Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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Hello and welcome to Battleground Ukraine's Big Interview with me, Saul David, and Patrick Bishop.
Today we're talking to Colonel Hamish de Breton-Gordon, a former officer in the Royal Tank Regiment and the 14th 20th Hussars, who saw active service in the First Gulf War and later commanded the UK's Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment and also NATO's Rapid Reaction CBRN Battalion.
Hamish, welcome to the podcast. Now, the two big pieces of news last week were the effective start of the Ukrainian counteroffensive and shortly after the destruction of the Kharkov Dam. You were one of the first analysts to pin the blame squarely on the Russians when many journalists were simply reporting dutifully, no doubt they felt that each side had blamed the other. Your view and ours as it happens has been confirmed by the release of various bits of intelligence on the
Do you think now, though, with a few days after the event, Hamish, that the Russian action was deliberate or partially a cock-up? Well, that's a really good question. But I think it was probably deliberate. I know that an awful lot of journalists were sitting so firmly on the fence last week that they're in danger of injuring themselves. And I sort of appreciate that, you know, the balanced view and everything else. But, you know, certainly in my experience, creating obstacles like this can...
can be incredibly effective. And in my piece last week in the Telegraph, I talked about when I was with the Peshmerga in the fight with ISIS back in 2017, and ISIS
blew up somewhere called Al-Mishraq, a sulfur mine, put a huge cloud, 400,000 tons of sulfur dioxide in the air, which had a really profound effect on the Iraqi army who were advancing north to Mosul. So in my mind, blowing up the dam did very similar. I know lots of people saying, oh, well, it affected Russian defensive positions. Well, it might well have done, but it turned the Dnipro River, which at the time was a couple of kilometers wide at best,
into many, many kilometers wide. And assault river crossings are the most complex operations that you can do. So in my mind, it was very deliberate to cut off that western probe, west of the dam, to cut it off from any armored advance. Because had they been able to use that and get across the Dnipro, it was then very good armored country right down into Crimea. So
It strikes me, and I fear, you know, the Russians don't have very many cards up their sleeve. So I think it was absolutely deliberate. And with that going, I'm sure you covered the details of it last week. But to me, you know, all the explosions were going straight upwards. You know, artillery fire creates a splash, if you like. So there was no way in my mind, and also the artillery available, I'm sure there was no way that it could be
done to, you know, even a couple of storm shadows would have had a challenge doing that. So I think absolutely, it was a deliberate piece, whether it has materially affected the Ukrainian operations, we are yet to see, but it's certainly given everybody something to think about. And I
Who has benefited most at the moment? Again, I think we'll see. But, you know, there are 20-odd thousand Ukrainian families who've had to move or people who've had to move, great shortage of drinking water. So, you know, on balance, Ukraine has suffered most. So I'm no doubt it was a deliberate attempt by the Russians to affect the counteroffensive. Can we just develop that a bit more, Hamish, and tell us how this would have impacted, as you say, negatively on...
on the Ukrainian counter-offensive plans. What do you see as being the initial problems they're facing as a result of this? Well, I think the first point is it gives them less options. So, you know, before the dam was blown, the Ukrainian armoured forces could potentially operate over a vast area from the east right to the west.
In effect now, they're not going to be operating, certainly with armoured vehicles, to the west of the dam for several weeks, if not months, because that ground will be untenable for armoured vehicles. So I think it has restricted their ability to operate. Now, whether they were going to anyway, I slightly think it was a little bit too obvious. And my experience with the Ukrainians
certainly from the military side, is they are very canny. I'm sure they're getting a lot of very good advice, a lot of very good intelligence, but it just restricts their options. And, you know, they're rather more a sort of Sun Tzu approach than a Clausewitz approach. You know, if they can get around behind the enemy, then all the better. And we're seeing at the moment lots of sort of recce by force probing attacks happening.
predominantly sort of in the East, which sort of one would expect trying to find a weak point. But I would also expect something a little bit more, not imaginative, that's the wrong word, but perhaps, you know, some sort of coup de main type activity, you know, getting people in behind, you
And that might well have been the plan to the west of the dam. That makes it much more difficult now. I just I'm not aware of how comprehensive the sort of their mobile forces are or their amphibious forces to be able to do something like that. But I think it is restricting options. And.
What we've seen with the Russians is that they are fighting a very static warfare. I think mainly because they have so many conscripts, actually to do combined arms manoeuvre, armoured warfare is a very complex operation. It takes a long time to learn how to do it. But if you're only training the majority of your force, you know, a couple of days, there's no way they can do that. All they can do is sit in the trench and fight. So...
The advantage a combined arms maneuver force has is it has lots of options. But what this has done has almost cut down by a quarter the sort of frontage that they could have used. So it's channeling them and you never want to be channeled because then that's where the enemy can look to, you know, set up ambushes and counterattacks themselves.
Yeah, we'll come back to the counteroffensive and speculation on where and when and what sort of weight is going to be used in a moment, Hamish. But obviously from the Ukrainian side and a lot of Western analysts and politicians have been framing this as a war crime. You sort of hinting that it could be argued it's a legitimate act of war for them to destroy this dam. Which side of the fence are you going on that? I don't think it's legitimate at all.
You know, is it a ruse of war? Well, it might well be. But when you attack civilians, and that's something that, you know, I have been profoundly involved in really for the last 10 years, having spent a long time in Syria where Assad and the Russians, when they joined battle,
They purely attack civilians because it was the easiest thing for them to do. And by attacking civilians, you know, you break the will. And, you know, I talk about this for hours, but I had a very profound experience in Aleppo in December 2016.
when the Syrians and latterly, the Russians were attacking Aleppo conventionally for four years, getting absolutely nowhere. 400,000 civilians were trapped. They then used chemical weapons, chlorine, and the civilians capitulated. And I think that put in their mind that actually, if you break the will of civilians and attack them, then that is easier than attacking the military. And we've
Seen that almost since the get-go, or certainly since General Savarkin became heavily involved in the conflict on the Russian side, where you attack schools, you attack hospitals. We had the medical charities I was working for in Syria over the period from 2012 up until now. We've had over a thousand doctors killed, and I've lost count of the amount of hospitals attacked.
But we saw that at the beginning of the war or sort of from March, April last year when the Russian forces were getting nowhere. They then started attacking the infrastructure, the power grid, hospitals and schools. I mean, even cynically attacking schools at dropping off time and picking up time.
with the idea that if you can terrify the population. So a very long-winded answer to your question. So why do I think that the dam should be added to Putin's list of war crimes that he's going to be tried for at some stage at the International Criminal Court? Because it had a military effect, but primarily...
And it affected civilians. It made them homeless. We don't know how many died. It's cut off the water, disease. And also it's trashed thousands of hectares of prime agricultural land that probably won't be able to be used for at least 12 months or so. So if you directly attack civilians, then in my view, and I'm not a lawyer, that is a war crime.
So, sure, it might have had a military effect, but it affected civilians. The only effect that it's had on the Ukraine military at the moment is actually constricting some of their lines of manoeuvre and their options. On that subject, Hamish, you've got a great deal of expertise in chemical, biological and nuclear warfare and nuclear.
also direct on-the-ground experience of what the Russians are capable of in Syria. Can you envisage a scenario where they might move up to that level in the current conflict? Well, I certainly have very firm views and again wrote about this last week.
and got some surprising comments. I get comments every hour from Russian bots, and I'm sure as anybody who is trying to support the Ukrainians do. But certainly when it comes to the nuclear side, I'm surprised by some people who I thought were not associated with the Russian government taking issue. So when it comes to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear,
I think that there are two definitive sides to this. The first side is it is shown that nuclear weapons, or at least Putin's nuclear weapon deterrent, is and threats are completely hollow.
From the very get-go, he threatened nuclear attack on the West in order to prevent NATO getting heavily involved. In my view, it's had absolutely the converse. NATO has never been stronger. Finland, one of the most powerful armies in Europe, has joined the alliance.
Putin now has an extra 850 miles of border to worry about, or kilometers of border to worry about. It's likely that Sweden will join soon. And after the conflict, it's likely that Ukraine will join. So actually threatening nuclear has had the absolute opposite. I think when we look at, when we sort of forensically look at it and why that's happened, well,
I think the strategic, the Armageddon, was never going to be an option. We've had conflicts ever since the Second World War, and it's held the peace as it were since then. When lots of people talk about his tactical nuclear weapons, these are smaller yields of between 3 and 10 kilotons, still massive explosives.
explosions, but not on the scale of strategic weapons. And the range of these weapons mean that they have to be moved right onto the Ukraine border virtually to use them.
And there is a view, which I share, that actually a lot of the people operating those tactical nuclear weapons on a sky, a scan of vehicles, sort of missiles, or even loading up the jets that would fire them, there is a view that they would not follow those orders. And I'm hoping that's true. There is also a view that these things, a lot of them are very old and may not work.
We've also, on the British intelligence update some months ago, it detailed that actually a lot of these missiles that carried nuclear warheads were having the nuclear warheads taken off and put conventional ones on because they're getting so short. We then see the much vaunted hypersonic missile that allegedly was going to defeat NATO being knocked out of the sky,
with apparent relative leaves by patriots and others. So I think the nuclear piece for Putin has completely failed. And I don't see it becoming an issue, except when you link it to the dam and just upstream from the dam, we have the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Station, which is the largest nuclear power station in Europe, about four times the size of Chernobyl.
The Russians occupied it very early on in the conflict. They've got troops stationed there. They use it as a fire base for artillery and others. And the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, I think they've had them there for some time, detailed early May that they believed that the Russians had put explosives in some of the reactor housing areas.
which, you know, very similar to the dam. So I think the big threat from nuclear is actually what I call an improvised nuclear device. If the Russians decided to blow up Zaporozhye,
it would have a similar impact to the dam. Now, we don't know where the radiation, the contamination would go. It's basically going to go laterally east or west, and it very much depends on the weather. Actually, at the moment, the weather is not very good, and there's low pressure, and winds around low pressure go anti-clockwise. So in theory, a lot of the contamination at the moment would go east,
usually at this time of weather, yeah, there is high pressure and the contamination would go west.
So I think that is the area of concern. Whether somebody would be cynical enough to do it, you know, I don't know. We all know what happened with Chernobyl and actually a lot of the radiation came down in the UK. Very difficult to predict where it's going to go because the weather changes and radiation moves on the weather. In theory, any sort of contamination on the ground would again prevent it being used. But, you know, certainly prevent it being used by...
if NATO was fighting. But very early on in the war, we saw the Russians occupy Chernobyl. And they put a lot of troops in there with no NBC, CBRN protection kit, and allegedly, you know, over 150 died of radiation poisoning. So again, people are saying, well, Russian troops have got no respirators on them. So, you know, it's very unlikely that they'd do anything like this. Well,
That's on the assumption that the Russians look after their soldiers as well as we do. And I think we've quite clearly seen that they don't. Just to finish on this, on the chemical and biological side, despite, again, at the beginning of the war, the Russians talking a lot about false flags, I don't see it. I was, somebody did highlight that.
The Titan chemical factory to me, which is a vast chemical factory in Crimea last week that they claimed had been wired for explosives, which that basically has sulfur dioxide that, again, would have an impact. It was the same. Sulfur dioxide was a problem in northern Iraq back in 2017. But I don't really see it. But I think the most likely threat is...
is the Zaparicia accident. And myself and a lot of others have called to try and establish a demilitarized zone around these places, which in theory, the Geneva Convention and all the rules of war state that if you have sites like this or you have sensitive sites like hospitals, like churches, mosques, etc., they should have a sort of demilitarized zone around them. They are protected.
But certainly my experience in Syria is when we gave coordinates of our hospitals to the United Nations, we then shared them with the Russians and the Syrians. The next day, we got a precision guided missile through the hospital. These are the sort of people you deal with. So a long rambling answer, Zaparicia, I think, is the biggest concern.
And I really hope we won't go anywhere with this on the chemicals. So I don't think the Russians have, I don't think they've got loads of nerve agent Novichok knocking around and actually blowing up factories can just as easily affect your own troops as it would the others. Well, that was fascinating, wasn't it? Lots of really good comment and detail and analysis. Terrific stuff. Do join us for the second half of Mr. Bretton Gordon's interview after the break.
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Welcome back to Battleground Ukraine's Big Interview. And today we're talking to Colonel Hamish de Breton-Gordon. This is what he told us. Hamish, we would have both been in the same place at the same time of the first Gulf War. And what we saw there was after the initial Allied advance into Kuwait, there was a pretty much an immediate collapse of the Iraqi defenders. Can you imagine the same sort of scenario happening in the future?
happening here in the event of a significant Ukrainian breakthrough? I think there probably is.
Morale is such an important thing. And we have seen that morale in the Russian forces is pretty low. I mean, the Wagner group and the Russian army seem to be keener to fight themselves rather than the Ukrainians. And actually, they've got a pretty similar kit to what the Iraqis had back in 1991. I mean, it's T-72s and D-30s. They've obviously got a bit more modern stuff as well.
And everything coming out of it, and we talked about the conscripts and their lack of training. Predominantly, it is conscripts. The elite of the Russian force was pretty much destroyed in the first few months of the war. There are a few veterans knocking around, but when your most effective fighting force is a bunch of criminals, then you sort of realize that you're up against it. So I would anticipate that once the armored thrust breaks through the first quarter,
sort of few lines of defense and gets into the back that, you know, very quickly these people who don't really want to fight anyway will do what we saw in Iraq with thousands and thousands surrendering if they can. I mean, you know, the Russians are even more brutal than, you know, the Iraqi army back in 91. You know, officers lead from behind and lead with a, you know, a revolver. So it's...
I mean, warfare is brutal anyway, but this is particularly brutal. And, you know, I think what is really devastating is a lot of those young conscripts, you know, in the Donbass and elsewhere, you know, they're not from Moscow or St. Petersburg. They're not the elite's young men, predominantly, predominantly.
these are people from the East. And, you know, there are stories that the Russians have identified people who wouldn't be noticed because of that. They're either, you know, from the East or they're drug addicts, alcoholics, people of low intellect, et cetera, et cetera. Now,
these are not the right people to have fighting. I mean, Napoleon knew a bit about these things, and I think his quote that I overuse and others do is that morale is tenets to one, the physical. And yeah, so I would have thought...
that is likely to happen. But some of the brutal leaders in Russia will be doing all they can to prevent it happening. And I expect there'll be almost as many bullets in people's backs than there are on people's fronts. Hamish, impossible question really to answer with any certainty. But
How do you see this playing out? You've spoken about Zelensky really being up against, you know, the clock is ticking now. This is a big opportunity, this counteroffensive. Let's just say for the sake of argument that it does go pretty well and it manages to drive through to the Azov Sea.
How is this going to make it possible to negotiate a peace, do you think, given that the Ukrainians on the one hand are absolutely determined now, quite understandably, after all the blood's been spilt and all the war crimes that have been perpetrated, to recover all their territory? And Putin or whoever is left as a sort of, you know, rump regime will, of course, also be determined not to avoid that ultimate humiliation.
Yeah, it's a really difficult one. But I think the Ukrainians are playing it right. You know, they are not in a position to negotiate at the moment. They want to get into a position where they can negotiate a peace deal. Now, at the moment, Zelensky is saying that is when all Russians are kicked out of Ukraine territory back to 2014 levels. And that might well be the case.
I think, you know, the Russians obviously are trying to save some sort of grace. And a lot of commentators say, well, if Putin goes, worse will be to follow, which that might well be right. But the worst that follows is going to have no army to threaten the West with or Ukraine with for some time to come. You know, whatever metrics or figures that one believes, it is very clear that the Russians have lost control
possibly over 4,000 tanks, possibly over 200,000 soldiers. Now, even for a country the size of Russia, to rebuild that is going to take time. So it is going to be very difficult, absolutely. And when it comes to negotiating a peace deal, I'm sure there'll be ebbing and flowing each way.
And again, I think Zelensky is a very shrewd fellow and realizes that, you know, no doubt there will be influence from outside, from NATO, from the US and others, because, you know, Ukraine's got to be rebuilt at the end of it.
But whether the end state is back to 2014 levels and, you know, sort of some sort of buffer zone between Ukraine and Russia, who knows? Or whether anything is traded, who knows? But I think at this stage, Zelensky is right. You know, there's
There's no negotiation until we've got a peace. But the fundamental thing, I think, is that the Russian military is going to take some time to rebuild to be an effective force. And actually, there are probably, you know, once it's over, there are other concerns that NATO and the West will need to think about.
Well, that was really terrific stuff, wasn't it, Saul? This issue of the overmatch in terms of equipment, you know, the night vision goggles and all the rest of it, it seems astonishing that the Russians actually haven't caught up on that front. But, you know, it is heartening to hear that this combination of, you know, the ability to maneuver, to actually operate in an integrated way, plus the technological advantage, of course, plus the morale advantage, makes Hamish very hopeful.
Yeah, he's very optimistic. And so are we. I mean, it's great, really, to have a lot of our theories, our thoughts confirmed by Hamish, who, let's face it, Patrick, has a lot more experience in these matters than you or I do. I mean, he was particularly firm on his conviction that the nuclear threats, that the nuclear saber rattling that Russia has been indulging in since the start of the war,
serious invasion last year are hollow, as he puts it. Having said all of that, of course, one of the worrying aspects of the dam is the potential for Russia to use the Zaporozhye nuclear power station, which of course is upriver of the dam, as a kind of improvised nuclear weapon. I mean, that's
Hamish's main concern. And he would like to see, as of course, so would we. And we've been talking about this power plant again for many months. We would like to see some kind of demilitarized zone around it so we don't get a second Chernobyl. So we can be reasonably confident, people listening to this podcast can be reasonably confident, you'll never know for sure, that the Russians aren't going to use tactical nuclear weapons, but they could, of course, try and create some kind of incident which would have a similar appalling effect.
Yes, also struck by his analysis of the quality of the Russian forces. We all know morale is low, but just to have it spelled out like that, you know, the very fact that the elite units were knocked out in the first months of the war. And as he put it, you know, if your most effective fighting force now is a bunch of criminals, what does that tell you about the state of the Russian military? And, you know, on this issue of when I raised the question of a
of a breakthrough and a potential collapse, he again was pretty upbeat about that possibility. Just to go back to those first Gulf War days, it was quite remarkable how suddenly it came. And when I was up racing around with a couple of other guys in a kind of four-wheel drive dressed as soldiers, and Iraqi troops would come forward and try and surrender to us. It was quite amusing and novel the first time, but after the third or fourth time, it just became a bit of a nuisance. So
Hamish is not ruling out that we might see similar scenes in eastern Ukraine. No, it was interesting, his comments about Russian bots. You know, we keep suspecting we're going to be getting a little bit of influence from official Russian circles. We're not asking for it, for that matter. But...
We keep thinking it must be about to happen. But one of the things that struck me since the start of the counteroffensive, since we recorded last week, Patrick, has been the number of Western commentators who still seem to have this pro-Russian bias. They can't quite believe this vaunted Russian military is about to be defeated and have taken a certain amount of enjoyment at seeing some of the leopards and some of the armoured vehicles being knocked out. Really quite astonishing. And they are clinging to the hope that this is a sign that, you know, they're
earlier predictions that Russia was going to crush Ukraine is still going to come to pass. But unfortunately for them, I'm afraid the news this morning, and I suspect unfolding over the next few days, is that these probing attacks are beginning to force cracks in the Russian defensive system. And I am absolutely with Hamish on this one. I think those cracks will soon develop into a full blown breakthrough. And then this avalanche of armour will really cause havoc.
in the Russian rear. Well, here's hoping. That's all, I think, from us for this session. Do join us on Friday when there'll be so much to talk about. Things are really gathering pace, I feel, in the conflict at the moment. I'm sure you agree with me, Saul. So there'll be a great deal to talk about. Do join us then on Friday. Thank you.