Mark Galeotti (3:23)

Great to be back.

Podcast Host (3:24)

So, let's begin. What is your assessment of the battlefield right now? Is Ukraine in danger of collapse anywhere on the front?

Mark Galeotti (3:33)

Almost certainly not very difficult to predict because these collapses inevitably come as surprises and often it's a cascading surprise. One particular unit breaks and then that leaves a hole in a line. However, within the bounds of what we think is likely, no, we're still thinking about it's a slow, Russian painful and bloody accretional advance. Because even if they do make breakthroughs, this is not the old style of fast moving manoeuvre warfare. This is a war that is being fought by three guys penetrating a front line here, three more guys over there eventually accumulating. So in some ways, even if there is some kind of localised collapse, the Russians are very unlikely to be in a position to be able to make the kind of deep penetrating exploitation of that collapse that would really change the situation on the ground.

Podcast Host (4:26)

This does sound, based on your first answer here, a little like World War I. But we don't want to overdraw that comparison. There were no drones in those days, no modern tanks or aircraft, but still World War I, you know, you didn't get many breakthroughs, there weren't many collapses, but when they did happen, they were sudden.

Mark Galeotti (4:44)

They were. But again, I think that's because there is always this temptation to play the historical parallels game. And often that's exceedingly illustrative. In this case, I think it's more that there is this regular pendulum swing of warfare between the offence and the defence. And In World War I particularly, that was the age in which barbed wire, machine guns, rapid fire artillery and the like very much privileged the defence. But of course, only up to a point, and eventually exhausted military structures could and did collapse. But there was always that potential for manoeuvre warfare. In many ways, again, slightly caricaturing, but we are talking about generals who still remembered the cavalry era and therefore still thought that that was how wars were won, with that sudden dramatic slash forward of your dragoons. Now, in this case, what we're actually seeing is that even just the capacity of the Russians to be able to stage that kind of war has been degraded away. It's not just that the drones patrol this no man's land of killing zone, making it almost impossible to send armoured thrusts forward or even just large groups of soldiers. It's also the degree to which the Russians have had their armoured forces, which upon a time, the pride of their military burnt through to the degree that they don't even have them there. So, yes, it's a little bit like World War I, but more to the point, this is also a much more diffuse war. You know, World War I, the Eastern Front was very different, but on the Western Front there were these dense networks of trenches on both sides, these huge fields of barbed wire and large numbers of troops. Here it's actually a much more diffuse war. Very, very long front line and relatively few troops per kilometer or mile of frontage. So it's often actually a war of trying to bypass the other side and then spring some kind of a trap and accumulate enough troops to be able to move. It is something that is very different. And I think this is one of the key problems that Western militaries are having, is how to adapt to that. Yeah.

Podcast Host (6:44)

Anyone who's been following the war, reading about the battles, there are no major titanic battles, as there were, say, in the First World War happening now. When you brought up the cavalry from First World War and the belief in the cavalry charge and the dramatic breakthrough, I thought of Sir John French on the British side and how that did not work out. There's also this, you know, supposed Russian way of war where you just keep throwing wave after wave of infantry to their deaths, hoping that eventually enough people get through.

Mark Galeotti (7:13)

Yeah, I mean, that was always a bit of a myth, a bit of a sort of orientalizing, you know, Johnny Ivan, for whom human beings have no value and such like, there's some truth in it. But certainly this war, this notion of meat assaults largely hasn't really manifest itself. And when we think about precisely these kind of big set piece battles, they've almost invariably been around cities. They're about the whole business of trying to level a city. Whether it's Mariupol or whether it's Bakhmut. This is where the Real meat grinders have been fought. And it's quite striking at the moment that although cities remain the anchoring points of this war, the Russians are not looking for more meat grinders. They're looking to essentially be able to bypass and encircle cities at the moment, Pokrovsk being the sort of the primary objective, so that they don't have to try and fight that kind of set piece battle. So, you know, the Russians themselves, they realize that, yes, maybe their soldiers are considered more like human ammunition than we would find in a Western army, but even the Russians know they have to conserve their ammunition.

Podcast Host (8:17)

Let's talk about diplomacy now and the ongoing efforts, such as they are, to end the war. Vladimir Putin didn't say much for a while after the Trump Putin summit in Alaska, but he did make some remarks recently when he was in in Beijing meeting President Xi Jinping, among other world leaders. He had messages for Ukraine, he had messages for the United States, for the Europeans. What do you make of his remarks? Because it doesn't sound like, despite what he says, right. If you read between the lines, it doesn't sound like he's ready for peace.

Mark Galeotti (8:52)

He's certainly not signaling a particular sort of dovish propensity. The problem is, of course, that if one looks generally at Putin's style of negotiation, he tends to escalate in the end game, in that even if one looks at the escalation of air attacks on Ukrainian cities, they tend to come before pivotal political moments, because this is very much a style that essentially tries to negotiate from a position of not just strength, but extravagantly demonstrated strength. And my read is that from Putin's point of view, he's willing to entertain the possibility of a deal if it's a deal on his terms, it's very striking that very much he is at the view that, well, it's for the Ukrainians to come to me. I mean, even his suggestion that Zelenskyy should come to Moscow, so it's Ukrainians who should essentially be offering terms that he can accept or deny. Because when it comes down to it, he does believe that he's winning this war. And therefore, yes, he's aware that there are all sorts of problems looming, particularly about recession. I mean, it's almost impossible for the Russian economy to avoid sliding into recession by the end of this year. But at the same time, he knows that that's not a crucial constraint on his capacity to wage war and maintain his own power. So from his point of view, if he gets a deal, which is obviously it'll be an ugly deal from the Ukrainian's point of view that he can call a victory well and good. Conversely, if he doesn't, that's fine. He's perfectly happy to walk away from the process and continue fighting. Because I think one crucial thing that came out of Alaska, and it's interesting, something that I've heard from several people in Moscow who are connected to those circles, he concluded that he doesn't need to fear Trump.

Podcast Host (10:29)

No, he doesn't.

Mark Galeotti (10:29)

There had still been this idea that if Trump is truly alienated, that he could actually swing heavily in favor of Zelenskyy and provide all kinds of military support and the like. I think he's realized that worst case scenario is Trump no longer helps Putin. And so in some ways he feels liberated by that.

Podcast Host (10:48)

Yeah, I'm not sure sanctions would in the end make much of a difference, but I agree that President Trump is, it doesn't look like he's going to try them. Neither Trump nor his special envoy Wyckoff really know what they're doing here. What do you make of the Russian drones penetrating Polish and also apparently Romanian airspace?

Mark Galeotti (11:07)

I think the Romanian one was an accident. It was a Gharan strike drone. The very fact that it plowed into the ground away from anything else, I think suggests that it had either been mis targeted or more likely had its targeting systems scrambled by electronic warfare. This is one of the reasons why in the first part of the war, the Russians weren't really launching air attacks in Western Ukraine for the very reason that they wanted to avoid things going off course into NATO airspace. Poland, a very different matter. That many 19 drones. That's not an accident. That's not just inputting of accidentally mistaken targeting information or electronic warfare. Remember, these were not strike drones in the main. As near as we can tell, all or most of them were decoy or reconnaissance drones. And I think it was a combination of a test and a warning. A test just to see precisely how Europe would respond. But more to the point of warning, again, we come back to this point that at the moment the so called coalition of the willing, which is proving distinctly unwilling, is currently meant to be finalizing the security guarantees which is willing to offer Kyiv in the case of a peace. And that is the step at which Kyiv will decide whether or not to talk to Russia in any meaningful sense. At the moment, all eyes are on European conversations.

Podcast Host (12:21)

There's more to this than the fate of the Donbass. Correct? It's not as simple as Ukraine decides, okay, we're not going to ever get this territory backed militarily. The donbass is yours, Mr. Putin, and that's it. There's more to the end of the war than that part of eastern Ukraine.

Mark Galeotti (12:37)

Well, exactly. Look, from Russia's point of view, a lot of the debate about whether a deal can be struck revolves around, oh, can we trust Putin? Of course we can't trust Putin, but that's not the point. On the whole, you reach agreements with people whom you often can't trust. You need to build in safeguards. So what is to stop some kind of peace now just simply being a temporary armistice while Russia regroups? And that's where the security guarantees come in. And also let's be honest, from Kyiv's point of view, unless it feels it has proper security guarantees, it has no reason at all to talk to Putin. So this is about whether or not any kind of peace is a real lasting peace, however ugly. It is also a test of Europe's credibility. The Donald Trump approach has been more or less to say, I'm not interested in this war, I'll happily profit from it, please do come and buy American made kit to give to the Ukrainians. But I'm not going to spend a dollar and I'm certainly not going to exert my too much. So this is really a test of a still frankly adolescent Europe. It had infantilized itself so long by remaining underneath the American security umbrella and not taking its own security capacities at all seriously. So can it actually support Ukraine to the point where there can be some kind of a deal? And from Putin's point of view, he frankly wants to intimidate Europe. It's noteworthy that this comes at the same time as the ZAPAD military exercises in Belarus, which are pretty small. They're certainly not in any way a kind of a threat to NATO, but they're very much hyping things like this new experimental areshnik missile being involved and Putin himself saying that European troops in Ukraine without Russian agreement, Russian agreement which wouldn't be forthcoming, would be considered legitimate military targets. So it's very much this is Russia saying to Europe you want to support Ukraine. You think very carefully about how much skin you really have in the game because frankly we are willing to escalate this if you push us too far.

Podcast Host (14:33)

Exactly. If Moscow wants to have a veto over Ukraine's self defense in the future. Well, as you say, the Europeans, if they're going to go ahead with this and actually really guarantee Ukraine security, that's the credibility issue. The other side has to believe it will really happen. This takes us Back to, say, 2016, when Barack Obama gave that famous interview to the Atlantic when he said, russia knows we're not going go to war over Ukraine. So me beating my chest and making threats is not going to make a world of difference.

Kremlin Spokesman (15:07)

We're not going to go to war with Russia.

Mark Galeotti (15:09)

The Ukrainians don't want that.

Kremlin Spokesman (15:10)

We don't want that.

Podcast Host (15:11)

So my final question to you, Mark Galeotti. Can we say that we know what Putin's aims, his ultimate aims are here today? Have they changed over the past three and a half years? Does he still seek to dominate the whole of Ukraine?

Mark Galeotti (15:27)

Would he like to? Yes. But is he also rational enough an actor to appreciate that some things he's not going to get? I think that that's also the case. I mean, I think the honest answer is Putin is out for whatever he can get. At the point at which he feels he has to make a deal holding on to the territory he's taken, perhaps with that extra piece of Donetsk region, if he can persuade the Ukrainians to give it up, no NATO membership for Ukraine, I think that from his point of view is an absolute. And beyond that, whatever else he can get. So if he can, for example, see Ukraine's armed forces limited, I don't believe that could possibly be acceptable to the Ukrainians. But sure, he would like that. But I think again, it's this idea that he will push for as much as he can get, rather than that he has some fixed menu, and if you hit that magic menu, he'll make a deal, and if you don't, he won't. It's all a question of just how much pressure he feels himself under.

Podcast Host (16:21)

And let's hope in the meantime, the Ukrainians do not experience a Caporetto to our earlier remarks about breakthroughs in the First World War, the Italian defeat at Caporetto. But as you say, you don't expect something like that.

Mark Galeotti (16:34)

I don't. I don't. And that frankly counts as being as optimistic as I can bring myself to being at this current stage in the war.

Podcast Host (16:41)

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