‘Crooks and spooks’ in Putin’s government at war after Shoigu replaced | Edward Lucas

‘Crooks and spooks’ in Putin’s government at war after Shoigu replaced | Edward Lucas

the um greatest corrosive effect on the Putin regime we’ve always we’ve discussed this before s is this basically run by Spooks or is it basically run by Crooks and the the crooked and spook is elements are always at um in tension with each other and it’s hard to run a successful mini superpow when everyone is looting all the time and I think that that’s that underland underlining Dynamic um can always break up into the in in in onto the surface Shi might not be a household name here in the UK but for the past 12 years he’s been the Russian defense minister until last night that is only a few days after Russian forces launched a surprise attack across the border towards the Ukrainian city of h resident Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he a longtime Ally was being removed what effect will the move have on the War and what does it say about Putin’s plans Edward Lucas is a Times columnist and security strategic strategist uh very useful man to talk about this type of thing he always knows what’s going on morning Edward good morning talk us about the criminal ology of this how significant a move is it well I think the first thing to say is that this isn’t over yet there’s going to be more happening Serge shu is perhaps not a household name but he is a remarkable political survivor he’s not if you put it in British politics he’s like Michael Gove but going right back to the 1990s if you imagine Michael Gove having served in every cabinet since the John Major era not done yet he’s been moved away from being defense minister which he’s has done for a number of years to another important job as Secretary of the security Council the next question that comes up will be whether they will change the chief of the general staff um Valerie gas gasimov who is the author of The disastrous initial conduct of the war in Ukraine and an exceptionally sural character who’s never told Putin um how badly things have been going so it may be that um that’s the next thing to happen Chu’s replacement is an economist um a Hardline old-fashioned Economist um called Andre bosov and I think his job is just to keep the war machine going as Russia moves into a fullscale war economy so to take another historical analogy he might be the Albert Shier of Russia just asere was the um economic Mastermind of Hitler’s and I guess the question Edward is that that full scale War economy and the success that they’ve had and the comparative lack of success have you Ukraine has had not least because they’ve been waiting for Western weapons does that suggest that the war is going to go on for a long time and Russia could have quite high hopes of at least proceeding relatively successfully I wouldn’t go that far Stig I think that uh they’ve clearly had some advantages in the land front um and as you’ve reported today they’ve opened a new um front um around har and that’s pushing the ukrainians quite hard but the ukrainians have had some big successes too um one is in confining the Russian Black Sea fleets to one small corner of the Black Sea because it’s afraid of going out it gets sunk by drones um the other is in Long Range strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure and Logistics and this has led to um serious disruption of fuel supplies in Russia and particularly for the front and that will again be I think top of Mr Bose’s uh in inbox when he arrives at work this morning um it’s also worth noting that um shu’s um job was previously held by perhaps the second most important person in Russia Nikolai patrushev who was the head of the security Council and he is a um very hawkish former KGB guy like Putin who both the country’s top spy master um and the in effect and also the the National Security advisor a role that should really be kept separate and he’s been moved but we don’t know to what um I don’t think Putin wants to disgrace him so he’ll have to find another job for this man who is to some extent the one could almost say the Evil Genius of the of of the Putin regime I guess the point they just finally Edward is though this does feel the Long Haul is there I mean Putin you know reelected in obviously unsurprisingly dubious circumstances but he’s there all that wobble that was there for the first couple of years the war seems to be gone the the the coup that didn’t succeed he’s reorganizing his uh his allies around him it does feel that he’s in it for the long haul and it’s not entirely clear what’s going to stop that well I think it’s clear the war’s going to go on for for for quite a bit I wouldn’t say that it’s a things are going brilly for Putin this was a spectacular sacking just a few days ago of a deputy defense Minister Timor Ivanov um for corruption treason and that I think was a sign of some rivets popping corruption remains I think the um greatest corrosive effect on the Putin regime we’ve always we’ve discussed this before s is this basically run by Spooks or is it basically run by Crooks and the the crooked and spish elements are always at um in tension with each other and it’s hard to run a successful the mini superpow when everyone is looing all the time and I think that that’s that under underlined Dynamic um can always break up into the in in in onto the surface yeah that’s a very very fair point as ever Edward great to speak to you thank you for joining us Ukraine’s top military commander has admitted that the situation in the northeastern hke region has become difficult Russia claims to have captured several more Villages taking advantage of Ukraine’s shortage of both Manpower and weapons Maria a diva is a security expert in and joins us now good morning good morning thank you for having me thank you for joining us on the program can you just give us an update of of the latest on the ground there given uh those claims overnight yeah during the night seal more Villages were captured by Russian troops this is the villages to the north of harv and around wjan which is a city that lies on the river just on the border uh with Russia to the uh East North of of the city of harv so this means that Russian troops are still advancing uh despite Ukrainian uh attempt to uh defend H and to to protect the further uh villages and towns on their way but there is a hope and I think there are signs that this Advance will be stopped because UK Ukraine is redeploying more troops and Ukraine has more defense lines ahead basically what happened Russia managed to go along the first defense line but there’s also the second and there third one the only problem is that those defense line especially for example the sword one they too close to the city itself so in the Bad Case uh if Russian troops succeed in getting closer to the city this will put har the second Ukrainian largest city in the danger of the artillery fire sh which we have seen uh in the first days and months of invasion and and clearly a really precarious situation there for for people living in that area what happened with the first line of defense you mentioned that Russian troops have made it through that first line of defense there is a second and a third line was was it under preparedness was it underpowered how did the Russians make it through well the there are different kinds of reports uh one uh one is that uh there is a possibility that the lands of defense were not built too close to the water because that was not possible physically because this like area is constantly under the uh Russian uh shelling and it can be seen through so this was the reason to build them some somewhat further uh uh but uh and then what makes it uh like most important and most difficult in the situation is all those people uh who live in the area because now they have to evacuate at urgently immediately actually the evacuation is already happening for some time for for two days now they are evacuated to Har because the situation in the city is uh more or less calm uh and this is their second time they have already been through all the horrors of occupation and they know what Russian occupation brings so this is why they are fleeing uh now not to go through it again but this is the situation is Waring uh you’re completely right and how much are the questions being asked about Western Funding and whether or not you know any extra Weaponry could have made a difference here yeah that’s the one of the biggest issues and uh I think that Russians are taking advantage in terms of the timing because they know that all that Western weapons were not uh they it wasn’t here in time and it’s still not here so it the package was just announced and there was not enough time for all these weapons to come to the front lines and this is why Russia is attacking at this moment because they know that uh Ukrainian Army does not have enough and this is a time so they take advantage on that uh if Ukraine had the weapons in time I doubt that Russia will try to attack in this direction we’ve also seen overnight um reports that Serge Shu has been replaced what does that mean for this conflict well if we look at the shifts in the higher Russian leadership this probably means that uh Russia will bring and flow even more money into the war so meaning that all the Russian economy will work for war effort and this means that Putin and Russia are preparing for a long war and this is why this Ukrainian know claim that this is not only about ukra Ukraine has more grounds because we clearly see that they’re like they don’t do it just for Ukraine they are preparing for for a larger bigger war and this mean that they will go further if Russia succeeds in Ukraine Maria a diva thank you for joining us Mar Diva there a security expert in harkee

“I wouldn’t say thing are going brilliantly for Putin.”

Internal conflict in Putin’s government is the “greatest corrosive effect” in his regime, says security specialist Edward Lucas, after Putin replaced his defence minister Shoigu.

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