I'm Francis Dernley, and this is Ukraine, the latest. Today we hear the latest acts of resistance in the occupied territories, report on new deep strikes into Russia, reaching as far as the city formally called Stalingrad, and discuss deficiencies in military training and how it needs to change.
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It's Friday, the 31st of January, two years and 336 days since the full-scale invasion began. And today I'm joined by our senior foreign correspondent, Roland Dollifant, fellow at the Department of War Studies at King's College London, Dr. Jade McGlinn, and former tank commander and chemical weapons expert, Hamish de Bretton Gordon.
But first, the latest updates from the front lines. Ukraine's aerial campaign against Russia's war machine continues. In yesterday's episode, Dom asked who knows what tonight is going to bring, and it seems someone was listening, as there were so many drone strikes and explosions in Russia overnight and into this morning that this entire segment could be dedicated to the drone war.
One of the most significant attacks targeted a refinery in Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, of course, over 1,000 kilometres from Kyiv. The Lookoil facility, the sixth largest refinery in Russia, produces gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel. It is the largest petroleum producer in the Southern Federal District with a capacity of up to 14.8 million tonnes. That's quite striking footage of it ablaze this morning.
The key question is, what impact is all of this having? It's difficult to say, but there have been fewer bomber strikes and large-scale strikes this year so far from the Russians, so it would appear that it is having an impact on Russia's ability to wage war already. And bear in mind that this is when they still got the stockpiles. We don't yet know what impact this could have further down the road.
Now, for a broader overview of Ukraine's aerial campaign, do refer to yesterday's episode, where Dom summarised a sheer number of Ukrainian strikes into Russia throughout January, the most extensive since the war began. But turning next to the front lines, all eyes remain on Prokofsk in Donetsk. Russian forces have made multiple gains in recent weeks there, but have yet to fully capture what remains of that city.
According to the Institute for the Study of War, Ukrainian forces recently advanced southwest of it, with geo-located footage confirming marginal progress west of Novoev-Drikka. Russian mill bloggers claim Ukraine has also counter-attacked near there. A spokesperson from a Ukrainian National Guard Brigade reports that Russian forces in the Proff sector are relying almost exclusively on infantry assaults with limited vehicle support
Ukrainian drones, remaining the most effective weapon in repelling those attacks. Russian assaults continue east of Rakhrosk II and across multiple settlements in the vicinity. Further north, Russian forces continued offensive operations in the Kupiansk-Borova, Lehman and Cevirsk directions, but failed to make any confirmed advances.
In Chasse of Yar, a city also widely reported to be on the brink. Russian forces have advanced along the Niprovska Street in the city centre. Milgeogger's claim additional gains near the city and a forested area to the south. In Tourettek, Russian forces advanced into the industrial area in the north amid ongoing assaults. A Ukrainian spokesperson there too reported that Ukrainian strikes are limiting Russia's ability to deploy armoured vehicles near the city, frequently destroying them as they approach their positions.
Russian troops are operating in small assault units of three to four soldiers, attacking in successive waves. They have their own drone operators too, though. The Russian 80th Sparta separate reconnaissance battalion and the radical wake unit of the first motorised rifle brigade are reportedly targeting Ukrainian positions near Tourettek.
Turning to Kursk, Russia, next Russian forces continued their operations against the salient there, but failed to make any confirmed advances. Meanwhile, Russian drone operators continued to strike Ukrainian positions in Kursk, particularly near Sudze.
So in brief, if it's around all of this up, Ukraine's drone campaign and ground resistance continue to shape the battlefield, with Russian forces struggling to make decisive gains. As the air war escalates, its long-term impact on Russia's military and financial operations remains a key question of the moment.
Another, of course, is about the long-term support the United States will provide. Interestingly, the US military transferred Patriot missiles from Israel to Poland and is expected to deliver these missiles to Ukraine shortly. But there was some frustration this morning at an interview given by the new US Secretary of State Marco Rubio denouncing Moscow's aggression in Ukraine, but implying it was dishonest to have ever claimed Kyiv was capable of destroying Russia on the battlefield
and returning to the pre-2014 state of affairs. He acknowledged that Russia carried out atrocities and horrible things as part of its invasion of Ukraine. That's putting it mildly, I'd say. But voiced doubts about Kyiv's prospects for a complete military victory. To quote him,
But what the dishonesty that's existed is that somehow led people to believe, by the way, this is his clunky phrasing, not mine, that Ukraine would be able, not just to defeat Russia, but destroy Putin, push him all the way back to what the world looked like in 2012 or 2014 because the Russians took Crimea. He then added that the US has been funding a stalemate in a war that set Ukraine back 100 years and then called for a swift resolution.
The energy grid is being wiped out. Someone's going to have to pay for all of this reconstruction. And how many Ukrainians have left Ukraine and now living in other countries? They may never return. The nation's future hangs in the balance in this regard. Both sides of the conflict will need to make compromises for successful negotiations.
In a sense, Rubio is right that the US was funding a stalemate. If we're to read that as a summation of the Biden administration's objective never to seek to defeat Russia on the battlefield, rather to force it into talks from a weaker position, having failed its fundamental objectives of decapitating the Ukrainian state,
But he's surely wrong to argue that it was forever impossible to defeat Moscow in the field. Most analysts would disagree with that view now, citing the considerable evidence we have that the Russian army came close to collapse during the Hakev counter-offensive in the latter half of 2022.
had the Ukrainians been given what they asked for from the get-go. There is a compelling argument that military victory was possible. It is surely also inaccurate to say that Ukraine has been pushed back 100 years. Ukraine was not even independent country in 1925. It had been absorbed totally into the Soviet Union. If he means 100 years from its potential had the war not happened, that remains to be seen.
Wars are the engines of history, and if a lasting peace could be secured, then ensures the end of Russian influence over Ukraine and no longer a possibility of future invasion. There's no reason to think there couldn't be a renaissance of investment in the country, and for many hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, perhaps millions, to return home, rebuild, and consecrate a new future as part of the European Western family of nations.
One lesson from the 20th century is how quickly countries can rebuild once peace is assured. Just look at Western Europe with the aid of the Marshall Plan. Nothing is predetermined here. The only scenario where Ukraine is definitely pushed back 100 years is if Russia wins.
But to end this segment, just to point you all to an interesting piece in the New York Times, a summary of the fate of the North Korean units we reported had been taken from the front lines. It would appear now none are actively engaged in the hottest areas of the front.
Ukrainian troops who have fought against the North Koreans have described them as fierce warriors, but disorganization in their ranks and a lack of cohesion with Russian units has quickly driven up casualties. Since arriving on the battlefield, the North Korean soldiers have been left to fend for themselves, advancing with few armoured vehicles and rarely pausing to regroup or fall back. That comes directly from Kyiv's frontline troops.
So a neat summary there of the failure of Pyongyang to have a transformative impact on the battlefield beyond its munitions support. But we'll be looking more closely with Hamish shortly into issues in Ukrainian units. But before that, I'm delighted to welcome back on to the podcast Dr. Jade McGlinn, who returns for the second of our new regular segment on violent Ukrainian resistance activities in the occupied territories.
Jade, welcome. Today's segment, which you've compiled with your researcher, Ilya. Thank you both covers the 14th of January to the 30th of January. So we'll be up to date as of this episode. And I know at the end, you're going to talk a little bit more about the patterns of non-violent acts of resistance, given feedback from listeners that they're interested in that as well. And thank you all again for your extraordinary feedback to the segment last Friday. But Jade, over to you for your report.
Hello everyone, so based on the analysis of events from the 14th of January 2025 to the 30th of January 2025, we do see a continuation of violent resistance in the occupied territories, although what's interesting is it's reduced perhaps in reaction to tightening of control there.
particularly following harsher rules around passportisation, so the forced passportisation and making people take Russian passports, but also as well there have been a number of tightening of control around the checkpoints between different parts of the occupied territories.
So there were two successful operations. For example, there was one in Dunnet on the 22nd of January 2025 and this was carried out by Attesh who are a Crimea based resistance group and they carried out an explosion on a military vehicle in Dunnet and they provided visual evidence as they always do.
Artesha, interesting because they often explain where they're tracking them, provide a lot of photographs, and then sometime later there will be the operation itself, the sabotage or the detonation or the assassination, so there's a real psychological aspect to their work. And in the second case, that was on the 23rd of January, in Bergjansk,
So just as a reminder about Jansky is about 60 miles if you're driving west from Marielburg, so along the coast. And this was an explosion carried out by local partisans targeting the FSB so Russia's internal security services.
and the FSB are largely counter-terrorism, division largely responsible for finding the violent or indeed non-violent resistance. So they carried out an explosion and they killed several FSB officers. The FSB had taken over a local house of culture, which is in a small area on the outskirts of Berdjansk.
and provisionally it seems that there were two FSB who died and there's still one who's in a very critical situation in the hospitals and there were yet another free that received injuries and there's quite a lot of detail around this.
There are three other activities however they all took place in Russia which is interesting because definitely at the start when I began to monitor these the start of 2023 this was quite rare but now this time there have even been more in Russia than in Ukraine so there was in Vibog in Moscow and in Rostov on Don which is closer to the border. The Vibog is basically the last city if you were going from St Petersburg to Finland.
but it used to be part of Finnish Corellia until the wars during World War II between Finland and the Soviet Union. But yes, that's interesting and I'll keep an eye on that. We do collate those attacks, so perhaps that might be something to discuss further in future.
Well thank you very much Jade for that summary and I just wanted to ask because this was something that listeners were intrigued by based on what you said in the first segment that you did last week. Non-violent acts of resistance. Now I know that for your purposes you have to focus on violent otherwise the categories just become too broad.
Perhaps you could just give us a little bit of an overview with regard to the kind of acts of non-violent resistance that you see. I know you alluded to the actions of some women last week. Perhaps you can talk a little bit about that and some other cases.
I mean, in a way, the distinction between violent and nonviolent resistance is a slightly artificial one on my part because they're often connected and as well, I guess it depends on one's own definitions. A lot of the nonviolent resistance is taking photographs, tracking the movements of Russian armed forces or Russian security services and then handing them over by a specific kind of bots or secure, encrypted communications to
Ukrainian Armed Forces who will then carry out drone attacks. Is that non-violent? Is that not violent? Or is it violent? In terms of the more, I suppose, demonstrative non-violent resistance, because there's a whole section as well of, I personally would describe it as non-violent resistance, if you're still at this point refusing to take a Russian passport, I think that requires incredible coverage.
given the pressures, given your lack of access to even the most basic of social services, should you choose to do so. You know, are you conducting nonviolent resistance if you help your children or indeed if you as a teenager join secret online Ukrainian schools? I would say so very much. But for the purposes of answering your question, I'd say there are two kind of main organizations. I think I referenced them last week as La Marvka, which is like Evil Marvka and Marvka is
a kind of sprightly figure in Ukrainian folklore, a bit like a mermaid but for the forest. That's how I would describe it so she loads people in and they conduct a range of different non-violent, often very humorous or just slightly off. So for example printing fake rubles, leaving them around and then having pro-Ukrainian messages on them. So it's about, I suppose, keeping that community together and reminding people they're not alone.
And Yellow Ribbon, their focus, I mean, the clue is in the name, is they have different templates and people take photos in different parts of the occupied territory saying, you know, Synpharople is Ukraine, Luhansk is Ukraine, or they put up the Yellow Ribbon stickers.
or templates as they were. And this week, there are a couple of really interesting cases, I guess, on both sides. So it was a unity day on the 22nd of January in Ukraine. And that's a national holiday commemorates the unification of Ukrainian land in 1919, which is when the Ukrainian People's Republic signed an act of unification in Kiev with the West Ukrainian People's Republic. So it's about East and West coming together. And this year, in honor of unity day, or then sub-bornness to Ukrainian,
The yellow ribbon puzzle movement organised a really large scale campaign in the occupied territory, so resistance members in these areas hung up Ukrainian symbols, they put up stickers, they painted graffiti,
And, you know, there was a real presence. What I found interesting is, yes, there's a presence in her son, the occupies her son region, occupies her Persia region. But I think most of the examples actually came from Crimea. So again, Crimea is a really fascinating place to watch in terms of the resistance. Another interesting element, which I think we'll see more of too, and is also important in terms of understanding that
The psychological element of the occupied territories is on the 27th of January, Pardzan's in Melotobel carried out personal campaigns against free, very highly placed collaborators who live all next to each other because of the nature of how housing is handed out in the occupied territories, which is purely on favoritism and what you do for the occupiers. And essentially they were warning them that
they were likely to have a premature death soon. And regardless of whether or not they do it, I think that constant psychological pressure, it plays an important role because already Russian soldiers are strongly policed against engaging with the local population from the Russian side. And that's why there has been more of a move towards collaborators because they are the ones who are ultimately implementing the repressive and sometimes downright horrific policies of the occupation authorities.
But it's interesting to see how this psychological pressure grows and works. It's a constant reminder that you are not welcome here. Well, thank you very much, Jade, for that update. You'll be back in a fortnight's time to discuss the latest resistance activities in the occupied territories. I should just add, if you missed Jade's first segment on this last Friday, I highly recommend listening to it as she discusses how she compiles the material and why it is valuable.
But let's turn now to political updates. Roland Olifen, welcome back to Ukraine the latest. It's been a while. As I know, you've been steering with Venetia, our sister podcast, Battle Lines, looking into other global issues and how they impact the US and the wider West. More on that later. But there's lots for us to be getting into here. Shall we start with the latest EU sanctions package against Russia?
I mean, we might as well start there. So this week the EU has passed its 16th sanctions package. Now, there's a lot of talk around this saying it was pretty difficult to do a couple of days ago. It did emerge that LNG was not going to get in there. There had been a big push from the EU's hawks, from Poland, Finland, the Baltic states, people like that to get a ban on Russian LNG. That did not get through after other member states talked about
I think the formulation is we're not going to do that until and if we can secure some kind of alternative supply. It was a pretty fraught discussion by the sounds of things. Remember, of course, Donald Trump has made clear he would like Europe to buy more LNG. So there may be a kind of win-win solution there in terms of transatlantic relations. If that gets off the ground,
But disappointment from the point of view of the really hawkish Ukraine supporters in the EU. There's another row out of this that's developed this morning. So there is of course this long running while long running now. I'm not sure how long it's been now weeks, months over the end of Russian gas flows through Ukraine. So Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary, has been on Hungarian state radio.
today, and he's basically said he will veto the next rollover of EU sanctions, which is in about six months from now, unless Brussels helps to start a resupply. So, Russian gas exports by the pipelines through Ukraine stopped on January the 1st after Ukraine declined to renew a transit agreement with Russia.
You might find that strange. I think it's been something that everybody has found strange, even since 2014. Ever since way back in the midst of time now that these wars began, there were gas pipelines running from Russia across Ukraine, often three zones of combat which were never touched, the gas kept on flowing.
until Ukraine didn't renew a transit agreement on January 1st, Slovakia and Hungary complaining a lot about that. I'll just give you the quote on the wires from all down today. Speaking on the radio, among other things, the Commission has promised to sort out the Ukrainians were restarting Russian gas transit. If the Commission does not deliver on what we agreed on, then sanctions will be scrapped.
This is only the introduction to Victor Orban's views on the war on Ukraine on the question of Russian energy supply. It is six months down the line before that renewal question comes up. So it doesn't mean he's actually going to veto it. It could just be hot air, but it does underscore how increasingly difficult it is. It's always been difficult maintaining that.
consensus unanimity in Europe around sanctions at balancing act obviously continues. Keeping on the economic front slightly, it's quite difficult to keep a finger on the state of the Russian economy, I think, especially when one is not there and when you can't quite trust the statistics come out of Rostat and other sites
agencies. Of course, the BBC Steve Rosenberg is there, and it was interesting looking at his read through of the Russian papers, which he does from time to time, which he pointed out that they're writing quite openly about how difficult things feel there at the moment. So what one paper he quoted is Moskovsky Komsomolitz. That's one of two big Russian tabloids. It's the
slightly more respectable one, or used to be viewed as such. It's a paradox. Official statistics say incomes keep rising, but people can't afford to pay housing and utility bills go to the dentist and buy medicine. And he picked out another thing, which I think leads us into the broader picture here. Another paper notes that preparations for a Trump Putin telephone call have been oddly dragged out. And that, to me, is a really interesting part of the past.
I don't know, three weeks or so. And one of the reasons I haven't been around in Ukraine the latest, France, is because of the arrival of Trump. And what that means for the rest of the world, we will be incredibly busy with this. One of the big questions hanging over the election, Donald Trump's arrival, is what was he going to do about Ukraine? There was all this talk about he's going to end the war in days that he's going to be on the phone to boot in very, very quickly. Hasn't happened. Instead, a lot of theming and areing around there.
And a little spat here that I'd like to get into. So Donald Trump, I was going to say tweeted, but of course, it's on truth social, whether or not retweets, there are retruths. It's got one one thousand and nine ninety retruths apparently this tweet. Anyway, he says Donald Trump yesterday evening, basically saying that if bricks countries, which include Russia, go ahead with a mooted plan to replace the dollar. He says, the idea is over.
We are going to require a commitment from the seemingly hostile countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar, or they will face 100% tariffs and should expect say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US economy. They can go and find another sucker nation. There's no chance that BRICS will replace the US dollar in international trade or anywhere else. Now, the Kremlin has commented on this.
Dmitry Peskov simply says, this is not the first time Trump has made such statements. It's not new. There have been reports like this before. Back when he was President-elect, he denies that the Brexit is talking about creating a common currency and so on. We have seen that talk though. That's a little bit disingenuous from Mr Peskov.
And perhaps from Mr Trump, because I think the discussions that had been floated there at the BRICS were always slightly pie in the sky. But I think that underlines the... I'm not sure how to put it for answers, but is it tension? I think the Trump administration getting to grips with the fact that there is no real easy answer to the question of Russia and Ukraine.
And I think that's why we're seeing him be slow to get to these naughty foreign policy problems. He's also been quite slow getting to the question of what to do about Iran and its nuclear program, which is completely unrelated to this. But that's something else I've been working on.
One more thing I would like to highlight, and that is the American suspension of foreign aid. So one of Donald Trump's early executive orders to order an immediate three month freeze on overseas aid spending. It's had an immediate knock on effect. We've had reports from the Mayan Mount Island border about US funded.
hospitals happening to shut down. We've got reports of several HIV clinics in Cape Town, Joe Berg and East and Cape South Africa funded by the US government temporary closed down after receiving stop work orders. That obviously creates soft power questions about China stepping into that vacuum.
but it's also had a hit right on Ukraine itself. And forgive me if you covered this a couple of days ago, Francis, but I've just seen that the key of independent has launched a fundraiser for three fellow Ukrainian news outlets, which have been directly affected by this. So essentially you have a number of, especially frontline newspapers.
have been receiving funds that basically originate at USAID I think to get out very, really important but very small modest newspapers in frontline towns and those efforts have been genuinely directly affected by this. So if you look on the Key of Independent website,
you'll see there is a they've seen it out three three of these papers as one called sucre insumi so i'm called guara media in carque if there's one called a mikvisti in mikolayev and readers of the telegraph we've been following our reporting for for a long while may remember that i reported on newspaper down in arif
In zapareza region about a newspaper there that was trying to get a couple of pages of newsprint out for the residents who are surviving on the front line. So that's a big story. It touches all kinds of elements of stuff all over the world, but it has had a direct impact on Ukraine.
Thanks Rowland, I should add that I think I'm right in saying Ukraine was receiving $475 million in energy assistance from USAID and we plan to return to this issue next week. We've been speaking to lots of organisations and journalists on and off the record about this. It's a very complicated picture and one that does have a very serious impact on the ground.
Behamish, over to you next, returning to the military theatre. There have been several stories recently, of course, of newly formed Ukrainian army brigades crumbling, as they deployed to the front line in some of the most urgent sectors. The 157th mechanised brigade was won, the 155th another. Inadequate training is often cited as one of the key reasons. Where do you want to start looking at this issue?
Yeah, hi. Good afternoon, Francis. Good afternoon, everybody. Absolutely. I don't want to give a spoiler too much, but I know Cleve of the foreign desk has been writing a feature which I think is in tomorrow's paper about some of these issues, which I've delved into. Certainly my time in the British Army
I was responsible for training at various levels and I'll just explain the levels in a minute from individual to collective to brigade because I think it's important. But the issue here, as you say, there were eight new brigades announced to be formed and two that we're looking at. You've already gone into some detail about 155 mechanised brigade.
that suffered badly in December with casualties, and I won't go over that ground. But the issues are the same, and it's very easy sat here on Salisbury plain talking to you and no doubt talking to people in Ukraine.
Although I've got the Challenger 2s in the background training, it's very easy to pick holes at what is happening in Ukraine. That is absolutely not the case at all. But you've just been talking about North Korea and the issues that it has with unable to communicate with its Russian leaders and lack of training. And training is the heart of a lot of things. So these eight brigades that were developed were
The idea was completely new, and one of the challenges, they are full of new conscripts and new commanders. Some of these people were probably bank managers or taxi drivers until a few months ago, and then to be thrown into the front line, as you said, one of the really challenging areas.
It's not unsurprising that they have suffered casualties. We understand the casualty rate for 157 Brigade is about 40%, which is massive. They've also suffered from desertion and other problems. And they haven't got the latest equipment, but fundamentally also they have lacked training, particularly collective training. And I will come back to that in a minute. Although there are some stories of them going to see the trench lines that they're inheriting from others,
the trenches and taking one look and just not wanting to go there. Now this is a horrific type of warfare and one can understand if you've had no training that it makes it even worse. We look at the North Koreans who basically can just advance in a straight line and fire their rifles, which is because they've got no training to be able to work with others.
and why their casualty rates are even higher than 1.5.7. You know, trench warfare, I think people think it's dead simple. You just sit there in the trench and fire at the enemy. It's not like that. And all the time you're trying to achieve some advantage over the enemy by what we just turn maneuver warfare. You've got to move if you're static. It's very difficult to make any headway.
So when we look at these regays and the challenge that they're having, training and morale, they go together. But on the training side, we've discussed before in the past the training that is done in the UK, in fact, in my backyard here of Ukrainian soldiers, individual training.
So you have individual training where you trade soldiers, how to fight, how to march, how to clean their rifles, how to fire their rifles accurately, how to live in the field and survive. And that is the very basics. And that's what they get here in the UK takes about nine weeks.
And then they go back. Now, the next part of that is actually to join the training up. So you have individual soldiers who then train as in a platoon, which is the smallest unit of about 30 people, 30 soldiers. And then in a company, and a company usually has three or four platoons, so can be up to us at 120, 140.
People but they then need to be able to train together so that they can maneuver and that takes a certain amount of time. Once you've done that what we call subunit trading so subunit is a company of infantry or a squadron of tanks. You then need to do some collective training.
Because modern warfare is not just about one soldier fighting another soldier. It's using all the assets that you have to best advantage. And what I'm talking about here is infantry soldiers using tanks to protect them and help them fight using artillery to suppress the enemy. And of course using drones as well and air power. But to coordinate all that takes a heck of a lot of time and training. But if you can do it,
you can then be a really effective force, especially if you're fighting a force like the North Koreans who can only go in a straight line and fire a rifle. Now what appears to be the case is that this collective training, certainly for 157, has just not happened.
And these people have had their very basic training for a rifle walk in a straight line sort of thing and then put in the front line. So it's not unsurprising that they've had issues there. And I think we learned in the First World War that forming new units be the battalions of infantry or tank regiments and then into brigades.
Unless you have a core of experience in there, it's very difficult to become effective. And with the Masjid's casualty rates in the First World War, that is something that had to be overcome. Now, Britain produced, some people may have heard in the First World War, what we call pals battalions, where sort of friends all joined together from a certain city and fought together. And when replacements were needed, it was all from their town and environment. And that's one way that they got over it.
The other way is to reinforce the brigades that you've already had. And if we look at it again from a sort of British perspective, a British brigade is usually about 5,000 soldiers, whereas a Ukrainian brigade is usually about 2,000.
one of the ways to get around the issues that we've seen with 155 and 157 would be maybe to make those experience brigades bigger by adding to that. And I'll come back at the end to what actually is now happening. But also on the training side, and we've discussed before Christmas, very briefly, there was information coming out of the UK Ministry of Defense that there was consideration to actually do the training
Not on Salisbury plain but actually in Ukraine and that made a heck of a lot of sense because certainly you get over the two weeks of travel problem and if people are training in their own backyard then from a soldiers perspective you are much more focused on what you're doing.
And also, if the UK trainers did the training in Ukraine, they could also help the collective training, the combined arms training, the infantry in the tanks. Now, we know that this is possible because the Kursk offensive that happened, admittedly now six months ago, but also the most recent counter-attack,
intercurs was a command arms maneuver operation that was very successful so that was conducted in Ukraine so that this can be done and you can increase tempo and by increasing tempo is a sort of thing about time and movement and it's all there to create momentum I'm full of military cliches so maybe in the notes to the potter I need to put a explanation about acronyms but once you get momentum
which is the sort of go forward then that sort of breed success and nothing breed success like success and nothing breeds failure like failure. So really sort of so what from all of this it's not a surprise that these brigades have had a problem.
But I understand very recently that President Zelensky has now said that the experiment with these new brigades is now over. And I believe he's ordered that the existing brigades are reinforced and extended. So you've got that experience around you to bring the young soldiers on. But most importantly, the training and this combined arms collective training, which I hope
We in Britain will help and I suppose I would also say and maybe this is something that not a lot of people with agree with actually having experts embedded within those brigades to advise sort of NATO British experts would probably help and this sort of
goes right back to the beginning. We have been trying to enable Ukraine to prevail. As Francis, you said, we're all expecting the Trump hurricane to come up with some sort of ceasefire plan and all the rest of it. But in order for Ukraine to get in the front foot in the best position,
It needs to enable it to get there and we haven't, we, NATO, the West, the UK, necessarily haven't been doing absolutely as we should do. So, information, to me, it's about training and experience, you need to blend the two together.
Untrained soldiers like the North Koreans, really, it is terrible to see it. It is just cannon fodder. It is the meat grind, as they call it. But without trading, it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong, whatever, it makes life very difficult. So that is it. I think Zelensky has made the right decision, and I hope we support him and the Ukraine forces with more and better trading, and probably that should happen in Ukraine. Thank you, Hamish, for those reflections on another key subject.
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and the fight for justice continues. There wasn't just one hit, and most of them were hit. The latest podcast from the Telegraph. I'm Karima Guggen, and this is Bed of Lies. Search Bed of Lies, wherever you're listening to this. Let's go to our final thoughts now. Hamish, over to you first.
Yeah, I think just leading on from what I was talking about, the training and the activities of the new brigades and everything else, with all the talkers, ceasefire and all the talk of Trump, I think people have just got to remember outside Ukraine that they have to fight right to the end to get an advantage. And there seems to be a general leaning back and leaning off Ukraine at the moment. And I just hope
that ourselves, the UK, MOD and others, which I'm sure they are, are absolutely leaning into this to the very, very last minute so that Ukraine has the most advantage that it can when this ceasefire and negotiation takes place. You've got to fight right to the end.
Thanks. Thanks, Hamish. Now, Roland, you and Vinisha Rainey anchor our sister podcast battle lines, as I was saying earlier on. And I wonder if you can just give us a summary of what's in today's episode, which, of course, we'll link to in the show notes. Oh, gosh. You know what? It takes so much effort to put stuff in. We only recorded it yesterday. Yes, we have several really interesting topics, I think. We are having a close look at deep-seek
the new Chinese AI program, which is sent some shockwaves through the commercial Western AI development sector, but also through security circles. There are long-term security implications down the line there, so we take a good look at that.
Then there is the doomsday clock. I'm sure most listeners will be familiar with it. That's the bulletin of atomic scientists index for indicating how close the world is to nuclear war. They've been updating it since 1947. It was updated this week. It's moved one second closer to midnight. It's now 89 seconds rather than 90. It is the closest it's ever been. So alarming stuff. My colleague, Renisha spoke to one of the guys at a former American general who is on the committee who
assess all the reasons for moving that forward. And lastly, we've been able to, I know there's a long long way from Ukraine, but events in Eastern Congo, we've had a look at, we speak to Dr. Alex Vines, Director of the Africa Programme, Chassan House. And the reason for that is that that, I'm sure listeners will have been noting this takeover of Goma in Eastern, the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo,
The implications of that go well beyond there. It's causing a lot of tension between governments across the continent. But it's also seeing, it's one of the first crises that Marco Rubio and his secretary of state is being obliged to address. And there are real parallels there. But I think for listeners to Ukraine, the latest real interesting parallels between what Rwanda and its president, Paul Kagami, are accused of doing there.
And what the Russians did in Crimea and in Donbass in 2014 and 2015. So hopefully worth a listen. And you can hear a clip from Venetia's interview with one of those atomic scientists now. One second, you know, in our estimation, the message it sends was that last year, in the previous year, we were at 90, closer than we've ever been.
and we wanted to indicate this year that we were getting even closer. Once we're this close to midnight, one second is a very valuable bit of time.
So, you know, while one second doesn't sound like much, we're moving closer and closer and closer to midnight. And so that was really what we wanted to transmit to the public that it's not getting better. It's not even staying the same. It's getting worse.
When you think about the threats of AI and how that factors into the doomsday clock updates, are there particular players, actors in the world, for example, China, that you feel are driving it in a particular direction? Or is it worrisome that different countries are all doing different things?
Well, I think it's both. I think that different countries have different things that they find important, but your question is exactly the right one. We know from the last election, for instance, that both China and Russia
We're very active in trying to foster their agendas, trying to impact the US elections. And so in both cases, we worry about their cyber capabilities and their artificial intelligence as it applies to information technologies. To hear more on that and lots of other subjects relating to global affairs, do check out the link to our sister podcast, Battle Lines, in the show notes.
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