'There are some feeble signs that the Russian army is having to withdraw its troops'

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00:00Well, yes, there are some feeble, I would caution against any optimistic and premature

00:09conclusions and hopes, but there are some feeble signs that the Russian army is having

00:16to withdraw some of its troops from that area, not from the Donbass, where the hottest spots

00:21of this war are right now, but from Kharkiv, simply because Vladimir Putin lacks the sufficient

00:28force to protect its long borders, including with Ukraine, and that's one of the actual

00:34goals of this operation. We don't have a clear vision of its strategic goals as of yet, but

00:42it's already demonstrated how Vladimir Putin's fixation with Ukraine has left his own borders,

00:48Russia's borders, essentially unprotected and undefended.

00:53As you say, it's difficult to know what the long-term goal is here, but do you think that

00:57Ukraine can achieve anything with this incursion into Russia?

01:02Our former commander-in-chief, Valeriy Zaluzhny, said as early as two years ago that unless

01:08Russians start to feel the brunt of this war at home, nothing will change. This is essentially

01:14a breach of Vladimir Putin's contract with the Russians. You stay out of politics, we

01:19provide you with good economy, we provide you with security. Yes, the population of

01:25Russia has lost its agency, it doesn't decide much, but every such successive wave of mobilization

01:32for Vladimir Putin, every such clear failure of security brings unhappiness to these chattering

01:44masses. If Vladimir Putin is pushed to order another wave of mobilization to try to plug

01:52these holes, I mean, mind you, these are conscripts, they're not paid, unlike these

01:56other mercenaries. This will create a sense of injustice, this will create significant

02:01risks for the ruling elite.

02:04Yeah, because Moscow, it's insisting that everything is under control, Putin referring

02:08vaguely to a situation in the border region. Is the Kremlin then succeeding in playing

02:14down the significance of this offensive to the domestic audience in Russia?

02:19Well, of course, even as tightly controlled as the media in Russia currently are, Vladimir

02:26Putin cannot hide the true picture of what's happening in Kursk from his population. That's

02:31why his state-controlled TV channels have actually had to comment somewhat about what's

02:39happening, even though now they're apparently going into this mode of denial, nothing to

02:44see here, move along, etc. But once again, we're talking about hundreds of young conscripts

02:51who've already been taken prisoners. They all have families, they have circles of friends,

02:56etc. This will obviously create a very unpleasant situation for Vladimir Putin, no matter how

03:01hard he tries to hide this from his population.

03:05Yeah, because he often seems slow to respond to moments of crisis. But what kind of response

03:10do you think we're going to see from him in the longer term?

03:14Well, I mean, obviously, he's going to try to kick the Ukrainians out, but that can come

03:18at a very huge cost. Vladimir Putin has once again not given up on his obsession with controlling

03:23at least the eastern part of Ukraine and completing the capture of the Donbass until at least

03:30the end of the year. Meanwhile, he will continue putting screws on the media. We're already

03:37seeing that Russia is in full earnest about trying to shut down fully YouTube in Russia.

03:44So more of the same, more tightening of the screws. And we're seeing signs that his regime

03:49is growing senile, increasingly autocratic and increasingly out of step.

03:55And meanwhile, Peter, US media reports had been suggesting that the warring sides, they

04:00were going to be holding indirect talks perhaps on a deal to halt strikes on energy infrastructure.

04:05Those plans seemingly derailed by this counter offensive. But does this indicate that there

04:11is some kind of shift underway in Ukrainian thinking about the war?

04:15Well, yes, indeed, at least until Kursk, which this operation has been more successful than

04:21anyone really thought that injected a new kind of, you know, level of optimism on the

04:30part of both the army, the military, and people behind the front lines. Be that as

04:35it may, yes, there is fatigue with this war. And there is a bit of a shifting popular attitude

04:41about the possibility of potential negotiations. This idea of secret negotiations happening

04:48somewhere in Qatar would have been anathema two years ago, a year ago. Now I think the

04:55population is getting more amenable to the idea that, you know, sooner or later this

05:01has to stop. And there may be some territorial concessions that have to be made, even though

05:08once again, this has not yet received official sanction, any talk about territorial concessions.

05:16It might be hard to say at this point, but do you think that the Ukrainians, that they've

05:20gained any leverage for any future negotiations by beginning this incursion, by crossing into

05:27Russian territory?

05:29That is indeed one of the probably main calculations of this operation, Operation Kursk. There's

05:37perfect symmetry in this. You have, you know, went on an offensive and, you know, captured

05:45hundreds of square kilometers of Kharkiv, I'm talking about a few months ago. We have

05:50done the same just across the border in Kursk. You want us to leave Kursk? You leave Kharkiv.

05:55Maybe you leave Crimea. Once again, whether that will play out this way, I'm not sure.

06:01Vladimir Putin is clearly not sending any signals that he would be ready for that sort

06:06of trade-off. But if Ukrainians get entrenched in Kursk, if they show that it's going to

06:12be very difficult to knock them out, Putin is going to have to make some hard choices.

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