380. Tragedy, Resilience, and Defiance: Reflections from a Week Across Ukraine

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The End of a Week Long Trip.

Hello and welcome to Battleground Ukraine with me, Saul David and Julius Strauss.

Well, we're on the night train from Kiev to La Viva, Julius.

At the end of a week-long trip, it's been pretty eventful hasn't it?

We started in Kisser Now, in Moldova, then we went by bus to

Odessa, spent a couple of days there.

Then moved on by train to Harkiv, and then finally another train to

Kiev itself. What have been the highlights for you so far?

Gosh, it's been a really busy week.

Yeah, it seems like a much further, much longer ago that we were in Kisser Now.

I think Odessa was really interesting this time.

It had changed somewhat. It's coming out of winter.

In fact, the whole place is coming out of winter, which has been very nice

to see. It's had such a hard winter.

Odessa, we had these really great interviews and I think we're going to be

airing more of that later on.

But seeing the center, whether rehabilitating the soldiers, seeing

some of the drone stuff was very interesting.

Then Harkiv was just this contrast.

We went to this terrible place where I rushed and miss I had landed

two days before, and killed 11 dead now, we think.

11 dead, and you know, just half their apartment, block missing.

Then, 10 minutes down the road in the car, where you had International

Women's Day, and everybody's out in the streets, all the flowers

around, you know, there are men every regular women in these flowers.

You've got this real sense that something they didn't know about

what's happening. It's just that they're determined to live their

life, regardless. We got a little bit of that today as well.

We went to the zoo, which initially I was like, wow, it's a zoo,

but actually it's not, of course, because the zoo in wartime is

different. And again, we'll talk about that maybe a little bit

more later.

And then we finished off, you know, today with the cemetery and

very, very depressing. You saw the victims from the, you know,

the killing, the civilian killings in Butcher, the beginning of the

war, and then you saw the dead young men that are still dying.

I think some of them has recently, as a few weeks ago.

So, yeah, I mean, it's Ukraine going into the fifth year of war.

Yeah, so bring into the trip. I mean, my highlights, I think we're

seeing the substation actually at a desk. I mean, we'd been

reading, of course, all the way through the winter at how badly

hit the electrical system power generation of Ukraine has been

deliberate policy by the Russians to try and make things as

difficult as far as power, water, all the basic things that the

civilians need to survive. And they've been pretty effective at

it. But so have the power company in actually keeping the show

on the road. I mean, we went to see a substation that has been

completely destroyed. And yet they still have that optimism

that actually they could get it back on its feet. They talked

about how the electricity was being rationed so that certain

streets had it for a certain amount of time. But basically,

the whole operation is still being handled pretty well. And I

think I personally was quite surprised. I mean, I've got this

power pack here thinking I was going to need it one or two times

we've got the head torches. But actually, we're quite lucky

when we're from going from Odessa to Harvkeev to Kiev without

any kind of major issue with power. We've finally had a power

cut. I mean, of course, in Odessa, a lot of the time the

generators were running. So it's not that there was power. It's

that people have made adaptations. I mean, I think it would have

been a lot worse two months ago, a lot, lot worse. It would

have been really cold. We'd have been out of lacking power a lot

of the time. We've had it quite easy. And there's still ice on

the ground, there's still slow on the ground. There's been a lot

of sunshine as well. And that's probably reflected in the

mood. We're thinking of coming in January actually. So logistical

reasons everyone being available. We moved it back. And I'm glad

we did a couple of other things to mention when we got to

Harvkeev, you spoke about the awful site of that building that

been destroyed. You had a chance to talk to a couple of people

one guy who's actually been in the building when the missile

went in. So listeners, you know, watch out for that. We've

got some pretty dramatic stuff coming down the line. You'll

be able to hear it in the weeks to come as we move through the

story of our trip. And also do try and watch some of the

footage because this is the first time we've been on the

ground in Ukraine where we're actually filming as well as

audio recording. So keep an eye out for that on Spotify and

also on YouTube. Okay, Julius, let's talk about the news

today. And I suppose we've got to start really with hungry

haven't we? Because that's the biggest story at the moment.

You know, it's the biggest story and it's also a very

depressing story because once you know, we've been talking

for so long about this fact that Ukraine is trying to stop

the Russians advancing from the east. And of course,

there are different aspects to the war. There's the front line,

there's the civilian, the attacks on civilians and so on and

so on. And what's now beginning to happen is the hungry

incahutes with Moscow is stabbing Ukraine in the back. In

the beginning, it was just a sort of a minor annoyance, but

it's really stepped up recently. To keep the story as short

as we can because there's so many details here. But

basically, Victor Orban, the Hungarian leader for the last

sixteen years is up for reelection. And he's unpopular

with the voters. And the one thing that he thinks he can

win this election on is by bashing Ukraine as hard as he can.

And the message he is really trying to send out is that

Ukraine is trying to drag us hungry into a third world war.

The European Union is trying to drag us into a fight with

Russia. And we are not going to do that. We are Hungarians,

we decide our own fate. They say it's again, again, again,

on the ads, we decide our own fate. So that's all that is

sort of a theoretical level. But what's happening at a practical

level? I mean, we had this incident a few days ago now.

Well, to step back just a little bit. So what's happening is

that hungry is blocking the $90 billion package of aid to

Kiev, which has been agreed by the EU. Hungarians say,

no, they're not getting that, we're going to actively block

it. That obviously has irritated the Ukrainians. There was a

little bit of sort of fast talk back was in forwards. Orban

talked about a pipeline that he once opened in Ukraine.

So I'm going to use force in Ukraine to open that pipeline.

Well, what does that mean? Presumably that means some kind

of military or paramilitary intervention. If you take it

to his logical conclusion, Zelensky lost his temper a bit

and he said, I'm going to get my generals to come and talk to

you, probably not the clearest thing to say, but kind of

understandable in the circumstances. But now the Hungarians

have got the bone and they're running with this. And so the

first thing is they took down a, they really swooped on a

totally regular, totally legal cash convoy that was moving

between Ukraine and Austria. Now, this might sound dodgy,

but it's not dodgy. It's very simple. They can't fly in an

ounce of Ukraine. So if they want to move cash to pay their

bills or to balance up their books or whatever it is, they have

to take it by road. The way this was presented in the Hungarian

media was as if this was some dodgy Ukrainian scheme, possibly

with Matthew overtones. These were regular employees of a

state national bank. The Hungarian counterterrorism jumped on

them. They pushed them down onto the tarmac. They filmed it all.

They put it all over YouTube. They then held them for more than

24 hours in handcuffs, which is pretty strong. And since

then, Orban has just been upping the ante again and again

again. So we're really getting into dangerous territory here.

Yeah, I mean, we don't think do we, Julius, particularly you,

because you're more of an expert in this being half Hungarian

yourself. We don't think this is going to end peacefully or with

some kind of reconciliation anytime soon. The Hungarians have

to have a look at the pipeline and decide whether or not they

think it can be fixed relatively easily, maybe to do some

investigations as to how it happened in the first place. But

that's already encouraged the Ukrainians to kick back and say

they don't really recognize this. Yeah, I mean, just to give the

you know, the listeners and the viewers, I guess, a little bit

of background on this. So there's a pipeline that runs from

Russia to Hungary. And it's called the Dhrushba, the friendship

pipeline. And it runs through Ukraine. And despite the war,

this thing has been running the whole time. And Hungary gets

almost all of its oil from this Russian pipeline. Now, the

pipeline was damaged by a Russian attack in Western Ukraine

and put out of action. The Ukrainians say, hang on a minute,

we don't want to spend our precious resources fixing a pipeline

that takes oil from one of our enemies to another of our

own enemies. Why on earth would we want to do that? The

Hungarians have said we want that oil. And if you don't fix

it immediately, we're going to block all A to U. That was

just the beginning. And now things are really beginning to roll.

So the Hungarians now have passed a motion in the parliament

saying they will block all EU accession for Ukraine. They

passed another motion saying this 80 million dollar that

they took from the vehicles last week. They're confiscating

the whole thing. They're not going to give it back.

Now, what is the sort of way forward out of this? Well, one

thing to note, and this was very, very well reported by

the FT this morning. And the FT, pretty good sources on this

kind of stuff is that all of mine has contacted an agency.

And I've written the name down here because I wasn't aware of it.

It's called the social design agency. And it's a Russian

agency. It's a Russian bot, you know,

dirty internet manipulation agency. And he's bought a

plan from these people, from the Russians effectively.

It's a Russian government control thing. And he's running this

as a PR campaign in his own country. They've adapted the

plan to make it more Hungarian, unless sort of international

Russia focused. So they're absolutely working handling

glove here. All about wins, whatever happens next. And

because if Zelensky reacts, all of mine can say to his

people, you see, you see what a bad boy he is. You see what a

bad country this is. If Zelensky doesn't react, then he

looks weak. And Audubon will just up the ante again and again

again. So I don't see an early resolution to this thing.

Audubon's main priority is to win this election. And he

doesn't give a damn about the cost of that. He's in real

trouble. So the election is almost a month away. There's

a lot that can happen here. And let's be honest, we live

in a part of the world where suddenly statements like we're

going to have to strengthen the border. Or we're going to

have to restrict traffic. Or we're going to have to do this

now. The other are perfectly possible. And then we're not

going to have a war between Hungary and Ukraine. But things

could get pretty nasty, pretty, pretty. All this is not

what Ukraine needs when it's finally beginning to stabilize

the line against Russia. Yeah, which will come on to your

concern, of course, is that this is going to be successful

for Orbán, who is trailing in the polls now. And it might

actually mean he gets another term, which clearly for the

reasons we were already laid out, not least because Orbán is

now committed to try and blocking that EU money for Ukraine

would be bad news for Zelensky. Exactly. And you know, just

to sort of explain this a little bit. So the social design

agency, the plan they come up with, we know more or less

what the plan is, it's to do this. It's to say to Hungarian

voters, the world is a dangerous place right now. There's

a lot going on that you don't necessarily understand that

you can see some of it. Orbán is your father figure.

You may or may not like him. You may or may not like a little

bit of the corruption, but he is the only man who can lock

after you. He's friends with Trump. He's friends with Putin.

He's friends with Xi. And it's true. They do all they do

all like Orbán. This is the guy you've got to have in charge

of your country in a really perilous times. Don't worry about

the details. Orbán will do it. There's another thing that sort

of Orbán has done in the last few days. Mostly it's been

covered by the domestic news, not international news. It's

not such a big thing, but it plays into this. What he's

done is he's promised Hungarians a price cap on oil. So on

petrol and diesel at the pumps. So as the price of oil is

going through the roof around the world, the Iranians have

just said, you know, could if they have it their way, it'll

go up to $200 a barrel. Orbán has basically said to

Hungarians, guys, it's a tough world, but don't worry, I'm

going to look after you. Now, is this feasible in even the

medium term? No. Hungry has just about enough of an oil

reserve that they can do this until the election. And then

all the problems come home to roost after the election. Does

Orbán care what happens after the election at the moment he

doesn't? No. Okay. We'll see what happens on that.

Now, let's move on to around the other big geopolitical

issue that's happening at the moment that has consequences for

Ukraine. We already spoke a bit about it on the podcast that

went out on Sunday, but things have happened since then.

We're now in today, nine, I think of the US and Israeli

joint operation against Iran. And we don't look like we're

heading towards a resolution anytime soon. Why does that matter?

Because it probably means higher prices at the pump, which

means more money for Russia and bad news for Ukraine. At

the moment, as far as we can see, the price of oil, I think

earlier today, as we're recording this, Julius is in the

late 80s. Of course, a lot of Western organizations and

governments are trying to keep it there so they're trying to

flood the market with oil. But whether this is going to be

enough, particularly if the war continues, is much more of a

concern. I suspect the Americans thought that the Iranians

would back down by now. They've had a lot of their infrastructure

on their military capability taken out, but they're still firing

drones on a nightly basis, particularly against the United

Arab Emirates, also against Saudi Arabia and other countries.

So they're still flexing their muscles or showing that they can

cause trouble. And they've haven't least announced that the

straights of war mousse are closed for the meantime. Now, I

think something like six ships were hit trying to pass

through it over the last 24 hours, which shows you that although

they don't have the absolute capacity to close it, this is a

real problem for the movement of oil. And therefore, that's

going to be another pressure on the price of oil. Things are

looking a little bit concerning for the Ukrainians from that

perspective. But there's a little bit of good news isn't there?

Or at least as far as the Ukrainians ability to leverage their

military capacity. Tell us about that. There is a little

bit of good news. I just want to go back to one thing that you

brought up. I looked at the numbers earlier today. So Russia

needs oil to be at about $59 a barrel to meet its budgetary

requirements for 2024, 2026. Until this war started, there

was $40 a barrel. The Russians were in trouble if it stayed

at that level. Now it's gone up to $80 a barrel. The Russians

are raking it in. So if this lasts, then it really is going to make

a difference. And of course, the Ukrainian budget, which is

stretched thin, they also have to buy a lot of, they're fighting

a war. They also have to buy a lot of petrol and diesel.

And that's not coming from Ukraine, that's coming from our

side. So it's hitting them at sort of both ends of that

point. But the good news, potential good news. I'm a

little bit skeptical about where all this is going to go.

Let's see, is that you know, several countries, six

countries, I think, maybe more have approached the Ukrainians

and they've said, we need your drone technology. The Americans

have said that open to it, but it's really the Gulf countries

that are step forward. And according to what we're reading in

the press reports, Saudi, the Ukrainian press reports, Saudi

Arabia is either has either agreed to deal with Ukraine or

very close to agreeing a deal with Ukraine. So that's both

money, real money, coming into the Ukrainian economy, not

just now, but in the future. It shows you that Ukraine is able

to leverage its military and ingenuity, the fact that it's

actually creating things, military technology that other

countries need. So that's a useful long term thing. Then

of course, there are the diplomatic contacts that they're

going to be making the political contacts with the Gulf, but

also with America, your skeptical, you know, quite right to

be about the effect this is all going to have on Trump, but

there is the American electorate too, who may see, okay, hold on a

second, Ukraine is actually helping us protect US servicemen.

This may have some effect in the midterms, who knows? We'll

have to wait and see on that one, Julius, but generally speaking,

I think that's a positive move for Ukraine, isn't it?

Yeah, I mean, the reason I'm skeptical is this. We have

set so many times in the past that Trump will be angry with

Russia about this, or Trump will be angry with Russia about

that. You know, this incredible information came out last

week that the Russians had been providing the Iranians with

targeting information on the Americans in the Israelis. I mean,

at a time of war, that's a pretty serious thing to happen.

Caroline Levit, the White House press spokesperson, stood up and

said, well, we don't really care, and it's not really making

much difference, so we don't think this is much of a deal.

And then Trump echoed our statements. So I'm skeptical that

Trump is ever really going to change his mind on the Russia

Ukraine thing. But, you know, on Ukraine itself, they'll have

to play it very carefully, because, of course, if they're

taking anti-dron equipment away from their front lines and

their cities and selling it to the Gulf, they're leaving

themselves exposed. So in a sort of a perfect world, they

might give them some anti-dron equipment, they might get either

some badly needed money, or they might even be able to trade

them for patriotic missiles, which are currently being used

in the Middle East to shoot down drones, which is a massive

sort of, you know, overkill response. But it's because they

don't have the Middle East, don't have that anti-dron technology.

So Zelensky is trying to tread a careful path here. I mean,

let's hope there's some success in it. I'm not holding my breath

quite yet. Okay, we mentioned before the awful appalling

Russian missile strike against that apartment block in

Kharkiv a couple of days before we arrived there, Julius.

And we're now going to play a report you did with

Buldy from the scene of the strike. So we're in North

Eastern Kharkiv now, and we're just driven up from the

center. You can see as you come out of the city, the

damage is significantly more pronounced. But if you needed

reminding what you're seeing behind us is exactly what's

still happening. So we had a missile strike come in here two

days ago now. The casualty count we think at the moment is

somewhere between seven and ten somewhere in that region.

And I've been to lots of sites like this before in Ukraine,

and it really brings home to you the kind of human cost of it.

But if I talk about that, I just want to ask Buldy, what do you

actually live in this area for quite a while? I mean, how do

you feel coming back to your area and seeing this?

So I live just a couple of blocks here for almost, for more

than a year. And this is a much suffered area as you've

already mentioned. And even when I was living there, every

single night I was waking up for strikes, drones. And it's

really only a matter of luck whether whether the rocket hits

your house or the one next to it. And me as well as

everyone has in this neighborhood was just crossing their

fingers when they went to bed at night, hoping that it's not

going to be one of theirs. But it's like in the mafia game

when the city goes to sleep and we all end up in the game.

Some people don't wake up. It's just absolutely the same

here. Some people just don't wake up in the morning.

And we know not every one of us will see daylight.

I mean, one of the things that really gets me with a strike

like this, and of course there have been lots in Ukraine since

the beginning of the war is, you know, the Russian

apologists jump on these strikes immediately and they start

picking holes in the details and they start saying things

like, well, the Russians didn't mean to do it. There was a

very big strike in Nipro, which I also went to where, you

know, dozens and dozens and dozens of people were killed.

And people said, well, they weren't aiming for that particular

building. They were aiming for the military facility nearby.

But I mean, the reality is, if they weren't firing this huge

missiles into Ukraine, this stuff wouldn't happen. So it's

possible that this missile hits some kind of electronic

warfare jamming. And this was not the intended target.

But the net result is 10 dead people. And it's not going to

be the last of these incidents. So it's incredibly, incredibly

sad.

Yes. And just as you said, Julius, this thing has happened,

is happening right now and real happened despite all the

ongoing peace efforts by President Trump, whether

it's a good or bad intended. And I just don't see any end to

it in the immediate future.

And one last thing I'll add, you know, and this is where the

greatest respect to the Ukrainians, this is how it works.

They have a strike. People die. They clean up and life moves

on. And you can see, there's hardly any people here. It's not,

it's just part of become part of their daily lives. And they,

they're incredibly efficient at sort of moving on and getting

on with life. We like to call it resilience, but sometimes

you must wonder just how long they can be resilient for them.

Just one or two miles away from here, people are working on

the streets, celebrating International Women's Day. And there are

huge buckets and flowers in everyone's hands. And I mean,

life just goes on. People really got used to this. And sadly,

the work too.

So we had a few more words with the gentleman. He's standing

actually just behind our camera, but he doesn't want to be

filmed. And he said they had, on the night two nights ago,

they had two alarms. One was a more general alarm. And then one

was a local alarm. So they all moved into the corridor.

And they were in the corridor when the rocket struck.

He said, all I saw is this enormous bang. And then all I saw

was smoke. And we tried to get out and we couldn't get out.

The entranceways were blocked. And eventually the first

responders came and they put a ladder up to where we were and they

managed to smash an opening for us. And that's how we escaped.

I'd like to ask you more questions, but he's clearly very

upset. So I think we're going to leave it at that for now.

Let's just remember how much people worked in their life to be

able to move into such an apartment. For example, he lived here

for 25 years before this happened.

Of course, with these things, the death counts tend to go up and

the latest we've heard is probably at 11 at this point.

Judas, in a more general sense, this shows you that the Russians

are happily attacking civilian infrastructure. We don't know

that they actually targeted that block where they certainly,

you know, no tears were shed as a result of that. But we do know

that they're attacking trains and they're also attacking a

mass in hair song, which has just happened. So this is part of a

pattern, isn't it? Yeah, actually, the train attacks are

really stepping up. So we had a big one back in January.

I think it was. They killed quite a few people, killed five

or six people. More recently, we haven't had that scale of

attack, but we've had a couple of really close misses. And we

have had people injured. So about a week ago, we had five

people injured in one strike on a railway facility. And then we

had this, you know, shocking story, really, of a drone that

hit a locomotive. And to see what the locomotive

somehow didn't kill anybody. And the Ukrainians, you know,

were fantastic for this sort of resilience and just get on with it.

They just changed out the locomotive, put another one on,

and off the train went. And there was a couple of hours later

this destination. So there's that. I mean, I don't know how

you feel sort of, but, you know, one thing that I think I feel

after the last week is that we haven't seen a lot of optimism

from civilians that we've talked to you. I was expecting a bit

more partly because we're coming out of winter and we're coming

into spring. And, you know, things are just looking better. But

partly because Ukraine does seem to be doing a little bit better

on the battlefield. I think, you know, you've been looking at some

of that. Yeah, we'll come onto that. We'll come onto that in a

minute. With the military on the other hand, we're seeing

it's not optimism. There's too strong a word. But maybe

more confidence, a confidence that they can perhaps hold

the Russians, either at the line that they're at right now,

or something close to it, that they can stop that steady

advance. It seems to be a bit more, you know, a bit more of a

spring in their step. I wouldn't like to put it any more than that.

But you've been looking at some of the sudden battle

field. Yeah, we should reference before we talk about

the, some of the things, some of the advances that the Ukrainians

have made. And this is on top of some of the advances we've already

mentioned in the part over the last couple of weeks, particularly

in Zaporizhya. But this was in the Deneepro region.

And it's pretty striking, actually, Julius, because I,

you know, I accept that the Russians hadn't made huge gains in

Deneepro. They were trying to do that over the last six months

and they had nibbled away at that territory and the plan

ultimately was to get to Deneepro itself, which of course is

the city on the Deneepro river. And that would be a major

gain for Russia, not least because it doesn't actually control

any of the capital cities of those oblasts that it's trying to

get its hands on the two extra oblasts, that, of course,

it's heads on, and Zaporizhya. And what we're hearing in terms

of the detail is that particularly over the last few days,

the Ukrainians have made really quite striking gains.

In Deneepro itself, two axes of advance, one attack has gained

over the last 24 to 48 hours, 10 kilometers, and the other

one 12 kilometers. The estimate is that since the end of

January, they have captured more than 400 square kilometers.

Now, this is nothing, of course, in the whole size of Ukraine,

but it is significant. This is a significant advance for Ukraine,

itself, in relation to Russia. And what it means is that in

the last few weeks, Ukraine has been capturing more territory

than Russia for the first time in almost three years.

And that is hugely significant. I think what we've seen is a

stemming of the Russian advance and a gradual nibbling away.

It's no more than that. It's true. So what does this all mean

in terms of statistics? Well, one of the fascinating interviews

that I did this week, you weren't feeling terribly well that day,

was when I and Goldie went to visit a battalion command post,

relatively close to Kupiansk. I mean, it was the battalion command post

that was controlling the battlefield there. We could actually see

in real time on the screens in the underground command center

what was going on. It was actually fascinating to talk to them.

But then we're talking about the casualties taken in that battle

and they said, we kill at least 10, or at least we killed

and wounded at least 10 to everyone we lost at Avars.

And if those sorts of casualties are accurate,

it means that the Russians are losing an awful lot of people.

We've spoken about this a number of times. And this week we've had

more confirmation of that. And that's come from Zelensky himself,

who was briefed by his new chief of military intelligence.

And that used to, of course, to be booting off, who's now running

his presidential office. And it's now a man whose name is relatively unfamiliar to me.

A guy called Ole Ivushenko, does the name ring any bells with you?

No, it doesn't.

Okay, Ivushenko claims that his very effective intelligence agency

used to be run by Putin as I say, has got hold of some Russian intelligence documents

that claims to lay out in great detail how many people they've actually lost.

And that number is 1.315, so 1,315,000 total casualties.

And even more significant is than the Russian confirmation of how many people they've lost

is the number they've been losing recently in terms of dead and wounded.

62% killed to 38% severely wounded.

Now, those figures are unheard of in any conflict in history,

apart from possibly when Hannibal took on the Romans at the Battle of Kanai

when they were enormous number killed because they captured them in that classic

pincer attack. But that aside, Julius, as you well know, is incredibly unusual.

So this means that the Ukrainians are killing an awful lot of Russians.

And that is all part of this sense, at least as far as the military are concerned,

of optimism, but you're quite right to say this isn't really feeding through to the civilians.

No, and let's pick this apart just a little bit.

I think there's at least two or maybe three things going on here.

The first thing is that, of course, we're still in the sort of happy wake of the

Stalin cut off from the Russian side.

And that's been cited as an additional factor.

Yeah, on the Russian side of the line.

And the Russians will come up with workarounds.

I'm sure they're already coming up, coming up with workarounds.

And one of the workarounds we heard about yesterday when we were talking about corruption

with Transparency International was that the Russians are using local Ukrainians

and paying them to register Stalin terminals, to straight out corruption, spying,

whatever you want to call it.

Then you've got the situation you could cast.

Now that largely predated the Stalin, the shutting off a Stalin for the Russians.

Yeah.

So that is, I think we're talking about something else then.

You know, you went to the Khartier base, there's a command base.

And I think that is a sign of the Ukrainians at their best,

losing very few men to have quite a maximalist effect and achieve a significant objective,

which is basically the retaking of the city of Kupians.

The place I've been to two or three times now and it's very important.

With very few casualties.

With very few casualties.

The last thing we have to be careful of though, and this is from Ukraine,

you're not from a Russian.

He says, you know what?

The Russian soldiers are getting worse.

The Russian army is getting better.

Their lessons learned is very, very good.

They have these very good counter drone units now that they're, I think,

they're called Rubicon and they're spreading them out.

Yeah.

So there are several different, sort of, you know, several,

the water is moving in several different ways in different places.

Right now, the collective movement is towards the Ukrainian side.

But we'll have to see how those things work out.

Yeah.

One last thing we should mention.

There was a big storm shadow strike on a components factory in Briance.

I think it was Briance Oblast, certainly in Russia proper,

which provides components for a whole heap of ballistic missiles

and other capability for the Russians.

And the whole thing, at least, it looks like on social media

and the Ukrainians are talking about this was totally destroyed.

Now, is it a coincidence that shortly after, and again, we haven't had this verified,

it looks like the chief of air defense in Russia has taken a nasty accident.

He's fallen out of a window.

And we suspect he might have been encouraged to do that.

This is an indication that Ukraine still has the capability

to carry out these long-range strategic strikes.

And if it's true, and there is a link between the two,

and I accept that we don't know for sure, it also shows that

you better not make too many mistakes in Putin's army.

Otherwise, that's going to be your fate.

Yeah.

Of course, we don't know.

There's all kinds of factional infighting in Russia,

and you could have fallen victim to that.

One little footnote, I think, is worth mentioning,

is the peace talks, which are just not happening.

Yeah.

You know, this thing we've concentrated on so much was so long,

and the Americans are just distracted.

They've been put on until next week, as the latest word.

But you're right.

There's just nothing.

There's no movement.

In fact, I think today that the Russians were saying,

you know what, the Americans aren't even engaged anymore.

Yeah.

So we're going to have to win this on the battlefield,

which is what they've kind of been saying for a while.

So you know, all this bluff and bluster and talk

and give up Don Basin, all this pressure and elections

in Ukraine right now, we've seen absolutely nothing of it.

Nothing.

Zero.

So we have to assume that diplomacy for the time being

is either dead or very much on the bank burner,

and it's going to be about fighting, which is sad,

but that's probably what's going to happen.

Okay.

Good time to take a break.

I think we'll be back in a moment with listeners' questions.

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Welcome back.

Well, we're now into questions, Julius,

and the first one I think is in your neck of the woods,

given you a connection with Chechnya

when you were working as a correspondent in Moscow.

It's from John in Scotland,

not giving us too much information to be truthful,

but he says, I've read a lot about the wars in Chechnya.

Can you provide any information on the Chechen involvement

in this conflict on both sides

and answer why the insurgency in Chechnya

hasn't intensified given current Russian weakness?

Yeah, I mean, the Chechen story is a long one,

but you know, just the sort of broad brush strokes.

We had the first Chechen war between 1994 and 1996.

That finished with effects of the Chechen victory.

Chechnya, after that, didn't do well.

It didn't thrive.

It all kind of began to implode upon itself

and a whole bunch of complicated reasons

that you had the influence, corruption, and so on.

And then we had the second war when Putin came to power,

roughly between 1999 and 2002, 2003.

But what happened after that

is that a man called Ahmet Kadudov

took who had fought against the Russians,

changed sides, went over to Putin, and ruled the country.

I actually interviewed him at his home,

who's a very gruff, violent man,

and I interviewed him at his home

and a few weeks later he was killed by a suicide bomber,

and then his son, who was very young at the time,

is about 27 if I remember correctly.

But Ramzan Kadudov, he took over.

That's the answer to that part of the question.

Why is there not an insurgency in Chechnya?

Because Ramzan Kadudov runs it like a Stalinist state.

I mean, it makes Russia what's happening in, you know,

Mother Russia look like a tea party.

He absolutely holds that place by fear.

There is no sense of anybody opposing him whatsoever.

In terms of the Chechen rolls in,

the Chechen, different Chechen rolls in the war,

you have had some Chechens on the Ukrainian side.

I met a Chechen woman sniper who was subsequently killed and hit

by Russian operatives.

And you've had some other Chechens too,

but more notoriously you've had Ramzan's kind of foreign legion fighters,

Chechen fighters who have come in and made a big hoo-ha

about being present.

They were very much in the early days of the war.

They were talking a lot about their role.

It's difficult to know exactly what the truth is.

Chechens are historically very good fighters.

There's no question about that.

But were these guys, you know, some of the Russians mocked them.

They said there's sort of Instagram Chechens there.

You know, they're just there for the self.

Yeah, they'll fight and they'll torture prisoners

and they'll do all this kind of nasty stuff,

but they weren't really getting stuck in.

And we haven't heard much about them in the last year or two.

It's kind of faded from the picture.

They've kept their heads down a bit, haven't they?

There was some suggestion, I think, from some sources

that they were involved in some of the brutality

that we witnessed the aftermath of today

in and around Putin.

Have you heard anything about that?

I mean, I heard the reports at the time

going back to the beginning of the war

and I heard reports that Chechens were there

and they were particularly brutal.

Yeah.

And I can well believe that.

I mean, Ramzan Khadirov is a very, very brutal leader.

But I don't know.

Okay.

And they're not really game-changers, are they?

There aren't enough of them.

And there's still this question mark

is how actually effective they are

in a straight-up conventional war like this?

Yeah.

I mean, they were traditionally extremely brave,

especially going back to the 90s, their amount in people.

They have a long martial history.

I'm sure they can be effective.

But there is this sense with Ramzan's guys

that a lot of it is for show.

And that actually, they probably prefer to be back in Chechia,

you know, beating up opposition people.

And they've been, you know, they've got this terrible record

with homosexuals.

They've been torturing them, imprisoning them, killing them,

and so on and so on.

I mean, it's a really rough, rough band.

It is worth mentioning that there's very substantial reports

now that Ramzan could do it over seriously ill.

He probably is.

You never quite know of these things.

And so we may see Chechia suddenly become an issue again

in Russian politics.

Possibly a big issue.

He's lining up his son, isn't he?

Like he was lined up by his father.

He's lining up his son, but his son just had a rather serious car crash.

And so he's not clear how bad it was.

What's going to happen next, Anton?

Let's see.

Right, let's move on.

European view of USA.

This is from Dan Russell.

I'd be very interested in your perspective on how the US will ultimately be viewed

by Ukrainians once the war concludes one way or another.

At the outset, US support was clearly decisive and instrumental.

However, as with Afghanistan and other conflicts,

American attention can appear to wane over time.

But personal view, whilst I'm no supporter of Trump,

I recognize his pragmatism in selling the required weapons to allow a wealthy,

but uncoordinated Europe to help Ukraine.

I wonder if history will view Trump's dialogue with Putin as pragmatism

or outright collusion.

God help Trump and those in Trump's orbit.

If he does turn out to have been compromised by the Russians in some way.

I mean, I think Dan's been a little bit optimistic here.

You know, I'm accused of that.

In the sense that I'm afraid it's pretty clear to all of us,

myself, included that Trump's role in this has been unbelievably malign.

We have to distinguish between him, of course,

and the previous regime, the previous administration, Biden,

when the war started, Biden was in power and he was pretty firm in his support for Ukraine.

But since Trump's come in, it's been very transactional.

He cut off intelligence at the beginning of last year,

as we've mentioned many times on the pod,

eventually came back, but rather unwillingly,

and pretty much ever since then,

any American weapons that have come to Ukraine have come via the Europeans

who are paying for them.

So it doesn't seem to me that Trump is in any way assisting Ukrainians

apart from intelligence sharing.

And that does seem to be important,

the targeting of particularly long-range targeting.

But that aside, I don't think you can look with any kind of sense of,

yeah, on the one hand or on the other with Trump.

No, I don't think you can. I mean, Trump's withdrawn, you know,

how should we qualify, quantify it.

90% of support, maybe it's a bit difficult to put an exact number on it.

One thing important though, because I've thought a lot about this,

you know, how much are the Americans still supporting the Ukrainians?

And you mentioned the intelligence,

and we asked this for soldier this week,

and he made a very important point.

He said the American government help is very, very little.

Yeah.

But the American private companies, not because they're being charitable,

but because they exist and they are commercial companies

with great capability, are extremely important to Ukraine.

And so I'm not just thinking of things like styling,

I'm thinking of very basic things like, you know,

Microsoft software, or, you know, some other kind of software

that will be underpinning a lot of the Ukrainian military action.

So if Trump ever decided to put pressure on the private companies

to stop supplying Ukraine, then I think we've been

to a much, much bigger world of pain.

So I suppose we should be thankful for small mercies.

He's only, yes, he's cut government aid,

but he hasn't completely cut Ukraine off.

Okay. Another one for you here at Julius.

This is from Megan.

Oh, well, I was about to say we didn't know where she is from.

We do.

She's from Fargo in North Dakota in the US.

And she writes, I had a conversation with a Russian gentleman

about the war.

I was surprised to hear he was actually from Odessa.

That's Odessa, obviously, in Ukraine.

And very bitter towards the Ukrainians.

He blamed them entirely for the 2014 trade union house fire.

He had relatives who died.

They listened to about three hours of news every day

and were still at that time confident that the Russians

would prevail in the end.

Besides being dismayed that he could be pro-Russian

while living in the US and studying open information

for three hours each day.

I was at a loss for how to discuss the facts

of the trade unions far.

Do you have any thoughts on the subjects?

I do.

I think first of all, looking back over the last ten years,

if you want to prove an argument,

you can probably cherry pick enough facts,

especially given the way that the Internet

spouts all kinds of stuff these days

to support your version of events.

That doesn't mean it's true, though.

So the truth is about what happened in 2014 in Odessa

and it was a big deal,

is that you had consistent clashes between pro-European Ukrainians,

some of them quite nationalists,

some of them football fans,

and thuggish pro-Russian activists,

some of them who almost certainly came from outside the city.

And maybe a majority came from outside the city.

It's a little bit difficult to know.

And they went acid for several weeks.

There was a little scuffle here,

a little scuffle there.

The police were kind of implicated on the side of the pro-Russians.

There was a lot of sort of,

it was unclear what was going on.

And then at one point there was this huge scrap,

rocks with thrown,

models of cocktails with thrown,

and then gunshots were fired.

And initially two people were killed,

I think, in the initial shooting,

and then maybe four more in the subsequent shooting,

something like that.

Roughly six people were killed in the initial incident.

And then what happened is that the pro-European Ukrainians

began to overrun the Russians,

the pro-Russian thugs.

They barricaded that they had a camp.

The Ukrainians were clearing out the camp.

They barricaded themselves into the trade union building.

They were attacking the Ukrainians trying to come in.

The Ukrainians were throwing Molotov cocktails

at the building, the building called Fire,

and around 40 people died.

Is it a tragedy?

Of course it is a tragedy of 40 people died,

but this was a violent confrontation,

and it just happened that the pro-Russian thugs

ended up on the wrong side of it.

We have to compare that to what happened in eastern Ukraine at the beginning of the war.

It was almost always the Ukrainians who ended up on the wrong side of the violence.

So to cherry-peck that one incident and say,

which is where it is true that more pro-Russians died

and say that, therefore, means something in the bigger picture.

I don't buy that particular version.

Okay.

Useful propaganda though, of course,

if you want to use that as an example of,

I don't know, Ukrainian brutality.

I think the broader point here,

which the Russian friend, Megan's Russian friend,

in the U.S. needs to understand,

is that Ukraine was a sovereign entity at that stage,

and the pro-Russians were trying to do something about that, weren't they?

We saw what happened in eastern Ukraine.

If they had their way,

or Dessa would have been added to that strip,

and of course that was Putin's intention at the start of the war.

So it's hardly just, you know,

we're just sitting on our hands and not doing anything.

It was clearly an element of provocation there.

And it was touch and go.

You know, Dessa could have gone to the Russians.

Kharkiv almost went to the Russians.

Yeah.

Slavyansk did go to the Russians,

and then they were pushed out.

You know, so there was a lot of pushing and shoving at that time,

and now it's worked out the way you see it with the frontline where it is.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, isn't it?

Kind of factual,

but if all of those cities that you've spoken about,

and this strip that is effective,

and we've mentioned it before on the podcast, New Russia,

had been actually taken by the Russians

without a full-scale invasion.

They may not have needed a full-scale invasion.

They may not have.

I mean, my sense is that Putin always wanted to control Kiev.

It wasn't about the Russian minority,

the ethnic Russian minority, whatever he caused them.

And there's lots of different ways of describing it.

But he wants control of Ukraine.

It doesn't mean he has to occupy everything.

Even a rump.

Even a rump, Ukraine.

It doesn't mean he has to occupy all of it,

but he has to control what happens in Ukraine.

That's my sense.

Okay.

Last question.

This is drones from David.

I listened to the interest of last week's discussion on drones

and the technology being developed to take them down.

In World War II, it was very clear that the best way to take down an aerial threat

was with another aircraft.

Mostly true, although there's a lot of anti-aircraft fire.

They got quite sophisticated, actually,

particularly on the German side.

I mean, they had so many bombing raids over Germany

from 1942 to 1943 in particular onwards

that actually they created a very sophisticated system of anti-aircraft

with using radars.

And it was all automated.

We're not talking AI here, but not far off it.

But the question from David is,

whilst AI for autonomous drones acting in their defense capability

is not yet there,

how close are we to seeing armed piloted drones shooting down attacking drones

like the Shahid's being used to attack?

Ukraine and targets in the Middle East.

Well, just the distinguishing.

Armed piloted drones is a contradiction in terms.

It sounds to me.

I'm not entirely sure what David's asking,

but we do know that there are two ways to take down drones relatively cheaply.

One is the anti-drone drone, which Ukraine's developed.

We already mentioned other podcasts.

They're trying to sell now to the Middle East.

Relatively cheap, as cheap as $750,

maybe up to two grand if they're slightly more sophisticated.

But the other way to take them down is to actually use planes

and to use air to drone missiles to take them down.

And they don't have to be, you know, pictures.

They're not a million pound of shot.

Any other obvious technology that comes to mind

from you, Julius, that you could take down drones with?

We did. We talked this week a little bit

to the Hard Gear spokesman about this.

And a couple of things came up.

The first thing was he did say that they're developing systems with audio sensors

that could have an automated response

from anti-drone technology.

We also talked a little bit about ground drones,

which effectively is a sort of remote controlled gun

and whatever happens to be the most long ground,

it does a certain job.

We asked about AI.

He said, with the ground drones, he said,

no AI, not yet.

We've got to keep this in human hands.

We cannot have software-making decisions about whether it's

to kill somebody or not.

It's not morally acceptable.

Interesting to know how much AI is being used

at the Middle East at the moment for targeting,

which I understand is quite a lot.

By the Americans and the Israelis.

I know what I read.

They've been using a lot of AI,

but what exactly it does and whether there's a human

who okays it or not.

I don't really know.

On the automated response to drones,

I think we're probably pretty close.

That's the impression I get as a non-expert

in the technology of that field.

But we're not there yet.

We know from the last week,

we had the air raid sirens going off again,

and again, and again, and again.

And on several nights, we've heard the explosions of drones

coming in.

Actually, the night that we, or the morning,

that we left Kharkiv the night before we had an impact.

Not that, not close, but not so far.

Yeah, not so far.

Exactly.

But from the hotel, we found out in the morning

that four people had been injured.

So, you know, the Ukrainians don't have a way to go.

But they're moving quickly.

That's the end of this episode.

We are going to carry on in our journey.

We're going to try and get some sleep tonight.

We've got Lavev tomorrow, a few more interviews there.

That's our last day in Ukraine.

Overall, good trip, bad trip, and different trip.

No, I think it's been a fantastic trip.

Fascinating, learnt a lot of new stuff.

And also a very, very cautious note of optimism.

Yeah, and we've had a proper cross-section of interviews, haven't we?

It hasn't just been all military.

You've done lots of rocks popping, thank God for you, Julius.

And also Baldi, who speaks reasonably good Ukrainian now.

So, between the two of you, we've covered a lot of the linguistic bases.

And it's allowed us to literally grab people in the street now.

Not all of them, as you've already pointed out with that optimistic,

but we've definitely got a really interesting cross-section of opinion.

For people all over Ukraine, because we've covered all the big bases,

the only place we didn't go to is Heson.

That's the one place I think you would advise me

as a completely inexperienced traveler in war zones,

maybe not to go to, isn't it?

But I feel your confidence slowly growing stronger.

One of these days, who might take it down that road?

I'm going to go to Heson with Warsaw.

Okay, that's all we have time for.

Do join us on Wednesday for another episode of Battleground,

Special Forces, and also on Friday when we'll be giving you another update

for my trip to Ukraine. Goodbye.

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