00:00 To take a look at the current situation in Ukraine and particularly that military angle,
00:06 we're going to speak now to Dr. Gavin Hall. He's a teaching fellow in political science
00:12 and international security at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. Thank you very
00:18 much for your time. Very good of you to join us, Dr. Hall. I want to start by talking about
00:25 what looks to be a little bit of a shift or at least a halt, shall we say, in a momentum
00:33 which had appeared to build up about three weeks ago on the second anniversary of this
00:38 invasion. Ukraine seemed pretty stuck and now we have this series of drone strikes aiming at
00:46 key infrastructure targets and importantly they're going right into Russian territory.
00:52 Is this a bit of a breakthrough on the Ukrainian side, would you say?
00:56 Good afternoon. And I'll start by saying whilst I think most people would quite like it to be a
01:03 breakthrough or start of a breakthrough, it's probably not a decisive breakthrough. Whether
01:09 it at this moment, it may well proceed and build up to being a decisive, but I don't think that's
01:15 an analysis that can be made at the moment. Whilst it's true that Ukraine's offensive at the end of
01:24 last year has stalled and not really gained too much ground, similarly Russian offenses earlier
01:30 on this year hadn't really been gaining much ground. But even whilst these incursions were
01:36 going on into Russia itself yesterday, Russian forces were still making gains on the ground
01:44 around Vatmut and Donetsk and things. So there is still Russian pressure that's building and
01:52 participating on the ground. Where I think these attacks actually directly into Russia are
01:57 particularly interesting is because obviously you have the upcoming Russian presidential elections,
02:03 but demonstrating a capability and also a willingness to strike directly into Russia
02:10 in a coordinated manner, which hasn't really been seen before, is an attempt to show a significant
02:17 show of strength and also ability and desire for Ukraine to be able to carry on the fighting. And
02:25 I suppose the hope is that people going to the polls would take this into consideration,
02:31 not that I expect anything else other than a decisive victory for Vladimir Putin in these
02:37 elections. And just talking about that public opinion issue, it looks very much as though
02:43 there's some kind of strategy to cause greater disruption within Russia in the hope that perhaps
02:51 public opinion might turn slightly, though as you say, it is almost certainly going to result in a
02:55 win for Putin when the elections come. We've been hearing about these Russian, but anti-Kremlin
03:02 units operating within Ukraine and crossing over. They stormed the borders recently. What do we know
03:09 about those people and are they much of a worry to Putin? They're probably not much of a worry
03:16 or a concern to him. I mean, the numbers are not that significant. They have been incorporated into
03:23 Ukraine's military chain of command and operate just like other partisan pro-Ukrainian groups.
03:32 They were involved in the middle of last year in limited incursions into Belarus,
03:40 which didn't really result in any significant gains. They sort of stayed for a couple of days
03:47 and then retreated back. And we might well see similar things taking place now. There are reports
03:55 of limited cross-border incursions into the Belgorod and Kursk regions, which border Ukraine.
04:02 And again, it's very likely to be limited incursions and may well see a pullback. But
04:10 I think it's part of the signaling, the desire and the willingness that if the conflict was to continue,
04:17 despite the nuclear rhetoric that Vladimir Putin's also had in the past 24 hours,
04:24 Ukraine is willing and can potentially expand the fight into targeting Russia directly,
04:29 which is something it's been keen to avoid so far.
04:33 Do they have enough long-range missiles? I mean, we know they don't. What does their strategy
04:41 still need in order to continue with what looks like a bit of a positive
04:51 stage of the war from the Ukrainian point of view?
04:54 Ultimately, the one thing that Ukraine really needs to be able to carry on fighting Russia,
05:01 whether that's in a defensive or an offensive capacity, but just to be able to carry on
05:06 fighting, they do still require substantial Western help and assistance from the allies there. So,
05:13 I know, noted that the American national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, yesterday announced
05:20 an additional 300 million. President Macron will be meeting the president of Lithuania later on
05:28 this week to discuss how efforts to ramp up supplies and equipment to Ukraine can best be
05:38 managed. And I think partly from that and given the statements a couple of weeks ago from President
05:46 Macron that maybe supplying troops directly into Ukraine should be something on the Western agenda,
05:53 I think that's clear that Macron is trying to position France as the dominant key player
06:01 within European security and trying to sort of take the lead on this. Much like Putin,
06:07 I think he's got French president elections over the summer in mind with this.
