North Korea to send engineering troops to help Russia in Ukraine| Ukraine: The Latest, Podcast

North Korea to send engineering troops to help Russia in Ukraine| Ukraine: The Latest, Podcast

I’m Roland olant and this is Ukraine the latest today we bring you updates from the Battlefront analyzed North Korea’s reported decision to send engineering troops to Ukraine and discuss Vladimir zelinsky’s visit to Brussels where he’s designed security pact with the European Union 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 going to break us we’re strong we’re ukrainians it’s Thursday the 27th of June 2 years and 129 days since the fullscale invasion began today I’m joined by Berlin correspondent James Rothwell if you’re wondering where David Dom and Francis are they at the chalk Valley history Festival in wi here where they are discussing rhetoric versus reality in the Ukraine War I started with the latest military updates from Ukraine starting in the northeastern end of the line um up at that Russian foothold I think Dom calls it a lodgment in the KV region near V Chans uh the center for defense strategies Ukrainian Think Tank says that Ukrainian forces Advanced inside V chank along saborna Street in the city center uh battles continue near lipy kokia and tiia so that continues this slow Ukrainian advance Russian Retreat from those areas that we’ve seen in the past few days Dom was talking about this yesterday if you want to look at that look up yesterday’s podcast essentially the situation is that the Russian offensive there that began in may they came across the border in two areas it basically seems to have failed to develop in the way that was planned those two salience never met up and the ukrainians have been pushing back over well several days a week um the momentum is very much on on the Ukrainian side over there also in KV region Ukrainian border guards repelled a Russian sabotage team apparently trying to launch a cross border attack on a village local state border official yesterday the enemy attempted to conduct military operations in the direction of the settlement of Snitsky kachuk in the kiv region a sabotage and reconnaissance group was operating which entered the territory of Ukraine a shooting battle ensued and this was preceded by enemy shelling from other weapons uh the Border guards have repelled this attack at the moment moving further south down the line multiple assaults Russian assaults still reported in the kupiansk area and the lman areas um Russian pressure is still being kept up um up and down the line and in those areas nine Russian attempts at least at least uh by evening yesterday repelled in the chivar area as we know chass ofar is one of the big strategic towns and objectives of uh this Summer’s Russian offensive battle still going on there chavar remains in Ukrainian hands for now south of chasia and I’m going to dwell here for a little bit the town of tetk which is a a mining town on a ridge that was long kind of how do you put it neglected by the word it was it it was fairly peaceful and fairly calm on that part of the front for a long time about 10 days ago the Russians launched an offensive in that area and they’ve been making progress so Russian forces again CDs Think Tank Russian forces reached the outskirts of K nich after capturing shumi those two Villages just north east of tetk itself launched several air strikes in Ukrainian Defense Forces positions in tetk using uh 11 Kap bombs so Glide bombs now the assessment uh CDs assessment of of this attack that the goal the Russians goal is to capture tetk and the small town of New York not New York City the the small dbass village that is also called New York um to capture tetka New York to force Ukrainian forces out of their positions in that area and then Advance North and reach costantina which is as I’m sure our regular listeners know one of those key strategic towns upon which Ukraine’s entire defensive posture in the dbass is anchored on um and the the Battle of chavar is also coming in that direction from the other way so the offensive interet seems quite serious seems quite a key part of of the the Russian plan here began about 10 days ago AFP actually have a dispatch from tesk today where they’ve been speaking to local residents and soldiers in the air I’m just going to read out a little bit of that to give give you a sense of it so just for context tetk it’s a it’s a mining town it lies on this kind of High Ridge lots of Mines there it’s a very coal-like kind of place um and it sits behind a part of the front line really the only part of the old front line from the 2014 to 2022 war that hasn’t yet been overrun so this is from the AFP dispatch Galina poros and her husband Alexander told the journalists uh they described taking peace in the town for granted but the recent surgeon Russian attacks has left the town quote a dead Broken City charred Soviet era housing blocks ripped open by Russian bombardments do tetk shelling Echoes throughout its emptying streets black smoke Rises Over the Horizon now the most important thing is human life to survive she said uh to save even the memory of relatives it’s so painful when you can’t go to the cemetery and then they they also talked to a 30-year-old commander of a Ukrainian military unit deployed there he said holding back Russian forces in the area is becoming difficult um they’ve been dropping devastating guided aerial bombs sending uh launching Rockets using small sabotage teams that Commander said he also said Ukrainian forces had botched The Troop rotation compromised their defense of the Town certain mistakes were made the enemy analyzed and used them he said talking about uh Ukrainian fortification that the reporters could see behind the city he said he was unconvinced the defensive lines outside the city don’t mean anything pointed out Russia had captured other towns butrus by such installations um so that’s the those were events around tet and there is other stuff going on so south of tet down to the pakova direction where the Russians are pushing that big Salan out towards pakros that other key strategic Ukrainian town the Russians have advanced again in that area they’ve crossed field north of a place called soel they hold positions along the 0544 road from o to psk and the assessment is that the Russian forces there will soon this is this is um Center for defense strategies will soon attempt to break through venka towards the P constantina Road their goal is to cut it off between a place called malinovka and no pavka reach the V river between PES and Kish of conditions allow to establish several Bridge heads um again we’re talking about costantino here so that attack through touret the attack down here to cut the the road between poov and constantina the attack towards chess of Y they’re all focused on that key river valley where you have Constantino katos and slaviansk that is the focus of the big Russian offensive um away from the front other developments first reports from Russia so re obviously the Russian State News Agency reported this morning that chemical plant in the t region uh which is Northwest of mosc was targeted in an overnight drone attack on Thursday didn’t provide many details it’s a place called the red kinsky experimental plant which produces a number of chemicals um including those used in the aviation and Space Industries so another Ukrainian strike against infrastructure inside Russia Russia also claims to have to carried out missile strikes on Ukrainian airfields which it said were designated to host Western military aircraft so this is obviously a reference to uh Ukraine’s expected anticipated a receipt of F-16 fighter jets which they haven’t yet received let’s be clear as far as we know so Russia said it used C based longrange Precision weapons Kel Hypersonic missiles and drones in the attack it said all designated targets were hit but it didn’t name them so this follows uh footage from June 2022 that appeared to show Russia’s Black Sea feet flying caliber cruise missiles at airfields um including vaselov near K we are expecting to see F-16 in the Skies over Ukraine well we’ve been told as soon as the end of June or July of course we are at the end of June now so no surprise about the timing there um we’ll be we’ll be following the news quite closely to we’ll tell you as soon as we know uh we have clear signs that those those aircraft are in the sky in Ukraine we don’t know that they are yet news from ukrainians Ukraine says that Russia launched 100 Glide bombs um in the past 24 hours 96 Glide bombs two missiles four 4,000 shells 44 kamakazi drones fired across the border Ukraine has also said well sorry um related to uh to the to the air War Dimitri saruk um from the private Ukrainian Energy company dtec has warned that Ukraine has a critical shortage of air defense missiles and this is severely limiting efforts to defend key infrastructure from Russian attacks Russia’s you know very clear strategy now to try and really grind down Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and last thing for me the first shipment of artillery ammunition from the Czech Le initiative um so you remember that the Czech Republic was saying we are going to go around the world buying shells anywhere we can find them on the market to get them to Ukraine first lot was delivered earlier this month said Czech defense minister Yana chova there were tens of thousands of5 mm shelves that’s the standard kind of NATO caliber financed by Germany so those shells are finally making it to the front I am going to in the words of Dominic take a pause there um I’d like to come to James Rothwell James are you there hello Rel give us the The Diplomatic updates um of the day and then we’ll we’ll talk through the news and what it might mean yes thanks for having me as always on the podcast now there’s quite an interesting development on the Diplomatic front happening actually over in the Far East where South Korean media report that North Korea is sending engineering and construction troops to Eastern Ukraine to take part in what they characterize as regeneration work or reconstruction work uh in Russian controlled areas that’s according to TV Chosen which spoke to a South Korean official he said the soldiers from North Korea would arrive in July the North Korean army in total has about 10 divisions it’s not quite clear how many troops are being sent over but according to chosen the North Korean state stands to about $15 million per year if it keeps sending troops over to take part in this reconstruction work now there’s not currently any indication that these North Korean troops will have combat roles they’ve been characterized as I said as as Engineers builders that sort of thing but the institute for the study of War has pointed out that this may have an indirect impact on the availability of Russian troops they suggested that the arrival of North Korean troops who onto this constructive work May free up some Russian forces to go back out to the front so it does appear to be yet another example uh of a country allying with Putin and giving indirect but not necessarily direct uh Military Support to the invasion of Ukraine also on the Diplomatic front David Cameron uh has fallen foul of some Russian prank callers I think you’re probably familiar with these two characters Roland having covered their Antics over the years they managed to trick Lord Cameron into believing that he was having a discussion with the former Ukrainian president Petro penko it lasted for about 15 minutes the British government says before uh he realized what was going on interesting discussion of this they seem to have managed to get Lord Cameron onto the subject of Trump’s Ukraine plan our listeners will know that Trump has been quite sort of uh sort of what’s the word I’m looking for his his character istic Macho approach to Ukraine has been in the news recently where he said that he could solve the war in 24 hours and in this prank call discussion Lord Cameron has apparently expressed a lot of skepticism about the prospects of trump being able to secure a peace deal if we could call it that with uh Russia and Ukraine Cameron apparently argued that the issue here is that Trump believes Putin just wants Crimea and Cameron’s suspicion is that actually a widely held view actually that that Putin wants much more than just primier this is not just about isolated land grabs this is as we’ve discussed on the podcast before a sort of almost Imperial conquest and so as I said he was expressing some skepticism about what Trump might actually uh be able to achieve and the thing about these pranksters is that when they call these people up it’s under the guise of not sure if you’d agree with this Roland but it seems to be under the guise of being for fun but what’s interesting is that they tend to Target people that the Russian state is quite interested in and they they tend to ask questions which are sort of designed at poking fun at the people that they’re speaking to in a geopolitical conquest it’s it’s not always just about ringing people up and making them look silly there does often seem to be a like I said a kind of political motivation behind it and perhaps we can talk about these two uh a bit later on the the other big diplomatic story today is of course the EU Summit taking place in Brussels president zalinski is is due to arrive shortly and there’s going to be the signing of a special security pact with Ukraine which will keep up the supply of weapons military training and other forms of aid for keev uh this will apparently cover nine areas of Ukrainian security policy and I think the goal here is to reassure people that that is going to continue despite considerable turbulence in the European Union at the moment not just the results of the EU elections which gave a big victory to the to the far right which tended to be quite Russia sympathetic but also of course the fact that we it does often feel at the moment that we’re in a bit of a holding pattern because the US election is nearly upon us and that seems to have paused or Frozen a lot of the discussions on uh on on Ukrainian Aid uh I’ll just give you a short tweet from zilinsky he says in the past few days Ukraine has started actual negotiations on EU membership and he says today I’m in Brussels to attend a meeting of the European Council and I just want to end with one more significant diplomatic uh develop velopment Poland Lithuania lvia and Estonia uh have called on the EU to build a defensive line along the Block’s border with Russia and bellarus that’s according to AFP I I believe and the goal is that they want to defend those Eastern Baltic States from moscow’s uh military and hybrid threats as podcast listeners know when we talk about hybrid threats we mean Russian hybrid Warfare the attempt to sort of destabilize NATO allies either by interfering in elections or by carrying out cyber attacks or through embarrassing leaks of sensitive information related to Ukraine so that’s the goal of of that big defensive barrier it’s it’s really quite ambitious Roland they’re talking about 700 kilometers of defensive infrastructure that’s not just physical infrastructure like uh fences we’re talking about drones I understand drone patrols and that sort of thing and it’s going to cost a a not insignificant 22.1 billion pounds roughly and of course that is going to be discussed I suspect in detail at the EU Summit in Brussels today that’s a very ambitious project perhaps we can talk a bit more about that in a moment because Roland as you know you spent a lot of time uh in that sort of Border region and it’s it’s not an easy border to not necessarily an easy border to securitize it’s very open in some places on the other hand you know the information coming out of Russia suggests that so many of the troops that used to be on the Russian side of the Border have have been moved elsewhere including to Ukraine thank you very much for that James I just wanted to ask I think I think what’s happening in Brussels is actually very interesting today I mean zalinski is obviously there now but but he he shows up you know at quite a delicate time in Europe and Sunday we’re going to have you know elections in France uh which may be won by Marine leen’s uh National rally who’s is’s you know clearly has a different kind of attitude to the Ukraine W than Emanuel macron we have the election here of course on on Thursday we don’t really think that’s going to change British policy towards Ukraine and zinsky been saying anything um about that he said anything about what what’s happening in France not yet but I think the sort of the big concern about France is that we’re seeing this evolution of um Marine leen’s party as you know this used to be a party that was kind of considered Beyond The Pale in many parts of Europe and um she’s done a lot of work uh over many years actually to try and clean up uh the party’s image that start Ed in 2017 and and it sort of progressed to the point where leen’s party is almost seen as a sort of potential government in Waiting something that may be being considered on the Ukrainian side is the fact that although in the past traditionally these these hard right far-right parties are quite Russia sympathetic certainly the case uh with with Leen and her ilk in the past you can look at the case of Italy as a good example of how being a sort of right-wing populist party doesn’t automatically mean that you’re going to be a sort of foe of Ukraine you know I think that’s that’s actually an example where there was a sort of unexpected Balian surge I think it might be reasonable to say and being constructive towards Ukraine and so maybe that’s something that they’re that they’re going to be thinking about inevitably it will be discussed a lot and perhaps also the rise of the afd which performed very strongly in the European elections too much more unashamedly as I said sympathetic towards Russia it’s a party that’s very skeptical of support for Ukraine to put it mildly and so I think those are going to be two areas that that certainly the Ukrainian delegation will be will be thinking about and of course the other thing as we’ve discussed will be uh figuring out some kind of solution on ongoing support I did open our paper this morning actually and there’s a piece by uh Peter Ellen in Paris about National rally being attacked for having a Russian jeel national as a security advisor this is a woman called Tamara vova she’s 34 she’s a Russian French JW National but National rally has vowed to ban National immigrants from Key jobs if it comes to power and what’s more embarrassing is that she became French citizen 20120 despite a leaked report from the dgsc France’s domestic intelligence service that identified her as a a suspected agent of influence working for Vladimir Putin’s Russia so there’s going to be big nerves I imagine in Kev if if if this election as as many people are predicting goes goes Marine Le Pen’s way I think so and it’s becoming such a big part of European policy making actually this concern that people who are sympathetic towards Russia are increasing their their influence in the European Union one example that also Springs to mind actually which I think is worth talking about is the case of Maximillian KRA now Mr crar is a senior MEP for Germany’s afd party he was the lead candidate in the European elections and he got embroiled in a massive Scandal just before the polls pretty much just before the polls opened kind of defending the SS in an interview with an Italian newspaper saying not everyone who wore an SS uniform was a a criminal on top of that he’s under investigation in Germany for accepting allegedly suspicious payments from Russia and China and one of his staffers in the European Parliament was a few months ago arrested on suspicion of being a spy for Beijing and the reason I bring this politician up is that going into uh the European elections this lead candidate for the AF f d was was absolutely covered in Scandal he was banned from campaigning by the afd which is not quite as strong as stripping someone with their lead candidate status altogether that it’s still a sanction under this huge cloud of of Scandal and despite that despite that the afd performed really quite strongly uh in those European elections and that suggests that in many parts of Germany particularly in the East people are not overly concerned by this sort of thing this concern that people as I said the sympathies for Russia are not just gaining in the polls but also as a result of becoming an MEP they will have access to all sorts of sensitive documents that might be getting circulated around European parliamentary committees and the like and I understand that too is a bit of a concern it’s also a big debate in Germany itself actually as the populist parties get stronger and stronger and they start to sit on committees and they start to play a bigger role in in public life if if one of your concerns is avoiding embarrassing ing leaks to the Russians deliberate or accidental such as the Lu vafa leaks that you might remember Roland when some top German Air Force officers were discussing potential deliveries of tourist missiles to Ukraine and the Russians leaked it everywhere it’s definitely something that people are thinking about a lot more and of course it comes against a wider backdrop of hybrid Warfare that we touched upon earlier in the context of the Baltic states as I said trying to step up their defenses against hybrid Frets we’ve got uh the issue of not just the cyber attacks and the leaks but there’s also a lot of Suspicion about sabotage attacks you know across the European Union we’ve seen these suspicious fires in Poland and indeed in Germany uh there was the arson attack in East London uh on a Ukraine linked business as well and so all of this this stuff is actually getting really febrile we said it before but I think it’s worth saying again you know it really does feel like we’ve entered a sort of second Cold War now in that context and and that complicates an already very difficult picture in terms of the immediate context of the fighting in Ukraine I mean I I I just wanted to add on that no it neatly brings us back to um to David Cameron talking to those two Russian pranksters there as you said a pair of chaps called Ven and Lexus um they’ve been around for years they really kind of came to prominence in the in the 2010s um and as you say they tend to you know they started out with these kind of TV pranksters who ring up prominent people and get them to to say silly things and then they began to Target people of international interest they’ve done mikad gorov John McCain Elton John famously they’re widely thought to be kind of you know close to the FSB to be directed in in in one way or another but it’s interesting actually looking at what bavid Cameron said I mean we ran a story you know given we’re running into an election that Lord Cameron had kind of embarrassed the the the conservative party campaign because conservative party was attacked labor on uh on security asked by The Imposter if he believed anything would change after the general election Lord Cameron said the opposition party is as enthusiastic about defending Ukraine and helping Ukraine as the conservative party I don’t think you’ll see change obviously if they win it will be a new government there will be some getting up to speed on some issues but I think fundamentally they’ve supported everything we’ve done I think the labor party if they win will continue that approach you know suggested David Lamy the shadow foreign secretary didn’t have much experience Lord Cameron replied no that’s true but I think the British policy is fixed which is is kind of a contrast to what you’re describing in Europe we do have the sense here in Britain that there is a quite a deep political consensus which despite um you know recent remarks by Nigel farage isn’t really shifting but you as you very well described from there in Berlin there is that sense um that things might shift elsewhere in Europe James um we’ve been talking for a while um I just wanted to remind our lessons that this Saturday on the 29th of June Ukraine the latest will be doing a live panel at the Steven Joseph theater in scarber in the northeast of England the show will be in the early evening uh so Dominic David Francis sternley and myself will be discussing the military lessons for the west from two years of the full scale Invasion for tickets just go to scarber website or follow the link we’ve put in the show notes we’d really look forward to to seeing you there James I just reminds me to ask if you have any um any final thoughts today yeah I think for my final thought it’s the presence of those North Korean troops um over in occupied eastern Ukraine we’ve been following this story for a long time now the growing rimal of of Putin with Kim Jong and also there was of course that trip to Vietnam recently and above everything else Iran which has become a very significant military supporter of Russia we’ve talked before about the ways in which this feels dangerously close to a sort of global Armament preceding potentially a global conflict and even if from the sort of worm’s eye view it looks like some North Korean soldiers coming over to Eastern Ukraine and rebuilding a building that’s been blown up by the Russians or whatever it might be the bigger picture here does seem to be a quite concerning emerging Global Alliance between those countries most worrisome of all for the West inevitably Iran as well um and I think this is something that’s worth watching very very closely I I think there is inevitably potential for uh escalation here if it actually emboldens Putin uh this sense that he’s building a security partnership and the other point that I’d make on on on North Korea finally is that we often think of North Korea as this Basket Case economy you know we think of Kim Jong-un sometimes as this kind of almost comical leader um because of the way that he is presented in this sort of quazi Godlike status by uh propaganda and state TV uh but if they are getting closely involved in this war even if it’s just uh indirect Military Support I think that for many people will be a real source of concern James thanks you I was going to forgo my own final thought since I’m in in in David’s seat but I did just want to say I think I think you’re quite right to highlight that as you quite rightly said there’s no suggestion at the moment that these North Korean troops are going to be in combat but that said we didn’t think that they would be going there at all and there is a pattern in history is there not of long running large Wars beginning to draw in allies other countries this dangerous internationalization um as you [Music] said for many months Russia has been hammering Ukraine’s energy infrastructure targeting power plants and interconnectors the goal seems to be that a structure of normal life for millions of ukrainians across the country my colleague David NOS spoke to demitro sahro the executive director of Ukraine’s largest privately owned Energy company dtec to understand Ukraine’s energy crisis and find out what may happen next Demitri thank you so much for your time would you start just by introducing yourself uh to our listeners yes my name is Dimitri saroka I’m a executive director of DCH group I’m based in K in Ukraine Dimitri can you explain to us just how bad the energy crisis uh the energy war is in Ukraine right now yeah I guess this is the biggest crisis in energy during the whole history of Ukrainian State Ukrainian Independence because uh half of Ukrainian generation that was available before March 22nd this is the date when the first attack happened was lost basically N9 gwatt of install capacity was damaged or destroyed by Russian attacks we had two attacks in March 22nd 29 two attacks in April two in May basically and two in June so those attacks were pretty unfortunately efficient Russians sent a lot of missiles drones in combination plus various types of missiles were used from the usual one until ballistic that pretty Advanced and speedy speedy means are that very difficult to intercept somebody needs a very only a very Advanced air defense system to intercept them namely Patriot IR or nasam systems and uh because it’s impossible to to intercept using other uh less Advanced less developed air defense systems so as a result they destroyed thermal power plant plants hydrop plants and the chps and the substations of system operator used to transport electricity from one part of Ukraine to another speaking for example about detch we had six uh thermal power plants um operated by one of our companies named DC energy and uh 5 gwatt of installed capacity right now as a result of those attacks we have only 400 90% of generation capacity was uh destroyed or damaged and uh speaking about what to do uh first of all it’s a issue about air defense even in cases when we as Ukraine have a air defense located next to the crucial facilities uh namely power plants or thermal power plants so the Hydro power PLS and the air defense uh did not have enough munition so for example the full load of a system is 12 missiles that may intercept incoming Russian missiles but in reality there were only two or one and of course it’s difficult to intercept incoming 10 missiles using only one missile which is impossible and just give you an example uh two days ago one of our plants was attacked G and there were two units running that we already restored after the previous three attacks three times and the last attack was um during the last attack Russians used six missiles so the air defense intercepted for because they had only four missiles loaded in their defens system system and remaining two uh missiles arrived to to the Target the Border exploded three people were were injured our employees because of the explosion and the damage is so big that would need more than six months to repair that exploded border and the remain reason why it was so efficient just because the air defense system lacked munition so this is the task number one uh because even if we may recover even if we recover something we restore something unfortunately uh the task how to save the recovered or still existent generation or transmission capacities this is a key key task and here how allies may help us definitely to provide more missiles for the provided air defense to provide more a defense and probably to distribute missiles in so-called protected mode basically to allocate a specific number of missiles exactly for those air defense system that are located specifically for the protection of the crucial infrastructure facilities uring that they have not less say 80% of their uh load otherwise uh that the recover recovery may be a kind of monkey job it’s over and over again you recover and then they shoot and again destroy and uh some cases we may come to the point that it would be impossible to recover and restore because they use pretty Advanced missiles they have a load of explosion 500 kilos 800 kilos and it’s huge one basically that’s traditional War missiles used to work again the the air carriers and other big military facilities the second task uh would be of course to restore and recover what we may recover until the uh the coming winter uh this is still the quickest and the cheapest way to to to be prepared for the coming winter um why we do need this because the existing deficit even taking in account that the weather so can right now approximately 25% in the country it means that 30 35% of of population is uh without power right now because uko is using so-called pled or scheduled outages that’s to decrease the consumption in order to balance balance the consumption with ability to produce energy in Ukraine uh so to recover and restore the damage facilities we may we are using uh several strategies first of all we try to uh find secondhand used equipment uh in at Old plants located in Europe mainly in eastern part of Europe because many of power plants were built here during Soviet Union era and majority of them are not in operation anymore but we may find there the old equipment that may be dismantled and brought to Ukraine of course that will be a Frankenstein kind of equipment Frankenstein units and it doesn’t cover the whole need 20 25% of what we need but still this is the cheapest and the quickest way so restoration and resources for that is the second task the third one is increase of impa we as a country right now import 1.7 gwatt of energy every hour this is the uh existent limit that was established by Ane this is the association of energy or the the system operators of Europe the technical capacity right now that may be used is 3.5 gwatt the difference from 3.5 gwatt which is the technical ability and existent permitted 1.7 this is the the calculation made by the technicians or Engineers on to take into consideration the stability of the GD the reservation of the GD Etc just to make sure that the system works in stable mode however we do believe that increase of the allow 1.7 up to 2.2 or 2.5 gaw is possible without any significant damage to stability and inability interoperability of various parts of energy systems of Europe and Ukraine and Ukraine right now is integrated part of the uh of the Ukraine of the European Energy System so this is a task number three in addition to air defense restoration increase of import and last one is the uh construction of distributed generation which everybody is uh talking about right now and here we speak about uh solar panels on the roofs of the households we are speaking about the gas turbines engines gas or diesel engines that may be installed all big generators however we should understand that they may that uh strategy may help only to ensure the small consumers relatively small consumers like household or small consumers like one Hospital maybe one school but definitely it’s not possible to use uh this type of generation to feed supply with power for example the big districts in the in the city Kev region K city of K because it’s like difference in in in many times for example for district in cave you would need 50 30 megawatt power and the generator or gas turbine May produce significantly less so and plus time that you would need to to install because this is not only about breing turbine it’s designing connection connection to gas connection to greet uh land allocation and basically the procurement itself because there is no a big stock of turbines available on the market that may be easily brought to Ukraine in the required volumes the president of Ukraine in Berlin promised that Ukraine will build up to one gwatt of cap capacity of gas turbines in Ukraine until the end of the year that is a very challenging task that requires a lot of resources because the rough estimation of only cost one megawatt of Gast turbine cost roughly 1 million so one gwatt is1 billion dollars needed to to build this it’s a huge huge huge amount of money needed and definitely I in situation of very short period of time that we have until the beginning of the Hidden season basically we’re talking right now about 120 days it’s impossible to build it in a centralized way right so uh no State on company could build one gwatt short period of time only private sector may do this however the private sector would need capital for that because it’s g a huge amount of money needed and to attract private Capital to the private sector several conditions as usual should be met because nobody will provide this Capital without following the usual conditions uh for the providing money first of all it’s protection of protection of investments in this case sorry this is the air defense will need a post for for a second I guess this [Applause] [Music] so uh we would definitely need protection of Investments and we’re talking about the war Insurance there are only First Steps in this uh field the coverage that’s been provided like two five1 million doar for war insrance but we are talking that we need to cover1 billion to build 1 gwatt so it’s a big gap between what current Curr L existent or available on the market and what is needed second of course a protection I’m talking about air defense because nobody will build even the gas turbines because they will be be physically destroyed so that insurance needed and in terms of Return of cap capital for the Investments definitely the currency regulation should be uh relaxed because right now the private company could not purchase uh dollars for gria to repay to their to to to their creditors so those conditions are not met and there are very big uh risks that uh available the the capital will be available for the private sector to build this one gwatt of capacities but again the strategy the the four step for measure for strategy to build the distributed distributed energy this is the right one but the momentum will be later The crucial mass will be created that will have a impact on the ability of Ukraine to go through the winter will be created later so we lost 9 gaw and definitely uh to build a meaningful portion of distributed energy to at least partially substitute the Lost capacity uh will take time and not 120 days it will definitely take uh much longer dimetri you said earlier in your answer that the missiles that are targeting your plants are they’re big 500 kilg of of Munitions they proper War missiles that they should be fired at military targets what do you what do you think the Russian strategy the aim here is in targeting Ukrainian thermal plants so I guess they just found a proper window for using their missiles before because before that uh the air defense in Ukraine was much more efficient because they had the Ukrainian Army had enough munition to intercept 80 plus% of incoming missiles but when we saw that uh the support from the United States from Europe posted for six months it’s just again caused by delay of voting in the US Senate um they just exhausted our defense by sending numerous drones in j January in December January uh February and then when find out that we are empty they just started sending uh their Miss understanding that we will not be able to intercept them and unfortunately their strategy was was right today June the 25th the international criminal court has announced that it’s issued arrest warrants for Russia’s chief of the general staff that’s feri gas gasimov and Secretary of the security Council Sergey shu some of the charges relate to Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure um what’s your reaction to this announcement by the ICC that they’re pursuing these criminal these criminal charges this is very good and right decision definitely uh however there always the question with enforcement how we’ll be able to inform the decision the only way as I understand is a power and the power military power because Russians uh stops only where they are being stopped by power unless they see that there is no way ahead they will continue pushing and that’s why uh we need more military strengths to stop them otherwise uh this decision of the Court will be just uh a declaration that would never be implemented in reality dimetri earlier you talked about the blackouts on Ukrainian civilians um to reduce the energy Demand on the grid um could you give our listeners a sense of what that means in practice how have people had to change their lives what do they have to do um to to to to live as normally as possible despite the blackouts what what actually happens yeah this from practical point of view it mean that in uh uh Flats Apartments uh households people don’t have energy during uh from 2 to 4 I something 7 hours then a short uh short period whis power from 2 to 4 hours and then and this cycle start again so up to 12 14 16 something 18 hours during the day our civilians do not have power uh so during these gaps when there is no power definitely they could not do their normal they they could not leave their normal lives right because power right now this a crucial commodity so they could not cook some hot food they could not use elevators uh usually there is no water because pumps that pump water on the high high floors do not work and it create a lot of dis inconvenience of course and in some cases very difficult situation for those who could not for example go down and up for the High floors if there is no elevator for example in my case I have a father-in-law who is 77 had three heart surgeries and he lives in my apartment on the 18th floor so for him it’s just impossible to go down and up on the 18th floor physically impossible and take the mom with uh mom with small kids uh that also stuck in their flats and uh take people who need uh the the assistance right to move that use wheels for example so it’s just just just impossible and usually again in my case there is no water on the 18 floor so during this fif five or seven hours so you would need to somehow manage to keep to have spare water in some buckets just to use it and um regarding power people install a lot of batteries uh uh inventors in inverters they install generators household that have roofs install solar panels combination with uh with the storage to make sure that they have some power of course it’s is expensive and not all may afford to do to do this other people buy Power Banks buy the source of light like a small small lights charge them and use uh in the daily life and it’s good thing right now people kids are on summer vacation so they don’t study in the schools but uh September in September they will go to school again and that will create a lot of problems for schools a lot of problems for kids that should do their homeworks for example they need to study they need light and if the day will be much shorter than today and I doubt that all of them will have good conditions for studying plus connections uh things there is no power usually the the um cells towers that are used to provide signal for the forms to not work because the batteries die after 3 4 hours and some discs are without mobile connection and you could not use internet you could not make calls just because there is no signal uh that is available for your mobile phone that create even wor condition that that you could not for example call for emergency a medical assistant or law enforcement agencies just because your phone doesn’t throw not all people majority of people don’t have land lines from for many years already because from some 10 years people usually prefer using their mobile phones but that absence of the connection create a lot of problems so those are the examples how the outages outes create difficulties uh in usual life is that the same across Ukraine it’s a very big country is that the same in Lviv as it is in Kiev or are Regional differences the same same looking you’ve mentioned it a few times but looking ahead to the Autumn and the winter it seems as if at the moment as you said the School the children aren’t in school it’s very warm outside but when the heating season comes when temperatures start to drop if you don’t get the help you need how close are we to a humanitarian catastrophe very close because uh it’s possible to be in the apartment without power but it’s impossible to be there to stay there if there is no Heating and worth s and water so uh crucial infrastructure should be also powered right and if the balance of generation will go beyond the level required to power The crucial infrastructure like heating sewage water then that will be definitely humanitarian catastrophe in the scale of some cities or even the whole country because in Winter if you you understand if the liquids will will freeze in for example the heating system from physical point of view it will destroy the it will destroy the the pumps right because the water will become bigger when it’s freezing and it mean that the heating system will be destroyed by the spring you will not be able to repair it and that will be a catastroph that uh would require I mean there is no solution what to do with millions of people living in um living in big cities without heat water surge they definitely disaster Demetri is there anything we haven’t spoken about that you think is important for our listeners um to hear and understand I guess I would like only emphasize the importance of a defense because this is the most and The crucial the most important and the most crucial condition for the ability of Ukraine to fight further in this war now air defense and munition to a defense uh we should understand that Russians sent to us 100 plus uh missiles every every during every attack and we definitely need hundreds of missiles for the existing uh air defense systems and new air defense system everything else is possible to do basically to recover to restore but if you could not protect yourself from Big missiles falling from the sky that definitely create huge uncertainty of Ukraine and decrease the significantly decrease the ability of the country to to fight and win in this war Demetri thank you so much for your time thank you Ukraine the latest is an original podcast from the telegraph to support our work and to stay on top of all our Ukraine news analysis and dispatches from the ground please subscribe to the telegraph you can get your first three months for just one at telegraph.co.uk forc Ukraine the latest or sign up to dispatchers our Foreign Affairs newsletter bringing 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 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Day 856.

Today, we bring you updates from the battle front, analyse North Korea’s reported decision to send engineering and construction troops to Ukraine, and discuss the Voldymyr Zelensky’s visit to Brussels to sign a Security Pact with the European Union.

Contributors:

Roland Oliphant (Senior Foreign Correspondent, Host). @RolandOliphant on X

James Rothwell (Berlin Correspondent). @JamesERothwell on X.

David Knowles (Journalist). @djknowles22 on X.

Upcoming events:

Scarborough Fair (29th June):

https://scarboroughfair.uk/performances/ukraine-the-latest-live/

Articles referenced:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/26/labour-strong-ukraine-support-cameron-tells-russian-hoaxers/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/26/marine-le-pen-russian-dual-national-exmodel-party-adviser/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/27/ukraine-russia-war-latest-news9/

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Email: ukrainepod@telegraph.co.uk