‘Russia’s gamble has not paid off’ as Ukraine hits command post and coveted SU-57 jet |George Barros

‘Russia’s gamble has not paid off’ as Ukraine hits command post and coveted SU-57 jet |George Barros

I think the timing and the seeming uh decision for the Russians to go after this uh offensive despite not yet being fully prepared to their desired strength is indicative of the Russians indeed wanted to seize the opportunity before the aid began to Surge uh to the front I think they expedited the timetables to try to make sure that they could get whatever they could create whatever effects they’re trying to create on the ground uh before the ukrainians would be able to rebuff them and there’s a risk there right um you take advantage of that opportunity when the aid situation and the material situation is worse for the ukrainians but you also take a risk in that your own strength isn’t isn’t there um and that so far it seems that that gamble has not paid off for the Russians hello and welcome to Frontline today with me Alex Dibble times radio’s Deputy head of news today on Frontline we are talking to George baros the head of the Russia team at The Institute for the study of war the isw has become a go-to source for information about global conflict and is a respected Authority on the war in Ukraine George baros thank you so much for joining us on front line thank you so much for having me Alex good to see you again I thought we could start with the latest on the ground in Ukraine we know Russia has been Keen to make advances since the US Aid package went through Congress um how much has changed since then sure um I think we have to broaden the aperture in that case going back to October because in October 2023 is when uh it became clear to the Russians that the US Congressional debate on the supplemental Aid would be a long protracted ugly Affair and that’s when the Russians started cooking up a plan to try to exploit the situation that would inevitably occur when the aid would be delayed uh throughout the course of October up until about I’d say early may we had the Russians uh conducting offensive operations in fdva we had the Russians uh setting conditions and and that during that time redeploying significant uh forces uh to Northeastern uh Ukraine the Border uh regions in K and Brians and uh uh belgrad oblas to create this large operational grouping of about 30 to 50,000 soldiers that is the group that then on May 10th uh entered North uh eastern Ukraine with their renewed harke operation um that wasn’t uh any sort of operation at the Russians decided to execute uh out of you know an easy opportunity or uh sort of a spur of the moment sort of thing they set conditions and plann for that many many months in advance and that was I think it started to metastasize uh back in October concretely uh since the Russians began their Harkey offensive uh in on May 10th the Russians have made very small tactical gains uh you can go measured on the map but they’ve only penetrated you know such and lus kilometers not very far they’ve lost a lot of forces and they’ve been held up and pinned down in V Chans for a while they’ve yet to seize the entire city and Ukrainian forces have been conducting a series of tactical counterattacks to try to improve their tactical positions within the city um the Russians nonetheless they still maintain significant operational reserves uh for this operation by our estimates they’ve only committed about maybe about a third maybe a little bit more uh of their prepared Force for this operation and the Russians absolutely maintain the opportunity to be able to intensify uh their operations I’d note that you know over the last 24 hours uh the leader of chesa ramam kadirov just announced as of yesterday uh June 9th that uh some of his chesin forces actually crossed the border from KK into sum oblas and they claimed that They seized a a border Village uh we need to verify those claims but I would just add that it would be completely consistent with the Russian campaign design which is the Russians seek to open up a series of fronts put military pressure on the ukrainians so that the ukrainians then stretch themselves too thin across this whole theater of operations uh in order to generate opportunities uh and facilitate what could be some uh Russian breakthroughs in what we think is the priority area eastern Ukraine and those developments that you’ve just described since the US Aid package have they been smaller tactical gains on Russia’s behalf than you might have expected or or greater or indeed exactly what you would have predicted yeah so I think the Tactical gains around Dev Diva that especially occurred in April were concerning because it seemed like the Russians were able to actually exploit the fact that the ukrainians there were underprepared underere equipped and they managed to project west of of Diva at a rate that surprised me faster than what I would expected but recently it’s bogged down as the Russians have actually approached the main area where the ukrainians have built their main line of defense uh just west of Diva so it was fast at first but then it slowed down in a in a surprising way with regards to the Harkey operation um that was very interesting we were forecasting the Russians to actually start their harke operation uh much later than they actually did the time window we were thinking that they would begin it would be late May or early June they began it in early May on May 10 and also under strength um all the indicators suggested that the Russians wanted to create a operational grouping of about 50 to 100,000 uh forces uh Personnel for that operation and they committed to it significantly under strength of that Target somewhere in the ballpark of 30 to 50,000 so about half and um I I think the timing and the seeming uh decision for the Russians to go after this uh offensive despite not yet being fully prepared to their desired strength is indicative of the Russians indeed wanted to seize the opportunity before the aid began to Surge uh to the front I think they expedited the timbles to try to make sure that they could get whatever they could create whatever effects are trying to create on the ground uh before the ukrainians would be able to rebuff them and there’s a risk there right um you take advantage of that opportunity when the aid situation and the material situation is worse for the ukrainians but you also take a risk in that your own strength is isn’t there um and that so far it seems that that gamble has not paid off for the Russians interesting um it’s also been just over a week since the US changed its stance on Ukraine using donated weapons to strike targets inside of Russia in a limited way how would you assess at this stage Ukraine’s use of that permission um and has the US done enough do you think to to change the situation um on the front yeah so the best metric that we have for this is the performance of the Russian offensive and haryo blast which uh as of late May and early June has been pretty pretty poor and I think part of that is in fact too that the US you know the Biden Administration they made the decision to allow the ukrainians to conduct some limited fires across the border at some Russian forces it’s an extremely important policy change however I want to highlight that it’s actually a very very small and very limited change I think it was mischaracterized by most reports as being this Monumental watershed moment for US policy and is real game changer for the war and it certainly has the potential to be that but at this stage it really isn’t if you study the minuche of the actual policy change the Biden Administration has allowed the ukrainians to use uh a subset of weapons the himars uh giml that guided multiple launch rocket artillery uh to strike targets that are actively attacking Ukraine in the vicinity of har the US policy still does not permit the ukrainians to use uh their most effective weapons that the US has given Ukraine attack them missiles uh that to can strike into the operational rear and deep rear um I just published a map about this yesterday but if you look on the map of concretely sort of what change with the policy you’ll find that the sanctuary space that the Russians used to Shield their forces has been decreased by a maximum 16% that is to say 84% of all the shielded territory Still Remains and unfortunately um it’s not just about numbers I I think you know when a commander is conducting operations and they’re Fielding hundreds of thousands of men and they’re pushing uh a lot of material and Fuel and lubricants and projecting into another country for operations any commander has to make a choice between uh balancing two desirable things uh economic efficiency uh and expediency versus protection crudely speaking when you have a tank formation uh you can drive it in a column that is the one that ex you know that optimizes economic expediency and fuel efficiency but it’s dangerous because if you get caught with your pants down by the adversary you’re lined up and easy to be destroyed um the way that you would actually try to maximize protection would be you flare out you go into line formation you’re dispersed you move slower but if you get engag you’re prepared to handle that threat right now this huge territory in the Russian Federation bordering Ukraine is optimized for economic efficiency and my argument is that if the Biden Administration uh follows suit like many European states have now done and removed all restrictions on what the ukrainians are allowed to Target in Russia then it will force upon the Russian command to make difficult decisions about to what extent do they reconfigure their rear and support areas uh in order to maximize uh protection or at least improve protection um in in exchange for supporting uh at the expense of efficiency concretely that’ll have very important effects for Ukraine big Ammunition Depot will be partitioned and moralizes into a series of dispersed and small ammunition Depots uh same for fuel um you won’t be able to have big accumulations of your forces as far as deep uh you’ll have to stretch your interior lines further and what we’ve seen is that the Russians perform a lot better when they have short interior lines lines versus long interior lines it’s also critical for uh the air operations that the ukrainians are are planning and air capabilities are trying to build Russia has limited air defense and electronic warfare uh protection assets and right now the Russian command enjoys the luxury of being able to exclusively have to worry about protecting the frontmost areas of the theater um in Ukraine and they can really pile on all of their air defense assets in a very geographically small relatively geographically small area as opposed to having to consider the need to deploy those inwards rearr the way that they have these limited assets deployed to protect important and vulnerable Targets in the rear and if we can actually get the Russians to redeploy some of those air defense assets instead of being at the front to the rear and that of course will make a uh a better operating environment for the the various different Western aircraft that are going to be going into Ukraine soon you mentioned a moment ago the the air oper options that Ukraine is planning as part of the defensive operations in the north of of Ukraine um Ukraine has launched an air strike using a Ukrainian Air Force jet uh for the first time um against what’s been called a a Russian command node um in belgrod how significant do you think that attack is yeah um it’s we’re working on trying to see what kind of battle damage assment we can clarify from the extent of that attack but in general I think it’s very important I think it’s extremely important that we revisit collectively our assumptions about uh air power in this war for the first two and a half years of this war really air power has been sort of a secondary or tertiary uh afterthought when it comes to uh war and a large part of that is because I think it actually stems from the sanctuary right um we’ve assumed that the ukrainians are not going to be capable of using air power the way NATO would use air power because the Russians have uh very capable Air Force and they have uh a lot of air defenses air defense systems on the ground that we’re not able to take out and if we start to examine some of those assumptions right like why can’t we take out the air defense systems well um it’s because they’re based on Russian territory and we can’t strike Russian territory well if we check that assumption it no longer is acatic impossible that using scalp and storm shadows and attack of missiles the ukrainians could conduct a shaping operation that seeks to uh destroy Uh Russian air defense systems s3000s and s400s try to get the Russians to redeploy some of those from the front towards through the rear to protect them and then it’s no longer sort of a crazy thought to say the ukrainians can start building towards over the course of many months and years a concept of operations where you actually do have Ukrainian uh aircraft um operating in the theater uh conducting strikes uh doing air-to-air operations and and supporting combined arms I think this Ukrainian strike um if it’s confirmed against the bunker node in uh belgrad that’s going to be very important and I hope it’ll be uh the first heralding event for what will be uh A Renewed uh series of Ukrainian operations in the air domain and and there have also been reports over the weekend that Ukraine destroyed an Su 57 Fighter Jet can you tell us about those planes and will that be a loss to Russia I think it’s more of a Prestige loss for the Russians because the Russians were very proud of their Su sooy 57 you know fighter fighter because it’s supposedly a stealth aircraft it’s you know fifth generation fighter they cost a tremendous amount of money to produce and they’re very difficult to produce and it was sort of Russia’s attempt to you know be on par with the United States and its partners with the F35 program but um you know it was the the soo 57 was never as good technically and and it it was plagued with a bunch of R&D problems um having the ukrainians take out that aircraft especially at the distance of which they did over 500 kilometers away from uh Ukraine’s International borders um that’s quite significant and I think it’s just uh you know it’s a testament to the Ukrainian deep strike capabilities what the ukrainians themselves independent of the West are are developing for um their drone and missile program to strike uh you know sensitive military targets deep in Russia’s interior and I hope they continue with it and still on the subject of of of air power you know in the last few days we’ve seen France announc that it’s going to send a mirage Jets to Ukraine and also train train Pilots um are Mirage Jets what Ukraine needs how much will they help do you think Ukraine needs everything that it’s going it can get um there’s a massive bottleneck right now in terms of uh available airframes but more importantly pilots and training Pilots um you know the US is not able to rapidly train Ukrainian Pilots for variety of reasons and So the faster that we can get more airframes in Ukraine up and running the better um standardization would be ideal however at the end of the day the Ukraine the approach to support in Ukraine has been sort of scrape the barrel get what we can get field it and if we can get generate some good effects with it then proceed with it given the organic constraints on training F and qualifying F-16 Pilots um I think if there’s a robust pipeline that we can try to get Ukrainian Pilots trained on other airframes that’ll be important as well I also read some reports that the uh that the Mirage jets are apparently going to be capable of firing uh scalp missiles which is which is interesting um so we might potentially see uh some aircraft being used as part of a uh cruise missile campaign in order to strike uh sensitive Russian military uh assets uh within Russia which is an important capability I’d note that you know within attack’s range and some Storm Shadow range there’s a number of Russian military air bases and airfields and um of course I think what is necessary for the ukrainians to defend themselves is uh to Crater the runways and destroy a lot of those aircraft before they even get off the ground and again you you mentioned f-16s there you know what stage are we at in terms of progress on those donated f-16s yeah so a bunch of Ukrainian let me rephrase a small number of Ukrainian Pilots finished uh their training in Arizona um on the F-16 and they’re doing some more training in Europe now all the timelines indicate that the first small batch of Ukrainian Pilots the F-16 should in principle be able to start operating sometime this summer um but I iterate that the number of pilots and the number of available airframes is very small at the at this point that it’s pretty symbolic and it’s not yet what’s needed uh to create you know a capable combat unit like uh like for example a regiment or a squadron of uh a regiment of uh of f-16s I hope that over the course of several years months and years we can build to a larger capability where again the ukrainians can operate pretty conventionally in the air War but it’s predicated on taking away the sanctuary and whole taking out the air defense assets to make it a safer environment um training more pilots getting them in there and you know this is you know really the sanctuary is a game changer because now now we actually can use air power and there is a com I think there is a concept of operations where where air power can re-enter and potentially be a a really disruptive factor for how the Russians assume they would win this war moving on from Air power and air operations um let’s talk a little bit about the the sea operations again you know as the isw notes in it in its report Ukraine has carried out another strike uh against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet um do we know what ship was hit and is this again a sign of Ukraine continuing to find ways perhaps surprisingly uh to hit Russia in the Black Sea with with some success yeah over the last 72 hours the ukrainians have hit I think at least two uh Naval vessels if they hit a patrol boat um and they hit one other um uh craft which which is escaping my memory at this moment but this is part of a sustained campaign that the ukrainians launched back in summer 20123 uh targeting specifically the Black Sea Fleet and its surface vessels and they actually even destroyed one submarine uh with um long range fires as well as with uh surface and subsurface uh drones um it’s been a very successful Ukrainian campaign and it’s had some very important effects theyve gotten the Black Sea Fleet to to essentially redeploy most of its main combat elements uh from the main portance of as Crimea uh to a worse and further away Port uh on the Russian uh Mainland uh near novaris and it’s degraded the Black Sea fleet’s ability to operate in uh the western part of the Black Sea um this is important important for a variety of reasons um we need to have those uh vessels Out of the Black Sea if the ukrainians are to become are active in the air domain many of those vessels have air defense assets um uh and there’s also organic air defense assets of the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea that the ukrainians have been striking um it’s also important for our Maritime security uh it’s important for to keep those shipping lanes open so that the ukrainians can continue to export grain to feed the world and also keep Ukraine’s B uh balance budget balanced and it’s been a I think you know it doesn’t change the control of terrain on the on the ground but it really substantially degrades Russian uh Naval capabilities it it hits them hurts them where it hurts and uh it’s it’s uh you know it’s very impressive to see what the ukrainians continue to pull off on a pretty regular basis I feel like every time we see another report of a sunk vessel it sort of just like it melds with the mind it’s like this long list and of just a series of continuous events of another ship being lost it’s no longer spect for me personally it no longer seems like a spectacular event they just sort of like oh yep another vessel lost that that basically tracks so I should I should definitely be following it more closely personally um yes I know what you mean that they’ve had so much success with it it’s almost their their abilities are almost um becoming we take them for granted a little bit now don’t we um the the isws recent report states that there are and this is you know slightly this is pertains to sort of Recruitment and mobilization I suppose but there there are an increasing number of foreign um migrants in prisoner of war camps in Ukraine as a result of of the recruitment drive from Russia among for foreign workers also among students what do you think this tells us about the state of Russia’s mobilization program and how their recruits are being used sure I like I’d like to give a little bit of a Nuance take here I think some people tend to look at these anecdotes and say you know there the situation is super horrendous for the Russian military they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel things are super super bad and to a certain extent I think there’s a lot of Truth in that um however where you know there’s they are anecdotal but it does tell us something about the Russian uh strategy for Force generation and force reconstitution this is part of the Russian approach to force generation they have what we call a crypto mobilization campaign and when I say crypto because it’s not like the mobilization ation that Putin declared in September 2022 where he suddenly mobilized 300,000 reservists in a very rapid period um that takes a lot of political capital and Putin really doesn’t have a stomach for for doing that sort of mobilization when he can help it and so instead in order to maintain the Temple of operations the Russians have established this really pervasive and Insidious decentralized uh method of generating recruits they go to companies they go to uh government organizations they go to state own Enterprises they go to Regional Governors they go to Civil Society organizations and they essentially say hey generate men um sort of like you not dis too dissimilarly this is a git of a crude example but not too dissimilarly to like how a feudal Lord in the Middle Ages would go to all the thiefs and basically talk to the Lord of that thief and say we’re running a campaign give me what you have and then we’re going to go and fight our adversary right um the Russians are doing the same there and naturally would recruit from employers and state own Enterprises and you know government institutions and and you say hey over this next recruiting period I need you to send me 500 men inevitably especially when the Russians have taken in so many migrant workers um the Russians for example now they have a a labor deficit of I think five million workers or so uh which they trying to fill in with with migrant workers from Central Asia you inevitably are going to end up with these vulner economically vulnerable people being reduced by the promise of high wages and and supposedly good benefits just for fighting in Ukraine and then they end up in the recruitment pool and then they also end up as you know people that are killed in action and prisoners of War um and so when we see these sort of examples it’s I think it’s indicative of you know really the system that the Russians have built to try to sustain the effort um I do think it is fairly robust I think that they can continue to sustain the operations the current estimates suggest the Russians recruit between 20 to 30,000 uh volunteers uh such volunteers per month um and they get about you know 15,000 or so into combat roles per month um the other half essentially serving as rear Echelon uh support and combat service support um and uh you know I think I think the Russians basically they figured out a way to to make it work um but it does result with a sort of strange not particularly cohesive of mishmash of a variety of people with different training and uh the sort of the concept of there being a cohesive cogent uh Professional Russian military uh that is uniform and have standardized training like that concept is gone uh instead they they’ve decided to go with this Mass amalgamation um I thought we’d End by talking briefly about mova the isw has reported and we’ve known for a long time about Russia seeking to gain influence in Moldova um and even suggestions that they might be looking to invade mdova in the future um but your organization has also reported recently on increased interference in movan democracy How concerned should we be about these most recent of developments yeah so the mdova is an interesting country because it’s it’s part of the former Soviet Union and therefore Putin sees it as rightful Russian territory on on par with Ukraine it’s difficult for the Russians to operate in mova though because it’s it’s landlocked um it’s it’s surrounded on one side by Ukraine on its eastern border and then sandwiched with Romania um on on the west and there’s no access via sea or International airspace so it’s difficult for the Russians to get stuff in and out of mova but the Russians do have uh some limited but important uh bases of power in mova and those are you know three battalions that they have in the uh eastern most uh separatist but de facto Russian controlled region of mova transnistria um and then there’s a variety of different political actors and Kremlin political proxies whom the Kremlin finances and controls uh in mova and um what the kremlin’s trying to do is they’re trying to sabotage what the current president of mdova Maya Sandu is trying to do with uh European Union integration Maya Sandu um she seeks to bring her country into the EU and most bovans support that however there’s this sort of uh political fifth column that is backed by the Russians uh Elon Shore and the shore party the pro-russian uh kemin controlled party or proin party and what they’re trying to do is conduct a series of agitations and political uh sabotage uh movements in order to try to uh try delegitimize um the Sandu government and attempt to really sabotage the EU integration malova is going into presidential elections in October of this year 2024 and the shore party is already doing their best to set the informational conditions for what’s going to be their effort to try to you know essentially say moldova’s lost sovereignty this is uh another example of the hegemonic and evil Western imperialist Powers trying to uh subsume elements of really Eastern Europe and bring into his anti-russian project Moldova shouldn’t be part of the European Union Moldova should instead seek peace and prosperity by joining the Russian sort of uh bastard uh replication of what the EU is the Euro Asian economic Union um and that’s how malova is going to be successful um and recently we just saw a bunch of senior um maldovan influencers uh visit St Petersburg for the St Petersburg economic Forum which was which was last week and they were talking about um you know the way that the current movan government is oppressing them and uh regulating them and uh essentially setting and you know priming the pump for uh these operations they’re going to try to do it’ll be very interesting to see what happens in these upcoming fall elections um mova is a Battleground State um but thankfully um It’s relatively difficult for the Kremlin to do a whole lot there their levers of influence are limited um but of course um that’s because a lot of the Kremlin administrative capacity is tied up in the current war in Ukraine George as always um fascinating to get your thoughts and and these updates from The Institute for the study of War so we appreciate your time very much thank you again for joining front line thanks for having me Alex always a pleasure thank you for watching Frontline from times radio the interview series bringing you expert analysis on the world’s conflicts particularly the war in Ukraine for more you can listen two times radio you can also go to the time website take out a digital subscription and have access to all the reporting done by our foreign correspondents in Ukraine and indeed elsewhere around the world and also listen to the times is World in 10 podcast every day we take you through the latest developments all in 10 minutes that’s the times is World in 10 podcast thank you very much indeed again for watching Frontline from times radio

“It was fast at first, but then it slowed down in a in a surprising way with regards to the Kharkiv operation.”

Putin’s attempts to retake the initiative in Ukraine have faltered as strikes into Russia have helped to halt his offensive and destroyed one of Russia’s rare stealth fighters, George Barros form @UnderstandingWarOrg tells Frontline on #timesradio

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