Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Friday episode of Battleground Ukraine with me, Patrick Bishop, and Saul David. This has been a news-packed week with important developments coming thick and fast from all quarters. In Vilnius, the NATO summit has just ended with firm pledges of continuing robust military support for Ukraine, but no movement on the timetable to full membership of the alliance that President Zelensky has been pleading for.
There were also signs of tensions between leading NATO members in Kyiv, with both the US and the UK hinting strongly that a bit more gratitude from the Ukrainian government for the great assistance they have received from America and Britain would not come amiss. And on the battlefield, there are reports that Ukrainian forces are suffering heavy casualties as the counter-offensive grinds on, particularly on the front around Bakhmut.
On top of that, there appear to be serious shortages of kit and particularly ammunition. Now, on the other hand, there are indications that progress is being made, particularly in Bakhmut, with Kiev making credible claims that their troops have captured high ground, which means they can call down artillery fire on the Russian-held city and the defenders' supply routes.
And as we've come to expect, there have been more fascinating twists in the Wagner saga, with reports that one of the main targets of Yevgeny Prigozhin's vitriol, Chief of Staff Valery Grasimov, has been given the push, while Prigozhin himself has had a cosy chat with Vladimir Putin to discuss his future employment. But first of all, that all-important NATO meeting, what did you make of it, Patrick?
Well, there's plenty of drama, wasn't there, Saul? For the first time, we saw open evidence of friction between Zelensky and the Ukrainians on one side at the slow pace of their NATO accession and some exasperation on the NATO side at the constant demands that are being made on them from Kiev.
Now, Ben Wallace, the UK Defence Secretary, summed it all up quite nicely in that soundbite, didn't he, with his account of a trip to Ukraine last year when he said that he was presented with a shopping list of military supplies that the
military was demanding, to which he replied that the allies were, quote, not Amazon, and Kiev needed to show a bit more gratitude for the weapons donations if they wanted to get more. Well, this earned him a veiled rebuke from his boss, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. But the sentiments were then echoed by the US National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, who
who said that the American people deserve a degree of gratitude from the Ukrainians for all the help they were getting. I mean, they've received a total thus far of about $46 billion worth of hardware. And there's another $66 billion worth in the pipeline.
I mean, the temperature had actually been raised before the meeting when President Zelensky made some rather intemperate remarks complaining about the slow progress that's being made on NATO membership. There's always been a danger, I think, to Zelensky's style, which was very refreshing and uplifting when we first sort of encountered him, might start to wear a little bit thin after a while. And I think that's what's happened here. The fact is that, as we all know, Western politicians have electorates to think about.
There's a big cost of living crisis in European countries. And there are, of course, US presidential elections looming next year. So no one wants to be seen writing a blank cheque to bankroll the Ukrainian war effort. Well, Zelensky knows all this, of course, and he was smart enough to quickly wrote back and assure everyone that he was deeply grateful for all their help. And so by the end, it was all smiles.
in my view, no real damage was done here. But what do you think, Saul? I mean, it has opened up a rather interesting debate, hasn't it? I mean, should we expect the Ukrainians to be more grateful? I mean, after all, their view is that they're the ones fighting this war on all our behalves with
We're giving them money, we're giving them weapons, but they're the ones that are doing all the dying. Exactly right. But I do think Zelensky was being unrealistic and expecting to get any definite timetable for membership. And when you stand back from it all, the summit ended with a convincing show of unity and some pretty solid pledges to keep the military aid taps opened.
And some of the details are very significant. What NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg actually announced was that NATO has agreed a three-part package. It will give Ukraine a multi-year programme of practical assistance, create a NATO-Ukrainian Coordination Council. And here's the interesting bit.
commit NATO to allow Ukraine to join the alliance without going through a membership action plan. Now, this so-called MAP is significant, Patrick, because some countries are still trying to get through this process a good 10 to 20 years after their initial application to join. So by doing away with that, they're undoubtedly speeding up the timescale for membership.
Ukraine to join. In addition, G7 members Germany, Japan, France, Canada, Italy, Britain and the United States have signed a general framework document called the Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine aimed at offering Ukraine military, financial and intelligence support and stating that each member of the G7 will enter into additional bilateral security negotiations.
So overall, the summit has been pretty successful, I think, both for NATO and for Ukraine, and offers some pretty robust assurances that Ukraine will be welcomed into NATO sooner rather than later. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And indeed, you know, on the MAP front, the Ukrainians already been told this and had sort of welcomed it. You know, it does remove a big obstacle on the path forward.
to NATO membership. But nonetheless, Zelensky did feel he had to kind of raise the temperature a bit. Anyway, on the kit front, you know, there's still...
A bit of foot dragging there on the American side, isn't there, Saul? I mean, we've got, you know, when you think about the long promised army tactical missile system, which has been in the works for a long, long time. But, you know, when Biden left, he still wasn't prepared to say, yes, it's definitely coming.
And they definitely need everything they can get ASAP because things are moving very slowly on the battlefield. We got a glimpse of this from the Belgian journalist Arnaud de Decker.
who's on the big interview this week, talking about the horrendous conditions on the front line that he saw. He was at a first aid post down near Bakhmut when a badly wounded soldier was brought in who described these hellish scenes in the trenches, dead bodies scattered all over the place. And I also received a similar message from a friend in Ukraine who's got a relative who is serving as a lieutenant in an artillery unit just north of Bakhmut
Now, the battalion he's in was only formed five months ago from scratch, and only a handful of the members have actually got any previous military experience. Now, he told him that they were getting shelled nonstop, that the Russians seemed to have an endless supply of ammunition, whereas his unit had to use their shells very sparingly. They'd only got 20% of the guns and
the ammunition, the armoured vehicles that they're supposed to be equipped with. And there was also confirmation of something we've heard before, that the Russians are able to now electronically disable Ukrainian drones, which have been so effective in the war to date, and have helped to compensate for Ukraine's disadvantage in numbers and weaponry. He confirmed that the Ukrainians are taking many casualties, and he told my friend,
Every meter forward means blood, death and terrible injuries. So sobering stuff is,
Even though, as I said, some progress is being made with the Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister, Hanna Meliar, saying that unspecified heights dominating the city, this is Bakhmut we're talking about, are now in Ukrainian hands and that this gives them what's known in military parlance as fire control, i.e. the ability to shell the city and the approaches, you know, the resupply routes, etc.
And this statement has been has been cautiously graded as credible by the Institute of the Study of Warfare. But this picture seems to be what we've said before. What we've heard from Ukrainian officials that the game plan here is that Ukraine is trying to trap Russian forces within the city. And it appears that they are slowly enveloping. The Ukrainians are slowly enveloping the Russian forces.
in back by coming around the flanks. But it's all a bit slow for my liking, but then I tend to be a bit more pessimistic than you, Saul, don't I? I do worry that we might have been guilty of a bit of wishful thinking in our previous upbeat statements. Well,
Well, we almost certainly were, Patrick. But as we said last week, we have to be patient. Ukraine, as we know, is fighting a very different war to Russia. It's not prepared to lose the same amount of men to gain territory. It needs to degrade Russian manpower and material before it can move forward. This all makes, I think, in my view, the concentration on Bakhmut a little strange because they are undoubtedly going to be taking casualties there, as we know from those accounts you've already mentioned, Patrick.
But I suppose they would consider it a huge propaganda coup, that is the Ukrainians, if they were able to recover it so soon after it was lost and at a cost of many fewer lives. On the other hand, as we've said many times, it doesn't really hold great strategic value. So why are the Ukrainians so determined to capture it? We don't know for sure. Time will tell, no doubt, when as historians we look back on this. But I suppose one interesting indication is that it is still fixing the Russians' situation.
in this position and therefore taking away a little bit of their concentration elsewhere. And just one last point to make about the counteroffensive. We know from murmurings made by the Americans and also the Ukrainians that the counteroffensive proper has yet to begin. So we are going to have to be patient on that.
Now, the bigger picture, Patrick, as you've already pointed out, is that the NATO meeting did confirm some important pledges. And yet the U.S. continues to drag its feet over the supply of long range missiles and advanced drones, apparently fearing, as we've said many times before, that they would be used to hit targets inside Russia's legal borders. There were a lot of hints recently that they were going to hand over the ATMS system, which you mentioned earlier.
But it's yet to happen. And instead, they're offering cluster bombs, which even leaving aside the issue of morality, are not really a war winning weapon and frankly, don't seem to have much practical use in the current circumstances.
Yeah, well, we'll talk about that a little bit more detail later on about the cluster bombs. But yeah, there is some good. There's a bit of a role reversal going on here, isn't it? I mean, the Europeans are stepping into the breach. You know, Macron, President Macron of France, who has played a new sort of stance, has shifted quite dramatically since the outset when he was, you know, a wannabe peacemaker with Russia, has announced at the start of the NATO summer that France is going to be sending troops
scalp, S-E-A-L-P cruise missiles to Ukraine. Now, this is the same as, in fact, it's jointly developed with Britain as Storm Shadow. And we've already sent some Storm Shadows. Now, they've got a range of 340 miles. So, you know, they are well capable of hitting, you know, swathes of Russian territory. And there's also, Biden did say that there'll be more shells on the way. He recognized that that was a problem.
But, you know, they've known about this shortage for months and months, haven't they? I mean, we all remember Zelensky at the beginning of this phase of the war. You know, everyone applauded him for rejecting the U.S. offer to exfiltrate him from Kiev and saying, you know, I don't want a ride. I want ammo. But he's still very short of it. Now, on the cluster bombs thing, I've actually seen them in action during the first Gulf War when the
Americans were spraying them everywhere. The Americans, of course, haven't signed this international convention. 120 other nations have to ban the use of cluster bombs, nor are the Russian signatories, nor indeed are the Ukrainians. I mean, they're pretty sort of nasty things. We were driving around the desert front lines and you saw quite a few of these sinister,
split open, lying where they'd fallen all over the place. And the even more sinister looking little metal bomblets scattered in the sand, which, of course, as soon as we saw them, we knew what they were and very gingerly reversed out of the area. They're, you know, they're nasty, but I would have thought they were way down, you
Ukraine's wish list kit-wise. You know, what it needs is these long-range missiles to hit the logistics, command and control, ammunition dumps, et cetera, the deep rear areas. But as you say, Saul, it seems that, you know, Ukraine has not reached this critical mass in its buildup
to launch a full-scale attack aimed at a strategic breakthrough. And, you know, being a bit on the gloomy side again, time is passing, people are dying, public opinion is fickle in the West. And on the Ukrainian side, of course, exhaustion and morale are going to become more and more of an issue. But let's hope I'm wrong. In the meantime, what about these, on a lighter note, you might say, what about these more shenanigans in the Wagner story?
Well, before I come to Wagner, because it is extraordinary, isn't it, Patrick? Just to mention another important bit of news this week in relation to the use of storm shadow missiles. And that's the killing in a targeted attack in Berdyansk, which is an occupied part of Ukraine, of the most senior general to die in the war so far, Russian general, that is. That was Lieutenant General Oleg Toskov.
who was apparently the deputy commander of Russia's southern district. So, you know, it's extraordinary that this was the place he was staying at. It was apparently a hotel. It was well known to the Ukrainians that the senior staff of that general were staying there and they took it out with a storm shadow missile.
And another interesting bit of news this week, Patrick, yet to be verified, but another major general, senior general in the Russian army has been sacked for apparently criticizing the fact that MOD is effectively stabbing his men in the back, as he put it, with...
We don't really have firm details on that, but it's another indication of dissatisfaction on the front line. And the reason, I suppose, why Wagner had the passive support that it did when it mutinied. Now, going on to Prigozhin, as you say, we thought he was going to fade from the scene, but that was clearly fanciful. This week, his fortunes are definitely on the up again. For one thing, he seems to have succeeded in his campaign to get rid of Valery Gerasimov.
We'll see if Shoigu, the defense minister, goes to at some point. And for another, it looks like he's back in favor with his old patron Putin. How do we know this? Because Peskov, the official spokesman for the Kremlin, told us at the beginning of the week that a meeting was held just four days after the mutiny, Patrick, in Moscow, at which Prigozhin and his senior commanders effectively apologized or at least explained for what they'd done.
And then Putin in return, instead of stringing them all up, which is what you might have imagined he should and would have done, basically offered them new terms of employment. I mean, you literally couldn't make it up. But again, as we've said before, this, in my view, is a sign that Putin simply isn't strong enough to deal with them.
Quite so. I mean, Stalin, it's not the way Stalin would have handled matters, is it? Just one final word on the summit. I was pleased to see that President Erdogan of Turkey has relaxed his opposition to Swedish entry to NATO. Of course, this change of tact came at a price. So he managed to squeeze some concessions from Sweden over its attitude towards Kurdish troops.
opposition groups in the country. And it also brought an end to a dispute with the US over the delivery from America of F-16 jets to Turkey. There's F-16s again. But it suggests to me anyway, that for the time being, at least, Erdogan is tilting
firmly towards its NATO responsibilities and doesn't see much advantage at the moment in keeping in with Putin, which is good news. Okay, that's enough for part one. Do join us after the break when we'll be answering listeners' questions. Lots of interesting topics this week.
We've been taken to task by some of our listeners about our slightly negative remarks about left-wing press coverage. So, yeah, there's a bit of a rap on the knuckles there. But there's lots of fascinating stuff and some really high-level comments about, you know, what the Ukraine war tells us about the future of warfare. Do join us after the break.
Welcome back. Well, we've been inundated with questions this week and we're really sorry if yours don't get addressed. We tend to leave out those we think have been given an airing in part one of the programme and try to pick out those that seem to be of most concern at the moment. But all contributions are very welcome and we're grateful for all the information and insights you give us each week.
And also, it must be said, for correcting us when it is felt we get something wrong. I'm referring, of course, as Patrick mentioned before the break, to a bunch of emails we got from listeners taking issue with our remarks about the left-oriented press in the UK's coverage of Ukraine. There's clearly a strong feeling that we've been less than fair to the likes of The Guardian and The Mirror, but we'll come to that later on.
First, here's the first question from Chad from Cleveland, Ohio. And he says, we hear a lot about Ukraine's procurement of Western armor and most recently their requests for Western fixed wing assets like the F-16. But why hasn't there been more serious discussion about providing Western rotary wing assets to Ukraine? I mean, he's, of course, talking about the fact that the Russians have been putting helicopters like the Ka-52 Alligator to good use.
So why is there not more discussion about providing Ukraine assets like the AH-64 Apache and AH-1Z Viper or other similar helicopters, assault helicopters? Patrick, have you got any view on that? I mean, we've addressed this a little bit in the past. The indication is that helicopters are vulnerable in an offensive capacity, but is there something more to it than that, do you think? I think that's basically it, isn't it, Saul? They're very expensive bits of kit. They are vulnerable. I mean, the one thing...
Russia has consistently had is very good air defense systems. They're up close. You know, they can knock these helicopters down. It's a lot of expensive kit plus loss of highly skilled manpower that you're risking there. It would be great if there was some way of doing it differently. But I just think the risk to reward element is so much, so disfavorable to Ukrainians that that explains it. From my kind of, I have to admit, not terribly personal,
well-informed point of view. What about you, Saul? Have you got any insight? No, I mean, I feel the same way you do, Patrick. I mean, in terms of our expertise on how these weapon systems operate, we both have to confess we're not absolutely up to the mark. But, you know, the broader point to make about these helicopters is that, as you can see with Russia, they're terrifically useful if you can stand back from the front line and use them against attacking forces at
Possibly not so effective if you use them in conjunction with attacking forces, if you don't have overall air control, which the Ukrainians don't. But we will be correct. We're happy to be corrected by listeners. Anyone who has experience of the Apaches, for example, if they want to write in and set us straight.
Andrew doesn't give his location, writes to say, we'd love to hear how you see the outcome of the NATO summit, in particular, in the context of possible future pathways to peace. Has the summit made it more likely or less likely that peace can be achieved sooner? Well, we talked about the kind of military aspect. What do you think, Saul? Do you think that this has actually brought peace any closer?
Well, you could see it both ways, can't you? I mean, what we've got from the NATO summit, as we've already explained earlier in the programme, is a really firm commitment to supporting Ukraine in intelligence, in supplying military kit, in providing an eventual pathway into NATO. And that should not be underestimated, because I think what we've said from the beginning is that Putin's strategy when he failed to capture Ukraine at the beginning was really just to sit it out and hope that Ukraine and the West, of course, would tire of
and that ultimately he'd be able to achieve some, certainly not all, but some of his objectives. This commitment from NATO now, I think, makes it really obvious in the corridors of power in Moscow, if they're prepared to listen. And I'm not necessarily talking about Putin, but I'm talking about the key people under him. And I've got something more to say about that later on in the questions.
that actually they're in it for the long haul and we need to get out of this disastrous scenario sooner rather than later. But as you already pointed out, Patrick, I'm a little bit more of an optimist than you are. But I do think this firm commitment is absolutely vital, both diplomatic, financial and military. OK, here's a question from Andy Tilson. And he asked, do you believe that if a cabal of senior Russians do topple Putin, then it may be in their interest to hand him over to an international criminal court? Yes.
that's of course the ICC in The Hague, this would relieve them of the danger of a vengeful ex-leader. Patrick, what do you think? Well, there are precedents for this in this
part of the world, you'll remember that Serbia handed over another warmongering leader, that was Slobodan Milosevic, to the International Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia in The Hague way back in 2001. Now, Milosevic had previously just been overthrown after a disputed
election so the circumstances were pretty precise you know Serbia is a small country it was looking to re-enter polite international society if you like after becoming a pariah nation following its behavior in Bosnia and Kosovo but I think this is pretty different I think that uh
Putin's removal one way or another is likely to be orchestrated by fellow nationalists who peddle the same line that Russia has always been under siege historically by surrounding powers. And it would be, I think, politically impossible to
for the new regime to hand him over to a court that Russian propaganda has always presented as a tool of the West. So no, I'm afraid I don't see that happening any time soon, Andy. And a fascinating bit of information to add to that, Patrick, as I suggested a little bit further up the programme was, and this comes from the ISW, the Institute for the Study of War, and it's a
summary of some of the stuff that's been coming out of former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Gherkin, a war criminal almost certainly responsible for the downing of that Malaysian airplane. But what he says is interesting because he claims that certain members of
Russian President Vladimir Putin's inner circle may push Putin to end the war in order to depose him. And it's the names he mentions that are interesting because they're some of the people I've never really come across. They include these people who may push him to end the war early. Presidential Administration First Deputy Chief of Staff Sergei Kiryanko, billionaire and Putin's reported personal banker Yuri Kovalchuk, and
energy executives Arkady and Boris Rotenberg. And Gherkin claims that the power structure, including Defense Minister, that's the current power structure, including Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Moscow Oblast Governor Andrei Vorobiev, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobanyan, has been weakened following the rebellion. And Gherkin claims that
several members of this kind of inner circle will want to oust Putin in favor of one of its own members, such as Prigozhin or Kiryanko. So we'll have to wait and see what happens on that. But it is interesting that, you know, there are voices coming from, as you say, Patrick, of course, Gherkin is an extreme nationalist or an ardent nationalist. They're not likely to hand Putin over. I agree with you, but that they might remove him from power, which is something we've long anticipated is a different matter.
Yeah, that seems to be the way that predictions are going, isn't it? That there's going to be some sort of
of, you know, Palace coup makes it sound as if, you know, he's likely to be defenestrated or, you know, end up dead. But, you know, the feeling seems to be that it'll be a bit more neatly organized. You will be offered basically, you know, very comfortable retirement and guarantees of his own personal safety and those around him or his family. And they will then smoothly move in and an agreed candidate will take over. That seems to me to be
A, the sensible thing to do, and also from what we know, which is not admittedly a huge amount, about the way this very tight cabal at the top of Russia operates. That seems to me the way they would likely do things. But, you know, once again, we're really still operating in the dark here.
Another bit of kind of crystal ball gazing here. Paul from New Zealand asks, will Serovikin and Prigozhin surface as the inspiration of a new Russian offensive around Kremlin? He's talking about reports. He's seen that there's a big, huge, he says, buildup of Russian troops there.
around Kremena, which I'll come on to explaining where it is. And he wonders, is this buildup part of the reasoning behind the US sending cluster munitions to Ukraine? Well, Paul, thanks for raising this because Kremena is indeed a very significant part of the front line that I'm afraid we've neglected a bit in our coverage. It's about 80 kilometers north of Bakhmut, just inside the Luhansk Oblast border.
And it's been the scene of very intense fighting for several months.
Now, the difference between here and further south is that the Russians have actually been attacking. They've been going on the offensive, apparently, with the aim of demonstrating to the folks back home, the Russian public, that they are, that the military is, in fact, making some sort of progress in the war. Now, the terrain around there is very woody. The fighting's much more fluid than elsewhere. Both sides are
making use of the cover and clashing frequently in very bloody close quarter battles. So yes, this is somewhere where cluster bombs might be helpful in denying territory to the attackers. Though I think the presence of so many trees might actually present
problems in delivering them. Okay, we've got a really interesting bit of insight into the Russians' attitude to war from Vlad Prykmeta. He doesn't actually say where he's writing from, but what he says is interesting. On the one hand, I have a colleague, a fellow Ukrainian and a dear friend of many years, who to my shock blamed the West
the U.S. for what is happening in Ukraine and tried to absolve Putin for blame. This happened last spring while their own hometown of Chernihiv was under heavy attack and their neighbor's family were under direct threat. I must admit, I've stopped speaking to them since.
But he goes on to say, my impression of the Russian public's reaction through family, friends and colleagues is that, as Vlad puts it, apathy rules. There are those who hate what is happening, but feel powerless as they cannot object without consequences. There are those who are pro-war and 100 percent sold on the propaganda. But there are many, and Vlad uses capitals for many, who don't really care and are waiting for the war to end.
and their lives to return to what they were before. We are against the war as a populist sentiment against them, especially as you can still blame Ukraine for what is happening. They are slowly realizing that their comfortable middle-class lives and foreign holidays are over and they are back to being a pariah state, a feeling many will recall from the Soviet days. It took them many years to get from the Soviet Union to now and months to collapse back.
I imagine, says Vlad, they're getting upset as this realisation sinks in. The tide will turn eventually, but irreparable damage is being done daily. When they respond in many ways, it will be too late. Yeah, got another kind of forward-looking message here from someone who describes himself as a colonel at a high level in a NATO-affiliated position. For obvious reasons, he doesn't want to give his name. Now, he raises an interesting point, Saul, here about...
You know, as always, current wars provide a real-time actual conditions laboratory for how warfare develops.
And the colonel references the talk that is going on at the moment inside arms forces, which are actually beginning to sort of look backwards and beginning to sort of favor the idea of bringing back old weapon systems like tanks, anti-tank mines, manned aircraft, manned submarines. And, you know, politicians are talking again about scale and mass. And this is all a move away from the tendency before this war to, to,
talk about smaller armies and relying very heavily on new technology to create a very different sort of warfare to the kind of historical patterns of war that we're used to and which we're seeing a lot of here in Ukraine. And he makes the point that, yes, there are lots of kind of imagery, what we're seeing, the kind of
The nature of the battlefield, the imagery from the battlefield is all quite reminiscent of what we're familiar with from the past. But he's saying we shouldn't be deluded by this and thinking that this is the way ahead. And he says, I just can't imagine any logic in thinking we need to get a lot of tactical kinetic weapon systems that are already outdated and don't fit NATO's own current ideas before this began of how the future of warfare works.
Look, this is kind of your territory, isn't it, Saul? What are your first impressions of how this is going to shape military thinking, military spending patterns, etc., going forward?
Well, I understand why the question is being asked, because it's an absolutely vital issue, isn't it? But my sort of broader understanding of this and my instinct for what is required for militaries is a very sort of broad base of capabilities. So, of course, it sounds wonderful that we can do away with the kinetic bits of kit like tanks and F-16s and everything else, and we can use unmanned
systems that don't involve the loss of humans if they're taken out. But the truth of the matter is, and I think the Ukrainian war has shown this, Patrick, that if we're going to have this type of major war in Europe and we're going to be supporting it, we can't just supply the sort of kit that NATO has been moving towards. You actually do need some of these heavier weapon systems to
We still see that the artillery is absolutely crucial factor on the battlefield. The best tanks can still play a part in my view. And manned aircraft, as we heard, I think, from David Alexander, a former fast jet pilot and one of our earlier programs, still operate more effectively with a human inside. Or at least David assures us that's the case. So, no, I'm not entirely convinced by this argument, but I can understand why the question is being asked, because that's where NATO was going initially.
And now they're being asked to return to something that seems as if it's a backward step. But I don't think it is. I think you have a balanced capability. You keep developing all these other weapons. And if this war has shown anything, it's that NATO does have a technological edge over Russia and probably over China, too.
Okay, we've got a question here from Ming in Berlin, Germany. Kuwait is another country that was invaded by a bigger neighbor, writes Ming, who claimed it as its own and supported by a mostly Western alliance that came to its rescue. Now, of course, the country, as we know, was Iraq.
So the question for Ming is, why don't we hear much about Kuwait in the current conflict, given that it was bailed out a few years ago? And doesn't it have a special responsibility to support Ukraine in the form of money and marshalling support from the Arab world? Excellent question. Patrick, what's your feeling? Yes, Ming, I think that's a really good question. I was in Kuwait myself just before the
when Iraqis invaded and rather naively left on the eve of the actual Iraqi army crossing the border. I've been reassured by the British ambassador over gin and tonics a couple of hours before my departure that I had nothing to fear. This was all saber-rattling, and there would be no Iraqi invasion. So what did he know? Anyway, having seen what happened there, of course they should really see what's happening in Ukraine in relation to their own
But in fact, they seem to have been pretty stingy, more than stingy. All they've done is contribute, as far as I can see, a measly $1 million to Ukraine by generators and given Kuwait's massive wealth and the
debt of gratitude it owes to the West. That seems pretty pathetic. The Saudis and the UAE have been rather more generous. But there does seem to be an interesting, I suppose, rather obvious relation between geographic proximity to the conflict
and the subsequent level of threat and people's generosity. If you look at it, although the US, of course, has handed over the most in terms of actual quantity of money, the biggest donors, if you measure it by percentage of donors,
GDP are Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as I say, I suppose, for obvious reasons. Okay, we've got a very interesting comment made by Peter from Cambridgeshire. I suspect Peter has inside knowledge of fast jets and the F-16 in particular. But before we come on to that, I should mention a bit of news this week that coincided with the NATO summit. And that is that
Holland has begun training Ukrainian pilots in the use of the F-16. So I mentioned that because it's relevant to the point that Peter makes. He writes, I'm contacting you to express an opinion relating to the issue of supplying F-16s to Ukraine. I believe the West should absolutely supply Ukraine with equipment they need. However, with aircraft, it's more complicated than with other weapon systems.
Converting pilots to fly F-16s is relatively straightforward. There is, however, a big difference between flying and fighting an aircraft. The pilots also need to be trained on the weapon systems and the tactics relating to those aircraft and weapons. Numbers of aircraft, weapons, tactics will be essential for the effective use of aircraft in what is a highly contested airspace.
To have a real benefit to the fighting on the ground, the Ukrainian Air Force will need to establish at least temporary localized air superiority. This means being able to put an effective strike package together. The strike package would need to include aircraft performing suppression of air defenses, fighter cover and the striking aircraft.
Training to be able to achieve this skill set in Western Air Forces takes around four years. I haven't mentioned the logistics or ground roles, which are equally as important. And he goes on to say, and Peter goes on to say, a further point to consider, and this is the data from Vietnam, showed that if a pilot survived 10 missions, his odds of survival increased. We should remember that if you then change aircraft, that clock essentially resets as there's a whole load of new things to avoid.
Ukraine needs new aircraft as there are no new Fulcrums MiG-29s that can be supplied. And his concern is that if small numbers of F-16s are supplied without the right level of support and training, they will slowly be lost for little gain. A lot of people believe that Ukraine's future is with NATO. So investing in their training and equipment is to NATO's long-term benefit. Fascinating stuff, Peter. Thank you for that. Well, before we leave, I think we've got to talk a little bit about a flurry of emails we've had from
indignant listeners saying that we've been unfair to the UK left media. I suppose we're really talking about The Guardian and The Daily Mirror. For non-British listeners, Mirror is a sort of mass market newspaper. The Guardian, of course, has got a worldwide audience.
There are lots of them. I'll just mention initially one from Jonathan Ashton, who says, as a left-wing regular Guardian reader, I don't agree with our characterization that the coverage reflects traces of ambivalence on the left towards the
Russia. He says the Guardian's coverage of Russia is pretty unambiguous in stating simply that Russia is a brutal dictatorship. He agrees that the left hasn't covered things in as much depth, but he says it's more that the Guardian has less of an appetite for the sort of military subject as a topic. Basically, his views are echoed by various other people who say that they're all
you know, from the left, they read The Guardian, but they think that we've been basically misrepresenting their position.
It is possible to sum up that you could be very much, your sentiment, political sentiments are very much on the left and be a staunch supporter of Ukraine. Many end with the Slava Ukraini glory to Ukraine. So yeah, I mean, I do feel a little bit guilty about this myself, Saul. To be honest, I haven't read much of the Mirror's coverage, but the Guardian, I've worked with Guardian journalists down the years. They've always been extremely good, very, very good at their jobs. But also, I don't think I've ever found any sort of,
pro-Moscow sentiments among the people I worked with. Anyway, and I think, you know, the editorial line of the paper has been pretty much in line with our own sentiments. I think what we were really talking about, though, was the sort of historical issues
of the left to give the benefit of the doubt to Russia to romanticize the Soviet Union, shall we say. And this is particularly in the 1930s, I think after the Second World War, despite the contribution, the massive contribution the Soviet Union had made. I think these scales did fall from the eyes of lots of people on the left. Certainly the kind of post-war labor government was by no means slavishly pro-Moscow. And indeed figures like Ernest Bevin, quite sort of hostile,
So, yeah, I mean, apologies from me anyway, if we haven't really given the Guardian and the Mirror their due. What do you think, Saul? Yes, Patrick, totally agree with everything you've said. We're really talking about the hard left if there is still a sort of lingering historical support for Russia. And we'll be a little bit more careful with our terminology in the future.
Okay, that's all we have time for this week. Do join us next Wednesday for another big interview. And of course, Friday, when we'll be looking at the latest news and answering listeners' questions. Goodbye.