9. The Russian Army
56:39 Share

Hello and welcome back to the Battleground Ukraine podcast with me, Saul David, and Patrick Bishop. Well, the Ukrainian advance in the northeast and the southeast of the country shows no sign of slowing down. Every day we hear of new gains and new Russian withdrawals, often at high speed.

The Ukrainian momentum is growing every day and it's beginning to feel like the whole thing could be over sooner rather than later. Yes, indeed. The Russian army seems to be in disarray and the possibility of total collapse no longer seems fanciful. Anyone who knows anything about Russian history will detect some precedence here. And later on, we're going to be talking to someone who knows far more about that than most. And that's Antony Beaver, or should I say Sir Antony Beaver,

whose reputation was made with his landmark book on Stalingrad. And he'll be giving us a brilliant analysis of where the Russian military is today based on his vast knowledge of its history. Well, that's later. But first, let's talk about the progress the Ukrainians are making in a little bit more detail.

The push is two-pronged. In fact, you could argue it's even three-pronged at the moment. But the two main prongs are in the north, of course, following the capture of the key town and logistics hub of Lyman. And the movement from there is pushing east and it's threatening the city of Sivrodonetsk in Luhansk, which I hope our listeners will remember the Russians expanded an enormous amount of resources on when they captured it earlier in the war.

At the same time, they're pushing down from the north, southwards, down towards Kherson, along the west bank of the Dnieper River, which has been a very, very key feature in the geography of the war. And it looks like they're about to take Dudchani, which is right on the river.

Now, I've been talking to reporters on the ground. They tell me that the Ukrainians are going to keep on pushing as long as the weather holds, hopefully right up until mid-November. And we can see from the images coming out that the weather's been pretty good lately. There are leaves still on the trees.

and it's dry, but inevitably the rains and the snow will come. But in the meantime, the Ukrainians very much have their tails up. We can see that Russian resistance is very patchy. There are reports coming in of Russian withdrawals, headlong withdrawals, not just of a few hundred meters, but of miles. And in some places, it very much seems as if they're running away, or as the official sources and pro-Russian bloggers would put it, redeploying.

Of course, in other areas, they're holding firm, at least for the time being, as Ukrainian official communiques acknowledge. It's hard to do all this without a map. But basically, the picture is that the Ukrainians are advancing on two to three fronts and the Russians failing to significantly slow them down. And this is particularly significant, I think, on the west bank of the Dnipro. This is apparently where the Russians put some of their best units. So if they can't stop them, who can?

Yeah, so we've had reports of paratroopers being there who obviously are going to be better trained than the regular troops. And if they're just managing to conduct holding operations and then pulling back, that really is the best that the Russians can offer. This partial mobilization, which we've talked about,

in recent episodes, clearly isn't going to help sending partially trained or realistically untrained troops into battle with kit that looks pretty ropey. It's not going to make any difference. It's just going to be feeding more cannon fodder to the guns. Similarly, the images that they're actually living in

paint a pretty grim picture. These are not troops going into battle in an environment where they're actually being cared for. This is something we'll hear about later on from Anthony Beaver, who's very eloquent on the subject of the way that the Russian military or Russian authorities regard their troops. But I think that Ukraine's problems are problems you want to have. They're the problems that come with success.

Have they actually got the troops to hold the ground they're taking and ensure they don't get ahead of themselves and their supply lines? And also the Dnieper River now becomes a bit of a barrier for them. They've blown up all the bridges using HIMAR rockets. They've taken out the routes that were supplying them.

uh, the Russians when they were still in place, firmly in place on the West Bank. But, um, having said that, given the Russians' performance so far, I mean, they should be in a, in a reasonable position to defend, uh, that, uh, river line. But, uh, what do you think, Saul? I mean, judging on current performance, is that very likely? Uh,

I don't think it is very likely. It's interesting you mentioned paratroops, Patrick, as if they're some of the best troops the Russians have got. Well, they were much vaunted, interestingly enough, over the last 10 years as the kind of shock troops of Putin's new shiny armed forces. But the reality of paratroopers, as you and I both know from our studies of the Second World War in particular, are, yes, they're good shock troops, but they're not so effective in defence, not because they aren't good fighters. They are. They're very motivated fighters.

effectively light infantry put in from the air. But their job is to go in, seize an objective, and then be relieved by more heavily armoured support. The point about paratroopers is that they do not have an awful lot of artillery support, an awful lot of heavy armour support. So

actually putting them in the line in a defensive situation is not ideal. I'm writing about Arnhem at the moment. And of course, we know how that turned out when they were up against, you know, the toughest, heavily armored SS troops that the Germans had to offer. So even the paratroopers are not necessarily going to do the business in this particular case.

It's interesting, isn't it? There's been a lot of criticism of commanders. And again, we're going to hear something about that from Anthony. And the general that's come in for a lot of flack recently, the commander of the area that's seen the biggest setbacks, has an interesting name, Alexander Lapin. He's a career soldier, commander of the Army Group Centre Army.

in Ukraine, 58 years old, lots of experience in Syria, where he was chief of staff. So he knows about levelling cities, but does he know much else? And his name, I think, is quite interesting, don't you think, Patrick? Well, you pronounced it in the French way, Lapin. I think it's actually Lapine. But of course, we all know that Lapin in French means rabbit, which seems appropriate given his truce performance around Liman.

It's very important, I think, if you're going to be a successful soldier to have the right name. When I was covering the Gulf War, the first Gulf War, I was embedded with the U.S. Marine Corps. And I was very impressed by the fact that the commandant was called General Boomer, which I thought was an absolutely brilliant name for a soldier or a commander. And, of course, you know, looking back at the Second World War, we got chief of staff at the beginning of the Second World War on the British side was General Boomer.

General Ironside, another great name. And of course, Churchill's favorite was General Alexander, Harold Alexander, a great name from history. Exactly. Northern Irish, of course, Alexander, as was Montgomery. Awful lot of very good, tough soldiers come from Ulster, we should add. But names are interesting, aren't they? Because one of the best commanders on the German side in the Second World War was Karl Student.

who eventually commanded their paratroop army. He was an excellent commander, a redoubtable foe for the Allies. But student doesn't sound particularly warlike to me. Well, that's the exception, I suppose, that proves the rule. But anyway, let's get back to more serious matters. Is a collapse on the cards? Well,

I think that it's becoming a real possibility. We've got all these elements kicking in, which are to the disfavor of the Russians. Winter is coming. Morale, we know, is absolute rock bottom. The kit is rubbish. Ukrainians are going to keep going as long as they can. I think as winter wears on, we're going to see a real risk of mutiny and desertion. Again, this is something that

Anthony Beaver will be talking about later on. And on the home front, it's very difficult to maintain any sort of positive narrative in Russia now, because all this information from the front will be feeding back into Russian societies, into towns and villages. And so they will know what they're being told on state propaganda is the absolute inverse of

of the truth. So both militarily and politically, the situation is getting worse and worse for Putin. So I think that the paradox is the better the Ukrainians do, the more dangerous the general security situation becomes. Yeah, exactly right. Well, what we're beginning to see, I mean, what you're hinting at, Patrick, is pressure from below, the sort of popular dismay at the call-up we can see by the sheer number of people who've headed straight for the border.

Let's not kid ourselves. Again, another point that Anthony is going to make later on in the program is that are we going to see the back of this regime anytime soon, even if there is pressure from below? Unlikely. It's well embedded. You've got a very efficient, repressive machine. So we're not going to see popular uprisings anytime soon. But if we fast forward to next year, we're

We may see chaos and the economic meltdown. This is the elephant in the room that, of course, if the Ukrainians are up against the onset of winter, the Russians are up against the meltdown of their economy. They need to get some kind of solution, some kind of probably the best for them negotiated peace before this happens. But I can't see that happening. And again, Anthony is going to explain why that is. Yeah, I think that is a real, real key issue that we'll be hearing more of, which is what happens when

the Russian economy does actually completely grind to a halt. And you're then looking at the prospect of hunger. I think how that will translate into political consequences would be not that there's going to be a general uprising like there was in

1917, the population haven't been politicized. There's no, there's a political vacuum there. There's no alternatives. There are no structures that can take advantage of the chaos. So I think what you will see is a sort of disintegration rather than revolution. Now, when people are talking about where the tipping point might come or who will actually provide the impetus for it, there's a lot of talk about these ultra-nationalists who are

sort of circling around Putin, but not actually right next to him. But to my mind, these are basically blowhards. They're useful for propaganda purposes. But I think they probably think themselves much more important than they actually are. You've got people like Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic, Igor Gherkin, also known as Igor Strelkov.

the ultra-nationalist former FSB officer who was a big player in the annexation of Crimea and also stirring up trouble in the Donetsk region, organizing local militant anti-Soviet

I don't think they're that important. They're basically unhinged. Kadyrov in particular is a borderline lunatic. He's just sent his three sons, one of them aged 14, to fight at the front. So I don't think they've actually got a power base that could actually threaten the center if they were to turn against Putin.

Putin and try and intensify the war. But who does have the power? What about the army, Saul? What do you think their role is going to be in political terms in the coming weeks and months? Well, before I try to answer that question, Patrick, just another quick point about Kadyrov. Absolutely unhinged, dangerous character who's been brought in to spread terror, frankly, which seems to be one of the

sort of main elements of the Putin playbook when he brings war to any part of the globe. And Kadyrov, of course, is also a bit of a narcissist, as the listeners won't be surprised to hear. And he's particularly delighted to hear that he's just been made Colonel General of the Russian army. I think this comes into my answer in a second, because I think what Putin's trying to do is send a signal to the

regular army that you're not performing. I've sacked a number of people and I'm actually appointing a guy with basically no professional military experience to the highest position you can get in the Russian army. I mean, it's absolute madness, but he's sending a signal. And of course, that signal could backfire against him. What tends to happen when there's

a change of regime in any country, and I'd go back to the Russian revolution, the French revolution, is that the army has to turn against the existing regime. And it is possible, actually, that that might be the tipping point in this case, because two things are going on here.

the senior people in the military who've got the most to lose are either being sacked or they're getting a lot of criticism. And the performance on the battlefield is very poor, not necessarily because they're all incompetent, but because, so we gather, Putin is interfering. I mean, he is personally taking charge. And the last time this happened, of course, was, well, in any kind of major sense, in a historical sense, was the Second World War, where both

Hitler and Mussolini thought they could do better than their trained generals. And we know how that turned out. So I wouldn't rule it out, actually, Patrick. I think this is exactly how you get change of regime. And it's possible it'll happen in Russia.

Hmm. Stalin did actually learn that lesson, didn't he? He started off being a hands-on commander and then decided that the generals did in fact, or the few of them who were left after the purges, knew more than he did about it and left them alone with positive results. I think the biggest danger or certainly a major danger to Putin is his inner circle, the so-called fascists.

Siloviki. This is the tight band of security chiefs from the FSB, the military, the police, all those who basically control the

the repression organs of the state. Now, their fate is tightly bound to his. So if they feel that he is losing it, essentially, then self-interest will kick in and they may be the ones who move against him. Two names we hear quite a lot of is Alexander Botnikov, the current head of the FSB,

and Nikolai Petrushev, who's a former FSB director, but who since 2008 has been the secretary of the very powerful Security Council of Russia, which coordinates all aspects of state security. These are cold, rational men. I wonder what they make of Putin's latest speech welcoming Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, Kherson, etc. into the

Russian Federation, in which it's a very impassioned speech. It's an interesting speech. He recasts the war. It's a history lesson, really. And he recasts the war as part of an anti-colonial struggle against America and the West, which, according to his version of history, has always sought to enslave Russia and steal its wealth. And he presents Russia as being this powerhouse of moral values, criticalism.

Christian values, all the great things that humanity can deliver. And against this, this sort of satanic coalition of the West. Now, do they go along with that? Do they see this as what they're actually fighting for? I think they're very cold-eyed men who are basically interested in power and money, and

And I think impassioned, though the speech may be, it's more likely to convince them that he's not actually got a grip on reality. But when does this translate into action? That's the question. Yeah. And it's very interesting, isn't it, that that speech and that take on history, if we go back to our guest Orlando Figes, who said that very much there's been this division in politics.

Russian history between those who lean towards the West and those who say the West are the enemy. And basically in Russian history, the regimes have oscillated between the two. And Putin has now very much gone against the West, but his future...

And the future of Russia, if you're going to set up what in effect could be in the longer term a second Cold War, is you must have allies who aren't the West. And that's effectively China. And I think the big tipping point in this conflict will be as China slowly seeks to distance itself from Putin. Of course, there is one big elephant in the room. We've discussed it many times before. And that is the question of how desperate Putin will get and the sense that

will he choose to escalate this war by not just threatening to use nuclear weapons, but by actually using them? Yeah, of course, as we've said, we've gone over this before, the sort of escalatory process, you know, maybe a battlefield nuke

to start off with, but I think it's becoming clear that that is not necessarily the first option. It would achieve nothing tactically and it would invite a massive response, a conventional response, but this is what the Americans are warning. They're careful not to use the word nuclear because I think they're not actually thinking along those terms. They're thinking about something I was told the other day by someone with a line to the Americans is that a first step might be taking out the Russian Black Sea fleet,

Now, of course, we've still got the possibility of a strategic nuclear warhead being deployed either in Ukraine or elsewhere. There is a bit of reassurance there from someone I was speaking to who has some deep knowledge of the security apparatus in Russia. He says there are two sensible people between Putin and a nuclear strike. One of them is Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff, and the other is Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu.

And Shoigu, I think, has shared some of –

Putin's rather weird religious practices, going off with him to Siberia to meet with shamans and so forth. But Gerasimov, at least, is believed to be a rational human being. There is, of course, also, we've got to remember, a hotline between Moscow and Washington. So that has been apparently in use at various points during the conflict. So hopefully there could be some dialogue before we get to that point.

Another worrying thing that's being talked about is this, the Russians might choose to

use an electromagnetic pulse bomb. What do you know about that, Saul? Well, we don't want to go too much into the specific details of the electromagnetic pulse bomb, as it's known. But I think the headline point about this is that an explosion in altitude over Europe could take out electricity, all electrical signals. So obviously it's a very concerning event.

it has a very concerning potential. But I think, you know, getting back to your hotline, which we know there is still between the US and Russia, I think this will be added to the list of red line weapons that cannot be used. And that, of course, will include weapons of mass destruction under whose broad banner this would come. Okay, well, that's enough of current events. We're going to be talking to Anthony Beaver in the second half. Do join us then.

Welcome back. Well, we're very lucky this week to hear from Sir Anthony Beaver, the prize-winning and best-selling historian who has written extensively on Russia at war in books such as Stalingrad, Berlin, and most recently, Russia, Revolution and Civil War, 1917 to 1921. Well, Anthony's going to put the current situation into its historical context for us based on his vast knowledge of the Russian military, particularly in the wars of the 20th century.

This is what he said. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine on the 24th of February, we've seen what I think we can both agree is an incredibly poor performance by Russia's military.

characterized by chaotic logistics, poor command and control, a failure to integrate all arms warfare, over-reliance on firepower, a willingness to suffer huge casualties and low morale, and the list could go on. But the question to you as a historian of Russia at war, Antony, is have some of or all of these characteristics been displayed before by Russian forces on the battlefield? And if they have been,

Could we say they're typical of what we might call the Russian way of warfare? I think one's got to be very, very careful about comparing previous periods because so much of an army is performance and doctrine depends on the society it comes from. I mean, one of the big differences, of course, with Putin's army is the whole notion of corruption.

Now, there was a fair amount of corruption in the First World War and no doubt also in the 19th century expansion of the Russian Empire. But the corruption that we've seen ever since 2008, when Putin started throwing money at the armed forces, has been extraordinary.

But also we have seen arms procurement carried out in a very strange way with concentration on high prestige projects like the Armata tank, which is really only good for trundling across Red Square on the 9th of May rather than international.

any form of combat activity. But of course, there are, shall we say, what you call the Russian way of war. We see many similarities from before, all the way back to Borodino and certainly the 19th century and the Second World War. The emphasis on artillery, what they used to call the god of war, partly because they felt that that might reduce their own casualties. And yet at the same time, one of the most striking aspects

of Soviet military, not doctrine, but Soviet military activity has been an incredible waste of manpower and a terrible, appalling contempt in many ways for their own soldiers. We saw this in the Second World War. It was even provoking mutinies towards the end of the Second World War in 1945.

The way that soldiers were ordered to crawl out into no man's land to strip the clothes off their dead comrades to bring back so that they could then be used for clothing some of the replacements. Now, these replacements were often just grabbed off the march or grabbed on the march in a way as clothes.

The forces advanced through what had been Western Belarus, or in fact, actually had been Poland and Western Ukraine, which had also been Poland.

And they were forced into the Red Army just in a way that we're seeing mobilization carrying on at the moment. One could go on with many other things. I mean, I remember being so pulled in the 1990s when researching in Russia, when hearing stories, including from the British Embassy,

the way that Russian generals held their own recruits in total contempt and just made jokes about the number of suicides, up to 5,000 conscripts a year killing themselves, thinking, you know, that that didn't matter. So there is a real problem in the Russian army, which I think becomes a problem of morale. The other aspect which one must consider

always remember, one of their great weaknesses is actually at the NCO level. This was very true of the Second World War. Any soldier who showed great promise

was rapidly promoted, say, to NCO or to a sergeant or whatever, and then was turned into an officer almost immediately. And because there was so little strength, if you like, on that area, this is one of the reasons which contributed to the appalling discipline of the Red Army. We always think of Stalinism as a total control. But in fact, the Red Army was chaotic in time.

towards the end of the Second World War, which was one of the reasons or one of the contributory reasons for the mass rapes which had become so notorious during that particular period of 1945. I mean, German studies recommend it said that the British Army was the least worst or the least bad in its treatment of German civilians in its advance.

But that wasn't necessarily due to bromide in the tea or anything like that. It was much more that the British regimental system always had that tremendous strength of the NCO, the sergeants and sergeant majors.

who were determined to know where their soldiers were and wouldn't let them go wandering off. And that was, I think, one of the reasons why actually British army discipline was far better than many of the other armies. It wasn't necessarily meant that the British were completely good natured and necessarily towards the German women. But anyway, should we say that it was kept under very firm control by the NCOs.

So, I mean, overall, yes, there are pluses and minuses and all the rest of it. The Russian army in the past, and this is one thing which Putin, I think, is counting on, was always, shall we say, capable of absorbing extraordinary suffering. No British army, French army, American army would have survived at Stalingrad in the way that the Red Army did.

But for Putin to expect that from his present troops, which have come from a very different society, and his idea that, you know, Europe will crumble in the face of Russian solidity, bravery and long suffering is total fantasy. And I think that this is one of his major miscalculations.

You talked a little bit about the lack of discipline at the end of the Second World War there, Anthony. Of course, we are seeing similar acts of atrocity, torture, rape and murder in this current war. I mean, why are Russian soldiers, do you think, prepared to consider these sort of barbaric acts as a legitimate act of war? There must be some sort of official complicity with this sort of thing for it to be so widespread, do you think?

That is absolutely true. But I think part of the debate, and I've just been having this in Denmark and Sweden or whatever, because, of course, people are fascinated exactly by your question, and it's a very important one. Now, a number of historians, I would say many historians, probably feel that it goes a long way back. It goes all the way back to the Mongol invasions of the 13th century when mass destruction, mass rape, mass killing of civilians

was regarded as an essential weapon of war in terms of terror.

And this carried on in Russia, there's no doubt about it, and certainly in the 19th century, of which we know comparatively little in the West of the imperial expansion south into the Caucasus, or even in the previous century, you know, with Pyotr Yemkin and Catherine the Great. But then above all, the expansion eastwards into Siberia using Cossack troops, who were always the most brutal and the most cruel in many ways.

Why was Europe different? Well, I think that we had the horrors or we certainly saw these horrors during the wars of religion, particularly in the 17th century and the Thirty Years' War. Horrors probably just as bad as the Mongol invasions.

But in Europe, things changed in the sense of the Enlightenment, the nation of humanism and so forth. And even then, in the 19th century, a far better treatment of soldiers and invention of the Red Cross and so forth after Sofrino.

The trouble is that there is no national DNA. I mean, you cannot generalize about Russians as such, especially when there are so many different nationalities and so many different cultures within such a vast country. But at the same time, there's always a form of narrative, a national narrative or an idea of a self-image.

And that has perpetuated itself in Russia. You know, that war is cruel, war is barbarous, you can't complain about it and all the rest of it. And still this idea that, you know, terror is a weapon of war, a legitimate weapon of war. And we certainly saw it in 1945 with the revenge on Germany and, in fact, not just on Germany, but even on sort of Hungary and a lot of Central Europe.

with actions and activities which we are seeing again in Ukraine with appalling results. But I mean, one of the most striking things was this tape which appeared of Prigozhin, basically one of the Kremlin's closest and even most

a potential replacement to Putin, who is known as Putin's chef. Anyway, Prigozhin is the head of Wagner. Wagner is actually producing probably the best results on the battlefield out of most of the troops and is famous for its brutality and its cruelty in Africa and in other theaters of operations where it's going.

It is operating separately from the Red Army. But there is Begoglian in Rostov-on-Don prison, recruiting the worst murderers and rapists and criminals generally, and actually saying to them, you'll be free in six months, you know, your sentences will be written off, and you get into Ukraine and you just do whatever you want to them.

Now, this is terrifying. They used prisoners from the Gulag, criminals, not the politicals, during the Second World War. And they were put into the punishment companies in Strafro-T, which was digging up mines in front of troops just before they attacked or whatever. Here, they're just being used basically as terror troops. And that in itself, I think, is highly significant. And again, I think...

An indication that right at the top, they are prepared to use the most extreme methods as a weapon of terror. And this is one of the reasons why Zelensky is so angry, so determined not to allow the Russians any territory at all, including Crimea.

Okay, so you talked about the criminals, Anthony. We also know, of course, recently announced that there's been a partial mobilization of reservists, up to 300,000, possibly more. But of course, there's already been huge pushback against that, where there are hundreds of thousands of young Russians heading for the borders, determined not to serve in the Ukraine. How successful do you think this partial mobilization is going to be in terms of its effect on the battlefield?

I don't think it's going to be very successful. One's only got to hear the stories. How about these new recruits? I mean, you can imagine how demoralising it is for them to be told, we haven't even got bandages for you. Ask your girlfriends and wives and mothers or whatever to give you tampons. I mean, it's unbelievable that they're having to tell their soldiers, you know, to provide some of the basics for themselves.

All they're basically going to be getting is going to be uniforms and flak jackets and virtually nothing else apart from weapons. And we don't know what their weapon situation is in terms of equipping them. I mean, is this going to be like that stage in the Second World War when, you know, there was a mass attack and only about 50 percent of them actually had rifles and the rest of them had to pick it up off a dead comrade as they charged forward?

Again, it is an astonishing contempt for their own people, which is something we shouldn't underestimate. And of course, word is getting around and the

Mothers, even obviously, even when there was a war in Afghanistan, they started sort of creating their unofficial networks because they were so angry. They were also so angry during that period of the 1990s when, you know, all of the so many of the conscripts were actually committing suicide. So the figures that we've seen from sort of Levada polls and all the rest of it saying that 70 percent of Russians support the support of the war.

Well, that may be because so many have left the country. But I think that actually the figure is probably dropping very rapidly. And Putin's approval rating is dropping very rapidly with it. So what I think is going to be quite interesting is whether we might possibly see a.

a Soviet-style sudden disappearance where President Putin has had to go into a sanatorium. I mean, this was how it was handled in Soviet days, you know, while they decided, you know, who was going to take over or whether he should come back or whatever. So we might see this, whether Pigoshin or Patrushev or whoever it might be, then suddenly becomes this sort of temporary figurehead.

to give them a chance to provide an impression that somehow strategy and leadership is changing. And a lot of this will also depend really on to what degree the inner circle is spooked by public resentment and street protest and so forth.

There's no question of 1917 and an overthrow of the regime. It's too firmly ensconced for that. But at the same time, they are nervous at the public display of opposition to the war. And that might play into either notions of compromise, which I didn't think was very successful because, as I say, Zelensky is determined

to have a complete and utter victory and clearing of Ukrainian territory. Or we may see something which is then more scary because the others around Putin aren't necessarily any more liberal than he is. In fact, they could even be more extreme.

So it's very, very hard to predict which way it's going to go. Everyone's asking sort of how's it all going to end? Well, I mean, anybody who can actually come up with a single answer is, I think, being overoptimistic. It's a question of really offering a menu of possibilities of how the war could end.

A lot of saber rattling, Antony, of course, about the use of possible use of tactical nuclear weapons. Do you think that's an option at all for Putin that could lead to a victory or something that he might call a victory?

No, it certainly won't lead to a victory because it will upset the Chinese and Indians and the governments and any of his sort of potential supporters. Putin has actually been digging himself into a deeper and deeper hole or pushing himself further and further into a corner. And

And I think that that would be completely counterproductive for him. So I'm not quite so concerned about that, even if he did out of sort of desperation, which is always a possibility which one can never rule out. I think that the West's counter would definitely be obviously a non-nuclear one. They would certainly not take it over seriously. It's either a straightforward sort of demonstration, obviously,

For example, Lawrence Friedman suggested a possibility of, say, a strike on Snake Island or something like that, which is quite good, and I'm sure in the right way of thinking that this might be launched. But if they did something that was, shall we say, far worse, like dropping it on a city, then it's very hard to predict. But I think that NATO is well aware that ever since 1961,

Soviet doctrine has always been totally different to Western doctrine in terms of the step up from conventional to battlefield nuclear, because that's when Penkovsky got out the information, in fact, that we had.

that the Russian army had a doctrine that you didn't even have to consult with the Kremlin if you were a senior commander and you wanted to launch a battlefield nuclear. I really do think that that is pretty unlikely. But as I say, it cannot be completely ruled out. I think that Putin would find himself in a truly desperate position internationally. And he does need China to have some sort of backing and support, and especially by the time that the Russian economy tanks early next year.

Anthony, after this war, when this war ends, what do you think is the best long term way to contain Russia, bring it back into the international fold? We don't know how extreme, as you say, the government of Russia will be in the long term. But what is the best way to contain Russia and curb what has been a really quite alarming desire for territorial expansion?

I think that what we're talking about is actually going to be Cold War II as opposed to Cold War I. And this is a problem. I had a very interesting time in Scotland recently with George Robertson and Jeremy Hunt discussing the future of geopolitics.

at a conference there. And I do fear very much that we are going to be in a world where we cannot negotiate in the same way as we have in the past. Even in Cold War I, one could usually be fairly confident that the communist leaders, whether of China or of Russia or the Soviet Union, would stick to an agreement that they made, or if they made a promise on the whole, they would hold to it.

What we're seeing now is a far more chaotic world where conventional diplomacy seems to have always been thrown out of the window when dealing with something like that. And

There is always the danger, and this is where Zelensky is absolutely firm and quite right, I think, that there's no way you can come to any deal with somebody like Putin when you know that he's going to break his word and is prepared to lie through his teeth at every single opportunity and even contradicting his own lies quite happily. So that, I think, is a very worrying one. But in the meantime, it's a question of actually how the war ends and what the consequences are.

if it does end as the way that Zelensky wants, that will be such a humiliation for Russia and the Russian army. We do not know what effect that will have on the internal government of Russia. We cannot rule out the possibility of some form of disintegration. Now, the disintegration of Russia would be terrifying because

Russia, certainly by next year and by the time that sort of the West and certainly Europe has converted to avoid the energy blackmail, has converted to renewables and if necessary, nuclear power. The Russian economy is simply going to collapse because they have no alternative industries apart from energy.

And there are many parts of Russia which would simply starve. So one's looking at a not necessarily a civil war as in the 1917-1921 civil war, but basically sort of local chaos caused by a complete collapse in administration, in facilities, in utilities and all the rest of it.

So somehow, you know, Russia does need to be kept together, I think, for purely humanitarian purposes. But, you know, how can one impose on a country like Russia a form of regime change, you know,

And when one thinks of, shall we say, the famine relief following the civil war, you know, the famine relief rally of sort of 21, 22 and sort of Hoover programs and so forth, you know, the government of the time, obviously Lenin's government, you know, basically refused to work with it out of pride and all the rest of it. And Russian pride, of course, is very, very deep. And to deal with this humiliation of the degree that they're likely to go through, it's very striking.

The other problem, which is, when I say going back slightly to the ending of the war, Zelensky is determined to take on the whole of the, and to take over the whole of the Crimea. I thought to begin with that this was sort of a very clever bargaining card, which he wanted to have at

at the time when eventually, you know, the victory was more or less in Ukrainian hands and some form of deal might possibly be necessary. But I was corrected by this by somebody who I think knows Zelensky very well and saying no, he is just so angry about the atrocities committed in Ukraine, but he is determined to take back the whole of the Crimea.

Now, in Russian terms, this is a very difficult one, because this is something that Russia will never accept. In terms of the history, Catherine the Great and Potemkin, as I was saying, but also Sevastopol. I mean, Sevastopol is a naval base. It's sort of purely Russian in image, in creation and construction.

and was actually excluded from the whole of the Ukraine administrative deal when Khrushchev passed it all over to Ukraine. And it's never really been Ukrainian in that sort of sense. So I think that that will always be a bitter sore on the Russian side in the future, and possibly, in fact, quite very possibly, a bone of contention in the future. But

But as I say, that's one sort of aspect of the end of the war and of the problems of Cold War II. We don't know, I mean, whether Cold War II will consist of a new face-off between Germany

China, Russia, and some of their own allies or whatever, including Venezuela and one or two other countries, Cuba, and whether this will be a sort of coherent extension of the old communist bloc of the past, or are we going to see an angle, a change of axis between

away from what was the original sort of left-right split, fascist, communist, going all the way back to the Russian Civil War, which actually influenced the whole of the 20th century and is still an influence today. But we are seeing, we have seen this rather alarming, but at the same time, interesting change of axis towards not a left-white spirit as so much as in the past, but of a much more authoritarian, democratic one.

And to add to the confusion, we're seeing in certain countries, like in Germany, where the extreme left and the extreme right is starting to link up, die Linke and Alternative für Deutschland. So we are into a sort of different world. It's still part of that sort of left-right split, but as I was saying, it has now changed on its axis.

Fascinating stuff, Anthony. Thank you. And very sobering, of course, most of these considerations. Can we end on a tiny bit of a lighter note by me asking you, your current status in terms of the welcome in Russia is not good. I think you're persona non grata and you can't travel there. Can you see any prospect, if the war turns out, with a slightly more amenable Russian government that you will be able to travel to Russia at some point in the future?

Well, I'm not sure whether that is the important question. It's much more whether with a slightly different Russian government, you know, everybody else will be able to travel a bit more. But I think the encouraging thing at the moment, of course, is the astonishing Ukrainian advances. I mean, they seem to have kept up their momentum in a very remarkable way, which is definitely the right way to do it if you can carry it through.

It's not like the Russian Civil War, where the landmass was so vast that, you know, this is why they needed cavalry and trains, because they would often have, you know, a huge advance, Admiral Kolchak advancing all the way from, you know, Siberia right up to the sort of the Volga, or, you know, General Denikin coming up from the south on the march towards Moscow. And then suddenly these advances would collapse through overextended forces, lack of supply lines and all the rest of it.

I mean, the fighting in Ukraine is much more concentrated. And obviously, you know, they've got a form of mobility, which they lacked over 100 years ago, in terms of resupply.

But I still think that we have got to watch about whether they can maintain this momentum of advance and the effect it will have on Russian morale. And that, I think, is probably one of the most encouraging things. So I think we are ending actually on a fairly optimistic note, as we wanted, quite rightly.

Well, that was absolutely fascinating and provoked many thoughts. I had forgotten that there were indeed mutinies, even in 1945.

in the Red Army. And that was when they were victorious. Another thing that he said that I think is very relevant is the different societal backgrounds that we're looking at here. In the Second World War, Russia or the Soviet Union was a cohesive society. They were cohesive societies. There might be different nationalities, etc. The glue holding them all together is the fact that they're under attack. And of course, the communist faith, if you like,

Now, society is much less cohesive today. So I think, you know, that element is removed from the equation and makes collapse all the more likely.

Yeah, and it was interesting. He talked about the inherent weakness at NCO level. I mean, he was talking in a historical context, again, in relation to the Second World War, but I think it probably holds true today, doesn't it? You can, you know, any soldier showing promise was immediately promoted to NCO and then on to officer because...

Basically, there is that weakness in the system. Where does that weakness come? I mean, you can speculate, can't you, Patrick? I mean, it probably comes from the fact that, yes, to be an officer, you know, this goes back to the sort of 19th century British army. You could be an officer and someone, you know, from the upper echelons of society might aspire to that. But the ordinary guy going to the army, no, there's no kudos. Society does not admire someone weak.

saying he wanted to be a soldier. It's almost the opposite of that great Samuel Johnson line, you know, every man feels less of himself for not having been a soldier. And the reality in the British army in the 19th century, and probably the Russian army of the 21st century, you only go into the military, you know, as a matter of desperation, because you're treated so incredibly badly. And this comes on to another point that Antony makes, which is the complete contempt

even now and certainly when Antony was researching in Russia in the 1990s that Russian generals and Russian officers feel for their own soldiers?

Yeah, that is a very grim tradition that carries on. 5,000 suicides a year were being recorded in the 1990s. And as he said, this was something that the Russian generals joked about. So what a terrible culture to go to war in. On the question of where we go next, we were talking earlier about what's going to happen in the new year when exiles,

economically things will really begin to get bleak in Russia. And, you know, this mention of hunger, famine, this is something that we never thought we'd hear again in Russian history. But I think if that does come about, we're going to see this steady weakening of the center and a drift away from

at the periphery, which may be the way that the Russian Empire is currently constituted, comes to its end. Yes. And of course, the consequences are interesting, aren't they? And it could go a number of different ways, as Anthony pointed out, you know, you need to basically offer anyone who asks the question, what's going to happen next, a menu of possibilities. But

One possibility he thinks is not unlikely is, as he put it, a sudden Soviet-style disappearance where Putin just disappears. I mean, effectively, he's been put into a sanitarium. I mean, this is Khrushchev-like in 1964 after the disastrous

confrontation against the Americans over the Cuban Missile Crisis. And, you know, a couple of years later, he's effectively and quietly removed. And could this happen? Well, we talked about the sort of people who might take over. And in fact, Antony name-checked some of those people. Now, of course, we've got to remember that Putin is paranoid, quite understandably. And so his own personal security is very, very tight. But if anyone

can get to him, it will be these people, these Sloviki security barons. So I think that's where I, if I'm looking over my shoulder, that's where, and I was Putin, that's where I would be looking. Yeah. Of course, the difficulty with whoever takes over is what kind of peace is produced or what kind of settlement to this war. It has to end eventually, but it's getting increasingly difficult to end because as we also discussed,

The power is with Ukraine at the moment. They are making advances on the battlefield. And why would they want it to end until not only have they recovered all the ground that they've lost since the beginning of the war this year, that's the invasion in February, but also, and here's the rub, Crimea as well. I mean, all Western commentators, including US officials, are now beginning to discuss the possibility that this might be the end game to remove Ukraine

from all parts of pre-2014 Ukraine. And that sounds like a good idea in the medium term, perhaps. But as Anthony said, the Russians really do think Crimea belongs to them. So at some point in the future, I could see it becoming like Alsace-Lorraine was with the German-French conflict and endemicity.

enmity and it could be some point in the future become casus belli for another war well we're entering very interesting and consequently very dangerous times so please join us next week when we'll be bringing you all the latest news and analysis and another brilliant expert to provide real insights see you then bye-bye