Episode Info
- Season5
- Episode6
Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Episode Summary
Vladimir Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine - sending shockwaves around the world. As Russian forces have shelled schools, administrative buildings and residential blocks, civilians on both sides have expressed horror at the sudden turn of events. As detention centers in Moscow and St Petersburg fill up with detained anti-war protesters, the casualties in Ukraine - and among the Russian Armed Forces - is beginning to grow. The EU, which until recently was accused of being divided and unable to respond cohesively to the threat, has sprung into action, imposing sanctions on oligarchs and cutting off Russia and its banking institutions from global finance. Even neutral Switzerland is freezing Russian assets, and Germany suddenly transformed its defence policy overnight - with Chancellor Olaf Scholz announcing a more than $100 billion fund to modernize Germany's defense forces. For now, Ukraine is holding off advancing forces - but things may change. Former Chief of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove considers Putin's options, and how the West ought to respond.
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Transcript
INTRODUCTION
Mcfarlane: Welcome back to One Decision. I'm your host, Julia McFarlane. We're recording on Tuesday, March 1, and we're doing things a little differently this week. I'll be interviewing my cohost, the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove.
Archival: Nobody's gonna break us. We are strong. We are Ukrainians. We have a desire to see our children alive.
Mcfarlane: I think it's a fair one. The events playing out in Europe since February 24 when Vladimir Putin made the decision to order Russian forces to invade Ukraine have stunned the international community. In one move, Putin has ripped up the rule book, prompted a historic reversal of German defense policy, sparked an international boycott of Russian banks, businesses, and organizations, and quite possibly reforged the spirit of the postwar liberal order. But the outcome is not yet certain. At this moment, Ukrainians are fighting to keep Russian forces from taking control of their major cities. President Zelenskyy, who has emerged as a national hero and wartime leader, has appealed to the EU and NATO to do more support his nation as it faces down an existential threat. Sir Richard Dearlove has witnessed from up close Russia's evolution from the Soviet Union to the premiership of Vladimir Putin. But even he, like so many of us, he was taken by surprise by recent events in Ukraine. So, Richard, how are you doing today?
INTERVIEW WITH SIR RICHARD DEARLOVE
Dearlove: Well, I'm fine, but the world is a dangerous place, and I'm feeling very upset about what's happening in in Ukraine.
Mcfarlane: I know the feeling, I know the feeling. It seems like not too long ago, we were both discussing the hypotheticals of Russia's posturing on the Russian side of the border with Ukraine, and I don't think anyone was really expecting things to have unraveled quite so fast as they have done now.
Dearlove: Well I certainly got it wrong, you know, just had that instinctive feeling that Putin was sensible enough or rational enough not to carry out a full scale invasion, and that he would satisfy you know Russia's appetite for its Ukrainian ambitions by biting off a bit more of Donbas and then continuing to threaten and then probably using that coercion to drive a negotiation and get some sort of guarantee that NATO membership might not have been totally denied, unlikely. I mean you can see the way things would have evolved. Well clearly he's not acted rationally at all and one can see that clearly now.
Mcfarlane: Right. I mean, I I have I have to say, I I feel exactly the same way. I've I was totally wrong. I was incredibly skeptical of the idea that Putin was going to launch a large scale invasion despite the the troop build ups on on the border. I think if a lot of a lot of people probably thought the worst that was gonna happen was as you as you say, he maybe moved into the the DNR, the Donetsk People's Republic. But the idea of tanks rolling into Kyiv, I think, is just extraordinary. But one one thing I wanted to ask you, Richard, is that given what we have seen on social media in recent days, we've had Russian soldiers texting their family saying that they were not told that they were being sent into Ukraine to carry out an invasion, that they thought that they were holding exercises. We are seeing reports of tanks and and vehicles being abandoned by the Russians because they've run out of petrol. We've seen so many cases of what appears to be a failure of logistics when it comes to this Russian incursion. We've seen soldiers running out of food stocks as well as fuel. I mean, there have been a number of reports of what seems like really bungled logistics in this military operation. So why do you think that is? Do you think it really was that this invasion was a last minute decision by Putin that most of his generals and those in command of the troops on the ground were not actually aware of?
Dearlove: It's a difficult question to answer. I think they thought they would roll down the main routes to Kyiv, there would be minimal resistance, they would have immediate control of the air, that they would reach the center of the capital within forty eight hours, decapitate the government, and it would be all over. I find it hard to believe that they expect it to be met by cheering crowds of Russian speakers, but the moment you get into serious conflict, which happened, and what's been extraordinary is the resilience of the Ukrainian armed forces, they've obviously fought like tigers, and you know they've shown that determined lightly armed units but with effective anti tank weapons or weapons to put out armor can destroy you know massive amounts of hardware and hold things up very very badly. I think this question also of the extent to which you know the ordinary soldier Ivan you know was briefed, I mean there has always been anecdotes about the Russian military in certain situations not really giving the foot soldiers a detailed briefing as to what the hell is going on, so that down to a certain officer level they're in the picture. And I mean in this instance you know there may have been a strong reason, you know, we're going across the border, we're going to liberate our Ukrainian brothers, this is more of an exercise than a war. But the whole thing is quite extraordinary. I've just been reading a piece online by Tim Collins, one of our own retired but quite distinguished military commanders, saying that you know the incompetence of the tactics and the way that they've rolled forward is just quite staggering.
Mcfarlane: And I mean, why do you think that is? Because we are clearly seeing Russia's army is apparently, it is a night an artillery army above all. And so why have we seen a sort of a holding back of fire until now? It's clear that their ground forces have not been going full steam ahead. They have been advancing, but they've been advancing around cities, not through them. They have been encircling a lot of the major urban centers. And then you have this question of the Russian Air Force, this sort of missing Russian Air Force that was carpet bombing Syria and, you know, throwing down bunker buster bombs in another part of the world. But given that the ground forces that Russia is sending deeper and deeper into Kyiv don't seem to be getting much air support, what do you think what is going on?
Dearlove: I mean if you're going to liberate your Slav brothers, and that's the sort of basic narrative which has been fed maybe to a lot of the troops, I mean to use heavy armor, to use overwhelming air power, and to start completely knocking out towns and killing thousands of civilians, which they would do if they use this huge aggregation of firepower and thermobaric weapons and some of the other and these massive bombing capability, I mean it'll just flatten the country. It's completely counterproductive, but I mean I think the problem is not having succeeded by you know, driving down the road and winning a few skirmishes and decapitating the government in a rather sort of surgical fashion means that, you know, Putin now has to decide whether they're going to up their game by literally using all this heavy weaponry. I mean and the other thing, it's all very well you know fighting tank battles in massive open countryside, like the tank battles of World War II. But once you are trying, you're railing through the countryside without much resistance, then trying to take urban areas where the civilian population is being harmed, I mean a lot of these armored units are going to be incredibly vulnerable, and there will be huge losses, then there will be huge retaliation. I mean the outlook at the moment I think is quite terrifying. I'm not sure myself how this is going to play out and what's going to happen. The Ukrainians are not going to throw in their hand and put their hands up and say it's all over, that just doesn't look likely. The other interesting thing is that the mere fact that this negotiation took place at all on the border, which might indicate that the Russians understand that they are in a very vulnerable situation, and that some sort of negotiated settlement now will get them out where they can claim victory and claim that they've achieved their objectives, and that there should be a ceasefire which will, you know, stop the killing, but that seems to be unlikely.
Mcfarlane: You you said that it's it's hard for the Russian army to carry out an intensive bombing campaign on their Slavic brothers. Does that mean do do you think that could still happen? Do you think if they were ordered to do so, they they would raise Ukraine to the ground?
Dearlove: Well, I think the danger is if Putin isn't entirely rational, rational, and you know we can sort of speculate on what's wrong, there's going to be a wish on his part to up the ante and get it done and not lose face, which would mean much more violence. The fact that it's going so badly for them, and it is going so badly, it's going so badly internationally, my god, you know you've got Japan, you've got Switzerland coming out and joining the embargo, you have got a complete change of policy in Germany, probably the most significant security development of the whole crisis. I mean this must be it must have been unimaginable to Russia that these things could have happened and developed, and then you know the freezing of their central bank reserves, the run on the cash machines, and I'm sure that you know social media will be doing its work internally in Russia, even if the official coverage is so I mean they've adopted the Stalinist approach or the Hitlerite approach where if you tell a lie it might be as big a lie as you know don't tell a little lie, an absolute whopper. And you know that's what they're engaged in doing at the moment. But it's going from bad to worse, and this column that's approaching Kyiv, I mean I'm sure, Kyiv as we now should call it using the Ukrainian pronunciation, it doesn't look to me as though it's stoppable, however courageous the Ukrainians are.
Mcfarlane: I wanted to ask about that because that's something that has been incredibly surreal about this whole thing, that we that the world, Twitter, is watching this massive Russian convoy that is anything from, I think, I've seen estimations of 17 miles to to 40 miles long, that's hunkering slowly towards Kyiv. And everyone is saying, bomb it. Bomb it. Why, you know, why aren't Ukrainians bombing this massive convoy before it gets to a before it gets to the capital city? Why do think we're all watching it lumbering slowly getting closer and closer to Kyiv and nothing's happening to it?
Dearlove: Because I don't think the Ukrainians have got much of that. I mean how much of their air force are they likely to have left? I mean there are certain real mysteries. I mean I don't quite understand, you know, why haven't the Russians got command of the airspace? How many Ukrainian jets are still flying? How much resources do the Ukrainians have got left? I mean I'm sure that they have a strategy, they have a plan, you know, which will be to try to knock out you know every third, fourth or fifth vehicle in this convoy, so that the whole thing grinds to a halt, the roads blocked, I mean and then you have an even more vulnerable aggregation of military vehicles. But it strikes me that the Ukrainians don't at the moment probably have the resources to attack it from the air, or they would have done so. But that's crazy, I mean the Ukrainians have an air force, don't they? Yeah, but how much of it is actually still able to fly? I mean given the amount of sort of ordinance that's been expended on the attacks on these airfields, you know the runways will have been bombed or mined. How many of these, their attack jets are in hardened shelters or are they out in the open? I mean it's quite difficult to understand what's going on, we just don't have enough detail.
Mcfarlane: We do know that the Ukrainians have asked Poland and other neighboring EU countries for fighter jets, and I think the latest is that no one has yet agreed to give them any jets.
Dearlove: Well, I think this is, you know, a huge ask and gets us into a very dangerous situation, and you know, if there is a formal, you know, NATO response on Ukrainian territory, you know we're risking the start of a European or world war, and I think that the caution that's been expressed by all NATO governments in this respect is quite correct. I mean it's terribly difficult to sit there and watch the Ukrainians, you know, having to deal with this massive armored onslaught, but I mean so far they've done incredibly well, and there have been clearly some extraordinary incidents where, for example, with British anti tank weapons that they've got which are clearly very effective, North of Kharkiv, they knocked out a significant part of the First Guards Tank Regiment, which is one of these elite Russian units. I mean there's talk of them knocking out over 50 tanks. But they must be running low on supplies, and these supplies supposedly coming in from Germany, from Holland, from other countries, I mean you've got to get them through a very large country to the theater, they're vulnerable to air attack from the Russians, so I mean I'm not sure how effective or how fast that resupply can be.
Mcfarlane: Do you think Ukraine will be able to hold out and push back the Russians before it gets to a stage where the capital falls and and Kharkiv falls? And do you think that Europe will allow that to happen?
Dearlove: Well, I mean one has to sort of begin to have questions in one's mind about the Russians' willingness. I mean I'm talking about the troops on the ground now, the boots on the ground, their willingness to fight to the extent that they're going to have to fight the Ukrainians. I mean Russia has quite significant elite forces and they are formidable like what's called the Spetsnaz, and they will be using their Spetsnaz, but they're not sort of sufficient in number or resources. They could certainly be useful, particularly once they get inside Kyiv. But the answer to your question is I don't know, I'm sort of mystified by what's happening, and I think the Europeans have to sit and watch and attempt to resupply to the extent that they're able to and express huge moral support.
Mcfarlane: I mean, I can't square the circle of of the West of Europe, of NATO, allowing Putin to invade and claim another country?
Dearlove: Well I think that you know the answer to that question is that he may succeed.
Mcfarlane: But the precedent that that would set, we'd have to say goodbye to Taiwan, we'd have to say goodbye to so many other contested areas around the world if you were to demonstrate that that sort of thing could be done.
Dearlove: Yeah, but having, as it were, taken the capital and technically put in a puppet government, let's a sort of scenario where key members of the government flee to the west of the country, they are able to maintain what we would regard as the legitimate government as a puppet government put in power. You know there is then going to be a massive long running insurgency, you know, which is going to be very very costly for the Russians, and I think what you also have to consider then is what the medium to long term effects are of sanctions on the Russian economy. I mean the sanctions are extreme, and there's no question about that, and they won't bite for several months, but they will bite, and there will be huge cost to pay on the part of ordinary Russians. I mean I was reading today, you know Apple Pay, which Russians are using on all their iPhones and things, have ceased to function because Google and Apple Pay have closed down the system. Everybody is desperate to get hold of foreign currency because the ruble's crashed. There is no foreign currency probably left available in Russia, so already you have got huge sort of knock on consequences. So there is no opportunity for Russian aircraft to fly west, the whole of European airspace is closed. You know, their central bank reserves are going to be frozen. The SWIFT payment system has been closed down, I mean, and and and. And I think that the Chinese will be extremely wary, because what they will take note of is the unity of the West's reaction to this, and you know they will realize that if they did the same Taiwan they're going to have to pay a similar price if not a higher one, and I think what's happened with China in the last eight to ten months, and my sort of Chinese commentator friends have noticed this, China has, after Hong Kong and the new security legislation, the terrific bashing they've had over the Uighurs, the sailing of Australian, American and British warships through the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, the Chinese have actually pulled in their horns and become a little more careful of their public image, and I don't think you know China's agenda is much more long term, and I think that the lesson of Ukraine at the moment will probably work the other way, and it will make the Chinese more cautious. And they're not allies of Russia, they're just economic partners. There's a subtle difference.
Mcfarlane: Yes, there was a funny statement that came the other day, wasn't there, from the Chinese Foreign Ministry where they said, we are partners, not allies, or Exactly. Which was which was, I thought, very, very striking. And some very witty Twitter user underneath that that tweet from, I think it was the Chinese Foreign Ministry said, that sounds a bit like sex, but no love. But they but it is an uneasy sort of relationship the Chinese and the Russians have.
Dearlove: And the fact is they didn't actually support Russia in the Security Council, they abstained.
Mcfarlane: Yeah, that was fascinating.
Dearlove: That was quite extraordinary because they normally would, you would have expected them to support the Russians and they've already made apparently a couple of statements which are quite equivocal on Ukraine, and I think they're going to be very careful, very cautious, and they're going to sit there and watch and see, and they will be noting the cost that Russia is having to pay. I mean of course China's a different prospect because it has a much more powerful economy. And I mean do bear in mind that the Russian economy is I mean it's only in a reasonable position at the moment, and I mean this is one of the ironies you have a crisis, the energy prices go up, therefore you know Russia's getting more money for its oil and gas. But I mean it is totally commodity dependent. It lacks foreign investment. The GDP, I think as I said before, is the size of Italy. It doesn't have the resources to sustain a long term sort of conflict with the West, you know, even an economic conflict. It will become incredibly costly for Russia over time, and I mean, I just wonder, you know, how secure Putin will be.
Mcfarlane: I mean, I was gonna I was gonna ask about that because, you know, you say all you you give all these reasons for for why this is just going to be so costly for Russia over time, costly to the Russian people, costly to the oligarchs, costly to to businesses, and and everything. But all of that sort of doesn't matter unless something happens to change the leadership. Right? I mean, people can starve, businesses can fail, all of, you know, all of those things can rumble on, but it's not until there is something like a palace coup that takes Putin out, surely. I mean, do you he's he's so intransigent. Can you see him backing down, or do you think he has has to be removed from power in order for things to go another way?
Dearlove: I mean I think over time the situation deteriorates in Russia. I mean we're not dealing any longer with the Soviet Union. I mean it is an authoritarian society, but it's been through significant evolution and change, and you can't entirely put the genie back in the box. I mean social media is there, and you know Russians, well every Russian that I know of or have contact with and has spoken to, admittedly they're ones you know that are pretty westernized, have said you know that this is a catastrophe and that actually all the people they know in Russia are saying exactly the same thing to them, but they can't express it publicly. I don't think that's a situation that could be sustained indefinitely. I think it's a situation which will be cumulative, and there will come a point I mean Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oligarch was saying that it'll take time, but you know this is probably the beginning of the end of Putin's regime, and that you know it might be two years down the track, it might be less, but it is the beginning of the end, and he doesn't really see how, you know, the effects of this cannot but end Putin's regime at some point.
Mcfarlane: But I mean, the man is 70 years old. I mean, he's not gonna live forever. He was surely heading towards the end of his tenure anyway, despite, you know, the fact that he's been fixing the constitution and compelling the parliament to extend his his remaining years in office. I mean, who who is his successor? You know, does he have a successor? Or does he have rivals that might take his place once once he's gone?
Dearlove: Well I don't think there's an obvious successor, and of course that's one of the things that you do, you know, when you're an authoritarian leader, you make damn sure that you haven't got a close rival, and I think that they've all been sort of kept down and kept in their place. But I mean this extraordinary, well not interview, session where he had the chief of the general staff Gerasimov down the end of the table and he talked, he gave them supposedly these weird instructions which do not correspond with Russian nuclear doctrine, and the phraseology used was all wrong. So it was a sort of, you know, semi nuclear threat, and I mean I'm sure that we know, I mean from intelligence, whether their nuclear forces are on high alert or not.
Mcfarlane: You're referring to his directive to mobilize?
Dearlove: Yeah, wasn't a directive, it was a sort of comment, it was phrased in such a way that it doesn't correspond with doctrine, so I'm not sure how you explain that. But you know, the whole I can hardly believe that we're sitting here watching this happen. And of course the most significant change of all is the change in German defense policy. I mean this is huge. I mean Germany for years, you know, has been spending 1.3, 1.4, 1.2% of its GDP. It said it's going to instantly up to 2% or higher. Given the size of the German economy, that is a massive infusion of funds into their armed forces, which are in a complete mess because a lot of their equipment is mothballed, it doesn't work properly, no spare parts. Von der Leyen was a useless defense minister, absolutely awful. And you know Merkel was totally complacent about Russia and you know German national security, and you know she's created this situation, you know, where the German economy is almost totally dependent on Russian gas. So we're witnessing a seminal reordering of the security pieces in Western Europe on account of this, as it were, failure by previous German administrations who have just not taken any of this seriously, I'm afraid.
Mcfarlane: I mean, this total reverse ferret that that Germany has has pulled has shocked everyone, I think. And there was some really interesting reporting in the German press that said that Olaf Scholz actually didn't brief the government before he made that announcement of increasing German defense spending. He only briefed his very closest allies. Most of the government and even and even his aides were not aware of that until he was delivering that address, and the Bundestag happened to react positively to to the news, and there were cheers in the chambers when he said this. But this was a sudden, bold move for a brand new chancellor who has replaced someone who has been in power for more than ten years.
Dearlove: It's encouraging, you know, are you a German chancellor or are you leader of the SPD? And he behaved as a German chancellor, and of course you know he's got a very bizarre political coalition, a rainbow coalition which includes the Greens and other rather sort of pacifist inclined I mean to call them pacifists too strong but sort of not inclined towards heavy defense expenditures. I think he probably did the right thing, was to maybe consult his inner group of advisors and then announce it in the Bundestag, and he's probably, you know, we're looking at him now as a rather different German chancellor because there were huge questions over him and his competence and what sort of leader he would be, and whether he was a worthy successor to Merkel. But for me this is the most important event, and I think for the Russians this would be hugely significant, and the significance of that will not be lost on them.
Mcfarlane: And everyone has been talking about this newfound European unity in this response. Everyone singing from the same hymn sheet, everyone falling into line with with sanctions, a number of European countries closing their airspace to to Russia one by one. I mean, even countries like Switzerland starting to to impose sanctions and and getting in getting involved in abandoning all principles of neutrality. How long do you think that this European unity is going to last? We've already seen Hungary starting to pull back from some of its support. It was surprising to see, you know, countries like Cyprus, where a lot of Russian money is parked, falling into line behind behind sanctions. Switzerland we we mentioned. How long do do we think that these countries are going to stay united and on the side of Ukraine under what must be a lot of Russian pressure and domestic interests?
Dearlove: Quite a long time I think because the situation is so serious and they're confronted, you know, with a dilemma, and I mean I think part of the problem is that hitherto I'd go as far as to say that the EU doesn't do geopolitics. I mean it's really bad at getting itself strategically aligned on big geopolitical questions. I mean on smaller issues a certain degree of success and coordination. I mean this is something of a different proportion and a different level of importance, and I mean it's quite encouraging and surprising, you know, to see the EU reacting in a coordinated fashion. I mean it certainly for me also you know shines the light on how crazy the idea of you know European Defense Force is in terms of an EU defense initiative, and that you know really we have to work through NATO, we have to work through national defense budgets to build European defense, and we have the mechanisms there already, so why on earth should the EU you know try to reproduce them? And I mean obviously its inability to respond militarily you know is there for everyone to see, that would be a waste of time for it to try. So, you know, Macron's ideas about European armies are for the birds, forget all of that stuff.
Mcfarlane: I wanted to ask you, I don't know if you have seen this, but there was an article that has been published on RIA Novosti, which was published by accident, it seems. It was an article that was tagged with a publication date of February 26, and it was celebrating a Russian victory and the collapse of the Ukrainian state within two days. The Russians, of course, moved in on the twenty fourth. And this is an article that was obviously never meant to be published given the events that actually took place, but clearly was written in advance of what was expected to be a very quick surgical Russian victory in Ukraine. And it reveals really quite worrying Russian sort of neo imperialistic tones, and and the article wasn't written by Putin, it was written by an anonymous author, but it certainly does chime with Putin's ideology, and it gives us a bit of an insight. And I just wanted to read you a couple lines from from this piece. It says, the construction of a new world order is accelerating and its contours are more and more clearly poking out through the unraveling fabric of the Anglo Saxon globalization. A multipolar world has become a reality. The rest of the world sees us perfectly well. This is a conflict between Russia and the West. This is a response to the geopolitical expansion of the Atlanticists. This is Russia recovering its historical space and place in the world. Putin has told the Russian people that this was about the Donetsk People's Republic. This was about the breakaway parts of you of Ukraine that want to be Russian. The Russian government is not saying anything about tanks in in Kyiv or or even Kharkiv or anywhere else in Ukraine. They're pretending this is all happening in in the East of Ukraine. And then you have this state, you know, state media op ed that is describing this as nothing to do with Eastern Ukraine, but actually, you know, a a big geopolitical reshaping of the world order. I mean, what do you make of that?
Dearlove: Well, I'm aware of this article and and someone brought it to my attention this morning, and I think, you know it was meant to be, as it were, the song sheet from which you sung about the glorious victory in Ukraine, but of course it hasn't quite transpired like that, but I think it gives one an insight into the sort of hyper nationalist thinking of the people around Putin and their vision of orthodox Christian Russia against the corrupt West, and I mean you can look at it from all sorts of perspectives, but I mean it's extraordinary how this sort of clique of former communists, and a lot of them were in the intelligence and security community that now run Russia, you know when the Soviet Union disintegrated, one of the first things that they embraced was the Russian Orthodox Church as part of their new identity. When I went to Russia way back you know in my former career, there they were all sitting on the other side of the table with their Orthodox crosses in their buttonholes, and you know there a huge sort of talk and attachment about Russian history and about the Russian identity and Peter the Great, and I mean all of this was part of them re identifying, re establishing themselves when they lost, as they were, their specific Soviet identity.
Mcfarlane: Well, I mean, a group of Russian Orthodox clerics and senior Russian Orthodox clerics, they published a letter calling for an end to the war. And saying that the Ukrainians must be allowed to make their own choices.
Dearlove: Well I mean that's very interesting because you know the Russian Orthodox Church has been very much under the thumb of the state, and has been you know very much sort of projected by Putin as part you know of his vision for Russia. But you know maybe now there is a certain amount of confidence and independence in elements of the Church who realize that you know I mean this is part of the problem. I mean bear in mind that the Orthodox Church's connections with Ukraine are fundamental in terms of the Christian origins of Kyiv, and I mean on my last visit to Russia the Russians now I'm a keen painter and interested in oil painting what do they give me? They gave me an oil painting of the Orthodox Cathedral in Kyiv as a gift. I wasn't visiting Ukraine, was visiting Moscow. So that shows you psychologically how many of them think about the place.
Mcfarlane: So where do you think we go from here? I mean, Putin is clearly an extremely stubborn and intransigent man. And even if the West somehow manages to, with the Ukrainians, find some way of allowing Putin to climb down and go back to Moscow with some kind of a victory to to to sell in order to save his his own skin. I mean, do you think that that is something that is achievable? Or do you think he will not stop until Zelenskyy is either stood down in exchange for a cessation of hostilities? I mean, we have all kinds of wildcards. We have reports of Wagner mercenaries roaming the streets of Kyiv on some kind of mission to assassinate the president. We also have the Ukrainians now asking for EU membership, and what is the EU gonna do? There have been quite positive sounds from the European Parliament of individual lawmakers paying tribute to Zelenskyy and to the Ukrainians and shared values. And if, I mean, if they were to make the Ukraine a candidate country, surely that would be impossible for for Putin to to take standing down. So, I mean, what what is the situation now? And and what what are the key sort of things you're going to be looking out for direction this is going to take?
Dearlove: Well I think we're still in the fog of conflict, but I think it will depend first militarily on what happens on the ground, and the Russians have to take Kyiv and other large cities. Otherwise there's going to be a long running conflict, there's going to be a war, you know, which could last like conflict in the Balkans, it could last for months, particularly if the West gets its act together and resupplies the Ukrainian military in the west of the country, and there's an enclave there, which there could be. I think it's too early to say, except maybe if things don't go so well for the Russians there will be an extended negotiation and some sort of ceasefire, and obviously one will be looking to see the withdrawal of Russian military units, but it's hard to imagine that happening at the moment. I mean this is why it's such an incredible thing for Putin to have done, because as he's not succeeded in what his original plan was, you know one is left with an incredible mess. And I mean look at other conflicts. I mean you've got the residue of the Korean War, it's still unresolved. You've got the residue of the war between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus still unresolved, with the green line dividing the island. I mean once you have had these, well really severe military conflicts, I mean the remnants, and they aren't problems necessarily to be solved, become problems to be managed over long periods of time, and I think that's what's so worrying about the Ukrainian issue. It's very difficult to see how Russia gets itself out of this mess, even if it deposes the government. Their puppet is never accepted by the West, no way, and they will have to fight a long term insurgency. The Ukrainians will see to that.
Mcfarlane: The last Kremlin puppet installed in power in Kyiv was chased out of office and had to flee to Moscow.
Dearlove: Well, it'll probably happen it could well happen again, and I mean there's no way even the Russian military can hold down a country the size of Ukraine. It's bigger than Spain, it's got a population 45,000,000, it's France and a good chunk of Germany put together, it's massive. And if the whole population, which seems to be the case, is united against the aggressor, what chance have the Russians got even if they take the capital city? What on earth is going to happen next?
Mcfarlane: The question is, is that rationale going to occur to Putin?
Dearlove: Well, I mean this is what it certainly occurred to the Russian military. You know, that you know it's the Russian soldier that's got to do the fighting, and this isn't fighting the Nazis or the fascists even though you know they like to tell us that it is. They're fighting their own relatives. I mean you know there are so many families intermarried, it's a little bit like us invading Scotland. I mean I'm trying to think of an emotional equivalent that we can understand. I mean which English family doesn't have a Scottish, you know, some sort of Scottish connection, some sort of Scottish ancestry. And I can't produce a magic answer.
Mcfarlane: What do you think the West should do? Do you think the West should step it up or you extremely cautious?
Dearlove: I think we need to be cautious, but I think that we should continue to resupply the Ukrainian military, that we should give them financial and economic support.
Mcfarlane: And lethal aid?
Dearlove: Oh yes, definitely. I mean that's already arriving, that's clearly made a big difference. And you know if you're fighting a highly mechanized military, these modern weapons give you huge advantage, if you're not in open countryside.
Mcfarlane: Well when we speak in a week's time I wonder what the situation will be and how the map will have changed.
Dearlove: I wonder, no all I want is to, you know, I think one has to think about the suffering of the Ukrainian population who are in for a very very tough time indeed, because I think that you know the Russians may try just to besiege the city and starve the Ukrainians out.
Mcfarlane: One last question, actually. Ukraine has applied for emergency accession to the EU, and there are a number of countries that are supporting it in terms of granting it candidate status. What do you make of that? Do you think the EU will entertain seriously the idea of Ukraine joining, maybe first as a candidate, maybe even as a member?
Dearlove: I think that's possible. I mean, I think, okay, the Russians would hate it, but it's not NATO. I mean bear in mind that you know this is an economic alliance, a trading alliance essentially, and it's possible that that is the answer to Ukraine's long term future it would be an EU member but not a NATO member. And in a way you've got the opposite situation with Turkey which is a NATO member but not an EU member. And you know as I said earlier, you know the EU's ambitions to do geopolitics are pretty limited and they're going to be I think I wonder whether they'll be strengthened by this experience, I'm not sure about that. It's very hard, you know given the diversity of views within the EU for it to operate geopolitically. It hasn't been successful, and I mean for me that's one of the strongest reasons for Brexit that we can now pursue an independent foreign policy and we're not hobbled by the sort of inadequacy of European foreign policy. Anyway, we'll have to see what happens. Well the next forty eight hours is going to be pretty crucial I think, when we'll have an idea how things are going to unfold in the next forty eight hours.
Mcfarlane: Do want to quickly just touch on how the Ukrainians are certainly sort of winning the propaganda war at this stage? I mean, you've got Zelenskyy, his portrayal and how he's handled himself has clearly won him a legion of admirers around the world. He's clearly providing a huge sense of morale, staying in Ukraine and wearing his army fatigues. And then you have things like the ghost of Kyiv, this incredible allegedly Ukrainian fighter pilot who killed six Russian pilots, took down six jets constituting the first ace in Europe since the second world war. The Snake Island Ukrainians who told the Russian warship to go F yourself and all of these sort of quickly becoming urban warfare legends which are really boosting morale. I mean the Russians aren't really getting any of that.
Dearlove: No, it's been extraordinary. I was at an air show as a guest of one of these aviation companies in Fairford in Gloucestershire, happens alternative years when Farnborough doesn't, and there was a very very memorable display by Ukrainian MiG-29 with one of their top pilots, and it was the most extraordinary aerobatics display I've ever seen. So I've got a feeling this guy probably is the ghost of Kyiv, and he may exist because we sat there watching this guy flying this aircraft and it was absolutely unbelievable.
Mcfarlane: But I mean I think it's really interesting that we are seeing this kind of David and Goliath situation with the Ukrainians against the Russians, and it shows how important morale is. This comes, you know, half a year after the takeover of Kabul and Afghanistan by the Taliban. And there was a lot of discussion of how the Afghan army had zero morale and they had their president fleeing just before the capital city was taken, and we have the opposite in Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Dearlove: Well, he's been absolutely extraordinary, and of course he is a professional actor, which I think if you know how to harness that skill like Ronald Reagan, you know, it can be enormously charismatic, but he's really been an absolute inspiration I think, you know, beyond his country. And I mean Putin must be gnashing his teeth because his image has gone in the other direction.
Mcfarlane: I mean he's the Ukrainian voice of Paddington and he won Ukrainian Dancing with the Stars or their version of Strictly Come I mean, you can't compete with that, can you? You can't. Well, it's clear that the coming days and the weeks are going to be critical for seeing how things develop. So Richard, thank you so much for your time, it's really really great to hear your thoughts on what has been an incredibly fast moving and developing situation in Ukraine.
Dearlove: Yeah, well thanks for the opportunity, I think we all feel very very strongly about this issue and you know we sit here with anticipation seeing how it'll play out over the next you know week or two. Anyway thanks a lot Julia, I really enjoyed talking to Likewise. Thanks, Richard. Take care. Okay. All the best. Bye.
Mcfarlane: That's it for this week's episode of One Decision. Don't forget to subscribe to us so you never miss an episode. From me and the team, thanks for listening, and see you next time.
