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Ukraine War at 1,000 Days- Senior British and Indian Officers Speak
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To discuss the escalation and potential resolution of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, I am joined today by three extremely experienced retired senior military officers from India and from the United Kingdom. In alphabetical order, Major General Gagandee Babakshi, Major General Chip Chapman and Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Grant, who, as viewers will see as we go on, have overlapping areas of expertise. They have a core shared specialism in counter-terrorism, but they have gone on to develop that, respectively, towards information and psychological operations in Major General Babakshi's case, in Chip Chapman's case, security policy at the Ministry of Defense, and in Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Grant's case, framing of defence legislation and modernisation and training of Eastern European military structures. You're all very welcome, gentlemen, and for the first of the three themes that we're going to discuss today, I would like to address Chip Chapman in the first instance. We have seen in this week, in late November 2024, in which we record this, ICBM attacks, I don't think they're disputed now by either side, by vehicle-borne Russian ICBM systems on a large weapons production facility in the Ukrainian Industrial Centre of Nipro. We have then seen the Kremlin up the anti-once again with threats to the United Kingdom and United States homelands. I would like to ask, first for Chip Chapman's assessment, and then the other two of you can contribute, as you see fit, on what exactly the likelihood of further escalation is in the very short term, perhaps a month or two, and leading on from that which commentators, each of you, would particularly value, and if you wish to be frank, whom you would not particularly value as astute observers of the realities on the battlefields. Chip Chapman. Well, the first thing I'd say at the tactical level is I think Ukraine is losing slowly, and that's a term that we've had before, and interestingly, the first time I came across that was in June 22, when it was a term used by Mike Valtz, who's now going to be part of Trump's government. Then of course, the Ukrainians equalised the battlefield by the introduction of high Mars and more American artillery. So I do think the Russian proverb of the chicken pecs grain by grain is evident at the moment, particularly on the Dinesse front towards Pop Mosque, which if they do lose that, I think would be operationally significant in the way that a lot of the other commentary throughout the last two years about what has been operationally significant has not been, and of course, you sequence tactical battles for operational effect in support of strategic objectives. So what I think has happened in the last week or so is an attempt to equalise the battlefield in the deep battle. Now, of course, the deep battle is that outside of the contact zone, and I think that was done for three reasons in terms of the Atacums and Storm Shadow being used across the border. Firstly, in the short term, I think it's a trying to Trump-proof Ukraine for the next two months. Secondly, I think it's a reaction to the introduction of the North Koreans, and again, a lot of commentators have said that the introduction of the North Koreans is a sign of weakness. I don't take that sort of view. I take the view that if your total means is increased and your strength of will is there, your power of resistance is elevated. Now, what the reciprocity, what the Russians are trying to do, I think, with their attacks, which happened on the 17th in terms of a gain, try to hit the electricity grid and the infrastructure, which, of course, used 120 missiles, both cruise and ballistic, and 90 drones, and there's no doubt that a number of those were Iranians, so there's always been Iranian technology and Iranian capability being used, so I do think that the Russians are trying to break the will of the Ukrainian people on the third autumn and winter, and I also think it's probably wrong that we're saying all the time, that we're doing this to get ourselves to a negotiating position. That's only one potential strand of that. I think the other strand is a lot of the commentary from Russia would suggest that Russia is not interested in any peace initiatives, that they do see that the submission of Ukraine and destruction of Ukraine, and they surrender pieces, what they really want to achieve on the maximalist objective, and thirdly, that they don't necessarily see any need for Putin wrong for Trump as a peace broker. Now it's in relation to that, that we need to then look at what happened with the use of the Irish missile yesterday. Now, I don't think it is an ICBM, it's the Russian, the American intelligence suggests it's either an MRBM or a short range ballistic missile, doesn't really matter in a sense, it's the novel delivery vehicle, which is the most important thing, and it's potential range, which gives it the strategic flavour. However, I wouldn't go towards again this position, which most of the mainstream media and social media go to that were necessarily heading for World War III for three reasons. The first one is that the Americans actually knew about the possibility of this experimental missile being used. The second one is that the US were notified beforehand about the launch, and of course the reason for that is because through the nuclear risk reduction channels, and the reason for that is to avoid any miscalculation, because if you use an offset ballistic missile from range, then that's going to set a long bell's ringing. But thirdly, I think in terms of the American response, it is still that they are not going to be deterred by what the Russians have done, and I think I always take the line here of Lord Robertson, who's a former NATO Secretary-General and also involved in the British strategic defence review at the moment, that Putin will only be forced to retreat from Ukraine by an absence of Western caution. To answer your final question, Alex, about what sources do I look at, I think it would be wrong of me to give you any of the sources that I use, but what I would say is anything that I analyse, I do through the prism of the seven deadly sins of an analyst and the intelligence community, including framing bias, confirmation bias, groupthink and all those sorts of things. So I'm trying to discriminate between what is realistic and credible, and what is incredible and unrealistic. From a parachute officer, we turn to an infantry officer, both of you have had counterinsurgency experience and perhaps that's more relevant to the battlefield now than it may seem. My turn then to Major-General Bakshi to respond to what he's heard from Chip Chapman, how much of it do you concur with, sir, and in particular, I'm keen to know what sources from India or elsewhere outside the Euro-American sphere where most of our sources inevitably come from. Where are you looking at for reliable commentary and analysis? You know, there are information of narratives in play, propaganda narratives in play, and we did feel at a particular stage of this, early stages of this war, that the propaganda narratives had become so dominant that the objective reality on the battlefield was one thing, and the propaganda narrative was a different meta-universe altogether. And we did find there was a tendency in the West to believe you are propaganda narrative, you know, to act as if it were true. The simple fact is that the Russians started this offensive, you know, with a very curiously restrained, you know, policy, given the standard Russian military doctrine that relies on mass and scale, right? First echelon, second echelon, third echelon, operational maneuver group, I mean that's the kind we had seen in the Second World War. So what we found here was a curious tension between the garrison of hybrid war doctrine and the standard Russian war doctrine of going on mass, on mass, scale, not just in terms of manpower, but in terms of technology, right? Waves after waves as we were used to, so we were quite surprised by this force restriction. And then I had the occasion to, you know, the military attache, Russian military attache here in Delhi came over to me to discuss some of these things. When I asked him, why are you so restrained? Why are you not, you know, doing things as is your doctrine in mass and scale? So he, you know, very curiously he shrugged and he said, sir, you will have to ask Putin that because, you know, he believes, Putin's, I believe his anchor premise was that these are our cousins, they are Slav cousins, and therefore we should be restrained in the usage of force. In fact, he even objected to very heavy use of artillery, which is standard God of war practice as far as the Russians are concerned. So I told him tongue in cheek that even the Pakistanis and we are cousins, but we fought five wars and you will have to get over the cousin syndrome because it's going to cost you. And frankly, it did, though they achieved their initial objectives in terms of securing about 60% of Donbass, 90% of Lowansk, they secured the land bridge to Crimea. And of course, Crimea was already with them. So about 20% of Ukraine, most of the industrial portion, the Russian speaking portion, that is what they secured. And I do believe that that was their maximal objective because they don't have the force levels. Simple. If you want to go in for the whole of Ukraine, you would need a force level about 10 times the size of what you have. So initially, they went in with just 150,000 troops against a Ukrainian army. That was 250,000 strong to start with and is over 550,000 after mobilization. And then, you know, it was okay in the offensive phase because people were a bit dazed by this initial speed, et cetera of the offensive, but then it all ground down to a battle of attrition and then they had to hold a 1,000 kilometer front and, you know, their manpower gaps began to show through the Ukrainians counter-attacked in Kharsan and they pulled out troops from Kharkiv to reinforce Kharsan. And then you are living in an area of battlefield, transparency of unprecedented levels. American satellites picked up the gap in Kharkiv and they told the Ukrainians to go for it, the Russians were withdrawing to the line of the Oskil and, of course, their motorized infantry elements made a very grand looking charge which looked like a Brit screen. So the Russians were forced to mobilize much against Putin's will. Politically, he has been resisting mobilization from the world go. He was taking their kicking and screaming by his generals. So, you know, 300,000 they had to mobilize. And then they built a survak in line to defend what they have. And in 2023, all the offenses that the Ukrainians launched to, you know, throw the Russians out of that. I thought that was a bit over-strated, that was overtly optimistic. All these offenses failed with heavy losses to the Ukrainians, heavy losses to the Ukrainians. And now the Russians are on the roll, they have mobilized, but there were initial reports that they had about 250,000 troops in reserve would be used for an offensive either towards Khyiv or Odessa. But they're bringing in the Ukrainian shores that they have also reached the end of the barrel unless they mobilize again. And they are not really very keen to throw in their conscripts because in 2022, the conscripts suffered heavily. You know, these short-term inductees suffer badly in war. They have suffered quite badly. So the Putin is loath to commit them to battle, though he has about 250 of them. So there is that force constraint which is operative even more for the Ukrainians. About 8 million Ukrainians have fled the country, but 1 million plus have died or severely wounded horse-de-combat. So Ukraine is really, really very desperate for Manpa. And now there is also the aspect of when Donald Trump comes in, well, the weapon flow-in will also be severely curtailed. So they are running against time, we find the Russians are now making steady but relentless progress in the East. The Ukrainian offensive in Kursk was designed to pull out Russian forces from the East and force them to be redeployed for the defense of Kursk. That doesn't seem to have happened. That doesn't seem to have happened, though I've recently read reports of the 106th and another airborne division being possibly troops being taken out there to reinforce Kursk. But by and large, the Eastern offensive continues. They are making progress towards Petrovask. They are also now in the Kupians direction, moving ahead and it's a steady progress. They have been using their dismounted infantry. They have been using infantry on motorcycles, very innovative use to get over the drones the drones have become cause their revolution in military affairs, frankly, that's what we feel in India. They've caused the revolution in military affairs in the, you know, a $200 drone can knock out a leopard tank or, you know, even an Abrahams and so many of them have gone. So are the Ukrainians very adept at using drones? In fact, both the sides are using drones and it is interesting to see how both sides have innovated, especially the Russians. They seem to have innovated quite well. Now where do we go from here? That's the critical question right now. So I would reckon that the Ukrainian or the Russian Eastern offensive is going to progress. They are at the breakthrough point at the turning point more or less of the war and if they succeed, they might try to break out towards the Nippur River, right? And even if they don't, by and large, they would have captured before Donald Trump takes charge a large amount of the balanced territory in the Donbas, right? As far as Kursk is concerned, they seem to be quite determined. Their first assault after the Koreans came in have not really made a breakthrough, but they are threatening the lines of communication. So they are determined to snuff that salient out and we'll have to see how it goes. But now with the use of the ATAKams, President Joe Biden had initially refused to allow these weapons to be used against Russia a few months back. Now he has. And there is a school of thought that seems to believe, that tends to believe that this is to complicate things for Donald Trump. Donald Trump had made a very, very clear assertion that he would like to bring peace to the region. So there seems to be a clear attempt to discomfort Donald Trump to create problems for him. And if you can shake up the pot so much that it becomes impossible to try and achieve peace. Well, that's one narrative. That's one narrative. We hope it's not true, but that's the way it looks like right now. And therefore this round of escalation has started. Now Putin has also painted himself into a corner, right? He had said that if you use ATAKams, ATAKams can't be fired unless the satellite data for the targets is given, unless the coordinates are fed in by the cryptologists who are only the American, these crypto codes are not repeat not with the Ukrainians. So if you are going to fire ATAKams, if you are going to fire storm shadows, you need American and British experts on the ground, whether soldiers in Mufti or civil contractors, you have to have them on the ground. And he had asserted that that means that United States and United Kingdom are directly engaged in war with Russia. That's a clear assertion that he has made. And then he has gone on, you know, with that up the, what shall I say, the escalation ladder by firstly signing that nuclear doctrine revision, which says that in this kind of contingency, he can go for nuclear first use, right? And then of course, now he has fired an ICBM. You can say that it was an intermediate range ballistic missile or rather a medium range ballistic missile, the R26 supposedly has a range of 6000 kilometers. So they fired from Astrakhan, it's hardly a 1000 kilometers, but it was a murved warhead. And you know, as a demonstration, as a demonstration, what are the demonstrations you can do? You can fire a new, you can test a new, can your own territory to send the signals around the message that don't thus far and no further, but he started with this, the lowest level of the deterrence by firing a medium range ballistic missile, right, armed with conventional weapons. And even though the 200 kg blast for not much damage done is not so substantial, right? The fact is now, now what will it deter the use of Atacams and storm shadows? I'm not very convinced because I think this will likely go on. So what does Putin do? Does he tamely lose face or will he ask a lit? That is the key question. And I would be happy if my colleagues also, you know, have wished in with the British perspective. Thank you. And with discussion having turned to the most sophisticated of artillery and missile systems, who better to pick up this thread than the tenant Colonel Glenn Grant, who has specialized in artillery for much of his career, indeed, he was leading the British intelligence effort on artillery for a while, Glenn Grant, I'm particularly keen to hear how much of what you have heard you concur with from these two speakers, and as you have lived and worked in Eastern Europe for some years now, there's hardly an Eastern European capital whose ministries you have not assisted with defense reform in various ways. What sources are you keen to advise to us, particularly if there are English language battlefield analysis sources from the region that we might not be so familiar with? I agree almost completely with my two general colleagues. I mean, it's a tour de force from both of them, if I may say so, to start the whole thing off. But I have a couple of points that I would like to not argue with, but just make a sort of my own feeling being different. And that's with Chip's comment about the World War III coming. I think we're in World War III because I think that there's been a, there's been far too much focus by everybody upon Ukraine, which I see as being that the fighting battlefield and far too little understanding of what is going on that people, I think, erroneously call hybrid warfare. And so, you know, the fact that communication lines are being damaged, that Germany's had people trying to derail trains, that I think five major ammunition dumps over the years have been blown up in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, and Ukraine, five, six. And that actually the war has been going on comfortably against us since, I think, at least we should say 2002, 2003, something like that. And we just haven't woken up to it. But now, if you list all the things that are called hybrid warfare, it's actually now, it's a full, a full page of things all over the world. And from what I hear from some of my better sources, there's a lot more to come. So I would just say that on Chip, everything else that General Chip said, I agree with. And the actual attack point of the forces coming in, yes, Russia did come in with the forces they had, but a point that is not actually grasped by many people is that they came in in a different shape from doctrine that they've been using previously. In other words, they were actually brigades were coming in and they had their own artillery and their own logistics with them when they came in. You can actually see this on the videos. But the trouble was that the generals in the system, I the commanders, had not gone away from, had not gone away from centralization of fighting, which was their old way. So in other words, you had troops coming in with a different, with equipment in different shape, generals who wanted centralization, and a lot of people coming in who had never actually ever been trained in doctrine, because they'd never been on exercise, they'd never done doctrine because of the corruption in the first place that any money for training was stolen. So many, many of the soldiers coming in were simply. And so you had all these mix ups, plus this great belief that they were going to be met with flowers, which of course they weren't. They were met with a lot of individuals who had been out of war since 2015, but who had got all their clothing and equipment at home and who were waiting for Russia to come back. So they were actually a lot of very quite high grade people who'd fought in places like Kharkiv in front of Sumi, in front of Kharkiv who were actually nasty and ready and waiting, which the Russians weren't expecting. And I think the last point before moving on to the artillery was this thing about this, the nuclear doctrine revision, because I think that it's very often forgotten that paperwork in Eastern Europe and in Russia is not actually anything to do with decision making. It's to do with the gloriousness of the paper itself. So you write a paper at its glorious, it's like a speech, you do a speech and it's glorious. And therefore what Putin is doing with his glorious paper is showing that he is both glorious and he's in charge of it. So the only way to be in charge of it and to get any benefit internally is to change it. And of course the only way to change it is to make it harder. So he was left with no choice and I think this point about the general made about what does he do next, he's boxing himself in, the gloriousness of the paper is boxing him in as well. But in the West, gee whiz, how many people took this seriously? I mean Putin hasn't changed his views on how he's going to use weapons since the beginning of the war. He'll use them when he feels it's right to use them. Not what some piece of paper says or anybody else, it's his program. And the one thing that comes to my mind completely with this is that if he does go nuclear and does do, go too far, he will lose all the gains he's made. Because all these people that are not really convinced about what they should do next and how they should support would then be left with little choice. They would either have to go completely backwards and show total cowardliness for their countries or they would have to step forward alongside Britain, Sweden, Finland, the Baltic states, Poland and actually do something. So I think that this point about Putin boxing himself in is actually quite significant. But to play, if he goes more serious, he loses the gains, you know, the gain of Hungary, the gain of Slovakia, the gain of President of Bulgaria and many other countries that are half helping would be what I would say. I think it's just another step, I don't think that the Ukrainians see this as being anything worse because actually the bombs that have been thrown at them on the front line and into some of the cities near the front line are actually quite significant. I mean, they are making huge, huge craters. They are destroying whole buildings. So I don't think that they would see this as being any worse than that, which has already hit unless he goes nuclear. But even then, two weeks ago in Ukraine, in Kiev, I talked into a couple of people and they said, well, if he goes nuclear, there isn't anything worse he can do to us. So there is already a mentality coming that we're expecting him to do this, but it's not going to matter because we're not going to give in. And with that, I turned to General Baxi to kick off the second round of questions on this very point of nuclear escalation. You already addressed much of that, General Baxi, in your first set of comments. No doubt you will wish to respond to what you have heard here from Glenn Grant. And then more pointedly then for this middle round, I'd like to ask what you understand since you've spoken about Russia as has Glenn Grant, what you understand as being the United States and to some extent NATO's and Britain's nuclear doctrine, to some extent France's as well, is that likely to change in the Ukrainian theatre with regard to licensing of Ukrainians, obviously not to use nuclear weapons, but to use heavier weapons with more direct Western support if low yield nuclear weapons are launched first by Russia. And what about the first use doctrine in reality? We've heard from Glenn Grant that's in Russia, many would argue in the States as well, first use policy is not what it is written up as being for public consumption. So your thoughts on the possibility of nuclear escalation in the next couple of months, please? So to directly address that question, you see, I frankly do not see it going to the level of nuclear escalation. I don't think it suits Russia because if Donald Trump is going to come in on 20th of January and he is quite committed to winding this conflict down, then I think the Senna strategy is for the Russians to steadily keep making gains on the ground, ramp up the pressure conventionally in terms of conventional tipped even heavier missiles. There was some talk that and in fact, there was a bit of a panic that one could sense that American embassy was being evacuated, European embassies in cave were being evacuated because they anticipated missile, hypersonic missile with a thermobaric warhead or even heavier ICBM or MRBM with a thermobaric warhead which would do considerable amount of damage to the American embassy. Now American embassy is sovereign space, you know, you're more or less targeting the United States and that has its whole range of ramifications. So we didn't see the attack on cave with those thermobaric weapons but we definitely saw a lower level attack there which quite obviously to me hasn't suffice to tamp down the American and British decision to keep supplying or to continue with the permission for Ukraine to engage targets in Russia with ATA camps with the cruise missile. The problem that we foresee is Eastern loss of face. You see, there are too many red lines of Putin that have been crossed, right? And he's very conscious of his image back home. If this red line is crossed with impurity, I'm afraid it is Putin, Putin between a rock and a hard place and he's like, he's a very rational man, very calculating, very methodical and that's what kept the peace so far but how long will that continue? How long can you, you know, how long can you rub his nose in the sand? You can't go beyond a point and at the end of it, there will be pressure within the country for him to escalate and that can lead to accidental escalation. I am convinced that both sides may not want it but in such a, you know, escalation ladder which has been entrained, it has been entrained, he's gone the lowest rung, he's likely to go a few notches up there, I'm sure they have worked it out. It's not something which is, you know, caught them by surprise. They had worked it out a few months back when there was so much talk of this thing. So they have worked it out and beyond a point they will have to react, they will have to react. I think the way would be to up the anti-conventionally, right, up the anti-conventionally then go in for a demonstration, demonstration nuclear test on own soil and then possibly graduate to the use of tactical nuclear weapons, firstly it could be in Kursk itself, you have very nice juicy target sitting there and the ideal for tactical new use. The point is then what happens, the point is then what happens, what is the American Western response going to be and then what about Donald Trump's desire for peace, his son has said they are trying to stime in my father's chance for securing peace and especially if then we keep pushing the envelope. I'm afraid you are going to lose the global war of narrative first, right, because, I mean, it doesn't sound quite right that the Biden administration which a few months back has said no to attack arms. On the advice of the Pentagon, right, on the advice of the Pentagon, he was not very happy with it. But even when Prime Minister Stremer went to Washington, you know, he was Donald Trump, I mean Joe Biden was, you know, there was an outburst that he had on television. He said, I'm in charge, please, I'm in charge, et cetera. And because of the advice he got from the Pentagon that looked, this could trigger escalation. The Russians seem to be more serious. So at this stage now he has dismissed that advice. That I found was, you know, with the global audiences may not go down too well, doesn't paint the democratic administration in very good light. It paints them as, you know, seemingly as warmongers, you know, bent upon trying to push the envelope till there is a nuclear reaction and a nuclear reaction doesn't benefit anybody, not least the United States or Europe. But let me be, you know, we're tongue in cheek, World War I happened in Europe, World War II happened in Europe, and if this is the pace at which we are going to go, I wouldn't be too surprised if World War III and a nuclear armageddon originates in Europe again. So that's one aspect of it. The second aspect, very interesting observations by my colleague, you know, the fact of the matter is the era of low intensity wars lasted was there in the last century, they were asymmetric wars. I mean, United States invading Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, there were totally asymmetric conflicts. Now we've come to the era of symmetric wars, wars between peer group armies and we've found that we have gone back to the level of lethality of end of World War I and end of World War II. More specifically end of World War II when Blitzkrieg had lost its steam and there were brutal battles of attrition that were being fought. So we are down to those levels of attrition and I mean one finds the national stamina required is far more and I have my doubts even if the American European military industrial complex is really geared up for these kind of wars. I totally agree with my colleague who just spoke that look, we've had a war going on in Ukraine for three years, over a million people on both sides have been killed, maimed, wounded, you know, eight million have fled Ukraine, right? In the Middle East, you have about 200,000 killed and it doesn't seem like it is coming to an end and if it escalates with Iran, if it escalates with Iran, you have a second hotspot, right? And all these attack arms are needed against China, right? The aircraft carrier battle groups now deployed to the Middle East, they were two which were there, they had to be taken out after a long time for rest and refit, two more have gone. So four aircraft carrier battle groups are out of the reckoning. If China tomorrow decides this is the ideal opportunity to either, you know, mount a, you know, a siege of Taiwan, a blockade of Taiwan or going for a full-fledged offensive and achieve strategic surprise, everybody expects them to do it in 2027. You do it in 2024, 2025 and you've got strategic surprise and you've done it at a point when there is, you know, America is heavily bogged down in Europe, in Middle East and now a third spot coming up, I will only quote Henry Kissinger, it should be settled maximum of American policy never to take on more than one major Asian power at a time. Joe Biden in taking on personally Russia in Ukraine, I mean, he undid the pivot towards Asia, pivot towards the Indo-Pacific, he is pivoted back to Europe, right? And I thought you have to define who your primary threat is, who your long-range long-term threat is, economically, militarily, I mean, now it is increasingly China and we are a little disconcerted with this pivot back to Europe and the war with Russia, Mil Shimer, Professor Mil Shimer, Henry Kissinger, I think their advice has been very sagacious, don't choose your strategic direction and let it be one strategic direction, let it be China or Russia, it can't be both with the Middle East, you know, a toss-up thrown in between. So I think we are living through dangerous times, we are back to what it was in World War II and may I just conclude, World War I, there was a multipolar power equation in place, World War II, there was a multipolar power equation in place, today we are heading towards a multipolar power equation, if we are not already there, when that's a fact of life, I think the unipolar movement is over, it's over and that's why we are seeing the historical patterns repeating themselves, in national security forecasting, there can be no single event prediction model, the only model as some American scientists have said is a pattern prediction model, patterns tend to persist and repeat themselves cyclically, World War I, multipolar, World War II, multipolar, and now when we are on the brink of World War III, we are on a multipolar order and these are the power equations that tend to accelerate conflict, conflicts tend to spin out of control because there are too many actors who are trying to kick the ball at the same time, I would be happy to have the reactions of my British colleagues. Major General Chapman, we are getting into strategic planning territory that you can speak very interestingly to because of course your last post in the army was senior British military advisor to CENTCOM in the United States. So what do you have to say about all that we've heard from Major General Bakshi and particularly on the consensus that both of the last speakers seem to have been hinting at, more than hinting at, that there is a lot more escalation that could come just from the current belligerent powers, particularly on the Russian side, before we get to the stupefying nuclear launch. I don't take that much of it to be honest, from the Ukrainian perspective, this is absolutely a total local war, that is absolutely the case. I don't think that you can make a case at all, that the US are at war with Russia, in fact it's only 10% of one year's worth of a defence budget in terms of support that they've given to the sovereignty of Ukraine, and it's supporting the independent sovereignty of Ukraine, which is the American objective at the moment. I think the fastest way to lose the narrative is to cross the nuclear taboo, and I don't think that Russia would like to do that, and indeed are constrained by being the sort of junior vassal to China, and indeed China's 12-point peace plan of February 23 warned against them doing that, and there's also potentially they didn't go to the nuclear case in September 22 because of that Chinese restraint, and indeed went to the mobilisation paradigm instead. What I really think we're doing at the moment is Putin is making maximus threats to induce a minimalist response from the West, which is not working, and he's always had this occasion when he makes these nuclear extortion and threats, a sort of back-off or else, we've had it not just on the nuclear side, we've had it on the grain side, we've had it on the energy side, and of course the risks that kill people and the risks that scare people are two different things, and people are scared when you mention the N-word, but the way I look at this is when might they use them, and they certainly wouldn't use them in cursed on Russian sovereign territory, and what would we do if Russia used them? Now the best articulation of this actually does come from one of my comrades in CENTCOM, I used to sit next to him, but he was the head of the DIA defence intelligence agency, one of the 18 parts of the intelligence community in America. When he said in the House on Services Committee in March 22 that Russia would make nuclear threats if the war drags, and were in day one thousand and three, to compel an adversary into pursuing negotiations that might result in termination on the conflict on terms available to Russia or after the enemy has entry of others into the conflict, or when Russia offensive progress looks like it might be reversed, it's those that set the conditions for whether they might use nuclear weapons, then you would look at what the Western response would be if Russia does that, and NATO of course always uses scenario and war gaming to see what the range of responses might be, the days of flexible response and captivating strategy are gone, but the bipartisan approach from that, certainly from the Americans in early 23, both from the Democrat side with Blumen Tal and Lindsey Graham on the Republican side, was that it would be dire consequences for the Russian military who would be destroyed in Ukraine in a conventional approach. One grant, the view from Eastern Europe, for those who don't know among the viewers and listeners, you have lived there for some years, you heard the mention by General Bakchi earlier of national stamina and wars of attrition, familiar language for everyone in that belt of countries from Estonia down to Georgia through which you travel and advise your assessment of that national stamina. I've actually been there now for 26 years in Eastern Europe, which is quite a long time. I think that the stamina in Ukraine is quite high, I mean in fact it's really, really high, I think it's got the same sort of feel to it as what one reads about Britain during the Blitz and in fact it's not unusual that people actually talk about the Blitz and how it's stubborn we were in Britain during that time and 8 million people have left Ukraine. But I think that both my two generals will be surprised to hear is that there are 20 buses a day from Riga into Kiev and back and the number of buses from Prague which is the sort of the joining point for people coming from everywhere else on the continent is huge. So a lot of those 8 million are coming in and out on a regular basis for birthdays, for Christmas, for school holidays and everything else, so they're not people who've just run away and are not coming back, they're keeping a quite strong relationship and also providing a huge amount of money that goes to the volunteer support for the army. So I see the stubbornness in Ukraine every time I go there and listen to it on the bus and hear it, but also I mean if you actually look around the other parts of Eastern Europe by Abkhazia at the moment, people are showing their unhappiness with the way that Russia deals with them, Georgians have, Bella Russians have, they just didn't do a very good job of it because they're too nice and it's genuinely their problem, they're too nice, they're not into going around and having a Maidan or a Chauchescu moment, but the desire to live in the West from all these people is extremely strong and I don't see any thoughts at all from people in Ukraine of wanting to give up whatever happens. So I think that that is the point I would make, I can't add anything more on what the two generals have said about Putin and nuclear because I think that it is as it is. My only view on that that I've been arguing for quite a long time is that we've got to win this battle on the front line and that deep attack is good, but deep attack is the thing that is actually creating the problems, a escalation that we're getting. What we haven't done is equip the front line properly and there are many soldiers who are going into battle short on virtually everything with no night sites, with the wrong clothing, the wrong equipment and there is no wonder in many cases that they're going backwards. A point that was made about, which I add to that, that going backwards, it's not a lack of manpower in Ukraine, it's a lack of belief in the military system, in the leadership of the military system, which because the upper echelons of the military system are still fighting in an extremely Soviet way along the lines that I once wrote of, a small Soviet army can't beat a large Soviet army and unless you actually release the soldiers to think and release the soldiers to actually to soldier tactically and operationally you just tell them you've got to stay in that village and stay there and hold it, then of course they're going to die, which they are, and Russia will go over the top of them by sheer numbers, sheer numbers of people, sheer numbers of ammunition. It's still about 10 to 1 and 155 millimeter ammunition, for example, not to mention that in many places Russia is actually putting more drones in the field than Ukraine can, so a few thoughts. And we stay with Lieutenant Colonel Grant to start the final round because we turn now to the philosophical and the resolution aspects of the discussion. All three of you gentlemen, particularly, since retiring from active service in various ways have been involved in training and have considered in large measure no doubt in your own ways what constitutes a just war, everyone has their own philosophical even religious understanding of what that is, I suspect that yours, Lieutenant Colonel Grant, will be quite strong in favor of arguing that Ukraine is entirely facing a just war and that the Western allies, the Northern Alliance, which I think you've had some hand in shaping that's just been announced of the Eastern European and Scandinavian and British and Dutch militaries standing with Ukraine, you would argue that that's entirely justified, all the means that are being used, particularly interested in what you said about Russia having been effectively at war with the West for over 20 years, not many people dated that far back. So I'm presuming, correct me if I'm wrong, that that's what you'll argue, is the realistic chance of victory present as part of the just war? That's always been in various traditions, part of the equation that you don't send men in these days, women to a hopeless death and I think you've answered that to some extent. And then as we turn to the other two gentlemen, I think we'll have more to ask about alliances too but in your case, particularly the role of the Northern Alliance as it's now being dubbed not the first in history and the role of European financial support. When we record this, we have just had summit in Warsaw hosted by the Foreign Minister of Poland Radexikoski in which his British, French, German and Italian counterparts pledged to pick up the slack if Trump stops funding the war in large measure, using all the levers they can pull as part of their communique and innovative financialisation in order to keep funding the war. I'm not a financial expert and don't know what that would mean. So your thoughts really on the road to resolution and the justness of the war? If I start with the Ukrainian side first, it is quite clear, I think, to most people that Putin is determined to trash Ukraine, to take it under complete control or if he cannot actually trash it, as General Salusni, the ambassador in London from Ukraine says that his method is destruction. You just destroy and then you take it over and you move forward, you destroy and you take it over, which is exactly what we've seen, whether that's Murray Opel and whether it's all the villages back up and other places. So that is going to keep going. Now, is it just to allow this sort of thing to happen for a country that actually wants to be part of the democratic world, and my answer to that is it cannot be because if we give into this and we give into someone who decides that they're going to take parts of the world and how many more parts will he take, then we're going back to the days of Hitler and power and do what you like. So I don't think we can afford to do that. That's got to be born in mind that if we do believe in this, then we have to fight for it. And if the rest of Europe and Europe's values, the formation of what people want within Europe, if they don't believe in this and support it, then Europe is finished. It'll be the Europe of leaders like that, like the president of Hungary and things. We will just lose Europe in its form. So I think we have no choice but to support it. I've no idea what Trump's going to do. And I shall say this, honestly, because really, I have no idea what his values really are. And in fact, if he's got any that would actually apply in this case, he says he wants peace. And let's hope he does, and that's his value. But how he does that is extremely complex. But he can't do it by not supporting Ukraine. Because if he doesn't support Ukraine, then there is a complete break between what you call the Northern Alliance and the other European leaders that want it. And there will be a break between Trump and them. So I don't believe that his even some of his worst people are going to realize that this is not a good idea, but let's wait and see on the Trump side. On the Russian side, Russia is really complex at the moment because the great Russian soul has never been about what people write about. You know, Russia has always been a bit of, let's call it, nice. It's always been in a bit of a state. It's not actually been a great country, most of it. And you know, you know, we all see the pictures of the villages and the roads and people who earn very, very, very little money in all sorts of parts of over Russia. So anything that bolsters their current view of themselves and the world, like Putin is doing, is going to have great resonance with them. So the fact that more people are actually supporting Putin does not surprise me. Because what else do you support? If you're living in a hovel and you have no toilets at all, not even proper outdoor toilet, life is rough. And if someone offers you huge amounts of money as well to go and fight for him, huge amounts of money, you know, a year's worth of money a month, then there is no choice for them but to go to the front line and fight. So even if Putin was lost, even if Putin was lost, I'm pretty sure that there are one or two others in his close coterie who would step up and carry on the good work for the greatness of Russia. So I don't see the greatness of Russia going away in its form unless it is beaten, unless that the empire is actually beaten as an empire. Otherwise it's just going to keep going because it actually has no other choice. That's the problem. It has no other choice. They've taught themselves over hundreds of years into this state of mind, into this attitude of, I'm trying to think of the right word for it, but indulgence, let's just call it that, indulgence, state of mind of indulgence where you want everything. And, you know, you could see this when they attacked the outskirts of Kiev, that they were taking everything, they were taking the toilets, they were taking the glass from the windows, they took everything back to Russia. And it's this indulgence of steelian, it's ours. It's rightfully ours, and that attitude is not only not going to go away without it being beaten. It's getting worse. So I see the two sides there. So how does one get peace from this? Will you either win, or you accept that we've got a problem that we can maybe mitigate by NATO getting stronger around the outside, but it's not going to go away in my view unless it's beaten? That's my thesis, short and sharp. Major General Bakshi, your Indian perspective on this, please, particularly on the aspects of Russia increasingly using its own allies in a pan-Asian arc from Korea to Iran, as you have previously had umbrated, how Indian security and policymakers view this, particularly with China being the other massive presence in your part of the world. And also your thoughts on the justice of prosecuting the war from the Russian perspective, particularly given that it's certainly an international institutions whenever this current war, which has just passed its thousandth day, is mentioned, the derigre phrase is contrary to international law, to what extent do you see that as being the case that Russia is unjustly or contrary to international law prolonging this war? Well, I'm afraid I can't entirely agree with the thesis because it's always useful to understand the other perspective, it's always useful to understand the other's motivations. As far as the Russians are concerned, you know, they've been saying, there are a number of very, what shall I say, very bright people in the United States who has been echoing the Russian viewpoint, that at the time of, you know, when Russia collapsed, with the Soviet Union collapsed, you know, it had been promised to the Russians that not one inch eastward expansion of NATO, you know, the Russian said it was given in writing the, of course, there are different views on that, but the fact of the matter is then the world has seen a relentless eastward expansion of Russia, of NATO to the borders of Russia. And then the Russians turned around and said, look, our last two red lines are Georgia and Ukraine. So the moment there was that coup that Maidan, I mean, that colored revolution kind of a thing in Georgia, with the Russian's interview, 2008, they intervened and before you could say it in four days, it was all over, right? Then in 2014, there was the Maidan coup in Ukraine, right? And Victoria and Nulan played a pretty active part in instigating that colored kind of a revolution and overthrow of a duly elected government. I mean, that is the Russian view and that's some of it sounds the reasonable, right? And therefore the Russians had no option now but to go in for, they went in for Crimea because they felt it was far too, the only warm water port too strategically important and they took it because they said, well, it is basically, I mean, that history is there. But all Ukraine has come into existence only about a couple of decades back, right? No, no, it came into existence about a thousand years ago, sir. No, no, well, well, you know, but Ukraine is also, may I, may I, you know, Ukraine is also the seat, the spiritual seat of the Orthodox Christian dispensation, the Orthodox Christian religion, most of the Russian Orthodox Christian institutions, their home is cave, their home is cave. So that is the other narrative and therefore the narrative is that the Russian narrative, if you may, if I may say so and it is always useful to have that at the back of our mind to understand motivations for actions, motivations for action. The Russian narrative is we've been pushed into hitting out before we were taken and before, you know, the maximal damage was done to us. So it, from their side, it is a defensive, offensive reaction, they are tried to preempt what they felt was the Ukraine takeover of the Donbas, complete takeover of the Russian-speaking areas of Donbas where they felt the Russian people were being badly discriminated against the Russian language, the culture was being suppressed, right? And that actually that story goes back now as a military historian, let me be quite clear to the German invasion of Russia to Reinhard Gehlen, the head of the Abbeher, the military intelligence of Germany. He had, you know, Bandhala and this entire groupings of people whom they had used to fight against the Russians at the end of the world war, they handed over these two, the United States and Bandhala and this entire gang go back, date back to the time when Nazi Germany was invading Russia. That is the Russian viewpoint. And I think we need to be cognizant of that viewpoint because if we ignore that viewpoint, then I mean, there is no meeting ground, then there is no resolution towards the conflict. So the simple fact is that that is the Russian narrative and if you believe the Russian narrative, they'd say that, look, we were parked in the eye till we were forced to invade, just like we are being parked in the eye to go nuclear now, right? And because we had no option, so we had to hit out in a defensive kind of a way virtuous defense as the Russians like to call it. So that is apropos the philosophical issue of whether it is just war, who has justice in his side, just and below, you know, just in cause, just in execution, et cetera. That is the philosophical side of it. What the Russian narrative is that this was we were parked in the eye till we were forced to invade. There was a playbook ready, there was a playbook ready and the playbook was to accuse us of aggression and to enforce economic sanctions to a level that would cause, bring about a collapse of Russia as in 1990, the Soviet Union had been caused to collapse going to a black hole, right? And that economic war, it was the basic war was the economic war. The proxy war is the front, but the basic war was the economic war to destroy Russia economically, bring about a regime change. We heard that quite a lot. Putin is about to flee Moscow, the plane is ready and stuff like that. But the fact of the matter is that Russia has emerged from that war, let's be practical. Let's see things on the ground. Let's be objective and not subjective, right? What I would like to see is different. What is happening on the ground is what we need to focus on. So what has happened on the ground is that Russia has emerged economically stronger from this war. The countries that have economically suffered a lot of the countries of Europe, even the American economy has gained because they've been selling jobs to everybody. The fact of the matter is the European economies, economies of France, Germany, they've taken a big hit, they've taken a big hit. So now can Europe on its own sustain the war, let us say if Donald Trump says, "Sorry, I'm cutting off the tap." The Americans have given about $175 billion arms and economic aid. The Europeans total, I understand, is $134 billion, right? So can they make up this shortfall at what economic cost to themselves? Can they sustain this war alone? Those are the questions I'd like to ask you. And Russia, is it really, the narrative is that if you don't stop them in Ukraine, well, then the nine pins will start falling all over Europe and Latvia will be annexed or Moldova will be annexed and does Russia have that manpower? The fact that they brought the North Korean clearly indicates that they don't have that manpower. Look, from a smaller population base in World War II, the Russians had fielded 12 million soldiers, 12 million soldiers and they'd taken the heaviest losses in that war. You know, the Great Patriotic War from the side, World War II from our side, you see, the simple fact that today the population base of the Russians is larger, but because of the nature of the regime, the Putin is not capable, he is very worried about a full-scale mobilization of that order. So I don't think he's even capable of taking the whole of Ukraine. I think what he wanted is what he's got and he's quite content with this. I don't see him now trying to take the whole of Ukraine at best till the line of the then people, if he's pushed too hard, maybe he'll try for Kyiv or Odessa, but that's about it. That's about it. He's not got the capacity capability to take on other countries, take on the whole of NATO, et cetera. I think we are exaggerating that threat and in exaggerating that threat, we are imputing motivations which are perhaps not there. Well, General, motivations are his motivations, the things that he has said. So if you do the things that you've said, then you have to believe what he is saying now. And that is? And that is that Baltic states are next. You can go back and read. Well, I think we could do that because nobody is suggesting, General, that he would fight all the way across Ukraine. He would want political control. And that's the main aim, it tried to actually to get the politics to change, which is what he was trying to do with Yanukovych, is to get a country. I agree, because if he takes Kyiv, that was what he attacked Kyiv for originally, because I thought it was a regime change that he was after. I think he was. I thought it was the regime change that he was after. It's cheap. And what the Russians say, now let me give you the Russian perspective here again. They say that in March, April 2022, they had negotiations mediated by Belarus with the Ukrainians and then by Turkey, and they had come to peace treaty, which they say when Boris Johnson flew in into Kyiv, he torpedoed that treaty. And Americans said, no, you will fight on. But that was, he had agreed to withdraw from the gates of Kyiv. And that in the propaganda, Oregon's information warfare teams was beat up as a ground. The Istanbul agreement were actually only four or the six parts where, and it was to have a surrender piece for Ukraine, that is not true that it was an equitable peace or a peace that Ukraine could have lived with. Yeah. And the people who went were not properly elected officials in some case, and were also people who went there only with their own mandate. They didn't go there with a mandate from Ukraine, if you know what I mean. The fact of the matter is that that agreement, if it had come through, you know, I think a lot of killing, maiming of people would have possibly been avoided. It would not have changed anything, sir. It wouldn't have changed anything. The army would have fought on. The army was not going to the public, was not going to let Russia take ground for a peace agreement. They wouldn't have done it. I was there at the time. So I know, listening to people, that the army would not have allowed it, just would not happen, because they've been, the country has been devastated by Russia too many times before, the Holodomor, you know all about that, previous times when they've been mass murders in Ukraine, and the general line in Ukraine is enough, is enough, we cannot pass this down to our children, which is what will happen. If I may, if I may, I have greatest respect for the Ukrainians, their soldiers, their same Slavs, they're very tenacious fighters, both of them. In the Second World War, the Russian, the Soviet Union had the maximum casualties, you know, almost about, I think, 15 million plus casualties of the civilians, and about 10 million military casualties. I think they bore the brunt of that war, till that time when, you know, the invasion at Normandy took place, etc., they had been fighting alone on the continent. So they are tenacious fighters, both of them, Slavs are good fighters, and have the greatest of respect for all the soldiers that have fallen from both sides. But the fact of the matter is, today the Ukrainian armed forces, what they started with, have been destroyed about three times over. Their economy has been absolutely ruined. Today, every single Ukrainian city is in rubble, right, and there's an infrastructure that is not even a tiny picture. Also, I'm not very sure if Ukraine has gained at the end of the day, if they had, you know, looked for a peace, and if that same peace is enforced on them by Donald Trump, what then? Will there, you think there will be a coup in the Ukrainian army? Sir, Donald Trump cannot enforce a peace on the Ukrainian people. It's not going to happen. Well, I think at a particular time, they'll have to be pragmatic and cut the losses for the people. Would you? You know, a leader has to be cognizant of the suffering that is people are going through. Let us now move to Chip Chapman as for the final contribution. I'm keen to hear your response to what you've heard in this back and forth, which is precisely what we wanted this discussion for, and, you know, as it's the closing round also, to give us a perhaps a more optimistic note, you had the honour of being the man who effectively wound up Operation Banner as well. So you ended the British Army's regular large manpower presence in Northern Ireland because a multi-generational conflict of a different nature and order had come to an end. That's what the other two gentlemen contributing are talking about, reaching a just resolution. Well, I think the first thing you need to look at is wider war's end, and they end either in decisive military victory, the probability of that is quite low. The improbability of victory, the probability that is quite high, that is there is no decisive military victory. Or the third reason, which I think Russia is still pursuing, is because the cost, the population, economic, infrastructure, whatever are too great, and if they're too great for both sides, then you get to a negotiating position. So it's not whether this is a just war, it's what sort of peace should we go to. And if we look at what Donald Trump says, it's far more nuanced than most people tend to think. So the first piece of evidence we have for him, which may not look very good, is his town hall meeting in May 23, when he said he doesn't look through the prism of winning or losing or victory, he looks through the prism of stopping the killing. Now, one might say that is a humanitarian piece, as you know, the Indian general would have said, you know, stopping the killing is an honorable thing because human security needs include staying alive. That's a decent thing to do. But of course, that potentially rewards the aggressor. That is the problem with it. The second way of looking at this is that Donald Trump have actually said through his national security advisors, particularly Keith Kellogg, in the run up to the election, that he would stop the war. And I don't think he could do it in one day, of course, because the great man theory of international relations doesn't really apply by saying to Zelensky, come to the table, Arro won't support you. But at the same time, saying to Putin, come to the table or I'll support Ukraine with everything. Now, of course, it's what's on the table, which is the real issue, which leads you to the notion of do you go for a frozen piece, a land for peace, which I think is absolutely flawed because also what Putin desires is the exclusive economic zone and to stop any coastal potential for Ukraine in the future to make it a landlocked country. Do you go for a neutral piece? Our neutrality in history has always had three parts as well, the ability to trade space per time, very large armed forces and a security guarantee. Now, Ukraine already had a security guarantee. They potentially had three of them. Firstly, through the UN Charter, Article II brackets four, you only go to war authorized by either Article 51 or UN Security Council resolution. And by the Helsinki final agreement in 1975, led to the OSCE, there should be no boundary changes in Europe by war or by the Budapest memorandum of 1994, Ukraine's sovereign independence of 1991, guaranteed by Russia, UK and the USSR. So what we're often talking about and what Putin wants is a surrender piece. He wants the dismemberment of Ukraine. One of his grand strategic objectives is to regain territory and loss fears of influence. I think there will be a negotiated peace at some time, but I think it will be through strength because the final bit of evidence for Trump is the Helsinki Commission in September this year, led by a Republican senator, Joe Wilson from South Carolina. That Trump will realize that Putin is not an honest broker in negotiations when they get to any table. And there you would quote Kaya Kala's lines all the time, quoting Gromico from the past, that Russia will always demand the maximum. They will always make threats and the real worry because theory of victory isn't the West will just lose interest and won't want to continue, is that useful idiots in the West who will give you something, then you'll have and pocket a half or one third of something you didn't have before. That's why we need to continue to support those resilient Ukrainians, so they're not sold down the river by that sort of Gromico paradigm for the future. I would like to thank all three of you gentlemen for keeping it cordial in the midst of an impassioned discussion. It's notable that we move from very substantial consensus in battlefield analysis to very substantial disagreement when we came to what's inside Putin's and Trump's heads. So perhaps there's a lesson in there for students of international relations and military analysts and more besides. Thank you very much indeed and above all we do of course hope that we will not have to repeat this discussion at the 2000 day mark of the war. Thank you. And O'Reilly Auto Parts gift card is the perfect gift for that hard to buy for a person. Visit the gift of convenience from O'Reilly Auto Parts. [SCREAMS]
Retired army officers of great expertise debate the justness of the Russia-Ukraine war and the path to resolution. Read the write-up at: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/ukraine-war-at-1000-days-senior-british-and-indian-officers-speak