279. From Diplomacy to the Coal Mines: Ukraine's Complex Realities
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Hello and welcome to Battleground Ukraine with me, Roger Morehouse and Saul David. In a moment we'll give you an update on events on the battlefield this week and also hear from young Hungarian war reporter Baldassar Gyuri

But I want to start with the diplomatic level, or what passes for diplomacy these days, and President Trump's comments about the war. You will have noticed, Saul, that in response to a question from a journalist this week about President Zelensky's request to purchase American missile systems for air defence, President Trump, who looked visibly irritated, replied as follows. He's always looking to purchase missiles.

Listen, when you start a war, you've got to know that you can win a war. You don't start a war against somebody that's 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles. Naturally, this comment spurred a flurry of accusations and insults towards the White House, accusing Trump of, at best, demonstrating his profound ignorance of the conflict he is supposedly trying to solve.

and at worst, of deliberately parroting Russian propaganda and disinformation. Now, we know that Trump likes to shoot from the hip, and that he has occasionally been cavalier with the details, but it strikes me that there's a rather odious pattern developing here of the White House increasingly and obviously siding with Putin. How do you see it, Saul? Yeah, I mean, actually siding with Putin? I mean, that's how it's appearing, isn't it? I think what's really going on, to be truthful,

Roger, is Trump wants to get a win out of all of this. He wants to be seen as a man who stopped the war. And probably in his mind, he's worked out the only way to do that is to go soft on Russia. But I think this basic narrative that the Ukrainians have

begun the war is a pretty wicked line to take. This has come, of course, on the top of various comments over the last few months that we've discussed on the podcast, including Trump's evident tactic of exerting maximum pressure on Ukraine while letting Putin off

with a free pass at every turn. Interestingly, however, Vice President J.D. Vance responded to the criticism that was aimed at his boss in an interview with Unheard by firing back at Zelensky, saying that, and I quote, it is sort of absurd for Zelensky to tell the U.S. government, which is currently keeping his entire government and war effort together, that we are somehow on the side of the Russians. You have to understand whether Russians and Ukrainians see their strategic objectives and

Now, in this, Roger, I have to say I'm reminded of the line, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, yet denies it's a duck, it must be a Kremlin duck.

But on a more serious note, Vance talks here about understanding Russia's strategic objectives. But if that's really the case, and they do understand those things in Washington, and they still appear to be siding with the Kremlin, then Ukraine and Europe should brace for some extremely difficult years ahead. Yeah, absolutely right. And right on cue, Trump blotted his copybook once again on Sunday in response to the Russian attack on the city of Sumy,

You'll remember, Saul, that the Russians sent two Iskander ballistic missiles loaded with cluster munitions into the centre of Sumy on Sunday lunchtime, killing at the last counts some 35 civilians. The attack provoked outrage across the world. German Chancellor-designate Friedrich Merz described it as a serious war crime, deliberate and intended. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was appalled by the horrific attack

while Emmanuel Macron blasted Russia's blatant disregard for human lives and international law. Trump's take, meanwhile, was predictably muted, saying that he believed that the attack was a mistake. The following day, perhaps stung by criticism from his fellow world leaders, Trump took to Truth Social to declare...

that the whole thing was not his fault anyway. This is Biden's war, not mine, he said. I just got here. I have nothing to do with this war. Before again criticising Biden and Zelensky for allowing the war to start. So we've gone from vowing to end the war in 24 hours to not my fault, I didn't do it, like a petulant toddler. Pretty unedifying stuff, Saul. And yet again, not a word of criticism for the actual aggressor, Vladimir Putin.

Further clarity, if any were needed on this, came on Wednesday when an article in The Economist claimed that some European officials have been questioned by their Pentagon counterparts as to why Europe is still insisting on supplying weapons to Ukraine. Diplomats in Washington are similarly vexed, being told privately by Trump aides that they are fed up with Europe's efforts to fill the breach that the US is leaving.

Of course, the Europeans are pushing back on all of this, demanding a bit more stick in the US negotiations with Russia. And they have some qualified support in all of that from key members of the Trump administration, like Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

So there is some glimmer of hope there. Of course, there is always lots of noise from a Trump administration, we know that. But this latest cacophony would seem to be particularly worrying. Trump, it seems, isn't just indifferent to Ukraine's fate. He seems to be actively hostile towards it. Yeah, I mean, the evidence is beginning to mount, isn't it, Roger? I'm, you know, I was giving the Trump administration a

tiny bit of a free pass in terms of its motivation and its understanding. But all of this is really pretty shocking. And it's not just us thinking this. Former British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps described Donald Trump's refusal to blame Putin for the war in Ukraine as a sort of weasel language we used to hear from the IRA and completely demoralising for democratic nations. I mean, this is pretty strong stuff.

He told the One Decision podcast, I feel disgusted. The idea that the leader of the free world cannot tell the difference between the dictator who locks up and murders his opponents and invades innocent democratic countries and the country itself that has been invaded. He's put it quite well, actually, hasn't he, Roger? And meanwhile, the so-called peace negotiations drag on with Trump's envoy, witless Steve Witkoff, as he's

beginning to be known in the press, visiting Moscow again this week to talk about the wider US-Russian rapprochement with Ukraine seemingly relegated Munich-style to the role of a barely tolerated supplicant. In the horse trading apparently underway, Trump is being seduced by vague promises of carving up the

up the Arctic with the Russians and have a wider and presumably mutually lucrative meeting of minds with the man in the Kremlin. Poland's foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, hit the nail on the head when he said on Monday that the Russians were, and I quote, mocking American goodwill. Sadly, though I understand why Mr. Sikorski has to maintain hope, all the evidence at the moment would suggest there isn't much goodwill on the American side either.

Meanwhile, events on the ground this week suggest that Russian forces may be engaged in a final push to gain as much territory as possible in advance of any supposed peace deal. The analysts at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, for instance, stated that Russian attacks this week had more armoured support than previously.

We know, of course, that Russia has lost huge amounts of military hardware in the last three years, with as many as 22,000 IFVs, infantry fighting vehicles, having been lost by the Kremlin, forcing units in the front line to improvise with, in some cases, civilian cars and even golf buggies in supporting their infantry assaults. Yet this week apparently saw an increase in proper armoured support for those operations, though still piecemeal, around Chassivyar, Pokrovsk,

and elsewhere. So what do you think is happening here, Roger? Is this evidence of a final push before the peace terms or just a new batch of weaponry reaching the front?

I think it's sort of tempting to think that it might just be a new batch of weaponry. And as you mentioned, Russia has burned through much of its material reserves already in this war. I just sort of looked up out of interest how many IFVs of these infantry fighting vehicles the British Army has at the moment. So do you know what figure that is by any chance? I'm guessing it's between 500 and 1,000. That's very good. It's 600. So the British Army has 600 IFVs.

the Russians have already lost 22,000. So quite astonishing figures. So it would be nice to think that it was just a sort of new batch of weaponry, but I think it's probably what's most likely is we're seeing actually, you know, deployment of whatever reserves the Russians, for whatever reason, have been holding back previously. And as you say, it seems logical that the intention would be to gain as much ground as possible before any sort of ceasefire might be signed. It's

It's worth noting, for instance, that Putin does not yet control all of the territory of the four oblasts in eastern Ukraine. That's Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk, that he has unilaterally claimed as Russian. So it would make good strategic sense for him to push to take at least some of the remaining areas prior to any deal being struck.

More than that, it's been suggested that the uptick in Russian operations that has been seen in the last few weeks is evidence of the start of Russia's spring offensive. And this would tie in with the conscription drive that we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Saul.

and shows that Russia has exploited the comparative lull in recent fighting, partly produced by Trump's peace offensives, to rearm and re-equip its forces. It remains to be seen how well the Ukrainians can resist those attacks and prevent Russian breakthroughs on the ground, and only time will tell on that.

Yeah, time will tell. I mean, you know, I'd love to think that there's some kind of great master plan with the so-called spring offensive by the Russians, but it's just simply, let's be clear about this, more of the same, isn't it? They're nibbling away at various parts of the line. They're using what they've got in their store, as it were, to gain a last bit of ground before peace comes. But will peace come? I mean, this is...

This is the fascinating thing. I mean, if they're emptying their cupboards because they think there's a peace deal around the corner, they're being pretty optimistic in my view. I mean, all the indications are coming from the spokespeople at the Kremlin that actually they're not going to do a deal unless...

Ukraine totally rolls over, which it's not going to do. And Europe, as you've already mentioned, Roger, is backing it relatively firmly and slowly, but surely gearing up its own defence industrial base. So I don't think this war is going to go away anytime soon. And it's interesting in terms of the attacks recently. You spoke about Sumy. Of course, that's quite close to the Russian border. I mean, it may be that Russia's tactics have actually been forced upon it

by the fact that the effectiveness of Ukrainian air defenses, not least the use of F-16 fighters. There's been a lot of mention in the press this week that actually they've been intercepting large numbers of missile attacks and basically denuding the Russians of these very valuable, I mean, comparatively valuable or expensive missiles.

means of fighting. And that's the reason they're using many more drone attacks. And they're attacking targets not so much deep into Ukraine, but closer to their border. And only last night, there was a massive drone attack on the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro. And that's relatively close to the front lines. The spark fires throughout the city and hit homes, a student residence and a school. Three people were killed, including a child and dozens injured.

And there's also a suggestion that they are beginning to leverage, again, probably forced on them because they don't have so many ballistic missiles, that they're beginning to leverage this new Iranian jet-powered Shahed-238 drone, which they, that is the Russians, are reportedly producing domestically under the designation Garan-3 aircraft.

And this is faster, of course, because it's jet propelled and harder to bring down. Meanwhile, Ukraine is reported to have struck the bases of two Russian missile brigades responsible for the devastating weekend strike on civilians in Sumy. I'd love to think this is a tit for tat, but of course, this is, you know, sending a very strong message to Ukraine

These war criminals in these missile brigades, they've long been accused, and this is the 112th Guards Missile Brigade, long been accused of terror bombing of civilians. And that was based in the Russia's Ivanovo region, 500 miles from Ukraine. And hours earlier, the Russia's 448th Missile Brigade was targeted at its base in Kursk. And in both cases, there were huge fires. So clearly some of those Ukrainian drones got through.

Right. We're going to hear an update from Hungarian journalist Baldisar Gyuri, who operates in eastern Ukraine. And this is what he told us. Baldi, welcome back to the podcast. Hi, Saul. Thanks for having me. Now, as last time, you're currently in Hungary. You're about to head back to Ukraine. But of course, you have been there relatively recently.

And you've carried out a number of really fascinating visits. And one in particular caught my eye, and that was a visit to a coal mine, where for, as I think you mentioned to us, the first time since World War II, women have actually been working in the mines. And that's obviously down to the fact that there aren't enough men available, they're fighting on the front line. So tell

Tell us a little bit about that and the people you spoke to there and, you know, what this really tells us about changes, I suppose, in Ukrainian society. Yeah. So just to start with stating that not even the Soviet Union were women allowed to work underground in mines, even though Soviet authorities tried to push female emancipation measures.

during those times. But anyhow, so yeah, at the beginning of the Fusca invasion, miners were taken en masse to the army because they are physically fit, healthy, and men. And so out of the 3,000 employees of the mine I visited, 700 were taken. So roughly one fourth of the whole workforce was taken to the front lines. 71 of them have already died in the Fusca war.

And so just one day to another, there were not enough hands underground to continue mining coal, which is crucial for Ukraine to keep its homes heated. And so I visited this mine where they started to train initially 13 female workers to begin working underground. And this pilot program went really well. All their trainers said later that the

women are actually more attentive to detail and more hardworking. At least they were in the school than men were.

And now roughly 150 female workers are working underground. It's important to state that they are not extracting coal, which is the hardest physical labor. They are employed in positions which are more supportive positions to the extracting of the coal, like being electricians underground, inspecting safety rules or operating the elevator, which takes the miners above ground or underground.

or underground. In these positions, men worked before, but due to the scarcity of the workforce, they began employing women employees underground for the first time since the Second World War. And tell us where the location of the mine is, Baldy, because you live most of your time in Kharkiv, and we, of course, visited you there briefly during our trip in January. Most listeners will imagine that the coal mines tend to be in the eastern part of the country. So was it in that sort of area?

Close, very close. I can't give you the exact location due to the request of the company. It was in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, very close to Pavlograd for those who want to look it up. It's 50 kilometers from the current front line, by the way. And therefore there is this uneasiness in the air that the day is getting closer and closer when they're going to have to pack everything up.

and maybe put some explosive into the mine and leave it so the Russians cannot extract coal, have to restore it first before they're going to be able to extract coal from there. So yeah, it's a Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. And just to give you the scale of just this single company that extracts coal from there, they have only in that region seven other coal mines, and it's just in one region.

region of Eastern Ukraine. So you can imagine the amount of wealth that has been lost to Russia since the beginning of the war in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which are the traditional mining regions of Ukraine. But this mine was also in the Southeast part of Ukraine, just not in the historical Donbas region.

Okay, and returning to the women for a second. I mean, as you say, even in Soviet times, I didn't realize this, that they weren't actually allowed to go down and work underground. So how have their families been reacting to this? Because, you know, presumably for some Ukrainian males, this is not popular to see women working in these formerly male-only occupations. Yes, and I have a good anecdote to answer the second part of your question, which

which is that at first men were very skeptical about this idea and they didn't really accept women underground. They did not perceive that they're going to be able to do it just as good as their former male colleagues in those positions. And this time went by. Suddenly what the leadership of the mine noticed is that once they removed the female worker from one position to another because there was a bigger need of her elsewhere,

The whole team whose work was supported by this female coworker

stopped working, went to the leadership and started petitioning that we want our Aljona or Natasha back because we are not willing to work without her because she's the only one who knows how to operate that elevator in the way we like it, etc. And so as one women put it, they began respecting us. So most of these women are hailing from so-called minor dynasties.

when their father, grandfather, or even great-grandfather was a miner in this region of Ukraine. And so one of them said, I was always interested to see what's going on underground, and now I'm happy to actually take a sneak peek. But we have to keep in mind that most of these women's husbands, fathers, or sons are fighting.

And so they didn't have much to say in this matter. However, one of them said, I have a daughter. I don't want her to become a minor. I hope she will learn to become a doctor. But my daughter told me, Mom, I'm very proud of you. And so most of these women received support from their families. And I also have to add that given that most of their husbands and sons are away fighting, these women had to become the main breadwinner for the family.

especially if they were divorced. And being a minor and working for this company has always been a well-paid job. And it's a stable job in times of great uncertainty. Also, there are a lot of refugees, internal refugees who found a new job at this company coming from the Donbass region where they were minors. I'm talking about men now. And so working in these companies and working underground is actually kind of a privileged job these days.

And I think it plays into the fact or it plays into the sentiment why these female workers are happy to work under Korat and why their families are happy to have them work under

either at the mine or underground at this mine. I mean, it's interesting that so many of the miners were called up at the beginning because you would have thought that mining would have been one of those, you know, reserved occupations. It was in the United Kingdom in the First World War. They did use some miners, actually, because mines were used for operations against the enemy. They would dig through to them and plant explosives. So miners were very useful in that sense. But nevertheless, a lot of them were kept back in the UK. Yeah.

It's good that you mention it because an official protection was enacted about a year ago in Ukraine protecting workers in critical infrastructure, which includes mining,

But in the first two years or one year of the full-scale invasion, miners were just, miner buses were stopped at checkpoints. And a good bunch of the men never arrived to begin their shift at the mine because they were just taken away and that just could not go further. Okay, we'll take a break there. Do join us in a moment to hear more from Boldy about demining operations in eastern Ukraine.

Welcome back. So moving on to some of the other things you've been having a look at, Boldy, when we first came as the podcast in 2023, I was looking at the issue of demining. I mean, Patrick was on another plan that day, but I went and had a look at some of the demining and heard some of the statistics. And of course, that's

Two years ago, almost two years ago, and an awful lot has happened since then. And a lot more minds have been laid. So tell us about the NGO you went to see and the sort of challenges they face. And also, more broadly, the sheer scale of the number of ordnance that is scattered all over Ukraine. Right. So about 140,000 square kilometers, not miles, which is, I looked it up just to give our listeners some

It's more than half the size of the entire United Kingdom. And so I was following the almost impossible work of the Swiss mine clearance organization called FSD.

who try to give safe area back to locals. They are not, and it's impossible to find every single mine or unexploded ordinance. Every single government has to decide what kind of residual risk it is willing to accept in the name of its citizens. Because as we all know, even today in France or Italy, there is a thing called iron harvest when 100 years later of the first world war,

World War, miners are still finding bombs during agriculture work. So basically this FSD, it's mainly tasked with clearing the occupied or liberated territories and giving it back to locals who are returning to their villages. Sadly, there is just not enough capacity to do that in a timely fashion. I visited a village just south of Izium. It's called Kamionka, which was liberated in

at the end of 2022, and the FSD only began working there half a year ago, which means that those who moved back to that village, there is not much people left, only 80-something people are living among the ruins. Those people had to wait, I think, almost two years until the first

the miner organization arrived to take away all the unexploded ordnance and shells from their gardens. Usually these people don't have the patience or the means to survive without cultivating their land for such a long time. So they resort to domestic techniques to get rid of these mines and unexploded ordnance, which is extremely dangerous. Usually they make a bonfire in their garden and if they find a mine, they just put it on a shelf somewhere

throw it into the fire, run, and that's how they get rid of these mines, which is, of course, strictly prohibited and ill-advised by any...

any kind of organization that deals with mines. Yeah, so the sheer scale of this is just terrifying, isn't it? And you're talking about people trying to mitigate the situation and just live at the moment. I mean, this is a massive problem that's going to be building up for the post-war scenario, whenever that's likely to be, Baldy, isn't it? You spoke about the First World War. I mean, in some senses, this is going to be even worse because the sheer sophistication and number of these mines, many of which are anti-personnel, anti-tank mines,

I mean, what you had more in the in the First World War and the second, to a certain extent, was just unexploded ordnance. They would be shells and mortar bombs. But what you've got here, these are deliberately planned to kill someone by stepping on them. So inevitably, they're incredibly dangerous, aren't they? So do they have any kind of sense of how long this, you know, this task ultimately is going to take to kind of clear the country or clear it up to a point, as you say, you can never...

clear it entirely of all this dangerous ordnance. No, and it's because just as you said, it's going to be a huge problem because the next war will erupt somewhere in the world and these organizations will have to move

away and start working there. Their capacity all depends on international funding from donors. And those donors' attention span shrinks by time. Therefore, the leader of FSD in Kharkiv told me, look, anyone who says how long it's going to take to demand Ukraine either lies or doesn't know what he's talking about because it all depends on capacity and funding. And already in January, when Donald Trump took office,

He cut USAID and a quarter of FSD's work in Ukraine was financed from USAID. So they had to lay off, I think, 200 employees out of their, I think, close to 800 employees in Ukraine.

And just to add on that, actually, it's not mines that are the most dangerous, but unexploded ordnance. And they're going to cause the most trouble because unexploded ordnance means something that did not function properly.

the way it was designed to function. And so we don't know when it's going to explode, if it's going to explode, where it landed, where we should expect it or not. It's also above the ground. So those people who are the most curious, meaning children, will go and check it out and play with it. And that's when...

bad things going to happen. When a mine malfunctions, that means you get to live another day. But unexploded ordinance, it means something that is already malfunctioned and we don't know how it's going to function in the future. And so it's unexploded ordinance. Everyone emphasizes that it's unexploded ordinance. It will cause a lot more headache than just mines. And to add one more thing, and maybe you can cut it back to FSD,

So as I was following the work of this demining organization, of course, topography and hence the optimal routes don't change much over the course of a couple of decades. Therefore, these deminers also find a huge amount of unexploded ordnance and weapons from World War II, Nazi reliquaries and unexploded grenades, as well as pins and

and just Nazi stuff. So interesting. They were using the very same supply routes the Russians did. Yeah, fascinating. And any bodies found as well at the same time? Or is it mainly ordnance and equipment? Not this time. And lastly, Baldi, you've also been to attend some of the training of Ukrainian soldiers.

presumably had to deal with mines, how to avoid mines, which the Russians and they themselves, of course, will have been laying in prodigious quantities. Who was conducting that training? And, you know, tell us a little bit about how it went. So I was just at the border of Sumy and Kursk oblast during that one or two week time span when the Kursk salient was greatly diminished. And then later Ukrainians were perished from there by Russians. And so units were

that were brought back from Kursk for a little bit of rest and training were attending this workshop by a Swedish ex-military trainer. His name is Dale. And I think he used to be a supper for five or six years in the Swedish army and came over to Ukraine shortly after the full-scale invasion began. And Ed started to teach the Western handbook

scenario on how to deal with mines. And he said throughout the last three years, everything I teach just changed and I have to adapt constantly to all the new things the Russians come up with and try to prepare the Ukrainian troops how to deal with that. What this Swedish trainer told me was that Western military has just forgot since the end of the Cold War how to deal with all the nasty things

traps the Soviets and later the Russians developed and keep using and teach their units how to have to do. One example is just at the beginning of the war, it was a very mobile war. The Russians were pushing forward and they did not lay big minefields. Just maybe if they stopped for a day or two or a week or two before grinding forward, they put out some mobile minefields, which they later removed.

However, as Wagner arrived to the battlefield, they brought with themselves knowledge they accumulated and learned from fighting ISIS in Syria and North Africa. These are the so-called improvised explosive devices.

And there is just no textbook on how to handle these techniques that were made by terrorists. And Wagner really disseminated this knowledge among Russian troops and ranks. And this is really something that Western armies are not prepared for to face. And he said, to quote him, there will be surprises if we ever will have to engage the Russians again.

Also, just the mind game, the mind game changes so quick in the battlefield that whenever he meets a group of guys he trained before, he asked them, do you remember what we learned half a year ago? And then they say yes.

And then he continues, just forget about it. Just forget about it because I've learned newer and newer stuff. Also, he says the primary danger to military personnel is still drones. It's not mines. So mines are a secondary threat. And so basically these guys have to, so during these trainings,

He basically has to increase their risk-taking behavior when it comes to mines, because a drone will be always above their head. And so they're going to have to look at the sky, and therefore they won't be able to look at the ground and what's in front of their feet. And so he's really fighting an impossible battle.

When it comes to training these soldiers for mines, he tries to increase their chances when it comes to Russian minefields, but he has no false expectations. Baldi, thanks so much for that. Some fascinating insight into the, not necessarily the frontline aspect of fighting, but the other bits that soldiers have to take

account of really interesting and also the stuff in the mines too so thanks for coming back on i know you're heading back to ukraine soon harkiv stay safe when you do do that and and we'd love to talk to you again at some point thank you so

Well, that was fascinating, wasn't it? And before we move on to questions proper, Roger, we've had another update from David Alexander, our resident cybersecurity expert, which includes the news that Ukraine is loading its drones with malware so they can't be recovered and used by the Russians. Now, apparently, when drones hit the deck and they're not too badly damaged and they haven't exploded, the other side tries to adapt them and use them against the original purposes.

But according to David, variants of the malware found to date can cause the permanent disabling of the USB port on the connected computer. That's obviously on the drone, preventing reprogramming of the drone or hijacking the repurposed drone. This also has the benefit of meaning the Russians would be much more wary of trying to

analyze Ukrainian drones to gain information on how they are programmed and controlled. And if they try, they will have to take much longer to do so. Various other bits and pieces, cyber attacks on drone companies and government agencies. But also, interesting enough, and you won't be surprised to hear this, Roger, Russian hacktivists targeting Finland's election by attempting to use DDoS, that's internet jamming attacks, against the website's

of Finnish political parties around the time of their local elections last week. Now, the attacks also hit election-related websites, but the good news is that the Finnish election process is done with paper and pencil, believe it or not. No electronic voting there, so there's no way the Russian hacktivists could affect the numbers of votes cast or counted. Yeah, and it's all, you know, more proof of this sort of hybrid warfare that Russia...

when you can see it now and you see the patterns you can see that they've been doing this piecemeal you know against their western enemies and counterparts really for years and you know go back to their attempt to render Estonia lame in I think 2008 over a

moving of a Red Army war cemetery. So this has been going on for years. And we're just, we're sort of, I think, finally becoming alive to it these days. But yeah, interesting stuff. Fascinating about the malware in the Ukrainian drones. That's really interesting. Yeah, I mean, they are absolutely the cutting edge of not just the use of drones, but also this electronic warfare and

I mean, you know, they've got a lot of experts and did have before the war began, actually, Rogers, I'm sure you know, in Ukraine. I mean, they had an incredibly vibrant and effective IT industry there. And of course, all these brains are being put to good use in a warfare sense. So they, you know, of course, the Russians are learning and adapting, but

I would suggest that the Ukrainians still have the upper edge in most of these fields of warfare. And it's just as well that they do. Interesting message from someone called Marina, who referred to our interview with Arno Dedeca, incredibly powerful interview, which we put out on Monday. And in the interview, Arno was talking about some Russian deserters who'd used an underground telegram channel to get away. Well, Marina gives us actual information about this organization. It's called Edite Lesomme or Get Lost.

and it literally means go through the forest but idiomatically get lost or in other words take a hike or bugger off and this is the organization that was started by a man called Gregory Svedlin who would be a fantastic interviewee on your podcast says Marina and indeed he would I mean he sounds like a fascinating character originally from St Petersburg where he used to

run the largest homeless shelter. So he's obviously long been a vocal social activist. In March 2022, the time of the full-scale invasion, he got word that he was on a list, in other words, a hit list, drove home quickly, got in his car, said goodbye to his family and drove straight to the border. And he's been an exile ever since. He's a very interesting guy, says Marina.

intelligent, articulate, and a deep thinker. So yeah, he would be a perfect person to have on the podcast, not least because he set up this incredibly useful Telegram channel, which is helping Russian conscripts to get away. But of course, there's still the danger of getting out of the country. And even if they get to places like Armenia, as Arno reported, the question is, what do they do next? Because they're sort of stuck in a limbo there. But nevertheless, they've got there with their lives, I suppose. And that's something.

Yeah, it's interesting. I actually clicked through to the link that Marina gave us and there's some interesting information. There's an English page, English language page there.

And it does say that they've already assisted nearly 50,000 individuals in various capacities. So I don't think they're not all necessarily deserters, but in various capacities. And there is a link for donations, which I think is a worthwhile thing. So let's just get, can I just give that address? It's iditelecom, which is, you know, as you said, get lost or go through the forest. Iditelecom.

e-l-e-s-o-m dot org forward slash e-n for English per language page

Andy in the UK wrote about the attack on Sumi, and he says, this is more of an angry rant than a question, but the devastating attack on Sumi on Palm Sunday was another atrocious war crime, he says. The nature of the strike, reports of ballistic missiles and cluster munitions, tells us Russia is being increasingly bloodthirsty and cowardly. How significant is the Ukrainian claim that they struck the Russian brigade responsible? I also...

heard some Ukrainian commanders were sacked in the aftermath. Is this true? Although the thing that made my blood boil most, he says, was Trump calling the strike a mistake, as we mentioned at the top. Yeah, I also heard that there are various officials sacked in the aftermath, one of whom being the Oblast governor, whose name was Vladimir Archuk. I think the idea of holding a commemorative event on Palm Sunday presumably was considered

unnecessary risk, I suppose. So I don't know whether that's sort of symbolic that they've sacked this fellow, Mr. Archuk, or whether he was actually culpable in some sense. And you mentioned, of course, in our roundup about the Ukrainians striking back against the missile brigades, the sort of technological, you know, backroom guys who are targeting the missiles and so on.

So I think we've covered that. But I agree. I mean, it was a shocking one. And I completely agree with Andy that Trump's response just was astonishing, frankly. But there we are. Yeah. And just to be clear about what's going on here. I mean, Sumy is just a matter of miles from the Russian border. And it's almost impossible for the Ukrainians to defend against these types of strikes on cities.

you know, full of civilians still that close to the border. Their air defenses, particularly the Patriots, are set much further back and they're protecting places like Kiev and the major cities. And this close in, there is really no defense. So I think, but I think the broader point here about gatherings for whatever reason,

are not advisable this close to the border. So, no, you can't blame the Ukrainians, but they probably could have been a little bit smarter, frankly, about having a lot of people out on the streets at a certain time. And yet, at the same time, Roger, as we know from a couple of trips to Ukraine, there's very much a kind of sense...

even when the war's underway, we've got to keep living our lives. And if that means religious festivals, then we're going to keep doing it. I'm sure there's some regret, but at the same time, there's also a feeling of we're not going to be stopped from continuing to live our lives because there's awful wars going on. One for you, Saul, actually, if I may lump this on you. Chris French in Fairfax, Virginia,

This is a question that probably needs a proper military historian, not just a sort of an interloper like me. He says...

Last week, it was announced that Ukrainian army was transitioning from a brigade-based structure to a corps-based structure. It seems that Ukraine is skipping the traditional divisional structure of three to four brigades, regiments per division, in favor of an army corps consisting of five to six brigades. I can see some tactical and logistical advantages in favoring the corps structure over the divisional structure, but I'm curious to hear what you say about

Saul David, what do you say? Yeah, it's very interesting. I mean, just to be clear about the sort of sizes we're talking about, and I'm thinking more in terms of the Second World War, actually, than modern, but you know, you'll get a kind of rough idea. So a battalion, you'll usually have three to a regiment, you'll generally have three regiments in a division.

and a division, you'll have maybe two or three in a corps. Now, the Americans, generally speaking, don't use brigades. They have this kind of regimental structure. And if you think of a regiment as roughly the size of a British brigade. But the Ukrainians do something very different. They don't bother with a division. They have corps now, which are kind of multiple brigades, and they cut out the division. And so the question is, why do they do that? Well, I think the answer is that in a war of this type,

as a sort of tactical formation. A division was very useful in the Second World War. It was self-contained. It would have artillery. It would have reconnaissance. It would have infantry if it was an infantry division. And it could operate entirely on its own. Well, the Ukrainians seem to do that with brigade formations, which are obviously smaller than divisions. So a brigade would be about 3,000 to 4,000 men. And what they're effectively saying is...

This is not a war in which divisions are going to maneuver on their own. So the largest tactical unit, that's a unit you're going to use on the battlefield, is probably a brigade. And they're grouping them in core. That's just a means of kind of operationally controlling them. But the actual fighting is going to be done by brigade-sized units. So when we were in Ukraine recently, we met the Katya Brigade. And that all makes complete sense to me because this is not a war in which massed armies are

are maneuvering at the same time. We now know that it's really much smaller units. So yes, the brigade is in overall control, but actually you've got subunits of the brigade all the way down to company level. I hope that's not too confusing, but it is interesting to see that the Ukrainians really have done away with the division. We still have them in the British Army, so do most other Western armies still have divisions. The Americans have them too. The only difference, as I said at the beginning, between the Americans and the Ukrainians is they don't bother...

with brigades, that is the Americans. All clear? Wonderful. As mud. That was a brilliant answer, Saul. Brilliant answer. We have a message from Antonio in Milan about Russians being jailed. He says, I read this week about reports of Russians being jailed for sabotage on behalf of Ukraine. I saw some footage from the BBC of the trial of hairdresser. I saw the same footage, Antonio. Yeah.

And it looked like a typical Russian show trial, but it seemed that her neighbor had reported her and used the accusations as a way of getting back to her over a land dispute. My question is, what does this reveal about internal dissent or resistance within Russia regarding the war situation?

It's a good point that actually, I think, you know, my initial response to that is to say that, you know, certainly as I know from, you know, the history of these sort of totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, denunciation of your neighbor or your wife or your business partner or whatever it is,

was very often used for sort of tactical purposes, was not necessarily used for the thing that, you know, you accuse them of. It's used because like in this example, you know, land dispute or, you know, I mean, to be blunt, there is examples in Nazi Germany where, you know, if you can't afford a divorce, the best thing to do is denounce your spouse, right? And that's, you know, an effective divorce right there.

So I'm sure there's a lot of that going on, whether that's indicative of, you know, the level of dissent about the war going on. You know, as you can see from what I just said, that seems to be doubtful. So the degree of control that Russia has over the media space and the whole messaging around the war is one thing. That rather sort of deters dissent. And we know already from the protests in 2012 around Putin's re-election in inverted commas,

you know, that Russians know that this regime has teeth. So they will keep their heads down if they are sort of dissenting.

But then again, you look at the example we just mentioned before about this, um, this, um, network for would be deserters, that there are some who can see through the lies and see through the disinformation, uh, and are willing to, and more than that are willing to sort of do something about it. So it is a complex situation. And I, but I think, uh, the nature of, you know, totalitarian systems is that, you know, most people bite their tongues. If they see it at all, they bite their tongues and keep their heads down.

Okay, we've got a question from Russell in London about the Russian Air Force. What is your assessment of the effectiveness of Russia's Air Force in this conflict? Why haven't they achieved greater air superiority? And how are they adapting their air operations? I would have thought they'd have expected complete air superiority at the start of the war. And they almost certainly would have expected air superiority at the start of the war. They didn't get it, partly down to the incredibly courageous, actually, actions of

the Ukrainian Air Force, they lost a lot of their planes at the start. But I think the key thing that's happened recently is two things. One, the Ukrainian air defence, mainly because it's been supplied with very good weapons like Patriot and some of the European air defence systems have

It has made Ukraine a very dangerous place to fly for Russian planes. Therefore, they're operating much further back from the border. And the other reason they are increasingly cautious and probably operating even further back is because of the F-16s. I mentioned them earlier on in the program. They are not only effective against taking out incoming missiles,

They're also being used in a much more aggressive way closer to the front lines. So slowly but surely, Ukraine is wresting control of the airspace. Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say Ukraine has air superiority. That clearly isn't the case. But what is happening is it's getting more F-16s in the months to come. And this...

benefit for the Ukrainians is only going to tilt ever further in their direction. I mean, it's completely mystifying to me, Roger, that the Russian Air Force has been as ineffective as it has been up till now. But I suppose one of the clear things to take away from all of this is that NATO or Western kit when it comes to planes and air defence systems and surface to air missiles is so far superior to the Russian stuff that the

Russian pilots have got very cautious indeed. I did, just to add something to that, I did remember reading a study paper, must have been a couple of years ago now, but I think before the F-16 certainly arrived in Ukraine, which was asking this very question, you know, why has the Russian Air Force been so evidently ineffective?

And the answer that that gave was that there's a sort of fundamentally different doctrine employed by the Russian Air Force, in contrast to the Western sort of NATO doctrine, which is one way you try and achieve air superiority. I think you can see that as well. I'm not a great expert in this, but I think you can see that as well in the Red Air Force in World War II, is that they tended not to go for air superiority. And it was much more using the Air Force as a sort of flying artillery, in effect, as a sort of ground support thing. And I think

The article suggested that that was still the tactic. Rather than having a sort of integrated strategy and seeking to exert air superiority, they're still essentially using its flying artillery. And it did make, you know, made the case that you look at the example of, you know, the famous Kiev road of death going right back to February and March 2022. Why was the Russian Air Force not, you know, integrated?

in the air controlling, you know, supporting that particular traffic jam on the way into Kiev and essentially allowed it to be destroyed. It's a very good question. So, I mean, that's a suggestion that maybe it's a sort of doctrinal difference that partially explains this as well. Yeah, it's interesting your reference to the Second World War. I mean, I'm working on this at the moment, Roger, as you know, with my forthcoming book, Twilight of the Gods, that deals with the Russian advance towards Berlin in the last 11 months of the war.

And what you see, interesting enough, because I'm looking at some of the German pilots, the anecdotal stuff, and what they were used to earlier on in the war is basically sweeping the Russians out of the sky. There's one particular pilot who's been fighting on the Eastern Front since 1941. So he's seen the whole picture and reimagined.

Whereas the Germans had almost total air superiority from the initial invasion, partly because they destroyed so many Russian planes on the ground with the surprise attack in June 1941. But generally speaking, they had command of the air, which shoot down enormous numbers of Russian planes. This all changed. This is all changed completely by the end of the war.

So that the advantage, as far as the Russian planes were concerned, was not only because qualitatively they'd improved, but also because numerically they had something like 10 to 1 advantage over the Germans by the end. So they may not doctrinally have

been trying to get air superiority, but in reality they absolutely had it. And by that, you know, in very simple terms for listeners, your ability to fly over the battlefield and intervene in any way you want to, either by machine gunning or bombing the enemy without fear of being shot down yourself is absolutely the picture they had by the end of the Second World War. And it's another reason why, you know, there's this kind of complete misunderstanding of how that had come about. It had come about partly because of

So many German fighters have been lost fighting the Western allies, both in the Mediterranean on the Western Front, but also in attempting to combat the, you know, the increasing number of destructive raids on German industry and German cities by Allied bombers. Enormous numbers of planes were brought back and kept in Germany for that purpose and therefore couldn't be used on the Eastern Front.

Last one, Dominic in York asked a question about peace talks. He says, following the peace talks seemingly unraveling and the increasing unlikeliness that a peace deal will be agreed, I don't see where peace comes from in the near future. Are there any realistic scenarios under which Russia might genuinely be willing to negotiate a lasting peace settlement? What would be the key conditions for such negotiations, says Dominic? I would say, short answer, is defeat in the field.

That's the only thing I think would kind of stop Russia in its tracks at this point. Any negotiated settlement on the basis of what seems to be going on at the moment, I think is only going to be a sort of stopgap before some sort of further either political machinations or further incursions and invasions. He says at the end, my feeling is that Putin knows that time is on his side and he's playing a long game. I would agree with that as well, Dominic.

What do you think, Saul? Yeah, I think he thinks time is on his side. I'm not sure time is on his side. I mean, just going back to the other factor that could encourage, in inverted commas, Putin to seek peace terms, and that is if the Americans really turn the screw. Now, we thought this might happen. We thought it might happen if Trump was going to lash out simply because he wasn't getting what he wanted, which is a peace deal anytime soon. The Ukrainians have

agreed to an unconditional month-long truce, but the Russians haven't. So surely that would mean that they were going to intervene and start putting pressure, economic pressure, on the Russians, which might really make a difference. But of course, none of that's come to pass. Hence your point, Roger, is he really in league with the Russians? I don't think he's in league with the Russians per se, but he seems to be absolutely terrified. I've

putting them under any kind of pressure. And, you know, as conspiracy theorists, we can all wonder why that's so. But does Putin know that time is on his side? He thinks it's on his side. I'm not so sure it is. I mean, we can see the oil price dropping. Economically, the ability of the Russians to fund their war in the months to come, I suspect, will get even harder. 20% interest rates at the moment, inflation's rising. I mean, there is trouble astore for the Russian economy today.

If he had any sense, frankly, he'd get out of this war sooner rather than later. But I don't think there is a lot of sense in the Kremlin. Indeed. Well, we'll leave it there. Thank you very much for listening in and we'll see you next week.