'There are some feeble signs that the Russian army is having to withdraw its troops'
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00:00Well, yes, there are some feeble, I would caution against any optimistic and premature
00:09conclusions and hopes, but there are some feeble signs that the Russian army is having
00:16to withdraw some of its troops from that area, not from the Donbass, where the hottest spots
00:21of this war are right now, but from Kharkiv, simply because Vladimir Putin lacks the sufficient
00:28force to protect its long borders, including with Ukraine, and that's one of the actual
00:34goals of this operation. We don't have a clear vision of its strategic goals as of yet, but
00:42it's already demonstrated how Vladimir Putin's fixation with Ukraine has left his own borders,
00:48Russia's borders, essentially unprotected and undefended.
00:53As you say, it's difficult to know what the long-term goal is here, but do you think that
00:57Ukraine can achieve anything with this incursion into Russia?
01:02Our former commander-in-chief, Valeriy Zaluzhny, said as early as two years ago that unless
01:08Russians start to feel the brunt of this war at home, nothing will change. This is essentially
01:14a breach of Vladimir Putin's contract with the Russians. You stay out of politics, we
01:19provide you with good economy, we provide you with security. Yes, the population of
01:25Russia has lost its agency, it doesn't decide much, but every such successive wave of mobilization
01:32for Vladimir Putin, every such clear failure of security brings unhappiness to these chattering
01:44masses. If Vladimir Putin is pushed to order another wave of mobilization to try to plug
01:52these holes, I mean, mind you, these are conscripts, they're not paid, unlike these
01:56other mercenaries. This will create a sense of injustice, this will create significant
02:01risks for the ruling elite.
02:04Yeah, because Moscow, it's insisting that everything is under control, Putin referring
02:08vaguely to a situation in the border region. Is the Kremlin then succeeding in playing
02:14down the significance of this offensive to the domestic audience in Russia?
02:19Well, of course, even as tightly controlled as the media in Russia currently are, Vladimir
02:26Putin cannot hide the true picture of what's happening in Kursk from his population. That's
02:31why his state-controlled TV channels have actually had to comment somewhat about what's
02:39happening, even though now they're apparently going into this mode of denial, nothing to
02:44see here, move along, etc. But once again, we're talking about hundreds of young conscripts
02:51who've already been taken prisoners. They all have families, they have circles of friends,
02:56etc. This will obviously create a very unpleasant situation for Vladimir Putin, no matter how
03:01hard he tries to hide this from his population.
03:05Yeah, because he often seems slow to respond to moments of crisis. But what kind of response
03:10do you think we're going to see from him in the longer term?
03:14Well, I mean, obviously, he's going to try to kick the Ukrainians out, but that can come
03:18at a very huge cost. Vladimir Putin has once again not given up on his obsession with controlling
03:23at least the eastern part of Ukraine and completing the capture of the Donbass until at least
03:30the end of the year. Meanwhile, he will continue putting screws on the media. We're already
03:37seeing that Russia is in full earnest about trying to shut down fully YouTube in Russia.
03:44So more of the same, more tightening of the screws. And we're seeing signs that his regime
03:49is growing senile, increasingly autocratic and increasingly out of step.
03:55And meanwhile, Peter, US media reports had been suggesting that the warring sides, they
04:00were going to be holding indirect talks perhaps on a deal to halt strikes on energy infrastructure.
04:05Those plans seemingly derailed by this counter offensive. But does this indicate that there
04:11is some kind of shift underway in Ukrainian thinking about the war?
04:15Well, yes, indeed, at least until Kursk, which this operation has been more successful than
04:21anyone really thought that injected a new kind of, you know, level of optimism on the
04:30part of both the army, the military, and people behind the front lines. Be that as
04:35it may, yes, there is fatigue with this war. And there is a bit of a shifting popular attitude
04:41about the possibility of potential negotiations. This idea of secret negotiations happening
04:48somewhere in Qatar would have been anathema two years ago, a year ago. Now I think the
04:55population is getting more amenable to the idea that, you know, sooner or later this
05:01has to stop. And there may be some territorial concessions that have to be made, even though
05:08once again, this has not yet received official sanction, any talk about territorial concessions.
05:16It might be hard to say at this point, but do you think that the Ukrainians, that they've
05:20gained any leverage for any future negotiations by beginning this incursion, by crossing into
05:27Russian territory?
05:29That is indeed one of the probably main calculations of this operation, Operation Kursk. There's
05:37perfect symmetry in this. You have, you know, went on an offensive and, you know, captured
05:45hundreds of square kilometers of Kharkiv, I'm talking about a few months ago. We have
05:50done the same just across the border in Kursk. You want us to leave Kursk? You leave Kharkiv.
05:55Maybe you leave Crimea. Once again, whether that will play out this way, I'm not sure.
06:01Vladimir Putin is clearly not sending any signals that he would be ready for that sort
06:06of trade-off. But if Ukrainians get entrenched in Kursk, if they show that it's going to
06:12be very difficult to knock them out, Putin is going to have to make some hard choices.