Frontline special - Mark Galeotti, Russia specialist
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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 with me, Kate Chabot. And today we are catching up with a regular on Frontline, Professor Mark Gagliotti. Mark is a former advisor to the Foreign Office on Russian foreign and security policy. He's the author of several books about Russia, one of which, Downfall, has just been released in paperback. Mark, I'll ask you a bit more about the timing of the release of that in a moment. But you're just back from The Hague, where you were at the NATO summit, such a critical time in geopolitics.

Did it live up to your expectations? I think it's fair to say it lived down to our expectations. I mean, I think that, let's be perfectly honest, in many ways, the real goal was to avoid a Trump-related disaster. And in that, I can say it was a glorious success. However, the price of that glorious success is committing NATO to a very wobbly situation

People say 5% of GDP spent on defence. Well, it's not really. It's 3.5% spent on defence. 1.5% spent on defence-related expenditure, which, as we've seen, can mean everything. It can mean everything from...

aid to Ukraine to rural broadband in the name of resilience. So basically, no government's going to have any trouble filling the 1.5%. So anyway, it's really a 3.5% sort of figure. Even so, I mean, given that nine NATO members don't currently hit the 2% figure, that's fairly sort of nonsensical in some ways. Ukraine was very much relegated to the margins.

despite the rhetoric from NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and EU foreign policy chief Kaya Kalas, trying to say that we need to be spending vastly more on defence or Putin will come and invade us next Wednesday.

In the final communique, an unusually short one, presumably because it had to be written in crayon. But in the final communique, NATO was just simply describing Russia as a long-term threat, not an immediate or an existential one. And the price of all of this was an extraordinary self-abasement by so many figures, including Mark Rutte,

writing almost kind of pastiche Trumpian messages to him that Trump then gleefully recirculated, saying how, you know, basically he'd won a great victory and Europe's going to pay big now and such like. So although in the margins of the event, there was all sorts of talk about European strategic autonomy, how Europe can basically try and secure itself without needing to depend on a potentially volatile America.

In practice, it's hard to see how anyone really came out of this with anything meaningful that they were hoping for. And Mark, significantly no condemnation of Russia's aggression in that joint declaration at the end. But while you were there, you were discussing exactly that in a panel discussion, taming the bear, it was called, countering Russia's enduring threat. What did you want to get across?

Well, I mean, I think from my point of view, it was to try and get this idea that deterrence. And let's be honest, the goal is deterrence. It's not about winning wars. It's about trying to prevent wars. And the goal of deterrence, yes, it may well involve buying more tanks and more missiles and more planes and perhaps even recruiting more soldiers. But there's two other key points. One of them is deterrence.

Look, the real threat we face from Russia for them, at least for the moment, and in my opinion, for quite some time to come, is not from any kind of direct invasion. Russia's forces are mired in Ukraine. It's going to take them eight years at least to fully reconstitute.

It's all this range of sub-threshold activities, the so-called hybrid war, political war, grey zone warfare, you know, the sabotage, assassinations, disinformation and the like. And we also have to think about much more sharply about how we deter that because we're not very good at that at all. And we need to be more imaginative and more asymmetrical. But the final point is to realize that really in this case, the battle for deterrence is going to be won purely in Putin's head.

It's about shaping his perceptions about how tough, how capable of defending itself Europe really is, how willing to defend itself Europe really is. And in that respect, we tend to focus on the easily countable things like budgets and tanks.

rather than the political and perceptional things. So, yes, it doesn't mean we shouldn't be spending on the tanks. That's the kind of the necessary precondition. But we also have to think about the political way we frame all this. And unfortunately, sorry, I'm just on my soapbox. I mean, one last point and then I will shut up. It is it is quite simply that at the moment, in the name of getting more money for defence related spending,

Are we actually increasing the scope for disagreement between allies? We've already had Spain saying it's not going to hit that 5%. And there are other countries that are essentially close to that. And also divisions within our countries, because to spend more, you know, that money has to come from somewhere. Increased borrowing, increased taxes, less money on other public spending or whatever. You know, are we actually going to undermine in many ways our appearance of being resolute in the name of getting the tools of resolution?

And when you talk about shaping the deterrence inside Putin's head, how should we be doing that? Well,

Well, I mean, I think one of the key things is clearly about projecting this sense of true unity. I mean, there's not much we can do about what happens in the White House. You know, we have to recognize the limitations thereof. So we have to be thinking much more about making it clear that even a small scale intervention, which is at present the only thing that we need to worry about. Putin does not have sort of a spare army he can throw at Europe.

at the moment. And he certainly won't, as I said, for some time come after Ukraine war and Ukraine ends. But there is talk about some kind of lower level incursion, so little green men turning up in

the Estonian border city of Narva, perhaps, or filtering into some sort of island in the Baltic or similar. You know, we need to demonstrate that we don't have not only the forces capable of actually dealing with that, but also absolutely the will to do so. And I think this is the issue. Will is not expressed through statements. I think Putin already has internalized this idea that Europe talks big, but very rarely delivers.

So in some ways, I think we should perhaps dial down the rhetoric, but actually at the same time demonstrate through war games, through all sorts of forward positioning and such like, that we are ready and capable of dealing with the kind of small scale testing incursion that Putin could conceivably launch.

If this summit was all about keeping Donald Trump engaged and involved and supportive of NATO, it did succeed in that light. And if that was what it set out to do, then it can be declared a success, can it not?

He came away with warmer words about the alliance. And however deftly or cringingly the Secretary General dealt with him, it did seem to work. And he came away saying yet again that he's going to talk to Putin. This was after the meeting with Zelensky and that he wants to find a way of ending the war and he thinks it might well be the right time. I mean, how do you expect President Putin to react to what he saw at the summit?

Well, I mean, obviously, it's very difficult to know what Putin thinks. But what one can do is looking at the Russian press and the kind of immediate comments coming back from the kind of officials and also think tankers who tend to be used to sort of channel and to signal Kremlin views. So not the kind of lunatic commentators we have on evening TV in Russia who say that, you know,

It's time for Russia to nuke somewhere and so forth. No, but the serious people, I think it's clear that from their point of view, they were focusing on two issues. One is essentially claiming that, oh, we now see proof that NATO is an anti-Russian alliance. They pick every single handy soundbite. But anyway, that's just a kind of almost a ritual genuflection to the standard propaganda line. The more serious point was precisely they were highlighting actually the weaknesses.

that were demonstrated because you know you talk about success the thing about Trump is sure you can mollify him today does it really buy you anything tomorrow

I mean, I think this is the real issue. Actually, what happened, I think, through that sort of fawning approach to him, treating him as if he were the world king visiting his European subjects rather than partners, is actually reinforced this notion within the Kremlin that actually Europe is desperately afraid of losing American support, that Europe is divided.

And also that that is how politics in the world really goes, that there's a handful of countries that matter and the rest don't. That's a really interesting perspective on it. And when you were at the conference that sat at the summit itself, what did you pick up from the people you were speaking to? Were they frustrated or did they accept that this was the pragmatic way it had to be conducted this time? I mean, look, there was no single consensus. I mean, I would say, generally speaking, I was struck by just how downbeat

takes were, often from very different perspectives. I mean, yes, there was a certain awareness that when you're dealing with Trump, you have to deal with Trump. And some people were saying, more or less, you know, Ruta is doing the fawning so the rest of us don't have to.

But at the same time, you know, from the hawks perspective, they were deeply unhappy that Ukraine had been essentially relegated to the margins. And I mean, I'm saying Zelensky was even wearing a suit, you know, that that should have earned him brownie points. But more to the point that all we got was a single, you know, was a repetition of this line of Ukraine's irreversible route towards NATO membership, which is meaningless. Irreversible does not mean it's in any way on the horizon.

And I think that's what, you know, a lot of people were frustrated about that, that they felt that Zelensky should have been invited as a sort of a full participant and that there should have been a clearer angle of at what point and what will be required for Ukraine to join NATO. So that's the hawks perspective. The I suppose one can call it the sort of the Euro centrics, people who are much more concerned about, well, how can Europe acquire this kind of strategic autonomy?

there was a lot of talk about what Europe needs to do, but there wasn't really much sense here, in part precisely because no one wanted to, no one official wanted to emphasize the kind of the gap between Europe and the United States. You know, there was lots of talk about what needs to be done, but not much about what will be done. And finally, there were this handful of what we could call doves who were precisely unhappy that

This still very much gives the sense that Russia is to be kept at an arm's length and that all negotiation to Russia gets done through Trump, which is, I mean, one particular former European president.

senior foreign service officer, said to me, you know, the trouble is Trump is not our ambassador. Trump is not our emissary. What he wants and how he wants to communicate to Putin is not how we on the continent want. So I think that, you know, again, there was that sense of a failed opportunity to try and get also a European voice, which doesn't necessarily mean a Brussels voice, but certainly a voice from the continent involved in conversations with Russia to try and bring things forward in a more useful way.

And the geopolitical context leading up to this summit, obviously, was this now so-called 12-day war between Iran and Israel. We'll see if it actually is that. Can you just tell me the way you think Putin, the position he was considering himself in leading up to the summit, because he had just been rebuffed over this offer to mediate between Iran and Israel by Donald Trump. How do you think he's actually tried to use this moment, though, as an opportunity?

Well, we've got to realize that the Russian relationship with Iran is a sort of complex, but above all, pragmatic one. Russia has no friends. You know, there was an old statement from one, or probably apocryphal statement from one of Russia's czars, that Russia has no allies except its army and its navy. And I think there's still a lot of truth to that today. It has kind of

pragmatic and transactional sort of countries with whom it has relationships. And from the point of view of Iran, there had been a period in which actually Russia needed Iran immediately after the invasion of Ukraine, when what wasn't intended to become a major war had become a major war. And they needed drones, they needed missiles, they needed ammunition. And so they turned to buying it from North Korea, but also in particular from Iran. And at that point, Iran had leverage over Russia.

And in part, it used that leverage to ensure that when the ghastly October attacks from Hamas in Israel took place, Russia, in effect, burnt its relationship with Israel, which had been actually quite a positive one in order because, you know, it had to keep Iran happy to support Hamas. These days, Russia doesn't really need Iran anywhere near as much.

It now produces the drones that it needs at home and such like. And therefore, I think from Putin's point of view, there is that sense of Iran is now a counter, a chip on the board, which he might well want to, I mean, he might double down on his support. But on the other hand, you know, he also could frankly abandon it if the price is good enough. This is really what he was

signaling to the Americans when he offered his position as a sort of interlocutor. And yes, as you say, he was slapped down. Now we have a situation in which we don't yet know for sure which way Iran is going to go. And I think from the Russians' point of view, what they're doing is actually sort of in some ways holding fire.

They want to say, you know, it might be that if Iran is now wants to rebuild, the Russians can step in and say, look, if you want to rebuild your nuclear program, you need a partner who actually knows how to build this kind of stuff. We don't actually necessarily want to see with a nuclear bomb, but we can do a lot in helping you elsewhere. Conversely, if Iran looks like it's going to be a losing side and if, for example, Israel is willing to rebuild bridges with Russia, you know,

Putin can move away from that. Putin loves chaotic situations, dynamic, unpredictable, chaotic situations, because he is the ultimate opportunist. He likes having lots of different strategic options, and he can pick this one today and maybe that one tomorrow. He's a bit like Trump in that respect.

Yeah, I think one chaotic situation which we can probably agree that he really, really didn't like was the two years ago Yevgeny Prigozhin mutinous march on Moscow. It gave you the release date for your paperback version of his life. And on the eve of that anniversary, Trump flirted with the idea of regime change in Iran. How will that have gone down in the Kremlin?

I think it's fair to say not at all. Well, you've got to remember the Kremlin has this certain view of the world in which so many of the great sort of geopolitical turning points, the Arab Spring Risings, the colored revolutions in post-Soviet space, the revolution of dignity in Ukraine were not genuine upwillings of upwillings of

popular anger at corrupt, unresponsive authoritarian regimes, but were actually plots. Regime change operations carried out by the CIA and of course MI6. We should never forget that we still have an outsized role in Putin's geographical imagination. So as soon as Trump's talking about regime change in Iran, I mean, that's a particular kind of red flag issue for the Russians. And in that respect,

The Russians are actually quite relieved how quickly Trump really kind of pivoted away from that. And we had all sorts of statements elsewhere. I mean, the Israelis are still, frankly, you know, hanging their hat on that particular outcome. But the Americans, it's clear there was no kind of coherent, consistent line about regime change, because that is something that worries the Russians. And if I can link it to the Pregoshen mutiny.

I mean, something that came out after my co-author, Anna Rutunian, as I had finished that book, actually talking to a contact in Russia, a well-connected contact in Russia, who said that there is still a kind of almost desperate attempt amongst certain aspects of the Russian security apparatus to try and find an American or British connection.

to that mutiny. It would be so much easier for them if instead of admitting this was a genuinely domestic crisis, they could somehow find the dark hand of Washington or London there. So they're actually still working on trying to find or manufacture a link? I mean, I think I would want to say this is what the Russians want, but there are figures within particularly the Russian security sort of status because A, it fits their overall narrative.

But B, also, it lets them a bit off the hook. I mean, this was a massive internal intelligence failure by the Russians, and therefore they can blame it on the outsiders even better. So how has the Kremlin and how has Putin adapted and adjusted since the events two years ago when Yevgeny Prigogin launched that mutinous march? I mean, in several ways. First of all, they've realised the danger of allowing people to have private armies.

And therefore, although there are still mercenaries, particularly there's the so-called Africa Corps, a rather unfortunate name, which has essentially incorporated now pretty much all of Wagner's assets in Africa. Although they are technically a commercial organization, in practice, it's run by Russian military intelligence.

And so likewise, you know, even where you've got still sort of surviving mercenary groups and elements that have been funded by corporations and regional governments in Russia fighting in Ukraine, they're all very tightly controlled. So first of all, no, no, no, no more private armies. Secondly, though, there has been as an attempt to try and tighten up the internal security, the Federal Security Service, the main internal political police force.

its department which is called the department for military counterintelligence but is actually the department for spying on the soldiers to make sure they don't launch a coup well it has now extended dramatically its elements which are actually looking at these kind of mercenary and sort of militia forces so they're trying to make sure that they catch it in in in the um the bud next time but the final point is what they haven't been able to do and that's the obvious thing is essentially carry out a

purge or a reshuffle of the elements of the security apparatus that clearly did not do well. They didn't really predict this. And even when it happened, they didn't mobilize as they were ordered to try and stop it, stop this force getting anywhere near Moscow, because there is that sense of they can't afford to do so at the moment.

Any kind of purge disrupts as you're sort of trying to work out who's in, who's out. And I think at the moment, the thought of disrupting the internal security agencies at a time when there is considerable disquiet, quiet disquiet, but nonetheless there about the war, about what Putin has got. In a way, Putin is now to a degree hostage of his own security apparatus.

That's an interesting concept. And in your latest podcast, you do actually consider the long-term impact of the war in Ukraine on Russian society and the consequences that the society will have to face up to when it does end. Can you just explain what you're thinking? Yeah, I mean, we've got over a million, probably closer to one and a half million Russian soldiers and others who are sort of basically in the war or have gone through the war.

And that's a huge proportion. If one compares it with the last similar type conflict, which would be the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, less than 1% of Soviet citizens experienced this in Afghanistan during a 10-year span. This war, three and a half years in, it's already a much greater proportion of Russian citizens. And of that million to a million and a half population,

Again, if we take passports as any judge, about a third are going to be suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. And 10 percent is going to be full blown. You know, there's going to be a huge need when the war ends. And remember, almost all of the soldiers fighting here are volunteers who signed contracts for the duration of the so-called special military operation. In other words, when the war ends, their contracts say they go back to Civic Street.

They're going to go back, a lot of them with physical and mental injuries that the system is just not geared to deal with. Again, it's one of these issues. Everyone talks about the importance of the need to be prepared for the veterans. No one is doing anything on the right scale.

A lot of them are brutalized and criminalized. Indeed, many of them actually were recruited out of the prison camp system. We've already got hundreds of murders, for example, that's carried out by soldiers who've returned home. Well, that says nothing to what's going to hit when these numbers come back.

You're going to have a huge influx of guns because a lot of people have picked up sort of what you could think of as trophy guns off the battlefield, whether for use or whether just to sell. So you're going to have an even larger black market of guns within Russia and outside. And what I'm seeing at the moment is, as I say, that there's no preparation. Putin doesn't like handling tough issues. In some ways, he's treating this a bit like how he treated Covid to say this is really important.

and then actually dump the responsibility on regional governors, on his government and so forth. And they haven't got the funds to do this. So my big concern is, you know, this will be inevitably a shock to Russian society. What happens if Putin thinks it's too big a shock?

Again, Putin is risk averse. If he thinks that the danger is you're going to get a lot of people coming back feeling angry, forming their own political movements, maybe blaming the Kremlin for not treating them rightly, as they should, well, maybe it's safer to keep the war going rather than to let his soldiers come home. I think it's a possibility. Look, I mean, I think...

The issue was this. Do I think actually that Russian society and state can handle this shock? Yes, with difficulty, with cost, but I think it can. But do I believe that Putin thinks that? As I said, I mean, time and time again, we have seen in this case that Putin backs away from tough decisions. So my concern is, and it's hard to tell, it'll really depend on quite when the war ends and how.

but actually that ultimately this is something that Putin is scared of because he clearly is scared of the veterans. He talks about that they're a great new generation, but actually he's trying to keep them controlled rather than anything else.

And when people watching this might say, why should we care? You get your just desserts and they are the aggressor. Why should we care what happens when they go back home? Is that exactly the reason why we should care? Because otherwise the war might be kept going so that they don't. Well, that's absolutely. I think that that is the first and foremost reason why we should care. But also, look, Russia's not going anywhere. We're going to have Russia as a neighbor of Europe one way or the other, regardless.

If Russia falls back into kind of anarchy and chaos, well, then we can expect outflows of refugees, asylum seekers and also guns and criminality. And we saw this in the 1990s. And also there is the risk that these veterans in some ways, which will be a sort of an angry force, but with no natural leaders. The big question is who gets to capture them politically?

It could be that this leads to actually the rise of an even more aggressive nationalism, which may sound bizarre in the context of just how ghastly the Putin regime is at the moment. But, you know, for all intents and purposes, it's worth noting that Putin is an old man who's not exactly proven to be a great war leader and is also risk averse. What if what we actually get out of the sort of the nationalist resentments

is a younger, smarter, more effective and more daring Putin replacing him. So I think for all of these reasons, you know, yes, absolutely. The aggressor gets their just desserts. But as we indeed we saw after World War One, we still have to care what happens in the countries that get punished for their aggressions.

Can I just ask you about an investigation? I'm not sure if you had a chance to see it, but it is in the Kiev Independent. And it's an investigation on the quiet expansion, as it sees, of one of Russia's most important missile plants. And this is the Votkinsk plant. What do you know about this plant?

I mean, again, these things are all heavily covered by secrecy and so forth. I mean, it is indeed one of the crucial elements in their strategic missile development programs. And I think, frankly, its expansion, it doesn't come as a surprise, given that Putin regards himself, however wrongly, as being on the defense. He thinks he sees the West as essentially aggressive, conspiratorial and hostile countries.

And in that circumstance, you know, at the time when we have an expansion in Western capabilities to shoot down missiles, whether we're talking about Trump and his moderately delusional golden dome anti-missile system for America, whether we see that, you know, the successes have been had with, for example, Patriot missiles and shooting down even hypersonic missiles that, you know, the Russians had said were impossible to intercept. There is that sense that you need to continue to refresh your nuclear deterrent.

And as we saw with the sort of astonishing Ukrainian Operation Spiderweb, using all these sort of pre-planted drones to hit Russia's strategic bomber fleet, there is also a sense that of the strategic triad, it is the ground-based missiles and the submarine-based missiles that are crucial. So, yeah, I mean, the Russians have been signaling for some time that they are going to be expanding and developing their nuclear assets. And this is really just as a result of that.

The report says the plant's core mission is to manufacture intercontinental ballistic missiles and that Ukraine's military intelligence agency assesses that Russia is stockpiling various types of missiles. What does this tell us about Putin's plans? Firstly, I'd be a little bit cautious about the stockpiling angle. I mean, clearly, look, the Ukrainians have a line they want to push, which is about how Russia is a threat to everyone. So there's always going to be a certain sort of shading of that.

In practice, what we've actually seen is, first of all, a lot of Russia's recent missile tests have not gone well. So, you know, we have seen missiles not launching, exploding in midair and the like. Doesn't mean to say that they're all rubbish, but actually in part the sort of the so-called stockpiling is actually trying to work out some of the bugs. Secondly, a lot of the older missiles, frankly, are reaching the end of their usable lifespans.

So this is about getting ready to replace older missiles with newer, more effective, more accurate, more survivable ones. So, you know, we may see an expansion in Russia's intercontinental ballistic missile fleet, but I don't think we've got the evidence for that yet.

Okay. Right now, Trump would love to add solving the Ukraine war to his list of claimed successes in recent weeks. What developments are you finally, if I can ask you, are you expecting or are you looking for in the coming months to give us an idea of how the war might end?

I mean, I'm honestly not expecting to see much productive in the next few months. There probably will be a renewed push for a Trump-Putin meeting by the Russians and by some within the White House, though it's still very much an issue on which there are some strong opinions on both sides. We will see the Istanbul talks, for what they're worth, continuing. And

I think that that's a good thing, but we shouldn't assume that it's going to lead anywhere quickly. It's part of the slow kind of construction of a kind of a web work of diplomatic connections that maybe at some point will lead to meaningful talks. But the thing is, the Russians are in the middle of their summer offensive. They're moving on on Sumy, albeit slowly. They're expanding their positions within the Donbass, again, albeit slowly and to horrific human casualties.

I think from Putin's point of view, he's not going to want to do anything particularly significant because he's going to want to see how the summer offensive works. If they manage to really sort of make real progress, which I don't think I don't imagine that Putin seems to have this sense of each new offensive is a new possibility.

then he will regard Russia as being in an even stronger position for any kind of negotiations. So, frankly, I'm not expecting anything meaningful beyond the usual genuflections to, oh, we all want to talk and so forth. But beyond that, I don't think we'll see anything meaningful until autumn. And do you think that the kind of promises of talks can be strung out for as long as anybody, as long as Putin wants?

I mean, I think so, because Putin has actually demonstrated himself to be a better Trump wrangler than I must admit I had anticipated.

And Trump admittedly himself says he's more difficult to deal with than he thought. Exactly, exactly. But I think Putin has understood and maybe this is again because he's dealing with essentially a real estate magnate more than anything else. And real estate is as much on that level is about selling a dream rather than necessarily bricks and mortar. And I think, you know, Trump understand Trump is is constantly given to understand.

that there is something just over the horizon, something, some progress, some great new deal, something that will clinch his Nobel Peace Prize, whatever. So actually, I mean, I think Putin has been quite successful. And in some ways, what Putin does understand is the importance of lateral negotiation, that talks on Ukraine are actually only part of a wider dialogue.

And therefore, what we may well see is, again, more willingness to offer ground in the Middle East with Iran, for example, or perhaps in Africa with the activities of Africa Corps, or maybe even a sort of a promise. I don't think it would ever come to anything that actually Russia could could be useful with China.

So in a way, he will keep Trump interest or he will try to keep Trump interested by suggesting that, well, even if we're not making much progress on Ukraine at the moment, you know, we still need to be talking because I can still be helpful and useful to you. That seems to be his his tactic. And given that we live in a world which never seemed to run out of crises.

There will continue to be room for Putin to continue to try and offer this along. How long it works with Trump, look, he's guessing just like the rest of us about what Trump's going to do tomorrow, let alone next month. Mark, it's been great talking to you. Thank you very much. Always a pleasure. Thank you.

Jean Smart has just returned to Broadway in the hit play Call Me Izzy and critics can't stop raving. The New York Times cheers Jean Smart is an awe-inspiring triumph. Deadline calls it a tour de force performance and a remarkable new play. The audience is dazzled and completely in her hands, says the New Yorker. And the Washington Post adds Jean Smart is transfixing. Call Me Izzy, the can't-miss Broadway event of the summer through August 17th only.

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