Russia’s ‘theatrical’ nuclear weapons drills & Ukraine’s theory of victory | Ukraine: The Latest

Russia’s ‘theatrical’ nuclear weapons drills & Ukraine’s theory of victory | Ukraine: The Latest

I’m Francis derley and this is Ukraine the latest today further to the fast evolving situation on the front lines we reflect on how Ukraine might win the war the theatrical nuclear weapons drills being carried out by Moscow and look deeper on the political fault lines of Central and Eastern Europe bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with Victory if we give president zilinski the tools the ukrainians will finish the job Slava ukraini nobody’s going to break us we’re strong we’re ukrainians every weekday 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 22nd of May 2 years and 89 days since the fullscale invasion began and today I’m joined by the telegraph Berlin correspondent James Rothwell former tank commander and chemical weapons expert heish to Breton Gordon and dbor roak Senior fellow of the American Enterprise Institute I started however by summing up the latest developments on the front lines the Russian offensive in Northern Ukraine continues and is achieving its objective according to president zinsky of diverting attention from equally intense offensive operations in eastern Ukraine he said the situation in Northern KH oblast is now stable and has been for some time but that few are paying attention to the wave of Russian offensive operations in dbas in the chassa de bahmut Portos near Aika and kurakov west of donak City a which have been accelerated by Moscow as we discussed yesterday on the podcast it would appear that these KH attacks and possible preparations for an assault on sui about 150 km North Norwest of KH are indeed intended to draw away scarce Ukrainian military resources from the more easterly front now on the KH ACC axis V Chans Remains the key Focus reports suggest and I emphasize that word suggest Moscow continues to divert units from other fronts in an attempt to seize the town at high cost while Ukraine is still hamstrung by that deficit of weapons and US imposed restrictions on their use after the initial attacks on the town the Russian Armed Forces have resorted to Simply bombarding it and throwing soldiers at the problem footage suggests it is beginning to become like bahmut a mess of rubble which can make it easier to defend but only if there is something left to defend as we discussed in recent episodes including yesterday the real challenge for Ukraine is that some countries especially the US will not allow ke to use their delivered weapons to strike Russian military targets across the border a mere 4 km away from the settlement so Ukraine once again and as so often has to defend with severe restrictions on its freedom to maneuver now I just want to take a moment here to try and paint a picture of the horrific scenes in volchansk and the K region more widely Drone footage shows civilian bodies lying in the streets and buildings pulverized adah woodsworth the co-founder of the charity C that Grassroots project repairing homes in eastern Ukraine who listens will recall after have Vivid testimonies to us from the liberated Eastern territories has written a powerful piece for the guardian summarizing the desperate situation in The Villages near kiv and kiv itself where she currently is as she writes on a walk with a friend in kiv last week we noted how similar the tense atmosphere was to when we first met in the city in 2022 there are major differences though the use now of immensely powerful Glide bombs capable of creating craters as deep as nine-story buildings adds another layer of tension the lack of faith in the west support is another in the early days of the war despite all the unfurling horrors people were confident that the West saw this fight as its fight too and that Ukraine would receive the support it needed the massive delays in US aid mean that whilst the ukrainians breathed a collective sigh of relief we are still a long way away I don’t know a single person who has not lost a loved one fighting in the past 6 months and no one here can shake the belief that those lives might have been saved had the US passed the bill sooner the Ukrainian Army seems to have stalled the Russian Advance on Ki for now but concrete action must be taken by Ukraine’s allies to ensure that kiv and the villages around it do not become the next marup KV needs proper air defense entering the city feels as though an umbrella has been taken off you during a storm people are living with little protection from the attacks launched from across the border every day most vitally Ukrainian troops must be able to strike in Russian territory once they can do this they will be able to destroy the systems from which these weapons are launched so far the UK and lvia have said this would be allowed and those countries must now step up to pressure the US and allow Ukraine to do the same with American weapons so that’s a Wordsworth there in the guardian I say We’ll add a link in the description moving to the detet front as the institute for the study of War has consistently reported Russian forces’s most immediate Prospect for operation significant gains on in Ukraine remains in the chass ofar direction and seizing chass ofar would enable Russian forces to set conditions to attack part of that Fortress belt of cities forming the backbone of Ukraine’s donet o blast defenses and Russian forces likely seek to exploit unfavorable situations for Ukrainian forces defending near chasar and avika that before US military assistance arrives at the front lines at scale but other the is W emphasizes and I think this is really important and often forgotten the Russian military command initially planned that its forces would quickly make significant advances in Northern Caro blast they have failed in that hence why their strategy has had to adapt this is despite all the restrictions I’ve just described being placed on Ukraine in terms of material and weapons permissions the losses for Moscow are incredibly high they are not an Unstoppable Juggernaut now on that subject I want to end this section today by summ izing some of the arguments in an important piece by friend of the podcast Professor Elliot Cohen the former counselor of the United States Department of State along with former Minister of Defense of Ukraine Andre zagorodni he has written a Polie with Elliott for foreign affairs which seeks to answer the question that Elliot posed on the podcast a few weeks ago namely what is Ukraine’s theory of Victory as they write Aid alone cannot answer the central question facing Ukraine how to win the war what ke needs is not just more assistance but also a strategy for Russian defeat something that some of its Partners have studly studiously avoided discussing the US has never planned out its support for ke Beyond a few months at a time it is focused on short-term Maneuvers such as the 2023 counter offensive rather than viable long-term strategies including a potential triumph over Russia now Elliot and Andre then posit the best methods of achieving that including threatening crime a and inflicting grave damage to Russia’s economy and Society they argue quote it is a more realistic strategy than proposed alternative that is a negotiated settlement while Putin is in offense Putin has never agreed to respect Ukrainian sovereignty and never will no sustainable long-term peace can be emerged from negotiations with an aggressor that has genocidal intent Ukraine and the West must either win or face devastating consequences they continue coming up with a theory of Victory would be much harder to than it would have been in 22 since then Russia has militarized its economy preparing for a long War managed to recruit hordes of soldiers and produce large stock Pils of equipment but despite these successes moscow’s L War Doctrine is still unsophisticated It Centers on using small infantry groups with the support of a few armored vehicles to attack various spots on a front line that stretches for over a thousand miles these tactics have allowed Moscow to make limited territorial gains but only after losing enormous amounts of troops and weapons Russia’s losses including as many as a thousand or more casualties a day roughly match its intake of new troops which are of much lower quality each month Russia is losing as many vehicles as it manufactures and is burning through its stock piles and importantly Russia is facing both of Labor shortage and resources shortage the latter thanks to the combination of Western sanctions export control measures and a Ukrainian bombardment campaign Russia’s small gains therefore were only possible by its overwhelming advantage in Firepower which occur Ur only as a result of the disruption of Western age as such they argue to conclude if Ukraine has enough supplies it will be able to keep Russian Artillery at Bay enhanced air defenses includ including F-16 fighter jets equipped with longrange air-to-air missiles would reduce Russian attacks on critical infrastructure inside Ukraine as well as on units stationed near the front with Russia’s forces increasingly paralyzed Ukraine would then be able to use its Western longrange systems such as attackers to take down Russian command control centers and air defense assets the process of softening Russian positions and weakening Russian resolve would likely take about a year after which Ukraine should reclaim the initiative keev should again launch limited counter offensive then which will allow it to retake key terrain if these assaults are successful Putin’s regime could face a crisis spread of heavy losses and Battlefield failures consistent with this Ukraine success must be ensured by the West mounting an aggressive information campaign to intensify the divisions over the perception of the war within and outside Russia and then they go on and say further to that there need to be economic fronts opened as well this is a fascinating and important piece I’m conscious I’ve shared quite a bit of it there but it goes on much longer We’ll add a link in the description for those who are very interested in this question as its authors and no doubt regular listeners will be aware of though we’re a long way from these kind of supplies and Collective Western willpower as things stand but it is vital that we start having the conversation if the West is to stand by its commitments to Ukraine now from the military sphere to cover the political realm today delighted to be joined by Berlin correspondent James Rothwell James I know heish will want to comment on this later on but yet more evidence of nuclear saber rattling from Moscow what’s going on yes frk you Francis we are seeing more nuclear saber rattling and in essence this takes the form of Tactical nuclear weapons exercises which Russia has said it is due to hold that’s according to the institute for the study of War which has been following this issue very closely indeed uh the exercises will involve isander ballistic missiles and Kinsel aerob ballistic missiles now they stress that these are tactical exercises not strategic exercises EG the use of nuclear weapons in order to end uh a war decisively but there’s a bit of debate really about whether there’s ever a difference between tactical and strategic use of nuclear weapons uh many people quite reasonably you could say consider any use of a nuclear weapon uh to basically be the moment that a war may end or of course uh very significant and catastrophic nuclear escalation so this is dangerous stuff and according to the isw the real goal here is to try and influence uh Western policy-making decisions on which targets Ukraine uh is allowed to strike such as targets deep inside Russian territory and we’ll be returning to that story in a moment because there’s more to say about it now the isw notes that Mr zalinski the president of Ukraine has said that at the moment as the way things stand Russia has a sort of sanctuary in Russian territory from which it can launch missile strikes Glide bomb strikes which have become a particularly major problem recently against Ukraine without really worrying about major retaliation that they’re essentially being given car launch to launch whatever attacks they like from Russian territory that’s an ongoing concern and the ifw says that it continues to assess that us and Western policies limiting Ukraine’s ability to strike military Targets in Russia are quote severely compromising uh Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against uh the current Russian offensive operations particularly in h so that’s a big concern just to sum up what’s going on there basically tactical Russian nuclear exercises that were announced on May the 6th and will take place shortly trying to I was going to say influence but bully really Ukraine and Western Powers as they continue to discuss what’s acceptable and what isn’t in the concept of Ukraine selecting Russian targets um and I said there was more to say on that and there is in the form of a very interesting story uh which has come out of Newsweek uh Newsweek reports exclusively that the pentagon’s read line on Ukraine’s drone strikes on Russian energy infrastructure is being scrutinized in Washington after an investigation not clear if that’s us investigation or newsweek’s own work found that some have targeted oil refineries which Supply Putin’s military with fuel for the ongoing War now the report says that in early January keev started using drone strikes against Russian refineries that’s about two years into the War uh which blocked gasoline production in Russia and also cut moscow’s export revenues uh which are of course a very important part of the country’s War economy there’s been about 13 successful attacks on Russian oil fineries uh during the war so far and these are Big attacks they’ve uh been deep inside Russian territory Target uh targeting as I said oil refiner um and they’ve disrupted apparently at least 13% of Russia’s oil capacity and so what we’re going to see now I think is the Americans perhaps starting to put pressure on Ukraine and maybe even try to re in some of that activity no doubt with an ie on the US election and that really Echoes what the isw said in its assessment that I quoted earlier that the United States really is tying the hands of Ukraine a potentially decisive moment of the war so it is very concerning and Newsweek points out that previously unnamed us officials uh have said uh that Washington is now starting to put pressure on Ukraine to Halt those attacks not just because it would draw up oil prices drive up oil prices rather but it might provoke further retaliation from Putin which of course as we keep being told is what supposedly this is all about these restrictions being placed on the ukrainians let’s now move to Georgia now a number of EU countries are considering sanctions against the Georgian government including potentially suspending visa-free travel to the EU and that’s in response to the Georgian government introducing its massively controversial poisonous really Russian style foreign agents law now as our listeners may recall the foreign agents law basically says that groups in Georgia such as NOS which receive more than 20% of their funding from overseas have to declare themselves as foreign agents and this is the substance of that law is not really what’s caused so many mass protests in Georgia the real issue is that they see that as an attempt by Russia to expand its Russian style influence over a country which of course as we know has enshrined in its Constitution the goal of joining the European Union and joining NATO and we’ll come back briefly on the issue of EU membership because that could be directly affected by this law and there are also concerns that this would just be the beginning of a Russian style Crackdown on a free media in Georgia on critics of the government in Georgia and so there’s a lot of concern about this law which has been Advanced by the Georgian Dream party it did pass its third and final reading in Parliament recently and there is some speculation that the president of Georgia May uh veto the law the problem of course is that Georgian Dream has enough numbers in the parliament to ret alate by rejecting The veto uh so to put it in simple terms it is very likely that this law is going to pass um now those countries that are looking at imposing sanctions on the Georgian government are Estonia the Netherlands the Czech Republic and Sweden we mentioned earlier that suspending Visa free travel uh is the main thing that they’re looking to do and they may also Target well they may also freeze EU funds going to Georgia now as I said earlier a big concern is that if this law comes into effect it may have a pretty negative impact on Georgia’s hopes of dra joining the European Union uh that’s a long-term goal uh of Georgia as I said it’s in the Constitution and some have speculated that might be the real goal of this Russian style law it’s not just about trying to restrict uh free assembly and free free speech and the free media as we said earlier in Georgia but it’s trying to basically sabotage the EU accession process which of course would be uh a big win for Putin at the same time it’s worth bearing in mind that if the EU proposed these sanctions they’d probably be blocked by Hungary which of course has got very close to Putin under Victor Orban so it’s a little bit unclear at the moment whether the sanctions are being discussed just as a bit of political theater in order to show the eu’s displeasure with this law whether they’re actually serious about it going ahead as I said earlier it looks pretty likely that Hungary would use its veto and block it so it may never happen nevertheless an interesting development on the Georgian side of the wider European story and I’ll end with some news from Poland Donald Tusk has said that Russia is likely to have been behind the fire that destroyed a warsa shopping center recently but he stressed that investigations are still ongoing these remarks from Mr Tusk came at a press conference yesterday where he said he would set up a new commission to investigate Russian influence in Poland that’s in the wake of that fire which destroyed the Mari Vila 44 shopping center no one was injured in that fire but it is the latest in a string of fires all over Poland in the last few days and there’s mounting suspicion that these of course are not active not accidents but they are a part of a Russian sabotage campaign Mr Tusk said we are examining the Freds they are quite likely that the Russian Services had something to do with the mara fire so he’s suggesting there that there is some Polish intelligence pointing to a direct role or perhaps indirect role being played by Russia proceedings are ongoing and we may get some further updates on that in the days to come potentially though these intelligence investigations do uh the wheels of these investigations can grind quite slowly sometimes the shopkeepers notes from Poland which has reported this story points out are going to get compensation of 2,000’s Lotte or about 400 EUR for losing their premises which doesn’t strike me as overly generous compensation for losing your business but there we go and Mr Tusk has also announced that three more people alleged to have been involved in sabotage on behalf of Russia were detained on that would be Monday nights and earlier this week nine others were detained too so that’s a total that’s that’s 12 now people in Poland who’ve been arrested over these sabotage attempts we also saw the very strange plot that was foiled by Poland a couple of weeks ago which targeted an airport in Poland used by Mr zilinsky for international travel now and then and it’s used for The Wider support of Ukraine a Polish citizen is accused of carrying out surveillance of that airport as part of a wider plot to try and assassinate uh president zilinski very disturbing and of course it comes back to what is we’ve talked about it before of course a very big theme in Europe which is that in addition to the war in Ukraine there is a sort of hybrid Warfare campaign being raised waged by Russia attempting to carry out sabotage Espionage but also perhaps to destabilize elections to embarrass the west and basically undermine the West at any step that it can take hybrid Warfare has been a big part of the Russian Arsenal for a long time but this is just another example of how it’s really uh intensified lately and those are the main political updates Francis from across Europe well thank you very much James that story from Poland is just extraordinary and I think it would be an example of what we’ve been discussing for some time now of that kind of escalation of the war entering various different Realms including violence which I think is what the intelligence expert of MI6 was speaking about when we were quoting her on the podcast I think it was only last week talking about physical actions on European Soul that’s not just assassinations of people it could be these kinds of events so thank you for covering that just before you go James because I know you need to dash back to to write up another story we covered your piece yesterday on the podcast about how Vagner is trying to recruit German speakers in Russia I think would have come as a surprise to many listeners quite how many German speakers there actually are in Russia but um I just wanted to hear a little bit more about it from you as so we’ve already covered the bare bones of the story but what do you think Russia is trying to achieve here and specifically as well how has this gone down in Germany I mean is it has it woken up people to uh the nature of just quite how serious the situation is now in Russia and the way that it’s been transformed by this war or is it really still a fairly small story in the grand schem of things in Berlin well it’s a really interesting question Francis the the story which was exclusive to the telegraph caused a Big Splash in the Ukrainian media and it was also picked up by some of our UK newspaper colleagues but I actually did a check this morning to see whether a single German newspaper picked up the story and to the best of my knowledge none of them have which actually surprised me to be frank because the story’s never been written about in the German press to the best of my knowledge and it doesn’t seem to have caused perhaps as big a stink as perhaps I had hoped as a journalist who always wants his news and his reporting to be impactful but it is I would argue really quite significant that Putin is trying to do this and the way in which this propaganda is being disseminated is quite interesting as you said what the Russians are trying to do is drum up some recruits from a pool of about 400,000 ethnic Germans uh who live in Russia these are Germans essentially who immigrated from Germany to Russia many years ago then they got stuck there during the Soviet allu uh when they were prosecuted and persecuted quite severely and there’s still a really marginalized Community um in Russia they’re sort of pockets of of German and Russian speaking as I said ethnic German citizens the sort of vehicle for this propaganda is a number of Russian German cultural associations which actually use the German flag in their propaganda material so it’s really quite embarrassing for the German government and it’s just it’s a case basically of the Russian culture and language being weaponized by Putin now what we don’t know is what impact this is having on recruitment figures it is unknown at the moment whether lots of ethnic Germans are heeding the call to join Vagner uh as uh as one Russian German cultural leader uh demanded that they do uh to prove uh that they’re not cowards as he put it uh but we’re talking about a large population group as I said it’s an estimated 400,000 people and I think really this is just another example of of of a a minority group or a marginalized group um being targeted by Putin in an attempt to basically drum up his his numbers we know for example that Putin generally avoids conscripting the Russian middle classes those living in Moscow and he tends to go for those ethnic groups who live out in places like Southeast Siberia who tend to make up the kind of Lon share of the Russian War casualties they are Canon fodder in essence I did approach the German government for comment on this story to see whether they had a view or whether they were surprised or disturbed by the fact that their language and culture is being used in this way they did not respond to the telegraph’s request for comment well fascinating thank you very much James for your time today and good luck with the stories you’ll no doubt be scribbling this afternoon um but I’m delighted Now to turn to regular on the podcast another regular heish de Breton Gordon former tank commander of course and chemical weapons expert regular contributor to our paper as well heish thanks so much for your time today James was speak speaking a few minutes ago about this these Russia nuclear test drills as it were I imagine that you’ve got a few thoughts on that to start us off yeah absolutely Francis and thanks very much for having me on I think it’s really important to unpack these uh nuclear drills um and as James says it’s strategic saber rattling it’s bullying it’s trying to get some of those supporters of Ukraine to think twice but and when we disc is are these tactical nuclear weapons strategic or not well I mean I agree with James it’s absolutely strategic um these Battlefield nuclear weapons let’s call it that to differentiate them from the intercontinental ballistic missiles still have a yield greater than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs so those are the sort of Devastation um that it could have but let’s look at it in a little bit more detail because as we’ve discussed many times before PU and and medev and the other gangsters in in the Kremlin have been threatening nucular really since the get-go because they know what an impact the nuclear word has on people only today Deputy Prime Minister of the Tory party has suggested we all need to have three days worth of water and Tin food in case of any sort of disaster or or impact and the underlying thing there is the sort of the nuclear piece uh going back to the Cold War but let’s let’s leave that for the moment what I’ve done is I did post a tweet an X off an hour ago with the video that the Russians have put out from their agency task and I think it’s worth looking at it because it tells an awful lot of stories here we’ve discussed in the past that Intelligence coming out of Western intelligence there a lot of the asander missiles this is the missile that carries the tactical nuclear warhead they’re also the aircraft too but we’ll park them for the moment we know that a lot of the nuclear warheads were taken off because the Russians are just short of a short of missiles so that that is interesting when you look at I I think halfway through the video when they look at the Warhead it’s all blurred I would suggest it’s blurred because it’s not actually a nuclear warhead it it’s probably a tactical one or even a dummy one when you look at the movement of the team that a scander team they’re all incredibly bunched I mean I’ve discussed in the past how some of the Russian tank war Warfare is very poor but you know one high Mars missile or attachs or Storm Shadow would take the whole lot out so it’s a really unprofessional way and and the slowness into action is incredible if the Russians are trying to show that they’re ready to fire these things and they’re ready to go and all the rest of it actually what they’re showing is absolutely the opposite here I think the other thing to note is these scander missiles have a range only about 400 miles so they’d have to be right on the Ukraine border to have an impact and as I’ve said Ukraine now has the capability to take them out the Russians know that Western intelligence is looking very closely at the nuclear capability as Russian intelligence is against looking at our nuclear deterrent as with the Americans so any potential move to use it it would be very quickly highlighted and without going into the technicalities or or of a strike from Ukraine they have the capability to do it so I think this is again saber rattling and we should call it out for what it is it is a complete buff I think also that there is a bit of concern I wrote a piece in the ey paper today about the Iranian nuclear capability in the light of R’s death in in a helicopter and I’m sure Dom being an ex Chopper pilot will have a view on that when he comes back but it is very clear on the sort of nuclear side that the Russians are becoming even more reliant on Iranian drones Sheed missiles we Jones we talked about a lot and there is a big concern that there is a sharing of nuclear capability and absolutely the last thing anybody needs is a nuclear capable Iran which they’re trying to do however having said that when it comes to missile firing without wanting to delve into another story we know that when Iran did try and fire a whole lot of missiles at Israel they were all knocked down and I think that is also something that we should be cognizant with the Russians that if they do did want to fire an a scand a missile with the nuclear warhead which I don’t think they do again it would be shot down so I think I think this is saber rattling any anybody feeling wobbly in in some of the headquarters in Europe should take it as that and do not make any decisions because you think the Russians again use a tactical missile from an aircraft or from a a launcher because I don’t think they can well thank you very much for that heh and as you say we will ask yum dong Nichols I remember you calling him we’re calling your overlap in the Army together we’ll have him back on at some point to discuss yes this helicop to crash in more detail now that we know a little bit more it’s an extraordinary story and actually it does have ramifications for geopolitics too but again we’ll discuss that another time staying with you heish though of course there are a lot of conversations about mass at the moment Mass tanks and the ability for Ukraine to effectively operate and indeed Russia to effectively operate at the moment with the attacks around KV just wonder what your Reflections are on all of that well well absolutely and remembering young Dom I didn’t teach him how to fly a helicopter but I did teach him how how to fight a tank back in the day but it’s it’s really important and James Holland the historian who many may know and actually runs a partner pod to this the we have ways pod which is all about World War II he and I have been discussing this idea of mass and technology and potentially producing something in the future but it’s important to to look at it we there’s been a lot of talk about the Western tanks which have now disappeared from the front line now if we look back to the second world war what what the Germans went for was technology they built about 1300 tiger one tanks and the Tigers were really the the sort of the Challenger one the Challenger twos Abrams of the day but they were too few in Number the Russians built I think it was 84,000 t-34s which would course successful at the Battle of KK which is just to the east of the dbass and the Allies had 50,000 odd Shermans which again overall overcame the Germans 1944 45 and with dday ran the corner of the 80th anniversary that that is very poignant to us so I think the west and particularly this country we we’ve so focused on technology that actually we have forgotten that you need mass and I use sort of safari analogy one leopard uh can easily kill one hyena but a pack of hyenas can easily kill that leopard and unless we forget so the hundred or so Western tanks that ukrainians have you know more of a milstone at the moment and actually they need some mass and what’s frustrating to people like me is that there is that mass there are several thousand Abrams leopard twos in Europe that could be released I mean they’re not that many Challenger twos we just don’t have them and slight concern for me is when we’re looking to replace Challenger 2 with the imagin commun Challenger three we’re we’re looking at about 100 or so which um is not really what the war in Ukraine um is telling us I think the the other thing about tanks and and um I’ll finish there is we talk so much about combined arms Warfare and uh it’s something that both the Russians and the ukrainians have not really been able to to do thus far which is why the small Gams we’ve talked about over the last few weeks the Russians had in KH they hadn’t been able to exploit them because they haven’t had all the elements and when we’re talking about all the elements it’s not just infant artillery it’s also air power but we keep being told we keep understanding that the f-16s ukrainians have are on the horizon so they will or they should make a a difference so I think it’s just something that I must say 12 months ago 18 months ago I didn’t really think was a great thing but having discussed it through with with really deeply uh thoughtful historians like James Holland this whole idea of tech is something that we just need to be cognizant of I mean the other thing of course is that we all know there’s nothing new that there are just things that we forgot so it’s still a long way to go but um Tech is not necessarily always the answer well thank you very much heish and we’ll come back to you for your final thought later on I am thrilled to have in the studio opposite me somebody who has been well I’d say pen pal I don’t how we best to describe really fellow analysts on these matters for the best part of two years dor rohack senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute just flown in fresh from Washington DC so we’ve not even had a chance listens to properly speak to each other because we were already on air when he got into the studio so it’s a rather surreal experience here but D great to meet you face to face and and of course you are very much an expert on this for your own podcast the Eastern Front which is fantastic on matters in Central and Eastern Europe and their response particularly to this war and it’s to there I want to actually turn first first Georgia and then we’ll come to Central Europe proper after that so Georgia you’ve written a piece for us this week about the failures of the EU and indeed The Wider west of really backing up Georgia’s Democratic supporters there of which of course they are the majority whilst at the same time this Russia bill is being pushed through but perhaps there are some nuances we’re missioning on this very interested to hear your perspective on Georgia so first of all thank you for the shout out to the Eastern Front which is a very modest artisanal attempt at contributing to the conversation about Ukraine and and about the future of Eastern Europe and huge congratulations on the achievements of your podcast over the years which has been really a big game changer in the Western and english- speaking conversation on the subject so so my my thoughts on Georgia really around the s that there are Eerie parallels between the current situation in B and what we saw in 2014 in Ukraine uh in both cases you had uh the public of both of these countries very heavily tuned to the idea of joining the EU or forging deeper TI with the west and in both cases you had governments that were nominally committed to that goal but trying to triangulate between the west and Moscow and in what happened in in in Ukraine 13 was that President yanukovich red essentially on a commitment to sign an association agreement with the European Union under pressure from Moscow and people took it to the streets and yanukovich was was G gone eventually today in Georgia you have a similar situation in which the government is effectively rening on some of its important European commitments I mean it can’t really join the EU if it adopts legislation that is incompatible with with with European standards of of of rule of law and democracy is articulated in the Copenhagen criteria and elsewhere there’s there’s a separate discussion to be had about whether some EU member states meet those criteria these days but I would leave that conversation to the side uh and Georgians in response seeing that this move really puts them on the path away from the west and away from Europe at a time when 80% of of the Georgian population support deti with the EU just took it to the streets and and we’ll see how this plays out um but there two I think somewhat more worrying parallels as well which is that in both of these cases the West Was in a largely reactive mode uh responding to events rather than taking initiative into its own hands and it’s a figment of Russian and conspiratorial Imagination to think that Victoria nuland somehow orchestrated the maidan revolution in in in Kev no it was really the West that was dragged by the event rather than taking initiative and here we not standing the EU threat of sanctions against government Representatives not withstanding the there’s a piece of legislation in US Congress put forward by representative Joe Wilson from South Carolina who suggests that if the Georgian government actually ditches this foreign agents law the United States should offer Georgia a military coroporation deeper trade ties and also a Visa free travel regime so again these are these are all worthwhile initiatives but they’re coming in response to events over which we have very little control but I think there’s an even deeper conundrum which is that we see the West as being very good at peeling away countries from the Russian sphere of influence I mean nobody really sees Russia as a civilizational model especially if you are living in one of those countries in Russia vicinity but we don’t really have enough power or are unwilling to exercise that power to enable these countries to safe landing in the west the way we did it in the Northeast with countries of Central and Eastern Europe Europe I after Ukraine had its midan revolution Russia attacked and we were not able or willing to really offer a security arrangements for Ukraine that would lead to sustainable peace and I worry that Georgia which already has Russian tanks on its territory which already has Russian forces there and which is Tiny would face a similar fate until unless we really step up our game significantly thank you and it’s a fascinating discussion this and it is certain that Georgia is one of those so-called folk line Nations that you’ve just described of course another is Slovakia arguably somewhere that the world’s eyes have been on following the attempted assassination of Robert fito what’s your view on Slovakia at the moment I know it’s a very complicated picture and there’s a tendency sometimes to oversimplify it as being East or West at any given one time but interested to hear your perspective on that country too so just for the purposes of full disclosure although I work at the American Enterprise Institute listeners might have guessed by now that I’m not an American by birth uh I was born and brought up in what was then Czechoslovakia later became Slovakia uh four years ago I ran for parliament in Slovakia unsuccessfully so I’ve had some firsthand experience with the country and perhaps a view that’s not totally unbiased that’s not totally objective my my sense is that Slovakia is a divided polarized country which is facing the challenge not unlike many countries of the west of of really finding a sort of modus vendi between people holding very different geopolitical views holding very different values and as last week’s shooting illustrates a country that might be really on the verge of a called Civil War and one of the fault lines really has to do with the country’s geopolitical allegiances um early on um in this full scale of Ukraine the Slovak government alongside the Czech one among the most important central European supporters of the Ukrainian cause Slovakia I believe was the first country to donate uh fighter jets to Ukraine it’s its Fleet of of Aging mck 29s unlike in the Czech Republic the very Bal pro-ukrainian policies did not really have the backing of a significant majority of of Slovakia’s population quite the contrary so there’s a series of opinion polls done by globsec which is a Slovakia based think Tang across central eastern European countries that shows that Slovakia has the highest rate of pro-russian sentiment in among the countries that they surveyed you have more than 50% of slovaks that blame the war in Ukraine on um either the west or the ukrainians themselves which is quite shocking for a country that is actually the next door neighbor to to to to Ukraine we can wonder about the the roots of this and there clearly is a very very significant divide between Czech attitudes and the Slovak ones despite the common experience of Soviet occupation after 1968 uh I have some ill formed thoughts about why that difference might be there uh but I think what is more important is how it plays out going forward so Slovakia is anchored in the EU Is Anchored In NATO and I think that has fostered a sense of complacency that like hungarians we can just get away doing anything we’d like and there’ll be always a sort of Baseline level of prosperity peace and International Security that will be always afforded To Us by Western European and American partners and I’m not sure we should be taking it as a given anymore that’s very interesting now another country in that part of the world that you mentioned there and of course used to be part of Slovakia when it was part of uh Czech repu Czechoslovakia forgive me uh is czechia now formerly known as the Czech Republic a fascinating country one of the most important I think actually in this war in many ways for foremost in the early months with its huge uh support on the question of Tanks which was vital and indeed the political support but most recently of course with the uh shell procurement and trying to coordinate that I wonder I mean with mixed success I think it has to be said not necessarily at the fault of czechia but nonetheless it’s been them that have have led on this and have have been a vital voice so why is Cia so good on this as it were from a Ukrainian perspective and why to do you think that um Peter parvel is so vocal when perhaps previous Czech leaders have not been quite as hawkish in ideology so so Peter pavell first of all is a former military man he was the first Eastern European to serve as the head of NATO’s military committee he’s somebody who has you know illustrious credentials serving in in in the military and I think he understands hard power as well as anybody in in Continental Europe and and it was really almost a sort of fortunate coincidence that he was in a position of influence at the time when Ukraine needed help it is in a way odd that you would have a ceremonial head of state of a small central European country cooking up this kokami scheme that involves B buing artillery shells from countries around the world and trying to hide it from the Russians and having them shouldn’t be the job of a ceremonial head of state of of a tiny central European country but I think personal leadership matters in history as you like to emphasize and I think this is one of those examples the Czechs have obviously a very salent experience with the Soviet occupation of 1968 and the So-Cal normalization that ensued in the 1970s 1980s that basically resulted in purges of the previous more sort of liberally minded communist Elite and in persecutions of of the dissident movement and I think therein lies a slight difference between the Czech Republic and Slovakia and their historic experience because the Soviet occupation coincided with a quasi federalization of Czechoslovakia which proped many young ambitious Communists in the Slovak side of the country to positions of influence there many upwardly mobile people who did really well in the 7 and ‘ 80s uh at the time when uh the Czech experience was one of of of of really unbearable repression and and day-to-day grayness and those were the people in in in the Slovak side of the country that would then form the politics of the 1990s and the u0s indeed Robert Fitz was young upand cominging lawyer uper aric in the 80s who did really well I mean he might have been the first of his family to go to university he was part of this sort of young ambitious power hungry Elite I think he would have done really well if communism remained in place he has done really well in a more democratic setting but that there is a sort of subtle but I think important difference between the historic experience of those two countries at the same time because of basically no language barrier between those two places the debate has a tendency to spill over from one place to another it’s worth saying that Andre babish who’s the leader of the Czech opposition and conceivably the next prime minister is ethnic Slovak who by any account was part of the secret police in the 1980s his rhetoric very much mirrors Robert F’s rhetoric particularly on Ukraine he ran for president last year against pet pavell Bish’s slogan was I’m a man of the peace I don’t want to drag the Czech Republic into a war didn’t work in the Czech Republic last year it worked in Slovakia last year in the Parliamentary elections then it worked again in the presidential elections this year and there is no guarantee that it won’t work again in the Czech context next year that’s really interesting historical context thank you very much for that moving away from Europe as say you’ve just flown in from Washington it’s a big year for Washington and indeed the NATO alliance of course in the pipeline is the NATO 75th Summit taking place in Washington I imagine you’ve got your ear to the ground as it were and a hearing the kind of conversations that will be happening at that what do you think we can expect from that Summit and perhaps the position that’s put forward there on Ukraine collectively as an alliance and indeed from the American position I have to say I’m a little troubled about what’s coming because all the signals coming from the Biden Administration suggest that what the president wants is a quiet happy celebration of 70 years of the alliance and I think there’s lot to celebrate I’m myself recovering Eastern European I’m really thankful for what NATO has done for the security of Central and Eastern Europe for security of Europe more broadly but but we are also for the first time in in years in the middle of a major shooting war on the European soil next door to to to Nato member states if you talk to people from the Baltic countries from Poland they are under No Illusion that if Putin succeeds in Ukraine that he will stop there and they are ringing alarm bells that the administration I fear is not quite willing to listen to you see it in the choice of the next Secretary General I’m I’m absolutely confident that Mar grout is is a very experienced politician uh he might have been a great person for the job in normal ordinary times but not at a time when the alliance really has to reassure its eastern members I see relatively little evidence of the alliance is moving in the direction of significantly strengthening as Eastern European posture there’ll be certainly some lip service way to that but in terms of forward prepositioning of forces of supply lines of logist takes that would enable a defense of the baltics to take place I don’t think we’ll see much progress I don’t think we’ll see much progress on one of my more sort of fful schemes which is the nuclearization of Poland I I think that’s a sort of noo for the administration and likewise I’m afraid we won’t really hear encouraging signals on Ukraine’s future membership in the alliance which I mean goes back to this conundrum of these Frontline countries that we want them to be part of the west but they can’t really just join the EU and benefit from the single Market etc etc without existing in a system of International Security that protects them against Russian aggression Russian depredations in the future well we’ll be watching it very closely thank you for your insights on that it is rather concerning what you’ve said I think for many we were hoping to see the 75th as being a big reinstatement of values and perhaps a more robust stance taken on various issues but doesn’t sound like we can necessarily expect that one final question for me before our final thoughts I know you’re working on a book project at the moment about the economic health of the west of course that’s a subject that’s hugely relevant to the war in Ukraine something that’s become an increased Focus I think of late what are your Reflections on the economic strength of the West versus the great emerging economies of China and others so I was trained originally as an economist and I was dragged recruited into the foreign policy internationalist Movement by sheer force of experience by seeing what happened to Ukraine in 2014 my original area of Interest had to do with postcommunist transitions in 1990 Poland and Ukraine had the same per capita GDP Poland on the eve of the fullscale invasion of Ukraine was roughly three times as wealthy and it really much of it just boils down to us leadership and the sort of international factors that have shaped postcommunist transitions in both of these places and I think the the the puzzle of the current situation has to do with the fact that you have in Russia an economy of the size of Italy that’s holding pretty much the whole world hostage and we are waiting for Vladimir Putin’s next move we are wondering what he’ll do next he’s keeping as onat and at no point we are doing the same thing to him also it is significant that much of the so-called Global South has decided to just sit this conflict out trying to just stay as far away as possible talk to the Indians people from Brazil etc etc it you doesn’t concern us just leave us alone and I think to me that is a significant shift relative to the sort of world I took for granted in the 1990s where you had this unipolar moment and when people were genuinely looking up to the United States and to the West obviously things that that have changed are twofold one uh we’ve seen since since mid 1970s they slow down in economic growth in the west and I think there’s a lot of fiscal pressure that that constrains the military buildups we’d like to see on both sides of the Atlantic and indeed the US budget is effectively bankrupt unless somebody reforms the entitlement system and Social Security and there is nobody in either of the two political parties who’s willing to do that and the second thing that has changed in more recent past is that I think there has been an inward turn on both sides of the Atlantic in terms of trade policy in terms of seeing the global economy and countries outside of Europe and the United States more of a threat than Partners to engage with and I think some of that shift is perfectly Justified I think the idea of treating China as a normal market economy was was naive and foolish but that doesn’t really excuse the lack of any ambitious strategically minded trade agenda that would allow us to engage with the Brazil’s indonesias south africas indias of the world and there is none of that in Washington there is very little of that in Brussels there’s some of it in Westminster but obviously the UK just can play only a sort of limited role on the global stage and unless that changes I fear that I mean the West’s relative power will not return to the levels that I took for granted in my say teenage years well thank you very much for your insights on that question and your insights and all the questions I’ve put to you today it just goes for us to go to our final thoughts segment as ever something I know you’re familiar with as a listener to the podcast so this won’t come as a surprise but J let’s start with you what are your final thoughts for us today so so not to to my own horn but I did a piece last week that try to summarize an observation about US foreign policy that has been recurring to me namely that for a long time populists on both sides have used the term uni party to describe this sort of naive effort to change governments around the world and drag America into endless Wars as if that were a description of reality and when I look at us foreign policy since at least past 15 years what I see is a bipartisan consensus on doing things on the Cheap on doing things in a very reactive mode in in a way that is very easily in which policy makers are very easily distracted in which the west and the United States in particular doesn’t have much staying power and in which there is nobody willing to actually explain that there are sacrifices to be made if we want to keep the world safe and if you want to keep the United States safe you see it in Ukraine where as long as it takes now means probably 3 years maybe four I don’t know but it’s doesn’t mean an open-ended commitment to Ukraine security we see it in Israel where the United States were standing with Israel until it became a political liability for President Biden in Michigan you see it in the Red Sea where 6 months ago the United States led a battle group to fight houie Pirates and as far as I can tell th those sea Lanes have still not been opened to international trade and I think that bodess really ill for a future confrontation with China should it come to death well thank you very much Talore and hey Mr Breton Gordon your final thoughts for today my final thought today is concerning Former Defense secretary Ben Wallace’s piece in the paper today foreign office HQ is where British interests go to Die the blame lies not with the ambassadors but a center determined not to upset even our worst enemies and I find this a really interesting read and really rather sad basically the foreign office in Ben’s words being really too woke and concerned about upsetting people to actually have an impact at all and it’s the soft power that Britain is so good at that has really kept us in the game as it were as our military capability has fallen down we’ve relied on our diplomacy a and the ability uh of the foreign office to really make a huge difference but Ben Who would know this having been defense secretary for so long and worked closely sites inance over the sedan issue the extraction from Afghanistan where the foreign office really you know have not come up to the mark and one hopes that they will read and heed that because you know quite frankly we need that soft power that the foreign office traditionally does so well in these difficult times and if for whatever reason it’s been watered down uh for the wrong reasons that is a real shame so let’s hope those people in King’s chur Charles Street of White Hall will read absorb and do something about 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 our 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 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 please note that due to issues beyond our control there is sometimes a delay between broadcast and upload so if you want to hear Ukraine the latest as soon as it is released do refer to the podcast apps if you appreciated this podcast please consider following Ukraine the latest on your preferred podcast app and if you have a moment leave a review as it helps others find the show you can also get in touch directly to ask questions or give comments by emailing Ukraine pod telegraph.co.uk we do read every message and you can contact us directly on Twitter you can find our Twitter Handles in the description for this episode as ever we are especially interested to hear where you are listening from around the world Ukraine the latest was produced by child SK here and the executive producers are David nolles and Louisa Wells

Day 812. Today, further to the fast-evolving situation on the front lines, we reflect on how Ukraine might win the war, the ‘theatrical’ nuclear weapons drills being carried out by Moscow, and look deeper on the political fault-lines of Central and Eastern Europe.

Contributors:
Francis Dearnley (Assistant Comment Editor). @FrancisDearnley on X.
James Rothwell (Berlin Correspondent). @JamesERothwell on X.
Hamish De Bretton-Gordon (Former Tank Commander and Chemical Weapons Expert). @HamishDBG on X.
Dalibor Rohac (Senior Fellow AEI) @DaliborRohac on X.

‘The villages near Kharkiv were recovering. Fleeing again, their people feel betrayed by the west – and I understand why’ (Ada Wordsworth in The Guardian):
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/22/kharkiv-betrayed-west-ukraine-russia-war

‘A Theory of Victory for Ukraine’ (Andriy Zagorodnyuk and Eliot A. Cohen, Foreign Affairs):
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/theory-victory-ukraine

Putin targets German speakers in Russia in search for cannon fodder (The Telegraph):
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/19/putin-targets-germans-living-in-russia-in-search-for-troops/

‘The EU is failing Georgia, just as it failed Ukraine’ (Dalibor Rohac in The Telegraph):
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/21/the-eu-is-failing-georgia-just-as-it-failed-ukraine/

‘Exclusive: Pentagon’s Russian Oil Red Line Questioned’ (Newsweek)
https://www.newsweek.com/pentagon-russia-ukraine-drone-attacks-oil-hubs-red-line-1902516

Subscribe to The Telegraph: telegraph.co.uk/ukrainethelatest
Email: ukrainepod@telegraph.co.uk