Blinken gives Ukraine the green-light to strike inside Russia | Major General Chip Chapman

Blinken gives Ukraine the green-light to strike inside Russia | Major General Chip Chapman

it would enable them to fight a deeper battle in terms of destroying more oil refineries more of the Russian infrastructure and um airfields so from a military perspective not a humanitarian perspective it would make sense to do that let’s talk about Ukraine where president vomir zinski has postponed all his foreign visits to direct attention to the well the developing situation in the region of khv Ukraine’s military say their forces have partially pushed back Russian troops from the town of vangs in the khi region the secretary of state of the United States Anthony blinkin announced that America will provide Ukraine with more military assistance in their fight against Russia we will provide an additional $2 billion in foreign military financing for Ukraine and we put this together in a first of its kind uh defense Enterprise fund and it has three components uh one is to provide weapons today uh so this will assist Ukraine in acquiring those weapons two is to focus as well on something that demitro just talked about investing in Ukraine’s defense industrial base uh helping to strengthen even more its capacity to produce what it needs for itself but also uh to produce for others and finally using this fund to help Ukraine purchase military equipment from other countries not just the United States for Ukraine’s use well let us talk to Major General chip Chapman former senior British military commander and former head of counterterrorism at the ministry of Defense hello to you chip good even evening John welcome welcome chip so what do you make of the situation there on this this new front line in the KH region I mean we hear about Ukrainian troops troops being pushed back they don’t use the word Retreat we hear of of Ukraine saying they’re managing to make some success against the Russians how do you read it well I think we’re back to where we were in June 22 when the ukrainians were losing slowly at that time they needed to equalize the battlefield which they manag to managed to achieve by the provision then of high Mar’s Precision strike and artillery and that’s exactly the same place that we are at the moment with a need really for foras to be provided to the ukrainians which will be helped by the uh American Aid and that is they need more air defense provision they need more artillery provision they need more ammunition and ultimately they need the aircraft because it is of course a close air support yes along with the absolute imbalance of artillery which has allowed the Russians to uh progress now I don’t think there’ll be an operational breakthrough which will mean that the Russians can take Hari City I just don’t think they’ve got the correlation of forces but that doesn’t necessarily matter uh because if you look at the framework of the battlefield they’re doing two fights firstly the close battle where they’re taking these settlements including obviously the absolute devastation of volans at the moment and secondly the Deep battle on Hari City itself where the success of their deep St like on the electricity Grid in h City uh is supposed to make the people flee because if you can make the Second City of Ukraine untenable and you have major Refugee flows you have this psychological shock that we can’t hold the Second City and it’s in that domain that what they’re doing is more important now their aims this year therefore essentially three-fold firstly to take Dess and the H secondly to secure a buffer zone which I think the actions of around the area of V Chans and all those Villages are but thirdly to find ways to divide the International Community and to play the you can’t win card so that psychological impass affects the politics of the West not just the politics of Ukraine yes testing testing Europe and the West’s will and we’re getting we’re getting statements from various won leaders that they are fully up for supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes I read that Russia are using new tactics on the battlefield fighting apparently in small groups more are they learning from Ukraine chip uh they are but I don’t think that is significant in terms of any notion of operational breakthroughs if we look at the um how we used to structure this in terms of you know the Tactical battles being sequenced in support of operational objectives in the code War we used to talk about operational man maneuver groups which were those to punch a hole through and go deep at the start of the war you might remind remember John that talked of Battalion tactical groups that was the currency of operation of the Russians and now we’re in smaller groupings those smaller groupings can use infiltration tactics in the same way as for example it was used by the Germans in First World War but they’re not likely to lead to this operational breakthrough uh and you know that in some ways that doesn’t matter because it’s not all about taking territory it’s all about U making sure that you crush the mind of the opposition if you crush the mind of the will of the opposition there’s a chance that at some stage one side will have to seek negotiations I don’t think we’re anywhere near that sort of situation at the moment so still back to the Battle of of Wills I mean earlier in the in the in the the fighting we spoke about the way that the Russian side would just throw Personnel into the front line just the flesh grinder I think it was how you described it at one at one point and we’re now seeing less of that because that must take a toll on the morale of folks back home in Russia well I still think their losses are pretty severe you know you’re still talking about 1,000 a day uh this is a northern military grouping at the moment maybe of something like 30 or 40,000 people I think what is more significant is not the losses in in that sense and are still not affecting St Petersburg and Moscow I think what’s more important is how the ukrainians are fighting their deep battle and what seems to be quite clever to me in Striking the oil refineries and it’s what impact that will uh have in the long term because it’s historically proven that it is better to destroy 50% of one industry than for example 5% of 10 Industries and already for example we’ve got a six-month gasoline ban in Russia having to import oil uh this is the refined oil that they’ve been striking so that is actually a clever deep uh deep battle tactic by the ukrainians that could have an impact but I don’t think it will have an impact in the next one or two months and that’s the period uh that the ukrainians need to get through and then go from this equalizing the battlefield to hopefully in 2025 going on the offensive but I think what you can say in 2023 the Russian view was can we hold them when you had the Ukrainian offensive now it’s uh can the ukrainians hold them that is the key question not the other way around so Anthony blinkin has now said that if Ukraine wish to it’s their decision they can fire Us weapons into Russian territory and David Cameron of course the British foreign secretary said the same thing the other day is that significant an well of course as a military guy you’d always say can we and you’d want to have those release authorities for that whether you can is obviously a political decision you know can uh can we as a military decision should we and must must we are political decisions um it would be good if they could because it would enable them to fight a deeper battle in terms of destroying more oil refineries more of the Russian infrastructure and um airfields so from a military perspective not a humanitarian perspective it would make sense to do that chip always great to hear from you Major General chip Chapman former senior British military commander

“It would enable them to fight a deeper battle in terms of destroying more oil refineries.”

Anthony Blinken has given Ukraine the go-ahead to use weapons given by the US to strike inside Russia, allowing Ukraine to fight a “deeper” battle, says Major General Chip Chapman.

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