Russia and Ukraine are both accusing each other of breaking a 30-hour "Easter truce".
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky calls Russia's President Vladimir Putin's words "empty" as he says there have been more than 46 Russian assaults since the start of the day.
Foreign policy and security analyst Jimmy Rushton talks to Tim Beveridge about the truce.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 2 (00:17):
Surprise Easter truce is being criticized by Ukraine Voladomya Zelenski
says despite forces being ordered to stop military activity, Russia
has still been firing. The thirty hour truce was supposed
to last until nine this morning, New Zealand Time. Joining
me now is Kiev based foreign policy and security analyst
Jimmy Rushton. He's with me, Jimmy, Good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Hi, Oh, good evening. Yes it is in Keef.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Sorry about that, Yeah, was there any truth at all?
Speaker 3 (00:46):
So there was a suspension of Russian drone and missile
strokes on Ukraine, so we haven't experienced any air raids,
which has been a definitely a relief for the civilian population.
But I've spoken to three separate sources in the Ukrainian
military who are currently deployed in the front line, and
they're in different sections of the front and they've all
experienced Russian assaults, Russian drone strikes on their positions, are
(01:11):
toy fire, etc. So from their perspective, no, there has
not been a truce and This really has been another
case of put In really trying to play the West
for falls. He's trying to show the Americans that they
are interested in peace, when in fact they aren't. And
this is just really another a deception on the Russian part.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Well, is anyone believing him? What are the Americans are
talking about getting out of the whole thing? But are
they believing him? What do they care?
Speaker 3 (01:37):
It's very difficult to say. To be honest, the Americans
have very sophisticated monitoring, signal intelligence capabilities. They will know
exactly what's happening. Whether they choose to acknowledge it is
another matter, because we've seen the Trump administration denied basic
reality in the past. I remember a couple of weeks
ago they were talking about Ukrainian soldiers being encircled in Kursk.
(02:00):
That absolutely did not happen. That never side actually claims
that it did. So if the Americans choose to trust
their intelligence, then hopefully they'll understand that you know this,
this Russian truth is nothing of the sort, and it
really is a manipulation employed by the Russians to pretend
(02:20):
that they are ready for a peace deal.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
So it is they monitor and good enough that they
will know who fired the first shot under the truth of.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Course, absolutely. I mean they have incredibly sophisticated spice aatellites.
They will know exactly what's happening, and they have you
know that they still have advisors in Ukraine. They have
there's there's regular communication between Ukrainian military and the American military,
so they will know exactly what's happening. And hopefully that's
(02:48):
being fed up to the White House and hopefully Trump
has an accurate summary of what's happening in Ukraine on
his desk tomorrow morning.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Hopefully he reads that what about the human I mean,
what was putin saying in pursuit of something humanitarian? I
mean I scoffed when I read that. What was your
response and the response in cave to putin talking about
humanitarian considerations.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, it's just ridiculous, isn't it. This is a country
which has stepped up their assaults on civilian areas. I mean,
it's no accident or coincidence that we've seen multiple mass
casualty missile strikes in Kluv and Swummi. Recently there was
that horrific attack which killed nearly forty people. Number of
children as well. And yeah, we're seeing almost every day
(03:33):
significant missile strikes, drain strikes on civilian population areas, and yeah,
I mean again, if Putin was worried about civilian casualties
and you know the humanitarian cost of this, well, he
could simply order Russian troops to withdraw to Russia and
that would be the end of it.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
It almost feels preposterous to sect because we know how
that's not going to happen, doesn't it. But that is
the simple question. It's all up to him just get.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Out exactly exactly. And the thing is, Putin's command of
the Russian information environment is so complete that he could
order withdraw tomorrow and then tell the Russian people that
he's achieved all the objectives of his special medity operations
he likes to call it, and they probably believe him
because you know that they the Russian people generally believe
(04:17):
everything the government tells them because they have an extreme
sophisticated propagand the network and they're incredibly controlled. So you know,
it's in his power. He could stop it tomorrow if
he wanted to, and he is the one person in
the entire world could stop it tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
If he wanted to and Ukraine and Keev. What are
Ukrainians pulling their hopes on. Is that Europe stepping up
and potentially some new cruise missiles or are they are
they assuming that jumps out that the US will just
quote take a pass.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
I think the Ukraine's are relatively realistic. I don't think
they're putting their hopes on any one thing. I think
they understand that really, if this war is going to continue,
and it looks like it is, it's really going to
be on them. It's going to be on their mainly,
I would say their drone production production, because this war
is now a drone war. It's not really about Artilly anymore.
(05:07):
Though Artilly is still important. It's now about whoever can
put the most amount of these small FPV first person
view drones into the air. And the Ukrainians are making
they've they've made incredible strides of this, and some of
their factories are churning out huge amounts of drones four
thousand a day in some cases. Yeah, they're incredibly impressive.
(05:28):
So I think for the Ukrainians they understand really that
nobody is going to come to their aid. There's there's
going to be support from Europe, but it's not going
to be the sort of support that's going to win
the war, so they're really going to have to fight
for themselves.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Jimmy, I look out for yourself. I really appreciate your
time this morning. That's Jimmy Rushton. He is a Key
based foreign policy and security analyst.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
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