Ukraine ‘fires Himars into Russia for first time’ I Ukraine: The Latest, Podcast

Ukraine ‘fires Himars into Russia for first time’ I Ukraine: The Latest, Podcast

I’m David noes and this is Ukraine the latest today we bring you updates from the Battlefront as Ukrainian forces hold the Russian Advance near vens a Russian armored column is hit in KK and we delve into the latest news and Analysis around the Ukrainian economy bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with Victory if we give presid president zinsky the tools the ukrainians will finish the job Slava ukraini nobody’s going to break us we’re strong we’re Ukraine is it’s Monday the 3rd of June 2 years and 101 days since the fullscale invasion began and today I’m joined by our associate editor Dominic Nichols assistant comment editor Francis sternley and our guest is business editor at the Key of independent Lillian bivings I started by asking Dom for the latest news from Ukraine quite a lot to get through today so I’m afraid it’s a bit of a mishmash but I’ve tried to blob it into some sort of order let’s start with Saturday so Saturday the White House confirmed that Ukraine cannot use us supplied attachs missiles inside Russia President Biden gave Ukraine permission to strike inside Russian territory with American Munitions but under certain conditions so that was breaking at the end of last week but a White House spokesperson on Saturday said this does not apply to a or long range strikes how you pass the two of those I’m not entirely sure the spoked person continued but it is designed to enable Ukraine to defend itself so a little bit at odds although a very clear shift in policy now us permission only covers the area immediately to the north of the border and Har area and that the oblast to the north of that and only allows Ukraine to fire High Mars at Targets in Russia not longer range missiles speaking to reporters yesterday from the shangar D dialogue the defense conference in in Singapore we’ll speak more that a little bit later president zinski said I think that using any Western kind of weapon on the territory of Russia is a question of time otherwise it is not about just peace now then on Sunday numerous Russian sources were saying that Ukraine has fired usma weapons at Targets inside Russia the first time well possibly we think the first time it would have done so Russia’s mod and a number of Russian military bloggers said that high Mars were fired by Ukraine at Russia on Saturday evening the sanctioned Russian war reporter and Kremlin propagandist yevi POI on his telegram Channel said the enemy has begun using Western made weapon systems to attack old Russian territory these are fragments of m142 high Mars mlrs shells almost as if he’s just gone straight onto Wikipedia note the language about old Russian territory they’re really trying to put a wedge there and make the between old territory and new territory although as in Ukraine they’re trying to say Ukraine is new Russian territory although quite how that argument Stacks up against their position that it’s always been the same it’s always been one Russia I I don’t know but you’ll hear increasing references to old and new anyway Mr pudney continued he said the Russian Army’s air defense Crews destroyed more than 10 missiles in the sky over the belgorod region Ukraine is not commented don’t know about that we can’t verify any of that however in Russia’s kers oblast location well obviously over the border from Ukraine there was a large Russian column of armed Vehicles just destroyed on the move so there’s footage on social media you can find it looks like 14 vehicles with first person view drone that hit the the well number two and number 14 so not the very first vehicle which it it was probably aiming for what you’re trying to do on on a vehicle move like that if those vehicles and these were wheeled Camas trucks by the looks of it so not great cross country Mobility but you’re aiming to hit the first one and the last one so they can’t go anywhere and then pick off the ones in the middle so they didn’t hit the first one they seemed to hit the second one and the last one but it still had the effect there was Pandemonium the other vehicles tried to scatter across the muddy surface didn’t do very well and a lot of them got wiped out now that we think was fpv so not high Mars but it was definitely a strike inside inside Russia so maybe all these things are being conflated as as I often say it’s very confusing very ‘ve got to get a clear line so we try and put all the bits of information in front of you try and make some sensible analysis of it but largely we are grouping around in the dark however next one today Monday the Russian military is said to have suffered 1,000 1,270 casualties in the last 24 hours this comes from Ukraine’s general staff if so that would be one of the highest numbers of daily Russian casualty figures since the start of the four scale Invasion when we talk about casualties we mean dead and wounded missing and taken prisoner uh but the vast majority of that figure would be dead and wounded Ukraine’s military regularly report Russian casties of more than a thousand or they did so throughout may but if accurate that would make May the most deadly for moscow’s forces since the start of well since February 2022 mostly taken up I would suggest by the whatever is happening up in harke offensive SL diversion whatever’s going on up around harke and the numerous attempted pushes out of the dbass which as I’ve said before if the thing around harke is a diversion you’d expect the main attack to come somewhere but the bid around dbass has been so well unsuccessful basically that I can’t tell if it was the main attack but essentially there’s been a lot of attempted armored assaults in the dbass they’ve all come to nothing casualties are very very high and hence that will probably make up for the fact that may seems to be the most deadly month for Russia’s troops now as I say we can’t independently verify any of these however Britain’s Ministry of defense did say they have said that Russian losses amounted to 1,200 on average per day throughout may I mean just a staggering figure it’s likely to have taken the total casualties of just killed and wounded over half a million since the start of the full scale Invasion now speaking of the donbass Russia’s mod says it’s captured a village in eastern Ukraine says its forces are advancing quote in all tactical directions which might mean they’re scattering all over the place but in all tactical directions they say they’re moving Russia’s mod said the troops quote have managed to liberate the village of umya in the popular Republic of donet I don’t if that’s a misation from the site I took it from if they meant the People’s Republic but anyway donet now this Village mansky is about 25ks Northwest of donet and it’s not quite a mega City it was home to about 180 people before the start of the fullscale invasion generally though not an awful lot of movement over the weekend on the prros front so kind of Donette City northwest of there have Diva Russians are trying to push along that line to the Northwest Northwest of AA that reporting came from Ukrainian newspaper online newspaper pra elsewhere a few more interesting bits and pieces to take note of not geographically fixed R says it has sent the first F-16 fighter jet instructor to Ukraine this is uh coming from Greece’s defense Point website they’re reporting the first military or service Personnel um NATO obviously has is inside Ukraine training this one on f-16s Ukrainian Pilots as we know have been training on f-16s across Europe for the past 12 months mainly in Romania and Denmark not previously reported to have been in Ukraine but the website says so uh this is defense Point website says the presence of the Greek Airmen in the capital of Ukraine is apparently part of the F-16 training Coalition initiative that’s an International Coalition Greek government has not commented on the report but let’s see NATO troops inside Ukraine let’s see what happens what happens now I think we know what’s going to happen Okay next one 1 and a half million military AE Ukrainian men have registered their personal data for potential conscription Ukraine’s defense Ministry have announced they say this news comes after the new mobilization law was enacted in May that gives draft eligible men 60 days to update their personal data so that the military authorities are able to find them if need be the ministry of Defense Ukrainian Ministry of Defense also said that 14,000 Ukrainian men living abroad had registered for service Ukraine you’ll remember suspended Consular services for military-aged Ukrainian men living abroad in April um however draft eligible men are now able to apply for those Services if they provide um documentation and proof confirming that they have registered with the military so that takes that on a little bit now then I mentioned the Shangrila dialogue so you’ve got the WIS The International Institute for strategic studies a big Global Think Tank based here in in London but it runs a number of Defense conferences they call them dialogue so you’ve got the shangar dialogue that’s happened this weekend just gone in uh Singapore and you’ve got the Manama dialogue based out of Bahrain so they are Global the headlines are Global president zinsky was there US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin but essentially they are they’re quite Regional what in terms of the work they do but they you do get the glitzy big hitters to the Keynotes and what have you so they are Global in scope but the focus is quite Regional and actually interestingly WIS have said that they’re going to launch a new one for kind of Euro Atlantic focus in Prague this year so 8th to the 10th of November this year you’re going to have the Prague dialogue which which we will go to we had somebody at we’ve got Nicola at shanga she’s filing for us today so you’ll get some news out of that but I’ve got a few bits and Bobs from it now president zalinski was at the shangala dialogue and he accused in his speech he accused Beijing of working with mosco to undermine the this month’s peace Summit which is planned for the middle of the month in Switzerland he said Russia is doing everything it can to disrupt the summit using Chinese influence and its diplomats he was speaking to report is on the sidelines of the shangala dialogue but earlier he gave a keynote speech appealing for Asian leaders to join the summit that’s the peace Summit in Switzerland to help Forge a path to end the war he said we want Asia to know what’s going on in Ukraine we need the support of Asian countries it is much needed Russia using Chinese influence in the region using Chinese diplomats also does everything to disrupt the peace Summit China later denied the accusation it was acting as quote unquote instrument of Russia by pressuring other countries not to attend the peace Summit and in a statement beijing’s foreign Ministry said quote China’s position is open and transparent and there is absolutely no instance of us putting pressure on other countries end of quote right the Philippine Coast Guard might have something to say about that but that’s what beijing’s foreign Ministry says now Swiss authorities had hoped China would attend the peace conference but Beijing says he not going to do so without Russia being present and the line of the is there’s no point inviting Russia because they’re just not serious they wouldn’t go in good faith now in another exchange at the shangala dialogue US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin I mentioned he was there in answer answering a question from a Chinese Colonel people Liberation Army Colonel the point had been put to Lloyd Austin that this Chinese Colonel that NATO expansion had led to the war in Ukraine so Lloyd Austin then said I respectfully disagree with your point that the expansion of NATO led to the Ukraine crisis he then had to stop because there was widespread Applause for that statement across the Forum now it wasn’t a Ukraine Forum it wasn’t even in Europe This is in Singapore so mainly a lot of the attendees were from Asian countries indopacific U so that’s the focus wi spread Applause for that comment there by um Secretary of Defense Austin he then carried on he said the Ukraine crisis was caused because Mr Putin made a decision to unlawfully invade his neighbor who had inferior who had an inferior military at that point in time he assumed that he could very quickly roll over his neighbor and Annex the country that was two plus years ago he has not achieved any of his strategic objectives to this point so interesting I think that’s quite interesting the response he got there from a mainly sort of Asian Indo Pac audience also so back at shangad president zalinski later he forly recognized both Israel and Palestine I think this is very interesting intervention president zinski said Ukraine said that if Hamas terrorists attacked civilians on the first day of their attack on Israel then Israel has the right to defend itself and after that when Israel was in Gaza and there was a humanitarian crisis Ukraine said firstly we are ready to provide humanitarian Aid to Gaza secondly we must respect international law thirdly Ukraine recognizes two states both Israel and Palestine and will do everything it can to convince Israel to stop to end this conflict and to prevent the suffering of civilians now Ukraine has invited both Israel and Palestine to that peace Summit in Switzerland but I think uh look for comment here from from you what do you think about this I think it’s very interesting that President zinski um comments and recognizes or comments so openly about Israel and Palestine and recognizes Palestine because that is as much as he’s been a very vocal in his support for for Israel’s right to act uh in S I think given the the nature of the conflict there and the politics around it I thought that was a surprising intervention anyway what be interested in your thoughts and that was quite a bit of a Whistle Stop David but I think there were quite a few things happening over the weekend we needed to scoot around a bit but I will take a little pause there well thank you very much Dom for all of that as you said quite a few updates and you did have to bring them all together so thank you Dom Francis can I come to you very quickly before we go to our guest Francis dley where are you and what are you doing well bonjour David Frank ofile France is back with avengeance the ber is on and the onion neckl is around my neck I’m in Sunny Paris for a few hours sadly not to hold maon to account for all of his promises about Ukraine not yet anyway but whil I wait to catch a train to Normandy where I’m about to meet with the team behind the American charity Ukraine Focus who are delivering ambulances to Ukraine you’ll hear a lot more about them over the coming days as I’m joining them for some of the journey across Europe as well as the commemorative events they’re taking part in for the D-Day 80th anniversary President Biden is widely expected to fly in for the 6th of June and president zlinsky too is rumored to be making an appearance obviously there’s huge symbolic value for him as well as meeting up with other Western leaders there are lots of events taking place on the beaches gold sword Juno Utah and Omaha of course and at the cemeteries I’m hoping to be at the American cemetery on the 6th of June I think Dom will be on Omaha this will of course likely be the last major anniversary veterans will be alive for which gives it a particular significance and power we often when thinking about D-Day reflect very much on Omaha specifically because of the horrors that took place there and obviously how know well known the film Saving Private Ryan is with this opening scene but actually the whole of the Normandy campaign was horrific and if you don’t believe me just read Anthony beaver’s book D-Day the battle Normandy which just shows how troubling and challenging it was to break out from the beach heads this idea that once the beaches were broken that was it was all plain sailing from there is simply not true it’s a fantastic book and is as horrific in many ways as his most famous book Stalingrad is so it’s going to be quite a few days for me no updates par say I doubt this week in terms of politics although I did just want to comment on the fact because Dom was talking about China there one day maybe China will talk about uh Dom but uh um Dom was talking about China is it’s been very interesting over the weekend seeing the apparent dispute between mosco and Beijing over an oil pipeline that was meant to be being oil and gas I think I need to look into this but that was meant to be connecting in Siberia and the fact is that this was one of the main things that Putin was pushing for behind the scenes with President shei particularly in that latest meeting between the two of them but Beijing has rejected to go ahead with this now they may well just be paying playing hard ball for economic reasons or quite possibly they are nervous about being seen as being too firmly economically aligned with Moscow at this moment I lean towards the former rather than the latter they think they can get more and squeeze more from Moscow but nonetheless an interesting development so that’s where I am David it’s going to be uh an interesting period I think and I’m hoping to be able to tune into as many as I can well thank you very much Francis for joining us best of luck with your reporting and do send your interviews back and send your things back and we’ll try and get them up on the podcast if you can stay around for the final thoughts it’d be very interesting to hear a little bit more about your plans for the week but let’s go to our guest now Lilian bivings Lilian welcome back to the podcast thank you so much for joining us would you just start very quickly by reintroducing yourself to our listeners yeah sure thank you so much for having me back like you said my name is lilan bivings I’m the business editor at the KE independent which many of you may know is Ukraine’s largest English language news Outlet lilan you’ve be you’ve written a fantastic essay for the telegraph that came out a few days ago looking at the Ukrainian economy are premised on the question what if Putin wins where did you start with your breakdown of the Ukrainian economy when you were approaching this question it’s funny um that you asked me this because you know when I think about where I literally start started um it was horrible writers block that turned into literal panic and panic text messages to my dear editor our editor and chief Olga renko saying I don’t know how to write this story this is really hard to imagine a totally hypothetical situation in which Putin wins of course one that we don’t want to imagine either and what that would mean for the Ukrainian economy and the global economy so through that so she called me of course to calm me down and in that conversation she said okay let’s imagine it actually happens what happens first what does Putin and Russia gain in the immediate aftermath uh of a full take over of Ukraine and of course that’s the ports in the Black Sea that’s Ukraine’s military industrial complex which has been developing hugely over the past couple of years Ukraine’s factories and all of its steel producers and metal producers that are major exporters to the world the grain is also exported to the world and that one is actually easy to imagine right and what Russia would do with those resources which is blackmail the world with them because they’ve already done that they did that with Europe and gas blackmail and they blocked those very same ports at the beginning of the full scale Invasion and tried to Blackmail and terrify the world with the threat of famine and not being able to get food to parts of the world that really need it so that’s really where I started because it was unfortunately very possible to imagine and because it’s happened before but also that’s clearly what Russia would do I think in the immediate aftermath and then we had to think of what would happen next and one thing I really wanted to put in the piece was this idea that all of the western assets that are in Ukraine and it’s not just the Western weapons or other things like that there are major western western companies that have manufacturing plants here Offices here operations here all of that would belong to Russia if it took over and the idea that they would somehow respect any of this property of Western companies that have supported Ukraine have left Russia is obviously a joke they would immediately appropriate these things and you can actually imagine it happening it would roll out over the first few weeks and months and years and then you get into kind of talking about Ukraine’s resources and what it has it possesses the largest reserves of lithium and mineral resources and other critical resources and it has immense amounts of human capital I mean this is a very large country with lots of people who are very highly educated and that’s Generations right that are going to be subject to Russian occupation and Terror and so it sounds really grim and I wanted to make this point today which even Francis when we talked about the pieces idea he said I know this is a grim thing to even think about but I just thought to myself after I finished writing it yeah it’s terrifying to think of but when I listed basically why Ukraine is such an impressive country economically and what it has to offer its own people and the world I walked away from it like wow Ukraine is amazing actually it was a good reminder from myself too in a way well thank you for that intro lilan I think this is the right way of getting into this question for our purposes I think so in your overview of the Ukrainian economy from its industry’s assets into its people where do you think it’s at the moment relatively strong but where do you think also it’s weak yeah so to be completely honest it’s a bit hard to say where it’s strong but I don’t want to be too too negative Ukrainian companies have remained resilient over the last couple of years they’re doing the best with what they have they’re exporting as much as possible the it sector for example has remained very strong because its business has always been 99% export oriented what I mean is that 99% of the business that it companies in Ukraine do is with companies abroad it’s Outsourcing a lot of ukrainians have jobs as contractors with foreign companies or they just work remotely for companies abroad so they’ve been able to keep their job they can keep spending money so the economy has survived and I would categorize it as it’s surviving and it’s almost seems sometimes like it is hanging on by a thread and the main thing I think is that it’s a bit weak everywhere like no matter what sector you look at it’s either gone for example I was just talking to someone the other day this was really interesting like there’s absolutely no business almost for lawyers there’s just no there’s no business there’s no clients so like some Industries are just like basically non-existent or have very little business and then but everywhere you look there’s labor shortages and it’s a huge problem for you Ukraine and I think that’s mainly because of mobilization and interestingly not because just because people are being mobilized men are being mobilized they are but also because people are men who would be mobilized are either hiding or they’re taking work that is unofficial work they’re working only as contractors or places that were will hire them kind of part-time and unofficially because they don’t want to be on the books right they don’t want to be registered as working somewhere and then the government can easily identify them so companies are having a really hard time hiring people and that’s obviously a big problem right because the less people you have working and contributing to the economy obviously that has huge effects on the state to be able to generate taxes to then support the military effort so I don’t want to have this doomed scenario but it does feel a bit like things are very precarious and actually one example I can give of the labor shortages being felt even in a place like ke where when you’re here in the capital it seems like life has gone on is that in the keev Metro they have drastically reduced the number of subway trains and during peak times the time between trains is getting longer so now in peak time it’s about 3 to four minutes and during non- peak hours it’s about six to S minutes and I know that I don’t know what it’s like in in London but like I lived in New York and like complaining about waiting for a subway train for 3 to 4 minutes is that’s a joke you can’t sometimes you’re waiting 20 minutes right but in ke it was really normal to to expect a train to come every 2 minutes and SO waiting 3 to four minutes during rush hour is a long time for people and this weekend I was waiting for the train and it took 7 minutes and there’s a timer actually in the KE Metro that shows you how much time has gone between each trains and I saw a guy taking a picture of the seven minutes because it’s like this is really indicative of these changes that are happening and so it’s it seems like something small just the Metro trains but if you take something like that and you realize that it’s happening in every single sector across the entire economy it’s big that’s I think a really interesting example just staying on mobilization then how much of a drag on Ukraine’s economy is this having and do you think anything is going to change in the future any actions the government’s either planning or taking right now that could change the situation or not it’s really tough so there was a really good article in Bloomberg actually just to plug it I think people should definitely read it about the labor shortage in Ukraine and in there it said that there’s a 27% contraction in the available labor force from pre-war levels which is almost 30% right it’s a lot and the issue isn’t going to go away anytime soon and I think the government first of all it has to mobilize people right it cannot not mobilize people into this war or men I should say men you know I mean when I say people women are partly women who are doctors and medical professionals technically can’t leave the country they’re but men right and so it’s interesting because there’s not really much the government can do and there’s not even much that foreign Partners can do right even by giving foreign external financing right because this is just a question of people and the longer the war goes on the more people will leave the country whether that’s women leaving or with their children for example or if it’s men fleeing abroad illegally or if it’s uh people going into hiding which is happening more and more now or at least it’s being talked about more in popular culture as mobilization starts up is in full swing again and I don’t really think anybody has a very good answer to this or solution to this and I think one thing that companies are doing of course well not even really doing themselves is that they they have to offer higher salaries because there’s a shorter Supply and they’re competing over that shorter Supply and so wages are going up in Ukraine which when you see these numbers you think oh wages are going up that’s a good thing for people but then you realize no no no the reason though is because it’s like a race to get to people and it’s also bad for the companies right because if the companies have to pay higher wages they’re going to have to cut cost somewhere else they might have to cut production and again like this just reverberates throughout the entire economy I think I answered your question no absolutely thank you very much can we talk a little bit about one specific sector I know you were writing about it last week about the printing industry um and you were relating this of course to the awful strike on the printing shop in in harv yeah so this strike I actually it’s funny I wrote about it in my business newsletter a couple weeks ago and it was interesting because at an event about business in hotep this before the strikes they were saying that actually there were Business Leaders and some of them were representatives of the P the publishing industry there in hadak which hadik you may know and your readers and listeners may know is is like the the publishing Mecca of of Ukraine huge P printing presses there publishing companies they print most of the books that you buy in Ukraine textbooks even and there was this event and the representatives were saying that actually the biggest threat to them as business people as business owners is not Uh Russian attacks um or the sort of danger of the war being that close to the front line and the border with Russia but mobilization because they can’t attract enough people people don’t want to work officially the things that I was already mentioning and then of course a week later Russia hits this printing press which is the largest in Ukraine and it’s it’s one of those things where you want to think that maybe they were aiming for something else and it missed and the Missile hit the printing press but it feels like it’s so intentional right because this hitting a printing press of course if you want to destroy a nation and its people like destroying the things that it writs is a target you probably want to hit if that’s what your aim is and your goals which is certainly what Russia’s goals are right but it’s also an hit to the to hotkey economy right because there hundreds of thousands of books millions of books are printed there every year these were major publishing houses and Ukraine had been has been experiencing a bit of a cultural Renaissance As a result of the fullscale invasion which I think the reasons of that are clear and obvious and bookstores have been opening up all over the country and the book industry the publishing industry has been doing quite well of course quite well relatively right but it it was flourishing all things considered a flourishing sector and taking out one of the largest printing presses is going to have a serious effect on that industry’s ability to continue to grow to develop to sell books not to mention the fact like I said there’s textbooks being made in these printing houses and it’s such a clear the symbology couldn’t be clear of what Russia is trying to do when it hits targets like this but yeah and it’s going to take the owners of the publish the printing press have said it’s going to take them at least four or five months to rebuild it which that’s probably optimistic and so now you have the opportunity for hundreds of thousands of books books that are not going to get printed over the next several months and this is people who work in these industries who are now out of a job and another thing they were saying is it’s not easy to replace the people that have the expertise working in these printing presses and this was something I hadn’t really thought about was that it’s not and it’s really important I think to underline this which is that in Ukraine when people leave you lose their expertise too right so if people are killed or if people go abroad it’s not that easy just to find someone that you could retrain tomorrow or in a week and so in the publishing industry these are very specific types of skills that people possess and that they spend Years Learning and if they’re killed in an attack or they’re not able to go to their workplace and they decide to go work somewhere else or leave the country you’ve lost that person and it’s going to take you a very long time perhaps to find a good replacement so again like I said these things are they have this immediate after effect and then it just it lingers for years if not decades well thank you lilan just to put some numbers to that the looking at your colleague Dominic Kell’s article here the aftermath of Russia’s May the 23rd attack on Harv’s Factor Dr Printing House destroyed over 50,000 books and printing equipment it killed seven employees and injured 22 the factor group’s total damages from the attack and nearly 5 million euros that’s $5.4 million Francis dley I know you have a few questions Francis thanks very much Lynn it was a real pleasure to read your essay when it arrived and a real privilege to commission it from you something that struck me when I read it and I highly recommend that listeners do the same there’ll be a link in the show notes to this episode was just a degree to which you emphasized if Russia were to take over large portions of Ukraine or indeed the whole country just how much raw material in terms of minerals but also the military industrial complex would then fall into moscow’s hands and it made terrifying reading when you actually see some of the numbers on that just wondered if you could comment a little bit more for us on what the Ramic ramifications would be for the West if Russia suddenly got its hands on what Ukraine has yeah I think this is something that is understated just in the general public in general basically because we don’t know the full extent to Ukraine’s impressive military industrial conflict we know a lot but we like I say in the pce there’s a lot of State secrets that of course are shared with Western countries that are ke to Ukraine’s success in this war that would not that Russia would now possess but just to go through some of those numbers Ukraine has at least 200 domestic drone producers in the country and that’s aerial drones but there’s also the unmanned ground Vehicles they have also developed their own Howitzer the banaana they’ve developed these extremely impressive sea drones these Naval drones that have taken out Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in the Black Sea and the military doesn’t love it when we say that they don’t have a Navy because they because Ukraine’s military technically does but it doesn’t have a big Navy in the sense that we’re used to with the Russian military the US military or the other Western Nations militaries it’s a small division but it’s managed to develop these drones that are able to take out serious Naval infrastructure and ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and of course how they developed that technology what that technology is is very secret but it’s very important it’s clearly revolutionized the battlefield and if Russia was to come and take over Ukraine it would now possess all of these weapons not the physical weapons themselves right but the technology and the the plans for them all of this intelligence that goes along with it and the idea that Russia somehow wouldn’t use that against NATO or wouldn’t take advantage of this amazing military-industrial complex that it’s just gotten its hands on is is ridiculous it would immediately enjoy the spoils those Spoils of War so yeah that part is I think really worth noting Lilian high is Dom here if I could jump in please thank you thank you so much for joining us today can I talk about the the kind of the support financial support for Ukraine if I get the the fact the numbers wrong but I think the World Bank is supporting Ukraine to the tune of about two uh billion US doar a month paying the Civil Service salaries and essential services to keep the country going I mean that is a huge amount of cash if we were you know scratching around the office but actually it’s not a huge amount in World terms or is it I mean how much for how long do you think the World Bank would be able to continue supporting Ukraine at its current rate and just on that I know the World Bank say it’s going to cost they reckon about $480 billion us doar for the recovery of Ukraine but how does that compare to as you were mentioning a moment ago the flight of intellectual capital is that just the do they have they put a number on the infrastructure that’s been destroyed is that number reliable basically thank you yeah that’s another question that’s it’s a very good question and it’s scary to imagine so Ukraine’s finance ministry and central bank has basically said that for the for 2024 it’ll need $37 billion in external financing for Budget support which works out to about 3 billion a month and it basically feels that it has that covered it says it should have that covered because the World Bank and IMF financing and other financing from other foreign Partners so this year it seems to be covered but nobody knows what next year looks like right that’s the sort of issue with this external financing is that it’s all based on of course political situations in countries so if Trump is elected in the un States what does that mean for 2025 for Ukraine for external financing if institutions like the World Bank and others cannot pledge that much money every month if other foreign Partners decide hey this is going on too long we can continue to support the budget politically speaking too it might become divisive in other countries because already people don’t there are some voices in some Western countries that say like why are my tax dollars paying for pensions or teacher salaries in Ukraine and that’s why actually just one comment here it’s really important to push for seizing Russia’s Central Bank Assets in full for Ukraine because that’s money that can be easily given to Ukraine that doesn’t isn’t taking money from Western taxpayers which some people have an issue with but also even if the Western taxpayer doesn’t have an issue with that why should they be the ones who are paying for when these these Russian Central Bank assets are just sitting there Frozen and could be if the political will was there seized in full and given to Ukraine and it’s about 28300 billion and that would solve a lot of the the issues right both for Ukraine’s Battlefield needs and its budget needs of course they have come through with this agreement that the windfall profits will be given to Ukraine’s military aid which is a good start but again not nearly enough uh uh of what Ukraine needs and in terms of reconstruction yeah I think the the world bank’s estimate of around 480 billion they haven’t updated that number for a while and the destruction keeps coming so that number I always whenever I write about that number I always say at least 48 building and Counting because with each day Ukraine is incurring costs to rebuild and reconstruct and of course it’s hard to put a number on the loss of human capital I think a way of thinking about it look at the slow rate of development in Ukraine over the last 30 years actually since it’s Independence it’s suffered a lot from the flight of human capital from brain drain in other words and that has certainly played a role in the slower than what was hoped rate of development in Ukraine and so if you think about how now you have at least 6 million people who have left since the start of the fulls scale Invasion many of whom will not come back just it’s very unfortunate but it’s true and that’s going to lead to generations of lost potential it’s just a it’s a fact so you it’s hard to put a number on that but I could say that it will be huge and that’s why attracting Specialists back to Ukraine will be extremely important and the government will have to prioritize that in some way because lack of Specialists is something I I didn’t quite mention in full earlier when I was talking about the economic problems but that’s across the board speaking of reconstruction the the minister Naim Mustafa the other day was saying that basically the government just simply doesn’t have enough project managers to carry out the projects that need to happen for any from simple things like road construction to bigger reconstruction projects and they can’t compete because the salaries they can offer are quite low and it’s just it’s really tricky um because if you just don’t have the people with the knowhow it doesn’t matter how much money comes in for reconstruction actually you need the people here who know how to carry out these projects who will carry them out earnestly and if you don’t have them here that opens up the door and the opportunity for bad players to to take advantage of these gaps for their own you know financial gain and I’m talking about people engaging in corruption and skimming off the top and engaging in Shady deals and things like that and so attracting people back it’s really hard to do now but it will have to be a serious priority in the future thanks now you mentioned a moment ago about the seizing of Russian assets to keep keep the country going pay for reconstruction and what have you this is obviously a very a very loaded topic some commentators are saying that either take the assets which is very problematic take the interest which is just a cash sum and a bit easier to handle but others are saying well no that that would just fly in the face of the established system of global rules and Norms that by riding rush off through that it it could do more damage than good to the to the overall system who would trust the West again if they were to do this here countries around the world who are slightly bit more slightly more murky than perhaps we’d like in the we’d like to be might shy away from doing business where do you think the swingometer is on this argument at the moment is it just too poisonous to go near the seasoning of aets we a lot of good talk about it but I haven’t actually seen anything yet no I know I it’s very divisive and I know that across Europe a lot of European leaders and not sensible ones I guess I was being a bit opinionated there but like ones like or Oran for example of course he is against this but I mean even more responsible leaders have said that this is this could be a really bad precedent right and and the Americans are a bit more I say bullish on it because to them they I mean they have less Assets in the United States right it’s really a European question fine and so there there has been very little movement on it because they cannot agree and it’s the same thing that happens on the battlefield it’s a fear of of repercussions that don’t actually come to be right so we don’t want to give Ukraine X weapon because we’re afraid of of Russia’s reaction months later we give them the weapon Russia has no reaction right it’s so it’s a similar kind of story that’s playing out I think where it’s just a fear of making a bold move but in moments like this we need bold moves and I think you mentioned it’s really interesting that this would be a flagrant violation of the Norms that we have in our world if we just seized their money and gave it to another country but Russia that has flagrantly violated International Norms right and so a punishment for that is doing something to show the others that this is what will happen if you actually engage in this kind of behavior and so I think it’s interesting to me because it’s the kind of moment that that requires a leadership that is going to take these risky bold moves and you’re seeing a lot of trepidation and this these arguments that Arab States and China will take their money out of the West it’s for at least the near future it’s not possibility there’s nowhere else to put it let’s just be honest right these are the strongest currencies in the world and I know that Russia and China talk about dollar dominance and then wanting to change that system and all of these things but that’s not going to happen at least the foreseeable future and so I’m a bit confused sometimes about the lack of movement but I think it is just people and European leaders and other global leaders just being cautious but again two and a half years into this war we got to stop being cautious because why while we’re being cautious and and weighing all the different options Russia is continuing to just push as hard as it can into Ukraine and to totally ignore all International Norms everywhere so again that’s my personal view but thanks and just finally for me I knowe that that Ukraine’s GDP growth is 3.2% this year down from 5.3 last year now okay that’s quite a drop but equally 3.2% this year my my God we we’d cry out for that in this country and many many others would as well I’m I’m sure so can you just sort this out for me please that sounds like a good number 3.2% GDP growth I’m presuming a lot of that is to do with grain and and that therefore very vulnerable but you please correct me if I’m wrong there which I probably am but 3 3.2% growth good but overall the economy and the financial situation not so good so I’m just a bit confused with both sides of this please can you help me out yeah Ukraine’s growth for the last several years has been not great it’s been struggling a lot so even doing a little bit better than before is is something but I think it’s it’s very difficult to explain I think even for me but I think there’s export growth like I was saying in the very beginning there’s a lot of companies that have managed to export a lot more that’s grain that’s metals they are getting back to some pre-war levels of exports and this has been helped on a lot by International Partners who have been trying to finance exporting as much as possible right and also dutyfree exports with the European Union and this has helped a lot to get things out because of course the domestic Market has essentially collapsed in Ukraine it’s still here but in order to get to make money and to help the economy continue you have to get exports out so those exports going back to pre-war levels almost reaching prear levels uh is is contributing to some of that growth I think Ukraine’s the external financing has helped keep the economy afloat banks are doing well in Ukraine this is there’s a lot of reasons for that one is that you know basically all the external financing goes through the banks soldiers have very high salaries so that’s also going into into the banks there’s lots of deposits banks are state-owned so like I said the the external financing is going there so there are areas of the economy that are very stable or that are doing well and that’s what’s contributing to those growth numbers but it’s like I said in each area that you look there’s there are issues that are kind of if you peek under the hood a little bit every industry is suffering in some way but overall and that’s why these numbers so growth the economy is chugging along let’s let’s say that thank you so much Dom Francis and lilan coming up we have today’s panel’s Final thoughts well thank you very much Tom Francis and lilan for your time and your reporting today let’s go to our final thoughts Francis dley would you like to go first well thanks David I’ll be very brief before I dash off to catch my train to Normandy one of the other objectives I have whilst I’m here will be to connect with Ukrainian diaspora communities in the cities that I drive through with the charity Ukrainian Focus so I’m very much looking forward to that and if you are in any of the following places Reams Paris or uh Munich do reach out I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to see you but I’m very keen to speak to people who left Ukraine as refugees and are currently living in those places so do get in touch by the usual email and then I will of course be also meeting up with dom as well in Normandy so I’ll make sure I keep a bottle of cedra on ice for you Dom thank you very much Francis and best of luck with your reporting trip Dom Nichols yeah thanks David and thanks Francis look forward to seeing you there although of course you better pronounce correctly before you get there it’s not Reams landed my helicopter there on the way back from Bosnia but that’s another story I just wanted to say I’m off for a few days off tomorrow to Normandy for dday so I’m not going to speak to you before then but just well in particular to our us listeners I’ll be on Omaha Beach on the 6th I’ll be there carrying the set of compasses that my uncle had when he although he’s in the Royal Navy he was driving an LCT landing craft tank he was attached to US forces he drove it onto heart Beach repeatedly on the 6th of June he lived to tell or tell unlike many many of your servicemen any many Allied servicemen four over 4,400 killed on D-Day alone but yeah I’ll be on omile beach on D-Day I’ll be thinking about the sacrifice of Us and other other Allied Forces and I’ll speak to you all next week well thank you Francis and Tom lilan as our guest would you like the very final words thank you for for having me on the the podcast again it was great and I think one of the things that I want to emphasize is just that we talk a lot about supporting Ukraine and reconstruction even and the amount that it will cost but what we really need to be focusing on I think is giving Ukraine the resources to win the war I’m actually going to the recovery conference in Berlin next week and I can’t stop thinking about why are we even talking about this now it’s important to keep the intention on that to prepare for reconstruction when it happens of course but you help but think but why aren’t we talking about giving Ukraine all of the resources and that means the military ources the weapons it needs to win and a good example I think of this is this partial ban on using weapons in Russian territory and only saying they can use them near harak when again that kind of still hand ties the hands of Ukrainian soldiers to really beat Russia and or to really inflict the type of damage on Russia’s military that would be required to actually help Ukraine get on a path toward Victory so I think as the business editor it’s my job to think more about the economy and uh reconstruction and what’s happening uh in Ukraine in that regard but um at the end of the day it’s it’s all really about how do we get to a Ukrainian Victory on the battlefield and and ultimately Russia’s loss right lilan thank you so much for joining us uh it’s been really good to hear your thoughts and best of luck with the conference next week 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 we’ll sign up to dispatches our Ukraine 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 at 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 Rachel Porter and the executive producers are David nolles and Louisa Wells [Music]

Day 824.

Today, we bring you updates from the battlefront as Ukrainian forces hold the Russian advance near Vovchansk, a Russian armoured column is hit in Kursk and we delve into the latest news and analysis around the Ukrainian economy.

Contributors:

David Knowles (Head of Audio Development). @djknowles22 on X.

Dom Nicholls (Associate Editor, Defence). @DomNicholls on X.

Francis Dearnley (Assistant Comment Editor). @FrancisDearnley on X.

With thanks to Liliane Bivings (Business Editor, The Kyiv Independent). @LilianeBivings on X.

Articles referenced:

‘What if Putin Wins?’ Essay Series:

For seven days The Telegraph is running a series of exclusive essays from prominent international commentators imagining the consequences if Russia were successful in its war. The essays so far are:

‘With Ukraine’s resources, Putin would be unstoppable’ (Liliane Bivings)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/02/with-ukraines-resources-putin-would-be-invincible/

‘Putin’s next conquests are already in his sights’ (Dr Ivana Stradner)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/01/putins-next-conquests-are-already-in-his-sights/

‘Europe’s fascist future awaits’ (Dr Thomas Clausen)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/30/europes-fascist-future-awaits-if-putin-wins-in-ukraine/

‘Putin’s plot to destroy Nato is reaching its devastating climax’ (Aliona Hlivco)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/29/putin-plot-to-destroy-nato-reaching-its-climax/

‘If Putin wins, expect the worst genocide since the Holocaust’ (Karolina Hird)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/31/europe-see-the-worst-genocide-since-holocaust/

Subscribe to The Telegraph: telegraph.co.uk/ukrainethelatest

Email: ukrainepod@telegraph.co.uk