18. Britain's contribution
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Hello and welcome to the Battleground Ukraine podcast with me, Saul David, and Patrick Bishop. The big news this week is Ukraine's use of UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles or drones, to strike targets deep inside Russia, including two military airfields and an oil facility. We'll also be discussing reports that the Ukrainians have made an amphibious landing on the strategically important Kimburn Spit,

and possibly even more significant, reports that the West would back peace talks if Putin's forces withdrew to all territory held on the eve of war. Our guest this week is veteran journalist and defence analyst Robert Fox. Now, I first came across Foxy in the Falklands. We were both there together as war correspondents, and we were both also on the Telegraph together. We're old mates. We've done a lot of war corresponding side by side in various theatres. And

Believe it or not, Foxy is actually originally an Italian expert. He's an expert on Italian literature, but his knowledge is very vast, as we'll be hearing about all sorts of things. He's now a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He's got excellent contacts with the British military. So he'll be giving us an assessment later of Britain's contribution to the war in Ukraine, what might happen next.

and what the conflict tells us about the future of warfare. Okay, back to the drone attacks. There were two earlier this week against airfields used by strategic bombers, the Engels Airfield, and yes, that is as in Marx and Engels, and the Deir Galevo military base. Now, the latter is just 100 miles from Moscow.

A third attack hit an oil depot in the Kursk region, 80 miles from the border. And a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force said that the damage to the airfield at Engels was minimal, but that it was, as he put it, an alarming signal for Russia. In other words, the effect was more psychological than material because it was, of course, taking the war deep into Russia.

Now, interestingly, American officials have denied that they had any part in this. We're not enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders. That's what a State Department spokesman said. We're not encouraging Ukraine, etc. We're providing Ukraine with what it needs to use on its sovereign territory on Ukrainian soil to take on Russian aggressors. So this fits with Ukraine.

NATO's overall strategy of not providing Ukraine with stuff like long-range missiles that could be used against Russian territory. But, I mean, we have to ask ourselves, does this make sense? I think a non-military person, someone who's not thinking about the big strategic picture might say, well, why?

When you've got this kit, Russia is firing swarms of these long-range missiles against civilian infrastructure. It's avowedly doing this in order to freeze the Ukrainians into surrender. So why not give them this equipment? The Ukrainians are actually doing a fair job. It seems that they are being pretty successful at shooting down incoming missiles. But nonetheless, this is where the war really is at at the moment. Saul, what's your thoughts about this?

Well, I think the strategy of confining everything to Ukraine, in my view, doesn't make sense. We're either in, in terms of NATO support for Ukraine, or we're out. If we're providing Ukraine with military support...

My view is let's give them everything they need to deter Russia's aggression. And that would include, of course, planes and long range missiles. Now, a related subject to this, of course, was that there was more nuclear saber rattling this week with a Russian spokesman complaining that the West was not taking its nuclear escalation threat seriously.

We also had a slightly rambling speech by Putin this week in which he said something similar. We're not mad, he said. We need to be taken seriously on the nuclear threat. And yet he went on to contradict himself, as he often does, by saying, well, actually, we're not going to use nuclear weapons unless we have nuclear weapons used against us. So

There's a reason the nuclear threats aren't being taken seriously, because in my view, and I think in the view of senior people in NATO, they're a bluff and nothing more. If Russia has few allies at the moment, it's going to have even fewer if it uses a nuclear weapon. And it would, of course, have more enemies in the form of NATO. So no, I don't think the threats need to be taken seriously.

Yeah, I think I'm beginning to come around to your point of view on this one, Saul. I think that the threat is receding quite dramatically. I think China has played a big part in this. It's made it very, very clear to Russia that this is not a direction they want to see the war going in. And given that that is the only real friend or quasi-friend that Russia has of any value at this moment, then...

that's something they really, really have to listen to. Moving on to the battleground, let's just think about these reports of the Ukrainian landing on the Kinburn Spit. We've talked about this for the last couple of episodes, and it seems to be developing. This is at the mouth of the Dnipro River,

And the latest information coming from the U.S. Institute for the Study of War suggests that Ukrainian forces have reached the east, i.e. the left bank of the Dnipro. That's you go in the direction of the flow of the river. So it's on the east side flowing south just across from Kherson City. And it confirmed that this is a war.

This incursion on the East Bank could open avenues for Ukrainian forces to begin to operate on the East Bank. So this seems to confirm the view that the war will continue into the winter. There'll be limited operations, not sort of mass all out assaults, but things that are going to actually happen.

create new opportunities, create new realities on the ground which are advantageous to the Ukrainians. Yeah, I mean, there's other evidence for this on social media. I mean, we should stress unconfirmed reports, but images have been posted on social media that actually show the Ukrainians, what seems to be Ukrainian Marines raising the Ukrainian flag on the Kinburn Spit.

And other indications that the war is going to continue on into the winter and that it might be advantageous for Ukraine have come from a very interesting briefing given by Avril Haines, who is the U.S. Director of National Intelligence.

And she suggested in her briefing that there could be brighter prospects for Ukrainian forces in the coming months. No real detail there, but she talked about the likelihood that Russia, well, not the likelihood, the actuality that the Russian military was running out of ammunition, whereas the Ukrainians might be in a position to launch a counteroffensive in the spring. It's interesting she didn't go into details about where she's getting her information, but obviously some of it is intelligence.

The relevance of the Kinburn spit, of course, is that if the Ukrainians get onto the east bank of the Dnipro, they're one step closer to the Crimean Peninsula. Which brings us on to another big news story, a report in the I newspaper, that's the Independent Online, quoting Western officials suggesting that if Russian forces withdrew to territory held on the eve of war, which means they're still in control of Crimea territory,

and the Donbass, then that might be a basis for the starting of some sort of negotiations with the Zelenskyy

government. Now, this seems to be a softening of the West's position. You've got to assume that the officials are saying this is something that Ukrainians might actually be up for. Now, this sounds very kind of strange to me, Saul. I don't doubt that this is being floated, but I wonder how much support it's actually got from inside Ukraine. It's probably what certain Western capitals would like to see happening.

But what do you think the likelihood is of it actually flying? Well, it's pretty extraordinary, isn't it? If it's true. And I'm sure there'll be people listening who are thinking, well, actually, you know, that's not a bad idea. But, you know, just think of it logically here. I mean, first of all, Zelensky stated position and he is not shifting from this at all, is that for peace talks to begin tomorrow.

Russia's got to leave all Ukrainian territory. And of course, by that, he also implies Crimea. So that's not a return to the status quo ante bellum, the situation immediately preceding the war. It's a return to pre-2014. Interestingly, in these same sources actually went on to say, of course, any peace talks are absolutely a matter for Ukrainians. So there's a kind of indication that maybe they haven't spoken to Zelensky on this, or at least they're not going to put pressure on Zelensky.

But by even making these statements, of course, that is exactly what they're doing. It's bound to infuriate him. Why would he honestly agree to such terms when in effect he's winning the war at the moment?

Yeah, it's interesting. This sort of seems to be part of this kind of the new mood music around war weariness. We've talked about this before. Now, up until now, I've been thinking, well, this is really just a kind of journalistic phase. This is inevitably what happens. The commentariat, people who write columns for a living, et cetera, have to say something different, you know, so they have to take the story forward. And this tends to follow well-worn tracks. News is very formulaic, the presentation of news is.

and how it develops is pretty sort of routine, really. A lot of it is often asking questions, you know, they raise a question, which no one has actually asked. And the answer is usually no, but it's just a kind of opportunity to air various subjects, not much thought's gone into it. But this seems to me to be following that track. It's like, okay, the war's been going on for a while now, when's it going to end? Let's start saying that the people are fed up with it.

I haven't seen much evidence of that at a kind of democratic level. No voters seem to be calling for an end to the war. But I think this actually is significant in the sense that there are stirrings in Washington, in Paris, in Berlin, and to a much lesser extent, I think, here.

about, you know, where's this all going? Where's this all going to end? We're going to hear a bit about this from Robert Fox later on. But I think it's just inevitable that people want to know what is the end game in all this. And I think this is an example of that. Yeah, we are in a tricky position. I mean, we've aired this situation before, Patrick, which is that, you know, a little bit like the First World War.

You can discuss the possibility of peace, but actually getting both sides to the table with their sort of pre-stated conditions and those pre-stated conditions even vaguely meeting is the problem. And as I say, I don't think in a million years Zelensky is going to agree to a status quo antebellum scenario that is this year, not 2014, as a basis for peace negotiations. I simply can't see it happening.

Yeah, just before we move on, I'm just reminded that one of the air bases attacked was called Engles Air Base. I got a message from an old mate of mine who'd actually been to Engles Air Base. That's Julius Strauss, who's another old colleague of mine, former foreign correspondent. He turned conservationist. He runs a brilliant bear watching ranch in the wilds of northern British Columbia called Wild Bear Lodge, which is well worth a visit. Anyway, back in the day, in the early 90s,

Julius was the Telegraph's Moscow correspondent when the Chechen war was raging. Now, he was a very enterprising guy and he managed to persuade the Spetsnaz, the Russians equivalent of the SAS, to take him on operations in Chechnya. So he was able to do this. This is an interesting story because it tells you the degree of

of shambolicness, if one can use that word, of the Russian military. So he's able to do this by bribing Spetsnaz Major. They get to the Moscow airbase. Of course, his name is not on the manifest, but that's easily solved. They just bung the crew a couple of bottles of cognac and they're off. But the real point of the story is that as they're then diverted to Engel's airbase, where they're taking on an extra cargo, which is this

apparently state-of-the-art new Russian, some kind of electronic warfare device, which they're meant to be taking. They've suddenly been told they've got to carry on into Chechnya with this thing to be deployed for the first time in a kind of test basis in theater. But when it comes to it, they can't actually get the whole thing onto the plane because it's too tall, even though they're in a great big transport plane. And so they end up leaving, flying off the front half of the plane,

apparatus and having to leave the back half behind. Now, Julius, he writes a brilliant blog called Back to the Front, which I strongly recommend our listeners to check out. And he says, well, you know, this was way back then when they were

They're apparently entering the modern world. But here they are, you know, flying. When he says, look, surely this thing is useless without the backup. And they say, no, well, that's all right, mate. We've done our best. And so he says this, you know, he's echoed what some of our other guests have said. This idea of this sort of super efficient 21st century army, you know, where did that come from?

Great stuff, Patrick. And we're talking about the best they've got there, the Spetsnaz. It's, you know, it is laughable, frankly, some of the military performance sort of underlines it, doesn't it? There is one last bit of news we should mention, actually, and that's this curious building of fortifications actually inside Russia, or at least air raid precautions that they seem to be taking. Patrick, have you heard anything more about that? And what do you think the significance of it is?

Well, I think it's purely psychological. It's another propaganda exercise. It's trying to tell the Russians, yes, we really are. It's changing the whole kind of thing from we've gone in to sort out these Nazis in Ukraine to actually the Nazis are coming after us now. So that sort of obliterates the whole idea.

of the utter failure, utter military failure, and turns the thing back into we are the victims, which is something that Russian propaganda historically has always done. So it's interesting, I think, as a reflection of the government mindset, the Kremlin mindset, and what it's trying to get Russians to think, but I don't think it's in any way really a genuinely held belief.

Okay, well, we're now going to hear from this week's guest, Robert Fox, defence analyst and long-serving war correspondent. We asked him to assess Britain's performance and posture so far in the Ukraine war, and this is what he told us.

We'll just go into question one, which is how would you describe Britain's military posture and performance so far in the Ukraine war? Britain has been smaller in its performance than its government politicians particularly would like to proclaim and probably some of its senior military officials. It has had a significant role.

particularly in training and intelligence, and still to be revealed in a great deal of detail, cyber. The training has been particularly good. The equipment has been useful at crucial stages.

but not nearly as vital as was proclaimed initially. For instance, the supply of NLAW shoulder-launched anti-tank rockets, fire-and-forget standard equipment, yeah, very important. Also, Javelin, a certain amount, I suspect they would have depleted some of the Stinger stock from the Special Forces.

Important, very gratefully received by the Ukrainians, but not nearly as decisive as not only the briefings would have us believe, but also reporting from the ground. And that's a fascinating story. The opening stages of the battle for Kyiv.

Yeah, tell us a little bit more about cyber, Robert. This is fascinating. I mean, we know we're hearing lots of whispers that the Ukrainians in particular have been playing, you know, a pretty good game in this sense. But tell us about Britain's contribution in this vital area.

I think there's been a lot of training and exchange. And in fact, Lindy Cameron of the National Cyber Service has revealed as much. But it's very much part of an interesting story for any reporter and analyst and commentator on this engaged in it is how they're feeding information. And it's quite difficult to put together the mosaic.

But somebody who really does seem to know and got a clue about this is Marcus Willett, now of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. And indeed, his article in the current October-November issue of Survival has to be looked at. He is an expert in cyber warfare from the National Cyber Service and I think from the Secret Intelligence Service. So that having been said, what he says very importantly is that Britain and America and Ukraine were prepared for this

as far back as last September. By that, I mean September 21. They knew it was coming and they had prepared cyber operations. Now, my understanding is that cyber operations began in January. The invasion took place on February the 24th. And that's why they were on the front foot. Russia, at the beginning of February, tried to whack Russia.

the systems, the communication systems, particularly low-level satellite systems of the Ukrainians with a terrific assault. They very nearly got away with it. But in fact, the staff had prepared the cyber operations in Ukraine to preempt it. And it was touch and go for three weeks. But by mid-March, they knew that they had the advantage. Now, the way the advantage is playing, I think, is absolutely fascinating. One, it is basic security.

serious digital aid warfare battlefield stuff. By that, I mean jamming signals, misdirections, finding out who's emitting. This has been very much the key to ISTAR targeting and the ISR, the big operational intelligence picture.

Then move on. The thing that is truly fascinating is the information operation, which I think is high stakes, high risk. But the sort of thing that they've got into is that they've picked up techniques of digital facial recognition. By the way, bog standard stuff now with authoritarian regimes. This is what is going on in Iran and this is what's going on in China. This is why, you know, they're not.

doing mass arrests on the streets in either case, but they're taking the pictures of the demonstrators or whatever, identifying them and then doing the knock on the door. There has been an equivalent, a rather spooky equivalent with the Ukrainians. They've been photographing the faces of dead Russian soldiers through digital facial recognition.

They are identifying soldiers, knowing who they are, name, address. And so they've been firing through the unofficial channels, the huge sludge of social media, which they can get into. And they seem to be getting into the homes of these dead soldiers. So they will tell a babushka in Voronezh, or they'll be telling her neighbor or her neighbor's son and nephew who's on these media stories.

You think your boy is in a training camp, you know, your favorite grandson, Ivan, somewhere preparing to go into Ukraine, possibly. No, he's dead outside Bakhmut. And here we can show you. And they show the face and they show the location.

And we believe it is having an effect. Why do I believe it's having an effect? Remember, Putin very recently has had a meeting, unusually, with the families, with the mothers, a select bunch of mothers of soldiers. And one of the things that he said, do not believe what you're seeing on social media. It is fake news. It is all a Western plot, etc. And this is why I think I do feel

for my colleagues on the front line doing a terrific job. But A, the front lines are very spread out because of the cyber and digital operation, and we can come to that in a minute. But so much is going on where you don't see it. It is truly operationally in Europe, the first digital war.

Yeah, and we're hearing, Robert, which may link in with this, that there is waning support. Various sources are coming out of Russia now that suggest that support for the war is now down to about 25%. Do you think this cyber warfare, this use of these digital photos, it's really extraordinary if all of that's accurate, is playing into this, is having an effect? Well, I'd never give accuracy to my customers and audience, but there we go. Yeah, no, it's a very important component.

Now, it's very interesting that when Putin called for a partial general mobilization, wasn't clear what it was from September the 21st, that he was trying to keep it away from the West. By that, I mean the West of Russia, from the big conurbations around Petersburg and Moscow.

But what I'm hearing from people, friends, colleagues that really do know a lot about the minorities, and in fact, they, some of them wonderfully, have the languages and the dialects,

the English, Dagestan, places like that. My friend, Domitilla Sagrimoso, eminent authority at the War Studies Department at King's. And she says that this is where you're getting unrest among the minorities who are being told that it's their war

They're not calling on patriotism so much, but particularly we found it on the borders with Georgia, is that they've been bribing people to join up. And it's very, very patchy. Can I just leap forward and say that I think that it looks as if Putin is going to go for another partial mobilisation of

Early spring, because he needs another army, frankly. He's got to replace large parts of what he's got. He's got 40,000 of the new draftees there in Ukraine. Now, when he comes to a second wave, which the old Sovietologists say, oh, this is the thing that makes Soviet military doctrine work, you know, the shock army big wave approach.

I think he's going to be hard-pushed to do it. This is where the doubters are beginning to come in to say that, you know, the confident Putin, and he's looking in the photographs, much less confident, he's got to deliver something that looks like V for victory, certainly by next June. And it depends on this, and it's this algebra of recruitment, of support, of the psychological operations. Mind you, on the other side, Zelensky and the chief of staff

also have their equivalent problems of just keeping momentum going. But that is very much one of the big issues. It's human. It's soft power. It's that. It's the human flesh and blood. The other thing where you come back to your initial question is really how much

are Western nations putting into this because they're desperately short of materiel. Still, you can see it. I mean, they've had great success with the M777s or the M77 howitzers, but America's only put in about just shy of 150 of them. And Russia is still pulling out the old Soviet stocks. And I mean, they are old. And that's part of the problem.

They do have a lot in depth. The question is, of course, and it's on both sides, ordnance, ammunition. And that's where the Brits are absolutely on point of being absolutely caught out. Because what this is showing is how we've planned our defences for far too long for everything short of war.

You could do expeditionary operations, and we didn't do them too well as far as the UK is concerned in Iraq and Afghanistan. But even towards the end of the deployment in Afghanistan, there was exhaustion of both equipment and human resources. Britain actually couldn't keep.

two brigades in the field. So the whole picture for Britain's contribution, it's blowing back very seriously at the moment because it's questioning our whole defence posture. And we can go into the behaviour and performance of

particularly of the ground forces of the Ukrainian forces, which I think should be saying to somebody in the MOD in Whitehall, but also in army command in Andover, we've not got things very right in the way that we're postured and the way that we can perform. The one thing that the Ukrainians are showing again and again is improv.

They can improvise like crazy in a way that there's a general realization that a medium, small-sized army like the British Army is too stuck in its doctrine to actually change posture. And we can talk about that. The other thing I think is absolutely wonderful about the British relations, they have a very close relation. I mean, we have a mission in talking to the Ukrainian command. It's a...

It's very much now you see me, now you don't. They're not telling us everything. And people, the old and bold, like General Lord Richard, former Chief of Defence Staff, is outraged about this. He said, why should we obey Zelensky's instructions or follow his command? We need grand strategy. Both propositions are nonsense, by the way. And were I Zelensky and his...

really brilliant command. That is the thing. I'd play it exactly the way that they would. I would not even tell a secret to a Brit, a Pole, an American or a German because it would be out on Twitter probably within an hour.

Robert, in terms of Britain's contribution, physical contribution, you've spoken about the lack of firepower, frankly. We know that ammunition on both sides is a big problem. But specifically, I'm getting a lot of indications, particularly from my special forces contacts, that we do have special forces on the ground. I'm not saying they're in the front line and I'm not saying they're going on operations. But when you talk about boots on the ground in Ukraine, do you believe we've got soldiers on active service there? Oh, yes. Yes.

But I have to be quite careful about this because I get hectored in London N1 encounters and parties. I had a lady who'd been rather a grand dame at the head of an Oxford college, a contemporary actually, who said, I hope you're not saying boots on the ground. UK has a military mission. I would think the military mission goes to a few hundred. And it is really in advice and telling them how to get the bits of kit in.

in. I think it's generally known who's commanding this, and it's come from 77th Brigade. 77th Brigade is a real dog's breakfast of an organisation, because it came from the old PSYOPs unit, 15 PSYOPs, and it does everything. It does a bit of intelligent, does a bit of language training, it does a bit of this and a bit of that. But for once it's come good in this, in providing...

Rather key personnel, people who might really be very familiar with Ukrainian culture and language, which is so important. UK, I think, has been very careful in that this is a military mission and it's an extension of the former training missions mission.

which we have had in Ukraine over the years under Partnership for Peace, since independence, you know, cleaning them up a bit. They were very corrupt, the Ukrainian forces, when they were initially after independence and joined UNPROFOR, for example, in Croatia, Bosnia in particular, they were there. And they've been doing this training, which the Ukrainian military like very much.

They like it because we devolve responsibility at such a lower level. So you have a firepower section commander, a 10-man or a 10-person troop commanded by a corporal. This is, I think, the crucial changing training that's been going on in Deal, in Kent, and in Yorkshire. Not that many. They're just shy of 10,000. But what, of course, inevitably you must do in these circumstances, you train the trainers.

And that is I think it will continue in some of it in Britain and it'll go slightly up the scale. I think we're training officers and I think there's quite a bit of training of officers with battle experience going on. They come out. But the other place to look to for this, where the Americans are on the front foot, is in Poland.

Poland is now becoming a major European defence partner. It is up there in its significance with France and Germany. It is certainly superior to Italy. It is certainly a linchpin with the Joint Expeditionary Force 10, led by Britain, Finland, the Baltics, the Scandinavians, plus the Dutch. All very valuable. They're all talking to each other. But you look at the stats for Polish defence industry.

They're doing basic stuff, but where they are brilliant, and it locks in with a lot of what we've been saying, they're very good at refurb.

So the base workshops in and around Heidelberg, I think it is, I may be corrected there, for Euro command of the US forces. A lot of those elements have now been moved forward to Poland. And the Americans are very important to this. Unfortunately, to be quite blunt about it, I think the training that the Ukrainians appreciate is training in the English language.

And I think that that's why the Brit teams, as we know, we have Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, and the Americans, because...

What they're trying to do, which will be no surprise to you, and it's Zelensky, the chief of the armed forces of vision, he's doing a remarkable thing. He is moving what was a small, rather slow, Soviet-style army into a highly adroit, adept army.

very damaged NATO modern army. It will be one of the medium army models of the 21st century, of this stage of the 21st century. And this is where there's a dialogue going with the Brits, because one of the things I've heard actually in prima persona of an escort, quite a senior British officer saying,

taking a military party from Ukraine to Andover to look at things on Salisbury Plain, Bulford and so on, is that apparently these major captains, you know, that sort of level colonel, were absolutely relentless in asking them what was wrong with the British army? What would they do different? What went wrong in Afghanistan? What was this? You know, and they're really picking it up and they're very hard headed about it. And they're not telling them what they're going to do with it. And I think, but what they're going to do with it

is at some points the way that they're doing deception, I think at times, given the sophistication of modern media that we have 24-7, particularly in the US, UK, Germany, France, is how they're doing deception operations.

Whenever I hear people say, oh, we're expecting a big push in the east around Luhansk, you know something's going to go off around Kherson and Crimea. The way they mask that, I mean, they told Jeremy Bowen of the BBC, oh, not much is going to happen in Kherson. Oh, it's very difficult. You see wide open country in step. Oh, they've got their best troops. It'll take a month at least.

And they knew it was crumbling. They were in there within a fortnight. There is something comedic about it. And the other thing where there will be a great play is Zelensky's relationship with their staff and with Klitschko, the mayor of Kiev. Although they get a great result, relations, I understand, from time to time are less than harmonious. And they even get to fisticuffs from time to time.

Okay, that's all we have time for in part one. Join us in part two when we'll hear the rest of Foxy's interview and answer some listeners' questions. Welcome back. In part one, we heard the first part of our interview with Robert Fox, and here's what we asked him next.

You're putting forward a sort of fascinating scenario here, Robert, that actually the laughingstock that was the Ukrainian army, certainly pre-2014, could actually become a model for medium-sized NATO armies of the future, including Britain. I mean, is that what you're suggesting? That's what I'm suggesting, but there's one big problem, and it's a cultural problem.

And remember, you know, think of the great authors of Ukraine, even Russian authors who wouldn't have called themselves Ukrainian, like Chekhov, born on the Sea of Azov, lived in Crimea. But people, particularly Bulgakov and Gogol and, you know, Taras Bulba. These people, they've had such a hell of a history since the late Middle Ages. They're gangsters. They're the Cossacks.

They're Klansmen. And that's why you get, you know, the Azov Brigade. This was, you know, Millwall supporters, absolutely to the nth degree. And that's the way they work. And funny enough, the British...

Really, I'm betraying my intellectual Marxist origins here. The British mentality in public service is really rather bourgeois. You know, the fact is that we all behave really rather nicely and we're very interested in decency. Well, the Ukrainians are fighters and are fighters for their own survival and they're fighters, I think, for their own neighbourhood because this is the really...

interesting cultural development for this is that what Putin has done, he's finally made contemporary Ukraine a nation. And I think quite a few Russians won't forgive him for that. Moving on to, well, let's get your crystal ball out, Robert. I know it's almost impossible to anticipate exactly what's going to happen next for obvious reasons, but you're talking about the next crucial six months for Russia, this sort of make or break period where he's going to try and raise a second

conscript army and almost certainly fail. So what do you imagine is likely to happen in the foreseeable future? Well, first of all, I won't say that Ukraine has got to keep the lights on. It's got to keep the candles on and the communications going underground.

They've got to be able to hold. And I think that that is really the big thing. I think that they will hold, they will punch and they will jab. And I think, you know, watch for the surprise. The Friday surprise comes 24-7. It's not confined just to one weekend. Let's go and do something. And can I just sort of move completely left field and feel the wrong word for this? I think Crimea is crucial.

And I think that this is very worrying. And it's where if Putin thinks he's going to lose Crimea and he could quite easily lose lumps of it, I think that that will cause trouble, that they will go berserk. It was popular. It was initially, you know, the beginning of the whole scheme.

But I'm watching aqua and sub-aqua, in which the Brits, I think, have had an advisory role because we have a naval understanding, sent to minesweepers and so on. So we do that kind of coastal clearance operations. I don't say that we're doing sabotage, but we would certainly know about it. And I think that that's where you put your big toe and a bit more on the throat,

If something goes badly wrong, say, around Backwood, there's a real breakthrough there. Then I think you have to watch there. That is crucial. The other thing that nobody is talking nearly enough about is air.

is that I think that this is where the squeamishness of the Americans, particularly of Blinken and Sullivan, must be called out because I think Ukraine really does need an air force. Poland wasn't allowed to pass on the MiG-29s, and I think that that's still in play. But it's got to have an operational air force, particularly...

particularly if the Russians build up with ground attack missiles from Iran, which is what they look like that they're doing. They're running out of their own medium range ballistic missiles, the things that can within comfort do a thousand to six hundred kilometers. They're buying more drones. But there does seem to be a workaround with drones because then we're into a whole range.

new sphere, we're into the electronic warfare, electromagnetic spectrum. And I think that's how they're going to deal with that. And I don't think cheap and cheerful drones used on a strategic basis, sort of blanket across Ukraine, as they have been on the infrastructure. I don't think that goes on forever. And I don't think it goes on for much more, in fact. So I'm working out which way you go forward. My instinct is that, say, by February, March,

Schultz, you never know who might come into play and do the brokering. Erdogan always fancies himself. You know, it's part of his neo-Ottoman vision. Yeah, we're a Black Sea power and we can help you out. I think there will be an attempt to get to another kind of Minsk agreement, and it will be about as unsatisfactory as Minsk. This is what I call, it won't be a grudge war, it'll be a sludge war.

that we've had these frozen conflicts that suddenly thaw out. As we speak, there's more fighting. Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh, south of Setia is very vulnerable. And this is what the Stans are telling Putin. Don't think we can be part of a grand Stalinist project because we have big problems.

problems. And boy, they have big problems because let's go off on another one. The big catalyst, which hasn't been noticed, ho-hum, last five years is the devastating effects of climate change, which are hitting populations, ferry fractures, a lot of breakouts, a lot of ethnic violence and quite a few water wars, incidentally. So

I think it's quite messy. But I go back to, you know, I remember the first days that I used to watch history on telly in black and white. My man, I got to know very well, the famous A.J.P. Taylor famously gave talks about how wars began. And you will say you could probably fill a dozen libraries with books on how wars began.

But historians are very poor prophets. They're as bad as journalists at being prophets. You know, they never know how wars end. And I haven't a clue how this one will end. And it will not end in any pattern that we've seen before because of the cyber dimension, because of social media, because of the metaverse.

which has come in that so much of this is being fought for opinion and sympathy outside IRW in the real world, it's all to play. I mean, it's scary, it's fascinating, and it makes life very difficult for the reporter on the ground. You have to have the reporter on the ground because you must have at base a modicum of facts on the ground as seen.

But don't think that that is the last word, because rumour takes place so quickly and it's so distorted. I mean, the myth, to go back where we started...

about how Kiev was defended. You know, David and Goliath, it was absolutely that motif. You know, the equivalent of the slingshot was the M-Law weapon, the shoulder launch, oh, these plucky people who were called out, and they could identify tanks coming down the road by their iPhones and sending pictures back. To an extent, it was true. That's why Russian soldiers, you know, shot people with phones. But the Russian soldiers were scared.

But the thing was prepared, and it was prepared in a completely different way. Three brigade groups of artillery were arranged to the extent that they knew. The staff knew that if the Russians came in from Belarus, from Chernobyl, from that direction, they had three MSRs, three main supply routes, and they know that they could get stuck on it. What was so brave about the decision, and Zelensky went along with it,

was that they didn't decide to attack them on the border or en route. They waited for them to come in towards the suburbs, so you get Butcher and all these terrible incidents, and to start dropping their elite who would go in and get the surrender of the airborne forces on the airfields, particularly Kostomoa.

They allowed them to land at Kostomel and then crashed them with artillery and rocket fire. It was an old-fashioned Hannibal-style, not Hannibal Lecter, but Hannibal-style double envelopment spring trap. And that's the sort of thing that they're capable of. But what they feel is that then the fighting picked up in the east for Donetsk and Luhansk, and they just didn't have the forces to cover Kherson in the southwest.

They've got to keep up the professionalism. Obviously, I see young men who are completely fired up. They've found a mission in life. The killing is absolutely terrible. It's when you get the downtime is going to be a tremendous problem. But the calculation you talk to any serious gathering of British defense contractors who are going in there, who are selling stuff and assessing this all the time, they calculate it's going to go on. You know, there'll be the odd pause for three years at least.

Okay. Well, it's a fascinating tour de horizon you've just given us, Robert. It's immensely complicated. You're absolutely right not to fix on a prediction because we simply cannot know. I would love to be looking back in 20 years' time at the benefit of all the bits and pieces and information.

information we have at our hands as historians, but we're just, you know, we're plodding our way through it. It's extraordinary. It's terrifying. It's tragic. I suppose the last question I want to ask you, which you've sort of already answered, is this is indicating a completely different way of warfare for the future, is it not, this conflict? It's very interesting. Talking to the hands-on British generals, they all say that.

They know that. This is the way it's going to be. And it's one thing, two words, I would say, that they've got to pick up from the Ukrainian forces, even if they get smashed to bits now. It's flex...

and improv. And they have proved masters at that. The way that they've been pulling Russian tanks that have been disabled, not badly disabled, and turning them around within 10 days. There's something going on here, the way that they think about it. And what they've been doing pretty successfully up to now is that they've been out thinking their enemy.

And a final word on the British military. You know, you're hinting there that the senior people know that this is the way we need to go in the future. Could this be the best thing that's happened to our military? And could we be looking at a future in which both us and the Americans don't actually fight wars? We fight proxy wars. We use all the things we're really good at, the intelligence, the cyber, the special forces, and we assist our clients. It sounds cold blooded, doesn't it? But maybe that is the future of Western war.

I think we have to have a found army. It will never fight as a found army. And I think we should throw one bit of doctrine straight out of the window. This idea that why we're so valuable to the Americans and NATO, like the French, we're the only European power that can put a division in the field. It's nonsense. What do you mean by a division? What I think the fighting alongside the guidance, the capability, the SF, the raiding capability, I think this is where the Marines, British Marines, are going in the right direction. The fighting ability is

has to be there still, but it's the fighting with and the fighting alongside. And this, you know, when General Lord Richard said, oh, no, no, no, we need grand strategy, we shouldn't be dictated to by an ally like Zelensky, he's talking absolute nonsense. Also, it has very little historical respectability because Britain has always fought at its best coalition wars.

And people like, as I have indicated, boy, are they good fighters when they fight, are people like the Poles. Curiously, they've been in a lot of peacekeeping. The Swedes and the Finns are going to be very, very important indeed. And I think that that's the way America wants to parse NATO. And this is where Britain has got to be

In this, where Britain has a problem, just to stamp my foot firmly on the foot brake at the moment, is particularly in this government. The notion of Europhobia is completely ludicrous. I'm sorry, global Britain, little Britain. Britain is a European power with global interests, but not global reach. And our business is, we're focused there, we've got a war in our neighbourhood. And it affects us.

Robert, thanks so much for that. An impassioned but really fascinating description or analysis of what's going on and hugely important for the future. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Wow, is all I can say at the end of that, Patrick. What a tour de horizon from Robert. It's interesting, he thinks that our government has overestimated its role in the war, yet it's been significant nonetheless. You get the sense what Robert gives with one hand, he sometimes takes away with the other, don't you? But he talked about training, supplying weapons and intelligence, but also, and here's the really interesting thing, because we haven't heard that much about it, cyber warfare and the fact that actually,

we began in terms of the support for Ukraine, cyber operations as early as January. That's before the war even began. And also that fascinating point about Russia trying to knock out Ukrainian systems, digital systems, including satellites, but they failed because we were helping them. I mean, that's all new news to me. Yeah, it really does contradict the narrative that the Ukrainians were slightly caught on the hop. I mean, Biden himself said that Zelensky didn't want to hear what

US intelligence was telling him. This completely seems to knock that point of view on the head. I was also struck by his point about the information war with the Ukrainians using digital facial recognition technology to identify Russian corpses. Now, this is a very, rather kind of eerie story. And, you know, he says that this may be a factor in weakening

support of the war by the Russian people. I'm not so sure that depends on how you use this information. If you send, let people know that they're

sons and brothers, etc., who they think are away in a training camp are in fact dead. This could be, I think, interpreted as gloating and might indeed have the opposite effect of reinforcing, not support for the war exactly, but, you know, sharpening the desire for revenge, which is always a big factor in keeping people fighting. So I think they've got to be very careful in the way they use this tactic. I think the whole

point should be really trying to say look you know we're all in this together but let's stop the killing now rather than appearing to um like i say gloat uh over the death of a young man yeah it can work work both ways of course patrick can't it i mean you know one of the great points and we've made this before on the podcast about the end in afghanistan was when the realization that an awful lot of bodies were coming back and i think this is an

an attempt to emphasise to the Russian public, you are losing an awful lot of people in this completely mad war. So it can work both ways. But I do take your point, Patrick. I mean, the idea that you're actually being sent a picture of your dead relative son, you know, it's pretty ghoulish, isn't it?

I see he's not very kind about David Richards, Lord Richards, former chief of the defence staff. We both know him pretty well. I'm going to speak up for my old friend, David Richards. I think, you know, David Richards is just saying something that

that really needs to be said, which is that the West ought to have a kind of grand strategy approach to what's going on here. Yes, we should support the Ukrainians, of course, but we've also got to think about very much along the lines of where this is going and what does it mean for us and what do we want it to mean for us. So do we want to, David has been saying recently,

Should we be looking at a relationship with a weakened Russia, which defeat will make it more open to the idea of an alignment, some kind of alignment with the West, and most importantly, take it out of the Chinese sphere of influence? Now, that seems to me to be something that definitely needs to be discussed here.

You know, the alternative, the Ukrainian maximalist approach they're taking at the moment means that the end result would be an utterly humiliated, utterly defeated Russia, which could make it more dangerous, less likely ever to come back into the community of nations. Now, these seem to me to be completely reasonable things to discuss. And if that sounds like we're being a bit tough on Zelensky, well, so be it. He made one other interesting point, I thought, and that is, you know, basically,

The Ukrainians are not like us. They're quite tough people. Look at their history. You know, some of them descended from Cossacks and they tend to fight a war in a very different way. And you described the West as having sort of bourgeois attitude. Well, actually, Patrick, if we go back to the Second World War, I don't think you could call Britain and America's approach to war, particularly with regard to air

power as a sort of bourgeois attitude, we can be every bit as ruthless, I suspect, when we really get into things. But it is worth reminding ourselves that, you know, people from Ukraine, Eastern Europe do have a slightly different mindset to the West. Yeah, there's a lot of bitter memories at work there, particularly on the Ukrainian side. So yeah, they do have a different perspective.

I completely agree with you about we're just as ruthless as anyone might want to be, but we're also very good at dressing it up in flowery language that suggests we're actually not. We're rather sort of soft-hearted. Anyway, let's get on to some... We've got some really good listeners' questions this week. So do you want to start off, Saul? Yeah, we've got our old friend Ivaros from Lithuania back again. He's actually calling us out a little bit on our last response to his question because he thinks we slightly misunderstood it. He

He points out that his last question about volunteers' influence on modern war was not about soldiers. It was about supporting equipment. And he's seeing, from his perspective in Lithuania, millions of euros donated for equipment for Ukrainian soldiers from people as charity. And he himself has donated to the Lithuanian Fighting Legion, which is in Ukraine. That's interesting. Didn't know there was one. To Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Bakhmut.

to buy them a drone so that they can see on the battlefield, as he puts it. So, I mean, his question really is, do we think that these types of volunteer organisations supplying equipment in particular are going to shape modern war? What do you think about that, Patrick? I mean, it is interesting, but I think it's always been there, hasn't it?

Yeah, I think before it was things like sending food parcels to prisoners and stuff like this. But this is a really interesting new thing. I don't know if you read the other day, Timothy Snyder, we both know his work, brilliant American historian, professor at Yale University, who wrote the book on bloodlands, on the enormous violence done in all areas.

the different permutations going on between the Russian purges and Soviet purges in the mid-30s right through to the end of the Second World War, all in this strip of land that goes from the Baltic down to the Black Sea, exactly where this is being fought in the southern half of that anyway at the moment.

Now, he was asked by the Ukrainians, you know, can you raise some money for us? His first thought was, OK, I'll get some money together to rebuild a destroyed library. And then he thought, no, in his own words, he thought this was morally self-indulgent. So instead, he started a crowdfunding effort to raise $1.25 million to buy an anti-Shahid drone system. So I think this is a new thing. I mean, Barbara Streisand is doing it.

That guy who was in Star Wars, what's he called? Mark Hamill, is it? So this is a kind of, as well as Timothy Snyder, you've got the loveys sort of going down that road as well. So this is definitely a new development. Okay, we've got another repeat question. This is from Ted King from Nova Scotia in Canada.

Thank you, he says, for addressing my naval question in the most recent episode. I suspect you're both correct that the Russians won't sortie and Ukraine is hampered from easily reaching the Russians at Sevastopol. Well, actually, they've pulled out a lot of their assets from Sevastopol, as far as we know. Now, he goes on to say, I know I shouldn't wish the Russian fleet to be sent to the bottom from the human cost angle, knowing full well what that would entail for fellow sailors. But as long as they're complicit with sending in land attack munitions...

against civilians. And we do know that some of the missiles that were sent this week came from Russian naval assets in the Black Sea. Ted goes on to say, game on, let them all burn. I do hate being caught up with the podcast now, waiting a whole week between episodes is sheer misery. Well, sorry about that, Ted. And he goes on to say, I wish you both your families and all your listeners a happy Christmas or holiday season and may 2023 be a better year for all of us. Well, we agree with those sentiments.

Amen to that. On the subject of Christmas, we are recording later on today our, I suppose you could call it the Battleground Christmas Party. I mentioned it last week. A bunch of us around the table talking about military books of the year. It's going to be lighthearted. I hope it'll be entertaining. So do look out for that. I think it'll be going up from next Monday. Yes.

Yeah, a tiny bit of light relief. Okay, another question from Zach Keys. He's also from Canada. And he writes, since the ghost of Kiev, which if I recall, has been proven a hoax or clever propaganda, I have not heard much word of any largely regarded individual competence arising out of the conflict on either side. Are there any individuals fighting in the conflict who are gaining broad esteem or infamy? I'm

thinking along the lines of such figures as the White Death, Simo Hayek in the 1939 to 1940 Winter War, that's of course the Finns against the Russians, or the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen. I think he's right, isn't he, Patrick? Do we know any notorious or famous fighters on either side? No, there's a couple of different things going on, I think, in this question. One is the ghost of Kiev is...

was, you know, proved to be, or rather the Ukrainians came out and said that there wasn't a ghost of Kiev. This is a mythical... It's the pilot, wasn't it? MiG-29 pilot who's been to a shot down six Russian planes in the first 30 hours of the war. Well, the Ukrainians themselves said, you know, doesn't sound very likely, even while they were kind of, social media was

It was disseminating this. What I think you got there is sort of wishful thinking. And this happens in war. It's like the Angel of Mons. Remember that one when this angel was meant to be seen above the city of Mons by soldiers in the trenches who afterwards said, yes, I definitely saw it. It's a kind of group psychosis type thing. And then you've got real kind of hero figures like the white soldier

death character, Simo Haya, who was a Finnish sniper, who was meant to have killed, he himself claimed to have killed 500 people in the course of the Winter War. And that figure is probably an underestimate. All the deaths were attested, witnessed by his comrades, etc. Now, interesting point on this, actually, he was able to do this, at least in part, he's a brilliant marksman, a former hunter, a country boy hunter. But

but because the Russians didn't wear white camouflage uniforms or overalls as the Finnish did. So they just went into battle in their regular fatigues, which stood out. Basically, it was like having a huge target painted onto your front when you went into battle. So another example of gross military incompetence. The Red Baron, Manfred von Riefen, he was, yeah, he was bigged up by his own side almost immediately once he started fighting.

as being one of the great aces, if not the great ace of the war, 80 kills to his name. German propaganda got on him and said, you've got to write a book. So he did, but before his death, his autobiography, Der Rute Kampflieger, I suppose you'd translate that as the Red Battle Flyer,

was a big bestseller shortly before his death in April 1918. So, yeah, even back in those days, they were able to seize on some outstanding performer and turn it into a big propaganda thing. Why we haven't seen it in this war, I don't really know. I think it's part of the general Ukrainian strategy, information strategy, of keeping everything focused on Zelensky and not allowing attention to be distracted onto other figures in the Ukrainian story.

Okay, moving on to a question from Becca Kennison. And she writes, I find your podcast fascinating and have been listening every week since I discovered it. Her particular interest is behind the lines partisan work.

And she points out that the ISW, that's the Institute for the Study of Warfare's map of the conflict, shows persistent pockets of reported partisan activity in Russian occupied areas. Her question is, she'd be interested to know how they started, where they stay behind parties as the auxiliary units were planned to be in Britain in World War II and was tried in parts of Asia, in Malaya and Thailand, for example, by the SOE. Or did they arise spontaneously? And how are they being resupplied if indeed they are

mind-bogglingly courageous, however they got there. Well, there is a little bit of information about this, actually, Patrick, that I noticed last week. Since the liberation of Caisson, some of the people who are operating as partisans there have spoken about what they were up to

And actually, they were ordinary blokes. You think that this is kind of, you know, thought about in advance. It wasn't at all. These are ordinary guys who volunteered to do their bit to find out intelligence. They were resupplied, interestingly enough, and given weapons. But it was all, you know, very spontaneous. There were links, of course, with special forces who occasionally were coming through to bring them some kit. But really interesting, unbelievably dangerous. And as Becca points out, incredibly courageous.

Yeah, I saw those stories too and was very struck by that fact that they hadn't been given any kind of training beforehand. There wasn't any plan in place and they just acted very bravely, as you say, and effectively, it seems, off their own bat.

Okay, we've got another one here from Alexander Martin. Why does command of operations in Ukraine not resemble Manstein's, i.e. the kind of Blitzkrieg commander, more than the third world plotting that we see? If it's reduced to trench warfare, why does neither side apply the German stormtrooper tactics more?

Oh, I see, of 1917 to 1918, he's saying, to break out. Well, my first thought is that armour is very vulnerable on the battlefield and that's why we haven't seen it

used in that fashion. What do you think, Saul? Yeah, it's interesting. He mentions Manstein, very controversial character. Of course, he's been credited with the plan, the Blitzkrieg plan to come through the Ardennes Forest in 1940. But I think Alexander's actually referring to some of the operations that Manstein conducted in Ukraine itself. He was, of course, the commander when the 11th Army, the German 11th Army took Sevastopol in an unbearable

unbelievably bloody siege. But I suspect Alexander's actually referring to Manstein's conduct of the, I think it's known as the Third Battle of Kharkiv, which was this kind of brilliant hook operation, which destroyed or virtually destroyed three Ukrainian armies.

Manstein was a brilliant operational commander. We know that for sure. I think the idea that you can have something similar in this conflict is a bit optimistic for the simple reason that you've already pointed out you can't really use armor on the battlefield. We've discussed that before. But also the Ukrainians, I think, have been very clever in this war. They are fighting it really using artillery to knock out supply systems, ammunition.

and make it almost impossible for frontline troops to survive. In other words, it's a very efficient way of fighting, which we've heard from some of our contributors. And the idea that you want to use mass attacks, which is really what Manstein was up to, albeit tipped with armour, to produce huge breakthroughs,

you're going to lose an awful lot of people and you're going to lose an awful lot of kit. And the Ukrainians don't want to do that. And they're very sensible not to. So, and just one last point about von Manstein, there've been an awful lot of sort of kind comments made by British military historians. He was very close to little heart after the second world war, but Manstein is a very dubious character with extreme antisemitic views who was complicit in a lot of the war crimes committed, not just by the Einsatzgruppe, um,

behind the lines, but also by his own soldiers. So, you know, people who put Manstein up there on a pedestal need to understand the darker aspects of his personality. I completely agree with you on that. There's a sort of sentimentality, Saul, I find among people who are kind of

you know, get deep into military history and lose the moral dimension of warfare. You see that particularly with the activities of the 11th Army, wasn't it, in that theatre where they were all, all these, you know, von this and von that with their sort of sense of soldier's honour, happily cooperating with the Einsatzgruppen who were going around murdering

Germany's perceived ideological racial enemies. And also sanctioning reprisals. You know, if there's a partisan attack, they're perfectly happy to go and burn down a village, kill everything that moves. So the idea that there was some big moral divide between the SS and

And the Wehrmacht, I think, is a very dubious proposition. Yeah. Now, I think this one's for you, Patrick. You know, this is quite a tricky pronunciation. As you know, I'm very good at pronunciation. This is from Kieran Osegda. So this is obviously from Ireland. Really enjoy the podcast, gents. Very interesting analysis made about the reckoning of the German people after World War II and potentially what Russia may face post-Empire.

if they do indeed collapse next year. As an Irish listener, however, I could not help but wonder if that is something that modern Britain could benefit from as well. A reckoning, of course, for colonialism and empire. And I think he's particularly referring to Ireland. What's your feeling about that?

Well, I'm glad you clarified that bit, because I thought it was Mike saying he's looking forward to a collapse of Britain. That seems to be going on anyway. But I think the pendulum swung back the other way on regarding the empire as something that was actually rather a dark empire.

I'm old enough to have been brought up actually being taught the Empire was quite a good thing for the first decade or so of my life. And now it's completely the opposite. I think the balance lies somewhere in between. There was some good done by the Empire, quite a lot of good, whether intentionally or not is another matter. But

But I think we've got to retain a sense of proportion there. On Ireland, I was brought up again by my Irish mother to regard the British presence there as being almost wholly negative. And I think I'd probably agree with her on that one. But it's great that, you know, time does heal. And there is now, as far as I can see, no enmity whatsoever, apart from a little bit of residual friction here and there between our two great nations.

All right. This next one's absolutely fascinating. Um, we've been asked not to use his name, but, uh, suffice to say that he works at Bryce Norton and is, as he puts it, perhaps well-placed to confirm some suspicions and throw some ideas our way. Now, the first, uh,

he tells us is that the British model of sending out kit to Ukraine is that it must be surplus. In other words, we can't send any kits that we actually are going to need ourselves. Now, he assumes this is similar with the Americans too. And the case in point he makes is that we ran out of surplus NLAWs, that's the anti-tank weapon that was so effective in mid-March and had to go to industry to make more. That's easy enough, as he puts it, for small kit.

Now, the second point he makes is more of a theory. This is really getting fascinating, Patrick. It links into some of the stuff we've been talking about. The week before the Kerch Bridge to Crimea was hit, he saw many special forces jet skis being sent to the theater. That's to Ukraine. Now, it sounded at the time that some witnesses saw something resembling a jet ski or waterborne drone in that attack.

It goes without saying, I'd rather my name didn't make it to the podcast if you use any of this. Nothing here is particularly secret, but work might not like my input. Well, I bet they won't, but...

Really fascinating, Patrick, because he's really confirming what I've been talking about for weeks on this podcast. And that is that our special forces, almost certainly the SBS, are assisting in some way. And how interesting that maybe our kit was actually used in that attack. Yeah, well, it does completely back up what you've been saying before. So it's nice to be right, isn't it?

Okay, well, that's all we've got time for this week. Don't forget the special extra podcast we're doing, which I think will go out on Monday, which is, like I said, our sort of Christmas party where we will be discussing with some guests all the big or some of the big, almost interesting military books of the year.

Yes, it should be a lot of fun. So please join us for that. Before we go, just a quick reminder to email any questions to BattlegroundUkraine at gmail.com and to follow us on Twitter at at SaulDavid66 or at PodBattleground. Goodbye.