August 7, 2025 • 53 mins
Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian interviews Peter Dickinson, an editor of the Atlantic Council’s Ukraine Alert service based in Kiev, Ukraine, on if Putin wants peace. Peter goes into detail about Russia's occupation strategy in Ukraine and Putin's intentions to dismantle Ukrainian identity and culture in occupied territories. Putin aims to transform Ukraine into Russia without Ukrainians by dismantling Ukrainian culture, language, and identity in the 20% of Ukraine currently occupied by Russia. He explains how Russian authorities are forcibly deporting Ukrainians who refuse Russian passports, banning Ukrainian education, and importing people from less developed parts of Russia to populate the occupied territories.
Peter argues that Putin does not want peace and is seeking to bring Ukraine back under Russian control as a vassal state. He suggests that the West should use strength and coercion to force Putin to end the war, rather than offering concessions. Peter attributes the West's limited support for Ukraine to fears of Russian escalation and the potential collapse of Russia as a state, which could lead to the emergence of new nuclear-armed countries.
Peter argues that Putin does not want peace and is seeking to bring Ukraine back under Russian control as a vassal state. He suggests that the West should use strength and coercion to force Putin to end the war, rather than offering concessions. Peter attributes the West's limited support for Ukraine to fears of Russian escalation and the potential collapse of Russia as a state, which could lead to the emergence of new nuclear-armed countries.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good evening, every one, and welcome to the Brian Cromby
Radio R. I'm endlessly fascinated by and curious about this
world around us, about business, about politics, about arts, about culture,
about developments, social issues, war, and the people who are
shaping the future. Every night I have an opportunity to
have deep conversations with thought leaders, change makers, entrepreneurs, politicians
(00:40):
and everyday heroes to unpack their ideas and stories that matter.
What's the future of our economy, How do we build
stronger communities? What can we learn from music, theater, sports,
the arts. How does policy shape our real lives? What
does leadership look like today? If it's interesting and relevant
and we're talking about you'll hear about it here on
(01:00):
the Brain crimeby Radio. These are real conversations, in depth conversations.
These are ideas. We're sharing this as the Brain crimeby Radio.
Thanks for joining me.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Canet.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I've got Peter Dickinson who is the Ukraine editor for
the Atlantic Alert Atlantic Council. Peter is in Kiev and
He's written a couple of very provocative articles in the
last little while, one that is about that Putin doesn't
want peace at all, and another one that he wants
he wants Ukraine without Ukrainians.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Peter Dickinson, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Hi Brian, thanks for having me, pleasures to join you.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
My pleasure having you back again. So he wants Putin
wants Ukraine without Ukrainians, Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Yeah? Essentially, yeah, I mean, I mean probably you could
even go further. He wants Ukraine to be Russia without Ukrainians,
and he doesn't want it to be Ukraine at all.
But the point being that, you know, what he's doing
in Ukraine is not a matter of adjusting borders or
expanding his you know, his his his his area of control,
or influence, or or pushing NATO background and the other
things that we hear about. He's actually literally trying to
(02:04):
turn this country into Russia. So you know, and this
is not speculation. We see this happening day to day
in the area that is under Russia control. So around
twenty percent of Ukraine is currently occupied by Russia, and
we know it's well documented that in that area, all
traces of Ukrainian culture, heritage, language, national identity are being
(02:30):
systematically dismantled, removed, suppressed, and replaced the Russian alternatives. So
they're essentially being told, you know, people are being told
there you can be Russian or nothing, you know, and
anyone who opposes this is dealt with very harshly. Thousands
have disappeared into prisons. We don't know where they are,
(02:51):
maybe tens of thousands. Many more have been deported and
those who refuse to take Russian passports. Beginning in September,
there's a new law that was passed in the spring
of this year, So beginning in September of this year,
the authorities, now, the Russian authorities reserve the right to
basically take anybody who's living in occupied Ukraine who has
(03:14):
not got a Russian passport and basically keep them out
of expel them from their own homes and deport them
to Ukraine. So, you know, people who've lived in the
same you know, for example, someone who's lived in the
same village or town all their lives in their own
home now could have some Russian soldiers march into their
house and basically throw them out because they've refused to
become Russians. So this is happening as we speak, you know,
(03:37):
literally day to day in Europe. You know, this is
not this is not a you know, some This is
not a theory, This is not speculation that it might happen.
It's happening now.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
And you talk about how Ukrainian children in schools aren't
allowed to speak Ukrainian anymore.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Yeah, they've they've they've outlawed that now. Well, I mean
that's they've again from beginning in September, they've officially ruled
out any any form of education in Ukrainian, even you
even studying it as a foreign language. You know, very
minimally in effect. That's been the case for some time,
but they've they've basically made it official now, so you know,
there's now no longer even any sort of fidd leaf
(04:13):
that there was some you know, there there was a
period where they said, you know, if you wish you
could have some minimal study in Ukrainian. Of course most
people wouldn't do that because they understood that they might
make themselves targets. But now they've effectively said now they're
effectively say okay, you can't even have that. Now we're
banning it. You know, this is Russia. There is no
(04:34):
you know, there's no place here for anything Ukrainian. So
no again, no history, no language, no culture, no heritage, nothing.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
You also say in your article that they're moving people
from other parts of Russia into occupy Ukraine.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Yes, yes, there's been various programs to bring people in,
so they're offering they're trying to bring in people in
different professional classes, so teachers, doctors, people like that. They're
bringing them in from from the you know, the poorer
parts of Russia. You know, right, Russia is such a
huge country with the enormous diversity of living standards. You know,
(05:10):
there are parts of Russia, you know, particularly the very
big cities, you know, the major cities like Moscow and
Saint Petersburg, where the living standards are quite high, you know,
the salaries are quite high, living standards are comparable with
many European countries. And there are parts of Russia going
far out into out into you know, towards Siberia and
(05:31):
far into the provinces where the standard of living, you know,
plummets down and people don't have indoor they don't literally
don't have indoor plumbing. They don't have access to running water,
they don't have you know, they're not on the gas
mains or anything like that. So they're living almost like
sort of nineteenth century standards in some in some cases,
so they're bringing people from these regions, they're trying to
entice them to come to Ukraine, where you know, again
(05:53):
there's a diversity, but the standard of living in general
is higher and the climate is more favorable, especially in
the south where they hold you know, where they're occupied
parts of Ukraine. You know, the climate is quite good,
the agriculture is very good, and they're bringing people in
there to live, you know, in large numbers. As well
as those in the professions, you've also got just people
(06:14):
being offered being offered to come and live there. Former
soldiers as well, for example, they're being offered land. So
people are being you know, being enticed to come and
fight there, to be given land there, to sort of
settler colonialism, which is you know, a very old school
format of colonialism that you know, people would be doing
in the you know, in the seventeenth eighteenth centuries or something,
people going out to the Americas or something or Africa Asia.
(06:37):
Russia's doing that now in Ukraine as well. So they're
trying to erase all Ukrainian identity in the regions they control,
and they're trying to change the demographic makeup there by
pushing our people who are particularly stronger, firm Ukrainian patriots
who reject this Russification, and they're bringing in actual Russians
(06:59):
so that they to establish, you know, consolidate their control
and make it an irreversible process. Essentially.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Put it in perspective, if you could, for our listeners.
You know, people here twenty percent of Ukraine. Ukraine's the
largest country in Europe. You know, is this a farmland?
Is this industrial heartland? Has it got natural resources? Were
there many people living there prior to its occupation by Russia.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Put it in perspective for us, if you could.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Okay, so yeah, So, I mean it's a big area.
We're talking about an area, and the twenty perent of
you great is the size of many europe you know,
it's the size of many European countries. I mean, I
think it's probably probably I mean, I don't know, maybe
similar to the size of Belgium and Holland together or something,
or you know, a mid sized the American state perhaps
it's a sizeable territory. In terms of population, you're probably
(07:48):
talking about a pre war population in total of around
I think probably about eight million, perhaps seven eight million people. Now,
of course that's gone down a lot now because of
the amount of people who fled, because of the people
who have been deported and so on. You know, this
huge devastation there and a lot of these a lot
of the areas in this occupied regions have been destroyed,
(08:11):
whole towns in many cases. In terms of the geography
of the of the regions, it's quite diverse. I mean,
it's it's a broad space. You have very industrial regions
to the east on the border with Russia, the Dombas,
which is where the war began in twenty fourteen. That's
a very heavily industrialized region that also has a lot
of the resources. We have them. We have the minerals
(08:33):
deal between Trump and the Ukrainians signed a few months ago.
A lot of the minerals, the rare earth and the
other very valuable mineral resources, they're actually in occupied Ukraine.
They're under Russian control, and they're in the east of
the country. The south which also you know, there's four
regions Ukraine, Russia now partially holds and claims. There's two
(08:55):
in the east and two in the south. They're connected.
It's a it's a continuous block. The southern region are
much more agriculturally wealthy. They are. It's essentially step land.
It's the step leading from Crimea up into up into
sort of European Ukraine. And that is very very very
very fertile land with enormous amount of agriculture going on there.
(09:18):
So that's basically the bread basket, the bread basket of
Europe as it was known for centuries. And so you
put them together, I mean, it's a very wealthy area
for Russia to hold, is you know, the agricultural wealth
is huge, the mineral wealth is huge, and so you
know it has a lot of value for them. But
for the Russians, of course, it's all it's a stepping
stone toward the overall conquest of Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
You also wrote fairly harshly that you think Putin just
doesn't want peace, and let me quote, Trump offered a deal,
leave behind you occupied territories, prohibit Ukraine from joining NATO,
lifts sanctions. He even considered recognized the annexation of Crimea.
Putin has said no. Putin doesn't want to make a deal.
(10:01):
He wants to destroy Russian's forcibly, distribute passports, bill camps,
destroy Ukrainian language and culture for Putin. If Ukraine survives,
Russia loses, He's playing for total destruction. Even Trump surrendered
to Crimea didn't stop him. We're gonna take a break
and when I come back, I'm gonna ask Peter Dickinson
does Putin want peace or does he want utter destruction
(10:23):
of Ukraine?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Stay with us, everyone back in two.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Minutes stream us live at SAGA nine six am dot
c A.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Kroumy Radio R. We've
got Peter Dickinson with us tonight from Kiev, Ukraine. He
is the editor for the Ukraine Alert at the Atlantic
Council and he's written really quite a hard hitting review
recently that says that Putin doesn't want peace at all,
he wants utter destruction of Ukraine.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Why do you believe that, Peter, Well, I.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Mean we've got to we've got to dig in here
and find, you know, think about what Putin is really
all about it? What is he looking to achieve?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
You know?
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Why has he launched this war. I mean, this war
has transformed Russia. It's traviously, it's transformed Ukraine in terrible
ways through the destruction of so much of the country,
but it's transformed Russia. It's transformed Russia's relationship with the West,
the Russia's place in the world, you know. So it's
a huge it's a huge gamble by Putin. It's really
defining his reign. So why are you doing this? You know?
(11:35):
What is it that drives him? And I think if
we want to understand this, we've got to sort of
try and get inside Putin's head and get inside the
head of his generation of Russians. Now, they are people
who came of age in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties,
the time when the Soviet Union imploded, it essentially collapsed,
(11:58):
and that was the Putin at the time of the Soviets.
You know where Soviet Union began to unravel, when the
Berlin wallfell in nineteen eighty nine. Puting was there. I
mean he was in Germany. He was a KGB officer
in Dresden in Germany, in East Germany. So he had
basically a ringside seat, a sort of front row seat
to watch this process of Russia, of Russia's Russia's Empire
(12:22):
as it were, then begin to just sort of fall apart,
come a part of the scenes against this wave of
people power protests, you know, pro democracy movements, independence movements
in these countries throughout Central and Eastern Europe. So he
saw all that, you know, he saw it happen in
you know, saw the Berlin War come down. He saw
the Germans do it. He saw the Poles do it,
(12:42):
the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Romanians, the Bulgarians. Basically the
whole of Russia's Central European empire collapsed. And then Putin
came back to Russia itself and he watched the Soviet
Union collapse. He watched the process, you know, could continue
into Russia and then you had the nineteen ninety one
complete breakup of the Soviet Union itself. So within within
(13:04):
the space of just a couple of years, the Soviet
Union went from being a superpower, you know, the superpower
and with America in the whole world, to becoming you know,
by nineteen ninety two ninety ninety three, Russia was almost
a third world country. I mean, the poverty was desperate,
people were living in the terrible conditions. The country had
(13:24):
seen its status plummet, you know. So this is what
he lived through, and this is what he experienced as
a you know, a relatively young man that gives it.
In his thirties at the time, he was, you know,
his whole life was thrown to chaos. And this was
the case for that whole generation of Russians, you know.
And I think a lot of people in the West
don't really understand this. They don't really understand how devastating
(13:45):
for Russia this was. We tend to think of the
fall of the Soviet Union as a good thing, as
a liberation, as something that people who lived there would
have been happy about, because they were you know, they
weren't free. They were living in essentially a large prison camps. Actually,
they weren't allowed to leave the Soviet Union. You know,
we all know about the people dissidents trying to flee
the Soviet Union. So I think there's a perception in
(14:06):
the West that the fall of Soviet Union was a
good thing to celebrate, but it wasn't a good thing
for the Russians, you know, the Russians, for them, it
was an absolutely disastrous defeat, and they lost. You know,
they lost approximately probably territorially around thirty forty percent of
their empire, and population wise, they lost more than half
their empire, I believe, you know. So they had they
(14:28):
suffered a massive, massive defeat almost overnight. And it all
happened because the people rose up and said, we don't
want to be with you any more, Russia. You know,
we want to get away, we want to break away
from you. We want to live as democrats who want
to live in a free country. We want to be
like the European model of civilization, etc. So they made
they basically rejected Russia. So that's that's the founding moment
(14:53):
of Pultin's political worldview. And now he takes power and
he's looking at this thinking, we've lost so much, we've
got to try and get it back. And the one
symbol of this, this humiliation, this defeat, this loss, the
biggest symbol of all is Ukraine. Because Ukraine is the
heart of Russia's self image. Kiv, the capital city of Ukraine,
(15:15):
is considered by Russians to be the mother city of Russia.
It's where Russian civilization comes from, It's where all Russia's
national myths come from kiv Is is absolutely central to
Russia's sense of national identity, and Ukraine, by extension also is.
You know, so Ukraine is a lot more Russian to
the average Russian than Siberia is, for example, or Chechnya
(15:35):
or Ingushetia or Tatarstan or other regions that are actually
inside Russia today. You know, Ukraine is almost as Russian
to the Russians as Moscow or St. Petersburg. I mean,
it's literally that deeply designed in their national myths. So
for put In, reversing the fall of nineteen ninety one
and getting Russia back to its rightful place in the
(15:56):
world was always all about getting Ukraine, taking over Ukraine.
So we always had this idea. He always had this idea,
and he said, he's going to get Ukraine back. You know,
Ukraine being outside of Russia is a big mistake. It's
an injustice. He has to get it back now. That
was always there. Then to add to this obsession of
(16:16):
Putin's was then Ukraine began saying we want to be democratic,
we want to be a European country. So in two
thousand and four, Putin tried to impose a pro Russian
president on Ukraine and the presidential of Electure two thousand
and four. The Ukrainian population rose up against that and
held a revolution which came to be known as the
(16:38):
Orange Revolution. So that was twenty years ago now, and
it was a watershed moment for Ukraine. It was a
moment where they rallied as a nation. Millions of people
were on the streets. It was an incredible experience. I
was here at the time. It was a real, really
historic time for the Ukrainian people where they came of
age as a nation. And for Putin, it was deja vu.
It was East Berlin, it was East Germany again, it
(16:59):
was nineteen eighty nine, it was the Velvet Revolution, it
was it was Perisdroika. It was all the things that
he's terrified off and that have haunted him all these years.
He saw it happening again in Ukraine, and he understood
that if Ukraine now is able to fully break free
and become fully fully independent and find democratic then the
(17:21):
chances are that Russia may go further into this breakup,
the breakup that began in eighty nine. You may get
other regions like Chechner tried to do, who tried to
break away from Russia. So for a porting it became
a very you know, Ukraine became the crux of his
sort of foreign policy. He had to stop the democracy,
They had to stop the spread of democracy in Ukraine,
(17:42):
the consolidation of democracy, and he had to get the
country back into the Russian orbit, and these became the
things that he genuinely became obsessed by this. You know,
there's a lot of people from in the circle who
talk about this that he would literally talk about Ukraine
all the time. And we see, we see very clearly
he sat proviced his entire relationship with the Western world
(18:03):
over Ukraine. He's built his foreign policy around Ukraine. He's
to a significant degree he's built his in his domestic
policy around Ukraine. So this is a very this is
a crucial issue for him. And I think now at
this point in this obsession, now we're twenty years down
from the Orange Revolution, we went through the invasion of
twenty fourteen, we got to the full scale invasion of
(18:26):
twenty twenty two. Nothing that Pauline had done had been
able to succeed in pushing Ukraine away from this European choice,
from this democratic choice. He basically seems to have decided
around the type of COVID we think he seems to
have basically decided. Okay, that's it. I cannot allow Ukraine
to continue to exist in an independent country. And he's
(18:46):
basically now his goal, as I tried allowed in the
essay you refer to, his goal is now essentially it
has to be in his logic, it has to be
the destruction of Ukraine as an independent country. So that
doesn't mean that the destruction and the death of every
single person in Ukraine, although it will mean the death
of many of them. It means the erasure the removal
(19:08):
of Ukraine as a as an independent country. So Ukraine now,
as far as putting it turn, can only exist as
a Russian satellite satellite regime, you know, it can only
be part of Russia.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Essentially, Ukraine is very populous.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
If you've got millions of people that don't want to
be part of you, aren't you risking even our worst
situation with a whole bunch of very disgruntled, upset to
hateful people as part of your country. That will lead
to internal you know, disputes and problems.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Yes, absolutely, But I mean that's what he is think
that's what he's counting on. I mean, you would see
you are you are again. We don't have to speculate, Hi,
We're already seeing this happening. We're seeing this happening in
areas that he controls in Ukraine now. And what we're
seeing is a very clear pattern. There's been mass arrests.
So when the Russians take over an area, what they
(20:00):
do is they arrest preemptively without you, without any act.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
You can't arrest forty million people.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
He can't arrest forty million, but he can arrest one million.
And that's what he'll do. He will arrest all of
the So what they do they go. They'll imagine they
come into a town, a small town of say ten
thousand people. The Russians will have lists this club, They'll
have local collaborators who will help them compile the lists,
and they will then go into the town and they
will arrest all of the elected local officials. They'll arrest
(20:30):
them and interview them and see who's ready to collaborate,
who's not ready to collaborate. If they're ready to collaborate, fine,
they can go free. But the ones who aren't ready
to collaborate, or resist or suggest that they might not
like it. Those people go into the basements, so to
call what basically means they get thrown into concentration counts
essentially or prison prison networks. So that's the elected officials,
(20:50):
journalists they got into the prisons, volunteers, members of civil society, activists,
they're arrested, former military, miry veterans, people who served in
the army. They're all arrested. Family members of people who
served in the army, they're arrested. So they'll go into
a tower, let's say approximately ten thousand people, and they
won't arrest all ten thousands, but they'll arrest maybe two
(21:13):
three hundred people, and they'll arrest the leaders, you know,
the religious leaders as well, and they'll arrest those people.
Some of them will say, you know, we're not no problem,
we're ready to collaborate, and then they'll be you know,
they can begin collaboration, and that does happen, but the
majority of those people will simply disappear and we don't
know where those people are. And that's happened systematically in
(21:33):
every single place the Russians have taken over in southern
and eastern Ukraine. So we're talking about again in totally
it's probably tens of thousands of people. We don't have
you know, it's very difficult to be specific about numbers
because it's all on the Russian occupation. We don't have
access to these areas. But the United Nations published a
report a few months ago that classified these mass arrests
as a crime against humanity. They said, this qualifies, clearly
(21:56):
qualifies as a crime against humanity based on what we know,
and the more we know, frankly, the worse it gets.
So they're already doing this, They already shown they can
do this, and they will do this, so they can
expand that from twenty percent of Ukraine to fifty percent
of Ukraine and potentially to the whole of Ukraine. Of course,
as you say, that will cause, you know, create incredible
(22:20):
instability and security risks, and frankly, you know, I'm almost
unimaginable human rights abuses. But the Russians don't really worry
about that so much. They don't really care. And frankly,
if you look at it from their point of view,
where's the backlash of what they've done so far? They've
already done this. They've literally they've already done this to
twenty percent of the population in Ukraine, has the size
(22:42):
of a medium sized European country. And where is the backlash?
I mean, there's no there's no major international outcry. There is,
there's this UN report that I mentioned, but nothing has
come of that. No one's you know, Russia still sits
on the UN Security Council, despite the fact that the
UN itself is said that they are committing crimes against
(23:02):
humanity in Europe today. You know, so from a Russian
point of view, as horrific as it all sounds, what's
to stop them? What's the back life? Why should they stop?
They can do it, they will do it. If they're
not stopped, they will do this. I'm very confident in that.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
A few minutes ago you described how how Putin but
lots of people in Russia think of the importance of Kiev,
the importance of Ukraine to Russia, and you described how
it was the birthplace of the Russian people.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
If that's true, then is Putin raate that Ukraine is Russian?
Speaker 4 (23:38):
Well, I mean the historic roots of Russia balance in
Ukraine all go back to the key of Bruce per se.
But of course you can argue about that. I mean,
you know, we can say, you know, if we wanted
to apply that argument, then you know, then America is Britain,
then Britain is France. Arguably, then France is Rome. You know,
then Rome is Mesopotamia perhaps or perhaps Greece, you know,
and so on and so forth. You know, lots of
(24:00):
countries have shared historic stories, have common roots, have shared ancestry.
Ukraine has a you know, a distinct and national narrative,
historical narrative going back you know, arguably a thousand years,
certainly hundreds and hundreds of years independent of Russia. You know,
(24:22):
the Ukraine was not an independent state until very recently.
So that's part of the reason why the Russians are
very insistent that Ukraine has always been part of Russia.
But actually Ukraine, most of Ukraine, for for a hundreds
of years, was part of the Polish common of politic
to any in Commonwealth. Large parts of Ukraine were part
(24:42):
of the Ottoman Empire for a long time, you know.
And then we go back even further. There was the
periods of Kazakhs sort of pseudo semi statehood, and there
were times when the Ukraine is part of the Mongol
Empire the Golden Ward. So it's a very very complex story,
but it's certainly not Ukraine was part of Russia and
then it wasn't. You know, the Russian part of Ukraine's
(25:03):
history is significant, but it's by far not It's not
the only part of that story. And Ukraine's struggle to
be free has always been part of European history that
the great French. Think of Voltaire, he was writing in
the early eighteenth century, I think eighteen early eighteen thirty
seventeen seventeen thirties, I think he was writing. He wrote
(25:25):
a History of Eastern Europe and the Swedish King Charles twelfth,
and he wrote in that book, so this is almost
three hundred years ago, he wrote the line Ukraine has
always strived to be free. So even then, three hundred
years ago, Ukraine was a recognizable concept to someone like
Voltaire living in France, and he was also familiar with
(25:45):
the idea that Ukraine had always been struggling to establish
itself as an independent state. So you know, the idea
that Russia has some historic claims to Ukraine really doesn't
hold up. But again, you know, even if it did
in some sort of academic sense. We can't live our
lives like that, although every single border in Europe will
be under the question again, you know, because everyone has
(26:05):
a claim for everybody else, you know, the you know,
as I say, you know, if we start making these claims,
then all of a sudden, the Hungarians have got claimed
against all their neighbors. The Germans have got claims against
half of Poland, you know, the French, you've got claims
against the Belgians, and the Spanish, you've got claims against
the Portuguese, and so on and so for I mean,
it's it's it will be a recipe for complete chaos,
(26:28):
you know, in international relations. And frankly, that's why nobody
does this. You know, Russia is the only person Russia,
put In is the only person trying to promote these
sort of you know, these these these extremely dangerous ideas
about historical revisionism and revanchism.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
This article that you wrote I found very interesting because
effectively what you were saying is Putin just doesn't want peace.
And you actually went and bragged about the Fox News
and brit Hume actually giving you a a stage, a
podium to make a comment on in the United States,
and that Fox News was supportive of your position. We're
(27:08):
gonna take a break. When we come back, I want
us Peter to really explore this. You know, we got
has Trump got? Has has the West got any opportunity
to make peace? Given what he's described of Putin's almost
manacal desire to reverse.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
What happened in nineteen eighty nine, nineteen ninety two, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
This this long history that he wants to reverse of
Ukraine being.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Independent from Russia? Is there any chance, absolutely any chance
for a peace. We're gonna take a break and come back.
I'm going to ask Peter to talk about that. Stay
this Adak.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
No Radio, No Problem stream is live on Sagay ninety
six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
We'll come back every to brand Crimy Radio. Or were
we got Peter Dickinson coming to us from Kiv, Ukraine.
He's the Ukraine Alert editor for the Atlantic Council. He's
written a really fascinating article and Peter, the argument is,
bottom line, Putin doesn't want peace, So what are we doing?
Why are we actually trying to get him to.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
The table? Like should we just give up?
Speaker 4 (28:26):
No? I don't think we can give up. I mean
I think it's important to recognize that at the moment
he doesn't want peace either, the conditions at the moment
don't He doesn't feel under any pressure to go for peace,
you know. So on the one hand, I think it's
crucial to recognize that his goals are much broader, are
much broader and more ambitious than the kind of piece
(28:47):
is on the table now. You know, he's looking to
end end what he regards as the sort of anomaly
or the threat posed by an independent Ukraine. He wants
Ukraine to be brought to heel, to be brought back
into Russia, to become a Russian, a Russian vassal state
in one form or another. So that's that's his goal.
(29:08):
Does he want piece? No, I don't think so, and
we can see by his actions. I think that's quite clear.
But that doesn't mean he can't be can't be coerced
into into into seeking peace. Saying Russia is not a superpower.
Russia is not all powerful, you know, Russia compared to
the collective strength of the West, you know, cannot compete realistically.
(29:29):
So really we need to look at why is it
that the West is not doing enough to coerce and
to force putting into ending this war. Why are we
looking to offer him concessions and to sort of somehow
persuade him that it's in his interest to end the
war and offer him various different incentives to do so. Realistically,
I think it's this is this is a mistake, This
(29:50):
is this is the wrong approach. The West needs to
speak to putting in the only language you understand, which
is the language of strength, and demonstrate that if he
does not end this war, the costs for Russia will
be extremely severe in terms of, you know, the future,
Russia's future viability as a state. You know that the
West will will pressure Russia in ways that could threaten
(30:11):
Russia's future exists. Some of the West very reluctant to
do that. Now, you know, why are they reluctant to
do that? Why is it that? Why is it that
the West has been, in my opinion, quite quite maybe
not half hearted, but very limited in the support it's
given to Ukraine. Now there's there's two there's two aspects
to this issue. One is they're afraid of Russia striking
(30:33):
back against them. They're afraid of Russia escalating the war geographically.
So they're afraid that that Russia will bring the war
to Europe, will bring the war to North America, maybe
would use nuclear weapons, as Putin is often threatened to do.
You know. So that's one aspect of it. They're afraid
of escalation. The other aspect, I think doesn't get enough
attention is they're also afraid of Russia breaking up. They're
(30:54):
afraid of what it would mean if Russia were to
break up as a state and were to collapse, and
then all of a sudden, have you know, perhaps five
or ten new countries emerging on the former territory of Russia,
some of which would possess thousands of nuclear warheads and
many other weapons besides, you know. And that's that fear
of Russian collapse, some people believe is even stronger than
(31:15):
fear of Russian escalation. You know. But the two factors,
both of them have sort of encouraged the West to
be quite quite timid in the in their support for Ukraine,
you know, to give Ukraine enough weapons to survive but
not enough weapons to win, and to place restrictions on Ukraine,
for example, saying okay, we'll give you weapons, but you
can't use them inside Russia. You can't attack Russia. You
(31:37):
can't make you know, you can't strike targets inside Russia,
for example. So you know, in that environment where the
West has been very limited in support it provides for Ukraine,
Putting is essentially looking at the situation now and saying, well,
I can continue. This is not a problem for me. Yeah,
I'm losing a lot of men. It's cost to be
a lot of a lot of a lot a lot
of money. But I'm happy to let that, you know,
(31:58):
I'm happy to pay that price to continue the war.
So I think, really, if we want to stop the war,
we've got to change that that that that think, that thinking, that.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Approach to your sense of what's happening in Russia.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
You know, we hear that there's tens of thousands, if
not hundreds of thousands of deaths, that that the economy
is devastated. But at the same time they're they're sort
of bringing Stalin back to life and uh and and
the Putin has complete support.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
What what's what's going on in Russia? Is there any
opposition to the war or is it one hundred percent
support of Putin?
Speaker 4 (32:35):
Well, I mean it is. It is notoriously difficult to
get to get a get a realistic sense of of
what the levels of support are in Russia for the war,
for example, or for Putin per se. You know, that's
notoriously challenging to try and do. I mean, I think,
of course, he's pace basically removed all opposition, and Putin
has created a scenario in Russia where most people, most
(32:58):
people would agree, I think that there's really only two options.
They either have put In in charge or they have chaos. Now,
they all remember chaos from the nineteen ninety st after
the Soviet Union fell, and Pultin's manipulated that very well,
so they basically it's me and I bring stability, but
it's a hard line, but I'll give you stability, or
it's the chaos in the nineteen nineties when everyone was
(33:19):
terribly poor, criminality went through the roof. You know, people
live basically like you know, it was a third world
country essentially by living standards and you know, complete destitution.
So in that environment, a lot of people will say, yeah, yeah,
better ported Even if they don't particularly like what he's doing,
and they own but they maybe even actively dislike what
he's doing, they'll they'll support him because they're terrified of
(33:41):
the idea of returning to chaos, you know, So that's
been a very powerful factor that he's gone. And then
of course the other factor here is that he's killed
or or removed anyone who could be an opponent of his.
So there's no alternatives. So I think, you know, he's
legitimately does have quite high levels of support, But I wouldn't.
I would catty, you know. I think it's important to
qualify that it's not passionate ideological support. It's people who
(34:03):
by a larger saying ye a better him because the
alternatives are so desperate, we just rather have this guy.
In terms of support for the war, I think that
it's not massively popular. I don't think people are like
really very very jingoistic about it. I think a lot
of people are indifferent to it. Putin's main strategy has
(34:26):
been to keep it distant from people, to prevent people
from being disrupted by the war. So we had one
big mobilization drive to conscript people into the army in
September twenty twenty two, and that was massively unpopular. You know,
around the million Russians fled the country. Military aged men
fled the country, and it created enormous amounts of negative,
(34:50):
negative feeling in Russia about the you know, the forced
participation in this war. So what Putin has been very
careful to do is to isolate people from the war,
to protect them, to sort of shield them from the war.
Now he's done that by recruiting first and force, by
recruiting in the army from the sort of fringes of society.
(35:10):
So the people going into the army, now the vast
majority of the army are volunteers and they're being paid
huge money to go. So they're going from money. Basically,
they're not going out of id ideology or patriotism or
sort of marshal valor. They're going from money. They're being paid.
They're basically Amerceary army, and they're being paid very very
well by the Russian standards. I mean, they're being paid
(35:32):
signing on fees for tens of thousands of dollars in
a country where the average salary is around five six,
seven hundred dollars a month. So it's huge, huge, it's
life changing money for them. And once they're there in Ukraine,
they're being paid huge salaries, five or six times what
they would expect to be paid back home, and if
they're injured or killed, they get huge compensation payments as well.
(35:54):
So this is really you know, it's actually been These
payments are so big. You know, if we to translate
them into most Western economies and perhaps that you know,
a Canadian or American or British economy, it would be
hundreds of thousands of dollars signing on fees. It will
be thout you tens of thousands of dollars salaries that
would be the equivalent. You know, So a lot of
people are ready to go. So they're volunteers, you know,
(36:16):
and they're dying in huge numbers, but they're volunteers. They
chose to go, So there's not a huge amount of
social mobilization against that of opposition. People are kind of
you know, they're accepting of it because these people knew
with the risks, they chose to go.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
You know, I understand that.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
You know, one of the problems with Afghanistan was that
it was like the mothers that were complaining.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
You don't have any of that right now in Russia.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
No, Because in Afghanistan they were conscripts, they were forced
to go fight. Here they're volunteering. That's the big That's
the key difference. These people are not being forced to fight,
No one's making them do it. They're choosing to go.
They're volunteering. They're literally personally going out and saying, I'm
signing up for this because I want that money. I
want the money, and that's.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Why they say, I've got to ask you. Then, if
he doesn't have opposition, if Putin doesn't have opposition within Russia,
at least opposition that can connectively mobilize that the people
are volunteering because they want all this cash. The economy,
while struggling, isn't devastated. And you've described, well this putin
(37:20):
manical desire to take over Ukraine. He couldn't and you
even you went farther. You didn't say his career, you
didn't say you know, his job. You called it his
reign at the beginning of the show. So, if Putin
has a rain and he wants to save sort of
the great Russia that he dreamt of from his youth,
(37:42):
how could he ever give back twenty percent of Ukraine
that he is currently occupied. How could he ever do that?
How could he ever allow the borders to be removed
back to the original borders.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
Well, the only way, You're quite right, it's a very challenging,
it's a huge The only way is if he fears
the alternative is even worse. He has to be made.
He has to be made to fear that Russia itself
could cease to exist as a nation if he does
not end this war. That's the only way he'll do it.
In my opinion, he has to be It has to
be brought home to him that Russia itself could break
(38:19):
up as a nation if he does not end the war,
that the West is prepared to provide Ukraine with the
tools to attack Russia inside Russia, inside Russia on a
significant scale, to to dismantle Russia's energy energy industry, for example,
it's military industrial complex and so forth, in ways that
(38:42):
will that will create strains inside Russia. You know, there's
a lot of people, you know, Russia's Russia is is
a lot more fragile, I think than a lot of
people appreciate outside because they see this huge approval rate
of put In. The assume he's very, very you know,
he has an incredibly strong grip on the country. But
if if we cast our minds back just two years
(39:03):
to twenty twenty three when we had the very brief
but very very shocking mutiny of the Wagner soldiers. This
was the mercenary army that Pultin had built up over
the last decade, and then that turned against him in
twenty twenty three and marched on Moscow briefly. Now that
mutiny was over in a couple of days. It was
you know, it was a kind of blinking, you missed
(39:24):
it moment. But when that happened, those troops there was
a you know, not that mage around twenty thousand of them.
I believe they were able to seize one of Russia's
biggest cities, Rostov, in the south, and march on Moscow
almost unopposed. No one opposed them, No one rallied to Pultin.
No one said we're going to save the czar. They
basically tried to flee. People were running, they were trying
to get away. Pultin was silent at first for the
(39:46):
first day. You know, it wasn't the actions of a
strong leader who has the support and then the confidence
of his nation, you know. So I think that Putin
is aware that his position in Russia is vulnerable if
the West is prepared to challenge that, you know, and
make him think that he could actually face a very
serious threat to his own reign in Russia. Then it
(40:08):
won't be that difficult for him actually to make the
decision to say, Okay, enough of this. I'm going to
end this war because I've got to consolidate my group
on Russia itself. It's you know, we've seen that that.
You know, the vulnerabilities we've seen again the vargin and mutinine.
What we don't see is the West will to do
that now that needs to change that Will that happen
(40:28):
or not? I don't know. I mentioned earlier the West
is afraid of Russia breaking up and the consequences for
global security. So they may well be too reluctant to
go down that road. But that is the way to
do it. That's how you stop pulled in by showing
him that he is actually risking not only not achieving
his goals in Ukraine, but undermining his actual fundamental position
(40:48):
in Russia itself.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
What are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Are you talking about active NATO involvement or active US involvement.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
If you had a chance to.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Actually speak to President Donald Trump, what would you tell
me he needs to do.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
Well. I mean, I think I think that direct involvement
of NATO or the European countries is unrealistic. As much
as I would would would favor that and would think
that would would have been the smart thing to do,
I mean, I think the only type of direct involvement
that perhaps is realistic would be some sort of an
air coverage, air shield, an air patrolling regime over Ukrainian
(41:22):
airspace to shoot down Russian missiles and rockets in exactly
the same manner that the that the western Western countries
do for Israel in terms of when it's attacked by Iran.
And we've seen this just in recent months. We've seen
how Britain and France and America and other Western nations
provide Israel with air support to protect his airspace. And
it's very feasible, it's very possible to do that. They
(41:45):
do do it, and it and it didn't bring you know,
didn't didn't escalate any into any sort of war with
with with Iran. Now they've been reluctant to do that
with with Russia. If they did do that over Ukraine,
I think that would be a very effective form of support.
But it wouldn't win the war, but it would be helpful.
But I think if you want to talk about how
to end the war on you know, maybe even not
(42:07):
even talking about winning the war, but ending the war
on a realistic and sustainable sort of long term note,
the West needs to provide Ukraine with a lot more
firepower in terms of long range strike capabilities. Ukraine needs
to be able to strike deep inside Russia with ballistic missiles,
(42:28):
with cruise missiles, and the West can provide them either
directly by donating them to Ukraine or by helping Ukraine's
ability to manufacture them here in Ukraine. That would be
absolute key. You West need to finde a lot of
other weaponry as well. It doesn't need to provide troops.
Ukraine has the troops and they're and they're they're among
the best troops in the world. Actually I should add
(42:49):
as well. And they're ready to fight, although the country
is exhausted, but still they're ready to They still have
the capability to fight on. What they don't have is
the ability to bring the war to russ Shut. That
would be you know again, that would be a way
of striking at Putin's base, you know, and we saw
just recently to give you, know, to give you an
indication of how this might look, how this might work. Recently,
(43:12):
in recent months, Ukraine has made a concerted effort to
destruct to disrupt Russians, Russia's civilian air travel industry, so
to basically shut down the airports. Now they're not bombing airports,
they're not bombing airplanes, they're not killing civilians, but they
are putting drones into the airspace around airports, which forces
the airports by international law to close their airspace and
(43:36):
to cancel flights, so that in effect, of course, it's
it's July, it's August now, so this is over June
and July, this is the summer season. Ukraine's doing that
for a reason. They're doing that because they want to
bring the war home to ordinary Russians. All the ordinary
Russians went to go on summer holidays, and they went
to the airport with their suitcases to go on a
(43:56):
nice summer holiday, and they were told, you can't go
any this year, you can't fly anywhere. Your flight's being
canceled because Ukraine has put the drones in the air.
And so this was a way of bringing the war
home to ordinary Russians and making them say I don't
like this, I don't approve this, I'm not happy about
this in a sense, and the Russians reacted. There was
a lot of very interesting comments from Russian propagandas saying
(44:19):
this is very dangerous. You know, Russia dismissed its Transport
Minitia because he was disgraced because he wasn't able to
stop this and prevent this happen from happening. You know,
it was not perhaps a major major development, but it
was just significant, I think because it shows that Ukraine
understands that one of their key goals that Ukraine has
to do to change Putin's thinking is to make the
(44:40):
Russians fed up with this war, and they don't want
to do that by killing people as Russians, I mean,
Russians are killing Ukrainian civilians every day. The Ukrainians don't
want to do that, and by and lives, they haven't
done that. But there are ways of doing it other ways.
You know, attacks on economic targets, attacks on again the
airport thing that we've seen recently, you know, attacks on logistics.
(45:02):
Making life more difficult for the Russian day to day
is one way of making people fed up with it
and then perhaps perhaps stirring up the Russian people a
little bit. Who are going to say, you know what,
we're fed up with this now, just we've got to
get We're going to get beyond this.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
You know, we've heard, you know, stories about protests in Ukraine.
We've heard about you know, not many people left to
join the army, that that a lot of people have
left the country, that some men are in hiding because
they don't want to have to join the army. Does
(45:37):
does Ukraine still have public support? Does the leadership of
Ukrainian Army of Ukraine the fight against Russia have public support?
Speaker 4 (45:47):
The fight against Russia has overwhelming public support? I don't.
I wouldn't even I don't think. I mean, I don't
even know if support is the right word. I mean,
Ukrainians understand that this is an existential fight they have.
They basically have two choice. They can either fight and
defend their country all their country doesn't exist, you know,
That's it. It's not a matter of like do we
like this political leader or that political leader. You know,
(46:09):
do they like Zelenski? Not a lot of people don't
like him. Do they like the political leadership, a lot
of people hate them. Do they think that they should
surrender Russia? Almost nobody, I mean I'm almost nobody says
we should we should end the war and surrender. So that,
you know, the big mistake I think that Putin has made,
perhaps not a mistake, or the big problem he has,
is that he's creating an environment where Ukrainians really have
(46:31):
a very little choice. Now, there are a lot of
people who are who are who are hiding or who
don't want to fight, or avoiding service in the military.
There's still you know, there's a huge number of people
who are serving in the military, and there's a lot
of problems with conscription, with mobilization, with finding the soldiers
to man the front lines, and it gets more difficult
(46:52):
all the time to fill in the gaps because Ukraine
is also suffering heavy casualties. But having said all, you know, fundamentally,
there's really not much of a choice for Ukrainians. You know,
they don't see it as a you know, as a
political battle or something. They see it as a fight
for survival. They can either fight or they can not fight,
(47:13):
and so they you know, there'll be you know, there's
a lot of negativity about the politicians here. You know,
there's no reverence for their political classes. In Ukraine, they're
very there's no deference. They're very critical of the Ukrainian
Ukrainian politics, of all of them, and including Zelenski and
all the people around him. But fundamentally, they're not fighting
(47:34):
for them. They're not fighting they're fighting for themselves. They're
fighting for their homes and their families, you know, and
that is an extremely powerful motivating factor. So despite all
of the hardships and all the limitations, I mean, I
don't see I don't see them. I don't see them,
you know, the critical mass breaking there, I think, you know,
there's too much at stake for them.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
It seems like what you've said is that Pune's got
no choice beak As, this is what he's always sort
of dreamt of, and this is how he's defined his
reign and Ukrainian people.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Have no choice.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
So you know, Trump said that he was going to
end the war in twenty four hours, and then he's
given deadline after deadline after deadline. You say that Putin
doesn't want peace, Peter, what's gonna what's gonna happen? What
do you really honestly believe is going to happen.
Speaker 4 (48:24):
Well, I mean, the key, the key factor here is
the extent to which the West provides support. That's the
absolute key factor. If the West provides no support, Ukraine
may gradually lose the war and be overtaken, and then
Ukraine will cease to exist. You know, it won't happen tomorrow,
but it might happen within you know, a one to
two year or maybe five year timeframe. Eventually Ukraine will
you know, the Russian games would reach a critical mass
(48:46):
and the front lines could break and the country will
be overrun. And then very quickly we would see you know,
the largest, the largest crimes against humanity that Europe has
seen since Nazi Germany. You would see a country being
extinguished live on live, on Instagram as it were. Again
we're already seeing that to a degree in eastern South Ukraine,
(49:07):
but you would see that on a national scale. You
would see tens of millions of people flooding into the EU,
the largest migration crisis against since World War Two, and
so on. You know, that could happen. That's if that's
the worst case scenario, if the West provides no support.
You know, if the West continues to provide a certain
degree of support as it doing now. This might stretch
(49:28):
on for many, many years, and we'll see small changes
in the front lines, and we'll see you atrocities against
Ukrainian civilians, and we might see Ukraine becoming stronger in
its ability to strike inside Russia, but no major changes,
you know, I think that would support him to a degree.
Just a continuation of where we are now, that would
be actually quite agreeable to port it rush rather end
(49:48):
the war. I think it's victoriously. But if you can
keep it going where it is now, that would be
pretty much you know, that would suit him, suit his
interests in Ukraine and domestically in Russia around also international
for me. If the West steps up and increases the
support it provides for Ukraine and gives Ukraine greater firepower,
(50:09):
then we could see the war turning back in Ukraine's favor,
because Ukraine will then be able to bring the war
back to Russia, or will be able to disrupt Russia
on the domestic front to make it a much more
balanced campaign where Russia is no longer a safe haven,
which could put a lot more pressure on Putting and
change you know, change his calculus, change the calculus to
(50:31):
people around him, you know, change the change the thinking
of those who can influence him in Russia, the very
you know, the very few within his inner circle who
have some sort of influence, some economic influence perhaps or
political influence, and then force the Russians to rethink where
they're going and what it might mean for Russia itself.
(50:52):
So it really depends on you know, you know, I
think you're quite right putting is fully committed to continue
in the war. Ukraine is fully committed to defending itself.
Neither of those factors are going to change. The X
factor is the role of the West in this. What's
the West prepared to do and what's the West not
prepared to do? You know. So that's really where we
need to look. That's where we're going to see the
(51:14):
big developments, you know. And Trump has a huge role
to play in that, you know. And his his messaging varies,
you know, it goes up and down. You know, at
the beginning of the war, at the beginning of his term,
he was saying like pretty crazy pro Kremlin stuff. He
was blaming Ukraine for the war, He was accusing Ukraine
of you know, calling Zelenskia dictator. We all remember the
(51:35):
big argument in the Oval office, and now his messaging
is very different. He's very critical of Russia. He talks
about getting tough with the Russians. He talks about how
you put in is is to blame and Pultin doesn't
want piece and so on, and now I think, you know,
probably the most important development we've seen in recent months
has been Trump's agreement, you know, not these deadlines that
(51:58):
he gives his ultimate and never lead anywhere, you know,
two weeks, two weeks, fifty days, ten days, not if
it ever goes anywhere. But the one thing we have
seen that is I think very significant is Trump saying
I'm going to sell weapons to Ukraine and Europe is
going to buy them. That is a key thing because
now that opens up a lot of opportunities to increase
(52:19):
the flow of weapons to Ukraine for the long term potentially,
you know. So that's that's one of the you know,
we're talking about Europe, your Western sports, the X factor.
That's one of the things I'm really keeping an eye on.
Now what sort of weapons are being bought by the Europeans,
how much the Europeans are prepared to buy how much
the Americans are prepared to sell, because that could be
a really significant aspect of this whole big picture.
Speaker 3 (52:41):
Peter Dickinson, thank you so much for join us.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
I really appreciate your writing, your updates and coming on our show.
Speaker 3 (52:46):
Appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
That's our show for tonight, everybody, thank you for joining us.
I'll remind John on every Monday through Friday at six
o'clock down nine to sixty am. You get all my
web webcasts and podcasts on my website braincrimey dot com,
Connect of It
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot c
a
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good evening, every one, and welcome to the Brian Cromby
Radio R. I'm endlessly fascinated by and curious about this
world around us, about business, about politics, about arts, about culture,
about developments, social issues, war, and the people who are
shaping the future. Every night I have an opportunity to
have deep conversations with thought leaders, change makers, entrepreneurs, politicians
(00:40):
and everyday heroes to unpack their ideas and stories that matter.
What's the future of our economy, How do we build
stronger communities? What can we learn from music, theater, sports,
the arts. How does policy shape our real lives? What
does leadership look like today? If it's interesting and relevant
and we're talking about you'll hear about it here on
(01:00):
the Brain crimeby Radio. These are real conversations, in depth conversations.
These are ideas. We're sharing this as the Brain crimeby Radio.
Thanks for joining me.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Canet.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I've got Peter Dickinson who is the Ukraine editor for
the Atlantic Alert Atlantic Council. Peter is in Kiev and
He's written a couple of very provocative articles in the
last little while, one that is about that Putin doesn't
want peace at all, and another one that he wants
he wants Ukraine without Ukrainians.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Peter Dickinson, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Hi Brian, thanks for having me, pleasures to join you.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
My pleasure having you back again. So he wants Putin
wants Ukraine without Ukrainians, Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Yeah? Essentially, yeah, I mean, I mean probably you could
even go further. He wants Ukraine to be Russia without Ukrainians,
and he doesn't want it to be Ukraine at all.
But the point being that, you know, what he's doing
in Ukraine is not a matter of adjusting borders or
expanding his you know, his his his his area of control,
or influence, or or pushing NATO background and the other
things that we hear about. He's actually literally trying to
(02:04):
turn this country into Russia. So you know, and this
is not speculation. We see this happening day to day
in the area that is under Russia control. So around
twenty percent of Ukraine is currently occupied by Russia, and
we know it's well documented that in that area, all
traces of Ukrainian culture, heritage, language, national identity are being
(02:30):
systematically dismantled, removed, suppressed, and replaced the Russian alternatives. So
they're essentially being told, you know, people are being told
there you can be Russian or nothing, you know, and
anyone who opposes this is dealt with very harshly. Thousands
have disappeared into prisons. We don't know where they are,
(02:51):
maybe tens of thousands. Many more have been deported and
those who refuse to take Russian passports. Beginning in September,
there's a new law that was passed in the spring
of this year, So beginning in September of this year,
the authorities, now, the Russian authorities reserve the right to
basically take anybody who's living in occupied Ukraine who has
(03:14):
not got a Russian passport and basically keep them out
of expel them from their own homes and deport them
to Ukraine. So, you know, people who've lived in the
same you know, for example, someone who's lived in the
same village or town all their lives in their own
home now could have some Russian soldiers march into their
house and basically throw them out because they've refused to
become Russians. So this is happening as we speak, you know,
(03:37):
literally day to day in Europe. You know, this is
not this is not a you know, some This is
not a theory, This is not speculation that it might happen.
It's happening now.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
And you talk about how Ukrainian children in schools aren't
allowed to speak Ukrainian anymore.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Yeah, they've they've they've outlawed that now. Well, I mean
that's they've again from beginning in September, they've officially ruled
out any any form of education in Ukrainian, even you
even studying it as a foreign language. You know, very
minimally in effect. That's been the case for some time,
but they've they've basically made it official now, so you know,
there's now no longer even any sort of fidd leaf
(04:13):
that there was some you know, there there was a
period where they said, you know, if you wish you
could have some minimal study in Ukrainian. Of course most
people wouldn't do that because they understood that they might
make themselves targets. But now they've effectively said now they're
effectively say okay, you can't even have that. Now we're
banning it. You know, this is Russia. There is no
(04:34):
you know, there's no place here for anything Ukrainian. So
no again, no history, no language, no culture, no heritage, nothing.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
You also say in your article that they're moving people
from other parts of Russia into occupy Ukraine.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Yes, yes, there's been various programs to bring people in,
so they're offering they're trying to bring in people in
different professional classes, so teachers, doctors, people like that. They're
bringing them in from from the you know, the poorer
parts of Russia. You know, right, Russia is such a
huge country with the enormous diversity of living standards. You know,
(05:10):
there are parts of Russia, you know, particularly the very
big cities, you know, the major cities like Moscow and
Saint Petersburg, where the living standards are quite high, you know,
the salaries are quite high, living standards are comparable with
many European countries. And there are parts of Russia going
far out into out into you know, towards Siberia and
(05:31):
far into the provinces where the standard of living, you know,
plummets down and people don't have indoor they don't literally
don't have indoor plumbing. They don't have access to running water,
they don't have you know, they're not on the gas
mains or anything like that. So they're living almost like
sort of nineteenth century standards in some in some cases,
so they're bringing people from these regions, they're trying to
entice them to come to Ukraine, where you know, again
(05:53):
there's a diversity, but the standard of living in general
is higher and the climate is more favorable, especially in
the south where they hold you know, where they're occupied
parts of Ukraine. You know, the climate is quite good,
the agriculture is very good, and they're bringing people in
there to live, you know, in large numbers. As well
as those in the professions, you've also got just people
(06:14):
being offered being offered to come and live there. Former
soldiers as well, for example, they're being offered land. So
people are being you know, being enticed to come and
fight there, to be given land there, to sort of
settler colonialism, which is you know, a very old school
format of colonialism that you know, people would be doing
in the you know, in the seventeenth eighteenth centuries or something,
people going out to the Americas or something or Africa Asia.
(06:37):
Russia's doing that now in Ukraine as well. So they're
trying to erase all Ukrainian identity in the regions they control,
and they're trying to change the demographic makeup there by
pushing our people who are particularly stronger, firm Ukrainian patriots
who reject this Russification, and they're bringing in actual Russians
(06:59):
so that they to establish, you know, consolidate their control
and make it an irreversible process. Essentially.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Put it in perspective, if you could, for our listeners.
You know, people here twenty percent of Ukraine. Ukraine's the
largest country in Europe. You know, is this a farmland?
Is this industrial heartland? Has it got natural resources? Were
there many people living there prior to its occupation by Russia.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Put it in perspective for us, if you could.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Okay, so yeah, So, I mean it's a big area.
We're talking about an area, and the twenty perent of
you great is the size of many europe you know,
it's the size of many European countries. I mean, I
think it's probably probably I mean, I don't know, maybe
similar to the size of Belgium and Holland together or something,
or you know, a mid sized the American state perhaps
it's a sizeable territory. In terms of population, you're probably
(07:48):
talking about a pre war population in total of around
I think probably about eight million, perhaps seven eight million people. Now,
of course that's gone down a lot now because of
the amount of people who fled, because of the people
who have been deported and so on. You know, this
huge devastation there and a lot of these a lot
of the areas in this occupied regions have been destroyed,
(08:11):
whole towns in many cases. In terms of the geography
of the of the regions, it's quite diverse. I mean,
it's it's a broad space. You have very industrial regions
to the east on the border with Russia, the Dombas,
which is where the war began in twenty fourteen. That's
a very heavily industrialized region that also has a lot
of the resources. We have them. We have the minerals
(08:33):
deal between Trump and the Ukrainians signed a few months ago.
A lot of the minerals, the rare earth and the
other very valuable mineral resources, they're actually in occupied Ukraine.
They're under Russian control, and they're in the east of
the country. The south which also you know, there's four
regions Ukraine, Russia now partially holds and claims. There's two
(08:55):
in the east and two in the south. They're connected.
It's a it's a continuous block. The southern region are
much more agriculturally wealthy. They are. It's essentially step land.
It's the step leading from Crimea up into up into
sort of European Ukraine. And that is very very very
very fertile land with enormous amount of agriculture going on there.
(09:18):
So that's basically the bread basket, the bread basket of
Europe as it was known for centuries. And so you
put them together, I mean, it's a very wealthy area
for Russia to hold, is you know, the agricultural wealth
is huge, the mineral wealth is huge, and so you
know it has a lot of value for them. But
for the Russians, of course, it's all it's a stepping
stone toward the overall conquest of Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
You also wrote fairly harshly that you think Putin just
doesn't want peace, and let me quote, Trump offered a deal,
leave behind you occupied territories, prohibit Ukraine from joining NATO,
lifts sanctions. He even considered recognized the annexation of Crimea.
Putin has said no. Putin doesn't want to make a deal.
(10:01):
He wants to destroy Russian's forcibly, distribute passports, bill camps,
destroy Ukrainian language and culture for Putin. If Ukraine survives,
Russia loses, He's playing for total destruction. Even Trump surrendered
to Crimea didn't stop him. We're gonna take a break
and when I come back, I'm gonna ask Peter Dickinson
does Putin want peace or does he want utter destruction
(10:23):
of Ukraine?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Stay with us, everyone back in two.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Minutes stream us live at SAGA nine six am dot
c A.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Kroumy Radio R. We've
got Peter Dickinson with us tonight from Kiev, Ukraine. He
is the editor for the Ukraine Alert at the Atlantic
Council and he's written really quite a hard hitting review
recently that says that Putin doesn't want peace at all,
he wants utter destruction of Ukraine.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Why do you believe that, Peter, Well, I.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Mean we've got to we've got to dig in here
and find, you know, think about what Putin is really
all about it? What is he looking to achieve?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
You know?
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Why has he launched this war. I mean, this war
has transformed Russia. It's traviously, it's transformed Ukraine in terrible
ways through the destruction of so much of the country,
but it's transformed Russia. It's transformed Russia's relationship with the West,
the Russia's place in the world, you know. So it's
a huge it's a huge gamble by Putin. It's really
defining his reign. So why are you doing this? You know?
(11:35):
What is it that drives him? And I think if
we want to understand this, we've got to sort of
try and get inside Putin's head and get inside the
head of his generation of Russians. Now, they are people
who came of age in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties,
the time when the Soviet Union imploded, it essentially collapsed,
(11:58):
and that was the Putin at the time of the Soviets.
You know where Soviet Union began to unravel, when the
Berlin wallfell in nineteen eighty nine. Puting was there. I
mean he was in Germany. He was a KGB officer
in Dresden in Germany, in East Germany. So he had
basically a ringside seat, a sort of front row seat
to watch this process of Russia, of Russia's Russia's Empire
(12:22):
as it were, then begin to just sort of fall apart,
come a part of the scenes against this wave of
people power protests, you know, pro democracy movements, independence movements
in these countries throughout Central and Eastern Europe. So he
saw all that, you know, he saw it happen in
you know, saw the Berlin War come down. He saw
the Germans do it. He saw the Poles do it,
(12:42):
the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Romanians, the Bulgarians. Basically the
whole of Russia's Central European empire collapsed. And then Putin
came back to Russia itself and he watched the Soviet
Union collapse. He watched the process, you know, could continue
into Russia and then you had the nineteen ninety one
complete breakup of the Soviet Union itself. So within within
(13:04):
the space of just a couple of years, the Soviet
Union went from being a superpower, you know, the superpower
and with America in the whole world, to becoming you know,
by nineteen ninety two ninety ninety three, Russia was almost
a third world country. I mean, the poverty was desperate,
people were living in the terrible conditions. The country had
(13:24):
seen its status plummet, you know. So this is what
he lived through, and this is what he experienced as
a you know, a relatively young man that gives it.
In his thirties at the time, he was, you know,
his whole life was thrown to chaos. And this was
the case for that whole generation of Russians, you know.
And I think a lot of people in the West
don't really understand this. They don't really understand how devastating
(13:45):
for Russia this was. We tend to think of the
fall of the Soviet Union as a good thing, as
a liberation, as something that people who lived there would
have been happy about, because they were you know, they
weren't free. They were living in essentially a large prison camps. Actually,
they weren't allowed to leave the Soviet Union. You know,
we all know about the people dissidents trying to flee
the Soviet Union. So I think there's a perception in
(14:06):
the West that the fall of Soviet Union was a
good thing to celebrate, but it wasn't a good thing
for the Russians, you know, the Russians, for them, it
was an absolutely disastrous defeat, and they lost. You know,
they lost approximately probably territorially around thirty forty percent of
their empire, and population wise, they lost more than half
their empire, I believe, you know. So they had they
(14:28):
suffered a massive, massive defeat almost overnight. And it all
happened because the people rose up and said, we don't
want to be with you any more, Russia. You know,
we want to get away, we want to break away
from you. We want to live as democrats who want
to live in a free country. We want to be
like the European model of civilization, etc. So they made
they basically rejected Russia. So that's that's the founding moment
(14:53):
of Pultin's political worldview. And now he takes power and
he's looking at this thinking, we've lost so much, we've
got to try and get it back. And the one
symbol of this, this humiliation, this defeat, this loss, the
biggest symbol of all is Ukraine. Because Ukraine is the
heart of Russia's self image. Kiv, the capital city of Ukraine,
(15:15):
is considered by Russians to be the mother city of Russia.
It's where Russian civilization comes from, It's where all Russia's
national myths come from kiv Is is absolutely central to
Russia's sense of national identity, and Ukraine, by extension also is.
You know, so Ukraine is a lot more Russian to
the average Russian than Siberia is, for example, or Chechnya
(15:35):
or Ingushetia or Tatarstan or other regions that are actually
inside Russia today. You know, Ukraine is almost as Russian
to the Russians as Moscow or St. Petersburg. I mean,
it's literally that deeply designed in their national myths. So
for put In, reversing the fall of nineteen ninety one
and getting Russia back to its rightful place in the
(15:56):
world was always all about getting Ukraine, taking over Ukraine.
So we always had this idea. He always had this idea,
and he said, he's going to get Ukraine back. You know,
Ukraine being outside of Russia is a big mistake. It's
an injustice. He has to get it back now. That
was always there. Then to add to this obsession of
(16:16):
Putin's was then Ukraine began saying we want to be democratic,
we want to be a European country. So in two
thousand and four, Putin tried to impose a pro Russian
president on Ukraine and the presidential of Electure two thousand
and four. The Ukrainian population rose up against that and
held a revolution which came to be known as the
(16:38):
Orange Revolution. So that was twenty years ago now, and
it was a watershed moment for Ukraine. It was a
moment where they rallied as a nation. Millions of people
were on the streets. It was an incredible experience. I
was here at the time. It was a real, really
historic time for the Ukrainian people where they came of
age as a nation. And for Putin, it was deja vu.
It was East Berlin, it was East Germany again, it
(16:59):
was nineteen eighty nine, it was the Velvet Revolution, it
was it was Perisdroika. It was all the things that
he's terrified off and that have haunted him all these years.
He saw it happening again in Ukraine, and he understood
that if Ukraine now is able to fully break free
and become fully fully independent and find democratic then the
(17:21):
chances are that Russia may go further into this breakup,
the breakup that began in eighty nine. You may get
other regions like Chechner tried to do, who tried to
break away from Russia. So for a porting it became
a very you know, Ukraine became the crux of his
sort of foreign policy. He had to stop the democracy,
They had to stop the spread of democracy in Ukraine,
(17:42):
the consolidation of democracy, and he had to get the
country back into the Russian orbit, and these became the
things that he genuinely became obsessed by this. You know,
there's a lot of people from in the circle who
talk about this that he would literally talk about Ukraine
all the time. And we see, we see very clearly
he sat proviced his entire relationship with the Western world
(18:03):
over Ukraine. He's built his foreign policy around Ukraine. He's
to a significant degree he's built his in his domestic
policy around Ukraine. So this is a very this is
a crucial issue for him. And I think now at
this point in this obsession, now we're twenty years down
from the Orange Revolution, we went through the invasion of
twenty fourteen, we got to the full scale invasion of
(18:26):
twenty twenty two. Nothing that Pauline had done had been
able to succeed in pushing Ukraine away from this European choice,
from this democratic choice. He basically seems to have decided
around the type of COVID we think he seems to
have basically decided. Okay, that's it. I cannot allow Ukraine
to continue to exist in an independent country. And he's
(18:46):
basically now his goal, as I tried allowed in the
essay you refer to, his goal is now essentially it
has to be in his logic, it has to be
the destruction of Ukraine as an independent country. So that
doesn't mean that the destruction and the death of every
single person in Ukraine, although it will mean the death
of many of them. It means the erasure the removal
(19:08):
of Ukraine as a as an independent country. So Ukraine now,
as far as putting it turn, can only exist as
a Russian satellite satellite regime, you know, it can only
be part of Russia.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Essentially, Ukraine is very populous.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
If you've got millions of people that don't want to
be part of you, aren't you risking even our worst
situation with a whole bunch of very disgruntled, upset to
hateful people as part of your country. That will lead
to internal you know, disputes and problems.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Yes, absolutely, But I mean that's what he is think
that's what he's counting on. I mean, you would see
you are you are again. We don't have to speculate, Hi,
We're already seeing this happening. We're seeing this happening in
areas that he controls in Ukraine now. And what we're
seeing is a very clear pattern. There's been mass arrests.
So when the Russians take over an area, what they
(20:00):
do is they arrest preemptively without you, without any act.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
You can't arrest forty million people.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
He can't arrest forty million, but he can arrest one million.
And that's what he'll do. He will arrest all of
the So what they do they go. They'll imagine they
come into a town, a small town of say ten
thousand people. The Russians will have lists this club, They'll
have local collaborators who will help them compile the lists,
and they will then go into the town and they
will arrest all of the elected local officials. They'll arrest
(20:30):
them and interview them and see who's ready to collaborate,
who's not ready to collaborate. If they're ready to collaborate, fine,
they can go free. But the ones who aren't ready
to collaborate, or resist or suggest that they might not
like it. Those people go into the basements, so to
call what basically means they get thrown into concentration counts
essentially or prison prison networks. So that's the elected officials,
(20:50):
journalists they got into the prisons, volunteers, members of civil society, activists,
they're arrested, former military, miry veterans, people who served in
the army. They're all arrested. Family members of people who
served in the army, they're arrested. So they'll go into
a tower, let's say approximately ten thousand people, and they
won't arrest all ten thousands, but they'll arrest maybe two
(21:13):
three hundred people, and they'll arrest the leaders, you know,
the religious leaders as well, and they'll arrest those people.
Some of them will say, you know, we're not no problem,
we're ready to collaborate, and then they'll be you know,
they can begin collaboration, and that does happen, but the
majority of those people will simply disappear and we don't
know where those people are. And that's happened systematically in
(21:33):
every single place the Russians have taken over in southern
and eastern Ukraine. So we're talking about again in totally
it's probably tens of thousands of people. We don't have
you know, it's very difficult to be specific about numbers
because it's all on the Russian occupation. We don't have
access to these areas. But the United Nations published a
report a few months ago that classified these mass arrests
as a crime against humanity. They said, this qualifies, clearly
(21:56):
qualifies as a crime against humanity based on what we know,
and the more we know, frankly, the worse it gets.
So they're already doing this, They already shown they can
do this, and they will do this, so they can
expand that from twenty percent of Ukraine to fifty percent
of Ukraine and potentially to the whole of Ukraine. Of course,
as you say, that will cause, you know, create incredible
(22:20):
instability and security risks, and frankly, you know, I'm almost
unimaginable human rights abuses. But the Russians don't really worry
about that so much. They don't really care. And frankly,
if you look at it from their point of view,
where's the backlash of what they've done so far? They've
already done this. They've literally they've already done this to
twenty percent of the population in Ukraine, has the size
(22:42):
of a medium sized European country. And where is the backlash?
I mean, there's no there's no major international outcry. There is,
there's this UN report that I mentioned, but nothing has
come of that. No one's you know, Russia still sits
on the UN Security Council, despite the fact that the
UN itself is said that they are committing crimes against
(23:02):
humanity in Europe today. You know, so from a Russian
point of view, as horrific as it all sounds, what's
to stop them? What's the back life? Why should they stop?
They can do it, they will do it. If they're
not stopped, they will do this. I'm very confident in that.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
A few minutes ago you described how how Putin but
lots of people in Russia think of the importance of Kiev,
the importance of Ukraine to Russia, and you described how
it was the birthplace of the Russian people.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
If that's true, then is Putin raate that Ukraine is Russian?
Speaker 4 (23:38):
Well, I mean the historic roots of Russia balance in
Ukraine all go back to the key of Bruce per se.
But of course you can argue about that. I mean,
you know, we can say, you know, if we wanted
to apply that argument, then you know, then America is Britain,
then Britain is France. Arguably, then France is Rome. You know,
then Rome is Mesopotamia perhaps or perhaps Greece, you know,
and so on and so forth. You know, lots of
(24:00):
countries have shared historic stories, have common roots, have shared ancestry.
Ukraine has a you know, a distinct and national narrative,
historical narrative going back you know, arguably a thousand years,
certainly hundreds and hundreds of years independent of Russia. You know,
(24:22):
the Ukraine was not an independent state until very recently.
So that's part of the reason why the Russians are
very insistent that Ukraine has always been part of Russia.
But actually Ukraine, most of Ukraine, for for a hundreds
of years, was part of the Polish common of politic
to any in Commonwealth. Large parts of Ukraine were part
(24:42):
of the Ottoman Empire for a long time, you know.
And then we go back even further. There was the
periods of Kazakhs sort of pseudo semi statehood, and there
were times when the Ukraine is part of the Mongol
Empire the Golden Ward. So it's a very very complex story,
but it's certainly not Ukraine was part of Russia and
then it wasn't. You know, the Russian part of Ukraine's
(25:03):
history is significant, but it's by far not It's not
the only part of that story. And Ukraine's struggle to
be free has always been part of European history that
the great French. Think of Voltaire, he was writing in
the early eighteenth century, I think eighteen early eighteen thirty
seventeen seventeen thirties, I think he was writing. He wrote
(25:25):
a History of Eastern Europe and the Swedish King Charles twelfth,
and he wrote in that book, so this is almost
three hundred years ago, he wrote the line Ukraine has
always strived to be free. So even then, three hundred
years ago, Ukraine was a recognizable concept to someone like
Voltaire living in France, and he was also familiar with
(25:45):
the idea that Ukraine had always been struggling to establish
itself as an independent state. So you know, the idea
that Russia has some historic claims to Ukraine really doesn't
hold up. But again, you know, even if it did
in some sort of academic sense. We can't live our
lives like that, although every single border in Europe will
be under the question again, you know, because everyone has
(26:05):
a claim for everybody else, you know, the you know,
as I say, you know, if we start making these claims,
then all of a sudden, the Hungarians have got claimed
against all their neighbors. The Germans have got claims against
half of Poland, you know, the French, you've got claims
against the Belgians, and the Spanish, you've got claims against
the Portuguese, and so on and so for I mean,
it's it's it will be a recipe for complete chaos,
(26:28):
you know, in international relations. And frankly, that's why nobody
does this. You know, Russia is the only person Russia,
put In is the only person trying to promote these
sort of you know, these these these extremely dangerous ideas
about historical revisionism and revanchism.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
This article that you wrote I found very interesting because
effectively what you were saying is Putin just doesn't want peace.
And you actually went and bragged about the Fox News
and brit Hume actually giving you a a stage, a
podium to make a comment on in the United States,
and that Fox News was supportive of your position. We're
(27:08):
gonna take a break. When we come back, I want
us Peter to really explore this. You know, we got
has Trump got? Has has the West got any opportunity
to make peace? Given what he's described of Putin's almost
manacal desire to reverse.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
What happened in nineteen eighty nine, nineteen ninety two, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
This this long history that he wants to reverse of
Ukraine being.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Independent from Russia? Is there any chance, absolutely any chance
for a peace. We're gonna take a break and come back.
I'm going to ask Peter to talk about that. Stay
this Adak.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
No Radio, No Problem stream is live on Sagay ninety
six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
We'll come back every to brand Crimy Radio. Or were
we got Peter Dickinson coming to us from Kiv, Ukraine.
He's the Ukraine Alert editor for the Atlantic Council. He's
written a really fascinating article and Peter, the argument is,
bottom line, Putin doesn't want peace, So what are we doing?
Why are we actually trying to get him to.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
The table? Like should we just give up?
Speaker 4 (28:26):
No? I don't think we can give up. I mean
I think it's important to recognize that at the moment
he doesn't want peace either, the conditions at the moment
don't He doesn't feel under any pressure to go for peace,
you know. So on the one hand, I think it's
crucial to recognize that his goals are much broader, are
much broader and more ambitious than the kind of piece
(28:47):
is on the table now. You know, he's looking to
end end what he regards as the sort of anomaly
or the threat posed by an independent Ukraine. He wants
Ukraine to be brought to heel, to be brought back
into Russia, to become a Russian, a Russian vassal state
in one form or another. So that's that's his goal.
(29:08):
Does he want piece? No, I don't think so, and
we can see by his actions. I think that's quite clear.
But that doesn't mean he can't be can't be coerced
into into into seeking peace. Saying Russia is not a superpower.
Russia is not all powerful, you know, Russia compared to
the collective strength of the West, you know, cannot compete realistically.
(29:29):
So really we need to look at why is it
that the West is not doing enough to coerce and
to force putting into ending this war. Why are we
looking to offer him concessions and to sort of somehow
persuade him that it's in his interest to end the
war and offer him various different incentives to do so. Realistically,
I think it's this is this is a mistake, This
(29:50):
is this is the wrong approach. The West needs to
speak to putting in the only language you understand, which
is the language of strength, and demonstrate that if he
does not end this war, the costs for Russia will
be extremely severe in terms of, you know, the future,
Russia's future viability as a state. You know that the
West will will pressure Russia in ways that could threaten
(30:11):
Russia's future exists. Some of the West very reluctant to
do that. Now, you know, why are they reluctant to
do that? Why is it that? Why is it that
the West has been, in my opinion, quite quite maybe
not half hearted, but very limited in the support it's
given to Ukraine. Now there's there's two there's two aspects
to this issue. One is they're afraid of Russia striking
(30:33):
back against them. They're afraid of Russia escalating the war geographically.
So they're afraid that that Russia will bring the war
to Europe, will bring the war to North America, maybe
would use nuclear weapons, as Putin is often threatened to do.
You know. So that's one aspect of it. They're afraid
of escalation. The other aspect, I think doesn't get enough
attention is they're also afraid of Russia breaking up. They're
(30:54):
afraid of what it would mean if Russia were to
break up as a state and were to collapse, and
then all of a sudden, have you know, perhaps five
or ten new countries emerging on the former territory of Russia,
some of which would possess thousands of nuclear warheads and
many other weapons besides, you know. And that's that fear
of Russian collapse, some people believe is even stronger than
(31:15):
fear of Russian escalation. You know. But the two factors,
both of them have sort of encouraged the West to
be quite quite timid in the in their support for Ukraine,
you know, to give Ukraine enough weapons to survive but
not enough weapons to win, and to place restrictions on Ukraine,
for example, saying okay, we'll give you weapons, but you
can't use them inside Russia. You can't attack Russia. You
(31:37):
can't make you know, you can't strike targets inside Russia,
for example. So you know, in that environment where the
West has been very limited in support it provides for Ukraine,
Putting is essentially looking at the situation now and saying, well,
I can continue. This is not a problem for me. Yeah,
I'm losing a lot of men. It's cost to be
a lot of a lot of a lot a lot
of money. But I'm happy to let that, you know,
(31:58):
I'm happy to pay that price to continue the war.
So I think, really, if we want to stop the war,
we've got to change that that that that think, that thinking, that.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Approach to your sense of what's happening in Russia.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
You know, we hear that there's tens of thousands, if
not hundreds of thousands of deaths, that that the economy
is devastated. But at the same time they're they're sort
of bringing Stalin back to life and uh and and
the Putin has complete support.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
What what's what's going on in Russia? Is there any
opposition to the war or is it one hundred percent
support of Putin?
Speaker 4 (32:35):
Well, I mean it is. It is notoriously difficult to
get to get a get a realistic sense of of
what the levels of support are in Russia for the war,
for example, or for Putin per se. You know, that's
notoriously challenging to try and do. I mean, I think,
of course, he's pace basically removed all opposition, and Putin
has created a scenario in Russia where most people, most
(32:58):
people would agree, I think that there's really only two options.
They either have put In in charge or they have chaos. Now,
they all remember chaos from the nineteen ninety st after
the Soviet Union fell, and Pultin's manipulated that very well,
so they basically it's me and I bring stability, but
it's a hard line, but I'll give you stability, or
it's the chaos in the nineteen nineties when everyone was
(33:19):
terribly poor, criminality went through the roof. You know, people
live basically like you know, it was a third world
country essentially by living standards and you know, complete destitution.
So in that environment, a lot of people will say, yeah, yeah,
better ported Even if they don't particularly like what he's doing,
and they own but they maybe even actively dislike what
he's doing, they'll they'll support him because they're terrified of
(33:41):
the idea of returning to chaos, you know, So that's
been a very powerful factor that he's gone. And then
of course the other factor here is that he's killed
or or removed anyone who could be an opponent of his.
So there's no alternatives. So I think, you know, he's
legitimately does have quite high levels of support, But I wouldn't.
I would catty, you know. I think it's important to
qualify that it's not passionate ideological support. It's people who
(34:03):
by a larger saying ye a better him because the
alternatives are so desperate, we just rather have this guy.
In terms of support for the war, I think that
it's not massively popular. I don't think people are like
really very very jingoistic about it. I think a lot
of people are indifferent to it. Putin's main strategy has
(34:26):
been to keep it distant from people, to prevent people
from being disrupted by the war. So we had one
big mobilization drive to conscript people into the army in
September twenty twenty two, and that was massively unpopular. You know,
around the million Russians fled the country. Military aged men
fled the country, and it created enormous amounts of negative,
(34:50):
negative feeling in Russia about the you know, the forced
participation in this war. So what Putin has been very
careful to do is to isolate people from the war,
to protect them, to sort of shield them from the war.
Now he's done that by recruiting first and force, by
recruiting in the army from the sort of fringes of society.
(35:10):
So the people going into the army, now the vast
majority of the army are volunteers and they're being paid
huge money to go. So they're going from money. Basically,
they're not going out of id ideology or patriotism or
sort of marshal valor. They're going from money. They're being paid.
They're basically Amerceary army, and they're being paid very very
well by the Russian standards. I mean, they're being paid
(35:32):
signing on fees for tens of thousands of dollars in
a country where the average salary is around five six,
seven hundred dollars a month. So it's huge, huge, it's
life changing money for them. And once they're there in Ukraine,
they're being paid huge salaries, five or six times what
they would expect to be paid back home, and if
they're injured or killed, they get huge compensation payments as well.
(35:54):
So this is really you know, it's actually been These
payments are so big. You know, if we to translate
them into most Western economies and perhaps that you know,
a Canadian or American or British economy, it would be
hundreds of thousands of dollars signing on fees. It will
be thout you tens of thousands of dollars salaries that
would be the equivalent. You know, So a lot of
people are ready to go. So they're volunteers, you know,
(36:16):
and they're dying in huge numbers, but they're volunteers. They
chose to go, So there's not a huge amount of
social mobilization against that of opposition. People are kind of
you know, they're accepting of it because these people knew
with the risks, they chose to go.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
You know, I understand that.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
You know, one of the problems with Afghanistan was that
it was like the mothers that were complaining.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
You don't have any of that right now in Russia.
Speaker 4 (36:39):
No, Because in Afghanistan they were conscripts, they were forced
to go fight. Here they're volunteering. That's the big That's
the key difference. These people are not being forced to fight,
No one's making them do it. They're choosing to go.
They're volunteering. They're literally personally going out and saying, I'm
signing up for this because I want that money. I
want the money, and that's.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Why they say, I've got to ask you. Then, if
he doesn't have opposition, if Putin doesn't have opposition within Russia,
at least opposition that can connectively mobilize that the people
are volunteering because they want all this cash. The economy,
while struggling, isn't devastated. And you've described, well this putin
(37:20):
manical desire to take over Ukraine. He couldn't and you
even you went farther. You didn't say his career, you
didn't say you know, his job. You called it his
reign at the beginning of the show. So, if Putin
has a rain and he wants to save sort of
the great Russia that he dreamt of from his youth,
(37:42):
how could he ever give back twenty percent of Ukraine
that he is currently occupied. How could he ever do that?
How could he ever allow the borders to be removed
back to the original borders.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
Well, the only way, You're quite right, it's a very challenging,
it's a huge The only way is if he fears
the alternative is even worse. He has to be made.
He has to be made to fear that Russia itself
could cease to exist as a nation if he does
not end this war. That's the only way he'll do it.
In my opinion, he has to be It has to
be brought home to him that Russia itself could break
(38:19):
up as a nation if he does not end the war,
that the West is prepared to provide Ukraine with the
tools to attack Russia inside Russia, inside Russia on a
significant scale, to to dismantle Russia's energy energy industry, for example,
it's military industrial complex and so forth, in ways that
(38:42):
will that will create strains inside Russia. You know, there's
a lot of people, you know, Russia's Russia is is
a lot more fragile, I think than a lot of
people appreciate outside because they see this huge approval rate
of put In. The assume he's very, very you know,
he has an incredibly strong grip on the country. But
if if we cast our minds back just two years
(39:03):
to twenty twenty three when we had the very brief
but very very shocking mutiny of the Wagner soldiers. This
was the mercenary army that Pultin had built up over
the last decade, and then that turned against him in
twenty twenty three and marched on Moscow briefly. Now that
mutiny was over in a couple of days. It was
you know, it was a kind of blinking, you missed
(39:24):
it moment. But when that happened, those troops there was
a you know, not that mage around twenty thousand of them.
I believe they were able to seize one of Russia's
biggest cities, Rostov, in the south, and march on Moscow
almost unopposed. No one opposed them, No one rallied to Pultin.
No one said we're going to save the czar. They
basically tried to flee. People were running, they were trying
to get away. Pultin was silent at first for the
(39:46):
first day. You know, it wasn't the actions of a
strong leader who has the support and then the confidence
of his nation, you know. So I think that Putin
is aware that his position in Russia is vulnerable if
the West is prepared to challenge that, you know, and
make him think that he could actually face a very
serious threat to his own reign in Russia. Then it
(40:08):
won't be that difficult for him actually to make the
decision to say, Okay, enough of this. I'm going to
end this war because I've got to consolidate my group
on Russia itself. It's you know, we've seen that that.
You know, the vulnerabilities we've seen again the vargin and mutinine.
What we don't see is the West will to do
that now that needs to change that Will that happen
(40:28):
or not? I don't know. I mentioned earlier the West
is afraid of Russia breaking up and the consequences for
global security. So they may well be too reluctant to
go down that road. But that is the way to
do it. That's how you stop pulled in by showing
him that he is actually risking not only not achieving
his goals in Ukraine, but undermining his actual fundamental position
(40:48):
in Russia itself.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
What are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Are you talking about active NATO involvement or active US involvement.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
If you had a chance to.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Actually speak to President Donald Trump, what would you tell
me he needs to do.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
Well. I mean, I think I think that direct involvement
of NATO or the European countries is unrealistic. As much
as I would would would favor that and would think
that would would have been the smart thing to do,
I mean, I think the only type of direct involvement
that perhaps is realistic would be some sort of an
air coverage, air shield, an air patrolling regime over Ukrainian
(41:22):
airspace to shoot down Russian missiles and rockets in exactly
the same manner that the that the western Western countries
do for Israel in terms of when it's attacked by Iran.
And we've seen this just in recent months. We've seen
how Britain and France and America and other Western nations
provide Israel with air support to protect his airspace. And
it's very feasible, it's very possible to do that. They
(41:45):
do do it, and it and it didn't bring you know,
didn't didn't escalate any into any sort of war with
with with Iran. Now they've been reluctant to do that
with with Russia. If they did do that over Ukraine,
I think that would be a very effective form of support.
But it wouldn't win the war, but it would be helpful.
But I think if you want to talk about how
to end the war on you know, maybe even not
(42:07):
even talking about winning the war, but ending the war
on a realistic and sustainable sort of long term note,
the West needs to provide Ukraine with a lot more
firepower in terms of long range strike capabilities. Ukraine needs
to be able to strike deep inside Russia with ballistic missiles,
(42:28):
with cruise missiles, and the West can provide them either
directly by donating them to Ukraine or by helping Ukraine's
ability to manufacture them here in Ukraine. That would be
absolute key. You West need to finde a lot of
other weaponry as well. It doesn't need to provide troops.
Ukraine has the troops and they're and they're they're among
the best troops in the world. Actually I should add
(42:49):
as well. And they're ready to fight, although the country
is exhausted, but still they're ready to They still have
the capability to fight on. What they don't have is
the ability to bring the war to russ Shut. That
would be you know again, that would be a way
of striking at Putin's base, you know, and we saw
just recently to give you, know, to give you an
indication of how this might look, how this might work. Recently,
(43:12):
in recent months, Ukraine has made a concerted effort to
destruct to disrupt Russians, Russia's civilian air travel industry, so
to basically shut down the airports. Now they're not bombing airports,
they're not bombing airplanes, they're not killing civilians, but they
are putting drones into the airspace around airports, which forces
the airports by international law to close their airspace and
(43:36):
to cancel flights, so that in effect, of course, it's
it's July, it's August now, so this is over June
and July, this is the summer season. Ukraine's doing that
for a reason. They're doing that because they want to
bring the war home to ordinary Russians. All the ordinary
Russians went to go on summer holidays, and they went
to the airport with their suitcases to go on a
(43:56):
nice summer holiday, and they were told, you can't go
any this year, you can't fly anywhere. Your flight's being
canceled because Ukraine has put the drones in the air.
And so this was a way of bringing the war
home to ordinary Russians and making them say I don't
like this, I don't approve this, I'm not happy about
this in a sense, and the Russians reacted. There was
a lot of very interesting comments from Russian propagandas saying
(44:19):
this is very dangerous. You know, Russia dismissed its Transport
Minitia because he was disgraced because he wasn't able to
stop this and prevent this happen from happening. You know,
it was not perhaps a major major development, but it
was just significant, I think because it shows that Ukraine
understands that one of their key goals that Ukraine has
to do to change Putin's thinking is to make the
(44:40):
Russians fed up with this war, and they don't want
to do that by killing people as Russians, I mean,
Russians are killing Ukrainian civilians every day. The Ukrainians don't
want to do that, and by and lives, they haven't
done that. But there are ways of doing it other ways.
You know, attacks on economic targets, attacks on again the
airport thing that we've seen recently, you know, attacks on logistics.
(45:02):
Making life more difficult for the Russian day to day
is one way of making people fed up with it
and then perhaps perhaps stirring up the Russian people a
little bit. Who are going to say, you know what,
we're fed up with this now, just we've got to
get We're going to get beyond this.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
You know, we've heard, you know, stories about protests in Ukraine.
We've heard about you know, not many people left to
join the army, that that a lot of people have
left the country, that some men are in hiding because
they don't want to have to join the army. Does
(45:37):
does Ukraine still have public support? Does the leadership of
Ukrainian Army of Ukraine the fight against Russia have public support?
Speaker 4 (45:47):
The fight against Russia has overwhelming public support? I don't.
I wouldn't even I don't think. I mean, I don't
even know if support is the right word. I mean,
Ukrainians understand that this is an existential fight they have.
They basically have two choice. They can either fight and
defend their country all their country doesn't exist, you know,
That's it. It's not a matter of like do we
like this political leader or that political leader. You know,
(46:09):
do they like Zelenski? Not a lot of people don't
like him. Do they like the political leadership, a lot
of people hate them. Do they think that they should
surrender Russia? Almost nobody, I mean I'm almost nobody says
we should we should end the war and surrender. So that,
you know, the big mistake I think that Putin has made,
perhaps not a mistake, or the big problem he has,
is that he's creating an environment where Ukrainians really have
(46:31):
a very little choice. Now, there are a lot of
people who are who are who are hiding or who
don't want to fight, or avoiding service in the military.
There's still you know, there's a huge number of people
who are serving in the military, and there's a lot
of problems with conscription, with mobilization, with finding the soldiers
to man the front lines, and it gets more difficult
(46:52):
all the time to fill in the gaps because Ukraine
is also suffering heavy casualties. But having said all, you know, fundamentally,
there's really not much of a choice for Ukrainians. You know,
they don't see it as a you know, as a
political battle or something. They see it as a fight
for survival. They can either fight or they can not fight,
(47:13):
and so they you know, there'll be you know, there's
a lot of negativity about the politicians here. You know,
there's no reverence for their political classes. In Ukraine, they're
very there's no deference. They're very critical of the Ukrainian
Ukrainian politics, of all of them, and including Zelenski and
all the people around him. But fundamentally, they're not fighting
(47:34):
for them. They're not fighting they're fighting for themselves. They're
fighting for their homes and their families, you know, and
that is an extremely powerful motivating factor. So despite all
of the hardships and all the limitations, I mean, I
don't see I don't see them. I don't see them,
you know, the critical mass breaking there, I think, you know,
there's too much at stake for them.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
It seems like what you've said is that Pune's got
no choice beak As, this is what he's always sort
of dreamt of, and this is how he's defined his
reign and Ukrainian people.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Have no choice.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
So you know, Trump said that he was going to
end the war in twenty four hours, and then he's
given deadline after deadline after deadline. You say that Putin
doesn't want peace, Peter, what's gonna what's gonna happen? What
do you really honestly believe is going to happen.
Speaker 4 (48:24):
Well, I mean, the key, the key factor here is
the extent to which the West provides support. That's the
absolute key factor. If the West provides no support, Ukraine
may gradually lose the war and be overtaken, and then
Ukraine will cease to exist. You know, it won't happen tomorrow,
but it might happen within you know, a one to
two year or maybe five year timeframe. Eventually Ukraine will
you know, the Russian games would reach a critical mass
(48:46):
and the front lines could break and the country will
be overrun. And then very quickly we would see you know,
the largest, the largest crimes against humanity that Europe has
seen since Nazi Germany. You would see a country being
extinguished live on live, on Instagram as it were. Again
we're already seeing that to a degree in eastern South Ukraine,
(49:07):
but you would see that on a national scale. You
would see tens of millions of people flooding into the EU,
the largest migration crisis against since World War Two, and
so on. You know, that could happen. That's if that's
the worst case scenario, if the West provides no support.
You know, if the West continues to provide a certain
degree of support as it doing now. This might stretch
(49:28):
on for many, many years, and we'll see small changes
in the front lines, and we'll see you atrocities against
Ukrainian civilians, and we might see Ukraine becoming stronger in
its ability to strike inside Russia, but no major changes,
you know, I think that would support him to a degree.
Just a continuation of where we are now, that would
be actually quite agreeable to port it rush rather end
(49:48):
the war. I think it's victoriously. But if you can
keep it going where it is now, that would be
pretty much you know, that would suit him, suit his
interests in Ukraine and domestically in Russia around also international
for me. If the West steps up and increases the
support it provides for Ukraine and gives Ukraine greater firepower,
(50:09):
then we could see the war turning back in Ukraine's favor,
because Ukraine will then be able to bring the war
back to Russia, or will be able to disrupt Russia
on the domestic front to make it a much more
balanced campaign where Russia is no longer a safe haven,
which could put a lot more pressure on Putting and
change you know, change his calculus, change the calculus to
(50:31):
people around him, you know, change the change the thinking
of those who can influence him in Russia, the very
you know, the very few within his inner circle who
have some sort of influence, some economic influence perhaps or
political influence, and then force the Russians to rethink where
they're going and what it might mean for Russia itself.
(50:52):
So it really depends on you know, you know, I
think you're quite right putting is fully committed to continue
in the war. Ukraine is fully committed to defending itself.
Neither of those factors are going to change. The X
factor is the role of the West in this. What's
the West prepared to do and what's the West not
prepared to do? You know. So that's really where we
need to look. That's where we're going to see the
(51:14):
big developments, you know. And Trump has a huge role
to play in that, you know. And his his messaging varies,
you know, it goes up and down. You know, at
the beginning of the war, at the beginning of his term,
he was saying like pretty crazy pro Kremlin stuff. He
was blaming Ukraine for the war, He was accusing Ukraine
of you know, calling Zelenskia dictator. We all remember the
(51:35):
big argument in the Oval office, and now his messaging
is very different. He's very critical of Russia. He talks
about getting tough with the Russians. He talks about how
you put in is is to blame and Pultin doesn't
want piece and so on, and now I think, you know,
probably the most important development we've seen in recent months
has been Trump's agreement, you know, not these deadlines that
(51:58):
he gives his ultimate and never lead anywhere, you know,
two weeks, two weeks, fifty days, ten days, not if
it ever goes anywhere. But the one thing we have
seen that is I think very significant is Trump saying
I'm going to sell weapons to Ukraine and Europe is
going to buy them. That is a key thing because
now that opens up a lot of opportunities to increase
(52:19):
the flow of weapons to Ukraine for the long term potentially,
you know. So that's that's one of the you know,
we're talking about Europe, your Western sports, the X factor.
That's one of the things I'm really keeping an eye on.
Now what sort of weapons are being bought by the Europeans,
how much the Europeans are prepared to buy how much
the Americans are prepared to sell, because that could be
a really significant aspect of this whole big picture.
Speaker 3 (52:41):
Peter Dickinson, thank you so much for join us.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
I really appreciate your writing, your updates and coming on our show.
Speaker 3 (52:46):
Appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
That's our show for tonight, everybody, thank you for joining us.
I'll remind John on every Monday through Friday at six
o'clock down nine to sixty am. You get all my
web webcasts and podcasts on my website braincrimey dot com,
Connect of It
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot c
a
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!