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THE UKRAINE WAR FRONTLINE ... PROF. JAMIE SHEA Times Radio: 'Paper tiger' Putin fails to stop Ukraine's deep strikes that threaten to end Russian offensives PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNn3n1vN1i0 Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess
'Paper tiger' Putin fails to stop Ukraine's deep strikes that threaten to end Russian offensives Times Radio Sep 30, 2024 997K subscribers ... 12,139 views Frontline \| The War in Ukraine and Global Security 'They've flown an armed drone 2500km from Ukraine to Tomsk in Siberia to attack a Russian airfield.' Ukraine's deep strikes into Russia continue to degrade Putin's red lines and his military capacity, Prof. Jamie Shea Former NATO spokesman and official tells Frontline on #timesradio Join this channel to get access to perks - / @listentotimesradio 📻 Listen to Times Radio - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio 🗞 Subscribe to The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/subscribe/... 📲 Get the free Times Radio app https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio/how-... Transcript 0:00 Putin has come up with these red lines before on f-16s and tanks and you know High Mars artillery and we've crossed those red lines and what has Putin done nothing so it's a bit of a p he's a bit of a paper tiger uh and uh you know he'll use rhetoric to try to deter us but in reality we can go ahead uh and in any case if Ukraine is going to win it means taking more risks there's no way around that uh and that Ukraine has sort of shown that it's very good at attacking uh uh targets deep in inside Russia linked with the Russian military campaign fuel dumps you know some spectacular explosions against ammunition dumps in recent days striking at airfields destroying Russian aircraft and bombers on airfields all of the kind of things that make it harder for Russia to keep the offensive going hello and welcome to Frontline for times radio I'm James Hansen and today I'm delighted to be joined by Dr Jamie Shay former NATO Deputy assistant Secretary General Jamie always a pleasure welcome back to front line thank you again for inviting me James let's begin with last week's UN 1:00 General Assembly in New York and 1:02 president zelinsky's Victory plan he was 1:04 trying to convince his allies in the 1:06 west to support it obviously we don't know the specifics of it although we have a fair idea we'll come on to some of the PLS of it in a moment but in brief do you think he was successful in trying to sell this plan last week well I I think what happened James is that uh he was trying of course to put the attention back on Ukraine when the focus overwhelmingly of the UN General Assembly unsurprisingly was the situation in Gaza the Israeli strikes against husa in in Lebanon I think he at least managed to create a little bit of space of himself his speech to the general assembly obviously bilateral meetings he he met Biden he met Harris uh he also and I think this was probably most important of all for him managed to have a meeting with President Trump and at least try to convince Trump to be more supportive of the cause of Ukraine and he came out of that meeting in Trump Tower in New York saying that you know Trump was supportive of Ukraine we'll wait to see if that's truly uh the case 2:01 so I think you know it was a good effort by him at least to sort of pull the spotlight back over onto Ukraine not easy at the moment when it comes to his sort of Peace plan yes okay you're right we haven't had the the whole thing sort of published yet but from the sources that did sort of leak out it so it became pretty clear that it wasn't what maybe some some people were expecting sort of let's go and negotiate now with the Russians and here are the territorial concessions that we're prepared to make this is what we want from Russia it was more a rehash of his so-called 10-point plan that he issued last year which is really a kind of Pathway to Victory rather than a territorial negotiation it contains many of the familiar things we need more weapons we need more money we need more NATO membership we need those Russians that have committed war war crimes to be brought to brought to trial uh we need more reconstruction money uh and so on and so forth so uh I think from that point of view it didn't sort of show Ukraine yet being prepared prepared to 3:00 sort of compromise on its goal of liberating all of its territory uh and then negotiating Beyond with Russia yeah can we go through what we think are kind of like the five planks of this Victory plan and you can just tell me Jamie whether you think this is viable whether you think Ukraine is likely to get this so the first one is a formal invitation for Ukraine to join NATO where do you think we are with that well the Allies have always said since they first made the promise back in 2008 a long time ago that Ukraine would be a member of one day they've always said that they not backing away from that the door is open the language they used in the recent NATO Summit in Washington last July was that Ukraine is on an irreversible path to uh uh membership but I think it's pretty clear uh that nothing will happen before the war is over um it's very difficult for NATO to bring Ukraine in while the war is going on because then Ukraine would trigger the Article 5 Collective defense Clause the day after committing NATO uh to go to war with Russia and you've seen the 4:01 Allies but particularly the Biden Administration and of course the US is all important in all of this is not willing to go down that particular path the problem for NATO is that its Collective defense works best in peace time in terms of being set up you know you're a peace and therefore you can put NATO soldiers in Ukraine you can construct a system of deterence uh nuclear and conventional to stop Wars happening but it's very difficult to construct that deterrent system in war time uh obviously so I think you know the uh the membership of Ukraine is still a possibility but not immediately given that the war is going to go on the second thing uh which I think happened at the NATO Summit is that the Biden Administration started to talk about other things as well not just you know Ukraine has to be interoperable with NATO uh you know obviously uh it has to uh have an army capable of defending the country you know meet its military requirements the Biden Administration start started to sort of resurrect some 5:01 old complaints about corruption uh in the public administration a weak Judiciary uh for instance more needed on economic reform those kind of things uh and of course uh in Wartime those things are also difficult for Ukraine to achieve and again after the war the danger is is that if Ukraine relapses into some of those bad old habits particularly connected with uh corruption that could delay the process of NATO membership so it's it's still there uh but it's not something that I expect to happen this year or next and also if those concerns are still there that could potentially delay membership of the EU which is another one of these planks We Believe of this Victory plan do you think that is any more or less likely than NATO membership well I again I think that you the EU uh in extending the sort of offer of membership to Ukraine and Moldova Georgia unfortunately is lapsing backwards now and it's in a different position we'll see what happens with the Georgian elections in October but but I I think 6:00 the EU made a very bold move because it said now you know that the EU should be consistent with all of Europe and no longer part of Europe and should embrace all of democracies I think that is a very bold and irreversible step but there there are two big issues of course number one is that the EU is now looking at Ukraine which has less than half the GDP per capit of Poland Al though they were mainly broadly equivalent back in 1989 when the Berlin war came down so it's really dealing with a country which is massively poorer than the EU average and so it's going to take a lot of EU funds and a lot of Reform to get the Ukrainian economy somewhat approximate with some of the more recent EU members from Central and Eastern Europe and agriculture which is Ukraine's still know major export economy grain uh could be a big Advantage for EU food security but you see already It's upsetting polish Farmers It's upsetting Farmers elsewhere in in Eastern Europe in the EU who are putting barriers up to the import of Cheaper Ukrainian grain the 7:00 second thing I think with the EU James is that you can't have now an EU which goes over 30 members in the future and with the same basic structures that it has at the moment uh decision making by unanimity the way in which some of the uh EU funds are sort of shared out uh among the member states there's a real Keen sense here in Brussels that you know you need a new EU for a new you Ukraine uh for for an EU with Ukraine and how do you sort of combine that internal aspect of reforming so you're ready with what you're asking Ukraine to do some of you allies are saying well you know we should start this reform process right away uh so that we're ready to absorb these new members with a functional decisionmaking resource allocation system whereas you can imagine others are saying no no no you know we're not even sure that Ukraine's going to make the grade yet this could run on for years so let's popone reform no need to do it at the moment particularly of course those countries like Hungary you can imagine James which really are very attached to unanimity in 8:02 decision making because then they can use this to block more EU sanctions against Russia uh and and the like so um it it's going it's more difficult of course to absorb the Ukraine into the EU than NATO for all of these complicated legal and economic reasons but NATO is not proposing to transform itself to have Ukraine as a member the EU is and I think that is the vital difference another key plank of zelinsky's Victory plan as far as we're aware but this seems pretty likely is this use of longrange missiles inside Russia and permission to be able to use them we didn't get any big announcements in that last week do you think that is likely to happen at some point it doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon James the Biden Administration seems to have sort of dug in on this one uh my understanding is that the US Administration is pretty divided you get people in the state department very supportive of Ukraine who feel that this is a risk worth taking you know you know James the arguments you know Putin has come up with these red lines before on 9:01 f-16s and tanks and you know High Mars artillery and we've crossed those red lines and what has Putin done nothing so it's a bit of a p he's a bit of a paper tiger uh and uh you know he'll use rhetoric to try to deter us but in reality we can go ahead uh and in any case if Ukraine is going to win it means taking more risks there's no way around that uh and that Ukraine has sort of shown that it's very good at attacking uh uh targets deep in some Russia linked with the Russian military campaign fuel dumps you know some spectacular explosions against ammunition dumps in recent days striking and airfields destroying Russian aircraft and bombers on airfields all of the kind of things that make it harder for Russia to keep the offensive going but there are people in the National Security Council and in the Pentagon who believe you know no you know we shouldn't sort of test Putin too much uh there may be a red line that Putin is really going to keep and which won't become a pink line but it will 10:00 remain a red line if we use those long range artillery uh longrange missiles uh this is basically a step to far uh and we shouldn't sort of go there because you know we will then look as if we are directly entering the war the you know you've got to remember James to that this is to run up of course to the US elections you know the last thing that Biden wants which would syn the chances of carela Harris in the elections is then a confrontation between the United States and Russia in the same way that the US is trying to keep out of a war with Iran in the Middle East at the moment you know Trump will masquerade as the peace president against Biden and Harris the war presidents if you like so that context I think plays into it so I think all of this is delaying things the ukrainians were sort of hoping that Biden would sort of give this Authority while he was still in the white house because things would be more uncertain afterwards so what is happening is that ukrainians are now falling back on Plan B which is to use their own domestically 11:00 produced missiles and drones to do the job in instead and they've had some success I mean they've flown an armed drone 2,500 kilometers from Ukraine to tomsk in Siberia to attack a a Russian Airfield um and I mentioned some of those other strikes that we've seen in recent days so and they've announced that they've developed their own longrange ballistic missile um uh as well uh their defense industry is capable of producing these things so I think Plan B is that they will ask for money to invest uh with and also materials and expertise in their domestic missile industry to produce the things themselves and what they're actually asking is look you know we can produce these things but we can't buy them the government does not have the money to buy them so America will you buy these things that we produce ourselves to so that we can use them ourselves with a Ukrainian flag on them but of course this takes time and it doesn't it's not as for the ukrainians as convenient as having of course us Jon or attacks 12:01 missiles arriving tomorrow which they can use immediately but on this long range issue uh we seem to be starking the British and the French seem more willing to go ahead the UK with the Storm Shadow missile the French with the Scout but these weapons contain American components uh and they need to have the permission of the United States and I think James final Point sorry for this long response but I think the final point on this is that you know when you do these risky things it's good if the Americans do them as well you know as with the tanks be all with the F-16 uh pilot training and so on because then you know safety and numbers right uh and it's a open question whether the British and the French would be willing to go ahead without Washington being in the game as well sorry for that long answer no no no absolutely fascinating and just finally on what we believe is in zelinsky's Victory plan I suppose the two other key pillars are a sustained um deal for for military a because it's been very stop start it's been okay give us the f-16s and months of debate over then finally the f-16s 13:00 are given you know making sure it's a more sustainable um sort of amount of aid but also just more economic aid generally because you know as you mentioned okay Ukraine can can can produce of its own material but it but it needs the money to do so absolutely um Mark rut the former Dutch prime minister takes over as Secretary General of NATO tomorrow and I think his first and biggest task is going to get this new NATO Center at Varden in Germany up and running which was agreed at the NATO Summit that I referred to in July whereby NATO is now going to play this much more Central coordinating role dealing with the problems that you outlined you know a more regular flow not this sort of feast one moment famine the next uh approach to delivering weapons uh Ukraine is now operating about 140 different types of weapon system supplied by the West because we've been giving them what we could spare rather than what they need and this means 140 different types of training 140 different spare parts and supply lines it's completely chaotic 14:01 there needs to be a lot more standardization around certain weapon systems um and and also ensuring that the training is there when the weapons arrive getting them into Ukraine in a timely way and so we need to see that that new NATO Center is going to make a difference for the time being U also the focus is on the non-controversial stuff that everybody agrees Patriot systems for air defense because clearly the Russian objective this winter will be to rip apart the Ukrainian energy grid uh about 80% of the coal and uh oil gas fired stations are offline at the moment because of those strikes and if it's a bad winter for the ukrainians because of the energy issue the number of ukrainians calling for peace already increasing will increase further and the number of ukrainians fleeing to the West as refugees already over six million will also increase further nobody disagrees with air defense but getting it into Ukraine quickly it is going to be key the other thing James is that the 15:01 ukrainians have now got Manpower problems severe Manpower problems you know they claim that for every soldier that is killed on their side six are killed on the Russian side that may be true but they're a smaller Army a smaller population and it's quite clear that they're now having problems 10% of the your army has apparently deserted um the younger ukrainians you know knowing what's going to happen to them are less willing to be called up than the army that Ukraine had a few years ago uh there are reports that Ukrainian lines are breaking now uh Visa the Russian Onslaught because the Ukrainian conscripts have not had enough training uh before they are deployed so another big task I think is really going to help Ukraine with the training of the soldiers so that they can hold the line on the economic front you're right they only fund about 40% of their state budget at the moment so they need that extra funding the good news is that over the summer the G7 countries agreed to comp confiscate the uh interest on 16:00 Russian Bank assets to use as collateral to give Ukraine a $50 billion loan Ursula Von Deion the EU commission president in Kiev last week said we can already give you 35 billion of this on trust so for the time being that budget financing seems to be there uh but again if this goes on for years and years uh and every year you have to come up with these enormous Financial packages uh it's going to be harder and harder naturally one of the other big headlines from last week was Vladimir Putin seemingly revising the Russian nuclear Doctrine saying that they would treat an attack by a non-nuclear state that has support from a nuclear State as equivalent to an attack from a nuclear State what do you make of that well it's sort of going back to the Cold War where uh nuclear Powers had that kind of Doctrine so that uh uh people couldn't hide behind nuclear powers in in in alliances uh uh and it's obviously a regrettable step 17:01 and it's been condemned by the NATO Secretary General against Stenberg and by Tony blinkon the US Secretary of State predictably uh because since the end of the Cold War we were going towards a situation where the nuclear Powers including Russia were recognizing more restraints on nuclear weapons the nuclear weapons would only be used against other nuclear States and a second strike retaliatory weapons but nobody would use them first uh it's not clear at the moment What's going to happen materially speaking you know because although Russia has transferred some nuclear weapons to bis there are no signs yet that it's put its existing nuclear weapons on higher alert but I think two things frankly the Russians see that this nuclear rhetoric is working you know they see we spoke about this a moment ago the Biden Administration hesitating about the longrange missiles because of fear of Russian retaliation uh and so if it's a winning strategy in terms of intimidating your adversaries and getting them to back down why not keep it going and you see not just Putin but 18:01 all of the Russian senior leaders you know like lavro the foreign minister at the UN General Assembly last week banging on about this nuclear issue you know they they think they've got the West uh on the back foot on this the second problem I think is is not so much the Russian nuclear Doctrine but Russian nuclear proliferation I mentioned they've transferred weapons to bis there's now talk that they're giving nuclear expertise and satellite technology to North Korea to improve its capabilities they've just said that they support new North Korea being a a nuclear weapon state that's total contradiction with resolutions that Russia has signed up to uh in the uh United Nations there to talk about giving nuclear uh re-entry vehicle technology to Iran in exchange for Iran giving some of its drones and short-range weapons to Russia so Russia unfortunately risks becoming a Serial nuclear proliferator on the international scene uh making a lot of 19:00 far less reliable countries you know much more nuclear capable for short-term you know strategic gains uh and uh the West is going to have to sort of live with that more dangerous multinuclear world for a long time to come that is what I see as the real issue at the moment what is your sense Jamie of what we're seeing on the front line at the moment both in terms of in the east of Ukraine but also in KK as well and I've heard some people say look you can call the cursed incursion so far a tactical Victory what we don't know yet is whether it's turns into something bigger whether it's going to be a strategic victory for Ukraine or not what is your sense of things well I I I've got to be honest uh I'm a supporter of Ukraine but I have to say it's not looking good uh at the moment the you're right I mean the Cur incursion in August was was a great tactical move but the problem is is that it doesn't seem to have worked yet uh in forcing the Russians to withdraw significant numbers uh of their forces from uh Ukraine to defend K thereby taking the pressure of the Ukrainian it has had some effect I mean 20:00 there are reports that the Russians for example have halted their Advance towards zarat Zia uh to take some forces back into Russia uh but not when it comes to pushing against towns like pod tros or or vulvar uh in donet which they're still hoping to take in coming weeks they're not advancing spectacularly but they are uh advancing um and so that is the first point uh strategically that idea of a move which would Force Russia to change its own strategy isn't working the second thing is that the ukrainians have of course taken a lot of their best troops uh out of their defensive front line to do that operation and that means that they have to put more of the badly trained conscripts to replace them in the front line who are not as capable of standing up to the Russians now the the ukrainians also have a difficult choice if they decide to push further into Russia um you know to create an even bigger Salient that means using more troops so uh it's I think they're in a 21:01 difficult situation at the moment uh the best thing that they could do would be to try to hang on to what they've got in the hope that this can be a bargaining chip in eventual peace negotiations to oblige uh Putin to give up uh more territory uh inside uh uh Russia itself uh inside Ukraine itself excuse me uh the problem though James historically is it's very difficult to defeat Russia I mean you remember Napoleon went all of the way to mosc go in 1812 and he burnt the city down but he still lost and he was still forced out I mean you know Russia is so vast that even if you take a chunk of territory and the Germans in the second world war Pro this too in terms of you know strategic defeat of Russia it doesn't sort of get you very far the Russians can afford to do this it happened to them also in the first world war and ultimately bounce back uh it would be much more effective in a small European country than it is in Russia you mentioned margar taking over from Yen Stenberg this week as the new 22:00 NATO Secretary General an enormous intay to say the least just give us a sense of the challenges he faces well first and foremost James as we spoke about a moment ago he has this task of you know getting this new NATO Center in visb up and running so that the ukrainians do see a difference in terms of the the regularity the quality of of the supply that they are going to be getting uh you know NATO is now going to be sort of much more Under Pressure uh to perform in in that respect I I think the second thing that I hope he would do would be to get his generals and his senior officials together and say chaps you know uh I've heard all of these War warnings from different generals including you know people like gr chaps the former UK defense minister warning of a war with Russia in five years time are we ready you know I if tomorrow something happened could we basically defend our territory I've seen you know a lot of NATO exercises in recent months I've seen you know a buildup of forces 23:01 in Central and Eastern Europe with NATO battalions I've seen greater levels of defense spending that's all very well but what I want to know is you know where are we in terms of our ability to do Collective defense I mean I think what would be at the back of his mind is there have been a lot of uh incursions in recent days of uh Russian drones and some missiles into NATO territory accidental probably but you know you had a a UK a Ukrainian drone with a lot of explosives on it land in lvia if it had landed on a lvan supermarket NATO would have been in a very sticky position Visa Collective defense and so that clearly shows that in terms of air defense and the protection of NATO skies in Eastern Europe there is work to be done so I I think that would be a key issue that he would need to address as well he's also of course got to deal with defense spending 23 allies out of the 32 are now meeting the two 2% goal but if you're 24:00 president Trump you're going to want that to be all 32 before you're satisfied with uh the European uh contribution and so he's obviously going to have to do a lot of work to get some of those laggards up to the level as well but James I think finally a more strategically as he sort of looks at his five-year term he's gonna have to sort of know look at a kind of FK in the road is he going to be the advocate of a limited NATO you know doing Collective defense in Europe focusing mainly on Russia you know uh making sure that you know NATO territory uh remain sacran trying to help Ukraine uh and keep it as a basically a military Alliance or is he going to say well you know recent NATO Communications spoken a lot about China uh and the challenge of China we we are now looking much more at Ukraine North Korea Iran Russia working together as a kind of new axis of the of the authoritarians helping each other uh we've got uh leaders from Japan and Australia South Korea New Zealand 25:00 turning up at NATO Summits uh arguing that you know Asia and Europe are a single common theater and work together so am I going to be the advocate of this kind of narrow military Russia Focus NATO or am I going to go more in a direction which many in the United States would like of a more Global political NATO dealing with the the four together as it were the big four uh and also taking China on not not in a military sense but as a sort of technological political economic strategy challenge it'd be interesting to see you know how he you know if he in which direction he's going to steer the ship although that may not be apparent immediately and just finally Jamie a brief word on Yen stoltenberg who's obviously coming to an end of his his ten year tenure well I think he he he played an excellent role keeping the family together he probably made more trips to Washington to talk to Trump or to Anchor to talk to erdogan or the bud pest to talk uh to the Hungarian leader than he wanted uh but because of course you know he had 26:00 some rebellious allies in the ranks uh uh but he managed it you know they all stayed on board the the Turks and the hungarians did not finally block uh the uh entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO Trump threatened But ultimately did not do his worst and but it does show I think his successor that you may think they are going to spend a lot of time you know traveling to Asia or or part the countries in the Middle East or or elsewhere but but still you know with 32 allies different interests from time to time your job is to keep the family together I think he played a good role there I think he might was a good cheerleader for Ukraine and for defense spending and I think also part of his legacy will be developing those ties with those asia-pacific democracies which do have a lot of potential for the future if NATO chooses to exploit that potential Dr Jamie Shay always appreciate your time thank you so much thank you James thank you for watching today's episode of Frontline for early access to our videos member only q&as 27:00 and live streams and sign up for a membership via the link in the description and for the latest news and breaking stories listen to times radio and follow us at the times.com

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