Latest / The Fourcast / Ukraine war: will Trump’s threats really scare Putin?

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Ukraine war: will Trump’s threats really scare Putin? · The Fourcast

0:00
This fiction that Trump was somehow negotiating A ceasefire
0:02
has never had any basis in fact. Putin has never gone along with.
0:06
He's never given up his war aims, which are the conquest of
0:08
all of Ukraine. And maybe Trump has realized.
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That the Russians are bit by bit, advancing.
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When President Putin finally feels that maybe it's time to
0:18
sue the peace, he's determined to have done whatever he can to
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put the Ukrainians into an abject position where, to use a
0:26
famous phrase from President Trump, they have none of the
0:29
cards. If the Ukrainians now get the
0:31
weapons to hit Moscow, to hit Saint Petersburg with, does that
0:36
change the nature of this war fundamentally?
0:41
Hello and welcome to the forecast.
0:43
So is the big bromance between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump
0:46
now truly over? We know the president in the US
0:49
has been rather frustrated with his Russian counterpart of
0:53
Leighton Melania. The first lady had told them
0:55
that they keep bombing civilian targets, as if he hadn't learned
0:58
that already from watching the nightly news.
1:01
Now a new weapons programme has been announced that there's a
1:04
threat of severe sanctions, secondary sanctions against any
1:07
country that helps Russia. And we'll have to see whether
1:11
this is really truly a turning point in this war that seemed to
1:15
be going in Russia's direction of late.
1:18
With me here to discuss this is our international editor,
1:20
Lindsay Hilsum, who's currently in the Haqib in Ukraine, and
1:24
Anne Alpervan, the Pulitzer Prize winning author and
1:26
journalist who is in Poland. Welcome to you both.
1:29
So let me start with you, Anne. Obvious question today, Is the
1:32
bromance truly over now? So unfortunately, I didn't think
1:37
so. Trump made a big announcement
1:40
saying that he was going to have a have lots of things to say on
1:43
Monday. And then actually what he said
1:46
was rather less than what was expected.
1:48
He was expected to say that he would he would agree to sell
1:52
weapons to NATO, which would be given to Ukraine.
1:55
That's been in the works for a long time.
1:57
And he but he said, well, maybe if Putin doesn't come to some
2:02
kind of ceasefire agreement in 50 days, then maybe he'll put
2:06
some sanctions on. And actually he was very vague
2:08
about what that meant, whether it was tariffs or sanctions or
2:11
something else. And meanwhile, the US has been,
2:15
in practice, de facto lifting sanctions because sanctions are
2:19
something that have to be renewed.
2:21
New companies keep picking up the slack.
2:24
And the US has actually been releasing and loosening
2:27
sanctions on Russia over the last several months.
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So it was, it was actually fairly underwhelming, I would
2:32
say. And Lindsay, we know from Donald
2:34
Trump that when he comes up with anything detailed like numbers
2:37
or days or percentages, you have to look at them with a lorry of
2:42
salt, don't you? Absolutely.
2:45
And here in Ukraine there is certainly enough salt for them
2:48
to to pinch. I was out with an anti drone
2:52
unit last night. It was very interesting.
2:54
They have the most modern technology on their iPads for
2:58
tracing where the drones are and their trajectory.
3:01
But then they were bringing out this great lumbering anti
3:05
aircraft artillery from the Soviet era to shoot them down.
3:10
And so when I asked, you know, what about the Patriots, which
3:13
is not really for shooting down drones, but for shooting down
3:16
missiles, of which many are coming in every night here to
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Kharkiv, to Kiev, to a desert, to many cities, the guy I was
3:24
with said, yeah, look, fine, great.
3:26
But when are they going to come? We, of course, we need more help
3:29
from the Russia, from the from the Americans.
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Of course we need this from Donald Trump.
3:35
Yes, thank you. We want this.
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But when? Now, now, now.
3:40
Before we get on to the kind of weapons they need and, you know,
3:43
the nature of air defence in this, you know, very
3:45
technological war with Jones. And it's a bit weird, isn't he,
3:49
that it keeps mentioning the first lady, Melania's kind of
3:52
channelling any kind of empathy. Did she change his mind about
3:57
the nature of the targets used by the Russians?
4:00
You know, on a nightly basis? So obviously, I have no insider
4:04
knowledge of the president's relationship with his wife, so I
4:07
can't really say what it was that she said.
4:10
But actually the implication of what he said in public at least,
4:14
was not so much that she was showing empathy, but that she
4:17
was contradicting him. That he would come home and say,
4:20
I just had this great phone call with my friend Vladimir, and she
4:24
would say, yeah, and he's just bombed another city 5 minutes
4:27
ago. And so it's more that she was
4:29
showing up, that he was being, you know, taken for a ride by
4:33
Putin, which has, of course, been the case for many months
4:36
now. From the very beginning.
4:38
Exactly. Yeah, Well, Putin, Putin has
4:39
made clear that he that he is not ready for a ceasefire.
4:42
He doesn't want a ceasefire. When there were talks in
4:45
Istanbul, they sent a historian who who, who ranted about the
4:49
history of Kiev and Russia rather than somebody who was
4:52
prepared to actually have a have a ceasefire conversation.
4:56
And so, you know, the idea that there would be a ceasefire or
4:59
something that's come from Trump and some Western think tankers,
5:02
Putin has never gone along with it.
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He's never agreed to it. He's never given up his war
5:07
aims, which are the conquest of all of Ukraine.
5:09
And maybe Trump has realized that.
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I mean, certainly some people around him might have done, but
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if you know, or or maybe Melania eventually convinced him, who
5:20
knows? But can I say something which I
5:21
think is really interesting, which is of course, Melania was
5:26
brought up in a Warsaw Pact country, wasn't she?
5:29
So she, her family come from Eastern Europe, so she must have
5:35
a much greater sense of what it was like under the Soviet Union
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and what it was like with Russian domination in that time.
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So presumably she does bring a particular sensibility to to all
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of this. But I mean, Donald Trump has
5:48
been on one hell of a journey, hasn't he?
5:50
Since that 90 minute phone call soon after he actually took over
5:53
power in the Oval Office when everything seemed to be hunky
5:56
Dory. Isn't this a journey that you
5:59
and trust? Do you think that he's actually,
6:02
you know, got more and more fed up and, you know, has realized
6:04
that Putin is making a fool of him, which is one thing that
6:07
Trump really, really hates, You know, is that now the new
6:10
reality of this relationship and can it swing back again?
6:15
Honestly, I have very little trust or faith in this supposed
6:20
presidential change of heart. Trump's Trump's interests in
6:25
Russia are I, I believe, financial.
6:27
We know that Steve Witkoff, who is his representative in Moscow,
6:31
has been talking business deals with, with the Russians.
6:35
We know there are connections between some of Trump's
6:37
entourage and some of Putin's entourage along these lines.
6:41
I, I'm, I'm not convinced that he's, he's given up.
6:45
And remember, he has a, a whole kind of mythical fantasy idea
6:49
about the relationship that they're friends, that they
6:52
somehow went through a lot together, that they that they've
6:56
exchanged many experiences and they have a lot in common.
6:59
And of course, this is fiction. And it maybe, maybe it's the
7:01
result of Putin, who's a, who's a trained KGB agent, KGB
7:05
officer. Maybe it's the result of Putin's
7:08
fantastic ability to manipulate him.
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I don't know. But but he, he has, he has this
7:13
idea that he's been very, very reluctant to give up, even
7:16
though, as I say, since January, the Russians have never said
7:20
that they want a ceasefire and they have never said that they
7:23
want to stop the war. And this fiction that that that
7:26
we were, that Trump was somehow negotiating A ceasefire, which I
7:29
have to say a lot of the Western press corps believed has has
7:33
never had any basis in fact. There's this weird fantasy,
7:37
isn't there, that all, all wishful thinking that American
7:39
presidents have about looking into the soul of Vladimir Putin.
7:43
George W Bush famously said so when he was president and it
7:47
seems that they seem they keep looking at the wrong soul.
7:50
Lindsay on on the 50 day deadline, you know, Trump's
7:54
deadlines are famously squishy. But on the 50 day deadline that
7:58
he's, you know, that he's laid out there for Vladimir Putin.
8:02
I mean, 50 days when you've got these massive bomb, you know,
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barrages of Jones and missiles every night is a hell of a long
8:08
time. Well, it certainly is if you're
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living in Kiev or if you're a soldier on the frontline.
8:14
But I think the point is that the the Russians are now
8:17
embarked on a major summer offensive.
8:19
The front lines have not moved much for about a year.
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And that is because of technology, because both sides
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have these drones. And so the the battlefield is
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this wasteland with fibre optic cables draped everywhere from
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the drones and nobody can really move on either side without
8:37
being picked off by a drone. But in this summer offensive,
8:41
these Vladimir Putin is doing two things.
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One is this relentless bombardment of the cities and
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that is meant to SAP the will of the Ukrainian people.
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And that is why those patriot anti air defences, those which
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the which the Americans now say they're going to sell to NATO
9:00
countries to give to Ukraine. That's why they are so
9:03
essential. And then the other thing is the
9:05
actual front line. And we do see now that because
9:08
of the use of these drones, Russians are bit by bit
9:11
advancing, finding gaps in the Ukrainian defenses.
9:15
And so 50 days, 100 days a year, whatever it is, when President
9:21
Putin finally feels that maybe it's time to sue the peace, he's
9:25
determined to do it from a position of strength.
9:28
And he is determined to have done whatever he can to put the
9:32
Ukrainians into an abject position where they really have
9:36
nothing to defend themselves and where, to use a famous phrase
9:40
from President Trump, they have none of the cards.
9:44
And Lindsay, I mean, you've spent some, you know, again some
9:47
time now in Ukraine. Do you think that the air war
9:50
from the Russians has worked when it comes to undermining
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morale? I'm really struck that every
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night, you know, lots and lots of people, more than ever before
9:57
apparently, are spending a lot of time in those, you know,
10:00
metro stations that are deep underground, especially in Kiev.
10:04
Yes, and I went to see the ballet of Snow White underground
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under the Khaki Opera House on Sunday.
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Lots of little girls and their mothers watching absolutely
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wrapped the stage. It was extraordinary.
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But yes, there is a whole underground life, I think that
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Ukrainians are very reluctant to say to a foreigner like me that,
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you know, they have any problem with their will.
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Everybody says, no, we're going to fight and we have the
10:29
motivation and we're developing our own technology and this is
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what we're going to do. But sure, it must be very, very
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hard and very wearing. We're talking about 3 1/2 years
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of war. And no population can endure
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something like that without having some kind of
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psychological impact. And do you think that the air
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war is now more important than the ground war?
10:52
Because the frontline on the ground is a bit like the First
10:55
World War frontline. It's barely advanced in in
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months if not the years. Yeah, I think it's worth
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focusing just for a second on that frontline and why the
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Russians can't move forward. The Ukrainian drone defence has
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now developed so much that essentially they can see the
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whole frontline all the time in real time.
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I've actually been in a basement outside of Kiev where you could
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see it on screen. So there was a couple 100 people
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in a room watching it. They can see everything.
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Every time the Russians try to advance or come into the, you
11:26
know, into the, into the front line, they, they hit them.
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And the Russians, of course, are willing, as we know, to lose
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hundreds and thousands, maybe of, of people every week or
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every month in, in order to achieve really very, very small
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amounts of territory, you know, a few a kilometer here or a few
11:44
100 yards there. I mean, it's very, it's, it's,
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it's not very much. I saw one statistic that said if
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the Russians keep going at this pace, they'll conquer all of
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Ukraine in about 85 years. So it's, you know, it's not as
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if they're doing really well. And it seems to me that the air
11:58
war is, is a sign of their frustration.
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You know, they can't advance on the frontline.
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They can't win the war that way. And so they're trying to win it
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from the air. And that, of course, is why air
12:10
defense is so important. And the US is still produces the
12:14
world's best air defense and still has more of it than
12:16
anybody else. And that that's really the main
12:18
reason why the US is still important to Ukraine.
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Ukrainians now make all their own, most of their own drones.
12:24
They, they have other sources of ammunition and other sources of
12:27
weaponry, but it's just this one thing, which is air defense,
12:30
which is, which is so, so crucial.
12:33
So yes, you're right, the Russians are trying to win that
12:35
way. But, you know, there isn't any
12:37
evidence that anybody has ever won a war but through the air.
12:42
You know, that's how the, the, you know, the, the Germans tried
12:45
to win the war, the Battle of Britain in the air and that
12:47
didn't succeed. And the, you know, the, the,
12:51
the, the, the British tried to defeat Germany that way.
12:54
And actually that is didn't succeed.
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That's not why. That's not why the Allies won
12:58
the war. So I'm not sure that it can win.
13:00
I mean, it can do a lot of damage.
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It can destroy people's lives. It can, you know, it can create
13:05
a lot of trauma for later on, but it's, it isn't actually
13:09
going to win. And at some point, yes, the
13:12
Russians will figure that out. And it would help if we were
13:14
able to arm Ukraine and give them the defenses they need now
13:17
so that the Russians came to that realization sooner.
13:20
That's really been the, you know, for the last six months.
13:24
It's been, or really for the last three years, it's been
13:27
clear that that is the way the war will eventually end.
13:29
The Russians will understand that they can't win.
13:32
And at that point, the war's over.
13:34
And then we can discuss where the border is and we can have
13:36
lots of other conversations. But this idea that there would
13:38
be some kind of trade or some kind of, you know, we'll give
13:41
you Crimea in exchange for something else, I mean, that's
13:43
not going to happen. That's that, that was always a
13:46
myth. The the The war will end when
13:48
the Russians understand that they can't win.
13:51
And Lindsay, it's a strange way, isn't it?
13:53
Because it's both incredibly modern and technological.
13:55
You know, you've covered that just now the, you know, the
13:57
drone warfare that's being developed all the time and it
14:00
really doesn't allow the soldiers to move anywhere
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without being, you know, being spotted by a German, possibly
14:05
killed by 1. And at the same time, it's
14:07
unbelievably old fashioned, you know, trenches, mud, boots on
14:11
the ground and advancing a few inches on either side.
14:15
Absolutely, though there are very few men in those trenches
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these days because of the of the drones, as as Anne was saying.
14:23
I think that one of the things which is really interesting is
14:26
you is because the basic problem that the Ukrainians have, it's
14:29
just that they don't have as many soldiers.
14:31
They're a much smaller country and the Russians fight in a
14:35
particular way because they don't care about losing a lot of
14:38
soldiers. Now you can say that that is a
14:40
military culture because they're cruel and so on.
14:43
Or you can also say because their soldiers are expendable
14:46
from a practical point of view. And from the Ukrainian point of
14:49
view, they're not expendable because there are so few here
14:52
and they're very short of them. So one of the things that the
14:54
Ukrainians are working on, and I went to one of the places where
14:57
they're developing, these are these unmanned ground vehicles.
15:01
So they're like drones, but they're on the ground and these
15:05
can be used now. They're robots.
15:07
They're they're little vehicles that can bring in ammunition to
15:10
a frontline unit. They can bring out a casualty,
15:13
somebody who's been injured. They can do all of the
15:16
logistics. The Third Assault Brigade who I
15:19
was with say that they actually took a Russian position the
15:22
other day in entirely with unmanned vehicles both in the
15:26
air and on the ground. So what that means is that it
15:28
saves soldiers lives because if your soldiers are not right
15:31
there where it's happening, but a couple of kilometers back, you
15:34
know, using these video game console type things in order to
15:38
work these vehicles, then you can save a lot of lives.
15:41
So that kind of technology is really important to the
15:44
Ukrainians. But the other thing that they
15:47
really want are long range cruise missiles which the
15:51
Americans could give and apparently or sell, which
15:54
apparently they're thinking of because if they had these Jassam
15:57
long range cruise missiles, then they can fire more and more
16:02
effectively into Russia. And that I think is one thing
16:05
that the Ukrainians think that they need to do.
16:07
They need to take the war to Russia more effectively.
16:11
But there's a story in the Financial Times actually just
16:14
now that they had Privy to a conversation between Trump and
16:20
Zelensky on the 4th of July of all days, where Trump then asked
16:25
Zelensky, can you hit Moscow? Can you hit Saint Petersburg?
16:28
And Zelensky said, yes, I can if you give me the weapons to do
16:31
so. You know, if the war really was
16:33
brought very closely to, you know, the not just Russians, you
16:38
know, in outlying areas, you know, obviously they went into
16:40
Kursk last year, but, you know, into the capital or the cultural
16:44
capital, Saint Petersburg, that would make a big difference,
16:47
wouldn't it? It would make a big difference.
16:50
And I think one of the reasons that I'm told that the
16:52
Ukrainians have been holding back on that is because they
16:56
worry that it would anger President Trump because they
17:00
feel that he would be, he would, you know, be annoyed if they
17:04
were taking the war right to President Putin.
17:06
So they have held back on that, partly because the technology
17:10
and partly because diplomatically they think that
17:12
that wouldn't be such a good idea.
17:13
So we'll have to see in the coming weeks whether that
17:15
changes. Now the President Trump seems to
17:18
have altered his policy. And I wonder just briefly on
17:22
this, whether this will bring back the old ogre that of
17:25
course, has been concerning Europeans, whether, you know,
17:27
pushing Putin into a corner like that by bringing the war much
17:30
closer to the the people of Moscow, St.
17:32
Petersburg would actually, you know, escalate it to another
17:37
level. Because, of course, the Russians
17:38
even today are threatening that this could become a nuclear
17:40
conflict. I think I'm hearing far less of
17:43
that now than I was. The German government is much
17:46
more is much more belligerent on the part of Ukraine, the current
17:51
Mertz as opposed to Schultz and I think Mark Rousser, the the
17:55
head of NATO is much more hawkish.
17:58
So I think there's much less talk of that in European
18:00
capitals now than there was six months or a year ago.
18:04
If the Ukrainians now get the weapons to hit Moscow, to hit
18:07
Saint Petersburg with, you know, and if there is a temptation for
18:11
them to hit civilian targets, which is something that I know
18:14
the Biden administration was always worried about, does that
18:17
change the nature of this war fundamentally?
18:20
I'm not sure it changes it fundamentally because the
18:22
Ukrainians have been hitting targets very deep inside Russia
18:25
for a long time, including using a, a very, a kind of Trojan
18:30
horse drone technique to smuggle drones inside to the country and
18:35
to hit aircraft at A at an airport quite far away from
18:40
Ukraine. So I'm not, I'm not 100% sure it
18:43
would make a difference. I mean, there might be a an
18:46
interesting diplomatic situation if it were to be US weapons with
18:50
which the Ukrainians were hitting important sites in
18:54
central Russia or or indeed in Moscow.
18:57
And that would then create a brand new situation between
19:00
Russia and the United States. I'm not sure that it changes the
19:03
war that much. I mean, the Russians have known
19:05
for a long time that the Ukrainians can hit targets in
19:08
Russia and, and the Ukrainians hit them all the time, actually.
19:11
I mean, it's not always reported.
19:12
It's, we've become so used to it that it's not in the news.
19:15
But I mean, almost every week the Ukrainians hit a factory or
19:18
they hit a, some kind of production site or some kind of
19:21
military installation. So it doesn't, it doesn't
19:23
necessarily change the, the, the fighting.
19:26
But yes, it would create that. That would then be a new
19:29
situation between Trump and Putin, one that would that would
19:32
be much more fundamental change than what we've seen so far.
19:35
I mean, because even today we heard very spokesman for the
19:38
Kremlin speaking on behalf of the Kremlin, one assumes saying,
19:41
you know, now that Trump has said he's going to supply these
19:43
weapons and plus the sanctions that this is going to raise the
19:47
nuclear question one again, you're effectively, we are
19:49
effectively at war with NATO and we've heard this talk ever since
19:52
the war started in February of 2022.
19:55
But do we need to take that? Do European capitals need to
19:58
take that talk more seriously now, if indeed these long range
20:02
weapons are supplied? I really don't think so.
20:05
I mean, I don't want to be too definitive because you never
20:07
know. And within the case of Putin,
20:09
you're dealing with someone who's unpredictable and paranoid
20:13
and has all kinds of complexes about his role in history and so
20:17
on. From everything we know, we know
20:20
that his his Chinese allies put a lot of pressure on him not to
20:23
use nuclear weapons. The Indian leadership have also
20:28
made it clear they don't want him to use nuclear weapons and
20:30
they're important customers of of Russian oil.
20:34
We know that the, the, it would be actually very difficult for
20:38
them to use tactical weapons in Ukraine because of the closeness
20:42
of the two armies of the, the, there would inevitably be
20:44
blowback into Russia. And it's, it's hard to see how
20:48
they could use them in a way that would help them win the
20:50
war. So I, I, I don't think so.
20:53
And it's also true that Putin has used this language of, you
20:57
know, this nuclear threat language whenever he believes
21:00
that the US is entering the conflict in any kind of way.
21:03
And it's so far been successful at keeping the US out or the US
21:07
restrained. And, and so I, I, I think it's
21:10
makes much more sense at this point to see it as a tactic
21:12
rather than, rather than a real threat.
21:14
And, and also, you know, how many times can you threaten
21:17
something before people start to not believe you?
21:19
He's he, he actually has been talking repeatedly about using
21:24
nukes in, in, against Poland, against the UK, you know,
21:27
against Scandinavia for years now.
21:30
You know, we just, we all kind of choose not to hear it, but
21:33
but it's, it really isn't new. And it's part of their talk.
21:37
It's part of how they speak about the outside world.
21:39
And so and and so, I'm not sure it represents some big change at
21:43
this point. It's very hard for any of us who
21:46
haven't been to Russia for some time and we haven't been given
21:48
visas for years now to, to really know what's going on on
21:51
the ground, what ordinary Russians think and actually what
21:54
people even close to the regime think the war aims are.
21:58
But Lindsay, first you, what do you think Russians feel that
22:02
they're fighting for in this war?
22:04
And and if you're in Sabinas war, can you just, you know,
22:07
carry on regardless because life seems to be still pretty
22:11
pleasant in those cities compared to what Ukrainians are
22:13
having to put up with. Look, when you talk to Ukrainian
22:16
soldiers, they, their line is the Russians are fighting for
22:20
money and we're fighting for freedom.
22:22
I'm not sure that it is quite as simple as that.
22:25
Now, obviously, the Russians have brought in the North
22:28
Koreans and we're expecting more North Korean fighters in the
22:31
next couple of months, another 25 or 30,000 apparently.
22:35
So they, they need those extra, extra men.
22:38
But I think, you know, from everything I read, this idea,
22:41
which is the fundamental issue of this war, that President
22:45
Putin says that Ukraine is not a country, that Ukraine is not a
22:48
place that exists, that Ukraine is somewhere that should be
22:51
under the control of Russia. A lot of Russians, as far as I
22:56
know, have bought into that idea and would know much more than me
23:01
about that. The propaganda, as we know, is
23:03
very strong. And it seems to be almost and at
23:07
the moment, and of course the mood changes depending on the
23:09
amount of weapons being deployed.
23:11
And, you know, you know, how the air war is going, but it seems
23:13
at the moment as if Vladimir Putin's aim of subjugating
23:18
Ukraine, making it, you know, it's ceasing to exist as an
23:22
independent sovereign nation state that's quite far from
23:26
reality at the moment. And then what the Ukraine's
23:30
might end up with is something that's, you know, quite a bit
23:32
smaller than what they had, you know, in, you know, I don't
23:36
know, in 2010, but but independent, democratic, yes,
23:41
sovereign and able to defend itself.
23:44
Well, we'll see. I mean, I, I think Putin's aim
23:46
is to, is to change the government of Ukraine and to
23:49
make, to put in some kind of pro Russian government.
23:52
So, I mean, it may, it may be that he hopes to achieve the
23:55
subjugation of Ukraine, not through conquering the whole
23:57
country, which you're right, that seems pretty unlikely.
24:00
It's hard to see how that would happen given the given, given
24:04
the way the way this war is going.
24:06
But they do hope, I think, to use some kind of political
24:08
manipulation or propaganda to achieve that kind of aim.
24:12
And I think they originally hoped that Trump would help them
24:14
with that, too. I mean, I think Trump's attacks
24:17
on Zelensky and his language about, you know, we need
24:19
election in Ukraine. You remember that back from kind
24:22
of February, March. I mean, I think all that was
24:24
coming from Putin. He was hearing that in his
24:26
conversations with Putin. And I think they they hope that
24:29
that might work. But but you're right, it seems
24:31
right now as if they didn't. I mean, I would make one little
24:34
corrective, just a little comment to what Lindsay just
24:37
said about, about the Russians if Putin were to declare
24:40
tomorrow that the war is over and we won or, you know, the war
24:44
is over and, you know, it's, we're, we're doing something
24:47
else now. I, I, I actually do think the
24:49
Russians would be OK with that. I mean the, you know, remember
24:52
that we're now dealing with a country that doesn't really have
24:56
anything that you could call a public sphere.
24:58
There's no independent conversation.
25:00
There are no debates about what should happen that are that are
25:03
real and not staged or manipulated.
25:06
People will say to a pollster or to an interviewer, whatever is
25:10
the line of the of this, of the government of the state, you
25:13
know, so, so you can't really what people say to on TV or what
25:17
they say to Steve Rosenberg of the BBC or whoever.
25:21
I'm not sure that represents any deep feelings.
25:24
And I think if the line were to change from above, then I think
25:28
probably the Russians would accept it.
25:29
I mean, there may be people in the inner circle who would be
25:32
angry. But, but I'm not sure about
25:34
ordinary Russians. I I'm not sure that they're
25:36
really a a factor here in the way that we imagine them to be a
25:39
factor. And Anne, it's not a war, it's a
25:42
special military operation, right?
25:44
So it's a different kind of thing.
25:45
So so maybe that maybe that sort of obfuscation will, you know,
25:49
make it easier for him to kind of call it quits or maybe that's
25:52
also the reason why people haven't been fully engaged in
25:55
it. Lindsay, I mean, you know, our
25:57
own Prime Minister here, Sir Keir Starmer has been, you know,
25:59
saying, you know, to the public, you know, we need to be ready
26:04
for any eventuality with the Russians.
26:06
We're in a pre war setting. You know, some senior generals
26:09
here in Britain were talking about we're already in World War
26:11
Three in the foothills of it. This is used to justify, you
26:14
know, massively increased defense spending at the expense
26:17
of, you know, social programs, benefits, all that kind of
26:20
stuff. If the Russians don't actually,
26:23
you know, if that threat doesn't come true either by them trying
26:26
to nibble away at Poland or the Baltic republics, it's kind of
26:30
difficult to maintain that degree of threat awareness and
26:34
sacrifice for quite a long time, Especially with, you know, the
26:38
new generation people like my kids who are literally who
26:41
couldn't can't imagine anything like that ever happening in
26:44
their lives. Yeah, but it's more complicated
26:47
than that, isn't it? Because warfare now is
26:49
asymmetric warfare and grey zone warfare.
26:52
It's already happening. We've already got, you know,
26:56
warehouses being blown up in the UK, which, according to a case
27:00
last week, the people who carried this out were saboteurs
27:04
who were employed by the Russians.
27:06
We already have, you know, submarines around British
27:09
waters. We already have them cutting
27:12
cables. All of this kind of grey zone
27:15
warfare is already happening. Now the idea that they're going
27:18
to start launching ballistic missiles at the UK, well, one
27:22
has to hope that they're not since British air defences are
27:26
not in as good a state even as the Ukrainians, from what I
27:29
understand. But certainly I, I think that
27:33
what's key is if you transfer it from the Ukrainian experience,
27:36
President Trump seems to think this is about real estate.
27:39
It's not about real estate. It's about sovereignty.
27:43
It's about the government of Ukraine.
27:45
It's about Ukrainians having the right to choose their own
27:48
governments and their own system.
27:50
Yeah. And then and that transfers out.
27:53
So I don't think anybody is thinking that, you know,
27:57
President Putin is going to wake up one day and fire a ballistic
28:00
missile into Poland where Anne is right now.
28:04
It's much more that kind of asymmetric warfare and bits of
28:07
sabotage and so on, which could go on in the Baltic States and
28:10
so on. And that's much more of a
28:12
challenge to NATO because at what point do you say this
28:15
really is warfare? And at what point do you say,
28:18
well, this is just a bit of, you know, criminality and, and
28:22
sabotage? It's it's extremely difficult.
28:25
And just on the question of what you, Ukraine might, you know,
28:28
regard as victory at the end of this, I mean, part of that is
28:30
just surviving and not being completely rolled over by the
28:33
Russians. But the other price that was
28:35
that was always held out to them by Brussels was membership of
28:39
the EU if, especially if they can't get NATO membership,
28:42
especially in Poland, where there's a very strong
28:44
agricultural lobby that doesn't like the idea of the
28:47
agricultural superpower Ukraine kind of depressing prices and
28:51
and undercutting their markets. What's the feeling in Poland
28:53
like about Ukraine becoming a member of the EU at the end of
28:57
this process? I mean, we had, there hasn't
29:00
really been a serious debate about it yet, believe it or not.
29:02
I mean, it's still, it's still feels here far away.
29:06
My, my guess is that you, that Ukraine will be a member of the
29:10
EU. It won't probably be as fast as,
29:13
as the Ukrainians hope, but there will be a way to negotiate
29:17
a, you know, a, a, you know, a syncopated or a drawn out access
29:22
to the agricultural markets as there has been with accession of
29:25
other, other states. I mean, the, just, just the,
29:28
the, the strength of Ukraine and the industrial possibilities of
29:32
Ukraine and the high level of technology that there's going to
29:36
be in Ukraine at the end of this war are going to be an enormous
29:39
advantage to Europe. And actually, I would say this
29:41
is a part of the answer to the point that you made a, a moment
29:45
ago about the UK not being ready for it or not wanting to spend
29:48
the money. I mean, there is a, there is a
29:50
technological leap that is happening in Ukraine and the UK
29:54
definitely wants to be part of that.
29:56
And actually, far as I know, British soldiers and British
29:59
observers are on the ground in Ukraine all the time looking at
30:03
it and trying to understand it. And, you know, the UK should be
30:06
so lucky that that technology transfer happens and, and the,
30:11
and the UK is able to take advantage of it.
30:13
So, so it's, it's, it's, it's definitely not, it's not, it's
30:17
not that it's not one sided. You know, there are there are
30:19
advantages that Ukraine brings to Europe and to Britain as
30:22
well. That brings us back to the
30:23
technology because Anne's completely right.
30:25
I mean, I've come across UK companies and people from UK
30:28
companies who are here working with Ukrainian companies,
30:31
particularly on drone technology, but other
30:34
battlefield technology as well. Because the point is that the
30:36
Ukraine, let's say you have a new kind of drone, well, in this
30:40
country, you develop it, your prototype in your factory in
30:44
maybe here in Khaki, maybe in Kiev, wherever.
30:46
And then you go to the front line and you test it
30:49
immediately. And within 10 days, you can turn
30:52
a prototype into something that actually works.
30:54
And because that's how long it takes to battlefield test
30:57
something, this would take years in the UK or in any other
31:01
European country or in America. And so there's no question that
31:04
at the end of this war, Ukraine will be the defence powerhouse
31:08
of Europe, for better or for worse, rightly or wrongly,
31:12
depending on people's views of this.
31:14
But in it is leading the way in certain kinds of battlefield
31:18
technology. And it is changing warfare
31:20
forever. And definitely I think that the
31:22
European countries, including Britain, already understand that
31:26
and are coming in. But the Ukrainians I speak to
31:28
say, I basically say, oh, you guys are so slow, you're so
31:32
slow. Eventually we'll teach you,
31:34
we'll help you, you come along and you have things that we can
31:37
learn as well in terms of, you know, your in terms of
31:40
technology. But we are the ones who are
31:43
testing things out. And in that sense, you are the
31:46
ones who are learning from us. And who knows, Lindsay, because,
31:49
you know, by the time, I mean, you know, this war comes to some
31:52
kind of conclusion, Ukraine will be such a defence powerhouse in
31:56
Europe, maybe NATO will change its mind, you know, and maybe
31:59
the Russians both be in a position to object about having
32:02
it even as a member of NATO. Final question to both of you.
32:05
I mean, it's, you know, in when we're deep in the weeds about
32:08
this and we discuss the diplomacy and, you know,
32:11
whether, you know, what Melania was whispering into Trump's ear
32:14
and so on. It's really easy to forget which
32:18
one shouldn't that this has been going on for a hell of a long
32:20
time, 3 1/2 years, that maybe a million people have been killed,
32:24
soldiers have been killed or maimed on the Russian side, God
32:27
knows how many on the Ukrainian side.
32:29
I mean, this is a colossal, colossal conflict for Russia.
32:33
It is hard not to see that it will reach some degree of
32:37
exhaustion, you know, on the Russian side, especially
32:41
sometime this year, especially, you know, if Trump is as good as
32:45
his word and these new weapons keep coming in.
32:47
But maybe not. So finally, first to you, then,
32:50
then Lindsay, what's your feeling, your gut feeling about
32:54
how long this, this wretched thing will carry on for?
32:58
I mean, you know, it's a colonial war and the as like all
33:04
other colonial wars like France and Algeria, you know, or the
33:07
British and India, it will end when the capital, the imperial
33:11
capital is exhausted and doesn't see the point anymore.
33:14
So you're right about that. And whether that that happens
33:16
this year or next year or the year after, I don't know, but it
33:19
will happen. Lindsay.
33:23
When I talk to Ukrainians about this, and I've been talking to
33:26
defence entrepreneurs and soldiers, they're expecting to
33:30
have to fight for at least another year.
33:32
They can see no way that this comes to an end in the near
33:36
term. They're hoping they can hold on
33:39
and that when there is some kind of settlement that they have
33:42
been holding the line well enough that they can negotiate
33:46
from a position of strength and that Ukraine will retain its
33:49
sovereignty. That is what's important to
33:51
them. OK.
33:52
Well, thank you very much to both of you for your time.
33:55
Lindsay Hilsum and Hakib and Abu Bam and Poland, thanks so much
33:58
for joining us. That's it.
33:59
That's been this edition of the Forecast.
34:01
I hope you enjoyed it. See you next time.