Frontline special - the sea and air war in Ukraine during 2024
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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. I'm James Hansen. And today we're looking back at the war in Ukraine during 2024, and in particular, focusing on the sea and air war. And joining me to discuss that, delighted to be joined by one of our regular guests here on Frontline, Sean Bell, former fighter pilot, military analyst, and co-host of the Red Matrix podcast. Sean, always a pleasure. Welcome back.

Thank you, James. Good to be here. Let's begin with the air war in 2024 in particular. And let's start by looking at the use of drone warfare. I mean, we have seen throughout this conflict, the innovations on both sides of drone warfare. It is worth remembering this is now the largest drone war in history. Have we seen further innovation still over the course of the last 12 months?

Yeah, absolutely, James. I mean, it has been phenomenal. And I think it's also changed what our view is, what drones are. I think many of us would have thought of drones as these little handheld devices that go buzzing around, take a few pictures, you know, that you get.

Christmas presents. And of course, what's happened is that there's a whole range now, not only those small ones that are very, very good at not being seen, provide eyes and ears over the battlefield, but also we've seen the long-range drones, particularly, I think there's been a lot of talk by the end of the year about long-range missiles. We'll get onto that, I'm sure. But

the Ukrainians have been very, very effective at building their own long-range drones, which might not go that fast, but they go a long way and they're having a massive effect on the battlefield. I think particularly what I've been very impressed by, and I think will have profound implications for our own defence review...

is just the rate at which these can be innovated. You know, in the military, when I was part of the military machine, you devise a requirement, but it would often be 10 years before you saw that capability actually in service. And, of course, a lot of the times, therefore,

It far outpaced your ability to stay on top of it. What we're seeing this year is just a whole range of new drones coming in because, you know, you invent one drone that goes across, drops a hand grenade on the enemy. The enemy therefore creates a jamming mechanism for it. Therefore, the Ukrainians now develop a new way of targeting, whether it be through optical tracking or whether it be through terrain mapping that doesn't rely on the GPS signals.

And it's just this war, counter-war. You've seen those cages over the top of the Russian tanks and personnel carriers. You know, they look really weird, but they are specifically designed because of the major threat

of drone warfare. And of course, finally, you know, President Zelensky famously said that he wanted to get his defense industrial base to deliver 1 million of these drones every year. And that's a massive number. And it probably goes all the way from the small ones to the big ones, probably with help from the international community.

But it probably explains as well why they've taken such a big role in this war and also why Russia has felt compelled to attack the energy infrastructure and Ukraine's defense industrial base, because it recognizes just the power and the influence these drones are having on the battlefield.

It's a really good point you raise in terms of how Russia's been using it to obviously strike, as you say, Ukrainian energy infrastructure and towns and cities as well. But of course, Ukraine has been doing the same and they've also been using drones to go after Russian energy infrastructure. How would you kind of compare the damage that either side have inflicted on each other using drones?

I think, yeah, it's a really good question, actually, because I think Russia has had the full spectrum of weapons available to it, long range, short range, ballistic missiles, the like. And it knows where all of Ukraine's energy infrastructure is. I mean, let's face it, it was part of the former Soviet Union. Most of this stuff is not new, and therefore they know exactly where it is. And therefore, Russia has been able to strike across the whole country.

Ukraine, I mean, Russia is a massive country. Ukraine won't necessarily know where all the energy infrastructure is. And besides, it will be incredibly difficult for Ukraine to take out all of Russia's energy infrastructure. Besides, given the limited number of ordinance that Ukraine has, would I as a military guy suggest they went after that?

Almost certainly not. There are much more juicy targets that Ukraine would want to take out. I think what we have seen over the last year particularly is that Ukraine has wanted to make sure that normal Russians recognize they're in a war. And therefore, it's been less about having decisive impacts on Ukraine.

infrastructure and more about making sure that Russians recognize that they are not immune to the effects of this war. And I think the other angle, which Ukraine has tried very effectively to do, is recognize that Russia is funding this war largely through the sale of its oil and gas. And therefore, if you can target the facilities that produce oil

or export those raw materials, then actually you can have a material impact on Russia's ability to finance the war. And that's where they've been very successful. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a really good point. We have seen over the course of 2024, the ruble becoming increasingly weak and particularly, of course, in the summer in the wake of the Kursk incursion, but also towards the end of the year as well. Let's come on to the long range missiles, Sean, because this was one of the biggest stories of the war in 2024, whether Ukraine should be allowed to use Western supplied long range missiles such as the US supplied Atacoms,

the British Storm Shadows, the French Scout missiles inside Russian territory. And it wasn't until November that President Biden changed his tack and essentially approved their use, although even then with limits only inside Kursk Oblast. Had that decision come much earlier, as Ukraine wanted, had it come far earlier in 2024, what impact could that have had on the war?

Yeah, this is a question that gets asked pretty regularly. I'm not sure that it would have had a significant impact on the war. It is worth pointing out that the slight irony of all of this, that when the West has provided bullets or anti-tank weapons or rockets or artillery shells...

We haven't said they couldn't be used to fire across the border. And yet, for some reason, we decided that a weapon that could travel 100 miles was, well, that's too far, but 20 miles from an artillery shell is okay. And a lot of this was, frankly, due to President Putin's saber-rattling, particularly around the nuclear threat.

and intimidating the West, largely because Putin knew full well that if the West was to get involved in this conflict, that Russia's ambitions would be thwarted in a heartbeat. So it became a bit of an issue which it never really should have been. The UK, my understanding is, when they first gave a storm shout-out to President Zelensky, was, as long as you use them in accordance with the law of armed conflict,

You use them however you need to. It was only subsequently that America got a bit more concerned about as effectively, you know, Russia had been invaded by Ukraine to the Kursk region and all of a sudden that might risk an escalation and said we ought to be more coherent. So it said to the UK that you need to rescind that until we're happy again.

as an organisation to provide weapons that are long range. And it became a real issue. But the fact remains is that, first of all, storm shelter, they're not available in very large quantities. You know, the Ukrainians have had them for over a year now. We only had, I think,

about 500 or 600 available from stocks to give them. I'd be very surprised if there's many left now. Atacoms is a newer form of missile, but that's over a million dollars a shot. There's not that many. They can't produce a lot of them. So I honestly don't think it was going to make a great deal of difference. But politically...

It made a huge difference and made another real opportunity for President Putin to demonstrate that he has a lot of influence over the West rather than actually the West just standing firm. Bullies generally respect strength. They don't. They exploit weakness. And we've seen evidence that Putin has exploited that weakness. So I think it's not about the military impact of those weapons. It's actually far more about the political impact.

With the benefit of hindsight, should the Ukrainians not have done what they did with the incursion into Kursk, which we assume had no prior approval from the White House, and actually followed the old adage of it's better to seek forgiveness than to ask permission? They had these weapons. They had these long-range missiles to begin with. Had they just decided, you know what, we're going to take a risk. We're going to fire them into Russian territory. It is unlikely that...

the Americans or the Europeans would come down on them like a ton of bricks. I mean, at the end of the day, they are supportive of Ukraine. Would that not have in hindsight have been better? Or would that have been escalatory? And would that have risked alienating the Biden administration?

I think it's an interesting question, but I would phrase it slightly differently. Every step of the way, so at the start of the war, bluntly, I don't think the West expected Ukraine to survive. We provided anti-tank weapons and some defensive weapons. We were very clear to call them defensive weapons.

But gradually, since the start of the war, gradually we agreed to provide tanks. You'll remember the then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak agreeing to provide Challenger 2. There weren't many, but he was trying to open the door for other nations to do so. Likewise, then it became long-range weapons. Then it became F-16s. If at any stage along that path, Ukraine had betrayed the deal, betrayed the arrangement under which those weapons would have been given,

I think almost certainly that would have eroded international support for going a further step. And I think history books will be written around this conflict that say, if only the West would have been confident right at the start to actually give Ukraine the weapons on day one, give F-16s, give long range missiles, give tanks.

That's a much more interesting question about whether the outcome would have been changed. But I personally think it would have been folly for President Zelensky to ignore the West's limitations because that would close the door to future opportunities. And I think, you know, even if you look now where we are today, have we reached the end of the road? No. If the West genuinely want to,

to stop Russia, putting a no-fly zone in place would do it in pretty much in a heartbeat. I mean, President Zelensky has been trying to fight a war without air cover. You only have to look back in history. Incredibly difficult to do that. Whereas if air power was to put in place, so he will still be harboring the hope that the West might, if, for example...

If in the new year, President Trump decides to withdraw aid, if the Europeans decide to try and step up to the plate and make sure that Ukraine doesn't fall, all of that trust and faith in how Ukraine uses the weapons, I think, will all form part of that European decision. So it's a long way of saying it, but I think Zelensky was absolutely right not to chance his arm.

And of course, it was in response to the approval of the attack in November that we then learned about Russia's development of a new intermediate range ballistic missile called a Reshnik. How significant is that? And is that really a sign of the escalation of missile warfare that clearly the Americans were worried about? I think what's fascinating about the Reshnik is that, you know, it is it's not a new capability.

It's new to be used in Ukraine. And yes, it's a modification of an old missile.

But, you know, I'm an old fart now and, you know, I've been around a long time. And even in the early days of my career, both America and Russia had missiles capable of going all around the world. They were hypersonic because they went above the Earth's atmosphere in order to travel the long distances. So the ability to fire big rockets out, make them go very fast and then drop down with several warheads has been around for decades.

What again, what happened here was that President Putin recognized that this escalation, in his words, of being allowed to use long range weapons, he wanted to demonstrate to the West that I've got you in my sights. And by firing weapon, which Ereshnik had a range of about 3000 miles.

If you draw those rings on it, it includes all of Europe. And of course, that's exactly what Russia wanted to hear. He wanted the whole of Europe to go, oh dear, we're within range. We've been within range of Russia for decades. And the irony of all of this, frankly, James, is that it was Russia that invaded Ukraine. It was Russia that's been using long range weapons to target the whole

the whole country of Ukraine. It has bought weapons from North Korea in order to target Ukraine. It's done them from Iran. It's used dual-use technology from China. And then it turns around and says, well, if Ukraine has long-range weapons, that's an escalation. Well, it's just preposterous. And so all of this is a similar pattern of Putin simply trying to stop the West getting involved

So that he can achieve his objectives before the West wakes up to the fact that we've actually not only acquiesced to Putin, but also we've demonstrated weakness to not only Russia, but a whole lot of other countries around the world. How would you say Russian and Ukrainian air defences have fared in 2024?

Yeah. So one of I think, well, let's do it one at a time. So Ukrainian defences have fared phenomenally well. The trick here is that we hear a lot about the Patriot and missile systems. But of course, they are really only focused on the high end threat, because the most difficult threat to shoot down is the ballistic missile threat.

mainly because when it's outside the atmosphere, traveling at Mach 10, you know, 10 times the speed of sound, it's really, really difficult to shoot something down that's traveling four times the speed of a bullet. But, of course, when it comes back into the Earth's atmosphere or in its terminal phase, it slows down dramatically. It also gets very hot, and therefore it's a lot easier – I'm not saying it's easier, but a lot easier to shoot down –

Now, luckily, those missiles cost a lot of money, but Patriot costs a lot of money. And therefore, you've got this sort of high end and you've got to preserve your Patriots for those high end targets.

Luckily, the West has provided a whole lot of other layered air defense. And of course, the Ukrainians, I understand, are using their fighter jets largely to shoot down cruise missiles. And of course, the drones, the Shahid 136 that they got from Iran, and then they'd be producing under license. Now, do some of these get through? Yes, of course they do.

But I visited Ukraine just a little over a month ago and I spent some time in Kiev because, and first of all, I was surprised how few buildings have been struck. Secondly, when you actually went, and I was a weapons instructor on the fighter force at the time, and you looked at the weapons effects and what happened, most of the damage had been done not by a missile, but by the debris of a missile that had been shot down. But of course, the remnants of it had then fallen down into a building.

So it wasn't necessarily the Russians successfully targeting something. It was the debris falling. So now, have some of the Russian missiles got through? Yes. Have they targeted energy infrastructure? Yes. Largely because Ukraine is such a big country that positioning these key air defense systems around everything is virtually impossible. But actually, if you look around Kiev, particularly the center of power, they've done spectacularly well.

In terms of Russia, again, it's a really big country. And if I was the head of the Russian military, I would not know where Ukraine was going to strike next. And therefore, they have been very successful at shooting down Ukrainian drones. But again, what's happened is if you've got an air defence system that can shoot down 40 drones at a time, if you put 41 drones against it, one will get through permanently.

And this is where quantity has a quality all of its own sometimes. And I think that's why we've seen Ukraine regularly fly a lot of drones against an individual target, swamping the defences. So the Russian defences are very good, but they just don't have enough missiles available at that one moment. And therefore, those tactics mean that Ukraine have been very effective.

It was interesting that earlier this year when Iran launched a missile strike on Israel, a lot was made of the success of Israel's so-called Iron Dome. And a lot of people were saying, well, hang on, why can't Ukraine have something similar? Is that a fair point or are there logistical problems? Is it just never going to be realistic that Ukraine would have an Israeli-style air defense system, an Iron Dome in that manner?

Yeah, again, a great question. I think, first of all, there's one of which is the understanding. We have to be quite clear. The Iron Dome is a system, a short-range defensive system that's specifically designed to shoot down unguided rockets. It comprises a missile system and a radar because the threats from Hamas and from Hezbollah were unguided rockets. They would fire 100 of them at a time.

What the radar would work out, the Iron Dome system, is which of these are going to hit a built-up area. Those are the targets. Which of these unguided rockets is not? We'll just leave them. They can land wherever they want to. And therefore, it's a very effective way of defending. And of course, Israel, as you know, is a much smaller country. And if you know specifically where these threats are coming from, you don't need many Iron Dome systems in order to provide protection there.

Now, that Iron Dome system is not very effective against ballistic missiles or cruise missiles.

As a result, the Israelis needed layered air defence. You'll remember earlier on in the year that the West provided a lot of fighter jets because the fighter jets were very good at shooting down drones at a distance, but also the cruise missiles. The one thing they couldn't target was the ballistic missiles, and that was why you needed the Patriot system. And for the second round of those attacks later in the year, you had the US put the THAAD system in place, largely because they knew that if Iran was

launched a heavy wave that Patriot just wouldn't be able to cope with it. You now transfer that across to Ukraine, which is a much bigger country. First of all, the Iron Dome system for shooting down unguided rockets, that is not the threat to Ukraine at all. The threat to Ukraine is drones, it's cruise missiles,

It's bombs and it's ballistic missiles. And therefore, where would you put this iron dome system? What would its target be? That is not what you need in Ukraine. You need a layered air defense system, which has the high end stuff covered by Patriot, the medium range and the cruise missiles covered by a range of other effectors. And then you can use people lying on their backs with machine guns.

to take out drones if you need to. Shahid only flies 140 miles an hour. They're quite big. They're not difficult to shoot down, but it's just there's a volume of them and that's the challenge there.

Let's talk briefly, Sean, about the F-16s, because at the start of the year, one of the big debates was, well, when will the F-16s actually be delivered? When will they be deployed by Ukraine? And there was all kinds of speculation as to whether this could be a game-changing weapon. Of course, it was in the summer that they first really started deploying them. But there is an issue around, well, how many do they have? And also, do they have the pilots who are fully trained in order to operate them? How would you assess their impact in the war this year? Yeah.

Very, very little. At the time, this was all being discussed. Somebody who's been through the whole flying training system recognized that this wasn't about the aircraft. You know, there are several nations, the Dutch, the Danes who are retiring F-16s that would make available previously loved F-16s to Ukraine. But even at the time, if you put 100 on the lawn of President Zelenskyy,

That doesn't matter. You need to have people who can operate them, not just fly them, but operate them. Otherwise, they just become a liability. And, of course, it was never expected they would actually be involved in the war. It was all because when the war ends, the aim was that Zelensky would need to have a way of developing his own air power and not based on former Soviet Union equipment. But President Zelensky made the case clearly, and the West said, OK, if you want the jets,

But you need to develop your pilot training. And since then, there's been a whole raft of initiatives to try and get some of the pilots through.

Some of the MiG-29 pilots that now fly F-16s, the trouble is if you stop them flying MiG-29 to go through a course, they're not available to fly against the Russians for that time. So, you know, ideally you want what we call ab initios, new pilots going through, but they'll take years to become qualified. The compromise was, my understanding, is they ended up having a half a dozen F-16s

My understanding is one of those has been shot down already. My understanding is that was shot down by Ukraine's own air defenses. And it just illustrates how difficult it is to operate these aircraft in a wartime environment unless you've got a very, very comprehensive capability.

How are they being used? Again, my understanding is that they're shooting down cruise missiles and drones. They don't want to be anywhere near the front line because the front line is dominated by the Russians. The Russians have control of the air. The Ukrainians do not. What they do have is this sort of seed corn of F-16s, which allows them to do short, sharp shots.

stabs. But I think President Zelensky thought they'd be the answer to the maiden's prayer. He wasn't listening to the folks like us who said, there's a bit more to it than that. The West said, okay, here they are. And they're not making a huge difference is my understanding at the moment.

Let's just turn to naval warfare briefly. I mean, the Black Sea Fleet, of course, has been severely degraded by Ukraine, really remarkably over the course of the war so far. Has 2024 been quieter, though, on that front, in part because as we entered the year, the Black Sea Fleet already had been severely degraded?

Yes, I think it's been quieter for a number of reasons, first of which is that the Russians – you had to cast your mind back over a year now that there were concerns near the start of the war that Russia would do an amphibious assault against Odessa. In other words, bypass a lot of the land defences and just go straight in there. And that was a real concern for the West.

But inevitably, because it's been so difficult for the Russian Navy to maintain a presence, because they're not fighting conventional enemy. Ukraine doesn't have a navy, but it's proven very effective at terrorizing the Russian Navy and forced it to hide.

basically well out of the way in the eastern side of the Black Sea. As a result, but the other complication here is that, again, over the start of this year, you know, so last year it was all about Ukraine being on the front foot, spring offensive, could this be the end of the war? This year has all been about Russia being on the front foot.

And at the time of the start of the year, the Ukrainians were still looking at could we take Crimea? Could we isolate Crimea by severing the Kursk road bridge, which is the main logistics hub to Russia? And that was a maritime challenge to preserve that.

As we rolled forward through the year and the Russians made advances, so the land bridge, in other words, going through the Donbass, past Zaporizhia and then down through the land bridge down to Crimea, that's largely been secured by the Russians now. So they're less reliant on that bridge. And as a result of that, you know, the Russians have felt less of a need to be dominant now.

at sea. And I suspect that's why for a whole raft of reasons. And you'll know that because of an old agreement, the Turks will not allow warships in and out through the straits into the Black Sea whilst there's a war going on. So Russia has what it has in the Black Sea. It's lost a fair bit of stuff. It doesn't want to lose any more. And quite frankly, it might as well keep out of the way because it's not having a significant impact on the war anymore.

Just finally, Sean, zooming out a bit and looking at the war in the round over the course of the past 12 months, how do you reflect on 2024?

I think the year ended last year with a degree of disappointment that despite the West digging deep into its pockets, not just financially but also militarily, that the front lines didn't really change. If you look at this year, Russia has its defence industrial bases spun up. It's done more deals with Iran, North Korea. We're seeing not only weapons but also troops arriving.

And despite taking horrendous casualties, I mean, Bakhmut was a battle last year, which the Russians, I think there was about 800 casualties a day, was described as the bloodiest battle since World War II. In the month of October, apparently they were up at 1,500 casualties a day. Just obscene levels of casualties, which Russia can't sustain.

But it has been bringing in troops from all over the place. And, of course, Ukraine cannot afford to get locked into that battle of attrition. It is a smaller army. It's a battle it would lose. And I think over the last year we've seen –

Almost Ukraine run out of ideas. The West has just not been able to step up to the plate and provide extra weapons, innovative weapons, game-changing weapons. It's almost felt as if the West is doing enough for Ukraine to survive, but not enough to prevail. And that sort of resonates with what President Putin's been doing. I think as a result, we head into the end of the year looking at things are looking relatively bleak for Ukraine.

The one positive, I would say, is that we tend to think Russia is doing really well, but the economy is struggling a great deal now. Recently, I think it was this week, President Putin has increased the defence spending by 25%. It's now virtually a third of their total spending. That is not sustainable. And they're also, as we've seen, the economy,

events in Syria, in Georgia. There are other areas where Moscow needs to exert influence. And the longer the fight goes on in Ukraine, the longer the risks are to Russia. So it does feel with President Trump's inauguration in the 20th of January, you go back to the start of the year, I didn't think Ukraine would be remotely interested in negotiating. Now we've heard Zelensky hint

hint at it. We've heard the British government hint at it. And President Trump is clearly that's his focus. And it feels like that's the direction of travel. My final line on that, though, is that that saddens me in a way, not because of Ukraine, but that we, the West, had the ability to stop Russia. We should have stopped Russia at day one. The Budapest Memo of 1994, we guaranteed Ukraine's sovereignty. It

in return for them giving up nuclear weapons. When the time came for that pledge to be called in, we didn't step up to the plate. And as a result, it's quite likely that Putin will end up gaining, I wouldn't say winning, but gaining from his adventures. What message do you think that sends for him in the future, for Iran, for North Korea and for China? This will have profound implications for our global security.

Sean, thank you as ever for your insights and expertise, and I'm sure we'll speak again in 2025.

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