S8 Ep34: Moscow ISIS-K attack, Ukriane update and Ukraine Intelligence

[00:00:00] Due to the themes of this podcast, listener discretion is advised.

[00:00:08] Lock your doors, close the blinds, change your passwords.

[00:00:11] This is Secrets and Spies.

[00:00:27] Secrets and Spies is a podcast that dives into the world of espionage, terrorism, geopolitics

[00:00:33] and intrigue.

[00:00:34] This podcast is produced and hosted by Chris Carr.

[00:00:38] On today's podcast we welcome back Dr. Tarris Cusio who has just returned from a trip to

[00:00:43] Ukraine.

[00:00:44] In the first section of this podcast we discuss the recent ISIS-K terrorist attack in Moscow

[00:00:50] and how President Putin is capitalizing on that atrocity and attempting to blame

[00:00:54] Ukraine.

[00:00:55] We then move on to look at new Ukrainian tactics against Russia and we look at the increasingly

[00:01:00] risk-averse US response to Russian aggression both in Ukraine and with the recent reports

[00:01:05] about Havana syndrome.

[00:01:07] We then share focus to Dr. Cusio's trip to Ukraine which he shares some of his observations

[00:01:12] from that trip and then we look at how President Zelensky is holding up after recent reports

[00:01:16] that he has been at loggerheads with senior members of the Ukraine military.

[00:01:20] We also discuss some of the talking points about Ukraine on both sides of the political

[00:01:24] spectrum in the British and American press.

[00:01:26] And then after the break Dr. Cusio and I discuss some of the revelations from the New York Times

[00:01:31] piece on the Ukraine intelligence services and special forces, shedding light on their

[00:01:36] roles and actions.

[00:01:37] So it's a pretty jam-packed episode and in the end we end on a few bonus questions

[00:01:41] looking at topics from the Nord Stream attack to Alexei Navalny's links to far

[00:01:45] right.

[00:01:46] And also we talk about a strange conversation that I had with a taxi driver in London

[00:01:50] about Ukraine that left me scratching my head.

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[00:01:56] in this episode.

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[00:02:42] Dr. Tars Kuzia, welcome back to the podcast, how are you?

[00:02:45] I'm very good and thank you for inviting me again.

[00:02:49] It's good to have you back on.

[00:02:50] So for the benefit of listeners who may not have heard our past episodes please could just

[00:02:53] tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:02:55] Yeah, I was born in Britain to Ukrainian father, Italian mother who came here after the

[00:03:02] war.

[00:03:03] So I did all my education here.

[00:03:07] I've always worn a number of hats, academic, kind of journalistic but more for the

[00:03:14] specialist publications and also sometimes doing legal and political consultancy on things

[00:03:22] like political refugees from Russian Ukraine Belarus.

[00:03:28] I grew up in Soviet studies that shows my age but that became kind of post-Soviet, mainly

[00:03:37] Ukrainian, contemporary Ukrainian issues but I also obviously have no choice but to

[00:03:43] keep abreast of Russia as well.

[00:03:46] Belarus is pretty easy because the same idiot's been in charge since 1995, oh four sorry.

[00:03:54] And that's pretty much it.

[00:03:59] I was thinking and hoping to sort of slowly ease my way into retirement but a little gentleman

[00:04:09] with Napoleonic Stalinist tendencies in Moscow prevented that.

[00:04:16] So it has disrupted my plans and I don't think this war is going away any time soon, obviously

[00:04:25] not.

[00:04:26] No indeed, indeed and obviously Putin just won the so-called election in Russia so he's

[00:04:34] committed to staying for quite a long time.

[00:04:36] He put in, Putin is one of these corrupt autocrats who can never leave office for the simple fact

[00:04:45] there's no honor amongst thieves so these corrupt autocrats have to stay in power forever

[00:04:53] because they fear that if they are out of power and they're kind of growing potatoes

[00:04:59] on an allotment somewhere that they will be put in prison by their enemies or for certain

[00:05:07] what they have stolen will be stolen from them so they have to stay in power.

[00:05:12] Putin will be there until he literally pops his clogs.

[00:05:15] Yeah, he will pretty much die like Stalin won't he and then the country will be in

[00:05:19] a total...

[00:05:20] Yes, yes he's already six years beyond the average lifespan for Russian males which

[00:05:28] is about 64.

[00:05:30] The Russian government increased the pension age to 67 a few years ago which is three years

[00:05:36] later than the average lifespan for Russian males.

[00:05:39] It's a good way of saving money for the government but he's not a big boozer, Putin,

[00:05:46] so he still isn't in bad condition but nevertheless 70 years old but let's remember that the

[00:05:52] US presidential elections has two main candidates who are in their late 70s.

[00:05:58] We'll touch upon that a bit later but Taurus before delving into your recent journey to

[00:06:03] Ukraine I'd like to hear your thoughts and reflections on the recent terrorist attack

[00:06:07] in Moscow which now President Putin is trying to blame on Ukraine and the West despite ISIS

[00:06:13] K claiming responsibility for the attacks.

[00:06:17] What are your thoughts on that?

[00:06:19] Well the irony is that ISIS have become so frustrated by Russia's, by the Kremlin

[00:06:25] that they've actually issued a couple of statements saying it was us, it was us, come on!

[00:06:31] Because obviously they want to get credit for it because that gets some followers in social

[00:06:36] it's funny that they are frustrated.

[00:06:39] Two points really, firstly I'm surprised that most people are surprised that this

[00:06:47] has taken place and not condoning it of course but at the same time why should

[00:06:53] we be surprised when the main country in the Middle East or greater Middle East

[00:06:58] being behind the killing of Muslims has been Russia?

[00:07:01] Firstly in Chechnya into pretty brutal wars in the mid 90s and then in the early 2000s

[00:07:08] the estimates for that about 100,000 or 10% of the Chechen population were killed

[00:07:13] that was ignored by the West because there was 9-11 and Russia needed to be one of our

[00:07:19] allies in the fight against global war and terrorism.

[00:07:24] Okay so that's 100,000 but more importantly in Syria where approximately 600,000 Sunni Muslims

[00:07:31] have died and millions something like five or six million have fled abroad

[00:07:37] caused by Russia intervening on behalf of the brutal Assad regime

[00:07:44] and helping the Assad regime to use things like chemical weapons

[00:07:49] which the West initially was going to oppose, remember Obama's red lines and then didn't.

[00:07:55] So we have a total of nearly three quarters of a million Muslims that you could lay at the

[00:08:01] hands of Putin's regime so are we I'm more surprised that this hasn't happened earlier

[00:08:08] I mean apparently there have been quite a lot of smaller scale ISIS attacks or Islamic extremist

[00:08:14] attacks in Russia that haven't been really reported in the West so this is this could

[00:08:20] not be not reported because it was in Moscow and it was such a high number of casualties 144

[00:08:25] about 140 I think or a lot more. So that's my first point so we shouldn't be surprised that

[00:08:32] that Sunni Muslim extremist groups like ISIS see Russia as their enemy I'm just surprised it's taken

[00:08:41] them so long to do something like this in view of the brutality of what Russia has done against

[00:08:48] the Muslim world and I mean you know the second country that's been the most brutal

[00:08:54] towards Muslims has been China which has locked up one million Sunni Uighurs and

[00:09:00] done some appalling human rights atrocities against them such as for example doing operations to

[00:09:06] prevent women Muslim women from having future kids in China so actually it's not the West or the

[00:09:14] Americans or the Israelis that have done the worst against the Muslim world it's actually

[00:09:19] Russia and China so and so as an expert and political scientist I'm for me that's what's

[00:09:28] kind of interesting about all of this as for the Ukrainian angle we should put this into the context

[00:09:35] that the Kremlin mindset the Kremlin kind of ideological or Russian imperialist mindset

[00:09:43] believes that Ukraine doesn't exist as a real country this is an artificial construct

[00:09:50] which is being propped up by by the West this goes back to even the late 19th century

[00:09:56] Putin's revived this kind of conspiracy that then it was the Austrians and Poles that were

[00:10:01] that were supporting Ukrainians as a separate people to Russians and and now Putin has kind of

[00:10:08] modernized this by adding the CIA American Washington etc so Ukraine is is perceived in the eyes

[00:10:17] of these Kremlin leaders as a as an outpost of the West as an anti-Russian outpost they even

[00:10:24] call Ukraine anti-Russia and therefore they're going to try to pin these kinds of attacks

[00:10:33] in a in a culture of a fortress Russia on Ukraine as acting as an agent of the West

[00:10:42] and and and they have said in the past they have they haven't made claims in the past of the

[00:10:47] Taliban when they've attacked Russians that they've done that at the behest of the Americans so they see

[00:10:54] Putin's been seeing an American hang behind lots of different things both Islamic terrorism in

[00:11:01] Chechnya and elsewhere and and in Ukraine and in the Middle East for quite a long time and so

[00:11:09] this just fits that pattern of course it um the idea that Ukraine is behind this has been

[00:11:14] ridiculed by every single Western expert and government official they just roll their their

[00:11:21] eyes up at this kind of suggestion but it's it's powerful the course for for the Kremlin um

[00:11:28] Lawrence Friedman the professor Emeritus from King College has a great new

[00:11:33] sub-stack that he writes talking about the the kind of the the manic obsession that Vladimir

[00:11:43] Putin has about about Ukraine and this kind of fits into this he sees conspiracies and

[00:11:52] and and plots against Russia um and it's just part of this mentality of fortress Russia so

[00:12:00] here we go um where um in reality um Ukraine is undertaking lots of other types of

[00:12:09] attacks which are nothing to do with this ISIS attack on civilians but we'll talk about that in

[00:12:14] a minute yeah sadly with the case of Putin it's why less an atrocity goes to waste yes exactly exactly

[00:12:20] and just the final point on that going back to what you just said is that he's going to use

[00:12:26] this as a way of kind of fanning anti-ukranian sentiment ukrainophobia to help him launch

[00:12:33] a second round of mobilization of russians to fight in his war in ukraine so yes you're right

[00:12:39] he's going to use a terrorist attack like this to his benefit yeah so obviously there's been a

[00:12:44] new development new cranes fight against the russian invasion and now ukraine are using modified

[00:12:49] pilotless kind of karmakazi planes what are your thoughts on that tactic well uh when i when

[00:12:56] i saw this i said uh this is obviously taking the japanese karmakazes of world war two up to

[00:13:02] a new level because this is something nearly 2000 kilometers from the ukrainian border um the

[00:13:08] ukranians are quite a being very adapt at innovating new methods to fight russia and this is part and

[00:13:16] parcel of having a very big volunteer movement civil society and also having a large base

[00:13:23] of the military industrial complex which they inherited from the sova union so plenty of people

[00:13:28] who are good at it and military technology um and and so you have lots of these um small groups of

[00:13:36] civilians creating these new ideas which they then offer to the ukrainian military and one of these

[00:13:42] is obviously this pilotless plane which attacked an oil refinery something like 1800 kilometers from

[00:13:50] the ukrainian border um the the biden administration is coming across as extremely weak um when they in

[00:13:59] their condemnation of these attacks inside inside russia to me it's not surprising again as an analyst

[00:14:06] because the biden administration is a continuation of obama barack obama who was in power from 2009

[00:14:12] to 2016 um that administration ignored the russian invasion of georgia in 2008

[00:14:21] did nothing in 2014 when ukraine was invaded and of course forgot about its red lines in syria

[00:14:28] so i'm not that surprised it's very it's come across as very weak the biden administration

[00:14:34] when it came into power in 2020 lifted uh donald trump sanctions against north stream

[00:14:41] two as well um and has drip fed um military aid to ukraine because the biden administration

[00:14:47] does not want to see does not have as its goal the military defeat of russia um it doesn't want

[00:14:54] ukraine to to lose the war so it gives ukraine sufficient to defend itself but not enough for

[00:15:00] it to defeat uh to be victorious and defeat russia these claims by the by u.s diplomats

[00:15:08] that they do not support ukraine attacks inside inside russia are incredibly hypocritical this is

[00:15:17] a country the united states that's let launches attacks everywhere in the globe against terrorist

[00:15:23] groups i mean they've killed countless people abroad in pakistan in afghanistan in iraq and iran

[00:15:30] and elsewhere um and and of course they they intervened in iraq in 2003 so the idea that

[00:15:38] just you know the americans and then and then they don't say anything about what israel is up to

[00:15:44] outside its borders that's fine um there's no requirement for israel when it receives

[00:15:51] american military aid so not use it outside its borders it seems that um ukraine has been

[00:15:58] singled out here that it can only fight this war against russia with one arm tied up against its back

[00:16:04] um as you know it's ironic that the french have come to the rescue of ukrainians and they've said

[00:16:10] under un um charter ukraine has every rights to self-defense including attacks inside inside

[00:16:18] russia why do the americans not not understand that and ukraine's doing nothing in attacking

[00:16:24] launching these various attacks particularly against oil refineries and gas installations

[00:16:30] and other military targets it's not actually attacking any cedulian targets here um and um

[00:16:37] and and all of this is within within absolutely within the parameters of international law so the

[00:16:42] americans really are out of out of um sink here with with i think public opinion with international

[00:16:50] law and even with what they've done themselves again i'm not surprised because a new scandal that's

[00:16:54] just appearing now is is the degree to which the bar demonstration covered up russia's use of the

[00:17:01] the what's being called the havana syndrome where um the russia military intelligence have been

[00:17:08] using these high high level frequencies to um to against the american diplomats causing them

[00:17:16] much pain um and in some cases creating leading to cancer um and the bar demonstration basically

[00:17:24] covered up covered us covered this up this has now come out in an investigation and on cbc

[00:17:30] in various american uh television investigations um and the only explanation you can give for

[00:17:37] this is the same reason really the unwillingness of the bar demonstration to take on the russians

[00:17:43] for the aggression whether it's georgia 2008 syria ukraine and even against their own diplomats

[00:17:50] so it reflects a very weak um u.s administration and and that unfortunately sends a really bad

[00:18:00] signal to Vladimir Putin and his crone is in the kremlin because the only thing they understand

[00:18:06] is is toughness they don't understand weakness they laugh at it and they exploit it

[00:18:11] and the bar demonstration is sending that um i for me what was just on the final point on this

[00:18:18] um what's interesting as well is how we depict these american leaders in europe because trump

[00:18:25] of course gets a very bad rap right with so um he continuously him and his his team continuously

[00:18:34] talk about how they they don't want to send military aid to ukraine because ukraine's not

[00:18:40] a core us interest well actually barric obama said the same thing um he also argued that you know

[00:18:47] ukraine is not a core core american interest and therefore there's no need to provide some kind of

[00:18:55] support to ukraine after 2014 even though the us was obligated to under the 1994 budapest memorandum

[00:19:04] where ukraine gave up nuclear weapons so if obama and trump have the same viewpoint

[00:19:11] then why is it only trump is classified negatively as a populist and not obama maybe obama

[00:19:18] should be moving from the democratic party to the populist glp well i think i might be a bit

[00:19:25] extreme but uh yeah well or trump trump is a closet democrat one of the well didn't trump once

[00:19:33] say he was a democrat i can't remember well yes he's given he gave us given financial donations to

[00:19:39] the democrats under the public and sure yeah yeah one one little pushback on with the hirvana

[00:19:44] syndrome the trump administration was so equally as guilty of covering it up and doing very

[00:19:49] and i do wonder in a hypothetical different world how trump would have reacted had he got a second

[00:19:56] term how he actually would have reacted to the invasion of ukraine because i'm not convinced he

[00:20:00] would have given any real significant support maybe i'm wrong in that assumption well you're

[00:20:05] right in that sense that um i mean what happened with military assistance after 2014

[00:20:12] was that in the year that russia invaded an ex-crimean and invaded the donbas region of east

[00:20:18] and ukraine both british prime minister david kameron and and us president barack obama both of them

[00:20:26] ignored their commitments to ukraine security under the buddhapest memorandum both of them so it's not

[00:20:33] just a barack obama thing you know kameron now struts around as british foreign minister with a

[00:20:39] very hawkish agenda but back in 2014 he was very placid towards russia and towards china by

[00:20:46] the way at the same time so after that both kameron and obama vetoed the sending of military aid to

[00:20:53] ukraine even though there was a low intensity conflict taking place for nearly 10 years to

[00:20:59] trump's credit he did not veto the sending of military aid but that military aid was light

[00:21:05] light stuff it wasn't heavy duty military aid you're talking javelins and and stingers and this

[00:21:12] kind of thing um what what was in place at the time um on the eve of russia's invasion was a general

[00:21:22] common um viewpoint amongst western experts and western policymakers um they actually agreed with

[00:21:30] the kremlin um that ukraine would be quickly defeated this was a viewpoint in the west as

[00:21:36] well as in mosco um you know there were different reasons for this but and i and i've and i've written

[00:21:43] about this i i've written the kind of a piece called nine things the west got wrong on the

[00:21:47] invasion they they over exaggerated um the um the reforms and the power of the russia military

[00:21:58] and they under looked under before the under looked at the ukrainian willingness to to be

[00:22:05] resilient and to defend itself so that led to um a viewpoint in the us which meant that the only

[00:22:13] thing that the us was prepared to send at the time of the invasion were weapons which

[00:22:18] will ukraine would use in a guerrilla war because they assumed that ukraine will be quickly

[00:22:23] occupied quickly defeated and then there would just be a need to send guerrilla guerrilla weapons like

[00:22:29] javelins and stingers and laws to be used in the in a guerrilla war they were wrong they the west

[00:22:36] was wrong here and of course russia was wrong um ukraine put up a strong fight and more than

[00:22:42] two years on the war is still going on but um but so trump was a product of that mellar in

[00:22:51] washington which wasn't connected to didn't matter of which president was there um it just

[00:22:58] was a reflection of the experts that were around um and um i did i have worked in the 2000s in

[00:23:06] in washington and there was a a funny phrase that people use for these think tanks in washington

[00:23:12] that get us government money they call them the beltway bandits um and because the beltway being

[00:23:18] the sort of the n-25 the circular road around washington where a lot of these think tanks

[00:23:24] that the rand corporation are based as people have told me who work in those places it's not in

[00:23:29] their interest to actually tell the us pentagon um that the russian military is actually not very

[00:23:36] good um because if they tell them that then then um then they'll get less money um from

[00:23:43] and the us pentagon won't be able to get as much money from the u.s government because

[00:23:48] the government will turn around and say well you don't really need that much because the russian

[00:23:52] military is not very good you can defeat them very quickly so they there's an actual inbuilt bias to

[00:23:58] exaggerate the strength the power of the russian military um and and that will what was in place

[00:24:04] and that was coupled with this kind of very deeply set view of ukraine as a kind of a very divided

[00:24:11] country with with all the sort of the russian speaking pro russian east they would gladly welcome

[00:24:18] russian troops so all of that fed into this um and so put it trump was was better than obama but

[00:24:27] yes but only in being willing to send light weapons not in being willing to send every

[00:24:34] weapons biden then comes is in power when the when ukraine's actually invaded he does move like

[00:24:42] other western european countries into sending heavier weapons because they see that ukraine

[00:24:48] is fighting back but these weapons only come about and about march april so one to two months

[00:24:54] after the invasion when they can see that ukranians are not going to be defeated then

[00:24:59] they're going to fight back um but uh but the the big criticism i've made in a think tank paper

[00:25:06] in published in london is that this flow of military aid from the us and from Germany because

[00:25:14] chancels shoals always hides behind president biden um has been drip fed um and we talked about

[00:25:22] that before um about how that drip feeding um is real is linked to this fear of escalation with

[00:25:30] russia um whereas the brits um the scandinavians the bolts the poles the checks have not really

[00:25:40] linked their supply of military aid to any kind of fear of escalation they've openly stated

[00:25:47] that they seek the military defeat of russia whereas the americans and germans have never said that

[00:25:53] so um the byg administration had to change um in when the invasion happened but it never

[00:26:00] changed completely it's never actually gone full throttle in supporting ukraine thank you in light

[00:26:06] of obviously hirvana syndrome russia's war in ukraine and russia's kind of actions against

[00:26:13] the west that are quite obvious and been going on for a long time what is an appropriate kind of

[00:26:18] pushback what are the options sort of on the table because obviously this is sort of going on and russia

[00:26:24] are kind of getting away with not only invading countries but murdering people across their borders

[00:26:29] and so on and um so what are the options on the table to biden and the international community

[00:26:36] well i think the first thing one would answer to that question is that unless you want to

[00:26:42] be fighting russia yourself i.e nato then you have to support ukraine um i think it's quite

[00:26:49] commonly accepted now that um the bloody miriputins russia will not stop if it defeats ukraine so

[00:26:58] the choice is open to the west a really twofold an indirect conflict with russia where they're

[00:27:04] supporting ukraine or a direct conflict with russia with ukraine defeated i mean those are

[00:27:09] the only two options and if it's far more dangerous for the world if there's a direct war between nato

[00:27:16] and russia because that could could definitely um and there's more chance of escalating to a nuclear

[00:27:22] war so um so then if that's the case then it's far more preferable for nato and for western

[00:27:30] countries to give the means to ukraine um for it to successfully defeat the russian

[00:27:38] military i think there's a number of things that have to be done firstly there needs to be

[00:27:44] a move to that british kind of navy and polish vultic mindset amongst particularly the germans

[00:27:50] and the americans that the goal is russia's military defeat the americans and germans have never said

[00:27:57] that they should openly come out and say that that's that i think is of an important

[00:28:02] um kind of ideological position because from that you get flows the means of how to do that

[00:28:11] and the means are to stop holding back things like long term um um these uh missiles such as

[00:28:22] tourist german tourist missile um and also the american attack arms which have a long range

[00:28:30] um stop holding back on on items like that stop holding back on the supply of military equipment

[00:28:36] for example ukraine has been supplied with something like 50 i forget the numbers are different

[00:28:42] depending on who you quote 50 to 100 abram tanks um america has thousands of these just sitting

[00:28:49] in in desert compound they're not doing anything um why is there's not more of those being

[00:28:56] sent why are these long range missiles not being sent so ukraine needs to be given the means to

[00:29:04] defeat russia and that the the way the steps for that would be firstly liberation of southeast

[00:29:11] in ukraine breaking through the means to break through those fortification lines so that includes

[00:29:19] jets long range missiles and demining equipment those kinds of things um once ukraine has broken

[00:29:26] through and liberated the southeast then crime area is under threat i think the two

[00:29:32] two kind of sub goals of that russia's military defeat which would potentially either lead to a

[00:29:40] change of uh leader in mosco or or or putin being forced to negotiate are firstly these attacks

[00:29:48] inside russia which are heavily damaging russia's main export of oil and gas that's one one area

[00:29:58] the continuation of that and secondly having ukrainian troops liberated southeast in ukraine

[00:30:04] them standing on the black sea coastline and threatening russia's holdover crime area i think

[00:30:10] those two plus maybe tightening up sanctions which don't seem to be as tight as they could be

[00:30:17] vis-a-vis russia for example there's now pressure on um india to no longer buy russian crude oil

[00:30:25] why was i not done two years ago so i think those two or three uh areas would enable ukraine to take

[00:30:35] the fight to no longer like this year ukraines are defending not attacking to actually launch

[00:30:42] defensives and to defeat defeat russia um but but i think you know the americans and the

[00:30:50] germans need to have a change in mindset to do that the germans will will arrive at that

[00:30:58] if the biden administration does because schultz always follows the lead of biden whether it's on

[00:31:04] tanks or other military equipment um firstly it's americans then it's then it's the germans

[00:31:10] that would give um give give ukraine the means and then behind all of that of course the

[00:31:17] europeans need to get their act together need to um increase their defense budgets because the

[00:31:27] frances fuciama's end of history that he wrote about back in 1991 is over

[00:31:32] histories come full full scale back and hit you in the face you need to realize

[00:31:40] europe is in a new cold war yeah history is back and it's not going anywhere

[00:31:46] no no it's not i mean that book that book you look i've got it on my shelf and you look at it now

[00:31:52] and go god this is an optimistic book on the tems you get these boats that were commissioned

[00:31:58] during the millennium and they've got things like millennium of peace as their name and things

[00:32:02] like that and uh yeah i do miss that 90s optimism but unfortunately it's long gone now

[00:32:07] it's long gone yeah yeah um and um and i there still seems to be a kind of um

[00:32:16] unwillingness to accept that um amongst um because you know if if you accept it then

[00:32:21] there are consequences you need to uh change government priorities i mean and it's not just

[00:32:27] i think for us living in britain one of the strangest aspects of all of this is uh

[00:32:32] is why the british military have declined so much under a party that always prep the conservatives

[00:32:39] that always pride this soul from being pro-military and pro-national security

[00:32:44] um i mean the british military now is the smallest since it's been since the polionic wars

[00:32:49] and the air force was the smallest since world war two um so what's going on here

[00:32:56] yeah yeah and good luck persuading the public that that should change well i think

[00:33:01] this is this is part and parcel of this kind of unwillingness to be frank to the public and to say

[00:33:07] hey guys we're back we're back in the cold war um and i think many governments you're right are

[00:33:14] unwilling to do that well thank you for that you've just recently come back from a trip to

[00:33:19] your crane and i was wondering if you'd be happy to talk about some of the things that you did

[00:33:23] there and what you've kind of learned from that trip i've done various types of volunteer work

[00:33:29] here there are many volunteer groups in britain doing things vis-a-vis ukraine they're either doing

[00:33:38] it um and there are other ones in western europe they're either doing stuff directly with the

[00:33:43] military or doing both military and humanitarian work the group i went out with is a group called

[00:33:50] vans without borders um mainly based in the south of england um a couple of ex-military guys but

[00:33:57] a real mishmash of people all with good hearts taking time off work and heading out there in all

[00:34:06] types of professions because after all they have to give up at least a month of their

[00:34:12] of their of their lives of time off work and there's always a cost involved because your

[00:34:19] travel expenses are paid by by yourselves so we went out on the 8th of february in six kind of

[00:34:28] and what you call them pick they're not really pickup trucks because they have the backs of them are covered

[00:34:34] with the aim of leaving four of them behind with the ukraine military two would come back

[00:34:40] um i mean the average age of these guys isn't they're in the sort of mid to late 20s so

[00:34:48] i i realized that maybe this wasn't a good idea to drive all the way from england to ukraine

[00:34:54] via war so it was a long long drive so next time probably i'll meet them i'll fly in to poland

[00:35:01] and meet them in ukraine they took with them um military and humanitarian aid i mean the kind of

[00:35:08] things that these people are taking in including friends other friends of mine are drones

[00:35:15] various types of drones either purchased ironically purchased on places like amazon

[00:35:21] um or um all their homemade these kamikaze drones are just literally homemade ones

[00:35:29] um they cost about 300 pounds to make um and um and starlink um terminals which i was very

[00:35:38] surprised to hear are so cheap um i just assumed they were going to be costing in their thousands

[00:35:45] and they took they took them with them and they they cost something like uh 450 pounds brand new

[00:35:55] or 250 pounds i believe refurbished and they said the refurbished ones were just as good

[00:36:01] so i i guess the starlink makes most of its money on the monthly subscription not on the actual

[00:36:07] terminal itself but the monthly subscriptions are paid for by the pentagon as far as i

[00:36:13] understand so the ukrainians are not paying for those so um we um we met various local volunteers

[00:36:23] both westerners and ukrainians in the western ukraine leviv kia and then we drove to the southeast

[00:36:34] place called krivy rych which is president zolenski's hometown and then from there went

[00:36:42] closer to the front line to deliver various military things to including things like uniforms

[00:36:48] and clothes winter clothes uh to um to people near the front line some troops near the front line

[00:36:56] um i mean these are going to be contacts that vanduard outboarders already had and

[00:37:02] i think what happened is that these volunteer groups have um already established links to

[00:37:09] units and they kind of deal with those units so there's no real overlap you know units are not getting

[00:37:16] supplies from different humanitarian groups and um and then we went further east via harcky

[00:37:27] which hams is only about 30 40 miles from the border and therefore it's had a bit of a hammering

[00:37:36] um it does you do notice that the further east you drive the more the cities um show a sense of

[00:37:44] hammering and i and i understand that being because it's very difficult to intercept drones

[00:37:53] and missiles if you're so close to the russian border compared to say kiev and especially west

[00:37:58] ukraine um so in the center of harakiv i mean it's not as bad as i think sometimes is portrayed

[00:38:06] but the kids there are um doing their schools classes in the underground in the metro system

[00:38:16] as opposed to in schools um and quite a few of the buildings windows are boarded up and

[00:38:23] often things like council meetings are done online not in the actual council building from

[00:38:29] there we went further east closer to the russian lines places like kopians and izum

[00:38:37] they met some um ukrainian soldiers there which uh which they've previously had contact with

[00:38:45] and these were ukraine security service um drone operators and they delivered them some drones

[00:38:53] and starlink terminals we also visited a um a unit which is close sort of it's about one hour east

[00:39:04] of harakiv driving and it was a small unit i don't know how small maybe 10 12 people

[00:39:12] um based in somebody's house who had fled um about eight kilometers from the border

[00:39:20] and they would be doing reconnaissance and drone attacks again for me what's fascinating is to see

[00:39:27] the mixture of people there you've got um i mean it was very obvious that the the person in

[00:39:34] charge of the technical stuff was a computer i don't want to say this in a negative way but

[00:39:40] computer geek they just look like that i mean and when i talk to him um he he did say that he

[00:39:47] before the war he ran his own private uh computer company which he then took that expertise and

[00:39:56] is applying it vis-a-vis russia again in the war and then you had a mixture of other people

[00:40:03] i mean for me as a political scientist and as an academic what's interesting as well is to

[00:40:09] look at the um regional demographics and language demographics um about the soldiers on the ukrain

[00:40:17] side because there's a lot of exaggerated or there used to be at the very least a lot of exaggeration

[00:40:24] about ukrain's divisions between russian ukrainian speakers east and west in ukraine i always thought

[00:40:30] this exaggerated because most russian speakers in ukraine have shown themselves to be patriotic

[00:40:36] ukrainians um that was true back in 2014 when russia first invaded and it's true today and it's not

[00:40:44] that unusual i mean you know just think of uh two countries near us in england scotland um

[00:40:53] gallic is only spoken by five percent of the people in in scotland um the northwest um and

[00:41:00] island most people still um still speak i english as their first language in island

[00:41:06] even though gallic is taught in school that doesn't make irish people less patriotic because they

[00:41:12] speak english and and so i think we shouldn't move away from this more germanic french

[00:41:18] understanding of that if you don't speak ukrainian you're somehow um you know you're

[00:41:25] so a supporter of russia that that's simply not the case and and so many of these ukrain

[00:41:32] soldiers were often locals um people from from hariky or elsewhere and um and they and therefore

[00:41:42] they were um either bilingual or often russian speakers and different age groups um again one

[00:41:51] of the things that you often read in the west is that the average life average age of soldiers is

[00:41:57] sort of um in ukrainians are is in their early 40s i saw a lot of young people um people in their 20s

[00:42:04] not just people in their 40s um the other thing you often get in western media

[00:42:12] is that morale is quite low yeah i didn't get that sense either um not from the people i i i i met

[00:42:21] me is you was um was fascinating is your mcpians because these were areas which were occupied by russia

[00:42:29] until september 2022 when the russian army was routed and it fled from there so and

[00:42:36] ukrain liberated most of hariky region um so there was a lot of military equipment we were sat

[00:42:43] waiting for our guys to arrive um in a kind of um a kind of a small coffee house eating place

[00:42:53] and there was just lots of stuff just driving past all the time military equipment driving past

[00:42:58] tanks and trucks and and other and other things so um for for me as an analyst what's interesting

[00:43:07] is seeing how volunteers work see how they interact with the locals um and um and and experiencing

[00:43:18] the talking to the soldiers um one of the most fascinating meetings was in

[00:43:25] zeolenski's hometown of crevier rich because we were by chance um invited one evening to um

[00:43:34] a kind of an annual anniversary get together of veterans from the afghanistan war

[00:43:42] in the 1980s um and um so these guys are tough ex paratroopers and such like uh they like

[00:43:50] a like a bit of a drink um i just assumed stereotypically that many of these would be pro russian

[00:43:58] because they were kind of you know they fought for the soviet union in the 80s in afghanistan

[00:44:03] and i was pleasantly surprised to see to what degree they were virently anti-russian now remember

[00:44:12] for your listeners what's what's interesting what's happened since 2014 and especially since 2022

[00:44:20] is that um prior to 2014 um the only really hardcore group of ukranians who shall we say

[00:44:31] really hated russians would would have been west ukranians um and those were the kind of people

[00:44:39] that came to bricken after the war um just because of geography really and um and so like

[00:44:46] my father's from west ukraine what's happened since 2014 and especially 2022 the full-scale

[00:44:53] invasion is that um that anti-russian hatred has spread to the rest of the country uh when you have

[00:45:01] when you read opinion polls today where we're talking about only three five percent of ukranians

[00:45:08] hold a positive view of the russian people um and these afghan veterans or veterans of the afghan

[00:45:15] war were an example of that um i i was sort of pleasantly surprised to hear how they just

[00:45:28] were talking in very very hostile negative terms and the reasons for that were that

[00:45:36] they were looking at this as fathers and as kind of brothers as it were and they

[00:45:43] they they were see looking at this in terms of younger people um getting killed either fighting

[00:45:50] in the war or getting killed as civilians and for them this was just shocking and i think it's also

[00:45:58] um it's more of a shock for people from that part of ukraine the eastern part which was uh

[00:46:05] used to be russian speaking for them it was a shock that russians are doing this to them

[00:46:12] because they always had this kind of misapprehension that russians were somehow their close friends

[00:46:19] close brothers um this is how they were brought up in the soviet union and um and yet um the

[00:46:27] the biggest brutality of this war has taken place in russian speaking parts of ukraine in the

[00:46:32] eastern south not in the west of the country so today there is simply no difference in how

[00:46:40] you will find hatred for um for the for for the russian regime for putin's regime and for the

[00:46:47] russian people in the east as much as in the west of the country that that is something that

[00:46:54] Vladimir Putin has led to in ukraine and so talking to people like that helps me it gives me

[00:47:02] credibility sort of to talk about these kind of issues because i'm not only just reading

[00:47:08] uh articles from ukraine or opinion polls i'm actually talking to people on the ground

[00:47:15] so those would be the kind of reflections that um that i i came back with um i'm always

[00:47:22] stunned to meet people like that i mean i've i've that's happened in the past but um but

[00:47:30] you don't necessarily expect it from the industrial parts of ukraine which were

[00:47:36] traditionally quite soviet and quite pro-russian but putin's invasion and the war crimes committed

[00:47:44] by the russian army have changed everything in the country no indeed well thank you very much

[00:47:50] for sharing all that that is very interesting especially about the russian speakers um i

[00:47:54] have a bonus question we may get too late about this conversation out of a taxi driver

[00:47:59] um that was quite uh i don't know enlightening and disappointing um and i think he came from

[00:48:05] a kind of far-left persuasion and one of his points was that putin was somehow rescuing

[00:48:12] russian speakers in ukraine which just strikes me as a bit bonkers really well of course his

[00:48:17] bonkers and opinion polls show that in ukraine um only something like three five percent of

[00:48:24] ukraine believe this propaganda garbage and um and the very actions of of the russian army

[00:48:33] show this not to be true the cities and villages in town which are being destroyed um by the russian

[00:48:41] army and from which people are either being killed or having to flee losing all their

[00:48:48] lives all their worldly possessions are actually russian speakers they're the ones suffering

[00:48:54] the most in this war i mean the port of mario poll which had a population of 450 000 was flattened

[00:49:02] by the russian army this is a port which was russian speaking and and also tended to vote for

[00:49:10] pro russian parties so the idea that the russian army's coming to protect or defend russian speaking

[00:49:17] simply is just laughable i mean it's just not true and um and it can be very easily discounted

[00:49:24] yeah yeah indeed well they don't they don't seem to be interested in winning hearts and minds

[00:49:28] the russians no no that that very concept i guess which western armies have tried to do

[00:49:36] you know failing or otherwise um in many places the russian army has never had

[00:49:41] docked then this is basically the same it's the same soviet army that did what it did in

[00:49:48] world war two um and you know rape pillaged and destroyed as it moved across europe to berlin

[00:49:55] in 1943-4445 the same same mentality same only yeah yeah indeed indeed now um one question

[00:50:04] i was going to ask you i wanted to get a sense with if you've got a sense of how

[00:50:08] president solenski is sort of holding up because there's been an awful lot of speculation

[00:50:12] since we last spoke about his popularity in ukraine and questions about his relationship with

[00:50:17] the military at the moment yeah i mean i i think some of this is a bit exaggerated by the western

[00:50:24] media um but some of it probably is spot on um i think that what what what it reflects

[00:50:34] from the kind of end of last year beginning of this year is that um we're in a transition period

[00:50:42] of perceptions last year there was a lot of optimism that ukraine's offensive would

[00:50:52] would quickly defeat the russian army um ukraine would get down to the coast

[00:50:57] coast the as of sea quite quickly now we have a different kind of perception

[00:51:05] which is that this war is going to last a lot longer than we imagined um and um when you read

[00:51:13] his history books you you you you realize that this often happens in wars in world war one

[00:51:20] we thought the war the war would be over or the british thought the war would be over by christmas

[00:51:25] and it lasted another four years yeah um and the same here many ukrainians maybe

[00:51:31] hoped as well as believed that the war would end very quickly with russia the russian army

[00:51:37] will be defeated based on the fact that ukraine was quite successful in 2002 and the first half of 2023

[00:51:46] but the russian army did adapt and in particular the russian army was given eight months

[00:51:52] 89 months when the west kind of dithered as it were um and supplied arms in a very drip drip

[00:52:00] fashion uh the training and everything else was very slow the arrival of tanks and the jets 11 arrived

[00:52:07] and and that eight to nine months allowed the russians after the route of the russian army in

[00:52:14] september 22 it allowed the russians eight to nine months to build three lines of fortification

[00:52:19] laid 10 000 tens of thousands of mines and to launch a mass mobilization of 300 or thousand plus

[00:52:27] people and that solidified that uh southeast occupation part of ukraine and it also was made

[00:52:38] more difficult to as it were penetrate and liberate because of this transformation of technology in

[00:52:45] this war i mean um this ukrainian russian war is going to be transformative not only for

[00:52:53] the ukrainian russian armies but for western armies um where it's very difficult for armies to

[00:52:59] advance forward when you've got drones in the sky all the time because those drones were just to

[00:53:05] destroy anything that's moving and that that makes it very difficult as well to advance forward

[00:53:12] so i think some of this negativity around zalensky is related to this transition of this

[00:53:20] perception that that oh my god we we now have to realize that this war could last a long time

[00:53:27] and the secondary knock on of knock on effect of that is seen in europe where um european leaders

[00:53:37] particularly emin eminual macron the french president are also now openly saying wow this

[00:53:44] is going to be um a much more difficult longer war and we have to prepare for it so i think a lot of

[00:53:53] there are a lot of factors here in the case of zalensky i think um uh they there was a brewing

[00:54:01] conflict with the head of the the armed forces valerius zaluzhny he published an article

[00:54:09] quite a detailed article in the economist in november of last year and he probably mistakenly

[00:54:18] published it without getting permission i guess that would be a problem in any western country as well

[00:54:25] if the head of the british army armed forces for example published something critical

[00:54:30] without consulting first with the prime minister and the government and and so zalensky wasn't

[00:54:35] very happy particularly because zaluzhny basically said you know the offensive is over because it's winter

[00:54:41] time and uh we're in a period of stalemate and i don't think zalensky particularly liked that

[00:54:46] phrase stalemate so that conflict between them two culminated in zaluzhny being removed

[00:54:54] being replaced and being sent to britain yeah as the new ukrainian ambassador uh to united kingdom

[00:55:03] do you think i'd be able to get him on here one day yes yes yes i mean he would be i mean the problem

[00:55:10] that you're going to have of course he's he's not going to be able to because he's an official person

[00:55:15] they can't say much um can't be very open in what they say i i experienced that once in my life

[00:55:21] when i worked for nato in the late 1990s where i had to watch every word i said and i hated it

[00:55:28] yeah so i think that those are the reasons for this um and zalensky i guess the final factor is

[00:55:36] zalensky's quite frustrated about uh western support um particularly the u.s in the u.s is

[00:55:45] the sort of the hold up in american support for ukraine since the end of last year

[00:55:50] and the europeans are getting more active but it's just a very slow process um in europe so

[00:55:59] that impacts on the ground in ukraine with more ukrainians dying at the front line yeah yeah this

[00:56:05] is the thing isn't it life will the slow walking with weapons upgrades and now this efforts in

[00:56:11] the states to block more aids ukraine it's costing lives and you know i want to ask you about

[00:56:17] like about these efforts to block more aid to ukraine in the u.s there's all circles on the

[00:56:22] the right and the far left that are questioning why the u.s is continuing to spend so much on aid

[00:56:27] when they have domestic issues themselves also so i suppose what are your thoughts on

[00:56:32] what's kind of going on in the u.s at the moment and um and to some of those arguments

[00:56:37] in the u.s that feel like they should be spending more domestically well the um i think that's

[00:56:43] one of the one of the kind of factors here is that we've got a candidate who i mean back in 2016

[00:56:56] trump wasn't so bad towards ukraine as he could be now i think that's something important to

[00:57:02] stress because it's never so black and white on these on these issues in many ways the

[00:57:09] trump presidency back then 16 to 20 was far better than the barack obama presidency barack obama and

[00:57:19] british prime minister cameron in 2014 completely forgot their obligations to ukraine under the

[00:57:27] buddhapes and the random this document signed in 1994 in return for ukraine getting rid of its

[00:57:33] nuclear weapons um that they would provide some security assurances to ukraine both of both obama

[00:57:41] and cameron ignored those in 2014 and both britain and america refused to provide ukraine

[00:57:48] with any military aid um throughout that period from 2014 up until the full-scale invasion

[00:57:56] um i think that only changed a few months before the full-scale invasion so trump did not veto unlike

[00:58:04] obama trump did not veto the supply of weapons then and trump was also better on north stream

[00:58:11] north stream gas pipeline trump imposed sanctions uh biden when he became president in 2020

[00:58:17] removed those sanctions so it's it's it's it's um it's never black and white on these on these

[00:58:25] kinds of kinds of issues and of course you know cameron back in 2014 was this he was pretty useless

[00:58:32] he didn't help ukraine at all and now he's now he suddenly is the foreign minister of

[00:58:37] the british government needs a big hawk so um we have to be careful about these but trump seems

[00:58:44] to be today far more has gone moved further to the right um to the populist nationalist right

[00:58:51] and he's also got a personal grudge with zealinski going back to 2020 because during the election

[00:58:59] campaign he tried to pressure zealinski to help him defeat biden by finding dirt on biden and and

[00:59:08] this was a long discussion but which may be for a separate episode of how uh the kremlin supplied

[00:59:16] dirty and often made up intelligence through various intermediaries to juliani trump's lawyer and

[00:59:28] and some other people so that trump could use that against biden um and zealinski wanted no part of

[00:59:36] this and i think that led to when you cross trump he becomes personally doesn't forget that

[00:59:43] and that led to trump's first impeachment so i think that that is hanging over um over a potential

[00:59:51] trump victory um i think it and it's why it's unusual from people who have been watching america

[00:59:59] for many years is that traditionally including in the cold war it was the republicans or the

[01:00:06] hawks vis-a-vis the soviet union um and russia and and today that's the that's no longer the case

[01:00:14] it's the democrats now there are many republicans who are not um who are who are sympathetic to

[01:00:22] ukraine and want to support ukraine particularly in the senate so it's really a question of

[01:00:28] of this being blocked um in the in the in the house of representatives not in the senate and also

[01:00:36] the the fact this is all linked the aid to ukraine has been linked um to the border problems with

[01:00:44] mexico the immigration problems um i um i mean i don't i will see if trump is elected or not

[01:00:52] um because um uh i don't think i think many american voters are not happy that the fact that

[01:01:00] both of these old candidates who who seem to have various ailments um both of them

[01:01:08] they're not happy that the election is giving them just a choice between them so we'll see who

[01:01:13] wins but um i i'm not i'm not always so pessimistic if trump wins because um i simply just can't see how

[01:01:25] he can change so much and very quickly trump claims he can bring peace about in ukraine

[01:01:32] within 24 hours well good luck um that's not going to be the case the russians are always good at

[01:01:40] um uh angering people even people who are their friends um and also um i think what works in

[01:01:48] ukraine's favor is the fact that um the even the populist and nationalists in the republican party

[01:01:58] want to support israel and you can't really separate israel and ukraine today i mean both

[01:02:05] countries are faced by an iranian russian alliance against them with north korea in the background

[01:02:13] and um if you want to support israel you really should be supporting ukraine and the other way

[01:02:18] around as well um iran wants to destroy and erase from the map israel and russia wants to do

[01:02:26] that with ukraine and and so uh and iran and russia have a very close military alliance and they

[01:02:33] both iran and russia both feel believe that they're already at war with the west um so a lot of a lot

[01:02:42] of a lot of a lot has changed since the 7th of october 2023 hamas terrorist attack on israel

[01:02:49] and that that has brought israel and ukraine together and israel today is covertly providing

[01:02:58] ukraine for the first time with military aid which it refused to do before the hamas attack

[01:03:04] so so i mean that has to have an impact also of course this entire anti-western axis and

[01:03:14] and war um impacts upon taiwan as well which is another country that the americ the united states

[01:03:22] has security relationship with um if ukraine would be military militarily defeated that would

[01:03:29] embolden china to launch an invasion of taiwan um china is closely watching what's going on

[01:03:37] in the in in the western response to uh to the russian ukranian war and hasn't

[01:03:44] hasn't gotten involved in terms of supplying military aid to russia but it's certainly

[01:03:49] helping russia in other ways for example in uh non non military economic trade oil and gas and these

[01:03:56] kinds of areas but but all but international relations is all about signals um and um a military

[01:04:03] defeat in ukraine would have dire ramifications for europe macron keeps saying that today and it would

[01:04:09] have dire ramifications i think for israel and for taiwan so anybody who comes to power in the

[01:04:14] us has to has to understand that we shall see yeah one last question on this and then we'll

[01:04:21] move on to rick yeah to ukrainian intelligence um i've noticed on the left and i and the reason

[01:04:27] why i focus on the left is because i would identify myself as a center leftist not a far leftist

[01:04:32] but what i'm noticing on talking points on the left is um that the west is increasingly uh being

[01:04:39] portrayed as the sole warmonger and that ultimately any potential conflict with china or obviously aid

[01:04:48] to ukraine that's of tackling russia is seen as just western warmongering i don't know if you have

[01:04:53] any sort of thoughts on that this is a long-standing i would say argument um particularly

[01:05:00] stronger i would say far more stronger in 2014 than today um and um and it was it's

[01:05:09] is the jerry mccobbin argument i mean this is the argument of the former leader of the labor

[01:05:14] party jeremy corbin and people of the similar ilk and um and i think that argument about you know

[01:05:22] it's uh it's the west moving into russia's sphere of influence uh nato enlargement the americans

[01:05:28] again all of that is is something that was very strong in 2014 and that kind of um group of people

[01:05:39] tended to um blame the americans and nato for what was taking place they they let put in off the

[01:05:47] hook as it were um and i think that's less true today one reason being of course because

[01:05:56] corbin um is no longer around um and and um there isn't really another group of uh

[01:06:07] bloody another political group in britain that is russophile besides the corbin group

[01:06:13] and they're pretty marginalized now um but you still will have that kind of influence i think in

[01:06:19] other countries particularly in germany and france i think uh many people see the german chancellor schultz

[01:06:27] as part of that kind of tendency because he was very left-wing in the 1980s sort of

[01:06:34] in the german equivalent of what we had in britain the cnd the campaign for nuclear disarmament

[01:06:40] um and and this this feeds into german german is reluctance to supply ukraine with certain

[01:06:47] weapons particularly the torus a long range uh missile um so but i i don't think it's it's a strong

[01:06:58] in britain or say for example the united states as it was back in 2014 um and i am what what you

[01:07:08] tend to see today amongst that kind of far less group of people is um they camouflage their russophilism

[01:07:19] because they can't be openly pro russia today in the same way as they were in 2014 so they

[01:07:26] camouflage it by by um and they can't be as openly pro russian today as 2014

[01:07:35] because of russia's reputation um for russian senior people including putin have been

[01:07:43] criminally charged by the international criminal court um russia's committing horrendous war crimes

[01:07:49] in all sorts of different ways in ukraine so you can't be openly pro russian so the way they

[01:07:54] camouflage themselves today is by calling for peace um and um and they uh and they do that by

[01:08:05] saying we need to freeze the conflict of course that works in russia's favor because russia then

[01:08:10] gets to keep what is occupied um what's thrown out of the window straight away is the internationally

[01:08:18] recognized principle of a country's right territorial integrity sovereignty over its territory a basic

[01:08:25] principle of united nations that's all thrown out the window no no we need to stop the bloodshed

[01:08:31] we'll do that by freezing the conflict and then and and they don't actually say well this works

[01:08:38] in russia's favor and anyway it won't stop the conflict because putin is and other russian leaders

[01:08:44] have openly said on many occasions that their goal isn't just to capture what they've captured in

[01:08:51] southeastern ukraine their goal is the a the destruction of ukraine as a as a country and

[01:08:56] identity and to capture other cities particularly harkiv um Kiev, nipro um and odessa so um but

[01:09:07] they don't talk about that they just um say that they try to portray themselves as peacemakers

[01:09:13] um by calling for a freezing of the conflict so um so it's quite disingenuous and and and and it can

[01:09:23] be very easily pulled up um but um but of course they're going to be around and they're going

[01:09:30] to be probably quite active on social media but i think politically you're only really

[01:09:36] going to find them in places like france and and germany yeah yeah i think i would say that

[01:09:42] i've noticed via the israel gaza conflict that it seems yeah that seems to now be the gateway

[01:09:49] for this sort of attitude to become more popular yeah yeah and that again that should be relatively

[01:09:54] easy to counter because um i think it i think it's a reflection the the protest

[01:10:02] on the streets about what's going on against israeli policy in gaza um fair enough um you know

[01:10:09] if you want to you want to condemn the israeli army i have zero problem with that but then

[01:10:15] are you not being a bit anti-semitic in your choice of what you condemn and don't condemn the

[01:10:22] the country that has committed the biggest amount of war crimes against muslims is russia and then

[01:10:29] secondly china china because it's locked up one million muslims um in week in in in in

[01:10:36] chinese turkey stan and and russia firstly in chechnya in 2000 2001 when putin came to power

[01:10:43] he his campaign against chechnya nationalists and separatists murdered about the 10th of the

[01:10:50] population and most importantly um 600 000 syrians were killed sunni muslims were murdered by the

[01:10:59] Assad regime in in kahoots with russia why were those those left-wing activists and students

[01:11:09] who are protesting today about gaza where would they when 600 000 muslims would be murdered

[01:11:16] in syria that's a lot more than any palestinians have been murdered so i'm i think that we

[01:11:22] should use this kind of argument um why they're not protesting outside the chinese embassy

[01:11:27] about the locking up of one million muslims um or is it just that you don't care about the muslims

[01:11:34] actually what you do care about is you don't like israel i mean that's the crux of the

[01:11:41] the issue isn't it i mean with with these and and that's ready very easily to prove because

[01:11:46] they've completely ignored war crimes committed by russia and human rights abuses committed by

[01:11:52] russia and china yeah yeah yeah i i bore friends and family to death with uh bringing up russia um

[01:12:01] because because uh i hear a lot about everything else but people and i hear a lot about the

[01:12:06] crimes of the west but people seem to never ever mention russia and and then i've been told

[01:12:11] well people know history and state you need to take it as a given that people consider russia

[01:12:16] but i don't see evidence of people considering russia when they talk about his no especially

[01:12:20] the syria i mean 600 000 kill massive you know uh migration i think millions of three five million

[01:12:31] people from syria um where were the protests and student demonstrations on campuses about that

[01:12:38] yeah yeah indeed indeed well let's take a quick break and then we'll be right back

[01:13:01] well let's let's move on we're gonna look at the ukraine intelligence services and

[01:13:05] who've been incredibly effective during this war and um so i suppose my first question is a broad one

[01:13:12] maybe even considered a stupid one but why is intelligence collection important and what

[01:13:17] kind of information is useful in a state of war i would certainly point your listeners if they've

[01:13:23] had the opportunity to try and find this very very long and detailed investigation by the new

[01:13:29] times month or two months ago on um cia cooperation with ukraine intelligence which has been which has

[01:13:38] been taking place since uh 2014 because that was extremely informative and i think what was interesting

[01:13:47] from that is um something that's reflected across the board in this war is that many western

[01:13:54] militaries and intelligence services including nato are getting a huge amount of experience

[01:14:02] intelligence information about military capabilities warfare how it's undertaken

[01:14:11] and intelligence gathering and this investigation by the new york times showed

[01:14:17] uh to what degree um the cia and the americans were were actually getting a lot more from this

[01:14:25] relationship with ukraine intelligence than the ukrainians were getting um because their various

[01:14:32] listening posts or wherever you want to call them near the front lines were were collecting a

[01:14:37] lot of um intelligence um and they were collecting um intelligence also from ongoing activities by

[01:14:47] ukraine security services both inside russia and vis-a-vis russia so i think that what's changed

[01:14:57] um most notably is the degree to which um there's a lot more um cyber warfare um hacking

[01:15:08] collection the ability to collect intelligence and data um is is far more superior than we

[01:15:17] would have imagined in the past and that most blatantly came out into the public domain

[01:15:24] when the americans for the first time in history uh openly talked about russian invasion plans in the

[01:15:30] months running up to the full-scale invasion the americans started talking about this and

[01:15:37] revealing that they had this intelligence from about um the autumn of 2021 so the amer and they

[01:15:47] had extremely detailed um intelligence i.e the very day and how the russians were going to invade

[01:15:55] ukraine so that showed you american capabilities then and the capabilities have grown even more

[01:16:04] since then with the cooperation with um with ukraine um from what i understand and i think

[01:16:11] you're going to lead on to this the corporation is more likely to be with ukrainian military

[01:16:17] intelligence um as opposed to the security service of ukraine and because i think these are

[01:16:23] two quite different bodies um and um and one factor there is that um these ukrainian

[01:16:33] intelligence services are doing a lot of activities inside russia and with russian

[01:16:41] oppositionists both uh both of the military variety um about a week ago three russian

[01:16:51] volunteer battalions the russian freedom legion the russian volunteer corps and the cyberian

[01:16:57] battalion um entered uh russia and these have been funded and trained by ukrainians and run by

[01:17:05] ukraine military intelligence they are now fighting inside russia and taking over territory

[01:17:11] so and this plus many other types of activities um are being undertaken by ukraine intelligence

[01:17:20] and in some cases i think in cooperation with with western intelligence services i'm sure that it's

[01:17:27] not just the cia on the ground there must be the british and other um intelligence services there as

[01:17:33] well scooping up what the ukrainians and americans are are collecting um but this will the kind of

[01:17:41] things that they would be interested in is of course uh russian military type of warfare

[01:17:46] doctrine how they undertake um military activities battles um who are the officers

[01:17:56] what are their capabilities or weaknesses i mean all the kinds of things that you can imagine

[01:18:03] and some of that information by the way is also undertaken by talking to prisoners of war

[01:18:11] you from whom you always will get a lot of intelligence i remember during my student days

[01:18:18] i would use some of this kind of stuff from the 1980s because the americans in in even as far back

[01:18:26] as then um through kind of uh think tanks like the rand corporation which has strong ties to the

[01:18:34] department of defense um they would be interrogating interviewing uh soviet prisoners of war in

[01:18:42] afghanistan um about the soviet army and about um internal conflicts and attitudes and and and to

[01:18:51] what degree they were good at fighting or not um and these were published um some of some of this

[01:18:56] data i probably not all was published and i used some of that in my um in my master's degree

[01:19:03] so the they've been doing this for a long time but then the capabilities were far less

[01:19:10] literally you have to you have to fly to afghanistan and talk to prisoners of war now you can

[01:19:15] you can still talk to you russian prisons of war but you can also scoop a lot of stuff

[01:19:20] from um from intercepts um not only hacking and cyber warfare but also

[01:19:31] you see this on social media to some degree um a lot of intercepts of russian mobile russian

[01:19:38] mobile telephones um russian soldiers in occupation duties in ukraine ringing uh

[01:19:46] colleagues or family friends back home a lot of these are intercepted as well by ukraine

[01:19:52] intelligence can you give us a brief sort of overview of the different intelligence services

[01:19:58] in ukraine and what each of them sort of does and it was also quite interesting how things

[01:20:03] changed in 2014 because from that new york times article um it was quite interesting to see that the

[01:20:08] americans all didn't trust the ukranians and then it took a big effort around 2014 to kind of win

[01:20:14] the americans over who then it appears sort of semi reluctantly started getting more involved

[01:20:19] with the ukranians yeah i mean i think the the the distrust was partly correct in that um

[01:20:26] the security service of ukraine um which is the the the structure that inherited was the

[01:20:35] came originally from the soviet kgb um they had been infiltrated and they did have

[01:20:43] agents there in particular um what happened during the janokovic presidency um pro-russian

[01:20:50] vikti anokovic was president from 2010 to 2000 early 2014 and he allowed um permitted the russian

[01:21:02] secret service uh both gru and fsb to take control of ukrainian intelligence de facto

[01:21:10] um and to infiltrate a lot of uh ukrainian both military and security services and and he was

[01:21:21] criminally charged for treason because of that i mean fianna kovic fled to mosco in february 2014

[01:21:28] where he still still lives um so back in 2014 there's a there was inevitably going to be

[01:21:37] suspicion about the security service of ukraine because of its kgb routes and because it had been

[01:21:47] so uh so much penetrated during the janokovic presidency from 2010 2014 um i think that's a

[01:21:56] lot of that has changed you might get still the occasional spy but it's pretty much being

[01:22:01] cleaned up particularly since 2022 but i think the the the article says and and i think experience shows

[01:22:11] that there's probably greater um greater um corporation with um with the ukrainian military

[01:22:22] intelligence uh hru um because that's a more you could call that more of a post-soviet body

[01:22:33] and and so there isn't really i've never heard of anybody being arrested in hru for

[01:22:43] being a russian agent it tends to be a much younger crowd um the the head of ukrain

[01:22:50] military intelligence budanov is only in his late 30s for example and so they these are people who

[01:22:59] grew up on the whole um in the post-soviet period and and so the structure and the people there

[01:23:06] don't have the the old boy network to the former soviet kgb and to russia which is not the case

[01:23:15] in the security service of ukraine so i think um the cia probably has greater i think for a

[01:23:23] member from this article it has greater cooperation with ukrainian military intelligence rather than

[01:23:30] with the security service precisely because of that i mean one didn't hear of the ukrain

[01:23:36] military intelligence being penetrated by the russians to the to the degree that the security

[01:23:43] service um was and many of these um attacks inside russia are often done by ukrainian military

[01:23:53] intelligence um although the c drones i think are both structures but inside russia like um

[01:24:00] various sabotage attacks working with russian opposition groups such as um those burning

[01:24:07] down military enlistment officers um and placing and helping to bring in to help drones attack

[01:24:17] training and and and financing these russian volunteer battalions i think more of that's done

[01:24:23] by the ukrain military intelligence do you have much insight into some of the activities that the

[01:24:29] intelligence services have been up to during the war because i mean obviously we've read a bit

[01:24:32] about there's been the odd assassination there's been these sabotage operations there's all sorts of

[01:24:38] interesting sort of stuff that's potentially going on that might well be linked back to the

[01:24:42] ukrainians i was wondering if you had any insight in any of that obviously we will probably not

[01:24:47] know everything until the war ends but i think everything that you've said um shows the ingenuity

[01:24:56] that the ukrainians are are doing and that that does include um assassinations inside russia but

[01:25:04] also inside occupied ukraine i think a lot of pretty much everything that they're doing inside russia

[01:25:13] is also being done in occupied ukraine so yes assassinations of in the case of you

[01:25:20] occupied ukraine collaborators um in the case inside russia more uh hawkish russian nationalists

[01:25:28] for example um this um a kind of neo fascist alexander dugin he was the target um but somehow

[01:25:39] he didn't get in the car and it was his daughter yeah it was also of the same

[01:25:44] ideological ilk which he was killed instead dugin was always a strong sort of far right

[01:25:50] supporter of putin and in 2014 called for ukrainians to be killed killed and killed

[01:25:58] and also um separatist leaders there's been a um a long run of pro-russian separatist leaders

[01:26:06] in the east of ukraine who have been assassinated particularly those who have been accused of

[01:26:15] war crimes um the murdering for example of prisons of war there's other cases of

[01:26:24] for example supporting russians on the ground russians

[01:26:30] are um creating arson attacks on on important um russian factories producing a military

[01:26:40] producing for the military um i saw an interview with um three anarchists um who um

[01:26:50] talked about having networks throughout russia and they were creating arson attacks and

[01:26:56] particularly attacks on enlistment officers um so there's that um in the uh some one of the

[01:27:05] some of the funniest would be hacking into russian tv and also um transmitters or radios

[01:27:16] played in um shops in in in russian cities and they would broadcast zelensky speeches

[01:27:24] or um or some kind of patriotic ukrainian music and you would see these cctv cameras footage of russians

[01:27:35] completely baffled as to what's going on because the tv camp has got ukrainian music

[01:27:40] blaring away or zelensky giving a speech in russian saying how bad the war is um so yes

[01:27:47] hacking in hacking that kind of thing intercepting um phone calls and i'm playing those back um on

[01:27:56] very social media and back into back into russia playing some of the some of the biggest

[01:28:02] setting coups have been hacking into central russian tv and instead of a program by putin

[01:28:09] some kind of meeting that putin was having it would be there would be something else

[01:28:14] played instead um some um anti anti war program or or zelensky giving a speech or somebody else

[01:28:24] giving a speech in russian the ingenuity is i think one of the areas that has attracted

[01:28:31] in the article uh the new york times article the cia is attracted the uh then to continue

[01:28:38] cooperating with ukrainians it is baffling that the russians never really understood that

[01:28:45] because they it was when they invaded uh in february 2022 it's as though they imagined

[01:28:54] ukraines were going to charge at them with pitchforks um and did they not remember that in the

[01:29:02] in the soviet union ukraine had a big chunk of the soviet military industrial complex this wasn't

[01:29:08] a backward place um something like 40 percent of the ukrainian economy was the military industrial

[01:29:14] complex um ukraine had a lot of um a lot of the nuclear weapons production and the research

[01:29:22] and and and innovation surrounding that was done in ukraine including cybernetics and

[01:29:29] in areas like that and you that has translated today into um lots of volunteerism surrounding

[01:29:39] the making of new weapons um so you have a lot of ukrainians working out of small garages and

[01:29:47] and small factories which are making new things which are then offered to the military and they

[01:29:52] say yes is great and then they they build it up and build it into a more mass production

[01:29:58] and and so you've got the soviet past as it were um with the military

[01:30:06] technology coupled with the the strong base in it ukraine's got a massive it sector and they

[01:30:14] gain a lot of that comes from the soviet past um as well from the various research

[01:30:22] institutes which were needed to build things like nuclear weapons and and that coupled with a very

[01:30:29] open society unlike russia um so ukraine has a very big volunteer movement civil society

[01:30:36] and so a very kind of a lot of people backing up the army as it were and doing various

[01:30:41] volunteer type of work and all of that taken together means that ukraines are always coming

[01:30:48] up with new new ideas and new ways of of fighting of fighting the war and they have and that ingenuity

[01:30:57] is something i think which works in their favor which you don't have in the russian side because

[01:31:03] civil society volunteers have been destroyed in putin's uh dictatorship um so a lot of that

[01:31:11] works in ukraine's favor as well and that and that is something that um these the security

[01:31:18] services of ukraine both sbu and hru um can um can can take take from um and use in their various

[01:31:29] operations one big ish question um so why is it important that like western intelligence services

[01:31:34] like the cia potentially mi6 or maybe even the french intelligence services why is it important

[01:31:40] that they support the ukraine intelligence services and what kind of lessons do you think

[01:31:45] they're learning with that relationship well this is real life war if as it seems now europeans are

[01:31:55] finally are finally woken up to the fact that um they could be a potential war down the road

[01:32:02] between nato and russia um various western uh particularly european leaders have talked about

[01:32:10] potentially a war with between nato and russia in three to five years time

[01:32:17] if that is the case then this war is a great way of of of learning about the russian army

[01:32:24] learning about how it fights learning its weaknesses and all of those factors can

[01:32:31] can be worked in favor of nato in the event of a war with russia um so i think the collection of

[01:32:40] data and intelligence is as much um something that is helpful uh to western intelligence services

[01:32:50] as much as it is to ukrainians um they want one factor for example is how this is the first

[01:32:58] drone war in history and that is inevitably going to impact on how uh drone warfare is

[01:33:07] understood by western nato armies um they're going to have to change their military strategies

[01:33:16] to to accommodate that because as i've mentioned um it's it's always difficult for an army which

[01:33:24] is the one trying to take territory as opposed to the army which is defensive um and it's even more

[01:33:31] difficult um for armies to advance when you have drones all the time in the air um who can

[01:33:39] who can uh which can destroy equipment and and and people um and the cost this war is showing

[01:33:50] how this is extremely cheap so that is also going to have an impact on on um on on on western thinking

[01:34:00] west intelligent services because of um how this will impact upon the ability of terrorist groups

[01:34:07] as well too i mean could we imagine for example in britain we group we both grew up during the

[01:34:12] ira campaign during the troubles um could you imagine what would have happened in britain

[01:34:17] in the british mainland if the ira had had drones in those days um and so that's also going to be

[01:34:26] something that's going to impact um on on on counter terrorism counter insurgency activities

[01:34:34] these what i noticed from my trip to ukraine is to what degree this kind of equipment is so cheap

[01:34:41] um if you can buy these drones on amazon for you know 405 million pounds

[01:34:48] or build these kamikaze drones for 300 400 dollars i mean that's not cost nothing one of these

[01:34:54] kamikaze drones which is built for shall we say 400 dollars can destroy a tank or

[01:35:00] armor personnel carrier that costs millions uh of of dollars um that's just that just changes

[01:35:07] everything um and um and that can be observed in real time in ukraine uh and one of the one of the

[01:35:17] things that certainly i'm sure is being observed and you see this with the the british ministry

[01:35:22] of defense as a daily update done by british military intelligence is the the mannering which

[01:35:31] um ukraine is using this drone warfare in other forms of warfare artillery but primarily drones

[01:35:41] to kill huge numbers of russian soldiers um the um the british ministry of defense

[01:35:50] noted that last month february of 24 uh was the worst casualty month for russia since the full

[01:35:59] scale invasion began and it was something like um uh it was i mean i i found it difficult to believe

[01:36:08] the figures but it said something like 980 per day killed um which sounds just incredible

[01:36:17] um if if true that probably means killed and wounded casualties but when you look at the

[01:36:23] battlefield footage and this is very easily found on say twitter you can see that russian

[01:36:32] wounded just left to die so uh western armies will um and the ukraine army um takes the wounded out

[01:36:41] of the battlefield and usually is able to patch them up and so they survive um but the russian army

[01:36:48] if you're wounded sorry um and one one reason that isn't just because they're cruel it's also

[01:36:57] a corruption factor because um if those soldiers are which are wounded are sent back then the russian

[01:37:06] state has to pay a compensation to the family if nobody's returned then there's no compensation

[01:37:13] paid as well so that's another factor there but um so i think that the the the western um

[01:37:21] armies and western intelligence services are having a field day in the amount of information

[01:37:29] intelligence um experiences that they're seeing on the ground um which inevitably will work in

[01:37:38] their favor in the event of a full scale war between nato and russia down the road yeah

[01:37:43] yeah and one of our interesting thing that i think you pointed out to me a while back was

[01:37:47] that there's been reports of ukraine special forces operating outside of ukraine and obviously

[01:37:53] they're fighting the vagner group in sadan at the moment i don't know if you could tell us a

[01:37:58] little bit about that well i i don't there isn't that much public information available

[01:38:04] about that but um i can imagine that the reasons are yes you're you're taking on

[01:38:12] this criminal formation this wagon and mercenary group working on behalf of the russian government

[01:38:17] putting finally admitted to that last year after after denying it for many years um there's probably

[01:38:24] a financial aspect there because they're getting paid by the sudanese government to to do the

[01:38:29] fighting so there's not just uh you know they're not just enjoying killing russians they're actually

[01:38:35] getting paid for it um but there's also apparently the there's um military supplies

[01:38:45] have been been coming covertly from sudan probably via other countries um to ukraine

[01:38:53] um including artillery shells so i'm sure there's all sorts of aspects to to this um

[01:39:01] to this cooperation the ukrainians though unlike the russians have been less public in in their

[01:39:11] discussion of of of their activities in africa because the russians have been really

[01:39:17] loudly proclaiming this as their um they've taken on board shall we say soviet propaganda about how

[01:39:26] russia is the successor to to the soviet union in fighting western colonialism in africa

[01:39:34] which of course is baloney but this is what they're what they're they're talking about

[01:39:40] um and um the ukraines have been actually a bit quieter about that no that's fair enough

[01:39:46] and it's an interesting interesting thing that and i'm fascinated by vagner and russia and africa

[01:39:52] at the moment because again to repeat myself i hear a lot about what the west has got up to

[01:39:58] past and present but i hear very little or any acknowledgement about what rush or even china

[01:40:02] up to in africa right now because listening to some leftist colleagues and friends occasionally

[01:40:07] would think that the cia have kind of completely got africa under their thumb when in reality

[01:40:12] is a very different situation at the moment well i mean it is as well and um this uh the russian

[01:40:20] involvement or the wagner groups involvement on behalf of the russian government is purely

[01:40:25] colonial um they are propping up um very brutal regimes in return for financial gain um in in

[01:40:35] return for helping those brutal regimes to steal resources and money from those people who are in

[01:40:43] those countries so so um they're they're they're openly doing this they're not even hiding it

[01:40:51] whereas i don't think the french um special forces in marley were were out there to sort of raid

[01:41:00] and and steal the mineral resources in marley i mean they were there for a specific job so the

[01:41:06] wagner arm is actually far more colonial or traditionally colonial in that sense yeah yes

[01:41:11] indeed um one one of my two bonus questions if you have time so the first one is about the

[01:41:20] Nord Stream pipeline attacks in 2022 because there's an awful lot of speculation of who's

[01:41:24] responsible and ukrainian special forces get brought up in this i was wondering if you had

[01:41:29] any insight into who is responsible for the Nord Stream pipe attack i i mean i i guess i'm not very

[01:41:36] objective here i mean i i always assumed it was the russians me too me too i mean i just didn't

[01:41:41] think the ukrainians would a have the capabilities to do something like that but maybe that wasn't

[01:41:47] maybe i wasn't right on that but um but it's more importantly i don't i didn't see why the

[01:41:54] ukrainians would have a motivation to do that um Nord Stream uh Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2

[01:42:03] didn't really affect ukraine after the full-scale invasion because if if there hadn't been the

[01:42:09] invasion and if the Nord Stream 2 pipeline had gone ahead as planned then that would have

[01:42:14] had eventually an impact on ukraine um because it would have led to the closing of russian

[01:42:21] transitive gas across ukraine but with the full-scale invasion germany uh ended Nord Stream 2

[01:42:30] gas pipeline and so there was not really it was not no longer really a threat to ukrain's economy

[01:42:37] or ukraine's transitive gas so i'm not i i wondered i stretched and wondered why why ukraine would waste

[01:42:46] resources and potentially be caught doing it uh trying to blow this pipeline up um it seemed to

[01:42:54] be me more more the case that if we think back to 2022 the russians were were absolutely convinced

[01:43:04] this is how arrogant they were they were absolutely convinced that that that um that uh europe would freeze

[01:43:11] to death in winter without russian gas and they were they were they were they were determined to

[01:43:18] show that this was going to be the case um and one way i think that they were going to do that

[01:43:23] was by forever closing down Nord Stream pipeline Nord Stream 2 anyway Nord Stream 1 and 2

[01:43:30] by blowing them up um in the end that didn't that wasn't the case uh europe didn't freeze um and europe

[01:43:37] has survived without russian gas but they back in 2022 when um europe uh reacted to the full-scale

[01:43:46] invasion and did impose sanctions on russia and did say that we're going to become

[01:43:51] finally energy independent of russia the russians didn't believe them um and they thought

[01:43:57] that they couldn't survive without russian gas and which are and your your listeners should understand

[01:44:02] that um russian gas has has been supplied to europe since soviet times we're talking i think

[01:44:10] since the 70s these pipelines going across bilarus and ukraine to uh poland hongary and

[01:44:18] slavakia and probably romania as well were built in soviet times and so um this supply of russian

[01:44:26] gas has been going on for 50 years this changed only with the building of Nord Stream 1 and 2

[01:44:33] bringing russian gas directly to germany um but um russia lost all that in 2022 so it lost

[01:44:42] a huge chunk of its um of its uh government budget um but of course there were always

[01:44:50] were loop loopholes um the and those loopholes were things like um russia exporting crude oil to

[01:45:00] india then it refined it and then that oil came back to europe and to britain but still not on the

[01:45:08] same volume as what it used to be like and in any way we have now a new factor in that the ukrainian

[01:45:17] intelligence services are are doing a far greater job in um uh implementing western sanctions against

[01:45:26] russia than the west itself yes by um launching drone attacks on russian oil and gas refineries

[01:45:34] and on gas um depots and and so far they've they've knocked out about 15 percent of um russian

[01:45:44] oil production and that is obviously going to continue it's sort of quite quite um methodical

[01:45:51] what the ukrainians are doing so that is that is already having an impact on russia and that

[01:45:57] that is going to i think continue to have a major impact there was a reuters report just a day or

[01:46:02] so ago which said that um the one thing that that could potentially bring russia to the

[01:46:10] negotiating table is if ukrainian successfully knocks out russia's um oil and gas industry um with

[01:46:19] these drone attacks if these continue and we're getting up to 50 60 70 percent knocked out then

[01:46:26] russia's in dire straits because literally russia is um nigeria with nuclear weapons i mean the

[01:46:34] only exports it ever really had were energy and military technology weapons um and various reports

[01:46:46] in the last few weeks have shown that russia's military exports have collapsed since 2022 not

[01:46:52] many countries want to buy russian military equipment anymore surprise surprise because he

[01:46:57] hasn't been shown to be very good in ukraine um and now is energy exports are going uh

[01:47:04] suffering they already were with europe um but they're now going to be suffering more with these

[01:47:09] ukrainian attacks so that's going to have a major squeeze on on the russian government budget so

[01:47:16] but back on to the question of norstream i still believe that um i don't see what what the

[01:47:24] ukrainians would gain from that from the destruction of norstream one and two the

[01:47:30] especially because it was done in the summer of 2022 when ukraine was really desperate for western

[01:47:39] help in the fight against russia the west came very late with that help um and because he didn't

[01:47:46] believe ukraine was going to be successful fighting russia and so originally the west was only

[01:47:50] going to send weapons for guerrilla warfare they saw the ukraines were successful in the

[01:47:56] key ever region the russian troops left by late march early april and then more advanced equipment

[01:48:04] started to flow why would the ukrainians if they were caught uh blowing those up

[01:48:11] potentially damaged that supply of um that transfer of western military equipment i think

[01:48:16] that would would have been something that would have um dwelt on ukrainian minds and not

[01:48:22] really um would have made them not really want to do something like that so i would still

[01:48:27] point the finger at russia yeah well to my mind when i first sort of heard about and read about

[01:48:31] it and thought about it to me felt more like um a russian operation and if anything maybe the

[01:48:38] goal was to disrupt relations between europe and ukraine well sure that would be a secondary

[01:48:44] shall we say add on good things for them um but i think going back to that point i think

[01:48:51] in back into back at that period of time middle of 2022 the kremlin was absolutely convinced

[01:48:58] that europe couldn't survive without russian gas um and and that they're gonna have and that

[01:49:03] and and so this was one other way to show that that was the case yeah indeed indeed well i'm sure

[01:49:09] in time we'll probably find out more um but we will we will eventually there'll be some leak or

[01:49:17] yeah or billing cap will um we'll buy some data for some corrupt russian official yeah

[01:49:23] yeah we'll find out how we stacked up on that one but there we go um i have one last bonus question

[01:49:30] if you have time for it i felt like we slightly covered it but i wouldn't mind asking it in this

[01:49:34] direct way and then see what what you think of it so um i had this sort of conversation

[01:49:40] as taxi driver just recently on ukraine he was quite he seemed quite a young educated guy

[01:49:44] so i was a bit surprised about his views and they were kind of these rather convoluted views

[01:49:49] that to me were a bit of a hybrid of the far left and post-colonial talking points and so what he

[01:49:55] tried to summarize kind of what he said to me he said that he felt that putin's actions

[01:50:00] were on par with the u.s response to the cuban missile crisis he also went on to say that post

[01:50:05] soviet russia had offered ukraine a better deal than european powers had in africa um and

[01:50:11] that the war is largely the fault of the cia and nato manipulating ukraine for their

[01:50:16] warmongering and cold war thinking so i was wondering what if you had a conversation with

[01:50:21] taxi driver said that what would you say is that taxi driver and what are your thoughts on those

[01:50:26] well um i i mean i am assuming you had that conversation in london probably yes yes it

[01:50:32] was in yeah in london i think i think you've got the problem of um refugees who have come out

[01:50:39] to the west right at the beginning of the war and those people um from the same could be even

[01:50:46] from the same region of the country that he comes from still staying back home because he's come out

[01:50:53] to the west in shall we say beginning of the full-scale invasion with with this with those

[01:51:00] pro-russian views which have just frozen they haven't changed with the course of the war

[01:51:06] whereas his shall we say friends or people or acquaintances that he knows from eastern ukraine

[01:51:13] who have suffered over two years of the war their views have moved on as it were and and i

[01:51:19] experienced that myself with this with this visit to ukraine so um i think he's somebody that stuck

[01:51:27] in those pre-invasion um positioning on on those various questions very much

[01:51:34] um repeating crumbling disinformation and propaganda about this that you know

[01:51:42] if it wasn't for the west then ukraines and russians would somehow still continue to be brothers

[01:51:48] and and close buddies um and that that view was already deteriorating after 2014

[01:51:57] um but it completely got eviscerated after 2022 so you will not hear that same kind of viewpoint

[01:52:05] in a taxi in ukraine and you're right to point this out because often you can get some of the

[01:52:11] most interesting conversations with taxi drivers um and um and and i've had that myself in ukraine

[01:52:20] so i think that he's just a reflection of of of that kind of viewpoint that existed in the past

[01:52:29] but as as now no longer to be found in ukraine um i mean what changed between 2014 2022

[01:52:39] in 2014 that was already a shock to many eastern ukraines that that russia had come in and

[01:52:45] stole and crime here and and started the war in the donbas region of eastern ukraine but

[01:52:51] but after 2014 ukranians had very negative views of russian leaders so you know 18 90 percent

[01:53:00] were negative about putin and other people like that um but they weren't yet fully negative

[01:53:06] about the russian people but after 2022 that completely changed to uh ukranians having

[01:53:14] still very negative views of the russian leaders but also very negative views of the russian people

[01:53:19] so um his kind of approach that uh well you know ukraines and russians would still be

[01:53:27] close buddies close brothers if it wasn't for the cia or nato or whatever it's something that

[01:53:35] no longer anybody believes inside ukraine um it's it's and it's not just because of the

[01:53:41] invasion it's because of what the russian army is doing inside ukraine um just the just the massive

[01:53:49] range i mean this is not these are not isolated incidents and the united nations just released

[01:53:55] their latest report on these war crimes just a few days ago um it's just massive i mean they

[01:54:01] um just for example on the raping side um they they've been raping girls from the age of four

[01:54:08] to women the age of 82 so this is still starlin's army from the late part of the world war two that

[01:54:17] raped its way across poland and germany to berlin it's the same same mentality same army

[01:54:24] same brutality um and same zombification of soldiers who uh will complain one day on social

[01:54:32] media about how they treated them their conditions and then on the next day will willingly join a line

[01:54:38] as cannon fodder and be murdered and killed yeah do you know what you've reminded me of there was a

[01:54:43] just something recently of a captured russian soldier who had this sort of like wish list of

[01:54:48] things to achieve during the war yes and on there was rape wasn't there and oh poland so

[01:54:54] ukraine is like a safari for them um that they're going there for for for to make some money to

[01:55:03] do the kind of illegal activities that they can't do back home um there was a video just a couple

[01:55:09] of days ago of a russian soldier in abdi ivka and he basically filmed it for his wife

[01:55:15] or maybe put it on social media he said look i mean abdi ivka look at this place we've

[01:55:20] just liberated it i mean the place was all destroyed but saying look he was really proud that they were

[01:55:25] liberated it and said we're going around the apartments and they're full of goodies

[01:55:28] they just need to find a truck and to take all this stuff and send it back to you

[01:55:33] and he's bragging about it i mean um there you are i mean again you know it's the same

[01:55:40] just like the soviet army in late world war two stealing whatever it could and sending it back

[01:55:45] to the soviet union nothing's changed no and this is this is why yet again i'll bring it up this is

[01:55:52] why it boggles my mind there are people on the left who still have this rosy eyed view of communism

[01:55:56] and soviet Russia i find it it's even more bizarre because um whatever you might think of

[01:56:02] jeremy corbin um he's a commuter socialist and he and he you know he's stuck whereas other

[01:56:08] politicians keep wavering in their views he's stuck to the same dogged socialist position

[01:56:14] since the 1970s i don't agree with him but okay you've stuck to them so you're a socialist so why

[01:56:20] the hell are you supporting a mafia corrupt regime in russia this has got nothing to do with socialism

[01:56:27] it's got nothing to do with the soviet union it's a kleptocratic mafia regime it's been called

[01:56:33] that um since 2010 um that's the first time i saw it in a in a us diplomatic cable leaked

[01:56:42] to wiki leaks yeah oh yeah i'm so yeah fine if you're a socialist and you have nostalgia for the

[01:56:48] soviet union that's got burglar all to do with contemporary russia which is a mafia state that

[01:56:54] treats its people like like cattle like sheep the soviet union was far better in the way

[01:57:00] treated its people so what what is difficult to understand about this left wing position is

[01:57:08] um why does this nostalgia this socialism and this nostalgia of the soviet union translate into

[01:57:14] into love of this horrible regime inside russia and the only way you can explain that is because

[01:57:22] um and the same with jeremy corbin is that their anti-americanism trumps everything yeah yeah

[01:57:28] and so if so you're pro-russian because you're anti-american it's as simple as that

[01:57:33] um yeah i think that's very true i think that's very true and it's uh yeah it's leading some people

[01:57:40] some very weird uh into intellectual kind of convolution you know it's really bizarre yes

[01:57:45] yes um although they have to be a bit more cautious today because of just the state of

[01:57:52] what russia is up to in inside um inside ukraine i mean they i think it's more difficult to

[01:57:59] defend russia today than it was in 2014 unless you're a taxi driver in london unless you're a taxi

[01:58:04] driver and you're pretty clueless about what's going on yeah awesome well um before we part ways

[01:58:10] or anything else you'd like to add uh but i'll just recommend to change the taxi company

[01:58:16] yeah it's disappointing is actually one of my favorite firms that one but i won't switch to uber

[01:58:22] actually well yeah i probably should it wasn't an uber it was actually a private company

[01:58:27] there we go they won't be sponsoring this episode

[01:58:31] oh dear well tarris thank you so much for your time today is there um you know where can listeners

[01:58:36] to find out more about you and your work i think the easiest way is always to do a google search

[01:58:40] because um and and and anything i publish always goes up on my twitter account so where i'm

[01:58:50] relatively active as well in commenting about various things um one of the bees in my in my

[01:58:58] i'm i have at the moment for example is about how um you often get western liberal journalists

[01:59:05] talking about how the russian people don't support the war and they and and and it's just

[01:59:12] simply not true but of course um it makes them feel better because um and we had the same debates in

[01:59:19] world war two in britain and elsewhere you know um is this a fight against nazism or is this a

[01:59:25] fight against the german people as well you know because they're supporting nazism so um i don't

[01:59:31] think these debates are new but um i have an article coming out soon which actually collects

[01:59:38] together lots of different evidence about the russian public on the whole supporting um

[01:59:46] the war and um somebody pointed out just a few days ago that there was a quite a large german

[01:59:54] exodus from Germany when the nazis took power and those germans abroad created a very powerful

[02:00:01] anti-nazi movement there's been millions of russians who have either moved or fled abroad

[02:00:08] since 1991 in particular in the last few years and yet they have not created a very powerful

[02:00:14] anti-putin movement and one has to ask why did the germans do that and not the russians and so

[02:00:20] i think there is um one has to appreciate and i think western policymakers need to appreciate

[02:00:29] that this war that putin's undertaking does have a lot of popular support inside the country

[02:00:35] this is not just putin's madness there is um a lot of people have bought into that western

[02:00:42] xenophobia and that they are fighting the western ukraine well there's a lot of wishful thinking

[02:00:50] and sorry to hold you on for one more now but like the nevownee was sort of held up as this figure

[02:00:57] who's somehow going to liberate russia from from putin very much in the west that they

[02:01:02] were saying this way and obviously he's now dead murdered by putin in some way and so yeah i find

[02:01:12] it really fascinating that there is this sort of thing well we've had this for decades um i remember

[02:01:18] as a teenager reading alexander zodranitzen because his books were translated into english

[02:01:23] published by penguin and i i'd gobble them all up i love them um and he was the same thing we

[02:01:32] we you know saw them him as this you know riding a white horse and about to liberate

[02:01:38] russians from from soviet communism and then he came out to the he was exchanged in a in a in a

[02:01:44] spice swap i think it was and he came out to the west he went to live in beautiful vermond

[02:01:50] in new england in the us and he started hammering and criticizing the west yeah and and we were

[02:02:00] all shocked and saying what the hell's going on i thought he was ours i thought he was our western

[02:02:05] supporter in russia but no he was basically like nevownee um he was a liberal russian nationalist

[02:02:14] but still a russian nationalist and therefore he's quite critical of the west and a lot that

[02:02:19] you can actually do this by going back and a lot of the things that today putin is complaining

[02:02:28] about and criticizing the west for zodranitzen was doing that five decades ago or four decades

[02:02:34] decades ago for example that the west has lost its spirituality you know its family values all of those

[02:02:41] kind of things um it's not religious anymore whereas russians have kept up that spirituality and

[02:02:47] adherence to religion zodranitzen was saying that back then and putin is saying that today

[02:02:53] um and with nevownee the same i mean i think that there's a lot of criticism

[02:03:00] in in in the case of ukraine nevownee um is not a popular figure um the first lady

[02:03:12] president zolensky's uh a spouse she refused to attend um biden's state of the union

[02:03:19] speech recently because she would have been sat next to um nevownee's nevownee spouse

[02:03:26] ukraine and georgia and the people living in the caucuses have a very negative view of nevownee

[02:03:34] because in the 2000s he was actually extreme nationalist he called people the peoples

[02:03:40] living in the caucuses nevownee called them the video is still on youtube he called them

[02:03:46] cockroaches um some of these languages worse than what we hear from donald trump about latinos

[02:03:54] and he supported the invasion of georgia he supported the annexation of crime here

[02:03:59] and he also said like a russian nationalist like putin that ukraines and russians are

[02:04:05] one people so ukraines don't have a very positive view of nevownee they see him as typically

[02:04:12] one of these russian liberals whose liberalism ends at the ukrainian border um but more importantly i

[02:04:19] think that um their strategy was very weak um and their strategy was to go on the last day of voting

[02:04:27] at midday and just to go inside and spoil your ballot i think a lot of people including myself

[02:04:34] were very critical of this strategy of nevownee team because by participating in these fraudulent

[02:04:40] elections you give legitimacy to these putin's elections it would be far better for them to

[02:04:47] go in and burn those ballot boxes as some russians did or poor green dine as other russians did inside

[02:04:54] those ballot boxes um rather than participating because there was the choice open to russians

[02:05:01] was putin and three other clowns puppets um who were there just to make it look like a real

[02:05:09] election when in fact they were all there was a leader of the liberal democratic party the leader

[02:05:14] of the communists and leader of this new uh russia party um these are all parties controlled by the

[02:05:20] kremlin and so i don't think the nevownee strategy was very very useful um there and and the other

[02:05:30] i think criticism that many of us have made is that they don't seem to grasp the connection

[02:05:39] between the regime inside russia the totalitarian dictatorship that murdered alexa nevownee

[02:05:46] and other politicians like yentsov in 2015 and others and how that regime is invading and

[02:05:56] doing war crimes in ukraine the two things are very closely interconnected um russia there is a cult

[02:06:03] of war in this totalitarian dictatorship in russia and that cult of war and cult of the great

[02:06:10] patriotic war cult of starlin is is leading to this acute military aggression and war crimes

[02:06:17] in ukraine and yet the nevownee team don't seem to understand that and therefore they don't make

[02:06:23] very many comments about the war in ukraine um alexa nevownee espouse has barely mentioned ukraine

[02:06:30] so it is it is rather rather strange yes but you're right absolutely right that many liberal

[02:06:37] romantics in the west um on a variety of publications do want to grasp at something inside russia

[02:06:46] look all hope isn't gone there's nevownee or there's somebody else well nevownee is a very mixed case i mean

[02:06:55] he he became democratic only later but in the 2000s for at least a decade he would um he was

[02:07:03] extreme nationalist and every year he would march along with neo-nazis and naphthalists

[02:07:08] in this what's called the russia day it was in always in november where they'd march and chant

[02:07:14] very horrible slogans so um we should be cautious um we've been we've we've wanted to find angels before

[02:07:26] in russia and we we've had our fingers burnt as it were so we have to be very careful yeah indeed i

[02:07:34] the day after he died i watched i finally watched a nevownee documentary and he

[02:07:39] he brushes off the nationalism thing i must say i didn't realize he'd been a nationalist for a

[02:07:43] decade he kind of made it out that he was um as a rising politician needs to make friends um

[02:07:50] and then there was another weird bit in the documentary a lot later where i think his

[02:07:53] pr person he were having a quick discussion about something and it all just seemed a bit um dodgy

[02:08:00] yes it's not he he i'm surprised he never took off the video from youtube i found it

[02:08:08] a few days ago i went to look for it again it's there i mean um where he calls people in the

[02:08:13] caucuses cockroaches um so these things are there throughout the 2000s he up till putin came back

[02:08:22] as president in 2012 he was um on the far right and then then he kind of changed from 2012

[02:08:31] and shall we say became a liberal nationalist so more on the far right of what say the conservative

[02:08:37] party in britain um but um but he was yeah he's got a mixed history and he's never really condemned

[02:08:46] that what happened before i mean you know for example supporting the invasion of georgia in 2008

[02:08:53] yeah usually when one changes you usually acknowledge that past in some way um yeah

[02:09:00] you can blame it on youthful indiscretion or i i didn't know what i was talking about or you know

[02:09:06] i was swayed by somebody or whatever you you should condemn that right if you're moving

[02:09:12] to a new position but he's not really done that no no indeed well i think we better wrap up but

[02:09:18] thank you so much for all of that today it's been a really great conversation and um and people

[02:09:23] can connect with you on twitter can't they yes they can like that's probably the easiest um

[02:09:28] where most of my publications are available yeah brilliant well thanks again for your time okay then

[02:09:32] thanks again

[02:09:58] thanks for listening this is secrets and spies

[02:10:28] um

[02:10:58] you