00:00Well, the potential peace talks between Russia, Ukraine and the United States are up for discussion in Strasbourg this week,
00:07where MEPs are gathering.
00:08And that's where the Finnish MEP, Pekka Doveri, a former army general, is standing by to speak to us.
00:14Good morning. Thank you so much for being with us.
00:16Do you have any trust in Vladimir Putin's latest offer to talk?
00:20You might have seen that last night Kiev was bombed again.
00:24Well, we've seen that for Putin, there's no real interest to make peace.
00:31He still believes that he can gain what he, you know, fulfill his aims in Ukraine by military force.
00:39He thinks that he's powerful enough to break the will of the Ukraine to fight and force them to negotiate
00:44on his term so that he can take at least four oblasts, four provinces, southern provinces for Ukraine, make a
00:52Ukraine.
00:53an inland country and basically a vassal of Russia.
00:56That's what he's aiming to do.
00:57And he has no interest in negotiating about anything else.
01:02So he's just playing time.
01:04We've seen this many times already, already during this war.
01:07He's just playing time so that the Western, especially U.S. sanctions, wouldn't be getting any tighter and heavier than
01:15they are now.
01:16And is Kiev now a frontline city in this war?
01:19It is. It is.
01:20As we've seen, Russia uses the fact that Ukraine don't have Patriot missiles and capability to protect itself against ballistic
01:32missiles and jet-powered UAVs,
01:35which Russia has a lot and can produce thousands of those UAVs and hundreds of those missiles annually.
01:43And Ukraine can't stop them.
01:47And therefore, that gives an opportunity for Russia to put more pressure.
01:53And now they have basically taken all the rules off.
01:57Everything is a target now.
02:00Residential areas, cultural objects, industry, government.
02:05Government, everything is under bombardment.
02:08And there's a big danger that when winter comes, that Kiev becomes, big parts of Kiev comes, comes inhabitable.
02:18There's no water.
02:19There's no electricity.
02:21There's no heating.
02:22So people have to leave.
02:23And this is the fifth winter of war.
02:26You're a former army general.
02:28So from a military point of view, what's happening on the battlefield right now?
02:33Well, that's the thing.
02:35I tend to say that Putin is attacking on three fronts.
02:39He has the ground war on the 1,200 kilometer long borderline.
02:44He has this deep fight war where Russia and Ukraine are hitting targets inside the country.
02:52And then the Western Front, where Putin tries to influence the Western governments.
02:59And where his weakest currently is the ground war.
03:01There, the Russian army hasn't been able to conquer basically anything during this war.
03:08Actually, they have lost more areas than they have been able to conquer during the year.
03:13Their losses have been bigger than they can recruit during this year.
03:18And the latest Ukrainian offensive, which still continue, are pushing them back.
03:24So the land war doesn't go well for Putin.
03:27And as you say, this war doesn't look like it's going to end soon.
03:30It's obviously very bad for Europe.
03:32What should the Europeans be doing now?
03:35Well, we should do what we have done so far, but much, much faster and with much bigger resources.
03:43You know, we have to do basically two things.
03:46First, to support Ukraine, give Ukraine resources so that it can continue the fight.
03:53And make it clear that we are committed to do this so that Ukraine can continue longer than Russia can.
04:00And it's money, it's humanitarian aid, it's military aid, defense, defense, industrial cooperation, everything like that.
04:09And if somebody says that it's too expensive, that's not true.
04:13You know, during the COVID crisis, EU used 2.6% of the EU's cross-national products to support EU
04:22countries.
04:22So far, in four and a half years, we have used maybe 0.9% of the EU's GDP to
04:30support Ukraine.
04:30So it shows that we have resources to do that.
04:33And then at the same time, as we are supporting Ukraine, we have to hit Russian economy so that they
04:39couldn't finance this war.
04:41And we have the sanction regime, but it's leaking left and right.
04:46We should take into effect the laws that the EU parliament has put, which would stop the buying of Russian
04:55gas by end of this year
04:57and buying Russian gas, I'm sorry, oil next, end of next year and do it faster, actually,
05:06so that the revenues they are getting from the EU would vanish and, again, stop the leaking sanction,
05:17stop the third country supporting Ukraine and transporting materials from West to Russia.
05:24Plus, more sanctions to oligarchs, stop the visas for Russians who come to Europe,
05:30not only to be as tourists, but it seems that some are here also for sabotage missions.
05:37We have a lot of tools which we just have to take into use.
05:41Okay.
05:41Pekka Toveri, thank you so much for joining us this morning on Euro News.
05:47Pekka Toveri, thank you so much for joining us this morning on Euro News.
