← Ukraine: The Latest
Ukraine: The Latest
Missile barrage slams Ukraine & Putin bans recruitment of foreign soldiers to placate allies
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- [00:04]
David Knowles
The telegraph.
- [00:09]
Adeli Pirschmann Ponte
At Amica Insurance, we know it's not
- [00:12]
Rosina Sabour
just what's inside your home that matters, it's who you share it with. That's why we work even harder to protect it.
- [00:18]
Francis Durnley
Visit amica.com and get a quote.
- [00:21]
Rosina Sabour
Today.
- [00:26]
Dom Nichols
ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.
- [00:34]
Adeli Pirschmann Ponte
You may have heard something somewhere about the crisis of recycling and the problem
- [00:37]
Dom Nichols
of microplastics, but have you heard about how scientists are discovering very cool and
- [00:42]
Francis Durnley
creative solutions to fight this problem?
- [00:44]
David Knowles
There is so much fake news about everything.
- [00:47]
Adeli Pirschmann Ponte
I think that it is quite dangerous to talk about this, but microplastics are one of the biggest silent pollutions of all time and they are getting everywhere in the sea, in the soil, in the air, and already inside our bodies. That was scientist and self described bacteria trainer Patricia Aima Maldonado. Here, a special interview for our fellow Friday series with her to find out the fascinating scientific and technological solutions she's
- [01:14]
Dom Nichols
working on to combat the invasive problem of microplastics.
- [01:18]
Adeli Pirschmann Ponte
Listen only on TED Talks daily.
- [01:24]
Dom Nichols
Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Foreign.
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Francis Durnley
I'm Francis Dernley.
- [01:38]
Dom Nichols
I'm Dom Nichols.
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Francis Durnley
I'm Adeli Pirschmann Ponte and this is Ukraine. The latest today after a mass Russian aerial bombardment struck multiple regions across Ukraine. We report from Kyiv and eastern Ukraine on what it was like on the ground during the latest wave of drone and missile attacks. We then hear about Dom's visit to a Ukrainian HUR military intelligence base in Zaporizhzhia and examine reports that Putin has been forced to curb the recruitment of foreign fighters. We also discuss the battlefield kill ratio that could undermine Russia's war effort and new air defense systems being developed that claim the capability to intercept atomic warheads.
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Dom Nichols
Bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with victory.
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David Knowles
Russia does not want peace. If I'm president, I will have that
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Dom Nichols
war settled in one day, 24 hours. We are with you. Not just today or tomorrow, but for 100 years.
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Francis Durnley
Nobody's going to break us.
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Dom Nichols
We're strong.
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David Knowles
We're Ukrainians.
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Francis Durnley
It's Thursday the 26th of February, four years and two days since the full scale invasion began. And today I'm joined by my co host Dom Nichols in Dnipro in eastern Ukraine and Natalie Pojman Ponte in Kyiv. And here in the studio in London, the Telegraph's national security editor Rosina Sabour and Ukrainian journalist Svetlana Morinets. Just as a reminder, every episode is now available on our new YouTube channel ucrainethelatest. So if you want to see Dominadley in Ukraine maps and battlefield footage during the updates and our swanky new studio, do check out the link if you in the episode description now to the updates. Last night saw one of the heaviest bombardments Ukraine has suffered for some time. A mass overnight attack reportedly injuring at least 26 people. Miraculously, no deaths have been recorded yet. Russia again fought against critical infrastructure and ordinary residential buildings, President Zelensky said, adding that the attacks caused damage in eight oblasts. The numbers are almost four times the average per day this week. So 420 drones and 39 missiles among them 11 Iskander M ballistic missiles, 24 KH101 missiles, two Zircon anti ship hypersonic missiles and two KH69 cruise missiles. Damage has been reported across the country. In Odesa Oblast, 32,000 households were left without power after a substation was hit. Kyiv, the capital where Adali is, was also targeted and we'll hear from her very shortly. During the mass strike, Polish and allied aircraft patrolled Polish airspace. A Russian drone also violated Romanian airspace, prompting Romania to send F16s. It seems that railway infrastructure was the particular focus though in a bizarre mix up. A Ukrainian official has said that a children's railway is used for educational purposes in Kharkiv Oblast was also hit overnight with no casualties reported. Kharkiv, Krivi Ri and Zaporizhzhzhi were all struck especially badly by those drones and missiles that made it through in the latter. Eight people, including an eight year old boy, suffered injuries due to the attack. The Governor said that several floors of an apartment building caught fire with one person reportedly trapped inside. Now Dom is currently in the east of the country in one of the areas that was targeted. So let's hear from him Now. Dom, you may not want to say where you are, but what was your experience?
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Dom Nichols
Yeah, that's right Francis. We can actually say where Jack and I are at the moment because by the time this comes out we will be many, many miles away. So we're currently in Dnipro, been here for a couple of days. We're heading off in about half an hour's time. Yeah, there were attacks across the oblast here last night. I mean last night There was what, four, 420 drones fired across the country. 29 or 39, 39 missiles. I think the air alert alarms went off here. They went off twice in the evening only for sort of 40 minutes each and that was kind of okay. And then they went off again at quarter past 1 till 7am which was a bit of a pain. So down in the shelter in the hotel is all perfectly fine, perfectly comfortable. Well, it's all right. You're sitting on a kind of office chair trying to get some scratchy sleep, but yeah, that's, that's right. I didn't hear any incoming or any, any outgoing from here in the, in the city center, you know, so we got away with it quite lightly with just a bad night's sleep. But you know, many other people having it, having it a lot worse than us, but no, we've been here for a couple of days now speaking to, to a number of people.
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Francis Durnley
Can you tell us a bit about what you've been up to? Dom, you gave a trail that you were on a mission where you weren't sure whether you'd be able to record anything, but it sounds like you had a little bit more luck when we caught up last night.
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Dom Nichols
Yeah, so we, we went down to Zaporizhzhia, which is the city of z Parisia, about 50 odd K's south of here. That's much closer to the contact line or zero line, whatever, whatever you want to call it. They were. Well, as we then discovered, we went to the operations room of one of the HER units down there, the military intelligence of Ukraine. So they showed us where we were, where the nearest Russians were, and it was about, well, it was less than 20 kilometers, so you know, quite close. It was very foggy, so they said there wouldn't be drones. There might be drones on a clear day that might possibly have been able to see that far into Zaporizhzhia. Whether or not they could do anything about it, debatable. But there weren't, weren't expected to be drones up yesterday, but no. So we spent the day with the HUA in their operations room and they were pretty open about what we could film. We couldn't film their, their live drone feed. They had dozens of drone feeds from, from their cell, their own units and neighboring units to either side. So we could see the whole sort of battle picture for this part of, of the front. And they were able to show us using their Delta of Command and control system. That's almost like an operating system, like Google for the military. So we were able to dial in and see what had been happening, well, quite how many Russians they'd killed, to be perfectly blunt about it. So in the morning that we spent with them, they killed 13 Russians. And they could show us exactly where, when. And this is all, all recorded. I, I don't say that to Gloater in any way or make light of it, but I say that because when we report the casualty figures, literally they can see they are counting each person that they are attacking with, mainly with drones. And therefore the numbers, I think are pretty accurate. But we spent the day with them. I was very surprised to see quite how small the numbers were, the number of Russians and this idea that they're holding ground just by having a presence. I mean, it's really not. It's ones or twos or fives in a position. And if you drew a line sort of joining up all those people. Yeah. And then called that the front line and colored it all in red. Yeah, it looks like they've taken a huge amount of ground, but that's not the reality on the ground. This is, this is a small number of people basically just trying to hide from all the drones. So it just, it gives the lie to this idea that there's. They've taken a huge amount of space. It also, we were talking in terms of the, the Starlink switch off and telegram switch off, but Starlink is the more important. These counter attacks that we've been talking about, they do seem to be Ukraine taking back land that had had a couple of Russians on it that then not been able to communicate with their headquarters because of Starlink, and they were easily sort of rolled up by Ukraine. So I think these things have been a series of small counter attacks geographically very close to each other. But I don't think this is some sort of vast overall counter offensive. I don't think Ukraine has tried to take advantage of the relative success of those counterattacks in order to push it into a counter offensive. So I think that activity is carrying on, but I don't think it's anything wider than localized counter attacks. A lot of the people we spoke to there were saying that they all agreed that, yeah, the Starlink switch off has had an effect, but the Russia is adapting. So they're trying to build WI FI bridges, basically like hotspots, as we would do with our phone. They're trying to do the same sort of thing by reintroducing, literally rebuilding infrastructure, but it's not as good technical as Starlink. And also they say, so where Starlink can work through a little bit of COVID So it wants to see the sky, it wants to see the satellite, but it can, it can handle a little bit of foliage, it will still get the signal through. They were saying that the, the Russian equivalent, it can't put up with, with much at all. It's got to see a clear sky fine if you're out in the open, but you don't really want to be out in the open. It's not good at all if you're in, in woods or in a built up area or an urban smashed up area at all. So, so Russians are trying to adapt, but they just haven't got the, the technical means to match Starlink at the moment.
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Francis Durnley
And anything else that struck you, Dom, or do you want to give a little teaser before you go of what you're going to be up to next?
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Dom Nichols
Well, yeah, I mean there's loads. It's very interesting. They were saying they were listening in partly because of Starling and Telegram, but for other reasons as well. Russia's gone back to just sort of direct voice radio comms which they can hear and they can speak the same language, many of them. So, so the Ukrainians at the hor were saying that they're literally just listening in to Russian commanders trying to speak in code. So they have different words that mean different things, but they say, so that works for a few hours or maybe a couple of days, but then they can quite quickly, the Ukrainians can quite quickly from the context and looking at what happens on the ground, they can work out what these code words mean. So then suddenly the Russians are talking in clear again and the Ukrainians can hear everything and decipher everything they're saying. So there's this, this cat and mouse going on at the moment with clunky sort of code words and workarounds. And of course, if you think about the difficulty of, well, how do you tell, how do you tell the people in those forward positions that the code word for send me more artillery or send me more ammunition or what have you is the code word is now this. How do you get that to them when it's being overtaken by the Ukrainians being able to listen in and work out where they are. So, and that's one of the reasons why the line, the lines aren't going anywhere because it's just so difficult. But they're all saying that the next big leap in technology, the next big opportunity for innovation is in unattended ground vehicles, so ground drones. That's where we should be looking to see what, what's going to come next. And in particular in terms of the logistic resupply, so carrying ammunition, water, food, medical supplies forward and casualties back, we've Seen these wagons which, you know, basically look like coffins on wheels, but they can get casualties back with these things. You have many, many kilometers away. Air drones have to fly, so they can't take a huge amount of weight. They can't really, unless it's the bigger ones. Can't really take a Starlink. Well, the ground drones can because they can carry more weight. So they've mostly all got that kind of connectivity, plus some other backup comms such that you don't need fiber optic. And fiber optics wouldn't really work on the ground for various other reasons as well. So pretty assured comms to these ground vehicles and they go blooming fast. I didn't realize that the fiber optic cable is not so much the signal going down the cable, but the sort of strength of the signal itself. They are limited to flying at about 30 knots, so about 25 miles an hour, basically. Beyond that, the fiber optic cable just, it doesn't so much snap, but it comes out the back so quickly. It's sort of unspooling that it just kind of leads it to snagging that way. So aerial drones, first person view, fiber optic controlled drones are quite slow. Ground drones, they said they can get up to 50 or 60 kilometers an hour. I'm guessing they meant without the casualty in the back. But to get forward and get to the position, I mean, that's just, just amazing, you know, like I said, I wouldn't want to be riding on one of those things going to 50ks down a pothole road. And then this morning we met our old friend Lutenko. You interviewed him, Francis. Jiggers Paw. So Jiggers Paw, Jigger was his dog, or is his dog. Jiggers Bor is not an animal charity. It's a charity raising funds for equipment for the armed forces of Ukraine. Been very successful. Raised about US$5 million, he said, and it's been so successful, he's basically handed off the day to day running of that. And he's for many years now been full time member of the armed forces of Ukraine. He's a drone pilot, so we spoke about that a lot. Got his views on aerial drones, ground drones. He's got. Sorry, I've just, I do apologize for burping. I've just had to net a boiling hot pint of chicken noodle soup, so. So, yeah, I apologize. I apologize for.
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Francis Durnley
It does look pretty cold there, to be fair.
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Dom Nichols
Well, hence I've got a pint of soup in my tummy. But it's not very telegraphed to BURP ON CAMERA so I do, I do apologize. Anyway, Dimko was terrific and it was very interesting. He was talking about the view from society and there's, there's emerging ideas emerging comment, emerging chat, if you like, about how post war and whatever that looks like. It's a discussion point to say, should people be allowed to stand for elected office, MPs and other officials if they haven't served in some capacity, not always in the army, but haven't served their country somehow in this war? There's a view, he said, mainly from, from those that have served, that said, well, if you're not, if you've not dug out your country in this moment of exercise, existential crisis, why do you have the right to stand for elected office afterwards? Controversial opinion for some, but interesting. I think we'll hear that around the bazaars and it's worth us sort of asking a few people that. And I asked him about mobilization. He was saying more people should be doing more, and he says it doesn't mean that we have to lower the mobilization age. He says there's enough people age 25 and above that can help here. And he said, and we're not saying everybody has to go and join the infantry. He said there's, there's many, many other areas of work, not just drones, but things like vehicle mechanics, the back office staff, if you like. Everyone's helping, says everyone's leaning into this. Every, every effort is worth it. So there are many, many ways that people can serve their country. And he says he thinks there will be a reckoning afterwards for those that did step up in the country's hour of need and those that found reasons, many of which will be entirely legitimate. But he says there will certainly be a conversation afterwards about who did what when, how they feel about their relationship with the state afterwards. So fascinating stuff. As I say, we're off very soon elsewhere around the country, which we will talk about at some point in the future.
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Francis Durnley
Thanks very much, Dom. Now, we were contemplating yesterday on the podcast why it was Kyiv had not been targeted for several days. Was it because Russia wanted to give a false impression to the foreign dignitaries in the city? We pondered, well, quite possibly, because Kyiv had has come under very extensive bombardment again overnight for the first time for several days. Let's hear now from ADLI for more adli what happened?
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Adeli Pirschmann Ponte
Hi, Francis. Hi, London. Yes, I think we jinxed it yesterday, Francis, talking about how quiet the anniversary had been. I actually spoke to a few friends later that day and they confirmed that whenever there were foreign Dignitaries in town. It was very, very common for the city to be very quiet. No air alerts, no air raids, just everything looking very, very normal in the Ukrainian capital. But this was not to last because a friend of mine texted me early in the evening telling me that telegram channels were reporting that it was very predictable there would be a massive air raid overnight. So took that in, texted back, okay, well when they say this, how accurate are these predictions? What's the likelihood of this actually happening? And he replied, nine out of ten. Right. Gearing up for a loud night indeed. And it did not miss. Around 3:30 in the morning, my phone rang with the usual sound of the air alert. I went down to the shelter of the hotel and I've got to say my situation is a lot cozier and comfier than that of Ukrainians across the city and across the country. I've got access to a shelter in the building where I'm staying. It is a shelter that is equipped with water, that has mattresses and duvets and pillows. It is very comfy. It's nothing like what people live through night after night here. But as usual started going through the telegram channels trying to understand what was coming towards us. There was a cluster of drones arriving towards the capital, shared on maps, on telegram. I texted my friend again asking if he had any news, if he'd heard anything else. He said they were indeed threats of ballistic missiles. He also texted me photographs of his dog because what are you gonna do when you know, it's 3:30 or 4 in the morning and you've got nothing better to do than to wait for the end of the air raid? So lovely Chihuahua. Then my friend said he had heard the sound of shaheds above his building and also technical vocabulary here, a whoosh boom sound thing which he said was typical of missiles as far as I'm concerned. The shelter that I was staying in was incredibly insulated. It is deep inside the hotel. There are several walls between the shelter and the outside, so usually we barely hear anything. It's very, very rare. But that time I could hear some one off shooty things as I've described it to my friend, and also some which were very regular, very rhythmical, which I imagine were air defense. And I tried to explain to it to my friend over text and he said yes, indeed, that would be air defense. So some faint sounds in the background, but honestly it was hard to really identify anything because it could have been someone rummaging in a nearby room dragging furniture. It was very faint to me, except for the regularity of the sound, which was obviously very to be typical of air defense. The air alert lasted I think until 5 or 5:30 in the morning. I stayed in the shelter for the rest of the night. In the morning the news was reporting that the drones and the missiles had hit several civilian houses across the capital as well as a thermal substation, that the capital had been hit by Zircon missiles, which are anti ship missiles that have been adapted for ground attack as well as missiles that were being carried by Russian aircrafts, I think TU 95 and TU 165. So quite a bit of damage around the city this morning dealt with by the emergency services quite quickly. And we'll have to see how the hit on the thermal substation impacts civilians across the city and how the energy crisis continues to unfold. Hopefully tonight will be slightly quieter. Talk to you soon. Bye bye.
- [20:09]
Francis Durnley
Let's turn to the other headlines now. Then President Zelensky held a phone call with President Trump yesterday ahead of those planned talks we talked about in yesterday's episode with senior officials from both countries in Geneva. Zelensky confirmed the call in a social media post, saying that Trump's representatives, including US Special envoy Steve Witkoff and adviser Jared Kushner, also participated. Our teams are working hard right now, he said, and I thank them for all of their efforts and such involvement in the negotiations in the work to end this war. Now, according to sources cited by Axios, the conversation between the two leaders was friendly and positive, their words. Zelenskyy said, though, that he hoped to end the war this year, with Trump insisting it should end this month. One significant fly in the ointment, however, as the Telegraph reports this week, are the plans to deploy peacekeeping troops on the ground in Ukraine will require Putin's approval. Several allies have conceded a growing number of members of the so called coalition of the willing have privately admitted that their contributions to the mission will depend on the permission from the Russian president. The diplomatic and defence insiders warned that this meant that the Anglo French plan that we've talked about so often on the podcast to uphold any ceasef could be thrown into disarray at the Kremlin's whim. This feels like, if true, a significant step backwards from when leaders were saying a few months ago that they would not require any of Putin's permissions to move troops into Ukraine in the event of some kind of ceasefire or peace deal, that they would act in Europe's defensive interests. So if true, as I say, that would be a significant development indeed. And one that we'll need to return to now. In more positive news, four Ukrainian defence companies have signed partnership agreements with companies from Denmark, Finland and Latvia under the Build with Ukraine joint production Initiative. That's coming also from the president's office, Zelenskyy said, we are expanding joint production of drones to defend against Russian attacks today and to defend and deter into the future. Now, we understand the total value of this agreement is about $950 million, a sizable amount indeed. The is a platform supporting Ukraine's leading private defence manufacturers. And the agreement will include cooperation, we understand, in the production of aerial and ground drones, as well as preparations to scale up products on the European market. Speaking of drones, the Telegraph's Brussels correspondent and podcast regular Joe Barnes has written a long read into the drone arms race over the entire course of the conflict, complete with diagrams and footage of them in action. In that, he talks about how AI targeting capabilities have improved exponentially in recent months and more about how those that are operating with fiber optic cables stretching sometimes as much as 20 miles are also changing the battlefield dynamics in the way that Dom was referring to earlier on. We'll link to that piece in the show notes. Now just a couple more stories before a brief update on the situation on the front lines. The Telegraph's Africa correspondent Ben Farmer has been looking more into the latest developments relating to recruitment of Africa mercenaries by Russia. Now, Dom was speaking about this in the context of Kenya. Last week there was a row that erupted over this, and it seems that pressure has been put on Russia by even more countries that have been working with it on various different aspects, whether it be economic or political, over the last few years, as we've been reporting essentially now, it seems Moscow has had to ban the recruitment of foreign mercenaries from dozens of countries, many of them in Africa, after those countries expressed anger about how their citizens were being duped into fighting in Ukraine. So authorities have issued a stop list to military recruiters, banning citizens from as many as 43 countries from enlisting, including China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Cuba, Iran and Venezuela, as well as many many African countries. So for more details on that story, do also check that out in the show notes. Finally, Hungary is continuing to escalate its rhetoric around the war, with Prime Minister Viktor Orban now claiming it will deploy soldiers and equipment to protect its key energy infrastructure from what he describes as a potential Ukrainian threat. I see that Ukraine is preparing further actions aimed at disrupting the operation of Hungary's energy system, he said. I've ordered the strengthening of protection for all critical energy Infrastructure. Now, for more on this saga, I recommend documentaries we've got coming down the road on this over the next few weeks and also listening back to some of the previous episodes. We've been talking quite a lot about the row that's erupted between Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine over the Druzba pipeline in particular. But really this all boils down to the Hungarian election. Essentially, Viktor Orban is hoping the war in Ukraine will be what gets him re elected in April. And just lastly, to the battlefield. Very little movements to report over the past 24 hours, though. There are some unconfirmed claims that Russian forces have seized a series of settlements northeast of Kharkiv City, including Prilipka and Vilka. Now, that's a sector that's always active, but nonetheless, there hasn't really been any major movement around there for some time. That's exactly the area where Dom and myself were back in. Oh, it would have been a couple of years ago now. So it's always interesting monitoring how much or how little movement there is in that area. It's usually a good sign of what's going on in that aspect of the front. Now, regarding the counter pushes Dom referenced earlier in the south of the country, there are still reports of Ukrainian progress there southeast of Oleksandrivka, as the ISW report, a spokesperson of a Ukrainian brigade said that the moral and psychological state of Russian forces in the area is low. Now, of course, we will continue to monitor the situation there very closely, but let's bring in Rosina here. We've got a couple of stories that we're going to look at together, Rosina, that we've been reporting on here at the Telegraph for the past few days. The first is around this kill ratio that's been talked about quite recently. The idea that at what point is Russia losing more men, as it were, than it's able to recruit? And that would have potentially profound ramifications further down the road. And in this article you're going to talk about, there's a line that is Kyiv's army is eliminating 25 Russians for each comrade they lose. That is an extraordinary statistic. But tell us more about this.
- [27:05]
Rosina Sabour
Yeah, and we know discussion around the Russian replacement rate has been quite contested, but we're getting a lot of briefings in the last few weeks that suggest. And the figures that we've obtained suggest that the replacement rate is 10,000, which is a. An astonishing figure, very significant. And it does start to feel as though something is shifting. And this could be the year where we see Putin maybe slightly change his calculus. And we've talked in the intro there about the recruitment issues that Putin and the Russian army are facing. They tried enlisting North Koreans, that didn't go so well. Now they are stepping away from mercenary groups in Africa. What do they do next once this starts to encroach into the more European cities within Russia, once the middle classes are starting to be asked to send troops to the front? Does that change the calculus on the domestic front for Vladimir Putin?
- [28:10]
Francis Durnley
Absolutely. It is a key, key issue at this moment of the war. And it does feel like if this threshold has been crossed, that at a certain point it will begin to bite politically. But as you say, it is contested. So it's important that. I think we caveat that now in this article as well. There's a fantastic image graph, I don't know how one would describe it really, of the average daily rates of advance. And I'm just plucking out some of the figures here. The average 2024-2026, Chasif Yar, 15 meters for Russian forces in that entire period, a day, 15 metres a day. Whereas if you compare that at the bottom with 2022 and Ukraine's counteroffensive around Kharkiv, it was 7.4km a day. Just gives you a flavor of how small the progress is for Russian soldiers at the moment. But were there any other numbers that jumped out at you there?
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Rosina Sabour
I think it's more what this tells us about the trajectory of this war. And so often Putin has been able to control the narrative and frame this special operation, as he calls it, as an inevitable outcome. And actually, when we take a look at figures like that, you think, you know, that there is no certainty in this war at the current rate that we're looking at these figures that we're getting, Russia cannot sustain the progress that it has made so far. So where does it go from here?
- [29:40]
Francis Durnley
And looking at some of the historic examples also in this graph, Battle of the Somme, 80 meters. An average per day. So much, much higher. Even, famously, the Battle of the Somme was considerably higher daily rate, if measuring the whole scope of the battle. Another one from World War I, Belleau Wood, 1918. 410 metres per day. Now, these are famously static battles, right? So it just gives you a sense of just quite how fixed things are. But for more on that, do check out the article. Now, there's another story as well that we're going to talk about, Rosina, which is another theme that we've talked about. On the podcast over the years relating to Russia's air defenses and what exactly it is capable of in the worst case scenarios and how that impacts their calculations, there have been some developments on this.
- [30:25]
Rosina Sabour
Yeah, and at a time of a lot of doom laden forecasts and assessments, this report by Rusi actually in particular stands out as quite striking and will no doubt be causing some alarm in the Emirates. So this report suggests that Russia could soon have enough air defenses to intercept Britain's Trident nuclear missiles and also France's nuclear capabilities. And that's because of improvements to Moscow's surface to air systems, which it's anticipated will soon be able to call into question Britain's strike rate and for that matter, France's. Part of the reason for that is that Britain and France just have too small a nuclear arsenal. So while the US has enough missiles to saturate any air defense system, Europe's ability to overwhelm an air defense system is much, much smaller. So as an example, the report's authors point to the 2024 attacks by Iran on Israel. So in that scenario, Israel and the US intercepted 90% of two salvos by Tehran of around 200 ballistic missiles. The report states that for reference, the UK's SSBNs, that's the ballistic missile submarines, each carry a maximum of 16 SLBMs. So if Russia can replicate the level of success that we saw by the US and Israel, that really calls into question Britain's ability to overwhelm Russian defense systems. So just to state the blindingly obvious here, that would totally undercut the efficacy of Britain's nuclear deterrence in the event of a conflict.
- [31:59]
Francis Durnley
Yeah, and it's given the ongoing conversations about even when you take the atomic weapons out and speak only about the vulnerabilities Britain has from conventional Russian ballistic missiles, this will be even more concerning. It does feel like this is the next big defence debate is around European countries more widely ability to swat down any ballistic missiles out of the sky because in the way that of course Ukraine has been compelled to do for years now, we're just nowhere near that, are we?
- [32:27]
Rosina Sabour
No. And what are the implications of that? So Europe has always assumed that, that Washington would rally to our defence. The mood music out of D.C. at the moment suggests that's very much called into question. You know, I've spent the best part of the last decade in D.C. and returning to London, it is quite striking to see the difference in attitude, the level of alarm here versus concern in the US around Russian capabilities and the prospect of an attack. And it really is that the distance of an ocean just totally changes the attitude there.
- [33:06]
Francis Durnley
You only recently came back. Was it still very much that the Pacific was the focus in defence conversations?
- [33:12]
Rosina Sabour
Yes, the conversation on defence preparedness is all about China at the moment. The US Just simply doesn't see this as an imminent threat in the way that we do, for obvious reasons. But what is striking is the way that we're hearing the administration talk about defending Europe and the language coming out of the White House at the moment. And you know, a lot of this is about rhetoric, right? I mean, the whole point of a nuclear arsenal is about deterrence. And so if the language coming out of the US Isn't signaling that that capability will be available to its allies, what signal does that send to Moscow and what deterrence does that have?
- [33:58]
Francis Durnley
Well, thanks very much, Rosina. We'll come back to you for some final thoughts shortly, but delighted to bring back in. It's been a few weeks for Atlanta since you've been on the podcast and now obviously the first time on video. So thank you very much for coming in today. Now, we were talking about statistics in terms of forces advancing a few minutes ago, but there have also been some, well, more troubling statistics that have been released literally in the last couple of hours. Could you tell us about that?
- [34:21]
David Knowles
Yes. If you talk about the Ukrainian losses, some hours ago it was was revealed that there are more than 90,000 Ukrainians considered missing. It is including soldiers and civilians. And if we add to that amount 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers that Volodymyr Zelensky said are officially considered dead, it's quite a striking number of the loss Ukraine bears for this war.
- [34:46]
Francis Durnley
So this would be a considerably higher figure than we've seen officially cited anywhere else. And do we think that this is close to being accurate? Svetlarn I mean, these are official figures, but do we think that the reality could be even higher than this?
- [35:02]
David Knowles
I think usually the official figures say much lower numbers than in reality they are. They wouldn't be revealing them until after the war ends because I don't think it would help the Ukrainian morale.
- [35:13]
Francis Durnley
Well, we certainly need to be looking more into this story because as you say, 55,000 has been the number that President Zelenskyy's been giving for quite some time Now. With these 90,000 missing added to that, it does change a lot of calculations. But I think it won't come as a shock given that we haven't had many statistics come out of Kyiv, that it is considerably higher. And I wouldn't Be surprised, as you say, Svetlana, that the real figure is considerably higher than this. But for obvious reasons, we just don't know. Now a couple more stories that I wanted to talk about. First of all, this has been a major one that we've been talking about on the podcast now for about the past week or so. And it relates to Telegram in Russia. And this is all a little bit complicated because I know that for a lot of people in Britain and in Europe, they're not using Telegram very much. This is an alien concept. I mean, for some people I know even WhatsApp is an alien concept. So when it gets even more into the weeds of these kind of social media platforms, it can become rather confusing. But Telegram really matters. This is a key source of communication in Russia and it seems that the Kremlin is serious about trying to stamp this out. And what are your thoughts on this?
- [36:22]
David Knowles
First, I would add that when I just came to the UK, for me Twitter was something an alien social media. I was like, what is that? Because in Ukraine and in Russia Telegram is the most popular social messenger. Because in Ukraine, in Russia Telegram is the most popular messenger app. And that's why it's quite strange to see the Kremlin rushing to ban it. Especially considering that hundreds of pro Kremlin military bloggers are using Telegram for the propaganda and also for like, like calling people to join their special military operation as they call it, and to fight for whatever they say they want to fight for in Ukraine. Of course there are some bloggers on Telegram that oppose the war against Ukraine, but the Kremlin has other ways to get rid of them by threats or imprisoning them or just banning them, not the whole messaging app. And there have been reports that the deadline for that is 1st of April, which is rather soon. I've been thinking what could be the reason for that and I would say there are several. First is the upcoming election to the Russia State Duma in September.
- [37:29]
Francis Durnley
Election in inverted commas.
- [37:31]
David Knowles
Yes, of course we know that they will be rigged. But I think we shouldn't underestimate the fear Vladimir Putin has for any possible protests that could happen that could threaten his regime. Especially considering large scale protests in Iran and what happened to Maduro. So he doesn't feel so confident right now, especially after not achieving those results in Ukraine, that he hoped for that victory that he was talking about. I think when we imagine those numbers that Russians drove in the end of the so called elections, maybe he thinks that when Russians see that only 10% voted for the Reunited Russia party, but they drew 98%. Maybe they will think, okay, we are upset of it. I still don't believe of the clones upcoming revolution in Russia, but I think Putin is quite paranoid about that. Another reason I think is a possibility of him announcing the general mobilization, as we mentioned, that the numbers of people Russia recruits to the army and of their losses are not compensating each other anymore. And even as the Russian regional governments, they are paying over £40,000 a year for the Russian soldier, for signing the contract and for being the first year at the front. And also in addition to all the benefits that their families receive or in case they are dead, it doesn't work anymore. That's why I think that if Putin wants to change the battlefield situation and to improve his negotiation position or to see any kind of breakthrough, he will need to conscript more people. That's why it's logical that he could consider announcing it despite the political risks.
- [39:14]
Francis Durnley
It could bring a potentially massive story, I mean, and even bigger being as you say, that if we do enter the realm of a mass mobilization in Russia, again, that would have tremendous ramifications on the domestic situation and the economic situation for Putin. Indeed, there are some who calculate that he will do almost anything to avoid doing that again because of the disruption that it will cause. And that is why the Ukrainian calculation has been that if they can get past that threshold, then maybe it will lead to a de escalation of the war rather than a ramping up because he would feel that he has no choice but to avoid mass mobilization. So it's interesting that it's possible that that is being considered. Do you think that Ukraine thinks that this is something that is likely to happen?
- [40:05]
David Knowles
I think the idea at the beginning was that Putin won't have the guy cuts to announce the general mobilization. But I have believed for quite a long time that for Putin this war is just an entertainment. And as last year he said that when nothing is happening, we are getting bored. For him, changing the current battlefield situation and showing that major breakthrough or even starting the war somewhere else, it's something he would consider because I don't see him signing a peace agreement with Ukraine and then seeing all those thousands of soldiers coming back to Russia. I saw some statistics of the Russian soldiers when they come back. They murdered members of their families or random people in the street. They rape women. There have been like more than 8,000 cases officially prosecuted since 2022. And of course, if those thousands of people come back, this number will skyrocket
- [41:01]
Francis Durnley
and just very briefly before we move on to our next topic. If Telegram were banned, what other platforms are already there that are likely to see mass migrations to them? In Russia?
- [41:12]
David Knowles
The problem is that most of the platforms have already been banned, including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. There is the state program called Max. But I don't see Russians just switching to Kremlin controlled social media up. I think that the Russians will try to use VPN as they have been doing during these years, but the problem here that the Kremlin has been trying to target VPN recently as well.
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- [42:51]
Francis Durnley
Thank you. Now, before we go to our final thoughts, I just wanted to ask you about a major story that's been reported in Ukraine very extensively. We were planning to cover it in detail this week week with you. So I'm glad that we can now do so. And this is around the remarks of the current ambassador from Ukraine to London, former Commander in Chief Valeri Zaluzhny. He gave an interview where he said some pretty strong remarks around the counteroffensive and his memories of that time. But this has been really picked up in Ukrainian media.
- [43:19]
David Knowles
To be honest, I'm surprised that he decided right now to criticize Zelensky and talk about the unsuccessful counteroffensive 2023 when Ukrainian team is actually right in the middle of the negotiations with the US and Russia. And he has been Quite restrained during this year, since Zelenskyy sent him to the UK as an ambassador. And he didn't comment anything on political issues in Ukraine and his relationship with Zelenskyy. And suddenly he decided it is a time to begin. He blamed Volodymyr zelenskyy for the 2023 counteroffensive that was unsuccessful. And he said that instead of following the init, ordering large amount of forces in that direction to go towards the sea, towards Melitopol, Zelenskyy chose to disperse the forces along the front line and that was the reason why Ukraine couldn't succeed. Of course, there is some truth to that, but I would say the main problem of that controversy was that Russians knew months in advance that that was going to happen. And every Ukrainian official or those in high military ranks have been promoted that counteroffensive for weeks and telling on TV and on the official meetings that is going to happen. So Russians knew the directions, they were prepared. So there is more to it. And not only is Zelensky to blame, Zelenskyy's reaction to Zaluzhny's comments have been quite calm. He said, like, we are a free country, he can comment what he wants about me, but he said it is not the right time to do it because. Because it won't help to unite Ukraine and won't help its cause. It was a day that marked the beginning of the launch of the political career for Zaluzhny.
- [45:06]
Francis Durnley
So you think that this was the firing salvo of his presidential bid?
- [45:10]
David Knowles
Yes, I mean, he has been gathering his team quite for a while, so I think we'll see more of those kind of comments.
- [45:17]
Francis Durnley
Well, I think the counteroffensive, of course, is going to be one of the most discussed aspects of this war. It already is. But when the war ends, I mean, my, My memories of that time are obviously complicated because of the nature of the reporting. You have to listen back to what we were saying. But I think an overriding feeling was, as you say, that the Ukrainians were under intense pressure to launch the counteroffensive. There was a real feeling from its Western allies that you've got to push, you've got to seize the momentum and you've got to have a great success that will then force Russia to the table. And one has to wonder, given what did happen and the amount of preparation and the mobility, for Russia to be able to dig in as a consequence of that buildup and that political forewarning, as you say, whether that actually had very harmful impacts for Ukraine. It took the wind out of their military sales perhaps as much as a year, maybe longer. I mean, one could even argue that in terms of its offensive capabilities, the Ukrainian military has never recovered. So it does feel like that's one for future historians to solve. Although, as I say, I think that it will be an open discussion for
- [46:19]
David Knowles
a very long time when elections come and IV Zelenskyy decided, decides to run, he is going to be blamed for every failure Ukraine had in these four years of this full scale war. So he will be receiving hits from his every opponent on that.
- [46:32]
Francis Durnley
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you very much, Svetlana, as always, for your insights. Let's go to our final thoughts now then, Rosina, where would you like to leave listeners today?
- [46:40]
Rosina Sabour
I think it'd be nice to end with a sense of optimism amid so much bleak news in the coverage of this conflict. I was in in Munich for the security conference a couple of weeks ago and actually people who were meeting with Zelensky said he looks tired, but he is in a stronger position than we've seen him for months. We've been talking about the political situation, but actually he feels in a very strong situation when it comes to negotiating a peace deal. He knows he cannot take back a bad deal for a referendum. We've talked about the political following of some of the generals, but the ambassador here in London is not the only former general with a strong political following. So there are people around Zelenskyy who are a lot more hardline than he is. And the sense among the coalition of the willing is that he is in a stronger place than he has been for a long time, despite what we're hearing from Washington at the moment. When you speak to people who are working very closely with the Ukrainians on this behind the scenes, they say we touched on this briefly, but the narrative here is so important and for too long they say Putin has been able to control the narrative. And we've pulled out some of the figures that show that. Actually all of the things that he has said about this war in terms of it being an inevitable outcome, about Russia having the upper hand at all times, that just doesn't hold true anymore. What a lot of the intelligence community in Europe would like to see is more focus on the pressure that Russia is coming under economically, politically, Putin at home. And they really think that that will make a difference, actually. And we know that he does think through these things and this sort of focus on it does potentially have an impact on how he considers the next few months.
- [48:44]
Francis Durnley
Well, thank you very much for saying that, because that's going to be one of the themes of tomorrow's episode. So there you go. If you're interested in that subject, as we all are, do check that out. As our guest, where would you like to leave listeners today?
- [48:57]
David Knowles
I would like to say something optimistic too.
- [48:59]
Francis Durnley
Wow, there we go.
- [49:01]
Adeli Pirschmann Ponte
Strange.
- [49:01]
David Knowles
First time.
- [49:02]
Francis Durnley
Yes, exactly.
- [49:04]
David Knowles
I think that no matter how this war ends in the coming months or hopefully less than a year, no matter what the final deal is, how is like Ukraine is split by that line and Russia keeps occupied territories, I think in the end this war will end completely by Russian troops withdrawing from Ukraine. And I'm convinced of that because once Putin dies and if Russia wants to be a proper, prosperous, democratic country and they want to restore their relationship with Europe and the whole world, if they want to choose a different path for their children, they will have to give back what they took from Ukraine. And I really, really believe that there are high chances of that happening. So even if in the coming years will be very difficult for Ukraine to take those losses, human losses, the land losses, even if they are not officially recognized, I think the future will bring some justice to Ukraine.
- [50:09]
Francis Durnley
Thank you both very much for your time. Ukraine the Latest is an original podcast from the Telegraph created by David Knowles. Every episode featuring us in the studio maps and battlefield footage is now available to watch on our YouTube channel. Subscribe@www.YouTube.com CrainTheLatest. There's a link in the description. You can also sign up to the Ukraine the Latest newsletter. Each week we answer your questions, provide recommended reading and give exclusive analysis and behind the scenes insights plus diagrams of the front lines and weaponry to complement our reporting. It's free for every everyone including non subscribers. You can find the link to sign up in the episode description. If you appreciate our work, please consider following Ukraine the latest on your preferred podcast app and leave us a review as it helps others find the show. Please also share it with those who may not be aware we exist. You can also get in touch directly to ask questions or give comments by emailing ukrainepodelegraph.co.uk we continue to read read every message. You can also contact us directly on X. You'll find our handles in the description. As ever, we're especially interested to hear where you're listening from around the world. And finally, to support our work and stay on top of all of our Ukraine news, analysis and dispatches from the ground, please subscribe to the Telegraph. You can get one month for free, then two months for just one pound at www.telegraph.co.uk. ukraine the latest Ukraine the Latest was Today, produced by Phil Atkins. Executive producers are Francis Durnley, Louisa Wells and David Knowles.
- [51:54]
David Knowles
My name is David Knowles.
- [51:55]
Dom Nichols
Thank you all for listening.
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Francis Durnley
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