Frontline special - Sir Ben Wallace, former UK defence secretary
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Welcome to the World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. I'm Alex Dibble, and I executive produce the podcast.

The World in 10 is partnered with Frontline, the interview series from Times Radio, available on YouTube, with expert analysis of the world's conflicts. At the weekend, we bring you Frontline interviews in full. Here's one from this week. I hope you find it interesting.

Hello and welcome to Frontline for Times Radio with me, Kate Chabot. And this time we are joined by a staunch supporter of Ukraine and a leading figure in the West's response to Russia's full-scale invasion. Sir Ben Wallace was Britain's Defence Secretary from 2019 to 2023. He previously served as a security minister and an army officer in Britain's armed forces when he was mentioned in dispatches for gallantry. Sir Ben Wallace, welcome to Frontline. It's great to have you here.

Thank you. Latest reports on the state of ceasefire talks are that Donald Trump told European leaders that Vladimir Putin doesn't want peace in Ukraine because he believes he's winning the war. Why would Donald Trump say this now? Is he finally preparing to walk away or actually use that leverage on Putin once and for all?

I don't think he has any intention of using any leverage. Putin has, I think, three or four times snubbed Donald Trump. Donald Trump asked for a ceasefire. He called for a ceasefire.

And Trump's been, you know, been ridiculed really by Putin. I don't think Donald Trump realizes it, but definitely Putin is writing his own script, has no intention of a ceasefire, actually has no intention of abandoning his deep held belief that Ukraine should be absorbed into Russia and isn't really the state it is today. And we know that from his own writings back in 2021. So,

I think Donald Trump, the history of how Donald Trump behaves at deals, and if you go way back, way before he was president, when he was running casinos and things like that, is he just runs away from his deals. If they don't become a deal, he moves on and he literally blames the person standing next to him at the moment and then just will go on and do something else. And he'll pretend all the way that he hasn't let anyone down. You know, it'll be it'll be everybody else's fault.

that he started this whole process as a disaster. I mean, let's remember, even the few weeks before he took office formally, he was taking off the table anything that Russia didn't want. So Russia knew as soon as he took his A for the legions, you know, in the Capitol, that Trump had given away everything already. So

You know, right from the start, Donald Trump's deal was rotten, just like when I was serving as defense secretary, his Taliban deal was rotten. And now he realizes that no one's really going to change because funnily enough, when a country fights for survival, it doesn't listen to someone who just shouts at them. He's going to walk away and he'll pretend everyone's bored of this. It's not our war and I'm off.

And in the latest of Who Said What, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is reported to have said about the ceasefire, we don't want this anymore. How much do you think this is about him trying to show strength when the reality is quite different, meagre gains on the battlefield and the Russian economy under huge strain? Well, I think this is what a lot of warfare is always about, which is about hope, confidence,

and a sense of timeline. How long have people got? And one of the saddest things was that Donald Trump gave hope to the Russians on day one. When I was defense secretary and Russia was starting to invade Ukraine, one of the missions I gave our military team and our diplomats was, look,

You've got to give Ukrainians hope. You have to show them that, A, Russia is defeatable, and B, when Ukraine is successful, that it's got friends and partners coming to be by its side.

When Putin basically started saying that Zelensky was the dictator and that Ukraine can't win, he gave Putin hope. Certainly, he gave Putin an incentive in his mind to keep it going for a few more months, right? Because Putin could say, well, I don't care about my own people, which he doesn't. He seems to have sacrificed hundreds of thousands on the altar of his ego.

Putin thought, well, I can keep going for a few more months. Everyone will get bored. Donald Trump will leave the battlefield.

and our win. So that is where we are. However, the facts on the ground do not match that. You know, Russia is not winning. Russia is effectively being contained at a very, very high price to its own personnel. And I think that's what, you know, we in the West forget is that there are hundreds of thousands of dead Russians or injured Russians or deserted Russians being shoved into the meat grinder every single day

to take, if it does take ground, potentially to take meters, not kilometers. And then you also see Ukraine successfully doing incursions into the Russian state. We saw Belugrud recently in a new incursion, not massively, but nevertheless, I think we would characterize where we are right now, the battlefield,

is no one's making progress, but also Russia are losing huge amounts of men and women or men in an effort just to prove to Putin that he can be successful. And I don't think that's sustainable for Russia. I don't think it's sustainable for their economy either. And I just heard someone say the other day that neither side is actually winning. They're both losing. It's just Russia's losing more slowly. Yeah.

When they try to present this picture of strength in the war, do you think it is pure Putin propaganda or do you think there is a deep held belief by Putin that he can actually grind to victory? Well, I think if Russia has a strength, it's that they have no regard for their own population. It's not a quality as you and I would view it, but it is a strength insofar as a military tactic

President Putin can say, well, I've lost nearly a million people, right? So what if I lose another million? They'll thank me in 100 years. But, you know, Russian people are deprived of the media, deprived of a free press, deprived of an independent judiciary. And he just doesn't care in his pursuit. And so, you know, it's one of the reasons why we are all on trial here, the West, about

Our resolve, you know, you introduced me as, you know, a strong proponent, supporter of Ukraine. I'm a very strong proponent of our values. Ukraine are fighting for our values and their own and their freedoms and our freedoms.

And I will always defend a country that wants to do that. You know, and within Europe, there are other countries under threat. I hope we'll be as strong as well. So what we have to show the world as the West is that we have a resolve

and that we can't be beaten just because someone says, I'll keep throwing bodies at people. You know, if that happens, the totalitarian states of this world will start to get the upper hand because they never care about their populations in the way Western democracies do. And in that context, why do you think that Donald Trump has been so unwilling to apply pressure or attribute blame to Putin? Has he been played? Or do you think he actually sees things for exactly for what they are and it's all fine by him?

I think, no, I think Donald Trump has a sort of unnatural relationship with President Putin. It doesn't follow logic. You know, Putin is not as equal. He's a minion compared to Donald Trump in the country, in the economy. You know, I mean, Russia's economy is less than half the size of Britain. It's about the, I think it's the 11th economy in the world, if not the 12th.

Donald Trump is not his equal. His military is better. His economy is better. Everything is bigger and better. But for some reason, Donald Trump has always had this sort of slight obsession, really, about Putin. It's almost a fetish about, you know, I'm a big man. He's a big man.

we'll divide up the world. And everyone slightly laughs at that behind his back because we know that's not true. But it's a rather bizarre relationship that he seems to want to take revenge on Zelensky, potentially for not going after, if you remember, one of the Biden family all those years ago when he was in the office.

And I think he doesn't like someone who will stand up to him. And, you know, Zelensky is a brave man. He's a brave leader. And he stands up to bullies and bullies don't like people who do that. And I think that's ultimately what it is. And, you know, Donald Trump is much more interested in a commercial deal, I suspect, with Trump.

And when you look in the cold light of day at the situation facing the ceasefire talks and intransigence, all things considered, do you think it is better for Donald Trump to walk away right now and avoid trying to present Ukraine with a bad deal? Or do you think it will actually be worse because it would risk the end of US congressional support for Ukraine? Well, I think...

First thing to note is within the Senate and Congress, there's still a huge amount of support for Ukraine, both in the Democrats, but also in the Republicans. Not at the scale there was, as in they don't have the tie in with the White House they did in the past, but there is still a determination. And what's really interesting in a lot of what we've seen in Trump's first 100 days is actually his avoidance of Congress. You know, when we hear about the trade deals, for example, all the time,

you'll notice that they're mainly done by executive order and they're not really trade deals, right? They're tariffs. Because if they're a trade deal, they have to go to the Senate Foreign Services Committee to be ratified. And he doesn't have a majority in the Senate. So he's avoiding that. And it's the same slight thing about Ukraine. He can think he can switch off intelligence to Ukraine. He can't actually, not in the way he thinks you can. But secondly,

You know, if he was to go the other route and try and sanction Ukraine because they didn't do as he told them, he'd never get that through Congress. So I think, of course, it's bad news if America no longer chooses to side with the victim of an illegal aggressor. That says a lot, I'm afraid, about this current administration's value set. And it should worry us because China is watching Iran watches and all these other states.

And of course, Ukraine would be better off, a lot better off if America did continue to lean in. But there is a challenge back to us in Europe is, you know, we can do more. We can actually get on with it. Right. We're not you know, we are a continent of 300 million people, highest, some of the highest GDPs on Earth.

clever, capable skill base, militaries that are very capable, we could do it. And to be fair to the United States, who going way back to Obama had said, come on, guys, time to step up and take more responsibility for your security. That is where we should be getting to. So we could do it. We could show a much more unified front. We could absolutely lean in more with Ukraine and send a strong message to Putin.

And we're starting to do that with the shadow fleet of tankers, if you've seen, you know, Baltic states, small Baltic states, bigger Scandinavian countries are being more brave about taking on these illegal tankers that Russia's been manipulating. And I think only yesterday I saw the United Kingdom take steps against, I think, a British citizen who'd been involved in trying to organize them.

Then to drill down into a specific in the way that Ukraine's allies can help, Kiev is desperate for Patriot batteries to protect its cities and its infrastructure, especially as Russia has intensified its missile and drone attacks. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says it cannot produce them quickly enough and no other NATO nations are willing to give them up. So who could deliver them?

Well, we have to find alternatives. We have to invest in alternatives. Ukraine, just like at the start of this war, do not underestimate Ukrainian military. They started with a tiny, really small army, very low

capabilities, pretty old leaders from the Soviet era. You know, they were trained in the Soviet army and they took apart literally on day one, the Russian advanced force of the VDV, their so-called elite airborne. So you can't underestimate Ukraine. Ukraine have already substituted lots of capabilities, you know, their domestic drone ability, their domestic anti-ship missile that sunk the Russian flagship, the Neptune missile. They are...

absolutely able to develop capabilities. But, you know, Rubio is right about the Patriot. It's not an anti-Ukraine remark, actually. It is that the Europeans and America, NATO, has been buying such exquisite equipment for so many years. We have...

ignored the risk of attrition. You know, we've been, as I often say, we've been buying Formula One teams, exquisite capability, world leading, but after 1200 miles, the engine has to be rebuilt and it can't even start without a crew, with a pit crew. So we've been buying that. And it's the same for us. If we fired off all our storm shadows, they take about eight months to make or something. They take months to make. So

We've got to look for new technologies both at home and Ukraine. All they really need is to be supported in test and evaluation, money if necessary, and propellant and things like that, which we can do. Are there any alternatives at the moment that you can think of that will replace that in the absence of the Patriot batteries that we could provide? Yes, yes, there are. But, you know, as ever, the Ukraine war has exposed our own frailties. You know, Britain's

sort of longer range air defence. Our long range air defence is delivered by a ship, by the Type 45. We put in, I put in very, very early on what we call very short range anti-air missiles, the Stormer. And we have placed a number of contracts to replace those missiles, Star Street missile. They've been really effective, but they're called very short range. Then you get short range and Ukrainians have that. They have it from the old Soviet stocks.

But when it gets to long range, there are very few you're right on the market. Patriot is one. The Astar missile, the European, the British French missile is available. I'm not sure if we have much ground launch. We do have about three batteries in the United Kingdom.

We're growing that. We're committed to. But they go back to your point. They're exquisite. So they take time to make. So we need to find other ways of doing that. Electronic warfare is one of the ways. If you can jam these things, if you can confuse them, if you can dazzle them, you can bring them down. And Ukraine are doing that. But, you know, we could be a bit tougher. Iran have been providing these things. And, you know, this is the irony of it all is Russia and Iran have become slight bedfellows at the moment.

You say we could be a bit tougher on that point. Do you think the coalition of the willing is tough enough at the moment or should it be doing more? What should it be planning militarily in terms of committing its own forces personnel? Where, when, what is realistically worth doing? Well, I think you always have to approach these type of problems with can you provide a strategic dilemma to your adversary? So,

Does are you presenting Putin with a strategic dilemma in whatever you do? So where he has to make a choice. What's been odd about the coalition of the willing is it started off with a bold announcement from Keir Starmer. And he did a great speech actually in Lancaster House. But he also then said it has to involve the Americans. Now, most of us could see spot from 100 yards that that was never going to happen.

And I'm not sure why we made that the opening premise. What we should have done is gone on, been realistic and asked ourselves what we could have done. Now, we do have formations we could use. And we shouldn't forget also that Ukraine is a huge country. It's Germany and France put together.

So there is, you know, it would be my view that you could put British forces into Ukraine to help with training, to help with maybe air defence, but certainly away from the front line. But

but are forces that are capable to defend themselves if they were attacked. You could put them near Lviv. I mean, that is hundreds and hundreds of miles away from the front line. So nobody would believe it being provocative. We know what it is. But it would also prevent a strategic dilemma for Putin. Is he really going to attack a NATO country? What we've seen to date is despite his threats, he has never done it.

And secondly, by being in the region, we actually strengthen the Baltic states because they are also under threat. So I think if we wanted to, we could put troops in that have to be properly equipped to defend themselves if Putin was foolish enough to do so. But we'd have to have them far away so they weren't viewed as combat troops in the moment. What you do not want is a Yugoslav model.

where you effectively disempower the troops you deploy with rules of engagement that make them effectively ridiculed by the enemy. If you remember, Russia and the Serbians played the UN peacekeepers like a violin. It was awful to see back in that awful conflict in the Balkans, where, if you remember, Dutch peacekeepers had to stand on the sidelines as Serbs trucked away Muslim men to their fate.

You don't want that. You definitely don't want that sort of because Russia will use third parties proxies to to to strike them and say nothing to do with us. So you need to you need to make sure that you do. You could do it. I think the first thing we need to do is absolutely motor on the training of Ukrainians to give their forces depth. And it's the easiest ask to give.

Sorry to interrupt. If you were Defence Secretary now, then you would be pushing, would you, for British and other coalition forces to be put into Lviv now to train troops, irrespective of any ceasefire agreement? I put troops into Ukraine even before the conflict. We had orbital Swedish, British, Canadian troops training the Ukrainians. I put the Rangers in Monkfort. I put medics in Lviv during the conflict to help train

teach Ukrainians. So they were non-combatant troops, but they were there in Lviv teaching Ukrainians how to deliver first aid on the battlefield. So they've already been in. And the principle is Russia isn't going to tell Britain and Ukraine what it can do with its sovereign territory. It can't, right? I don't know who they think they are. All the way through this, you hear Lavrov and others. Ukraine is a sovereign state. It's up to Ukraine. I mean, who does Putin think he is to tell us all how to live our lives and what to do?

But is that as far as you would want to go at this stage, though? No, I think we've got to invest in our defence quickly and start building it up so that it can be moved around, so it can be enabled. Because one of our shortcomings over the decades is we've been hollowing out the enablers. Not very glamorous, not the sort of Apache helicopters, but the people that move our equipment and put us in aeroplanes and take us quickly somewhere that get our readiness up. We need to do that. We can do that pretty quickly.

We could start moving our forces in a way that makes Russia have a strategic dilemma. You know, we've just sent the aircraft carrier to the Pacific. I'm not sure why. You know, if I'd been defense secretary, I'd be saying we're not doing that this year. Our backyard is the North Atlantic. There's a lot of activity there from the Russians. We're going to go put our carrier group in the Atlantic where it belongs. It's where it is, where it was designed for parties.

and then make Putin stretch his forces. That's quite important to do. But the first thing I'd be doing is saying, with international colleagues, can we step up the training of Ukrainians for Ukraine? Can we deliver for Ukraine half a million men and women trained by the end of the year, even if those men and women go back to their homes, put their helmet under their bed and get on with their day-to-day life? It creates a depth and resilience to the nation that Putin couldn't ignore.

Do you think the political will, the confidence and the capacity is there, though? I think the political will is...

I mean, if you listen to the language of the European leaders, they're getting stronger and stronger. I mean, you look at France, who started this whole process being lukewarm, and now they're right in the lead, you know, talking about leading, talking about troops in Ukraine and getting on with it. And I think, you know, I think there is the international will. Of course, there are outlanders like Hungary and places like that. But fundamentally, there's still a strong international coalition

But the key here is whether or not we're going to be prepared to, A, indicate we're with you to the end. Right. You know, that's quite a powerful message for Putin that he's going to have five years of this, not five weeks. I think the second thing is ramping up our production. So Putin knows there'll be ammunition flowing to Ukraine more and more. I think an indication would be welcome from the EU that Ukraine could join the EU at some stage. I think that's that gives Ukrainians hope.

And at the same time, I think we need to do more about Russia's behavior. We've just seen people arrested in London. And we saw last May a GRU attempt to burn down a factory in London. You know, the Russians are active on our soil. So let's make sure, you know, President Putin recognizes there is a response.

And there are varying forecasts about how soon militarily Russia will be ready to attack another NATO country. It doesn't mean it will do so, though, does it? What is the biggest threat, do you think, that Russia poses outside Ukraine? Well, if Russia thinks it's won in Ukraine and seen no response from the West to the extent he would like to see it, and he hears President Trump's language about, I won't protect countries that don't spend enough in NATO countries,

or J.D. Vance's comments about NATO as America's membership goes, he'll think, do I think President Trump's going to go to war over a little bit of Estonia or a little bit of Finland? Do I really think they're going to risk that? And that's why...

Deterrence is an art. Using the right language, making sure that it is better to be ambiguous than it is to rule things out. Because once you rule something out, Trump can take that to the bank. So you've got to keep him guessing.

That is our worry. The biggest worry, the biggest threat is actually the language coming out of the White House that emboldens our adversaries, that Trump doesn't guarantee Europe security in a way previous American administrations do, because I guarantee President Putin would be tempted and the belief he holds about Russia's position in the world

to start taking back parts of other countries like Ukraine that he thinks doesn't really exist. He doesn't really believe that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are as legitimate in the way that we do. And his own essay that he wrote in June 21 was very clear on that.

Britain was a leading country in its support for Ukraine and the training of its soldiers from the very beginning of the full-scale invasion. And you personally pushed hard to provide immediate lethal aid. Do you have any regrets? Do you think any more could have been done? No, I think anyone looked at the mass murder and the war crimes carried out by the Ukrainians in Bucha at the very beginning of the war will know that was what is in store for Ukraine. I mean, my regret is that

that when we first got the authorisation to put in lethal weapons in the September before the conflict, people in Whitehall blocked it by delaying it. We could have had those lethal weapons in much earlier, by three months, but still earlier than previously. And I mean, before my time, I think the West regrets

that it never really stuck by its words in the Budapest memorandum, where we became the security guarantors of Ukraine. And then when 2014 happened and Russia invaded Donetsk and Crimea, the West did very little. I mean, very little. I mean, Germany had this, we won't provide any lethal weapons to Ukraine in any way at all. We won't help the Ukrainian army equip itself.

because we might provoke Putin way back in 2014. And I remember going to visit both the security minister and defense secretary of Ukraine, going down to Mariupol and things like that. And at one stage, they couldn't even import diggers because Germany was blocking that, saying that they'd be used to dig trenches. So, you know, I think that's a regret that the international community was too intimidated by the bully of Putin.

And had you been able to get those lethal weapons in three months earlier like you wanted to, how much of a difference would that have made? I don't think in the immediate it would have done. I think it would have sent a stronger message to Putin. I think Putin saw an open door. He didn't think anyone was... I mean, I think Putin's biggest miscalculation was that the international community wouldn't stand together. And the opening of the floodgates of weapons into Ukraine, that happened really quite quickly. I remember...

The day after the invasion, I held the original sort of Ramstein conference. We did a dial in. We had 28 countries. The following week, we had 34 who came onto the call and committed to equipment. We sent 40 people to Germany to start coordinating it in an American airbase. The Polish were brilliant. In those days, the Slovakians were fully supportive.

And it just flowed. And I think Putin's calculating was that no one would stand by Ukraine. And he got that spectacularly wrong. So I don't I don't regret that. I just think if we showed that international determination three months out and the signs of the invasion happened the April before they had a big exercise and they left all their armored vehicles and suspicious places.

If at that moment the international community had said, don't even think about it. And by the way, we're going to do what we're doing now. I think he wouldn't have done it. You talk about signs that were there before. Can you see anything now that you think we should be paying attention to? For example, there have been recent reports of the satellite imagery of Russia building up its military assets close to the border with Finland. I mean, where would you be looking now for the warning signs?

Well, in a military intelligence context, so not political intelligence, but straightforward observing what you see on the battlefield, I'd be looking for those type of signs. That's what happened in the April before. They did a massive exercise, as the Russians said, and then they left all their armoured vehicles in strategic places. The soldiers went back to their barracks. And then, you know, what a surprise. It wasn't very hard for them to remobilise them.

I think I'd be looking for two things. One is actually the state of the Russian armed forces. You know, remember, they invaded, I think, with about 125,000 troops. And if you look at the Khrushchev figures, Ukraine is effectively dismantled. And sadly, you know, the death toll is very high, but fundamentally, three times as many of those people have died. So at one level, he's lost 20,000 armored vehicles.

He's lost significant numbers of missiles, capabilities and experienced troops, officers and soldiers. And he's had to replenish them, as Russia has. So it's not in a good state, the Russian army. But you need to start looking for signs of when will it be back on its feet.

you know, position where it's as lethal as it was in 2021, 22. Where are those units? So I'd be looking for that and looking for how he's spending his money. And we already see that his share of GDP is massive, being spent on defence much more than it was. But then I'd also be looking at the economics of Russia, because, you know, the low oil prices does not help Russia. You know, he's already having to let the Chinese buy it at a discount

for their support. And at the same time, you know, Saudi is going to increase, I think, oil production. So is the United States. And that does not bode well for his economy in the medium and long term. So look at those signs. But he definitely believes you just

The guiding point should be his article he wrote in June 21 called The Historic Relationship Between Russia and Ukraine. It's 19 pages. He wrote it himself, which is quite a good effort to write 19 pages, of which where only in one paragraph he mentions NATO, which is the real clue to whether NATO is his straw man. It's not about NATO. In this 19-page essay, he talks about the destiny, the ancient people of Rus',

the right of Russia to effectively unify these people, he picks the most bizarre timelines to fit his narrative. And if you read that, it's very clear that the ancient people of Rus', and therefore Russia, have a right over parts of Finland, over the Baltic states, and even over Czechoslovakia. It's all nonsense, by the way. His history wouldn't get an E in a GCSE, but that's how he writes.

And just finally, as a former Defence Secretary and British Army officer, is there anything you would actually like to say to those who watch us in Ukraine and also to those who continue to support it and pay attention to what's happening there under such increasing pressure from competing global crises? Well, I think what I would say is that

People in Europe, so your neighbours, people in the United Kingdom. First of all, we understand tyrants like Putin because many of us, including Ukrainians, went to war against another tyrant in the 1930s. We understand it and we're not going to let this type of tyrant win again. We also understand the bravery of Ukrainians and the sacrifices they have made, not just for themselves, but for us.

And that's why we and certainly the United Kingdom will support them and stand by them throughout. I'm very proud that in my tenure, we built a coalition of all the political parties in support. The Scottish Nationalist Party historically have been often against that type of support. Very, very strong in supporting Ukraine's right. And we still have the highest, I think, approval rating of Ukraine.

this policy in Europe, I think. We are strong with Ukraine, not because of some cheap calculation about who's going to win or what's in it for a mineral deal, but because we think it's the right thing to do. And I think because of that, we will continue to stand. And we have experience of bullies, so we're not going to be bullied.

And we'll keep standing with you. And we are now learning from Ukrainians. And that's important for us as well. We're learning what they've learned, sadly, through losses on the battlefield. But we do our very best to help protect them and continue to fight. And if that means we have to do it without the United States, well, we did that between 1939 and late 1941. It's not unique, I'm afraid to say. And I'm sure we will continue to do that.

Sir Ben Wallace, great to speak to you. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you.

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