Putin ‘frustrated’ as offensives fail to make gains despites losing 1000 troops daily | Sean Bell

Putin ‘frustrated’ as offensives fail to make gains despites losing 1000 troops daily | Sean Bell

B accounts reports coming out from the current front lines that Russia are encountering over a thousand casualties a day it’s worse than bmot and they’re still not making significant progress the reason I mentioned all of that is that Russia is trying everything it can to push forward during this remaining window of opportunity when it’s got Ukraine on the back foot targeting Russian Ukrainian energy infrastructure targeting their industry targeting the airfields targeting Ukrainian front line are all part of what um Russia is trying to do and of course once the weather’s nice satellites work you can see down you can Target and therefore you’d expect to see an intensification of Russian attacks and I think that’s what we’re seeing hello and welcome to front line for times radio I’m James hamerson and today we’re once again talking about the latest on the war in Ukraine and I’m delighted to be joined by a regular guest here on front line former fighter pilot military analyst and co-host of the red Matrix podcast Shan Bell Shan always a pleasure welcome back hey James lovely to be here again let’s start with the awful events of yesterday the deadly missile strikes on not just Kei but other Ukrainian towns and cities what did you make of it I mean we have seen horrific bombardments of Ukraine ever since the fullscale invasion of 2022 but but this felt of a different scale yes it did and we’ll come on to the specific reason for that in a minute we’ve got to remember we’re in the middle of a pretty brutal War um Russia is determined to try to Prevail it knows that uh Ukraine’s industry is starting to spin up their defense industrial base um they’re trying to De develop a million drones and drones are being particularly effective against Russia at the moment Russia’s also been attacking airfields trying to wipe out the Ukrainian Air Force probably as a warning if the f-16s arrive later this summer as they’re expected but I think the real shock yesterday was the targeting of that Children’s Hospital in keev and uh I know the danger is we’re in the middle of an information War at the moment and um so it would suit Ukraine to say it deliberately targeted Russians have already come out with a whole load of different contradictory lines about what happened um now I am an old whizard grayhead military guy I know that sometimes your Ed defense missiles when they shoot down a missile the the wreckage the uh explosive can fall anywhere and cause damage but the beauty about the middle of ke is there are lots of video cameras and I’ve studied a bit of footage of the missile going into that children’s hospital and I have to say first of all it does not look like a missile that’s been shot down there’s no damage to it it looks absolutely one of the KH 101 cruise missiles used by Russia it looks to be on its terminal path into its intended time Target and that’s the one that struck the uh children’s hospital now quite why that was targeted um because it’s against every known International or Geneva Convention or whatever um and it’s you know in a dreadful Dreadful tragedy for Ukraine particularly the children there um but I say face value I cannot see still from military perspective why Russia would deliberately Target a hospital but I have to say the evidence suggested it was their missile that went in on a trajectory it wasn’t damaged and that’s what it hit so you have to follow the dots and conclude that Russia for whatever reason is extending this sort of um Carnage into the civilian population because the kremin as you say have long claimed pretty baselessly it must be said but have long claimed that they don’t Target civilian infrastructure but you’re pretty clear that that not just you know on many occasions during the war but on this occasion in particular this very much was a target a deliberate Target of of Civilian infrastructure well I’m not sure I quite go that far because again I I struggle intally to work out why Russia would do that you know it it uh in the middle of winter it targets energy infrastructure because it wants to make the morale of the Ukrainian people at are low that just don’t want to fight anymore if you target a hospital with children in I’m pretty sure that just hardens the resolve of ukrainians to fight to the end it’s also pretty clear Russia is pretty short of missiles it’s been buying them in from Iran from North Korea uh it desperately needs to Target energy infrastructure the developing industry airfields the front line and it’s been pretty well documented particularly from some of the more sensitive briefings that Russia just like Ukraine is struggling to keep Pace with the demands of the Frontline war and therefore why would you use a missile to deliberately Target something like a hospital but having read the lines that come out from Russia on this particular occasion as I say you know the normal remnants of missiles falling down into residential areas you know I I accept that’s part of you got to put an air defense umbrell up over Ukraine you are going to have some explosive falling down on casualties but I have to say having looked at that video that’s not a doctored video and if you look at the identification signs of that missile that is a KH 101 it’s not been damaged it is on its final trajectory and therefore unless the Russians have Mis aimed it um then you have to conclude that it’s hit its intended target and uh and that is a tragedy and I think the international court of justice you know all of the international bodies will be looking at that for evidence for after the end of the war because it’s very difficult to see how that is a justifiable Act of War very difficult indeed and of course it wasn’t just the missile attack on on ke there were attacks on Deno and on kvy re and on psk and and I think other areas as well so it was a very very it seemed to be a concerted series of attacks on Ukraine the timing some people have suggested that’s significant because obviously we’ve got the NATO Summit beginning do you think the timing would have been deliberate um nothing that Russia does is ever um done my happen stance um but I do think we need to set the context for this a year ago James you and I were talking about the sort of much anticipated spring offensive which of course was delayed till the summer Ukraine really didn’t make much progress then um this year because of the delay and getting weapons and arms uh into Ukraine you remember that 60 billion that was held up in the US Congress and just been unlocked but it takes a while to get the weapons in and Russia undoubtedly is capitalizing on that window of opportunity to try to drive forward take advantage of Ukrainian weakness and make progress and all the well on the front line Russia is on the front foot it’s not making the progress that would have wanted and that will probably be immensely frustrating for President Putin because he knows that once the full weight of Western weapons arrive Russia will be subject to a pretty intensive attack and it’s also worth noting that do you remember the battle for bmot which was particularly bloody last year 30,000 lives lost now at the peak of that it was described as the most bloody uh War since World War II most bloody battle since World War II there were about eight to nine 100 casualties a day in there b accounts reports coming out from the current front lines that Russia are encountering over a thousand casualties a day it’s worse than bmot and they’re still not making significant progress the reason I mentioned all of that is that Russia is trying everything it can to push forward during this remaining window of opportunity when it’s got Ukraine on the back foot targeting Russian Ukrainian energy infrastructure targeting that industry targeting the air field targeting Ukrainian front line are all part of what you um Russia is trying to do and of course once the weather’s nice satellites work you can see down you can Target and therefore you’d expect to see an intensification of Russian attacks and I think that’s what we’re seeing and I suppose what it illustrates once again and I’m sure this will come up at the NATO Summit and and we’ll come on to talk about that in detail in a moment is the desperate need for new air defenses in Ukraine well that was definitely the priority when um president zelinsky appealed to President Joe Biden that said once that number was unlocked you know Logistics takes a while to get this stuff forward now there’s no doubt the us would have lent into this slightly that’ have forward deployed some weapons waiting for the the signatur and off you go but president zeli has been very clear that Patriot has been top of his wish list but of course the problem with Patriot is it may be a fantastic weapon but it’s two or three million dollars a pop you can’t use it to Target everything uh and therefore it’s layered air defenses that’s what Ukraine has been desperately needing plus of course the ability to strike Russia in the rear areas which has been the very topical news but air defense is definitely a priority and that’s why Russia has been pounding across the country and although Ukraine does appear to have shut down quite a lot of the missiles coming in inevitably some get through and just on the Patriot missile systems I mean there is there is a lengthy cue of countries around the world who would like Patriot missile systems and yes okay Ukraine probably needs them more than more than anyone else but you know people are looking after their own air defense supplies people are anxious about making sure that they’ve got enough air defenses if you’re in Eastern Europe you think well hang on a minute we need them too you’ve got countries all over the world who are trying to get their hands on the same air defense systems yeah there’s a couple of points there one of which if you were the manufacturers of the Patriot system you’d be rubbing your hands in Glee you know there is a phenomenal uh export opportunity for the US companies involved and they’ve ramped up production no end the trick of course is that and we’ll probably discuss this later as well is that you you don’t want to let your most modern technology go into the hands of the ukrainians because inevitably some of these weapons do fall into the hands of the Russians you don’t want to give all your secrets away and therefore you know technology is largely being the West asymmetric Advantage uh in these wars that’s why we’re supporting Ukraine but we have to support them with slightly older equipment and therefore trying to make sure the right standard of patriot missile system Finds Its way into the hands of ukrainians is really important but the point is this you know that a lot of European countries are making sacrifices putting equipment forward almost certainly on the basis that America said you put your equipment forward to Ukraine will’ll backfit it with slightly more modern systems and that’s probably the way to actually uh keep the supply is increasing but providing Ukraine with the weapons of the quality that NATO and the US particularly is happy for them to have on the topic of equipment falling into enemy hands Russia claims to have captured a British Storm Shadow missile if that is true how how significant is that Sean well first of all um I don’t think they’ve captured a missile what I think they’ve done is they’ found the wreckage of a missile um Capt missile would be a pretty you know couple of tons worth of and you’d be taking a screwdriver and undoing it um I I don’t think that’s the case I think what they’ve done is they found the remains of a Storm Shadow missile um now the the why that’s important is because you can start to reverse engineer to work out what it can do what its capabilities are and once you know that you can work out how to counter it so yes it is quite U um alarming but and there’s a couple of big butts here one of which is um most post modern technology it’s not about the hardware I’m looking at you through a computer the hardware itself is relatively simple the software is where the real capability lies and of course you can’t get hold of the software once the thing has been smashed destroyed it’s automatically expunged um so that’s something they won’t be able to get their hands on secondly um the storm Shadows we gave to Ukraine are about 30 years old um we had I won’t get the numbers exactly right but we bought about a million of these um about 30 years ago about $2 billion doar so about two million a pop um we’ve used about just over a hundred of them um we’re going to upgrade some we are upgrading sorry some of them at the moment uh but we don’t need 900 we’re only going to upgrade a few hundred that left a few that were available old we either paid industry to decommission them or we paid industry to destroy them sorry or to store them or we gave them to Ukraine to use and actually given their 30-y old technology it might not sound long but James you barely look 30 and um if I was to look if I was to look back at my mobile phone technology you know 30 years ago these really didn’t exist they were massive bricks so you just imagine the level of Technology that’s actually in that missile it’s not a worry for us that we lose that sort of Technology uh because if that’s a value to the Russians then really are in a bad way on the topic of technology that the Russian Prime Minister Mel m has called for Russia to increase domestic production of drones fivefold by 2030 I suppose that raises the question of how Central is drone Warfare going to be not just to the future of this conflict but to the future of of War more generally I think that’s one of the big questions of our time James I mean um I remember thinking back to you know the Gulf War we started to see these Reapers and the like you know long long range unmanned vehicles that frankly could keep an eye on a bad guy for 24 hours my bladder wouldn’t last that long so sat in the cockpit of my jet I’m very glad we had an unmanned aircraft to do that um and we really dismissed anything smaller as being toys I think what we’ve seen this war a huge explosion in the the utility of these things because largely yeah we get seduced by them carrying weapons and suicide drones but actually the Advent of tech technology has meant things like cameras things like infrared cameras synthetic aperture Radars uh sensors are have become much smaller much lighter and therefore can be carried on these drones and we’re seeing them be used in a whole variety of different ways also as we’ve said um I think we’ve said before you see these swarms of drones they provade provide some fantastic uh beautiful imagery I think at Disney they’re showing a big display of of these light but imagine each of those have a hand GR on them and they were synchronized to fly through a window and go through every room of a building you know it’s horrendous and I do think it there’s a whole new world out there now the one caveat I would say about Russia’s claim is that it’s one thing to build lots of drones it’s like building aircraft it the the Drone is only one part of it the real part of it is the technology you mount on the Drone um yes you got to make the Drone light powered and stuff like that but then it’s these sensors and it’s technology that Russia has never been particularly far forward with and I think yes they’ll be able to put high explosive on these little drones fly them in suicide that’s a big worry but in terms of generating the technological advances to make these drones really really important in this next generation of warfare I think Russia might struggle let’s come on to the NATO Summit happening in Washington from today uh Ukraine of course you would expect to dominate conversation specifically what what do you think will be that the key talking points around Ukraine there yeah it’s the 75th Anniversary isn’t it of NATO out in Washington I think there’ll be lots of sort of Reflections on you know why NATO has formed its journey and where it finds itself today because you only have to go back a few years and people were started to talk about is this the end of NATO has it just become a talking shop the middle of the Cold War has it lost its Mojo um whereas now it feels more power than ever new nations joining all 32 will be represented there um the slight worry I think is that whilst as you say Ukraine probably will be number one on the agenda um what I think will be a real concern if you look through the papers it’ll be the age the distraction of President Biden that I think will be a major distraction and why is that the case why should it matter well I think our leaders are well I’m ultimately Joe Biden is the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military force in the world and I think when you come to a NATO Summit that brings it all into Sharp contrast it’s not just about um being an affected team or being seen around a table waving your flag and and having a drink together it’s being able to have a credible military capability with decisive individuals in core leadership roles a really clear thinking about what the threat is and what the reaction needs to be because that’s all part of the deterrence it’s not Big D deterrence nuclear it’s small d The credibility of our Collective capabilities and I think that that unfortunately will be a disturbing side issue particularly because president Trump is sort of waiting in the wings and um we’ve all seen some of the headlines around where he might take uh NATO but I think for me it isn’t just about Ukraine it’s going to be also about I’m an old enough that I joined the military in the Cold War we had massive military exercises we had tactical evaluations every two weeks or um we did large scale practices today people talk about large scale it’s not not we we would have called what happens today really small scale and how do you scale up that experience and expertise onto the global stage it’s not like just turning a knob up the the Cold War finished 34 years ago most military careers are about 35 years long so the last people who have any experience whatsoever that scale of preparedness of Commander control the issues of scale have now left the military and I think that’s true not just of our nation it’s it’s true of NATO all of the Nations so I think how do you regenerate NATO to be ready and credible for the demands of not Wars of choice but now Wars of national survival credible threats against our borders that needs a very different response and I think that’ll probably be top of the agenda at NATO and how much of that Shan fundamentally comes down to defense budgets I mean only today in the UK you’ve got the former head of the army calling on the new prime minister in the UK K St to increase defense spending to 3% of GDP you’ve had only last week I think it was countries in the east of NATO calling on France and Germany to do the same do we have to accept particularly if there is the risk of Donald Trump and America becoming more isolationist that NATO countries in Europe have to spend more on defense well again James I’d go back to history when I joined the military you know prec Cold War we were routinely spending four maybe 5% in the earlier days because um the threat warranted that um and it feels to me a more dangerous world than it has been for some time it feels that we’ve got the rise of major players who are threatening European security and therefore you know we we dropped our budget down towards 2% because we enjoyed the peace dividend post Cold War peace dividend actually we’re not in that space anymore so I think there’s an inevitability that um if we’re going to pay the insurance premium for our national security the cost of that premium is rising and I don’t know what the number is but it we what we’ve got to avoid doing though is giving ministers governments an opportunity just to throw more money at defense I honestly believe that is not the answer um it is about what does this new world order look like how do we have to change the way we do defense what’s the role of our national capability versus our role in alliances and that is different because if you wants to play a role in a 32-man Alliance we might Focus I’m being flippant now on only providing one pillar of that military capability but doing it really really well but leaving us a bit void in other areas that would be a very good team player but wouldn’t give us much National capability there’s a really interesting debate and also how much you invest in new technologies like drone Warfare um rather than just being about ships tanks and airplanes and I think the worry is if you leave it just to the military we do tend to to ships tanks and airplanes big projects count them out whereas quantity these days does have a quality all of its own I think some really interesting questions that we as a nation need to answer something that we probably haven’t discussed enough in the UK over recent weeks and months is that we we’ve now got a new well we know who’s going to be the new Secretary General of NATO it’s going to be Mark Rutter who until recently was the long serving Prime Minister of Netherlands quite a respected figure within Europe replacing Yen Stenberg of course who’s been the Secretary General of NATO for a long time how significant will that change of leadership be because stoltenberg has been a has been a big player and Mark rer has got a massive job on his hands he has and if you remember Jen Stenberg was um Extended by a couple of years because they didn’t want uh the NATO sect General change changing at such an unsettling time for NATO but as the years have rolled on they’ve decided it is time to to to change really big shoes to fill I think what I like about the Mart rter piece though is that in the Netherlands his role has been to try to manage a sort of desperate audience he’s had to manage a coalition there’s no one party so he’s had to be a very good Diplomat to have to work the room to try and build consensus and that’s all about what NATO is about it’s not about individual Nations so I think his core DNA his longstanding experience as prime minister there will stand him in very good stead and also I I do think at times we might but you know demone somebody Moving on but in my experience you know as a charted director every nine years you should be moving on anyway because you need fresh ideas you need fresh input it feels to me that over the last few years the role of NATO has changed fundamentally and actually the role of uh preparedness how you tackle this imbalance between Europe and the US how do we make sure all of the members of NATO can benefit from the security umbrella it provides but also pay their way and I think there’s some really interesting challenges and Mark R has probably have got a fresh fresh perspective in it all and he certainly has the skills to do the job so it’ll be really interested to see just how well he does do you expect the issue of a potential future Ukrainian membership of NATO to to be a big feature over the coming days well in a way I hope not and I’ll explain why um whether you believe it or not but one of the reasons that President Putin’s Justified going into Ukraine is that he didn’t want to see NATO arrive on its doorstep um and what we know NATO is a defensive Alliance but from Russian perspective it might see it as the enemy um if you uh at some stage there’ll need to be some form of negotiated settlement the end the war in Ukraine and one of the things Ukraine will want is a guarantee of security of its borders now one of the ways of doing that is to join NATO but I’d be pretty surprised if President Putin um does everything he can to take take that off the table and the danger is if we make uh the join Ukraine joining of NATO as a fundamental tenant the danger is we may inadvertently be extending the war in Ukraine because we are effectively saying to Russia that that’s no longer an option there are lots of ways that Europe could guarantee the borders of Ukraine without it necessarily being a member of NATO and besides Ukraine is not going to be able to join NATO anytime soon so I think it might be unhelpful to have an over public discussion about that because inevitably that will only inflame President Putin I suppose the counterargument to that though is that the reason Putin wouldn’t want Ukraine in NATO is because then he can have a second bite of the Cherry down the line no I I agree int that’s why I say James I think the there are other ways for Europe to um ensure um security for example I’m not saying the United Nations will be able to play a role but if the UK the US Germany France was to were to put military bases into Ukraine that wouldn’t be part of NATO but it would um augment Ukraine’s military capability and make sure that an attack on uh Ukraine would suddenly be more complicated for President Putin um NATO isn’t the only answer and the danger of playing that card too early is that it potentially makes it more difficult to to find a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine and just finally Sean we’ve seen in recent weeks and months both Victor Orban of Hungary but also Xi Jinping of China try to cast themselves almost in the role as a as a potential mediator in any peace negotiations down the line do you think either of them could be credible in that role yeah they have two very different beasts aren’t they uh Xi Jinping obviously with China is trying to work out where to which horse to back here doesn’t really want to back Russia fully for all sorts of reasons I think Victor orban’s an interesting one because you know Hungary took up the presidency of the EU just at the start of this month uh and yet Orban didn’t ask Europe didn’t take any advice before he went to speak to Putin and therefore appeared to go there on behalf of the EU uh offering a sort of Olive Branch to to act as a negotiator which I I’m not quite sure what Victor orban’s actual agenda was there what was interesting that flowed out of that meeting though up till now Putin has regularly said on media I’m ready to negotiate it’s the West that’s not able to negotiate he made very clear after orban’s visit I am not going to negotiate um and and the truth of matter James again as a student of history people only negotiate once one side has won or one side has lost or they’ve ground themselves to a stalemate and it’s actually probably in everybody’s interest to call a halt at the moment on the front line Russia is on the front foot it clearly hasn’t achieved its objectives of the special military operation and until it does it’s very difficult to see that President Putin will be in any mood whatsoever particularly if he thinks that President Trump’s going to come to the table and a very different approach may happen so no I don’t think there’s any appetite at all from Russia for negotiating anytime soon Shan Bell always great to get your Insight in your analysis thank you so much for joining us today on Frontline thank you James thank you for watching Frontline for times radio for more on Global Security and the war in Ukraine you can listen to times radio take out a digital subscription to the times and click subscribe on our YouTube channel

“That will probably be immensely frustrating for President Putin, because he knows that once the full weight of Western weapons arrive, Russia will be subject to a pretty intensive attack.”

The lack of progress in Russian offensives in 2024 will be ‘frustrating’ for Putin ahead of the Nato summit as Ukraine pushes for more Western weapons and assurances, Sean Bell tells Frontline on #timesradio

📻 Listen to Times Radio – https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio

📍 Subscribe to our channel – http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTjDhFuGXlhx9Us0gq0VK2w?sub_confirmation=1

🗞 Subscribe to The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/subscribe/radio-3for3/

📲 Get the free Times Radio app https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio/how-to-listen-to-times-radio/app