Ukraine strikes Russia’s most advanced stealth fighter jet for first time | Ukraine The Latest

Ukraine strikes Russia’s most advanced stealth fighter jet for first time | Ukraine The Latest

I’m David nolles and this is Ukraine the latest today we bring you the latest military updates from the front lines discuss the results and implications of the European elections and we speak to analyst mola bilov on the lack of public discussion about Ukraine’s future strategy and what that strategy may look like bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with Victory if we give president zilinski the tools the ukrainians will finish the job Slava ukraini nobody’s going to break us we’re strong we’re ukrainians it’s Monday the 10th of June 2 years and 108 days since the fullscale invasion began and today I’m joined by our associate editor Dominic Nichols Brussels correspondent Joe Barns and our guest is mola belisco I started by asking Dom for the latest news from Ukraine well thanks David hi and hello to you wherever you are a lot of news it being a Monday so we’ll take it in chronological order if we can let’s go back to Saturday Ukraine said it hit one of Russia’s most advanced stealth Fighters the first time it’s done so in a drone strike and this one was 365 miles behind the front line Ukraine’s G Military Intelligence Agency said the Drone hit the Airfield in Russia’s astrian region that’s over way over by the Caspian Sea on Saturday destroying an s57 figh a bomber in a statement Military Intelligence said the defeat of the s57 is the first such case in history now photographs show Deb scattered around the acin Airfield there and a faint faint outline of what appears or what used to be an su-57 fighter bomber Russia’s thought to only have a few of them in service I think only about well less than a dozen but others small single digits I think in build at the moment now the bomber the modern s57 designed as a replacement for the Aging MiG 29 su27 only been in service since 2020 estimated each one estimated cost about 25 million us 2.2 billion rubles now then it is supposed to be super duper stealthy and very maneuverable and has been faring the KH 59 and 69 Hypersonic missiles the Russian mod not commented but many of the countries milary bloggers were quite outraged that the attack had got through so far into the war ryar with 1.2 million subscribers on telegram said Russian officials hadn’t been doing enough to protect Russian war planes on their airfields they quoted they said for the cost of repairing one Su 57 it’s possible to fully equip several operational tactical aircraft with light shelters near the front line but despite two years of hostilities and frequent attacks against aircraft by drones those in charge did not bother to do this quite quite Punchy from them another Russian mil blogger mocked Russian officials for trying to deceive Ukraine and the Allies any allies with their pictures of fake Su 57s painted on the T act so satellites and Airborne surveillance assets would look at it and think well that’s depending on the definition it could it might have worked a few years ago but now you’re getting down to the you just centimeters per pixel some of these capabilities it’s really difficult just to to deceive in that way but um this blogger Channel said the purly painted silhouette of the s57 and acin Airfield of course failed to deceive modern NATO Satellites with good photographic resolution that was the war Observer telegram Channel um ukrainians as you’d expect celebrated the strike of against the Su 57 Maria adiva who’s a Ukrainian commentator said the strike had been a slap in the face for the Kremlin and then defense analyst Vadim labas said that he showed the weakness of Russia’s Airfield defense systems which I think is is a statement of the obvious quote was the main thing about this attack is that for the second day in a row our drones have broken through the Airfield defenses Mr lebas said Russia lacks air defense systems to defend its Airfield now a brief segue when Mr gabas refer laas sorry refers to second day in a row that it was because a few hours before this strike on the Su 57 Ukrainian drones are thought to have hit the mozdok air base in North otia Southern Russia that’s the base of the tu22m heavy bombers now I mean it’s a long way away from M toins it’s 400 K Southwest and we’re still 500ks um east Southeast is of the kers bridge but it’s all in the same ballpark if you’re talking that many hundreds of miles behind the lines I think it’s fairly impressive stuff for the drones to get drones over there anyway Russian mod said its forces has shot down three drones Ukraine’s officials hadn’t claimed any hits on that second strike there against the mozog air base but just bringing this story up to date yesterday Ukraine’s Military Intelligence spokesperson Andre yusof uh speaking on TV he said that a second Russian Su 57 may have been destroyed in that first strike on the atbin Airfield So basically David the abil the fact that drones are getting that far away now and striking the most sophisticated assets Russia has speaks of I think Ukrainian technical Innovation and still this Russian inability I don’t know what it is to take the threat seriously or to think that they’re they that range gives them a certain invulnerability but not to not to protect these things properly I think is quite staggering absolutely thank you Dom well there’s a few more uh details I think and stories from the weekend that we should go through first before before we talk about this week and what else have you been looking at Domin Nichols yeah lots more so sticking on Saturday still you Ukrainian Ground Forces said soldiers from their 47th mechanized Brigade were holding back at least three Russian Combat brigades on the poov front so this is the area Northwest of donet City sort of line from there up through a divka where the where the Russians have had limited tactical success in the last few months now but not got very far at all but a spokesperson for Ukrainian Ground Forces said here the enemy is trying to advance into the depths of our territory soldiers of the 47th Mech Brigade are holding back at least three Russian combat brigades with huge reserves of Manpower the Russians quickly replenished their huge losses and throw new soldiers into battle again and again the fighting does not cease for a moment now carrying on from there also Saturday UK defense intelligence put out their daily update on Ukraine Saturday they said and they showed actually imagery analysis they said imagery analysis shows eight barges on the southern side of the kersch bridge which they say they’ve been installed between May the 10th and May the 22nd of this year British defense intelligence say that this is an attempt to defend the bridge and the shipping channel reducing what they say is the angle of approach potential angle of approach for ukra Ukrainian Maritime drones now they said previously installed barriers have been rendered ineffective by storms um possibly linked and on on that if you have a look at their Twitter feed there’s an image of the barges there but possibly linked to that Sky News are reporting a source who says that on Saturday evening Ukrainian forces conducted what they say was a coordinated strike against a Russian Landing ship that had been moved into the sea of azov from the Black Sea possibly move for a task that we’ll speak about in a moment possibly move because of the threat that we’ve seen from Ukrainian drones in the Black Sea now this vessel was said to be a ruer class landing craft said be the fifth of seven such class of ship to be sunk or rendered unserviceable by Ukrainian attacks this is coming from the source speaking to Sky Source said this successful strike shows the Russians they cannot operate with freedom either in the Black Sea or Eastward now Russian forces are thought to be using these ships to Ferry ammunition and supplies across the sea of aov into the area around marup for onward transit to the front line I’ve been thinking about that today and and looking around I’ll offer some thoughts a little bit later on what I think that means why that is I think a potentially significant moment if all those building blocks are falling into place and icept there’s quite a few if spots and Mayes and we’re not able to verify any of that but I I’ll speak about that a bit more in final thoughts then David moving on to Sunday um Russian attacks against Den petrovsk donet har and haon ablast resulted in uh deaths and injuries to civilians this comes from local authorities including Regional Governors however churn luhans MV Sumi and Zaria oblast also came under attack but no casualties reported there sticking with Sunday Russia’s mod said his air defenses had shot down a Ukrainian drone in belgrod oblas so inside Russia but local telegram channels mainly of the Russian mil blog Community reported a loud explosion in the racket yansy District in belr or blast earlier in the day there’s videos you’ll find on social media of of something something big on fire lots of smoke now that area it’s about 40ks due east of sui 75 K north northwest of harke over the Border as I say inside Russia according to the Astra telegram Channel locals claimed that a Russian Ammunition Depot had been hit um bit similar to before we’re not able to verify that but imagery on social media suggest something very large has gone up in flames and then also it was announced I think on Sunday Ukrainian conscripts and reservists living abroad for more than three months are now able to register for military service at foreign consulates previously military conscripts living abroad for more than three months needed to visit a registration office inside Ukraine to um sort of keep up to date with their with their whereabouts and contact details however you know this is this is the latest step Ukraine’s made to upgrade the sort of legal and and bureaucratic framework about around conscription and mobilization just making sure they know who’s where and how they can get a hold of them um you remember President zilinski signed a new law on mobilization on April the 16th but this is all part of their effort some might say it’s quite quite slow and late but effort to get a view on what the available resource in terms of personnel is and where everyone is and encourage in increasingly legal terms Ukrainian mainly men to come back to fight thank you very much Dom only a few more updates from you I think would you bring us up to date today so we’ve covered the weekend we’ve covered that strike on the Russian war plane bring us up to date militarily today yeah so this morning Ukraine’s general staff and this news is breaking as we came onto air so I I’ve just grabbed the latest information as I could get it but there’ll be more out shortly I’m sure through the day but Ukraine’s general staff are saying that Ukrainian forces attacked Russian S400 and s300 anti-air missile systems in a number of areas of occupied cria last night there were uh a series of explosions reported across the peninsula mainly in the North and the west or Northwest it’s thought two s300 well an an s300 and an S400 Sam system surface way missile system has gone up as well as four Radars hit again I mean these are very well you think they are very capable certainly S400 very modern Sam systems but why they don’t have local air defense to protect them is just beyond me it’s absolutely staggering and we’ve seen this before especially in Crimea there’s no point defense for these things which means that they are and a lot of these attacks are filmed this one wasn’t wasn’t filmed others have been but if there’s a drone in the sky you’re able to film these attacks I mean it just speaks of a very very poor air defense system or network or skill level really also today though Sumi region some odd reports coming out of Sumi region I think there’s been an attempted incursion across the border from Russia now let’s take this step by step Ukrainian official denied a claim by cchan leader ramzan karov that Russian forces led by a cetan based unit had seized control of a border Village in Northeast Ukraine near Sumi so karov said yesterday that the akat ca unit had spearheaded Russian groups in taking control of Rifka that’s in sui about 40ks Northwest of the city of Sumi but only 500 M from the border with Russia now karov said he quote a large scale planned Advance had inflicted significant losses on the Ukrainian side which was forced to retreat but then today Reuters are reporting Andre kovalenko who’s the head of the Ukrainian government center for countering disinformation who said on telegram that Russian forces had tried to test Ukraine’s defenses in the area but that Ukraine is in control of the situation uh Mr kovalenko added that the the threat however of Russian action across the border remains and then a few hours just a few hours ago president zalinsky tweeted and said Ukrainian forces are fully in control of the situation in the Sumi region Russian sabotage groups remain active but are being eliminated and will continue to be dealt with decisively in the village of ZKA the occupi attempted a propaganda operation as of this morning the Russian flag has been destroyed and there is no enemy presence in the village unquote so it looks like something happened came across the border obviously planted the Russian flag somewhere there’ll be no doubt there’ll be imagery of that going around the Russian channels now but Ukraine seemingly pretty full-throated in their denial that situation is not been resolved but I think we’ll probably hear more about that through the day as well David and I think has probably us up to date for on the military angle at least absolutely well I’ll just press you once more because I see Joe BNS is waiting to speak about the European elections and what it means for Ukraine but Dom could you take us through just a couple of important diplomatic and political updates and then we’ll go to Joe yeah two to be aware of so firstly inside Russia a court in Moscow has ordered a French citizen who they’ve accused of collecting information about military matters in Russia order that he be held in jail pending an investigation and trial so this individual is Lauren Vanier is an adviser with the center for humanitarian dialogue that’s a Geneva based non-governmental organization he was arrested in Moscow last Thursday of course the backdrop to this the context is the the increasing tension right now between Moscow and Paris after um French president Emanuel macron’s recent statements about the possibility of of deploying um French troops inside Ukraine and um you the ongoing conversation about Western Supply weapons being used in Russia now Russia authorities accuse Mr vaner of failing to register as a foreign agent while collecting information about Russia’s what they say Russia’s military and Military technical activities however they did not provide any details of the accusations Beyond alleging that Mr vener had repeatedly traveled to Russia to collect his information under Russian law this is a criminal offense punishable by up to 5 years they say Mr vat has been remanded in pre-trial detention until August the 5th I’m afraid he’s May well be another porn in the Diplomatic game it’s a bit like Evan gkit the American journalist who’s still being held and just one more David Mustafa Naim who’s the top Ukrainian official overseeing reconstruction and defense fortifications has resigned reporting today he’s claiming his agency has been systematically undermined by the government now this is reporting from our colleagues at the financial times speaking to them Mr NM who’s the head of the state agency for restoration and infrastructure development he said prime minister Dennis shmeel had pardon name from participating in the annual Ukraine recovery conference that’s going on this week in fact tomorrow and Wednesday in Berlin we’re hoping to get reports out of it but the Ukrainian government official speaking to the Ft said I mean this is causing conniptions okay so this Ukrainian government official speaking to the Ft said the Us and other Western Partners want a normal predictable relationship with their Ukrainian counterparts right now they are losing trust in Ukraine ‘s government because of personnel decisions that they do not understand right president zelinski is due to go to this conference in Berlin after being in France for the dday commemorations I was there as well so him on Thursday he’s in Germany at the moment he’s thought to be going to this conference in Berlin but a Ukraine government spokesperson said that Naim had been barred from going as well as he scheduled to give an update on his agency’s work on Wednesday so it sounds as if there’s some internal government bit of a Bish BOS going on but if it starts that’s fine yeah that happens all the time but if it starts to Dent western or external supporters confidence then that’s obviously not a good thing so this could be a bit more serious than just shuffling a few people around and just finally finally sticking with the financial times in the form of their ke correspondent Christopher Miller he’s also saying today that Ukraine is going to begin testing its own guided aerial bombs are the Glide bombs that we’ve been speaking about that Russia have been using such effect in recent months Ukraine going to be testing their own one in the next few weeks so Christopher says that was confirmed today by sergay olib S who is the chief of Aviation of Ukraine’s Air Force and I suppose we better let Joe have a word in edgeways David absolutely well Sterling job Dom thank you so much good to have you back from your reporting in France for the D-Day anniversary listeners May of course want to see some of Dom’s reporting so do go to the telegraph website find his profile page there and have a read Joe BS thank you so much for joining us some fairly seismic results in the European elections over the weekend can you talk us through what happened and just tell us a little bit about what you think this means for support for Ukraine Joe bonds yeah so interesting results the far right hard right populist nationalist whatever we want to call them have made record gains they’ve got a record number of seats which is interesting we’re draw I’ll drill down into two of the countries concerned URS V Delan though still looks to have a pro-european union majority in the European Parliament so it boosts her hopes of getting a second term as the European commission president I think what the the two seismic results the main one being in France Emanuel macron’s Renaissance party uh lost to Marine Le Pen’s far right National rally so it’s about 32 seats to 15 in favor of the far right party and that instantly prompted Emanuel macron to hold parliamentary elections so why I’m sure he’s probably confident that he could see off the far right at home there is a prospect that France could have a farri prime minister when the votes are counted and this is a two-step stage so they will vote in the end of June and then in July but why is it interesting so Marine Le Pen maybe she’s shifting on Ukraine because she stood up and applauded seninsky the other day but actually if we look at sort of her rhetoric and things she’s done in the past she’s been photographed with Vladimir Putin her party doesn’t really support a to Ukraine because it sort of says that that brings Mak you a party to the war atically good news and then in Germany while the Centrist or Center rights EP party from so the CDU the Christian democrats won about 30% of the vote Olaf Schultz’s Coalition took a fuming his Socialist Party finished him third and the greens are also part of his traffic light Coalition finished in fourth with losing eight or nine percentage points on what they recorded in 2019 and that leaves the far right afd the alternative for dwit land in second place there and then they’re known as one of the the largest far right parties that are close to protin far right parties in Europe so while on the face of it I don’t think that this is majorly going to change how Europe how Germany how France gives Aid and support to Ukraine but it will put pressure on them but also what it’s done is it’s enabled Russia to come in gloating so some quotes here so Dimitri pesov who’s the Kremlin spokesman he said despite the fact that so far Pro European parties retain their leading position with time right-wing parties will be snapping at their Hills and in the head of Russia’s State Doomer and here’s V schev slav volin he wrote on telegram that macron and Schultz are clinging onto power with their last remaining strength the right thing for them to do would be to resign and stop making a mockery of their citizens so it just allowing Moscow the Kremlin Putin’s allies to stick the knife in a little bit and help divide the populations at home so another guy who is a former Kremlin adviser known as marov he said I hope macron understands that the French are rejecting him for Fanning the war against Russia in Ukraine but maybe he will instead choose escalation and launch a NATO war with Russia so look it’s the same it’s the same talking points that they’re leaning to but it’s just an opportunity for Russia dig in and actually lean was quite interesting last night and she went off discussing the far right hard right game she was leaning to and pointing to outside forces basically a thin Finly veiled stab at Russia for stoking tensions that open the door to these farri parties and I’ll stop there for now well thank you so much Joe for joining us Jo Joe just very quickly in a couple of sentences what’s your takeaways from this what should our listeners who aren’t familiar maybe those in the US and the UK what should we be taking from this so I think you have to the immediate thing to look for is in the next few weeks could be months depends on how long it takes for the parliament to launch it but is to look whether there is a majority for Ursula Von Dela to become European commission president she is all important when it comes to Ukraine support from the EU she has really driven that from a high level she’s made it one of her Flagship policies so yeah watch out make sure that Ursula Wan has a majority because that would be important going forward because if she suddenly loses a majority that calls into questions her main policies which are Ukraine the European green deal are basically sort of climate change combating actions so yeah if she has to tilt to the right she’s going to start maybe losing some of that support but one of her main allies on the right has emerged is George Maloney the Italian Prime Minister who is very Resolute in her support for Ukraine that’s also worth looking at so I don’t think it’s a massive blow for Ukraine more at home in the likes of Germany and France where their ruling governments are now been called into question and what are european-wide elections have been used by their populist opposition to beat down on the government governments [Music] there thank you Dom and Joe it’s a subject we’ve mentioned a few times on this podcast the comparative lack of a public discussion around Ukraine’s future strategy and what that strategy might look like earlier I spoke to analyst mola bisco about how this situation arose and the possible ways ahead here’s our conversation well thank you so much for your time today mola thank you so much for for coming into the office as well it’s really good to meet you would you start just by introducing yourself and your work to our audience hi and thanks for invitation and hosting me my name is Maka bilov I’m Ukrainian citizen which has two affiliations one is governmental one and other non-governmental one so governmental one I’m research fellow at the National Institute for strategic studies it’s a syn tank created in 1992 when Ukraine restablish its independence I’m at the Department of Defense policy and the goal of this think tank is to advise a president of Ukraine National Security and defense Council in diverse fields of governance we are Charities that is aiding Arm Forces of Ukraine so our name is come back alive so I’m representing also the biggest non-governmental charity which is aan Arm Forces of Ukraine so we are collecting money raising funds and provide different kinds of both Force multipliers and weaponry to ensure that our troops come back alive since 21st of February 2022 I raised more than quar a billion of dollars and procured different stuff that is essential for uh Modern Combat Mela thank you for that introduction we’re going to talk about um some ideas you’ve put down in an article for Euro maidan press we’ll put that in the show notes so listeners can read that as well you write in the aftermath of the Ukrainian summer 2023 offensive which failed to yield the desired results despite the firm dedication of the Ukrainian Army there has been virtually no public discussion about Ukraine’s future optimal strategy in the war against Russia let’s start there why do you think there’s been no public discussion about the future strategy because people both inside Ukraine and outside they pinned too much hope to this offensive attempt I recall the number of meetings I was in us back in May 2023 and one of my major points I raised in every single meeting with different Sy tanks experts so what’s next and when I asked this issue what’s next no matter as a result of the offensive so whether it successful or not and I didn’t have any proper response so that was a conceptual void and too much hopes were pinned on this offensive attempts and that’s very dangerous situation believe me because when people don’t have a sense of direction sense of purpose they easily manipulated and it’s true both for people inside Ukraine and people outside Ukraine and you already referred to this article and I should note it was written first and foremost for Ukrainian domestic consumption and then it was only translated to demonstrate that we have this kind of scenes debated in Ukraine so in Ukraine also people want to understand how we should arrange all the scenes optimally because as I usually say strategies are of possible so you can do certain scenes within limits of possible if you strive to do scen that is above your capabilities you actually have directly opposite results so that’s was unfortunately my feeling before the offensive and unfortunately there is a situation we are now and our partners predominantly us as a major backa of Ukraine still didn’t manage to provide a kind of strategic blueprint that’s why you’ve seen the Congress when it’s both greenlighted this a package for Ukraine they also said within 45 days you should provide a strategic blueprint cuz otherwise it’s only crisis management crisis management it means that it’s first give initiative to your opponent and usually the way it’s done you respond to something negative and that’s it and that’s a problem cuz taxpayers here in UK in Us in other European Western countries they want to have result to the funds they dedicate and if there is no result for sure people start to lose interest and that’s a problem so why do you think within and without Ukraine people didn’t want to think about what comes next we’ve talked about this on the podcast a lot but why not was it because maybe it was a difficult conversation to have because it would involve making difficult choices what’s your analysis uh well I think the major problem is that we are living in such a period when people have very short attention span and uh for sure when you start to to say that well this war is going to last for some time for a couple years more it means that it’s difficult to sell Ukrainian case basically so I think that’s the problem that especially as one professor said attrition Ware it’s very bad word it’s not sell easily so people won’t have quick results and everything was pinned in that particular offensive and it didn’t deliver unfortunately and then there is this void and yeah it requires some courage and it requires some standing and uh Readiness to say the scenes that are not welcomed both inside and outside Ukraine cuz again it’s really a difficult scene to engage people interests a long period of time so that’s the problem as for me so that’s a other side of having Democratic countries with diverse set of problems and with short attention SP well let’s get into it your article and your thinking explores what this Grand strategy for Ukraine might look like where do you start thinking about that what are the challenges what are the nuances we should be aware of well as I said the major challenge for Ukraine is to sustain two consensuses consensus inside Ukraine both this consensuses they were settled during spring 20122 after Ukraine rebuffed the first this blitz Creek attempt by Russia so the first challenge is to have this consensus inside Ukraine preserves that we need to fight we need to fight smartly for sure and I describe how it should be done and the other challenges to sustain this consensus outside Ukraine cuz again I recall one meeting it was during Autumn 202 2 it was The Economist journalist and I said to him that if Ukraine is not able to produce result in the next half a year positive results like liberating more territories and others it would be very difficult to sustain attention that’s that these two consensuses they should be preserved and by the way they’re mutually reinforcing so if ukrainians are ready to fight for sure they should be aided and if there is Aid ukrainians are ready to keep fighting and there was this like positive Dynamic so as I described on the other side if there is lack of Weaponry for sure Readiness to fight might decrease and vice versa if there is lack of Readiness to fight who is going to Aid Ukraine so that’s this balancing done by zans actually he’s doing this kind of shuttle diplomacy between Ukrainian society and the foreign audiences and another problem by the way his arguments are not working the way they worked in 2022 and that’s a problem so we need to repackage the arguments and that’s also a problem so I don’t end with zansi because he first and foremost has a this power of persuasion and this uh shuttle diplomacy to be done and this balance to be keeped uh and uh that’s how it should be organized so do you think that I mean going back to your point about you know it’s difficult to sell the idea of a war of attrition because it means a lot of money a lot of time and it’s very very creeping you don’t get big flashy exciting results do you think that’s something that seninsky in his messaging suffers from that we we hear the same thing because of course it is the same thing it is a war of attrition yeah that’s a problem facing him and there is no like silver ballet is a solution that’s why again it was Autumn 2023 after the Ukrainian offensive and in different meetings I said one thing we need rine the measurement of success and under these conditions as for me success is that Ukraine is defending itself Ukraine is ATT treating Russians Ukraine is able to do a massive successful strikes both in tempor occupied Crimea and targeting Russian military infrastructure in Russia proper and that’s how people should pursue and again people indeed they shouldn’t take for for granted the fact that it’s a s year of such a war and Ukraine is fighting it controls 80% of its function as a state and that’s quite an achievement cuz you can look at examples of World War I it t it takes only two years of such an intense fighting for some empires of Eastern Europe start to crumble first Russian Empire then austr Hungarian Empire was in precipice and others so the strain is great and the Very fact that Ukraine continue to function continue to fight people understand that they need fight engage assistance it should be taken as a great success for sure we need to liberate territories in the end if our ultimate goal is declared but in the meantime the very fact that we are fighting is successes for me alone with striking valuable Russian pieces of equipment so when we think about a possible Grand strategy for Ukraine in the months and in the years ahead obviously a lot of that is dependent on the Dynamics on the battlefield itself the the 20 30 kilometers of of No Man’s Land of of Frontline trenches could you give us your analysis and your sense of what those Dynamics are in June 2024 and what especially Ukraine’s allies should be aware of of how the war is being fought that’s an good example when you should the comprehensive analysis that is about different levels of War starting from tactics and up to the Strategic level and what we can say is that defensive mode in this war is prevalent for sure it’s not prevalent automatically so it should be aided otherwise as we’ seen Russians were able to push us out of OFA and then again create this bulge to the northwest of OFA but in general if defense is properly aided then the defensive MO is prevalent so given the Technologies at hand it’s much more easier to uh find the concentration of enemy grouping of forces and to create your own concentration of forces and do an offensive action so in this case if Ukraine need to pursue defense this defensive mode is favor in Ukraine people they disregard this lesson of 2022 so first Ukraine skillfully atted Russians and then when they face a deficit of Manpower acute one we do two counter offensives so on a tactical level defensive mode is prevalent it’s prevalent because there is ubiquity proliferation of sensors plus means of Destruction so both sides they possess this as Russian States Russian term reconnaissance strikes reconnaissance fire complexes and that’s quite an interesting situ an irony cuz we see a lot of employment of uavs it’s a novel scene but an operational level front line is not moving and yes it recalls the events of western front in World War I when front line was not moving it was challenging both for the Germans and also for the French and UK troops to move forward for very the same facts so maybe reconnaissance was not as developed but ubiquity of means of Destruction and need to devise new tactics and actually it was a major idea of Z article for The Economist in November 2023 he described why it happened why it’s so challenging to do an offensive action in 2022 this Dynamics worked for Ukraine in 2023 it work for Russia when ukrainians needed to liberate territory so taking into account both developments and the Tactical level and the operational art it’s wise for Ukraine to at treat Russians as they Tred to advance cuz Russians they still forced to try to advance they decare that the net region is part of Russia so that’s how Ukraine should do it should exploit the nuances of this war or the Technologies both s possessed to its advantage and exploit the fact that Russian military leadership it still didn’t reconcile with the fact that trying to advance is beyond both the capability and the combat proficiency of Russian troops that’s what we did basically in 20122 to what extent do you think that is dependent on Ukraine’s partners and allies supplying Ukraine with the ammunition needed the weapons needed is is that dependent on that I mean as we’ve seen in the last few months a steady loss of villages in DK region we’ve seen the the push in harv which of course has stopped by now but some some have linked that to the arrival of lots of Western Aid I mean where how important is that age you think that’s commitment is critical let be honest no country except us can wage war on its own so let’s imagine another country of Europe in NATO face the same kind of contingency it won’t be able to on its own to defend these territories that requires a proper level of commitment people understand the risk of hypothetical Ukrainian failure let’s imagine this very negative hypothetical scenario so Russians would be able to swell the ranks relying on those who they captur the way they did by the way in the netk region in Lans region and then might threaten in other countries in this case NATO countries and then UK Us and other countries would face the choice actually how to respond right now you can just give Ukraine weaponry and Ukraine can fight and the other problem is a problem of credibility so the the level of resources already committed to Ukraine it means that under the hypothetical scenario of Ukrainian failure it would be perceived not as a failure of Ukraine it would be perceived that the failure of the this Ramin partnership model done mostly by the NATO countries so that’s why people need to accept this reality and there was one beautiful argument that this package of assistance adopted by the US it’s just one day of function of the federal government of us just one day of work means Ukraine is able to decimate Russians continuously and ensure that their stock of so Weaponry is depleted fully and they need to have I don’t know how many years to recover so yes they managed to quickly swell ranks now Russians have more troops but in terms of Hardware they face a real difficulty of building brand new main battle tanks if you look on the battlefield statistic it’s predominantly either refurbish t72 or even t62 or t 54 t55 it’s not like T90 main battle tank so for all these reasons it’s much cheaper and more risk free to Aid Ukraine self-defense instead of facing another level of problems if Russia is able to dominate Ukraine by the way just for people to understand it already happened in the 20th century so first Russia subjugated Ukraine in 1920 uh then they mobilize people from Ukraine and use it as an instrument to spread imperialism further so to threaten Finland to subjugate Baltic states to subjugate Central and Eastern Europe so my father he served in Eastern Germany in 1970s so we we do not want to be part of this Russian imperial project but you know if we fa fail we we won’t have this choice for sure some people might flee but we already have this experience when people were were mobilized from temp occupied territories so let’s see the lessons of the past and prevent this kind of sin so in this case that’s a great Fortune for all people free loving people to have Ukraine on the proper side of barricades you write up and explain some of the challenges within and for Ukraine for the Ukrainian leaders ship and it’ be good I think to talk a little bit about them there’s three I’ve got written down here one is um they must reframe success one is maintain the minimalist consensus of allies and also a new social contract for mobilization could we take each of those in term what do you mean by reframe success and why do they need to do it well when people have in mind the measurement of success when fighting Wars they usually have the measurement of success of so-called Annihilation strategies there are two kind of strategies from the point of view of siries there is Annihilation strategy which means quick destruction of your enemy forces and occupation of your territories and basically forcing your will and there is another strategy it’s usually adopted not so voluntary but because of the conditions called attrition strategies and not taking control of the territories quickly is the most important thing but being able to defend your positions plus preserving social cohesion again people need to look at uh World War I where very ambitious attempts to advance without proper conditions as it was in 1915 1916 1917 they produce the opposite results actually after 1917 attempt to advance French army was on a precipice of Revolt so-called n revols so we should redefine what is success it means that you decimate your enemy at a rate that is favorable to you both in terms of Manpower and Equipment you preserve your own Manpower B basically you also train some reserves plus you fight in such a way not to undermine social cohesion and unity inside the country and again thans we’re living in different world it’s not like World War I when there was this clear division between front line and a rare now means of Destruction make it possible to inflict a damage deep inside your opponent territories and that’s why what we currently do is destroying Russian military infrastructure in temp occupied Crimea to make it vulnerable to further strikes we also attacks ability to generate and sustain an employ grouping of forces both in large measure and in more restraint measure in large measure I mean attacks that Target oil processing and the oil is a source of revenue for Russia in more stricter way like military-industrial complex and all other scenes so that’s how we should proceed it’s a great pity that it took so much time so much effort and unfortunately so much loss out of Ukraine to people basically to recall the lessons of World War I that that’s I would take great failure intellectual one both inside Ukraine and outside Ukraine because there is a lot of brilliant people outside Ukraine analysts but it took them only Ukrainian uh offensive which didn’t deliver results expected to say yeah we should be more circumspect we should learn from World War I we should be very careful for some time not to assign such maximalist Annihilation strategy goals while exploiting basically Russian attempts to pursue this goal so that’s what I mean by need to redefine what is success under current conditions when you talk about the idea of the war of attrition so much of that will be dependent on generating Manpower for the Army and I think that goes into your third Point actually let’s go to there now this idea of a new social contract for mobilization I mean one of my colleagues said there’s lots the West can do for Ukraine they can give they can send ammunition they can send weapons they can train they can advise what they can’t do is find more ukrainians to fight in the front lines and is that what you mean when a new social contract for mobilization I’d be interested in your thoughts as to what do you think is going right at the moment what do you think is going wrong and What needs to change well you know mobilization is very difficult issue to solve for a number of reasons we can discuss different angles different uh dimensions of this problem but I would like to emphasize just one scene so we have a conflict between two Sines the one is need to fight and to have mens who join ranks and fighting means either shat to die or get wounded and on the other side there is this 20 C consensus that human Centric approach is most important so person’s Comfort security rights they are most important and that’s a problem that’s a challenge for Ukrainian government so yes we have people who volunteer joined ranks in the first year of the war but this rank is depleted and by the way it’s precisely what happened during World War I so people’s volunteer joined ranks in the first year of the war and then they SE that modern Battlefield is so little that it’s really really challenging and now we have this conf and by this I mean that we need to somehow rebalance this relationship so yes there is human Centric approach very valuable thing we also benefit out of it and countries in Europe in North America benefit out of it but then there is direct conflict with need to fight so there should be rebalance and by the way as you see even during nominally peacetime conditions War still didn’t affect uh NATO countries directly there is a problem for most of the NATO militaries to have this proper amount of people uh to meet the peace time requirement so that’s a problem it’s more important to have Ukraine been aided instead of Western countries facing this problems but in the end you are absolutely right that there is a certain limit Beyond which we can’t mobilize and there is a problem that people apply the logic of the first half of the 20th century with different demographics back at that time one woman gave a birth to three four children and even after World War I World War II uh the population of countries it increased despite the losses now Ukrainian women is given best to less than one child fertility rate is 0.8 0.9 and we need to engage more young people to make the median age younger before the war the median age of male population in Ukraine was 38 years so it means that if we even engage all of ukrainians age 1825 for instance it doesn’t make that much difference so yes we need start this that there might be a situation eventually when in diset capacity Western militaries need to appear in Ukraine and that’s the reason why macron initi was so welcomed in Ukraine for sure we understand that m macron is pursuing French national interest as he improper so it’s when you good opportunity to be a leader so-call but in meantime he’s raising ideas that are yes now controversial but in the end they might Aid in pushing the consensus and you know again it it was in 2022 maybe 2023 when this model of he your Weaponry Ukraine combined with your own Manpower might have worked and unfortunately that opportunity was lost we can discuss for hours why it was lost but for all the factors I describe to you there might be development that would force native countries to intervene in this or that way because of the different demographics and that that’s the thing because as for me a lot of people they don’t have this uh context nuances to to understand in the meantime yes we should increase the the ranks we should engage more people and I can provide specifics unfortunately but I can say you that now at least uh we we can compensate for the losses so we can have the same grouping of forces retained we don’t have maybe this luxury the Russians have slowly increasing our grouping of forces but at least we can compensate for losses and have the same grouping of forces and pursuing defensive mode of action it means that that’s more or less enough for Ukraine and the last scene ultimately if we recall World War I I think it’s the thing that should be kept in mind that in the end only B fire power and B tactics is a solution to the problems Ukraine face just staying on that very quickly in terms of policy then do you think there’s any obvious or maybe not obvious policy changes or innovations that the Ukrainian government could make to help it solve that Manpower problem and to create this new social contract for mobilization boost the scenes are very difficult for a number of scenes so people understand how it should be done in theory but in practice there is no one single solution so it should be better training and by the way we see a number of brigades they do the training on zero own so basically do this recruitment of their own and it also make me a little bit optimistic so yes maybe the whole government recruitment system is not working but recruitment done by different brigades it’s working it’s engaged people so there is no one solution and in meantime we should be very careful cuz if we apply authoritarian methods it would backfire and again we are democracy and in democracy can just force people to do this kind of things so it should be done improved training at least a little bit decently improve command and control and these are two things that Western countries can be valuable instrumental in both training our offices cuz it’s not only about basic skills how to fight it’s also about Officers Training it’s about operational art by the way neither Ukrainian nor Western countries have this kind of proficiency so operational art atropy how to orchestrate all the instruments of military power different branches to have the results at the operational level of War so that’s a challenge we can both address actually cuz people who are now forar generals they were maybe first second L tenants when the last large scale operation was done and it’s a desert storm of 1991 by Western countries so just to finish then what do you think that policy makers and the public around the world should know about some of the nuances maybe that they wouldn’t get not being in Ukraine and not being so familiar necessarily with Ukrainian Society what should they know about the way the war is going the challenges Ukraine is facing that will help them in their decisions and and their thinking about Ukraine that’s for me in the end everything depends on the level of commitment out of Western countries cuz our own resource base is quite limited one it’s only 15060 billion do GDP already subsidized to certain extent so it’s a commitment out of the Western countries proper one that would make a difference and the stakes are high as for me cuz we just recently recall the events of dday 80 years ago so 80 years ago the frontier of Freedom was just on the beaches of Normandy now the frontier of freedom in Europe in the steps of donbas and Southern Ukraine and as for me progress is quite good one in the last state years the only thing is that yeah it requires some commitment unfortunately both politicians and ordinary uh people they treat usually situation from the point of view what is the price of action what is the risk of action indeed pursuing even defensive strategy I described it’s not cost free but believe me the price of in action will be bigger one and this is precisely the things that you should learn out of Ukraine maybe you forget your own lessons during inter War period but Ukraine actually demonstrate this kind of SC because we also have this debate as to what extent defense field should be financed before big war and all other scen so in the end price of in action would be a bigger one and the next time if Ukraine fail and if Russia attacks Baltic states that are quite vulnerable from the military point of view they don’t have this strategic rare and then under this scenario there would be real contingency and the choices would be much more difficult ones so that’s the thing that should be kept in Mind by both politicians and ordinary people that usually price of in action when there is a revisionist state or a bunch of revisionist states is usually bigger ultimately the the price of action Micha thank you so much for your time thank you for an invitation the telegraph’s foreign correspondent Ben farmer has been out in the east of Ukraine reporting from harv and surrounding towns we caught up on Friday and he told us what he’s seen and where he’s been it’s now 4 weeks since KV Ukraine’s Second City once again found itself at the center of a Russian offensive this city of about 1.5 4 million people close to the Russian Border in the northeast of the country has really as much as anywhere seen the EB and flow of this war in the last 2 and a half years Russian troops got to the outskirts of the city in February 2022 and then were beaten back later in the year the city was starting to get back on its feet after that push which had caus a lot of damage to the surrounding region and then on May the 10th we saw this other offensive troops again coming across the border now 4 weeks after that offensive it looks like it hasn’t really got that far over the Border maybe about 6 miles maximum as the distance Russian troops have made it but what has happened is there’s been a a dramatic increase or there had been until recently of air strikes on KV spending time in the city this week I’d say the mood is not panicked but it is subdued the streets are not empty but they’re quiet a lot of businesses are closed but life is going on to the extent even strangely that in some of the hotels we’ve seen a few Hardy holiday makers but the mood has changed in the last week officials say what has made the difference is the authorization for Ukraine to launch crossborder strikes with Western supplied weapons yesterday I spoke to both the mayor and the governor and they both said that that authorization to use those weapons and the first strikes we’ve seen in the belgrad region had almost immediately started to relieve pressure on the city the big threat to the city has been the use of s300 S400 systems which originally are Russian air defense systems but Russia has been using them to strike ground targets and these have been the big weapon that have been threatening kiv in the last month we saw some of those systems reportedly destroyed by high Mar strikes in the past week and both the mayor and the governor thought that that had had an immediate effect in making carv safer in the city there are still regular Air Raids Sirens ring out across the city and also everyone gets emergency phone alerts which ring out you’re being arrested restaurant are in a crowded room and everyone’s phone will start chiming at the same time to say there is a suspected Air Attack coming in but in the last five or six days the attacks though there’ have been warnings they haven’t actually been hitting the city while we’ve been here we’ve also been talking to troops who are fighting on the volchansk front V Chans is the city just inside the Russian border which has seen the brunt of the fighting the city which has a population of about 177 20,000 people in peacetime has been largely destroyed by the Fighting by some estimates 80% of the uh buildings have been damaged but speaking to soldiers on that front they say that the front has stabilized they are still under heavy bombardment from the Russians the Russians still do have a great advantage and Superior priority in terms of artillery but they say that the front has uh stabilized to some extent coming up Dom and Joe’s final thoughts let’s move to our final thoughts then dominical would you like to go first yeah thanks David so back to the bit I mentioning news today today’s British defense intelligence update showing imagery of eight barges on the southern side of the kersch bridge which they say they analyzes there to defend the bridge and the channel there put that with this alleged attack inside the SE of as of against the Russian landing craft by uh well we presume Maritime drain and I’m afraid there’s more ifs buts and maybe is in this section as well CU we just can’t verify any of this but if there’s something that’s been hit damage sunk Almost Doesn’t Matter really in terms of the Strategic effect but I think this could be quite quite significant so just for a bit of geography so the Sea of azov is that bit of the Black Sea right in the top Northeast northeast corner you get into it by going through the kers straight over which the kers bridge now goes but to see of as of it’s not a lake of course it’s joined to the Black Sea but at the moment it’s bordered by Russia and Russian occupied territory you got Crimea to the kind of Southwest you got Russia to the southeast and the East and the Northeast and then you got Ukraine to the North and the Northwest currently occupied Ukraine to the North and the Northwest so so what I’m saying is Ukrainian forces they can’t get there without getting their feet wet basically put it put it bluntly so if something has got inside the SE of as of chances are it hasn’t gone over land and then been plopped in off a off a jetty at midnight right it’s got in there through the only route that’s possible which is underneath Bridge so if a drone has got in there in order to hit a ruchia class Landing ship I think it it shows firstly that Ukrainian forces can get past these defenses on the curs bridge these barges and whatever else they they’ve got there and secondly it shows that Ukrainian forces have more than likely chosen not to attack the bridge but to go for the ships now if that’s because they view Ukraine views Russian uh listic lines across the SE of as of into marup pole and elsewhere along the coast to push um ammunition and and other supplies forward as as a safer way of doing it than trying to go into crier and then North over the bridge then that reinforces this potential idea that Russia views Crimea as a strategic risk at the moment I.E we know it’s in range it keeps getting hit it seemingly can’t defend itself so if you put a lot of your material Russia if you you put a lot of your material into Crimea then it runs a risk very real risk of being hit so maybe that’s why they’re using ships now across the very short little bit of Waterway from Russia to uh occupied Ukraine marup era across the sea of aov so if Ukraine is now hitting that then I mean it really does show that the Russian black SE fleet has got nowhere to go they’re being hit in Novis now if they’re now inside Ukraine is inside the sea of asov and hitting ships there I think that is very significant and especially if it means that they have chosen not to hit the bridge if by expending your planning time and expending your your valuable resource and drones and all the rest of it by trying to take down the bridge if they’re saying well actually it’s no longer such a strategically gripping problem for us and we can ignore it and go inside the C of and go for the shipping that I think is a very very significant moment we will really see in the next few weeks how significant these attacks have been on crier because we’re about to go into the summer tourist season of course and if there’s no confidence from Russian people to go and holiday in Crimea because of all this news then that really does start to ask a question well has Ukraine denied Crimea to Russia and therefore what that may mean in terms of the whole stick about Putin making the bringing back the Empire and you know Crimea is the jel in the crown and if they don’t if they don’t own it or or without even saying it but demonstrably don’t own it cuz people don’t want to go there and they’re trying to prioritize other routes then that is a very very significant moment thank you very much Dom Nichols Joe BNS would you like the very final words so I promise you I’d speak about the Mirage 2000-5 model that France has offered to send and prepare for Ukraine and just a few few things mentioned that while it’s a sort of a great aircraft highly suited it’s been very successful with France and other countries that have bought it and operated in their air force it does posee of Ukraine with a few issues not particularly bad ones they’re sort of nice problems to have but it there are there are issues that sort of we need to be aware of and I spoke to Justin Bron the air power Guru expert at rusi last week and he helped me write a piece the first of all I think we have to say that we’ve seen with the F-16 that Ukraine is struggling and it’s taking up a lot of resource from Ukraine and multiple countries to into place the infrastructure and the logistical chains and Supply chains that is needed to operate an F-16 Mirage is going to be no different to that so establishing suitable air bases making sure they’re defended by air defense are they going to be underground bunkers um we’ve seen some reporting recently that Ukraine are going to look to store some other f16s out of the country when they’re not in use so that’s another aircraft that you’ve got to think of plus different kind of Maintenance systems and stuff like that people trained up on them so Justin Bron seemed have this to say he said it’s probably not worth all the personnel and huge resources that it will take to develop a Ukrainian Mirage capability get it up and running and defend it in Ukraine then what else is problematic so while let capable of firing the storm Shredder missile it will most likely be used by Ukraine to fire the MAA air-to-air missile which Justin says is no by no means a bad missile it’s fairly agile it can be pretty unpleasant to defend against in so inside the so-called No Escape Zone but it is fundamentally significantly shorter ranged than the amram which will be supplied on the F16 so ultimately what we’ve got to remember is that Ukrainian Jets because of the dense Russian air defense sort of coverage around the Border region have got to fly very low so using the terrain to mask their Roots they under the deck I think it’s called do we might be able to correctly on that of these air defense but that means that there’s denser air so they’re not flying as fast which means the missiles aren’t going to have as much range so again what is already a shorter rang weapon with the MAA is going to be even shorter now and basically Justin says look at flying low is a really significant limiting factor for how much utility they can get in the crucial defense air defense task which any fighter is primary need primary primarily needed the Jets could be used to intercept sort of cruise missiles or Shahed type drones inside Ukraine but that’s really a really expensive way of doing it so yeah food for four as M gron the French President announces what is no doubt a really helpful and welcome package of support but there are lots of challenges that we still haven’t overcome with the s16 program so adding Mirage that could only complicate matters for now 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 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Day 831.

Today, we bring you the latest military updates from the front lines, discuss the results and implications of the european elections, we speak to analyst Mykola Bielieskov on the lack of public discussion about Ukraine’s future strategy and what that might look like, and we hear from Foreign Correspondent Ben Farmer on Friday about his reports from the east of Ukraine.

Contributors:

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

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

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

With thanks to Mykola Bielieskov (Research Fellow at National Institute for Strategic Studies under UA President & Senior Analyst at Come Back Alive Foundation) @MBielieskov in Z. And Ben Farmer (Foreign Correspondent). @benfarmerDT on X.

Articles Referenced:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/10/european-elections-what-happens-now-macron-le-pen/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/07/france-to-send-mirage-jets-to-ukraine-but-are-they-worth-it/

A realistic victory strategy for Ukraine

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

Email: ukrainepod@telegraph.co.uk