Is Ukraine losing control of the battlefield? | Ask DW

Is Ukraine losing control of the battlefield? | Ask DW

oh oh oh this is DW news I’m Nicole fley Welcome to ask DW the show that’s all about your questions today we’ll be talking about the war in Ukraine and where it stands over 800 days into Russia’s fullscale Invasion and we want your input it’s super easy to get involved if you’re not already there just go to our YouTube page the address is there on your screen there you’ll see the show it’s called asdw is Ukraine losing control of the battlefield and you can click on that and you can type away in the chat this time you can pick the brains of these two men that is a DW longtime ke correspondent Nick Connelly and DW’s Russia analyst Constantine egot good to have you guys on the show now these guys really know their stuff and are so Keen to hear from you to keep your questions and comments coming while you’re thinking up some questions though let’s take a look at what’s happening right now in Ukraine uh what we know is that the front lines are slowly shifting as Ukrainian forces struggle to hold back a wave of Russian assaults in the east of the country what you’re watching here is Drone footage of a Ukrainian town called chivar it was once home to 12,000 people and now it’s deserted and largely destroyed as you can see for months it’s been the target of Russian Artillery and aircraft Russia is determined to seize control of it capturing it would give them control of a strategically important Hilltop from there their artillery could dominate the battlefield far and wide but before we get to our experts we want to zoom out a little bit and look at the bigger picture because Moscow says it has captured several hundred square kilometers of Ukrainian territory this year alone in February Kremlin troops seized the city of of divka and now Russian forces have their sides set on chess ofar that town that you just saw it’s a small but strategically vital place on the map a Ukrainian defeat here could jeopardize the defense of the entire region well ke blames the setbacks on shortages of troops and delays and weapons deliveries from its allies in in the west the United States may have recently approved a $61 billion Aid package but that is by no means the end of Ukraine’s troubles getting the weapons in the hands of Ukrainian soldiers is the next step president vadir zalinski said Ukraine and its allies must pick up the pace let’s listen political decisions must be followed by real legistics the actual receipt of weapons by our soldiers work must be done around clock with our partners especially with the United States let’s find out what this all means for the war going forward we’ve got Nick Connelly for the Ukrainian angle and Constantine egad our Russia analyst for the read on how developments are going down in Moscow they’re standing by to take your questions and comments of course remember you can submit those in the comment section on YouTube let’s start with you though now Nick because you just returned from the front line close to chv Yar what are the soldiers defending the town tell you well it was extraordinarily difficult you know we were there at a position that was basically out in the open on a kind of Village Road there was a bit of hedge row some trees to helping them to disguise their positions but basically for the entire time you just heard artillery fly in all different directions uh you had drones Russian drones above all the time we were there and those people are acutely aware that they are a Target and the systems they have these are basically 1970s uh Soviet era weapons guns and armored vehicles basically aren’t up to the task unless the weather is really really favorable forcing those drones further further down making them easier to shoot down so they were feeling very vulnerable they knew they didn’t really have any other option and that they basically were there to make sure that Russia has as difficult a time taking chva as it’s possible but they were really looking to the west and asking themselves when this money that has been promised and now you know re signed off on was actually going to arrive when these resources when the artillery shells would actually start making a difference because they had seen a different situation in 2023 when Ukraine had its counter offensive for a while Ukraine almost reached parity in Munitions in artillery shells and now it felt like they were back to square one back to the situation they had faced in 2022 in terms of having to see the Russians firing six seven or even 10 shells for every one they had Constantine we’re two days away from Russia’s victory day when Russia commemorates the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany it’s widely believed that Vladimir Putin wants to present some sort of Victory on that historically important date could the capturing of shivar be it yes to some extent although I do think that uh the main goal of Putin is actually to distract Russians from the War uh chivar is not har or or nio or any any kind of big Ukrainian city that is well known to the Russian population uh and the capture of which would have been presented as a major victory here I think uh it is important for Putin just to say that we continue to eat we Russia continue to eat at the traditionally Russian speaking and traditionally Russian areas of Ukraine we continue to quote unquote liberate them that is their the kremlin’s rhetoric now and I suppose that chivar as such is not that important the important thing is to say that we continue to grind on we continue to uh basically reduce the size of Ukrainian State I think that is the main message otherwise you know CH is not something that I know the Russians know anything about so uh I’d say it is the movement uh that is more important for Putin than uh than specific name and positions yeah uh Nick president zilinski has said time and time again that he wants to defend every inch of Ukrainian territory so if it’s true that you know CH ofar doesn’t really matter all that much to the Russians as a whole um what would it mean for ukrainians to lose the town of chivar I think i’ divide here between the kind of Lo Putin’s Logic for his maybe his own you know the the population in Russia who as con says don’t know about chass ofar it’s not a famous place as fdfa wasn’t a particularly well-known place but I think there is maybe you know a need for the military to kind of explain to itself what it’s doing in Ukraine and you know give itself these kind of Mile stones in terms of their land grab in Ukraine um I think in terms of the Ukrainian kind of vision of all this I think they are just very conscious that the geography means chivar because it’s a bit higher up because it is basically between two kind of logistical routes into to the Ukrainian control part of Donetsk region that that would really make their future defense of the rest of that part of the the country a lot harder and that it would be a lot harder to kind of dig in after chasya and try to kind of set up some new way of stabilizing the front lines so I think it’s less about the symbolism from a Ukrainian point of view and more about the kind of nuts and bolts of how you go about slowing down this Russian Advance um AA for instance that was you know the beginning of this Russian kind of run in February that was already had been basically surrounded by the Russians on three sides for a long time so that was always going to be very tough to try and defend that whereas with jus of yard there’s a feeling the front lines are a bit more uh straight a bit easier to defend a bit less complicated and it is a place that’s worth investing significant resources in terms of material but also in terms of lives effectively to keep that position yeah Nick Constantine I’m going to take the back seat for now because we have our first user question our user n.1 asks how does Ukraine plan to get its goals in the the 10o peace plan if they won’t be able to go on the offensive for the next year or more what can be done to change the situation on the ground maybe we can start with you Nick I mean I think with all these kind of Peace initiatives I think it’s a lot about the kind of court of international public opinion I don’t think anyone really here sees a clear route to enacting any of these peace plans any kind of you know direct step road map how this would actually happen but I think Ukraine has been stung by criticism that it is not doing enough that it is basically just you know demanding its maximist position and isn’t doing enough to listen to those countries around the world who are suffering under the kind of economic impacts of this war and so it is important for Ukraine to be seen to be engaging especially the global South and offering ways to peace but for now when you speak to people here and you ask them so what would be step one step two you know especially when they hear Vladimir Putin basically you know still on his same maximist demands that we heard in February of 2022 there isn’t a lot of a sense that this is you know in any way going to happen anytime soon this is about showing willingness showing openness engaging other countries you apart from Ukraine’s normal Partners but beyond that I don’t see a lot of substance to it for now now Constantine a lot of analysts agree that this war is likely to not be one on the battlefield um what would the Russian side be willing to to concede to put an end to this once they run out of other options right now they’re on the offensive and it’s looking good but that has not always been the case uh so what would a possible victory that is negotiated look like for Putin’s Russia I do not think that Putin is thinking in such terms I think he still continues to dream and consider to be realistic to essentially uh replace the government in Kev with a much more plant one and grab as much territory as he can I mean the issue now is that he cannot do much and we see that these battles forka for chassid I mean these are battles you can compare to the you know the strange war of 2016 the trench warfare of the first World War uh these are kind of even if if even these are victories for the Russians these are very small victories and at the same time I suppose that if you can talk about the kind of grand plan in Moscow it is to wear Ukraine down with just demographic Advantage I think that Putin has taken a decision uh that he wouldn’t care how many Russians are killed he still has more of the Russians to be sent to the front than uh the the ukrainians have uh on their side so I suppose that the idea is to continue to wear Ukraine down that is why by the way today in his inauguration speech uh Putin mentioned nothing about the War uh nothing about sorry negotiations he mentioned the war by pass yeah and and actually I do think that he thinks has a lot of time on his on his hands and he has a lot of human resources that these resources are going to be thrown into this mid grinda uh is completely unprepared completely untrained there are there are not enough officers and sergeants to train these people he will doesn’t care about it what he cares about is actually to continue to grab Ukrainian territory territory met by meter that is I think if we can talk about any kind of strategy that is it yeah and now that you say that there is no real strategy and that the Russian military is very much working like a meat grinder I do want to pull up something that the deputy head of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence service told our colleagues over at The Economist he said the Russian army is not the hubristic organization it was in 2022 and is now operating as a single body with a clear plan and under a single command that is the Deputy head of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence service so would you say that’s not a correct assessment I would say that uh first and foremost of all I think that there is still some kind of unity of command as as a former officer I can tell you I I do not see any kind of disintegration in Russian command structure what I mean is that Putin is conscientiously using uh the type of warfare that lots of people considered to be a thing of the past uh everyone’s talking recently until until 2022 everyone was saying the the natural Warfare has changed it’s all about technology it’s all about information it’s all about cyber it’s all about propaganda no it turned out that Putin thinks that good old uh trench warfare good old frontal attacks by semi-trained soldiers uh is still fine it still gets you the result what is important and I think that is something that is not really well understood in the west and I think actually that is what this economist interview the the Ukrainian um the Ukrainian Commander hinted at in his in his Economist interview Putin just wages a type of warfare that the West thought was left in the past and in this respect he has an advantage because he’s doing something that uh people did not think he’s going to do it’s another matter if we can look at the situation in Russia domestically that Putin wants to continue to supply the army with new recruits without officially announcing it because that is going to have an adverse effect uh on the population so how long he’ll be able to pull uh the stre off not actually engaging not not not making the population aware of the costs of War while still waging this war at the same time at a very bloody cost I mean it’s a big question but I think he still thinks he can pull it off yeah we have another user question actually our viewer Cy uh has a question about the mobilization because Ukraine is not only outgun it is also severely outmanned by the Russians so he’s asking is mobilization working I’m getting the feeling the politicians in keev are pretending it’s working but in reality it’s not Nick what is the truth Percy wants to know well certainly there was a long delay basically we had 6 months of political wrangling here in Kev the new mobilization law V zenski has finally signed it recently and now people are men in in the relevant age categories are called upon to basically turn up at the military recruitment offices to restate their information so that the basically the bureaucracy knows where they’re living uh what their health status is you know all the other relevant information so that then a new database can be created and people can be called up on a different scale they’ve also reduced the minimum age it was previously 27 it’s now down to 25 many people argue it should be down to 20 so they have finally taken this decision but there has been a huge amount of criticism that vadir zinski basically didn’t want to risk his popularity with the electorate with the citizens of this country by forcing people to fight who didn’t want to if you remember back to the beginning of the war he didn’t have to you had cues around the block in front of those recruitment offices in the first year I’ve met soldiers on the front line who told me that they you know it took them 12 or 15 attempts to actually finally find a unit that was willing to take them at the beginning and now obious the situation is totally the the opposite they tried to go in without forcing people by modernizing Recruitment and doing it like a kind of private sector way with you know glossy online portals and different units offering different opportunities to develop yourself to learn new skills in the hope that that would bring in enough people to the Army and now they’re having to resort to actually forcing people to turn up and if you don’t turn up you’re going to see your bank accounts Frozen you’re going to see your driver’s license no longer valid that kind of bureaucratic pressure to get people to enter the system but obviously they’ve wasted a lot of time and now this is only starting now so it’s going to take quite some while before these people are trained and actually on the front lines a follow-up question from our user idolize coming in there thank you for your questions by the way keep them coming there’s a lot of movement in the chat we have an eye on it um she wants to know or he wants to know even with more financial aid Ukraine still needs soldiers is it realistic that more weapons alone can be a main factor here what do you say Nick I think you know Ukraine definitely needs both and it’s also important to stress that if you’re in defense right you need fewer resources also fewer people than if you’re attacking so different types different phases of War require different uh you know resource bases you obviously need a lot more if you’re trying to take territory back especially now in a situation where Russia long long stretches of the front lines has dug in and laid minefields as we saw uh you know very uh you know clearly demonstrated during that Ukrainian Counterattack last summer that was so slow and you know didn’t bring the results that had been hoped for um I think all along Ukraine has been trying to fight more cleverly more modernly in a more modern fashion than Russia is doing so obiously in a democratic you know free Society like Ukraine’s where you know politicians care about their ratings and obviously have you know free elections to worry about you will face a lot more push back from society if you know you have large casualty figures if you you know send people untrained to the front lines and we’re already seeing families of people who’ve been at the front lines for two years now making a lot of noise and putting a lot of pressure on the politicians here to give their relatives some time off so I you know we don’t have a full overview of what resources Ukraine has but I think you know for now those resources those those shells basically the nuts and bolts the the Munitions for uh you know normal artillery pieces that is crucial and for now the the the kind of influx of Western resources is going to be enough whether you know at present Ukraine will be able to to retake territory we don’t know but um certainly both of these things are a big issue and it is something that is incredibly controversial here in Ukrainian Society lots of people wondering whether this is being carried out fairly whether the right people are being sent to fight and whether other people are getting out of fighting or hiding in Kev and certainly when you talk to soldiers on the front lines that’s the first thing they’ll tell you you know when I go back to Kev for my one week’s holiday you know I have to see all these young men walking around with their gym bags not in uniform how come they they’re allowed to do that yeah there is a lot of interest in the chat in that topic actually Nick and there’s another question from our user TP um he writes many young men in Ukraine are currently hiding from police services to avoid being forcefully conscripted what does that say about the situation in the front line I’m not sure if that’s specifically you know because of the current situation on the front lines you know the difference is that now there is a different level of pressure on people to turn up at those recruitment offices to you know update their their location and their other information so we we can’t really compare it to the first year of the war because there wasn’t that pressure there wasn’t that government kind of bureaucracy trying to get people to turn up um I think this is you know a common feature of most wars you see you know lots of people who don’t want to fight you see different levels of kind of repression against those who don’t fight the fact is the law is as it is um and you know we have we have seen you know people leaving the country illegally you know paying bribes trying to get across the border all kinds of things but for the most part you know uh that is maybe you know by some estimates a few hundred thousand men in a country of 40 million um it’s difficult to get a kind of broader kind of you know zoom out picture of how big this phenomenon is but certainly we are in a new phase now of the war and lots of people are trying to understand what this new law means for them and you know if they are called up to fight will they be sent to the front line or will they be able to say okay I’d prefer to go and be a paramedic or I’d prefer to repair tanks somewhere away from the front lines so you definitely see lots of people you know working out what this means for them and some people saying yes I’m you know I’m willing to face the consequences I’m going to hide out and you know potentially end up in jail if uh you if I’m caught yeah let’s bring Constantine back in because our user rkb wants to know will we ever see NATO troops in Ukraine what do you think Constantine well before I answer the question I wanted to follow up on what Nick said that’s that’s very important when he described the reaction of the Ukrainian Society to uh to the mobilization orders to to basically uh the president zin’s decision to to enhance conscription um you you look at the Russian side it’s completely different in a sense I think if you look at the what they call in Russia Zed bloggers the pro war bloggers they basically say that in this circumstances that the fact that Russia is basically Society ruled from the top is an advantage because there are no debates there are no uh visible protest there were some protests of the wives of those who were sent to the front for one year and then could not return but these protests didn’t make big waves in the society so I think that the Kremlin Putin’s Administration they’re looking at and saying well by the way you know what it’s our advantage that we are running the country along the lines we were Runing it along for 25 years uh it’s pliant it’s compliant and I think in this respect that gives a certain advantage to Putin you have to have huge losses really massive massive losses for the Russian Society to say wait a minute now with regard to the NATO terms I suppose that so far and of course Nick is on the ground probably has more information uh uh I suppose so far uh there not going to be any kind of uh uh any any type of military personnel that are going to be engaged in specific Warfare what I can imagine is that there are advisors there are already probably people that are overseeing repairs of uh know technologically advanced weapons that were given to Ukraine there may be let’s say recently retired military people um still they possess all the skills of you know Modern Warfare um as for sending the troops there let me put it like that I think it’s not yet the time but I suppose that at least my sources in during my recent trips to European capitals I heard quite frequently that there are two things that uh nato in general NATO allies are prepared to do first massively invest in essentially what we can call a new arms race uh that will uh wear Russia down and secondly maybe in a situation in which the controlled command centers of Ukrainian state are under threat essentially if the fate of the Ukrainian state is hanging in the balance then I can imagine that Ukraine will use uh article 51 of the UN Charter and ask for assistance it can do that countries do not have to to have a multilateral Arrangements along the lines of you know NATO uh North Atlantic North Atlantic Treaty Article 5 uh a country can ask another country for a military help and I suppose that in case the fate of the Ukrainian State hangs in the balance I think let me put it very cautiously at least some Western capitals will consider it very seriously one of the western capitals considering it very seriously and out in the open is Paris I want to ask you Nick what do people in Ukraine think about President macron talking openly about the possibility of European boots on the ground in Ukraine I mean certainly it was very welcome uh but when you speak to most experts they’re a little skeptical that this is you know going to happen in the foreseeable future they see this more as part of kind of rhetorical effort by MCO and also to you know a different extent by the Brits to basically redirect the conversation they see this as a situation where basically Russia Putin is always escalating threatening you know to train you know let his nuclear forces train basically you know threatening the use of these kinds of weapons indirectly and on the other hand the US and also Germany constantly as the ukrainians would see it uh basically ruling things out and reducing their potential to kind of match that escy uh threat so they’re seeing this as an attempt by you know France and the UK as part of that NATO uh Coalition that is helping Ukraine trying to even out the the the kind of situation for Ukraine and to make it clear to the Russian side that you know there are things that the West has still not yet done that could happen we saw uh the foreign secretary uh David Cameron in Kev recently saying that Ukraine could use UK produced and supplied weapons against Russia itself not just against Russian Targets in occupied Ukraine that is definitely new that is something that was wasn’t hadn’t been stated before and hadn’t you know seemingly been communicated before and that opens huge new opportunities for Ukraine to use some of the weapons they’ve already received to for instance attack Russian airfields that are used to bomb places like khv every day and that are pretty close to the border that are within range of existing weapons that have been supplied and that could potentially make things a lot easier for Ukraine rather than spending huge amounts of resources you know trying to shoot down every missile they could just you know attack it at source attack the planes that are used to launch those missiles attack the airfields so um I think there is a sense that that imbalance has been recognized by the west and that France and the UK are trying to kind of shift the balance in Ukraine’s favor Constantine that much talked about strategic ambiguity that macron is stirring there does that bother anyone in the Kremlin well look I don’t live in the Kremlin probably likely for me uh but I think that uh the what we I’d say looking from where I am and I’m I’m in Lithuania I’m in Central Europe um people here here in warau in Ria actually in Helsinki too are saying the only thing we have to fear is fear itself as I know someone was much better at rhetoric than I said once uh I think that this uh strategic ambiguity at least looking from the central European perspective could be much more ambiguous and much more dangerous uh because that is what Putin does doesn’t like and what is his anaj do not like because they know that U Russia will be helpless against the full sort of force of Western economies if they start to produce weapons in sufficient numbers to supply Ukraine and actually to threaten Russia too and secondly uh I think that uh they will be L to see more of the Ukraine strikes on the Russian territory I think that we’ve been focusing on uh the the this very uh difficult battle for CH VR but we need to remember that the ukrainians with the help of Western weapons managed to singlehandedly uh de how could I call it demobilize immobilize the Black Sea Fleet of Russia they managed to actually depopulate the Crimea where significant parts of population of left are the threats of uh of Ukrainian strikes uh Ukraine has managed to basically free up uh all the commercial Roots uh via which uh Ukraine grain is being exported and finally and that is very important uh pretty much daily strikes and the Russian energy infrastructure are becoming increasingly visible and increasingly dangerous for Russian energy exports moreover what they show they show that Putin is not omnipotent he cannot control the whole of Russian territory Ukraine still can strive and I think that this is something that over time may have an effect and in case Ukraine gets more weapons in case Ukraine gets more Western supports then these strikes along the lines of those that David Cameron described in K and Strikes with Western weapons against legitimate Targets in situated in Russia proper uh of course over time it will an effect uh and I think that this is something that really jars Putin very very significantly yeah there is a lot of interest still in the chat in uh Ukraine’s recruiting problem Gustavo Palos asks has the Ukrainian patriotism we saw in February of 2022 vanished we saw lines of men enlisting in the Army you mention it there Nick and some even coming back to the country to join the fight what changed Nick I I don’t think anything changed in sense those people who were you know willing to go immediately who maybe had experience of fighting after 2014 in that conflict in the donbass those people who kind of had an easy route in they are already fighting and have been doing so for two years so now this is just you know a different group of people who you know many of whom say I will go and fight when my country asks me to but I’m not going to recruit and you know go be recruited and go earlier than I’m asked and who often don’t have any military experience who are often obviously worried that you know they’ll immediately end up on the front lines 200 300 meters away from the you know opposing Russian positions who maybe don’t have a very realistic expectation of the army that there are lots of other jobs there especially if you go and look for them um so I think that is a a process a kind of you know shift that was expected by everyone that isn’t particularly surprising but it doesn’t make it easier and especially you know as Constantine kind of alludes to there in a free Society like Ukraine unlike Russia you’re going to have protest you’re going to have people going on social media complaining or criticizing things they don’t like I think that is just the reality of fighting a war of conscription in a 21st century democra democracy with social media with all those ways of kind of you know people interacting sharing their experiences and bring their criticism of the government to everyone’s attention that is just I think part of the course I think we haven’t seen a western democracy recruiting people you know Mobil you know calling people up in the way that Ukraine is doing now in in Generations so we wouldn’t how the same would work in the US in Germany in the UK thank you guys for the time being and thanks everyone who has submitted a question until now keep them coming don’t be shy it’s super easy to get involved just put your questions in the chat on YouTube and we’ll put them to Nick and Constantine it can be questions about the situation in Ukraine the situation in Russia the general geopolitical situation surrounding the war and of course the work both of them have done as correspondents and experts but before we continue with questions we want to talk a little more about the man who started this war today Russian President Vladimir Putin was inaugurated for another six-year term it was an occasion full of Pomp and pedantry one that marked his 24 yearlong rule as Russia’s supreme uncontested leader he won a landslide election victory in March in a contest considered neither free nor fair and without facing any meaningful opposition addressing the Russian people he also spoke about the war in Ukraine listen in I want to Bow Before Our Heroes the participants of the special military operation a bow to those who fight you the people of Russia have confirmed the correctness of our country’s course it is of great importance right now when we are faced with hardships we are a United and great nation together we will overcome all obstacles and achieve everything we have planned together we will win DW’s longtime ke correspondent Nick Connelly and our Russia analyst Constantine egot are still here with me Constantine when Putin was first inaugurated back in the year 2000 he pledged to preserve and develop democracy and take care of Russia which you have predicted that 24 years on we’d be where we are well first of all Nicole I wouldn’t have predicted that in this particular inauguration speech he will never use the words democracy and freedom uh actually he’s he used the word Freedom only once to denominate or to describe uh the freedom of Russia essentially it means freedom of the state to do as it pleases um even in 2018 or before uh when his authoritarian tendences were pretty clear he still used this keywords maybe as a as a kind of uh you know cheap uh uh cheap propaganda uh to present himself as still adhering to some kind of uh principles of freedom and democracy not anymore uh and I think that this is a small symbol but a significant symbol uh Russia is a country on war footing and of course in 2000 and I covered that uh inauguration 24 years ago uh I couldn’t have imagined that we’ll end up with shelling and trenches dug in the donat region and and and drones hitting Russian cities I mean it it was completely unimaginable that I mean believe me um what I think Puttin counton is actually on the country still being not so not so much behind him in a sense that you don’t see a lot of lines at the conscription centers in Russia actually there are none but he counts on the country remaining indifferent and plant uh according to public opinion polls and admittedly public opin opinion polls in Russia cannot be trusted because very frequently people tell uh the posters what they think the authorities would like them to say but still about 60% of population uh say that they do not follow they do not follow closely they do not follow at all uh the war this is actually a very good result for Putin because this means that no one is going to oppose this war then the rest of the population one third population is divided between probably a slight majority that supports Putin and a minority that is against Putin against the war probably wants to change the country completely uh this is a situation in which Putin can continue to rule through the next six years and I have to remind you that he still has another six years according to the Constitution that he completely rewrote and made just a worthless piece of paper in my very very personal on view uh so I suppose that so far the Russian uh the Russian Society is giving Putin the blank check and he doesn’t even want to hide now that it is a mobilized country at War not only with Ukraine but with the West he made it very clear in his speech today in the CRI he said we are ready to be we’re ready to talk we’re ready for dialogue uh with the west but it depends on the west to drop and then there was a long list of what the West has to drop you know denigrating Russia not paying attention to its interests and so on so forth and there’s another interesting element which I think is a very important element of Russian propaganda uh in the last year or so Putin spoke in this speech again about the majority of the world population being with us what he means is that countries like China India Brazil South Africa uh the so-called Global South they support Russia at least they uh do not like the policies of Ukraine and its Western allies and I think that this is something that’s being rammed uh down the Russians throat every day look don’t worry don’t worry what maon says what Biden says what what Rishi sunak says uh what the Japanese prime minister says no we have the whole of the world behind us and this is what is important and let’s talk about sorry to jump in here because we’re fast running out of time we only have about 6 minutes left and there’s some questions that I still want to get to twick attack asked something that I might have asked both of you uh a number of times how could the US elections affect Ukraine maybe let’s start with you Nick and I’m sorry to have to ask that of you briefly if you can well obviously there’s a huge fear here in Kev of a new Trump Administration you remember you know Trump’s first uh you know struggles with the first time around with volim zinski asking the Ukrainian president for compromising uh information investigations into Hunter Biden Joe Biden’s son so there’s a track record there and there’s a real fear that any kind of trump deal would basically be uh depriving Ukraine of resources and forcing Ukraine to accept Russia’s terms so basically as much as Ukraine is trying to kind of put out its fers and engage with Republicans there is only one candidate and that’s Joe Biden who you know any kind of sense for Ukraine looks like a a kind of hope for continued American Support Constantine who are the Russians rooting for in the upcoming US election uh let me compensate for my verbosity to you and Nick by saying the United States is not a dictatorship there are lots of players there including Congress and public opinion let’s wait and see I think that uh it’s not all doom and gloom even in case Trump wins I think uh I have quite a quite a quite big trust in the American institutions and democracy and in the end their ability to see uh who is in the right and who’s in the wrong here MH life unfiltered has another question for us what is the world doing to deescalate the war Constantine maybe if you want to continue well I think I mentioned it in the beginning uh I suppose that um you cannot deescalate here because Putin is all about escalation the moment you say we let’s deescalate he escalates because that’s the only way he knows and that’s the only way he knows he can win and uh I suppose that it’s at least looking from Central Europe looking from warsa maybe by the way looking from the noric states now too uh it’s not deescalate the will uh keep Putin at Bay that will force him to uh no leave Ukraine alone it is actually uh showing to Putin that anything he does will be matched and overmatched by the force of Ukraine and its Western allies deescalation now in my personal view that is ex just my view and Nick knows I’ve been to Ukraine several times but he works there uh all the time I do think deescalation now will mean a defeat for Ukraine Putin will play it as basically the West surrendering Ukraine to his uh to his mercy and this is something that cannot be allowed to happen do you want to add something to that Nick well certainly when you speak to ukrainians when you speak to people fighting even those who will tell you that they’re tired and they haven’t been home for the best part of two years they will often tell you that carrying on as is is to their mind the least bad alternative because the big fear here in Ukraine is that some kind of freezing of the conflict some kind of let’s just you know leave things as they are for now and figure it out later will just give Russia an opportunity to rearm we’ll see sanctions dropped or weakened further and Russia then come back in a few years time with more resources to finish the job as it were I think there’s a real fear here that the West doesn’t really understand how much of a kind of central project this is for Vladimir Putin destroying Ukrainian statehood that’s the perception that most ukrainians you speak to have and they say we tried freezing the conflict in 2014 and we saw where that got us we saw you know Russia holding on to a big chunk of our territory and then coming for more so there isn’t really any kind of Clear Vision unless maybe the only alternative would be some kind of NATO membership or guarantee for the territory that Kev currently controls if there was that kind of Harden fast promise then maybe the Ukrainian population would be more open to some kind of freezing but for now it’s not something that you see being particularly popular with anyone here mhm and a final question I think because we only have two minutes left on the clock Gallen asks does Ukraine have the military knowledge to defeat Russia Nick what do you say well I think we’ve seen that Ukrainian soldiers have shown that they’re able to learn how to use Western Equipment incredibly fast they’ve often had a couple of weeks where in most NATO armies they’d have months if not years to do the same thing um we have heard that Western countries are sending military attaches are trying to coordinate more closely to maybe work on some of the Strat IES that some of the Ukrainian Army performance has been patchier that in some places the doctrines and the kind of strategy has been clever than in other places these are things we can’t really fact check or verify but for the most part I think it’s important just to remember how few people believed that Ukraine would still be here back in 20122 most people thought you know even Western friends of Ukraine thought this whole War would be over in a matter of weeks at most so I think Ukraine has you know basically surprised its critics and its gers for the best part of the last two years and that is unfortunately all we have time for today but I want to thank my guests for sharing their insights it’s always great to be able to pick your brain and of course a big thanks to you our viewers our users on YouTube especially those who send in their questions without you we couldn’t do this and we’re hoping to do this more often let me know what you thought of this edition of ASW you can leave a comment on our YouTube page you can also reach out on X for example formerly known as Twitter my handle there is at Nicole fur I’ll be happy to get in touch with you there thank you all so much for watching and for participating don’t forget there’s always more news and information and Analysis analysis of course like the one we just got from Constantine and from Nick around the clock on our website that is dw.com thank you so much for joining bye- bye oh oh

Your questions answered: as Kyiv suffers from a lack of soldiers and delays in deliveries from its Western allies, Russia has advanced in many places along the front line. Just this week, the Russian defense ministry announced the capture of two more villages in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions.

With Ukrainian forces outmanned and outgunned, DW takes a look at how the frontlines are shifting and what that means for Kyiv’s hopes of winning the war.

#ukrainewar #ukraine #chasivyar
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