Frontline special - Russia analyst Mark Galeotti
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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're catching up with 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. The latest is Forged in War.

a military history of Russia from its beginnings to today. And he's just released a report called Gangsters at War. Mark, welcome back. I'm going to ask you a bit about that report in a moment. But first of all, I just want to get your assessment of the Russian attacks on Ukraine, the most recent ones, overnight massive attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure across the country. And before that, in response to the use of attack and storm shadows to strike inside the Russian Federation, the firing of the experimental ballistic intermediate U-2s.

intermediate ballistic missile on Dnipro and this flurry of nuclear rhetoric. I mean, is this straight out of the Russian playbook and to be expected?

Yes. I mean, what we're really seeing is a continuation of a three-pronged strategy. So on the one hand, they are continuing their push along the Donbass front to basically try and ensure that by the time Donald Trump becomes inaugurated as president, the front line is as inadvantageous a position as possible in case Trump actually does make good on his pledges to create a ceasefire, which would essentially freeze the front line.

Then we have the second strand, which is the continuing attacks on Ukrainian critical national infrastructure. Again, basically trying to freeze the Ukrainians in winter by denying them electricity in the hope of being able to just undermine Ukrainians' will to resist. And speaking of will, then the third strand is precisely to try and deter the West from

from any further willingness to escalate its support for Ukraine. And so the use of this missile, the Arechnik, in many ways was an exceedingly expensive way of just simply delivering some empty warheads over Dnipro. But nonetheless, you know, it made that point. And it, you know, very factored, it dominated the news cycle for a while. It did what it was meant to do, which is precisely to act as an information weapon to try and worry Westerners.

Mark, just really interested to get your assessment of the recent closure of the American and other embassies in Kyiv over fears of a massive air raid. You describe it as a nerve-jangling hoax amplified by the Ukrainian authorities taking it seriously. How would that be made to be convincing to those authorities? And would there be more to the motivation than causing disruption?

I mean, essentially, it's about causing disruption and proving that they have kind of wrong-footed the West. I mean, in this case, look, obviously, there is a lot of the story that we don't actually get to know precisely whether or not the Russians, for example, had managed to kind of sift information to Ukrainian intelligence sources. That made it seem more likely that they were actually going to launch such an attack.

But the point is, these kinds of raids, I mean, first of all, Ukrainians are constantly sort of exposed to air raid warnings and so forth. So it doesn't really affect

their lives so much. But on the other hand, when you actually get Western embassies, even just for one day, closing, what it shows is the Russians really are involved in a psychological warfare campaign. They understand that ultimately wars are won not by destroying every single one of your enemy soldiers or anything like that, but by destroying their will to continue to resist. And what they're trying to do is essentially show that they can wrong foot both Kiev and the West.

and demonstrate in that respect a kind of information dominance. And more broadly, not everything is a hoax, which plays into the whole uncertainty. There have been incidents like the cutting of the underwater internet cables by a Chinese flagship, incendiary devices on cargo planes, targeted assassination plots. Is it just enough for suspicion to fall on the Kremlin and on President Putin to serve his purpose and embolden him?

Well, clearly these are not real attacks and they have a disruptive capability and they're part of a wider strategy that I'm calling the weaponization of inconvenience, precisely trying to kind of build up bit by bit enough irritants for the West that people begin to think, oh, it's really not worth supporting Ukraine and such like. But the point about going back to this information element is by launching a fair number of attacks that are real attacks,

So, too, that the Russians in some ways are hoping to be able to crawl out their way into our heads and our imaginations enough that every time anything goes wrong. I mean, for example, take this terrible crash of a DHL plane just outside Vilnius. Now, although there have been claims that, well, it seems to fit into a pattern of Russian aggression because the Russians have apparently been putting incendiary devices in other DHL loads,

But nonetheless, although this may just turn out to be purely some kind of ghastly technical error, nonetheless, immediately we see the hand of Putin behind this and everything else. So again, from Putin's point of view, if he manages to create that illusion that he is the sort of James Bond villain mastermind behind everything that goes wrong, it makes him seem a lot more powerful than he really is.

And at the moment, the authorities do seem to be suggesting it looks more like some kind of technical error at the moment. We'll have to see what happens on that. Russia's use of sabotage attacks is well known. But do you see that there's been an increase in the intensity of them since the full scale invasion of Ukraine?

Well, there certainly has been, I mean, obviously, from Putin's point of view, you know, he is not just simply at war with Ukraine, he is at war with the West. And he's very open about that. He says it in his speeches and so forth. As far as he's concerned, Ukraine is just simply a weapon that the West is using against him. Obviously, he's wrong. But nonetheless, I mean, I think that's a genuine belief of his. So of course, we have seen an escalation of these kind of covert acts. But

This year, it's been that much more dramatic. I mean, we've seen everything from the assassination of a defecting helicopter pilot in Spain, through to arson attacks, including ones in Leighton in northeast London. We have seen apparently an assassination plot against a senior German industrialist, the head of the Rheinmetall arms industry. You know,

All kinds of different attacks, which definitely speak to the fact that a decision has clearly been made in the Kremlin to, in effect, unleash the Russian intelligence agencies and basically give them much more permissive rules of engagement to try and actually start to shake the West's will to continue supporting Ukraine. And is it all about Ukraine or is there a wider strategy underpinning this?

I mean, I think, in a way, for the moment, Ukraine is the absolute focus. You know, obviously, from Putin's point of view, would he like to see, for example, you know, NATO shaken and such? Like, of course he would. But I don't really think that there is some kind of grand strategy. Putin is not a strategist. He does not actually tend to have these kind of grand plans and so forth. You know, he's much more a tactician, obviously.

And I think from this point of view, he's aware that the crucial potential point of failure for Ukraine is precisely us. It's the West. If we do begin to scale down the level of financial and military support, then Kiev's going to be in a very, very tough spot indeed. So I think from his point of view, he thinks that is one of the key weak points to continue to try and stab at. And what effect do you think Donald Trump as US president will have on all of this? Well,

Well, clearly, the shadow of Trump hangs over almost everything at the moment. And the honest answer is, look, we don't know. I mean, Trump says a lot of things, but we know from experience that what Trump says does not actually necessarily translate to what Trump does. I suspect that he himself doesn't truly know. But the point is the potentiality.

that Trump will indeed engage himself, as he has promised to do, with the war and try and bring it to an early end. It's clearly driving Russian strategy in the sense of the moment they're trying to ensure that they're in the best position possible for both a ceasefire or any kind of negotiations. It's clearly worrying the Ukrainians because, you know, historically Trump and President Zelensky do not have a particularly good relationship. And also it's clearly rattling the Europeans. But even the Europeans, in some ways, it's pulling two ways.

There are some who are saying, well, therefore, we need to get much more serious. We need to be spending more money. But we've heard this for some years, it has to be said. And then there are others who much more quietly are thinking that in some ways Trump is going to let them off the hook. Because if actually Trump does start to basically throw his weight around or certainly demand that Europe pick up more of the burden of the war, well, look, there's a limit to what Europe can do. And in some ways, there are certain countries –

who are frankly in a position where they're thinking, well, look, if that situation happens, we can legitimately say there's nothing we can do actually to make up the shortfall. So there's no point throwing good money after bad. So, in fact, let's also try and sort of scale back our support. So, you know, no one really knows. Everyone is kind of preparing their positions. But there is an anticipation that one way or the other, Trump absolutely will disrupt the situation. The last point is worth making. There are also some in Kiev who think that, in fact –

Putin will overplay his hand. I mean, already Putin's making ridiculous demands as a preconditions for any peace talks. It may well be that actually the Russians will end up making Trump feel that they're taking him for granted. And if Trump throws his weight behind Kiev, he's likely to be much, much more maximalist than the very cautious Biden administration.

It's going to be extremely interesting to watch this unfold, isn't it? Absolutely.

Is that all about Trump or is it a mindset that's changed that, yes, we were at a war footing from X time and now it's becoming, it's intensifying?

Yeah, exactly. I think it's a process rather than just a sort of a sudden moment. And I think in hindsight, really this tracks back to 2011, 2012, because that was the time when there were these massive protests in Russia, primarily in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the largest we'd seen since the end of the Soviet Union. And this was a genuine protest, largely from the rising middle class, and

against Putin returning to the presidency, against rigged elections, against just that sense that they weren't being listened to.

But Putin was not willing to believe that this was actually a natural and organic response from the Russian people. He saw the hand of the CIA, the State Department, and indeed MI6 behind it. And so from his point of view, this was a sign that the West was coming for him now. That just as they'd been behind all the various Arab Spring risings and the colored revolutions in the post-Soviet states, this was just them. So really from that point, we have seen a sort of a steady trajectory.

2014, the response to the annexation of Crimea, again, it angered him. Then when later on, obviously, we have the revolution of dignity in Ukraine, once again, Putin did not see that as being something that was natural to the Ukrainian people. He saw this as a Western plot to basically steal Ukraine from Russia's sphere of influence. So bit by bit. And then I think last year, I think it was just that sense of –

He gave up on any last hope that he can reach some kind of a positive deal with the West. And so he thought, no, the West is an enemy. And more to the point, the West needs to feel that it is at war with us. It doesn't get to just simply allow the Ukrainians to go and do all the hard fighting and so forth and sit back in their comfort. The West was made to feel uncomfortable.

I know it's almost impossible, well, it is impossible to know what's going on inside his head. I mean, do you think that he actually truly believes this or he uses it as a vehicle and a pretext for what he is actually doing in terms of the aggression against Ukraine? I mean, I think he actually does believe it. As you say, it's impossible to know. But nonetheless, it's been a pretty consistent theme throughout his various statements, even before 2022.

And of course, he also uses this. It's a great pretext. Authoritarian regimes often like wars because they allow you to basically say that there is now no room for loyal opposition. You're either a patriot or

which means you do as you're told, or you're a traitor, which means anything the state does to you is right and proper. So, I mean, yes, there is, of course, a political value. And yes, of course, it's being used to try and mobilize Russians. Remember, still to a large extent, Russian forces are being manned by volunteers, even if in most cases they're volunteers drawn to it by the money that is being offered rather than any great patriotic mission.

But when it comes down to it, I don't think this is just some total political artifice. I think the trouble is he and the people around him in this coterie of rather paranoid ex-KGB types, all products of the Soviet order who hadn't really been able to cope with

with the collapse of Soviet imperial status. I think that is the way they coped. They decided that somehow this was done to them by a conspiratorial West. Your latest report, Gangsters at War, explores how the Kremlin is now using Russian-based organized crime and criminals as proxies, as a form of statecraft. Who are these criminals serving the Kremlin? How has their role actually evolved?

Well, in terms of who they are, the interesting thing is, you know, if we take the Leighton attacks, for example, you know, these were not Russians. These were not people who had any Russian connection. The problem is precisely that actually the Russian state is not just using Russian-based criminal organizations, which have all kinds of contacts all across Europe and beyond, because for years they had emerged in some ways as the kind of

one-stop shop cash and carry for the local gangs. You wanted heroin, the Russians could get it for you. You want guns, you want cyber services, whatever the Russians could provide. So they weren't necessarily carrying out crime on the streets. They were the sort of service providers to those who were carrying out the crime. So they have all sorts of contacts. But also nowadays, a lot of these kind of low-level gangsters who are employed to burn something down here or daub some graffiti there, they're recruited on the internet.

on social media or on the deep web or whatever, which means often they don't even know they're doing Putin's dirty work. But the point is why they're being used. Look, the Kremlin has a long pedigree of close relations with organised crime and of being able to sometimes use them to its own purposes. But in some ways, we are actually caught by the unintended consequences of our own actions.

We kicked out 750 diplomats across the West, Russian diplomats, as part of a purge on spies who were operating under diplomatic cover. And that didn't absolutely have an important impact in really curbing Russia's espionage networks. The thing is, though, I think in hindsight, we didn't really think the next step. How would a bunch of...

frankly, emotionally bankrupt, but often smart and imaginative individuals on the other side, how would they react? They weren't going to just throw up their hands and say, oh, well, we had a good run. We can't do much more spying. No, of course not. They were going to look to, well, who else can we use? And so they've turned to all sorts of different proxies, not just criminals, but also, for example, people who have an ideological support for Russia, people who are just simply unhappy with the status quo in the West, people who are

People who are just simply able to be hired for often what is relatively small amounts of money. So they've been building up these networks of proxies to fill the gap left by our sort of expulsions. And we really, I think, I mean, we are aware of it. I mean, something that Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, noted, but we're catching up rather than actually having been ahead of the game.

So, do you think that those expulsions were a mistake then? And if they were, what would have been the alternative to that? No, the expulsions were absolutely right. But when we did that, we should have realised that the Russians were not going to stand still. We should have at that time also been thinking that we need to be ready for the next wave rather than then...

I mean, look, clearly there were people within the British and other security services who did have an idea. But, you know, I think that we should have been more prepared for this increased reliance on proxies. And how much control does Putin himself have over these proxies, these criminal proxies?

It's very transactional. Putin himself doesn't get involved. I mean, he is way too sort of stratospherically high. He sets broad objectives and then various minions and subject agencies all seek to try and satisfy the czar, often competitively still. So you might have different intelligence agencies trying different things to the same end.

And how much control do they have? This is a very transactional process. This is essentially reaching out and, if we can use this kind of language, outsourcing certain activities. And what they do is sometimes they offer the carrot. For example, we do know that those Russian gangs still involved in smuggling everything from heroin and guns to counterfeit goods and untaxed cigarettes out of Russia basically get a free pass through Russian airports and ports.

if they're also bringing back sanctioned, smuggled goods that the state wants, microchips or whatever else. Other times, though, it's more the stick. We know what you're doing. We'd like you to do something because you're good patriotic Russians, aren't you? With the clear implication that if you don't, you're not patriots and you can expect more pressure from the state. So it is still very much a kind of bit by bit use of criminals when they seem to have particular access to

Of course, the longer this goes on, the more institutionalized these connections become. One of the big nightmare scenarios for the future is Russia ends up a bit like North Korea. North Korea has this thing called Bureau 39, which is basically the state's ministry of organized crime.

And we might end up seeing the Russians become much, much more focused and institutionalized in how they use gangsters. Just really interested on that point to ask you what effect you think the deepening alliance between Pyongyang and Moscow is likely to have beyond the battlefields of Ukraine?

Yeah, I mean, on the one hand, this is obviously kind of an alliance of pariahs. Neither necessarily trusts or like the other, but basically the North Koreans have ammunition and troops. The Russians have food and fuel and technology that the North Koreans want. Okay.

Of course, the more this goes on, I think there's several impacts. One is they do learn from each other. And as I say, I think the Russians will learn lessons from Pyongyang about actually how you run transnational criminal structures, even while actually being under very, very tight sanctions in theory.

Secondly, it encourages this idea of a kind of – I don't want to make it sound like an axis of anti-Westernism or whatever because that makes it sound a lot too united. But nonetheless, we are seeing a cohering around Russia, a whole variety of countries that are unhappy with what they see as a Western-dominated status quo.

and in a way are creating an alternative world order. And the final element is the big wild card is China. Now, there's no way that Pyongyang would be sending troops as well as ammunition to Russia without Beijing's approval. Because in part, Beijing's nightmare is that the North Korean system and economy collapses, and suddenly it has 50 million refugees on its border. But

As this alliance becomes tighter and tighter, will Beijing bless that or will it begin to become rather uncomfortable and actually want to try and sort of separate that? And that in turn may create new tensions between Moscow and Beijing.

Interesting. I just want to ask you a little bit about the recent NATO cyber conference that was in London in Britain. It pointed to the scale of hostility demonstrated by Russia in the cyber domain. And it said it's ready to cause unprovoked attacks on critical national infrastructure using an unofficial army of cyber criminals and hacktivists. Is the West well enough defended, do you think, against this and the other threats we've talked about already?

Look, no one is ever properly defended against cyber attacks any more than they can guarantee that terrorists will never be able to act or whatever. And in some ways, I appreciate the importance of a political speech, but I think Pat McFadden overemphasized the big catastrophic type attacks, like the idea that the Russians could just sort of switch off the British power grid.

First of all, that's highly unlikely. Remember, they've been trying this against the Ukrainians for years and have failed. And this is one of the reasons why they're using drones and missiles to hit the Ukrainian energy infrastructure. If they could just hack it and switch it off, they wouldn't need to.

Secondly, this is actually the kind of thing which is precisely an Article 5 NATO issue. It would count as the equivalent of a massive physical attack. There would be NATO consequences. Finally, it, I think, mistakenly focuses the attention on the big picture.

Of course, it's really important to support a critical national infrastructure. I'm not saying that for a moment. But in fact, if we look at where the Russian instigated attacks are taking place, it's a lot of smaller attacks. It's a death of a thousand cuts. It's ransomware incidents, as we saw, for example, against an NHS provider in London earlier this year.

It's smaller scale phishing and sabotage attacks. Again, what the Russians are trying to do is create a huge array of small scale incidents, none of which reach that Article 5 threshold.

but which together begin to actually disrupt life in the West and begin to make, they hope, some Westerners begin to think supporting Ukraine is not worth it. So, you know, can we do a hell of a lot more? Absolutely. But must we accept that there's always going to be all kinds of cyber attacks that get through, not least just because, you know, some people will not change their password or, you know, there's going to be always human stupidities that the hackers will exploit? Of course.

At one point, the war in Ukraine will end. What do you think the direction of travel will be in terms of this sabotage attacks, the disinformation that you've seen coming from the Kremlin? How do you think it will change once that war is over and once the fighting stops?

Well, I mean, God knows when, alas, that will happen. But I mean, I think that we probably will see it stepping back to where it was before in the sense of, look, we will continue to be in a hostile relationship with Russia so long as Putin is in the Kremlin. Because as I say, as far as he's concerned, he's at war with us. You know, it's a different type of war. It's not a shooting war. I don't think we're ever going to see Russian troops attacking NATO, regardless of what happens in Ukraine. But

But nonetheless, there will absolutely be a conflictual relationship. He probably will step down these kind of overt and lethal sabotage attacks that we're seeing. But on the other hand, there's a constant campaign of cyber attacks, disinformation operations, subversion, intended to keep us divided, intended to stop us from being able to pose any kind of a challenge to Russia. I think we have to accept that that is the new normal for some time to come.

And just inside Russia itself, the ruble has dropped to its lowest level since the start of war. Inflation is out of control. The Soviet Union collapsed suddenly. I mean, could the same thing happen to Putin's Russia under these kind of pressures? Not really. I mean, we have to appreciate that you say inflation is out of control. I mean, the level of inflation that we saw not just in late Soviet times, but then in early 1990s, I mean, there it was heading to more than 2,000 at one point per cent.

We're nowhere near that kind of point.

I mean, I think that what we are beginning to see is a certain number of economic chickens coming home to roost. Absolutely. But first of all, there is still a lot more resilience within the Russian system. You know, chairwoman of the central bank, Elvira Nabiulina, has expressed herself confident that inflation will be brought kind of under control next year. Now, in part, she's meant to say that because it's her job. But she is a very, very capable manager of the bank and the financial structure. So, you know, I don't think we can rule that out.

I think it's more just a sign that the Russian economy is not capable of providing both guns and butter. And indeed, it's worth noting that butter specifically, the price has spiraled out of control. And so in many stores, butter is now being sold in those locked security boxes that you might otherwise expect for steak or caviar or similar. But the bottom line is Putin doesn't care.

I mean, he cares enough. So long as the defense factories are still able to run, so long as he's able to offer enough payments to recruit soldiers, then he only really worries about whether there is some kind of mass protest. The reason why this led to the collapse of the Soviet Union was that Gorbachev was a liberalizer, and Gorbachev ultimately was not willing to use mass violence against his own people. I don't think we can say either of those about

about Putin. So I think we have to recognise that the economy is not going to be the deus ex machina that ends this war. I think the Russians have got at least another year before they actually have to start to think seriously if they can afford the current level of spending. And even then, we're talking about a slow decline, I think, rather than a catastrophic implosion. So for the moment, President Putin is secure and pretty confident?

Exactly. But of course, there's always the black swan factor. What if he dies? What if he gets ill? What if there's some nuclear accident or similar? The one thing we can say is that the system is more brittle. It's strong, but it's more brittle. The kind of resources that it relied on to deal with crises, basically endless money, Putin's own personal wealth.

authority, and also his control of the security apparatus. All of those are now coming under pressure. So yes, so long as it continues as present, he's in a fairly strong position. But who knows? One thing we can say in politics is stuff happens. Mark Gagliotti, great to speak to you. Thank you very much for your time. Always a pleasure. Thank you.

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