Drohnenangriffe auf Russland: Teil der ukrainischen Gegenoffensive? | To the Point

What strategy is the Ukrainian government currently following? What is the status of the announced counteroffensive? Do the recent drone attacks against Moscow, Krasnodar and the area have anything to do with the counterattack? Or is there something else behind this? In any case, the Russian leaders threaten retaliation and, for their part, continue to use drones and missiles against kyiv, where civilians die. We observe the respective war and question the drone attacks. Russia part of Ukraine against the offensive a warm welcome to the

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. I am pleased to introduce my guests Gustav Military Russia and the security expert of the European Council and the Relations Forum warmly welcomes him, he heads the Russia program of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and regularly does so directly in Russia, and my colleague Ukrainian Yes Polska, who works as a DW correspondent from Brussels, warmly greets everyone who would like to start for the first time in this war, in the Russian capital civilian targets were attacked. houses in the south and southwest of the city of more than a million inhabitants, which eCHO reached, how will that happen?

We can say relatively little about the intentions of these drone flyovers and the drones on the collapsed apartment buildings. not explode, in theory they could have been done, we don't know exactly what explosive devices were there or not because Russian propaganda of course immediately presents them as theoretical attacks that we have to work with, the reactions are interesting because they actually tell how little Russian leaders are surprised by this development of confrontation and uncertainty is ultimately the determining sentiment - it is not so much about the immediate effect - I do not think it will lead to no direct provisions for the people.

It was a shock that they had In the general population we also realized, through conversations with our partners there, that the uncertainty about a further escalation of the feeling of certainty were two things that the Kremlin has been calling for for some time. They have long turned out to be false. One of them has been clear for a long time: the thing will not be won, the warrior will not lead to victory; The second is the second truth that has been emphasized very strongly, especially by the Kremlin. in the last weeks and months It is stable as it is, most of the time it does not affect your life, it does not change because the war is not yet a mass phenomenon, despite the silent patriotic nationalist propaganda in the vast majority.

For most people, it is very far away and has nothing to do with their lives, they have to not worry about it, unless they live right on the border, but that is my separate story and the fact that of course , drones are attacking the capital, regardless of whether they eat or not, it's a big shock, but maybe it doesn't matter much. Is it intentional or not? Gustav Gressel Who perhaps intends to create this uncertainty? The problem is that you really can. At the moment it cannot be answered seriously. There is a rumor that the drones were only on the move for reconnaissance tasks, but then the question arises of who collects the data, so the radio range with which they are controlled is limited to 100 km.

If they continue flying, they will do so, so to speak, on autopilot and should in fact return. In the possible sphere of influence of these drones there are also legitimate military objectives, especially the building of the country's foreign intelligence service. Russian Federation, the SWR and also the FSB, both, of course, are not irrelevant to the Russian war, but we do not know if the drones actually reached these buildings. Residents of some personalities like Putin also sit there. Defense Minister Scheu, etc. They could also be identified as legitimate war targets to attack, even in quotes. They also have a direct role in the military chain of command, so in that sense they are there too, but as I said, there are no reports on that.

If there is one, a drone would have made it this far, which means we can't say it's perfect at the moment, it's still psychologically simple, so it almost doesn't matter whether they made it or not and why hit at such a long distance and Moscow is not a border city. That's everything we've flown over is equally vulnerable to attack and in my opinion this psychological political effect is much more important here than the immediate military one because it's really very limited, but that's not the

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. The Ukrainian government reacted quite happily in some cases, but at the same time direct participation in these attacks, how was it among the population?

Well, you can talk about schadenfreude because from the beginning. war you could feel that many people wished that the Russians could feel what the Ukrainians were doing to Ukraine Yes, and of course with every small triumph you are happy and with things like that you also say aha now you understand what we are like now you understand what kind of fear we are experiencing now, you understand what kind of stress we have been under for almost a year and a half. Years of life, that is, even now, if you take the broader picture, a series of attacks, if you can call them series, are still to be clarified but we have seen attacks on the border cinema on the border with Ukraine, whether in Belgrade a fire in a refinery supposedly due to drone attacks, according to the governor, there was an explosion in the Kremlin in early May, now it seems that there could be a tactic behind this, read it that way or it can't even be compared to attacks or incidents.

Sled attacks on facilities near the border are clearly a tactic behind this, even in these voluntary associations that have occupied the Moblas border stations in Belgorod, the goal is, first of all, to attack the supply lines of the Russian army , i.e. fuel depots, railway substations, railway tracks, partly directly or to Russian troops, so, if the Russian- Ukrainian border on the Russian side is very weakly militarily secured or not militarily secured at all, the troops are in Ukraine by potential, of course, so those border crossings by these volunteers are extremely embarrassing and, so to speak, they want to stop something like that so that they can do that and have enough soldiers ready everywhere in this eternally long border means you have to remove them from Ukraine and that is exactly the effect Ukraine is looking for to thin Russian lines there as much as possible. possible If the offensive occurs, the reaction options of the Russian armed forces are small, then Ukraine will go through the country to get from one part to another, so to speak, but from the Russian point of view it has to be done, for example, take out forces from the south of Ukraine and bring them to the area To move Belgrade on the cream through Roßdorf, then, so to speak, go around the entire curve on the outside and, of course, each of these transfers takes out troops and takes a relatively long and can no longer be reversed so easily by sending people back.

Of course, these actions are designed to force the Russian front to fragment its forces. These are actions of anti-Putin groups in which people with Russian citizenship act. You can assign this to one of us, Alexa Usopov, what dimension is this and what are the contacts in kyiv like, so there are at least two, supposedly there is a third, in fact, I have to say in advance that we know very little. about them, about the only thing we know about them, tell us ourselves, so I would treat everything very cautiously, there is no confirmation from Ukraine because, understandably, that is the effectiveness of such actions, which are certainly coordinated because these groups They are aligned, equipped, They have been accompanied across the border, they have to pass through partially rented areas, there are coordination problems, they also do not want to find themselves under friendly fire from the Ukrainian side.

Part of the Ukrainian strategy, however, the groups are probably in three places, no matter the size of the team, at least the core of Russian volunteers, much less can be said about the Free Russian Legion, they are much less real, I think which is a group that also has biographical information. The students. are on the right margin, many of the most important personalities, whether from the football fan environment, the nationalist militant environment or the neo-Nazi environment, so for Kiel it is also not understandable that it is the best relations strategy -Strategy to say that we have a battalion here that is led by someone who has a t-shirt printed in Germany with 88 and that is the military leader of the volunteer chord exactly or kapustien as his real name is in this sense that is very effective because it really It generates real successes and these groups claim that they still have a four-digit number of interested parties from Russia itself who would like to join them.

We have to leave it as it is, as I said, we cannot verify that they are actually relatively mobile, Light and partisan actions are very effective in the border regions for the central population, even in Moscow everything is still very far away, I must say that, so as the fate of many Ukrainians is irrelevant to residents of big cities. In other parts of Russia, so is the life of their own compatriots in the Russian border towns, so you can't jump to the conclusion just because it's a mountain or because it's really getting down to business, people in Moscow will be calm and that will not happen.

If it doesn't happen, that is relatively far away, they will gloat while people in Belgorod say ah, now they finally feel it in Moscow, yes, but as we have been doing it for a few months, not just from time to time and again and De In fact, there are boasts and there are even statements from regional authorities, the local governor says that I also have a very long list of questions for our security services about how something like this can happen. They invaded here. under voluntary pressure, to the extent that it destabilizes, it works, but it is still my thing, especially in addition to the auxiliary function of endangering certain paths and binding forces, it is above all a very effective additional psychological political weapon that the children on the side Ukrainian yes So when you read something like children in Russia are being evacuated, yes, we are not talking about Ukraine, children are being evacuated in Russia, then you wonder in Russia who is defending us, because what is happening, what is happening with our country. highly military country, that we do not have any protection, yes, I have a psychological effect, it is actually supposed to be good, from a military point of view, how do you classify what we are currently seeing in terms of war on the part of Ukraine?

Xenia Polska, you have to classify it like that. As DW's correspondent in Brussels, it is clear that you are a bridge between what is done with the arms supply and what is actually planned from kyiv. That's why kyiv is quite secretive about it. As for information, I listen a little, but in Brussels, for example, it is difficult to know which weapons are supplied by whom and what weapons are expected in Ukraine, etc. There are countries, for example, in the. EU and non-EU, they don't say they are helping Ukraine and so on, and Ukraine doesn't confirm it either, so what we know about the counteroffensive is actually that yes, it's been expected for months, but it's not happening . or it is happening now somehow in homeopathic doses, not doses but deficiencies, however, even Zelensky has some before Weeks ago we said that we had to wait a little longer and then some authorities said that this offensive was not one day The goal of liberate all areas is, of course, what they say here has been in the media for a long time and also in the Ukrainian media from spring to June 22, according to Europe we are still in spring, but that It means that the most important June is actually What lies behind it is, ultimately, the question: Is it already part of the offensive against what we are experiencing here?

You just outlined it with attacks on Russian territory, this deviation, the joining of forces, classifies it as part of this offensive. preparation phase, so you try to pin down the Russian forces elsewhere as much as possible to fool them. Now we are also seeing that with attacks towards Mariopol to the south they are already attacking command posts, reserves, etc. shows quite clearly that we are probably expecting major attacks soon. It has to be weeks which are, so to speak, a big problem that cannot be judged from the outside in this whole matter that determines the schedule, in addition to the training and cooperation of new weapons systems , which also takes time. logistically, the forces that are available for this offensive are relatively large, they are larger than the ground forces of the Bundeswehr, they also use ammunition and they also use fuel, this fuel must be obtained, this ammunition must be obtained.

For the first time, very specific negotiations were held in April with other EU states on the depots of their armed forces. In particular, ammunition for Soviet weapons is difficult to find on the world market and is in short supply, but its supply is extremelyimportant. for Ukraine, without it the offensive cannot begin and then these ammunition must be sent to Ukraine once purchased and made available there in a relatively decentralized manner, that is, not in a large warehouse but in a decentralized manner, for the country. offensive so that no one succeeds with a camp or with a Russian attack, which weakens, so to speak, the supply base on the Ukrainian side.

All this cannot be prepared and planned, irrelevant, it is not trivial, it certainly takes time, but time. He is working in the specific scenario that is against Ukraine because the Russian armed forces are going from an offensive to a complete strategic defense. They are stabilizing the front and they are looking at it and if it becomes a fall offensive it would be something that it does not. unthinkable for various reasons, then the question arises again about the expectations of the West, the expectations of the population itself, how the objectives are defined, so that everything cannot be prepared in perfect conditions until a great logistics system that works wonderfully.

The offensive was months ago last fall, the continued operation 15 months after the Russian invasion has also left its traces. The war has so far claimed the lives of 10,000 soldiers on the Ukrainian side and who wants to know what the situation is now with the Ukrainian side? army Within the framework of this expected offensive, God unfortunately has to look at the hospitals. They work almost 24 hours a day and save what can be saved. Seriously injured people who could have been transported here end up in this military hospital in kyiv. At the front we first try to save the limbs but sometimes we also have to amputate them.

It is very difficult. With young people, they are already traumatized by the war. This soldier escaped alive but lost his leg and now he has to do it. cope without the forearm of him The false hunter was seriously injured on the second day of the Russian invasion. He now wants to return to the front. I was afraid because the city where I spent my entire childhood burned and was destroyed. Ukrainian soldiers resist against the numerically superior Russians, how would you say such reports compared to the expectations of this offensive? How big is the gap between what can be achieved and what cannot be achieved that we just talked about?

Ammunition I just wanted to add a figure. The European Union is buying ammunition together and, according to Joseph Burell a week ago, if I'm not mistaken, they wanted to deliver a fifth of a million to Ukraine, which means more than 200,000. According to him, the ammunition has already been delivered and is already in Ukraine. Otherwise, the EU has promised to deliver that million to Ukraine within twelve months and continue producing it. Of course, Parliament has to vote in favor and that is what it is about now. but it is very important for Ukraine to know, it is very important for Ukraine to read it every time there is new military aid and I would like to emphasize that of course Marco's financial aid is very important, but every time there is new military aid for Ukraine. about a new system, about a new platform, then people are extremely happy because they know that that can change the situation, yes, that can enormously change the situation in terms of security, for example, when we talk about what Western air defense is currently creating. for Ukraine, so that Ukraine can rely a little on something, they are no longer alone between rockets and drones and of course when you hear and read about ammunition deliveries you know that something can start and everyone is waiting for it to finally bring the victory. for Ukraine because that is the only thing that all Ukrainians have Yes, and not just any peace, but really the victory with military defeat must be exactly the liberation of all the territories of Russia and that has also become clear again in a video that I want briefly show the extent to which expectations are actively managed.

In principle, they are generated by governments, which at the same time have to campaign for more Ukrainians to join the troops. The video is about the armed forces promising an early offensive. They ask for more volunteer soldiers in Ukraine, so it is said that they will participate in the offensive that Brother Gustav Gressel has to recover all the territories occupied by Russia, that is, the real danger that there will be too few soldiers and also the real danger There is the danger that Russia is weakening the Ukrainian air defense with all these air strikes, so, first of all, I think that a critical point has not yet been reached in Ukraine, it is natural that volunteer reports for, for example, Special attack brigades for elite units like fake mega marines are becoming more difficult because the people who volunteer for these elite units, so to speak, signed up at some point after what they already signed up for. reported on February 24 last year, um, on the contrary, it must be said that the Most people who want to avoid conscription have already crossed the green border from Romania or Moldova or other neighboring countries.

This means, for the most part, what is now the company's middle staff. From the Ukrainian point of view, there are still more soldiers than material, so for this offensive Ukraine has old territorial defense battalions that have proven their effectiveness in combat last year and then mechanized into equipment transport tanks and main battle tanks. This training has been passed down for years. starting this year to make these forces mobile and powerful, but the heavy equipment, so to speak, is only enough for a fraction of the forces themselves and that is, of course, what is happening on the Ukrainian side, which is not The limiting factor is, on the other hand, that Russia has greatly weakened its own forces due to this winter offensive carried out, there have been a non-negligible number of losses and many of these units are also enormously worn out, as it's what Ukraine can do best As the Russian military, units are rotated, which means you're in combat, then you go out, you recover for a few weeks, and then you go back in.

On the Russian side, there are actually units that have actually been constantly at war since the beginning of this special operation. At least in Ukraine before, they were never able to rotate home. They are already mentally tired because they just can't keep up, but at the ammunition level they always thought that. Russia was already partially reaching its limits, and that does not seem to be the case now. His and Alexa thought it was cool. Every week, so to speak, in which Ukraine has not yet begun the offensive with the largest offensive, it has actually done so.

He plays into Putin's hands. There were a lot of jumping to conclusions when it came to ammunition estimates because a basic error is always made, so to speak. In the West, it's often time to extrapolate the current trend and say "ok, if this continues." for six months then we will be there in six months, the problem is that there are intermediate measures, so we are also seeing that with this attack with Mario's bodies and the ballistic missiles in kieft are now increasing again in May, the month with the highest number of attacks in 4 weeks in the entire war so far and the day most of the missiles or drones were shot down, yes, but these missiles are these weapons.

Everything is new, they come directly from production, which means that we can basically draw conclusions about production based on pre-fired ammunition and now it seems to be increasing again, which is a bad sign, but unfortunately also to be expected with this neck of bottle over the winter because sanctions broke the supply chains of Russian defense companies. , so to speak, where you can no longer get chips, microcomputers, special materials from the West, which of course always takes a little time until smuggling routes are found. It seems that companies from third countries are importing these devices. built-in, so if I now use a Chinese chip instead of an American one, I have to partially redesign the gun because it has different dimensions, requires a different voltage on the computer, etc.

All of this is not trivial, but it won't happen overnight. At some point, of course, I will be able to, um, now, in the end, it is far from complete because Russia is ready, Ukraine is not exactly waiting here for ammunition spares yet. , so most of it is about the issue of ammunition and Poland's 10 years, unfortunately the wait is not a calm wait but a fearful wait to illustrate what that means. You've already talked about the fact that there was a day. with the highest number of rocket attacks We would like to show images from Kiel, where Russian leaders are still deliberately attacking civilians and in May there was a month that, in almost four weeks, was actually the most violent.

Air alarm in kyiv. Every night the family prepares their night camp in the hallway of the apartment, as far away from the windows as possible. If the rockets fly, I'm afraid I'll take a toy into the hallway. Sometimes we also go to the pantry. or the bathroom, this is now daily life after 15 months of war. They are lucky that their house has been saved so far, but the impact could happen at any time. This resident was able to get to safety just in time. There was nothing he could do. hidden in the hallway behind the two walls Recently, Russian attacks on the Ukrainian capital have increased again, but when they remain silent, people in kyiv try to live their normal lives as best they can.

But we cannot speak of normality. in the city of 3 million inhabitants. What effect does the war have on Ukrainian civilians in the long term? What do you hear from people you know and love? So let's say yes, of course. It is above all fear, the fear that you could die any day, anywhere, at any time. Yes, and then when an attack passes you feel joy and you feel relieved that it didn't hit you this time, yes, then, hope. It comes that it was the last time and then the fear returns and then you constantly live in this state of uncertainty, in the state of uncertainty about today, how many more sirens do you have to listen to, how many more do you have to hide and you hide Well, now we have seen in the video that if you don't have the subway station nearby then you hide in your own apartment in your own four walls in the bathroom or in the hallway according to the two wall rule that the child is now in everyone's room , Ukraine, and there are also many other emotions that you feel, anger that you can channel to move forward or a depression, hopelessness, hopelessness and constant stress, constant stress that wears everyone down and, for example, in my hometown in the book yes There was In January there was a large rocket attack on a high-rise building on a Saturday.

Dozens of people died simply because they were resting at home in an area where there was nothing but the cinema, yes. and the house is like this and it was a few months ago. But people who drive by, who drive by, still see these open spaces where they still know, they probably still know about this yellow kitchen, they still see the clocks on the walls, they still see appliances, they still see furniture that's there like a reminder that this can happen every day and a friend of mine often passes by and says that at first it was scary and you see, for example, on a bus, at a big bus stop, you always see flowers, You always see toys because the children have died and now you only feel pain, so it is a deep pain, that you live with, regardless of whether something traumatized you or if you just saw something, which is everyone's and you just hope you can continue living, yes and you also hope that an offensive will put an end to this as quickly as possible, of course it is the only one, that is to say the only hope of what everyone expects, what can be influenced, of course, many of those who are still working or they are abroad, they constantly transfer money to the Ukrainian army to support them.Veterans for the rehabilitation of people we have now seen in the video who now have disabilities and there are thousands more since the beginning of the war and that also gives you the feeling of that you are taking action, that you are contributing to that. that military victory will come soon because every day you transfer a little and say, you can buy a helmet for a soldier, you can buy a drone for intelligence and we buy reconnaissance, for example, and so on and so on and that helps people. also enormously yes because they know that I contribute a little I join I help a little to our victory yes when you hear that now it is a great hope but that always carries the risk of disappointment I would like to go back to how things are going Continue now because I suppose, alexejubus, that He hopes that Russia will not stop bombing civilians now, but will probably increase the frequency.

Easter has the superior position of being able to continue this for a long, long time under relatively tolerable or even conditions. low use of resources, so this adjustment phase that we have talked about so far is also due several times to the fact that the military industry from an economic and organizational point of view is really closed. Russia could concentratein quotes on just continuing to harm Ukraine for a long, long time. without there being a new strategic offensive with the conquest of large parts of Ukraine and that is, of course, a position of relative strength. The other problem from an analytical perspective is the inability of all of us to explain exactly what a military victory means.

Of course, there is the formulation of the expulsion of all soldiers from the territory of Ukraine, which is Zelensky's plan. Exactly the point is that as soon as you start talking about it in military terms, a second word comes up: military victory probably means in the current situation military humiliation, so the theory behind this is that after a military humiliation that Russia is provoking again, there are processes of decomposition either in the army or in the political apparatus and these in turn cause a change in the leadership of the city and that leads to the end of the war, that is, the only theory that it ends , I have to say according to the study we have done on the Russian side, it seems that they are not maintaining it.

I think it's very likely that it's much more likely after the offensive, depending on how successful it was. a new situation will open a window in which the parties are actually thinking about how we want the freezing, we want the cell phone that has that Apparently what kind of freezing I don't know, I can tell you I just want to say that, in my opinion, a humiliation magic is something that no outbreak is stable because that is exactly what it should be if I am allowed to engage in humiliation, but here it also always works because there are so many Western weapons at play and because the Western partners repeatedly confirm that they do not want to let the territories annexed in violation of international law remain forever and this dimension is part of it, which means that, in addition to the military one, it is the most plausible variant of saying that Cream will put itself in permanent danger just like Ukraine as a whole. she runs the risk of never being safe again.

That's a pretty realistic goal and could lead to a change of mindset on the Russian side, so to speak, so both. The sides tangle for a long, long time without me moving the front, it could hurt through such attacks and if this is the permanent phase we are entering now, which in itself could last, that's what it's all about, for so to speak, with many deaths on both sides continually to be taken into account, the point is simply that this offensive of mine has to be like this and it has to look like what we are currently seeing because of course it has to achieve everything.

Out of this for the next phase, that's the point. I see the problem similarly. The Russian side is that they are playing to buy time. Putin has probably already realized that he can no longer defeat Ukraine alone, but he can do it. he could definitely receive it as a political gift, similar to the one he received from Syria in 2019 from Donald Trump, it is simple to say that he will bend, fold the chairs and leave the Kurds in the lurch, since Donald Trump could become president again and sooner. the decision is eaten, so to speak, I think that the protein will not affect one or another negotiation at all, let it in because it simply calculates that there would still be something there, although now in the West there is always the emphasis, so So to speak, the The objective is the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, the problem is that this political objective is not sufficiently militarized.

So there is a big delta between the political demands of the West and what they are actually willing to do militarily for Ukraine. I think it was possible for Ukraine to achieve this goal militarily if it gained more support, but at least it seems that there is no amount of support for the current achievements. I'm afraid people in the West are also doing things. easy for them. There are high expectations on the part of those against the offensive and a certain implicit belief that after such a shock, Putin will come to negotiate a little and reconsider his position and then there will be some kind of peace talks with Minsk. a slightly different front line and that's it, then I don't think that will happen and even if the counter-offensive is successful, Putin will at least end the war with this long-term perspective in the background The end of 2024, the beginning of the 20s and 25, just to see what can still be achieved in American domestic politics, sounds pretty bitter.

At the same time, the French President once again stressed that strong and concrete security guarantees must now be given to Ukraine at the next NATO summit. no later than July and they would have to go much further than the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. How does that work in the best of cases? So, in the best case, kyiv will now have a roadmap, a map with the next steps to follow. joining NATO, yes, that would be the ideal case. Of course, for Ukraine that would be the first concrete step and for Ukraine to understand that they are welcome in NATO, which was not there in 2008, for example, and why, because that is happening right now. that this would be this roadmap, this letter would then be what Ukraine would expect, which can only happen if all NATO members agree that they want this and have doubts, so there are members who say that this has to happen, but of course There are those who say that during the war it is impossible, while now Anna-Lena Baerbock just said that, yes, she said that now that we have a war we cannot stop talking about new memberships and Ukraine can only get this roadmap if everyone um, yes, vote for it and that is of course the problem, at some point this will happen, at some point Ukraine will be in the EU by nature.

I think the question is not if this will happen, it will definitely happen, but how and when. We will know, unfortunately we don't know, because there are many factors at play. That was the last word. I would like to thank you for the discussion, for this perspective on where the war is on the Ukrainian and Russian sides. Come on and thank you very much for watching, do it well and we hope to see each other again at the point and write comments on YouTube until then.