Putin's 'weaker' war economy can't match troop numbers with equipment | Frontline

The Western Alliance has a combined gross domestic product of approximately $40 trillion. Russia's

economy

is 1.8 trillion, so we are 20 YES, 20 times the size of Russia. If we wanted to analyze Putin's

economy

, we could easily as a summary, how would you summarize the state? of Russia's economy right now yeah, well the first thing to keep in mind is that, you know, Putin, the only person who knew this war was going to happen was Putin, so he's been preparing for it for a long time. time. I'd say maybe a decade. We can go back to the CRI annexation in 2014, when the West imposed sanctions for the first time.

You know he knew the right was going to invade and he built up Russia's resource reserves. I must say that it deleveraged the economy and made it less vulnerable to Western sanctions. Foreign exchange reserves at the beginning of the war, about $640 billion, that is, more than 500 billion pounds, so we had all these resources reserved, so when he invaded and I knew that they were going to impose sanctions, there was already a lot of durability there, and obviously benefited initially. of high energy prices because it also created that, if you remember, just before the invasion there was a lot of pressure on the energy markets, people were worried about the impact on the energy supply to Europe, so oil prices and the energy increased, he benefited from that like Well, more income came in, that helped him, so there are a lot of lasting penalties.

Aggressive sanctions are imposed. Some of those resources have been eroded. About $330 billion of the $640 billion I mentioned in foreign exchange reserves were tied up in the West. jurisdiction, so it has halved its availability of foreign currency reserves, um, and you know the sanctions have started to take effect, they have reduced those buffers, caused Putin to make difficult decisions, uh, increased spending on Defense means less resources for other parts of the economy, less social spending, less spending. about the economy, uh, Russia has converted to a war economy, right, um, and you know hard decisions have been made, there has been growth, it's been lower overall, I think actually not just since the invasion, but again, if you think about the last decade, um.

The sanctions and the policies that Russia has implemented to alleviate the impact of the sanctions have meant that Russia has become much

weaker

, a lower growth rate than it would have otherwise been, inflation has been higher, so There has been some pain, but the economy has not collapsed and it has not collapsed because he had those shock absorbers in place and I think in the end the sanctions have been too weak, right? That is the reality and I think the reason they are too weak is because in the end I think that for sanctions to work, the countries that impose them have to be willing to bear some cost and, in fact, what has happened is that with all these sanctions packages they have been sanctions for the highest common denominator, so basically some country within the Western Alliance has always had an excuse as to why their industry, their banking sector, their companies are going to be harmed, so let's not do them, so we have had many excuses and reasons to weaken and moderate sanctions and I think in the end it shows that Western countries have done that.

We haven't really taken Putin's threat seriously now. If we saw this as a really big threat, a threat to our national security, we would do whatever it took to defeat Putin and Russia, and if we are not willing to take on the burden of bearing some of the cost it really shows an unwillingness to take The whole thing seriously, I mean, if you think about it another way, is that the Western Alliance has a combined gross domestic product of about 40 trillion Russian dollars. The economy is 1.8 trillion, so we are 20 times the size of Russia. If we wanted, uh, Putin's economy, we could easily do it, but we haven't really been willing to do what it takes and I think you know you know you could.

Let's say it's about the economy, you could say defense spending, I mean many different areas; In the end, for too long we simply have not taken Putin's threat seriously, which is one of the reasons he was able to get away with invading Ukraine. First, are there other sanctions that the West could be implementing that would tighten the screws on Putin? Well, a lot of attention has been paid to weak law enforcement. Many countries, not in the Western Alliance, but around Russia, have been helping Russia to. Around the sanctions there is something called secondary sanctions, so basically you identify the countries that are trying to benefit from the sanctions by allowing Russia breaks them, you sanction them and you send a clear message that you know you may not want to join our sanctions regime.

I don't want to be part of the Western alliance against Russia in this case, but we don't want you to try to help Russia break the rules so you know the countries in the Middle East, the Gulf, Turkey, Central Asia, um, we could be more aggressive in how we control sanctions to reinforce control there is a lot of what is called double use. Goods that are coming into Russia, maybe consumer durable microchips, whatever, that can be used in a washing machine, but you can use them in a tank, you know, so we just need to be smarter, more aggressive in terms how we beg you to tighten the screws on Russia because they look a lot.

I mean, sanctions were initially imposed because of the annexation of crime and then the annexation of Russia. Sorry, full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Invasion, I think. It is now quite clear that Russia is a long-term threat to us Putin hates Western liberal market democracy hates the way we work the way we are governed he wants to destroy he is at war with us he has made it clear that he is at war with We, that has been his message on Russian state television, so you know, we must make sure that Russia cannot regenerate its military machine that has been destroyed in Ukraine, so the sanctions must remain for a long time, a little like North Korea.

We need to weaken it in the long term, so we need to be smart and more aggressive. We could do more within the existing sanctions regime. There's also a really interesting idea that's been proposed by someone called Mel G Davis, that of a former think tank. Ambassador to Belus, he argues that in the end we need to send a very clear signal to Western companies that they should not be doing any business with Russia, right? and he argues, and I, in fact, agree with him that we should set a date at some point in the future, maybe three or five years from now, and say that Western companies should move to zero trade with Russia, the default setting should be that we shouldn't trade with Russia at all, other than getting special licenses for things. that's really critical, so I'm not saying that we really go to zero, but that we concentrate the minds of companies and they have to explain exactly why it is really important to buy a particular product from Russia or sell a particular product to Russia .

See why, for example, Western consumer companies should sell yogurt. I mean, what's the benefit of that right or beer? Do you know why we trade with this regime? Now there is a fascist regime that has invaded other countries committing war crimes and, in fact, genocide against Ukraine, I mean, you know, if this is it, Putin is more and more Putin's regime is more and more like the Nazi Germany, why are we doing this right? So, I think we need to be more innovative, um, think outside the box. Putin, Putin, you know? He, he, he, he outdoes us all the time by doing things illegally or you know, we play by the rules, if you play by the rules against Putin, we lose the right, so we have to be much smarter.

The solution is to use frozen Russian assets to make Russia pay for the war it is waging in Ukraine and you know it. I think it should be a political scandal that our governments are spending our money. Our taxpayers' money has been used to finance the war in Ukraine. and Reconstruction, while our governments are unwilling to spend Russia's money to fill Western bank accounts, how is that possible? I just find it extraordinary. You mention, I mean, William has supported David Cameron, one of the first things he did upon taking over. uh the foreign secretary's position was to support this effort, the UK should lead the charge within the G7 to make sure this happens.

Actually, he worries me that the UK treasury is treasure hunting, they are finding excuses not to do it and it needs to be done. If this is not done, we do not adequately fund Ukraine, we see macro instability and they lose the war and, as I said before, that means a hugely higher cost for all of us due to the threat of a resurgent Russia in the longer term, hopefully, Once Ukraine has won this war, an enormous job of economic reconstruction will still be necessary for the country. What do you think awaits us? Do we need a martial plan for the Ukrainian economy?

Do we need to consider debt relief? How long-term does Ukraine need? Well, estimates. Of the damage in the world, the World Bank and the KF School of Economics have done a little work at the moment when it is around 500 billion dollars, that is, half a trillion dollars in damage and it gets bigger every day as that Russia can inflict more damage, about 500 billion. dollars probably, you know, it's very difficult to spend that in a year. I imagine what is possible: Ukraine has an economy of approximately 200 billion dollars. It's probably feasible to spend about $50 billion on reconstruction, so that's going to be more than 10 years, something like that.

So, 50 billion dollars a year for 10 years, you know, if we see the peace and security of Ukraine is assured. I think Ukraine has a very good future. I think we can get the 500 billion I mentioned we could find from frozen Russian assets. Ukraine should be able to borrow on the international capital markets, we can think of a lot of different structures to help Ukraine fill that $50 billion a year deficit, probably during the Reconstruction recovery, and I think what's interesting is that Ukraine now has the anchor of EU membership, one of Ukraine's problems in the last 30 years, unlike Poland, the Baltic states, Hungary, the Czech Republic, which have had remarkable and really successful recoveries from the communist period , were that they were given the anchor of accession to the EU.

I mean, the thing about the EU accession story is uh Obviously, Brexit there were skeptics about the whole story, but actually EU accession provided a reform plan for these countries. It was a checklist. What I had to do. How it needs to reform its judiciary. Your regulatory environment. Their banking systems and their countries. Simply check the boxes. and it helped them, it simplified the reform process and it was successful and generated a lot of international business. Also, when they thought that Poland or the Czech Republic were going to join the European Union, they decided. Well, you know, these countries know that they have. uh, cheap labor, uh, good business environment, we want to invest, so a lot of money came in assuming the session was going to happen.

Ukraine has never had the West or the European Union ever give the green light to accession. now it has that, so I think that will help the reform process move forward, it will mean that international companies will want to go to Ukraine and, in fact, there is one notable thing that I have already covered, you know, I went to Ukraine for the first time in 1987. I have covered countries and economists for 30 years. The innovation I have seen in Ukraine has been remarkable. Think about drones, their capability. I mean, Russia was a global superpower militarily with fourth and fifth generation military

equipment

.

Ukraine was not like a third fourth category. military power and we could debate: you know why Ukraine hasn't won, why the counteroffensive failed, but fighting Russia to a standstill for two years to stop the initial Russian invasion was extraordinary and was successful because of this innovation that you know Ukraine has a strong industrial base, they're smart people, they figured out, you know, how to prepare Western military

equipment

to get the best advantage, so I think the innovation that we've seen during the war will really help them in the recovery. Russians usually die The Russians have a lot of fresh

troop

s because they have to constantly replace their losses, for example, today I think I haven't checked the statistics yet, but I think we will have the most Russian vehicles destroyed since the beginning of the invasion, in different parts of Ukraine yesterday we already counted something like 60 vehicles that were eliminated, judging by the old scene of the videos thatwe had, the Russians keep bringing in fresh

troop

s, they don't have combat fatigue because, they Our guys don't die for a long time.

Unfortunately, they still feel tired but continue to fight because we have nowhere to run. I guess one of the other big challenges with new waves of Ukrainian troop mobilization is supplying supplies. To the point where you can have extra men on the front lines fighting, but if you don't have the equipment, if you don't have new military aid and weaponry to support them, that will present enormous operational challenges, it's absolutely a combination of weapons. Doctrine of forces, we have to have vehicles again. This is another reason why, for example, Russia's claims that they can bring like 1 million troops to Ukraine don't make sense because troops without vehicles and without proper supplies don't work, when you know.

The day Russia brings 1 million troops to Ukraine and concentrates them in the same place will be the happiest day for Ukrainian artillery operators. So you have to have vehicles, you have to have adequate supplies, you have to have good logistics to be able to be there. capable of mobilizing so many soldiers and again, we are talking about the supplies of our Western allies must understand that this is something hilarious and incredible at the same time. The Russian professor and political scientist who is a great friend and supporter of Vladimir Putin stated last week that the Ukrainians used humanoid drones programmed to attack civilians in At Crocus City Hall in Moscow several days ago, the former Russian head of Interpole Russian and his U adviser for the Ministry of the Interior, is a Russian major general, actually said that this attack was carried out by terrorists. that they had microchips installed in their brain and they were psychologically programmed to do that, this is the worst thing that people in Russia specifically believe this misinformation because the Russians involve all kinds of speakers and those people are of a fairly high level, they are as doctors, doctors, former authorities at the highest level and they spread this absolutely ridiculous misinformation that people in Russia continue to consume.

It's crazy, although it's interesting that it could be a moment of danger for Vladimir. Putin internally because he is there dismissing the threat posed by the very real threat that ISIS K poses to Russia and instead trying to baselessly claim that somehow Ukraine was involved when his intelligence services tell him no, there is a threat genuine Isis K and that if there is a There is a type of division between the Russian intelligence services and Vladimir Putin in the long term that could be very dangerous for him. I would say it's a bit opposite. Even though, by the way, Iran warned him, we know from Reuters, for example, that Tan warned. uh he about the possible attack and other agencies, but uh actually, I think this terrorist attack was like an explosion for Putin, he, he, he was very happy that it really happened in Russia, so now he can blame it on Ukraine, can, can demonize, uh. the Western world and this gives it the opportunity to launch, for example, another wave of mobilization, recently, the Russians, photoshopped, you know, those postmarks that we had, we had a postmark of a Ukrainian soldier giving the finger to the ship of Russian war and things like that. um and they did something very similar with the saffron hole burning uh and um they basically tried to blame Ukraine and tried to say that the Ukrainians posted those postmarks to celebrate the terrorist attack in Moscow, so we see that this misinformation has something of a kind of goal that they're trying to achieve and, in my opinion, because, according to military culture, nothing happens, you know, because everything happens for a reason and everything has some kind of goal, and in my opinion, this.

The goal is to further demonize Ukrainians in the eyes of the Russians because we don't give them enough reasons to do so. We did not deliberately attack Russian civilians. We do not attack Russian residential buildings. We don't torture. their prisoners of war and we don't do all those things that the Russians do to the Ukrainians, that's why they keep demonizing us and apparently I think one of the goals is the opportunity to launch a new mobilization, so Putin is almost wearing the crown. The attacks on city hall are a kind of false flag operation, not to suggest that Russia is somehow staying, I'm not saying that, but in terms of how it has spun it to justify its campaign against Ukraine, something else you mentioned to the operator Stasi just now.

It was Russia's way of trying to undermine messaging among Ukrainians so that Ukrainians feel somehow like they are being abandoned by the West, and of course there are legitimate concerns about, for example, the lack of renewed military aid from of the US Congress if they were there, I suppose there would be understandable complaints from the Ukrainians, but tell me a little about some of the tactics that Putin is using there to try to take into account the solidarity that exists between the West and Ukraine, so they are constantly bombing. Ukrainian society through telegram channels, for example through different independent media, with messages that, for example, Europe is trying to find a solution to force Ukraine to negotiate with Putin and they are basically trying to say that Western countries like Germany and France, which are some of our strongest allies, like the United Kingdom, by the way, are trying to convince Ukraine to capitulate and this is something we hear in 2022, but these days this information It's absolutely massive.

According to German authorities, for example, Russian disinformation about Ukraine and Western countries grew several times compared to last year. You mentioned a moment ago how Putin is using the other week's attacks to justify a new wave of mobilization. We have seen that he now signed a decree authorizing a spring military draft that will recruit some 150,000 Russians between April and July. We've talked a lot before on Frontline about the very high Russian casualty rate, but I'm talking about how big the war is. that even though the casualty rate for Russia is enormously high, they can sustain it, it would seem that at this point it is because Putin doesn't care about Russian casualties.

This is his usual tactic. Basically, they know they have an inexhaustible source of human material. right of personnel that they can literally throw in meat assaults and uh, this is their tactics, it is ridiculous from a European point of view, we do not fight like that, we do not simply sacrifice our soldiers in such

numbers

, but for Russia, it is like that and it was their U common um combat culture Common doctrine and uh they know that they can uh compensate for any losses that they have because they have a huge population and of course they have huge reserves of ammunition and vehicles um this is again something very worrying because For example, it was estimated that the The UK does not have enough artillery to fight Russia if Russia invades.

For example, the United Kingdom. The Russians have those resources because they have been stockpiling artillery shells for decades since World War II. during the Cold War, they increased their stockpiling of their arsenal of weapons because we know that they were selling them, they were giving them to other countries during the Cold War, and also in the '90s, so unfortunately they have this opportunity again if we take a look look at the annual GDP of Russia, which has a smaller annual GDP than Italy, for example, and the size of those territories cannot be compared, but at the same time this is a good answer to the question of why there are people in Italy.

They live in better conditions than people in Russia, where two thirds of the PE population live in absolute poverty, this is because they have different strategies. Italy has social policies and things like that. Russia is accumulating weapons like crazy since 1945, that is the only answer to this question: where are we with new waves of mobilization in Ukraine? I know that President Zalinsky said just before Christmas that he felt Ukraine might need up to half a million more troops mobilized, where are we with that? The latest news we have is that the mobilization law is almost complete, 90%, and many changes will be made to the initial draft of this legislation because there were many things that needed to be done.

They have been amended to ensure that this law corresponds to human rights and things like that, so there were a lot of consultations with different experts and committees of the Parliament of Ukraine regarding this and I think we will see this law. adopted Perhaps this month already, again, the problem as the global problem in Ukraine regarding mobilization and troops is that our personnel are fighting for more than two years without stopping, our soldiers have the opportunity to take a vacation, for For example, for uh, like 30 days to see their families, uh, but still, those people keep fighting and if we don't change them, we don't know how long this war has been going on, maybe years, maybe a decade, and those guys they must be replaced. they need to get some rest and they need to be replaced, so this is the current situation, in a way, the kind of Russian imperial moment that we're going through is kind of a long-awaited reaction to the Treaty of Breos, when you know. the western half of Russia, the Russian Empire is torn away or dragged away by the Cal powers and you have the creation of these, not the independent Nally states, obviously, they are under the control of the central powers, but the independent Nally states, um , that type of carving. their own destinies and you have the resurgence and recovery uh Renaissance of Poland um and obviously Ukraine you know Ukraine emerged in 1918 they are delegates in the Bret Lov Treaty and uh despite initially supporting them, the Bolsheviks you know as As soon as Ukraine arises, the Bolsheviks try to invade and try to put that out because they recognize that without Ukraine, you know, Russia can be a great power and obviously they are very different from the Tsars and the imperial state, but still I have that kind of innate sense of that kind of superiority really and that Russia has to have this kind of region where it controls and so in some ways it's a reaction to that, it's an idea that these states that you know emerged.

After World War I they really still belong to Russia and they don't really know it, they're only really free because it's some kind of Western plot or German plot or whatever, but actually these are real states. Do you know their own national identities and national histories? And I think that's part of the Russian desire to wipe the slate clean and regain the Zaris position that it held in 1914. How do you think it views the First World War? Every ordinary Russian today, I mean, World War II is looming over me. I imagine it is much more important on the mental scene as a great victory over the European aggressors, but where does the First World War now sit in the Russian psyche?

Nick, well, it's difficult because it's all related. to the revolution, of course, you know, obviously, the reev in the Soviet period, the Revolution was the foundation, you know the founding moment of the USSR and a moment that was very mythologized in propaganda in literature and cinema, the idea that you know the class system collapsed, it was overthrown by the people and obviously this was a bit, you know, there are two revolutions in 1917, there is the abdication of the Tsar, there is the formation of the provisional government and then there is the Bolshevik couet tar in November, so the revolution What you really know is Russia's history in the war, once the Soviet Union collapses, the revolution becomes a little more problematic because obviously the last thing you know, the last thing you What Putin really wants people to think about is how to overthrow a corrupt autocratic regime, so revolution is, you know, Putin is a creature of the USSR, so he has a certain fondness for this sort of thing, but it's inherently political. and therefore there is a certain weariness towards it at the same time. you have a kind of growing cult of personality around the Tsar, you know the execution of the Tsar and his family and this idea that he symbolizes a kind of good Russia, an Orthodox Russia, um, and so his cult of personality and almost worship. in some cases he has grown considerably since the end of the Soviet Union, so he has still had his moment where he is being reviewed and instead of being seen as a somewhat ineffective figure, but seen as a much warmer feeling, so the memory of that war and that period is continually evolving and changing, but it is still a period.

I think it's intense, kind of calm, I think that would be the right word, both among the Russian people and among the Russian elite. Could you evaluate Vladimir Putin's worldview as it relates to the history of Russia and Europe over the last century? I mean, I don't know if you caught anything from that remarkable interview he did with Tucker Carlson, where he essentially walks him through his Theory of Russian History and it was, you know, historically inaccurate in many places, but revealing in terms of its world view, what did you do with Nick? Yeah, I mean, I think it was very interesting and I think it's important, um, history is often dismissed as Sometimes it's not.relevant or anything, but you look at someone like Putin and history is very present in his psyche and his identity and his understanding of the world is historically based, although it may not necessarily be objectively accurate, but it is deeply emotional. and connected to him as a person and his worldview, you know the idea that, again, as I think I said before, those states that emerged after the first war are not real states, they are not real people, they are actually just Russians that I've been seduced by the West or whatever and really his natural home is under the rule of Moscow and so you know that he shares that vision with generations of Russian autocrats in that sense, so Putin is much more, he would be much more recognizable. to the standard type of 19th century Russian nationalists and so on, so there's not much surprise or much difference, I think maybe for us in the West who aren't exposed to that, I think you can see it. how powerful historical understandings can be to someone who was determined to write down the mistakes of history as he sees them to get things back on track and of course without understanding that what happened in World War I was, you know .

It was that old empire that collapsed and when there are old empires that collapse, they are always violent. It is always difficult to have a great upheaval that can take decades to overcome and obviously there is the period of World War II when you know that the Soviet Union expanded again into Eastern Europe. You know it was kind of the right period where Russia had restored what it was naturally going to do and that hasn't really changed in Putin's mindset, but I think it's very interesting how important historical reasoning is to him. and his vision of the world and we should not underestimate that it is heard more and more Nick's people talk about whether we are on the verge of a third global conflict or even a kind of third world war, if you want to put it that way, what is your position on this?

Yeah, I mean, I think I can understand the fears and concerns of angering the Russian bear and obviously you have a very violent and very dangerous individual and a very violent and dangerous state, but I think there are still some things that are worth it. fight and I think that kind of Ukrainian state is definitely worth fighting for. So I think that somehow we have to put our heads down and make sure that we do what is necessary and, in some ways, the best way to DET Russia, is not through weakness but through strength, through of uncompromising strength and making sure that Ukraine can continue to fight um, I think weakness only breeds more um, you know, Moscow's ambition in that sense, it really just reacts to force, respects strength and I think that we have to understand that that might be quite difficult for us in the West to appreciate, um, but once you go there and understand this, I think what you mean is that you have no choice, you're going to have to take a stance on Russia.

The question is do you want to do it from a position of relative strength or from a position of weakness which is really the question you have to answer is because by allowing Russia to get its way you may not actually prevent the Second War World, you could actually provoke it or almost an appeasement. Mark also, yeah, I mean, there are similarities in that sense, the belief. that you know you can, you can just give me, just give it a little bit or you know you can Putin is not going to be satisfied with the Donbass or certain explosions in Ukraine, he wants everything, we must understand that. and could temporarily make do with some of those minor territorial adjustments.

But ultimately the ideology is clear, the understanding of the history is clear, he's not trying to hide it. Ukraine is a failed state, it is a fake state, it is not a real state to which it needs to return. Russia, that's the ideology and of course there is a complete denial of Ukrainian history that goes back much further than you know, before the First World War and all that, so I think those are some of the points that I think we must take into account and that we must understand. these people on their own terms and they don't interpret it well, they could say that, but they actually mean the other, in reality dictators often say exactly what they want and what they mean, and even if I completely conquered Ukraine, God wouldn't I want it, I mean, you can compare it. for a shark a shark needs to keep moving forward and it wouldn't stop there, well they might stop for a few years or whatever but it won't fundamentally, it would certainly make the security situation in Europe very very dangerous um so I think somehow it's better to try to stop him where we can um before you let him get stronger finally Nick from writing the book are there any other lessons besides knowing how to approach dictators for example, but are there any other lessons that are Can they apply from the First World War to today's world?

Yeah, I mean, I think we've certainly seen in Ukraine, I mean, we talked about this, you know, we've seen the resurgence of trench warfare. the resurgence of trench warfare and if you look at some of the photos and video footage of some of those areas of intense fighting, you would know that you put it in a black and white filter and it's straight out of the Western Front, um. some like passendale, we have the Splinter trees and things like that, from my perspective it's really interesting to see things like people talking about the shortage of shells, you know, which we haven't talked about for decades and we think we do it from a military perspective.

We're talking about high-paced, high-precision maneuvers and operations, actually what we're seeing now is a more real war, I think, that's about mass attrition, mass death, the amount of artillery shells you can fire, it's about advances. undecided, so the First World has a lot of parallels and a lot of things that we can draw from that and ultimately you know you need to be able to bring Mass, so we need to rearm, we need to be able to provide, you know, a capability that that . Do you know that you can reinforce and you can bring more shells, bring more troops, bring more weapons, more tanks?

That's something we in the west really don't want to hear, but it's the ultimate lesson if you're struggling with attrition. War, um, you're going to need to do that, so Ukraine has been a really powerful reminder, whether governments want to hear it or not, but a powerful reminder that war requires masses of people, massive equipment, and potentially deaths. massive, that is war, that is much more. of a kind of standard in international relations that the period that we have had of very, very precise precision Exquisite War Ukraine has shown I think the true face of war which again is remarkably consistent with what we found in the First World War.

I mean Ukraine. it's the first world war with drones, the United States told the Russian government on March 6 that the terrorist attack was going to happen uh now we know that actually I they mentioned that concert hall in particular uh konos uh City Hall uh also now by We know that the Iranian government informed the Russian government that they have sources who say that there is going to be a terrorist attack in Moscow and instead of trying to prevent it, they went to the FSB collegium colum collegium of the FSB is the ruling The structure of the FSB is like the Poit Bureau of the former Soviet Union, so instead of saying that they should be attentive to terrorist acts, he told them that this is a provocation and blackmail from the United States and that they should not react and that is why Despite all these notifications, already You know, there was no police force present during that particular concert.

That particular concert hall was named in what is likely an indication that, for reasons that are unclear, the Russian government made the decision to allow it. this terrorist act happens and the question is why and I think at this point we have at least two indications that we think we know the answer why first a major discussion about the abolition of the moratorium for the death penalty occurred in Russia after that particular terrorist act and we heard the voices, you know, not only of Dimitri, the former president of Russia and the former prime minister of Russia, who were sort of demanding that the death penalty be brought back, but also of many members of the Russian Parliament, so we still don't know if they would return the death penalty to Russia, but this could be one of the reasons why the government decided to allow this terrorist act to happen, so know that it would be us as a reason for the return and the death penalty.

Secondly, you know, as of March 202, when the terrorist act took place, that is the only topic that everyone is discussing, in fact, during the same period, the Russian army destroyed the city of HOV in KF, in Ukraine, the city of Harkov is the second largest. city ​​in Ukraine after uh it is very close to the Russian border and the Russian missiles take 40 seconds to reach the city from the Russian border and since the Ukrainians now have no help from the United States and everything is Kind of Frozen with sport, they don't have cover, of course, and they don't have, you know, anti-missile equipment to deactivate missiles and the city is destroyed, literally, and it's a city of 1.3 million inhabitants and they use bombs. for the first time during the war for this war the Russian planes are simply bombing the city from the plane that again remains in Russian airspace and firing those self-propelled bombs that you know from Russian territory towards Harkov and no one talks about Harkov because everything The world is talking about this terrorist act, although it seems strange that President Putin wants to divert attention from it, given what has happened since the large-scale invasion, well, again, the Russian government used this terrorist act for propaganda purposes as well. , is saying that Putin was precisely saying that this is done by Ukrainians although, of course, four people who were arrested, beaten, tortured, presented to the Russian public, do not look like Ukrainians to be honest, but anyway The government claims that this Ukrainians do it, but this is impossible to sell even to the Russian public.

I have to tell you because the situation is quite obvious. It is obvious that this was an Islamic terrorist act, but again, it is propaganda. using this for their purposes too, uh, without great success, well this is yes, it's probably a lie, they announce it, actually they announce that they are going to recruit an additional 100,000 people into the army before the terrorist, so this was announced and plan to recruit between 100 and 500,000 people into the army. I don't know how successful this recruitment will be because last time, when they announced that they would recruit 300,000 people into the army, in the end they managed to collect this amount. of young men, but we know that probably the same number of young men leave Russia during this process, because the border is still open, so I would say that every time they announce that they are going to recruit, you know, 100,000 or 500,000 people. in the army, uh, a similar number of people will probably leave Russia again and, um, what does it mean that they take a young man from the Russian economy who is fighting, is fighting, not in the sense that he is in terrible conditions, no , it is not, but yes? working like 24 hours a day, 7 hours a day, seven days a week, to support the production of military weapons for war, so if they take 200,000 to 1 million people out of this team, it will probably be felt in the economy.

So I don't think they'll be able to recruit 500,000 people like they plan, but they'll probably be able to get an additional 100 to 200,000. We are in this unique situation because it is the first time. In the story you say that the FSB secret security service runs and continues to run a country. What do you think the correct attitude and policy towards Russia should be? You mean St in 2000 or today because you already know, now, now. I have great help and this help comes from Ukraine because Russia attacked Ukraine, caused war, hoping this will be like a stream bed and everyone will capitulate like one country after another, they never believe Ukraine could do it. agree to fight would start fighting against Russian aggression this was not the plan and this is the only hope to bring change to Russia otherwise otherwise you know Putin would remain as president until he dies whenever he will die uh and and again uh there is no internal opposition in Russia there are no internal forces that can change anything in Russia and you mentioned Naval, but that is precisely why Putin was killing him, so they kill him preemptively. all the potential leaders, the border is open and many Russians, and we are talking about hundreds of thousands, probably millions of Russians, left Russia, so only those people who actually I don't want to say everyone who lives in Russia today supports Putin.

That's not what I mean, but all those active people who were already actively opposing Putin to fight Putin, either they are in prisons and there aren't many of them, or they emigrated because they realized that it doesn't make sense, they can't. change the regime peacefully in Russia, uh, you could change it, I'm just sorry to say this is a Revolutionary War, against the governmentRussian, against the current Russian government, and there is, there is no, possibility for this because the weapons are. controlled by three groups basically the FSB, the Russian army and the rosu, which is like an internal personal military force of Putin, so there is no opposition, there are no political parties that fight for power against Putin, that is, this was done . slowly, starting in the year 2000, and the result is that there is not even the theoretical possibility that this regime could be an internal change, this is not going to happen, so the only hope in reality was brought to us by the Ukrainians, because if Russia is defeated this then of course the regime will change and then we are back to the same issue whether we hope that Putin himself stops doing it decided one day okay you know the war is not going okay, you know, let's stop.

Let's try to be friends with the West and I don't think this is going to happen because you know we had these people in Russia ruling Russia before Soviet Russia before, for Lenin, this was the World Revolution for Trotsky. It was a permanent revolution for Stalin, this was just the military occupation of one country after another and in 1941, by the way, he took half of Europe, so Putin basically continues where Stalin, you know, he stopped, that's what he plans . Are you planning to return to Eastern Europe under Russian influence first and then continue again with the speed that is possible or have you said before that Putin does not care how many people have to die in the war in Ukraine, which he equates to the high number of dead with a Great War in an almost Stalinist way in At the moment when, as you said, Ukraine is receiving support to be able to continue fighting but not win.

Can the war in Ukraine be contained and won? Well, it could be contained in Ukraine, but contained in Ukraine and win. In Ukraine there are two different goals, so far, the ideas that you help Ukraine, and again, it doesn't work in the last few weeks because the American Congress still hasn't made a decision, allowing Ukraine to get. American aid so far is not like that, but basically the idea is that Ukrainians will resist Russian aggression so that the West will help Ukraine as much as necessary to keep Russian aggression inside Ukraine and through this the war will not spread further because the Ukrainians are holding the Russians back, but at the same time, Russia cannot be allowed to lose this war because if Russia saw that it was losing this war, then Russia would use nuclear weapons because it would have no other choice, so the idea is have this. permanent war in Ukraine, the strategy again is not to win because winning means that Russia loses and that is precisely what the Western world unfortunately I have to say is trying to avoid because it is afraid that Russia is lying if we see that we are losing war, then we will destroy the entire world with nuclear weapons because why do we need to exist if we are losing this war?

So, and this Bluff, ironically or not, tragically, this BL works, that's precisely why everyone is trying to do it. help Russia not to lose this war, otherwise Russia would lose this war a long time ago, so if the goal was for Ukraine to win this war, not only Ukraine will win this war, but it will also risk a confrontation with Russ Russ with Russia will eventually be destroyed and dealt with so my point is the only way for Europe to avoid war is to allow Ukraine to win otherwise sooner or later this war will take place which we have been in for six months that we arrived.

I've started making a movie and there hasn't been a single day that the Russians haven't bombed us, not a single day because they're a mile away, a mile and a half away, on the other side of the Deno River. , so where do you see other places being attacked by Shahid drones and ballistic missiles in your son, they don't need to do that, standard artillery just hits the city daily so it's just part of life and you know he's had a great effect, that's what it's all about. around 320,000 people, they estimate that now there are around 30,000 people left and that is only because of the Russian army, only with rockets and heavy artillery on a daily basis, they just attacked the place and Paul, before starting this interview, you told me that you had had to move from home four times, yeah, well, we moved, we got here and I think the first day we were doing something, we met some old babushkas on the corner and we were asking them about life, uh, I was filming and then the next.

In the morning we received a call saying come to where you did the interview and we went outside the house where you did it and the house was completely destroyed and what happened was that someone had seen us there are many there are still many collaborators Russing, you know, in the city, so you have to be very careful, but they saw us, assumed it was our house and the next morning they just removed it from the map. We returned to the place we had moved to, we were actually staying. zarena was on the skype call and then a grad rocket hit the back of the building and destroyed all the windows in that house so we had this within three days of being here and we thought this was cool so now we We moved into um, a sort of post-Soviet era housing block that was pretty anonymous, but the other day we went out to do an interview and we heard the rocket, we went to meet a soldier and we heard the rocket go overhead, which which, to be honest, We didn't even think about it, you heard them and we had a big explosion, we went and did the interview and we came back and at first we went, someone said that the cafe where we had coffee was being attacked, so we went there. and he said no we think he's at your house so we drove and stopped at our house and looked at the apartment.

I'm looking at it now, it's about 10m away and it had taken a direct hit, but our apartment when we turned. around and I looked at it, it was like it wasn't, no, all the windows in the kitchen and the living room were destroyed and we got to the whole place, you know, now there's shrapnel holes in all the walls, um, and then they came and put them up. Call it Ukrainian glass, it's basically wood, they fit into all the windows with wood, so now we live in some kind of really dark hole, we have a little window like that that lets the light in, it's like it's a permanent, permanent winter, Now we just sit there.

Sort of and then about two months ago around Christmas a shell came across and landed on the balcony below us in the apartment below and that was called a fetchet, it's like an artillery shell but it's filled with about 2,000 small steel arrows and hit the balcony below missing us by about 4M, but it filled the apartment below with these tiny short like stainless steel arrows, so yeah, we've had our share of Misses here, yeah, How does your documentation of this war compare to that of others? experiences and do you feel that you have more reasons to stay in Ukraine?

Do you feel like you want to be there long term? Yeah, well, I think with Ukraine because it was a long time after they ruined you. In Syria it was a long time before I could walk and then, you know, get fit and healthy again, so there was a big gap between 2012 and when I arrived when the Frontline Club, when it started, they said: "You know what we want". train young journalists, you know, we also feel like going out and I said: yes, I will continue, so I wrote a two-day course on heat and safety and when you see the enthusiasm of young people. journalists who are there to cover it, you know that spreads, so I trained myself and I thought, oh, I wonder if I still have it, you know, no, I haven't been near an explosion since the explosion that killed me, Marie, and It caught me.

So you mean, Paul just interrupts, but only to explain to people that this is the experience you had in Syria, where your colleague Mar Culvin, uh, died and this was afterward. the coverage of the protests in homs um and you wrote about that in your book under the wire that I mentioned at the beginning um yeah, sorry, you were saying that I'm interested and what really motivates you is that I saw them, I saw them. go out, you know, train them for two days and go out, and I mean, it's so I thought, yeah, well, you're going to go, you know, these are local journalists who were covering dog shows until the Russians invaded, you know they were just doing the local.

Journalists do it and all of a sudden they're on the front lines, so I saw that and I saw their enthusiasm, so I went out myself to take some pictures and you know, very quickly I got over the kind of willpower I had. being good on the front line again and then once I realized there was, it was like well, this is what I know, you know they had that big break in the middle because of an injury, but once I was there and you know I just can't help but look at the Ukrainian spirit and say, yeah, I want, I want to follow this to the end and and the movie is the same with the movie that came for a few weeks and it's like no, there's more to do. .

This is like characters and you know it's going to be a great edit because it's going to be a great story woven into a narrative and when you take the photographs, your Stills um, what do you look for in a photograph in a place like Houseon or in Ukraine? Well, it's like every photo you know I ever had. I had the luxury of working with Marce, so it was like she had the words and the images were always composed in two parts, but when I take a photo I am always very aware that I am trying to tell a story in a single frame, You know what there is and I can never imagine putting subtitles.

I think it should be without subtitles. You know it should be a story in itself and you know, and it's different than shooting a movie. You know, when I'm shooting a film and a video, I never shoot the same thing on the same day and I never do. Both because they're such different things with stills, you have to just sit back and watch and really, really hone in and pick your moments and, you know, try to capture the whole story and you just want to go with the film that you know. When I interview you, it's different, so I keep them separate some days.

I'll go out just to do Sills and it's the ultimate game. G. You know, the goal is to tell the story in an image and that's a challenge, but when it comes off, it's also very nice, ah, I got it and Paul, what can you tell us about what they told you about living under occupation Russian? Oh, horrible, the stories, they were just big on torture, so they suspected that anyone had these torture chambers spread all over the city. Yesterday we went to what used to be a yoga studio and they knew that people came in and they didn't know that many came in and didn't come out.

I've talked to victims who went through the machine and it's brutal and and yes, but they're still there and you know they're alive to tell the story so they're telling their stories, but it was Ju Just So. very widespread and they really tried to erase any meaning from Ukraine, so we have a lovely guy, Valodia, who tells us that every morning, how he describes it, they play their stupid anthem through the Russian national anthem through the big speakers in the square. and they had raised the Russian flag and you know, they, and laughing she says: you know they absolutely believed that they could get rid of the Ukrainian concept of Ukraine, that's what they're trying to do, it's an example of what's most important for the country, if God.

Don't let them get through, you know there's going to be a car, there's been Carnage, but if they break through and do what they've done on everyone else, how do people feel about? I mean, you talk about how close the Russians are to you. now they're afraid to come back there's always rumors there you know they're afraid and you know they're quite um you know they see what's going on they see the kind of world you know kind of conspiracy for the supply of weapons you know that should be what they see , they get it, you know, and obviously other things happen that take away some of the headlines, you know, Palestine, everyone here knew when, when Israel and Gaza started. many journalists from Exodus and went to cover the next war.

You know it's the circus going on, but they are aware of that and you know it's a genuine fear that the Russians will return. You know there isn't any. They more than anyone know their capabilities and will fight to the last man, but without the weapons and without the resources, it is horrendous. You know, fortunately here they can't cross the river again because the bridges are gone. then they would have some warning because they would have to turn around and go down, so there is a little bit of wiggle room, but you know, there are always the latest rumors that the Russians are coming back, but the evidence is that Russia is rearming, it is rebuilding, it is remobilizing. and they're dedicating a lot of 30% of the economy to it now is a war economy that they're building, you know, and that's just not happening.

What's happening? What if you tell me about meeting with Ukrainian soldiers? Have you been, oh, I was out yesterday, I think it was I was out with um, with a unit, um, the artillery unit that we were with, they were fantastic, it's just that I was artillery too, so I have a bit of a affinity with but we just arrived, we had to leave at 2 a.m. m. under the cover of Darknessbecause of the drones and they took this away, where was it, where to go, it was upstream. I can't be too specific about it. precise, yeah, somewhere upriver and it all happens at night and Red Torch took us out and we just walked down these muddy steps to this basically an underground room with four guys in it and they said hello, you know, visitors, what are you? what you're doing here, but they were just lovely, so lovely guys, but I said, do you know how long you've been in the artillery? and he said, oh, well, you know, we found a gun, we found a Russian gun. like what he said, it didn't have wheels and some parts were missing, he said, but before that we were a motor unit, but then we found this gun, so we kept it, the Russians had abandoned it and they said in a couple of months they found some wheels for it and then they found some spots and I was like, well, how did you shoot it? did you go to training, he said oh, YouTube, no, and I just loved it, like you learned to shoot on YouTube and G, yeah.

You know we're actually pretty good, you know, pretty good shots, but they live this existence, they live in the ground and deep, you know, about six feet underground with wooden beams and piles of dirt, but they know they're using ammunition. that they went out and searched the forest for ammunition that they found that the Russians had left behind, so wherever you go you have the feeling that the ammunition is, the ammunition is running out, you know, you look at the eastern front from divka to what point around Kos , that area, you know the Russians are pushing, pushing, pushing, and yesterday you will talk to a guy in a reconnaissance unit and he said that they are, you know, he said that there are a lot of um, the Russians are too stupid, but you said that they are learning, that they're adopting, you know, they're copying Ukraine's tactics, so it's kind of a technological war that never plays out, you know, with drones they're a complete game changer, but he said their tactics are: it's a mini arms race right now, certainly with the drones you've been watching Frontline for several times on the radio.

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