00:00We can now bring in Frank Ledwidge, former British military intelligence officer and senior lecturer in strategy at Portsmouth University.
00:07Good afternoon. Thank you so much for joining us on the program today.
00:10Now, Donald Trump was not too keen on fresh military support for Kyiv.
00:14But what the White House has announced, this halt, was promised under the previous administration of Joe Biden.
00:20How will this move affect this summer offensive that's underway?
00:24Well, good afternoon, Dylan. The context of this is it's it's quite long running.
00:31The U.S. armed forces are very concerned about the depletion of stocks, particularly of anti-aircraft stocks for the Western Pacific theater.
00:39And they anticipate that to be the main focus. So that's the background to this.
00:44I think that that advocacy has got through to the White House now.
00:47But as to your question about the effect on the front line, the answer is that the the restriction of artillery rounds and to a lesser extent, anti-aircraft air to air rounds.
00:59Yes, that will probably have have an impact. But I suspect Europe, too, can make up some of that.
01:05The real initial impact there, as Emmanuel hinted, was on ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles.
01:11The only counter or the only effective counter that Ukraine has at the moment to those is the PAC-3 Patriot systems.
01:20And those rockets or interceptors, as they're called, many of them were diverted away to the Middle East theater anyway recently.
01:28The only backfill for that actually is a French system, the SAMP-T or the Aster-30.
01:35Now, there are SAMP-T systems in Ukraine, but I suspect they're not very well provisioned at the moment with ammunition.
01:40There aren't many of them. So the Patriot is a real loss, particularly in the context of defending high value targets against Russian ballistic and hypersonic missiles.
01:50So from what you're suggesting, there are European alternatives in place, from what I understand?
01:57Nobody knows and nor should they know how many launches there are in Ukraine.
02:03I think they do have some SAMP-T, as Emmanuel said, their ERIS-T they've also got, which is a slightly different system, a slightly shorter range system.
02:14They're not as prevalent as the Patriots, which have dominated that high end air defense facility or capability of the Ukrainians so far.
02:23The SAMP-T systems aren't as numerous anyway in Europe as the Patriots, which the Ukrainians found it very difficult to get hold of.
02:29But open sources say they've only got eight batteries, which is about 24 launches anyway.
02:35So, you know, it's a limited supply in any event.
02:38So conceivably, there could be replacements, but I suspect not in anything kind, anything like the Belkor quantity needed.
02:44Because since this war has continued to progress, we have, of course, seen Ukraine that has come out with this drone technology.
02:53It's sort of been at the forefront of drone technology, so to speak, like Iran has and other parts of the world.
03:01But could potentially Ukraine start manufacturing these weapons that America is not going to supply them now?
03:07Or will that take too long?
03:08I think it's going to take a long time to develop something like an Aster-30, which is the SAMP-T missile or the Patriot Pact-3.
03:16That's a long term project.
03:18But, you know, the Ukrainians have surprised us before in other respects, notably, as you say, drones and recently cruise missiles, very small scale cruise missiles, rather impressive capability that.
03:29Now, the U.S. has not announced a halt in intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
03:36Could that be next, do you think?
03:38I don't know.
03:42It may well be.
03:43I doubt it, though.
03:44That would be a really, really serious move.
03:46And that would be, whilst I would hesitate to say game change, it would change things at the front.
03:51Ukrainian targeting depends, particularly behind the lines of the long range targeting, depends to a very great degree on U.S. intelligence sharing.
03:59And the secret source behind all of Ukraine's capabilities, or at least artillery, drones and communications, is Starlink.
04:10That would be the real disaster.
04:11I don't see that happening.
04:13Intelligence, surveillance and so forth.
04:15I see that continuing.
04:17It would be very major if that were removed.
04:19And certainly Europe couldn't backfill that in any way.
04:21Because Russia seems to have welcomed this move from Washington, saying it will help usher in the end of the war.
04:28What do you make of that statement?
04:29Yes, well, they would, wouldn't they?
04:31It won't usher in the end of the war that only a ceasefire can do that.
04:35And a ceasefire following a great deal more pressure, I think, than the Ukrainians are currently under.
04:41But it doesn't help the Ukrainians.
04:42There's no doubt about that.
04:43It presents dilemmas for Europeans.
04:46Not least because Europe's ammunition buckets are drying up as well, just like the Americans.
04:52And they have to look to the future, too.
04:53So, I know you said we don't know how many stocks Ukraine has, given that it's a war and there's, of course, secrecy and stuff.
05:02So, based on what you're seeing right now, who has the upper hand as things stand?
05:08The front line is moving the wrong way from Ukraine's perspective.
05:12And more importantly, Russia's numbers are beginning to tell on that front.
05:16As Russia uses its overwhelming preponderance in numbers and reserves to probe at different points of the front, presenting Ukrainian commanders with some very real problems and dilemmas as to which front to prioritise.
05:33Right now, on the front, the Russians have the upper hand.
05:37There's no doubt about that.
05:38The Ukrainians, though, are not breaking.
05:40I don't see that happening.
05:42So, it's in the balance at the moment.
05:45The summer, this summer won't be decisive, but it will be very important.
05:50Right now, Russian numbers are telling.
05:52There's no question about that.
05:54But Ukraine has its, the most important component here, which is the moral component.
06:00They're defending their own land.
06:02But we have to be realistic.
06:04The preponderance of numbers is in Russia's favour in the medium and long term.
06:09You're saying we have to be realistic.
06:10Should that mean there needs to be a switch from whether Ukraine can actually achieve anything on the battlefield to let's put more weight into diplomacy?
06:18Because that's what we're seeing the U.S. try to do.
06:23Well, you're asking my opinion.
06:27I think that the answer to that question is yes, we should be.
06:30We should be doing that.
06:32It's highly unlikely.
06:33Well, let's put it another way.
06:34Militarily, there's no way that is currently visible to me whereby Ukraine is going to be recovering any large areas of its territory.
06:41It's only going to be continuing to retreat, which is the wise thing to do in the circumstances, trading land for time.
06:47Not much land, by the way.
06:48The Russians are moving very slowly.
06:50But the centre of gravity here is attrition.
06:52It's numbers.
06:54And Russia has and will continue to have that advantage in those circumstances.
06:58And I think Ukraine is right in this respect.
07:00It is focusing on ceasefire as a priority.
07:06We're getting to political territory here now.
07:09I think that's probably the wise way to go at the moment.
07:11Because, Frank, a couple of weeks ago, I don't know if you recall, there was that Operation Spiderweb, which was hugely successful for Kyiv.
07:19Big morale boost.
07:21They managed to strike deep inside Russian territory.
07:26Then, of course, they tried to get that bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian mainland.
07:31What did these operations achieve besides embarrass Moscow?
07:36Well, you hit the nail on the head there, Delon, when you mentioned they were great PR successes.
07:43They were narrative successes.
07:45The Operation Spiderweb against the bombers destroyed the equivalent of the squadron of bombers.
07:49That's not a strategic strike as such.
07:52The strategic element was that they did so so far behind Russian lines at a Russian strategic asset.
07:59But Russia still retains the capability of those aircraft, still retains probably about 90% of them.
08:05As for the Kerch Bridge, I'm afraid, no.
08:06Look, this is the third or fourth time the Ukrainians had a go at that.
08:09It failed every time.
08:11And in any event, the Russians have created alternative routes in there.
08:15But notwithstanding that, I think the biggest success actually recently of the Ukrainians, less trumpeted, was the destruction of an S-400 system in Crimea.
08:23They don't have many of those in the area.
08:25The Russians are very important and demonstrating that capability that was very important.
08:29But look, all of these are single operations.
08:31As I said, the center of gravity for this war is the grinding attritional battle at the front.
08:38It's not these special forces operations.
08:40It never is in war.
08:41It's not these single strikes.
08:43The center of gravity is manpower, it's casualties, it's attrition.
08:48And Ukraine is at the wrong end of that right now.
08:51Frank Ladsworth, thank you so much for joining us on the program today.
08:54Thank you, Dylan.
