- 6/2/2025
🚨 A major escalation in the Ukraine-Russia conflict as Kiev launches drone strikes on key Russian air bases, causing significant destruction ✈️. Despite the attack, Russia shows no signs of backing down. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military faces internal pressure as its Army Chief resigns, raising concerns about leadership stability and future strategies 🇺🇦⚔️. Join Alexander Mercouris as he unpacks the latest developments in this intense and evolving geopolitical crisis 🎙️🌍.
👉 Stay tuned for more in-depth analysis, world news, and conflict breakdowns — all explained in English for our global viewers. 💬🧠
#UkraineRussiaConflict #DroneAttack #AlexanderMercouris #RussianAirBase #UkraineNews #MilitaryUpdate #ArmyChiefResigns #Geopolitics #WorldNews #WarUpdate #UkraineCrisis #RussiaResponse #GlobalTensions #BreakingNews #NewsAnalysis #InternationalAffairs #DefenseNews #CurrentAffairs #CrisisUpdate #EnglishNews
👉 Stay tuned for more in-depth analysis, world news, and conflict breakdowns — all explained in English for our global viewers. 💬🧠
#UkraineRussiaConflict #DroneAttack #AlexanderMercouris #RussianAirBase #UkraineNews #MilitaryUpdate #ArmyChiefResigns #Geopolitics #WorldNews #WarUpdate #UkraineCrisis #RussiaResponse #GlobalTensions #BreakingNews #NewsAnalysis #InternationalAffairs #DefenseNews #CurrentAffairs #CrisisUpdate #EnglishNews
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NewsTranscript
00:00Good day. Today is Monday, 2nd June 2025 and I am in my hotel room in Tbilisi in Georgia
00:10and obviously today being the first day my schedule is particularly tight so my program
00:18today is going to be shorter than other programs which I expect I will be able to make whilst I'm
00:25here in Georgia. Anyway the first thing to say is that though I am in Georgia it is for the first
00:33time and I have only been here for a few hours so I'm not yet able to provide you with any thoughts
00:42or comments about the country itself other than what I saw of it through my taxi window which is
00:49that it was very beautiful. So I'm going to go straight in and I'm going to discuss the big news
00:55of the last 24 hours which was the various drone strikes that Ukraine carried out against various
01:05Russian air bases over the course of the previous 24 hours together with the latest diplomatic moves
01:14leading to the meeting which is going to take place today in Istanbul apparently not in the
01:21Dom al-Bacha palace but in another palace in Istanbul. Istanbul by the way has many many palaces but the
01:30next meeting that will take place between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations. And I should say
01:39that late yesterday President Zelensky confirmed that Ukraine would indeed send a delegation to
01:46Istanbul. It will again be led by Ukraine's defense minister Mr Umerov and he will be meeting the same Russian
01:56delegation that the Ukrainians met during the meeting on the 16th of May and that Russian delegation is led by the
02:07Russian by the Russian chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky. And well I'll return to the events
02:20such as they are that have taken that are taking place on the diplomatic front but I think the first
02:25thing to do is to discuss the drone strikes. So there were apparently five drone strikes on Russian military bases
02:34across Russia and these were the bases of Russian strategic aviation that is to say the branch of the Russian air force
02:49that has the heavy bombers the Tupolev 95s and the Tupolev 22m3s and the Tu-160s the big bombers that form
03:02a part of Russia's strategic triad. And these are the same bombers that regularly launch cruise missiles at Ukraine,
03:15the Kh-101 subsonic cruise missiles to be precise, though the arguably more powerful
03:26Kinjal hypersonic missiles are launched by entirely different aircraft that do not form part of Russia's strategic
03:39bomber strategic aviation. They are the MiG-31s which are assigned to a different branch of the Russian air force.
03:51I'm not going to go into the details of the various branches of the Russian military. I think that would be
03:58more complicated and I would be discussing things that are beyond my own knowledge. Anyway,
04:06the Russians have provided their own account of this drone attack and the Ukrainians have provided
04:14very, very detailed accounts of this drone attack. And it seems, as I said, that about that five different
04:25Russian air bases were attacked and that these attacks took place right across Russian territory from the
04:35far east from the Amor region to places in central Russia. And, well, there's no doubt at all that the Russians
04:45suffered damage. And the way it has been described is that the Ukrainians managed to launch around 117
04:58and FPV drones at these Russian bases and attempted to penetrate those bases. The Ukrainians implied that
05:12all of the bases were struck. The Russians give a different story. The Russian Defense Ministry has provided
05:18a report which is short and succinct and it's the one I'm going to read now. Today, this is a report that
05:25was published yesterday. The Kiev regime carried out a terrorist attack using FPV drones against airfields
05:32in Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amor regions. So Murmansk is beyond the Arctic Circle.
05:43It is in the far north of Russia. Irkutsk is in Siberia. This is the air base, the attack
05:52of the attack upon which has received by far the heaviest media attention. And it is the only air base
06:02so far of which I know that satellite photos have been provided of the attack, of the effects of the
06:09attack. Ivanovo, which is in central Russia, Ryazan, which is in central Russia, and Amor regions.
06:19Amor region is in the far east of Russia, near the Pacific Ocean. All terrorist attacks were repelled
06:28at military airfields in Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amor regions. So the attacks on the air bases in
06:39central Russia, Ivanovo and Ryazan were unsuccessful, as was the attempted attack on the air base in the
06:49Amor region in the far east. In Murmansk and Irkutsk region, as a result of FPV drones launched from an area
07:00in close proximity to the airfields several aircraft called fire. The Russian Defense Ministry has not
07:09said so far how many, but there are some indications and we will discuss those in a moment. The fire was
07:17brought under control. There were no casualties among military and civilian personnel. And then,
07:26importantly, the last comment, some participants of the terrorist attacks were detained. Now, I will
07:34quickly say that whatever these attacks were, I would not personally and myself call them or describe
07:42them as terrorist attacks. They were attacks on military bases. Ukraine is involved in an armed
07:49conflict with Russia. As far as I'm concerned, as these were air bases, these were legitimate targets.
07:56And the Ukrainians and Zelenskyy are cognizant about what happened and they're providing their own very
08:04elaborate and detailed accounts. They're saying that the attack was organized by the SBU, the Ukrainian
08:12intelligence and counterintelligence service, so not by Kirill Obudanov's military intelligence.
08:20The attack was prepared over 18 months. So, if that is correct, then that means that the attack,
08:31the preparations for the attack began in the late autumn or early winter or early winter of 2023,
08:44November, December 2023, shortly after, in other words, the failure of Ukraine's summer 2023
08:55offensive and perhaps immediately prior to the fall of Avdeyevka. Zelenskyy himself apparently supervised the
09:09attack, though the director of the SBU was himself personally involved. And according to the Ukrainians,
09:19the Ukrainians smuggled small helicopter drones, you know, one of these very small FPV drones into Russia
09:29over a prolonged period using networks of agents that they had in Russia. And then they also smuggled in
09:39certain automated wooden containers into Russia into which these drones, the production of which,
09:54the fabrication of which was completed in some way inside Russia. Anyway, these drones were hidden
10:01in these containers. The containers were moved to the air bases on trucks. At a moment,
10:17at a particular moment, at a coordinated moment, the containers opened automatically, the drones were launched,
10:26the drones were coordinated, the attack of the drones was coordinated by FPV controllers in Ukraine itself.
10:38And these drones then attacked the five air bases. And Ukraine has given, made different claims about the
10:47number of aircraft it says were destroyed. Yesterday, in the hours immediately,
10:55immediately after attack, after the attack, they were claiming that up to 40 aircraft were destroyed,
11:06including large numbers of Tupolev 95 and Tupolev 22M3 bombers. And later today, I noticed that
11:18the number has been reduced quietly to 17. I think the probable figure is significantly below that for
11:28reasons I will discuss shortly. And the Ukrainians have provided some drone footage of the attack.
11:34And this appears to be almost entirely drone footage of the attack on the airfield in Irkutsk. Just saying.
11:48Now, the Russians have not provided any official account of this attack, at least not so far.
11:54Apparently, either yesterday or today, there was or is going to be a meeting of the Russian Security Council,
12:03where Vladimir Putin himself will be briefed on this attack. And we might get more details of this attack
12:12when that meeting of the Security Council takes place. It is not impossible that the Kremlin will have
12:20provided its account by the time you're watching this video. But I have not got that account yet.
12:29So obviously, I am guessing, or at least not guessing exactly, but I'm putting together my understanding
12:38of what happened from incomplete information, where the gaps might have already been filled by the time
12:49this video appears. I'm afraid this happens rather a lot for programmes like this. There is nothing I can do
12:57about that. I don't have prophetic abilities, no matter what some people say. So I cannot anticipate
13:06more information that the Russians might be providing over the course of the day and which might be
13:13available to you by the time you're watching this programme. Anyway, Russian accounts, and these are not
13:24official Russian accounts, but discussions that have been taking place on the various telegram channels,
13:31some of which appear to be based on information which may have been leaked by official sources, suggest a somewhat
13:44different account of events than the ones that the Ukrainians have been providing. The overall picture is the same.
13:54small FPV drones brought close to the air bases in trucks inside containers, the containers opening
14:07automatically and launching the drones and the drones carrying out attacks on the air bases. But Russian accounts
14:17suggest that far from being smuggled into Russia, in the way that the Ukrainians are saying, the drones and the
14:29containers were actually manufactured inside Russia itself using various off-the-shelf components. The Russians are also clear
14:42that suggestions that have appeared in Ukraine that some kind of AI technology that some kind of AI technology was used in the attack is untrue, that the attack was conducted by manually guided FPV drones.
14:58In other words, there were drone operators. In fact, the Ukrainians have admitted that there were drone operators, one for each drone apparently. So that means 117 drone operators in total.
15:10And there was no AI technology used at all, according to the Russians. And it's been suggested that the Ukrainians were able to communicate with their drones by piggybacking off certain Russian telephone networks, mobile phone networks. Anyway, that's what the Russians are saying.
15:36That's what the Russians are saying. And as we've seen, the Russian Defense Ministry says that some of the people who were involved in these attacks have been captured.
15:48Now, there's been, again, more information, which has been provided by some Russian telegram channels over and above this. There's claims that some of the drivers of the trucks that were carrying the containers did not know the nature of what they were carrying.
16:08This claims that one driver became suspicious and sought to examine one of the containers and that the container exploded, presumably through some kind of automatic device.
16:22Or perhaps the Ukrainians were able to keep track of what was happening and noticed that there was somebody trying to examine what was inside one of the containers.
16:34And they exploded the container remotely. There was reports, rather grisly reports yesterday, that said that one of the drivers, specifically the driver of the truck carrying the container that was launched, that was used to carry out the attack on the base in Irkutsk, that he was strangled.
17:01Now, if so, that would mean that he was strangled. Now, if so, that would mean that he was murdered by Ukrainian operatives, operatives, which would suggest that that was, that was, that would have been a grisly murder.
17:14And for the record, I would say that that was, in my opinion, a terrorist incident, even if the attacks on the bases, arguably, were not, the driver, obviously, was not a military person, a military target.
17:38He was simply murdered because he was inconvenient and he was there.
17:43But I'm not absolutely sure that this murder even happened and perhaps we should wait and see until, as I said, we get more information.
17:53So, this is what the Russians are saying. They're saying that, in other cases, there was other attempts by civilians to interfere with the drone attacks and that this impeded the drone attacks as well.
18:08Again, it's difficult to get a complete understanding of all of this until we hear a full Russian account of what did exactly happen.
18:18I'm not saying these reports are untrue, by the way. I'm just saying that we should wait until we get an official account and that will provide us with a more clear narrative of exactly what took place.
18:31So, a very complicated attack indeed by the Ukrainians, but one which achieved a certain degree of success.
18:42Even if three of the bases suffered no damage, two did, and it does seem that at least some aircraft were destroyed.
18:53The Russian defense ministry says that there were fires in two of these bases, that aircraft caught fire in two of these bases.
19:03And satellite pictures have now been provided of the base at Irkutsk, which, judging from the fact that it is the base from which the Ukrainians have provided the most drone footage,
19:21by far the most drone footage, may have been the base which suffered the greatest damage.
19:29Anyway, this drone, this satellite footage, suggests an attack on perhaps three or four Tupel F-95 bombers.
19:43It's suggested that three of them were destroyed completely. One of them was damaged, but possibly could be repaired.
19:52And that another bomber, a Tupel F-22M3, was also destroyed.
20:00So, certainly not 40 aircraft, apparently, at least not at this base.
20:09Maybe five in total, of which four were destroyed outright, but one is perhaps capable of repair.
20:21Now, let's first of all discuss the extent of the damage and whether this has really created a major problem for the Russians,
20:30as the Ukrainians appear to be claiming to themselves.
20:34I think these Ukrainian claims are based on claims that up to 40 bombers, Russian bombers, heavy bombers, might have been destroyed.
20:44Now, according to some claims, Russia operates a fleet of perhaps 50 to 60, I've seen some claims it's 55, Tupel F-95 bombers.
20:59And I believe that the total force of Tupel F-22M3s is perhaps around 30 to 40, though, again, it's difficult to get exact numbers.
21:17If 40 bombers had been destroyed, or if 17 bombers had been destroyed, well, it would be a significant damage to Russia's existing strategic bomber force.
21:37But we see that the attack on Irkutsk suggests five bombers destroyed there, or at least five bombers, four bombers destroyed there, and one seriously damaged.
21:52We don't yet have any footage, satellite footage, confirming the damage at the airfield in Murbansk.
22:00It might be more, or it might be less, but the fact that the Ukrainians have provided, as far as I'm aware, no drone footage from that particular airbase,
22:11that might suggest that the damage there was less than at the airfield in Irkutsk.
22:17So, if we're talking about, say, seven bombers altogether, then that would account for a significant number of bombers, but far from enough to call into question the viability of Russia's strategic aviation, its bomber force.
22:41Now, at this point, I think something does need to be said about the state of Russia's bomber force, and what role it plays in Russia's strategic triad.
22:56And that is, to say it straightforwardly, it is by far the weakest part of Russia's strategic triad.
23:05Russia's ground-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles are arguably by far the most important part of Russia's strategic triad.
23:19Here, the United States is very different from the United States, where land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles play a much smaller part in the US's strategic forces.
23:44In Russia, as I said, land-based missiles are by far the most important part of it.
23:51Some of them are silo-based, like the famous or infamous Satan missiles, the most powerful ICBMs in existence, the ones that are going to be replaced over time with the new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, which is now entering service.
24:11But, of course, there are the various mobile ICBMs, like the Topol and the Yars, which Russia fields in extensive numbers.
24:26These are extremely modern and very powerful weapons, and the Russians, as I said, have these in significant quantities.
24:38Russia also, like the United States, has prioritized sea-based intercontinental ballistic missiles.
24:47And here again, one has to say that the Russian strategic forces that are sea-based are modern and arguably, if this is the right expression, in rude health, perhaps in better shape than the American ones are, which rely on the Trident missiles, which have iterations going back to the 1970s.
25:12Anyway, the Borei-class nuclear submarines are entering service in steady and ever-increasing numbers.
25:21They carry the extremely advanced Bulava missile, which, as I said, is perhaps the most advanced sea-launched ballistic missile in the world.
25:35And there are still some of the older Soviet-era submarines in service, and they carry also what is, in fact, quite a modern system called the Sineva, which is also a very advanced missile indeed.
25:51Now, the strategic bomber force, by contrast, has been the most heavily and deeply neglected part of Russia's strategic triad.
26:01Russia has no stealth bombers.
26:04It does have a small number of supersonic, intercontinental, extremely advanced but non-stealthy bombers, the Tupolev-160s, of which it seems none were affected by this latest attack.
26:24The Tupolev-22M3s that people have been talking about are not intercontinental in range.
26:32They are medium bombers. They're very powerful systems.
26:36They're supersonic. They're supersonic. They're used by Russia, have been used by Russia extensively in places like Syria and such places, but they are not advanced, not remotely as advanced as the Tupolev-160s.
26:53And the Tupolev-160s, to repeat again, are supersonic bombers. They are not comparable to the American stealth bombers, the B-2 and the B-21, which is now entering service.
27:10And if we're talking about the Tupolev-160s, I understand that Russia has around 10 of them. So this is not a big force at all.
27:22Most of the Russian strategic aviation force is made up of Tupolev-95s.
27:31Now, this is the Russian equivalent of the American B-52 bomber. Like the B-52, it is subsonic. Like the B-52, it dates from the early 1950s.
27:45It was, in fact, authorised for production by none other than the Soviet leader, the wartime Second World War Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin.
27:56And apparently the first Tupolev-95 flew whilst he was still alive and still leading the Soviet Union as long ago as 1952.
28:09And unlike the B-52s, these are propeller-driven aircraft. Now, that may make them appear more archaic than they actually, in fact, are.
28:24These engines, these propeller engines, are actually some of the earliest and still by far the most powerful turboprop engines ever built.
28:39They're huge engines. And they propel this aircraft, if I can put it like that, at high subsonic speeds.
28:50And the tips of the propellers, the rotors, actually move at supersonic speeds.
28:58So, you know, it is, in some ways, an engineering marvel of the early 1950s.
29:05However, these aircraft are extremely noisy.
29:09They operate at high altitudes, but not as high as the B-52s.
29:15And though they have incredible intercontinental range, as I said, it's debatable, or I should say it is debatable,
29:23whether they could penetrate modern air defences, or, by the way, even air defences of the sort that existed when they entered service in the 1950s.
29:37The Russians used these aircraft as basically trucks for long-range cruise missiles, the Kh-101s.
29:48And the Kh-101s come in two forms.
29:51One, which is the conventionally, the one with the conventional warhead, the one that has been used heavily in Ukraine,
30:01and the Kh-102, which has a nuclear warhead.
30:06And these bombers would not be expected to penetrate to places where air defences exist,
30:17because, as I said, they would be easily shot down if they tried.
30:21They are very long-range standoff bombers, which would launch cruise missiles,
30:30one assumes from Russian or Russian-controlled territory.
30:35And, of course, that already limits their capabilities.
30:43They're not able to penetrate hostile airspace in the way that the B-1s, the B-2s, rather,
30:50and the B-21s of the U.S. Air Force and the Tupolev-160s of the Russian Air Force are intended to do.
30:59So, this branch of the Russian military is in serious need of updating,
31:07and, in fact, there are plans to update it.
31:10There are already plans to resume production of the Tupolev-160,
31:15production of which was interrupted during the late Soviet, as a result of the Soviet collapse.
31:20Supposedly, 50 are intended for production.
31:26And there are constant reports and claims and reports that the Russians are themselves working on a subsonic stealth bomber of their own,
31:40though no actual pictures have ever appeared of such an aircraft.
31:46And whether it exists or not, I'm not going to start debating over the course of this programme.
31:52So, as I said, this part of Russia's strategic triad is the weakest, least advanced part.
32:03It's the one that makes, has been the least modernised.
32:09There's been much debate inside Russia, by the way, about whether bombers, even stealth bombers,
32:16are really effective against modern air defences,
32:20and whether it makes any sense to invest further funds in procuring bombers.
32:27Anyway, I'm not going to get into those discussions either.
32:29So, when people have been writing about whether this particular attack is going to affect Russia's capabilities as a nuclear power,
32:42the answer is only very slightly.
32:46This would be so even if the higher number of, say, 17 bombers destroyed were to turn out to be true,
32:55and I suspect it is significantly less than this.
33:01So, that is one thing to say.
33:04Secondly, in terms of Russian capabilities in the war in Ukraine,
33:10well, the short answer again is that it's not going to make any significant difference.
33:14The Russians have never launched 20 or 30 or 40 bombers at Ukraine,
33:22Tupolev-95 bombers at Ukraine at any one time, launching missiles against Ukraine.
33:29It's likely, to the best of my memory, the total number of Tupolev-95 bombers
33:37who have conducted strikes against Ukraine have never numbered more than about six.
33:46And nobody doubts that Russia still has that number of Tupolev-95 bombers.
33:54So, there's been no reduction of capability there.
34:03What this incident has done, however, is, again, it has provided Ukraine
34:08with a demonstration of its ability to strike at targets,
34:15one would assume severely protected targets, inside Russia itself.
34:19And, moreover, to cause real damage to the Russians in those kind of attacks.
34:30And to say that this is embarrassing and even humiliating for the Russians,
34:37given that, as I said, we are talking about a part of their strategic triad,
34:42that would be perhaps even an understatement.
34:46But, we have to ask this question again.
34:51What, concretely, in terms of its own survival, its battle for survival,
34:59has Ukraine actually achieved?
35:04It's not reduced Russian capabilities,
35:08in terms of Russia's ability to conduct the war against Ukraine.
35:14It has barely dented Russia's abilities as a nuclear power.
35:25There's been suggestions that the damage done might, in some way,
35:34have affected Russia's ability to project power beyond its borders.
35:40I can't see how.
35:43I mean, one doesn't, one wouldn't use Tupolev-95's creaking old machines
35:49designed in the 1950s for something like that.
35:53I mean, one would use more advanced warships and things of that kind in order to do that.
35:58So, what exactly has Ukraine achieved by this attack,
36:05other than to upset, embarrass, humiliate the Russians, if that is the right word?
36:13But, I can't really see anything.
36:18And we can perhaps also see things that Ukraine might have actually lost.
36:24This operation took 18 months to prepare.
36:27It's almost certain that established networks of Ukrainian agents
36:35have been compromised within Russia through the carrying out of this attack.
36:43Several participants in the attack, according to the Russians, have been captured.
36:48It's likely that the Ukrainians have worked very hard and very long,
36:53probably since the Maidan coup of 2014,
36:57perhaps since long before then,
36:59maybe from right back to the time of the Orange Revolution in 2004,
37:07when Ukraine first began to align itself with the West.
37:11Ukraine has worked very, very hard to establish networks of agents inside Russia.
37:20And this operation, huge and complex as it was,
37:25will have required the work of lots of agents.
37:28And as I said, they've now been compromised.
37:31So, it's likely that, as I said,
37:33agent networks have been compromised as well.
37:37It's not as if this operation can be easily replayed
37:45if it took 18 months to organise.
37:49The Russians will, of course, be taking precautions in future.
37:54It's been suggested that,
37:56I mean, obviously, by the way,
37:57the suggestion that they should create shelters for these enormous bombers
38:01is borderline, well, fanciful.
38:05But they can provide netting to protect them from FBV drones
38:10and that kind of thing.
38:12And no doubt, things like this will start to happen before long.
38:16So, it's unlikely that the Ukrainians are going to be able to conduct
38:20an operation like this again.
38:24And, as I said, this operation has achieved,
38:28in practical terms, it seems to me, very little.
38:33If it is assumed that this is going to shock the Russians
38:39into changing their policies in the Ukraine war,
38:44then I think that this is completely wrong.
38:48It completely misunderstands the toughness and resolution
38:52of the Russian political leadership.
38:55To repeat again, I was in Russia at the time of the Beslan affair
39:00back in, I think it was 2004,
39:04when a school was captured by jihadi terrorists in the Caucasus.
39:12And a lot of the children were killed.
39:15I was in Moscow when bombs were being exploded
39:18in the Moscow metro and when there were reports
39:22that airplanes, civil aircraft, were being blown up in the sky
39:27with the passengers in them.
39:29And I remember being absolutely astonished
39:31about the way in which this country had the ability
39:35to just keep going and not be deflected.
39:38This is true, by the way, of the population,
39:42as well as of the government.
39:45And, well, it didn't change anything
39:47in terms of the policies that the Russians
39:50were conducting at that time in the Caucasus.
39:55And I don't think this is going to affect,
39:57in any way, Russian policy,
39:59military or political or diplomatic policy
40:02in the conflict in Ukraine.
40:04I don't think, for example,
40:05it's going to make the Russians intensify the war.
40:10I don't think it's going to make any difference
40:13to Russian strategic planning at any level whatsoever.
40:19So, I think if that was the plan,
40:22if that was the intention,
40:24then already this shows a basic miscalculation.
40:32of the way in which the Russians get about doing things.
40:36So, to me, this operation has that quality
40:41of many similar operations conducted by the British
40:45against the Germans during the Second World War.
40:50Operations like the cockle-shell heroes,
40:54the destruction of the dams in the Ruhr,
40:58the various operations that were carried out
41:01by the Special Air Service at that time.
41:04The British, during the Second World War,
41:06when they had few other means to hit back at the Germans,
41:10involved themselves in many, many operations like this,
41:13sinking the Tirpitz battleship and all of that.
41:16I think today, looking back on all of these operations,
41:22the overwhelming consensus amongst military historians
41:26is that none of these operations made the slightest difference
41:30in the outcome of the war at all.
41:33It's unlikely that the German political leadership
41:36was even particularly interested or briefed in any detail about them.
41:47These operations made a difference to British morale.
41:53They resulted in an interesting series of rather good films
41:56that appeared in Britain in the 1950s.
41:59But, in fact, and in reality,
42:03these sabotage missions conducted by the British
42:06during the Second World War
42:08made no difference to the outcome of the war at all.
42:15And I predict that this is the same,
42:18and I further predict that we will probably one day find
42:22that the British, who remain addicted to this sort of thing,
42:25were probably involved in the planning and execution of this operation also
42:30in some sort of way.
42:34Anyway, to reiterate,
42:36it is likely that we will have more information about this attack
42:41over the course of the next 24 hours.
42:44It's quite likely that we will get a briefing and a report to Putin
42:48at the Security Council meeting,
42:50which is probably already happening,
42:54or may already have happened.
42:56We might get a readout about it from the Kremlin.
42:59And if this information causes me to revise my views,
43:04the views that I have set out in this programme,
43:06then obviously I will discuss that information,
43:11and I will explain why I have revised my views in the next programme.
43:16But anyway, this is what I think about this episode as of today.
43:24An incident, an episode which is a tactical victory for the Ukrainians, certainly.
43:31One which has embarrassed and at some level humiliated the Russians.
43:36One which is inevitably going to lead to serious questions in Russia
43:40being asked about why there continue to be these failures in security
43:47around key strategic assets like air bases.
43:52Ones which, by the way, are going to result in criticism of Putin.
43:57Criticism that he is far too lax and tolerant of senior officials
44:03who fail repeatedly in these matters.
44:08But one which, to reiterate again,
44:12does not ultimately change the strategic picture,
44:15the balance of forces between Russia and the United States.
44:20And one which also does not change the course of the war
44:27in any way at all.
44:30Now, before I finish with the topic of the attacks, the drone attacks,
44:37I have said, perhaps controversially for some people,
44:40that I don't myself classify these drone attacks on the air bases
44:45as terrorist attacks,
44:47though if the driver of one of the vehicles
44:53that was placed one of those containers near the air base was murdered,
45:00that, in my opinion, would be a terrorist attack.
45:03I should say that I have absolutely no hesitation
45:06whatsoever in classifying the attacks on at least one of the railway bridges
45:12as a terrorist attack.
45:16It appears to have been timed remotely,
45:20or rather, it appears to have been conducted remotely
45:24in order to hit a passenger train,
45:28if, as seems almost certainly the case,
45:34the attack was deliberately done
45:36in order to hurt or injure or kill people
45:40in that passenger train,
45:43and it seems several children were caught up in that attack,
45:47then that was definitely a terrorist attack
45:49and ought to be treated and described in that way.
45:55Of course, as night follows day,
45:58no one in the media in the West
46:01is going to speak about it in that fashion.
46:04Now, there is swirling debate and controversy
46:08about what the United States government
46:12and what Donald Trump himself knew
46:15about this drone attack
46:17that was carried out on the air bases.
46:20Just to make it clear again,
46:22to some extent,
46:23this is a bit of a red herring.
46:25An attack like this
46:26could not have been conducted by Ukraine
46:29based on its own resources,
46:32even though Ukrainian networks of agents
46:37were obviously involved in this.
46:39Ultimately, this was an attack
46:41which must have been coordinated
46:43with Western intelligence agencies at some level.
46:47Now, to repeat again,
46:49this is not going to change the outcome of the war,
46:53and in fact, importantly,
46:56over the last 24 hours,
46:59there have been further very important
47:02military advances by the Russians
47:05across the battlefronts.
47:08But that was the most interesting development
47:11in a kind of a way,
47:12the one that points most clearly
47:15to the direction the war is taking
47:18is the sudden announcement
47:20of the resignation
47:23of the commander of Ukraine's land forces,
47:27General Drapati.
47:29Now, General Drapati has given a reason
47:31for his resignation.
47:32He says that he bears responsibility
47:34for the fact that the Russians
47:37were able to conduct
47:38a successful missile strike
47:41on a Ukrainian training base.
47:42He says that in any military system,
47:45the senior commanders
47:46must take responsibility,
47:48and for that reason,
47:50he is stepping down.
47:52I have to say,
47:53I don't believe a word of it.
47:55I don't believe that there is
47:56any conceivable way
47:57in which General Drapati
47:59or any other Ukrainian officer,
48:02officers in an army
48:03that have never shown much
48:04sense of responsibility
48:06for military defeats or setbacks
48:08or for losses of men
48:10or material or anything of that kind,
48:12I can't imagine
48:14that General Drapati
48:15really resigned for that reason.
48:19He is the commander
48:20of Ukraine's ground forces.
48:23He is the commander
48:25of an army
48:27that is about to face
48:30a colossal Russian offensive.
48:36Military duty,
48:38I would have thought,
48:40would require him
48:42to stay at his post
48:44in this moment of crisis,
48:48both for the army he commands
48:50and for the nation he serves.
48:54I think General Drapati
48:56has resigned
48:57because he can see
48:59that the war is being lost
49:01and he wants to bail out first.
49:04He doesn't want to be held responsible
49:07for the inevitable military defeat
49:10the Ukrainian armed forces
49:11are going to suffer
49:13over the next couple of months
49:15as the Russian military offensive unfolds.
49:21Meanwhile,
49:23the Ukrainians and the Russians
49:25are meeting in Istanbul.
49:26As I said,
49:27right at the outset
49:28of this program,
49:30the Ukrainians,
49:32after giving everybody
49:34reasons to think
49:35that they might not be coming
49:37to Istanbul,
49:40of course,
49:41turned up.
49:42After all,
49:43the Ukrainians are there.
49:45They will therefore receive
49:47the Russian memorandum.
49:49As I discussed
49:50in my program yesterday,
49:52Vasily Nabanzia,
49:53the Russian ambassador
49:55at the UN
49:55gave a powerful speech
49:57in which he made it
49:58absolutely clear
49:59that the Russians
50:00are not moderating
50:01their positions
50:03by any degree.
50:06The memorandum
50:07that they will present
50:08to the Ukrainians
50:09will set out
50:10all the same points
50:12that the Russians
50:13have already previously made,
50:15Istanbul Plus,
50:17and all of that.
50:18And the Russians
50:20are already also going to give
50:21the Ukrainians
50:23a document
50:23in which they're going
50:24to reject
50:25the Ukrainian proposals
50:27for a ceasefire.
50:28Now, we've actually heard
50:29more about these proposals
50:31and the proposals
50:33about a ceasefire
50:35so far as I understand
50:37that the Ukrainians
50:38are providing
50:39are pretty sketchy.
50:42Overall,
50:42they don't really provide
50:43any impartial enforcement mechanisms
50:47or anything of that kind.
50:48they do, however,
50:50apparently
50:51talk about
50:53a frozen conflict
50:55along the existing
50:56conflict line.
50:59They also say
51:01that
51:02there will be
51:04no recognition
51:05of any territory
51:07currently occupied
51:09by the Russians
51:10as Russian.
51:11they also apparently
51:13speak about
51:14the Russians
51:15paying reparations
51:16to Ukraine
51:18and they also say
51:20that the Ukrainians
51:21must have the right
51:22to build up
51:23their armed forces
51:24to whatever level
51:25and whatever degree
51:27that they choose.
51:28there is no conceivable way
51:30that the Russians
51:31are going to accept
51:32those proposals.
51:33So,
51:34it looks to me
51:35as if we will probably
51:37have
51:37another meeting
51:39in Istanbul.
51:40It will be interesting
51:41to see how long
51:42this one lasts
51:42but I cannot imagine
51:44that it will result
51:46in any progress
51:47being made
51:48at all.
51:49So,
51:50there we are.
51:51We are probably,
51:52as I discussed
51:53in my programme yesterday,
51:54coming to the point
51:55of decision.
51:56The United States
51:58hoping perhaps
52:01that
52:02there will be
52:03some give
52:04either from
52:05the Ukrainians
52:06or more plausibly
52:07from the Russians
52:08but disappointed
52:09by the drone offensive
52:11that Ukraine
52:12has carried out.
52:13Maybe
52:13there's still hopes
52:15that
52:15this drone attack
52:18on the air bases
52:19is going to change
52:20Russian behaviour
52:21but as I've said
52:22already
52:23those hopes
52:25are going to be
52:25dashed.
52:26maybe there's hopes
52:29that the Taurus missiles
52:30if they're ever
52:31launched at Russia
52:31are going to change
52:33the Russian calculus
52:34but of course
52:35they're not going to.
52:37So,
52:38at some point
52:39the Americans
52:40will have to make
52:41the choice,
52:43they will have to
52:44decide what to do.
52:46All the indications
52:47are
52:48that Donald Trump
52:49ultimately
52:50intends to pull away.
52:52he apparently
52:54does not want
52:55to continue
52:56to be involved
52:57in the war
52:58and as I discussed
53:00two programmes ago
53:02General Kellogg
53:03says
53:04that it's all
53:05going to be
53:05passed over
53:06to the Europeans.
53:08That
53:08looks to be
53:10today
53:11the most likely
53:13outcome.
53:14Of course
53:15things can go
53:16unexpectedly.
53:17it may be
53:19that something
53:19happens
53:20in Istanbul
53:21which is
53:22unforeseen
53:24by me.
53:25Maybe
53:25Putin
53:27has had
53:27some
53:28unexplained
53:28and incomprehensible
53:30change of heart
53:31and is prepared
53:32to make
53:33compromises
53:34and make
53:35concessions
53:35which he has
53:36never shown
53:36the slightest
53:37indication
53:37of wanting
53:38to do.
53:39I don't
53:40believe that
53:40for one second
53:42but
53:43by tomorrow
53:45we will know
53:46and tomorrow
53:47will be
53:48when I do
53:49my next programme
53:50and this is
53:51where I finish
53:52today's programme.
53:54So let me
53:54remind you again
53:55you can find
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54:15That's me for today
54:16more from me soon
54:17have a very good day.
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