00:00 The latest then, our Chief Foreign Editor Rob Parsons is joining me here on set.
00:04 Rob, we've got big changes then at the top in Moscow.
00:06 Yeah, not entirely unexpected I think. Sergey Shoigu has been
00:10 under quite a lot of criticism over the last year or so because of the conduct
00:14 of the war in Ukraine. A lot of people felt that he really wasn't up to scratch
00:20 and eventually I think some of that has filtered through to Vladimir Putin. Much of the criticism
00:26 had to be said came from Evgeny Prigozhin, the now dead Evgeny Prigozhin, former head of
00:33 the Wagner who variously described Shoigu as a scumbag and an elderly clown. So no doubt about
00:41 where his feelings towards Shoigu lay and that reflected a feeling within the military as well.
00:48 So I think that's really what this has come round to. And one of the failings that has been laid
00:53 his door is that of not dealing with corruption in the armed forces. And it's interesting that just
01:00 a short while ago, his deputy defence minister, Timur Ivanov, was sacked on corruption charges.
01:08 So I think if you set it in that light, it becomes a little bit clearer why
01:12 he's been given the door at the defence ministry. Appointed now as secretary of the Security Council,
01:20 which is at least on paper, an even more senior job. But the man coming in on this is interesting
01:26 as well. So it's I think not entirely down to any failings on the part of Shoigu. The man they're
01:31 bringing in is an economist by training, former economics minister, deputy prime minister,
01:37 a technocrat, somebody who's been involved in innovations in the ministry. And with the
01:43 war economy so dominant now inside Russia, somewhere with estimates of around about 7.5%
01:50 at the moment and expected to rise of GDP. They're looking, I think, to somebody who's
01:55 better able to manage that part of the economy. And that's not something that Shoigu was really
02:00 cut out to do. He's been around for a long, long time. I remember when I was a correspondent in
02:05 Moscow back in the early 90s, 1994, I was there when he was appointed minister of emergency
02:11 situations. And here we are 30 years later and he's still there. It's quite an extraordinary career.
02:16 Interesting to see what happens with Petrushev, though, who's been in charge of the Security
02:22 Council for a long time. Hardliner, very close to Putin. Where will he move? Yeah, it's incredible
02:27 to hear those figures from you, Rob. The timing is slightly weird, though, because it does come,
02:32 doesn't it, as we're seeing these advances of Russian forces around Kharkiv? Yeah. I mean,
02:38 again, it's a little difficult to know how much to read into this. It doesn't look like a sort of
02:44 strategic move on the part of the Russians. You know, the question has been raised, is this an
02:49 attempt, for instance, to take, to capture Kharkiv, Ukraine's second biggest city, over a million
02:55 people living there? It doesn't look like that. It looks much smaller than that. They don't have
03:00 the forces at their disposal in the area to the north of Kharkiv at the moment. What it looks
03:05 like, perhaps, is a couple of things, maybe. First of all, to create a buffer. If you look at the
03:11 map, you can see that the villages that are being attacked at the moment are right on the border
03:17 with Russia. And Russia has often in the past, the government has often said it would be good
03:21 to establish a buffer on the border with Ukraine so that Ukrainian artillery can't strike into
03:27 Russia. That's perhaps one reason. Another, I think, much more reasonable explanation is that
03:34 the Russians sense that they've got a window, or see that they have a window of opportunity at the
03:38 moment. The weapons that Ukraine is going to be getting from the United States in particular,
03:43 but also from the European Union, has started to filter through, but are not coming through in
03:48 large numbers yet. They will do. And the Russians probably have about a month to two months to use
03:53 the advantage that they've got. That's why they're striking now. And they're trying to stretch the
03:58 Ukrainian defences as much as they can, forcing them to bring scant equipment from other needy
04:05 places and manpower to fill the holes in the area around Kharkiv at the moment. That, I think,
04:10 is the most likely explanation, stretching the Ukrainians so that holes, gaps will appear
04:15 elsewhere that the Russian armed forces can exploit. So a little further afield then, Rob,
04:19 where do you think the situation stands at the moment? What are Russia's aims overall?
04:23 Well, you know, I think what I was just saying probably applies to where Russia wants to go with
04:30 this. They want to use what I've just described as a window of opportunity to try and break down
04:36 Ukrainian defences. It's clear that Russia, given the, we've just been talking about the appointment
04:44 of Biela Ussa as Defence Minister, it's clear they're seeing this as a long time war now.
04:50 It's not something that they expect to be over in the next few months or even the next year.
04:55 They're thinking probably at least two years, 2026 probably, before this ends what they hope
05:01 will be a victory. But they know that they have to grind the Ukrainians down. I think that's
05:06 really what we can expect over the next few months, an attempt to do precisely that,
05:10 to find weaknesses in the Ukrainian lines, to hope that the weaponry that's being brought in
05:16 will not be sufficient for the Ukrainians to withstand attacks all along that very long line,
05:21 1,000 kilometres, and that Ukraine's continuing lack of manpower will be a serious disadvantage
05:28 to them the longer this war goes on. That I think is what they're trying to achieve.
05:32 Rob, thanks very much. Rob Parsons, our Chief Foreign Officer here on France 24.
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