Is Europe really 'stronger than Russia'?
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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. Today with me, Stuart Willey and Alex Dibble. On a day when Ukraine's former commander-in-chief and now diplomat has warned that the US is destroying the world order, European leaders have reacted with support for Kyiv at a summit in Brussels.

Valery Zaluzhny's comments came after another day of setbacks for Ukraine's fight, losing access to US intelligence and President Putin warning that Russia will not retreat. Our guest today is Philip Ingram, a former NATO planner and British military intelligence officer. Philip, part of Europe's support for Kyiv today came from Donald Tusk, Poland's prime minister, who said Europe is stronger and can win against Russia. Is he right? Yes.

Europe is on paper an awful lot stronger than Russia. It has got a bigger GDP, about 10 times Russia. It's got a bigger defence budget if you add all of the defence budgets together of the different European contributing countries.

but what it doesn't have is political unity in the same way that you're vladimir putin decides what's going to happen in russia and if he decides that he's going to increase defense expenditure he makes that decision in europe it has to go around all the different countries all the different parliaments and it is a very long slow process but on paper europe should be enormously stronger than russia and should be able to produce a much greater military capability

Philip, Russia has been pretty angry about this idea that European peacekeepers could be sent into Ukraine. Sergei Lavrov, indeed, says it is a threat to Russia. Will that warning change, do you think, the approach of what is now being called the coalition of the willing? Yes.

I don't think it'll change the approach of the European countries. And what it'll do is it'll be a factor whenever we get into negotiations. So there's a lot of people are setting out their stall at the moment, but we haven't got an outlined peace plan. Nevermind that outlined peace plan being something that is on a

piece of paper where there's some common ground where you can start negotiations. And therefore Lavrov is turning around and deliberately interpreting European nations as NATO members and this being NATO in. And I think he has said that if...

European NATO nations were inside Ukraine, that he'd see them as automatically as part of the conflict and therefore legitimate targets, because he's trying to scare different governments. He's trying to keep that fracture that's going. He doesn't want there to be a unity across Europe in coming in. And this is something that will be negotiated away if we ever get to negotiations. I think we're still a long, long way off that happening.

Something they're likely to be talking about is this idea of the European sky shield. It's 120 jets, not part of a NATO force, but operated by allies, aiming to shoot down those drones, shoot down the missiles over cities in Ukraine's west, so Kyiv, Lviv. Crucially, though, not in the east. What do you make of that plan?

Well, effectively, it's giving a no-fly zone over part of Ukraine, which in itself is a good thing. That will then allow the Ukrainians to move a lot of their assets and use their assets that are protecting that at the moment over to the east, so probably help the Ukrainians on the front line. This coalition of the willing, this...

of jets and other assets that are not NATO assets. It means they're not under a NATO command and control structure. They're brought together, but they could be coming from countries that are members of NATO, and they'll have to because there are no non-NATO members in Europe who have got aircraft. You look at Ireland. Ireland's got no combat aircraft whatsoever, and therefore these combat aircraft are going to have to come from Europe

NATO-contributing countries. The command and control is going to have to go through NATO-related headquarters, albeit it may not be under a NATO umbrella. But NATO is going to have to be asked for support from some of its assets, including the Sentry airborne early warning aircraft, which

will have got the ability to act as command and control centres in the sky to keep all of this going. But again...

That is something that has been done in the past. It's not anything that's new. And in reality, if we look back at some other operations, the Russians have come and operated under a NATO umbrella in operations in Kosovo. There was a Russian unit came down from drove down from Bosnia while I was there and came in and became part of KFOR and operated amongst it. So we have to separate the

What's going on and the label that is overarching everything. And there'll be a lot of political arguments about labels and about how those relate to what's going on as people try and set the tone for where negotiations are going to start.

But we're not even at a game where people understand what the basic bullet points are that are going to start those negotiations. So a lot of speculation, a lot of good ideas coming out, a lot of bad ideas coming out. But there's a lot more to happen before we get to any firm negotiations, never mind that turning into forced packages to do anything.

Philip, the argument has been proposed that, you know, cutting off intelligence to Kyiv could perhaps be a push to get Ukraine to the negotiating table. What effect does ending signals intelligence have on Ukraine when it comes to the battlefield?

The argument that it's been used to push Kiev to the negotiating table, I think, is flawed because President Zelensky, even before Donald Trump got inaugurated, had come into the peace plan and that was to negotiate. And we're not seeing pressure being put on the Russians to come to the negotiating table. And it's the Russians at the minute that are saying no, no, no, no, no to everything. So the cutting off of intelligence, I think, is...

done to pressurize Zelensky to bring in this mineral deal. So it's Donald Trump using military support and intelligence as part of that. But the bottom line as to how it's affecting things, and it's more than just signals intelligence. There are a lot of other bits in there that are, it's the early warning intelligence for the launches of aircraft that can launch cruise missiles, the launches of ballistic missiles, the launches of swarms of drones that will affect Ukrainians most. And that's Ukrainian civilians. It's not

what's going on on the front line. Yes, there'll be some impact on the Ukrainians' ability to use the HIMARS missiles and other capabilities to target Russian targets, but there are workarounds with a lot of that. This early warning of early launches so that civilians can get into shelters in time, there isn't a workaround.

President Macron is saying that France may extend its nuclear deterrent to cover particularly Germany, but also other allies. Some in Britain worry about the UK relying on the United States for maintenance of particularly its Trident nuclear system. Is Macron's plan a realistic one, that France could perhaps be the nuclear protector of Europe?

Well, it doesn't need to be. The UK is already a nuclear protector for Europe, but for NATO as well under Article 5. So the UK nuclear deterrent has been declared to NATO and therefore is part of our Article 5 defence. Of the UK's independent nuclear deterrent, it's only the Trident missiles themselves that the Americans provide maintenance on. And actually, that's planned so far ahead that...

the Trident missiles are perfectly serviceable and even if they don't get the maintenance on time will still be perfectly serviceable. The submarines that they're on, the nuclear warheads and the authorization for use is purely controlled by the United Kingdom and comes under the remit of the Prime Minister. So it is an independent nuclear deterrent and we've got sufficient

Anger from Moscow, mixed messages from Washington. Now support in Brussels. Philip, how confident will Zelensky be feeling right now?

I think Zelensky is feeling like a punch bag. He's been punched from every different angle, doesn't know where things are going. And I think this is where he will be feeling safer in the European safety glove that's out there, that's catching him, that's holding him up. And he will be looking at getting as much support from Europe as he possibly can.

He's a president under huge pressure. He is concerned. And of note, I was talking with a member of the Ukrainian opposition today who her party does not support.

Zelensky, but she says as a leader, as a wartime leader, he is the only person that's there and she supports him completely. And she also turned around and said that the Ukrainian people are behind him and behind continuing to defend against the Russian aggression. And I thought that was very telling.

Philip, thank you. That is the former NATO planner, Philip Ingram. As Europe continues to respond to Donald Trump's rapid shift in policy when it comes to Europe's security, one very big question is whether the US is still truly committed to NATO's Article 5. Do listen to yesterday's episode where we asked, is Article 5 dead?

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