00:00We can now bring in Tim Willissey-Wilsley, Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United
00:04Services Institute. Good afternoon. Thank you very much for joining us on the program today.
00:09This war has now entered its fifth year. Where do things stand
00:12on the battlefield at this point in time, and who has the upper hand?
00:19Well, traditionally, people have been saying that Russia has the upper hand,
00:22but as your reporter said, the Starlink episode has allowed Ukraine to take back some territory.
00:30But no, I mean, when we're thinking about the upper hand, we must remember
00:34that when this started, Putin wasn't looking to just win the provinces of the Donbas. He wanted
00:41the whole of Ukraine. That's why he invaded north of Kyiv. And of course, he was resisted and defeated,
00:49actually contrary to the assessment of many Western intelligence agencies that thought that
00:55Russia would easily overcome Ukraine forces. So it's been a massive failure by Putin. And yes,
01:04there is, at various stages on the front, Russia has the upper hand. And then at the moment, Ukraine
01:11has slightly the upper hand. But that's not the point. The point is, it's very, very important.
01:18Firstly, the peace comes because it's been a four year war, almost rivaling the length of the First
01:25World War and an extremely bloody and unpleasant one, but not at any cost. And to award President
01:32Putin a victory for what has been a devastating failure would be a massive Western mistake.
01:41Vlodymyr Zelensky says the conflict has not broken Ukrainians, but war fatigue has set in, hasn't it?
01:54No, I don't think Ukraine has been broken at all. I mean, very interestingly, that the worst thing
01:59that has happened really to Ukraine is the devastation of its power generation over the
02:05last few months. And this has been, I think, the coldest winter, they say, in 20 years in Ukraine.
02:10So average normal Ukrainians are undergoing enormous hardship at the moment. But spring is coming.
02:18March and April, things will begin to improve. And I think we will see a deregulation,
02:27or at least a dispersal of Ukrainian power supplies so that it's not so vulnerable to these missile
02:34strikes in future. So I think Ukraine has actually overcome the worst. This winter has
02:40actually been the worst of all. But every winter we see Russia go ahead and target Ukraine's critical
02:46energy infrastructure. That's not something new.
02:52It's not, but it's been a particular, it's been a particular focus of this last winter,
02:57you know, going after really the economic, the economic targets, and particularly the power sector
03:04target to try and wear down Ukrainian morale. I mean, the war has been an extraordinary war.
03:10It has evolved from, in the early stages, being a rather light World War I and World War II with
03:17tanks and so forth. And now it's almost a virtual law now on the Eastern Front, in the Donbass,
03:23you know, conducted almost entirely by drones, increasingly by AI, increasingly it's going to be
03:29autonomous as well. I mean, Ukraine now says that they try not to deploy too
03:36many people at all in what they call the five-kilometer kill zone. So this is turning into
03:43a very, very different war, and one actually which over time will favor Ukraine, because the great
03:50advantage Russia has had is manpower, just vast numbers of people who they've been throwing into
03:55the meat grinder. But manpower is now no longer the critical factor. Tim, let me ask you about how this
04:04war
04:04has evolved, because yes, we know that this war is being fought primarily by drone warfare and missile
04:11strikes that keep coming from both sides. Yet, over the past few years, Ukraine has been asking for
04:18fighter jets. Allies took a very long time to grant that request, but in the end, certain did have
04:26provided Ukraine fighter jets. Have those jets been used and have they been impactful?
04:37Well, as you rightly say, the war has evolved. I mean, if you don't, if you remember, just before the
04:40fighter jet issue, there was the whole question of the tanks, the leopard tanks, the challenger tanks,
04:45and so forth. And actually, tanks are now not proving to be particularly important. So what we now need,
04:53what Europe now needs to do is really ramp up its supply of what Ukraine needs. That's missiles,
05:01that's ammunition, that's money. That's what was announced this morning, which I think would be
05:07very good, which is an early EU accession. So there's a lot that Europe can do, and it needs to
05:14do more about targeting Russia's economy, particularly this sort of shadow fleet of oil tankers, which,
05:20you know, go through the Baltic and go through the English Channel, completely, pretty much unmolested
05:25at the moment. There's a lot more that Europe can do on this. And to sort of fill the hole
05:31that,
05:32in a sense, President Trump has withdrawn. I mean, the Americans have taken a step back,
05:40clearly. They're happy with supplying the weaponry, just as long as they're not paying for it. I want to
05:45ask about something that the Kremlin said earlier today, that its war goals have not been achieved
05:51yet. Given that that's the thinking over in Moscow, then is there any point to get these two sides to
05:58the
05:58negotiating table? Well, it's one of these sort of fake negotiations. I've seen a number of them over the
06:07years as a diplomat, where, I mean, what Zelensky is desperately trying to do is making sure that he
06:14appears very determined on the negotiations and is not the first one to walk away. No one wants to be
06:20the first one to walk away. But the truth of the matter is, this isn't a serious negotiation. The 28
06:26-point
06:26plan was basically drafted, largely, largely in Moscow. About 20 of the 28 plans, 20 of the 28 points,
06:34lean very, very, very heavily towards Moscow. As you rightly say, Putin doesn't want to stop the war
06:41because he thinks he's winning and he thinks he's, you know, within reach of at least winning the Donbass
06:48provinces. And Zelensky, of course, cannot afford to give away territory which Russia has not yet
06:56conquered. So the talks are really a performative demonstration. They're not serious negotiations.
07:06I mean, there are some serious aspects to it, such as release of prisoners and so forth. The fundamental
07:12point, bringing the war to the end, I assess we are absolutely no closer. Will there have to be some
07:19territorial concessions, in your opinion, for this war to stop?
07:25Well, I think Crimea will almost certainly be a territorial concession. I think it's arguable that
07:33parts of the Donbass may be lost de facto, not necessarily de jure, by Ukraine. But no, absolutely not. They
07:43cannot afford to give up territory which Russia has not yet conquered, not least because on that
07:50territory are some of their best constructed defensive installations. So if they were to give
07:55up that territory, they would then find themselves in undefended territory, you know, on the other side
08:01of the Dnipro River. And no, this isn't a situation which Ukraine wants to find itself in.
08:06Okay, Tim, we're gonna have to leave it there. Thank you for joining us on the program today.
08:09That was Tim Willsley there.
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