The Battle for Bakhmut continues & inside Poland's military expansion| Ukraine: The Latest | Podcast

I'm David Knowles and I'm Ukraine. Today we look at recent reports from Bakmut and update the

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news on the Pentagon leaks and our colleague Stephen Edgington interviews key members of the Polish

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and politicians to understand the rapid Polish rearmament that bravery requires. through the most unimaginable difficulties to finally reward you with a horrible and barbaric victory Vladimir Putin's adventure must end in faith we need a

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it's friday 14 April marks one year and 49 days since The Full Scale Invasion began and today I'm joined by our associate editor Dominic Nichols, senior technology reporter Gareth Caufield and Telegraphs video commentary editor Stephen Edgington.

I started by asking Dom for the latest updates from Ukraine, yes, hello David, hello everyone. Quite a busy day, there's a lot to get through, so let's get right to it, back to discussing it in the eastern part of the country in Don Bass, so Russia reports that it has cut off the last way back, preventing Ukrainian troops from escaping or being reinforced. In its words, the Moscow Defense Ministry said that its soldiers were blocking the transfer of Ukrainian army reinforcements to the city and the possibility of withdrawal of enemy units. Now they also say that Wagner's troops are moving through the city, which we believe is accurate, we believe it has been reported for a while, quite far away and in what numbers, we are not sure, but we believe they are moving. moving slowly through the city west of the river.

Now, this claim that they have closed the road was circulated for the first time. Separatist authorities in Donetsk and Russia's adviser-appointed head of the Donets region, Yan Gagan, said the last road out of the city was, quote, undrivable, with Russian artillery nearly covering it. its entirety. I'll come back to that in a minute, why I put those bits, specifically in quotes, the New York Times is now believed to be saying that they were in town earlier in the week and that they're reporting that Ukrainian troops are defending a small corn field. corner of the city about 20 blocks wide, they said at the beginning of the week or they visited it at the beginning of the week and they say that at that time the road was passable allowing the resupply and evacuation of the unit and Sergey Chervati, who is the spokesperson for Ukraine. forces in the Eastern region, he said yesterday that the army could still deliver food, ammunition, medicine, everything necessary and also evacuate our wounded.

Sorry, the last thing was a date. Do you have any Pregosians who are the head of the Wagner Mercy group? He also contradicted the Ministry of Defense and said that the final Road West was still possible. He said, quote, that the toughest and bloodiest

battle

s are still ongoing, so it's too early to talk about a debatable total encirclement of the back, quote, and then said that his forces control about 80 percent of the city, which you know, depending on where the city boundaries are drawn, you know they may or may not be accurate, I mean, Ukraine, they have there, they have said that the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has denied the report that the The road is now closed, but he admitted that the situation in the past was arguable and difficult, which you know, if they haven't learned anything from the British, that's an understatement, so there you have it, they say the situation is difficult now that on this road to the west there was one to the west and another to the northwest, we believe that the northwest was cut some time ago, the road to the west has been under intense tension for several months, this idea that it has been cut would mean that Obviously, the Ukrainian troops who were still in the city were isolated, but here there is a big difference between what Jan Gargan, who is the adviser to the designated Russian head of the Donettes region, when he said that it is impossible to drive.

It may be okay, impossible, that's a 100 word, but you know that doesn't mean they own it and when he says the Russian artillery is almost completely covering it now again, that doesn't mean you own it. The ground is now extremely difficult to do, I'll give you that, but if you can remove yourself from the battlefield visually, thermally, electromagnetically, you know, then you can still move if the place is not actually under enemy control. I remember when I was. When I was used to playing tanks, I don't know if Hamish is in the room today, but you know, when he took me through my tactics course, I don't think I did very well, but you know, they did tell us Let's try a route. as in show me that path is free of enemies or show me that path is still possible.

I mean, you have to be in it, you can't, you can't be 100 meters away with powerful binoculars looking at it. you can't fly a drone over it, you can't do it from the air, other air assets or other ground forces reports, you have to put a tank on that road and drive it up to say yes, you can still drive on that road. road, so saying that it is impossible to drive with artillery is almost completely covering it is not the same as saying that that route is closed to Ukraine now I don't know, I really don't know if it is open or not, some people say that I put two Rosies of brilliance on this and I try to put it in favor of the Ukrainian side.

I mean, I have no qualms about wanting Ukraine to prevail in this war, but I'm not going to say it, huh? We're talking nonsense, it's clearly still in the hands of Ukraine, we just don't know, but you have to look at these things with the same, with all these intelligence leaks that you have, you have to ask yourself questions and what does it mean? It means, what are they saying, why are they saying it, etc.? I remember a commander we were talking about, we're talking about knowing something, the truth on the ground, what it's called, and uh, and a high-ranking commander once said to me, look, don't, don't tell me what time the centuries are circling the base, don't tell me what route the centuries take around the place, don't tell me when you expect them around the place you know you have. to smell the urine on the tree you have to be there and tell me where these people are so you can see them with your own eyes you know the route they are taking there is nothing that can replace the ground The truth is to be there and report what you see and what you experience, so we don't know exactly what's happening on the back end.

I take it with a pinch of salt, that that path is no longer open if the best they can come up with is to say that it is covered. by artillery almost entirely, I mean, you know, it's very dangerous, but things can still happen. I have some other updates, but I'll take a little break because I've been talking for quite a while and just to see if you want. Come back to any topic David, yes that's very interesting, thanks Tom. I guess if you were to try to summarize your thoughts on the battle for Baton Rouge, you know it's been going on for months and months and months.

I had quite a few false reports over the last six weeks from Russian sources saying things like well, we've captured this, we've captured this, the city is about to fall, it hasn't yet, how do you see the shape of the fighting? Do you think you can discern where we might be in a week or two weeks or is the fog of war still too thick for you? Well, I mean, there is a huge fog of war, I mean, we don't know exactly who is where and what the progress is each day, but we can step back and look at this and say that this city has very strategic and operational value. limited.

I don't really go anywhere that isn't a major rail hub, it's a piece of land. clearly you want to take that on whichever side you are on, but it is not in itself very significant, it has been fought for four months at great cost to both sides and the idea seems to be that Russia had chosen to fight on this ground. either because of the internal machinations between the Wagner group and the Russian mod or for any reason to try and try to have some kind of victory on the one year anniversary, perhaps now on May 9, the Day Parade Victoria, the traditional Victory Day Parade. in Russia, so we don't really know why Russia invested so much in this area, but they have lost a lot of personnel and equipment, and that seemed to be the case, and this was supported by reports in recent weeks, actually from Ukraine . high-ranking military and political figures who were happy to fight for it as well and reinforce it because comparatively it was costing Russia deer and they wanted the important thing here is not so much the terrain or rather Russia seems to be fighting for the terrain and Ukraine seemed to be fighting for the benefit of the relative strength they were achieving with it, that is, the figure is approximately nine to one, so for every nine Russians killed there was one Ukrainian killed.

That's a brutal calculation, but that's what military commanders have to do. How much is that goal worth to me in terms of blood? Literally, these thoughts are discussed and you know how many people I'm going to put in that fight and potentially lose for the purpose I want to get out of it and so far it's obvious that Ukraine has said they're still there and it's in their best interest to keep fighting to wear down the Russian forces before any possible counteroffensive or simply to push back the Russians. The question is at what point, because the Ukrainians are a smaller Force, Ukraine is a smaller Force, so at what point do they go from losing muscle to losing bone?

Are they really attacking Ukrainian forces and do they have to use reserves and deploy? reserves that you might otherwise want to keep well rested, keep training, keep them equipped for the counteroffensive, which is a difficult calculation to make if you're starting to use those people and bite, as I say, the bone and not just the muscle then that might be the time to say well, it served its purpose, now it's time to leave in good order. I'm not suggesting that's what's happening or even if they're in that position yet, but these are the kind of calculations that will be going through the mind of General Solutions, the head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, of course within the political context. and guided and assisted by President Zelinsky and the international political appetite on what is acceptable for Ukraine in the in the in the longest fight, thank you very much for that, Dom, can we go ahead and talk a little bit about a story that we have come back to headline the Telegraph's Ukraine live blog?

Actually, it's a story that comes from the Washington Post. I will only read the First Lines and only to know your reaction. Dom says Russia's clandestine Spetsnaz forces have been destroyed by the war in Ukraine and will take years to rebuild according to leaked intelligence documents seen by The Washington Post. Nasty spets are usually special forces. reserved for high-risk advanced missions, but leaked US intelligence suggests that Russian commanders were over-reliant on the units and deployed them into direct combat where they suffered high numbers of deaths and injuries. We've barely covered this story, so I don't have to go into it too much, but what are your initial reactions?

Don Nichols. Yes, first I want to say that this came from the leak of the Pentagon Papers. What we now call Pentagon files, Pentagon Papers, Discord notes, I don't. I know whatever, but that, so we have to say no, we are not sure of their validity, but let's take them at face value and if this report says that the US has evaluated that spetsnats have It has been used in largely outside its role and has suffered as a result, that's of interest now again, there's no direct comparison, you can't say specs, oh that's the same as the UK Special Forces, it's the same as, You know, Delta and Seal Team Six. etcetera, etcetera, there is no direct reading in jsoc and uksf, etc., however, generally speaking, that is what they look like as specifications now, has been the term for impo Informer, you know, countries that were part of the Pact of Warsaw for their special forces, so it's a bit of a generic term, but if we're talking about SF troops, then this is significant and why is this?

Because they're usually SF troops, Special Forces troops, special operations forces troops, if you're in the US Parliament it's a term I prefer to British SF. I mean, they are smaller in number because they are a much taller trainer. I'm looking with Western eyes here, but I suppose it would be broadly comparable for the Russian space nuts too. I mean, generally, a little bit older, the average age, I think in the UK and the US, soft, level one,gentle. I mean, you're talking about about 30, these are experienced soldiers who then go into the special operations group, many of them are married and have children.

They're professional soldiers, professional fighters, they're not, they're not just in it for a few years to have fun and run around, not that there's anything wrong with that, but what I'm saying is they're more experienced. soldiers to not use them in the normal, in quotes, what there was in the British army veryDisparaging, you could call green army missions that they use for black missions and why is that because they are, they are so highly trained that they are very valuable. I mean, SF they have, they should be an app. I don't remember it being a It's been a while since I looked at science fiction principles, but it's stuff like you know they have access to the highest level of intelligence, although one guy wanted to turn around and tell me where the intelligence is.

I said, well, you are, Sally, go. Go out and find out anyway, access the highest level of intelligence they used on the most sensitive missions and get the biggest book deals. I may have done the last one, but you know they are, they are very highly trained and um and you use them in regular missions Regular traditional infantry type missions at your own risk because they don't have the organic or especially they don't have the numbers, they wouldn't use the numbers that, say, an infantry brigade would have and are trained. to a slightly different degree, so they wouldn't be used to just docking in regular indirect fire formations and everything else, they would be used to using these types of assets in very specific missions.

And so not only do they know that they're probably not best suited for some of the general infantry jobs, but as I say, it takes years to train these people, it takes years for people to get enough experience to then Realize that this is a path they can follow. I want to join the military, don't just show up and say, "Well, I want to go and be a special forces soldier and, yeah, because I'm great at running, jumping, climbing trees, I mean, there's a lot more to it than that, it's mostly a mental approach where you want to take your welding to another level, like I say, you're usually a little bit older in life, you possibly have more to lose, and yet you're still prepared to do it to get someone in.

That state of motivation and then adding years of training to it is something that ends up with a very, very specialized beast at the end that you don't want to use just in routine work and that's what they do, we're doing here, if that's what Russia has done here, it's going to take years for them to get that kind of ability back. Thank you so much for that Dom, there's an update on the mix. Can you tell us about the mix? Yeah, Meg, so Fighters Miko. and goyovic, I seem to remember the manufacturer, so This is so, Germany has given its approval to Poland's request to deliver five old German MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine.

This is, according to local German media. German Defense Minister Boris Pastorius made a statement. He said I appreciate the fact that we are in the federal government and we made this decision together, these planes are basically a hangover from the former East Germany, the East German military fleet, the East German air fleet, but you know, They are still good and now there are five, so you are welcome Boris for the stories he said yes, he said that they came to the decision together this shows that you can trust Germany hmm, okay, yes, trust Germany and such once a little I kind of like the comment about the US that the US will always do the right thing after it has explored all other opportunities, but you know it's a good thing these migs are on the way.

Thank you very much for that, Dom. I think we are. I'm still waiting for Gareth, so Dom, can we talk a little about this story? A listener informed us yesterday, but we have since investigated that the Ukrainian mod has created a website for locals in the occupied territories to rate. to learn the basics and principles of partisan activity that you've been researching this morning, can you tell us about that? Yes, this website says it has been created by the special operations forces of the Ukrainian army, which call themselves the national resistance center and offer practical advice on how to resist.

It is aimed at the parts of Ukraine that are currently under occupation by Russia and offers medical advice on non-violent resistance on this website. or how to carry out how to do nonviolent resistance, but up to and including things like how to neutralize tanks how to carry out acts of sabotage how to safely burn documents covertly without being discovered this also gives advice for people who have summoned Us to serve in the Russian army, so those are the Ukrainian citizens who are now under Russian control for a time, those who have been given Summers to serve in the Russian army.

This website suggests what to do and how. to point that out to the Ukrainian government and how to use the state project that already exists to deliver this project called I want to live, to point out who you are, where you are and will talk about safe ways to let the Ukrainian forces know that you are who you are and that you want surrender now this website has also launched its own newspaper for the residents of the temporarily occupied territories now this and this offers latest news from the Ukrainian underground it is called sprotiv which means resistance it is the resistance newspaper says is the says is the um the first underground national newspaper I mean, go and take a look we do not endorse their advice we do not suggest people should resist, we do not endorse any of the techniques found there on the website, on the website or in the newspaper, we report their existence , we will continue to track it down and try to talk to some of these people, it's a it's a fascinating website, it's very professional, I mean, it's pretty clear who they are and the contact details and what you've said, so go and have a look and I mean this area of ​​resistance is fascinating, fascinating when you think about the stress and tension of the people involved and coincidentally last weekend I was watching The Sound of Music again, obviously, I mean, it's a little bit, it's not So cool, but I have a thing for the Baroness. and the red dress in the balcony scene, but anyway I digress, but if you think about the bravery it takes to resist and the risk of retaliation and in that movie, yeah, the Von Trapp family, who you know, the baron von.

He doesn't want to, they tell him to go serve in the German army and he takes the family to the hills, to Switzerland. I mean, you know it's extremely difficult to survive in that situation, who do you trust? The constant state of hypervigilance is going to take its toll on your physical and mental health. It is extremely brave to decide to resist the invader. Even the smallest act of resistance takes its toll. It is a fascinating topic. I advise people to go and have a look at this website take a look at some of the books on the soe, the wwii special operations executive, the one by mrd foot.

I think I have recommended it before, but the story of mrd foot soe is an absolutely fascinating book, very, very digestible, you will take a look at it, but think about the decisions these people have to make on a daily basis and the tension and stress under the one they live, but no, that's a fascinating website and we. We will try to get in touch with the people behind this. Thank you very much Dom. Can I turn to Gareth Caufield, our senior technology reporter, Gareth? Yesterday we talked at length about his reporting on the Pentagon leaks.

I think that's where we are. calling them, we posted the

podcast

mid-afternoon yesterday and I think less than an hour later there was a pretty big update from the US. Can you tell us what happened? Well, it's all like we said at the time, a situation that was moving pretty fast and that came up very quickly, in fact, after the sla

podcast

, do you think it was a US government official that announced that the chat we were discussing yesterday on Monica OG, the Discord leaker, in fact, is he known? US authorities say he may be known as Jack Tank Zera, a 21-year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, and has been arrested on suspicion of leaking these documents from the Pentagon archive on Discord, since where they were shared on other Discord servers and ultimately to other websites including places like 4chan, now I mean we use the term yes there is a bit of confusion, this becomes even more incomprehensible as time goes on , turns out that's the main suspect here, Mr.

Tax was either a 21-year-old member of the Air National Guard or, in the British Palance, he's an Air Force reservist and works for the State National Guard, which is his type of territorially based force and it is truly extraordinary that a 21-year-old has been fingered as the source of some of what was described as the worst intelligence leak since Edward Snowden in Revelations a decade ago, the rest was well publicised. I think there were something like five news helicopters circling and some tanks in the backyard or rather in the backyard. from the home of his parents with whom he lived, the New York Times was able to identify him and publish his identity and confirm it with American officials immediately before the arrest and that was quite a trip for them because they attracted his identity down . looking at the leaked photos he took, just to recap the main olives tuned in yesterday, the Discord leaker who has been broadcasting intelligent summaries about Ukraine to his internet friends on a chat app called Discord that he had.

He had been taking photographs of original documents using his mobile phone and posted them on his private chat server where they were eventually shared back and forth and in the background of some of these images there were little identifying details, you know his parents had one, I think so. It was a marble countertop, but there was a very distinctive pattern in the stone on the tile floor and the New York Times along with researchers from Bellingcats had compared them to photographs that, I said, Texiera and his family members had taken. of his own family. at home and had concluded from those photos that it was one at the same location, meaning the OG leaker pseudonym was actually Mr.

Tank Zero or someone who lived in the Take Zero family home. Now, of course, being British, we have the smugness. of innocence and we must clearly state that Mr. Tank Zera has been arrested on suspicion of having committed crimes. He has not been charged. He is presumed innocent, so we cannot state as a fact by any means that he is concerned in any way. committed to committing crimes, for now all we know is that he has been arrested and that he is assisting US authorities with their investigations of him, but the questions this raises are far-reaching.

Do you know, for example, why a 21-year-old American? Air Force Reservist, why does he have access to such highly classified and sensitive materials now during the course of these leaks? Since this was so far, certainly up to the weak intelligence material containing strength estimates of the comrades. the relative strength of Russian and Ukrainian forces weapons stockpiles potential foreign support or you know International political analyzes of who supports Ukraine who doesn't support Ukraine countries that supposedly pretend they don't support Ukraine while sending them weapons all that kind of stuff and This is really high-caliber explosive material, so the idea that a 21-year-old Air Force reservist in Massachusetts could simply select these documents, take them, photograph them, and put them on the Internet for his Internet friends is still astonishing. .

One of the theories as to how this may have happened is that Mr. Tank Zero, uh, the theory goes that he may have had access to what they call a burn bag, which is a means of disposing of confidential documents, you print the document, it is used for its intended purpose and when it is finished, it is placed in a designated secure sack which is then removed and incinerated and the theory says I emphasize that this is a theory and nothing more at this stage uh if there were access to the burn bag, for example, if he was the person in charge of removing it and placing it in the incinerator, then he might have been able to access the contents of the burn bag and delete some of these smart summaries for his own consumption.

As I say, it's a working theory, it turns out that it fits the facts, but we don't have many facts to go on. The other thing is about Mr. Tech zero and he is what the US Air Force calls a cyber officer which is a strange job title. I must confess that I had never seen it before, but when looking it up it turns out that a cyber officer is what we in civil Palance would call a network architect, that is, he builds and maintainscomputer networks. Their job involves everything from installing Wi-Fi routers to cabling and configuring software.

Yes, you know, it's reasonably low-level technical work and skilled in its own way, but it's not something you'd expect to be associated with high-level security clearances. Yes, in short, that's where we are with the Pentagon Papers leak. The document has been spread on Discord and other Internet channels. So far we know that Mr. Techzera has been arrested and is currently in the custody of the US government, thank you very much. Much for that update Gareth, can I ask you both? I mean, we talked about this for a while yesterday about the implications of the leaks and there was speculation about where we think we're coming from and there's a motivation behind it with this new information.

Does that change any of your assessments of where we are? No, actually I don't think it will change the evaluation because I think we should assume. that the vast majority, if not all, of the information here is legitimate, so put aside the means by which it was leaked and the great concern for a security agency or an intelligence agency for a government would be well Well, what? Is there still anyone out there? Are they on the payroll of a foreign government? Are you still collecting data that will be published at some future date? Now in this case it seems like that's not the concern but rather it has diminished, it seems like what was taken here is already gone and used, it seems more for bragging actually on the Discord channel, but it seems like even if there were more things to come, more things that were taken have not yet been published, it is unlikely that it would be published now partly because the alleged suspicious boss is no longer a computer, but also because I think it has already been done.

Anyone else who might have access to this stuff now is extremely unlikely to be. publishing it now given the heat involved, that doesn't mean it will never come out if there is more stuff out there, but I think my feeling is not the same. I'm looking at Gareth here my video is this is probably we can cut this here this is probably the end of this particular incident thanks Tom anything from you Gareth yeah I tend to agree with dom on this. I think we probably could have seen the end of the ongoing flow by now. of leaks of material that is now available that is in fact information in the public domain in fact it is information in the public domain the main suspect remains in police custody he is not near a computer and so far no information is public the reports from bellingcat and the New York Times and the Washington Post and other outlets that have been following this very closely none of the reports so far suggest that anyone else originated this information now um OG, the Discord leaker had a private server around 20 people who were watching their material, we know that some of them were capturing it and streaming it, you know, taking a screenshot or saving it or whatever they did, and it's that information that's circulating now that I think is probably the biggest cause. certainly worrying for Western intelligence agencies and security operators in general, very good Gareth, can we ask you one more thing?

There was a big Russian data leak a few weeks ago again, right after you appeared on the podcast. action, we always intended to come back to that and talk a little bit about the Vulcan files discovered by a group of editors, including the guardian, who was your author? Could you introduce us to what they were and what you think about them? Absolutely David Surely yes, the Vulcan files were related to a Russian cybersecurity company called NTC Volcan and outwardly they presented themselves as a cybersecurity consultancy and their concern was to protect companies against cyber attacks and all the online cyber attacks that they we all know and love, but it turns out I discovered that through the Volcan files, which is a trove of documents leaked by a disgruntled person somewhere in Russia, NTC Volcan was actually quite integrated with the Russian Security Services, if I remember wrong, it's a Gru and the Gru has a long and storied recent history. of committing cyber intrusions against the West primarily for intelligence reconnaissance purposes and it turned out through the Vulcan files that the company had in fact been training Gru's agents to carry out these attacks, they had set up cyber camps for them I believe that one of the most notable parts of the leaked files was that the Cyber ​​range included railway simulations and, I mean, in some of the training scenarios they included methods on how to hack a railway, how to make trains crash , how to play with points and switches that move trains from one track to another to make them crash into each other or derail, you know, and this is the very definition of offensive cyber operations, this is a real kind of hacking for the sake of hacking for military purposes and one of the things that this cash documents declared in the mid-2010s or a period of five or six years and one of the things that became immediately apparent when the Guardian and others first reported to the elites, would you say David?, is that the Russians had, in fact, hacked the Ukrainian State Railways right at the beginning of the period covered by these documents, so it can be argued here that the hacking training provided by NDC Volcan was put into practice rather abruptly after it was first taught, i.e.

Let's say the Russian hackers had trained and practiced to carry out a railway hacking mission and then they actually did it on the railways. Ukrainians. Now the final effect of that attack was not great, as we have learned over the last year and a year in a somewhat offensive cyber attack as a weapon of war as a military effector in the jargon, it is actually not as destructive or as damaging as many in The West had certainly absorbed the effects of the attack on the Ukrainian railways were certainly disruptive, but the effects did not go away for long once the Russian hackers were excluded once a GRU was sent packing.

I think that the Ukrainian railways were able to pick up and continue from where they left off, which is a similar effect to ours. I've seen with other big Russian attacks that there were power plant attacks against kyiv in the mid-20s. I want to say 2016, but again I'm going from memory and you know it was something striking, they managed to block everything. city ​​for a duration of three hours now, if your goal is to say you know, look at this power of our hackers, look, you know the quality of training that we can provide with NTC Volcan and others, a three hour hack or Take down the railways for a couple of days, you know, it's not the biggest effect you could have, it's not on the same scale as dropping a bomb or causing a large number of casualties, so that's the NTC Vulcan hack and lift the elevator. quite significantly about how Russia's cybersecurity industry has been increasingly co-opted to carry out offensive cyber operations or assist or enable those offensive cyber operations against Ukraine and, indeed, Against the Greater West we have seen investigations particularly of Talis and French defense conglomerates and others suggest that Russian hackers are now focusing their attention on Poland and the Baltics and other countries that provide support and material assistance to Ukraine and one of the questions that arise from these attacks. these leaks is that oh yeah, but aren't we doing the same thing in the West?

Don't we have a well-developed cyber-industrial complex that is helping our hackers? To which the answer is not that the majority of the Western cybersecurity industry actually does what it says on the tin, i.e. cybersecurity, now of course the skills overlap, the ability to know how to commit operations Intrusive cyber attacks is inherent in the fact that, although to defend yourself you know how to attack, I mean, certainly. In the UK it is illegal to commit an act of offensive hacking, unless you are part of the government, that is to say, part of, for example, the national cyber force which blames based in Salisbury and not many other places, obviously, gchq agencies MI5 MI6.

Otherwise, there is no real legal framework through which a private sector organization can carry out offensive hacking. Now the laws certainly differ in the United States, for example, there are many factual examples that American cybersecurity companies can do more than British ones. do it or other countries in Europe, for example, but offensive cyber action is still a long way off, so I think the conclusion we should draw from this is that the Russian cybersecurity industry may well have the best interests from their own country in Hearts, but they certainly take it to a much higher level than we do here in the West.

Thank you so much for that update, Gareth, it's really good to have you back and especially two days in a row, it's really good to hear your thoughts, Dom. Nichols final updates and then we'll get to our final thoughts, well, sorry, my phone, my last update is my is my last thought just to draw your attention to some diplomacy that's happening in and around China so German Foreign Minister Elena Bearbok is in China now she is. when I met her counterpart and she said at a press conference that no other country has more influence on Russia than China and urged the Russian aggressor to stop the war and said: "It is good that China has expressed its commitment to a solution, but I have to say frankly that I wonder why the Chinese position so far does not include a call for the aggressor Russia to stop the war at that level, but when you host China and she is known to be quite um, you know, quite outspoken in these opinions, I think that she and um and Boris Pastorius, the defense minister, are, are like, are the tough guys, if you will, in German politics at the moment, so she doesn't mince words now in a joint press conference, so Queen Gan, who is her counterpart, is the foreign minister of China, said regarding the quote on the export of military weapons Articles China adopts a prudent and responsible attitude.

He said China will not provide weapons to relevant parties to the conflict and will manage and control exports of dual-use items in accordance with laws and regulations. You think so, that's one thing, but I mean, if they go back to those words, that would be quite significant now that you've painted it that way, European Union foreign policy chief Joseph Burrell said in a statement today that was going to visit China, but it appears to be covert, so he said in a statement today that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Europe to trust China if it did not try to find a political solution for the UK.

Well, he says she would prefer the Ukraine crisis. Call it war, but it says that the Ukraine crisis is going well there, so there is quite a bit of heat here from the Europeans around and from China, and we should just say that the Defense Ministers of China and Russia so the Minister of Chinese defense minister, Lee Shang Fu, and they assure the Russian defense minister that they will meet in the coming days to discuss global and regional security in talks that begin, I believe, Sunday to Wednesday or Sunday Tuesday, something like that, but in the first part.

They're meeting next week, so we're going to hear more about China, we'll see the kind of approach that's going on there on the diplomatic front, but I thought they were quite bold. Alina's statements bareback and it's good to see absolutely only one thing to add there, Don, while we were talking, we also received a blog update on a Chinese issue, which is that China accused Poland of meddling in its affairs. After Polish Prime Minister Matteus Moraviecki, during a speech at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, sounded that if Ukraine is defeated in its war with Russia, China could decide to invade Taiwan soon after, the Chinese have really backed away of him and have said: any attempt to use the Ukrainian issue as a pretext to insinuate a relationship with the Taiwan issue is political manipulation with ulterior motives, a senseless trampling on the principle of respect for national sovereignty and territorial integrity and blatant interference in China's internal affairs, as some of us have said.

There are times on this podcast that the Taiwan issue for China is always at the forefront of their strategic mind, so it's interesting to see their reaction if other People make that point too, so I thought I'd add that. Because that came to light while we were talking, Gareth, can I come to you and give you your last thought? As our guest, you've been on the podcast twice this week with lots of updates, how would you summarize what we've done? seenOver the past week, many people have learned a lot about online subcultures. I think a lot of people have learned a lot about how young people live their lives online and how certain influences and if it's just you know the desire to show off to your peers can actually result in extremely harmful and damaging results.

I mean, fundamentally, the Discord leaker of the Pentagon files comes from the same motivation that drives us to want to win an argument in the pub, but the problem is you. You're not doing it in the pub, you're doing it online, where those files can potentially exist forever and are immediately out of your control the moment you share them, so, yeah, it'll be an interesting journey for a young Mr. Texiera from now on. Him, thanks Dom and Gareth, now here's our special report on the state of the Polish Armed Forces with our video commentary editor Stephen Edgington Poland is arming itself after the Russian invasion of Ukraine Warsaw has been investing billions in new tanks Cyber ​​defense weapons and manpower by 2035 Poland hopes to double the size of its Armed Forces to 300,000 troops, there is even talk of the country becoming a major military power in Europe.

My name is Stephen Edgington and I'm a reporter for the Daily Telegraph. I will be traveling through Poland. To try to understand if the country is ready for war I started in the town of Ocean, three hours north of Warsaw, where a major army recruiting fair was taking place. Yes, definitely, we are ready and we are doing everything we can to prevent it from being about Michael. Colonel of the 6th Airborne Brigade, we are working hard to avoid this conflict, but if any of our enemies tried to fight with us, we are prepared for Poland to become a new military superpower in Europe from the original point of view.

I would say yes. On the eastern flank of the NATO region we are one of the major forces, so we are not a global power, but in this specific region, the northern part of the eastern flank of the NATO Baltic Sea region, I would say Yes, so can you tell us a little bit about what you do here for the Polish Army, okay, so as you probably know the cyber threats around the world, General Carol Mordena, Polish Cyber ​​Command, it is known that during the last 10 years Russia has been constantly conducting cyber intelligence and hybrid operations, just so you know to divide the world or we can say make ourselves weaker and of course we fail and we still see the presence of malicious actors trying to interact with our networks, networks military, but also political infrastructure networks, for example, and that is the reason why a decision was made in 2019 that in Poland we should establish cyber forces, so your unit is relatively new, you see?

Do you see this as part of Poland's broader strategy to prepare for war with Russia? If this is an eventuality in the future, then you know. I can say that from the Polish perspective and from the police cyber security perspective we can call it I. I rarely think that Poland is a NATO-prone front line in cyberspace, so there are a lot of attempts to attacks not only on military networks but also on critical infrastructure. To enlist hundreds of thousands of new recruits in the Polish army, the authorities cannot rely solely on masculine displays of adventurism and war, but must harness the will to fight for their sovereignty.

Maybe that patriotism is in short supply in the West, but still? They exist in Eastern Europe. I asked some of you here at the Army recruiting fair just that. So do you think young people in Poland are patriotic? Many people were raised with a patriotic value in their family, but you are, yes, I am, and when I am young, you are prepared to die for your country yes, of course, I am patriotic, I love my country and every thing matters when I take a step, do you think that young Poles are patriotic? Yes, absolutely, I can see a patriotic surge at the moment due to the fact of the Russian invasion.

I think that, from my point of view, nothing unites people more than the common enemy, then you think that the Polish people are willing to die for their country, absolutely yes, it would prove that during our history and I think it is valid today. Days yes, absolutely, after eating some soup in the mess tent, we witnessed some 600 new territorial recruits being sworn into the army. Poland has perhaps done more than any other country to support Ukraine, both militarily and in terms of humanitarian aid. I visited some former members of the Polish army. Special Forces at a site on the outskirts of Warsaw to witness the loading of even more equipment ready to be driven into Ukraine, so what is happening here today since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have been supporting Ukraine Michael Goras of the Polish Army National Foundation More than 8 million Ukrainians have crossed the border into Poland, so we also want this conflict that Putin started to end there on the ground, hence the total commitment, not only financial but also hard work, today Let's go there once again to be together with the Ukrainians on the ground by 2035 Poland planned to spend 85 billion pounds on weapons, while this year's defense budget was a record 18 billion pounds to discuss the rapid increase of Poland's military spending.

I sat down with the country's former Finance Minister. I started by asking Tadeshu Kozinski to give me an idea of ​​how much money Poland was now investing in the military as a percentage of GDP. Well, we're going to go up to 94 of our GDP, so we had for the last few years about two percent and now. We're going up to four percent and even at one point here we played a program that forecast it will be almost five percent of our GDP and how does that compare to other European countries? 14 months ago I was Finance Minister and, in the Echo After the monthly meetings I had with all the Finance Ministers of Europe, I said that we should have a golden rule to increase public debt for military purchases and all other ministers of Finance said no, no, no, we can't.

I don't do that, but we can have a golden rule for the green economy. They didn't really appreciate what was happening in the world, so I was saying that if all of Europe was a puzzle and I could take the piece that is polarized and put it on the western side of Portugal and we'd probably talk about the green economy as well, but we're where we are and we have to spend money to defend ourselves and make sure that no one gets some ideas from the city about attacking Poland, but the money we are spending is actually on behalf of all of Europe.

Now his own family has been involved in the fight against the Russians for over a century. Do you consider this to be for you personally and for Poland? The war in Ukraine is a continuation of that history of fighting against Russia, yes, absolutely, it is not just 100 years that we were talking about the first of all, the Second World War, but my great-great-grandfather was in the January uprising and They lost all their active and, uh, they were, they were very lucky not to have been sent to Siberia about 200 years ago, so this was against the Tsar, that's true, nothing has really changed, whether it's the Tsar or the Trade regime, it's totally different. mentality, they are imperialists and eh, that has not changed, nothing is going to change.

Poland's military

expansion

must be considered within the context of the nation's history. People here still remember when Poland suffered under the communist regime and memories of the horrible 20th century. century in which the country faced numerous invasions are still vivid in the minds of many Poles back in London I spoke with the director of the national army museum, Justin Machayesky, who explained to me Poland's historical role as defender of Europe's borders. I am my opponent, one of those from Europe. great powers and its history dates back to the 10th century. There have been times in history when Poland was on the front line of Christendom, if you prefer in its traditional European sense, whether against the Tatars in the 14th century and XV or against the Ottoman Turks when they were at the gates of Vienna in 1683 or even in 1919-1920 when the Poles fought against the Bolsheviks, which became the Soviet Union to avoid, if you will, the Communist Revolution that was spreading for Europe and Poland won. that war and, of course, here we see Poland again today on the front line of freedom in Europe, in its position with Ukraine and, obviously, against Putin's Russia, and I think the rearmament of Poland that we are seeing today en Very much in the context of that deep history of Poland's role as a bastion of Europe, Putin's invasion of Ukraine occurs just 30 years after the applause of the Soviet bloc.

I sat down with Marcin Jajetsky, from the Polish National Foundation, and asked him how real the threat from Russia is to Poland. We live with a sense of security and well-being of being able to plan what will happen to our children, how they will develop when they finish school, what kind of job they will get, now we have to think in terms like whether the world our children will grow up in will be that world. a world of war this is not an exaggeration on our part because it has long been known de facto that the Russians will attack the question is which direction Poland's membership in NATO takes a Russian invasion is less likely, however, the polls They are certainly not taking risks and in a new era of war in Europe, other countries may want to follow Warsaw's example to prepare for any eventuality.

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