Frontline special - The Times' Catherine Philp
35:30 Share

BetterHelp Online Therapy bought this 30-second ad to remind you, right now, wherever you are, to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in and out.

Feels better, right? That's 15 seconds of self-care. Imagine what you could do with more. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Random Podcast for 10% off your first month of therapy. No pressure, just help. But for now, just relax.

Thank you.

The Waiting Room can wait.

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 joined by World Affairs Editor Catherine Philp. In her 25 years at the Times, she's reported from conflicts around the globe and she's just back from her latest assignment in Ukraine. Catherine, great to see you. Thank you for joining us again. Russia is making, as we speak, a full-on drive in Kursk to route Ukrainian forces from there and it's claiming to have taken back the biggest town, Suja. What can you tell us about the importance and the timing of this operation?

Well, firstly, this is an area of Russia in which the Ukrainians went into in August last year, and it was seen there as having several purposes. Firstly, to humiliate Putin by bringing the war to his own territory and show him that there were consequences. Secondly, to show to the West that the so-called red lines that Putin always talked about, that he would launch

launch nuclear weapons at the West, if anything like this were to happen, were not true, because that's not what happened. And thirdly, and possibly most importantly, and most interestingly for what's going on right now, that it could give Ukraine a bargaining chip in any future territorial negotiations if they were to seek the return of territory of Ukraine that Russia is currently occupying.

So what we're seeing with what is starting to look like it could end up as a total rout of Ukrainian troops there.

They were already losing ground over the last couple of months. And that was partly to do with the fact that the Russians had drafted in North Korean soldiers, which was an extraordinary kind of escalation in the war. And it obviously brought in another nuclear power to the battlefield. North Koreans didn't actually fare that well, but just in sheer numerical terms, they managed to overwhelm some of the Ukrainian defenses and thus push them back.

But the real breakthrough from the Russian side came when Donald Trump decided to suspend intelligence sharing and military aid as a means to pressure Ukraine over making peace. It was

It wasn't the suspension of military aid that was so critical with Kursk, but it was the intelligence sharing. It meant that Ukraine was fighting inside Russia essentially blind. It didn't have the intelligence it needed about what was going on on the ground there. And so when that intelligence sharing was suddenly resumed,

when this breakthrough happened in Jeddah between the Ukrainian and the American negotiators, the Russians were already quite far forward and really the damage was done. The timing of that was absolutely catastrophic given the fact that today Steve Witkoff is in Moscow talking about

possibly an immediate, possibly not immediate ceasefire with the Russians. I'll ask you about that in a moment specifically. But the significance also that just ahead of that visit by the US Special Envoy, Putin turns up in Kursk in military fatigues, basically upping his game, showing the strongman image and positioning himself to the public as a winner in his eyes.

Yeah, and it's what's also extraordinary is, you know, given the fuss over what Zelensky wore to the Oval Office and all the kind of attention paid to the fact that, you know, he wears tactical gear and has done since the beginning of the war. This is actually the first time we've seen Putin mimic that to put on fatigues himself for this visit. And it's the first time he's actually gone there, in essence, kind of acknowledging the presence of,

Ukrainian forces on Russian territory, which is really kind of a humiliation. It's never happened since the end of the Second World War. But he's acknowledging a time when it looks very likely to be coming to an end. So he went there as a victorious leader. I think it's a show of strength that

to me, suggests that he may be ready to negotiate or accept some kind of ceasefire. I don't think he'll do it quickly. I don't think it will be an immediate ceasefire. And I think there'll be a lot of wrangling over conditions. But I can see him accepting such a temporary ceasefire.

The noises out of Moscow, the latest noises have talked about a reprieve for Ukrainian soldiers that he doesn't want to give. But it would also be a reprieve for his own soldiers. And, you know, they need that, too. So there's a lot of moving parts here. I agree.

I wouldn't imagine him giving anything on negotiations at all, you know, with a temporary ceasefire or anything else until Kursk is fully back in Russian hands. After that, I think the situation could change. We're talking right now Thursday lunchtime. And by the end of the day, who knows what will have happened, to be honest with you. But before those talks got underway, so as you say, an aide to Putin dismissed a short-term ceasefire, saying it would be a respite for Zelensky, claiming it

wants a long-term peace settlement, reiterating the same maximalist conditions for ending the war. Did you expect that?

Yes, certainly as a first comment out of Moscow, that's always what you'd expect. And, you know, they have been pushing those maximus demands. I mean, let's remember this is the first time anything has been asked of them at all. And, you know, Ukraine didn't fold to the first things it was asked to do. There was that whole horrendous spectacle in the Oval Office. And, you know, I mean, it might be a demonstration, to be honest, that actually Ukraine

There's something to be said for standing up for yourself a little bit, because I think the bounce back Ukraine's got is somewhat better than you might have thought it would be having witnessed that spectacle. That being said, I don't think that Ukraine is in a substantially different position to where it was before.

Exactly before that meeting, because all that's really resumed is it so that the intelligence sharing has resumed, the military aid has resumed. They've actually lost that bit of ground in Kursk as a result of that suspension. And then nothing else has really moved for them.

But when people describe this as being a moment of truth for Washington, you know, the moment where you can really see Putin for what he is and what he really wants. Do you think that that is true? And how crucial do you think Donald Trump's response will be to what he is or what is accepted or not accepted in Moscow?

I mean, I think it's all about Donald Trump. He is ultimately the only arbiter of this deal and it's down to him. And, you know, he has centralised these things. I thought the language from Rubio was very interesting. Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State in Jeddah.

I hope it reflects Trump's thinking, the fact that he said that if Russia didn't take it, they would recognise who was the obstacle to peace. And I wonder, and, you know, Trump didn't possibly say it quite as explicitly, but he has made some quite, you know, loud threats to Russia over accepting it. And I wonder if his patience is possibly wearing a little thin.

That may be the case. And, you know, if Donald Trump does actually acknowledge that President Putin is the obstacle to peace, he's made threats before and not carried through on those threats, hasn't he? And there is a possibility that he could actually offer incentives rather than introducing punitive measures against Putin, because actually, at the end of the day, as some people say, perhaps he values his long term business dealings with President Putin more.

Yes, I think he inevitably does. And it's again, as you say, it's not just the fact that, you know, we've I think there's a lot of column inches given to the psychodrama between him and Putin and how he how he sort of admires Putin as a strong leader and kind of wishes that he would.

had the similar lack of checks and balances that Putin enjoys in Moscow. But yeah, there's also this business relationship between them and between Donald Trump and Russia. And so, you know, in his sort of transactional dealings and his transactional manner of going about things, you cannot discount that. I mean, you know, this loss of patience, this

I think for Trump, it is quite tricky. It's starting to get tricky that how obviously his boast on the campaign trail that he would have this all done and dusted in 24 hours was ludicrous. And it was, you know, a campaign boast.

then saying that he wanted something done in three months. I mean, I think he'd be lucky if he got a temporary ceasefire within that period, which is fast approaching. But his patience isn't limitless. And we did see that in his dealings with King Jong-un when he sort of hit a

a wall and had kind of milked those, you know, the TV spectacle of his meetings with King Jung-un. He did walk away when it was very clear things were hitting a wall. I mean, we did hear, continue to hear a lot about their beautiful relationship and the love letters that they'd exchanged and stuff, but essentially nothing came of that, neither a deal being done nor

Trump making good on, you know, on the kind of threats he made to North Korea, which, as you may recall, involved fire and fury. And we never saw any of that. And obviously, President Putin will be very mindful of that history and may just be calculating that it's a question of playing for time until Donald Trump runs out of patience and does walk away.

Yes, and that absolutely would not be shocking either. I mean, and that, of course, again, still is in play, even if there is a ceasefire. I mean, this ceasefire is not...

a peace deal. It's so far from a peace deal. Even if it were to happen, you know, 30 days, you can just imagine what a country that is, you know, so big on sort of sleight of hand and misinformation, what it will say about what has happened in that time. We don't seem to have any indication of any prospects of having true enforcement mechanisms for that. So, you know, troops on the ground.

Rubio even talked in Jeddah about how there were sort of technical ways that you could monitor, you know, that everyone can see everything in the modern age and it could all sort of be done by satellite. But that's not that's no substitute for a true monitoring or peacekeeping force. And so, yes.

But I just, yeah, I think that it's all that will happen in a ceasefire is, you know, slightly fewer people get killed and a lot of other things will happen and a lot of other claims will be made. And we will probably get to the end of that. No closer to peace. So, Catherine, you were in Ukraine, you're recently back. And, you know, before these very dramatic events of last what, I don't know how long you've been back, but you've been back a week or so. Is that right? Yeah.

So, I mean, what was the situation? What was your feel of the situation? You're reading the situation in the country at the time overall. Yeah, well, it was really interesting because it was, this last time back was the first time I'd been back since November when I was there over the US election. And it was very interesting that, you know, how Trump's election was received in Ukraine. And it wasn't with universal horror.

I think there was, you know, there was such a sort of mood of fatigue amongst a lot of Ukrainians, including a lot of the military about the kind of slow release of weapons, of US weapons under Biden. And, you know, a lot of discontent with that and dissatisfaction with Biden. So there was this sense that and I think, you know, it was interesting.

it really speaks to a spirit of optimism in Ukraine. A lot of people were saying, oh, maybe there's a lockdown that Trump can break and he can make things happen. He won't want to look weak. They thought he's a strong man who won't want to look weak. Well,

Being there, you know, that fateful day when Hexef got up and said, you know, no NATO, secession of territory, a ceding of territory, you know, put down all those conditions. And then Ukrainians saw this very warm, you

account of Trump's conversation with Putin. He wrote a true social post where he sort of gushed over Putin and how they discussed their friendship between their great nations and how they'd fought together alongside each other on the Allied side in the Second World War. I mean, that was a hideous reality check for Ukrainians. And you could just sort of feel the mood plummet and the energy go out of everyone thinking, oh, my God, we're being sold out.

And then of course, you know, this just sort of seemed to get worse as time went on. We had the Oval Office encounter that, you know, again, there was actually a lot of anger in Ukraine about how Zelensky was treated in that. And, you know, even people who, you know, who might not be Zelensky's natural supporters sort of rallied behind him because of that. And there was this feeling of, you know, he's,

Also that whole idea that he's a dictator and he should be removed and there should be elections. You know, there was that thing of actually, no, you know, love him or loathe him. We voted for him. He is our legitimate president and there's no appetite there for elections either.

So, yeah, I think that by the time I left, I mean, obviously, this is more of a breakthrough, but well, either a breakthrough or just simply, I would say, actually really just more of a rewind to the situation as it was before the breakdown of the relationship. But yeah, I think it's left everyone in Ukraine with, you know, pretty suspicious of and sceptical of Trump and his motives.

And of course, the war goes on. And in your dispatches, the reports that you did, you were there. You were looking in particular in one of your reports about the recent, about the drones, the innovations and the experimentations by the Ukrainians. And notably before, at the beginning of this week, we were talking about Ukraine's largest ever drone attack on Russia. Just overall, how important have those innovations been to Ukraine's war effort? Yeah. So, I mean, the whole innovation of drones, it's been both...

It just, you know, it is a critical weapon in modern warfare. And I think that a lot of countries are going to be learning from Ukraine about what they're doing with them. But it also was born of necessity because they simply never had enough of the conventional arms that they needed and wanted. The sort of medium range rocket launchers that meant they could hit artillery positions easily.

that were firing on them and the same artillery, the howitzers, those kind of things that they were using along the front line. So it's really been a kind of almost total kind of transformation of the battlefield in about the last three, four months on both sides. So

with the drone team talking about what they were doing. It's incredible that they, so the scene really was that we were somewhere up near the front line, I can't disclose, in a building that had been taken over by this kind of group of quite sort of, you know, there were a mixture of kind of people who worked in IT with kind of artists, musicians, and a bunch of creatives put together in a very innovative fashion.

way and really given license to do whatever they wanted to these standard drones that Ukraine now runs off the factory lines in huge numbers. And so they were arming a drone with a shotgun barrel to shoot down other drones in flight. They were

making a radio repeater for a drone so that it could fly ahead right over the Russian lines and give a further range to those drones that were kind of accompanying it. So the signal would be taken further forward and it meant that their range was larger. And they've seen it the other way around as well. One of the things that the Russians did

which the Ukrainians have also tried out. It's not so successful in winter, but it's one of having a fiber optic, very thin fiber optic cable on the drone so that it can't be jammed. So it's literally a spool

that sits on top of the drone. And as the drone flies, it spools out behind it. Now they tend to freeze and snap in very cold weather. So they're not all weather weapons, but this is the kind of like tech race we're seeing happening in real time on the front line.

It's incredible that is the melting plot, that is the place where it's all taking place isn't it? And you met someone called Barney, you call her Barney, a female drone operator and she told you her motivation to serve and how it came about as a result of living under occupation. What did she say? Yeah so Barney is her call name, everyone has a call name, we use that to you know prevent their identification.

Barney is a native of Kherson, which is one of the cities and it's a provincial capital that was taken in the very first days of the invasion in 2022. And so she lived under it and she saw, you know, the brutality of Russian soldiers who were rounding up people that they thought

were pro-Ukrainian or anti-Russian occupation and might be working against them in any way. And she was involved in some of the kind of public protests, the sort of civil disobedience towards the Russian occupation. At one point, her brothers were caught by the Russians and sort of taken away, disappeared and beaten up and tortured and then eventually released because there was, you know,

they had no need of them. And it was through that experience and then, you know, the relief of seeing Ukrainian soldiers finally arrive in Kherson when the Russians retreated from there across the river. And that was her, when she saw them coming in, she thought, I want to, that's what I want to go and do is be on, be part of them. Yeah. And what does she say about the effects of living under that occupation and being constantly bombarded by Russian propaganda for eight months?

Well, she says something interesting about that experience and how she took it forward to the frontline where she now is, which is on the eastern Donbas. Because a lot of Ukrainians can be quite suspicious of people who've lived under occupation and there's always this fear that people could have been collaborators or what have they done to survive sort of thing. And she said that she understood

Part of her motivation for what she was doing, which is flying drones over those very occupied territories, was that she wanted to free those people. And she understood what it was like for them because she says you do start to believe it after a while when you are completely cut off.

from external information and you are fed Russian propaganda. I mean, everyone in these areas, they get free Russian cable television, but they have no access to Ukrainian internet providers or Ukrainian television or that kind of thing. So they really are siloed in those places. And yeah, she said she could understand how that would affect someone's thinking.

And a big part of any peace negotiations, if and when they get underway, is going to be the future of the territory that's currently occupied by Russia. President Zelensky has accepted he won't get it back immediately, but has insisted and reiterated that insistence this week that he will never formally cede that land to Russia. But is it not true that the longer, and also from what you perhaps have learned from talking to Barney and other people like her, that the longer that this goes on and is unresolved, the harder it's going to be to achieve?

That is completely true. I could not tell you in all good faith that I see those territories returning to Ukrainian control anytime soon. I don't see how it can be done militarily. And I think politically it's very difficult, too. It doesn't preclude a peace settlement. It is not uncommon for a peace

for territory to change hand without being officially acknowledged. For example, Serbia has never accepted the loss of Kosovo as a province of Serbia. It's not an ideal comparison because that is a frozen conflict that remains very, very tense. I think the difference tends to be, though, that

you know, the sort of unfairness of this all seems to be that, of course, this is not an aggressor who's losing territory. It's the idea that this aggressor may gain that territory if it is de facto or de jure either way. So I think in order to get peace, then, you know, Ukraine may be forced into a position where it has to at least acknowledge Russia's de facto control of those areas.

But there could be a way to do that without, you know, officially ceding them. And that is something he has reiterated he will not do. And just to draw upon your experience from the reporting of another dispatch, which was a trip to central Ukraine and a mine, the Velta mine, which is of particular interest because there you saw at work rare minerals mining. And that is obviously the central part of what

Donald, a central party, what Donald Trump really wants now is that rare minerals deal. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you saw and what their perspective there was of what's going on in terms of the US-Ukraine deal that's on the table? Yeah.

I mean, I think the deal, there's sort of mixed views about the deal within the industry and within the general population in Ukraine. So one sort of senior engineer there said to me, well, you know, I was against the deal, but if it has security guarantees, I think it might be worth it.

And then, you know, I spoke to the CEO of the company who was probably the most for the deal. He sort of did believe that a strong American civilian presence in commercial presence to exploit the minerals was,

could be a way. I think that's quite blue sky thinking, it's quite optimistic. But his point was definitely that a huge amount of investment is needed even if Ukraine is to benefit from those minerals. So I think his suggestion was that without some kind of a deal, it wasn't very likely that

anyone else was going to come along and put that kind of money into Ukraine so that it would go unexploited anyway, certainly in the short or medium term. I

I also got to see exactly how problematic it would be to try and exploit that mine or rather others like it in even more fragile situations whilst there's still a war going on. And although they hadn't taken a hit on that mine, they had at times lost electricity and had to shut down operations because of that.

At one point, they were down to sort of 50% of their output because of the continued Russian strikes on energy infrastructure. These are very...

very big, like open cast mines. They're not, you know, it's not about you going like hundreds of meters under the ground where you potentially... And what was being mined there, Catherine? So that way it was, it was a titanium oxide. It is essentially, it's like an ore from which you extract, go on to extract titanium.

And I mean, that is mostly used for civilian purposes, but also can be used for military ones and in various modern technologies. But a lot of the other minerals, so titanium is one of the ones that is mostly in the center and is more easily accessible. There's a huge lithium deposit, the biggest one in Europe.

which is sort of right on the front line in the Donbass and is more or less under Russian control now, but has never been exploited.

And again, then there's those rare earths that are very labour intensive and expensive to mine that are predominantly in the occupied territories. So, you know, that's, I think, part of the reason that we've seen Russia draw attention to the fact that it has custody of some of those right now, too. So when you came away from there, what kind of perspective did it give you about the importance of this deal and relating to Ukraine's future?

Well, I mean, it was very it was interesting to hear of the fact, you know, just to see this operation underway, to be aware that this was not something that you could start up from scratch during wartime. And so the idea that Ukraine might have very little prospect of war

of using its own minerals unless it does have that outside investment. But I think that, you know, to come back to it always, the absolute vast majority of people did say that without security guarantees, it looked like, you know, it looked almost like extortion of a country whilst it's at war and, you know, very pretty crass kind of extortion at that on the part of Donald Trump. But

As far as I know, since that original fallout in which Zelensky refused to sign the deal, it has gone under quite a bit of review. And although we haven't seen anything about security guarantees from it yet, it has moved from being purely exploitative towards

becoming the basis of a fund that would be used for the reconstruction of Ukraine. And I mean, the American interest in that is, of course, they would want to do the reconstructing and get the contract. So there would be a financial benefit there.

from it accruing to the US in that manner. But it wouldn't simply be about carpetbagging all the minerals out of the country and Ukraine getting nothing out of it. There is something tangible that could be put there for Ukraine's future.

I'm sure there is more detail to talk about this in the future when more events unfold on that and the news breaks. European defence ministers have met in Paris and they've been discussing details of a coalition of the willing. According to the British defence secretary, the momentum is building. There were 34 countries involved. Do we have any clearer idea of what this coalition will actually do?

No, not really. And the main reason for that is that it's more or less out of the hands of the people who are stepping up to the plate and showing themselves to be willing. Now, despite the fact that in Jeddah, the Ukrainian side has

you know made reference to the involvement of european partners made sure that that was written into the statements about the meeting and there's still no defined role for the europeans ukrainians want them involved because they see the europeans as having their back a bit more and of

Of course, we know that Jonathan Powell, the British National Security Advisor, has played a key role in helping the Ukrainians get to this point using his skills from the Northern Ireland peace process. And I think that's been tremendously useful. So they want to keep the Europeans very much pulled in.

The the Americans don't have any objection to European troops going in in a peacekeeping role, which is what the coalition of the willing was kind of the basis on which it was. It was being brought together in the first place. So the Americans have no problem with that. But the Russians do. And so I don't see ultimately how you get past that.

But also the Europeans do, don't they, as well, unless they have America as their so-called backstop guaranteeing their security. Yes, that is certainly true as well. But yeah, I mean, it's a grim realisation for the Europeans as well that they don't actually...

have even the air cover, never mind the kind of, you know, the wider security guarantees that will come with diplomatic consequences and that sort of thing. But they don't really even have the air cover to send in a peacekeeping force. So, yes, there is that. That is a big problem. I think the Russian objection is a bigger problem.

But I think in total, you know, it is a strong show of solidarity and backing for Ukraine that they are doing this. Because things are yet to be negotiated, it seems perfectly correct to me that they should keep going on this trajectory. And, you know, these things take a long time, so it's better to get them in place beforehand. And thirdly, Europe has to just

you know, get its ducks in a row anyway over security. And this is really where that starts, because this has been a pretty grim wake up call that didn't need to take this long. I think it was always pretty obvious that Europe was going to have to do something like this. So there's a lot of more things happening than just talking about a potential peacekeeping force.

And just finally, Catherine, I mean, the peacekeeping force, potential peacekeeping, it feels like a very long way off, doesn't it? I just want to finish by getting your assessment. The war does look like it's going to be going on for some time now, a long time from being over, at least. And Ukraine's survival as a sovereign nation is far from secured as well. Is the best possible hope right now not peace, but just a pause in the fighting?

Well, whenever you raise it that way with Ukrainians and say, I mean, you know, there is such fatigue that some people would just like some respite. But it always comes back to this issue of they'll come back. Who does this who does this poor serve best? You know, we have Moscow suggesting it's the Ukrainians that need a break. But unless the Ukrainians continue to get involved,

military aid at the level or a higher level than they've been getting already, that pause isn't going to make any difference. If the Russians convince Ukrainians or certainly the Americans that this pause looks enough like a peace for them to pack up and go away and withdraw their support,

Ukraine will be just, its doors will be left wide open to Russia coming straight back in. So in that sense, you know, Ukraine accepting this ceasefire, I imagine it's sort of almost hoping that Russia shows its true colours sooner rather than later during that ceasefire. Because if Russia behaved perfectly right now and then went away and came back in, I don't know, like,

2028, say, as soon as Donald Trump's been left office, that would be an appalling outcome. When people talk now about security guarantees for Ukraine, when they talk about deterrence in the future, otherwise Russia will come back for more one day, what does that coming back look like?

well it could look like uh like lots of things depending on how this part of the conflict ends it could be a coming back for the territories within uh the provinces that uh russia has

said it's annexed and put in its constitution but doesn't have full control of so it could just be coming back for them it could be going much further it could be an attempt to rerun the invasion of 2022 but I think that so much has happened on the battlefield and so much has changed and evolved in terms of weaponry that is questionable whether it could look like it did in 2022 again I mean I remember being in Kiev and seeing a

40 kilometer long column of Russian tanks and armored vehicles coming towards Kyiv. And they were stopped mostly by small groups of Ukrainians with anti-tank missiles, that kind of thing. I think that column of armor would have been stopped long before had you seen drone warfare at the intensity and level it is now in Ukraine. So it may be that that could really never happen again. And

And so the military conquest of Kyiv, I think, is less likely at any point in the future than it was in 2022. That was Russia's real chance to do it. And they may have to settle for destabilizing Ukraine in other non-military means as a way of getting control of Kyiv rather than actually marching down its streets.

Okay. Well, we'll leave it there for now. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks, Kate.

I want my dog to live a long, happy life, maybe even hit 19. So I feed them Ollie. Ollie's fresh and nutritious human-grade meals are made to support their health and happiness with protein-packed recipes dogs go crazy for, like beef with sweet potatoes, turkey with blueberries, or lamb with cranberries. Honestly, you might start thinking, dang, my dog eats better than I do. And that's probably true when it comes to Ollie. Head to ollie.com slash healthypup and use code healthypup to get 60% off your first box of meals.

Plus, they offer a clean bowl guarantee on the first box. So if you're not completely satisfied, you'll get your money back. That's O-L-L-I-E dot com slash HealthyPup. And enter code HealthyPup to get 60% off your first box. Feed your forever friend with Oli.