Ukraine strikes back at occupied Crimea & Zelensky’s strategy for 2024 | Ukraine: The Latest | Pod

Ukraine strikes back at occupied Crimea & Zelensky’s strategy for 2024 | Ukraine: The Latest | Pod

I’m David nolles and this is Ukraine the latest today we discuss the impact and Fallout of the missile and drone strikes across Ukraine and we analyze the strategy of Vladimir zalinski in the weeks and months ahead 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 ukraini is every weekday afternoon 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 3rd of January 1 year and 313 days since the full scale Invasion began and today I’m joined by our assistant comment editor Francis sternley and Brussels correspondent Joe BN I started by summing up the latest news from

Ukraine let’s start in harv a school in the northeastern Ukrainian City partially collapsed on Tuesday evening after the massive missile and drone strikes across Ukraine at the beginning of the week a 10 m crater was left at the scene and the windows of three nearby homes were smashed some reports

Suggest the strike was conducted using s300 surface to a missiles down in zafaria two civilians have been killed by shelling as Russia launched a wave of artillery drone and missile strike on the partially occupied Southern Province ballistic missile strikes were expected today and residents have been urged to

Head to air raid shelters Yuri mko the Region’s military Governor said a 54y old man and a 63y old woman died this morning when the village of plav was shelled another woman 76 years old was also injured in the attacks in her son an elderly Ukrainian man has died after

Russian shelling collapsed his home on top of him the man from the village of sovi in haran was trapped under Rubble following an artillery B marvment shortly after 11:00 a.m. local time that’s 8 a.m. GMT this comes from the governor Alexandro Pudin Rescuers have recovered the man’s body from the rubble

He added in response Ukraine launched missile and drone attacks on occupied Crimea and the Russian Border City of belgorod overnight explosions were heard in the Crimean Port City of spple after what one Russian blogger said was a salvo of British supplied Storm Shadow missiles and Moscow appointed local

Official miky rvv said a missile had been intercepted and that there were no casualties or damage a number of drones and 12 missiles were also shot down over belota by anti-air defenses Russia’s defense Ministry and Governor pakis gladkov said the Border City uh situated around 2030 mi from Ukraine’s

Northeastern border was also we think targeted in attacks on Saturday and Tuesday pulling back then from the news and the the consequences of these strikes there’s been an interesting update from the British Ministry of Defense they say that Russia in their view has used up a quote significant

Proportion end quote of its missile stockpile in its attacks on Ukrainian cities over the last week in its latest defense intelligence briefing the mod said the attacks have quote primarily targeted end quot Ukraine’s defense industry they say this contrasts with its major attacks last winter which prioritized striking Ukraine’s energy

Infrastructure Russia appeared set to restart this campaign by hitting energy sites in early December 2023 these new operations so they’re talking about the strikes here in the past few days suggest at least a temporary change of approach in Russia’s use of longrange strikes Russian planners they say almost certainly recognize the growing

Importance of relative defense industrial capacity as they prepare for a long War well let’s look at some more reaction to the strikes yesterday Ukraine’s prosecutor General Andre ctin has said that Russia’s attacks were barbaric war crimes and a blatant Act of terrorism he wrote on X formerly Twitter prosecutors and investigators are

Documenting these barbaric war crimes residential buildings gas pipelines energy facilities in the K harv and hon regions as well as the capital have been damaged Russia’s war on civilians is a blatant Act of terrorism this is a stark reminder to the world only decisive action can stop terrorists from repeating their atrocities Ukraine’s

Defense minister has accused Moscow of deliberately targeting residential areas uh this is after Russia hit the country with almost 100 missiles killing at least five people rustem umov said on social media the terrorist state is deliberately targeting critical infrastructure and residential neighborhoods with very with a very D

Dangerous attack that killed and injured innocent people backing them up today NATO has put out a statement saying Vladimir Putin’s wave of air strikes on Ukrainian cities will not succeed in Breaking Ukraine’s resilience uh in a statement to Polish radio station rmf.fm they said NATO strongly condemns Russia’s missile and drone attacks on

Ukrainian civilians cities and towns this is yet another proof of Putin’s attempt to break Ukraine’s resilience he will not succeed the alliance also added that it would stand with K as long as it takes just quickly before we go to Joe Barnes then who’s been looking at the

Impact of these strikes uh a few updates on some Frontline changes all rather marginal this all comes from the institute for the study of War they say that Russian forces recently made marginal territorial gains Southwest of sov and Northwest kmina uh they also made conver confirmed advances Northwest

And Southwest of bmot GE ated footage published on January the 1st and 2nd indicates that Russian forces Advanced on the Northern and Eastern outskirts of banka this is Northwest of bmud going to a divka Russian forces also made a confirmed Advance Northwest of aiva as positional engagements continued on

January the 1st and 2nd going down the line then uh they say Russian and Ukrainian forces continued positional fighting in the Donk zafaria oblast border area on January the 1st and 2nd but there were no confirmed changes to the front lines and finally going to that Ukrainian

Incursion on the East that’s the Left Bank of hero blast fighting has continued there but again there’s no confirmed changes to the front line in this area they do say though that Ukrainian forces repelled a slightly increased number of Russian ground attacks near the town of kinki that’s

Southwest of hon City on January the 1st so that’s the news and updates Joe barns you’ve been looking at several things that it would be great to hear your thoughts on first of I mean first of all how did the Russians manage to do these how do they conduct these huge strikes

And what’s the impact been yeah hi folks and happy New Year to everyone yeah so normally when these sort of long range strikes occur we in the days after we hear from sort of Ukraine’s sbu Security Services saying oh we’ve rounded up a load of collaborators who are helping

Russian forces identify targets but what we found out now is Russia is hacking security surveillance cameras in keave and using them to record the city’s air defenses at work and to locate critical infrastructure so that’s a new technique so um according to reports so Russian special services obtained remote access

To the control the cameras and change the viewing angles and connect them to YouTube so Ukraine’s sbu said it has now dismantled the cameras in the Ukrainian Capital One of the devices was located on the balcony of an apartment building and reportedly used by residents to monitor the surrounding area the other

Camera was installed by residents in one ke residential of one of ke’s residential complexes to monitor its parking lot so these aren’t the city’s cameras but they are cameras that we we all use them in our homes how many people have ringed doorbells these days or cameras to monitor your pets while

You’re at work or whatever it’s those ones and they’re connected to Internet and they’re actually quite easy to get a hold of and get get into they’re open systems they’re they’re designed for ease of use rather than security so it’s quite interesting to see that Russia is looking at time targeting these systems

In a bid to get a look at where Ukraine’s air defenses are so you you you’re also account after many of these longrange missile strikes people post these like sort spectacular videos of patriot missile systems firing into the air at sort of a great rate of knots intercepting various missiles actually

Ukraine doesn’t want that posted and banded around the internet because that helps reveal how their systems work and it basically gives you Russia easy intelligence yeah so just yeah just an interesting look how that has done then look let’s look at the impact on energy so after um yesterday’s strikes the CEO

Of Ukraine’s National Energy company claimed that the attacks failed to pose a critical threat to the country’s power system despite causing some damage to the grid so vmir keski he’s the CEO of Ukraine enro the Energy company basically he said and I quote we have promptly fixed the operation of the

Necessary equipment within just a few hours and most customers in ke and the surrounding areas have uninterrupted power supplies the city’s water supply systems have also been resumed um so yeah look he did acknowledge there had been some interruptions to the power suppliers um I think it was around just

Short of 300,000 people were left without power after the strikes in the early hours of yesterday morning but what this is interesting to say is and that and I will touch upon this in my final thoughts a little bit more but these guys are seeming to contrast what

The Brits are saying in saying that Russia is targeting military capacities unless what is actually happening is Russia is targeting energy facilities in the hope of one freezing ukrainians in submission during the cold winter months as they did last winter and potentially trying to disrupt factories that are building Ukrainian drones and missiles

So in interesting yeah and as I said dtec one of the big energy providers said electricity had been restored to around 260,000 residents in ke The eu’s Ambassador in keev has called for and this is now let’s look at what people are saying in response to these strikes

Um so The eu’s Ambassador in ke so karita marinova um has basically said that Ukraine needs more support in the wake of these attacks said Ukraine has fallen victim to another Savage Russian attack today capital keev and harke pummeled by Russian missiles and drones civilians injured and killed infrastructure destroyed Ukraine needs

More support now to save lives Russia will be held accountable so if you if you remember Russia will be held accountable is the same phrase that uh Vladimir zinski used yesterday in the wake of those attacks and yes where has this sort of landed us what is Ukraine

Asking for so I um so I won’t go too much into the piece that we wrote I wrote yesterday for today’s paper on the attacks but I spoke to Kira rudic who is the MP whose house was partially destroyed and and sort of left in rubble as she described in the attacks

Yesterday and so I spoke to her and I was like what does Ukraine need and she said look we need a few things first she said we need more air defense systems and ammunition she said look the rate of these Russian attacks is incredible we are burning through these we’re burning

Through our sort of Patriot missiles NASA missiles various other things IRS t s t all the West system we are going through these missiles at a rate of Nots and we need resupplying she said F16 fighter jets can play a really important intercept role so she encouraged for

Those to be accelerated and get more f-16s into Ukraine Skies quicker than previously expected she said like yeah she not obviously a military person but she said look these things have capabilities that can blow missiles out the sky they can take drones out etc etc

And used in what she said was the next priority priority C was Ukraine needs more long range weapons basically because at the moment Russia can lob vast volleys of missiles and drones into Ukrainian territory largely unanswered Ukraine is trying to retaliate as such but Russia does have the edge on those

Weapons and then the other point she made and I think it’s a really important one we I’ve reported on it quite extensively and there are there’s more story we told about this and say I’m looking at at the moment is she said the West has to do better at cutting

Russia’s supply of Western computer chips components because the missiles and drones that they are building and firing at Ukraine are still being found with chips that have been purchased after the sanctions after the war in February 20 22 had started so yeah it’s really important she was

Saying that we need to cut the suppliers of that and yet let’s go back to the international reaction um and what people are saying so the Baltic states some of Ukraine’s most Ardent European allies so the leaders of laia and Lithuania have demanded the West send more air anti-air

Weapons to Ukraine stop further Russian air rides exactly what Kira rudik was saying so ukrainians do wonders with the air defense the West has provided but they need more leanian president gatis nusa wrote on X for me owners Twitter air defense systems to Ukraine now Edgar

Rovix who is the president of lvia added another set of brutal Russian air strikes against keev this morning talking about yesterday strikes innocent civilians again being the victims of Russian terrorism Ukrainian air defense works well but Ukraine must get more help New Year’s celebrations are over

And the West must get serious and act now uh yeah so quite interesting and this is what the polls had to say so um RIS sori who’s the new polish foreign minister he said the West needs to send longrange missiles to Ukraine and Titan sanctions against Russia so maybe he’s

Been having conversations with Kira rudic so rad OSI said we should respond to the latest Onslaught on Ukraine in language that Putin understands by tightening sanctions so he cannot make new weapons with smuggle components and by giving ke long range missiles that enable it to take out launch S sites and command centers

See yeah that’s exactly what they need and it’s quite clear that everyone is on the same page um and then finally from me the French weapons donations to Ukraine will be gradually replaced by aid for its domestic arms industry France’s Ambassador ke has said uh so French support for the supply

Of military equipment is of course continuing and that’s from Gail vasia and she said told that to France info it will gradually change its nature as the goal is to produce more weapons in Ukraine rather than proceeding solely through donations or purchases so what’s interesting is yes France has seemingly

Dried up um in terms of donations to Ukraine but like Britain its major French defense industry industrial players have been having meetings in keave and speaking to people and looking can we set up factories domestically or maybe just the other side of the border to allow Ukraine to build these things

Under license whether it be the ammunition so artillery ammunition so the French make a really good GPS guided sh for 155 mm artillery is it the the Cesar artillery system or is it actually the smaller things that the French could also help produce and I will stop there and hand over to

Francis thank you very much Joe it’s good to have you back happy New Year Francis Happy New Year to you too we haven’t heard from you for quite a few days um do you want to give us your take your thoughts on what you’ve seen in the

War on Ukraine over the past few weeks well thanks David Happy New Year to you and to all of our listeners who are joining us again it’s good to be back broad brush both sides evidently sought to show their strength over the festive period Russia with those Fierce bombardments that you’ve just been

Talking about and Ukraine with its really important strikes on the Black Sea Fleet now this time last year I tried to summarize the Strategic picture as we opened the new year and I intend to do so again over the coming days but I think it’s more important that we

Understand the respective positions of the core participants namely president zinski and Putin at the dawn of 2024 and in that vein I’ll start by summarizing the first major interview zilinsky has given this year in The Economist and it paints a picture of a man changed a man who’s angry not about the supposed

Successes of his enemies he sees none nor even about his own Army’s seeming lack of progress on the battlefield but rather by the wobble of some of his allies as well as the Detachment among some of his compatriots and he wants the world to know about it so the magazine

Writes that he has shed the lightness and humor that characterized earlier meetings with him it quotes him as saying that the West has lost a sense of urgency and many ukrainians a sense of existential threat and that he’s now trying to rekindle both now I find his admission regarding the latter

Interesting it’s indicative of Ukraine successes over the past two years that many ukrainians do not feel the existence of their country as a whole is imperiled yet of course that does come with serious political consequences as we were reflecting on at the end of last

Year but I agress what he says is maybe we did not succeed in 2023 as the world wanted maybe not everything is as fast as some people imagined but the idea that Putin is winning is No More Than A Feeling Russian forces are still being slaughtered in places like Aika from

Where I’ve just returned and then he goes on he emphasizes that Putin’s Army failed to take a single large city in 2023 whereas Ukraine managed to break through Russia’s blockade of the Black Sea as I just referenced and is now shipping millions of tons of grain using

A new route that hugs Ukraine’s southern coast he says that’s a huge result now it is worth remembering that British intelligence estimates Russia has suffered more than 500,000 casualties killed wounded over the past two years and that despite its vast advantage in Firepower its net territorial gain is around 100 square

Miles by late fall and that was far from what anyone would have predicted a mobilized Russia would have been capable of prior to this war so it is worth just remembering that in what is I think still quite a pessimistic moment in the way that people are talking about the

War But Central to zelinsky’s argument is that by supporting Ukraine Europe is protecting itself from Russian aggression of course this has been a line he’s consistently been saying for some time giving us money or giving us weapons you support yourself you save your children not ours if Russia is

Allowed to take Ukrainian children they will take other children if Russia violates the rights of ukrainians it will violate the rights in the world if Ukraine loses Putin will bring his Wars closer to the West Putin feels weakness like an animal because he is an animal he senses blood he senses his strength

And he will eat you for dinner with all of your EU NATO freedom and democracy so he doesn’t mince his words suffice to say now on the military sphere The Economist says that zensky gave little away about what he believes Ukraine can achieve in 2024 saying that the leaks

Before last year’s summer counter offensive helped Russia prepare its defenses but if he has a message it’s that Crimea and the connected battle in the Black Sea will become the war’s center of gravity so isolating Crimea which of course was a legally annexed back in 2014 and degrading Russia’s

Military capabilities there is to quote him extremely important because it is the way for us to reduce the number of attacks from that region but he then goes on to stress that the speed of any success will depend on the military assistance he gets from Western Partners

Now he’s asked of course for the Taurus that german-made long-range stealth cruise missile with the ability to explode deep inside a Target and he emphasized that would enable Ukraine to destroy that $4 billion kers bridge in effect isolating the Crimea Peninsula from Russia Crush Russia has to know

That for us this is a military object so he is not in any way talking down the prospects of Crimea being a key element in this war far from it it’s seems that it remains a key Target for them now he’s Less open about his goals in the

East and the South he States still that the Strategic ambition is to restore Ukraine to its original or borders but that so that has not changed but he’s no longer setting timelines and making no promises of how much territory Ukraine can de occupy this year he say his

Immediate task in the L war is to defend the East to save the very important cities of Ukraine in the east and the South namely harv Deno zapara hon and mikev and protect the country’s critical infrastructure which is interesting given what Joe was just reflecting on there given these

Bombardments now as for suggestions around negotiations in the interview seninsky says he does not detect any fundamental steps forward to the peace from Russia now I don’t think that should come as any surprise as the ukrainians evidently understand far better than many in the west the political ramifications of the these

Discussions about negotiations and to quote from San green of the Russia Institute of King’s College London he’s a very astute commentator on the war the idea that Moscow wants peace now is fundamentally flawed as he writes the Kremlin does not want peace for the simple reason that peace would undermine

The kremlin’s domestic power this war has reshaped every aspect of Russian political life and much of Russian social and economic life to the benefit of Putin the war has submerged the pre-war foundations of which Putin’s power was built the material bargain between the Kremlin the elites and the

Amasses to such an extent that the Kremlin cannot be sure whether those foundations would still hold in peace time he needs in short existential geopolitical confrontation to last drafting the West into a negotiating process and let’s be clear it’s the West he wants to talk to not keev thus serves

An obvious purpose it reduces the Western appetite for fighting and puts the Kremlin in control of escalation Putin knows that if talks begin the West will want to see them succeed and will likely be loathed to do anything that might undermine that success like providing new Weapons Systems to Ukraine

Or to fast trck NATO membership that alone is enough for Putin to talk the problem is this he says for the West negotiations are a means of ending the war for Russia they are a means of winning it Putin recognizes this and is eager to exploit it none of this is to

Say that the war will not eventually end with negotiations all wars end with negotiations even those negotiations preceded by resounding military victories but not all negotiations end Wars so I think that’s helpful in this context around discussions that have been renewed about negotiations because and the vital point being he’s right to

Stress that if those were allowed to begin that it would de incentivize many Western governments to provide Ukraine with key Military Support so the situation is extremely precarious and I agree with the remarks of the historian n Ferguson a couple of days ago when he said quote future historians will Marvel

At all of this it will seem obvious by 2033 if not sooner that the West faced a well-coordinated Challenge from China Russia Iran and North Korea in the early 2020s the first move was the invasion of Ukraine the second was the war of Iran’s proxies against Israel the third would

Most likely be a Chinese challenge to American Primacy in the Indo Pacific perhaps if shiing ping is bold a blockade of Taiwan the fate of Ukraine of Israel and Taiwan too hangs in the balance the age of pax Americana is fading now on that reading David 2024 is

Set to be a pivotal year in the world order that may well shape the coming years and decades perhaps even the coming Century but as I say I intend to reflect more on that over the coming days as there’s just so much to say about it well thank you so much Francis

It’s great to hear your thoughts and um great to have you back as well just briefly then a couple of other developments I know you wanted to touch on what’s caught your eye today so certainly well AAL has broken out after turkey refused to allow Royal Navy mine

Hunters donated to Ukraine to pass through its Waters blocking them from reaching the Black Sea now these two ships were pledged back in December to ke to help its Navy in the battle against Russia suffice to say but on Tuesday erdogan said the transfer would violate the 1936 montro convention which

Stops warships passing through its bostas and galipoli Straits during conflict those Straits are the only sea route to the Black Sea and turkey insists that it has implemented that ban impartially since the war in Ukraine started so a little bit more context on what the ships were going to be doing they were

The leading parts of this new Naval Coalition formed with Norway to strengthen Ukraine’s capabilities in the Black Sea which of course is filled with mines and the maritime capability Coalition aimed to counter the threat of those explosives to help restore Ukraine’s grain exports and make importing supplies easier I don’t think turkey’s decision

Here should come as a huge shock that convention is what turkey has basically been able to site whenever it refuses help to Russia as well as Ukraine it is part of their diplomatic toolkit for being able to play essentially both east and west and position itself as between

Both but nevertheless I mention it because it is a Ral this morning there are a lot of people who are upset about it and the message that it sends not least it seems people in the Royal Navy but it also speaks to an increased tension within the NATO alliance more

Broadly about turkey and listeners will be familiar that there are some people within the alliance who actually believe that turkey is more of an impediment to the unity of the NATO alliance rather than a strength and they indeed call for turkey to be booted out as a consequence I don’t think there’s much

Chance of that happening I should say in the short or the long term not least because of fears that they would fall into the Russian orbit through by necessity and other more hostile Powers but also the fact that just I think people are willing to wait things out

And see what happens in the post erdogan era nevertheless the fact that we are even asking this question is revealing of the tensions that have been exposed within the alliance with regards to Turkey and its position however consistent that position may be nonetheless it does appear that there

Have been many core decisions vital decisions made in this war of which turkey has not necessarily been the most helpful Ally not least of course with regard to Sweden and Finland joining a process which turkey held up the other story I did just want to mention is that according to several Russian language

Outlets including Medusa and fontanka St Petersburg Police arrested at least 3,000 migrants on December 31st and January 1st I stress this is hard to verify and I very much urge caution here but the reports are that the men were reportedly taken to police stations whilst women and children were taken to

A special detention center and on the first military enlistment officers came to many of the detainees and offer them the option of enlisting in the Russian army as volunteers that’s coming from NAA gazetta Europe and officers threatened to deport the men’s families if they did not comply those without Russian citizenship

Were offered expediated naturalization if they joined the army and supposedly at least 1500 people agreed to sign contracts with the Russian defense Ministry though again that number has not been confirmed I mention this because it would speak to other accounts we’ve heard of this happening since the

Invasion began and it would make sense for such activities to occur and to be timed when many are distracted and also given the volatile political context in Russia at the moment preceding the presidential election it would also suggest that Russia’s recruitment Drive is continuing targeting particular groups whose mobilization will not upset

The voting population so again urging caution the numbers may not be accurate the details may not be accurate here but nonetheless if true it would speak to certain patterns we have already seen and that itself would be an interesting story at what will be an important few weeks in the Russian domestic context

Around the election I think we should expect by the way for Russia to be sensitive to renewed Ukrainian strikes that could humiliate Putin in a very visual way and what I mean by that of course is the sinking of ships like we saw over the new year period which was extremely I

Think important happened obviously just around Christmas time in terms of perhaps Shifting The Narrative slightly in showing what Ukraine was still capable of and I think we should expect similar visually and in a sense strategically important developments which may well embarrass Putin but nonetheless I still don’t think we

Should expect the out come of that election to be in doubt but nonetheless there is opportunity for embarrassment for Putin and I think ke will be Keen to exploit that but we’ll of course be monitoring all of this over the weeks ahead thank you very much Francis let’s

Go now then to our final thoughts Francis you can have a bit of a breather Joe bonds oh yeah well just back on St Francis talking about kicking turkey out of NATO this been obviously been a discussion for many many years given it sort of activities in Syria Etc which

Kind of went against NATO but there isn’t actually really a legal mechanism to do it so for now it’s just a waiting game to get rid of erdogan and hopefully have a more friendly Western leader in Turkey but no to my final thought and to sort of look at what people inside

Ukraine are saying about the British defense report this morning which suggested that Russia was going after mainly and predominantly drone and missile production capacities capabilities inside Ukraine um so I was speaking to uh a chap called Yuri sack who people might remember as a adviser to the former Defense Minister Ukraine but he’s

Now working for Ukraine’s strategic Industries Minister looking at how Ukraine can bolster its domestic defense industry and I was like s m went Yuri what do you what do you think of this and he was like look Joe I only saw the destroyed residential homes shopping malls maternity Wards Railway stations

And the high number of Civilian casualties these are the facts everything else is speculation so you’d think the guy who works for the person in charge of boosting Ukraine’s defense industry doesn’t believe that they’re really going after Russia are really going after these targets they’re going after civilian targets still but what it

Is is quite interesting so we could look at today as David said that Ukraine apparently launched attacks on an Airfield in Crimea and on a ammunition dump in belgrod so what we are seeing is actually an escalating if the the British view is in fact correct an escalating conflict

Where both sides are trying to take out each other’s capacities to hit deep Behind Enemy Lines and that is with the front lines largely Frozen as they are so it’s going to become this sort of Battle of aerial endurance and who can do it the best and yeah it’ be

Interesting to see how that pans out and how the West really does respond to this in the next few days and weeks and I’ll stop there well thank you very much Joe that’s really useful I think to comment on some of stories we’ve been reporting because you’re right there is there’s

Definitely some tension between the the mod’s account of what it thinks is happening and what some of the ukrainians think is happening so thanks for talking a little bit about that I’m sure we’ll be coming back to that in the future Francis sternley thanks David I

Want to end with a few Reflections from several sources who’ve been active in Ukraine over the past Fortnight or so and what they tell us about what we might expect in the weeks and months ahead in the Ukraine political sphere and its military sphere so one interesting Insight from someone whose

Opinion I trust and who I was speaking to is the degree to which political Unity is if not vanished it’s certainly crumbling in ways that will have ramifications over the months ahead real politics in short has returned so over the last year of course presidential office has been limiting the freedom of

Movement of opposition MPS abroad which means that Western dis sometimes have had imperfect information and apparently some MPS have started to get quite angry about the restrictions that have been placed on them and that is helping to feed some of the tensions prevalent within the Ukrainian political context

Not only that of course it is worth reflecting on the fact that because there will not be those presidential elections that were originally would have been scheduled for March which are no longer taking place because of the war that one of the pressure valves as it were that would have been in play

Will not be in play over the next few months and that inevitably will lead to I think some tensions particularly from those who are zinsky critics not least of course um uh Mr Klitschko and others who have already vocalized themselves in ways perhaps they wouldn’t have felt

Politically able to do it so several months ago of course another tension prevalent apparently very strongly when one is speaking to people high up in Ukraine is the zi zalinski tension and indeed some are predicting that zi May well be sacked in the months ahead which of course would have quite significant ramifications

Given that he has been the military commander-in-chief one that was very popular amongst many of the soldiers and indeed he well respected for his openness on the world stage and his articulacy on matters of War but we know their attentions and those in the no

Seem to say and suggest that there is an attempt perhaps to slowly push zy out whether he falls on his sword or whether he is eventually sacked but again that’s something I think we should be sensitive to in the weeks months ahead there is apparently also an increased frustration

About perhaps a lack of a realistic approach to the war last year from within zelinsky’s office as we’ve talked about many times I think there is a case that Ukraine was a victim of its own success that because it had had such triumphs last year with some of those

Counter offensives that people expected to see similar in 2023 sorry when I said last year I meant 2022 how times are moving God but yes so this idea that more should have been done to ensure that if progress was not as substantial that that would not come across as as it

Has in some theaters that Ukraine is losing the war in some way and that again will have perhaps ramification on the Ukrainian political scene in terms of public opinion though it Still Remains incredibly resilient and in a way that I think many people misunderstand about Ukraine is that many

The Maj vast majority of people are very much determined to continue fighting KW may they know that this is a existential fight for their future and there have been some evidences of people being more in favor of some kind of Peace beginning but that really things remain pretty

Solid when one looks at the polling data and that so perhaps the way of understanding it is society is resilient but there are some fragilities that can’t hold on endlessly and then just lastly a few Reflections I think on the economic model we’ve talked extensively last year about how Reliant Ukraine is

On Western financial support and it’s as important arguably as military I think to some degree we’ve taken for granted just how much money has been given to keep Ukrainian economy afloat and of course that will come with challenges if the support for Ukraine were to weigh in

The coming months I’m not saying it will I think there might well be other factors that come into play that mean there is an increase but that’s a discussion for another day but nonetheless I think it is important to remember how important that economic support is and of course the economic

Models will be infl as people raise questions about what a future Ukraine will look like if some of these territories are lost permanently they may well not be but nonetheless these are questions that will have an impact on the post-war economy and how people are thinking about Ukraine’s future and indeed thinking about

Investment which again is also relevant some people have been quite critical about the way that the president’s office has governed and it hasn’t necessarily given the economic assurances that many West investors would want and I think that we should also expect to see movement not only on the corruption front and battling

Corruption but also on laying the foundations for economic growth in Ukraine that will allow that investment to continue so just a few Reflections David on some of the themes I think in the Ukraine domestic sphere that we may well be monitoring more closely in the coming weeks than perhaps you were at

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The world Ukraine the latest was produced by child’s gear and the executive producers are David nolles and Louisa Wells

Day 677.

Today, we discuss the impact and fallout of the missile and drone strikes across Ukraine and we analyse the strategy of Volodymyr Zelensky in the weeks and months ahead.

Contributors:

David Knowles (Head of Audio Development). @DJKnowles22 on Twitter.

Joe Barnes (Brussels Correspondent). @Barnes_Joe on Twitter.

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

Read The Economist’s “A New Year’s interview with Volodymyr Zelensky”: https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/01/01/a-new-years-interview-with-volodymr-zelensky

Many of our listeners have raised concerns over the potential sale of Telegraph Media Group to the Abu Dhabi-linked Redbird IMI. We are inviting the submission of comments on the process. Email salecomments@telegraph.co.uk or dtletters@telegraph.co.uk to have your say.

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