Date: 2024-05-18 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00026011
THE UKRAINE WAR
THE TELEGRAPH UPDATE Nov 23, 2023
20-country 'air shield' protecting Ukraine hailed by Zelenksy | Ukraine: The Latest Podcast
THE TELEGRAPH UPDATE Nov 23, 2023
20-country 'air shield' protecting Ukraine hailed by Zelenksy | Ukraine: The Latest Podcast
Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF-wbFmKKdc
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
The Telegraph
Nov 23, 2023
5.14M subscribers ... 53,549 views ... 1.6K likes
Ukraine: The Latest | Podcast | The Telegraph
Day 636.
Today, we bring you the latest news from Ukraine, analyse diplomatic developments as more European countries consider closing their borders with Russia and we hear about life in Kharkiv training Ukrainian troops, as Winter closes in.
Contributors:
- David Knowles (Host). @DJKnowles22 on Twitter.
- Dominic Nicholls (Associate Editor, Defence). @DomNicholls on Twitter.
- Joe Barnes (Brussels Editor). @Barnes_Joe on Twitter.
- Daniel Ridley (Former Ukrainian Marine & Founder of Trident Defence Initiative). @TridentDefUKR on Twitter.
- Trident Defence Initiative website: https://tridentdefenseinitiative.com/
- Subscribe to The Telegraph: telegraph.co.uk/ukrainethelatest
- Email: ukrainepod@telegraph.co.uk
0:03 I'm David noes and this is Ukraine the latest today we bring you the latest 0:09 news from Ukraine analyze diplomatic developments as more European countries consider closing their borders with 0:15 Russia and we hear about life in harv training Ukrainian troops as winter closes in bravery takes you through the 0:22 most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with Victory if we give 0:30 president zilinsky the tools the ukrainians will finish the job Slava 0:35 ukraini nobody's going to break us we're strong we're 0:41 ukrainians every weekday afternoon we sit down with leading journalists from the telegraph's London Newsroom and our 0:46 teams reporting on the ground to bring you the latest news and analysis on the war in Ukraine it's Thursday the 23rd of 0:54 November 1 year and 272 days since the full scale Invasion began and today I'm 0:59 joined by our associate editor Dominic Nichols Brussels correspondent Jay Barnes and our guest is Daniel Ridley a 1:05 former Ukrainian marine and founder of the Trident Defense Initiative I started by asking Dom for the latest news from 1:15 Ukraine well hi David hi everybody lots of bits and pieces today so I'll rattle through if I may let's start um with 1:22 Russian attacks across Ukraine mainly through the center and down the South but but a wide ranging area have killed 1:28 and injured civilians in the past 24 hours this comes from Regional governors in heon and it's thought the attacks 1:34 there in in heon region just north of the city were thought to have included cluster Munitions but also the regional 1:41 governors in denit BR petrovsk H and donet so the center east and south but a 1:47 very large sthe mainly shelling its th in those in the areas closest to the line of contact as you'd expect but uh 1:54 no real update on the nature of the ammunition used separately European 2:00 Council president Charles Michelle said that Ukraine's counter offensive has not failed so in an interview with the keev 2:06 independent he said I don't think this counter offensive has failed firstly how the Ukrainian Army made huge progress in 2:12 the Black Sea Army Navy it's all the same is extremely important this is a 2:17 major step in the right direction secondly the recent progress made on the left side of the Deno river is also very 2:23 important I mean I said in last week's defense in depth video that you know I don't know if we should get hung up on 2:30 whether the counter offensive has started stopped failed succeeded what have you I think the point I was making 2:36 is war doesn't really work like that it doesn't work like the kind this this is a failure let's all go home you know 2:41 you've got to look at War more broadly so whilst the land campaign has not got anywhere near the geographic objectives 2:49 that Ukraine would have been hoping for and there's no denying that but Ukraine would have learned a huge amount of 2:54 about Force integration training lots of other lessons in command and control from the counter offensive so it my view 3:01 is that it's irrelevant to talk about whether it's failed or not you know it's not going forwards but it's certainly 3:06 not going back it it has culminated to use the military expression which means you're exhausted basically either 3:12 physically exhausted or or in terms of logistics so you're not you're not necessarily being pushed back but you're you're no longer you no longer have the 3:18 oomph to go forward so I think it's a bit of a moot point as to whether or not you take your you take your view if it's 3:25 failed or succeeded I think those are irrelevant terms but um just have a look at the War more broadly and see what's 3:31 happening in the Black Sea see what's happening politically internationally as well as domestically but we note Charles 3:37 Michelle's words and move on next one former Varner group Fighters for the 3:42 first time have been officially recognized as Russian veterans this is according to Britain's mod now what they 3:49 call uh so this the Brits what they call a select group of uh of Vagner Fighters 3:55 were issued official veteran ID documents on the 14th of November and are now able to receive commensurate 4:01 bonuses um Britain's mod said this highly likely signals the rehabilitation of some Vagner Elements by the Russian 4:08 Administration you'll remember it was the announcement in June this year by the mod Russian mod that all private 4:16 military companies and what have you mercenary groups were going to come under their wing under the official Russian mod organization that then 4:23 started the whole spat with progan and ended up in the um in the in the dash dash to Victory all Mutiny no Bounty as 4:31 uh I think Lisa gave us that expression sorry if I completely using it out of context anyway the V group has now been 4:38 subsumed into Russia's national guard since the since the fa coup and the 4:43 perhaps not so mysterious demise of of Y prosan and another another four or five 4:49 senior Vagner figures in the uh in the plane explosion but it it looks as if now this 4:55 is Vagner as we remember it has gone it still exists as a as a kind of entity as a rapper but it's it's now probably 5:02 within the Russian mod organization chart the fact they're now being recognized and paid part of it was that 5:08 they weren't recognized as veterans and hence paid either pensions or their family members if they were killed given 5:14 any kind of financial compensation that was one of the Grievances that that prian had that now seems to they seems 5:19 to have theyve seem to have got over that so I think we we will hear from the V group again probably internationally 5:25 as well but actually it's not it's nothing like the in the shape that it uh that it was before now yesterday our foreign 5:32 reporter Maiden nanu was talking about Putin's appearance at the virtual G20 Summit he used the his speech yesterday 5:39 afternoon that hadn't happened by the time we um we released the episode but he used his speech at the G20 to talk 5:46 about um well to call for peace and all the rest of it the institute for the study of War has done some analysis on 5:51 it and said it's all it's all false his supposed Endeavors pushing for peace are 5:57 all all a sham and probably aimed more at trying to split the western or 6:02 external supporters for Ukraine into those that that are more likely to say yeah actually we should give pce a 6:08 chance and push zinsky for negotiations and what have you so isw is saying that Kremlin officials have pushed The 6:13 Narrative of peace talks whilst claiming that Ukraine is unwilling to negotiate with Russia likely to coers Western 6:20 officials into prematurely offering concessions favorable to Russia rather than engage in meaningful good faith 6:27 negotiations they uh they said a premature cessation of hostilities in Ukraine greatly increases the likelihood 6:33 of renewed Russian aggression on terms far more favorable to the kemin in the near future I.E it won't be the end of 6:40 it they will take a pause regroup build up and and go again which I think is this sensible Sensible assessment 6:47 Ukraine has has said it will negotiate with Russia when all Russian forces are removed uh from the internationally 6:54 recognized territory of Crimea the donbass and the rest of the occupied territories 7:00 okay moving on Russian defense spending um is expected to increase to a third of 7:05 the entire budget in 2024 that will be a record level that is um from Russian 7:10 Outlet Medusa uh and then next one follow president zalinski has talked about 7:17 somewhat in some sort of opaque terms talked about the formation of a 20 country western coalition to strengthen 7:24 Ukraine's air defenses so he said yesterday not everything can be disc closed publicly at this time but the 7:31 Ukrainian air Shield is becoming stronger every month now we think Germany and France are going to be 7:37 leading the effort and we think it came out of the latest round of the Ramstein group remember the um so US Secretary of 7:44 Defense Lloyd Austin's initiative the Ramstein Group which is mainly military aid to Ukraine rather than humanitarian 7:50 or just financial support there was a virtual meeting I think yesterday and we 7:56 believe that that it came out of came out of there but quite what this this air Shield is and whether or not it it 8:01 is a further development or deepening of um Ukraine's emerging air defense system 8:08 which is mainly built around Western kit or kit that's in operation with NATO 8:14 members the more that docks with NATO's existing air air Shield then then that 8:20 would be even you know short of NATO membership that that is quite some um that is a a significant development in 8:26 terms of air defenses for for Ukraine and then just finally news is coming out 8:32 that's coming out this morning actually Poland has charged a group of 16 foreigners with Espionage after it shut 8:38 down a Russian spiring earlier this year so officials in Warsaw made the announcement yesterday and Poland's 8:45 interior Minister Marius Kaminsky who oversees Poland's internal security agency released a statement saying 8:52 charges have been filed against 16 foreigners thought to be ukrainians Russians and people from B Bruce 16 9:00 foreigners accused of conducting Espionage activities on behalf of Russian intelligence services on polish 9:06 territory and participating in an organized criminal group their assigned tasks included identifying military 9:12 facilities and critical infrastructure monitoring and documenting trains transporting military and humanitarian 9:19 Aid to Ukraine and preparing for train derailments now Polish radio station RMF 9:26 FM they um had reported that six people were detained on suspicion of having 9:32 installed secret cameras to film transport infrastructure used to deliver Aid to Ukraine I think those six were um 9:39 arrested back in March uh but the RMF excuse me FM said the group had 9:46 installed dozens of cameras beside Railway Junctions and important transport routes in areas bordering 9:52 Ukraine some were found near the ROV airport that's about 100ks from from the Ukraine border uh that had been been a a 10:00 small Regional Airport but is now it's now been converted into a major International Logistics Hub and one of 10:06 the main hubs through which military aid and humanitarian Aid is is delivered to Ukraine it is very significant us 10:13 Patriot air def defense systems are there on the Airfield to protect it is where Joe Biden flew into on his recent 10:19 visit um to ke so resov is is is very much part of the um the effort to get 10:24 military aid into into Ukraine now the spiring as I said initially broke BR up in March and investigations since then 10:31 have identified more on top of the the initial six individuals citizens of Ukraine bellarus and Russia of all 10:37 pleaded guilty they could face We Believe charges or sorry could face up to um 10 years in prison the office of 10:45 the coordinator of Poland Security Services stanislav Zarin said in a statement all defendants admitted to 10:52 committing the acts they were accused of and voluntarily submitted to punishment which sounds sounds pretty painful uh 10:59 and that's it I'll take a break there David thank you very much Dom for all of that Joe Barnes can I come to you uh 11:05 next on the Diplomatic and political updates it's very very good to see you Joe welcome to London thank you and yeah 11:10 good to see some faces rather than speaking down a telephone to you all yeah so let's start with Vladimir Putin 11:16 he has arrived in bellarus for the first time in 11 months belus neighboring 11:21 Russia and Ukraine and is seen as Russia's most closest Ally in the region it was used as a springboard a staging 11:29 osed for The Invasion the one of the initial attacks on keev came via VIA 11:35 that point and the Russian president is participating in a what's known as a collective security Treaty Organization 11:40 Summit with Alexander lucenko who is the belarussian dictator alliance members include Armenia Kazakhstan kyrgistan and 11:47 tajikstan which is just interesting to see how you can see the regional power blocks playing out and where they are um 11:54 then let's move to Italy and Germany have signed up to build a new gas and hydrogen pipeline across the Alps and 12:01 that's in a bid to shore up energy supplies in the wake of the invasion of 12:06 Ukraine um that was announced on Wednesday by ER Schultz and Georgia Malone the German and Italian leaders so 12:14 mainly since moscow's invasion of Ukraine Germany has been incredibly 12:19 anxious about its supplies of gas mainly from Russia where it had very cheap 12:25 pipeline gas via nordstream pumped into it which fueled its car factories an 12:31 industry and basically made it sort of a massive player uh but that is now all 12:36 disappearing and Germany's looking to diversify away so the proposed pipeline will bring 12:43 supplies from North Africa up through Italy across Austria and into Southern Germany is going to be able to enable the import of about 10 million tons of 12:49 hydrogen by 2030 that's according to German media reports this is what Olaf 12:55 Schultz had to say we agree that we want to expand our energy cooperation in order to to strengthen long-term Supply 13:01 security and transformation with a new pipeline across the Alps want to increase the security of supply of both 13:06 of our countries at the same time we want to quickly conclude a German Italian gas and solidarity agreements 13:11 where actually North Africa is a great Hub and sort one of those areas that everyone is going to for fossil fuels 13:18 mainly gas supplies in the wake of diversifying and cutting away from 13:23 Russian tires so geography dictates that that is one of the areas that that will 13:28 Trav and it's good to see Germany are doing more to cut away from its old Rel liances uh let's go to the Norwegian and 13:35 Swedish borders so Norway Estonia um sorry Norway and Estonia not 13:42 Sweden um will look to follow suit uh with Finland in closing their board 13:47 borders with Russia so Helsinki has completely closed its border with Moscow um after a surge of illegal migration 13:55 which it has accused Russia of orchestrating so if you if we go back it was oh BL me when I first started the 14:01 telegraph over two years ago we were looking at um migration through bellarus 14:06 uh into the likes of Poland laia Lithuania and it was mainly what Europeans said was State coordinated so 14:13 bellarus was putting migrants from Africa from the Middle East Afghanistan Etc on buses and taking them to the 14:19 borders with the EU and then pushing them across into Europe and that was said to have been organized through 14:25 Russia as a way of destabilizing the West so now we have seen what looks like an uptick in that over the last few 14:31 weeks and governments are taking action so Norwegian prime minister Jonas gar store on Wednesday said that he would do 14:37 the same that's close the borders if necessary and as I said Finland has accused Russia of doing that but let's 14:44 go to the Netherlands where we've got overnight the election results there and a slightly shocking win for GT wielders 14:51 is the far right anti-islamic Firebrand leader his um pvv party has won the 14:57 Dutch national election well what I say one it's Fallen very short of majority but he has the most seats on 35 so it 15:04 currently leaves GT wielders in pole position to form the coalition government look it's going to be a tall 15:09 order cuz the guy is mightily controversial and how many kind of mainstream Dutch politicians are going 15:15 to want to get into bed with someone who is called Moroccan scum and try to push 15:20 anti-islam policies such as Banning the Quran Islam Faith schools Banning mosques Etc obviously this is Ukraine 15:27 the latest I'll stick to where the result could impact Ukraine in the 15:32 future so the Dutch has been a great donor to Ukraine so far we look at the Patriot missile systems uh leopard tanks 15:41 um and the Dutch are actually leading the F-16 fighterjet coalition to looking at getting f-16s into Ukraine's Air 15:48 Force by next year but Wilder has Wilders Wilders has called for an end to 15:54 that military and weapon support for Ukraine arguing that the the Netherlands need those weapons more for its own 16:00 security and while Wilders and his party have denounced the Russian invasion of 16:06 Ukraine they have actually questioned the Western alliances with keev and the Crackdown on Russia through 16:14 sanctions uh so there is 16:19 essentially falling in line with this idea that look while we support Ukraine we shouldn't do much to support it in 16:26 practice because it hurts our country through sanctions it's sort of the same line that Hungary takes Slovakia is 16:32 taking the Polish government before Donald Tusk ju said look let's keep our weapons because we need them 16:38 domestically now so it's that sort of mentality but there's also a pledge say 16:43 G Builders and his party are massive Euros Skeptics they have a sort of an nexit policy they want to take the 16:50 Netherlands out of the EU but in the meantime they want to block any new members from joining the EU so that 16:57 includes Ukraine who a decision on future membership talks comes up on the table next month at a Brussels Summit 17:04 but then actually looking back at sort of G Wier some attacks with Russia he might he might have denounced the invasion of Crimea and the invasion of 17:11 the full scale Invasion but historically there has been ties between the Kremlin and these his party so some 17:18 Ukrainian hackers earlier this year actually managed to find some documents and leak them online that 17:25 demonstrated the Kremlin attempting to forge tires with Wilders pvv party since 17:30 2013 one example of that a far-right Russian MP going by the name of slutzki 17:36 he organized for pvv MEP Andre alisin to visit Moscow in 2017 and I Ed the bunny 17:43 ears to observe the Russian elections yeah if dictators need observing that's 17:48 sort of great fun in 2018 G Wilders himself visited the Russian capital a trip which was organized by slutzki and 17:56 at the time wild Wilders Wilders was was claiming that his visit was to keep the dialogue open after Russia annexed 18:02 Crimea and after the Downing of flight mh17 over Ukraine which killed a lot of 18:08 Dutch people so Wilders did not personally comment on that visit and let's um let's move on to 18:15 another European Union decision while it's Loosely connected to Ukraine it's 18:20 actually looking at the possibility of how do we weaken hungary's opposition to 18:27 Ukraine being given access to formal membership talks and so the European Union has approved a fund of about 800 18:35 million so about a million euros million a billion billion euros billion dollars 18:41 in funding um under the repow EU schemes that's sort of looking at how do we help 18:48 countries move on to better post Soviet uh Power grids transition to renewable 18:54 energy Etc move away from Russian fossil fuels and and the commission's basically 18:59 given hungary's plan the legal will go-ahead and that's going to be voted on by member states in due course but what 19:05 we do is we have to look at the what's happening in Hungary so Victor Orban on Wednesday said that the EU should not 19:11 admit Ukraine um until it undertakes a few a full review of its strategy of 19:16 support for Kiev and that includes a strategic look at what's happening on the battlefield uh so Victor Orban is in 19:22 a constant sort of standoff with Brussels and if you speak to EU officials they believe that Victor Orban 19:29 is using Ukraine and the eu's support for Ukraine as leverage in order to unlock some sort of 13 billion EUR in 19:36 funding that is due to Hungary under another another Banner so it's is this 19:41 potentially the first bit of bait that we are seeing from uh from the EU to get 19:47 a positive message from Hungary when it comes to that vote next month and I'll stop there for now
well thank you very 19:53 much Joe and Dom for all of that well it's great Daniel Ridley to have you back on the podcast could you remind our 20:00 listeners just quickly where you are and what you do
yep thank you very much for having me back it's it's good to be back 20:05 again
I think this is the third or fourth time now uh I'm currently based in harv which is in the far Northeast of 20:12 Ukraine and I run an organization called Trident Defense Initiative we are a military training center Organization for the Ukrainian armed forces and we've so far trained 11,000 Ukrainian soldiers 20:25 free of charge in a variety of different skills
uh infantry medical drones 20:31 engineering and a few others to say the least well Daniel we've heard a lot from Joe andom about some of the updates from 20:37 around Europe and around the world what about for you you're in harv what's the atmosphere like that can you give us an 20:42 idea of what you're seeing what are people telling you and with with winter arriving how are you preparing for that yep so the uh I've been in harv well 20:49 over a year now coming up to a year and a half situations consistently got better and better especially during the 20:55 counter offensive in harv last year where the vast majority of Haro blast was liberated from the Russians and the 21:03 the sort of semi encirclement they had around the city was pushed back the situation has got you know incredibly 21:09 more secure in harv uh a lot of people have returned here uh you know it's very close to the Russian border less than 30 21:16 kmers away from the Russian border and and also the front line situation east of harkov so you know it's got a lot 21:22 more of a higher level of threat than most cities in Ukraine uh but at the same time it's Ukraine's second largest 21:29 city so it has a lot of lot of life to it and a lot of people that live here so yeah the situation has got more secure 21:35 in the last few weeks we've seen a sort of upscale of the Iranian made Shahed 21:41 drone attacks which are predominantly used to wear down Ukraine's air defenses they've never really been traditionally 21:47 used in harv due to its close proximity to the Border they've normally just used the s300 anti-aircraft missile which they 21:54 deploy in a ground to ground roll but they've they've there's been an up surge of it in the last few weeks hitting 22:00 specific targets but also just sort of to drain Ukraine's air defenses in this area uh I would assume that is in a 22:07 preparation for what everyone's been talking about recently which is renewed uh winter strikes that will attack 22:13 Ukraine's infrastructure predominantly the energy infrastructure and sort of uh damage uh people's ability to heat their 22:19 homes or to live comfortably through the winter and put more pressure on Ukraine and and also the Europeans uh but yeah 22:27 so we've seen we've seen a lot of that but again the uh life has returned to the city things are very busy here uh so 22:33 people definitely feel more secure than they did before uh in regards to repairing for the winter uh this will be 22:40 technically you could say the third winter of the war The War Began at the end of winter
2022 then we had the end of 2022 winter where it was sort of the first Long Winter that we'd had here Ukraine was 22:53 prepared but things were difficult you know we had power outages that lasted anywhere between 3 to 5 days people 22:59 individually in their homes and things were not prepared but I would say now Ukraine is is definitely far more 23:05 prepared in regards to air defenses in regards to infrastructure and their ability to repair infrastructure uh last 23:11 year they were absolutely fantastic sort of the unsung heroes of this war have been Ukraine's infrastructure workers 23:17 the power stations or the power grids where they work would be hit and moments later they'll be in there trying to 23:23 repair sorry trying to repair them um and and the individual Ukrainian I would 23:29 say they're far more prepared this year you just can see on Ukrainian internet stores and stuff the purchases of power 23:35 Banks and gas heaters and things are through the roof people know what's most 23:40 likely going to come it's already sort of started I know hark was hit quite bad with Shahed drones in the last few weeks 23:46 and then as as Dom mentioned over the last few days a huge number of Shahs have been fired towards Kiev again these 23:52 aren't necessarily to hit something or strike something they're just there to to wear down Ukraine's Limited stock of 23:58 air defense missiles and air defense systems so yeah overall in general people are are definitely more prepared 24:04 for the winter and they sort of expect the inevitable which is which is coming 24:09 well thank you so much for all of that Dan you talked about the training programs you run could you just share a little bit about how your training has 24:15 changed through the year I mean the this war has been the full scale Invasion has been going on for 20 months 21 months 24:21
now how is what you do and how is what you teach the soldiers changed with with the EB and flow of the fighting yes I I 24:27 covered this briefly the last time I was on a few months ago uh in the the height of Ukraine summer counter offensive but 24:33 the training uh we provide a standardized outline of training courses A variation of training programs but 24:39 every single one of those is adaptive depending on which Brigade or which which individual unit we're training so 24:45 as you said with the the EB and flow of the war some some areas or sometimes it can be defensive or you know uh in an 24:52 assaulting posture especially during the counter offensive which which hasn't just been limited to the South there's also also been counter offensive 24:59 operations going on in in kopans in bmud and the area around that as well and 25:05 that is sort of tailored our training definitely over the last few months we've been focused more on going forward 25:11 and as we come closer to the winter it's more about staying in place and holding 25:17 uh as much as everyone would like it to uh it is near impossible I I myself spent almost 20 months in a trench in 25:24 the east of Ukraine prior to the force Scout Invasion during the the period of War before that and I I did two or even 25:31 even three Winters the way it worked out in the trenches can get down to the worst was minus 27 you're not doing 25:38 anything then and neither are the enemy is very difficult conditions to move equipment to move men to motivate men so 25:44 you know definitely in the winter uh fighting season which is standard for for most conflict zones uh the the 25:50 fighting slows down so as we we get closer to that the training definitely is tailored more uh towards offensive 25:57 obviously we train predominantly students in and around in the greater area of hark region so our main focus is 26:05 cians and and bat mood sectors uh and the the situation there is is definitely 26:10 tailored more towards the defense so yeah we we've had a we've had a change change the flow of it over the last well 26:16 coming up to two years now but again we have a consistent Baseline training program that we sort of at here to which 26:22 provides a standard for the soldiers
Dan you shared there some of your experiences in the trenches would you like to share any other other the 26:28 stories of some of the soldiers you've seen and trained over the past few months who sticks in your mind
uh yeah I 26:34 think a good person to mention is one of our students his name is Max Burger uh if people view our Instagram page you 26:41 can be found for our website we have a great video that he made for us on there he's a Ukrainian but he lived in 26:47 Barcelona before the for scale Invasion at the beginning of the forsale invasion he came back he was an artist came back 26:53 to Ukraine and joined the military and and found himself in one of the harv territor defense brigades I would say 27:00 maybe seven or eight months ago now he attended our Batum Medics course which is a 3we course Very in depth covers 27:07 quite high level medical procedures and Trauma care including a kadava lab quite a unique course he attended that course 27:13 no prior medical experience no medical training other than the very basic training he had as an infantry Soldier he completed our course he was a was a 27:20 star student even helped uh with a translation as he spoke fluent English he graduated the course and was almost 27:26 immediately Cent to back mood and I believe he went did at least three rotations in the town or the city of 27:33 batmud itself inside of there during the the height of the battles and he he was great he he wore GoPro he recorded a lot 27:39 of the footage and he used our training and the equipment we provide all of our graduating students that pass our test 27:45 we provide them with a fully stocked medical Rock sack with everything they need to save lives in it and he recorded 27:51 some great videos he treated I think anywhere between 70 or 80 casualties during his time in and out of bat mood 27:58 uh and that was all down completely down to the training that he received with us uh yeah and he he was a fantastic guy 28:05 like I said he was a he was an artist before the war lived outside of Ukraine at the at the time came back and and 28:11 went into what he describes as the the hell of bat mood multiple times and he's 28:16 you know one of thousands of stories of our students that we've managed to help and hopefully they continue to save 28:23 lives and preserve lives and and defend Ukrainian territory
well thank you so much Dan I'm going to hand over to Dom 28:29 and Joe now I've just got one more question but I know Joe's been writing quite a bit on some aspects of the Ukrainian Army in the past few days so 28:35 Joe BS
hi Dan good to hear from you mate and yeah say enjoying your uh photos in 28:41 the snow of harv on Instagram I don't know if I won't share your your handle um but they're good to see what was 28:48 quite interesting is so the The Wall Street Journal the other day published a story and they they featured a quote 28:53 from a retired Ukrainian lieutenant general which said units on the front line and now common commonly 20 to 40% 28:59 below strength essentially as uh Ukraine struggles to replace infantry that has 29:05 been lost during the summer counter offensive so I'm just wondering if is that reflected in the number of people 29:11 you're training are you training more people or or or are Ukraine actually struggling to find uh new recruits and 29:17 people uh to sign up to the military to to serve from now on I
I definitely 29:22 wouldn't disagree with that fact um but uh even when I served in the Ukraine military we had issues with Manpower in 29:30 regards to me personally and the the soldiers and the the students I interact with I haven't seen a drop in numbers if 29:36 anything we've actually seen an increase in numbers we've expanded our organization quite drastically over the 29:41 past six months so uh we within that you know our numbers have have been reflected so but definitely I think 29:47 there was well there was a lot of issues uh at the beginning of the mobilization 29:52 you know Ukraine you people may disagree with it within Ukraine and outside of Ukraine but Ukraine is in a Total War uh 29:59 whether we like it or not we didn't make this decision as as is Russia on the on the other side So within that you know 30:05 comes with mobilization or draft whatever you want to call it that's that's unavoidable but everyone you know 30:11 I believe everyone has a a commitment to contribute to the defense of their country but yeah there was there was 30:16 definitely issues at the beginning for the first year year and a half of the war with the mobilization and also the 30:23 recruitment I know Ukraine is definitely moving forward with that now recently zalinski restructured all of the 30:30 recruitment the mobilization centers restructured the command structure there 30:35 and the recruiting procedures there and then also I believe Ukraine is moving towards more of a modern standard of uh 30:43 volunteer recruitment as well I believe there's one of our partners actually an organization called Lobby X they 30:49 basically advertise job roles within the military within specific units and what they will do is they will offer those 30:55 positions out to Ukrainian citizens that they can then apply to join so they can 31:00 find a more uh specific role within the military tailored for them uh it's 31:05 definitely something that that that has time to come uh obviously the conditions for a Ukrainian Soldier you know I have 31:12 a biased opinion I won't deny that uh but the conditions for Ukrainian Soldier far more desirable than for a Russian 31:19 mobilized Soldier that's apparent you know you can see anything of the conditions that Russian mobilized 31:24 soldiers live in and also how they're treated um is definitely not reflected in in even 10% of how are Ukrainian 31:31 soldiers treated you know we provide a large bulk of post trining I know the Ukrainian military has its own initial 31:37 training centers and things like that but the standards definitely improving the Ukrainian whatever the Russian 31:43 propaganda says or the anti- help Ukraine Western Media or propaganda 31:48 whatever you want to call it says uh the Ukrainian population is still very motivated I I would say there's 31:54 definitely could be more people signing up but again I haven't seen a deficit I haven't seen a worrying problem uh where 32:00 I think God we need more people we haven't got enough people we haven't got enough uh men on the line holding the 32:06 line that's definitely not an issue as of now and then Dom and I were having a conversation on Monday's pod about sort 32:13 of the use of tets and you I actually used you as an example because you I 32:18 think you had been posting on about sort of tets being used to sort of liberally and it's 32:24 causing sort of people to have amputations that weren't needed um just wondering if you do you see the the 32:30 sacking and the of the head of the medical forces and the bid to bring this up to a better standard do you see this 32:36 as a positive from a guy I've seen you in action seen your guys in action at TDI and we we did a piece when was it 32:41 last June uh which is on the website still for people to look at so we know that you sort of deliver great training 32:46 but do you actually see now a need to sort of bring that level of training up elsewhere and do you sort 32:53 of agree with that in in general
yes is actually one of our main focuses and obviously as the war goes on 33:00 ukrainians uh become more knowledgeable about the specifics of of combat and tactics and a western instructor would 33:06 we we have a large amount of Western instructors but also Ukrainian instructors um but tactical medicine is 33:12 always something that we sort of uh is our is our sort of big thing we run three different levels of Medical Training here varying lengths and 33:19 indepth uh in- depthness and yeah I made a post on it recently it's been a it's been a controversy and something that's 33:26 been spoken about a lot Ukraine since the beginning of the war was the fake tornica issue uh you know people just 33:32 being do gooders especially outside of Ukraine were looking to send support and Aid so they would go on Amazon and oh 33:38 everyone needs a torica you know it's the first thing you use the most important thing you use and they would go on Amazon and typ in tnut and you 33:43 know uh a Million results would pop up oh you can get hundred of these Tor cuts for only $2 a piece I said that's great 33:49 I can get 100 torn Cuts but the reality is they were Chinese fake copies Airsoft copies whatever and and they were a big 33:55 issue it sort of become a bit of a beating a dead horse thing now you know we're seeing a bit of an improvement with it especially it's gone on for a 34:02 long time now this controversy and soldiers are identifying which is a fake which isn't but yeah the thing that's been coming across a lot lately I've 34:09 seen it personally during my work in the morg with the medical course and then also the thing that I posted about 34:14 recently on on Instagram was was yeah the over usage of tnut people were 34:19 getting you know the the tnut is the most important thing as soon as you see blood put a tnut on and then people were just applying them everywhere they would 34:25 see blood put them on and unfortunately if a tnut is applied for an extended period of time you will lose that limit 34:31 effectively cuts off blood flow turns the blood toxic and you you're having a lot of unnecessary amputations including 34:37 people I know have had it that's not necessarily an issue with let's say the hospital you know the hospitals aren't just loing legs off willy-nilly the 34:44 issue is predominantly the application Point people are putting it on and then just because of the war situation in 34:50 Ukraine for a multitude of reasons that you know I won't go too in depth into uh evacuation takes over an hour over what 34:58 we call and Dom knows about it what we call the golden hour um which is if you get someone to a hospital within an hour 35:04 being injured they have a uh much higher increased rate of survivability and then everything after that uh is far lower in 35:12 regards to the firing of the head of the Ukrainian military Medical Services or 35:17 the replacement obviously zinsky has done a lot of Shifting in his cabinet and in his positions some people have 35:23 slipped under the radar and gone unnoticed the main driving Factor behind that was actually to do with blood 35:30 transfusions giving blood to Injured soldiers it's actually been illegal I I myself also when I served in the 35:36 Ukrainian military i i attended the Ukrainian military's combat medic course it was a four-month long course 35:42 Ukrainian and Canadian military instructors fantastic course we were specifically told there was a lot of 35:47 illegal manipulations life-saving manipulations that I personally knew how to do that I wasn't allowed to do one of 35:53 them was uh blood transfusions and it's become a big point of controversy because it's something that is is really 35:59 needed uh at the front line or in the rear stabilization points and it became a huge controversy Ukrainian soldiers 36:05 were crying out to be allowed to do it they were getting qualified uh there's courses a lot of courses in different 36:10 places some I know about some in Kiev uh where Ukrainian soldiers were either paying their own money or uh something 36:17 else I don't agree with Ukrainian soldiers having to pay for training but you know whatever we're going and getting these qualifications to deliver 36:23 blood to make blood transfusions but we're being uh disal by their command to do it and I believe that was one of the 36:29 driving factors Ukraine's sort of military medical heads inability to change out of what maybe Soviet 36:36 practices or old Ukrainian practices and move forward into a more modern system 36:41 of combat Medical Care Ukraine uses the March standard the March algorithm which is the American American system and the 36:48 T C guidelines Ukraine has adapted those since 2017 when the a lot of the foreign 36:53 missions were training great system very effective but the problem is the Ukrainian legal system that backs that 36:59 hasn't really adapted to change to that so so yeah hopefully we'll see uh more 37:04 of a modernization of it the volunteer networks volunteer Medics here are very strong and very powerful and they always 37:09 have been and they're pioneering a lot of things there some great organizations out there hospitallers do some great work and and quite a few others uh so 37:18 yeah hopefully seeing more of that and more modernization of it and hopefully the zinski government puts someone more 37:24 modern more astute and more knowled eligible and front line conditions in that position Dan High Dom here thanks so 37:31 much for uh for joining us again welcome back can I ask you about the confidence 37:36 with which Western donated equipment or externally donated equipment is being 37:41 received by by um new volunteers and Soldiers with a bit more experience I've 37:47 heard anecdotally um from people fighting in Ukraine that the N law has has in 37:54 reputational terms had a bit of a dip and I'm told that this is because a lot of them were were flying over the 38:01 targets the bmps and the tanks and what have you and not exploding because the firer had not selected otaa the overfly 38:08 top attack mode of the of the missile and they' been doing that because they either not been trained correctly or In 38:15 the Heat of the Moment had had forgotten their training but it was leading to a loss of confidence in the weapon are you 38:20 able to speak to that point specifically but just more broadly how is the equipment that's donated received in 38:25 terms of conf in the Fighter's hands yeah I I'll speak I think specifically about the in law first I've personally 38:32 seen a lot less of them in Ukraine I don't know how factual that is just just what I visualized less of the in law uh 38:38 I spoke about this I think on my very first podcast with you guys was the the propaganda weapons the cool Wonder 38:46 Weapons that everyone speaks about things like the bakar the javelin and all these things one thing that 38:51 definitely went under the radar was the end law I would say it was without a doubt the most effective weapon that 38:57 saved saved the Russian Advance on Kiev bu and her pin where where I was at the 39:02 beginning of the war because it was such an effective weapon it was easy to use and it was you know one in-law one 39:09 Russian tank gone 100% of the time if you if you used it correctly I believe again just I'll just speak on what I 39:16 know I believe that the Brits do a lot of training on the whether it's called orbital interflex I think it's called 39:21 now and they do a lot of training on the N law as it's one of their standard weapons I've personally like I said seen 39:27 less of them in Ukraine but maybe there's there's a larger number of them I don't know specifically probably the 39:32 issue is is is throwing that training uh out to a huge Army that continuously is 39:38 is gaining new people gaining new brigades and then also refreshing that training as well I'm not sure the exact 39:45 numbers I believe it's up to around 20,000 now that have been through training specifically in the UK that you 39:51 know that's a small number uh that's a small number in regards to the entire Ukrainian military so let's say 20,000 39:56 of those guys have received nlaw training uh you know how many of them are using an nlaw and then how many 40:03 others are using it that aren't getting it uh we may also see quality deficiencies with the upsurge in Need 40:08 for equipment and then obviously the sort of parallel conflict which affects Ukraine which is the Israel Palestine 40:13 conflict maybe there's a quality issues there I'm not 100% sure in regards to the general effectiveness of the western 40:20 weapons something that sort of got uh put down a lot at the beginning of the counter offensive just because ukrainians weren't super experienced in 40:27 what they were doing and there was there was some learning Kinks to work out was the Bradley you know a few were lost at 40:33 the beginning and weren't used necessarily effectively uh now we're seeing that used a lot more effectively 40:39 again the these things take time and people need to understand that a soldier can go to the West for training he can 40:44 receive fantastic training specifically on that equipment but again he needs that experience of using it in combat he 40:50 needs that experience of using it when he's under Fire in terrain but he's going to be under Fire in factoring 40:57 things like fpv drones and and and other technology things it takes time and I 41:02 think you mentioned it at the beginning as well Ukraine has may not have had the success that it wanted or that the West expected it to have but what it has had 41:09 is a huge amount of experience gain and knowledge of the equipment so yeah I don't think the confidence in Western 41:15 Equipment has gone down it's still just as desirable and just as effective as it was when it first was received thanks 41:22 Dan and just finally for me you mentioned earlier on that that you you think Ukrainian soldiers and I I agree with you on this one will endure the 41:29 ravages of winter in the trenches better than Russian soldiers can you talk to us about the the kind of standard kit that 41:35 now they're now being issued what how widespread the the good winter clothing 41:41 is and boots and things like that and how um how well are will everybody get 41:48 it everybody get the good stuff at the at the front line to enable them to survive and and even possibly take take 41:54 the fight to to the Russians but just the what what would what should be expected at the front in terms of winter gear for the 42:01 individual I would say straight off the bat it is and even in the British army we know this far too well winter gear 42:07 and things like that are always the bane of corruption whether it be low-level corruption the Quarter Master keeping 42:12 all the good jackets in his stores uh whether that be high level or a governmental level you know Ukraine has 42:17 experienced that with winter gear in the past I experienced it in the Ukrainian Army at a low level but that that that's 42:24 consistent with most militaries that's just how things work sometimes but yeah when I served in the Ukrainian military 42:29 I was issued uh pretty pretty shockingly impressive set of winter equipment you 42:34 know snow boots with gators on thermal layers multiple thermal layers sort of 42:40 soft suit like a almost like a wearable sleeping bag uh in the Ukrainian camouflage even winter boots you know we 42:46 we were issued all of that and this is before the full scale Invasion when Ukrainian Army had nowhere near the 42:51 amount of support and and equipment that it what I'm seeing from my students again ukrainians n to deal with the 42:56 winter as do the Russians you know we we live in colder climates the students are very well equipped whether it's stuff 43:02 that they receive from volunteers or or things from the military uh etc etc the 43:07 the volunteer output here is incredible absolutely dwarfs the the public support 43:12 that the Russian military has and even further dwarfs the support that you know the British military has from the public 43:18 uh Ukrainian volunteers provide wood burning stoves to the bunkers on the front line they provide warm equipment 43:25 you know warm stock warm clothing uh and I'm I'm contrary to the propaganda and 43:30 you definitely see it from the Russians not again not saying that the Russians aren't equipped you will definitely see Russians with winter gear they they get 43:37 it some way or another but the ukrainians definitely get it a lot more what I see personally from the students 43:42 I interact with they're they're well equipped and they're being provided it again I I don't I don't although I work 43:49 with the Ukrainian military I'm not serving as a soldier there at the moment so I wouldn't know the individual equipment that a soldier gets issued but 43:55 honestly if it's exactly if it mirrors or is exactly the same as what we rued prior to the full scale Invasion it's 44:02 absolutely fantastic it's actually more W winter equipment than I got issued in the British army which which says 44:07 something well thank you so much uh Dan for answering all of our questions thank you very much Dom and Joe for your 44:13 questions too let's go to our final thoughts because we got one eye on the clock now and Dan when we come back to you for the very final thought if 44:18 there's anything we haven't spoken about that you think is really important to mention do mention it there so Joe Barnes can I go to you first yeah I just 44:25 want for my thought to look at something and talk about something about the donation of shells to Ukraine so last 44:30 night the mod that's Britain's Ministry of Defense shared a tweet with a video saying you are The Company You Keep 44:37 North Korea is on track to join Iran bellarus as the biggest arm supplies to 44:42 Russia and that sort of got me thinking is the West really pulling its way living up to the their rhetoric putting 44:48 their money where their mouth is and actually I think not so North Korea has has given donated sold we don't know uh 44:56 about 1 million shells to Russia since August that's according to South Korean intelligence published by CNN and other 45:02 other reputable Outlets but then you actually look at what Europe is doing for Ukraine in terms of 155 MIM 45:09 artillery shells which are probably Dan might have a f on this later the most important aspect of this war so far the 45:16 EU said it had planned to get 1 million shells to Ukraine by March to date that scheme has delivered about 300,000,000 45:24 dish shells and EU defense ministers including the German have acknowledged this target to get 1 million shells to 45:31 Ukraine by March 2024 is not going to be hit so it leads me to sort of say it's all well and good calling out North 45:36 Korea Iran or whatever Rogue State uh hermit Nation despot is helping Russia 45:43 but is that really enough probably not Russia will be able to turn its advantage in numbers suppliers even if 45:49 that is quantitive and not qualitative into Battlefield advantages and that's just not good sort of news for Ukraine 45:55 and so I haven't heard from the British for a while about whether they've sent 155 mm artillery shells or what they're 46:02 doing um those press releases have seem to have gone quiet I know a lot of stuff is done sort of under under the radar 46:08 because they don't want to release various information for national security reasons but like yeah while 46:13 while the the Storm Shadow is a great bit of K and being used great greatly by the ukrainians um maybe we're ignoring 46:19 some of the most important elements that will help sort Ukraine hold its ground on the battlefield and that's the5 46:25 millimeter shell I'll stop there thank you thank you Joe do Nichols thanks 46:30 David So Putin has used the WW he was speaking to reporters in Moscow 46:36 yesterday and said our goal is not to spin the flywheel of military conflict but on the contrary to end this war now 46:44 you may remember using the word War to describe the Ukraine well War has effectively been 46:50 illegal in Russia since March when Putin signed a censorship law um that makes it a crime to disseminate fake information 46:57 about The Invasion with a penalty of up to 15 years in prison for anyone convicted uh CNN are reporting today 47:05 that Nikita eev who's a municipal lawmaker from St Petersburg who had to get get out of Russia due to his 47:11 anti-war stance he's been speaking on Twitter today and he has asked Russian 47:16 authorities to prosecute Putin for spreading fake information about the army so uh so far so so amusing blah 47:23 blah blah let's see let's see what happens you know the point is was this a mistake or was it the start Putin start 47:31 to reframe the war particularly in advance of Russia's March presidential 47:37 election now if it's Putin trying to trying to ramp things up in a narrative term to shore up domestic support that 47:45 that might be one thing but if he's trying to to ramp things up as a Prelude 47:50 to mobilization for mobilization because we know that his the partial mobilization that he's done so far was 47:56 extremely extremely unwelcome by Society led to the flight of about a million we 48:03 think a million fighting age males so he's been desperate not to go for full mobilization but but potentially they 48:11 are it might be moving in that direction so was it a slip up or was it was it the start of something else we will 48:17 obviously keep that keep that keep our eye on that but of course the March presidential election is going to really 48:23 start to impact every little aspect of what we what we see in terms of the Putin and The Wider Kremlin and Russian 48:29 sort of diplomatic initiatives thank you very much Dom Dan thank you so much for all of your time 48:35 thank you for answering all of our questions would you like to have the very final words yep I'll just quickly jump off what Joe said uh yeah the 48:42 Russian military has proven for well over a hundred years that quantity over quality has worked for them it worked in 48:48 World War II it worked prior to that and and it's you know had some effect in Ukraine as well if we do see a more 48:54 widespread usage of Iranian or North Korean ammunition yep the quality might 49:00 not be as good uh quality has never been a strong point with the Russian military anyway um but they have a far greater 49:06 quality uh bellarus has a surprisingly uh pretty strong uh arms industry uh 49:13 production and building of of military equipment so if the Russians are able to 49:18 acquire more of that that ammunition and that stockpile and that equipment which they've begun to do and they've done quite effectively could cause an issue 49:25 for for Europe and America especially as America tries to juggle two Foreign Wars and the supply of those two Wars 49:31 definitely going to be uh an issue something that we won't be able to compete with unless we sort of gear more 49:36 into it which people don't seem particularly keen on to do other than that y thank you to having me on again 49:42 good to speak to Joe again and yeah I'd love to be back on again sometime and 49:47 just continue to read information about Ukraine I try to spend little time on Twitter but if you read something on 49:54 Twitter just check it get out cuz it's Ukraine the latest is an original podcast from the telegraph to stay on 50:01 top of all of our Ukraine news analysis and dispatches from the ground subscribe to the telegraph you can get your first 50:07 three months for just1 at www.telegraph.co.uk Ukraine thelatest or sign up to 50:14 dispatches our Ukraine newsletter which brings stories from our award-winning foreign correspondents straight to your 50:20 inbox we also have a Ukraine 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