian army could walk off the battlefield | Maj Gen Chip Chapman

with 12200 casualties a day from by the on the Russian side with very marginal gains you know you could get to a point when the Russian military walk off the battlefield I don’t think we’re going to see that yet uh the second one is of course is the centrality of um Crimea to the um the myth of U you know Russian imperialism if that becomes untenable then the Elites in Russia could say enough is enough Putin and his cronies need to be overthrown and the final one is that the population of Russia has had enough and um you know rise up and and sort of Dethrone him what do you think the current uh Ukrainian strategy is regarding Crimea has it changed or does it remain the same because according to some analysts for example the need to take out the Kirch bridge is no longer there and you’ve mentioned those successes and Strikes into Crimea itself well I think you’ve seen recently again a number of feries being taken out um part of the um logistic support route as it were to Crime here I think that psychologically um dropping the K Kirch Bridge would be helpful but I don’t think you will see it being uh dropped at the moment by the ukrainians uh because you need to set the conditions for that operational and strategic success for dropping that bridge and that is when Putin would really be on the back foot because again it’s the politics of Crimea from a Russian perspective that actually matter you know it was that sort of notion in 2014 that he was raising up and gathering in the Russian people by annexing Crimea and therefore everything from there on in would be a walkover and of course that’s not been the case so if Crimea goes and is untenable then Putin uh potentially loses power that’s always really been either directly or indirectly the uh Ukrainian notion of Victory really in the same way that Russia understands that it can’t um take over geographically all the territory of Ukraine and its theory of Victory goes along the lines of disrupting the the willpower and determination of the West to support Ukraine and therefore leading to a a settlement which is on Russia terms and that’s really the big Divergence that you’ve seen in the last week or so with the Russian notion of a peace plan versus zelinsky’s notion of a peace plan in Switzerland last week yeah but Vladimir Putin’s notion of a peace plan seeding Russian occupied territories I mean to to Russia I mean this is it was ridiculous he knew it was going to be refused before he even put that plan forward didn’t he well not necessarily from the P perspective of the axis of um dictatorships and not necessarily from those people who um sort of support his notion of the multi poar world and see the Americans an imperial as an imperial power if you look at all the various Notions of um Peace deals he would probably say that it is a humanitarian piece because it stops The Killing but of course if you flick that coin it is a surrender piece because the sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine has been diminished uh they’ve they would have to get out of the fort or blasts which you know Lance danet Zaria and hen which the Russians have not even taken so the other two of blast week didn’t mention in terms of the situation on the battlefield at the moment Lance the um offensive continues there but uh the operations on the um kopans satovi Pria line remain unchanged it’s another one of those defensive areas when it’s unchanged and in D though there have been advances advances in the chass chass yah Direction particularly in the last week or so these are again just micro games and three months ago I said the same thing that the backbone of the Ukrainian denet defense is the the line along kator Sloans which could threaten po Ros but it’s the same as three months ago it hasn’t because they haven’t really had anything other than glal gains having said that the mod in London is reporting that Russian forces are within Striking Distance of the main Supply route for Ukrainian troops defending the Eastern dbass region as it continues to push towards the garrison city of poov what would that mean if they do cut the the Supply route and what if they do take that City well I don’t think they’re anywhere near that it would be very significant but in terms of geography it’s still I think about 80 kilometers away so it would mean that they would achieve one of their objectives for the year because the whole of the dones or blast would become untenable to the uh Ukrainian should they go that far but there’s a lot of fighting before you’d even get to that position so I don’t think that notion of encirclement and cutting that is is uh credible at the moment um so I don’t see that as something which is going to occur in the in the short time uh short term the real um the real sort of toing and throwing at at the moment is between the sort of Sword and the shield I think between um the ISR drones the intelligence surveillance reconnaissance drones of the Russians being targeted by the firstperson view drones of the ukrainians and within that you have this electonic Warfare bubble um where you know the notion of who wins the electronic battle between drone counter drone and guided weapons is really significant that will inhibit or enable forces to move in the future and that really comes onto this notion again of control of the air because all the things to do with drones are really just a democr democratization of the air battle uh and delivering it at a lower level than it’s been with the use of air power uh historically so it’s just another notion of air power for the future and that’s also really interesting when you get to for example Notions of the F-16 because there were four um factors for success in 20th century Warfare the first was control of the air it’s absolutely a necessity the second is a second and third are shock and surprise which the um the Russians may have had in terms of their offensive in towards K City but that started on the 10th of May so already um sort of six weeks down the line with not much gained uh and the fourth one is offensive wky now all those unless you have all those factors together your ability to achieve operational success is really really quite a narrow thing uh in front of you so um they’re just not there for either side so restoring that sort of mobility and breakthrough to the battlefield is what each side seeks to achieve and one of the interesting things I think this week was the capture by the ukrainians of one of the turtle tanks of the Russians now it’ll be interesting when they analyze that because the turtle tank is really a large protected carrier uh which seems to be IM immune from loitering weapons and first-person view drones but it carries an electronic suite and a flail type um entrenchment or tool at the front to try and clear sort of a path for forces to pass through you the sort of notion from little heart of the expanding torrent where you have a narrow breakthrough and then you can fan out to achieve operational success um so that shows you really the electronic uh battle that is going on so I think there’ll always be this two and fro and uh the ECM battle the electronic counter measures uh battle you know one side develops one side counters that is the one which will be interesting I think to see in the next few months how do you expect the war to develop over the summer months and do you think that the combination of us Aid um the new ability to use foreign weapons in a limited way inside Russia these developments could could it mean the most dangerous Point has been passed for Ukraine this year yeah I think the most dangerous point for Ukraine has passed but again it comes back to how Wars end neither side is going to be strong enough to conquer the other in military terms or military geographic terms so if you get go back to the second world war you know I and I directive because we’ve just had dday was to you know with allies to go to the heart of Europe and destroy the German armies you’re not going to see Russia in a position to do that neither are you going to see Ukraine in a position to do that to the Russian army and therefore you go back to how Wars end and they end in three ways firstly by decisive military Victory chances of that still pretty low the second one because of the indecisiveness of military Victory which leads to some sort of negotiation uh that’s not on the cards at the moment or the third one which is going to be on the cards for both of them at some stage but not yet is because either the political military sociological population economic social cultural social economic whatever you want cost a too great to one side and therefore the will and determination to to go on is diminished to a point where you need to have a settlement essentially that’s what happened with the destruction of the will of the um the Russian army in 1917 leading to the Treaty of Bressler TOs and you could posit I don’t think it’s likely at the moment that with 1200 casualties a day from by the on the Russian side with very marginal gains you know you could get to a point when the Russian military walk off the battlefield don’t think we’re going to see that yet uh the second one is of course is the centrality of um Crimea to the um the myth of you know Russian imperialism if that becomes untenable then the Elites in Russia could say enough is enough Putin and his cronies need to be overthrown and the final one is that the population of Russia has had enough and um you know rise up and and sort of Dethrone him now you probably to do that in a dictatorship is very very difficult but historically you only need 3.5% of the population to take to the streets and uh show their massive descent um to bring about some meaningful change as we saw for example in the Revolutions in 18 1989 which deposed chesco and some of those other Eastern block countries neither of those I think is tenable in the next S three months though you’ve been watching front line for times radio with me K chabo my thanks to our producers today Lis SES 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

“If Putin loses Crimea, he could lose power.”

The failure of Putin’s S-300 and S-400 air defences has put Crimea at risk for Russia says Maj. Gen. Chip Chapman speaking to Kate Gerbeau on Frontline.

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