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Hello and welcome to the Friday episode of the Battleground podcast with me, Saul David, and Patrick Bishop.
Our guest today is distinguished reporter, author and political analyst Tim Judah, who writes for The Economist and The New York Review, and who has just returned from a month in Ukraine. But before we speak to Tim, we're going to do a quick roundup of the news, which includes the important confirmation, finally we hear it, from Vladimir Zelenskyy,
that he signed a bill to lower the mobilization age for combat duty from 27 to 25 in a move, of course, that's expected to help Ukraine generate more fighting power in its war with Russia. Apparently, the bill has been on the president's table since May 2023. That's news to me. But he's finally agreed to sign it.
In other news, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, there are indications that he might be about to reverse his opposition to Ukraine's war effort and allow a vote on President Joe Biden's proposal to send another $61 billion of aid to Ukraine. And we also hear a proposed proposal
plan by NATO to trump-proof Western support for the war by setting up a $100 billion trust fund scheme that would see NATO sending weapons and ammunition directly to Ukraine for the first time. That total amount apparently would be spread over five years. Well, other significant developments this week include a vow by a senior official in Ukrainian military intelligence to
that the Kerch Bridge that connects Crimea to Russia will be destroyed in the first half of 2024. So three months to go then, watch this space. But I just apologize here for my voice.
I'm trying to shake off a cold, so you'll have to bear with me, I'm afraid. Okay, Ukraine's had yet another success with its long-range strikes when it hit a factory assembling Iranian Shahid drones in the central Tatarstan region and also an oil refinery nearby.
at Nizhnyakamsk. Now, both of these are really quite significant achievements. Both of these targets are 800 miles from the Ukrainian border, so their reach is growing all the time. Putin has made an announcement about changes
in the Russian Navy. Now, someone who may have mixed feelings about his promotion is Vice Admiral Sergei Pinchuk, who's been given the unenviable task of commanding the Navy's Black Sea Fleet, which, of course, has been suffering one disaster after another. By all accounts, Pinchuk's had a pretty mediocre career to date, commanding a brigade of ships, the Kronstadt Garrison in the Baltic, and more recently,
the Novorossiysk Naval Base. So he's hardly seems to man to turn things around the Black Sea. Perhaps a bit more significant is another appointment. This is all part of a wider shakeup of the Russian Navy. Well, they've now got a new commander in Admiral Alexander Moiseev. It was an appointment that was announced a few days ago. He's actually commanded the Black Sea fleet before. He was put in charge in 2018 and oversaw a big expansion of
He was also responsible for the so-called Kerch Strait incident that year, in which Russian warships captured three Ukrainian Navy vessels as they were trying to enter the Sea of Azov. This was when Russia was still pretending it had no direct involvement in the conflict, which was, of course, already taking place in the East. So this is a man with something to prove himself.
All these changes, though, are a recognition that the Navy is not having a good war, thanks to Ukrainian successes in sinking much of the Black Sea fleet and forcing Russia to move most of it away from its home base in Crimea, and thus helping Ukraine secure safe passage for ships carrying commodities, grain, metals, etc., from ports around Ukraine.
But going back to that news about Zelensky's decision to finally reduce the mobilization age to 25%.
Do you think it'll make much difference, or given the paucity of Ukrainians who actually occupy that lower age bracket? Well, that's right. I mean, we were hearing about that last week, weren't we, from a number of listeners who contacted us to say, do you realize actually that 18 to 24, 25 age group is really very small compared to the older age groups? So,
We don't know exactly how many more people this is going to produce for the frontline, Patrick. And of course, there will be a time lag as they have to get trained up and equipped if indeed there is the capacity to train and equip. That's a question that one of our listeners has asked this week, too. But undoubtedly, it will mean more bodies. But I think an element of this is PR, to be truthful, Patrick, because
Zelensky has been coming under increasing pressure over this issue. We've mentioned it a number of times, the dissatisfaction that there is within Ukraine, the fact that some people seem to be doing all the fighting. And it's an issue we're going to raise with Tim Judah, who's just come back, as we've said, from Ukraine. But the extent to which this is becoming a political issue was underlined last week when 4,000 women
gathered in 21 cities to protest the length of time their menfolk were serving at the front and to demand their demobilization. They want them home. As a society, said one, people need to realize that it is the duty of all men to serve and protect their country. Why is it that some men are fighting to defend their country and others are carrying on as if everything was normal? And that, Patrick, of course, reminds us, doesn't it, of the conditions when we were in Kiev last
summer when, you know, literally some young guys were driving around in Ferraris. And, you know, it was a bit of an odd look, wasn't it? It sure was, Saul. And that's something that we're going to be hearing a lot about from Tim Judras. It's clearly a big issue of the day. Yeah. Now, the other bit of tantalising news that I mentioned at the start is that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, might be about to reverse his opposition to Ukraine's war effort. Well, this information came in a comment piece by David Axe in the Daily Telegraph
who quoted Johnson's colleagues in the House saying he would sanction a vote on aid for Ukraine in Congress when the House returns after its Easter holiday next week. So why the U-turn, given that Johnson's been the main opposition to this vote? I mean, he has the power either to sanction it or not. So why the change? Well, according to Axe,
And I quote, retirements and special elections have reduced his majority to just two votes out of 438. And with a small contingent of far right Republican extremists refusing to vote on any bill that has bipartisan support, Johnson increasingly relies on Democrats to enact budgets and other legislation.
That in turn means he answers more to the Democratic agenda than the Republican one. And strong support for Ukraine is a Democratic priority. Now, he goes on to say that the release of these funds could mean more artillery shells, Patriot batteries and missiles and M1 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley fighting vehicles. The U.S. apparently has thousands of the older versions of both these AFVs in storage.
And he feels, and I agree, that these really will make a difference on the battlefield. But what are your thoughts on this, Patrick? Do you think Axe might be right and that Johnson is about to do a U-turn? Well, who knows? I mean, we can only hope, can't we? But in terms of what it actually means in releasing weaponry to the front...
We've got to hope that that will happen very, very quickly if indeed it does come to pass that the vote goes through. I mean, we are desperately needed our artillery shells and Patriot batteries, I would say, top of the list tanks, maybe in the Abrams and the Badleys, perhaps not so much.
But, you know, you've just got to look back at what happened with that $300 million package that was somehow, as we said before, found on the back of the sofa a couple of weeks back when the Biden administration was desperately scrabbling around to try and send something Ukraine's way. Well, that's already gone. That $300 million has been burned through in the last couple of weeks.
and really didn't make any difference to the battlefield situation. So as always, the cry is, we need this kit and we need it now. And looking to Europe, as some optimists have been doing, saying, well, maybe if there is a Trump administration that's hostile to the idea of supporting Ukraine, that Europe can somehow close the gap. Well, that seems to me to be pretty fanciful. And that
That seems to be the view of experts who've looked into it. So, for example, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which is a research organization, I think, said that even though we've been hearing about all this European pledges, are they going to step up and somehow try and close that gap? Well, they're saying that by mid-January, all the military aid allocated by EU members came to $36 billion. That's still $10 billion.
less than the aid that was in the pipeline from the United States. So to fully replace American military assistance this year, 2024, the Institute said Europe would have to double its current
level and pace of arms assistance. Well, it shows that it just simply doesn't have the capacity to do that at the moment. So yeah, the urgency is even sharper than it was when this whole saga began and every day it becomes more and more acute.
Now, I just wanted to update listeners who may be wondering where we are with the big story of last month, that is that bloody attack by Islamic terrorists on concert goers at the Crocus City Hall in the suburbs of Moscow. Well, this week, the Washington Post is reporting that more than a fortnight before the attack, the US government told Russian officials that Crocus City Hall, which is a popular concert venue, was a potential target. Now, this is coming from the
U.S. officials, presumably on the kind of security side of the fence. And what's fascinating about this is that this is specific information. And this tells them the Crocus City Hall is where an attack might come about. Now, when this came out before
that the Americans had given heads up to their Russian security counterparts, that something was in the offing, that the information was far too vague for them to act on it, and it was probably some kind of provocation.
But this is saying, no, this is a specific target is being mentioned here. So this gives the lie to that claim that the information had no essential value. And what we see, of course, is the Russians are continuing to promote the idea that somehow, okay, IS operatives might have done it, but somehow Ukraine and the West were behind it. And the latest example we see of this is that the FSB, the Federal Reserve,
the Federal Security Service, claimed that it had seized 70 kilos of homemade explosives and explosive devices hidden in icons and ready to use after cargo inspection at the Latvian border. So this is the FSB trying to show, claiming that they're doing their job by protecting Russians with this rather dodgy sounding message.
report of discovering these, allegedly discovering these explosives, which they claim inevitably have been sent from Ukraine through various European countries. So another sort of clumsy information thing to try and dodge the blame for their massive failure last month. Okay, we're now joined by veteran journalist and author Tim Judah, who's just returned from a month in Ukraine.
Tim is the author of In Wartime, Stories from Ukraine, and you can read his work in the New York Review. They've just published a superb long article on his latest trip. Tim, welcome. Thank you very much. Well, Tim and I, we'd better just say that we go back a long way, don't we? We first met when we were both covering the Bosnian War back in the 1990s.
And we both remember very clearly that time when we both came a cropper, when we were trundling along in that heavy armored Land Rover, which my newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, supplied as correspondence with, God bless them. When we were trying to get into Sarajevo over the only way in, which was a snowy mountain logging track. And in the process, we slid off the road and the
Land Rover turned turtle. Yes, I mean that was really quite a close run thing I think. It was very icy that's why the Land Rover slid and then it went turned turtle as you said but we were quite lucky because we would have rolled down the hill on the side of the road but I think if I remember rightly we got stopped by a tree and we ended up hanging upside down in the car with a
with the battery acid dripping onto our clothes. But, you know, an enduring memory. And I remember that sort of horrific moment when you think, when we were skidding, thinking, oh my God, we're really going to go off the road. And there's literally nothing you can do. It was a horrendous moment. But here we are and we live to tell the tale. Exactly. Well, you've just come back from Ukraine. Tell us first about the mood you found there, Tim.
I mean, I've been going a lot over the last decade and especially in the last two years. In fact, I was there before the full-scale invasion began two years ago. And in the last two years, I've really spent a lot of time there. And, you know, my impression was this time was that
Clearly, there's a mood of gloom. I mean, I think that's the best way to sum it up. But, you know, last summer, there was this real mood of euphoria, this real mood of optimism, encouraged by people like Intelligence Chief Mr. Budanov, who had talked about having coffee in Crimea by the end of the summer.
which was perhaps a little bit irresponsible. But the point I'm trying to make is that I think that last summer there was this kind of
over-optimistic mood. And I have a feeling that, I mean, although the gloom is justified, you know, we may have gone to the other end of the extreme now. It may be sort of more gloomy than the situation warrants. I mean, you know, there are people who think that the Russians are going to make sort of big breakthroughs after they took Avdiivka on the 17th of February. But, you know, I don't really see that happening. I mean, that's why I think that this sort of gloom is perhaps sort of a little bit overdone.
You were down on the front lines near Kobiansk and you saw stuff there that actually underpins your view that perhaps the situation is not as black as is being painted.
I mean, I went to several places along the front line. Well, let me just sort of backtrack a bit. Actually, last summer, I was in Kupyansk. You can go over the bridge over the river Oskil. And last summer, I really wanted to get close to the front, but it was just too difficult. We couldn't get permissions. And it was really dangerous. So we didn't go. But now, you know, a few weeks ago, not only were we able to sort of cross over, we were able to go several kilometers towards the Russian lines. And
And there we were shown the new defensive system that the Ukrainians are building. So these lines are five lines. So it's four kilometers from the very front one to the back one. They consist of dragon's teeth, those concrete sort of Toblerone style anti-tank traps, minefields and barbed wire. And then, of course, trench systems.
Now, in principle, they should be building those all the way, all along the front line. You know, that's what they say they're going to do. I'm sure they've done some of it, but I also think that they haven't done enough of it and they're not doing it quick enough. But, you know, they certainly have made a start and that's what they were showing off there.
Then I traveled all the way down that eastern front line. I was there just after Avdiivka had fallen. I went to the town of, well, I went to towns like Kostantynivka and Pokrovsk. Pokrovsk is where a lot of the soldiers who had retreated from Avdiivka ended up. You know, there people were pretty worried.
civilians were talking about evacuating. But as a journalist from a local TV station said to me, she said, you know, I've talked to my family about evacuating, but probably it'll be like it has always been in the past, which is to say something happens and then everyone just goes, okay, let's just wait and see, let's just wait and see. And if the Russians don't follow up with sort of more bombardment or the front line doesn't appear to be moving, then probably they won't move and probably those people didn't.
You know, I also went down to the Zaporizhia front lines. There I went to a couple of places. One was Orykiv. So Orykiv is a town which has been completely destroyed. I mean, it's really, there's hardly any civilians there. It's just been completely destroyed. But it's from there that the Ukrainians are...
taking care of the defense of this little town of Robotnia, which was taken by them last summer, and which the Russians would dearly like to get back. But there, even though the Russians keep talking about advances, the Ukrainians were saying, well, they've closed the
the grey zone between us, but actually they haven't taken any Ukrainian-held territory. But above all, what I think is really interesting and something I kind of want to emphasise, especially here, is that last summer,
I was really frustrated because it was very difficult to get to the front lines. And when I say front lines, I mean the sort of, well, the Ukrainians call this zero line. That's sort of the very front sort of trench system, you know, pointing out towards the Russians. And what's so interesting was that in six months, things have changed dramatically.
so incredibly fast. And what I realized that, you know, journalistically speaking anyway, you know, that zero line is not where it's happening now. Where it's happening are in these command posts, which are 10, 15 kilometers behind the front lines. You go and see the commander who is sitting there in front of banks of screens with live feeds to the front line. You know, that's where things are happening now. And that's where, anyway, journalistically, an
and I suppose bilaterally as well, but journalistically especially, it's become really interesting. And what's incredible is not that it's happened, but it's happened so incredibly fast.
Tim, one of the big news stories of the last few months, as you know, is the holdup of American support. We were just discussing actually before you came on the possibility, the kind of hints that this might be about to change, but let's just say it does continue for the sake of argument. To what extent is this desperate shortage of artillery shells, as we've been told, affecting the ability of the Ukrainians to fight? Or are they, as you seem to be suggesting,
actually picking up the slack with the use of drones and this sort of slightly longer distance type of fighting that doesn't necessarily need an enormous number of artillery shells to be effective. I mean, yeah, you're right. But let me just tell you my first impression. First of all, in Orykiv, when I got there, there's a concert kind of sound of shells in the background. And...
When I spoke to the soldiers and commanders there, they said, oh, it's outgoing. I'm going, well, hang on a second. It's outgoing, but I thought you didn't have any. You shouldn't have any shells. What's going on here? And they go, well, we don't have any of the Soviet caliber shells, but we have still the NATO caliber shells.
At another place as well, they also talked about and complained the fact that they don't have any of certain calibers of shells. But it doesn't mean they've got nothing. They've just got a lot less. So what does it mean when you've got a lot less? It doesn't mean you haven't got anything. It just means that you have to use what you've got with the utmost care. So, for example, one of the commanders that I spoke to said, we just had a delivery and with that delivery, I was able to take out two Russian artillery positions.
He says, the thing is, the Russians can take a whole sector, like a whole...
square area and just sort of pop pepper the whole area with shells. And we can't do that, but thanks to drone technology, et cetera, we can pinpoint exactly what we want to hit. And we have to be very sparing with our shells. And you know, that's what we're doing. Now, I also went to see people who make bits and pieces for drones. I've got friends, a friend now who now has gone into business making batteries for drones. And I said,
I said to him, well, this is, you know, it's incredible, like drones are sort of really taking over now. You know, does that mean that artillery is less important? And he goes, you know, it's not that it's less important, but the drone technology has just become complement to it. You know, so, you know, in the long run, if this
shell famine, this shortage of artillery, you know, keeps up. Yes, in the long run, it really will impact very seriously the Ukrainians. But, you know, in the meantime, you know, they can make and do and have, you know, managed to survive. If it had not, if that had not been the case, then the front lines would have been driven a lot further back than they have been after the fall of Avdiivka. Well, that was absolutely fascinating, Tim. Do join us after the break when Tim will be telling us about
about the political and popular mood that he came across both on the front lines and in the cities. Ryan Reynolds here from Intmobile.
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While you still can. At participating McDonald's for a limited time while supplies last. Welcome back. Tim, well, you told us about this feeling of gloom at the beginning that you encountered. Can you be a bit more specific about that? First of all, let's talk about the soldiers. Do you think that it's actually impacting their ability or their willingness to fight?
And do you think that morale is going to be an ongoing problem? Well, I think that morale will be an ongoing problem if there isn't more rotation. You know, that is the big issue here. The fact is that you've got a lot of soldiers who...
A lot of men who kind of rushed to volunteer and did volunteer and went happily to the front two years ago. But, you know, a lot of them are still there. Now, what's happened, you know, in the last couple of days is that the age of mobilization has been lowered. I mean, it's actually surprisingly high. You know, you've got to be 27 to be sent to the front to be mobilized.
they've now lowered it to 25. So that will bring in or can potentially bring in a lot more soldiers. But politically, they have to sort of go a little bit, they have to be a little bit careful because a lot of the people who want to fight went to fight. And now there isn't anybody sort of going voluntarily to fight anymore. But there are still quite a lot of people who go, well, if they mobilize me, well, I'll go. I
I won't go happily, but I'll definitely go. And, you know, I think that will certainly make a big difference because, as I say, the problem isn't that people don't want to fight. They just don't want to be there for two years without being rotated and feeling that there are people behind them who could and should be at the front. So I think, you know, the broadening of the sort of mobilization mandate –
and the reform of the mobilization law, which has sort of been going on for months and months, will and should make a big difference.
Tim, I mean, linking into that is obviously discussions you've had with people on the home front. To what extent are they still right behind this war? Is there an element of war weariness you're seeing at all? Or is it just this idea, as we also discussed at the beginning of the program, this dissatisfaction that some of the people are fighting to defend their country and others are behaving as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening?
I mean, I think there is a sort of war weariness setting in. And yes, of course, it does vary, you know, across the country. I think it's sort of, it's very easy for us to forget here, or sitting in Britain anyway, you know, just how big a country Ukraine is. It's really a sort of vast country. So there's sort of, there's vast differences in the way that the war feels, depending on where you are, whether you're in the West, in
in Kiev or one of the other big cities or towards the east, where, of course, the situation degrades. But I think in general terms, you know, sort of people are, the vast majority of people are still behind the wall. But I think that the closer you get and the more vulnerable you are, the more fragile the situation is. Let me put it that way. You know, I met with a lady called Irina. She's the mother of a friend of mine. She runs food distribution for a food company. And she is
was pointing at telegram messages on her phone and was very disturbed by how this was after people and civilians had been killed in Odessa, how there are people who are pressing like emojis on those telegram messages about news about Ukrainians being killed and smileys. Well, of course, those people could be in Russia, they could be
They could be anywhere, but they could also be some of her pro-Russian neighbors. And, you know, she was in, say, Zaporizhia, which had just been hit. And I think the fact is that there is this feeling, this kind of grinding feeling, this feeling that they are being ground down and that there is no end in sight. And, you know, push comes to shove. You say...
Would you prefer to fight to the end or which would basically mean Zaporizhia the city being completely destroyed or basically give it up to the Russians then you know the vast majority but a lot of people would prefer to give up to the Russians rather than have their city destroyed. But you know the key thing is that although there are I did hear people saying well yeah maybe we should make some sort of deal with them etc. I don't think there are that many because there's a feeling that
You can't make a deal with the Russians or whatever deal you make with the Russians will only be temporary. It will be like 2014-15 again. You make a deal and then the Russians can sort of, you know, rearm and prepare for the next bit. So, you know, people would say, well, OK, we could lose Crimea or even Donbass if that would be it. But very few people believe that will be it. They just think they'll come back for more when they're ready and therefore we've got to finish it now.
Having said that, of course, they can only finish that, though, if Western aid, if the American aid and Western aid in general continues to flow. Yeah, well, that's what I was about to come in and say, Tim, is that there must be a huge amount of frustration, isn't there, particularly with the US, with these shenanigans, these very kind of inward-looking and to our eyes, rather defiant,
Difficult to understand a rouse going on inside the Senate, well, the whole Congress at the moment. How much is that visible? How much is that audible to you, that frustration?
I mean, yeah, people do follow it. People do know about it. And of course, you know, the front people know about it because they have a lot less shells than they did before. So, you know, yes, people are worried about it and frustrated and even perhaps sort of baffled by it. You know, they just think, I mean, as people say,
Either we can fight on our land, but if we fail, then you'll be fighting on your land, meaning NATO territory. And none of them believe that if Ukraine collapsed, you know, that would be it. And that the Russians would sort of happily stop on the Dnipro River or even on the borders of Ukraine. So this
This tends to make you look back to the situation last summer. Are people saying, well, if only they'd given us the kit instead of this drip reading that we've seen all the way through, if we'd actually had the tools to do the job last summer, we might actually have succeeded. Is that a view that gets any credence at the moment?
I mean, I think a bit, but I don't think that it was a fact they didn't get the kit. I think it was perhaps they got it too slowly. I think that was the problem. You know, the fact was that you had the Harkiv offensive, Hassan, and then the Harkiv offensives at the end of 2022. You know, if the kit had come...
rapidly after that, then they could have done the job. But basically what happened was the Russians didn't sit around after they had lost, you know, such a vast amount of Kharkiv Oblast. They built, that's when they built those defensive lines and they built those defensive trenches. And then,
The equipment then arrived, but it was perhaps too little. But more importantly, it was too late. That time period gave the Russians time to build these sort of serious defenses, which they then couldn't break through.
Yeah. And now, of course, from what you're saying, Tim, the Ukrainians are doing exactly the same thing. So it's going to be very interesting, isn't it, to see how things pan out over the next few months. Do you have another trip planned in the foreseeable future? Well, I work also for The Economist. So they've asked me, they've penciled in a couple of dates in the next couple of months to go back. So yes, I'm hoping that I will go back soon.
So just one last point, going to mention your brilliant article in the New York Review, Tim, when you were saying that you heard the opinion expressed that some of the assistance to the West
has been giving is actually not necessarily very relevant. I'm thinking about the training program, much of it being done in Britain at the moment, of Ukrainian troops. Yes. I mean, I've heard this now several times, you know, people saying that they'd been on training or they've heard soldiers complaining about the training. Okay, they're grateful for the training. They're not, let's not make a mistake about that. But the fact is that the experience of
of British troops and American troops and troops from other Western countries have had
in the last 20 or so years. It's just not been relevant. The experience of Afghanistan and the experience of Iraq, it doesn't translate into how to deal with massive minefields and drones and cyber technology and all the sort of things that the Ukrainians have been up against in this war.
So, you know, in a sense, it sounds like we've got a lot more to learn from them than they have from us. One other thing I'd like to mention, which we haven't done, and which is also really, really important, is this element of cyber war and cyber defense, because this is part of the war that's being fought in the shadows, and we just don't know much about it. And the fact is that, you know, if the Ukrainians have a big success in terms of cyber defense,
Offense unless it's something which can't be hidden. No, the Russians don't talk about it and I think that's also the case with the attacks by the Russians well I was going to say hackers, but it's not really that I mean I went to the people who are responsible for cyber offense and what's our defense rather and you know, they identify the main groups in charge of cyber offense against Ukraine and
And one of them is attached to the Belarusian Ministry of Defense, but the others are connected to the Russian security establishment. And when you say, well, I thought a lot of this stuff was being done by sort of associated with criminals, etc. They go, yes, there is a lot of that. But the really, really serious stuff is done by these units which belong to the FSB and to the Russian Ministry of Defense. You know, they're the people that we really have to look out for.
But as I say, this and drones, cyber, cyber, offense, defense, drones, it's technology that's moving just incredibly fast. And drones, well, we can see, you know, we can see the Ukrainians hitting targets now 1,300 kilometers away from their borders and hitting them accurately. The cyber stuff, we don't know so much about. But, you know, that's really, really important. And the Ukrainians, too, are learning from that.
This cyber war has been going on for at least 10 years. There were periods, there were attacks that happened, the period 2015, 16, 17, where Russians hacked into Ukrainian power stations, especially in the west of the country, and then managed to take them, managed to shut them down and...
to turn off the power in parts of Ukraine, in parts of Western Ukraine for some hours back then. The Ukrainians have learned by that. So now it's impossible to do that. You go, well, why is it impossible to do that? They said, because now our power stations are no longer attached to the internet. They're basically like sort of islands. We can attach them if we want to, but otherwise they're islands. So you can't sit in Moscow or Peru or wherever it is.
and sort of break into power stations. So, you know, they've learned a lot. And I hope that we're learning a lot as well, because this is also going to be one of the big front lines of future conflict, you know, in the world. Fascinating. Thanks so much for all that, Tim. Good luck to you on your next trip. And it was a pleasure having you on. Great. Well, thank you. Thank you for having me and keep up the good work.
Well, I'm sorry for the rather poor sound quality during the interview. I think we've sorted out that technical problem, so things should get better from now on. I'm going to start with a few listeners' questions. We've got a fascinating contribution from Justin Ling in Montreal, Canada. I'm a pretty recent convert to the pub, but I've become a religious listener fairly quickly. He wanted to drop us a line to tell us how much he appreciates the work. Well, thanks very much for that, and to offer three areas of thought
that might be informative for some future episodes. We're always grateful for suggestions. And these are particularly good ones. Just to say something about Justin, he's a freelance journalist. He's based in Montreal. And over the past few years, he's developed an interest in disinformation as one of his core beats, particularly Russian disinformation. He's very much focused on Ukraine, Ukraine,
And he covers the war for foreign policy, Wired, and the Canadian state broadcaster, CBC. Anyway, he's just been in Kiev himself, chasing down a few stories. And he says he's picked up a few things that you and your listeners might find interesting. Well, in Kiev, he managed to get access to a secret drone factory and training school.
And sat down, he says, with some pretty interesting executives and entrepreneurs trying to innovate solutions in this war. Well, this is what we've been hearing about, isn't it, from Tim. So he says this ranges from cheap but impressive FPV drones to long range bombers, ground based autonomous vehicles, etc., etc.
And he's putting together a feature on that for Wired. This is great stuff, isn't it? So I'll tell the listeners a bit more about what else Justin has been up to. Yeah, I mean, really extraordinary stuff. And it's tying together a lot of the bigger news stories we're hearing at the moment. And of course, we've been talking about this extraordinary ability of the Ukrainians to develop technology not with Western support. And they're very determined to make that point.
to take the fight a long way into Russia. We mentioned, didn't we, today that they had actually hit targets 800 miles inside Russia. Now, up to this point, there was an assumption that they could only get about 800 kilometres. Well, clearly, they've increased the range of some of their drones to 1,200 kilometres. And it's not just...
the range, it's the accuracy and the ability to get them there without them being knocked down. I mean, we were chatting before, Patrick, weren't we, about, you know, it's a mystery really that the Russians haven't actually been able to counter these long range weapons. But having said that, there are an awful lot of targets that
Now, Justin also goes on to talk about a couple of other really fascinating areas. One of them is the kind of general topic of Canada. And he says, I've heard you two offer some well-deserved pot shots at Ottawa. That's, of course, the seat of government in Canada over the past few months. And he's been trying to kick some shins in the Trudeau government recently to get them to take this seriously. He actually had a chance to sit down with the prime minister earlier this month and asked them directly about the sea waterways.
rv7 rockets that have been much discussed and we mentioned them of course on the pod they've got enormous numbers of uh of these in storage and why haven't they been giving them to the ukrainians well uh apparently trudeau assured him that they were seriously trying to get them to kiev but they may genuinely be more trouble to ship than they're worth more interestingly he had a chance to speak to the defense minister bill blair while he was in kiev now blair sits on the
ukraine defense contact groups drone coalition and he signaled the group is looking to pivot in strategy a bit they're keen to start purchasing drones and maybe other tech in bulk from ukrainian suppliers instead of trying to ship kit over from the west so basically buying inside the country and of course that will make the whole supply chain business and transportation a lot easier so as justin says could be something interesting to keep
our eyes on. If listeners would like to find out more about what Justin's been up to, they should go to his sub stack, which is entitled bug eyed and shameless. That's all one word, bug eyed and shameless.com. Yeah, it'd be great to get Justin on to the pod at some point if you're up for that, Justin, and you're listening.
Okay, we have a question here from Ben in the USA, and he comes back to the discussion on Ukrainian mobilization. Ukraine does need more soldiers, both to replace casualties in existing formations and to form new brigades, as was done this year. Numerous causes have been speculated for the delay, and one possible cause I don't believe you've discussed is the issue of Ukraine's ability to actually channel and support soldiers.
so many more soldiers. And he makes the point, of course, that naturally the sooner training starts with the recruits, the better. But does the training pipeline both inside and outside of Ukraine exist? He goes on to say, even if numbers can be trained, what will they be armed with? The Ukrainian army remains chronically undersupplied with heavy equipment.
It's not enough to give the new soldiers a rifle and a few magazines. These new forces would need all the heavy support equipment necessary for modern warfare. Tanks, APCs, mortar, heavy infantry weapons, air defence and artillery. I'm beginning to get the impression that Ben's got military experience himself. He also says Ukraine does not have the ammunition it needs to fight the war with the forces it has now. Training requires...
requires more ammunition. Any new units brought online would require more ammunition. And the final point, which we've addressed already, he says, but he'll include anyway, is the added economic burden of supporting more troops in the field and the parallel decrease in economic output as more of the workforce is put into uniform. All really good points. And in conclusion, yes, they need more troops. And yes, their training needs to start as soon as possible and be as long as possible given the circumstances. But there may be significant problems
practical obstacles that need to be overcome before such a mobilization can occur so thank you for that ben i mean really really interesting points and it does you know i've talked about the political pressure on zelensky but there may be these practical difficulties that have been discouraging the ukrainians up to this point from mobilizing more soldiers so thank you
Okay, one last point before we go. I'm very delighted to hear news from a friend of the podcast, Lieutenant Colonel Pavlo Hazan. And he writes with his news, I commanded unmanned systems in the TDF, that's the Territorial Defense Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces for a year. And a year ago, I was invited by the TDF commander to create the unmanned structure in the army branch, which was absolutely new. And not many people, you know, had an understanding of how to go about this.
A year later, and that's now, of course, there are dozens of units from platoons to battalions and thousands of trained and highly skilled people. So that's all thanks to Pavlo. And as a result of all of this, I suspect, and I'm really pleased to hear this because I think it'll keep him a little bit safer than he was before. He now has a new job. He's responsible for the development of electronic support, ES systems and technologies for
in the General Directorate of Electronic and Cyber Warfare, which is part of the general staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. So I haven't had confirmation from Pavlo yet that this means he's going to be based in Kyiv, but I suspect it will mean that. But it's obviously an incredibly important job given Ukraine's
everything we've been saying today, Tim's point about cyber warfare. Well, this is something that Pablo is going to be directly responsible for, as well as electronic warfare. So, you know, hugely important job to do, probably a promotion. Again, I haven't heard confirmation of that. But many congratulations, Pablo, and we hope to hear more from you on this in future.
Absolutely. Okay, well, that's all from us for this week. Do tune in on Wednesday for the latest episode of Battleground 44, when I'll be talking to historian Giles Milton about Joseph Stalin as part of our Warlords series. And hopefully by then I'll have got my voice back. Goodbye.