Jonathan Dimbleby: Putin has bad judgement

I think he's quite judgmental I don't think he's judged very well the fact that NATO would be so resilient I suspect he never thought that the states that until now hadn't been in NATO the Baltic states Sweden Finland um but those last two, in particular , who would seek to join NATO out of fear, don't they force it? Now he is a cunning manipulator and political operator at the national level who makes his way by hiding what his plans and intentions were. Jonathan Dimbleby's latest book May be about the details of 1944 and how 2 million Red Army soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front changed the direction of the Second World War, but it is also a hugely relevant book for today, as which draws an important line between a point in history and where we are in the present.

Putin's advances in Ukraine more on that in a moment, the book also draws on previously translated German and Russian sources, many words from ordinary soldiers, who often see the most but are heard the least, and Jonathan is with me now . How nice that you are in the studio with us. Thank you very much for coming. It's very nice to be with you. I have to say that in the book there is the testimony of the common man and it is the voice of a young man. every time, isn't that what really gets to me? Where did you get these voices from and how come we haven't heard them before?

Some of the voices have appeared elsewhere in little books published a long time ago, um, the Russian one. The voices in particular, um, haven't been heard much and they and to me are extraordinarily powerful because you know all the propaganda heroics on both sides pale in comparison to the reality that people, as you just said, were experiencing people expressing frustration, pain, fear. depression cold um write letters to your loved ones saying I hope to see them again and then never see them again and find out that that was in the archives, but I had a wonderful Russian researcher named Luba V vinod Grava who became a great friend. a brilliant historian, a brilliant writer and she also loves doing high quality research.

A lot depended on her work. I'm not even afraid to say that I have traveled all over Russia in my life. um, I don't speak a word of Russian apart. Where is the restaurant from? Well, it's good that you admit that. I mean, I think it helps tell the story a lot, right? Because, as a reader, it takes you back all the time to the misery you were suffering. To do that I mean the general theme of the book (which is why it's called How Stalin Won the War) is that the massive preponderance of Soviet force was what really destroyed Hitler's armies, particularly in the summer of 1944, when 300,000 in fifteen days 300,000 German troops were surrounded, killed, captured or wounded, which broke the back of the German army.

The strength and certainty that the big three Churchill Roosevelt and Stalin were well aware of long before 1944, the certainty that the power of the Soviets would propel them as far west as Stalin wanted to go, so when we look at the The importance of D-Day, which was an amazing achievement, by the way, was important, but it was so important in preventing Stalin from getting too far west if he had wanted to. I don't know if he would have done it, something as important as destroying the German army and therefore the feat of narcissism. So are you trying to change our narrative of World War II?

I think what I'm trying. To do that, there has been a part of history that is seen. I mean, it's a big book, it's a long book. I hope it is a good read. Because if you don't write books that people want to read, you might as well stay home. and you know, read the books yourself and then go to sleep. um, I try to write a narrative that takes you forward with quite extraordinary personal drama on all levels, the common soldier, his commanders, the awakenings, the conflicts, the reality of what it's like to make decisions the tensions between Russia Britain and the United States and not least between Roosevelt and Churchill had a very different vision of what war should be and yes I would like people to have a greater understanding that the Soviet Union was fundamental to Victory, we were foolish about Victory , it's very uncomfortable, you know, most books that have been written tend, understandably, to focus on the Western Front, where our relatives, our grandfathers and our grandfathers fought and in too many cases died, but the disparity of deaths does it gets It's as raw as between the two Sid.

You know the Russians in the war in total, including the civilians. 27 million lives. 9 million of them were soldiers fighting in battle. These are huge numbers compared to less than a million tragic deaths on the Western Front. so there is a disparity and I think it is quite important for two reasons: first, understanding the history; Second, it helps to understand much better. I think the way Russia, now Putin's Russia, looks at the world, um, and Putin's Russia. It is deplorable in every aspect of my book, in every way, there is no redeeming feature of the invasion of Ukraine and, interestingly, I was writing about Ukraine in my book in 1944 and the same towns, the same cities, the same rivers that we have been listening to.

There is a lot about Ukraine, but a more important fact is that for many Russians they ignore the fact that the media is controlled and therefore find it very, very difficult to get any story other than the lies that are being spread. they spill. from the Kremlin um there is a deep sense that NATO is a threat a deep sense that NATO is cu The West is threatened, they are indistinguishable in the eyes of many Russians and also that Russia was once a great Empire, a great state and he was under Stalin and it was before that under the emperors and Putin represents a restoration of pride for many Russians and that is something that we do not understand, I think it is quite difficult to form useful judgments and if we cannot understand that he is as willing as Stalin was going to throw people into battle and they have much more people to throw into battle than the Ukrainians and they can continue to do so for much longer if we understand that it is quite difficult to make a judgment about what the possible outcome is. other than many more millions are dying and that's exactly what your book really helped me understand, you know this huge massive loss of life, but because it comes with a sense of patriotism and a sense of heroism and a sense of belonging to a state that can somehow Ask that, that helps us understand how far Putin will be willing to go.

It is not our Matrix. Isn't that the way we think about war? He has I mean, Putin has proven to be smart, he has proven to be smart too. strategically incompetent because he thought he could, he genuinely thought it clearly and half believed it. I suspect he could walk into Ukraine, walk, walk, to KF, which of course is smart, Jonathan, or he's just so backed by power that he's been smart about the people he's surrounded himself with. with eliminating his opponents with being aggressive and silencing people, but he's that smart, he's a smart man, I think he's authentic, I think he's quite judgmental, no, I don't think he's judged very well, um, the fact that that NATO would be so resilient that I suspect he never thought that the states that until now have not been in NATO, the Baltic states, Sweden, Finland, um, those last two in particular, who would seek to join NATO out of fear, would not I think I forced it. manipulator and intelligent operator political operator at the national level who makes his way by hiding what his plans and intentions were and gradually reaching the point where he was the emperor, which is effectively what his position is um and no one dares to say that the emperor does not He has clothes, what is he doing?

Do you imagine that his future and his end will be good? A very good friend, a great historian, advised me not to take my book beyond the 2014 batch, it's any of the last ones, it's the last 5000 words because his book should be read in 20 years and if you start saying what you think is going to happen and you get it, you get it wrong, then people will say, well, the whole book is wrong, but for your rate, I would speculate on this, I don't think it's going to go fast. I think everything is uncertain because we don't know what is going to happen in the US elections, which are going to be critical with respect to Ukraine.

My own feeling has long been that that part of the world has always been states that change borders and policies. The boundaries changed at the end of World War II, moving 200 miles west on orders from Churchill and Stalin. It is a territory that has always been disputed and if we only talk about Victoria we are deceiving ourselves. We may be giving superficial support, but in reality it is deeply misleading you can't defeat yourself well you can defeat everyone with a nuclear war we can defeat ourselves with a nuclear war but that's not going to happen on either side in my opinion, but there has to be a negotiation and my suspicion is that in the end, how much more blood will have to be shed and one of you know he talked from the beginning about the heartbreaking stories and the ones that we forget when you listen um you know I'm a military diplomatic historian , but when you hear an armed chair politicians and analysts talking about what needs to be done and what will be done forgetting that there are people there, everything is just machines and strategy, you forget the blood and guts spilled, the horror that is in that book in Parts, not because I want to, you know, bury my hands in blood, but since we need to know that this is what war is like now, I don't know how long it lasts, but I guess in the end I don't think the Russians will give in. up in Ukraine, I can, uh, I will give up Crimea, I'm sorry, and I think it will be very difficult for them, um, to be expelled from the dbass, the east of Ukraine, where they are so strongly rooted, so the hatred between the young people, I'm pretty sure that in Ukraine they feel a much deeper hatred towards Russia than ever before, but also not much enthusiasm for going into the trenches to die and therefore telling themselves that there must be some kind of tempered solution, even if it's a you know one, like the north-south divide. between the two races, that would be a lot better than a lot more deaths, uh, but you're absolutely right, the Scorpions story will go back, it always does, it always does in Generations, uh, can we talk about some of the other things in your life too because we are particularly what they are, so they will be, they will be about the royal family Jonathan, please don't abandon the study, surprise, yes, well, you are a friend of King Charles and you made it known what was in the time one of the most notable documentaries with him and a book about him and I mean, I'm almost forced to ask you this.

I think it is very difficult when someone you know, admire and really like tells you that he is seriously ill. It highlights how you feel about them, how you see them as human beings, so I wonder how you felt when you heard or were told. I don't know if they told you in person that the king was very ill. He knew it and I was very surprised and, like everyone else, when they found out, they thought: what does this mean? How bad is it? How sick he is. Very soon I discovered that he is the most ex.

Well, he really knew it because he had to be tough. throughout his life for all sorts of reasons, as soon as it became clear that the doctors were saying he could start doing things again, he was irritated by the treatment, not very good treatments of course, which anyone who knows anything . about cancer he knows treatments aren't fun don't you say oh whoopy um you know he always said Whoopi, I didn't do it, I didn't wake up in my cot and say Whoopi, someday I'll be king. I don't think he said Whoopi, I have cancer, we're going to get treatment, no one does, but he was immediately frustrated because he believed so strongly in the role, so he wanted to go and do the things that this year he was going to do. do some of which, fortunately, he couldn't do the relief that I know there must have been when they told him you could go on D-Day to Normandy, eh, they told you you could do the troops, the color, these things matter to him, so much symbolically because it is the head. of state, these are, you know, if you have a head, okay, don't have a head of state, whether you want to or not you have an unelected head of state, but if you have a head of state, there are things you have to do. representing that state, they are important to him in that sense, he also cares, you know, I think about D-Day, in particular, you know he has been a colonel of regiments, he is a colonel of the parachute regiments, he knew these people that he cared and saw. when they came back and went to operations he wrote to the widows these things matter to him uh in a personal sense he is a person with powerful emotional intelligence and very alert antennae you could see how much people wanted him Well, I really love him, in fact , at the garden party there were some incredible photographs of people gathered around him, you know, just smiling at him and wanting to give him their energy, but one of the things that so many people love Jonathan for is that that family is a little more happy because everyone will hug each other a little more, kiss each other and put on makeup and I wonder if you could give us some ideas,Obviously, it won't be a very personal idea of ​​what could happen between the king and his youngest son, the only idea I can give you is to quote the first sentence of Anna Karenina from Tol Sto.

Damn, I was expecting something much more personal, Jonathan, but give us, essentially, what it says. It's that all interesting families have elements. It doesn't say exactly these words. All interesting families have tendencies to be dysfunctional in one way or another. Tell me a family. That doesn't have dysfunctional, I'll tell you a boring family, yes, right? I think everything will be fine in the end I don't know the answer to the question Okay, can I talk to you about the well tested rate? Yes, I tried. I tried my best, but missed the top right corner. Think, can I ask your opinion about assisted dying too?

I'm sorry to leave this for last because we only have a couple of moments and I know this is a topic very, very close to your heart through a personal tragedy. Yes, it is, and very briefly, I strongly support the right to assisted dying for people who are terminally ill and of sound mind. I have a lot of sympathy for those who fear this is a slippery slope for people with disabilities. for example, I do not believe that the legislation which I believe will in one form or another be brought before Parliament will leave that risk open.

I only locate one example in the United States of Oregon, where legislation has existed for a long time. I think it is very similar to what will be presented in the Westminster Parliament as after the election I suppose it has given the right to die to many people in those narrow terms and I think I am right, only 1% have exercised. the right the right to die and that is what my brother my beloved brother wanted was the right not that he was necessarily going to exercise that right he wanted to have the right I don't know if he would have exercised it or not what I do What I know is that his life and the lives of many people have been and will be in this law.

Chang is diminished by the lack of that right. Well, I'm sorry to end on such a sad note, but thank you very much indeed for your wisdom and expertise on that, uh, it's been lovely chatting to you, Jonathan, really, really lovely, and Jonathan's book is called Endgame 1944, how Stalin won the war and comes with a strong recommendation from me to