Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
In the 2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee L, the journey from point A to point B isn't such a rush. In fact, with three rows of spacious comfort, thoughtfully crafted luxurious design, and an available premium Macintosh audio system, you'll find yourself seeking out the scenic route more often, even if it's just another lap around the block. Jeep. There's only one. Visit Jeep.com to learn more. Jeep is a registered trademark of FCA US LLC.
You may get a little excited when you shop at Burlington. Burlington saves you up to 60% off other retailers prices every day. Will it be the low prices or the great brands? You'll love the deals. You'll love Burlington. I told you so. Styles and selections vary by store.
With an hour before boarding, there's only one place to go: the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club. There, you can recharge before the big adventure, or enjoy a locally inspired dish. You could recline in a comfy chair to catch up on your favorite show, or order a craft cocktail at the bar.
Whatever you're in the mood for, find the detail that moves you with curated touches at the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club. Chase, make more of what's yours. Learn more at chase.com slash sapphire reserve. Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC. Subject to credit approval.
Hello and welcome to the 200th Battleground podcast with me, Saul David and Patrick Bishop. It's hard to believe, Patrick, isn't it, that we've got to that milestone, having put out our first pod just over two years ago in April 2022. We've just checked the numbers and we're approaching 9 million downloads, which is absolutely extraordinary. And we've got you, of course, our loyal listeners to thank for all of that. Without your support, we would not be where we are. So thank you very much.
Absolutely. I'd like to endorse that. Yeah, it's all down to the people out there who are listening to us and we're very grateful. It's great to have this interaction, isn't it, Saul? The feeling that you're connected to the people who are listening to us. I think we've got a really good rapport with our audience and long may that continue.
Yes, well, onwards, Patrick, with the news, it's been a dramatic last few days, fewer than good for Ukraine, I have to say. And to make some sense of this, we're delighted to welcome back to the podcast, veteran journalist and military commentator and expert Robert Fox, who we'll hear from shortly today.
But first, the drama. It began, of course, on Saturday when the Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt at an election rally in rural Pennsylvania. What is the consequence of this? Well, if anything, it's going to improve his chances of returning to the White House. Now, of course, we should say at this point, why?
We don't condone anything that might have harmed his chances and certainly his personal safety. But the consequences, as I say, are probably that he's even more likely to get into the White House. And if he does, what does that mean for Ukraine? Well, from what we've been hearing recently, he'll try to force Ukraine to accept a humiliating peace with Russia, including territorial concessions.
And if it refuses, he might, of course, withdraw his military support, which is not good news. Yep. And on Monday, Ukraine and its supporters got more bad news when Trump confirmed that his vice presidential running mate is going to be Ohio Senator J.D. Vance. Now, why does this matter? Well, Vance is a mega-arch isolationist.
who opposed its support for Ukraine and played a central role in the failed effort to kill off the Ukraine aid bill in the Senate earlier this year. We all remember that long-running saga with the Republicans blocking the government package, the Biden package for Ukraine. Well, he told reporters at the Munich Security Conference back in February that
we were able to make it pretty clear to Europe and the rest of the world that America can't write blank checks indefinitely." And he added, "How long is this expected to go on? How much is it expected to cost? And importantly, how are we actually supposed to produce the weapons necessary to support the Ukrainians?" And he also skipped a meeting at that conference with President Zelensky and his foreign minister,
Dimitri Kileba saying, I didn't think I would learn anything new. So a pretty brutal snub there. So on hearing of Vance's appointment, one senior EU official told the Politico website,
that it was a, quote, disaster for Ukraine, and by extension for the European Union, which has backed Kyiv as it defends itself against Russian aggression. Yeah, that's right, Patrick. And Vance, like Trump, is also highly critical of NATO. In the Senate in April, he blasted Europe for not spending enough on defence.
For three years, the Europeans have told us that Vladimir Putin is an existential threat to Europe, he said. And for three years, they have failed to respond as if that were actually true. He then went on to call out Germany in particular for failing to spend 2% of its GDP on defence,
the amount NATO members have agreed as a joint target. Well, where does Vance come from? It's interesting background, Patrick. He was born into a blue-collar family in America's Rust Belt states and has long championed the cause of the American worker and the importance of American manufacturing.
This will probably play out in support for more tariffs on foreign imports, particularly from China, but also from the EU. He and Trump see China as a much greater military and economic threat to the US than Russia, which, to be fair, is understandable. But where does that leave Ukraine in its fight for survival? Where indeed? Well, I think the obvious answer is they'll be relying ever more on strong sanctions.
support from Europe and notably the UK and the EU. But even within the EU, the solid front does occasionally show signs of weakening. Right from the start, there's been some sort of weak links in the chain, particularly, of course, the Hungarian leader, Viktor Orbán, who's caused a lot of anger by holding talks with
with Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and also Donald Trump as part of his rather quixotic mission to bring peace to Ukraine. He said after his meeting with Trump, we discussed ways to make peace. The good news of the day, he's going to solve it. So he buys into Trump's oft-repeated boast that he could get the whole thing settled in a day. Anyway, the response of Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security advisor, was to say,
The US position, the Biden administration position is nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. So no deals done without their consent. So whatever adventurism is being undertaken without Ukrainians consent or support is not something that's consistent with our policy or the policy of the United States. Well, that's all very well now, but what happens after November? Well, EU leaders have also distanced themselves from Orban's freelancing policy.
Emmanuel Macron, the rather beleaguered French president, and Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, insisted that Orban's visit to Moscow did not come with an EU mandate and that he was not representing the bloc. And other members, including Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, plan a powerful boycott.
ministerial meetings that are due to take place in Budapest in July, while Hungary holds the rotating six-month presidency of the EU.
Well, in better news for Ukraine, Patrick, and goodness knows it needs some this week, Ukraine's navy has effectively declared victory in the Black Sea by announcing on Tuesday that Russia has withdrawn its last naval patrol ship from occupied Crimea, which, of course, is the historical home of the now much diminished Black Sea fleet. And we can go all the way back to the Crimean War in the 19th century to understand its importance.
Well, with no warships at its disposal, Ukraine has used missiles and naval drone attacks to force Moscow's Black Sea fleet to abandon its headquarters at Sevastopol and retreat to the Russian port city of Novorossiysk.
Vice Admiral Alexei Nezhpapa, Ukraine's Navy chief, said earlier this month that Russia had been forced to release nearly all of its combat-ready warships from the Annex Peninsula. Well, now the last ship has bolted. Remember this day, said Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmitry Potenchuk. That is quite an extraordinary achievement, isn't it, Saul? I mean, as you say, they haven't got a Navy, yet they've actually...
won a great naval victory. I think that's something that we should have read more about. It should have been flagged up a bit more. As you say, there's not very much
Good news around on the Ukrainian front at the moment. But, you know, we've got to step back as always and look at the bigger picture and just look at what's happening on the land. You've got Russian losses carrying all of this absolutely staggering rate. Here we are in the 21st century and you've got these kind of World War I type casualty figures. According to the latest update given by British military intelligence, Russia lost more than 70,000 people.
troops killed and wounded in the last two months alone. Just think about that. The uptick was partly down to the opening of a new front in the Kharkiv Oblast,
And that amounts to every daily losses of more than 1100 a day in the months of May and June, which is what we would have thought unsustainable in the long term. But we've said that before. Western officials said that this is due basically to an effective Ukrainian defense, i.e. the bit of a kind of confusion at the beginning of this. Russia defends it, but they now seem to have got their act together differently.
and can effectively repel these MERS attacks. But on the Russian side, the people actually doing the attacking are pretty poorly trained. That means that they really haven't got the ability, the Russian commanders haven't got the ability to stretch and exploit any tactical successes.
even though they're still going on to try and stretch the front line further in order to put as much pressure as they can on Ukraine's much smaller resources. And this intelligence assessment also went on to predict that losses are going to continue at the current rate of more than 1,000 a day for the next two months as Russia, quotes, continues to try to overcome Ukrainian positions with mass. And that's the basic tactic is just to try and overwhelm the
the defenders. And also, it seems that the Ukraine's confident enough now to think about gearing up for counter-offensives of their own. But U.S. officials, U.S. intelligence sources don't believe they're going to be in a position to launch any
real major counterattacks until 2025. Yeah, we're in a fascinating moment in the war, Patrick, aren't we? I mean, on the one hand, the balance is beginning to tip back Ukraine's way, not least because the arms, munitions and support from both Europe and the US are now feeding through. The Russians are still attacking, as you've just pointed out, in this kind of rather
ineffective way, hurling bodies and including some reports this week, Patrick, that they're sending the wounded back into the front line because they haven't got enough fresh, fit men to do the job. Meanwhile, there's a demographic hand grenade about to go off because
the Russian population, like a population in Europe too, is shrinking. And of course, it is not going to be able to absorb these huge numbers. Something like a million Russians have disappeared, that is young men who could fight, have disappeared since the start of this war, and they are struggling to find bodies. Okay, well, as we mentioned at the top, we're now going to speak to veteran journalist and military expert, Robert Fox. He's an amazing
A mate of mine, we go all the way back to the Falklands together, that's when we first met, obviously BBC correspondent there, obviously Observer correspondent. Well, he's done a lot of war reporting since then, but he's also established himself as one of Britain's leading commentators on military matters and indeed the politics that go alongside that. So we're going to talk to him today about the shifting political scene in the US, the UK and France in particular, and the effect that all this will have on Ukraine.
So Robert, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you on again. First of all, let's focus on America and Trump. What do you think that a Trump presidency, which I think we all agree is a strong likelihood now, and indeed the appointment of J.D. Vance as his running mate, how do you think that's going to play out for first Ukraine and then Europe in general? I think first of all,
It's going to be a much more pragmatic Trump presidency than is expected. But that doesn't mean to say that America will be favorable to Europe. It will be much less favorable to Europe. Remember, Trump, there's a certain strength of this, Trump really thought that he scored big in persuading European NATO powers to spend more on their defense budgets and
There is a strong strand of thinking, and it's not just Trump and J.D. Vance, that think that as now being run, the Ukraine cause is a lost cause, that really there is no way that Ukraine can win. I think listening to the commentary ever since the attempted assassination, ever since the choice of J.D. Vance,
amazed how strong the isolationist voices have been coming through from America and it is not just confined to those two individuals. By the way, it's going to be critical as to who his national security advisor is going to be and also who's going to be not only in the Pentagon but far more important is going to be the Secretary of State. Actually, militarily, America
by any objective analysis, has almost got too much on its plate at the moment. And that's why the subtext of the NATO summit was that Europe must do more and Europe should
because of its own political confusion, France, Germany, it's not stepping up to that. I think we're coming to a crunch point. And there may be a crunch point, as you suggest, over Ukraine, actually, before whoever the next incumbent is gets to the White House in January. Yeah, Robert, do you think it's as serious as some people are suspecting, which is that we could almost be seeing the end of NATO at some stage in the next year or two?
No, I don't see the end of NATO and how effective, more or less, it becomes is an open question. But NATO is looking already, as you can see, particularly from the Nordics, from the posture of a country like Poland, is becoming an alliance of alliances. Because we've talked about people, the nations, the partners who pay out over 2% of GDP on their national defense budgets.
But I think we should be paying as much attention as what is known as the under two club. And the under two club is almost exclusively with one or two exceptions, Luxembourg being one, and to some extent even Germany. The under two club is on the southern flank and the southern flank, as it used to be called, but it's the Mediterranean through to the Middle East.
with the exception of Greece, which is a very high spender. But Italy, Portugal, and above all, Spain are very low spenders, and they are extremely vulnerable, not only because of the huge strategic threat of the refugee and asylum-seeking migrant crisis, but also look at the activities of China, but above all, Russia, renewed in North Africa, focused just for one on Algeria.
Shall we move to Britain now, Bob? We've got a new government which, against some of the dire warnings of the conservative press, has actually made a pretty good start, I would say, in sort of steadying the buffs and committing really to a major overhaul of Britain's defence posture, identifying threats and analysing resources and all the rest of it. How do you see that playing out? Do you think that Britain is now poised to take action
a more proactive or a more prominent role in this impending security crisis? Yes, Britain's pals, and they're mostly in Northern Europe and countries like Poland, but even Romania, very active, say they would like Britain to do more.
Britain's leadership, its advice, its counsel, its very proactive advice and training actually in situ, which is just coming to be revealed more and more in Ukraine, has been
pretty terrific. But as a found force, if you look at the British Army at the moment, it's pretty hopeless. And that's one of the predicates of the, just this week, we have heard of yet a new strategic defense review led by the man who did the last great labor strategic defense review, would you believe it, in 1998, George Robinson, who's only six months younger than me. So, you know, the old boys are coming back.
And the diagnosis is brilliant. Root and branch, you've got to look at the way procurement, recruiting, retention, choices about focus on Europe, focus on Ukraine. Yes, we will continue to support allies as requested in the Pacific. Yeah, the diagnosis is terrific. But the prognosis, I have to say very cynically, is pretty awful.
It's very, very difficult to see what the UK PLC or UK Limited or Unlimited can really do and actually what the bulk of the labour movement, if such still exists, will really be prepared to put behind it. As somebody put it to me, very well placed, it was very much around at the time of the 97-98 review, well, this will do a pretty good job in saying what the problem is.
But it's got to be very selective about how it solves that problem, because it can't do everything that it's already said on the tin when it was announced by John Healy and the Prime Minister. Yeah, I mean, it comes down to money as always, doesn't it, Robert? So...
As you say, the political problem is you've got all these demands on a diminishing public purse. And the culture of the Labour movement is not necessarily to give the military a high place in the pecking order. There is another factor in this. It's not the culture of Whitehall.
the civil administration in the UK to give the military what it may require because it thinks the military is both needy and greedy. We had Lord Macpherson, a former permanent undersecretary, when it was still just called permanent undersecretary of the treasury, said he was always very reluctant to give money, as he put it, to defence, but realises that they have to give more. Just want to add as a footnote here, Whitehall, that is...
The Treasury, the Foreign Office, is very bruised about its recent experiences with defense, not necessarily from the conservative years, but from the latter half.
Tony Blair years. And Tony Blair's coming back into this story in a curious way, because he loved the soldiers, as you and I know, Patrick, very well. And he would talk to the soldiers over the heads of the quite cautious, and often quite rightly cautious, civil servants and diplomats. And that's something that's got to be rectified, because if the treasury in particular isn't re-rolled in this whole picture...
then this defense review will probably hit the sand very, very quickly. By the way, they always do. They're always overtaken by events within months and sometimes maximum 18 months. Defense review, 98, 9-11, adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it was gone. It was blown away. Okay, we'll take a break there. Do join us in a moment to hear more from Robert on Russia and Ukraine and also listeners' questions.
With an hour before boarding, there's only one place to go: the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club. There, you can recharge before the big adventure, or enjoy a locally inspired dish. You can recline in a comfy chair to catch up on your favorite show, or order a craft cocktail at the bar.
Whatever you're in the mood for, find the detail that moves you with curated touches at the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the club. Chase, make more of what's yours. Learn more at chase.com slash sapphire reserve. Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC. Subject to credit approval.
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium Wireless. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch.
$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes each.
Welcome back.
Robert, the Labour government have committed to matching the Tories' promise to get defence spending up to 2.5% of GDP.
And they've also gone a little bit further, I suppose, by saying they're going to try and encourage their colleagues in NATO to do something similar. But they haven't said when they're going to do that. At least the Tories committed to 2030. And as you say, the Strategic Defense Review is going to slow things down. Are they just kicking the can down the road here, do you think? I think that they're very worried as to how they're going to do it. And I think that here is what I think is the big factor.
in the general election campaign. Huge victory for Labour, won almost a lower vote from its greatest defeat in 2019. Look, we're doing it, banging our gums here about this. The thing that was so striking about the commentary throughout the general election campaign
was, okay, I named the guilty parties. Commentators like Laura Kunzberg of the BBC, Michael Crick, they would refer to the events as if it was no different from the kind of contest that there was in 2010 or in 1997 that brought Blair to power. There has been, on the way, there is a colossal change
And the change came in about 2012. I may have gone off completely off the subject. I haven't. It's absolutely vital to the world of defense and security. 2012 in the history of humanity is peak baby. There will never, ever be as many humans born again in a single year in the span roughly between 2012 and 2014.
When we say an aging society, which often brings up an aging community, it's brought up as a cliche. No, it has real effect, and it's going to have real effect in all aspects of public service, but most acutely in defense and security. That largely contributes to the huge problem we have with social engagement, but above all, recruiting.
The fact is that now I think in the UK, we're just about ahead of the more people pay tax who are over 65 than are under, that there isn't the availability. And also with the demographic, the extremists call it wintering, we're seeing across many, many developed societies, acute examples, South Korea, Japan, and Italy, greater reluctance to go into public service and more people
If we're not careful, and this comes to the budgeting point, more will have to be put into not just health services to core right across the piece, but actually the care of the elderly. Sorry, I'll give you one example. One of the great documents of this year, a great document with a thoroughly boring title, is the demography of the Dutch people to 2050. And it was the background to the new Dutch government,
That shows in that highly sophisticated, probably the most developed welfare state in Europe, and therefore the world, that if things go the way they are by 2045, over 60% of the Dutch welfare budget will be just on care of the elderly over 70.
This is the picture against which we're working. And when we're talking about social engagement, recruiting, volunteers, national service, that is the big picture. That is the big change. I think the commentariat is not factoring in this thing. I know I'm a bit of an obsessive about it, but it is coloring so much of our policy right across the piece, you know, welfare, housing, education, and migration, by the way, which is a huge part of the security package.
And that's why what I fear approaching my 80th year is that I think when this thing is reported by George Robertson and his team, it's going to look terribly, terribly old-fashioned.
It's going to be about ships, aircraft, aircraft carriers, hypersonic missiles, probably more drones, fewer this, toys for the boys and girls. And instead of saying, what do we want our national defense and security services and forces to do? Let's just focus on Ukraine for a moment. Sure. If we can. Yeah.
From your long experience practically as a war correspondent and as a commentator, how do you see the medium-term picture evolving on the battlefield? It becomes critical within the next six weeks to three months because it's personnel. The Ukrainians are exhausted. They're having difficulties in conscription. Can they hold it off? Russia likewise.
The figures that I have been trying to get at, some actually not widely in the public domain, the MOD and the DOD, in other words, the Pentagon, do very, very granular analysis of this. The picture that's emerging is a very, very strange one. You can forget about the millions who died in World War II.
The losses on the Russian side, on the battlefront, are simply unsustainable. They certainly couldn't do much more than a year. When you're losing 1,000 a day, when you're losing more troops than you can replace, when the commitment, having started an invasion just over two years ago with 120,000, and you've already probably lost, killed to all intents and purposes, severely wounded that your life isn't worth anything at half a million now,
with three-quarters of a million just committed in and around the battle space, it's looking very, very crazy indeed. The MOD, UK, which is a leader in this, thinks about $5 million
of quite an ailing population is now fully committed to the battle for Ukraine by that in defense industries, logistics, and so on. And you can see it by the backfilling from the Stans that they've been bribing people to come in there. And it seems certainly part of the deal with Kim Jong-un was to bring personnel in
Not necessarily to fight, but to fill the gaps in logistics. So there is a real crisis. And part of that, I would suggest, leads to you trashing everything that you can find inside. What they have noticed in the daytime raids now at the moment with glide bombs and such like, is they're just smashing up electricity stations.
and distribution points, not just the infrastructure hubs. And they're really going for it. And another thing that was brought to my notice is that they're stealing agriculture from Ukraine. They've gone and nicked agriculture
over 50,000 prime pieces of agricultural machinery from the east of Ukraine alone. And they're bidding to take over the leadership in fertilizer and cooking oil, would you believe it, which is so important. Look, this is short comments. This is
This is a pretty desperate society, and it is a totally militarized regime, as we know with Putin, and it is whatever you say or bust for him. And I think that that's why it goes on. And I think even Donald Trump will find it very difficult, and I think he will make...
after in the campaign, he will make some gesture and say, come on, can't we talk? Can't we do a mince arrangement? I just don't think Putin himself can afford to be seen talking peace and slowing the whole thing down because he is log rolling. It's keeping him in business. It's keeping him in power. Very similar in a curious way to a lot of the agony, the terrible situation that Netanyahu has got himself into.
Yeah, it's fascinating what you're saying, Robert. I mean, our calculation, too, is that we've just been saying, actually, before you came on, that these losses are unsustainable. We haven't mentioned that many times before. Do you think Putin's calculation actually is something like this? He's biding his time until Trump gets in. He's betting on a Trump victory, and he's hoping that
some kind of deal can be done that will allow him to leave with as much territory as possible and therefore portray it, at least to the Russian people, as a victory of sorts. I think the conspectus of Putin's mind is a thing that is very difficult to assume from the West. One of the experts on this, as such, is Dr. Fiona Hill, who, by the way, is one of the adjudicators in the Defense Review.
And she's very interesting about the mentality of Putin, as indeed is a former Italian ambassador to London and then goes to Moscow, Pasquale Taracano. And I asked him about 18 months ago, what do you think is going through Putin's mind? And when he was in Moscow, he used to see Putin two or three times a month. And he said, half the time I get the impression that Putin doesn't even know what's in Putin's mind.
That sounds facetious, but the thing is that this is where I think we find it difficult. His idea of the mystical destiny of Russia, and it's Russia that is dominant. It is the power, but he doesn't see it in sort of Metternichian Congress of Vienna, Henry Kissinger terms. It's not power blocks. It is this entity, because that's why he gets almost misty-eyed when he talks about things like...
the Arctic. We are the premier Arctic power. There's quite a claim and some justification behind it. But it is part of this thing of the Russian destiny, which is all balled up together in his mind. We know he's embraced the church. It is very much, it's an autocephalous. In other words, it belongs to the state, but it's very much part of Putinism at the moment. And for all his admiration,
of the Soviet Union, there is very little Marxism in it. It is military might.
and the power of the state and of the police state, pure and crude. It reminds me of the debates that we're having at the moment because they have spectacular anniversaries of debates about Kafka and Orwell. And it's that kind of machinery of the mind that's working here. He's also doing something, I think, which is incautious in that he is using the legacy of Wagner and others, as I was saying, to spread. He's spreading...
enormously in Africa as much as he possibly can where he's challenged by the Chinese. But even more so is he challenged by the Chinese in South America, sending bombers to Venezuela. Can he really spare them? Sending quite substantial found military units to Cuba, very much competing with the Chinese for the favors of Argentina,
pushing into Antarctica, against the Antarctic Treaty indeed, for strategic minerals. This is the name of the game, particularly in Africa, too. Of course, it's not only rare earth elements and the elements for batteries, but also uranium. And so it's almost, you know...
It's like, what was it Franz Joseph said to Mozart? Too many notes, Mozart, too many notes. There is too much going on there for their actual capacity. When you have an economy, which is roughly the size of that of Spain, it's very difficult to sustain this.
Brilliant stuff, Robert, as always. Thanks so much for coming on. There's so much there that could keep us talking for hours, isn't there, Saul? Pleasure as always. Thank you, can I just say, to Patrick for your wonderful book. Oh, thanks, thanks. Listeners, read the book. It's beautifully written and very interesting. Very interesting. Thanks, Robert. We were going to plug it in very shortly, so that's a preamble to that. Brilliant stuff. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Cheers, Robert. Bye-bye, guys.
Well, it's brilliant stuff, as always, wasn't it, from Robert. He's got such a capacious mind, you know, with historical, indeed musical references, and his ability to get behind the kind of here and now, the headlines, and look at the deep underpinnings of what actually drives politics, what drives diplomacy, what drives democracy.
You know, so I think his point is that demographics was particularly fascinating. Yeah, I don't know whether to be encouraged or depressed by what I've just heard from Robert Patrick. He confirmed the point we've made, which is that Russia can't sustain these losses. Time is running out. What did he say? You know, a year at most.
from now to continue this type of war before it all implodes for Russia. But at the same time, he pointed out that Putin is not really calculating like a normal politician, like a metamix, like someone who considers rail politic. This kind of mystical belief in Russia's destiny is concerning because it means that he's not going to make rational calculations. And how this will all play out, we don't know. But he's almost arguing he's not really a person you can deal with.
Yeah, that would seem to be the case, wouldn't it? But there's also this awful prospect of a Trump presidency proceeding along the lines that we now, I won't say assume, but we guess they are going to take, which would hand a victory to Russia at a point where it may actually be on the brink of defeat.
Okay. Well, before we move on to questions, I just want to reiterate the point Robert made towards the end of that interview, and that's to flag up Patrick's book. It's already available online. You'll be able to get it, actually get your hands on a physical copy in bookstores very shortly. But I just wanted to read out a couple of choice quotes from early reviews of the book, which is, of course, Paris 44, and which has featured in the last two Battleground 44 podcasts.
Well, the first one is from The Observer, a couple of lovely quotes there. "The book resembles some epic thriller with vividly evoked characters all somewhere on the spectrum between collaboration and resistance, shame and glory. Paris 44 is a wonderful book, droll, moving, with a cinematic eye and not a boring line in it." And I would heartily echo those sentiments.
But also in the Telegraph, Patrick's old stomping ground. In fact, you also wrote for The Observer too, didn't you, Patrick? So this is home territory for you. And the Telegraph wrote, Bishop's writing style is admirably unflowery and his account is illuminated by an inspired choice of evocative testimony. Bishop tells the story of the liberation by reporting as if he were there, how a rich cast of characters lived through its key moments. Pretty solid endorsements, I would say, Patrick. Happy with the,
reviews so far? Yeah, well, as you know, Saul, there is that kind of very nervous moment or moments when you're waiting for the first buns to drop.
And my tactic is to try not read them at all and hope that someone sends me an email saying, hey, nice review in the X or the Y, which is what happened in this case. And then I steal myself to actually read it. And indeed, they were exactly what I was hoping for, which is not always the case, as we know. Sometimes you read a review and you think, was this person actually reading the book I wrote? Because they seem to fail to get the points you're trying to get.
going to get across. But in this case, you know, really lovely reviews. I'm very grateful. And it's a great start for the book. Yeah, great stuff. Okay, let's crack on with questions. And the first one, we're not going to read out his name because it's a sensitive subject, but he's a British citizen currently living and working in Melbourne, Australia. And he writes, I'm a huge fan of your Battleground podcast, especially the 1944 series on World War II.
I fully support the idea of a 1945 series, which we mooted as a possibility. And he would love deep dives on the Battle of the Bulge, the liberation of concentration camps by the Allies and Soviets, the rivalry between Konev and Zhukov. Those, of course, are two Soviet generals. The Battle of Salau Heights and the Battle for Berlin, an episode on Himmler and the concentration camp system, as well as the Nuremberg trials, would also be of great interest.
But he goes on to write, I also greatly admire your series on the Ukraine war. Having lived and worked in Russia from 2013 to 19, this topic is particularly close to my heart. My ex-partner, who I remain on very good terms with, is Russian with Ukrainian heritage on her father's side. We are both very much united in our opposition to the war and have supported the Ukrainian war effort.
it. Unfortunately, some of her extended family have been affected. Her uncle fled Kharkiv with his family as the home was destroyed, and she hasn't returned to Russia since 2021 due to fears for her safety. Additionally, I thought it worth highlighting that her, that is his former partner's Ukrainian grandfather, served as a military doctor during World War II. He returned from the war as a hero, having saved a comrade, dragging him
for several kilometers, despite being seriously injured himself. Her grandfather's brother was also in the Red Army and was killed in Southeast Germany while crossing a river. So thank you for that. I mean, it's really interesting to hear all of that, Patrick, isn't it? And encouraging, I think, to feel that there are some Russians who do really get it and are firmly opposed, even though, as one of our other correspondents makes the point, you know, it's very difficult to voice those sentiments within Russia itself.
Yeah, and a reminder of the kind of interlocking of historically of, you know, Ukrainians and Russians in the Second World War, when the Red Army was this multi-national force itself with lots of different ethnic groups and national groupings inside it. Something that's been conveniently forgotten, of course, in the current iteration of history as put out by the Kremlin.
Now, we've got a message from... I've been getting various emails from this group called the PR Army, and that's set up by a collective of Ukrainian public relations people who are absolutely determined to get information out to the world that will combat Russian propaganda. And
They're particularly concerned with the looting of cultural artifacts from Ukraine, which has been going on. I mean, Robert was just talking about the stealing of agricultural equipment. Well, the cultural aspect is even more concerning, in my view, of course, because it has long-term implications. And so in the most recent communication from the PR army, they write that the
H-Art, one of the largest Dutch museums, has recently launched its first major exhibition after severing ties with the Russian Hermitage Museum. Now, once known as the Hermitage Amsterdam, the facility rebranded to decouple from the state Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia's largest and the Kremlin's major aid in the war crimes against Ukrainian heritage.
The PR army go on to write, "In 2021, the Hermitage joined an illegal Russian archaeological mission in Tarik, Chersonesi, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in occupied Crimea, which dates from the fifth century BC. And it was initiated by the Russian Ministries of Culture and Defense. This unauthorized excavation covered over 15% of the reserved area. And this granted the Hermitage," which is why they were involved,
access to up to 500,000 new artifacts recovered during this dig. Before the full-scale invasion, the museum owned up to 114,000 artifacts that originated in Ukraine and were appropriated in the previous decades, says the PR Army. This figure is set to rise as the Hermitage director, Mikhail Piotrovsky, is known for his public support of the full-scale war
and personally contributed to the Russian law on the indivisibility of museum collections. Now, this legislation effectively prohibits the return of artefacts to their places of origin, legalising the plunder of Ukrainian museums and archaeological sites. And we wanted to read that out just to underline that this war is not just about the destruction of human life. It's also about heritage, which I think we can all agree, Patrick, is a hugely important factor in the long term.
Yeah, absolutely. And it's part of the overall war effort, isn't it? It's, you know, these cultural appropriations are the equivalent of seizing territory, aren't they, in a way. So something that we rightly keep a close eye on. Okay, moving on to James, and he's in Melbourne, Australia, and he writes, I noticed that as Patrick
opened the latest episode, he referred to, and James quotes, the proxy conflict with Russia. He had a little hesitancy in using the term as he added, I think you can call it that. I write in support of Patrick's hesitancy. The terms in which we describe things are important. Often subconsciously, these terms frame everything else. They're a bit like an unseen foundation. And it's precisely for this reason that
writes James that the Russian bots and other influence efforts have been so single-minded in trying to get us to adopt their terms for different things in this war. And one of the terms they're very keen on using is proxy. The reason isn't hard to see, says James, if one thinks about it a little. I've
proxy war is one in which two parties are ready for a fight but end up having it out in a third country. The real focus then is not on the country where the conflict is being fought, but rather on the conflict between the two real combatants. The proxy is, after all, merely a proxy. Now, this may be what the Ukraine war is for Russia, although I think that understates its significance for Putin. But for the rest of us, there is nothing at all proxy about this conflict.
This is Ukraine fighting for its life. We don't want to fight Russia, the precise opposite. In fact, our goal is to save Ukraine. Ukraine is not being used as a proxy for anything. Ukraine is the whole point. So what's your response to all of that, Patrick? Do you think he's right in this? Yeah, I mean, I well said, James, I think you were right to pick me up on that. But you did actually, I guess correctly, what I was trying to say. James goes on to say,
I appreciate that what Patrick was trying to say was that the West is, in effect, starting to come into direct conflict with Russia. I think this is true, but I suggest there are better ways of saying this. Well, that's what I was trying to say. I think the West obviously benefits, will benefit, would benefit from a Ukrainian victory, but it's not using Ukraine as a cockpit to pursue a proxy war with Russia, as you rightly say.
There's been great care taken not to actually get into a direct war with Russia. But I particularly like your observation, James, that the terms in which we describe things are important. And that phrase you had, often subconsciously, these terms frame everything else. They are a bit like an unseen foundation. I think that's very, very true. And you often see this, don't you, in the sort of commentary that Robert was talking about in the interview where
An idea, a little phrase gets embedded in the discourse and it comes to be taken as a sort of a fact, a political fact, a reality without actually examining what you were saying too closely. And I think this is one example of this and I stand corrected. Okay, moving on. Ian Nesbitt writes, and this is in response to a suggestion by Evan Morris, which I think was last week, that the Royal Army Medical Corps be used to help within Ukraine.
Ian feels this has a superficial attraction but isn't feasible. And the reason it isn't feasible is because the Defence Medical Services, or DMS as they're known, have suffered a walker drip common to post-war medical services over the last 150 years.
which is, as Ian explains, a stripping out of staff and capability and a loss of corporate memory. And it's interesting, Patrick, that he makes this point because we will remember, you will remember in particular, that Afghanistan was considered to be a real sort of game changer in terms of army medical care.
A lot of advances made there, which have actually fed into the civil medical care. So a lot of serious advances made. But according to Ian, the lessons learned and abilities demonstrated in Afghanistan are now a decade old and pertain to a very different operating environment to that faced by the Ukrainians.
Many of the successes of our DMS then are simply not deliverable in Ukraine. Issues to do with areas of operation, evacuation chains, air superiority, high levels of individual troop training, rapid access to highly specialized care, etc. And this all feeds into, Patrick, I think this whole point about the shrinking of our military capability generally. But the weakest link, according to Ian, who obviously knows probably from the inside what's going on, is actually Ukraine.
army medical care, which is particularly concerning. Yeah, absolutely. It does reinforce that point that Robert was making. And of course, senior military figures like the outgoing head of the British Army, Patrick Sanders, who said last week that basically the military is being hollowed out. So I imagine that that is not good news for the medical services.
Okay, Bobby Borisov from Bulgaria, a fabulous name. I hope that's a genuine one. Bobby writes, in the light of recent events, here's one that's pretty straightforward. Since a 20-year-old got that close to killing ex-President Trump, how come we never see something like that happen in Russia? Can you give your honest opinions on why a sniper can't take down Putin and what would happen with Russia in that scenario? Patrick, what's your take?
feeling about that. It is an extraordinary story, though, isn't it? I actually was looking at some footage this morning about the shot that almost killed former President Trump, soon to be the new President Trump. And literally, it was a hair's breadth. I mean, if he hadn't turned his head at the moment the shot was fired, we'd be leading on a very different story today.
Yeah, well, the evangelical supporters of Trump, who are numerous, will say that's the hand of God that got him to actually turn his head away just at that crucial moment. Well, it's a good question, isn't it? I'll just address the first part of it.
And one thought is that, you know, maybe this is one area where the FSB are actually quite competent. We've seen many examples of their incompetence elsewhere, but maybe they are pretty good at actually providing security. And the Trump security team seem to have been pretty hopeless, don't they? Let's face it, people were pointing out this guy with his rifle, and it took them some time to react to that. But there's something else that occurs to me, and that's
Russian gun laws. I did a little bit of research on this and it turns out that they're actually much tougher than they are in the US. So only something like 4 million people in Russia own a weapon. That's compared with roughly 72 million legal ground owners in America. God knows how many illegal ones there are. So I think monitoring, actually getting the opportunity as a
as a dissident or a group of dissidents to lay your hands on a sniper rifle are much smaller than they would be in America. So most of the weapons held in Russia are smoothbore hunting guns like shotguns and pistols and rifled firearms and the sort you would need to carry out a sniper attack on Putin are very few in number and most of those, most of the people that own those
or many of them at least, are hunters. And of those, a lot are Siberian natives who live a traditional lifestyle in which a gun is an essential tool. So you can't, as you can in America, just walk into a gun shop and buy a hunting rifle. You need to have owned a smoothball gun for several years without any untoward incidents before you can actually upgrade to a rifle. And of course,
fully automatic weapons are completely forbidden. Yeah, I think that's right, Patrick. And we also need to stress the difficulty actually of killing an authoritarian totalitarian leader. I mean, just to flag up a series, two-part series we've got starting next week on Battleground 44, which were the attempted plots to kill Hitler. And it was incredibly difficult to get close to him. But on the sniper
There's a fascinating story told by Roger in one of those episodes in which he talks about the British attache, Mason McFarlane, I think was his name, in the 1930s, in fact, 1938, suggesting to his bosses in the Foreign Office that he actually wanted to have a go and see if he could finish off
uh, Hitler. Now needless to say, the response came back that, uh, no, this wasn't the sort of thing that, that we did assassinating dictators. It hadn't quite come to that, but Mason McFarlane was absolutely convinced that from his drawing room window, he could get a clear shot at Hitler where he would be in Berlin on the day of his birthday for the big parade that day. Uh,
And he thought he was a good enough shot to do the job. I mean, going back to the Trump assassination, what's interesting about this guy is that he wasn't a particularly good shot. And if he'd had been a better shot, even without the turning of the head, he may have actually been able to get the job done, which is what Mason McFarlane thought he could do.
Yeah, but that episode was the subject of a brilliant novel, as you call it, Midnight in Berlin by James McManus. So if you want to read a pictualized account of that, go to James McManus' book. It's a really terrific read.
Okay, question from David in Norway. And he writes, Biden and many other important world leaders echo calls of Ukrainian bravery and resistance. However, 650,000, that's David's figure, qualified Ukrainian men have fled Ukraine. That's a lot of brave men waiting to come home when it's all over. What do you think about this? You know, that's a harsh point, but maybe a fair point. Patrick, what do you think of this?
Well, it certainly is a problem. And I think that number, David mentioned 650,000 is an underestimate because the BBC did an analysis of EU statistics back in November last year, and they found that
About 768,000 Ukrainian men aged between 18 and 64 have left the country for the EU alone since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion. So that figure doesn't include citizens living outside the EU alone.
for those resident anywhere abroad since before February 2022. So it's probably much higher. And there have been official appeals by the defense ministry for those expatriates to come home and serve, but with what result, I don't know. So there's no doubt about it. It is a problem, and one that will only get worse as the situation or the battle remains grim.
Okay, Benjamin from Toledo in Ohio. And I think we've had a couple of messages from Benjamin already. And he writes, can you briefly discuss the way you process firsthand accounts in your research? How do you determine if the author is a reliable narrator? How do you assess whether their biases, rivalries, ego and other factors unduly influence what they've written? How often do you read a firsthand account and conclude that your author is just plain lying to his reader, or at least so badly mistaken that his accounts
bear no relation to reality? Well, it's a really important question. I think we've touched on this before, Patrick, a couple of times, haven't we? And I know that your experience as a journalist is always to, you know,
Basically, you've got to triangulate and make sure that you don't just rely on one source, two sources minimum. I think we do something similar as historians. We're constantly cross-referencing with other people who are in the same location, maybe the same unit if it's a military story, trying to get a sense of the veracity. I think what's interesting about dishonesty in first-hand accounts, and there is plenty of it inevitably, sometimes because people can't remember accurately, sometimes because they're exaggerating what they did,
you will see, I mean, this is my personal opinion, Patrick, you will feel as the reader, certainly someone who's got a broader historical knowledge, as soon as you start seeing lies appearing, then the whole edifice starts to look a bit shaky. So they may have got things wrong
mistakenly, but they may also be lying to kind of buff up their own role in it. So once you start seeing the edifice begin to creak, I think that's a, you know, once the red flags go up, then you begin to think, hold on, I can't really, really trust the whole veracity of this. Yeah, it's a very complicated question, isn't it? And I think a certain amount of instinct is involved
Wouldn't you agree, Saul, that you do get a, like you do with your relations with a living human being or somebody, you know, you get a pretty good idea of how truthful they are quite quickly. And, you know, then after that, I think once you...
give them the benefit of the doubt, then you'll feel fairly confident about going forward with their evidence. And in my experience, very rarely have I found that I was mistaken to put my trust in a particular source. We've also got to look at people's motivations. I mean, people write things down for all sorts of different reasons.
When you're putting forward someone's testimony, you say something about them so the reader can make up their own mind to a certain extent how much credence to give them. If people are coming from a particular ideological, political standpoint, or they're invested in the story you're telling in a particular way, then you help the reader by sort of giving them the choice, really, of saying, well, you could take this with them.
pinch of salt if you feel like, or is it sort of pretty obvious that someone's going to say something for certain reasons? But I think the purest evidence really is personal diaries. Now, even personal diaries can be written for self-aggrandizement. In fact, most of them probably are, particularly in the case of public figures, they're written to be read later and to feed into history's verdict on their activities and their standing. But
I found that some of them, when people say unflattering things about themselves in the privacy of their own diary, that for me is the mark of something you can actually say, you know, what they're saying here is actually what they were thinking and what they did.
Yeah, and just a very general point. I think both of us will agree, Patrick, both in life and also in firsthand sources, that when people have a kind of innate modesty, you are much more likely to believe, you know, the detail they're setting out than someone who is boasting. So, you know, a red flag always for me in some military accounts has been, I shot this guy and then I went around a corner and I finished off somewhere else, someone else, and the body starts rising. And, you know, you know that that's not...
I mean, most soldiers will tell you they kill because they have to. And the idea that they're kind of, you know, totting up the numbers. I mean, soldiers don't generally speak in that way. And if they do, it's probably because they're making things up. Absolutely. Now, interesting thought here from Frank in the US. He says, what do you think was going through Zelensky's mind when Biden called him Putin at the NATO summit last week? Surely that was deeply uncomfortable for Zelensky and his aides. Do you agree with that, Saul?
Yeah, it's hard to know how to answer that. I mean, he must have been utterly horrified. And yet at the same time, what wasn't going through his mind is I can't wait until Biden's replaced by Trump so we can get someone talking a bit of sense. I mean, in the end, whatever state Biden is in mentally, and he obviously goes in and out of lucidity is probably the fairest way of putting it. He and his administration have been absolutely rock solid in their support of
For Zelensky. So I think Zelensky would have forgiven him, you know, as it were, for a slip of the tongue. You know, he wouldn't have taken the defense in the slightest, but he would nevertheless have been slightly concerned because, of course, it's going to undermine the campaign of Biden and make it more likely that a Trump presidency is going to be around the corner.
To be fair, we sometimes do that ourselves, don't we? I just said something about Russia when I was talking about America, which James very kindly pointed out to me so that I re-recorded it. So yeah, even though I don't, I'm not quite as old as Joe Biden, but yeah, we all do it.
Okay, that's all we have time for. Do join us next week for the first of our two-part series on attempted assassinations of Hitler. And that, of course, is to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the July bomb plot. And also again on Friday when we'll be hearing the latest from Ukraine. Goodbye.