Putin’s Kharkiv losses could have major impact in 2025 | Matthew Savill
um the Russians first of all their casties have spiked around har so as you can tell so they’re they’re well in excess of that sort of a thousand a day that they were previously suffering and could sustain the second thing is whilst their industry and both their Munitions production um and their material production has has gone up considerably a significant chunk of that and our researchers estimate around 80% of the vehicles and material coming the front land is refurbished so they’re pulling stuff out of stocks and it it seems possible that by the time you get deep into 2025 they’ll have to do another industrial reset because at that point they’ll have to start producing new artillery for example artillery barrels are a key uh challenge alongside munition well they’re going to have to start producing new ones they’re going to have to start producing new armored vehicles because we they’re going back as far as the 1960s um for some of what they’ve been pulling out literally of museums um and that’s where the ukrainians if they can build up a sufficiently resourced and well- Tred force uh could potentially make Headway if they can learn the lessons of uh 2023 hello and welcome to Frontline for times radio I’m James Hansen and today we’re talking about the latest on the war in Ukraine and I’m delighted to be joined by Matthew savil director of military Sciences of the royal United Services init Matthew thank you very much for your time welcome to front line good afternoon just to begin with can you give me your assessment on on where you think we are in this war at the moment um so so so overall what we are seeing is some of the consequences of what happened last year in terms of the Ukrainian counter offensive falling certainly short of um expectations um and the delay in some of the western support coming in which means that the Russians are now effectively on the on the attack they haven’t launched a single offensive but they are essentially probing along the full length of the sort of a thousand kilometer front line um and they are making use of some of the advantages uh that they have uh built up over time um and some of the disadvantages and some of the the challenges that ukrainians have faed uh predominantly in uh ammunition uh in training and their ability to compare their defenses um and so there’s this window of opportunity that the Russians are are taking advantage of particularly after their mobilization and do you see the delay in Western Aid as directly correlated with what we’re seeing on the front line now particularly in the northeast of Ukraine so to a degree and it’s certainly a contributory factor I mean there are two things uh that the ukrainians would have been wanting to focus on um and that is physical defenses so putting in place fortifications OB cicles um and other barriers to mirror essentially what the Russians had in place last year and personnel and that’s a recruitment and a training challenge for the ukrainians uh which is that they’ve got to to generate more forces probably to replace casualties but partly also to address some of the challenges they had last year which is that they um they struggled to conduct what we call kind of combined arms maneuver particularly at Large Scale so that’s maneuvering using your different weapon systems all of those sort of things in concert to to maximize uh their their uh their attack um they struggled with that last year because of the difficulty of actually taking the time to train people and to having the equipment for last year’s counter offensive that is what has been compounded by the fact that they have been short particularly of artillery ammunition and air defense missiles uh which meant that the Russians would been able to keep the pressure on and then have now launched their own attacks and Matthew what do you make of you know obviously at the moment we’re seeing Russia making some significant gains in the northeast of Ukraine particularly in harv oblast president zalinsky has come out and said that it’s under control for the time being but that Ukraine only has around a quarter of the air defense capacity required to hold the front Lin so what is your reading on on where this Russian offensive may go from here so I think there is there is a question about how significant in terms of grounds taken uh the Russian advances are around H essentially what happened was around the 10th of May they launched a series of attacks across the border from belgrod blast uh uh into the area Northeast of har and it’s relatively close to the border so probably 30 to 40 kilometers uh in terms of its proximity and it seems like they have captured now a number of small towns and Villages and they seem to at least be in uh V chance um and so they have advanced maybe 10 maybe 15 kilometers um still short of the outskirts of H itself but that is happening concurrently with that pressure that is being applied along the rest of the front um so so some pressure on in the South particularly around zapia um and particularly around the dbass aiming at chivar and so the significance of what’s happening in the north is that um this doesn’t look like the Russian uh counter offensive or offensive or whatever um and it might only evolve around you know a few th000 4,000 or more Personnel but they’ve got plenty on the other side of the Border um but what it is doing is forcing the ukrainians to commit some kind of force around H and they might be having to pull forces from elsewhere along the line they prefer to do that from locally but H is their second city um and so they don’t really want to lose that and it’s sucking up probably artillery and air defenses that the ukrainians would rather position elsewhere hak is already subject to repeated air strikes and drone attacks but if the Russians could Advance a bit further and dig in they could bring it back in range of their standard sort of tube artillery and that hasn’t been the case since the uh Ukrainian assault unhu in September 2022 there’s been a lot of talk about Russia trying to create a buffer zone in the Northeast to try and limit the extent to which Ukraine can strike targets inside Russia do you think that’s what what is happening at the moment or is this more an attempt to push potentially all the way to harv City so they probably don’t have the forces currently to take hake although they’ve got fairly significant reserves and Russian forces overall in Ukraine are probably now over half a million so their mobilization has enabled them to to bolster what they’ve even if they’re not particularly well trained creating that additional pressure and taking territory does push the ukrainians back um and obviously the Russians are concerned about what the ukrainians have been able to do in terms of striking into Russia into around belgrod um and it makes it that much harder um but not least I mean it removes Ukrainian artillery from the equation if they go far enough um although the ukrainians still have long range drones that they’ve been using and general seski Ukraine’s military commander-in-chief has also said in in recent days that that his troops are prepared for a possible Russian offensive insumi o blast do you think that is likely and if it does happen is that again designed to try and divert Ukrainian troops I mean yes it’s slightly difficult to know sort of what’s happening on a on a day-to-day basis because there’s a little bit of a lag of information and a lot of what comes out is not necessarily complete uh but but in terms of the buildup of Russian forces around the area and that that approach of putting pressure on and making the ukrainians thin their lines sui is certainly an option um and it would enable them to put pressure on H and other areas from another Direction you mentioned a moment ago Matthew the the issue that Ukraine has been having around mobilization and getting fresh recruits onto the front line obviously in in recent days Ukraine’s new mobilization law has come into effect which means that the uh the age men can be drafted has been lowered from 27 to 25 how big a difference do you think that will make so this is an area where it’s genuinely difficult to know it should bring thousands more tens of thousands more maybe more recruits into play but in truth the scale of the sort of displacement of the population um and some of the other challenges that they face means it’s difficult to know exactly how many people that would definitively add uh to what the ukrainians currently have I mean some of the estimates in terms of the number of people that they have underarms at moment stretch up towards maybe 800,000 um so they already have quite a lot of personnel available although that that includes a variety of forces the big challenge is is really uh not quite the numbers but the training um and that has been um a significant challenge so this new mobilization law those new people who are if they are called up effectively or conscripted um then they could go through a pretty rapid training cycle not dissimilar to the the um basic infantry training that the UK provides over here um but that only provides essentially minimally trained basic infantry um and that is not really uh the issue that the ukrainians have faced it’s uh training their higher headquarters training those Personnel in more specialist areas and then training them to operate as a large coordinated Force and and one of the questions you you see sometimes is well why why only 5 why doesn’t Ukraine lower its conscription age to 21 or even younger what are the challenges when it comes to the age at which you call people up oh well I mean this is essentially the the cause of um significant internal debate inside the country I mean fundamentally when Ukraine is calling up its the younger parts of its population it is calling up its future as it sees it um and although it is in as as it sees in an existential fight every person that is putting into the front line is a potential casualty um who won’t therefore be uh around in the future it’s also a lot of the rest of the population who are keeping the economy going um and in that respect um part of the challenge is fighting whilst um not giving the Russians essentially what they want which is to render Ukraine a sort of a nonfunctioning state and of course there’s issues around recruitment but then you also have to talk about issues around retention and according to reports Ukraine is going to drop a potential new law which would have allowed people to be have the option of being discharged after 36 months of service I suppose that plays into the the growing concern about Morale on the front line for Ukraine which you know for the two years we’ served the war so far since the fullscale invasion has been seen to be very good certainly in comparison to the Russians how big an issue do you think there is around that at the moment Matthew I mean again it’s another another area where it’s to know for certain and it’s probably not uniform um up until now obviously the Ukraine’s been extremely highly motivated because of the nature of the fight that they are in there was clearly some impact on the back of the uh expectations not being met last year over the counter offensive and then critically the delay in terms of the most recent set of international support will have introduced a lot of Doubt over essentially Western us European commitments to their cause and we’ve seen some of the sort of the criticism uh in terms of um the initial delay and then whether sufficient material is being given that some of that material is now reaching the front line and is reported to be doing so uh will help bolster morale I think it’s important to note it’s not going to close the gap uh in terms of for example um artillery Russian production has been running you know running up uh for some time now um but it gives the ukrainians more of a Fighting Chance it means there’ll be less although not no rationing of ammunition along the front line um they’re still however going to have to look at what their expectations are for this year and probably face up to the fact that there will be some further loss of territory and so a lot of their challenge will be maintaining morale working out which territory they can seed without giving up too much of an advantage that’s some of the challenge around as if y because of The High Ground that it occupies um and where else they can consolidate their lines and pull people off the front line both to give them a break but also to be part of that retraining effort I want to come on to the issue around Western military aid for Ukraine in just a moment and what more is needed just on mobilization Matthew when do you think we’ll we’ll hear more about a potential fresh wave of Russian mobilization so I mean it seems like uh Russian mobilization has been underway for quite some time time because they have been able to absorb uh pretty significant casualties over the past few months uh which have spiked again with the assault around har so we were looking at casualties maybe in excess of 20,000 maybe 30,000 a month I mean that’s that’s killed and injured um but those are pretty pretty significant numbers uh in the in the recent history of this conflict I mean historically obviously there have been huge casualties um that is not full Russian mobilization and so there are more ways that they could go for if they felt it necessary that’s one of the slight challenges in that they have a significant body on which to draw so they’re probably keeping their powder dry for now um because they have as I mentioned earlier already managed to boost just the force inside Ukraine over half a million let’s come on to the issue of of Western military support for ukra it was interesting that we’ve now had the German foreign minister analina bbok come out and say that she would like to see Ukraine supplied with longer range weapons to actually be able to strike Russian targets there’s been this ongoing debate about whether Ukraine should be allowed to use Western weapons inside Russia and notable that it was the German foreign minister because there is a tension within the German Coalition it would seem over the issue of supplying tourist missiles do you sense that Germany is slowly moving closer towards supplying those um so I’m not not really a sort of you know an expert on the internal mechanics of of the German system but but as you say that that does reflect an internal debate that’s been going on where there seems to be some very strong resistance in parts of the German system um and other areas um are essentially uh feel that they should be following the lead that’s been taken by the UK with Storm Shadow the French with scalp um and now some of the US longer Range Systems that have come in so it’s it’s difficult to know um whether or not you know the Germans will effectively authorize first of all providing for example Taurus in the first place and then whether there’ll be any restrictions on using it um but in essence that approach that’s been taken across the International Coalition which is that somebody normally goes first on a system and that essentially sets a new mark for everyone to step up to is in play and just on the the tourists and their virtues I mean I’ve I’ve read a lot of people saying that they would be more effective in the storm shadows and the scalps for example at hitting bunkers and bridges why is that so I I think Taurus is fundamentally a slightly uh more modern uh similar kind of uh missile it has a slightly longer range um you know so it’s it it’s a similar air launch standoff cruise missile which is designed to be essentially you launch it from an aircraft you’re hopefully outside the enemy air defenses and then it goes in relatively low level um so what it’s got is is a is a longer range than Storm Shadow um and a lot of the the speculation is there about could the ukrainians use it to attack the Kur bridge for example um because uh that’s quite a difficult Target for jets launching storm shadowman Scout they have to get a lot closer to Russian air defenses um so those are the advantages is that it provides it could it could do a reasonable amount of damage to that um storm shadowman scale Storm Shadow in particular is an excellent bunker Buster already um so it’s it’s really about hitting that um that large static Target which would in any case be would be an extraordinary difficult Target for cruise missiles of that type anyway just because of its its mass you would probably have to launch quite a lot at it to damage it so I think that the ukrainians will have in mind the kind of targets they want to use uh against um use it against um it might not be bridge is is number one on the priority list well that’s an interesting point I mean were for example the Us and other Western allies to essentially remove any restrictions on how Western supplied weapons can be used by Ukraine what would be top on the Ukrainian priority list where would they target first do you think well so a lot of the targets they would want to use those cruise missiles against are actually essentially inside Ukraine um or Ukrainian territory as we recognize it so Crimea um where there was some nervousness early on about targeting but but the UK has essentially said is completely within scope for Storm Shadow um so a lot of the success that we’ve seen is against those similar kind of targets I mean as say co co Bridge could be on that list because of the increased range a lot of it would also be weapon Supply bunkers and those sorts of things um I think the challenge is that what we’ve seen so far from the essentially the Deep strike campaign is that it is there to complement uh what happens along the front line not replace it so what we saw last year was a lot of very successful attacks on ships in the Black Sea Fleet uh arms dumps headquarters Black Sea fleet’s headquarters but also Russian Army Headquarters um that caused significant damage um although the Russians are adapting with their air defenses these these missiles still uh sometimes get through if they’re accompanied by other kinds of attacks however that hasn’t led to a collapse in Russian forces on the front line because although it’s their headquarters being hit and it’s their arms UPS being hit they’re still able to fight and maneuver along the front and so in essence that kind of deep strike campaign needs to complement what happens at the front line which is uh still largely about um armored Warfare artillery and increasingly drones and Matthew when it comes to Ukraine using Western supplied weapons behind Russian lines which weapons would be most effective so uh this is where you get into sort of complimenting some of the the operations that the ukrainians are already conducting so they’re using uh drones uh from a variety of sources so probably hugely domestically uh produced um but there’s obviously been Western input uh into um some of those systems against uh airfields um and uh energy infrastructure particularly that’s directly supporting uh the Russian military over the Border um but those drone ATT attacks uh they sometimes effectively they get shot down um it seems like they they’ve conducted a pretty successful sabotage campaign across the border as well um where Western support might come in handy would probably be along the lines of the longer range artillery particularly attackers um because you could try and launch uh for example cruise missiles against those targets but again you’ve got to take a lot of risk with the aircraft to get them close and there’s Russian air defenses um that that would effectively threaten those aircraft whereas firing long range artillery um there’s still a chance that the the Russians could shoot down those incoming Rockets but particularly the ones with with with cluster Warheads they could be used to hit the airfields where Russian aircraft are based um that are conducting the strikes back into Ukraine that’s particularly true of those sites for example where the aircraft that are launching the Glide bombs come from one of the reasons why those pose such a significant challenge for the ukrainians is that they’ve got a reasonable standoff distance maybe 30 to 40 kilometers um but they’re very hard to shoot down in both the numbers um and how they operate they’re very difficult to detect and the Russians have been using those to pretty devastating effects not just on civilian locations but actually on the front lines and so so the best bet for the ukrainians is either to shoot those Jets down um before they launch the weapons and you could do that if you prepared to push for example Patriot further forward and then launch against Russian aircraft in Russian airspace or if you’ve got longrange artillery destroy the aircraft on the ground before they take off um so those are some of the areas where Western Supply weapons could complement some of the systems that the ukrainians have got themselves wanted to ask you about the military leadership of Ukraine because it’s a few months now since General Zushi was replaced by General seski have we seen any significant difference in either strategy or tactic since then um not not hugely um but in many respects that’s because of the the impact of the last um six to 12 months is that the the Russians have probably got the initiative now and so what we’re actually seeing is effectively the ukrainians having to put themselves on the defensive um and that’s quite a challenging mindset change uh some of the suggestions about what happened up near HEV is that the kind of fortifications and defenses that they need to put in place weren’t there uh and that’s what enabled the kind of that early slightly shocking Russian advance I think we need to take that with a bit of a pinch of salt because uh defending right on the border as it were building all of those fortifications all of that would have been done under the glare of Russian surveillance drones of their artillery sitting cross the border inside uh Russia um and their drones particularly their first person view drones so the idea that the ukrainians could have assembled uh you know essentially untroubled an extensive defensive belt right on the borders probably unrealistic so the real question is what have they got in place further back around hak itself to kind of slow up that Advance um there was some reporting from early in the year uh which suggested that they were they were later than they have liked in putting up those defenses um and that’s where a lot of the effort has gone in subsequently to try and effectively accelerate creating those physical barriers and equally there’s been a significant change okay not in the military leadership but in the political leadership of the ministry of defense in Russia with sery um Shu moving out and Andre bisoft coming in how much significance do you place on that so I mean uh again there’s a there’s a there’s a a whole U metaphorical Army out there of criminologists who can tell you what that says about what’s going on around Putin um it it doesn’t really appear or is unlikely to change the course of the war um and uh the conduct in terms of sort of tactics and operations um there is some speculation particularly some of the people much more expert than me that essentially by picking the ministry of defense that he has that is a signal that Russia is if you like preparing for a long War with you know an increased industrial push the kind of economic uh sacrifices necessary to keep funding and keep going so there might be some signaling there um but in terms of what’s Happening along the front line that kind of fight that has its own uh if you like Rhythm own uh measure counter measure battle um an evolution effectively in the kind of technology and tactics that they’re using that that is if you like in some respects independent of whoever the ministry of defense is looking ahead what would constitute a successful next few months for Ukraine what is their best case scenario uh I mean in the worldly optimistic uh situation it would be that the uh Russians don’t take any more ground and they can eject this kind of lodgment that’s not um not north of H um but I suspect a successful um next few months successful year is where they seed as little ground as possible and effectively blunt the Russian advance so in other words they can make an they can make decisions um under their timing and under their uh support of their interests about where to see ground but in doing so they bleed the Russians and they cause the Russians to expend those additional people and extra material in such a way as to to really bite into what’s happening I think it’s worth reflecting on the fact that um the Russians first of all their casualties have spiked around haris so as we can tell so they’re they’re well in excess of that sort of a thousand a day that they were previously suffering and could sustain the second thing is whilst their industry and both their Munitions production um and their material production has has gone up considerably a significant chunk of that and our researchers estimate around 80% of the vehicles and material coming with from l is refurbished so they’re pulling stuff out of stocks and it it seems possible that by the time you get deep into 2025 they’ll have to do another industrial reset because at that point they’ll have to start producing new artillery for example artillery barrels are a key uh challenge alongside munition well they’re going to have to start producing new ones they’re going to have to start producing new armored vehicles because they’re going back as far as the 1960s um for some of what they’ve been pulling out a literally of museums um and that’s where the ukrainians if they can build up a sufficiently resourced and well-trained force uh could potentially make Headway if they can learn the lessons of uh 2023 that’s really interesting so you may find yourself in a situation in the not too distant future where Ukraine are have a significant Advantage when it comes to the advancement of their supplies uh so yes for next year and I think that’s that’s the other that will be a significant challenge in terms of again expectation management and morale is it seems unlikely not impossible but unlikely an effective Counterattack could be mounted or counter offensive could be mounted this year by the ukrainians the the it was already looking difficult but the delays to material coming in and and again um mobilizing and train trainings the right level enough people means that the idea that we’re going to see some huge Push by the ukrainians this year short of you know a window an opportunity or Russian eras opening up it’s probably not going to happen and so they do need to be thinking about now about how they can assemble and preserve a force for next year um rather than this year and so this year should really be about like blunting the Russians such as that they pay a disproportionate cost um for what look like um advances they’re going to make um and that will be true across the line so thinking about continuing to um hit the Black Sea Fleet thinking about how they can inflict casualties upon the Russian Air Force all of those sorts of things Matthew Sav really appreciate your time thank you so much for joining us today on Frontline no problem thank you for watching this episode of Frontline for times radio for more on the war in Ukraine subscribe to the times radio YouTube channel listen to times radio on your Digital radio or you can read the Times online with your digital subscription or in print thank you and goodbye
“They bleed the Russians and they cause the Russians to expend those additional people and extra materiel.”
Ukraine will seek to use Putin’s push on Kharkiv to “bleed” Russia’s tanks and manpower as the Kremlin is forced to refurbish older equipment, says RUSI’s Matthew Savill.
📻 Listen to Times Radio – https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio
📍 Subscribe to our channel – http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTjDhFuGXlhx9Us0gq0VK2w?sub_confirmation=1
🗞 Subscribe to The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/subscribe/radio-3for3/
📲 Get the free Times Radio app https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio/how-to-listen-to-times-radio/app
20 comments
This dude can’t wait to report on the WWW3…
Lol this cope is hilarous😂😂
Lol 2nd army in the world🤦🏻
SMERT VOROHAM 🇺🇦🇬🇧☠️
It's time Times Radio accepted the reality that Russia has won and NATO has lost. By 2025 the regime of ex=President Zelensky will just be a memory
Another TR piece which essentially puts a positive spin on Ukraine's war situation. I've made the point hear recently that this is beginning to sound like propaganda, rather than clear -sighted analysis, and have been accused of being a Russian bot as a result. Oh well. I still hope Ukraine wins, but I no longer believe Ukraine can seize back control of the entire area on their country without NATO troops and air power becoming involved.
Russians and their fantasy world is slowly collapsing.
Im talking about the 5 % top criminals now that have stolen EVERYTHING from the russian people.
I can't read the comments, too annoying having to see the same comment about the audui over and over again 😂
On the contrary, at current loss rates, Russia will exhaust its Soviet era stockpiles in the coming months, not in 2025.
evil UK is falling😂😂😂
Horrible Audio
My question is Why are Russia having so many Troops killed. Because its very hard to understand. When Russia are hitting the Ukraine positions from Miles Away with Artillery, Missiles and Bombs. Face to Face fighting is when you suffer Troop casualties and thats not happening. On the other hand the ones being hit by the Artillery, Missiles and Bombs must be suffering major problems.
So ukraine is winning? 😂
Big liar
Why do you have such difficulty with your audio levels?
Idiots dont know nothing
The Russian losses have been over inflated according to reliable news sources. They also have 300 million people to recruit from, but most of all Putin has resolve. The west lacks 100% commitment. But .. Thankyou for your news service, its a work in progress but I like it.
Fake news. Russias military has grown stronger since the start of this “war”. Negotiating with Putin is the ONLY way to stop the killing and destruction. NATO has grown weak. Biden has weakened America. Why would Russia back down?
The sound is fine for me on my old IPad
Stop starting sentences with the word "so"!!!