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00:00 Well, let's get straight into the analysis of what's been happening.
00:03 Gulliver Craig is awaiting us in Kiev.
00:05 Gulliver, of course, is our Ukraine correspondent
00:07 who's been across the story from day one.
00:09 Gulliver, good evening to you.
00:10 Here in the studio, Douglas Herbert, our international affairs commentator.
00:13 Doug, great to see you.
00:14 And joining us from afar, Philip Ingram, former British intelligence officer.
00:19 Mr Ingram, thank you very much for joining us.
00:21 Let's start with Gulliver in Kiev.
00:22 Gulliver, give us a sense of the situation where you are today.
00:27 Well, you know, according to some calculations,
00:29 it was the third massive drone attack or combined drone and missile attack
00:34 on the Ukrainian capital in 24 hours.
00:36 So as you can imagine, the Ukrainians are quite tired.
00:39 There are the sounds of explosions throughout the night,
00:41 as well as the sirens as the Ukrainian air defences are working.
00:45 And all of this plays on people's nerves, makes them feel quite angry
00:48 and contributes, I think, to a sense among Ukrainians of some satisfaction
00:52 at seeing that the Ukrainian air defence forces
00:54 were getting a little bit of a taste of their own medicine
00:57 with these attacks on Moscow as well, which Kiev, of course, denies,
01:01 but denies without hiding its satisfaction.
01:04 And I think wouldn't be too upset if people suspected a bit
01:08 that at the very least they were.
01:09 Gulliver, Craig in Kiev.
01:16 We'll be rejoining in a moment.
01:17 Let's bring in Douglas Herbert here next to us.
01:20 So, Douglas Herbert, of course,
01:22 our international affairs commentator, Doug.
01:23 We heard from Gulliver about the situation in Kiev,
01:26 where people clearly after three nights of consecutive attacks
01:30 from Russia are feeling tired, perhaps worn down.
01:33 And clearly the tactic here from Russia
01:35 is to try to wear down Ukrainians' resistance.
01:38 Good luck with that, some people might say.
01:40 Well, I mean, we've seen on the one side here
01:44 a wave of 17 attacks this month so far.
01:48 Drone attacks, various types of missile attacks,
01:52 which have hit largely Kiev, but not just Kiev,
01:55 also other towns, cities throughout Ukraine.
01:58 So adding to this sense that nowhere is truly off limits,
02:01 you're not really safe anywhere you are in Ukraine.
02:04 But yes, most of that drone fire
02:07 has been really concentrated on Kiev.
02:10 And obviously the Russians maintaining the line
02:12 that they have maintained all along,
02:14 which is that they do not target civilians,
02:16 they only are targeting military personnel.
02:18 They're targeting military facilities.
02:20 And yet you see the evidence and you see the photos,
02:22 you see the videos of a lot of damage
02:25 to civilian infrastructure.
02:27 So whether it's just the fault
02:29 of these so-called pinpoint precision weapons
02:31 not hitting the right targets, we don't know.
02:33 But it's been disproportionate with respect to,
02:35 it's not a tit for tat thing.
02:36 The Ukrainians are hit by drones,
02:38 the Russians are hit by drones.
02:40 These types of drone attacks
02:41 have been very exceedingly uncommon in Moscow.
02:46 I mean, these are the first ones
02:47 that have hit civilian areas.
02:49 Even if the Russians say that they aren't targeting,
02:54 the Russians say that the Ukrainians
02:55 were targeting civilians.
02:57 The fact of the matter is debris and others
02:59 are reported to have hit in civilian areas.
03:01 Three main areas in the Moscow sort of concentric,
03:06 it's a giant sprawling city in the Moscow area.
03:08 Some sightings of drones as well in outside Moscow
03:11 and the Moscow surrounding region as well.
03:13 But let's be clear,
03:14 there've really only been a handful of these attacks.
03:16 Two to be precise when it comes to drones,
03:18 we reported extensively early this month in May
03:21 when there was that,
03:23 the video of what was said to be a drone attack
03:26 on the Kremlin, which Russia qualified
03:28 as an attempt to assassinate Vladimir Putin,
03:31 something which Ukraine has ambiguously played on
03:33 but denied that it was anything such.
03:35 So it's disproportionate.
03:37 You've had a wave of bombardments of drones on Ukraine,
03:42 and you've had a handful of very few attacks in Russia,
03:45 but which has now taken the fight essentially
03:47 to the heart of Russia and it's showcase capital.
03:49 - It is an interesting development.
03:50 Douglas, for now, thank you very much indeed.
03:51 Gulliver-Cragg is rejoining us at any second.
03:54 Let's bring in Philip Ingram,
03:55 former British intelligence officer
03:57 for his take on the situation.
03:59 Philip, thank you for being with us here in France 24.
04:01 Always appreciate your time.
04:03 Douglas, just discussing the situation in Moscow.
04:05 Can I start with you there about what happened in Moscow?
04:09 Do you get any sense that this could be something
04:11 that perhaps isn't quite as it seems?
04:13 Maybe Russia kind of trying to set something up
04:16 to make it look like what happened, happened?
04:19 - That's one of the options.
04:21 Vladimir Putin could be using this as an excuse
04:23 to try and justify him having to compulsory mobilise
04:28 an awful lot of people because he is losing
04:30 on the battlefield and is worried
04:32 about the Ukrainian counter-offensive.
04:34 But more likely it is one of the Russian dissident groups
04:38 that is supporting Ukraine rather than fighting
04:42 with Ukraine in Ukraine itself,
04:47 or it's Ukraine as part of its wider preparation
04:49 of the battle space.
04:50 You were in the deep battle preparing the battle space
04:53 for this long awaited counter-offensive
04:56 that is going to start.
04:57 But that starts with dislocating your enemy's expectations,
05:01 hitting Moscow's, focusing politically
05:03 and other military assets to have to stay there.
05:06 We saw the small excursion up towards Belgorod
05:09 where part of Russia was invaded by this group of Russians.
05:15 And we're seeing more and more strikes
05:19 into the Russian held elements of Ukraine,
05:24 attacking their command and control
05:25 and their logistic sites.
05:26 It's all softening them up for the ground offensive.
05:29 - Philip, Vladimir Putin is saying that Ukraine,
05:32 if indeed it was Ukraine, but the drone strikes
05:34 is targeting civilians.
05:36 Some might say that's rich coming from Vladimir Putin.
05:38 Also saying that Russia didn't start the war.
05:41 - Well, he's working on his own playbook.
05:45 I don't understand how if you invade another sovereign
05:48 country, which he did in February last year,
05:51 he couldn't say he didn't start the war
05:53 because it's quite clear that he did.
05:55 And he is actively targeting civilian infrastructure
06:00 and civilians.
06:01 He's done this.
06:02 This is part of the Russian playbook.
06:04 He did this supporting Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
06:07 He did this in Georgia.
06:08 This is what the Russians do.
06:10 And he's just continuing to do it.
06:12 Of course, he will throw denials out left, right and centre.
06:15 The Russians have got a doctrine called maskarovka,
06:17 which is all masking,
06:18 which is trying to throw people off the scent,
06:21 but it doesn't work.
06:23 It's working for his own population,
06:25 but it doesn't work for the rest of the world.
06:26 - Philip, bear with us, please.
06:28 We'll get back to you as soon as we can.
06:29 Just to remind you, we have Douglas Herbert here,
06:30 our international affairs commentator.
06:32 Gulliver Craig, our Ukraine correspondent,
06:34 hearing us very well now in Kiev.
06:36 Gulliver, welcome back into the discussion.
06:39 We've been hearing about various takes
06:41 on what might've happened in Moscow.
06:42 Possibly it's something that the Russians may be saying
06:45 happened, but didn't quite happen
06:48 the way that they're describing it.
06:49 - There's a point I'd like to make.
06:50 - Go ahead, go ahead, Gulliver, go ahead.
06:52 - There's a point I'd like to make.
06:55 The point I'd like to make is that Russia is,
06:58 on the one hand, accusing Ukraine of targeting civilians
07:01 in Moscow, and on the other hand,
07:03 claiming to have intercepted and diverted
07:06 by intercepting their remote control mechanisms
07:09 all of the drones that were fired at the Russian capital.
07:13 So there's no evidence whatsoever that they were aiming
07:16 at civilian targets or residential buildings in any way,
07:20 because the Russians say they diverted or intercepted them.
07:23 But the same goes for the Russian drones
07:25 that attacked Kiev overnight.
07:28 The Ukrainians may think that they were attacking
07:29 civilian targets, but they also say
07:31 that they intercepted, well, 29 out of 31 of them.
07:34 We don't know where the other two
07:35 that hit their targets actually hit.
07:37 The fact that there's no information about that
07:39 would suggest that they were actually aimed at
07:42 and hit military targets, and that may have been the case
07:45 for the others as well, but they were intercepted,
07:49 diverted, and so much the better,
07:51 because although the damage today done by these drones
07:54 in some areas of Kiev is quite significant,
07:56 and sadly one person died and 13 were injured,
07:59 it's nothing compared to the damage that could have been done
08:01 had the drones not been intercepted
08:03 and been able to hit their targets
08:05 and explode with the full force of their warheads.
08:07 Is there a sense, Gulliver, where you are,
08:09 that this is all part of preparation
08:11 for the counteroffensive?
08:13 Some say the counteroffensive is already underway.
08:15 Others say, of course, there won't be any great fanfare
08:17 when it's launched, but is there a sense there
08:20 that what we're seeing here is perhaps Ukraine showing
08:22 it has more reach, more strength,
08:24 and getting the Russians worried?
08:29 Perhaps, yes.
08:30 I mean, what I've been a little bit surprised at
08:31 in the commentary today is that a lot of Ukrainians
08:34 seem to think that these attacks on Moscow will,
08:37 whether they hit any targets at all,
08:40 somehow diminish Russians' support for Vladimir Putin
08:43 and his war on Ukraine, and no one's really presented
08:46 any convincing evidence for that.
08:48 After all, when Kiev is targeted by Russian attacks,
08:51 it tends to send Ukrainians in the other direction
08:53 and make them all the more defiant.
08:55 Of course, the situation is different.
08:57 Kiev's war defending itself against an invasion
09:00 is perhaps, you might say, inherently justified,
09:02 whereas Russia's is much less justified.
09:05 But nevertheless, I think that Ukrainians seem to be indulging
09:08 in a lot of wishful thinking about the effect
09:10 that these attacks on Moscow might have on Russian morale.
09:14 But certainly, there's an attempt here
09:16 to distract the Russians, I think,
09:17 with the attacks on Belgorod region earlier this month,
09:21 just across Ukraine in Russia.
09:23 That was a much clearer attempt to distract
09:25 the Russian military, to make them divert resources, perhaps.
09:29 But mainly, what's going on is all of these attacks on Kiev
09:31 are, of course, a Russian attempt to exhaust
09:34 the Ukrainian air defences, keep them defending Kiev,
09:38 cause the Ukrainians to have to expend huge amounts
09:40 of ammunition shooting down these drones and these missiles.
09:42 So I think that there is clearly a military purpose there
09:45 for the Russians in trying to hamper the Ukrainians
09:47 as they try to prepare to start their counter-offensive.
09:50 Understood, Gulliver. Loud and clear.
09:52 Gulliver Crag there in Kiev.
09:54 Douglas, Vladimir Putin's issue, of course,
09:56 is that once upon a time, back on February the 24th,
09:59 you said this will all be over in 72 hours.
10:01 He was obviously taken off guard there.
10:03 He did not expect this.
10:05 I mean, he might deny it.
10:06 He might maintain to this day that there was a coherent plan
10:10 all along, and that this is all part
10:12 of that special military operation, which is, until now,
10:15 going smoothly, according to the propaganda on the state-run
10:19 outlets.
10:20 The fact of the matter is, and this is addressing Gulliver's
10:23 point before, time and again, there's been a lot of--
10:25 you have to call it wishful thinking.
10:26 That's the right term-- in the West,
10:28 that somehow support for Vladimir Putin
10:31 would start to dwindle, would start to taper off.
10:33 And there's been a lot of narratives to the effect
10:35 that certainly this is now going to erode Putin's support.
10:39 And yes, there have been times where
10:40 it did seem like his support was on the verge of tipping,
10:44 perhaps, and declining, especially last fall
10:47 during the mass mobilization, where we saw everyone rushing
10:50 the exits, a lot of young men to get out of the country
10:53 before they were drafted.
10:54 But the fact of the matter is, whenever
10:57 people have been on the verge of trying to predict reports
11:01 of Putin's demise or his popularity declining,
11:04 he has still maintained popularity.
11:06 Obviously, divining Russian public opinion
11:08 is an extremely hazardous affair, very difficult.
11:12 It's unclear whether people tell pollsters even the truth.
11:15 And at times like this, Russians do
11:17 tend to err on the side of more patriotism rather than less.
11:20 We saw it in the Victory Day parade
11:22 back on May 9th, where there was an uptick in the support
11:25 for Vladimir Putin.
11:27 And once again, this episode here, this drone attack,
11:31 what the Russian Defense Ministry says,
11:33 eight drones, five of which they shot down,
11:35 three of which they disabled with electronic warfare.
11:37 This is a type of thing that, like Gulliver just said,
11:40 it's a two-edged sword.
11:42 And in this case, it could also work,
11:44 no matter how counterintuitive it may seem,
11:47 in Vladimir Putin's favor.
11:48 It could rally the support.
11:50 It could actually have a boosting effect
11:52 on Russians' perhaps deeply ingrained sense of patriotism.
11:57 Doesn't mean everyone loves Vladimir Putin.
11:59 Doesn't mean they're all four square behind the war.
12:01 But at a time like this, given the fact
12:03 that you still have tens of millions, if not over 100
12:06 million Russians, who really rely almost single-handedly
12:09 on the state-run propaganda media getting a very
12:11 filtered view of this war, this propaganda narrative
12:15 works a lot better than you might think.
12:17 It's very toxic.
12:18 It's industrial strength propaganda.
12:20 And that's why the patriotism is still at the levels it is.
12:23 And that is why Vladimir Putin's support,
12:25 despite all that wishful thinking in the West,
12:28 remains relatively high 16 months into this war.
12:31 Douglas, thank you.
12:32 Let's bring back in Philip Ingram,
12:33 former British intelligence officer.
12:35 We're hearing from around the table,
12:37 and of course from Kieva, Philip, that in spite of Moscow
12:41 getting a taste of what the war is about with these attacks,
12:45 any talk of Vladimir Putin's demise might be exaggerated.
12:48 There has been signs of some kind of dissidence
12:51 within the country.
12:51 There have been anti-war protests.
12:53 But nonetheless, are you convinced that Putin is still
12:56 on a very firm footing?
12:58 Well, I think he's on a fairly firm footing.
13:00 I would not necessarily say a very firm footing.
13:02 But he's well isolated and well protected.
13:06 The interesting bit is when you see
13:08 the leader of the Wagner private military company, Prygosian,
13:11 openly criticising what the Russian Ministry of Defence
13:15 and Russian commanders on the ground
13:17 are doing inside Ukraine, and calling them out
13:21 very, very publicly after this drone attack in Moscow.
13:25 That's showing that there is not a unity of command.
13:28 It doesn't really matter at the top.
13:30 Putin is a dictator and is controlling it
13:33 from a dictatorial perspective.
13:34 But actually, when it comes to unity of command
13:36 on the ground inside Ukraine itself,
13:38 this will cause real difficulties.
13:40 And that's the difference between the Russian military
13:45 commanders, Prygosian, and the political oversight that's
13:49 going in, which is what the Ukrainians will want to do.
13:51 They're putting a proverbial information knife in it.
13:54 They're wiggling it as much as they can.
13:56 And they will exploit that whenever
13:57 they start to launch the next phase of their counter-offensive.
14:02 Philip, for now, thank you very much indeed.
14:03 Gulliver, Craig and Keith, can I come back to you?
14:06 We're coming towards the evening now, where you are,
14:08 and we're going to be talking about the latest
14:10 drone attacks that have taken place across Europe.
14:13 I take it there, you're probably braced for more of the same.
14:16 Well, yes, I guess so.
14:22 We'll go to bed wondering whether or not
14:24 we're going to be woken up by the siren
14:26 in the middle of the night and then explosions following it.
14:28 It's happened 17 times so far this month.
14:32 One wonders just how many of these drones and rockets
14:35 are going to be used.
14:36 I think there's been quite a lot of optimism
14:38 that the attacks that there were quite intensely
14:40 throughout the winter would not continue into the spring and summer
14:43 because the Russians would want to save on ammunition.
14:46 They seem to have gotten a big delivery of these Shahid drones
14:49 from Iran, though, recently, which I think is one reason
14:52 why the Ukrainian Parliament passed a sanctions package
14:55 against Iran just this week.
14:58 Gulliver, Craig, thank you.
15:00 Douglas Herbert, the situation then, as Gulliver is saying,
15:03 and across Ukraine, people are braced for another night
15:06 possibly of no sleep with the alerts going off.
15:09 I'm wondering what the situation is in Russia.
15:11 Clearly, that propaganda machine you're talking about
15:14 that we all know about will have, I imagine,
15:17 worked its magic on the Russian people.
15:20 We won't be expecting more kind of attacks
15:23 as we've seen in Moscow over the past 24 hours.
15:26 Yeah, increased attack.
15:27 The Ukrainians, you know, are probably braced,
15:29 as you just heard Gulliver say,
15:31 for more of the same along this line.
15:33 Look, the Russians have cast this entire drone attack
15:36 in the state media today.
15:37 The Russians have basically said that this was a reprisal
15:41 for what the Russians says was their own successful hit strike
15:44 against an unspecified Ukrainian military command center.
15:48 Didn't say where it was, didn't say exactly when it was,
15:51 but that this was retribution from the Ukrainians
15:53 for that when they say this was the fault of the Ukrainian regime
15:57 directing these drones at us.
15:58 It was because we hit their command center.
16:01 So there's really this, in the Russian thing,
16:03 a tit-for-tat, both sides preparing.
16:04 In recent days, we've seen the Russians
16:06 moving tactical nuclear weapons, as they're called,
16:09 to Belarus territory.
16:10 Remember, the territory from which a good part
16:13 of that full-scale invasion last February originated,
16:16 was launched.
16:17 We've seen them moving S-400,
16:18 reportedly S-400 aerial defense systems into Belarus.
16:22 There's no sign that this is tapering down.
16:24 We keep saying the Russians are bracing
16:26 for the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
16:28 They're bracing and also ramping up
16:31 for perhaps their own more muscular type of offensive
16:34 in the weeks and months to come.
16:36 Putin is playing the West for time.
16:38 He thinks time's on his side.
16:39 He thinks the West is going not to have the stomach
16:41 for the fight too much longer, despite all the fine words
16:44 about solidarity with Ukraine.
16:45 And I hate to say it, but you leave with that
16:48 weasley expression, only time will tell.
16:51 - Douglas, thank you.
16:52 Thank you to Douglas, thank you to Gulliver,
16:53 thank you to Philip Ingram,
16:54 former British intelligence officer,
16:56 for sharing your time and thoughts with us here
16:58 at France 24.
16:59 We of course are watching all developments on this story
17:01 and we'll bring them to you as we get them.
17:03 We get them.