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Will Russia Escalate the War with Ukraine? | UK Column Interviews · UK Column Radio

0:16
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the UK column. I am delighted
0:19
Speaker 1: to be joined today by veteran journalist John Helmer. Welcome
0:22
Speaker 1: to the program. John, it's fantastic to have you on.
0:25
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. Mike, it's good to be here.
0:27
Speaker 1: You've been living or least based in Moscow since nineteen
0:31
Speaker 1: eighty nine. Just to get us started, why don't you
0:34
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about your career and what
0:36
Speaker 1: took you to Russia in the first place.
0:38
Speaker 2: Thanks for asking that question. It is a bit of
0:40
Speaker 2: a long career working for political losers. I started working
0:46
Speaker 2: in the Australian labor government of GoF Whitlam that was
0:49
Speaker 2: overthrown in November nineteen seventy five. Some of the more
0:54
Speaker 2: ancient listeners might remember I went on to work in
0:59
Speaker 2: Jimmy Carter's administration between nineteen seventy seven and nineteen eighty one,
1:06
Speaker 2: year called how he was a one term president. And
1:10
Speaker 2: then I spent some time as an advisor in the League,
1:16
Speaker 2: in the Arab League when the Arab League was based
1:19
Speaker 2: in Tunison and the secret General's Chubbley Kleby, and then
1:25
Speaker 2: I went to work for the Prime Minister of Greece
1:28
Speaker 2: Andres Papendro and served in his two term administration. When
1:34
Speaker 2: we lost Undress lost the election nineteen eighty nine, I
1:42
Speaker 2: went to Moscow to set up the first independent non
1:47
Speaker 2: national press bureau, and that's how I got started with
1:53
Speaker 2: a range of different media Singapore, London, South in the end,
2:02
Speaker 2: South Africa, Australia, the United States. As the Johnson period
2:11
Speaker 2: lost news value outside of Russia, the business interests in
2:17
Speaker 2: Russia group, so from London, I used to cover the
2:21
Speaker 2: Russian diamond business because the Bears was based in London.
2:25
Speaker 2: I used to cover insurance also from London, Steel Russian
2:30
Speaker 2: steel from London, oil movements for Platts in New York,
2:40
Speaker 2: and a variety of other media. But I ended up
2:43
Speaker 2: as the Africa correspondent for the South African Press for
2:48
Speaker 2: quite a while. That's been the journalism career that came
2:53
Speaker 2: after the political career, which came after an academic career
2:59
Speaker 2: of universities in the University of Exeter in the UK,
3:06
Speaker 2: George Washington University in the United States, University of Melbourne
3:11
Speaker 2: in Australia. So now I'm free of all of that,
3:15
Speaker 2: and we're at war and I write dancers with Bear's
3:20
Speaker 2: long read several times a week. A Twitter column for
3:27
Speaker 2: those who don't like to read long but like headlines
3:31
Speaker 2: and do podcasting because that's a new form of investigative journalism,
3:37
Speaker 2: or at least that's what I think podcasting ought to be.
3:40
Speaker 2: And I'm glad to be here as you're a good
3:43
Speaker 2: example of it. Is that enough of a.
3:46
Speaker 1: Short career, that is quite an incredible career, So thank
3:51
Speaker 1: you very much for that. If you've been in Moscow
3:55
Speaker 1: since City nine, you must have seen some pretty incredible.
3:57
Speaker 2: Changes, incredible changes. Revolution tends to be incredible. And we're
4:03
Speaker 2: only ed you another one. Elson period was a terrible period,
4:09
Speaker 2: A terrible period of loss of life, human life, animal life,
4:14
Speaker 2: the destruction of an entire economy, deliberately inflicted by a
4:20
Speaker 2: combination of the president himself, Boris Helson, people around him,
4:28
Speaker 2: aided a better by the US advisors, the Clinton administration,
4:33
Speaker 2: and others. A terrible period. I was married during that period,
4:41
Speaker 2: but I have a Russian home, Russian cat. I've seen
4:47
Speaker 2: some terrible things in my family and they continue to
4:51
Speaker 2: be terrible things. I was the first to foreigner to
4:58
Speaker 2: privatize Russian land, the very first, regrettably, that was a grave.
5:04
Speaker 2: I literally bought a grave in an old Moscow cemetery
5:09
Speaker 2: to bury my lover in Art of nineteen ninety three.
5:16
Speaker 2: And I can tell you it's not a very pleasant thing.
5:19
Speaker 2: But our graves and cemeteries were the first Russian land
5:24
Speaker 2: to be privatized so that a foreigner could buy it.
5:27
Speaker 2: I bought a double grave. So incredible, yes, terrible, yes.
5:34
Speaker 2: And I can only say that the relevance for our
5:37
Speaker 2: conversation and for us, for those of you who are
5:40
Speaker 2: listening or watching, is that all Russians are not just
5:43
Speaker 2: those my age who lived through the Elson period don't
5:47
Speaker 2: want to see it again. It was a time of troubles,
5:49
Speaker 2: which is a particular phrase first civil war that goes
5:53
Speaker 2: back to the beginning of the Roman dynasty. Our time
5:58
Speaker 2: of troubles is a mild ware grabbing what happened during
6:01
Speaker 2: the Olson period. And one of the great constraints on
6:05
Speaker 2: Russian public sentiment now that we're at war with the
6:09
Speaker 2: rest of the world, with the West, is that a
6:14
Speaker 2: serious constraint in all Russian opinion is to avoid any
6:20
Speaker 2: form of the internal coup instability leading the civil war
6:28
Speaker 2: and the replacement of a relatively stable government with instability. Now,
6:34
Speaker 2: that's precisely, precisely the war aim of MI six, the CIA,
6:40
Speaker 2: B and D, the Mossad, the intelligence services of the
6:45
Speaker 2: Western States, its policy. It's war policy the United States,
6:52
Speaker 2: the NATO allies, certainly Great Britain, France, the big native
6:57
Speaker 2: powers we now have in side Russia. A serious argument
7:03
Speaker 2: over whether that's the war aim and whether we're in
7:06
Speaker 2: a permanent war and how to get out of it,
7:09
Speaker 2: and how to win the war on the battlefield of Ukraine,
7:13
Speaker 2: to deal with a more permanent war on all the
7:16
Speaker 2: other fronts. But I have to say to kick off that,
7:19
Speaker 2: once you've lived through, Once Russians people have lived through
7:24
Speaker 2: the Olsen period, the fear, apprehension, concern of a serious
7:34
Speaker 2: destabilization domestically is a major constraint on how Russians think
7:39
Speaker 2: of what the alternative should be.
7:41
Speaker 1: So having lived through Yelsen, then obviously subsequently Putin was
7:48
Speaker 1: launched down to the international stage. Was he viewed at
7:52
Speaker 1: that time as being a positive dominic Clearly he was
7:57
Speaker 1: viewed as being a positive development. Was he considered he
8:00
Speaker 1: was he considered as being I don't want to use
8:03
Speaker 1: the word savior, but I can't think of a better word,
8:06
Speaker 1: was he considered that he had saved the day as
8:08
Speaker 1: it were at that.
8:09
Speaker 2: Time, no doubt about it. Yes, it was, and and.
8:16
Speaker 1: Is that? Is that why he has had the longevity
8:19
Speaker 1: that he has had, because because people respected what he
8:23
Speaker 1: did at that time. And then I suppose subsequently, how
8:26
Speaker 1: has that opinion changed over the years?
8:30
Speaker 2: Uh, complicated answer. Let's see, on the one hand, he
8:37
Speaker 2: can speak publicly, oh, in a way that ordinary Russian folk,
8:45
Speaker 2: educated Russian folk, on different social classes of Russians understand
8:51
Speaker 2: what he's saying. This is was not It was not
8:55
Speaker 2: the way in which we found Goshov addressed Russia in
9:01
Speaker 2: his particularly guarded way of speaking. Second, put In size,
9:08
Speaker 2: his manner, his behavior, arm strikes a common touch. There's
9:13
Speaker 2: no doubt about that. It's so common a touch that
9:19
Speaker 2: I was across the table from him in an early
9:22
Speaker 2: negotiations in Leningrad. It was called then when he was
9:26
Speaker 2: an assistant to the then mayor of Leningrad, Anatoly Sa Chuck,
9:35
Speaker 2: and put In was across the table from me. I
9:39
Speaker 2: was managing a delegation intending to develop business with Leningrad.
9:47
Speaker 2: So Chuck was an educated man but also one of
9:52
Speaker 2: the most corrupt regional leaders in Russia. In the early nineties,
9:57
Speaker 2: put In was his foreign Foreign Relaystions, Foreign Economic relations assistant.
10:02
Speaker 2: I sat opposite. You can see the footage on my website,
10:06
Speaker 2: there's an old film from ninety one. I simply didn't
10:10
Speaker 2: notice him. He was unnoticeable in that context. It was
10:17
Speaker 2: a significant job, and I'd done all the advance work
10:21
Speaker 2: to set up the meetings, and they were a highly
10:23
Speaker 2: successful set of meetings from our delegations point of view
10:27
Speaker 2: and from the Russian delegations point of view. But Potun
10:31
Speaker 2: himself had such a common touch he wasn't noticeable then.
10:36
Speaker 2: That was back in nineteen ninety one. Subsequently, he's had
10:41
Speaker 2: a remarkable career. But as an individual, as a political leader,
10:49
Speaker 2: he has very special qualities compared to almost anyone else
10:54
Speaker 2: you can think of, and certainly in my career in
10:57
Speaker 2: the United States and Greece and Europe, in Australia, in
11:01
Speaker 2: the Arab world. He has an extraordinary memory. He has
11:07
Speaker 2: the mind of aneminist. He can memorize vast amounts of
11:12
Speaker 2: detailed statistics information of all kinds. This is a particularly
11:20
Speaker 2: unusual quality. I've never seen it before, but Russian people
11:24
Speaker 2: have never seen it before. You can see it on
11:27
Speaker 2: display when he gives one of those annual press conferences
11:31
Speaker 2: or direct line with public public questions and answers for
11:35
Speaker 2: four hours. Now, hardly anyone politically can stand or sit
11:40
Speaker 2: for four hours with almost no notes, and hardly any
11:44
Speaker 2: Telli prompting and speak as he does. This is very impressive.
11:49
Speaker 2: It's comforting. It's been reassuring over the years, and the
11:54
Speaker 2: Russian economy has grown, and he's confidence and his ability
12:03
Speaker 2: to address questions, his ability to think on his feet,
12:08
Speaker 2: on his manner of joking, his fitness, physical fitness, all
12:15
Speaker 2: of those things have substantiated the very stable public approval rating,
12:22
Speaker 2: and nobody in Europe, nobody in North America has that
12:26
Speaker 2: level of stable rating. But it's falling now and it's
12:30
Speaker 2: fallen before, and that responds to normal political pressures. And
12:35
Speaker 2: under these both normal political domestic pressures, Russia is in
12:39
Speaker 2: economic recession now. It's self inflicted, and we don't need
12:44
Speaker 2: to get into the details unless you want to. But
12:48
Speaker 2: in a recession, in a war, in inflationary conditions, with
12:55
Speaker 2: inflationary expectations, you have a very inflammable combination that usually
13:02
Speaker 2: defeats an incumbent at election time, and under that pressure,
13:07
Speaker 2: some of President Putin's personal faults become more obvious. One
13:14
Speaker 2: of those of the years has been that the mind
13:18
Speaker 2: of the nemenis this extraordinary memory allows recital of facts,
13:25
Speaker 2: the ability to mobilize historical memory. But it's not a
13:31
Speaker 2: strategic thinking brain. It's not. It's a political brain that
13:38
Speaker 2: balances an extraordinary memory capacity for what he's been told
13:44
Speaker 2: or what he's read from the briefing papers. He balances
13:49
Speaker 2: between options, he balances between lobbies. But to calculate a
13:55
Speaker 2: head his wheat. He he never played chess. There's hardly
14:02
Speaker 2: been a Russian leader who doesn't or didn't, and he
14:07
Speaker 2: admits to this, played chess as a as a boy,
14:10
Speaker 2: as a student.
14:11
Speaker 1: I just I just need to interrupt you there job,
14:14
Speaker 1: because because I was at a Defense committee meeting with
14:19
Speaker 1: the former head of the Integrity Initiative, who was giving evidence,
14:24
Speaker 1: who was very clear to tell the Defense committee that
14:28
Speaker 1: Putin never never played chess, that his game was go
14:31
Speaker 1: and and and so I don't know whether you whether.
14:34
Speaker 2: You can agree he doesn't play the Japanese go or
14:40
Speaker 2: the way cheers it's called in Chinese is an important
14:44
Speaker 2: and very valuable strategic game. He doesn't play strategic games
14:51
Speaker 2: that witness misunderstood by the way. Ah well that was yes.
15:01
Speaker 2: It confounds the narrative that President Putting is the sort
15:05
Speaker 2: of evil strategist. It's in fact he's a balancing politician
15:13
Speaker 2: of a kind that's very recognizable in Washington, DC, less
15:17
Speaker 2: recognizable in London, even less recognizable in Parasol or Berlin. No,
15:23
Speaker 2: he balances between factions now as a problem, a serious problem,
15:27
Speaker 2: a strategic problem. When faced with a strategy of the
15:32
Speaker 2: destruction of Russia, which is the Western strategy for the
15:37
Speaker 2: future of Russia, President put In is a balancer.
15:42
Speaker 1: Now.
15:42
Speaker 2: It's very difficult to manage strategic thinking when you're trying
15:49
Speaker 2: to balance plobbies. And the key lobby that President Putsin
15:53
Speaker 2: has long depended on was the Russian oligarch lobby, created
15:58
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety six. I've spent most of my time,
16:03
Speaker 2: and readers who could go back to duncas with Bears
16:07
Speaker 2: John Helmer dot net will see that there are hundreds
16:12
Speaker 2: I don't know, I've never counted them. Dozens to hundreds
16:15
Speaker 2: of possibly more than a thousand case studies of oligar
16:21
Speaker 2: decision making sector by sector, industry by industry, company by company,
16:26
Speaker 2: and which President put In, either as president or as
16:29
Speaker 2: Prime Minister, played a decisive role. One of those stories
16:33
Speaker 2: I turned into a book. It's called softcomb Plot. It
16:38
Speaker 2: all the evidence built out in the High Court in
16:40
Speaker 2: London when a Russian state shipping company its current executives,
16:47
Speaker 2: then current executives, so the former executives for alleged corruption
16:53
Speaker 2: in chartering. That produced fifteen years, hundreds of millions of
16:58
Speaker 2: dollars worth of legal fee and expenses, but a treasure
17:02
Speaker 2: trove of evidence about how put In manage the shipping sector.
17:09
Speaker 2: I only mentioned this because it's in the record, and
17:12
Speaker 2: in the record what you see is not the way
17:15
Speaker 2: intelligence agency represented. Integrity initiative types appearing in the House
17:21
Speaker 2: of Commons are likely to depict the Russian way of
17:25
Speaker 2: decision making in the Kremlin. But it's crucial now, and
17:29
Speaker 2: it's crucial for Russian Russians as much as it's crucial
17:34
Speaker 2: for Russia's enemies. And put In is not a strategic thinker,
17:42
Speaker 2: and you can't right now balanced opposites of the seriousness
17:50
Speaker 2: presented themselves when we're at war and when we're in recession.
17:56
Speaker 2: That's a very new combination, a very new combination. As
18:01
Speaker 2: I said, when it confronted Linda Bays Johnson, he dropped
18:05
Speaker 2: out of the race for president. For reelection as president,
18:09
Speaker 2: that combination damages incumbentis And that's precisely the combination that
18:16
Speaker 2: is the war aim of the Alliance against Russia. That's
18:19
Speaker 2: why President Trump signed the a Declaration of the G
18:25
Speaker 2: seven back in June to increase the pressure on the
18:29
Speaker 2: Russian economy. That's why Trump signed the Anchor Declaration, the
18:34
Speaker 2: six paragraph piece of paper at NATO. Despite all the
18:38
Speaker 2: rubbish that he threw at Keir Starmer and Georgia Muloney
18:43
Speaker 2: and the Socialists, the government of Spain and so forth,
18:47
Speaker 2: leaving all that insult stuff aside, Trump signed on to
18:52
Speaker 2: the NATO program of destroying Russia. That's what they're doing.
18:57
Speaker 2: And within the Kremlin it's very, very difficult to accept
19:05
Speaker 2: that that's the war aim, and it's more difficult to
19:08
Speaker 2: figure out the strategy of combating it. And that's where
19:13
Speaker 2: we are now, and we're facing elections September eighteen.
19:16
Speaker 1: To twenty, and so do you think's it starting the
19:20
Speaker 1: Special military operation a mistake?
19:23
Speaker 2: A good question, like yes and no. It was too little,
19:31
Speaker 2: too late in once and in that sense a mistake
19:35
Speaker 2: of that type, in the sense that from the push
19:41
Speaker 2: of February fourteen in Kiev, when the United States pulled
19:47
Speaker 2: off a cove that removed President Yanokovich and replaced him
19:54
Speaker 2: with a series of leaders, eventually led by Poroshenka, and
20:02
Speaker 2: the civil war started in the Ukraine. From then on
20:06
Speaker 2: it was clear that the Ukraine would become a fortified
20:11
Speaker 2: platform for attacking Russia. Step by step that escalation involved
20:20
Speaker 2: preparing the Allied populations. The Novachok affair came March twenty
20:27
Speaker 2: eighteen to prepare the British public for supporting a war
20:30
Speaker 2: because Russia sent poisons onto British territory to kill people.
20:36
Speaker 2: But before that, before the Nonachuch affair of March twenty eighteen,
20:41
Speaker 2: there was the July twenty fourteen alleged Russian shootdown of
20:48
Speaker 2: MGE seventeen, the Malaysian Airlines flight, in which the majority
20:53
Speaker 2: of two hundred and ninety eight people killed with Dutch.
20:57
Speaker 2: A substantial group then were Astrals, Indonesians, Malaysians, one Canadian.
21:04
Speaker 2: For British, I might just say, for our British audience,
21:07
Speaker 2: that four British deaths in that aircraft were never, never,
21:11
Speaker 2: never investigated as they as British law requires by an
21:16
Speaker 2: inquest into the course of the into the cause of death.
21:19
Speaker 2: The only inquests held are under British Anglo American law
21:25
Speaker 2: were two inquests held in Melbourne and Sydney for the
21:30
Speaker 2: Australian victims, both of them concluded in a very rigged
21:35
Speaker 2: simple form of inquest to adopt the Dutch version that
21:42
Speaker 2: the Russians have participated in and caused the shootdown. And
21:46
Speaker 2: then the rest of the story you all know. So
21:50
Speaker 2: what we have as a series of escalations, a series
21:53
Speaker 2: of preparations for the NATO publics to support war against
21:59
Speaker 2: Russia in the belief that Russia was threatening when when
22:03
Speaker 2: the when the reality was the reverse, and the pressure
22:07
Speaker 2: on President put In was coming from a very powerful
22:11
Speaker 2: oligarch lobby backed by the Central Bank Governor Olvera w Ulna,
22:17
Speaker 2: to to refuse to go to war, to refuse to
22:22
Speaker 2: act preemptively, to refuse even to act defensively. To cut
22:28
Speaker 2: a very long story, a very complex political story short.
22:33
Speaker 2: What then happened was that President put In was confronted
22:42
Speaker 2: by the by surprise, with the February push in Kiev
22:48
Speaker 2: and the possibility that the US British Ukrainian Alliance would
22:56
Speaker 2: seize Severstopel and confirm the control of Crimea as an
23:03
Speaker 2: allied NATO base for the first time. That shock was
23:08
Speaker 2: a shock to President put In. It was not exactly
23:11
Speaker 2: a shock to the general staff. The general staff have
23:14
Speaker 2: been telling President put In, we told you so from
23:19
Speaker 2: February of twenty fourteen onwards, we told yourself. Isn't is
23:25
Speaker 2: an answer to not a state of deafness on President
23:29
Speaker 2: Putin's puppet, rather a political method which I've just described,
23:34
Speaker 2: balancing in such a way that you try to balance
23:39
Speaker 2: your lobbies, and when you can't, or when it's very difficult,
23:43
Speaker 2: you put off. You play the clock, you try to
23:47
Speaker 2: delay making the decision, where you decide one way one day,
23:51
Speaker 2: next week another way, and so forth. What then happened
23:57
Speaker 2: was by February of two, twenty twenty two, a choice
24:04
Speaker 2: of going to war or doing something less than war
24:11
Speaker 2: that promised a decisive outcome that would have been sufficient
24:15
Speaker 2: from President Putin's political objective point of view, and might
24:20
Speaker 2: have he thought satisfy the domestic lobbying of the Oligar
24:26
Speaker 2: groups controlling the economy and the Central Bank, which would
24:30
Speaker 2: do least damage. They argued to the relations between Russia,
24:36
Speaker 2: the Europeans, particularly the Germans, and the United States. So
24:40
Speaker 2: what was attempted was another military push in Kiev. The
24:45
Speaker 2: Russians attempted to replicate the American success of February twenty fourteen.
24:52
Speaker 2: They only they failed. The military push that was designed
24:58
Speaker 2: at topple Zelenski replace him was spearheaded by a special
25:04
Speaker 2: special military operations. Special forces flew into the aton of airfield,
25:11
Speaker 2: the air manufacturing Plants airfield at a place called Ostomel
25:17
Speaker 2: outside of Kiev, and they were to be They were
25:22
Speaker 2: to seize the airfield to create a bridge head for
25:26
Speaker 2: reinforcements to establish, then a lightning strike into Kiev, backed
25:35
Speaker 2: up by line of tanks and heavy equipment moving from
25:41
Speaker 2: the in the east of Kiev, so moving from west
25:45
Speaker 2: to east. That operation was a disastrous, catastrophic failure. The
25:52
Speaker 2: Ukrainians and Americans and British were ready, were waiting, We're anticipating.
25:57
Speaker 2: The Russians were wiped out on ground. The reinforcement aircraft
26:03
Speaker 2: were destroyed and the line of tanks which have been
26:07
Speaker 2: set up to encourage a change of powering Kiev were withdrawn.
26:14
Speaker 2: Put In was then forced to the Istanbul first Istanbul
26:20
Speaker 2: round it, and that produced a series of negotiations which
26:24
Speaker 2: everybody's familiar with, which produced terms which are ultimately initial
26:31
Speaker 2: by both the Zelensky side and the Russian side, but
26:36
Speaker 2: presented serious problems to the long term war plan of
26:39
Speaker 2: the allies that was Boris Johnson, but not only Boris
26:44
Speaker 2: Johnson at the time, and it presented problems the General
26:47
Speaker 2: staff of Russia. So what you, what all readers of
26:51
Speaker 2: this history know, is that Boris Johnson intervened. President put
26:57
Speaker 2: In has said this many times to can Visolensky to
27:02
Speaker 2: withdraw from his signature from the initially and withdraw from
27:05
Speaker 2: the pact and prepare to fight on and expand the fight.
27:09
Speaker 2: And that's what happened. But the part that's left out
27:13
Speaker 2: is that the terms were also, let's say, less than
27:17
Speaker 2: satisfactory for the general staff. And so there was also
27:22
Speaker 2: a degree of confidence on the Russian side that in
27:25
Speaker 2: a war of attrition, which is what was anticipated the
27:30
Speaker 2: relatively small offensive force that Russia had sent in against
27:36
Speaker 2: the defenses of the Ukraine, there was confidence that those
27:39
Speaker 2: defenses could be quickly overcome. That was overconfident. I'm not
27:45
Speaker 2: the only one who thought that, because my sources in
27:49
Speaker 2: the general stuff, and my sources and the intelligence overs
27:52
Speaker 2: my sources in the Donbas itself all were telling me
27:55
Speaker 2: this can this will be quick. But it wasn't. That
27:59
Speaker 2: was overconfidence. And you can still hear the same voices
28:04
Speaker 2: on US podcasts. I won't mention the names. Our audience
28:08
Speaker 2: know who they are. Have been forecasting a quick Russian
28:12
Speaker 2: victory within three months, and they've been saying that since
28:16
Speaker 2: March twenty twenty two. Well, here we are, and what
28:20
Speaker 2: do we have now is the ability of the Ukrainian side,
28:27
Speaker 2: backed by the British, the United States and the other allies,
28:31
Speaker 2: to plan for two more years of war at seventy
28:34
Speaker 2: billion dollars each year plus. And they are now increasingly
28:41
Speaker 2: confident that they have struck vulnerabilities inside Russia through the
28:47
Speaker 2: development of drone warfare. Now, let's just rememberne war drone numbers.
28:53
Speaker 2: Drone war technology wasn't even listed on the manifests or
28:59
Speaker 2: the attachments or the appendixes of the Istanbul Agreement. As
29:04
Speaker 2: part of the demilitarization of Ukraine that both sides were
29:09
Speaker 2: negotiating at the time. Drone warfare wasn't a negotiable at
29:13
Speaker 2: the time. It's developed since then, it's developed so fast,
29:17
Speaker 2: so thoroughly, so persuasively, that what we now have is
29:22
Speaker 2: an extraordinary display of Ukrainian war fighting by drone is
29:27
Speaker 2: being integrated into NATO operations, NATO base operations in places
29:33
Speaker 2: like Greece and Italy, NATO training operations for other forces
29:39
Speaker 2: in Germany. And this is the extent to which drone
29:44
Speaker 2: warfare has developed in these four and a half almost
29:49
Speaker 2: five years now.
29:51
Speaker 1: So you Russia's had to go to Iran for its designs.
29:57
Speaker 2: There's that too. U S Army Secretary Driscoll said it
30:02
Speaker 2: last week, testifying in Congress, the US is going to
30:05
Speaker 2: the Ukrainians for training, for advice, for modeling of command
30:11
Speaker 2: control of Ukrainian the combination of Ukrainian surveillance, sensing, targeting,
30:20
Speaker 2: and guiding weapons in defense and offense. Driscoll is saying, basically,
30:27
Speaker 2: the United States Army isn't as advanced in drone warfare
30:31
Speaker 2: as the Ukrainians, although the United States plus the gay
30:34
Speaker 2: TO allies have funded, directed, planned, helped and continued to
30:40
Speaker 2: guide that entire system with their satellites and their operations
30:44
Speaker 2: over the Black Sea, over the Baltic and other places.
30:48
Speaker 2: So what you have is the capacity the Ukrainian allied
30:55
Speaker 2: site thinks for escalation, to take the initiative away from
31:00
Speaker 2: the Russian side. The Russian side have countess that they
31:06
Speaker 2: have strategic alternatives, and there's got to be and there
31:10
Speaker 2: is a very active debate underway at the moment on that.
31:13
Speaker 2: But you began with a very important question, Mike, and
31:16
Speaker 2: I pardon me for going off so long, but I'm
31:20
Speaker 2: trying to say that over time Russia has been capable
31:27
Speaker 2: of correcting mistakes, not necessarily admitting them publicly, but correcting them.
31:34
Speaker 2: The initial mistake was to underestimate the commitment to permanent
31:43
Speaker 2: war against Russia. The term imperialism is ought not to
31:49
Speaker 2: be a term that's new to anyone educated in the
31:53
Speaker 2: Soviet period, like President put In, but to use the
31:58
Speaker 2: term has been anathema the commitment of his economic base,
32:02
Speaker 2: the economic base of Russia on which Putin has depended,
32:06
Speaker 2: on which he's convinced and persuaded the Russian public that
32:10
Speaker 2: he can control for the benefit of all that oligarch
32:14
Speaker 2: base has never wanted this war has always wanted a
32:20
Speaker 2: kind of oligarchs united between Russia, the United States, and Europe.
32:27
Speaker 2: They've exported their capital to support such a globalization of oligarchy,
32:34
Speaker 2: and the sanctions have hurt them. The sanctions intending to
32:38
Speaker 2: drive them against the president began in twenty and fourteen
32:43
Speaker 2: and accelerated since twenty twenty two. The mistakes that are
32:48
Speaker 2: made may seem to be obvious in retrospect. Perhaps I
32:52
Speaker 2: should wind up on that, But in retrospect you are missing.
32:56
Speaker 2: One misses the pressure of the balancing effects, and politicians
33:03
Speaker 2: must balance, must try to strike consensus, must try to
33:09
Speaker 2: preserve our significant fights over budget funds, over short term,
33:16
Speaker 2: medium term, long term planning priorities, and the allocation of capital,
33:21
Speaker 2: all of those things. President put In has tried to balance.
33:24
Speaker 2: He doesn't think he's made any mistakes. Some misjudgment, he
33:29
Speaker 2: admits to of the of the adversary. But here we are,
33:36
Speaker 2: and it would be unfair to put in the Kremlin,
33:42
Speaker 2: the lobbies for and against, to say that they are
33:45
Speaker 2: making mistakes. Except for the mistake that's common that began
33:50
Speaker 2: the period. It's a mistake to underestimate the commitment to
33:55
Speaker 2: imperial control of the United States, and Trump is no
33:59
Speaker 2: different from his predecessors. He's different in his methods, he's
34:06
Speaker 2: different in his successes and outcomes, and he's different, obviously
34:10
Speaker 2: different in a number of wars he's finding at once.
34:14
Speaker 2: But he's the US Empire isn't falling down and he's
34:18
Speaker 2: not going to destroy it.
34:20
Speaker 1: And so at what point is whoever is advising going
34:24
Speaker 1: to say that this war of attrition is a bad idea.
34:29
Speaker 1: And I mean, for example, if we look at at
34:32
Speaker 1: Israel's approach to Iran, their attitude has been to cut
34:36
Speaker 1: the head off the leadership, or at least to try
34:39
Speaker 1: to yes. But Putin seems to be going out of
34:42
Speaker 1: his way to not do that. In Ukraine, he's not
34:45
Speaker 1: attacking Kiev in a significant way, and the front line
34:51
Speaker 1: is absolutely a war of attrition. So at one point
34:55
Speaker 1: is the pressure going to come on for that policy
34:57
Speaker 1: to change and for him to use some of the
35:01
Speaker 1: more significant weaponry that he has, like a resnik and
35:05
Speaker 1: other things.
35:06
Speaker 2: That pressure has been on enough. It's certainly on now,
35:13
Speaker 2: my sources were saying, and so I reported last week
35:16
Speaker 2: that the president has to make a decision on escalation
35:22
Speaker 2: that would be asymmetrical that would be would recover the
35:28
Speaker 2: initiative from the Ukrainians and cut the Ukraine as a
35:34
Speaker 2: warp fighting firing platform against Russia off from its NATO
35:38
Speaker 2: sources of supply, materi l, intelligence, and so forth. I've
35:44
Speaker 2: been told by sources who've been confident President put In,
35:47
Speaker 2: we all make that decision. However, a couple of days back,
35:53
Speaker 2: he called in a trusted Russian television reporter named Pavlin
36:01
Speaker 2: in order to tell him that retaliation against the Ukraine
36:08
Speaker 2: attacks on the hinterland of Russia, against Russian oil production,
36:14
Speaker 2: oil and gas exports, against Russian shipping in the seas
36:18
Speaker 2: of Asol, and so forth, the retaliation will be, to
36:22
Speaker 2: use President put Its term, mirror retaliation, only more powerful
36:27
Speaker 2: than they've delivered. Mirror means symmetrical. Mirror means the theory
36:34
Speaker 2: that the other side accepts an escalation ladder, and you
36:38
Speaker 2: go up one step on the ladder at a time,
36:42
Speaker 2: and each of you respect each other as rules of fighting,
36:46
Speaker 2: rules of war. You respect each other, and you don't
36:50
Speaker 2: reach the top of the ladder, which is where tactical
36:54
Speaker 2: and then strategic nuclear warfare begins. At that point. The
36:58
Speaker 2: US wargames proven this total loss of control of the
37:03
Speaker 2: escalation on both sides, and the Indians and the Pakistanis
37:10
Speaker 2: understood that during their brief war last year, and one
37:14
Speaker 2: should reread what the chief of the Indian staff has
37:18
Speaker 2: said publicly. I published it on how the Indian side
37:24
Speaker 2: attacked Pakistan's command and control when they were detected to
37:30
Speaker 2: be reaching for their nuclear weapons. They were moving them
37:33
Speaker 2: or making them merge to move nuclear weapons out of
37:38
Speaker 2: storage and into use at that point, according to the
37:42
Speaker 2: Indian side, and this I believe is controversial I know
37:47
Speaker 2: in audiences on what exactly happened. The Indian science version
37:52
Speaker 2: is that both the Pakistani generals and the Indian generals
37:56
Speaker 2: understood to hauled down their escalation steps reciprocally. That wasn't mirror.
38:06
Speaker 2: That was the result of Indian asymmetrical attack. That was effective.
38:12
Speaker 2: Now you mentioned the Israeli example and what the Uranian
38:18
Speaker 2: side had been able to do to threaten both the
38:21
Speaker 2: penetration of Israeli so called perfect air defense and second
38:28
Speaker 2: what the Uranians have been able to demonstrate through the
38:31
Speaker 2: capture of the Straits regime by bottling up the Hormos
38:37
Speaker 2: Strait and then adding with Hooti assistance that possiblity bubbel
38:42
Speaker 2: Nan dubbing the Red Sea are being bottled up too.
38:46
Speaker 2: The relatively small weak power Iran versus a relatively large
38:52
Speaker 2: a very large superpower like the United States can inflict
38:57
Speaker 2: asymmetrical damage and pain on the States through the oil mechanism,
39:03
Speaker 2: through the supply of just about everything you can think
39:05
Speaker 2: of that comes out of oil and gas, including helium
39:09
Speaker 2: that is required any whenever any of us go to
39:13
Speaker 2: a scanner in a hospital, when we're dying or when
39:16
Speaker 2: we're in desperate need of a scanner, the helium required
39:19
Speaker 2: for that in Europe comes from the Gulf and the
39:24
Speaker 2: Hormos straight off. Impose the Iranian rule against the US blockade,
39:29
Speaker 2: and you have a strategic imbalance that Iran can play
39:34
Speaker 2: now right now, here's where we are in Russia. If
39:38
Speaker 2: you don't mind, I think you asked me that question,
39:40
Speaker 2: so I'll say the answer. On the one hand, you
39:44
Speaker 2: have a lobby saying we must not escalate. That's the
39:48
Speaker 2: Central Bank governor, the Finance Minister, of the advisors in
39:55
Speaker 2: the Kremlin, chief of Staff and others are a poet
40:00
Speaker 2: by the Security Council majority, which comprises the Foreign Minister,
40:06
Speaker 2: the Defense Minister, the general staffs, and the intelligence services.
40:10
Speaker 2: They're the ones saying what you said, Mike, we cannot,
40:14
Speaker 2: we will. We're having the war of attrition thrown back
40:19
Speaker 2: at us. Not on the front we were advancing, slowly
40:23
Speaker 2: but surely advancing westward, but in the hinterland and in
40:29
Speaker 2: the near seas as of Black Sea, a Gulf of Finland,
40:34
Speaker 2: and on the high seas, as far as the Atlantic,
40:37
Speaker 2: the English Channel, the Mediterranean. On all of the all
40:42
Speaker 2: of these fronts, the adversary, the US and NATO allies,
40:48
Speaker 2: are escalating and they are threatening our lines of trade,
40:54
Speaker 2: our ability to deliver oil, the logistics of diesel fuel
41:00
Speaker 2: supply for the harvest season and the replanting season which
41:03
Speaker 2: are now underway. All of these things are causing serious
41:07
Speaker 2: problems domestically. And we're an election period, so we've got
41:12
Speaker 2: serious grievance at the petrol station, serious grievance when the
41:16
Speaker 2: lights are out in Crimea, as they are out and
41:20
Speaker 2: so on. This then becomes every time a Russian admits
41:25
Speaker 2: to it, a confirmation on the adversary side in London,
41:30
Speaker 2: Paris boiling, and Washington that the war can be won
41:34
Speaker 2: against Russia. So what can President put in doo? What
41:40
Speaker 2: is the escalation options that he has? Can he get
41:44
Speaker 2: away with something a bit less as he thought the
41:48
Speaker 2: special military operation was a bit less than going to
41:52
Speaker 2: war back in February twenty twenty two. Well, I'll just
41:56
Speaker 2: go through this basically, and I'm you can ask me
42:01
Speaker 2: for my opinion, but for the time being, I'm giving
42:05
Speaker 2: you what my sources tell me. Not all of them agree,
42:08
Speaker 2: and I don't necessarily agree with them. But what the
42:13
Speaker 2: targets are for escalation do not require tactical nuclear weapons.
42:19
Speaker 2: I'll come back to the advocates of that and why
42:22
Speaker 2: they're basically a deception operation are not a very good one.
42:28
Speaker 2: I'll come back to that. What are the immediate options
42:32
Speaker 2: for escalation? They are to attack the delivery systems for delivery,
42:41
Speaker 2: guidance and electricity, delivery, guidance, electricity or other three escalation
42:48
Speaker 2: steps which the Russian side can now take but is
42:52
Speaker 2: not taking to the degree necessary to be effective. In
42:56
Speaker 2: military terms. Delivery means are not simply mirror attacks on
43:04
Speaker 2: the military industrial complex. Those were the targets in the
43:08
Speaker 2: Kiev region in the last forty eight hours. Those were
43:12
Speaker 2: the targets in and around Odessa. Earlier last week. The
43:18
Speaker 2: Odessa attacks focused on the delivery systems bringing in cargoes
43:23
Speaker 2: to the port of Odessa, so they mirrored mirrored the
43:29
Speaker 2: Ukrainian drone attacks on the upgoing Russian grain vessels going
43:35
Speaker 2: out the seavers off to Turkey, Egypt and other grain
43:38
Speaker 2: buyers in Africa and so forth. That was mirror but
43:43
Speaker 2: an escalation to stop sea delivery was the intention around Odessa.
43:49
Speaker 2: It's been the intention for years now. There was also
43:53
Speaker 2: the intention to strike at the drone and missile launching
43:58
Speaker 2: sites in which the British played a significant role in
44:02
Speaker 2: and around a desert to threaten Russian shipping in the
44:04
Speaker 2: Black Sea. That's not the only delivery system. The delivery
44:09
Speaker 2: system by land from Jejufta in Poland into Ukraine. That's
44:15
Speaker 2: the rail route that British Prime Minister, French Prime Minister,
44:20
Speaker 2: heads of state of the Allies have taken to get
44:23
Speaker 2: to Kiev to shake the Zelenski's hand. That system of
44:28
Speaker 2: delivery remains, it's not being cut. And we also have
44:33
Speaker 2: the escalation target of all the satellites and drones above
44:40
Speaker 2: the Black Sea which are used to guide drone attacks
44:44
Speaker 2: on crime here and so forth. Guidance systems, satellite and
44:49
Speaker 2: drone surveillance is a constant operation. Russian side has not
44:55
Speaker 2: really fought it. Electricity, you can see, has been a
45:01
Speaker 2: target for years. But the lights remain on in Vow,
45:04
Speaker 2: the lights remain on in Kiev. There's much still to
45:07
Speaker 2: be done now. You can read the Russian military bloggers
45:13
Speaker 2: pointing out the defense of the Russian trading fleet has
45:18
Speaker 2: been promised but not implemented. I was reading today Aleksarova,
45:23
Speaker 2: a significant Ukrainian opposition leader now in exile in crime,
45:28
Speaker 2: here spelling out the history of Russian Soviet Red Army
45:33
Speaker 2: armament of the Russian tanker and trade fleet during World
45:37
Speaker 2: War II. And he was basically saying, in a very
45:40
Speaker 2: subtle way, look at this history of nineteen forty one
45:43
Speaker 2: to forty five and compare what we're doing now. What
45:47
Speaker 2: he concluded was, we're not doing anything now. And you
45:52
Speaker 2: remember might the effective US UK operation off the west
45:57
Speaker 2: coast of Scotland two intercept and seize a Russian tanker. Okay,
46:04
Speaker 2: So the delivery, guidance and electricity are three targets for
46:11
Speaker 2: escalation on the Ukrainian battlefield, and these and on the
46:17
Speaker 2: high seas and on the near seas. These are options
46:22
Speaker 2: for escalation, but they're not mirror as President Putin said.
46:27
Speaker 2: They would require a commitment to escalation supremacy, they would
46:32
Speaker 2: require surprise and for the time then President put In
46:36
Speaker 2: saying no.
46:38
Speaker 1: And of course if he were to implement that type
46:42
Speaker 1: of escalation, that would be presented in the West as
46:46
Speaker 1: Russian aggression. And I do wonder how much of the
46:50
Speaker 1: you know, because we're hearing this refrain from various voices
46:56
Speaker 1: about potential change in military doctrine in the UK, that
47:01
Speaker 1: the upgrades at RAF LCK and Heath, for example, and
47:04
Speaker 1: the fact that F thirty fives are going to be
47:06
Speaker 1: armed with tactical nuclear weapons. And the question then is
47:10
Speaker 1: is it really an intent to use these weapons by
47:14
Speaker 1: the West or is this a bidding exercise on Putin?
47:20
Speaker 2: Well, I can't speak. You can speak as you've just
47:24
Speaker 2: done for UK strategy. It's the There is a new,
47:35
Speaker 2: relatively new Russian nuclear the terrence doctrine the use of
47:41
Speaker 2: nuclear weapons. The terms rules were changed in twenty twenty four.
47:49
Speaker 2: I'm looking down at the document issued November twenty twenty four,
47:54
Speaker 2: call fundamentals the State Policy of the Russian Federation on
47:58
Speaker 2: nucleared Terrance. And this provides that when nuclear powers assist
48:09
Speaker 2: in the deployment of threats to Russian nuclear triad, then
48:21
Speaker 2: the Russian side reserves the right to reply with nuclear
48:27
Speaker 2: counter attack. Now that's exactly what the Ukrainian Operation Spider
48:32
Speaker 2: Web did last year when it attacked the using drones
48:40
Speaker 2: in trucks. Quite close on. It attacked the airfield two
48:45
Speaker 2: of the airfields in which there were strategic nuclear bombers.
48:49
Speaker 2: Part that was a signal that the NATO side is
48:55
Speaker 2: preparing and has the capability to make sneak attacks. This
49:01
Speaker 2: second signal was the attack on the Valdaie Command Control
49:07
Speaker 2: Center adjacent President Puts in his residence in Valdie with drones.
49:15
Speaker 2: Whether he was physically in valde at the time, whether
49:19
Speaker 2: the telephone call between Trump and put In where it
49:24
Speaker 2: was designed to establish a put In physical geographical whereabouts
49:29
Speaker 2: just before the drones attack, those are details I can't answer,
49:34
Speaker 2: But the general purpose of the signal was to say,
49:38
Speaker 2: what you've just said, the NATO side is ready to attack,
49:43
Speaker 2: is building up the capacity for massive and surprise attack
49:48
Speaker 2: against Russia in order to determine whether the put In
49:56
Speaker 2: will invoke the preemptive nuclear strike provisions in the twenty
50:02
Speaker 2: November twenty twenty four strategy document and attack in order
50:09
Speaker 2: to deter and that where where it's a terrible game
50:15
Speaker 2: to play. But that's I hope I've explained that on
50:20
Speaker 2: both sides are in a sense daring the other to
50:25
Speaker 2: move to the point where it will be clearer. But
50:28
Speaker 2: I've explained that that's And I don't think anybody listening
50:33
Speaker 2: from MI six or cias is in any doubt President
50:37
Speaker 2: put In balances if they think. I know, William Burnes,
50:41
Speaker 2: I think told the economists differently, but he's kidding the economists,
50:45
Speaker 2: and the economists is kidding themselves. Put In is the
50:50
Speaker 2: least likely to make preemptive attacks, the least likely. The
50:56
Speaker 2: pattern I've just explained, I hope explains it since two
51:00
Speaker 2: and seven when he issued the first redline warning the
51:04
Speaker 2: Munich Security Conference, through the events of the Puts of
51:08
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen, the events that subsequently, through the twenty twenty
51:14
Speaker 2: two President puts it is balancing, and balancing means playing
51:19
Speaker 2: for time, and balancing means no preemption, and balancing means
51:25
Speaker 2: he won't rise to provocation. But will he rise at all. Well, yes,
51:31
Speaker 2: there's now increasing compelling reason. But he doesn't have to
51:36
Speaker 2: move to tactical nuclear weapons. And you mentioned it, my
51:40
Speaker 2: thanks for mentioning it. Does he have to use Irashnik
51:44
Speaker 2: armed conventionally? Well, look what he's done. Look what he's done.
51:52
Speaker 2: He's fined the Irashnik for demonstration effect three times. Why
51:58
Speaker 2: do you need the Americans fired that dropped their atomic
52:02
Speaker 2: bomb on Hiroshima to end the war, to persuade the
52:07
Speaker 2: emperor and the Japanese military command to surrender. But they
52:13
Speaker 2: dropped the second one Nagasaki as a demonstration to Stalin.
52:18
Speaker 2: This is what we're going to do to you. My view,
52:21
Speaker 2: it's not controversial. I think Dan Elsberg's book on US
52:26
Speaker 2: nuclear war fighting plans against Russia Soviet Union show it
52:30
Speaker 2: too the US and he gave one demonstration effect if
52:35
Speaker 2: you liked, why would President put In make three erashniic
52:39
Speaker 2: demonstration effects Nepa, Petrov's Kiev region and the most recent one.
52:45
Speaker 2: Why not use it in an attack capacity? What's the
52:52
Speaker 2: demonstration effect? If you have to repeat it three times,
52:55
Speaker 2: it's lost its demonstration effect. They do not, however, The
53:02
Speaker 2: Russian side does not, however, need to reach tactical nuclear escalation,
53:08
Speaker 2: although you're fine, particularly the person Sergey Karaganov, who's now
53:14
Speaker 2: backed by a lot of US podcasters making the case
53:19
Speaker 2: that Russia and President put In needs to go to
53:24
Speaker 2: that level of escalation against NATO targets outside the Ukrainian
53:30
Speaker 2: battlefield to achieve the level of tough to Terrance that
53:34
Speaker 2: would persuade the US to break with the European warfighters,
53:40
Speaker 2: persuade the US and Germany and the UK and France
53:45
Speaker 2: and Italy are to pull back to, as it were,
53:50
Speaker 2: step down around or two in their plans. Well, that's
53:56
Speaker 2: essentially Karaganovs and others appealed to the president. In theory,
54:04
Speaker 2: it's not a case that that that if tactical or
54:08
Speaker 2: conventional irationic weapons were fired at a NATO target outside
54:14
Speaker 2: the Ukrainian battle too, it's a theory of what the
54:17
Speaker 2: British government, the French government, the Italian government, German government
54:21
Speaker 2: would do. But you said it, Mike, they're waiting to
54:26
Speaker 2: provoke such a thing in order to escalate, and President
54:31
Speaker 2: put In understands that too. So Karaganoff is run is
54:36
Speaker 2: a is a deception operation run by the Kremlin are
54:42
Speaker 2: with the purpose of making a more how to say,
54:47
Speaker 2: persuasive threat another red line, which the which the allied
54:54
Speaker 2: side and instinct tanks don't take seriously, and the evidence
55:00
Speaker 2: favors that judgment. On the other hand, if you ask,
55:06
Speaker 2: what are the Russian think tags supported by Kremlin done
55:11
Speaker 2: for spelling out what the Russian side could do to
55:17
Speaker 2: attack the Russia the vulnerabilities of the US economy mimic
55:23
Speaker 2: if you like the Iranian approach to using the Hormos
55:27
Speaker 2: straight regime as a as a form of persuasion of
55:32
Speaker 2: the United States through the price of oil, the price
55:35
Speaker 2: of gas and the US voters dismay and disappointment and
55:41
Speaker 2: disapproval if mimicking the Iranian side's use of the Homos strait.
55:47
Speaker 2: What has been the Russian think tank planning for counter
55:51
Speaker 2: attacks on the Russian on US vulnerabilities? The answer is none.
55:59
Speaker 2: The this is none, not a single so far as
56:03
Speaker 2: I know. I'm welcome any listeners who follow the Russian
56:07
Speaker 2: think tank literature. As far as I know, there's been
56:11
Speaker 2: no attempt by any Russian think tank is, including Karaganov's
56:15
Speaker 2: think tank, to spell out how the Russian side could
56:22
Speaker 2: threaten the vulnerabilities and they're there. They're there for sure
56:29
Speaker 2: in the US economy, that would translate into the kinds
56:32
Speaker 2: of pressures the Iranian side is demonstrating. Why hasn't the
56:37
Speaker 2: Russian side used its brains through the think tanks in
56:43
Speaker 2: the same way that the US warfighters have used that
56:47
Speaker 2: the British warfighters have used their think tanks. There's nothing
56:51
Speaker 2: comparable on the Russian side. Why The answer is again political,
56:57
Speaker 2: because the state part is committed to the belief that
57:02
Speaker 2: it can achieve a pause in war. General staff also
57:08
Speaker 2: needs a pause in war, but for entirely different reasons
57:11
Speaker 2: that a return to business as usual that benefits the
57:16
Speaker 2: underlying economic base in Russia. That pressure has prevented Kremlin
57:24
Speaker 2: assisted think things for looking at the enemy and analyzing
57:29
Speaker 2: its vulnerabilities in the way the Iranians clearly are able
57:32
Speaker 2: to do.
57:33
Speaker 1: We're rapidly running out of time here, John. Let me
57:36
Speaker 1: just ask one final question, then, is because over the
57:40
Speaker 1: last particularly the last three four months, we're hearing more
57:44
Speaker 1: rhetoric from the British, for example, that Putin is about
57:49
Speaker 1: to attack. It's inevitable, it's going to happen. If you
57:54
Speaker 1: were to look six months or a year into the future,
57:58
Speaker 1: where do you see this conflict going?
58:01
Speaker 2: Six months in the future takes us past the Russian election,
58:04
Speaker 2: and it also takes us past November third of the
58:09
Speaker 2: US election day. And we'll see also the end to
58:13
Speaker 2: the Russian dream that mister Burnham has a different attitude
58:18
Speaker 2: towards Russia than its predecessor. We will also be clearer
58:24
Speaker 2: that the Russian dream that the French Russian blonacional is
58:30
Speaker 2: more against a French war against Russia than the macro regime.
58:38
Speaker 2: We'll also see the end of In six to nine
58:41
Speaker 2: months time, we will see the end of Russian counting
58:44
Speaker 2: on the AfD in Germany representing a significant popular force
58:50
Speaker 2: to put a brake on German remilitarization. That's not the
58:53
Speaker 2: way the AfD is going to go. It is the
58:57
Speaker 2: way the minority left in Germany will go. But they're
59:00
Speaker 2: a minority of less than ten percent. They can't influence
59:05
Speaker 2: the Chancellory and Bollion. So on a six to nine
59:08
Speaker 2: month basis, my own view is that if we have
59:18
Speaker 2: an election, if it's not postponed in September, the pressure
59:23
Speaker 2: will be on President put In to make the escalation
59:29
Speaker 2: decisions within the Ukrainian battlefield that I've just described to
59:34
Speaker 2: make the escalation decisions to arm Russian tankers beyond the
59:41
Speaker 2: capabilities on reach of the Russian Navy to escort them.
59:48
Speaker 2: You've said, and you're right, decapitation strikes in Kiev won't
59:54
Speaker 2: make any difference. That's one of the very good reasons
59:57
Speaker 2: why eliminating the Ukrainian com on control. Changing the political
1:00:02
Speaker 2: leadership doesn't change underlying policy. We've seen the Americans fail
1:00:07
Speaker 2: and the Israelis fail at decapitation in Iran. It doesn't work.
1:00:13
Speaker 2: Neither does bombing from the air work to change political policy.
1:00:17
Speaker 2: But bombing from the air, missiles and drones over the
1:00:20
Speaker 2: next six months can make a very big difference in
1:00:23
Speaker 2: isolating the Ukraine from the sources of support that enable
1:00:29
Speaker 2: it to attack the hinterland. What must, what I doubt
1:00:33
Speaker 2: will happen, what President put In is determined to avoid
1:00:37
Speaker 2: at all costs, is the kind of mobilization of capital
1:00:42
Speaker 2: and manpower required to sustain a significant escalation against NATO
1:00:50
Speaker 2: that would occur if we reach arashnic attacks outside the
1:00:57
Speaker 2: Ukrainian battlefield or tactical news clear weapons outside the Ukrainian battlefield.
1:01:05
Speaker 2: A significant change in mobilization of capital and manpower within
1:01:11
Speaker 2: Russia would follow that escalation that would return us to
1:01:16
Speaker 2: central state planning and allocation of capital and manpark. Would
1:01:20
Speaker 2: be the end of the oligarchy. It could not survive
1:01:25
Speaker 2: that transformation. That would be socialism. That would be communism,
1:01:29
Speaker 2: that would be state planning, that would be Stalinism. That's
1:01:33
Speaker 2: a commitment or President put In and his base not
1:01:39
Speaker 2: not to accept. So I don't see that in the future.
1:01:44
Speaker 1: Just before we go, remind everybody how they can find
1:01:48
Speaker 1: your work.
1:01:49
Speaker 2: Well, depends on whether you like to read long. If
1:01:52
Speaker 2: you like to read wrong, it's John Helmer one word
1:01:57
Speaker 2: dot net also nicknamed Dancers with Bears for a reason
1:02:01
Speaker 2: that you have to go to the website to see.
1:02:04
Speaker 2: If you like to read short, there's a Twitter stream
1:02:07
Speaker 2: at at bears underscore with not much of a title,
1:02:13
Speaker 2: but then not many words, and you go to Twitter
1:02:16
Speaker 2: to read not many words, don't you? And on podcasting,
1:02:21
Speaker 2: well I have I'll be back here with you Mike
1:02:24
Speaker 2: in London. But there's also podcasts that I try to
1:02:32
Speaker 2: produce a Dance with Bears wrap around for those who
1:02:36
Speaker 2: like to listen while they cook or listen while they
1:02:38
Speaker 2: commute and then want to doubt what I've said and
1:02:42
Speaker 2: go to the evidence. So the evidence is in the
1:02:44
Speaker 2: long read. Presentations are in the podcast, and the sex
1:02:53
Speaker 2: appeal or clickbaits in the tweets. There are the three.
1:02:56
Speaker 2: You've got your choice, I forgot. If you really want
1:03:00
Speaker 2: a long read, you can go buy a book.
1:03:02
Speaker 1: John. Thank you very much for this conversation. It has
1:03:06
Speaker 1: been absolutely fascinating. I hope we can do it again
1:03:09
Speaker 1: very very soon. And thank you for joining me today.
1:03:12
Speaker 2: Thank you match, thank you for having me