That is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: ‘Putin steps up summer offensive against Ukraine’
Ben Hall
Hello and welcome to The Rachman Review. I’m Ben Hall, Europe editor of the Financial Times, and I’m standing in for Gideon Rachman. This week’s podcast is concerning the state of the war in Ukraine, nearly three and a half years into Russia’s brutal full-scale invasion. My guest is Franz-Stefan Gady, a military analyst, creator of The Return of War. He has visited Ukraine over and over since 2022, travelling the length of the front line and talking to Ukrainian commanders.
Russia has ramped up its offensive operations in Ukraine. In response to Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s military chief, Moscow has deployed nearly 700,000 troops for a summer offensive. Can we expect a decisive Russian breakthrough in the approaching weeks? Or will Ukraine’s courageous but overstretched defenders hold on?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Donald Trump voice clip
Before I even arrive on the Oval Office, I could have the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine settled. It is going to be settled quickly. (Crowd cheering) I’ll get the issue solved. And I’ll get it solved in rapid order and it can take me now not than at some point.
Ben Hall
The peace deal that US President Donald Trump said he could seal in at some point looks more distant than ever. Russian leader Vladimir Putin is sticking to his maximalist goals of seizing the whole thing of 4 regions or oblasts his army now partially occupies, and subjugating the entire of Ukraine. Russian forces have intensified their attacks on key points along the 1,200km front line. They are actually bombarding Ukrainian cities with as many as 500 missiles and drones an evening.
News clip
Only a day after it unleashed its biggest missile and drone attack of the war. Using well over 500 drones, five killed and over 30 people injured within the last 24 hours. Blasts lighting up the night sky. (Explosions) Kyiv residents hunkering down in shelters.
Ben Hall
Fairly than put pressure on the Kremlin, the US has stopped deliveries to Kyiv of air defence interceptors and other missiles, although Trump suggested this week he might still send just a few. Ukraine’s defenders and its city dwellers live through among the hardest weeks of the war. I started by asking Franz to evaluate the situation on the front.
Franz-Stefan Gady
I believe it’s fair to say that Russia has been on the advance for the last couple of months. They’ve launched a few offensive operations for fairly marginal gains along the front line. The front line is just not completely stable. The Ukrainians are conducting withdrawals from parts of the front line and the Russians are pushing on. But in the meanwhile, it doesn’t seem very likely that the Russians are going to attain a breakthrough that may very well be rapidly exploited. I believe the Russian centre of gravity of ongoing military operations is clearly the Donbas. They try to push on to the town of Kostyantynivka in southern Donetsk. There’s also a concerted effort to take the town of Pokrovsk, also push into the following oblast from west of Pokrovsk, after which also encircle the crucial towns of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, and here can also be where the heaviest fighting is currently happening. But despite Russian efforts during the last couple of months, the gains haven’t been substantial for the Russian forces, but it surely’s really concerning the relative attrition rates. And here the Ukrainian forces have been capable of inflict substantial amounts of attrition on the Russian forces, but in addition Ukrainian forces have suffered.
Ben Hall
There’s been quite quite a lot of attention recently on the Russian push towards the oblast in Dnipropetrovsk. How significant is that current effort?
Franz-Stefan Gady
One major query that I actually have is, can the Russian forces in that area proceed to encircle Pokrovsk and likewise threaten essentially the rear of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, after which at the identical time push on into the following oblast? Secondly, I believe there’s political significance to this, in fact. Russian troops on the bottom in one other oblast sends a transparent political message because what you do if you happen to push on, little by little you begin threatening Dnipro, which now could be type of the economic heartland of Ukraine. It also clearly says that Russian war goals don’t stop on the Donbas, they transcend the Donbas, although I should say that Russian war goals, by and enormous, haven’t substantially modified since February 2022. And this can also be something to be mindful here.
Ben Hall
You said that the primary Russian effort is clearly in Donetsk. Also they are advancing across the border within the north towards Sumy, a big Ukrainian city. Is that city becoming vulnerable?
Franz-Stefan Gady
Yes indeed, Russian forces have crossed the border, they’re trying to determine a buffer zone on Ukrainian territory, and so they’re also threatening the logistically necessary town of Sumy, a town that had a prewar population of around 250,000 and is now continuously subject to bombardments by drones, artillery, other long-range precision-guided munitions. And here the Russian (inaudible) is dead. Given Sumy’s pivotal role as a significant logistics hub after which a part of the front line, they tried to make Sumy untenable. The Ukrainians here have been capable of ward off the Russians during the last couple of weeks, but the difficulty is that the Ukrainian line is fairly thinned out. And I believe people need to understand, we are likely to focus quite a bit on the drone warfare facets, the role of unmanned systems, the role of technology on this ongoing military confrontation. But at the top of the day, an important element on this war remains to be the infantrymen. And Ukraine still doesn’t have enough infantrymen on the front line. And that’s an enormous, huge challenge. And I believe that is, in a way, a microcosm of what the strategy for the Ukrainian armed forces should appear to be. And I do think it’s also the (inaudible) of the Ukrainian general staff, that’s, maintain essentially your position on the front line because it is now and make the Russian advance as costly as possible. And you’ll be able to do this through infantry, infantry supported by artillery, supported by mines, supported by drones, all of this together.
Ben Hall
Indeed. And among the Russian advances which have happened this summer have been in those places where the Ukrainians have pulled forces back, right, to redeploy them elsewhere. So there’s a type of game of cat and mouse almost across the front line with the Russians searching for to take advantage of those gaps as they see them. Is that this the massive summer offensive from Russia, or might we expect actually an excellent greater acceleration, an even bigger push?
Franz-Stefan Gady
While I believe the term offensive might generate the flawed picture in our mind, the Russians have been pushing since March essentially. They’ve increased the pace of operations, they’ve thrown more manpower, more material into this fight. The thought is actually that they’re gnawing themselves through Ukrainian defences little by little. The key issue that Russian forces are still facing is that they will’t really attack in large formations in a reasonably well co-ordinated manner. Loads of people would think that’s because drones now are omnipresent and ISR, that’s intelligence surveillance reconnaissance capability, have essentially made the battlefields of Ukraine transparent. No, that’s not the case. It’s really about organisational capability into the Russian armed forces. And I should say that Ukrainian armed forces, to a certain degree, really don’t have the flexibility to scale up combat operations on the front line, which can also be why the Russians still haven’t been capable of actually exploit breakthroughs. The Russians push and so they find a niche within the front line, they enter a trench, but because they will only accomplish that in fairly small numbers, the Ukrainians are likely to be capable of block the gap.
Now, in fact, drones cannot hold the front line alone, and I believe that is something that tech enthusiasts sometimes underappreciate. Just somewhat anecdote from a recent visit to the front line. We went to this brigade headquarters. The brigade commander showed us a component of the front line where essentially he has to carry a 900-metre stretch of the front line with a squad that’s eight men. Eight men are defending 900 metres of the front line. After all, they’re supported by artillery, they’re are supported by drones, they’re supported by every kind of additional capabilities but the concept this particular a part of the front line can actually be held by drones alone or simply by artillery, once you might be there, you see the lunacy of this argument. So manpower, again, is amazingly critical in all of this.
Ben Hall
You talked earlier about Ukraine’s difficulties in force generation. Are you able to explain why they’ve had such problems in mobilising, training and turning those latest recruits into effective fighting forces?
Franz-Stefan Gady
Well, I believe we should always have a look at this from different layers of study. First, there may be a transparent decision on the political level that Ukraine is just not going to call up certain age groups for military service. It’s not going to force young men to serve within the armed forces for political reasons, for reasons which have not a lot anything to do with the war, but with the long run of Ukraine once a ceasefire or a peace agreement is in place. So this actually reduces the quantity of manpower you’ll be able to actually draw from.
At the identical time, there have been issues with how Ukraine has actually been training people called up for military service or people volunteering for military service. For my part, Ukraine still hasn’t succeeded in establishing a great training system for operations on the front line. I should all the time say every time we talk concerning the Ukrainian armed forces, it’s fairly necessary to grasp that it is a horizontally organised organisation, right? It’s fairly decentralised, where you may have excellent combat formations, excellent units, but you furthermore mght have units that will not be doing too well. And I believe the hallmark of a great military organisation from a structural perspective is that it’s attempting to even out these differences in order that you may have a great base layer of combat effectiveness, and I believe here Ukraine could still improve.
And I believe the third issue is that for some time, Ukraine was actually standing up additional formations, additional brigades with inexperienced non-commissioned officers and inexperienced and never well-trained enlisted men. And the outcomes were predictable, right, that a lot of these formations and units weren’t really performing too well. So I believe it’s an assortment of all these three aspects.
And this, in fact, hearing the stories about training not being conducted thoroughly, certain units not being really units that you just would need to serve in, after which also perhaps an inability to remodel from one unit to a different if you happen to had the need to accomplish that, is definitely deterring quite a lot of people from volunteering.
After which, in fact, the last factor, and I believe that’s probably perhaps an important consider all of this, that is the fourth 12 months of the war. Ukraine has suffered tremendous losses. Well, it’s not . . . as compared to other high-intensity conflicts up to now, but for a war on European soil within the twenty first century, Ukraine has suffered tremendous casualties. And there may be obviously, after some time, a certain quantity of war fatigue. And this, I believe, speaks a few larger issue that I detect, and it is a growing gulf between the soldiers on the front line, those that are literally doing the fighting, and the rear, including the capital, Kyiv, the political class, the economic elite of Ukraine and so forth.
Ben Hall
I take your point concerning the growing gap. The opposite development, I suppose, we’ve seen in recent months away from the front lines is that this increasing use of very large-scale mass aerial assaults on Ukrainian cities, sometimes with over 500 drones and missiles. What do you’re thinking that the importance of those really large-scale Russian attacks are? I’ve heard a senior Ukrainian official predict that it can only be a matter of time before Russia is sending over a thousand drones and missiles an evening. Does this have any military significance and do you’re thinking that it can succeed when it comes to grinding down morale?
Franz-Stefan Gady
Well, war is all the time a contest of wills, right? And one in every of the principal goals of this Russian strategic air strike campaign is actually to interrupt the Ukrainian will to withstand. And I actually have to say, during the last couple of weeks, Ukraine has endured plenty of large-scale attacks which have actually impacted the Ukrainian morale, particularly the civilian morale. This also, in fact, has an impact on the Ukrainian defence industrial base to a certain degree. It also has an impact on the long run of Ukraine, right? I mean, any discuss investing in Ukraine or rebuilding is linked to this Russian strategic strike campaign because one message that Russia also senses is that even when there may be a ceasefire in place or even when Russian troops will not be advancing, they will still hold Ukrainian cities hostage. And this, to a certain degree, in my view, can also be imagined to deter western investments in Ukraine.
So I believe there’s a concerted effort by the Russians here to attrit Ukrainian air defences. This stays one in every of the principal weaknesses, I’d say, of Ukraine’s defence industrial base. It really relies — in the case of long-range air interceptors, particularly air interceptors that might be used to shoot down ballistic missiles — on western military support, particularly US support. And this is just not something that might be remedied over the following couple of months and even years. So here, Ukraine will probably be depending on the west for the foreseeable future.
And I believe this can also be the rationale why Russia here is pushing and pushing and pushing because I still think that the Kremlin, that Vladimir Putin and certain elements of the Russian military leadership imagine that this 12 months may very well be pivotal on this ongoing military confrontation. They imagine that this next push, this offensive now along the front line together with the strategic strike campaign could actually result in a situation where Ukraine will find it in a highly disadvantageous position when it ultimately decides to enter negotiations with Russia. And so in my view, the strategic strike campaign actually could have an impact on the general military situation within the country.
Ben Hall
And it makes it, subsequently, all of the more damaging that the Pentagon last week decided to suspend certain deliveries of air defence interceptors and other missiles.
Franz-Stefan Gady
Yes, that’s true, but I believe that’s only a symptom of a bigger issue that I believe we Europeans have chosen to disregard to a certain degree. And that’s that the Trump administration from day one has made it clear that eventually it wants handy over the Ukrainian problem to the Europeans. And to me, irrespective of what really the interior mechanics were behind the scenes and who ultimately gave the order to stop this fairly limited amount of ammunition, by the best way, I believe the political signal here was clear. And it was meant for the Europeans. Ultimately, you’ll own this war. You may’t depend on us, despite Trump’s guarantees of additional air defence interceptors. And I should say that deliveries have been ongoing during the last couple of months. And the US continues to support Ukraine, not only with arms deliveries, but in addition with crucial battlefield intelligence, right?
So, the worst-case scenario here has probably not come through, but I do think there are signals by the Americans, again and again, that they need to hand this problem over to the Europeans. And I’m unsure whether the Europeans are ready yet. Europe, by and enormous, still has refused to reply some principal or first-order questions in the case of Ukraine. And that’s: what’s Ukraine’s role in Europe’s security architecture? Provided that we now have a transparent answer to this query can we actually resolve what we’re willing to do to ensure an independent and never Russian-dominated Ukraine. We’ve said that we’re going to support Ukraine. We’ve said that we’re going to keep on with Ukraine irrespective of what, that we will militarily support Ukraine. All of it goes back to this query, though: what does Ukraine really mean to Europe?
And I believe one discussion that type of has disappeared now from the headlines is potential European troop deployments to Ukraine after a ceasefire agreement, right? And there are numerous the reason why this hasn’t materialised. But to me, essentially the most obvious is because we couldn’t really discover a consensus in Europe what Ukraine really means. Certain countries — France and Great Britain — were willing to do stuff, but they wouldn’t do it without an American backstop, to some type of US military support. Then you definitely had issues with whether European militaries actually had the capability to deploy it. But crucially, what Russia’s response could be. And it became clear to me that no one desired to state it out publicly, right, that ultimately, none of those European countries or the leaders of those respective European countries who were pushing ahead with this concept of deploying troops to Ukraine felt politically secure enough in asking their respective populations to go to war with Russia over Ukraine. And that’s, I believe, a key query that needs answering.
Now, some said that is possibly a matter that we don’t have to answer since it’s highly unlikely that Russia would go to war with European countries, particularly France, Great Britain, because also they are nuclear powers and nuclear deterrents to carry and so forth. And it’s an unrighteous interest to accomplish that for multiple reasons to expand this military confrontation. But still, I believe if you may have a coalition that goes into Ukraine with a mandate to remain there for a considerable period of time and help stabilise the front line, or a reassurance force or whatever you should call it, I believe you would like some clear-cut political objectives, because the best thing is to get yourself into war. The toughest thing is normally to get yourself out of a war. And this can also be something that Vladimir Putin is seeing immediately in Russia, because also he probably would have problems extracting himself from this war with face-saving measures.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Ben Hall
That was Franz-Stefan Gady chatting with me from Vienna. And that’s it for this week. Please join us again next week for an additional edition of The Rachman Review.