1 00:00:00,020 --> 00:00:03,940 With first-class equipment against second-class men and third-class opponents, you always win. 2 00:00:04,480 --> 00:00:09,000 And now what's happened is second-class equipment, third-class crews, against first-class opponents — that goes a bit worse. 3 00:00:09,600 --> 00:00:11,880 Then it comes under some kind of fire. 4 00:00:11,980 --> 00:00:19,320 It's hard to say whether that's artillery or maybe anti-tank missile fire, because there are individual explosions there. 5 00:00:19,400 --> 00:00:21,680 With artillery you normally fire at minimum by battery. 6 00:00:21,820 --> 00:00:29,980 It would be, for the first time in a long while, a new member state that actually brings security, because it has capable armed forces — 7 00:00:30,020 --> 00:00:36,260 All the countries that have been brought in have been so pathetically weak that it's really just widened the deficit. 8 00:00:36,360 --> 00:00:45,920 Alright, welcome to the Neuvottelija channel. My guest today is a much-requested one — Pekka Toveri, Major General (ret.). Welcome. 9 00:00:46,180 --> 00:00:46,340 Thank you. 10 00:00:47,180 --> 00:00:56,400 And you've had a really interesting career — you previously served as commander of the Armoured Brigade, and on top of that as the Finnish Defence Forces' intelligence chief. 11 00:00:57,319 --> 00:00:58,120 Head of Intelligence at the Defence Command. 12 00:00:58,140 --> 00:01:12,780 Yeah, and both of those dimensions are interesting. I myself did my military service at Parola, so I'd like to use this chance to take a look at what kinds of tanks are being used in Ukraine right now. 13 00:01:13,160 --> 00:01:25,120 Right at the start here there's a video. So as we watch this — this is northeast of Kyiv, about 40 seconds in, and it starts rolling. So what is Russia doing here? 14 00:01:25,280 --> 00:01:33,420 Yeah, there's some kind of battalion tactical group advancing toward Kyiv. They've come under fire, and then they bunch up on the road. 15 00:01:33,430 --> 00:01:45,420 You can see there's one tank company, one mechanized infantry company equipped with BMPs, and another one apparently equipped with BTR-82s. 16 00:01:45,500 --> 00:01:49,620 And they drive right into a bunch there in the middle of the built-up area. 17 00:01:50,440 --> 00:01:52,840 Then it comes under some kind of fire. 18 00:01:52,840 --> 00:02:00,660 It's hard to say whether that's artillery or maybe anti-tank missile fire, because there are individual explosions from artillery there. 19 00:02:00,660 --> 00:02:05,660 Artillery is normally fired at minimum by battery, so that would mean at least four shells at once. 20 00:02:05,660 --> 00:02:10,200 But either way, they do pull out from there and leave a couple of burning vehicles behind. 21 00:02:10,500 --> 00:02:25,440 That's exactly the point — you'd need to know you're under air threat. Bayraktars have been operating in the area, Ukraine's air force is degraded but has still managed to carry out isolated strikes with Su-25 aircraft, and yet they bunch the vehicles up together like that. 22 00:02:25,600 --> 00:02:30,180 In that case you at least have mechanized infantry and the chance to dismount them and secure the flanks. 23 00:02:30,959 --> 00:02:38,240 There's always a risk with buildings around that there's an anti-tank team hiding somewhere, but at least you can protect yourself and spread the vehicles out. 24 00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:47,740 We would never, ever, even by accident, bunch vehicles up like that, because that's exactly what makes you vulnerable to air strikes, vulnerable to artillery strikes, and other effects. 25 00:02:47,860 --> 00:02:53,200 You always have to keep the vehicles spread out. That's why they're on tracks — so they can move quickly from place to place and keep their distance, 26 00:02:53,230 --> 00:02:56,040 and then mass their effect when needed, at the point when they actually attack. 27 00:02:56,210 --> 00:03:00,420 So that action looks pretty chaotic and amateurish. 28 00:03:00,660 --> 00:03:04,100 Yeah, well, this is actually good news — that the Russians don't know how to fight. 29 00:03:04,130 --> 00:03:10,560 But maybe this — this is apparently possibly even part of that famous 60-kilometer convoy. 30 00:03:10,700 --> 00:03:20,060 This is on the other side of the Dnieper. This isn't part of that big free-for-all up in the northwest, which stretches for a good many kilometers — maybe even a thousand vehicles. 31 00:03:20,900 --> 00:03:27,740 It's apparently gotten stuck in place, because roads and bridges have been cut, and then Ukraine has flooded that area. 32 00:03:28,340 --> 00:03:35,340 I don't know if that's what's happened. The Russians traditionally have a lot of engineer troops in their organization, more than Western armies do — but is that what's happened? 33 00:03:35,920 --> 00:03:45,860 In the planning, the engineers ended up stuck at the tail end of the queue, which of course makes it a bit tricky to get through the traffic jam and forward in order to repair the roads, bridges, and so on, so the advance can continue. 34 00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:49,480 Right, so is this specifically an important part of the defense? 35 00:03:49,780 --> 00:04:05,740 Well, the Dnieper splits the whole of Ukraine in two, so it's a significant spot in itself — of course a river obstacle is always an advantage for the defender, since the other side has to cross it under fire, which gives much better conditions for defending. 36 00:04:05,900 --> 00:04:14,720 Right. Now we could think about — the Russians use this T- type naming for their tanks. Where does that come from? 37 00:04:15,140 --> 00:04:15,540 Tank. 38 00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:18,640 Right, and then there's a year number — is that the design year? 39 00:04:19,180 --> 00:04:25,740 Well, it varies a bit — usually it's some year tied to when that model entered service, yes. 40 00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:41,820 Right, and my assumption would be that the numbers would be pretty high now, or maybe even low, since the newest tank type designed is the T-14 Armata — but at minimum you'd expect something like T-90s coming out. Is that actually the reality, though? 41 00:04:41,880 --> 00:04:57,860 No — well, Russia's main equipment is actually the T-72, and the newest versions have been modernized. There's the T-72B3, or actually even a few B4s, and 3M versions, but as the footage shows, older versions have also turned up out there. 42 00:04:58,480 --> 00:05:11,540 Yeah, and then Ukraine, during the Soviet era — which Putin apparently wants back — also served as a tank production site, so the T-64B apparently sees fairly widespread use there. 43 00:05:11,580 --> 00:05:16,380 Yeah, and of course newer versions of it have been made, and the older equipment has been modernized. 44 00:05:16,780 --> 00:05:23,900 Right, but that sounds like a really old model year, however many upgrades it's had inside — does that really work like that with tanks? 45 00:05:24,660 --> 00:05:30,200 Well, not exactly — steel doesn't go bad that quickly, as long as you keep upgrading them and maintaining them. 46 00:05:30,320 --> 00:05:39,460 It's worth remembering that the Leopard 2 was developed in the late '70s and entered wider service in the '80s. 47 00:05:40,180 --> 00:05:49,140 And it's still rolling around the world — Europe's common main battle tank. It's been upgraded, maintained, so yes, it's still a completely current, capable vehicle. 48 00:05:49,480 --> 00:05:55,660 Yeah, we could actually jump ahead now — let's get to the air weapons and armor defense after this. 49 00:05:55,900 --> 00:06:12,140 But let's compare — I mentioned the T-14 Armata, and then Finland apparently has the German Leopard 2A6 — would that be the kind of tank battle we could see in Ukraine, or somewhere else, in your opinion? 50 00:06:12,540 --> 00:06:17,820 Well, no — the problem there is that the T-14 basically isn't in service anywhere yet. 51 00:06:18,180 --> 00:06:33,620 I'd dare say it's a bit of a Putin-style miracle-weapon gadget — they've taken a vehicle, it has a turret, the crew sits in the hull, and the turret is operated remotely, automatically. 52 00:06:34,260 --> 00:06:38,500 The concept is something the Americans experimented with too, on the research side, looking into whether something like this could be done. 53 00:06:38,600 --> 00:06:43,280 The technology used in it — all the armament and so on — is largely the same as before. 54 00:06:44,060 --> 00:06:48,880 It's not that this technology didn't exist, it's just been repackaged. 55 00:06:48,980 --> 00:06:54,260 This Afganit active protection system, which is used to intercept missiles and other incoming rounds — 56 00:06:54,260 --> 00:06:59,840 back in the late '80s in Afghanistan they tested a similar system called the 'Zor' system. 57 00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:04,300 So it doesn't actually bring anything all that new. 58 00:07:04,440 --> 00:07:20,060 Then it's been wrapped in a ton of hype on top, announcing performance figures that almost certainly don't hold up — for instance the radar supposedly detects dozens of flying targets at once, at 60-70, even up to 100 kilometers. 59 00:07:20,100 --> 00:07:31,260 There's surely no way that vehicle has the processing power to do that, and it's probably physically impossible with those antennas to get results like that. A lot of pure hot air. 60 00:07:34,340 --> 00:07:54,780 If they could get it to work, then sure, they might actually manage all right with the Armata, but there's already the issue that the three crewmen sit side by side in the hull — so getting good situational awareness, having a sensible picture of what's happening around you, the camera systems would probably need to be a bit more advanced than what they have. 61 00:07:54,940 --> 00:08:04,300 For example, in the West there's this 'Google City' system, and the vehicle commander, just like an F-35 pilot, can look all around, effectively seeing straight through the armor. 62 00:08:04,580 --> 00:08:11,900 So it's seamless — that's quite different from staring at some screen in front of you and trying to figure out what's happening off to the right or left. 63 00:08:12,979 --> 00:08:15,860 So a lot of hype, not much substance. 64 00:08:16,300 --> 00:08:34,120 Well, we could take a quick look at the Leopard — let's put up this video of it moving through Finnish terrain. It's been developed — does it have things like these video capabilities, laser warning systems, and active protective armor in use? 65 00:08:34,560 --> 00:08:49,220 No, no. So what we have is the 2A6, which has extra armor added to the turret, extra protection fitted, and the 55-caliber gun, so the muzzle performance is a bit better and the rounds get a bit more speed. 66 00:08:49,340 --> 00:09:00,200 And then it's been improved — the commander has a stabilized thermal camera up on the turret, so you can monitor 360 degrees around you better, and so on, things like that. 67 00:09:00,810 --> 00:09:03,200 But still a perfectly good, current vehicle. 68 00:09:03,590 --> 00:09:09,720 And now, around the world, they're already pushing hard for the A7 version, which has been developed even further again. 69 00:09:09,880 --> 00:09:10,320 Yeah. 70 00:09:39,880 --> 00:09:45,080 on social media, Russian tank crews complain a lot that it's really unpleasant to work in there, 71 00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:50,180 since it's so cramped, and the Russians apparently don't have a word for ergonomics. 72 00:09:51,060 --> 00:09:53,780 It's so awkward to operate in there that it wears you out quickly. 73 00:09:54,260 --> 00:10:01,420 That matters in combat — whether you can sit comfortably and function as the commander, or whether you're stuck like this, 74 00:10:01,540 --> 00:10:03,300 and trying to peer over there and get something done. 75 00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:09,260 Yeah, I remember those feelings from the T-72 and T-55, from my own driving days at Parola. 76 00:10:09,420 --> 00:10:21,320 But then we could move on to this — a bunch of these have been destroyed now, so here we've got missiles fired by a Turkish Bayraktar drone. So tell us what's happening here. 77 00:10:24,020 --> 00:10:42,720 Yeah, there again it was the typical free-for-all — sitting there at the roadside, vehicles jammed side by side, not using the terrain, not keeping their distance, not dispersing the formation, not seeking cover in the terrain, although that's not always easy in Ukraine either. 78 00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:47,720 And then apparently what got hit there looked like an anti-aircraft missile launcher vehicle. 79 00:10:47,820 --> 00:11:05,380 Yeah, so there are relatively few Bayraktars, but there are apparently still some — you can fit four missiles onto that drone, and they've been fired, but apparently Turkey, as a NATO country, has stepped in to provide equipment, which is surely being received with gratitude. 80 00:11:05,480 --> 00:11:20,120 Right, so they'd made a deal before the war to sell 48 Bayraktars. Apparently only about half had been delivered before the war broke out. Can Turkey deliver more? Interesting to see. 81 00:11:20,180 --> 00:11:26,440 Russia has tried to strike the bases the Bayraktars have been operating from so far. 82 00:11:26,550 --> 00:11:30,760 And then they've also focused on training their own anti-aircraft units. 83 00:11:30,880 --> 00:11:32,700 They've taken into account how to counter the Bayraktars. 84 00:11:33,460 --> 00:11:34,220 Well, not all of them, though. 85 00:11:34,760 --> 00:11:37,620 Some have apparently been shot down, but they're still able to operate there. 86 00:11:38,080 --> 00:11:42,340 But it's still the case that the numbers are so small that they can't be expected to change the course of the war. 87 00:11:42,730 --> 00:11:48,240 Right. Then from the Americans they've received these Javelins and Stingers. 88 00:11:48,720 --> 00:11:51,800 And then apparently from the Finns as well they've gotten some Kes anti-tank launchers over there. 89 00:11:52,280 --> 00:11:54,640 Yes, and there are others too — quite a few single-shot launchers have been supplied, 90 00:11:54,640 --> 00:12:00,780 and the German Panzerfaust, its own somewhat different anti-tank weapon, and so on. 91 00:12:01,180 --> 00:12:07,060 Yeah, and the Swedes have their Swedish models too. 92 00:12:07,320 --> 00:12:11,620 Are there differences in effectiveness between these? Apparently what matters most on a tank is, 93 00:12:11,820 --> 00:12:16,940 being able to come in on a top-attack trajectory, hitting the top of the turret from above. 94 00:12:17,300 --> 00:12:20,760 Yes, there's always an advantage in being able to punch through the roof armor, since that's much thinner. 95 00:12:20,880 --> 00:12:29,960 The thing is, on the Russians' newer, modernized vehicles, if they have reactive armor, that's actually pretty good. 96 00:12:30,300 --> 00:12:38,140 From the front, straight on, there are quite a few layers to punch through to get a penetration, but the roof is still weak, even though there are some reactive armor elements up there too. 97 00:12:38,420 --> 00:12:41,800 Both the NLAW and the Javelin are then capable of those top-attack strikes. 98 00:12:41,920 --> 00:12:59,920 Right, but the Russian attack from the air looks surprisingly weak. There have apparently still been some Iskander missiles fired, and then for their own air defense they have the Pantsir S1. So how significant is that, and are these good weapons? 99 00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:15,580 Well, as a weapon the Iskander missile is good — it has long range, it can maneuver, it's hard to intercept, and there are quite effective, different warhead options available. 100 00:13:16,410 --> 00:13:29,240 But then firing missiles alone isn't enough — you need your targeting process to be in order, you need to be able to find those targets already in peacetime, you need to know the enemy's systems well enough that you know exactly what effect you're having. 101 00:13:29,440 --> 00:13:40,740 If you try to shut down an airfield — American experience shows that even after 40 Tomahawks hit an air base, it's still operational a week later. 102 00:13:40,860 --> 00:13:43,700 You need to find the spots where you get the most effect. 103 00:13:45,400 --> 00:13:52,060 Then you need to be able to check, right before the strike, that there's actually activity there. 104 00:13:52,180 --> 00:13:56,820 so you're not hitting an empty field or empty ground — and then afterward you need to be able to check, 105 00:13:56,820 --> 00:14:02,900 to do a BDA, a Battle Damage Assessment, to see whether you've gotten the effect, whether it needs to be repeated, and so on. 106 00:14:03,890 --> 00:14:07,300 And for that you need quite an extensive sensor network, which the Russians apparently don't have. 107 00:14:07,750 --> 00:14:12,020 That requires training, which right now doesn't seem to be all that polished for them, and so on. 108 00:14:12,030 --> 00:14:13,740 And on top of that you need quite a lot of those missiles. 109 00:14:14,699 --> 00:14:19,160 The Russians' stockpiles of these longer-range precision missiles are fairly small compared to, say, the Americans', 110 00:14:19,340 --> 00:14:22,120 and according to one estimate, they've fired so far, 111 00:14:22,160 --> 00:14:23,580 according to American reports, at least around 700, 112 00:14:25,200 --> 00:14:27,320 and certain estimates say they had about 2,000 to start with. 113 00:14:27,900 --> 00:14:33,020 And I really don't believe they're going to fire more than half of that at Ukraine, 114 00:14:33,060 --> 00:14:35,120 because they still need to keep some in reserve just in case, 115 00:14:35,160 --> 00:14:39,000 something happens, and their industry can't produce replacements the way America's can. 116 00:14:39,579 --> 00:14:44,540 So in practice, over these two weeks of bombardment, some damage has probably been done, 117 00:14:44,620 --> 00:14:46,440 some depots have been destroyed and so on, 118 00:14:46,440 --> 00:14:49,300 but it hasn't been enough to knock out Ukraine's air— 119 00:14:49,340 --> 00:14:52,080 —air force and its command, and apparently not its logistics either, 120 00:14:52,290 --> 00:14:56,260 so it's not like — the Russian army isn't the American army. 121 00:14:56,520 --> 00:14:58,820 Well, that's delightful news. Now we could think a bit about, 122 00:14:58,820 --> 00:15:01,600 since they'd been planning this for months and sort of 123 00:15:01,720 --> 00:15:04,460 went with a multi-front war, and probably in Putin's fantasy 124 00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:09,020 it was meant to be some kind of blitzkrieg — one wave, 125 00:15:09,200 --> 00:15:12,580 since they already had Crimea, sort of a strong southern thrust, 126 00:15:12,590 --> 00:15:14,900 which actually — that seems to be the one making the most progress. 127 00:15:15,290 --> 00:15:19,160 And then of course the East, meaning from the Luhansk, Donbas area, 128 00:15:19,220 --> 00:15:24,300 sort of getting through, and then sort of trying to pull toward Kyiv from the north. 129 00:15:24,520 --> 00:15:29,380 Do you see in these — well, at least that famous 60-kilometer convoy — you seem to be suggesting, 130 00:15:29,380 --> 00:15:33,540 that there might be mud season, or that weather conditions might partly explain this lack of success as well? 131 00:15:34,020 --> 00:15:40,460 Well yeah, before this whole mess started, I estimated that if — 132 00:15:41,360 --> 00:15:44,720 everything depends on the political leader giving the task to the military. 133 00:15:44,860 --> 00:15:51,500 Then the military does its situation assessment, and then decides how to carry it out so that the political leadership's requirements are met. 134 00:15:52,270 --> 00:16:03,360 Well apparently the political leadership's own assessment of the situation had a completely wrong picture of who the opponent actually was, which meant the military was probably also given a completely wrong picture of what they were going into. 135 00:16:03,360 --> 00:16:14,520 And if the assessment is that Ukraine's leadership will flee to America on the first plane out, the armed forces won't fight, and the population will just stand by and watch, then you can go for deep objectives — that becomes a well-considered, feasible mission. 136 00:16:14,600 --> 00:16:20,440 But if instead the assessment is that the leadership will stay put and rally the people, the armed forces will fight tenaciously, and the population will back them, 137 00:16:20,840 --> 00:16:23,280 then it would make sense to go with a somewhat more modest objective. 138 00:16:23,340 --> 00:16:31,299 And they went in with that optimistic picture, which is exactly why heads are currently rolling in the intelligence organizations back in Russia. 139 00:16:31,960 --> 00:16:34,000 And with a completely wrong picture of the situation. 140 00:16:34,160 --> 00:16:37,200 And then they tried to ape the American way of waging war in Iraq. 141 00:16:37,340 --> 00:16:39,200 This is basically a repeat of Iraq 2003. 142 00:16:40,600 --> 00:16:42,040 Without air superiority. 143 00:16:42,440 --> 00:16:52,940 Right, precision strikes knock out the enemy's air defense, air force, command, and logistics, and then after that you go in with armored forces without hesitation, driving straight to the objective. 144 00:16:52,940 --> 00:17:06,459 Just like the Americans did back in Baghdad in 2003 — that's the Thunder Run, where battalion and brigade combat teams drove straight down the main roads right into the center of Baghdad, and the fighting broke out there. 145 00:17:07,660 --> 00:17:18,579 So that's what they started doing, and the results speak for themselves. Battalion tactical groups get thrown in deep, and the Ukrainians start hitting them with ambushes from left and right. 146 00:17:19,290 --> 00:17:30,380 No support coming, logistics not working. This has been botched on so many levels that you could already write a book about it at this stage, even without the full picture of what's happened. 147 00:17:30,440 --> 00:17:44,480 But a good example is logistics. There's a lot of evidence that logistics hasn't worked. Vehicles have been abandoned because they ran out of fuel. Troops are looting local grocery stores because they don't have food. 148 00:17:44,540 --> 00:17:47,800 combat rations that are 20 years old. 149 00:17:49,940 --> 00:17:51,860 The Russian armed forces' logistics is based on railways. 150 00:17:55,680 --> 00:17:57,780 They have far fewer wheeled transport vehicles than Western militaries. 151 00:17:57,840 --> 00:17:58,880 Their carrying capacity is much smaller. 152 00:17:58,900 --> 00:18:03,340 A Russian brigade like this can maybe advance about 90 kilometers without resupply. 153 00:18:03,340 --> 00:18:06,600 That's why they have railway troops — almost 30,000 soldiers — 154 00:18:06,600 --> 00:18:08,520 who are able to repair and even build railways. 155 00:18:09,480 --> 00:18:10,280 Their logistics runs on rail. 156 00:18:10,400 --> 00:18:19,320 Well, now, since they weren't able to take these towns in a night or two — places like Kharkiv and so on — they decided to bypass them. 157 00:18:19,680 --> 00:18:24,060 In theory that's a reasonable enough idea, but the problem is that all the railways run right through those towns. 158 00:18:24,900 --> 00:18:27,660 Kharkiv, for example, is a major railway junction. 159 00:18:28,180 --> 00:18:29,440 So the logistics simply couldn't keep up behind them. 160 00:18:29,940 --> 00:18:35,560 And now they're trying to clear out those towns so they can get their logistics working again. 161 00:18:35,680 --> 00:18:40,520 This has been a bit — it hasn't quite gone as planned. 162 00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:46,320 In the south it's gone better, partly because the rail network there doesn't run through the big towns in the same way. 163 00:18:46,670 --> 00:18:51,800 Plus they have naval superiority there, so they're better able to handle logistics, maybe even by sea. 164 00:18:52,160 --> 00:19:01,720 Right, we could dig into that naval superiority — you'd sort of expect them to send an amphibious landing at Odesa, proper Normandy-style, but we haven't seen that happen. 165 00:19:01,940 --> 00:19:03,800 Is that another case of it just being empty bluster? 166 00:19:04,080 --> 00:19:16,440 Well, that's the same old story again — just before this war started, there was all this hype about four to six Russian landing ships moving around the Baltic. 167 00:19:17,650 --> 00:19:24,420 So what? That's four to six landing ships, which might have some naval infantry inside and a few vehicles. 168 00:19:25,720 --> 00:19:32,100 To pull off an amphibious landing operation like that, you need air superiority there, you need continuous air support. 169 00:19:32,500 --> 00:19:37,200 You need a surface task force to cordon off the area and give you fire support, and so on. 170 00:19:37,590 --> 00:19:48,000 And a second echelon coming in behind — sure, you could throw a couple of battalions onto Gotland with those landing ships, but they'd be wiped out within a couple of days if you don't have all the rest of it in place. 171 00:19:48,080 --> 00:20:05,240 It's the same story down south — sure, they've got several battalions of marines available and the sealift capacity for them, but they don't have that large surface combat task group, and the air support, that would let them assault a defended shore. 172 00:20:05,820 --> 00:20:31,960 So they probably won't even dare try it. What's more likely is that if they get past the city of Mykolaiv and push on toward Odesa, and maybe even from the direction of Transnistria, where they have a couple of battalion tactical groups, then in connection with that — there are apparently some fairly favorable beaches east of Odesa, from what I've heard — where they might try to land. But going straight into Odesa itself, no way, that's ruled out — it would end badly. 173 00:20:32,020 --> 00:20:48,200 Right, and even the capture of Kherson is going pretty slowly — that's got to be painful for them. But from a Finnish point of view, is this just pure amateur-hour delight on land, at sea, and in the air, or is there anything here that could still salvage Putin's honor? 174 00:20:48,380 --> 00:20:58,960 Well, I'd say — you shouldn't be too quick to declare that the Russian army is just a giant spinning its wheels in the mud. 175 00:20:59,799 --> 00:21:05,320 Their biggest problem has been the political leadership, which gave them an essentially impossible task given the resources available 176 00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:08,840 to the armed forces — and the armed forces then tried to proceed on the wrong assumptions. 177 00:21:09,500 --> 00:21:14,460 Apparently no one dared tell Putin that they couldn't go for objectives that deep, that they'd get beaten badly. 178 00:21:14,580 --> 00:21:23,920 so then they set off on an impossible task. If they'd followed their own doctrine and fought the way the Russian army fights at its best, it would have gone much better. 179 00:21:25,259 --> 00:21:35,600 Fixing attacks from different directions, clearly pinning down the defender, concentrating force and fire at the point of main effort, moving with that combined fire and maneuver, and then going deep. 180 00:21:35,780 --> 00:21:41,260 then you could go for deeper objectives while also making sure logistics keeps up behind you — but that's not what they did. 181 00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:47,600 Instead they set out to occupy, attacking from three directions along numerous different routes, with no main point of effort at all — and this is what happens. 182 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:59,438 Right, well how would you look at this — Finland, fortunately, has kept its army strength and reserve high, but at this stage, hasn't 183 00:21:59,460 --> 00:22:04,520 the 200,000 soldiers that have been thrown in — are those from the professional army? 184 00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:08,720 Is there any sign of a second wave from the mobilized reserves? 185 00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:16,438 The Russians really do have that challenge — they've been trying for two decades to build a million-man professional armed force. 186 00:22:17,140 --> 00:22:17,980 And they haven't managed it. 187 00:22:17,980 --> 00:22:19,400 That's why they still rely on conscripts. 188 00:22:19,400 --> 00:22:21,480 They can't recruit enough contract soldiers. 189 00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:27,360 So the majority — and the total strength of the ground forces was under 300,000, if I remember correctly. 190 00:22:28,820 --> 00:22:39,400 They clearly do have challenges. According to open sources, 75 percent of their operational combat forces are now concentrated in Ukraine. 191 00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:45,540 So there isn't really much more manpower left to haul in from the far corners of the country. 192 00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:55,720 They can't use conscripts anymore once it comes out that they've been sent in en masse, because there's a law in Russia stating conscripts aren't allowed to be used for combat duties. 193 00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:13,960 Then, they don't have a proper mobilization system. For several years now they've been trying to develop some kind of contract-reservist system, but even though they have a theoretical reserve of millions of men, they don't have a proper mobilization system that could actually form new units out of them. 194 00:23:14,020 --> 00:23:30,480 According to some reports I've seen in open sources, around 3,000 reservists have been called up. They're not forming any new combat units or, say, brigades — they're apparently just being sent in individually as reservists to make up for the losses the units have already taken. 195 00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:45,420 That's exactly why they're dragging in Chechens, and why apparently they're trying to recruit from Syria as well, plus these Wagner Group people — just to get some cannon fodder over there, because they're basically about to run out. 196 00:23:45,520 --> 00:24:03,500 Right, you mentioned the Chechens and Syria — this ground has been well covered in your other interviews, but in a way — weren't these Putin's neighboring wars and the like also about domestic politics, and is there some kind of thread here, where success has effectively been rehearsed in these smaller countries? 197 00:24:03,580 --> 00:24:15,600 Well yeah, the old formula for victory is: with first-class equipment against second-class men and third-class opponents, you always win. 198 00:24:16,130 --> 00:24:20,640 And now what's happened is second-class equipment with third-class crews against a first-class opponent — that goes a bit worse. 199 00:24:21,350 --> 00:24:25,800 And that illusion — the Russians clearly believed it, since Crimea went as well as it did. 200 00:24:25,970 --> 00:24:31,620 That was carried out very professionally, but on the other hand there was no resistance at all, because they were already in Crimea. 201 00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:40,200 They had a large base there. Most of the commanders who were Ukrainian there were pro-Russian, so there was no resistance at all. 202 00:24:40,300 --> 00:24:48,800 Then maybe they got the wrong impression from that. They started looking down on the Ukrainians, thinking there's nothing to them — which is odd, because Ukraine has actually kept fighting against them for eight years now. 203 00:24:49,310 --> 00:24:51,980 So they haven't grasped that these people actually know how to fight too. 204 00:24:52,800 --> 00:25:01,620 Then there's Syria too — that's exactly it, certain units, certain parts have been used there to demonstrate capability. 205 00:25:01,620 --> 00:25:09,160 They've fired from far away — sorry, from the Caspian Sea — Kalibr cruise missiles at targets in Syria, 206 00:25:09,300 --> 00:25:12,060 and shown that they have a similar capability to the Americans. 207 00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:19,080 The air force has used a few precision-guided munitions, and that's created the impression that the air force has real capabilities too, 208 00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:26,140 but that's partly an illusion — sending out two to four aircraft, 209 00:25:26,260 --> 00:25:31,200 dropping dumb bombs on a hospital somewhere in Aleppo, where there's no air defense whatsoever, 210 00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:33,840 that's not an air operation. That's a war crime. 211 00:25:35,379 --> 00:25:41,200 And firing off a couple of precision missiles, maybe at some ISIS base somewhere, 212 00:25:41,220 --> 00:25:42,860 that's not an air operation either. 213 00:25:43,940 --> 00:25:46,960 An air operation is when you have 60 to 80 aircraft, 214 00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:52,660 there's an air-to-air element that cordons off the fight, provides protection. 215 00:25:52,830 --> 00:25:54,540 You've got electronic jamming supporting it. 216 00:25:55,010 --> 00:25:57,540 You've got SEAD aircraft that suppress the air defenses. 217 00:25:57,620 --> 00:25:59,760 You have air-to-ground strike aircraft that go in to destroy targets. 218 00:25:59,770 --> 00:26:04,680 And all of it is directed from radar aircraft. 219 00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:10,000 Western air forces — our own air force included — practice exactly this kind of thing. 220 00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:10,940 Those are air operations. 221 00:26:11,590 --> 00:26:15,000 What you've clearly seen in Ukraine is that Russia's air force isn't able to — 222 00:26:15,100 --> 00:26:16,460 — carry out air operations. 223 00:26:16,940 --> 00:26:29,040 Right. Now then, this total-war approach — in Chechnya, and in Syria too to some extent — they'd unhesitatingly send in aircraft against parts of a city, without any regard for civilian casualties. 224 00:26:29,300 --> 00:26:33,920 Was this, in Putin's mind, a winning approach that could maybe be applied here in Ukraine too? 225 00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:38,200 Well, no. Grozny, a city of half a million people, it got turned — 226 00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:43,300 barely one stone was left standing on another — in practice the whole city was destroyed. 227 00:26:44,060 --> 00:26:45,300 Tens of thousands of people died. 228 00:26:46,640 --> 00:27:01,040 Now it looks like, since there's no other means — no well-trained infantry, no infantry trained in urban combat that could push into a built-up area, into a defended town, and fight there — they just use what they do know how to do. 229 00:27:01,120 --> 00:27:08,800 So they bring in the artillery, heavy rocket fire, and start blasting the place apart block by block, until the other side gets the message and surrenders. 230 00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:24,640 Right, and on top of that — even though the Russian-speaking minority varies from city to city, in the eastern cities in particular the population is largely Russian-speaking, so this is especially cruel, because it's essentially the very people they claim to be liberating who are being killed. 231 00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:33,500 It's worth remembering: in Grozny, for instance, from the Chechen war — it was specifically the Russians who lived in the better part of downtown Grozny, while the Chechens had been pushed out to the suburbs. 232 00:27:33,660 --> 00:27:44,980 The Russians don't seem to have any qualms — at least under Putin — about hitting Russian speakers, or even ethnic Russians, if they happen to get caught there under fire. 233 00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:53,500 Right, but thinking about it coldly, from Finland's point of view it's good that the Russian threat near our region is being ground down the whole time. 234 00:27:53,660 --> 00:28:05,240 On the other hand it's obviously a human tragedy for Ukraine, but is a military-political vacuum forming here in our own neighboring region, since all their materiel and men are being sent there to die? 235 00:28:07,140 --> 00:28:21,340 Yes, the garrisons in this neighboring region have indeed been emptied of all their operational units. And here's the absurdity of it — this drawn-up Russian narrative they tell their own people, that NATO was preparing to attack them. 236 00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:28,240 And yet all their other borders get stripped bare so they can go after Ukraine. They know perfectly well that NATO isn't going to attack anywhere. 237 00:28:30,579 --> 00:28:42,380 The sheer amount of lying — and then somehow their own citizens buy it. Well, it's worth remembering that Stalin was still extremely popular even though he killed two million Russians — it's a bit the same thing, people just believe it all. 238 00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:50,260 But this is definitely eating into Russia's military strength. That's a positive for us when it comes to any future war. 239 00:28:51,050 --> 00:28:57,580 But on the other hand, it's worth remembering that armies which take a beating are the most dangerous ones, because they learn from it. 240 00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:02,840 Just like when the Germans, after the First World War, concluded, 'the way we're waging war — this isn't working.' 241 00:29:03,110 --> 00:29:10,820 And then they actively developed their interwar-period armored doctrine and warfare in general at the operational level. 242 00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:14,580 And then they thrashed everyone else pretty badly in the early stages of the war. 243 00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:18,980 And meanwhile the Western powers were like, well, we won the war, so there's no need to develop anything. 244 00:29:19,180 --> 00:29:21,040 Let's just carry on the same way. 245 00:29:21,100 --> 00:29:26,540 It's a bit the same thing here — if they get badly beaten now and Putin doesn't get removed, 246 00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:30,660 they'll probably take quite significant measures to improve things, 247 00:29:30,740 --> 00:29:32,540 so that next time it goes a bit better. 248 00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:40,040 And next time Putin will hardly believe as naively the reports the FSB and others give him about 249 00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:43,780 how easy the opponent might turn out to be — whoever ends up being chosen as the opponent. 250 00:29:44,100 --> 00:29:56,260 Yeah, or Putin's successor probably, but yeah, you mentioned Nato — Zelensky's tactic here of course has been that he's had complete air superiority on the communications side, 251 00:29:56,260 --> 00:30:03,440 so that Ukraine gets everyone's sympathy, and rightly so, while the Russians have at best done okay among their own, if even there, 252 00:30:03,540 --> 00:30:11,920 And their propaganda has really gone badly. Take this Z symbol, for instance — do you even understand what the point of that is? 253 00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:26,440 These are unit identification markings. They were used in the Second World War — during normal landing operations, aircraft were painted with clear markings so friendly air defense would recognize them and not shoot down their own. 254 00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:38,460 Here there's a lot of the same equipment, the same type of equipment as the Ukrainians have, so they use different markings — the National Guard units have their own markings, special forces units have their own, and so on. 255 00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:43,860 Those are operation-specific equipment markings, identification marks. 256 00:30:44,060 --> 00:30:57,560 Yeah, but then this Russian Z — some people see it as almost a swastika-like symbol, since some athletes, for instance, use this Z to show support for Putin. 257 00:30:57,780 --> 00:31:03,580 I think this propaganda is just pretty clumsy — even Russia's propaganda has been fairly weak here, in my opinion. 258 00:31:03,740 --> 00:31:16,320 Yeah, it's surprising really, when you think about how they've been running rings around the West for the last ten years, stirring up social media, setting Western countries at each other's throats and all that, and now they're getting roasted like this on this side. It's a bit of a surprise. 259 00:31:16,460 --> 00:31:39,300 Yeah. As for Nato, you could think about how Zelensky has of course gotten support — financial support, and even weapons from Finland, genuinely significant weapons. And clearly these Western weapons are working really well in this defensive war, but they're still at a technical disadvantage overall, so this war isn't won yet from Ukraine's side. 260 00:31:40,520 --> 00:32:02,800 Yeah, so Zelensky has been trying, I think, to provoke Nato into imposing a no-fly zone, but wouldn't that in practice mean Nato would also have to enforce it — it's not just a declaration, it would mean actually flying aircraft there and engaging if necessary. 261 00:32:03,660 --> 00:32:16,260 Nato could easily carry that out, but it would at the same time be an act of war. And when you're dealing with a country that has almost 6,000 nuclear warheads, of which just under 2,000 are at operational readiness, that's not necessarily something Nato wants to do. 262 00:32:16,860 --> 00:32:24,840 Yeah, but is this — Zelensky surely knows this, but he keeps repeating it all the time — is there something behind it, or is it just about sympathy, wanting people to want it? 263 00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:38,040 Well yes, he probably wants to knock on the West's conscience, showing that his people are being slaughtered here like cattle and that war crimes are being committed with no limits at all. 264 00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:42,860 And the West is just there saying, here's some materiel for you, but they don't dare do much more than that. 265 00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:53,580 And that's somehow expressed even by the fact that Poland isn't allowed to send its MiGs there — that seems a bit odd too, you'd think they could just put them on a train to the border and fly them in from there. 266 00:32:53,640 --> 00:33:03,200 But there's clearly something sticking in Nato's craw about breaching that air superiority, or rather about touching that airspace. 267 00:33:03,430 --> 00:33:16,740 Well, I know — they're just weighing very carefully what the threshold is, how far we can go without testing that threshold of war. 268 00:33:16,860 --> 00:33:24,300 Yeah. Do you think there's guidance coming, sort of intelligence-support type of help? 269 00:33:24,500 --> 00:33:31,180 Absolutely, absolutely. The Ukrainians almost certainly have a much better situational picture of where the Russians are than the other way around. 270 00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:31,620 Yeah. 271 00:33:32,380 --> 00:33:40,100 Which of course is a huge asset and important support, because you can use your own limited forces much better when you know what the enemy is doing. 272 00:33:40,180 --> 00:34:00,580 Yeah. So let's move on to some others. Russia has a few allies. My sense is that when the war started on February 24th, Belarus, as a brotherly nation, was about to join the attack too, but they didn't really dare. Do you think Belarus will avoid becoming a party to this war? 273 00:34:00,700 --> 00:34:13,940 I tend to think Lukashenko probably wakes up every morning with soaked sheets from sweating and tossing all night, wondering how to get out of this, because they do have around 50,000 armed forces. 274 00:34:14,260 --> 00:34:30,399 At this stage Russia would certainly be happy to make use of extra forces. But it's a conscript army, and there have been reports — scattered reports, not fully confirmed, but still — of refusals and resignations within the officer corps. 275 00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:34,540 and things like that. Apparently they can't rely on the fact that if they order 276 00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:39,679 troops to cross the border, that they would actually go. They have certain special units and a few 277 00:34:39,700 --> 00:34:43,280 other units that are professional soldiers, but those are quite small compared to 278 00:34:43,399 --> 00:34:49,540 the total force. The pressure is probably growing day by day. It'll be interesting to see 279 00:34:49,540 --> 00:34:53,020 how it goes. I also assumed they would take part. 280 00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:57,520 These sanctions have also been much more effective than I expected. 281 00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:04,400 At least back when Crimea was seized, nothing very significant happened — a few oligarchs got harassed a little, but that was about it. 282 00:35:05,370 --> 00:35:11,320 But if Belarus had to take on the same trash that's now landing on Russia, that would be complete suicide for them. 283 00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:15,460 Yes, and this has clearly been a huge shock for Russia. 284 00:35:16,700 --> 00:35:23,200 That's exactly the same thing — when you've been a dictator in a bubble for 20 years, everyone has just been saying yes, yes, yes. 285 00:35:24,380 --> 00:35:29,460 And you end up with a picture where, from 2014 onward, everything has gone perfectly for him. 286 00:35:30,130 --> 00:35:32,560 And the Western countries are weak and clowns. 287 00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:35,020 You start believing your own propaganda. 288 00:35:35,140 --> 00:35:41,620 Then on top of that the French president and the German chancellor and everyone else come to plead and beg, asking him not to start a war. 289 00:35:42,380 --> 00:35:45,740 You get the feeling: these guys are nothing. 290 00:35:46,130 --> 00:35:53,560 And then when they've done everything and closed ranks, and now he's getting hit on both cheeks, that's clearly been quite a shock. 291 00:35:54,140 --> 00:36:03,800 This gives a good picture of it — almost half of the war chest, the currency reserves, was held in Western bonds and similar instruments, and now that's been lost. 292 00:36:05,220 --> 00:36:07,820 It shows that this wasn't planned down to the very last detail. 293 00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:24,220 Yeah, you mentioned Putin's inner circle — what kind of matryoshka-doll structure is this, aren't there terms like, besides oligarchs, the siloviki and others — so how does that apparatus around Putin actually work? 294 00:36:24,260 --> 00:36:39,260 Well, Putin is very skilled at maintaining that machinery. You've got the siloviki — these are mostly old KGB buddies. They're all around the same age, all pushing toward 70, and all have a KGB background. 295 00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:52,380 Or if they're a bit younger, they still have that security-apparatus background — the foreign intelligence service, military intelligence, the FSB of course as the domestic service, the power ministries, and so on. 296 00:36:53,040 --> 00:37:02,760 And these guys are in his inner circle and they talk. And that's the challenge — since they all share the same worldview, they were all trained by the KGB. 297 00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:16,680 The West is a huge threat, they're trying to attack us and take us over. And now it's become even more concrete, in that this Western way of thinking, ideology, democracy and so on — that's actually the real threat, far more than any military threat. 298 00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:27,100 So that's how he keeps them in line. It doesn't really matter anymore. They've made their money with Putin's blessing, and they know Putin can throw them in prison any time he wants and take that money away. 299 00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:36,140 That's why they stay quiet — although a few have actually quite boldly condemned the war, which shows just how hard these sanctions are hitting them. 300 00:37:36,180 --> 00:37:46,560 But the siloviki crowd handles that side of things, and that's exactly what's interesting — what's going to happen within that group, because these days they have a lot to lose. 301 00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:53,480 They've all become multimillionaires, because — well, it's one of the most corrupt countries in the world. 302 00:37:54,720 --> 00:37:58,000 And the higher up you are in the hierarchy, the more you can steal. 303 00:37:58,120 --> 00:37:59,740 Everyone has assets worth tens of millions. 304 00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:04,160 They have a lot to lose if this starts to go really badly. 305 00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:14,320 Yeah, so this siloviki crowd doesn't get rich through old-style corruption exactly — they don't need to take ownership of a state company or anything like that. 306 00:38:14,500 --> 00:38:20,960 Well, since Russia has spent hundreds of billions on arms procurement, probably tens of percent of that has gone into other people's pockets. 307 00:38:21,060 --> 00:38:27,420 By the way, according to some estimates, Shoigu apparently has a dacha worth around twenty million euros near Moscow. 308 00:38:27,790 --> 00:38:30,260 That's not exactly something you get on a defense minister's salary. 309 00:38:30,580 --> 00:38:33,840 Yeah, and isn't it the case that Shoigu himself isn't even ethnically Russian? 310 00:38:33,970 --> 00:38:40,920 So how does that work — isn't it actually a fairly ethnic-nationalist system there, so how has a guy like that been allowed to rise up? 311 00:38:41,420 --> 00:38:50,500 Well maybe precisely because of that — he's a yes-man throughout, he's no worse than a bit of corruption, or slightly bigger corruption, so he has no enemies, because he enables the stealing. 312 00:38:50,740 --> 00:39:01,520 And then maybe precisely because he's not ethnically Russian, Putin doesn't see him as a threat, because whoever ends up being his successor, it'll be a Russian anyway. 313 00:39:02,030 --> 00:39:07,420 Yeah, how paranoid do you think things are right now in Putin's inner circle? 314 00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:36,100 I think — well, this is illustrated well by Martti Kari, the old intelligence veteran who has talked a lot about it. He mentioned that during that National Security Council meeting, where the recognition of the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics was decided, 315 00:39:37,500 --> 00:39:44,020 while he was speaking, sitting on the other side of the room, he grilled the head of the foreign intelligence service over his choice of words. 316 00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:48,600 He's one of the four closest aides he discusses matters with. 317 00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:52,140 He publicly called out one of his most important aides on national television. 318 00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:55,720 Who was still speaking the truth — that they were going to conquer Ukraine. 319 00:39:55,880 --> 00:40:02,940 Well, wasn't he just talking about the fact that they should... That wasn't actually related to that yet, but still it illustrates 320 00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:08,120 that even his closest aides didn't really know what Putin was thinking. 321 00:40:09,340 --> 00:40:11,620 There's probably a lot of paranoia there. 322 00:40:11,720 --> 00:40:14,280 The more these things have gone belly up, 323 00:40:15,010 --> 00:40:17,320 the more Putin probably starts thinking, wait a minute, 324 00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:18,560 these people are doing this on purpose. 325 00:40:18,730 --> 00:40:21,600 They're trying to weaken his position by having lied to him. 326 00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:26,020 Heads are going to roll, and the atmosphere there in Kremlin meetings 327 00:40:26,050 --> 00:40:28,520 is probably not exactly relaxed right now. 328 00:40:29,180 --> 00:40:44,680 Yeah. So let's move on now to this Nato situation. I'm personally pro-Nato, and I'd see a positive opportunity here, since Russia's military threat is being tied down and actively destroyed right now. 329 00:40:44,820 --> 00:40:52,440 so go ahead and join Nato without security guarantees, or with whatever guarantees are available at that point. 330 00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:57,840 The EU also has a small security dimension now that could be used during the application period. 331 00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:03,080 There were clearly some discussions held with the US about whether something could be found. 332 00:41:04,780 --> 00:41:12,500 Is this theory of mine plausible — that we just go for Nato and accept the security risk that comes during the application process, 333 00:41:12,620 --> 00:41:16,020 which is fairly small right now, since that equipment is tied up elsewhere. 334 00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:21,300 Do you see this as a kind of fast-track solution to Finland's security gap? 335 00:41:21,580 --> 00:41:22,360 Yeah, well, of course. 336 00:41:24,320 --> 00:41:28,060 But if we conclude that rushing into it only gets you [unclear], 337 00:41:28,140 --> 00:41:32,580 so it might not necessarily be worth rushing into it too hastily. 338 00:41:32,940 --> 00:41:37,020 We should think things over a bit, but on the other hand we don't need to think for too long either. 339 00:41:37,140 --> 00:41:38,840 This has been under consideration for a couple of decades now, 340 00:41:39,780 --> 00:41:47,820 and national security policy should be long-term. If we say now that, well, the situation is so bad, let's look at it again in a couple of years — 341 00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:54,900 what do we know about the future other than that we don't know anything about the future? The situation could be far worse in a couple of years. 342 00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:11,040 At some point that risk needs to be taken, and how big is that risk really, when Russia is completely tied down in the south, and security guarantees would probably be possible to get, even just for the duration of the process, and so on. 343 00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:20,620 Yes, at some point it should be done, because right now we're in this gray zone, and we've been in it for a decade now, and it just keeps going on. 344 00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:27,720 If we keep postponing the decision every time because the situation isn't right, then when will it ever be right? 345 00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:32,400 There's not going to be a moment where Russia's leadership announces, sure, go ahead, be our guest. 346 00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:34,840 So you'll be waiting for that forever. 347 00:42:34,870 --> 00:42:43,960 And now this is already starting to affect our investments — tourists don't dare come to Finland because there's a war going on and Finland isn't in Nato, and so on. 348 00:42:44,220 --> 00:42:45,260 So it's worth thinking about a bit. 349 00:42:45,310 --> 00:42:50,440 And then there are always people claiming, well, Nato surely isn't going to go fight over some Baltic country or anything like that. 350 00:42:50,540 --> 00:42:58,400 but look at what we've seen in this situation — Nato acts. Troops are flowing in constantly around Ukraine and into the Nato countries on Russia's borders 351 00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:04,940 and the message is spelled out pretty clearly: step over that line, and you're going to get smacked down. 352 00:43:05,310 --> 00:43:13,440 So Nato has clearly said that it's not worth violating or attacking any Nato member's territory, because then things will go badly. 353 00:43:15,240 --> 00:43:36,260 Let's see what it is — probably an 800-million-person defense alliance, the most successful defense alliance there has ever been. There's quite a lot of pressure on that system to succeed, because if it fails to defend even one of its smallest member states even once, it ceases to exist, because then no one can trust those security guarantees anymore. 354 00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:49,120 Yeah, Article Five works. You mentioned these security guarantees, or whatever the risk-reducing mechanisms for the transition period are called. In my opinion it's some kind of risk either way, but it should be fairly short. 355 00:43:50,380 --> 00:44:05,880 Nato still has 30 members though, so do you think we need to warm each of them up a bit? Do we, for instance, need to buy Bayraktars from Turkey at inflated prices just to get them to say yes? Is that a reasonable read, in your opinion, that we need to warm up every one of those 30 Nato countries a little? 356 00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:17,940 Well, I don't quite believe that — maybe there are a few key Nato countries involved, but I don't think the Turks, for instance, have anything seriously against us. 357 00:44:18,880 --> 00:44:31,200 The decision would probably come through fine — sure, some people further west are probably thinking, here's a country with 1,300 kilometers of border, do we dare take it on, since it could get into friction with Russia. 358 00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:38,200 but for once, in a long time, it would be a new member country that actually brings security, because it has capable armed forces. 359 00:44:38,820 --> 00:44:46,680 Up to now, almost every country that's been brought in has had such weak defense capability that they've actually widened the defense gap. 360 00:44:46,980 --> 00:44:54,660 Yeah, in fact probably — I talked with Vesa Kannias, and he said that we'd probably be politely asked, 361 00:44:54,700 --> 00:45:00,740 whether we could take main responsibility for defending that state. I think that would be a pretty sensible thing to do, since we now have, 362 00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:04,480 that kind of equipment, so that's probably the right way to go about it. 363 00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:06,460 Well, I can't quite bring myself to believe that we'd be told something like that, 364 00:45:06,460 --> 00:45:08,420 because we've got a fairly big patch of our own to defend as it is. 365 00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:11,300 Pretty close to St. Petersburg and the Kola Peninsula. 366 00:45:11,660 --> 00:45:15,420 So it's not really going to fall to us — 'you go handle it, Nato.' 367 00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:19,900 It's plenty for us just to hold our own territory, 368 00:45:19,900 --> 00:45:23,780 since that in itself maintains and protects Nato's northern flank. 369 00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:26,860 Right now we're doing that for free, without security guarantees, 370 00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:29,700 which in my opinion isn't very sensible for a Nato member, 371 00:45:29,860 --> 00:45:40,700 but of course if you start attacking the Baltic states, say with air strikes, then it's a pretty risky game, 372 00:45:40,820 --> 00:45:46,360 if Finland's air force belongs to the same alliance and sits right there on the other side of the narrow Gulf of Finland. 373 00:45:46,660 --> 00:45:52,480 Yeah, actually you mentioned Kola — the way I tend to think of it, that's the St. Petersburg corridor over to Kaliningrad, 374 00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:58,540 which is an important strategic dimension for Russia, but is that as important as this northern dimension? 375 00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:14,880 Absolutely, because Russia is an Arctic power. It wants to be an Arctic great power. It wants to be the dominant military power there too. It's invested a lot in the Arctic region. Kola, of course, is the central hub through which the Arctic is controlled. 376 00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:23,220 That's where two-thirds of the nuclear submarines are, nuclear submarines, and probably the bulk of the most important part of the nuclear triad. It's definitely an important region. 377 00:46:25,160 --> 00:46:52,200 Good point. Let's take one more topic, even though it's speculative — these nuclear weapons: if, according to some reports, thermobaric weapons have already been used in Ukraine, and Iskander missiles too, which can do quite serious damage conventionally, then people have also speculated about whether this situation is now so unstable that even nuclear weapons could be used against Ukraine. 378 00:46:54,740 --> 00:47:16,420 Yeah, I don't believe that. Of course a madman is a terrifying thing, you never know what's going on in Putin's head, but at that point, when you actually start down that road, there are of course many stages involved — if I remember correctly, Russia's nuclear forces have four different readiness levels through which that alert status can be raised. 379 00:47:16,540 --> 00:47:22,380 But clearly you can indeed do that, and at every stage you can threaten that it's about to be used, it's about to be used. 380 00:47:22,450 --> 00:47:28,880 If the other side calls the bluff, then you can do the demonstration — fire, say, a tactical nuclear weapon somewhere into a sparsely populated area, 381 00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:31,100 and show that now we have the capability — the next one goes to Kyiv. 382 00:47:33,540 --> 00:47:37,820 But if even that card gets called, or in general, if it's even used just as a demonstration, 383 00:47:37,850 --> 00:47:41,780 even as a threat, against the territory of another, non-nuclear state, using a nuclear weapon, 384 00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:51,540 then, given that Putin has currently managed to turn Russia into a pariah state, he's clearly so deep in that hole that it would be very hard to climb out of it, and I doubt they'd dare. 385 00:47:51,620 --> 00:48:05,120 At this point even the Chinese would probably take a fairly long, cold look at their Russian comrades and think, well, this has gone so far off the rails that it's no longer worth even trying to negotiate with them. 386 00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:21,440 Yeah, that's probably right. Let's take China as the last topic then — my own theory was that they'd maybe agreed, during the Chinese Olympics, to postpone this attack, and then declared this kind of, what was the slogan again, a strong partnership or whatever it was. 387 00:48:21,580 --> 00:48:39,760 And then the Chinese are sort of watching to see whether they can use it to their advantage with their banking system and energy policy, and use it a bit as a test bed for a takeover of Taiwan. Were these thoughts on your mind too, or how do you see the China dimension and what's being considered there right now? 388 00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:55,840 Well, that's the big fear, which is why the Americans always worry that China and Russia will form a strong bond. But it's not that simple. One thing is that I don't think the Russians fully trust the Chinese, because they're afraid of them. 389 00:48:57,120 --> 00:49:09,180 You can push around Western countries, you can push around Western companies operating in Russia and seize their assets and so on, but you can't do the same thing to Chinese companies, because the Chinese remember, and they take revenge. 390 00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:21,200 And the Chinese also have — yes, the Chinese also have a long memory. They definitely remember what happened in Manchuria and elsewhere during the wars, that territories were taken from them by the Soviet Union that actually belong to them. 391 00:49:21,260 --> 00:49:42,120 These are things that will still come up again at some point. Yeah, it's a bit of a strategic alliance that's fairly loose, and where China has the upper hand. I'd guess they're looking at this thinking, good — the West gets tied up in a struggle with Russia, that gives them a bit more room. 392 00:49:42,220 --> 00:49:53,200 And then when the West gradually stops buying gas and oil from Russia, we'll be the customer. We just won't pay anywhere near as high a price as the West does. 393 00:49:53,200 --> 00:50:02,400 As I understand it, these energy agreements are actually pretty weak financially compared to what the West pays for Russia's hydrocarbons. 394 00:50:02,620 --> 00:50:16,820 So how do they benefit from this. Well, now that this situation has happened, they're surely watching with interest how it can be exploited, and they've concluded: okay, the West is unpleasantly unified, and the sanctions policy is pretty tough. 395 00:50:16,900 --> 00:50:30,000 So the Chinese aren't going to risk their business, for instance, by starting to run sanctions-evading trade with the Russians against the West's sanctions, because they make far more money from the trade they do with the West. 396 00:50:30,180 --> 00:50:38,040 Financially it would be stupid to take on Western sanctions for the sake of Russian money, which is comparatively small. 397 00:50:38,860 --> 00:50:43,000 So they're bound to keep some distance. 398 00:50:43,100 --> 00:50:49,480 On the other hand, the more brutal this gets, the more civilians are killed by it, the more unpleasant a partner it becomes. 399 00:50:49,580 --> 00:51:00,020 Although for now some support has been shown toward it in some way, saying that they're ready to act as a mediator in this and that a solution could be reached. 400 00:51:00,270 --> 00:51:05,380 So that China doesn't throw itself onto the same sword Russia has now thrown itself on. 401 00:51:05,890 --> 00:51:14,660 Yeah, and China's domestic propaganda has still stayed a bit on Russia's side, mostly just to needle the West, but even that's starting to crack a little, I think. 402 00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:26,440 And what's interesting here is that now, as Russia is disconnecting itself from the internet, certain orders have apparently already been given that by tomorrow certain connections should be cut off, and so on. 403 00:51:26,520 --> 00:51:32,420 Some people have said there's a risk here that they'll cut themselves off from the internet, since it's used as a platform for attack. 404 00:51:32,520 --> 00:51:38,120 That they'll be protected themselves and go all in, so that in the worst case they even take down the internet. 405 00:51:38,640 --> 00:51:45,300 I can't quite bring myself to believe that, because if they took down the internet, even for a few days, the economic losses for China would be massive. 406 00:51:46,380 --> 00:51:55,480 And that's something I can't quite believe the Chinese would be happy to watch — like, oh great, thanks, our businesses went down the drain because you decided to take down the internet. 407 00:51:56,760 --> 00:52:05,200 There's surely some cyber activity going on, but it'll be more limited and more targeted — I don't think they'd take the risk of bringing the whole world's anger down on themselves. 408 00:52:05,380 --> 00:52:22,780 Yeah, and then one last thing — the Taiwan invasion issue. There's American equipment there, and of course their security guarantees are pretty vague, but how do you see it — what kind of contest of strength would it be if China seriously went for a takeover of Taiwan? 409 00:52:22,820 --> 00:52:30,400 Well, actually the Americans have said fairly clearly that they'll help Taiwan defend itself if China attacks it. 410 00:52:30,520 --> 00:52:35,060 China doesn't yet have the kind of military capability that would make this anything other than a very high-risk undertaking. 411 00:52:35,300 --> 00:52:41,800 It would be a very high risk that it goes badly and results in massive losses, so they're not ready for that yet. 412 00:52:42,260 --> 00:52:50,120 Yeah, and this probably shows that at least sanctions and similar measures would come out of this same playbook, on a similar scale, 413 00:52:50,300 --> 00:52:52,880 so they're not ready to take that risk. 414 00:52:53,380 --> 00:52:57,000 Whether it would come to that — hard to say. 415 00:52:57,940 --> 00:53:03,940 Well, there are degrees to this — Russia has been destroying and ravaging Syria for years, 416 00:53:04,100 --> 00:53:06,040 and in the West the reaction has just been, oh well, how unfortunate. 417 00:53:06,460 --> 00:53:07,680 Now that thing is much closer to home. 418 00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:09,660 In that case the reaction is completely different. 419 00:53:10,640 --> 00:53:14,280 As for Taiwan then, it's pretty far from Europe, 420 00:53:14,280 --> 00:53:17,880 are Europeans ready to do the same kind of thing with China, 421 00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:21,660 which economically is actually probably far more significant than Russia. 422 00:53:22,220 --> 00:53:26,860 Yeah, but then of course there are American interests there too, and American prestige. 423 00:53:27,300 --> 00:53:29,640 Yeah, there are various economic factors that are probably significant. 424 00:53:29,700 --> 00:53:35,680 The United States' great strength is that it has the world's best alliance network, globally. 425 00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:41,020 If they can get it activated, and they have the ability to do that, it will have an impact. 426 00:53:41,540 --> 00:53:46,220 In this case too we've seen Japan and South Korea join in on the sanctions, 427 00:53:46,340 --> 00:53:51,400 a strict sanctions policy, along with all of America's other close allies. 428 00:53:55,079 --> 00:54:07,160 Thank you. My guest today has been Major General (ret.) Pekka Toveri, and we've discussed the situation in Ukraine, and especially — to my delight — this armored warfare angle. Thanks for coming. 429 00:54:07,380 --> 00:54:07,620 Thanks.