Latest / UK Column Radio / Military Matters: Episode 11

Transcript

Military Matters: Episode 11 · UK Column Radio

0:00
Speaker 1: Thank you.
0:25
Speaker 2: Welcome to episode 11 of Military Matters with UK Column.
0:29
Speaker 2: I'm Charles Mallet and I'm joined again by Brian Gerrish. Brian,
0:33
Speaker 2: good to see you again.
0:34
Speaker 3: Here we are.
0:35
Speaker 2: Already.
0:36
Speaker 1: It comes around very quickly, doesn't it?
0:39
Speaker 3: It surely does.
0:39
Speaker 2: Now, we left our loyal and intrepid audience with a
0:44
Speaker 2: cliffhanger in episode 10, which was a question you asked
0:48
Speaker 2: towards the end of that episode. And we had been talking,
0:52
Speaker 2: I think, in fact, about it was a in a sense,
0:56
Speaker 2: a generic war conversation. Because, of course, we had talked
1:00
Speaker 2: about the situation in Iran, but also Russia and Ukraine.
1:04
Speaker 2: And the question you asked was, what is this war
1:06
Speaker 2: designed to do? And I think fairly sensibly, we decided
1:11
Speaker 2: we weren't going to try and deal with it in
1:13
Speaker 2: a sort of five minutes on the end of episode 10.
1:16
Speaker 2: But that gives us free reign now to look at it.
1:20
Speaker 2: I mean, it is a really big question because I think...
1:24
Speaker 2: There are so many different ways in which we can
1:25
Speaker 2: look at it. Obviously, our focus in a lot of
1:29
Speaker 2: these episodes has been the impact on either the British
1:33
Speaker 2: armed forces or British society or what the United Kingdom
1:37
Speaker 2: perspective is on it. But I think we've got the
1:40
Speaker 2: chance today to look quite a lot further afield as well.
1:44
Speaker 1: Well, it's good and it needs doing because, of course,
1:47
Speaker 1: the war is a terrible, a truly terrible war. we
1:55
Speaker 1: could say all wars are. But for me, this one
1:58
Speaker 1: is particularly brutal in the fact that we now have
2:03
Speaker 1: human beings operating drones to hunt individual soldiers on the battlefield,
2:10
Speaker 1: including wounded soldiers. So I think technology has produced another
2:16
Speaker 1: layer of horror to war. And of course, we've got
2:22
Speaker 1: war on a really substantial scale with the casualties in
2:27
Speaker 1: the hundreds or the thousands per day in some cases.
2:32
Speaker 1: So the war is a very unpleasant war. And my
2:37
Speaker 1: mind continually comes back to how was this started and
2:43
Speaker 1: why was it started? I've been able to see some
2:46
Speaker 1: very interesting material in the last, we'll say the last
2:51
Speaker 1: few weeks, where a particular individual has been looking simply
2:58
Speaker 1: at the public statements made by politicians or security services
3:06
Speaker 1: from a number of different countries, obviously the UK and
3:09
Speaker 1: the US feature very strongly in that, but also commentary
3:14
Speaker 1: from the Germans and other European nationalities, where the vitriol
3:23
Speaker 1: against the Russians is truly astounding. And you have people
3:29
Speaker 1: talking about the need to increase the attacks against Russia.
3:34
Speaker 1: And some of the statements that have been publicly are
3:38
Speaker 1: absolutely along the lines that we need to kill more Russians.
3:44
Speaker 1: It's that brutal. Not we need to win the war,
3:49
Speaker 1: but we need to kill more Russians. So I've found
3:54
Speaker 1: that particularly interesting. And I'm giving a little bit of
4:00
Speaker 1: an advert here because we will be able to get
4:02
Speaker 1: into some of this stuff a little bit deeper. But
4:04
Speaker 1: at the moment, I can't act immediately on the material
4:08
Speaker 1: that I've been given. But I have sat and looked
4:12
Speaker 1: at the genuine quotes from senior political people where their statements...
4:19
Speaker 1: to ramp up the war, to increase the violence, to
4:23
Speaker 1: kill more Russians. They're making these public statements as if
4:27
Speaker 1: that's a perfectly normal thing to do. And so I
4:31
Speaker 1: find that not only astonishing, but a very dangerous situation
4:37
Speaker 1: that we've got politicians who are being so aggressive in
4:42
Speaker 1: their desire to kill Russians. But I've also been able
4:46
Speaker 1: to see some very interesting diagrams showing how Russia would
4:53
Speaker 1: be broken up into what I'll describe as manageable administrative regions.
5:00
Speaker 1: We'll call them cantons because I think that's appropriate probably
5:03
Speaker 1: for that part of the world. Very interesting where you
5:08
Speaker 1: see a map that has been produced with some quite
5:12
Speaker 1: complex border arrangements. So it's not as if somebody's taken
5:15
Speaker 1: a map of Russia and drawn some arbitrary boxes and
5:22
Speaker 1: said this will be region A this is B, C
5:25
Speaker 1: and D no the border areas are very carefully constructed
5:31
Speaker 1: and often quite complex which to me indicated that whoever
5:35
Speaker 1: produced the map was taking into account what we call
5:43
Speaker 1: it community social or to some extent, racial differences within
5:50
Speaker 1: particular areas. But the whole point of the map was
5:54
Speaker 1: that this was where the West would like to take
5:58
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. It wants to achieve regime change, and
6:03
Speaker 1: it wants to be able to control... Sorry, did I
6:07
Speaker 1: say Soviet Union?
6:08
Speaker 2: You did, but I assumed that was deliberate, because it
6:11
Speaker 2: does seem that we are just going through yet another
6:16
Speaker 2: cycle of.
6:17
Speaker 3: Well, this is the same thing.
6:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll leave the Freudian slip in there. But what
6:24
Speaker 1: I believe that I'm looking at is rhetoric from the West,
6:31
Speaker 1: which is bordering on the sort of language that the
6:37
Speaker 1: Reich used before and leading up to Operation Barbarossa and
6:45
Speaker 1: the German attack on Russia. And we've got the desire
6:50
Speaker 1: coming out in statements that Russia is to be destroyed
6:55
Speaker 1: and the destruction means breaking it apart as one sovereign
7:01
Speaker 1: country into these new manageable regions that will be swallowed
7:07
Speaker 1: into a wider pan-European system. And the other bit that
7:14
Speaker 1: slotted into place for me was the fact that on
7:17
Speaker 1: many occasions when over the years when I've been investigating
7:23
Speaker 1: the European Union and what this European EU political system
7:29
Speaker 1: is it's talking essentially about the European project being from
7:37
Speaker 1: Western Europe through Russia taking the European Union into Asia.
7:47
Speaker 1: And I think that this political desire exists. It's a
7:53
Speaker 1: real objective. And that the war in Ukraine has been
7:57
Speaker 1: kick-started to start that policy moving. So the ultimate desire
8:06
Speaker 1: is regime change. They want Putin gone. They want Russia
8:10
Speaker 1: destabilized enough to break up And then the plan is
8:14
Speaker 1: that Western powers will come in and administer these new
8:19
Speaker 1: regions under the European system. That's what I think it's about.
8:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's a lot to follow those comments,
8:29
Speaker 2: which I think are absolutely on the mark. I think
8:33
Speaker 2: the first thing is exactly to say how absolutely grotesque
8:40
Speaker 2: the commentary has been throughout Europe. about somehow the right
8:46
Speaker 2: that apparently everybody has to slaughter as many Russians as
8:50
Speaker 2: they possibly can. And that's always written up as a
8:52
Speaker 2: good news story. And I think this stretches far beyond
8:57
Speaker 2: simply what politicians have said and how they treat it.
9:01
Speaker 2: It's absolutely rife through the media. But now, of course,
9:05
Speaker 2: so much of media is based on you know laziness
9:10
Speaker 2: and computer generated sort of ai uh research and writing
9:15
Speaker 2: and and just for the sake of interest this morning
9:18
Speaker 2: i asked a search engine um i think to do
9:23
Speaker 2: something like today's developments in ukraine or latest developments in
9:26
Speaker 2: ukraine and now a lot of the search engines will
9:29
Speaker 2: give you a sort of ai summary at the top
9:32
Speaker 2: which should be taken with truckloads of salt because the
9:37
Speaker 2: As far as I can tell, anything that's put in
9:41
Speaker 2: that summary is an absolute distortion of a whole load
9:47
Speaker 2: of things that it thinks it's found. Anyway, the point
9:50
Speaker 2: is that the first line of the summary that I
9:52
Speaker 2: got back today just said 1,400 Russians have been eliminated.
9:55
Speaker 3: That was it.
10:00
Speaker 2: But it's just the way it's put because it was
10:05
Speaker 2: then followed up by a load more text to suggest
10:09
Speaker 2: that this is absolutely correct. This is what Ukraine and
10:14
Speaker 2: anyone supporting Ukraine should be doing and the rest of it.
10:18
Speaker 2: So the bias not just exhibited by the political class
10:22
Speaker 2: but also by the media but and now we have
10:25
Speaker 2: that additional layer where the online sphere of information that
10:31
Speaker 2: all the you know the the online um tools that
10:34
Speaker 2: are available for people to look this stuff up are
10:37
Speaker 2: so incredibly skewed by and large and the results people
10:41
Speaker 2: will get back out of it are completely extraordinary and
10:43
Speaker 2: i think that's um that's something now that people you
10:46
Speaker 2: know after four and a half years people have become
10:50
Speaker 2: just almost accepting of it as though, yeah, well, that's fine.
10:55
Speaker 1: I agree with that. I think as we look out
11:00
Speaker 1: the window at people and you talk to people at
11:03
Speaker 1: a local level, they simply have one opinion of the
11:12
Speaker 1: war in Ukraine. They cannot get their heads around anywhere
11:17
Speaker 1: near the possibility that what they're being told on a
11:21
Speaker 1: daily basis is not factual.
11:23
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
11:24
Speaker 1: That's one thing I would say. But the other thing
11:25
Speaker 1: I would say with a smile is that I think
11:29
Speaker 1: like most of us, we've started one way or another
11:32
Speaker 1: to interact with AI with regard to media and news reporting.
11:39
Speaker 1: And I will just say that with chat GPT, The
11:45
Speaker 1: first interesting discussion I had with the system was over casualties,
11:51
Speaker 1: where when I asked it for what the casualties were
11:54
Speaker 1: in the Ukrainian war, it was obvious to me that
11:58
Speaker 1: you were just getting the bias of the Ukrainian reports
12:02
Speaker 1: on what the casualties were. And I ended up saying
12:06
Speaker 1: to chat GPT, will you stop giving me politically biased answers?
12:14
Speaker 1: And will you start giving me factual answers on what
12:18
Speaker 1: the true situation is? And when I did that, I
12:22
Speaker 1: was surprised that, first of all, you get quite a
12:27
Speaker 1: polite acknowledgement that, well, yes, I realise that I have,
12:35
Speaker 1: I don't think it admitted bias, but I have tended
12:39
Speaker 1: to weigh my answer with the information which is appearing
12:44
Speaker 1: online in the Western media, and I can give you this.
12:51
Speaker 1: And then it gave me something which I could see
12:54
Speaker 1: had started to shift. And I continued to press. So
12:57
Speaker 1: every time it gave me an answer, I challenged it
13:01
Speaker 1: over what sources it was using. So this was an
13:06
Speaker 1: iterative process, but I will say at the end of
13:09
Speaker 1: 20 minutes, the system was actually giving me something which
13:14
Speaker 1: I felt, from being able to look at some very
13:18
Speaker 1: capable material on social media, was closer to the truth.
13:24
Speaker 1: But I agree, for the ordinary person who is not
13:28
Speaker 1: going to be that meticulous in challenging the system, they
13:32
Speaker 1: are going to get the same bias on AI as
13:37
Speaker 1: appears in Western media.
13:39
Speaker 3: Yeah.
13:40
Speaker 2: And I think this is a much wider danger because
13:43
Speaker 2: people just don't understand how it works, how it's been
13:47
Speaker 2: designed to work.
13:48
Speaker 3: I mean, essentially, it aims to please.
13:51
Speaker 2: And so in the first instance, it will give that
13:53
Speaker 2: bias because it will believe that that's what you're attuned
13:57
Speaker 2: to because you will be digesting the sorts of media
14:01
Speaker 2: content that it's scouring. And then it behaves a little
14:08
Speaker 2: bit like somebody... who might not necessarily understand what you're
14:12
Speaker 2: asking in a country where, like a lot of English speakers,
14:17
Speaker 2: you don't speak the language of the place you've gone
14:20
Speaker 2: to and you ask somebody for directions and say that,
14:22
Speaker 2: you know, is something or other this way? And the
14:23
Speaker 2: answer is, oh, yes, yes, it is. And then you say,
14:26
Speaker 2: you ask the same question, say, is it that way?
14:28
Speaker 2: And the answer is also yes. And chat GPT in particular,
14:32
Speaker 2: I think, is that that is effectively how it's set up.
14:35
Speaker 2: You don't get the answer you want. So you push
14:37
Speaker 2: back and then it says, oh, terribly sorry. I'll give
14:40
Speaker 2: you the answer I think you might prefer. But that is,
14:42
Speaker 2: you know, I know we laugh about it now, but
14:44
Speaker 2: that is a terrific danger because, of course, the other
14:46
Speaker 2: huge reluctance it has is to say, I don't know.
14:50
Speaker 3: Yes. And sometimes it won't.
14:53
Speaker 1: That's true. We digressed a little bit there from the commentary.
14:58
Speaker 1: I wanted to add that if we are seeing Western
15:02
Speaker 1: politicians and the Western security services, Western media being particularly
15:08
Speaker 1: brutal in their comments against russians we've also got an
15:15
Speaker 1: equivalent level of brutality applied by the west to their
15:19
Speaker 1: sheer callousness in in the ukrainian deaths on the battlefield
15:27
Speaker 1: we seem to be in a position now where the
15:30
Speaker 1: west is happy boris johnson we'll get on to him
15:35
Speaker 1: in a over the moon that we've got a war
15:38
Speaker 1: going where we're killing Russians and we do not care
15:43
Speaker 1: that that is involving massive Ukrainian casualties and massive destruction
15:50
Speaker 1: to Ukraine as a country and as a society.
15:54
Speaker 3: Yes.
15:58
Speaker 1: We're living in the UK. We've got smiling... Andy Burnham,
16:05
Speaker 1: we've recently commented on doing his North run in his
16:09
Speaker 1: pink shirt for charity and talking about how wonderful it
16:13
Speaker 1: is to see everybody out for charity. And this underlines
16:16
Speaker 1: what Britain is at its best. And we're supporting a
16:20
Speaker 1: war with people being slaughtered on a daily basis as
16:23
Speaker 1: if it's not happening.
16:25
Speaker 2: Yes, as if it's not happening and as if. We,
16:30
Speaker 2: and when I say we, of course, I don't mean
16:32
Speaker 2: you and I or really anyone listening. I mean the
16:35
Speaker 2: British establishment as though somehow the establishment does actually care,
16:40
Speaker 2: as though pumping billions of pounds into this sort of
16:44
Speaker 2: death trap is a means of caring. And I think
16:48
Speaker 2: this goes to your point about the intent, if it
16:52
Speaker 2: is there, to carve Russia up. it seems that very
16:57
Speaker 2: few Ukrainians seem to have considered, well, if that's the
17:01
Speaker 2: plan for Russia, what's the plan for Ukraine? And it
17:06
Speaker 2: seems to have been received or accepted, or particularly with
17:10
Speaker 2: the British-Ukrainian supposed 100-year partnership and, you know, for as
17:15
Speaker 2: long as it takes and all this kind of stuff,
17:18
Speaker 2: as though that is really genuine and meaningful. And yet
17:23
Speaker 2: it's very obviously not because... in order to sustain this conflict,
17:29
Speaker 2: that does cost Ukraine an enormous number of lives. And
17:34
Speaker 2: that is completely tragic. But I think what we can
17:37
Speaker 2: see has definitely happened are so many of the steps
17:42
Speaker 2: which do lead into and, well, sort of proceed and
17:50
Speaker 2: then get extended as conflict starts. But you think of
17:53
Speaker 2: the the incredible acceleration of so many things in Ukraine
17:58
Speaker 2: that we had been talking about, discussing, warning about here beforehand,
18:03
Speaker 2: particularly sort of digital infrastructure and digital identity, digital currency,
18:11
Speaker 2: all those sorts of things have been catalyzed by the
18:14
Speaker 2: idea that there is such a concern over national security
18:21
Speaker 2: because of the war, that all these things now make sense.
18:24
Speaker 2: The fact that political parties have been banned, the fact
18:28
Speaker 2: that the media has been centralised, that elections have been
18:32
Speaker 2: cancelled or postponed. I mean, the changes that have taken
18:37
Speaker 2: place in Ukraine at a time where the United Kingdom,
18:43
Speaker 2: as part of a sort of Western coalition, appears to
18:45
Speaker 2: have been supporting all these things. And then you look
18:48
Speaker 2: and see what has actually happened.
18:50
Speaker 3: That tells... a particular story of its own, really.
18:55
Speaker 1: Absolutely. And this is where we have to point a
18:59
Speaker 1: finger very strongly at the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office
19:05
Speaker 1: because vast amounts of money has been channeled through that
19:09
Speaker 1: system in order to completely change Ukrainian society with every
19:15
Speaker 1: facet of the Ukrainian society manipulated whether it's been the
19:22
Speaker 1: military whether it's been the educational system or the trans
19:27
Speaker 1: agenda or it's been the system of law the United
19:33
Speaker 1: Kingdom via the FCDO and money from British taxpayers has
19:39
Speaker 1: been at work to completely change Ukrainian society and of
19:47
Speaker 1: course that was going on before 2014 and it's continued
19:54
Speaker 1: all the way up through into the fermenting of the
19:57
Speaker 1: war 2022 with Russia. So the UK in particular has
20:04
Speaker 1: been a devious country foreign hand inside Ukraine, manipulating this
20:12
Speaker 1: society before they even got the fighting going. And now
20:16
Speaker 1: we've got to the extent where, although the Western media
20:19
Speaker 1: doesn't like talking about it, the reality is that Russia
20:24
Speaker 1: is winning, continually winning on the battlefield. We've got Ukraine
20:28
Speaker 1: where its agriculture is destroyed now. The figures that I
20:33
Speaker 1: saw I've seen recently with respect to grain, you're talking
20:38
Speaker 1: about a 60% drop in agricultural output. Major industries, metallurgy
20:46
Speaker 1: industries are now destroyed. A lot of the energy sector
20:51
Speaker 1: utterly destroyed by the Russians, petrol stations destroyed. So while
20:56
Speaker 1: the West gloats that, yes, some of the, particularly the
21:01
Speaker 1: Western long range missile systems that, Ukraine's fired into Russia
21:06
Speaker 1: have caused some damage. Some of the refineries hit. The
21:10
Speaker 1: scale of destruction inside Russia is insignificant compared to the
21:17
Speaker 1: scale of destruction inside Ukraine. Yes. And what's the West's response?
21:22
Speaker 1: It's not stop the war. It's to actually do everything
21:25
Speaker 1: possible to ramp it up, including now, encouraging the idea
21:31
Speaker 1: that the Ukrainians are seriously going to recruit women into
21:35
Speaker 1: the military for the front lines. We use the word obscene.
21:42
Speaker 1: You run out of words to describe what's actually happening.
21:47
Speaker 2: Yes, and also I think it is, again, especially cynical.
21:51
Speaker 3: I mean, you've just referred to it.
21:53
Speaker 2: The fact that this is all described as though it
21:57
Speaker 2: only started in 2022... as though the beginning of what
22:02
Speaker 2: Russia has described as its special military operation, as in
22:05
Speaker 2: Russian vehicles coming into Ukraine, as though that was from
22:10
Speaker 2: a standing start, from sort of cold. So there was
22:13
Speaker 2: no background to that whatsoever, and it's all started in 2022,
22:16
Speaker 2: and that's what we're looking at. And that is a
22:20
Speaker 2: complete and utter misrepresentation of.
22:23
Speaker 1: And let's mention our old friend in inverted commas, the BBC, because.
22:30
Speaker 1: Anybody can go to YouTube and look at a little
22:35
Speaker 1: cluster of BBC documentaries that were made into the extreme
22:40
Speaker 1: right wing in Ukraine. And the BBC is pointing out
22:45
Speaker 1: in the documentary that the people, these extremists operating in
22:50
Speaker 1: Ukraine with a lot of neo-Nazi type connections, very dangerous individuals.
23:00
Speaker 1: So the BBC was reporting on that and then suddenly
23:02
Speaker 1: that drifts into the background as if it never existed.
23:06
Speaker 1: And now we have the BBC continually reporting as if
23:11
Speaker 1: we should trust everything that comes out of Ukraine, even
23:16
Speaker 1: though we see that Ukraine is not going to get
23:20
Speaker 1: into the European Union largely because they haven't dealt with
23:25
Speaker 1: the corruption issue and the European Union as a as
23:31
Speaker 1: a block but also within component nation states they're saying
23:36
Speaker 1: no we're not going to let ukraine in because ukraine
23:40
Speaker 1: is out of control with the level of corruption including
23:45
Speaker 1: a very high level so for the bbc to continually
23:50
Speaker 1: pump out this agenda that everything to do with zelensky
23:53
Speaker 1: and ukraine is is wonderful and above board and they're
23:57
Speaker 1: protecting us from the nasty Russians, it's not misinformation, it's disinformation,
24:05
Speaker 1: because it's calculated information to mislead the British public into
24:11
Speaker 1: what is actually happening in Ukraine.
24:15
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely.
24:16
Speaker 2: I think, you know, also there are so many tragic
24:20
Speaker 2: aspects to it. Of course, that should go without saying,
24:24
Speaker 2: but I am going to say it because Of course,
24:26
Speaker 2: the other thing that it's forced Ukrainian people to convince
24:29
Speaker 2: themselves to do is to, in a way, rewrite their
24:34
Speaker 2: own history and culture, because they are now put in
24:38
Speaker 2: a position where they're being made to feel a sense
24:44
Speaker 2: of nationalism, let's say, that is exclusive from their cultural
24:51
Speaker 2: and historical heritage that's shared with Russia. that is the
24:57
Speaker 2: likes of the British, so-called British support that has done that.
25:03
Speaker 3: And that is tragic.
25:05
Speaker 2: And the reason I say it's tragic is, first of all,
25:08
Speaker 2: you know, it's to do away with a relationship that
25:12
Speaker 2: was previously obviously very close. I mean, I'm not suggesting
25:16
Speaker 2: it had been entirely straightforward. Of course it hadn't. And
25:18
Speaker 2: I don't mean to, again, rewrite history. But to erase
25:23
Speaker 2: that is.
25:28
Speaker 2: Is very sad. But it's very sad because it's so,
25:31
Speaker 2: I would say, so misguided. Again, a bit like I
25:36
Speaker 2: said earlier, I mean, if it's possible that Russia is,
25:40
Speaker 2: you know, the object is to sort of smash Russia,
25:43
Speaker 2: break it up, and this, that, and the other, why
25:46
Speaker 2: would Ukraine consider that it should be pushed and pushed
25:51
Speaker 2: to become some sort of a regional powerhouse? I mean,
25:55
Speaker 2: that will not be So the future for Ukraine is
26:02
Speaker 2: being made to look like it's very rosy because it
26:05
Speaker 2: appears to have so much support. But there doesn't seem
26:08
Speaker 2: to be a huge amount of consideration given to what
26:11
Speaker 2: it is that the supporters themselves, whether they be countries
26:14
Speaker 2: or corporations, are actually getting back out of it.
26:17
Speaker 1: It's a key point, Charles, and I think one of
26:21
Speaker 1: the sad things about it is that is that Ukraine
26:25
Speaker 1: has been subverted by the West. That's my opinion. One
26:31
Speaker 1: of the reasons that the West has been able to
26:35
Speaker 1: do this is because we'll say in recent years, so
26:41
Speaker 1: we're essentially talking post the breakup of the Warsaw Pact
26:46
Speaker 1: and the drawing into the European Union of the Eastern
26:51
Speaker 1: Bloc states. that many Ukrainians, I think, have fallen into
26:58
Speaker 1: this trap of looking over the wall into the West
27:03
Speaker 1: and the grass is greener on the other side and
27:06
Speaker 1: everything about the West is to do with freedom and
27:10
Speaker 1: excitement and we're all happy and getting on with our lives.
27:14
Speaker 1: And that is understandable that they should do that, but
27:19
Speaker 1: it's a very naive position. And so a lot of
27:23
Speaker 1: people inside Ukraine at a political level but also at
27:27
Speaker 1: a social community level have trusted the West automatically. The
27:35
Speaker 1: West is about freedom. The West isn't anything to do
27:40
Speaker 1: with communist memories or the Soviet Union. So they've had
27:47
Speaker 1: this belief and trust in the West. which has made
27:51
Speaker 1: them just such an easy victim for what the West
27:56
Speaker 1: has done. And I totally agree with your point that
27:59
Speaker 1: the West's policy is that Ukraine is never going to
28:03
Speaker 1: be allowed to operate as an immensely, as a large
28:09
Speaker 1: and powerful state. Because everything to do with the European
28:14
Speaker 1: Union is about control. And to achieve that control, it's
28:18
Speaker 1: about It's usually about the breakup of nations into smaller components.
28:24
Speaker 1: And that's one of the reasons why we now have
28:30
Speaker 1: deliberately used this expression. We've got the British Isles has
28:34
Speaker 1: now become different nation states.
28:37
Speaker 3: Yes.
28:38
Speaker 1: And we're now seeing the push that Scotland and Northern
28:44
Speaker 1: Ireland and Wales should be broken up into their own states.
28:49
Speaker 1: nation states this is european policy to control and they're
28:54
Speaker 1: going to use exactly the same policy in in ukraine
28:58
Speaker 1: in my opinion.
28:59
Speaker 2: Yes it absolutely does look like it now um i've
29:02
Speaker 2: got i've got a little bit to read which um
29:06
Speaker 2: might have had to be a struggle and because we
29:08
Speaker 2: are experiencing what i do uh tech printer issues but
29:12
Speaker 2: i'll have a go now um either by coincidence or
29:16
Speaker 2: because he has access to the UK column Military Matters Calendar.
29:19
Speaker 2: But the ambassador, the Ukrainian ambassador to this country, Valery Zalushny,
29:25
Speaker 2: who was commander-in-chief of their armed forces at the start
29:29
Speaker 2: of it from 2021 to 2024, he has had an
29:33
Speaker 2: article published in Ukraina Pravda this morning. And it's quite long.
29:40
Speaker 2: but I'll stick a link to it in the show
29:43
Speaker 2: notes because it's very interesting. I really would recommend that
29:46
Speaker 2: people do read it. I'd be sure that he wrote
29:49
Speaker 2: it in Ukrainian or Russian. It's been translated because it
29:52
Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily read particularly naturally, but it's entitled The War
29:56
Speaker 2: That Changed Everything. on historical mistakes, the role of progress,
30:01
Speaker 2: and the new world. And he, he does write quite
30:09
Speaker 2: a bit that, you know, he's, he's absolutely not missing
30:12
Speaker 2: a lot of the points that we're covering. It's just
30:15
Speaker 2: that his perspective is different. But I think I'll just
30:19
Speaker 2: read his opening paragraph, because I think it gives a
30:23
Speaker 2: really good insight into what somebody who is absolutely on
30:27
Speaker 2: the inside of, you know, high-level sort of meetings, decision-making
30:33
Speaker 2: processes and whatnot, thinks, or at least writes that he thinks.
30:37
Speaker 3: The Russian-Ukrainian war.
30:40
Speaker 2: Has become the first major war on the territory of
30:42
Speaker 2: Europe that has no analogues since the Second World War
30:46
Speaker 2: and is already a part of human history. This is
30:48
Speaker 2: a history not only of events, facts and the number
30:51
Speaker 2: of victims, this is also the history of the people
30:54
Speaker 2: who stood behind it, people who do not yet realise
30:57
Speaker 2: that they have already entered history, a history that is
31:00
Speaker 2: ruthless towards human feelings because it operates with facts. I
31:07
Speaker 2: don't know how that would have come out sort of
31:10
Speaker 2: in his native language, but I just found that last sentence,
31:14
Speaker 2: quite curious, a history that is ruthless towards human feelings
31:18
Speaker 2: because it operates with facts. And I wasn't really sure
31:22
Speaker 2: what he meant by that in so far as the
31:25
Speaker 2: facts are concerned. I will just go on a little
31:29
Speaker 2: bit because he then makes a point, which I think
31:35
Speaker 2: exactly touches on what we've just said about going back.
31:39
Speaker 2: It was precisely the mistakes that led to this war
31:43
Speaker 2: that prevented it from being brought to a timely end
31:49
Speaker 2: and most importantly, failed to predict its consequences.
31:55
Speaker 1: That is an interesting statement.
31:58
Speaker 3: It is, isn't it? Yeah.
32:00
Speaker 2: And he, just paraphrasing, but he's referred, but he's talked
32:03
Speaker 2: about the Second World War. Basically, his point is that
32:07
Speaker 2: the conclusion of the Second World War absolutely set the
32:09
Speaker 2: conditions for this to happen.
32:12
Speaker 3: At a particular time?
32:19
Speaker 1: I think I could agree with him with that basic
32:23
Speaker 1: statement because it was true to say that the power
32:31
Speaker 1: base of the Soviet Union held certain countries, including Ukraine,
32:38
Speaker 1: where not everybody was comfortable with being under that system.
32:44
Speaker 3: Yes.
32:45
Speaker 1: And Ukraine, of course, the biggest issue with Ukraine is
32:50
Speaker 1: that a large proportion of the country had fought for
32:55
Speaker 1: the Nazi regime, and therefore inside Ukraine you've had since
33:01
Speaker 1: the Second World War this sort of festering political... pond
33:08
Speaker 1: where some people are on extreme sides of it, whether
33:12
Speaker 1: they're for what they consider the Soviet Union or what
33:17
Speaker 1: it's now become, or they're for the idea of a
33:22
Speaker 1: nationalist society as the Germans envisaged.
33:26
Speaker 2: I think the other way to look at it, and
33:29
Speaker 2: I think this is perhaps what we should introduce into
33:31
Speaker 2: the conversation, is because we're looking very much at at Ukraine,
33:37
Speaker 2: at Russia, and to a certain extent at the United Kingdom.
33:40
Speaker 2: But I think also, the Americans merit a lot of
33:45
Speaker 2: scrutiny with this, and particularly his point about the end
33:47
Speaker 2: of the Second World War. Because, again, one never knows
33:52
Speaker 2: what is exactly said behind closed doors. But there's no
33:56
Speaker 2: doubt that America has benefited very substantially from what's happened
34:00
Speaker 2: in the last four years, because everybody, well, first of all, they've,
34:04
Speaker 2: they've therefore had their opportunity to say, okay, well, look, NATO,
34:10
Speaker 2: something's got to happen here. You've got to spend more money.
34:12
Speaker 2: And that means you've got to give us money because
34:14
Speaker 2: we make the kid. You come buy it off us
34:16
Speaker 2: and thanks very much. We'll do very well. And also
34:21
Speaker 2: the end of the war, the end of the Second
34:23
Speaker 2: World War, with effectively the writing on the wall for
34:27
Speaker 2: the British Empire. And although it was going to be
34:30
Speaker 2: a while before the colonial mechanism sort of undid itself,
34:33
Speaker 2: that was very much going to be part of that
34:40
Speaker 2: post-war period. So it is interesting, I think, to look
34:42
Speaker 2: at both of those countries or consider the, not necessarily
34:47
Speaker 2: completely overlapping, but the agendas that both the United States
34:51
Speaker 2: and the United Kingdom have with regard to Ukraine. I
34:54
Speaker 2: think they're sort of manifesting in slightly different ways. I mean,
34:57
Speaker 2: the word that I used, I think it was in
35:01
Speaker 2: the last episode, about the United Kingdom's approach to Ukraine
35:03
Speaker 2: is it does I think there are elements of it
35:06
Speaker 2: that look like it is an attempt at colonizing Ukraine
35:10
Speaker 2: or at least colonizing part of it or colonizing certain, um,
35:14
Speaker 2: resources that Ukraine has. And I think no, you know,
35:18
Speaker 2: I mean, you're certainly not going to read that in
35:19
Speaker 2: the BBC that there is a, there's a great reluctance
35:21
Speaker 2: to consider what it is or what the consequences of,
35:25
Speaker 2: of British action, British support is. Um, yeah, but, uh,
35:33
Speaker 2: But anyway, it is a long and interesting article. He
35:38
Speaker 2: also says, and this is, I think, interesting in light
35:44
Speaker 2: of the Strategic Defence Review, our Strategic Defence Review from
35:47
Speaker 2: last year, he specifically says, because the main thing is
35:50
Speaker 2: to avoid a nuclear war. So he's sort of suggesting
35:54
Speaker 2: that he thinks that that is a possibility.
35:57
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's a possibility because they, if... The
36:02
Speaker 1: Western powers continue to ramp up the war to cause
36:10
Speaker 1: strategic damage inside Russia, which is where I think they
36:14
Speaker 1: want to go. There will come a point at which
36:17
Speaker 1: the Russians have to say no. And, of course, one
36:23
Speaker 1: of the ways of doing that is to use a
36:25
Speaker 1: nuclear weapon and But where that goes, obviously, nobody knows
36:30
Speaker 1: in a way.
36:32
Speaker 3: But I.
36:35
Speaker 1: Think this man is very interesting because he's done the
36:39
Speaker 1: job he's done inside Ukraine. So he's experienced the nature
36:47
Speaker 1: of the war. He's seen successes on the battlefield in
36:52
Speaker 1: some areas with what the Ukrainians did. And he's also
36:55
Speaker 1: well aware of the losses and what the Russians have done.
36:59
Speaker 1: But also, he's got to a point where he all
37:03
Speaker 1: was clearly not well between him and Zelensky. And, you know,
37:10
Speaker 1: what I have read leads me to believe it got
37:14
Speaker 1: to the point where Zelensky regarded him as such a
37:17
Speaker 1: potential threat to his leadership position that that Zaluzny was
37:24
Speaker 1: eventually offered the ambassador post as a way of getting
37:28
Speaker 1: him out of Ukraine. And what I would suspect has
37:31
Speaker 1: now happened, of course, is that Zaluzny, who's not a fool,
37:38
Speaker 1: certainly not a fool, has now lived in the West,
37:43
Speaker 1: experienced the political pond around him, and he will have
37:48
Speaker 1: discovered it wasn't all as he believed. And the other
37:52
Speaker 1: thing is he's had the advantage of being able to
37:54
Speaker 1: sit and look at the war raging in Ukraine from
37:59
Speaker 1: a detached vantage point. And I would suspect that he's
38:06
Speaker 1: begun to think about things a little bit deeper than
38:10
Speaker 1: being in Ukraine, immersed in the war. military operation and
38:16
Speaker 1: not really being able to see anything apart from the
38:18
Speaker 1: battle on the ground. I think he's probably wising up
38:22
Speaker 1: to the fact, but he's got to be very careful because,
38:25
Speaker 1: of course, if he upsets Western political objectives, he's going
38:31
Speaker 1: to be possibly disposed of. And if he upsets the
38:38
Speaker 1: Ukrainian system, I think he's definitely going to be disposed of.
38:42
Speaker 1: So he's going to be right in highly politically correct articles,
38:48
Speaker 1: even though, you know, within them there's going to be
38:51
Speaker 1: statements of interest.
38:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, one of which, we'll just read
38:55
Speaker 2: this little bit because it follows on from the nuclear
38:59
Speaker 2: war bit. He talks about, again, it's an interesting sentence,
39:04
Speaker 2: a war that ultimately became a theatre of sympathy for
39:07
Speaker 2: the daily killing of an entire nation choking on its
39:11
Speaker 2: own corruption.
39:12
Speaker 3: I mean, it's strong stuff. But then it goes on.
39:16
Speaker 2: And above all, this is a war that has surrendered
39:19
Speaker 2: itself to marketers and wheeler dealers, people who, driven by
39:23
Speaker 2: a lack of understanding and strategy, merely stoke the flames
39:27
Speaker 2: of this in pursuit of quick profits. all while increasingly
39:32
Speaker 2: flaunting the rapid pace of technological progress. I couldn't fault
39:36
Speaker 2: him with that statement at all. It's on the button,
39:39
Speaker 2: isn't it?
39:40
Speaker 1: I wonder whether those words will be reproduced by the BBC,
39:44
Speaker 1: and I suspect not.
39:45
Speaker 3: I would rather think not, yes, quite, yeah.
39:48
Speaker 1: Would he be an interesting man to talk to? Absolutely.
39:52
Speaker 1: I think he'd be very interesting to talk to. You
39:53
Speaker 1: could have a fascinating discussion with him.
39:56
Speaker 3: Yes.
39:58
Speaker 1: Whether UK Column can achieve that or not, I don't know.
40:00
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's got to be worth a go,
40:02
Speaker 3: hasn't it? Yeah. But, you know, why not?
40:06
Speaker 2: Because if he were here sitting with us, he would
40:11
Speaker 2: absolutely have something to contribute to this discussion.
40:13
Speaker 3: But in a.
40:17
Speaker 3: Sorry, I mean, that much is obvious.
40:18
Speaker 2: What I mean is I don't think that his point
40:21
Speaker 2: of view would find itself particularly in conflict with yours
40:26
Speaker 2: or mine.
40:28
Speaker 1: I think that's absolutely true. And let's reiterate for the
40:33
Speaker 1: audience that our position is we want the war stopped.
40:37
Speaker 3: Exactly.
40:37
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of investigation to be done, a
40:41
Speaker 1: lot of truth to be outed about what caused this
40:44
Speaker 1: war Yes. You know, in the first place. And I
40:48
Speaker 1: think the hand of the United Kingdom and the US,
40:53
Speaker 1: but European Union as well, is very dirty in what's
40:57
Speaker 1: been done here.
40:58
Speaker 3: Yes.
40:59
Speaker 1: So he's beginning to see the picture where people are
41:04
Speaker 1: feeding off this war.
41:06
Speaker 3: Yes.
41:08
Speaker 1: But this war should stop.
41:11
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
41:12
Speaker 1: Instantly. And we should get some sanity back into the world.
41:16
Speaker 1: But that's not what's being done. But the Western powers
41:20
Speaker 1: and the Western media, because they are using this war
41:25
Speaker 1: not only to make people fearful. And I've met people
41:31
Speaker 1: locally where in quite an innocent comment or conversation about Ukraine,
41:39
Speaker 1: you detect a real fear in them. about the possibility
41:43
Speaker 1: of nuclear war. That's obviously come through the papers. But
41:48
Speaker 1: we need to stop it. And I think the other
41:52
Speaker 1: thing I would just like to mention is that there
41:56
Speaker 1: is real evidence now that the United Kingdom and the
42:03
Speaker 1: intelligence services of the United Kingdom clearly do not want
42:07
Speaker 1: this war stopped. And I've found it Very interesting that
42:15
Speaker 1: we've done a couple of interviews with an Indian lady
42:19
Speaker 1: called Deepti who's worked with an international group called UNIT,
42:25
Speaker 1: which has involved people from both political, ex-military, some will
42:33
Speaker 1: say fringe intelligence people, and others who believe that this
42:38
Speaker 1: war should stop, that her reward for working in the
42:45
Speaker 1: UK to try and bring an end to the fighting
42:48
Speaker 1: in Ukraine has been to be arrested twice by the
42:52
Speaker 1: intelligence services, interrogated and effectively placed under house arrest because
43:01
Speaker 1: she's not able to leave her home. She has to
43:08
Speaker 1: sleep at her home, which obviously restricts her um but
43:13
Speaker 1: the behavior of the intelligence services in this country brutal
43:21
Speaker 1: in their approach to somebody who's been working to try
43:24
Speaker 1: and stop the war yeah and i think that's very significant.
43:28
Speaker 2: It's very significant and it's very evident because um she's
43:31
Speaker 2: not an isolated example this has happened to multiple people
43:35
Speaker 2: who are in effect pursuing a path of peace in
43:39
Speaker 2: some means or other and and not just are they
43:42
Speaker 2: suffering the consequences of that fire being arrested or or
43:47
Speaker 2: having conditions imposed on their lives but that but the
43:50
Speaker 2: you know the government is actively pushing legislation to make
43:53
Speaker 2: this more and more easy to do to.
43:55
Speaker 1: People yes if you if you dare challenge the government
43:58
Speaker 1: over its support for a war you're aiding the enemy
44:02
Speaker 1: and therefore you become the enemy yeah it's a it's
44:06
Speaker 1: it It is a very clever, albeit malicious, twist of
44:11
Speaker 1: reality to promote the violence and to suppress anybody that's
44:18
Speaker 1: actually working for peace.
44:19
Speaker 3: Exactly, yeah.
44:21
Speaker 2: With regard to the involvement of the armed forces, I mean, now,
44:26
Speaker 2: such as they are in the United Kingdom, we've obviously
44:30
Speaker 2: talked about that a lot. They are seriously depleted. We
44:34
Speaker 2: are always being given the impression that... due to this
44:38
Speaker 2: and the other initiative and recruitment campaign and, you know,
44:41
Speaker 2: the sort of tweaking of the reserve that actually all
44:43
Speaker 2: will be well. It hasn't looked like that is possible
44:47
Speaker 2: to us at all. That looks like it is utterly fanciful.
44:55
Speaker 2: But what is obvious is that activity in Ukraine has
45:00
Speaker 2: provided an opportunity for, I think, primarily special forces, but
45:06
Speaker 2: other other engagements with the armed forces of Ukraine to,
45:10
Speaker 2: in effect, maintain a sort of skills base that was
45:18
Speaker 2: being degraded or lost or disappearing because of the conclusion
45:23
Speaker 2: of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. And so going back
45:26
Speaker 2: to this point about colonising Ukraine, we see so many
45:32
Speaker 2: of these sorts of arrangements which are always cast as
45:37
Speaker 2: being for the benefit of Ukraine, but actually there's always
45:41
Speaker 2: another agenda at play. What do you think about future
45:46
Speaker 2: involvement of the armed forces specifically with regard to Russia
45:52
Speaker 2: and Ukraine? I mean, there's every so often.
45:54
Speaker 1: What do you mean, our armed forces?
45:56
Speaker 2: Yes, our armed forces, yes. We've had intermittent sort of
46:02
Speaker 2: updates from the Coalition of the Willing and this, that
46:05
Speaker 2: and the other And, you know, we've obviously talked quite
46:09
Speaker 2: a bit about the sending of equipment there because it's
46:14
Speaker 2: not ever just the sending of equipment. It can't be
46:16
Speaker 2: because somebody's got to teach them how to use it.
46:19
Speaker 2: To advise and operate. And then to probably operate it.
46:22
Speaker 2: I mean, what are your thoughts at the moment on
46:27
Speaker 2: the idea of any further military involvement, either in Ukraine
46:32
Speaker 2: or more direct? You know, obviously we've had, the training
46:36
Speaker 2: programme running for a long time. How do you see
46:40
Speaker 2: things sort of panning out over the next year or so?
46:47
Speaker 1: Very interesting question. I think the UK is going to
46:53
Speaker 1: try and maintain the media line that our outstanding armed
47:00
Speaker 1: forces are going to continue to train the Ukrainians. So
47:05
Speaker 1: you're still going to see Ukrainian troops brought to the
47:08
Speaker 1: UK for training. But I think it's become increasingly clear
47:13
Speaker 1: that even the Ukrainians themselves have realised that actually the
47:19
Speaker 1: British Army has not got the fighting experience to actually
47:25
Speaker 1: train the Ukrainians, particularly in a new style of warfare,
47:31
Speaker 1: primarily ruled by the drones. But I think we're definitely
47:35
Speaker 1: going to still have Ukrainians coming here because it's a
47:38
Speaker 1: good image. Everybody likes it. So the government likes it
47:44
Speaker 1: because it's showing willing help and partnership for Ukraine. And
47:48
Speaker 1: the military like it because it's helping keep the illusion
47:53
Speaker 1: going that we've got the capability to train the Ukrainians.
47:59
Speaker 1: And the defence industry like it because... with whatever troops
48:05
Speaker 1: come over, there's obviously going to be a higher level
48:11
Speaker 1: senior officer cadre coming across and the defence industry can
48:17
Speaker 1: interact with those people to discuss what the future British
48:22
Speaker 1: weapons systems are that are going to be trialled in Ukraine.
48:25
Speaker 1: So definitely going to continue that. but I think it's
48:29
Speaker 1: going to be on a very modest scale because I
48:32
Speaker 1: think the cat's out of the bag that we can't
48:34
Speaker 1: offer a lot of training. Are we going to still
48:39
Speaker 1: be using special forces and specialised technicians in Ukraine to
48:46
Speaker 1: do two things? One is to gain knowledge of the fighting,
48:50
Speaker 1: so they're going to be as close as they can
48:53
Speaker 1: possibly get to the killing. because that's where they're going
48:57
Speaker 1: to be learning how it's going to be done. They
49:01
Speaker 1: are particularly, we the British, are particularly interested in hoovering
49:06
Speaker 1: up operational drone technology as opposed to the building technology
49:12
Speaker 1: of a drone. And the only place you're going to
49:16
Speaker 1: go to learn how to operate drones is Ukraine and
49:19
Speaker 1: to take it to the level that you're going to
49:22
Speaker 1: be able to use your equipment to kill Russians. And
49:26
Speaker 1: then the other thing we know that's going on is
49:28
Speaker 1: that the UK is desperate to get hold of the
49:32
Speaker 1: Ukrainian database of drone warfare and its AI. So we're
49:43
Speaker 1: going to continue to put in relatively small numbers of
49:47
Speaker 1: specialist troops to do that. What I don't think is
49:51
Speaker 1: going to happen is that you're going to see the
49:54
Speaker 1: UK or France or Germany putting in some modest few
49:59
Speaker 1: thousand troops because the Russians now have the ability to
50:05
Speaker 1: attack targets anywhere inside Ukraine. And this has been strengthened
50:13
Speaker 1: over the last, within the last three months, I think
50:16
Speaker 1: it is, by the fact that the Russians have now
50:18
Speaker 1: got a dedicated satellite coverage whereby they can target anywhere
50:23
Speaker 1: in Ukraine with that satellite coverage. And that includes Ukraine.
50:38
Speaker 1: satellite-connected operator-to-drone technology. Where am I getting to with this?
50:47
Speaker 1: The Russians have the ability to target any concentration of
50:51
Speaker 1: Western troops from 10 men, well, from two, four men,
50:58
Speaker 1: through to a few hundred, or should they be stupid
51:01
Speaker 1: enough to do it, a thousand men in one location.
51:05
Speaker 1: So the West is not going to be able to put...
51:08
Speaker 1: western troops into Ukraine and they are going to be
51:12
Speaker 1: in some holding area in safety, if they are over
51:19
Speaker 1: the border in Ukraine, they are not only a legitimate
51:23
Speaker 1: Russian target, the Russians have got the ability to target them.
51:27
Speaker 1: So I don't think we're going to be seeing troops
51:30
Speaker 1: go in unless there has been some form of ceasefire
51:35
Speaker 1: whereby the Russians would accept western troops in some sort
51:40
Speaker 1: of peacekeeping role. Yeah. But I certainly don't think we're
51:45
Speaker 1: going to see western troops in Ukraine. They are going
51:49
Speaker 1: to die. And the bit that I've reinforced with the
51:54
Speaker 1: Americans is the Americans have always been shy of, since
51:59
Speaker 1: the Second World War, always been shy of battle casualties.
52:02
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
52:03
Speaker 1: The body bags are the weakness of Americans and it's
52:07
Speaker 1: the same for Western forces, whereas the Russians do not
52:12
Speaker 1: fight on this basis because if you've suffered 12, 16
52:19
Speaker 1: million casualties in the Second World War, the fact that
52:23
Speaker 1: you've lost half a million men in this conflict, that's
52:28
Speaker 1: just a guesstimate. the Russians are not worried about body
52:32
Speaker 1: bags they are going to fight to achieve their objectives
52:35
Speaker 1: and I think this is one of the things that
52:37
Speaker 1: the the West has grossly underestimated.
52:41
Speaker 2: Yes I think your point about the the training is
52:46
Speaker 2: very well made I mean there was a time where
52:49
Speaker 2: it would it did seem vaguely credible that the the
52:52
Speaker 2: skills and the professionalism of the British army was a
52:55
Speaker 2: was a sort of selling point for for getting Ukrainians
52:58
Speaker 2: over here and it all it all worked well as
53:01
Speaker 2: part of the idea of standing with Ukraine. But now,
53:07
Speaker 2: as you have said, as I just said a moment ago,
53:10
Speaker 2: the fact is that the British Army as a whole,
53:15
Speaker 2: or any of the armed forces, don't have any operational
53:18
Speaker 2: experience to work off now. So again, it does ask
53:22
Speaker 2: the question or beg the question, Well, two questions actually.
53:31
Speaker 3: What next?
53:32
Speaker 2: Where are the armed forces of the United Kingdom going?
53:36
Speaker 2: Because what sort of engagements can they get involved in
53:46
Speaker 2: purely on a military basis, a sort of capability basis,
53:49
Speaker 2: but also politically, what makes any sense? to even consider
53:56
Speaker 2: getting involved in now. I mean, obviously one would hope nothing.
54:01
Speaker 2: Why would there be any need? But it seems inevitable
54:04
Speaker 2: that something will happen, what that will be. And then
54:07
Speaker 2: the other question, which is a bigger one, is what,
54:09
Speaker 2: you know, here we are four and a half years
54:11
Speaker 2: into what is a very bloody conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
54:17
Speaker 2: We hear repeatedly that so-and-so has been to Moscow and
54:22
Speaker 2: spoken to Putin and somebody's, you know, it goes on. Effectively,
54:25
Speaker 2: the storyline never changes, but peace is never achieved. I mean,
54:30
Speaker 2: what is it, do you think, that will cause some
54:36
Speaker 2: sort of resolution there?
54:40
Speaker 1: There are a number of points you raised there, but
54:42
Speaker 1: I'll just come in on that last one. I think
54:47
Speaker 1: the reality on the battlefield at the moment is that
54:51
Speaker 1: the Russians very shortly, that could be six months, maybe
54:58
Speaker 1: it's another year, maybe it's 18 months, it's difficult to
55:01
Speaker 1: tell by the speed of the advance. But the Russian
55:04
Speaker 1: advance has never stopped. I'm going to come back to
55:08
Speaker 1: the lava flow. It's like a lava flow. It keeps moving,
55:11
Speaker 1: keeps taking ground. But the Russians are now very close to,
55:16
Speaker 1: to achieving their special military operation, which is the taking
55:21
Speaker 1: of the, how do we describe it, the eastern Donbass
55:30
Speaker 1: and associated areas. At the moment, there's two strategic towns
55:40
Speaker 1: still left in the Donbass, which is Slavyansk and Kramatorsk.
55:44
Speaker 1: And the Russians are now, as they have consistently done
55:48
Speaker 1: in the position where they've got a partial encirclement and
55:53
Speaker 1: they're now starting the battle for those two strategic cities, towns, really.
55:59
Speaker 1: But once those towns fall, that is it. That is
56:04
Speaker 1: the Russian special military operation complete. And then the other
56:10
Speaker 1: thing that has gone with it is that.
56:14
Speaker 1: Largely as a result of the Kursk incursion by the Ukrainians,
56:19
Speaker 1: when the Ukrainians put their, whatever it was, 40,000 troops
56:24
Speaker 1: across into Russia. Once the Russians took that ground back,
56:31
Speaker 1: they said they were going to build a buffer zone
56:35
Speaker 1: along their western border with Ukraine. And that is what
56:40
Speaker 1: they've been doing. And although they haven't got a... continuous zone,
56:45
Speaker 1: a continuous buffer zone on the northeastern Ukrainian border. They've
56:51
Speaker 1: got large parts of it. So I see that they're
56:55
Speaker 1: going to complete the special military operation. They are going
56:59
Speaker 1: to complete the buffer zone. And then they will be
57:02
Speaker 1: at a point where they're going to be saying to Ukraine,
57:05
Speaker 1: do you want this war to continue? And I think
57:10
Speaker 1: there's the opportunity to do something there because there's no
57:15
Speaker 1: possibility at the moment that Russia is going to vacate
57:20
Speaker 1: all of the territory it's taken. They would be utterly
57:27
Speaker 1: foolish to do that because it's going to be filled
57:30
Speaker 1: with Western weapons on the borders of Russia. So they're
57:35
Speaker 1: going to finish the military operation. They are going to
57:38
Speaker 1: do their best to... the buffer zone on the eastern,
57:43
Speaker 1: their western border, the eastern border of Ukraine. And at
57:46
Speaker 1: that point, I think they will make a credible effort
57:52
Speaker 1: to get the Ukrainians to talk to them. Now, whether
57:58
Speaker 1: the West is going to allow that to happen, I
58:00
Speaker 1: don't know. And I think we should mention Boris Johnson,
58:03
Speaker 1: because in the last couple of days, he is one
58:07
Speaker 1: demonstrated the brutality that we've talked about because he's openly
58:12
Speaker 1: saying we need to be giving Ukraine more weapons support
58:18
Speaker 1: to get in strategic attacks on the Russians. So he's
58:22
Speaker 1: on this killing Russian line. Are the Ukrainians going to
58:27
Speaker 1: be allowed to negotiate a peace with the Russians or
58:32
Speaker 1: are Western powers going to deliberately stop that. And I
58:37
Speaker 1: think that's the danger. It isn't that the Russians and
58:41
Speaker 1: the Ukrainians could achieve peace. I think they could, but
58:45
Speaker 1: not with the hand of the West stirring the pot.
58:49
Speaker 3: Quite right, I think.
58:51
Speaker 2: As for the question about the future of our armed forces,
58:54
Speaker 2: that's actually a bit of a stitch up, bearing in
58:55
Speaker 2: mind we are nearly at a close. Perhaps that's something
58:59
Speaker 2: we take on in a future episode, a next episode,
59:03
Speaker 2: because in fact, that would work well, I think, because
59:06
Speaker 2: another thing that I know we are due to talk
59:09
Speaker 2: about at some point, possibly in the next episode, is
59:12
Speaker 2: the focus on veterans, both by the political class, using
59:19
Speaker 2: veterans sort of as a target, as a conduit, but
59:22
Speaker 2: also on veterans themselves and the sorts of things that
59:25
Speaker 2: they're looking at and becoming involved in. So I think
59:28
Speaker 2: that would be yeah perhaps somewhere that we could we
59:31
Speaker 2: could and we.
59:32
Speaker 1: Are two of those very people which makes it interesting
59:36
Speaker 2: Doesn't it yes it does yeah okay well let well
59:38
Speaker 2: in which case let's let's um let's wrap up this
59:41
Speaker 2: episode there and um come back to deal with those
59:44
Speaker 2: things next time brian thank you very much indeed that's
59:46
Speaker 2: been fantastic thank you all very much for watching and
59:48
Speaker 2: we'll see you in episode 12.