Frontline special: Former British Diplomat Tim Willasey-Wilsey
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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. I'm Alex Dibble and I executive produce the podcast. The World in 10 is partnered with Frontline, the interview series from Times Radio, available on YouTube, with expert analysis of the world's conflicts. At the weekend, we bring you Frontline interviews in full. Here's one from this week. I hope you find it interesting.

Hello and welcome to Frontline for Times Radio. I'm James Hansen and today we're talking about the latest on the war in Ukraine and I'm delighted to be joined by Tim Willesey-Wilsey.

a visiting professor of war studies at King's College London and a former British diplomat. Tim, it's always a pleasure. Welcome back to Frontline. Good to see you, James. First of all, I wonder who, in your opinion, of Russia and Ukraine needs peace talks more urgently, because it strikes me you could almost argue it both ways. Do you have a view on who needs peace talks more urgently? I think Ukraine needs peace talks more urgently. I think the manpower problems they've been experiencing over the past year

the fact that they're gradually losing territory, I mean gradually but nonetheless losing territory up in the Kharkiv region, in the Donbass region, I think they will breathe a huge sigh of relief if there can be a pause. That said,

You know, Russia has been taking huge amounts of punishment as well. And the very fact that they're having to use North Korean troops tells you something, you know, about their own problems. But I think Putin making gradual progress, I think he'll feel the happier of the two at the moment.

I suppose the counter argument would be, and we've had some people on Frontline making this argument recently, is that Vladimir Putin has his own manpower problems. He doesn't want to launch a fresh wave of mobilisation because of the potential political risks that could cause him domestically in Russia. He's got his own materiel problems too. And if this war were to drag on towards the end of 2025 or even beyond, some of the underlying weakness of the Russian economy could really cause problems

fundamental problems for him. Do you buy that argument at all? I don't really buy the argument because, you know, Russia has this ability to take, you know, just tremendous punishment. We saw it in the 1940s. We saw it in the 1950s and the 1960s. And, you know, the economic weapon is much more effective in

against the West than it is against countries like Russia. They can just soak up the pressure. And actually, you know, there are so many holes in the sanctions regime

they're still getting so much money from oil and gas that I think Putin reckon he can weather the storm. And of course, he's so powerful personally surrounded by the FSB and the military. It's very, very unlikely that he's going to face a challenge to his own authority. And if he does face a challenge, he will put it down, as we saw with, you know,

the Prigozhin mutiny and so forth. So I don't see, yeah, Putin's not in a brilliant position. His invasion of Ukraine has been a catastrophe. He's lost vast amounts of men and equipment. It's been a complete mess. But he will reckon that he can outlast Zelensky. You mentioned the oil and gas revenues that are still...

Sustaining Putin's war effort. Is there not more the West could do to clamp down on, for example, the shadow fleet? I mean, Donald Trump, fresh in the White House, he doesn't like the sense that people somehow get around sanctions or tariffs or whatever. In fact, he's threatened to impose new ones. Do you think there's any chance his administration will go, well, look, if this war is going to continue, we need to look again?

are clamping down on Russia's use of the shadow fleets. Yes, I mean, I think there are all sorts of areas where the West has been incredibly slow. We've been very slow on the shadow fleets. We've been incredibly slow on the undersea, defending the undersea cables. But on the question of the pressure on the Russian economy, I mean, you know, we have allowed India to import Russian oil now for years. It's been a great boon to the Indian economy.

And I think something has changed since Trump's first period in power, which he needs to bear in mind as well. When he was imposing sanctions on Iran back in his first term, you know, he could get he could get China, India and countries like that to fall into line.

On that I think that pass has been sold now. Unfortunately, I don't think I don't think you know China may certainly is not gonna Is not going to honor US sanctions, but I think other countries now, you know important second-tier countries, you know UAE India those sort of middle there are no longer really necessarily willing to take dictates and

from Washington or more generally the West. So I think we have seen a sort of gradual slide in the effectiveness of sanctions. I'm not sure we would ever be able to tighten the noose so tightly around Putin that we force him to a deal that he's not

willing to do. Do you think Europe will ever go back to being dependent, at least in part, on Russian national resources? I mean, I thought it was interesting last week you had the Polish president of the World Economic Forum in Davos coming out saying, we need to make sure that no, we need to dismantle the Nord Stream pipelines. We need to make sure that Europe, particularly Germany, you sense he was talking about, ever go back to relying on Russian national resources, natural resources. Do you think

Do you think they might, though? Do you fear that Germany might go back in time and rely on Russian resources? I really fear, I do indeed, I really fear that if you had a poor deal,

negotiated between the United States and Russia with Ukraine involved. And, you know, there was a sort of ceasefire along the lines that people have been suggesting in which Putin sort of de facto keeps the territory he's won, but not de jure. So, you know, you don't officially rewrite the boundaries between the countries.

I have a horrible feeling that Europe will do two things. One, it'll say, oh, well, great, let's start importing Russian gas again. And you're right. But it's not just Germany. It's also Slovakia and Hungary and other countries. And the other thing it will do, it'll say, oh, well, all that pressure to go up to, is it 2.3 or 3.5 or 5% of GDP on defense? The pressure's off there as well. And, you know, I...

I think that is something, and it's good that the President of Poland spoke like that, to try and sort of remind people that we mustn't take the foot off the gas if there is a deal. On the point about defence spending, I mean, we are having this debate at the moment in the UK with the government having previously made a kind of loose commitment to get to 2.5% of GDP on defence eventually, but being very reluctant to specify a timescale and to stick with the current spending, which is about 2.3%.

That is a real bone of contention in the UK. Where do you come down on that, Tim? Yeah, I mean, you know, the real level of defence spending probably needs to be 3.5. I mean, you know, you pick a figure, it's very difficult. And people are all people are bandering around figures up to 5%. But I mean, US spending is 3.4% at the moment. And I think if we were to placate Trump

we would need, we in Europe, would need to stamp our 3.4%. We would need to do the same that they're doing. UK is in a rather odd position because, of course, we have the nuclear deterrent as well. So actually, our figure for conventional warfare is actually only 1.6%, which is why when you compare us with sort of Finland and Poland,

and so forth. In conventional defence, we are extremely weak. We've got very few tanks, very few aircraft, very, very few ships and submarines. You know, we're poorly placed, really, with our 1.6%, if you look at it that way, of GDP on conventional defence. Just to go back to how we started this discussion about who needs negotiations more.

And I take your point that in your view it is Ukraine. And so maybe Vladimir Putin is not in the mood to make any concessions. But is there not a grave risk for Putin there that if he is seen, particularly in the eyes of Trump, to be obstinate and not willing to come to the negotiating table?

that Donald Trump may do, as the more hawkish members of his administration have suggested, notably General Kellogg, and actually ramp up support for Ukraine. Yes, that's right. And Putin actually must be a bit alarmed about the things that have happened over the last two weeks, really.

So, I mean, I don't think there's any doubt that he wanted Trump to win the election, of course. And Trump had made a lot in his first term of the rather sort of cozy relationship he had with Kim Jong-un and sort of reasonably with Putin as well. And so he probably would have wanted Trump to come and would think that the chances of getting a reasonably favorable deal were quite high. So I think he must have been quite alarmed by that initial

message from Trump, which was actually quite hawkish and quite demanding and quite undiplomatic towards Putin. So, you know, and a lot of people were surprised. Everyone who's assumed that Trump is rather favorable to Putin, rather surprised by the tone of that. And it rather suggests that Zelensky has been having more

success with Trump over the last few weeks than we all realize. And maybe other people too, like Maloney, have been making good points as well with Trump. So you're right. But the other thing that will worry Trump is all this stuff about Greenland and Canada and Panama. I mean, this is a new U.S. president who is very, very unpredictable at the moment. And every world leader and

including Starmer and Macron and elsewhere, are looking at Trump and thinking, my goodness, how on earth are we going to play this series of extremely unpredictable actions that he's taking? So Putin, I think, will be more worried than he was on the day that he saw that Trump had won the election. Yeah, Trump's threats towards Greenland and Canada, for example, and Panama Canal, I mean,

You could almost play it both ways. You could say on the one hand, if you're the Kremlin, you go, look, now even the Americans are saying it's fine to threaten military exercises to capture foreign sovereign territory. Or you could say, as you just have, Tim,

Actually, it shows that Donald Trump is predictably unpredictable. You don't know what he's going to do next and therefore we need to be very careful. So I suppose that is particularly interesting. Just on the relationship between Putin and Trump, how would you sum it up? Because there was this sense in the first term, I think it was inaccurate to say that somehow...

Donald Trump was the poodle of Putin. I think that is massively oversimplifying it. But as you say, there certainly was the sense that Putin would have rather had Trump back in the White House than Kamala Harris. How would you sum up their personal relationship currently? I don't really know if they have a personal relationship. It's quite difficult as world leaders. In a four-year term, you only probably have half a dozen short meetings in the margins of conferences and a few phone calls as well. It's quite difficult to develop a

personal relationship so i i'm not quite sure what the personal relationship i think the aspects of putinism if you'd like if that is a thing which trump rather admires you know particularly the anti-woke stuff i think uh and trump along with a lot of other right-wing leaders uh around the world you know georgia maloney and others i think rather rather approve of that aspect of putin um

So I think there's that aspect. But then I think the other thing that must be a factor is, you know, the humiliating retreat from Afghanistan, which, of course, everyone's blaming on Biden. But actually, of course, the the deal with the Taliban was negotiated by Trump.

I don't think Donald Trump wants to be taken again as a sort of sucker, diplomatic sucker. You know, that was a disastrous deal. Let's face it. And and so the idea of doing of being humiliated by a really bad deal of Ukraine must be a factor weighing with with with Trump. And then there is another important factor, you know.

The narrative had rather gone that the Republicans had deserted Ukraine, but actually there are sufficient Republicans that have not deserted Ukraine. And you mentioned Keith Kellogg is obviously one. Marco Rubio is obviously another. You know, the National Security Advisor is a third. So I think, you know, there are reasons to believe that the negotiation between Trump and Putin, which I'm sure will come,

is going to be tougher and more evenly balanced

than Putin probably dreamed and that most of us worried about. We hope you're enjoying today's episode of Frontline. Don't forget, you can also now listen to Frontline in podcast form. Just search for The World in 10 from wherever you get your podcasts, where you can also hear daily analysis of the biggest stories relating to war and defence. And we'll put a link to The World in 10 in the description below. Do you think Putin is serious about negotiations currently, though? I mean, I know the message came out from the Kremlin last week

in response to Donald Trump's quite hawkish threat to impose new tariffs and taxes and sanctions on Russia if the war doesn't end. And the official Kremlin response was, look, we are ready for negotiations. But in a sense, they had to say that. Do you think they really mean it? That's a really good question. So I think there are two answers to that. One is the point you made at the beginning of this interview where, you know, yes, Ukraine needs the ceasefire more than Putin does.

But still, Putin has taken a huge amount of punishment. And as you rightly say, if he's going to have to start recruiting now from sort of first year cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, where it could begin to damage his popularity, then he is going to be reluctant, reluctant to do so. And with his vast losses, he needs a pause, really. But, you know, we all need to bear in mind in the West, it will be a pause we're talking about. Putin

did not invade Ukraine to get 18% of Ukraine. He invaded Ukraine to get, if possible, 100% of Ukraine. That's why he invaded up directly into Kyiv rather than from the east.

So I think that is one point about it. But the other thing is the counter argument to that is so he needs a stop. Absolutely. But the counter argument to that is that he's making progress at the moment.

And Ukraine is really struggling to find manpower. And I mean, there have been some very interesting reports recently about the poor performance of the new mechanized brigades, which Ukraine has put into the front line. And, you know, it seems like the first cohort of people who joined up in 2022 did extremely well, but they're finding it increasingly difficult to induct new brigades into the front line. And they're not doing so well. So,

What happens, Putin must think, you know, what happens if I actually break through, break through Ukrainian lines and suddenly, instead of taking yards each day, we're taking kilometers each day. And suddenly Odessa might even be possible or Mykolaiv might even be able to link up with Transnistria in the south or even cross the Dnipro River and start heading into central Ukraine or even up towards Kyiv.

And that would put us, the West, in an incredibly difficult position because Putin, because Trump doesn't want to commit troops to Ukraine. He wants to get out of Europe. You know, he doesn't want to do that. Europe's military is in absolutely no state to intervene in Ukraine, even if it wanted to, with all the implications that might have for escalating the war. So there must be a bit of Putin which thinks, you know, if I keep on pushing,

I might actually break through. That, I think, in a sense, is the nightmare scenario. Just on Ukraine's manpower problems, does it surprise you, Tim, that Zelensky hasn't looked again at lowering the conscription age? It does. It does surprise me very much. And, you know, that surprises me more than the fact that Putin hasn't reached out into his first-tier cities for recruits.

You know, normally when you call up people, you call up young people. And so it is curious. But I suppose in the back of his mind, he must think that would be a very unpopular measure. Because it's not just the kids, of course, it's their parents. The fact the war's been going on for three years, the fact that people are beginning to wear of it a bit. The fact that some people are beginning to tie a little bit of Zelenskyy.

All of those are factors that must persuade him not to take a measure, which, you know, to most people would seem an obvious one. I think you're absolutely right, Tim, to say, look, Putin's not going to be satisfied with 18 percent of Ukraine. He wants it all or he certainly wants a lot more than that. And so, therefore, is it not inevitable that if there is going to be some kind of negotiated settlement, it will have to include Ukraine?

some kind of security guarantee for Ukraine, be that NATO membership or something else, not only for Ukraine security, but for Europe's long term security, because you can bet your bottom dollar, given the chance, Putin will rearm and go again in five to 10 years time. Yeah. And of course, this is the really, really big problem, which is we have a number of countries, I think I can probably name five that would not want

Ukraine to have NATO membership. I mean, Hungary, Slovakia, probably Austria. But I think probably most crucially, the United States. I mean, Biden was fairly clear that he didn't want, well, he wanted eventual Ukrainian membership, but nothing, nothing, nothing imminent. So, you know, to grant

Ukraine, the paragraph five deal that you get with NATO membership, which is that, you know, an attack on one is an attack on all, is a very, very big deal. And I think there are four, possibly five countries not willing to do that. I think Germany is pretty iffy on it as well, incidentally. So that's one of the guarantees off the table, if you like. So then you're now looking at the sort of suboptimal guarantees.

And now if you're if you're Zelensky or Ukraine, you remember the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, which incidentally UK signed as well as as well as the United States, Russia and Ukraine. And I'm afraid, you know, we we reneged on it now. OK, technically, you can say it wasn't a guarantee. It was an assurance. And so if you're Zelensky or Ukraine, you're going to be looking very, very closely at the wording, but more than the wording.

I'm not sure if I was going to go, I would take a European guarantee seriously. So if, for example, Trump, as he probably will say, look, I don't want to provide the troops as a tripwire in Ukraine after some sort of ceasefire deal. That's your job, Europe. So suddenly we have Finns and Swedes and Brits, a few Brits because we don't have a lot of troops, of course, and Poles and French and so forth.

monitoring a 1200 mile border and the Russians two years from now, three years from now breach it, do we really believe that Europe is going to go to war? Or will they do a sort of a bit like the sort of unifil in Lebanon, which is sort of put their hard hats on and keep their heads down, as I suspect they might do. So this is why what Zelensky is saying is, look,

Only if I can't have NATO membership, I must have American troops as part of the tripwire.

because he believes the Americans would honor their pledge, although they didn't for the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. So you could really understand why Zelensky and Ukraine are really worried about this question of guarantees. Do guarantees really mean anything? So you could fully understand that Zelensky and Ukraine are going to be very, very cautious about the whole question of guarantees. And that will be the really key moment, I think, in the whole negotiation.

Do you think there is a chance that if Donald Trump is almost presented with this choice of in order to end the war and come up with a deal that Zelensky is happy to sign, you either need to have US troops policing the buffer zone between Russia and Ukraine, or you need to give NATO membership to Ukraine so that it feels secure. But of those two options, he may actually prefer the NATO option and lobby some of those more sceptical NATO allies behind.

to allow Ukraine in because it's a harder sell maybe for your average middle American to go, I promise to be the man who'd end the war. And now we've got us troops actually in Ukraine. It's a very interesting point. I think I agree with you in that. I think he's going to be very reluctant to have us troops in Ukraine and therefore that'll be a problem. But then that's a big step then to say, well, okay, then in a sense, Ukraine then comes under the United States, you know, nuclear umbrella as well. Um, and, um,

You know, I think that's a stretch. I mean, that would be that would be a wonderful outcome. Wonderful outcome for Zelensky. Wonderful outcome for Europe. I think Trump might think that's letting Europe off too lightly.

You know, I think I think Trump feels pretty bad about about Europe, about our reluctance to even come up to 2 percent of GDP or beyond. All those years after that NATO meeting down in Wales, if you remember where where one pledged to go up to 2 percent. I think he's going to want Europe to carry this cap.

And I think he's going to be pretty tough on Europe as well to make sure it does. Yeah. And it's interesting that Zelensky now is kind of jumping on that. And I think last week at Davos, he called out some of the European leaders saying, will Trump even notice Europe? And partly that's designed to almost chide the Europeans, but also to kind of say to Donald Trump, look, I'm on your side. I've got the same grievance as you.

We talked about the challenges of getting a deal, Tim. Do you think, therefore, this is still going to be a hot wall by the end of this year? I think they will reach a ceasefire. I think, you know, I think Zelensky needs it. We talked about it earlier. Putin doesn't necessarily need it, but I think it would be welcome in a way. I think the United States wants it. Europe wants it.

So I would be pretty surprised with those sort of four motivations if it doesn't happen. I think there is that is the nagging worry that Putin might just say, well, actually, if you don't mind, I'm just going to carry on. But that's quite a big decision for him to take in the face of everything else with everybody else saying, come on, Vladimir, let's let's stop this.

Now, the nature of the deal we've talked about already, that's going to be incredibly difficult to negotiate. But I think my money will be on a deal being done this year. Just finally, do you think the fact that we now have, for the time being at least, a ceasefire in Gaza...

Does that help the likelihood of getting a deal between Russia and Ukraine? Because if you are President Trump, this is now arguably, well, probably almost certainly is the number one thing in your foreign policy in trade. Maybe the trade relationship with China and the threat to Taiwan is up there as well. But whereas previously it would have probably been Gaza, now Ukraine is back up to number one. Does that increase the chances of a deal? Yeah, well, I think a couple of things. One was the whole Gaza thing was

hugely damaging to the Russia-Ukraine war in terms of, you know, removing Western attention from Russia-Ukraine for, you know, a period of well over a year. So I think that was very damaging. That's sort of one point. But the second point, I mean, which I suppose in a sense you're touching on, which is, you know, would Trump like to be seen as a global peacemaker?

I think he would. I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? Here we have this right wing, this right wing leader, transactional, unpredictable. Normally those sorts of leaders one associates with war. But Trump, and to be fair, in his first term as well, you know, made it made it clear that he wanted to stop wars.

And, you know, one can speculate about whether he's serious about wanting the Nobel Peace Prize. But, you know, this is an unusual man with a touch of vanity. And one wouldn't be entirely surprised. So, yes, I think he would look back on year one with the end of the, you know, the end of the Gaza war. Of course, that's a long way from finished Gaza, of course. And then a...

a temporary peace deal in Ukraine, I think he would regard that as a pretty good first year.

And if he could effectively blunt the threat of Russian expansionism, many would say he would deserve a Nobel Peace Prize. Absolutely. Tim, it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us again on Frontline. Great, James. Nice to be with you. Thank you for watching today's episode of Frontline. For early access to our videos, member-only Q&As and live streams, then sign up for a membership via the link in the description. And for the latest news and breaking stories, listen to Times Radio and follow us at thetimes.com.

Struggling with dry eye? You're not alone. Dry eye is increasingly common and can range from occasional symptoms to a chronic condition known as dry eye disease. If you're one of the 38 million Americans experiencing dry eye symptoms you can't shake, it may be the result of too much tear evaporation and or underlying inflammation of the eye, two common causes of dry eye, among other factors. Before symptoms get worse, talk to an eye doctor about possible treatment options and visit

knowyourdryeye.com to learn more.