Ukraine’s Strategy, Western aid and the war’s future with Eliot Cohen, Ukraine: The Latest, Podcast

Ukraine’s Strategy, Western aid and the war’s future with Eliot Cohen, Ukraine: The Latest, Podcast

I’m David nolles and this is Ukraine the latest today we report on another successful Ukrainian drone strike against a Russian Refinery we hear the latest news live from Georgia as protesters take on the pro Russian government and we interview Professor Elliot Cohen about Ukrainian and Western strategy in The fullscale Invasion ring takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to find finally reward you with Victory if we give president zilinski the tools the ukrainians will finish the job Slava ukraini nobody going to break us we’re strong we’re ukrainians every weekday afternoon we sit down with leading journalists from the telegraphs London Newsroom and our teams reporting on the ground to bring you the latest news and analysis on the war in Ukraine it’s Wednesday the 1st of May 2 years and 68 days since the fullscale invasion began and today I’m joined by our associate editor Dominick Nichols assistant comment editor Francis dley news editor at the Key of independent Nate ostiller and professor at and professor at John Hopkins University’s school of advanced International Studies whose last government job was counselor of the Department of State Elliot Cohen I started by asking Dom for the latest news from Ukraine well hi everybody thanks David welcome Nate welcome okay let’s start in Russia Russian oil refineries were set a blaze again last night after being struck by suspected Ukrainian drones one of the regional Governors there has said so drones operated by Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Agency the H were said to have attacked the resan oil refinery that’s about 150 K southeast of Moscow and a another refinery in V oblast that is the Russian oblast bordering UK Ukraine in the far Northeast go as far north and east as you can in Ukraine and the real Ukraine including the bit that Russia’s on go north from there and that’s the O blast there so this comes from military intelligence sources in Ukraine speaking to the key of independent the Russian telegram News Channel Astra confirmed the oil refinery in rzan had been hit the governor there Pavo malov said an inspection was ongoing and said there were no reports of fatalities that facility owned and run by rosn refines nearly 6% of Russia’s total refined crude has been a frequent Target for Ukraine’s air attacks it was last hit on March the 13th and last night’s attack started or consisted of we are told four explosions heard around 2: a.m. local time which started a large fire Elsewhere on the front our friends at the think tank isw Institute for the study of War over in the US they report that Russian forces did not make any confirmed advances in the a diva area yesterday for the first time in several days but Ukrainian sources said that there were several more attacks a little bit further south in the B Mout chivar area Ukraine’s general staff put in their morning and evening updates yesterday said their Force has had repelled a total of 47 Russian attacks in the ad diviva area and 57 around bmot that’s a much higher number in the vicinity of chivar than in than in recent days now isw saying there assessment they say quite correctly I think one day’s worth of reporting is not sufficient to establish a pattern but um these numbers might suggest Russia is looking to maybe slow down the rate of attacks around of Diva to recommit to to offensive pushes around chiv y we know that they’re very keen to try and take chiv y before May the 9th Russia’s Victory Day Parade even though the area to the northwest of ab divka that’s where that they’ve had limited tactical success so it would make on on the one hand um sense to try and exploit that little Salient they’ve got going there but they are very keen to take the I think it is it’s more chv is more significant in terms of the geography of the war than adiva was but also it confers a tactical advantage in terms of the ground by May the 9th now next one the death toll from yesterday’s Russian missile attack on adessa risen two to six sorry two days ago the strike on Odessa two days ago risen to six one of the injured people died in hospital this comes from the mayor hanady trinov speaking earlier today you’ll still see images of that on social media still highly likely that my assessment that it was a cluster munition attack there which is completely contrary to the Geneva conventions but go and seek out the images you’ll be able to see for yourself and then also on the weapons Russia is said to have ordered more and swifter delivery of weapons for the war this comes from Russian defense minister Sergey Shu speaking this morning he didn’t use the W word of course didn’t say War he stuck with the uh the the mental gymnastics of special military operation but he said to maintain the required pace of the offensive it is necessary to increase the volume and quality of weapons and military equipment supplied to the Troops primarily weapons you can see why he’s the brains of the outfit you can also see why he’s worried the general staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said this morning Russia had lost well they say 469,000 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of the fullscale invasion when we talk about casualties of course we say we’re talking about killed wounded um prisoners of war and missing uh and as we always say you you need to take all figures with a with a pinch of salt but over the years now Ukraine does seem to be a bit more accurate or quite a lot more accurate than Russia but but not outside the sort of usual tolerances you would expect so when they come out with a number like that plus or minus I would say 2 to 5% but I we we don’t think they are they play fast and loose with the figures as as the Kremlin does now that number that includes over a th000 casualties yesterday alone over 700 7,000 tanks 14,000 other armored fighting Vehicles nearly 350 planes over 300 helicopters 26 ships and and one submarine I mean it’s quite extraordinary when you when you think about it and think about the war more broadly in the context of comments about stale meat but you know what’s happening what’s happening in the sea particular regarding the graen deal and where the Black Sea Fleet is and how it can be used it’s very interesting to see that that this war is much more than what’s happening just on the land and just finally for me David five underground bunker School schools are going to be built in zapia or blast this comes from Governor Ivan federov there he says three schools will be built in the center of zapia the other two sort of Elsewhere in the local area no time scale for their completion and you may remember HEV was the first Ukrainian City to open purpose-built Subterranean schools obviously designed to Shield the children from Russian attacks I’ll say that last line again just because it it deserves noting they are building underground schools to withstand Russian attacks I mean that says everything that you need to know about the moral bar being employed by Moscow in this war but I’ll take a little pause there D well thank you very much Dom Francis let’s go to you next what have you been looking at well thanks David I’ll come to the devolving situation in Georgia at the end immediately before we turn to our first guest who’s on the ground there but turning to other significant political stories first Donald Trump the Republican nominee of course for US president has doubled down on his warning warning that NATO members will be on their own unless they increase their defense spending if he wins a second term he said his message to the military Alliance was as follows if you’re not going to pay then you’re on your own it follows his remarks earlier this year where of course he said that Russia could do whatever the hell it wanted to NATO allies who didn’t spend enough on Collective defense this recent line came in a wide ranging interview with Time Magazine where Trump said he stood by the remarks he didn’t say whether he would end all us funding but to quote I wouldn’t give unless Europe starts equalizing if Europe is not going to pay why should we they’re much more greatly affected we have an ocean in between us they don’t now it won’t reassure anyone in the alliance suffice to say that Trump’s icy view of NATO has Tha as some were speculating as we’ve discussed many countries are trying to work to Trump poof defense spending to Ukraine and within the European context were the worst to occur and he reduce support for the alliance significantly it is worth saying here that I think many people are to a degree and I say to a degree sympathetic with some of Trump’s remarks with regard to defense spending in Europe I think it’s fair to say that it has been too low for a sustained period given the crisis that have developed but I think where the critiques come in is this the West way of going about trying to encourage change uh threats is one way but when it’s enabling an enemy who is attacking an innocent sovereign country many would say this is not the right way of going about it to put it mildly and furthermore to that I think too that the only people who’ll be rubbing their hands at these kind of remarks will be Russia others will get very upset and it will make them even more hostile to the United States and so I think that’s the other element that plays into this be interesting to hear Elliot’s points later on the degree to which America’s own reputation suffers as a response to this as well as of course the a a stable Global situation defensively favors America economically so it’s in its interest it’s not purely selflessness that the defense spending is there in the NATO context but any we’ve discussed that enough in the past but I just think it’s important to contextualize this in some of these discussions because he is not wrong in some of the fundamentals here now as an aside his remarks on the Middle East were also interesting saying that he would defend Israel if the country was attacked by Iran but also criticizing Benjamin netanyahu’s approach to its war against Hamas and the Israeli Prime Ministers faia to prevent the terror group’s October the 7th attack to quote trump it happened on his watch and then he declined to rule out with holding US military aid to Israel to force an end to the conflict but suggested that he didn’t support support the pursuit of a Palestinian State there was a time when I thought the two-state solution could work now I think the two-state is going to be very very tough now for more on Trump’s position and the Republican party I highly recommend last week’s episode day 789 where we were joined by Jonah Goldberg ex editor-in-chief of the dispatch Where We examined the situation in Washington in far more detail it was a very very interesting discussion we’re very grateful to Jonah for making the we’ll add a link in the show notes now since we’re on the US an interesting Side Story is that a US citizen has pleaded guilty to conspiring to sell more than $250,000 worth of sensitive drone technology to Russia that’s coming out of the US justice department nicolay gorev 36 pleaded guilty to exporting us sourced dual use Electronics used in Russian military drones after more than 11,500 electronic components were uncovered at his residence going to Russian companies he faces up to 5 years in prison if found guilty the deputy attorney general in New York said and I quote the justice department will continue to hold accountable those who defy our sanctions and extort controls to support Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified aggression in Ukraine whether they’re based in New York City or overseas and they also said the Justin Department they’re searching for two other people connected to the allegations now on that subject of sanctions as trailed on the podcast members of the G7 have now vowed to reduce dependency on Russian nuclear energy supplies to create a quote Diversified fuel supply chain free from Russian influence that’s what they’ve put out in a joint statement yesterday just after our broadcast despite W Western efforts to detach itself from Russian energy supplies of course Moscow continues to dominate the global market supply of certain material such as enriched uranium which uh supplies I think it’s around 30% Russia of enriched uranium to the EU and around 23 25% to the US or at least before the War I think that was around sort of early 22 time there was a report out on this from the United Services Institute in March which looked into that explicitly so G7 countries are now committed to assisting other countries to diversify their fuel supply following the war and this statement was Ed to coincide with the US Senate approving legislation Banning Imports of that enriched uranium specifically although of course this is broader than that from Russia there’s a couple of other stories turning to Moscow itself yet another senior Russian defense official has reportedly been questioned by the FSB in relation to the Detention of one of his colleagues on bribery charges so rzan T salikov is the number three in moscow’s defense Ministry these are senior figures that follows the minister Ser Shu of course and the chief of the defense staff Valerie gasimov he was reportedly pulled in for questioning after the arrest of Timo ianov that longtime Ally we discussed last week Mr ianov who saw the construction for Russia’s military infrastructure projects is accused of accepting very large bribes and will be kept in custody until at least the 23rd of June after appearing in a district court last week a number of Defense ministers have already been questioned or detained following his arrest suffice to say it’s not the best look for the Kremlin especially when corruption is one of their main attack lines against keev but evidently they think the matter is serious enough to Warrant the questioning being in the public sphere and last but certainly not least David the situation unfolding in Georgia where as the BBC report extensively today Riot police in Georgia have fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse crowds protesting against that bill seen by the position as targeting media freedoms at Russia’s encouragement Georgian MPS have given their initial backing to the foreign agent Bill despite the EU warning that it could harm to’s bid to join the block Parliament is expecting to hold a second vote on the bill later today we discussed some of the context behind this yesterday so I would Point listeners to that if you want a little bit more detail and I know Nate will provide a fuller picture on the ground very shortly but just one word on this for many this serves as another example of the Kremlin seeking to seow Discord in foreign countries in order to distract and divide Europe at a precarious moment it is also further evidence of ke’s argument what is possible when a country is closer in proximity to Russian Borders or indeed Russian Annex territory because it enables disinformation and Corruption Etc to more readily be fed in something that would of course have major ramifications for Europe if Russia were to seize effective control of large sways of Ukraine but I’ll stop there David so we can hear from someone actually in Georgia well thank you very much Dom and Francis Nate thank you so much for joining us it’s really great to hear from you again can you just start maybe just by telling us where have you been and what have you seen over the over the last few days sure yeah thanks again for having me and it’s good to be back so I’ve been to the protest a few times and I was there yesterday right before it got violent and I left I mean it appeared about 20 minutes or so before they started throwing tear gas and brought out the water cannons and so on but I also want to point out that and maybe you guys covered this yesterday but the previous day there was a massive prover rally also into bluec and the estimates are I mean somewhere close to 100,000 people possibly and this one was fascinating uh I was there because I was they bust in people from all over the country many of whom were older people and there were many reports from both people I’ve talked to and local media that there was some kind of combination of uh coercion threats like they would say we’ll pay for your transportation and I saw this myself they had these big bottles of wine that they were passing out to these older people that were there and one of the I mean one of the things that’s been spread on on Georgian social media is that a lot of these people didn’t even know why they were there they’re here at this rally in in support of Georgian Dream and they’re not even sure why what the rally is for looking at the the anti- Georgian Dream protesters then can you tell us a little bit about who they are who who makes up the majority of these protesters what did they tell you and what do they want yeah so there’s definitely a huge difference in the demographics between just these past two days I would say the majority of the anti- Georgian Dream protesters are young though that’s not to say there aren’t plenty of older people there as well and so during the protests which from what I saw were the protesters were entirely peaceful the things that they’re chanting I think say a lot about what they want they call the police and the government government slaves they repeat this over and over again and they say no to the Russian law and basically they’re opposed to this law because they understand correctly that if this law is passed that effectively will shut down their options of joining the EU which is something that the vast majority of Georgians are in favor of and this is something that polling has BN out for a long time this is not a new trend and Nate do you have any sense of where this all goes what happens now we saw violence yesterday from the police towards the protesters what’s the atmosphere like today yeah so I was actually just before this I was talking to some local journalists and I asked what’s the difference between the protest this year and the protest last year because as we know eventually georgean dream effectively got scared and backed down decided not to pass the law um this time they seem pretty determined to get it through despite the clear evidence that it’s super unpopular and another difference this year is that it’s actually been more violent and they’ve been singling out individual protesters in the demonstration for beatings and so on including some opposition leaders like Leon KES who was beaten lost some teeth and he showed up in Parliament today for for the votes in a wheelchair so from what I understand basically the protesters are not scared and plan to go out again today and tomorrow and as long as it takes and just to add to this the local journalists and Georgian experts who I’ve talked to they think that if this law is passed it will actually hurt Georg and dreams chances the upcoming elections in October Nate when you’re talking to people then at these protests and the experts and the journalists do how do they think of what’s happening in Georgia in relation to what of course has been happening in Ukraine right so a lot of people that I’ve spoken to saw the beginning of the fullscale invasion as the turning point in which there was no longer a question which side is Georgian Dream on because when this party was originally elected in 2012 they were proe and they even accomplished some proe things such as the Visa liberalization but now once the after the beginning of the war they’ve increasingly become more openly anti-west anti- Ukraine and that’s pretty widely understood something that we’ve reported on at KI of independent is how many Georgians have gone to fight in Ukraine against Russia I think as far as we know the highest percentage of a population of foreign Fighters comes from Georgia and the Georgian people are broadly in favor of Ukraine and opposed to Russia of course this is all Complicated by various estimates maybe around a 100,000 Russians have come here since or or still here since the beginning of the full scale War there’s anti-russian graffiti all over toi and it’s a bit of a tense environment I would say and this isn’t supposed to be a a TR question at all but this is all playing out really in in real time isn’t it um who which side would you say have the upper hand at the moment between the protesters and uh georgean dream yes exactly uh it’s really hard to say um I mean it’s to put it in perspective Georgian Dream is not a particularly popular party uh I mean recent polling suggests they have around 20 to 25% support it doesn’t help that the political opposition is also rather weak but the general consensus from people that I’ve spoken to is that despite the current difficulties they think that the opposition will win I mean whatever form this takes uh we don’t know exactly what kind of Coalition they might be able to make but that’s the consensus that I’ve heard Nate is there anything we haven’t said or haven’t asked you that you think is important to mention just to help our listeners understand what’s happening in Georgia yeah I mean I think this is it’s a really important front and it’s as you mentioned earlier it’s this is for a while this has been one of the most success successful kind of Russian influence operations I mean they have effectively controlled this government without having to send in tanks as they did in Ukraine and it’s especially shocking when you consider that there was a war in 2008 and that Russia still occupies around 20% of Georgia and yet at the same time this government is openly pushing pro- uh pro-russian policies it’s really shocking to see well Nate thank you so much for your reporting there we’ll come back to you at the end for any further updates and for your final thoughts uh but we’re delighted now to welcome back to the podcast Professor Elliot Cohen whose thoughts on Military strategy and Security will of course be well known to listeners from his columns in Atlantic but also of course from sharing a panel with us at the British Embassy in Washington on our trip last September Elliot your last government job was counselor of the Department of State one of the most senior jobs in that department you were taken to Iraq Afghanistan and other places since then you’ve been to Ukraine many times including very recently you wrote about this let’s start there what were your big takeaways well uh first David thank you for uh having me on and as you know I’m a great admirer of the podcast I think one of the things that happens when you visit a country and see the same people over and over again is you get a sense of what their kind of Baseline mood is and I have been going back to to ke several times what struck me in this last visit is that the senior leadership was clearly feeling the strain now that was before the supplemental past here so I’m sure their mood improved with that but I think there was a kind of a dark mood and then in particular one of the things that struck me is I didn’t have the sense at that moment that that they had a clear theory of victory for how they win this thing I they’re holding on I think that makes sense I mean you’re at we’re at a very difficult moment in the war I personally think things will change but that that part of the mood was grim and like I said I hope it’s better now that the supplemental has passed but there was this I would say not fear of a abandonment but a profound frustration that the West has continued to deliver things in excessively small quantities and without a real sense of urgency and I think they’re right just talking about the supplemental then do you think the West has regained the initiative at this point or is it as as maybe you’re implying it’s too little too late well I don’t think it’s too little too late I think what it did is it temporarily restored some degree of confidence in the United States I I think everybody’s big fear and it’s actually reflected in some of your opening remarks that particularly francis’s opening remarks is oh my God what’s happening to the United States because let’s face it if the United States does not take the lead in this the Europeans don’t seem to be up at the moment to to deliver so I think that’s happened temporarily the next big question is who’s going to win the election in November and that we won’t know until it happens looking at your experience of Ukrainian Society then there was one line I thought was really interesting in your Atlantic piece in which you wrote the Ukrainian war effort is both strengthened and weakened by the nature of Ukrainian Society could you go into some detail about what you mean by that I thought that was absolutely fascinating well we had one of the people uh we spoke with was the minister of strategic Industries who very impressive figure who had organized the railroads and it’s quite remarkable that the railroads are still running there’s a whole logistical side to this war which I think does get under under reported and he talked about the horizontal nature of Ukrainian Society but which I think he meant the sort of self-organizing part of it I mean if you look for example at the Ukrainian drone program a lot of it was created by very strange combination of hobbyists and investment bankers and technologists of different kinds frequently working around a Ministry of defense that they thought was rather stoty and what he said is this is our national character it’s our national problem and it’s our national superpower and I think that’s right and and again it’s a theme that I think you’ve pointed to in the podcast and uh also as a friend of mine who’s on this trip MC Ryan who you’ve also had on the Pod um says the the ukrainians are very good at innovating bottom up the Russians are able to adapt to some extent top down and I think that remains true and we’re at a phase in the war where the ukrainians need a bit more top down but they the essence of the society remains that it is one where there’ll be a lot of initiative from below and that’s not just an artifact I think of Ukrainian Society since the revolution of dignity in 2014 it’s something that actually I think goes a lot further back in Ukrainian history and the Ukrainian national character Elliot you mentioned finding a much darker mood amongst off when you visited um can I ask what else surprised you maybe about your trip you’ve been there several times um is there anything that’s shocked you or made you look twice I I wouldn’t really say so I mean I I continue to be struck when I go to Kei that what a beautiful city it is and the extent to which normal life goes on I mean their cafes are not absolutely full but there are plenty of people in them there’s plenty of traffic on the roads and then you have Sirens at night so there’s I wouldn’t quite call it full normaly but was very different from what my first trip was like which was in the spring of to after the The Invasion had been successfully blocked it is still a less tense city than it was but I would say that’s that is the main thing that the ukrainians I think perhaps had an idea that they would be able to sew not sew it up but uh really achieve major successes earlier than this and I think they are settling down to the reality that it’s going to be a long slogging War that’ll go on for quite likely if not for another year perhaps for years Elliot earlier we were speaking to Nate in Georgia speaking about how that crisis there relates to what’s happening in Ukraine would you like to sort of take up that theme as well and discuss this idea of the poly crisis you know how does in your view the war in Ukraine relate to topics like China Israel Hamas Iran and and Isis I know this is something you’ve been thinking quite a bit about I I have the past year I’ve been to Ukraine a couple of times I’ve was in Israel in December I’ve also been to Taiwan and other parts of the Asia Pacific so it’s been a an interesting experience looking at two War zones and one potential war zone and there were a couple of things that really hit me about it but one was we are I think unfortunately seeing a kind of oppositional Coalition forming it’s a coalition it’s not an alliance between Russia China Iran and North Korea and I think in each of these conflicts we can drill down into that if you wish you see more and more cooperation the thing that’s most urgent right now a report that just came out of my institution the center for strategic and International Studies documented the extent to which the Chinese have been upping their contributions to the Russian war effort not with finished end items but with different kinds of components and things like nitrocellulose which you need for for ammunition and I think that’s one big part of it the second part of it talking about the two active Wars Israel Hamas and Russia Ukraine one thing that struck me in both cases and is something you’ve talked about the Ukrainian context and that is the very deliberate extensive use of sexual violence and it again I can drill down into that if you wish it’s horrific in both cases and it reflects the nature of the opponents we’re up against which is who are really have no compunctions about doing anything and that is something that I think is not fully sunk in among a lot of Western publics you’re up against people who will use any kind of violence if they think it serves their purposes and that really does it changes the stakes of what we’re what we’re up against to some extent may even change the kinds of things that you’re willing to do in order to block it well let’s take both of those ideas then let’s start with China you mentioned the increased cooperation between China and Russia and how as we’ve reported China is indeed sending more and more sort of bits of material that will Aid the Russian war effort simple question here really is why and also what’s changed why now and not as it was maybe two years ago well I think the Chinese had a a bit of ambivalence about this to begin with they had economic ties to Ukraine at least nominally they’ve always been in favor of sovereignty I think they were not particularly interested in a confrontation with West but I also think that they fully expected the Russians to wrap that up pretty quickly as did of course a lot of people in the west as well what I think has happened over time is First I think the Chinese may have some anxieties that the Russians would lose which they don’t want now the I mean the the Sino Russian relationship is fraught in in some ways and I think the Chinese have a certain degree of contempt for the for Russian military Prof performance which is which is merited but at the end of the day they do I think view themselves as standing backto back as it were against the United States and I don’t think they want to see the Russians go down I think they feel that would be very bad for them we also have to remember that you’re dealing with two aging autocrats in Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping they both see themselves so they’ve got the mortality is approaching they both have absolute power and really no internal descent or controls or limits of the kind that say Nikita Kush would have had in the old days or even some of the other Chinese leaders after Ma and most importantly both of them see themselves as having an extraordinary kind of historical Mission before them of reuniting lost lands establishing their rightful position in the world and taking down not the rules-based international order which is I’ve always thought is not a very useful phrase but the American constructed International order because that’s really what is at stake it’s the order that the United States and its critical allies including most importantly I think Britain in the wake of World War II created and which we’ve all benefited from enormously and I think they really do want to take that down I think there are echoes of this to some extent in with Iran but those are the two and I think they they do see a commonality of of Interest the one thing I way which I would qualify that is I think there are certain things that the Chinese do not want to see so they do not want to see the Russians use nuclear weapons and the reason why they don’t is because I think they understand full well that if that threshold is breached then there will be countries on their periphery which will think my goodness anything is indeed possible we can’t really count on the United States to deter this we need our own nuclear weapons and so they don’t want to look at a world with Japanese nuclear weapons Korean nuclear weapons maybe even Taiwanese Australian Indonesian nuclear weapons but in other respects I think they believe at least at the moment that their interests are aligned thank you so much Elliot just going back then to your point about sexual violence do you think that the as you’ve sketched out the lessons of the extensive use of sexual violence that as you said it really does mean that your opponents are willing to go to any ends and use any sort of violence to achieve their goals do you think that lesson has been learned in Western capitals are we learning the right lessons from that no and shame on us I mean the of course during the Yugoslav Civil Wars we saw plenty of examples of that and people noted it at the time and then dropped it and of course as we think about the Soviet conquest of the eastern part of Germany the end of World War II there was mass rape been on a scale which is difficult difficult to imagine and as we talked about World War II particularly in the East we have tended to skip over that and not think about it too much or to conceive of it as soldiers getting out of hand which is which happens Henry V in his Shakespeare’s famous speech at Flur it threatens people with that say look you know I’m my soldiers will get out of control but that’s not what this is about I mean Mass seexual violence is not about sex obviously it is about humiliation it’s about dominance it’s about intimidation it’s about Terror and that is really what is going on at the heart of it that you have States and you also have movements like Isis which we could talk about which will use sexual violence as just one more thing that’s in the toolkit to achieve their objectives Elliot Francis thank you so much for your time it’s always an honor to talk to you just staying on this theme first of all it’s obviously something we’ve covered extensively on the podcast but I’m interested to hear your perspective on why this has not cut through I mean one can speculate about that on various different angles I suppose but we talk all the time as part of our culture in the west never again particularly in the Holocaust situation and context but why then is this something that is not being more readily discussed do you think well I mean just focus narrowly on sexual violence first it’s revolting to think about and the details are hideous and you have to force yourself to look at them and to think about them and nobody wants to do that but I think beyond that there are really there are two other things one is the implications of what I just said are unsettling I mean it might mean that really you do need to spend not two and a half% of GDP on defense by uh 20 30 as uh the British prime minister has said but maybe 3% or 4% or 5% if you’re facing that level of threat and so people shrink from the the thoughts they needs must think as a poet once put it but I think the other thing is we have a tendency to compartmentalize and to treat these different phenomena as separate phenomena well that’s that conflict and that’s that conflict and I think the analogy and Francis you and I have have discussed this it’s a bit to the 1930s and of course others have made this analogy as well where it’s not that Western Statesmen didn’t get concerned about say the Italian invasion of what was then abisinia now Ethiopia in 1935 or Hitler’s occupation of the reinland or the Marco Polo Bridge incident in 1937 in Manchuria but they tended to compartmentalism well those are separate problems and not I I think it does take a certain degree of big thing in order to say we’re up against a larger phenomenon here and we have to think about it as such thank you it’s an interesting perspective on that just changing subjects then to something else you spoke about earlier on you alluded to Henry the fifth and it’s this question of leadership something that you’re particularly focused on at the moment having written a book on the subject of it something that is of course in the Ukraine context particularly a problem I think for Ukraine at the moment is something we’ve talked about which is President zinski is for obvious reasons saying similar things now for the last two years you know about the crisis that the Europe will face that the West faces and that messaging whilst has was very effective earlier on in the war because he is saying the same things again and again it doesn’t got quite the same degree as cut through that it once did I think that’s fair to say so as a consequence of that if you were as it were advising president Selinsky how do you think he can change message what kind of things should he be saying or do you think actually it’s out of his hands and he’s in a really very difficult spot here well he is it is to some extent out of his hands I mean first let’s just recall what a brilliant job he did in the opening phase of the war and I think we will look back on that in uh a decade or two and say this is a case where an individual an eloquent individual by the way with a consumate sense of theater was able to change a mood which in turn had real consequences for his Nation but also for the rest of us so let’s not diminish that achievement I think the problem is you can only live at the Peaks for so long and I would invoke churchly those phenomenal speeches that he gives in the summer of of 1940 know that sort of rhetoric was not going to carry you through the entire War it doesn’t carry you through the blitz uh well it carries you through the blitz it doesn’t carry you through V1 on and V2s raining down on London and and all the rest so there there’s a limit to that the other thing is there’s another dimension of leadership which I think he is beginning to wrestle with which is the one that’s less visible to us and that’s the internal one of how he manages his his generals how he develops and runs the institutions that actually fight the war and there’s a lot of a lot of that stuff as I said would not be visible I mean part of the genius of of a Churchill was he was actually very good at that we tend to think about him terms of the external rhetoric I think the most important thing I would say for if I were to advise president zalinski it’s the ukrainians have to have they have to they may have to forge this together with us but there has to be some sort of broad view of why we why they think and why we think this thing can be one now as I may say in my final thoughts there always going to be limits to that you can’t sketch it out in enormous level of detail but there has to be a theory of Victory however Broad and well defined and I think the ukrainians have not done that yet and he has not done that he has the rhetorical gifts to do that and I think there’s a case that can be constructed but he they need to take the lead on that otherwise you’ll get from the West empty rhetoric in my view like we’ll be with the Ukraine as long as it takes well that’s a meaningless phrase what you got to be thinking about is how are you to win that this thing and I think that’s what’s really called for now is a theory of this is how we think this thing can be won well to put that to you Elliot I mean this is obviously a really vital question how do you think this war can be won and as a cery to that you mentioned earlier on that this may well be a longer War lasting many more years than many expected there have been examples of conflicts that have gone on for a long time and it has led to total Victory as it were even against Russia like in the Soviet Afghan war do you think that is the only way that Ukraine can win this now as somebody put it to me at the conference around NATO last week or do you think that a shorter swifter victory that avoids the Bloodshed and the tragedy that will follow that it’s still possible unfortunately I don’t think a short Swift uh Victory is in the cards I just think for a whole bunch of reasons some having to do with the nature of the Ukrainian Armed Forces what they can reasonably be expected to have uh even with uh increased Western Aid terrain whether all that um the idea that you’re going to have a uh 1940 style Blitz or a 1944 style breakout uh from the Normandy Beach heads is that’s just not going to happen and in fact I think one of our mistakes and Advising the ukrainians was during their counter offensive which didn’t achieve what they nearly what they wanted and what we wanted was we were thinking too much in those terms I I think it’ll have several Dimensions one is the multiple campaigns that are going on we get fixated on what’s going on in the front lines and it’s very important obviously and that’s in part because we can actually follow these things incredibly closely using commercial imagery and following te telegram accounts and you guys are terrific at it as are outfits like the institute for the study of War there’s the naval campaign in the Black Sea there is a kind of deep strategic offensive campaign that Ukraine is that Russians are waging against Ukraine and we need to be focused on that but there’s also one that the ukrainians are waging against Russia and then I think there’s going to be more and more of a deep battle in occupied Ukraine as the ukrainians are clearly investing a lot in developing a lot of effective long- range systems we are finally giving them a attacks I think they desperately need ranged systems some of which they will manufacture but others of which we can help them man manufacture and there needs to be a a better understanding of the some of the weaknesses of Russian Society the Russians have been good at presenting themselves in way as this kind of Relentless Juggernaut maybe brutal maybe stupid but just Unstoppable with Limitless resources and that’s just not true and every now and then you see the cracks in the system as with prosan as with this latest terrorist attack as with these latest arrests which I think speak to what’s going on in inside the Kremlin what it all boils down to is I think the next rhetorical challenge for for zalinski is to to give people Concrete Hope and again I’ll fall back on Churchill and it’s not just because I admire Churchill so enormously but because Ukraine is in an existential struggle for Extraordinary Stakes as was Britain during the war and if you look at Churchill’s wartime speeches what you see is that he is explaining to the British people to the British Empire to the United States and of course a lot of his speeches were directed as much at the United States as at a domestic audience say this is why we can win this thing and that’s really the that’s really I think one of the critical things so I think it is possible to put that together I think that also makes the asks of the West a lot a lot more kind of comprehensible and deeply thought through I mean there has I think been a bit of a tendency to say okay we won f-16s we finally get F16 we won aacs and those things are all important we desperately need 155 millimeter shelves all those things absolutely true but there needs to be a kind of a larger construct within which all this fits what one by the way one good sign I think is I believe that we are beginning to see something we should have seen long ago and that is more Western and specifically American effort to help the Ukrainian military develop the kind of staffs and institutional structures it’s going to need to fight this this long War including in the phases Yet to Come OT thank thank you so much for your time it’s been a real pleasure listening to you let’s move now to our final thoughts we’ll come to Elliot finally Francis sternley would you like to go first sure well thanks David and thank you Elliot and thank you Nate as well for your perspective on the ground in Georgia today marks the 20year anniversary when on the 1st of May 2004 the EU gained 10 new member states when Estonia lvia Lithuania Malta Poland Slovakia Slovenia the Czech Republic Hungary and Cyprus joined it was was a momentous moment symbolizing for many the end of the Cold War and the shift West for many countries that formerly lived in the Soviet Union now we have many listeners from and in those countries so we welcome your memories and Reflections on the significance of that moment reach out to us on Twitter or use the usual email address in the show notes I have one thought to offer on this anniversary which is that of course NATO also expanded enormously in that era and one has to wonder whether had that not happened what the situation would be in Europe now given Russia’s renewed imperialist Behavior would it have attempted to seize back some of those countries via force or coercion political manipulation Etc I think there is strong evidence now that would have been the case and it shows the importance of safeguarding for the future which is of course what article 5 of NATO has done and Elliot talked about Churchill today I was quoting from him in his Memoirs yesterday Churchill talked a lot about that in the period after the second world war which was of course vital in setting up NATO so indeed we are living in Churchill’s world to a certain degree and it may well have saved several European and now perceived as crucially perceived as European countries from Russian imperialism but as say very much welcome listeners perspectives on this thank you Francis it sounds as if at some point you might want to do a bonus episode on church as War leader but I’ll just put that I’ll plant that thought in your head for the moment Nate from Georgia Nate what are your final thoughts yeah I think I mean that’s a good segue into the I would say pretty pivotal moment that Georgia is in right now I mean the decades long fight to join Europe and it’s all hanging in the balance at this exact moment and at the same time the government has been making steps towards increasing ties with China and it’s really putting in to perspective like basically there are two paths in which Georgia can go and at this exact moment it’s not exactly clear what the outcome is going to eventually be well Nate thank you so much for joining us and do stay safe we’ll be following your reporting from Georgia over the next days and weeks Elliot as our final guest would you like the very final thoughts and I don’t know if you have prepared remarks but we didn’t get to the question on how Richard III helped illuminate Putin for you but we’d love to know if if you have time well first on Richard III and Putin I I was at the Munich security conference a couple days before The Invasion and I was very struck that how many of my particular European friends some of them very senior officials just didn’t really think that Putin was going to do this or if he was going to do it it would be measured and calculated he might take a piece or it was a bluff or something like that and I didn’t really believe that and the reason why is this book I just published I was rereading Richard III for about the I don’t know 9th or 10th time and what struck me about it is if you look in the first three acts of that play Richard who’s committing murders left and right is nonetheless doing it very adroitly and is covering his tracks he keeps it all at arms length and he’s very effective in act four he commits the big crime the murder of his nephews in the tower and there’s a change and what happens is he turns to Buckingham as his lieutenant and says I want the bastards dead and wish it done suddenly do you understand and what what that that brought home is he the filters had all come off the need to be subtle to be indirect to be measured to be limited had fallen away and I think that’s a natural trajectory for tyrants and I think Shakespeare brought that home so that’s why I won’t say that I was absolutely convinced that Putin was going to launch a full scale but it’s one of the reasons why I thought there’s a better chance of it than other people for a final thought I would go back to something Francis was talking about Donald Trump and as some of your listeners will know I’ve been no friend of Donald Trump since 2015 and the before but I will say that one of the things Europeans have to take seriously is I I wouldn’t say that Donald Trump is former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates with Bad Manners he’s a lot infinitely worse than that but what you are dealing with is United unit states that periodically loses patience with Europe I mean think about it in the broad sweep of things the United States intervene in World War I World War II and the Cold War to save Europe to some extent from itself now that we can argue about that and I’m sure Fran this would give me a rough time but you know that’s the way a lot of Americans look at it and this is really the the test for Europe to finally stand on its own feet or get close to that and the United States will always have have to exercise some sort of leadership I fully acknowledge that and that’s why like Francis I’ve come to have an admiration for the current iteration of president macron of of France not you know I don’t know if there’ll be another iteration which I won’t like but I think he has some of the right ideas about potentially putting European forces into Ukraine but above all there is a crying need for Europe and European states to step up to the plate and just in the British context two and a half% of GDP on defense by 2030 that doesn’t cut [Music] it Ukraine the latest is an original podcast from the telegraph to stay on top of all of our Ukraine news analysis and dispatches from the ground subscribe to the telegraph you can get your first three months for just1 at www.telegraph.co.uk Ukraine thelatest or sign up to dispatches a world affairs newsletter which brings stories from our award-winning foreign correspondents straight to your inbox we also have a Ukraine live blog on our website where you can follow updates as they come in throughout the day including insights from regular contributors to this podcast you can listen to this conversation live at 1:00 p.m. London time each weekday on Twitter spaces follow the telegraph on Twitter so you don’t miss it to our listeners on YouTube 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Today, we report on another successful Ukrainian drone strike against a Russian refinery, hear the latest news live from Georgia as protestors take on the pro-Russian government, and we interview Professor Eliot Cohen about Ukrainian and western strategy in the full-scale invasion.

Contributors:

David Knowles (Head of Audio Development). @djknowles22 on X.

Dominic Nicholls(Associate Editor, Defence). @DomNicholls on X.

Francis Dearnley (Assistant Comment Editor). @FrancisDearnley on X.

Nate Ostiller (News Editor at Kyiv Independent) @NateOstiller on X.

Eliot Cohen (Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies & Former Counsellor of the Department of State). @EliotACohen on X.

Episode Referenced:

Day 789, feat. discussions on America with Jonah Goldberg:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/revealed-us-sent-long-range-missiles-to-ukraine-in/id1612424182?i=1000653592683