Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Battleground Ukraine podcast with me, Saul David, and Patrick Bishop. It's been another relatively quiet week of news from the front line, with Ukraine's forces regrouping after the spectacular gains of September, and Russia attempting to make a little bit of momentum in the odd area. But at the same time, there have been plenty of alarming developments on the political and diplomatic front.
that we'll be discussing in a moment. And after the break, we're going to be hearing from the very eminent military historian, Sir Max Hastings, a former war correspondent and newspaper editor of the Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard. Now, it's a really very, very insightful, very impressive story.
interview that we've got with Max, and we're very grateful for it. His latest book is about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and that obviously resonates very much with what's going on today. The book's called Abyss, and in his talk with us, he draws some pretty alarming comparisons with that, and also looks forward to
uh how this is going to be resolved a lot of it will not make very comfortable listening but it's it really is a truly fascinating contribution to our understanding i think of what's going on there and we're also going to answer some of the questions you may remember that we uh
We ask you to send in any queries, observations, etc. to our email address, battlegroundukraine at gmail.com, where we've got to have a good response and we will be responding in turn. Okay, well, probably the scariest development of the week, at least for me, Patrick, was Russia's claim that Ukraine is about to use a dirty bomb. Now, a dirty bomb, we should explain, uses conventional explosives, but it also has radioactive material mixed in
It's like a nuclear bomb light, I suppose. And most Western commentators feel that this claim that Ukraine is about to use a dirty bomb is being used as an excuse to retaliate itself. Exactly how it's going to do that, we don't know. The US has warned Russia of severe consequences if it uses a nuclear weapon online.
or anything that might tend towards a weapon of mass destruction. Patrick, any thoughts on this situation of the dirty bomb? Is this just another example of Russian sabre rattling, do you think? Yeah, well, I think it sort of smacks of desperation. If you actually look at the big picture, step back at what Putin has been trying to do, both in the grand strategic sense and also on the battlefield. You know, it's been one failure after another. I don't want to sound triumphalist or
give the impression that this is a done deal, that they're heading inevitably for a catastrophic defeat, because I think there's lots of things that can happen between now and then. But just think about the way that he's addressed the world, or rather the West, trying to get into their heads and trying to change their attitudes towards Russia. He launched the energy war. He was trying to
bully Europe in particular into seeing things from his point of view, or at least going along with a kind of defeatist narrative in Ukraine, putting pressure on the Ukrainians to come to the negotiating table by means of basically offering us a very cold and expensive winter. That didn't seem to work. He then has been threatening on and off nuclear war. The
That hasn't seemed to work. On the battlefield itself, we've had the initial kind of coup de main approach to the campaign. That failed miserably.
mass mobilization. That doesn't seem to be going very well. Finally, something we ought to talk about, the attempt to flatten Ukrainian infrastructure, attacking civilian targets and basically undermining the means of life in Ukraine in order to demoralize the Ukrainian population. That hasn't worked either. So this seems to me to be, you know, it's really scraping the barrel now when you get to this dirty bomb. Where did that come from? I mean, it's
How do you make a dirty bomb? Who has dirty bombs? It's sort of, even in Russia, people are saying, well, okay, if it's true, let's see a bit of evidence. So these are kind of ultra-nationalist bloggers who are starting to say this. So even when preaching to the converted, it's not getting the sort of response that Putin obviously hoped for.
No, the other slightly scary development is a claim and counterclaim about the dam, which is upriver, 35 miles or so upriver from Quezon town or Quezon city. And of course, the implication is if this dam is blown, it will cause a catastrophe. I mean, environmental, but also sort of structural with huge floods. Now, what seems to be going on is that
Russia is suggesting that Ukraine might want to blow this down. But this reminds me very much, Patrick, of the Zaporozhye situation. Clearly, there is no vested interest for the Ukrainians to do this. And they seem to be preparing a sort of red flag operation. And red flag operations, as we know from our study of history, are often used by pretty
uncompromising powers like Nazi Germany right at the beginning of the Second World War. As you'll remember, Patrick, they used red flag operations to make it seem that there had been an incursion over the German border when, of course, it was frankly a pretext
for their own invasion of Poland. So that's what seems to be going on here. But it could also be an attempt, frankly, to distract from what will be, if they withdraw from Kherson, you know, another catastrophic reverse for the Russians. Now, a lot of this seems to me to be part of the internal politics of Russia. Putin has to keep signaling over and over again his intent to ramp things up.
And he's aiming that at the war party. And they come in two main groups. I think they're the external players like Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic, and Igor Prigozhin, the two sort of symbolic figures. I suppose they've also got some substance. I would say that Kadyrov doesn't really count that much in the story. You know, he's mentioned a lot, but if you actually look at who he is, he's basically a...
a marginal figure. The Chechen Republic doesn't really feature very much in
in Russia's sort of overall capabilities. He himself, his own family history is very interesting and pretty horrific. His father was also president of Chechnya, but he was once on the side of the independence movement. Then at the start of the second Chechen war, switched sides, pledged his support to Putin, and in return got the support of Moscow. He was assassinated in
in 2004, I think. And I think the same fate may well await his son. He's got many, many internal enemies. Quite why so much attention is paid to him, I don't know. I think it's because perhaps he's such a sort of...
grand guignol sort of villain that gets a lot of attention. Grigogin, I think, is a much more significant figure. He's the guy who finances and directs the Wagner Group. And that gives him some clout in the sense that they are the only ones who seem to be
doing anything on the battlefield, performing better than the Russian conventional military forces. That's not saying very much. You must have been following this stuff about Bakhmutsul, you know, this town that's been fought over, where the Wagner group are apparently causing the Ukrainians some problems.
Well, you know, the reports are a mix, shall we say, Patrick. I read one earlier this week that actually said there'd been a to and fro from Bakhmut and the Russians had indeed made advances. But it was of relatively little strategic value. This is more of a sort of symbolic area. So in terms of the sort of broader effect on the war, this is a minor problem.
piece of the story. A much bigger piece of the story, of course, is Kherson. And there's some interesting information coming, obviously, from a partial source. That's the Ukrainian military spy chief, Major General Kirill Budanov, whose caution, this is very interesting, because all the indications from Russia over the last week or two have been that they're pulling out. I mean, we know that civilians are being moved out of the city.
But what Budanov says is, actually, this could be a clever play on Russia's part. He believes they're going to stay and fight for Kherson and are only pretending to withdraw. In fact, he believes from his information that they're intending to reinforce it ahead of a major battle. So, you know, that's slightly concerning that we could have a kind of Stalingrad situation on our hands in the south of the country.
Well, that's exactly what comes to mind, isn't it? Clearing out all the civilians, digging in for a war of attrition. I mean, who knows which way it'll go, but it could be a very, very grim couple of months ahead in Kherson for both sides. Of course, one thing the Russians do have in their favor is numbers. You don't have to be particularly well-informed.
trained or indeed particularly armed with sophisticated weaponry in order to be able to put up a pretty tough defense in an urban battleground like Kherson could become. So the thing that the Ukrainians really have to worry about is feeding Ukraine
There are very limited human resources into what could be a Stalin grad or a Verdun type situation. In that scenario, it is possible to see the Ukrainian forces being very dramatically and significantly degraded if they get sucked into this attritional war.
Exactly right. And they would be well advised not to attack the city, of course, if it is being held as a fortress and really just try and cut off supplies, which it seems to me is exactly what they've been doing up till now. So we'll see how that plays out. Now, in other news, Patrick, on the diplomatic front, I suppose we could call it, Germany has been calling for a new Marshall Plan. Now, this, of course, goes back to the
very effective rebuilding of Germany after the second world war, mainly by us investment from 1948 onwards. Um,
Germany is already beginning to call for a new Marshall Plan to rebuild Ukraine. Now, who's going to provide the money? Well, they say, and when I say Germany, I'm talking in particular about Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor, and Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission. So the two big players, really, in German politics have written a joint article in a German newspaper. And that's what they're calling for.
It's going to be paid for, or they argue it should be paid for, by G7 and EU institutions, so in effect the West's.
And the need for this, of course, is because Ukraine's economy has already fallen by at least 30% this year. Now, when we get on to the Max Hastings interview, he refers to this briefly and the possibility that America will not be providing the cash for this. Well, you'll be hearing a lot more from Max in the second half. Lots of fascinating points that we'll be digging into. Do join us after the break.
Welcome back. Earlier this week, I spoke to Sir Max Hastings, military historian and former war reporter and newspaper editor, about the alarming parallels between the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the subject of his new book, Abyss, and the current dangerous situation in Ukraine, with regard in particular, of course, to the nuclear sabre rattling. Well, this is what we talked about.
Max, you've just published Abyss, the dramatic story of how the world narrowly avoided a thermonuclear war in 1962 after America discovered that the Russians were in the process of secretly placing long range nuclear weapons on the island of Cuba, very close, of course, to the American mainland. Just tell us a little bit about the key moments in that crisis. I know it's a big story. And what are the obvious parallels between then and the current situation in Ukraine?
Well, the most obvious parallel is that the world was terrified for 13 days, or in fact, 13 days that President Kennedy knew about the missiles, but six days in which the world did, that nuclear war might be the outcome of this confrontation between what was then the Soviet Union and the United States. And at first,
The American chiefs of staff were intensely bellicose. They wanted war. They believed that America could take on the Soviet Union, could bomb and invade Cuba, take out the missile sites, take on the Russian troops on Cuba and win.
They were of a generation of military who were very much schooled in the Second World War and the experience of victory in 1945, victory over Japan, victory over Germany. And they were looking again for victory. Now, one lesson I do think is very important that we've learned today that in 1962, the military had not learned.
is that the word victory in the nuclear age is one you've got to use with extreme caution. And one thing I think the Americans have been very good at in this crisis is
They've produced exactly the same mixture of resolution in pursuing the objective, in this case, of supporting Ukraine, but also caution in realizing that with nuclear weapons out there, you simply cannot beat the drum, beat your chest, try and play the virility game. You just have to balance things all the time. And this is what President Kennedy did. Now, in some ways, Kennedy had
I don't know if one could say an easier task because it was a terrifying task. But nobody much died in the missile crisis in 1962. Yes, there was a standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States, which might have precipitated general war, but only a handful of air crew died.
Now, what you've got now in the Ukraine is tens of thousands of people have already died as a result of President Putin's monstrous act of aggression. And in 1962, although Americans didn't see it this way, the Soviet Union and Cuba did have a case that legally there was no more reason
why Castro in Cuba shouldn't choose to host Soviet nuclear weapons than that the Italians and the Turks and the British should do the same with American nuclear weapons. And Kennedy knew this.
And Kennedy was always, from the beginning of the crisis, willing to strike a bargain with the Russians to get the missiles out of Cuba. And the bargain he eventually settled for was he gave a guarantee that the Americans would no longer threaten Cuba with military action.
And secretly and privately, he also promised that if the Soviet missiles were removed from Cuba, that the American missiles would be removed from Turkey. So there was a deal. Now, today, there is absolutely no vestige of justification for the
for the Russian action in Ukraine. This is a monstrous act of aggression against a sovereign state. And this makes it much more difficult to see what anybody, whether it's President Zelensky or President Biden, can possibly offer the Russians that doesn't amount to caving in to rewarding aggression. So this is a big problem.
And with so much blood already, almost facetious to talk about blood on the carpet, the streets are running with blood, innocent blood, as a result of the Russian action. But on the other hand, I would argue very strongly, I've sometimes been accused in the context of this crisis of being a defeatist or an appeaser, because I've suggested that sooner or later, all wars end in conversations, and we are going to have to
And I say we, it's mostly President Zelensky, but also the West. There is going to have to be some sort of dialogue with Russia. Now, I personally believe that the war today is going to go on for much longer than 13 days. The missile crisis ended remarkably quickly.
it was over in 13 days. Now today, I personally believe that the situation in Ukraine could go on for months, if not years. But I do think we're on a learning curve in the West. I do think there's been a remarkable, first of all, there's been a long period of naivety all through the Cold War. And of course, the missile crisis was the most dangerous moment of the Cold War.
there was an acute awareness among all of us, even me as a schoolboy, that in the world of nuclear weapons, we were living in constant peril, that the planet was threatened. Hardly a week went by without a headline in newspapers all over the world, whether in Europe or in the United States or anywhere else, crisis in Cuba, crisis in Indochina, crisis in Berlin, nuclear crisis. Now, in 1991, we...
almost started to behave as if nuclear weapons had been uninvented. Everybody went away suddenly when the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall came down. Everybody started behaving as if it was a different world and you could worry about climate change and terrorism and conventional wars in Afghanistan, Iraq. But it was as if nuclear weapons weren't there. Well, we've been now brutally reminded by President Putin they are there.
and we're dealing, I personally believe, with President Putin is a less stable, less predictable, and thus more dangerous figure than Nikita Khrushchev. Because in 1962,
although the world thought from all Khrushchev's sabre-rattling that he was unbalanced and dangerous and liable to start a nuclear war. What we now know from the evidence that has come out of the Kremlin since 1962 is that Khrushchev was a far more rational person than people understood, and I believe a far more rational person than is Putin today. And
As soon as President Kennedy broadcast the American people six days into the crisis, telling them about the discovery of the missiles and saying they were going to have to go, Khrushchev secretly and privately knew he was going to have to give in. He knew that he couldn't risk nuclear war with the United States.
Well, today we're in a different situation. We're dealing with a very dangerous, quite inadequate to call him an egomaniac, but he's already got the blood of tens of thousands of people on his hands. And I don't believe that President Biden or President Zelensky have any better idea than we do sitting here about what Putin may do next or what he's capable of.
You've talked about the response from the West being quite moderate, actually, up till now, Max. No one's threatening a nuclear escalation, as of course they cannot do that. They're suggesting there might be some kind of conventional response if...
tactical nuclear weapons are used, if there's some kind of demonstration, even if, as they seem to be suggesting now with the accusation that Ukraine is planning some kind of dirty bomb, which would seem to me or seem to observers to be an excuse for an escalation on Russia's part. What do you think the West could do in that situation? What are our options if that is the case?
What we have to hope is that at this moment, very secretly and privately, the White House is sending the clearest possible signals to the Kremlin that in the event of the Russians unleashing a dirty bomb or a nuclear weapon, chemical or biological weapons, which they're capable of doing, that the West will respond dramatically with conventional weapons. Now, I'm sure it's right to
to pose a conventional response threat, because I don't believe that a nuclear response threat, a threat of a nuclear strike against Russia would be credible or indeed right. But on the other hand, one can say to Putin privately,
If you do this, then the United States will, as it's certainly capable of doing, take out the Black Sea Fleet or something of that kind, or strike at Russian installations. And of course, one thing that makes us all feel pretty sick is that so far in all this,
Russia's had almost a free pass, whereas Russia is destroying the entire electricity network of Ukraine, that the Ukrainians are very much under strict American instructions, are not using their long range weapons supplied by the United States to attack Russian infrastructure, but are
There's got to come a moment at which this can be no longer allowed to stand. But I say I very much admire the way the Americans are handling this at the moment. I think on the one hand, their resolve is clear. But on the other hand, they're not making reckless threats, as I regret to say some of our own politicians have. And I hate it when British Tory politicians in battle at home
start making threats almost as if they're willing to fight the last Ukrainians. Well, it's not our war. It's not our people who are dying. I also think that this crisis has reminded us that the United States is the absolutely key leader of the West in all these confrontations.
And President Zelensky in Ukraine today would be toast if they were dependent entirely on European support. And it's the Americans who have saved Zelensky overwhelmingly, although the British have made a lot of song and dance. Our material contribution to this, because we just don't have the kit, has been relatively small. Sure, it's been larger than any other European nation except Poland, but that isn't saying much. And I think it's pretty...
sobering to be reminded that how much we owe to the United States, because in 2024, it's perfectly feasible that we could get Trump or Trump cloned back in the White House, who would not provide Europe with this sort of support, who would not provide Ukraine with this sort of support. And
The West, Europe especially, without the United States, is almost incapable of defending itself. So I think there are several messages. First of all, we've got to get serious about defence as Europe has not been since the end of the Cold War. And that includes Britain. We've run down our armed forces, not as much as, let's say, Germany, but we've still run them down recklessly.
And it takes time to turn these things around. And also, I think all our leaders ought to be saying very publicly to the United States, thank you. We know what we owe you, because we're not very good at saying thank you to America. And I believe we do have a hell of a debt to them in this crisis.
One other possibility, of course, Max, as you point out in your book about the 62 crisis, is that a nuclear war could be unleashed or at least a nuclear weapon could be used by accident by someone below the top level chain of command. Do you see that as a possibility today?
I think in 1962, there were virtually no technological safeguards to stop local commanders from unleashing weapons, whether it was missiles that were mounted on American aircraft, or whether it was Russian weapons, tactical weapons on Cuba. Today, there are more technological safeguards. But if somebody lets off a dirty bomb,
or a tactical nuclear weapon, the danger of escalation, the danger of getting into this spiral is still as great as it ever was. So I think there is less danger of an accident than there was in 1962, but a greater danger of an unplanned escalation because Putin is cornered. Putin is having a terrible time in his conventional campaign.
And he's seeing the West providing Ukraine with ever greater capability. And the danger of him escalating a step, doing something to try and terrify the West is
The other thing, of course, is that Putin would never have started this thing in the first place if he had not believed that our collective will to resist him was weak. He decided the West was weak and divided. And I have to say, Brexit contributed to this. There was very important evidence of how far in Moscow the generals were emboldened by Brexit back in 2016. They believed this was a symptom.
of European disunity, which indeed it was, it is. And it did encourage the Kremlin on the path they've taken. They believe we're weak. The challenge today is to show that we're not nearly as weak as they think. But...
Of course, one reason I think this war is bound to go on is I think that we have got to show Putin that we can get through this winter without European solidarity cracking, without the French and the Germans running up the white flag when they start running out of gas.
So I think that has to happen before there's any prospect of the Russians being party to any remotely serious negotiations. And that's what's so scary. A lot more killing and dying is going to have to happen before there can be any sort of negotiation, I believe.
You talked about negotiations being inevitable at some stage, Max. All wars end with negotiations, pretty much, apart from arguably, I suppose, the Second World War. Is there a minimum that the Ukrainians will accept now, do you believe, that even with pressure from America and their other allies, that they cannot draw back from?
We cannot know and we can't tell them at the moment. President Zelensky is saying the war goes on until the Russians are out of Crimea. My private opinion, for what it's worth, is that I'll be pleasantly surprised if when all this is over,
God knows when that will be. The Russians are out of Crimea. I think that may be a bridge too far. But it would be presumptuous for us to start telling them, telling the Ukrainians at this point what they should or should not concede of their country. Because, of course, the Russians have absolutely no right whatsoever to any of it. And the other thing that makes a deal much, much more difficult, we're told that the Russians have already done something like
$500 billion worth of damage to Ukrainian infrastructure, which somebody is going to have to pay to rebuild. And there was a very good piece in the American authority magazine Foreign Affairs a few months ago, which I took very seriously, by an expert on aid,
And he said he did not believe that there would be a Marshall Plan such as was aided Europe after the Second World War to aid Ukraine. And that one of the greatest dangers for Ukraine is that even if the Russian army can't defeat Ukraine on the battlefield,
What it may be able to do is to make Ukraine a pretty horrible place to live and to work in. In other words, to make Ukraine a chronic basket case. And that's terrifying. And yet it's entirely credible that the Russians regard that as an attainable objective.
And so it's very hard. I think it is harder to see the way out of this or to see any comfortable way out of this than it was out of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But the idea that the Russians, even if Putin is deposed, even if we get another Russian leader, I find it very difficult to believe that there's any remotely realistic prospect of the Russians paying these stupendous sums for the damage they've inflicted.
It's a very hard one, but I also remember, and I take very seriously, I never forget a moment in 1940, in the summer of 1940, when Britain was its lowest air force.
and looked on the brink of defeat. And yet at a weekend at Chequers, some of the people around Churchill were saying they were talking optimistically about how one had got to look forward to German defeat. And if Germany was defeated, then Germany must be expelled forever from the community of international civilized powers, must be pastoralized and demilitarized and deindustrialized and so on. So people were saying...
very brutal, harsh things, which were totally right and understandable in the context of the ghastly things that Germany had done to the world and especially to Europe. But Churchill at that point stepped in and he said, no, no, he said, this is not so. He said, Germany was part of the family of nations before the Nazis came, and it will be again.
And I often hark back to that remark of Churchill's, because I think it required such farsightedness and generosity of spirit for him to say that at a moment when Britain was on its knees, and when it was very hard to see how Germany was going to be defeated. And I
I do think it was a sort of lesson to us all that one, you can't say never about anything to do with international affairs. And international affairs often require ghastly compromises, dirty deals.
So it's very hard to see the shape of that now, and especially hard for the Ukrainian people. And if I was a Ukrainian listening to what I'm saying, he'd say, well, it's all right for you. You're not looking at the ruins of your home, of your village, of your city. And in a way, we all need, I'm speaking now as a historian and so on, but I hope that one never forgets.
the sort of humility that we all need to feel faced with what the ruin of Ukraine at the hands of the Russians. And it's entirely understandable that the Ukrainian people today feel this rage towards Russia for what it's done. And it is almost beyond belief that Putin has done so much untold harm to his own country, of course, not as much physical harm, but terrible economic and social and political harm. But
On the other hand, it seems to me part of our responsibility as historians is to try and look ahead a bit and also back a bit and to look for precedents and to recognise historical trends that may seem unthinkable now, but in the end, maybe things are going to come to pass that do seem unthinkable in the climate today. It's fascinating, but sobering stuff. Max, thank you so much for giving us your insight.
I think that was a brilliant survey of the situation currently, but also the historical parallels with the missile crisis of all those years ago. Good to hear Max being so positive about the Americans and the way they've really got the balance right on this combination of mixing resolution with supporting Ukraine, but also cautioning about the potential use of
nuclear weapons, really following the President Kennedy playbook, don't you think? Yes, absolutely right. And of course, he also speaks about the danger of so-called military experts who were in 1962 intensely bellicose. Now, I don't think Max is making the specific point that you've got a lot of generals demanding something similar now, but he did make the very interesting parallel that in 1962, American generals were
felt that the war, that is not just a conventional war, but a nuclear war was winnable. I mean, and this is something that, you know, he said, well, we finally learned our lesson, really, but we're still on a learning curve. And that, in fact, a lot of the danger of nuclear weapons by the end of the Cold War was
you know, it began to recede into the distance. And it's only now with Putin that we realize they are an ever-present danger and that they need to be taken account of. And you need, frankly, to have a policy. NATO needs a policy, which is why we're asking all our guests, what can NATO do in this sort of situation? And Max,
You know, it has confirmed what we all feel is important, which is that the signals need to be sent to Russia, that if it uses any kind of weapon of mass destruction, there will be an overwhelming conventional response, but certainly not an attempt at nuclear escalation.
Interesting also that we were dealing then, in his eyes, and I think most of us would agree with that, despite the fact that we were ideological enemies, one did get the feeling that there was a logic to what they were doing and that you were dealing with people who were rational according to their own kind of worldview. Also, that Khrushchev was actually a more reasonable person than Putin, a
He seems to be driven by kind of who knows what motivations, backed up with this kind of rather scary...
apocalyptic utterances from time to time, very much sharing the rhetoric of those ultra-nationalists who support him. So in a way, you know, Khrushchev looks like quite a cuddly figure compared to Putin. Yeah, one of the points of Max's book, which I read and have spoken to Max about in some detail, is the danger of an accident in 1962, because in effect, some
people lower down the chain of command had the capacity actually to launch tactical nuclear weapons. Now, Max's point is there's less danger of that now, but more danger of, as he puts it, an unplanned escalation because of the point you've just made, Patrick, which is that
we are dealing with a much more dangerous character in Putin. Now, we could get to the end of all of this and find out that the discussions in the Kremlin have always discounted the possibility of using nuclear weapons, which is, of course, what we discovered after 62. Let's hope that's the case. But Max's point is that you need to handle Putin very carefully. And, of course, he goes on to say
look at the possibility of some kind of negotiation. Max has been criticised about this and he acknowledged that in the interview. But of course, he is surely right that at some stage a deal has to be struck, isn't he, Patrick?
Yeah, the victory magnanimity thing looks a bit Pollyanna-ish now, doesn't it? I mean, we are dealing with these people who seem prepared to stop at nothing. But I suppose that's exactly his point, really, that in 1940, the Germans seemed to be in the same position. And that was before we heard about the Holocaust, etc. So you have to have a very big Churchillian heart, I think.
to be able to give utterance to those thoughts now. But I think he's right. It will come to that. Yeah, and we do need to emphasise one point Max makes very, very clearly. I mean, we'll get on to questions in a minute in which some people are even suggesting questions have come in to us that, you know, Russia was provoked into this war. Well, Max is having none of that, nor we, Patrick, frankly. I mean, Max makes it clear that
that the tens of thousands of people have already died in Ukraine because of, and I quote, Putin's monstrous act of aggression. So, you know, before people start talking about Max as an appeaser, let them be in no doubt who he feels is responsible for this war. Yeah, which I think he's also right in saying is going to go on for a long time. He says months, if not years. And I really...
Hope it's the former rather than latter. But we are getting into a sort of stalemate situation on the battlefield, it seems now. Winter is here. So I think there's a lot more suffering the Ukrainians are going to have to endure before things get significantly better.
Yeah, and I think just to underline the final, my final takeaway from Max's interview is a mixture, frankly, of hope and concern, rightly concerned for the reasons you've just given, Patrick, but also hope that America is behaving very effectively over this. A lot of US bashing there's been in the British media and the Western media over the years, but actually he's giving America due credit for really playing a very, very sensible hand.
and effectively already saving Ukraine from destruction or helping to save Ukraine from destruction. Also very good to remind us of what the situation might have been had the President of the United States been Donald Trump and not Joe Biden. We should never forget that in his time, Trump was a bit of a Putin fanboy. So I don't think the Ukrainians would have got anything like the level of support from him that they are enjoying quite rightly from Biden at the moment.
Okay, well, let's move on to some questions. We've had many coming in and thank you and please keep them coming. We can't answer them all, but here are just a selection and we'll try and give them our best response. So here's the first one from Alvaras and this is actually from Lithuania. So lest our listeners think that it's just an Anglophone podcast, Alvaras in Lithuania wants to know the answer to the very reasonable question, why do Western Europeans underestimate the threat of
from Russia for themselves. Okay, he's acknowledging the threat that there clearly is today to Ukraine. He goes on to talk about the danger to Moldova, the Baltic states will follow after that Poland. But he's really saying to us, this is an existential issue for the whole of Europe, and that there could at some stage in the future be a conflict with Finland or Germany. Are Western Europeans short sighted? Well, are we Patrick?
Well, I think this is actually a sort of cultural issue and a historical issue. And I think that the further away you are from Russia, the more likely you are to see them in a benign light. And of course, we have this very strong memory of the Second World War, even after all these years of Uncle Joe and the Soviets being our brothers in arms, even though we knew perfectly well that they were on the side, essentially, of Hitler for a third of the war, basically.
When they switched sides with amazing rapidity, they became our beloved allies. So I think there's a bit of that memory lingering on still. And, you know, you get some people like saying, well, we didn't really win the Second World War. It was the Russians that won the Second World War for us, which is sort of true, but it's certainly not what they set out to do. But so I think that is lingering on. And I think that shapes political attitudes and indeed public attitudes.
There is also a strange, curious legacy from the left and their relationship with Russia. We've seen it in UK politics and UK commentators in recent months that there is still a lingering sort of admiration and affiliation between
from the hard left in the UK and Russia. Of course, this goes back to communist days. And yet you couldn't have a regime in Russia less sympathetic, frankly, to sort of communist ideals. It's fiercely nationalistic, pro-business up to a point. And it is totally mystifying, frankly, that there is still that legacy. But it is clearly there.
Yeah, I think this war will put paid to it. There will be still a few people who cling to some idea that basically Russia hasn't been given a fair hearing in the world forums about this. But I think that would be very, very much a minority cranky view. I hope so anyway.
Yeah, here's a question from Mark de Bretton Gordon, who we can only imagine is connected to the former boss of Britain's nuclear and chemical warfare capability. And he asked the question, how and if Russia would be able to successfully maintain an internal security operation in a semi-occupied Ukraine, given the huge problems that the Germans faced?
in World War II and how it impacted on their offensive operations. Do you think this is an important question, Patrick, which is that there clearly are a lot of partisans operating behind Russian lines? Yes, and I think it comes back to what Max was saying at the end of your interview with him about the very effective information security that the Ukrainians are operating. So we...
I think we'll only know the extent of what's going on there after the conflict is over. Okay, there's an interesting one here from Kay Stewart. My question is, as a medic, how prepared are Ukrainian medical facilities for mass casualties? Well, definitely,
difficult to answer that question, Patrick. We're not on the ground. We can only imagine they are adapting very quickly, as of course they have to do. It depends what you mean by mass casualties, of course. If the question relates to the use of weapons of mass destruction, we dread to think how frankly unprepared they're going to be for that. We know they've been handing out various attempts to combat
use of nuclear weapons with certain forms of treatment. But, you know, I mean, who knows? One extra comment that Kay Stewart makes is, great podcast, but you seem to be very male dominated. There must be female experts who can commentate on the subject. Patrick, do you want to respond to that? Well, I have to agree with you there. I think it's Kay, maybe K-A-Y Stewart, who
But you're absolutely right. I mean, we have had, to be fair, we've had Ia Kechalupa. She was the opening, actually, interviewee on the podcast. And then later we had Janita Giovanni talking about the war crimes enterprise that she leads. But yeah, we've got to try harder on that one. We're also accused of having too many posh people on. Saul, do you remember that? Yes, I know. I know. You sort of can't win. I mean, what we can say is we're trying to get the best people on.
that are available that we can get to and twist their arms to appear on the podcast. You can imagine, Kay, that...
People are being demanded, you know, the commentators are being demanded for all the news outlets. But we feel we've got some really good people. I'm not defending the fact that they're male. You know, the majority of them are. We hold our hands up to that. But they also happen to be people who have studied and observed the subject very deeply, both in a practical sense and in a theoretical sense. And we think we've got some pretty reasonable commentators thus far. But we do take note of your comments.
Now, we've got one from Richard Joyce asking, what would China's reaction be to a Russian nuclear strike? Will the US be putting pressure on China to lean on Russia? China's already distanced themselves a little from Putin. And it seems to me, hi, this is Richard speaking,
they will be key to how this ends. Your thoughts, Saul? Well, key to deterring Russia, frankly, is for the West to stay steady on this and make it pretty clear what the response to a nuclear strike will be. But China's influence is undoubtedly important. I think Richard's right to imply that China is not going to be supportive of a Russian nuclear strike. Of course, it will not be. It will
probably be behind the scenes suggesting this is a no-go area. Let's hope that's the case. China cannot benefit, frankly, from the use of any kind of nuclear weapons, any more than the rest of the world can. But it is true that China is one of the few powers left in the world that Russia is prepared to listen to. So we know their reaction, or we feel their reaction to a nuclear strike would be negative. And let's hope that Russia knows that.
It's not often we blow our own trumpets, but I've got to share this with you from Nick Pappas, who writes, hello, gentlemen. I just wanted to write and say how I'm thoroughly enjoying the podcast, the first season on the Falklands War and now on Ukraine. I am a former US Army infantry paratroop
officer and currently work in the intelligence community. Your podcast is excellent and highly informative. You've done a fantastic job of remaining unbiased and giving us some real insight into the war, which is difficult to get from the mainstream media. Well, we aim to please Nick So thanks very much for that, Nick. We'll try and keep up the high standard.
Yeah, and last one from Charles Crofton. I've had a little bit of to-ing and fro-ing from Charles. He, like Nick Pappas, very much enjoyed the previous podcast series,
on the Falklands, but he's not so impressed. So we also need to acknowledge not everyone's delighted with what we're doing, Patrick, not so impressed with our current interpretation of events. He doesn't think that there's much balance in our interpretation. And as an example of this, he gives a few things that he believes and he gives some sources. Well, you can find sources for anything, frankly, Charles, but anyway, give some sources of the fact that
very unlikely that China's going to invade Taiwan. Well, we don't agree, Charles. He also feels that there are sources that suggest that Russia was provoked into this war. Again, we don't agree, Charles. I think
you know, his broader sense is that Russia is being hard done by here. We need to have a bit more balance. We need to see it from the Russian perspective. He also suggests Patrick, and this, you know, is getting into proper conspiracy theory stuff that the Nord Stream one and two destruction of the pipeline, of course, in the Baltic Sea was done by the Americans. So I think you're getting a sense of where Charles is going on all of this. Um,
He's not happy with what we're doing. But frankly, Charles, you might want to start a podcast of your own and then you can air some of these views. Absolutely. Well, you know, we live in a democracy. Charles is entitled to his point of view. Not that I think we share much of it, but thanks for getting in touch nonetheless.
Okay, well, that's all we have time for this week. Do join us again next week when we'll be discussing the latest news from the Ukraine war, the front line, the diplomatic front and everything else. And of course, hearing from another expert commentator or participant. Goodbye. Goodbye.