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Alright, welcome to the Neuvottelija channel. Pekka Toveri, this must be

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your sixth time, is that right? Yeah. So we got off to a good start right after this

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brutal Russian war of aggression, back in March

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[Music] 2022. And now you've either

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written a very well-timed book, or a book that's aged badly in your hands, because you have to

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So, Pekka Toveri: On the Ukraine War, just came off the press. Well, I have to

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remember - the book focuses quite a lot on how we ended up in the war,

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how the war has been fought so far, what lessons can be learned from it, because at the end

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there's only a brief look at these possible peace negotiations, so

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most of it is still pretty much up to date, yeah. And you're referring now

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here to how the Ukraine peace negotiations have moved really

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fast because of the Trump administration. And this will probably go out of date the moment

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it's in your hands. But as we're recording this, Ukraine is about to go to America,

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Zelenskyi is about to sign the minerals deal, and Britain's

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Prime Minister Keir Starmer is probably going to negotiate

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boots on the ground, that is, using European troops there

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for Ukraine's security guarantees. So what's your gut feeling here - is this

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Trump's game landing happily, or what could still go wrong? Well,

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quite a lot could still go wrong, because

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a lot is happening, really, in how Trump is handling these things, so

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it looks like the Americans, the Trump administration, don't really have any

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clear plan for what to actually do here. And it seems like they go in

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at full speed, throwing out incredible, tough demands

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and then immediately cave the moment there's even a little

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resistance. And there are still many things wide open here, like what

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the Russians will say. Let's just say the good thing is that something is being done

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instead of - unlike the Biden administration, which just kept repeating that we

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'll support Ukraine for as long as it takes,' which isn't really a strategy.

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That's a strategy of bleeding Ukraine dry. Now at least there's an attempt to get

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the fighting to stop, some kind of peace - that's a positive

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thing. And of course right at the start there were a lot of

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shocking things, like basically appeasing Russia, essentially feeding

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into Russia's hands time after time without Russia having to give anything back

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- it started to look bad, this - this minerals deal. Well,

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first of all, it's of course pretty outrageous

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that you'd start extracting from a country at war, that's fighting

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for its very existence. But on the other hand, if the United States

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secures certain interests for itself in Ukraine, then of course

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in a sense that's also pushing the Russians back a bit, like

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'hey, this is our thing, don't come in here.' But like I said,

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this is still entirely - the negotiations haven't

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really started yet, and there are so many things to sort out that it's

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impossible to say where this ends up in the end, because the big question

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is still completely unresolved, one that hasn't even really been discussed properly yet

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- and that is, where do we get Ukrainian security guarantees, credible security guarantees, so

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that the peace actually has some chance of succeeding. Yeah, in my opinion

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the best scenario would be - I mean, this minerals deal isn't necessarily that

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bad. I mean, Finland doesn't get much either from mineral extraction, then,

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in compensation. But here there's still this clear

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joint venture - a commercial 50-50 split - and still, they'll have to

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build the mineral extraction capability there, it doesn't exist yet, so this isn't

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some purely colonialist deal, like it first looked.

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But if the Yanks take a really transactional approach to this, they

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just take the commercial angle, don't really give any security guarantees either, and then

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put it on the Europeans to give those guarantees - then this

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Nato European branch - how capable is it,

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I mean if you just take the Americans out of the picture, would we manage against

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the Russians? Well, you have to remember that if we're talking about Europe's

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defence, then those forces are 95% European forces

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that would actually be used for that defence here. But our challenge is

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that if Nato went to war tomorrow, the key shared

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capabilities - strategic air surveillance, strategic

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air-to-air refueling capability, intelligence, surveillance, command, targeting, long

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range strike capability - those come from the Americans, and

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Americans hold significant

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positions in those command structures, so if these capabilities aren't there, then

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waging war gets quite a bit more challenging. It's not impossible, though, yeah -

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for example Finland still has plans and capability

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for how to defend Finland. We still have the ability to lead all

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the Defence Forces' fighting in Finland. But leading the bigger overall picture

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would become more challenging. So there are then many different options -

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like, say Trump says we're pulling ground troops out of here and the air force

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out of here too - like I said, those don't actually represent that small a share of

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the military capability to fight. But if we still support

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the Americans in the command structure and they keep doing their jobs, and

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intelligence, surveillance, and command capabilities are still available, then in the end it

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wouldn't change things all that dramatically. Yeah, and now this is of course a kind of

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wake-up call. I mean, Finland has always been awake to this. We probably have

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some of the very best, among the best, relatively speaking,

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Defence Forces in Europe, so improving capabilities - you have

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a lot about this in the book, and we can think about it more later - what

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else is still needed. But many other European countries are in a bit of a

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situation now where they're pushing for conscription, and it's not exactly

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- will we have to bring that in here too, and basically have to start almost

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from zero, it feels like. Well yeah, in many, many things you still have to

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remember that Nato's European pillar - Nato's European

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member states - they have 1.6 million soldiers, mostly professional soldiers, in the ranks,

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some reserves too, there are almost 5,000

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battle tanks, almost 3,000 combat aircraft, and so on,

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and so on, over 60 submarines - so it's substantial military

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capability. What's missing is materiel, I mean

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ammunition, supplies to keep fighting the war for longer. What's missing is

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the defence-industry capacity to keep that war going for a long time, because

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nobody can really stockpile enough materiel for three years

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of warfare - there's no sense in that, it's not cost-effective. But

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you need enough that you can start the war and fight it

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for a few months, and then the defence industry starts pushing out

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more and more materiel so that there's no end in sight, because

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the defence industry keeps it running. So there's a lot of room for improvement on that front,

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and of course also personnel, reserves - you can't fight a war for a long time

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with just that kind of professional army, it almost requires - there should be

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conscription, so that you also get, so to speak, people into the Russian meat grinder

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- the manpower for this brutal war that's basically what all

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European professional armies are manned at, something like 80-90% strength,

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roughly, when they've recruited enough people. Only those that have

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conscription have no problem recruiting professional officers and NCOs

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either, because it's conscription - one of the good things about it is

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that it's an excellent recruitment channel specifically for that professional

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career track, plus at the same time it builds that broad reserve that's then

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needed if things kick off. Well, you'd think they'd be here visiting now to see

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how we can get this up and running, or are we just being naive here,

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thinking that Russia, over there, according to one scenario, is

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almost winning that. Well yeah, this is - Russia has

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excellent information campaigns, they've successfully managed to give

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the impression that they'd somehow got the upper hand. Russia doesn't have the military

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capability to defeat Ukraine - they've been grinding at it for three years, grinding, and they can't

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beat Ukraine. And even if they managed to break through the defence lines in Donetsk,

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they don't have the capability for any deep blitzkrieg-style operations to conquer

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large areas. Their economy is in really serious trouble - for about a year

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they can keep grinding at this kind of volume, and after that it'll start to

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really squeeze them. Of course it's a dictatorship, so they can just throw

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more taxes on people, they can decide to cut all the social

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benefits, and people won't dare take to the streets because they'll be met with machine guns, and

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limping along like this, they can keep going for a few more years, but it's

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not a picnic in any way, in any sense. Russia isn't

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winning anything. And this - this is exactly what sometimes annoys me a bit,

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this scare-mongering that Russia's about to attack Europe any moment. Well, for three

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years they've been trying against the Ukrainians and haven't achieved anything, haven't

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managed to pull off a victory, so what would even be the conditions for them

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to attack Nato's professional armies, or say, Finland's advanced

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conscript-based army - in my opinion, not really convincing. Yeah, but then

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maybe if they get some kind of peace here now, and rearm, and

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build up their forces, then a few years down the line the bow will be

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drawn taut again. But that's something to think about. At the start of the book there was that

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historical section, and this idea of Russia's expansionist

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- or you could say, maybe your ex-colleague's idea of Russia's

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strategic culture, the idea behind it being that it's like a spreading amoeba

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that just can't help itself, that it maliciously wants to expand,

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and you just have to accept that, that's just how it is. And then it feels like

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here in the West too there are a lot of these so-called realists, and they

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call themselves these Mearsheimer types who say that this should even

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be understood. So basically that Russia's expansion needs to be understood

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at the very least as this kind of buffer zone, and Ukraine should have always

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just accepted its fate as a buffer zone. And in a way this

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kind of historical talk about how Nato shouldn't expand eastward - that would have

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actually been justified. There's actually a lot of this kind of talk going around now,

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these days. Maybe it's Putin's talking points, but these are still Americans who talk

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like this. Well, Americans who don't understand Russia, don't understand the Russian way of fighting

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and look at it through a great-power lens. They don't understand Europe any better,

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and think, well, in the big picture, what do

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some small nations matter there - they don't understand that small nations have their own

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own aspirations, their own needs to secure their own safety. You have to remember

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that Nato hasn't forced anyone to join it - all those countries that

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Russia has attacked over the centuries, occupied them,

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subjugated, plundered and raped them - they wanted security, and when they finally

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got the chance, when Russia was so - Russia was so weak

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it couldn't stop them joining Nato, they all took that opportunity

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and used it. And talk about Nato being some kind of military threat

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to Russia, and that this war supposedly needs to be fought because of that - that's just

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nonsense. The idea that a 32-nation defence alliance that can only just

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barely manage to agree on joint defence would attack

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even a single state, with, what, 1,500 combat-ready spearhead troops

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on standby - that's completely absurd, it's never going to happen. And yes, Putin knows this.

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Nato is a threat to him precisely because Nato stops him from subjugating his neighboring countries.

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Along with Nato comes all sorts of nonsense like democracy, anti-corruption

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efforts, rule-of-law principles - which are of course a threat

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to dictatorships. And the closer it gets to his borders, the more uncomfortable

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it gets for those dictators. That's what this is really about. If all these

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former Warsaw Pact border states hadn't been let into Nato, what would

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the situation be - Putin picking off those countries one at a time, and

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Western Europe wringing its hands wondering what on earth should be

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done. Mm, yeah. Well, let's move on to the next section of the book, the

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historical documentation. And this is interesting for us doom

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scrollers. I mean, over three years I've probably watched, I don't know, 5,000

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videos about the situation in Ukraine, and these five videos we've

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made here on the Neuvottelija channel are, in a way,

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interesting documents in themselves. The first one was indeed

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in March, right when it was still fresh, right after the invasion, when

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we talked - and in this book too there's a lot of discussion

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about the attempt to seize Hostomel, or rather, about that

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surprise attack, and then about the fighting around the Kyiv area. Wasn't that

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one whole episode that was really quite significant at the

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start - of course, because Kyiv is, after all, Ukraine's

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center of political and economic power, and if it had been lost to the Russians -

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if the Russians had managed to take it, then Ukraine's

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defence would have gotten really quite challenging. And, well, traditionally,

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as I said, when the Russians conquer a country

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they generally always try to take the capital first, precisely

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for these reasons. Yeah, then thinking about Mariupol, there was a lot

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of a bit of a Stalingrad-siege feel to it, and somehow you hoped

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against all expectations that they'd somehow have managed to stop the land bridge

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forming to Crimea, but it went the other way. Was there any hope at all in

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Mariupol, or did the Russians just somehow throw a huge amount of resources at it -

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not really, it was pretty clear that the Ukrainians

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weren't going to be able to free Mariupol. But the Russians, on the other hand, made a bit of

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the same mistake on a smaller scale that the Germans made at Stalingrad, in that

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they had to tie down forces there in urban combat, which is

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far more grinding than what the Ukrainians had

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defending there. And this delayed, delayed their advance then toward

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Donetsk and the north, which gave the Ukrainians time to get things

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in order. And this time bought, which the defenders of Mariupol

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gained over several weeks, was very important, because when the

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southern coastal area was lost to Russia very quickly, the Ukrainians

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still got time to stop the Russian

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advance there and hold - build some kind of defence lines.

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Yeah, and then the northeast - that was a nice surprise for me. Basically Ukraine

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somehow just broke through in the Kharkiv and Kherson areas, like

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somehow it was amazing, they just advanced like a proper blitzkrieg,

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style, covering hundreds of kilometers there - that was pretty impressive, and

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I don't know if the Russians had somehow just, just fallen asleep

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there. Yeah, yeah, and the Russians have had these lapses happen every now and

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then, where no information comes up from the tactical level saying,

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'by the way, something's being planned here' - it's dismissed as nonsense, 'don't see monsters where there aren't any.' No, no

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point taking those seriously, because there's this confirmation bias that the Ukrainians won't

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- and they fell completely for the Ukrainians' deception in these

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matters, that there were thinly deployed, lightly equipped units there,

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National Guard-type troops, and once it started rolling, there was no longer

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any capability to respond to it, and panic set in. Yeah, and in my opinion this

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whole thing also kind of started a bit with the Black Sea

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situation - Russia isn't really that strong a Black Sea power without

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Crimea, and the naval base is there, so in a way then

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Ukraine, really just with Odesa and quite a small stretch of coastline,

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still managed astonishingly well in the Black - yeah, that's - because this

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warfare has otherwise been fairly traditional, even if drones are flying around everywhere, it's

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still pretty traditional warfare there in the naval battles.

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But there, a really significant technological breakthrough happened, in that

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Ukraine, which lost its navy right at the very start,

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built up capability with unmanned surface vessels,

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long-range strikes with drones and aircraft and cruise missiles, and started waging

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long-range warfare, with which they actually broke Russia's naval blockade and drove Russia's

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navy back there, so that it no longer dared move, say, from Crimea

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westward at all, and after that they even drove them out of Crimea,

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in terms of basing, once they destroyed a Kilo-class submarine in dry dock there,

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and other similar things, struck the navy's headquarters, and

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airbases were knocked out, and so on, and Russia was really forced

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to pull its basing back to the eastern edge of the Black Sea, to build

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a new naval base there, which is also being targeted - so yeah, it

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was quite a feat by the Ukrainians. Yeah, I had one

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conversation there with Jarmo Lindberg, and Wallenheim was also in it, there was

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this Ukrainian aid organization that came, to a parliamentary

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...for a parliamentary visit, and the Ukrainian said that with our Iceye—

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—satellite, one submarine was located and destroyed, so

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Finns have helped in this naval war too. Yeah, right. And that's

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the most important thing — when you're building long-range

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strike capability, you need cruise mis— Ukraine will soon have cruise missiles that

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fly 3,000 — 3,000 kilometers — with an accuracy of a few meters, so

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there's no use in that if you can't provide targeting with a few meters'

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accuracy. So that immediately places demands on your targeting capability, and, and, and

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yeah, you need something like an Iceye-type SAR radar, with which you're able to

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actually target those targets with sufficient accuracy, and you'd need

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maybe even something like time-sensitive targeting, if you have enough

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capabilities available, and you're also able to do BDA, that is, battle damage assessment

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and that's important — when you set some depot on fire, then there's

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a big smoke cloud, and through it you can't see with electro-optical equipment

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what effect was actually achieved. But with a SAR radar you can

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look and go, ah, that hangar and that one and that one have been destroyed like this, and these haven't been destroyed

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yet, except for a single pipe. So, in all these capabilities, we have

258
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significant know-how and capability, which we should — which is worth being proud of,

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that Finns have managed to build something like this too. Yeah. And then here,

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kind of, in the moment of success, the joy was spoiled—

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—allegedly Starlink cut the power right when a drone strike had just been carried out

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and that just shows you need to have that guidance technology, kind of,

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spread across several layers — you can't rely on just one, one system. Yeah,

264
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yeah, right, right. And here, using commercial technologies

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has shown its strength, but then of course also its vulnerability, then

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indeed, if — if the, uh, Western oligarch who happens to own

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that capability, happens to disagree on the matter. Well, now the Poles

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have bought this Starlink capability in advance, and then

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if it starts getting cut off, that's a breach of contract. So these are interesting

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things. Yeah, the Poles have really put in — they've put in 5 percent

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of GDP, and they've really taken this seriously — they have no

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illusions about the Russians. Sometimes you get the feeling that

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the Poles aren't preparing to defend Warsaw, but to take Moscow

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but, well, they've really invested massively, and there too, once again,

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all of us, all of Russia's border neighbors, are prisoners of our history, in that

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we have those harsh experiences, and we know and understand the Russians, we

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know what can come from there at its worst, and the Poles have stated that

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they've been partitioned enough times — they've been

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carved up enough times that now they won't give in anymore. Yeah. Then we had one

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legendary episode — it was the same weekend, right after, uh, Prigozhin's—

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—march to conquer Moscow. So, in a way, here was this, uh,

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Putin's mercenary army, and it somehow personified for me that Bakhmut

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grinding advance — at one point it was this kind of endless

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discussion: are they going in there or not, and how is this Prigozhin thing going. So

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this was, honestly, a completely surreal event, in my opinion,

286
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at that point. Yeah, it just shows how fragile such a—

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—dictatorship is, in that most of those people there aren't genuinely

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loyal — they're opportunists seeking high positions for themselves, so that they

289
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can steal more of Russia's national wealth. They're not genuinely

290
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loyal supporters of Putin's — supporters. And if it looks like Putin is losing

291
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his position, then instead of rushing straight to the TV studio to declare

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that we'll fight to the last bullet and the last breath

293
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for our president — well, everyone just stood there, caught off guard,

294
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frozen in place, watching to see what would happen, and, well, Prigozhin just went and

295
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chickened out — it would've been worth pushing it all the way through. But yeah, anyway, I

296
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remember there was a lot of discussion at the time about this, like, the boyar layer, that

297
00:20:58,760 --> 00:21:04,640
there's Shoigu and Surovikin and Prigozhin and

298
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in a way Putin still, kind of, even now, in some war situations, plays

299
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them off against one another — it feels, kind of, quite

300
00:21:10,880 --> 00:21:13,880
chaotic — shouldn't there be some kind of command structure there? But

301
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that's a pretty wild thing too, even at the very top level. Yeah, like, like

302
00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:23,000
we said, it all comes down to the dictator pitting

303
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the boyars against each other, so that no

304
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cliques form — nobody rises to become too strong a candidate to challenge his

305
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position. So then sometimes even the chain of command can be

306
00:21:35,360 --> 00:21:39,039
unclear, even though the formal command relationships are clear, but who

307
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actually gives the orders in the end, whose orders get listened to — that can always

308
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vary a bit depending on the situation. Yeah. Then, after that, came maybe, kind of,

309
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a bit of hubris — in that, now that there was a breakthrough in the northeast, and

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the Black Sea was, kind of, taken back somewhat, and the Bakhmut thing didn't quite go

311
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through — so then, specifically, Surovikin had built

312
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something that seemed like it might be a kind of Maginot Line, one that

313
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you could actually just walk over. But then Ukraine's counteroffensive fizzled out, and we

314
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had a stretch there too where I speculated whether they'd pull off something with those newly

315
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received battle tanks, kind of

316
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in the style of the Kherson counteroffensive — just straight over the border. But no,

317
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that kind of fizzled too — all that came of it were a few small dents along the border. Yeah,

318
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and there, of course, the starting position was weak, because, because

319
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the Russians had managed to carry out that indiscriminate mining, so that there

320
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were minefields, kind of, hundreds of kilometers deep even, and, well, with that

321
00:22:36,120 --> 00:22:39,640
the attacking force didn't have enough clearing equipment, especially since

322
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the clearing equipment had been spread out all over the place, and the basic — the basic thing

323
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in that kind of attack is concentration of force — you need to

324
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run it like an army-level operation, where the entire strength of several brigades—

325
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all the artillery, all the clearing capability, everything is concentrated on getting that

326
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breach made, after which, once you get through, then into depth and

327
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at speed. And, traditionally, in this kind of

328
00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:07,960
breakthrough phase, casualties are heavy, but after the breakthrough, those casualties and

329
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material losses drop significantly, once you're back there in the enemy's rear, and

330
00:23:12,120 --> 00:23:17,559
hammering their supply units and artillery and so on, and

331
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Ukraine didn't have the expertise — the expertise, the capability, and maybe not even the courage,

332
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because it's always a high-risk move. And what if it fails anyway?

333
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the losses would be quite large, a lot of strength lost. So instead, they did small,

334
00:23:30,720 --> 00:23:36,000
company- — company-level operations, where the strength runs out right at the start. Yeah, and then

335
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:39,159
it started looking a bit bad — expensive

336
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Western equipment and, in a way, defense resources were being burned through, and then began, in my

337
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opinion, a rather, rather depressing period, in that

338
00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:51,080
the Russians learned they could use old scrap equipment — not so much the tanks

339
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of which they have endless stockpiles somewhere in the Urals, but, well, they noticed

340
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that these glide bombs can be dropped from a distance, really cheaply, and it

341
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looked really bad once they started hammering away with these

342
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:07,440
glide bombs along the eastern front. Yeah, and that's really it — in warfare, this kind of

343
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technology development always accelerates fast, and, and, and

344
00:24:11,919 --> 00:24:15,799
well, the Russians aren't completely incompetent either — they really do have

345
00:24:15,799 --> 00:24:22,720
stockpiles full of these old, uh, dumb bombs, so this glide-bomb

346
00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:26,559
kit doesn't cost much, and you already get considerably greater accuracy, and

347
00:24:26,559 --> 00:24:30,039
they can be dropped from outside Ukraine's air-defense range, so it's a good weapon, and

348
00:24:30,039 --> 00:24:33,760
that's really what Russia's advance

349
00:24:33,760 --> 00:24:39,320
over the past year was based on — they're able to, because Ukraine has built

350
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:42,080
its defense quite heavily around built-up areas. There, in the cellars,

351
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:46,159
they're a bit better protected from Russian artillery, but when you drop

352
00:24:46,159 --> 00:24:50,559
a thousand-kilo glide bomb, then even the cellar goes. And with this they're able to

353
00:24:50,559 --> 00:24:53,480
break through Ukraine's defense from above. But now, there too,

354
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:57,919
there's been development on the other side as well, in that

355
00:24:57,919 --> 00:25:01,600
now the Russians are complaining on Telegram that

356
00:25:01,600 --> 00:25:05,240
Ukrainian jamming is stopping them — the glide bombs don't work anymore in many

357
00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:08,360
areas — they don't come anywhere near their targets, and they can't be used

358
00:25:08,360 --> 00:25:12,640
anymore. So it's weapon and counter-weapon. Yeah. And then this

359
00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:16,520
drone technology — as such, I got the impression that a

360
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:21,799
airfield's, like, hangars being destroyed is a fairly easy thing to repair, but

361
00:25:21,799 --> 00:25:25,440
I mean, Ukraine is able to reach really deep with those drone strikes and destroy

362
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:28,399
airfields, sort of forcing a move — a bit like how the Black Sea fleet

363
00:25:28,399 --> 00:25:33,159
had to relocate over to the far end of the eastern ports. In my

364
00:25:33,159 --> 00:25:37,480
opinion, those tactical bombers too had to sort of

365
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:45,279
retreat to a suboptimal distance. Yeah, definitely — there have been surprises

366
00:25:45,279 --> 00:25:48,720
for the Russians, and indeed, given that they still have strategic

367
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:54,640
bombers, Tu-95s, and older-generation ones, so

368
00:25:54,640 --> 00:26:00,080
well, there aren't that many of them — we're talking maybe some dozens of units — and they,

369
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:04,320
when the bases came under attack, they were moved further away, straight

370
00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:08,840
into shelter, all the way out to Kola and even further too, but the problem is

371
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:13,360
that it doesn't — doesn't prevent their use, they can still be used, but

372
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on the other hand, since the transit flights are much longer — instead of flying

373
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:20,559
from, say, 500 km away to go drop — launch —

374
00:26:20,559 --> 00:26:24,799
the cruise missiles and back to base, now they have to fly a couple thousand kilometers more, and that eats into

375
00:26:24,799 --> 00:26:28,720
the airframes — operational availability keeps wearing down the whole time, and, well,

376
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:35,840
in this way, this way too, it looked like — when, when finally,

377
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:38,399
at last, toward the end of last year, the Biden administration started

378
00:26:38,399 --> 00:26:41,919
waking up a bit, as time was running out, and permission was given that

379
00:26:41,919 --> 00:26:47,080
the ATACMS, the Army Tactical Missiles, could be used—

380
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:51,880
into the Russian rear, to a depth of a couple hundred kilometers, which forced the Russians

381
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:55,480
to move exactly these front-line combat aircraft,

382
00:26:55,480 --> 00:26:59,640
the Su-35s, Su-34s, and other similar ones that drop these glide bombs — to move

383
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:05,279
them further away again. And yeah, the Ukrainians did notice that the bombs—

384
00:27:05,279 --> 00:27:08,919
the number of bombs dropped, dropped, because the transit flights are longer, so with the same

385
00:27:08,919 --> 00:27:13,399
airframes you can't fly as many, many sorties. Yeah, that does have

386
00:27:13,399 --> 00:27:17,520
an effect too — it's just that the impact comes much more slowly. Yeah, somehow it looks

387
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:20,159
like this war has been this kind of shift measured in kilometers — that at first

388
00:27:20,159 --> 00:27:24,960
it was within artillery range, a few tens of kilometers, and you could see across to the other side of the border,

389
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:28,480
and then it's strategic bombers and glide bombs — the Americans, kind of, in my

390
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:32,320
opinion, have kept stretching this range the whole time throughout this war, yeah.

391
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:37,039
That's really the thing — as this aid gets given out drop by drop, little by little, which

392
00:27:37,039 --> 00:27:40,919
means Russia has been able to react to it. When HIMARS arrived — okay, so they move—

393
00:27:40,919 --> 00:27:43,600
the logistics get dispersed, the logistics get moved further away, they move

394
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:47,600
the command posts to safety, and they learned to operate. Well, then along came a bit

395
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:50,240
of longer-range capability in between, so they move again — so Ukraine hasn't

396
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:54,120
gotten to the point of, in one go, just unleashing

397
00:27:54,120 --> 00:27:59,919
it deep across the whole depth with a broad weapons mix all at once, which would have been

398
00:27:59,919 --> 00:28:03,360
a systemic collapse for the Russians. That hasn't happened, because they've

399
00:28:03,360 --> 00:28:07,080
been able to keep gradually improving their own operations the whole time. Yeah. Then

400
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:11,840
here — well, Avdiivka was, in my opinion, a bit similar, a kind of grinding, roughly the same

401
00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:15,080
shift compared to Bakhmut, so maybe we can skip over that, unless there's

402
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:19,399
something interesting in your view. But then there was the Kursk incursion — for me

403
00:28:19,399 --> 00:28:23,600
it was Emil Kastehelmi — I just had to laugh out loud when he said that

404
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:27,480
for the first time in ages, German tanks in Kursk. That

405
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:31,279
really did come completely out of nowhere — this Kursk offensive, at least for me. Yeah, it

406
00:28:31,279 --> 00:28:35,519
just shows that even today, kind of,

407
00:28:35,519 --> 00:28:39,600
intelligence systems are advanced and there are sensors everywhere, and you'd imagine

408
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:43,600
you have a complete picture of the situation — despite that, you still have the chance

409
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:48,279
to achieve operational surprise, like Ukraine managed to, by

410
00:28:48,279 --> 00:28:53,399
doing a bit of deception — a bit of deception, and by dispersing — quite

411
00:28:53,399 --> 00:28:58,080
traditional concealment measures — and, well, you manage to surprise the other side

412
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:03,760
and, well, that in itself was, for Ukraine, quite a good move to try to take

413
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:07,240
the initiative — not all objectives were achieved, but some objectives were

414
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:09,880
achieved, that's how it is, but at least now they have one

415
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:13,120
negotiating chip, and it does look like they're holding on to it, precisely for that

416
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:17,480
reason — so there'd be some negotiating chip. Probably, probably even the Ukrainians a bit

417
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:21,519
underestimated just how little Putin cares about how the average

418
00:29:21,519 --> 00:29:25,919
Russian is doing — that if, say, 100,000, or however many, thousand Russian civilians

419
00:29:25,919 --> 00:29:30,640
are forced to flee their homes and can't get back, then — on the contrary,

420
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:35,919
they'll level those Russian towns flat. It's worth remembering

421
00:29:35,919 --> 00:29:40,880
that when the first — the first Chechen war was fought, then, well,

422
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:44,080
Grozny, which was a city almost the size of Helsinki, its

423
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:47,919
core center was completely destroyed. Thousands of people died — they were mainly

424
00:29:47,919 --> 00:29:51,200
Russians, because the Russians lived in the better housing there, in the city

425
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:55,519
center — they'd been pushed out to the slums on the outskirts. But that made

426
00:29:55,519 --> 00:29:59,559
no difference at all — a Russian life meant nothing whatsoever, so

427
00:29:59,559 --> 00:30:04,559
it's total war from one side's perspective. Ukraine has, surprisingly well,

428
00:30:04,559 --> 00:30:08,480
kept things, in a way, kind of clean — but now it too has started going after

429
00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:12,440
industrial targets, blowing them up — you always get a nice big bang when an oil

430
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:16,320
refinery goes up, and a few technicians die in the process. So it's not really

431
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:19,039
quite that clean-cut anymore, in the sense that Ukraine, kind of, down to every

432
00:30:19,039 --> 00:30:25,919
millimeter, carries out its attacks — well, no, they, they focus, they try

433
00:30:25,919 --> 00:30:29,519
— they don't try to kill civilians the way Russia deliberately tries to kill civilians,

434
00:30:29,519 --> 00:30:32,679
to maximize the suffering inflicted on civilians, by striking energy infrastructure

435
00:30:32,679 --> 00:30:35,200
and bombing

436
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:39,120
railway stations, and carrying out exactly these kinds of double-tap strikes

437
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:42,640
aimed at killing the rescuers who come to help the people trapped in the rubble

438
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:46,559
They — they shell with artillery, hit — throw everything at — Ukrainian

439
00:30:46,559 --> 00:30:49,600
settlements that are within artillery range get shelled

440
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:54,440
constantly, or else, well, individual

441
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:57,559
civilians who are out on a shopping trip are hunted down with drones, and then they proudly post

442
00:30:57,559 --> 00:31:01,440
videos showing off: 'got myself a kill, a Ukrainian civilian, great job.' So,

443
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:06,919
well, Ukraine hasn't stooped to this kind of, this kind of appalling behavior.

444
00:31:06,919 --> 00:31:10,679
Instead, they still strike against industrial targets or military targets

445
00:31:10,679 --> 00:31:14,600
— and the industrial targets are, without exception, all ones that

446
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:18,559
support Russia's war effort, either by earning currency there, or

447
00:31:18,559 --> 00:31:22,399
by producing weapons there. So Ukraine is waging what you could call lawful warfare, while Russia is waging

448
00:31:22,399 --> 00:31:27,360
completely unlawful warfare. Yeah, and that — honestly, I've found it incomprehensible

449
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:31,440
that this gas pipeline hasn't, like, been broken during the war — the one that ran through Ukraine

450
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:35,000
over to Hungary. But this, too, this commercial side of things, is then

451
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:38,919
interesting. And, well, on that note, back to Trump — let's go back to the start

452
00:31:38,919 --> 00:31:43,279
of this — so how is Trump's deal going to play out. The most frightening moment

453
00:31:43,279 --> 00:31:47,320
was when whoever it was — some name I don't quite recall — already started talking about some kind of commercial

454
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:51,960
cooperation with the Russians — and that already implies that these sanctions

455
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:55,919
would go away. And that's really — I mean, if you pull the plug out of that,

456
00:31:55,919 --> 00:32:01,120
it's really hard to put back — then Russia recovers pretty quickly. Yeah, and there

457
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:04,880
— that's where the biggest risks are, because right now they've

458
00:32:04,880 --> 00:32:10,200
already, as part of their cost-cutting measures, practically halted

459
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:13,480
the monitoring operation — and that's, like, in the US sanctions regime, they have

460
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:17,240
a global monitoring regime that they use to track sanctions enforcement, and that's

461
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:21,360
the thing that, in my view, has scared the Chinese — that they don't dare, don't dare

462
00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:26,080
support Russia at quite the same pace, don't necessarily even dare to buy oil

463
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:30,039
from these shadow tankers, precisely because they're afraid that the axe

464
00:32:30,039 --> 00:32:34,360
will fall on them. Now this monitoring regime has apparently, apparently been wound down, which

465
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:40,080
is a real problem, because, because the European Union — which now has 16

466
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:46,840
sanctions packages in place, and a 17th sanctions package is being prepared —

467
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:51,080
doesn't have as good a global monitoring regime, which, which makes it

468
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:55,360
easier to circumvent the sanctions. And, well, yeah, these sanctions

469
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:58,360
absolutely need to stay in force right up until every last

470
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:02,720
kidnapped Ukrainian child has been returned, the last prisoner of war has been returned,

471
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:07,760
war criminals have been brought to justice, and, well, war reparations have been agreed. Otherwise, if, if

472
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:13,360
that's not done, then, then there's not the slightest interest in observing those

473
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:17,760
agreements that were made. Yeah. I sort of suspect we won't get all the way there — it's too

474
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:20,840
difficult. So here, probably, there'll be some kind of, sort of

475
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:25,200
hardship for Finland — well, then you just have to swallow a bitter compromise, but we might

476
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:28,960
get to keep our independence at least. That's, in my — yeah, here, kind of,

477
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:34,039
hard to get, like, a total, complete victory. Yeah, no, no, no, no,

478
00:33:34,039 --> 00:33:37,279
not necessarily. But that doesn't mean you should give up, and

479
00:33:37,279 --> 00:33:41,440
just, just — not just because

480
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:45,559
we should now prevent greedy capitalists from being the very first to

481
00:33:45,559 --> 00:33:49,559
be the first ones again, backed by foolish politicians, to start

482
00:33:49,559 --> 00:33:55,159
buying energy from Russia again, get trade relations back on track, and

483
00:33:55,159 --> 00:33:59,919
get cross-border trade going, without understanding or caring that exactly this

484
00:33:59,919 --> 00:34:02,880
way — like you said — Russia rebuilds its armed forces again and attacks us

485
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:07,159
the moment it gets another chance. Nokian Tyres' factory already went

486
00:34:07,159 --> 00:34:11,879
for a bargain price. Maybe Fortum's multi-billion-euro energy plant gets sold off too,

487
00:34:11,879 --> 00:34:15,560
in maybe somewhat bad taste, as the main point here — but a lot of people think, well,

488
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:19,040
even he's quite a cold transactionalist about it. I mean, this is, in my

489
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:22,679
opinion, a distasteful situation, but if the Trump administration is now

490
00:34:22,679 --> 00:34:27,040
that transactional, then we just have to adapt to that too. But

491
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:30,839
maybe then, militarily speaking, if you think about it, there will be long analyses

492
00:34:30,839 --> 00:34:35,000
later about the capabilities of the forces and how they were used, and

493
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:39,839
then conclusions will come about what, for example, Finland can learn from this, and what kind of

494
00:34:39,839 --> 00:34:43,359
readiness and capabilities we should then now

495
00:34:43,359 --> 00:34:48,159
build up. Yeah, it's a moving target we're shooting at right now, because the war

496
00:34:48,159 --> 00:34:52,639
is still ongoing — a lot of things are

497
00:34:52,639 --> 00:34:57,839
based on assumptions. We don't really know what's actually happened, and

498
00:34:57,839 --> 00:35:00,800
then, once the fighting ends at some point and you've spent a couple of years analyzing it,

499
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:03,800
we'll have a clear picture of what the things are that we need to

500
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:08,400
learn from it. But some picture of it we can already form, and some assessment we can already

501
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:12,160
make. On a large scale you can certainly say that Finland's

502
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:16,079
Defence Forces development — for years we've done exactly the right things. We have

503
00:35:16,079 --> 00:35:20,640
exactly the kind of system that Ukrainians wish they had,

504
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:26,240
and when you think about how this has succeeded so well, then

505
00:35:26,240 --> 00:35:31,240
you have to remember that our forces were developed specifically against a Russian

506
00:35:31,240 --> 00:35:35,680
attack, and based on intelligence,

507
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:38,320
we looked at what kind of system the Russians were developing, what kind of war they

508
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:43,079
fight, and then created a system with which that Russian

509
00:35:43,079 --> 00:35:46,280
attack could be stopped — now that Russia attacks the way we

510
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:49,119
assumed it would, attacking there in Ukraine a bit worse, but

511
00:35:49,119 --> 00:35:52,760
still along exactly the same principles. And as it turns out, Ukrainians wish

512
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:55,200
they had exactly the system that we built to stop

513
00:35:55,200 --> 00:35:58,920
a Russian attack. Yeah — thinking about that crossing-the-border thing,

514
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:02,319
how the mood swings there — on one hand, for Ukraine with Kursk,

515
00:36:02,319 --> 00:36:07,000
it turned out surprisingly easy, they just crossed some kind of soft border, waging war

516
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:10,640
on Russian territory. Or then down south, in the early stage of the war,

517
00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:14,640
from Crimea especially, the Russians managed to seize territory really fast

518
00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:18,760
— is Finland's eastern border now? Classically it's been built a bit so that from there

519
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:22,359
you can get across, but then pushback suddenly starts coming. So is there, like,

520
00:36:22,359 --> 00:36:25,839
in a way, any tactical benefit to that, from that border region

521
00:36:25,839 --> 00:36:29,079
or is it better to somehow leave it a bit deserted, or what's

522
00:36:29,079 --> 00:36:33,480
the game there? Well, no — the intention is to keep the whole of Finland

523
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:37,599
inhabited, and also to support the eastern — the eastern border. That's in the current government's

524
00:36:37,599 --> 00:36:41,760
programs too. And we're trying to get support from the EU so that those empty

525
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:46,280
wilderness areas don't necessarily go unguarded by any defender — though, yeah, there

526
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:51,680
does need to be some kind of active presence. But the fact is that

527
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:56,520
if you look at last century's wars fought against Russia, or

528
00:36:56,520 --> 00:37:00,800
against the Soviet Union — twice they tried, from north of Lake Ladoga,

529
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:05,680
to attack, using that long eastern border. And both

530
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:08,200
times — in the Winter War as well as in the Continuation War — those forces

531
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:14,280
were surrounded and destroyed there. So there were all the

532
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:17,960
battles — Suomussalmi in the Winter War, and the Ilomantsi

533
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:23,560
battles in the Continuation War — it's extremely challenging terrain to run

534
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:26,560
large-unit offensives through. Maybe that's gotten a bit easier over this

535
00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:31,480
century — but yes, our biggest advantage is our terrain,

536
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:35,640
weather conditions, and location. This is a challenging place for Russia, because here

537
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:38,720
forces have to be concentrated — their

538
00:37:38,720 --> 00:37:43,599
core support area is quite far away, over fairly difficult and sparse

539
00:37:43,599 --> 00:37:47,040
transport infrastructure, so we'd see well in advance if

540
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:51,480
apparently that Grumpy Neighbor is trying to start doing something again —

541
00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:55,480
massing troops. And then once the actual operation starts, your rear area

542
00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:59,680
— the logistics and support — depends on very sparse, poor

543
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:03,920
transport infrastructure that we're able to strike, and now we have a much

544
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:06,200
better ability to do that now that we're a Nato country. And when you set out

545
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:10,760
to attack, ahead of you is that pretty challenging, difficult terrain where your

546
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:14,960
forces can't operate the way Finns know how to operate. That was already true in Soviet

547
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:19,599
times too — fighting in Finland was a kind of special warfare,

548
00:38:19,599 --> 00:38:23,280
in Finnish forest terrain, which requires special equipment, special units, which

549
00:38:23,280 --> 00:38:27,480
the Russians didn't have, and still don't — so it's not easy to come here.

550
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:32,040
Yeah, and then we've invested really well in things like HIMARS and

551
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:37,079
similar long-range missile systems. Then there's the air side —

552
00:38:37,079 --> 00:38:41,079
the F-18 can already do quite well with that kind of air-to-ground,

553
00:38:41,079 --> 00:38:45,240
cruise missiles, essentially, with really long range, to wreck things. And

554
00:38:45,240 --> 00:38:50,200
the F-35 certainly won't be any worse. No — and this is exactly it: when

555
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:53,920
you build up national capability, you need it at the strategic,

556
00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:58,440
operational and tactical levels — that's where things get done. And the

557
00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:01,640
strategic level, where the political leadership together with the military

558
00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:04,720
leadership decides how these things get done — that's where the political

559
00:39:04,720 --> 00:39:08,880
decisions matter more than anything, and things like whether there's a large

560
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:13,680
defence budget, whether we have universal conscription or not, and

561
00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:18,680
whether we form alliances or not. And now we've made the right decisions —

562
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:22,119
the decisions that give us a system producing that large reserve, because however

563
00:39:22,119 --> 00:39:25,480
it goes, in war it's always certain that people die and get wounded, and more

564
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:28,520
people are needed. We have that large reserve so that we're able to defend this large

565
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:33,440
territory credibly, and users can be found — equipment can be found for those

566
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:37,160
users. Then, at the operational level too, there need to be good

567
00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:40,880
plans for how this is done. And that expertise

568
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:44,359
at the tactical level and the combat-technical level, knowing how to use and exploit

569
00:39:44,359 --> 00:39:48,000
our own conditions here — all of this we've developed over decades, and this

570
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:52,079
is one thing that has come up a lot during this war, the Ukraine war —

571
00:39:52,079 --> 00:39:56,000
the fact that when Western countries start

572
00:39:56,000 --> 00:40:02,160
training Ukrainian soldiers in Western countries, they get taught Western-style warfare, which

573
00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:05,040
basically means you have complete

574
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:08,760
air superiority, complete control of the electromagnetic spectrum, a huge logistics

575
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:12,800
system backing you up, and then you go and beat them up. Well, then

576
00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:16,880
the guys get sent back to Ukraine, where none of that exists. So the

577
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:20,200
kind of warfare taught there doesn't fit what's actually happening in Ukraine.

578
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:24,160
The Finnish volunteers who've been training Ukrainians over there have

579
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:27,480
gotten a lot of really good, positive feedback, because

580
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:30,040
Finnish tactics have always been the tactics of the outnumbered, because we

581
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:34,319
started from the premise that we're up against the Soviet Union, which has air superiority and

582
00:40:34,319 --> 00:40:39,400
electronic-warfare jamming capability, superior artillery, and so on —

583
00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:43,800
that kind of tactic works, works against a numerically and technically superior opponent.

584
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:48,000
You exploit the attacker's weaknesses and your own strengths, and that's

585
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:54,079
how it plays out. That Russian mechanized attack formation,

586
00:40:54,079 --> 00:40:58,400
they just somehow don't quite know how to advance properly — thankfully — but

587
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:01,640
that kind of grinding with artillery and glide bombs — that they

588
00:41:01,640 --> 00:41:07,599
do seem to be world-class at now. Yeah, yeah, you have to remember that, thank God,

589
00:41:07,599 --> 00:41:12,480
the Russians have historically been well behind the West in operational skill —

590
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:15,880
back when, sometime in the '30s, the Germans were only just starting to see

591
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:19,000
the first signs of that kind of warfare — Blitzkrieg — the Russians had already

592
00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:24,040
been developing deep-battle doctrine for decades, and operational-level

593
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:29,720
warfare, where every branch of the forces works, works together

594
00:41:29,720 --> 00:41:33,520
But thank God, they never actually had the ability to develop

595
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:37,920
that kind of million-man mass army that could actually carry out the operations

596
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:40,560
that their best operational minds had developed and

597
00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:44,440
planned — how that war should be fought. In the late stages of World War Two, they

598
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:48,960
were finally starting to reach that level, after years of training

599
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:53,200
and letting capable officers do the job. And they got

600
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:56,520
support from the West so the forces could actually move, because otherwise the Russians wouldn't have been able

601
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:59,960
to reach Berlin without Western support — 500,000

602
00:41:59,960 --> 00:42:04,440
vehicles and all sorts of other odds and ends came from there to support this effort, but

603
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:08,359
after that, during the Soviet era, they still

604
00:42:08,359 --> 00:42:12,920
developed operational skill, and quite far too. But like I said,

605
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:16,400
they were never able to develop a system capable of carrying out

606
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:20,240
these fine plans — the training level just isn't enough, and it's still not enough today. But

607
00:42:20,240 --> 00:42:25,000
you have to remember, they're not stupid — they know their own system, they know how

608
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:27,800
to use that poor tool optimally,

609
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:32,200
as in, 'we have the world's best tolerance for losses.' Well, they exploit that. They

610
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:36,359
have a lot of materiel — 60-year-old tanks and old artillery and

611
00:42:36,359 --> 00:42:41,400
similar stuff. And there's a lot of it, so they fight that kind of

612
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:46,559
war, and the Ukrainians are having a hard time with that. Yeah, then it feels like

613
00:42:46,559 --> 00:42:50,200
in a way, our own domestic logistics, bomb shelters, and things like that,

614
00:42:50,200 --> 00:42:55,400
our security-of-supply is really top-class here. But then

615
00:42:55,400 --> 00:43:00,960
since we're kind of a nasty little island — if specifically

616
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:04,119
from the east side nothing can be brought in to us, since the enemy comes from there —

617
00:43:04,119 --> 00:43:08,119
then that sea war shows a bit that — aren't those damn expensive

618
00:43:08,119 --> 00:43:12,160
corvettes getting taken down, really expensively, with just a couple of

619
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:15,640
missiles, sunk. But still you'd need that

620
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:19,079
sea-transport logistics secured somehow, and I don't know whether those

621
00:43:19,079 --> 00:43:22,520
submarines too can be taken out with those anti-submarine weapons or something else — that's

622
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:25,640
definitely a tricky one, that logistics and maritime-logistics question, so

623
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:29,800
what can we do about that. Well, on the other hand, you should remember to look at what's

624
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:35,119
happening over in the Middle East, where the Houthis are firing cruise missiles and

625
00:43:35,119 --> 00:43:38,200
drones and everything else at passing shipping — there

626
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:43,920
Western frigates are shooting those cruise missiles down left and right, if they

627
00:43:43,920 --> 00:43:47,760
come within engagement range, they basically always get shot down. So when

628
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:52,319
you have a bigger vessel with diverse weaponry, diverse

629
00:43:52,319 --> 00:43:55,880
sensor systems, its ability to protect itself or other assets is much

630
00:43:55,880 --> 00:43:59,119
better than with some small missile boat.

631
00:43:59,119 --> 00:44:02,599
So a big size doesn't necessarily mean an easier target — it can actually be a much

632
00:44:02,599 --> 00:44:08,240
harder target. And then again, defending against these surface-vessel USVs

633
00:44:08,240 --> 00:44:12,079
— there are a lot of videos showing that the Russians, since they traditionally aren't very

634
00:44:12,079 --> 00:44:15,400
good at shooting accurately, and since those weapon systems aren't designed

635
00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:20,640
for intercepting these small surface targets, they get through. But it's

636
00:44:20,640 --> 00:44:24,000
not a terribly complicated technical thing to install

637
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:27,960
— even on an ordinary Pohjanmaa-class corvette or a frigate — those kinds of

638
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:31,839
surface-defence systems that can shoot down all these kinds of, or

639
00:44:31,839 --> 00:44:38,680
these USVs if they come at you. So once again, weapon versus USV — the USV was

640
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:41,480
a considerable surprise to the Russians. They weren't able to intercept them. Now they're

641
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:44,079
busy developing some system so they can intercept them

642
00:44:44,079 --> 00:44:47,880
and protect their own warships too, and it's not any terribly

643
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:51,319
difficult task. Yeah — and from Israel there's Iron Dome and

644
00:44:51,319 --> 00:44:57,119
interception technology coming, which arrives right on time — that capability too, in this

645
00:44:57,119 --> 00:45:00,480
same vein. Some people say the tank is dead now that drones

646
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:06,800
get shot at by FPV drones and destroy them. Well, first of all, people forget

647
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:11,400
that the actual situation isn't that you fly one FPV into the side of a tank and it's finished —

648
00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:15,640
the Ukrainians say you often need up to twenty FPVs to have any effect at all, and it

649
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:21,319
still might not even be a destructive effect. And then there's the fact that if

650
00:45:21,319 --> 00:45:23,720
you dominate drones on the battlefield, you start

651
00:45:23,720 --> 00:45:28,119
a protection system with electronic countermeasures or even kinetic

652
00:45:28,119 --> 00:45:32,880
countermeasures. And those weigh tens, even hundreds of kilos, they often

653
00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:37,440
need electricity too, so you have the sensor system you use to

654
00:45:37,440 --> 00:45:40,000
detect drones, and then you have the

655
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:44,680
countermeasure system. Well, try putting that on an infantry soldier's back —

656
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:49,559
it doesn't really work. A tank is a platform that generates its own electricity, is able to

657
00:45:49,559 --> 00:45:55,040
carry that around, and add more capability if needed. Then a fighting vehicle can be made

658
00:45:55,040 --> 00:45:59,079
into a much harder target. Plus, with a 120mm gun, you can

659
00:45:59,079 --> 00:46:03,839
kill anything in a house, in a yard, at a distance of kilometers. So it's not

660
00:46:03,839 --> 00:46:07,839
— if I had to launch an attack across some open field, I'd

661
00:46:07,839 --> 00:46:12,160
definitely go in a tank rather than run there myself in bulletproof

662
00:46:12,160 --> 00:46:18,040
gear trying to get across it. Yeah. Well then, in a way, this

663
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:21,839
weapons-logistics question — it's probably worth having our own capabilities there. I was

664
00:46:21,839 --> 00:46:25,520
at a defence seminar, and there, if

665
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:29,760
I remember correctly, even the TNT production capacity was

666
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:33,640
basically dependent on just one factory in continental Europe. Now, in Finland,

667
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:37,760
there's Nammo, and, in a way, Forcit, and we're starting really

668
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:42,359
raw explosive-charge production, which is probably a really

669
00:46:42,359 --> 00:46:46,680
sensible thing to do — it won't have to come by ship from somewhere far away. Yeah. And this is nothing

670
00:46:46,680 --> 00:46:49,599
new. When World War One started, after a couple of months of fighting, everyone's

671
00:46:49,599 --> 00:46:53,800
stockpiles across the board were empty, and in Britain, in Great Britain too,

672
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:58,000
they talked about a shell crisis — they set up an artillery-shell

673
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:02,880
— a Ministry of Munitions, which set up factories and started

674
00:47:02,880 --> 00:47:07,599
producing those shells. And then the war lasted many more

675
00:47:07,599 --> 00:47:11,200
years after that. The most important thing is that you have that industrial capacity, either

676
00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:16,079
in reserve, or you have agreements so that you can quickly get

677
00:47:16,079 --> 00:47:20,440
it up and running — that you have enough ammunition to start off

678
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:23,920
the first months, but then industry starts producing

679
00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:28,440
it quickly. And we've actually managed — our own artillery

680
00:47:28,440 --> 00:47:32,520
ammunition production has been multiplied here in Finland, precisely because we had

681
00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:37,559
some of that capacity — the ministry had put money into it so we'd have

682
00:47:37,559 --> 00:47:41,040
certain production lines standing ready, waiting for that rainy day. Since a pessimist is never disappointed,

683
00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:45,200
Finns tend to manage. So we were able to ramp that activity up quickly. We had

684
00:47:45,200 --> 00:47:49,400
production agreements with various companies so that we could

685
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:53,440
start converting civilian production capacity, something like that. We need to

686
00:47:53,440 --> 00:47:57,040
build that in Europe too. Like I said, the thing is that — to make

687
00:47:57,040 --> 00:48:00,359
stockpiles for every European country to last three years of warfare —

688
00:48:00,359 --> 00:48:04,880
there's no sense in that, because everyone assumes that every

689
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:08,079
attacker, every dictator who launches an attack, assumes it'll be a quick

690
00:48:08,079 --> 00:48:12,920
success, a war wrapped up in a couple of weeks. But the only things

691
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:17,720
that are certain are that nobody knows how long a war

692
00:48:17,720 --> 00:48:22,280
will last, and second, that you go into a war with whatever

693
00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:25,880
you have in stock. But nobody can really afford to build

694
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:30,359
stockpiles that would last, say, three years of warfare. That defence capability

695
00:48:30,359 --> 00:48:35,400
and its ability to scale up quickly — that's the key thing. Yeah, but if

696
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:40,000
we now ended up with a bit of a lousy deal in Ukraine, and then, in a way,

697
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:44,720
the Russians got to rebuild their economic capability through some kind of

698
00:48:44,720 --> 00:48:48,720
ill-advised lifting of sanctions, and don't really get punished properly, and

699
00:48:48,720 --> 00:48:53,119
then some kind of surge of strength comes — well then, they'd

700
00:48:53,119 --> 00:48:55,920
probably be talking years before they get that

701
00:48:55,920 --> 00:49:01,720
capacity tuned up enough to go again. So I'd

702
00:49:01,720 --> 00:49:06,359
say that if things go badly — if Putin gets the kind of deal where

703
00:49:06,359 --> 00:49:10,599
he can say 'actually, I won something here,' and gets emboldened by that, and

704
00:49:10,599 --> 00:49:15,680
the West looks weak — then I'd assume he'd try

705
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:21,280
to throw down some kind of challenge for as long as Trump is president. That doesn't

706
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:23,839
mean he'd have the ability to start a war against the West, but

707
00:49:23,839 --> 00:49:28,280
he could, like I said, test whether Article 5 actually works, and the West's

708
00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:33,000
unity, by picking some small, small Nato country and seeing what

709
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:39,880
happens in that small case. But all in all,

710
00:49:39,880 --> 00:49:43,640
as for replacing the losses it's suffered, that won't

711
00:49:43,640 --> 00:49:46,760
take many years in terms of numbers, since they still have a certain

712
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:50,799
amount in storage — old tanks, old guns — that can be refurbished

713
00:49:50,799 --> 00:49:58,440
there, there, there. Instead of a new T-14 Armata, or a T-9, T-90 — the T-90's

714
00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:03,839
latest versions — replacing the old T-72s or even T-62s. But quantitatively,

715
00:50:03,839 --> 00:50:07,240
the losses will basically be replaced — that'll take a couple of years. As for believing the Armata

716
00:50:07,240 --> 00:50:12,559
will actually show up — no, no, I don't believe it. It's a huge bluff, the whole contraption, absolutely ridiculous

717
00:50:12,559 --> 00:50:17,200
that it's held up as some wonder weapon. But no, they won't come. But then,

718
00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:21,400
in terms of quality, replacing it so they get modern equipment — then

719
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:26,240
that's more like a 5-to-10-year project. Yeah. Still, there is

720
00:50:26,240 --> 00:50:32,480
time to prepare and take this seriously. And Russia is economically

721
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:37,240
compared to Western Europe, it's a dwarf. We should remember that, well,

722
00:50:37,240 --> 00:50:40,839
the West just needs to wake up to the fact that back in the good old,

723
00:50:40,839 --> 00:50:47,280
during the previous Cold War, NATO countries' defence spending was between 3-5% for everyone, and now

724
00:50:47,280 --> 00:50:51,680
since the Soviet Union collapsed, for 30 years we've been enjoying that peace dividend, and

725
00:50:51,680 --> 00:50:55,880
money's been poured into all kinds of nice things, all kinds of nice things. Now we need to wake up to the fact

726
00:50:55,880 --> 00:51:00,440
that, well, now we have to raise those budgets again up to that 3-5% range,

727
00:51:00,440 --> 00:51:04,319
and we won't have money left for all those nice things anymore, so

728
00:51:04,319 --> 00:51:07,680
there will certainly still be enough money to keep, to keep

729
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:12,520
the rule of law standing, and to keep the school system standing,

730
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:14,839
and to keep the healthcare system in some kind of

731
00:51:14,839 --> 00:51:18,359
shape. But then all those other, nice, nice-to-have things,

732
00:51:18,359 --> 00:51:21,799
we simply can't afford anymore. And now politicians just need to tell people that this

733
00:51:21,799 --> 00:51:25,760
is how it is, you know: it'll take a couple of decades to bring Russia under control,

734
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:29,799
and we need to spend money on things like this, because it's still

735
00:51:29,799 --> 00:51:33,480
more sensible for the national economy than the reconstruction that follows if we don't put

736
00:51:33,480 --> 00:51:37,760
Russia in its place. Yeah, if this really goes well, then in a way Ukraine gets

737
00:51:37,760 --> 00:51:41,200
a decent deal, and then rebuilding starts again, on commercial

738
00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:46,040
terms too, sensibly - the Russians get pushed back to at least Crimea,

739
00:51:46,040 --> 00:51:51,400
and then these, the Donbas and other,

740
00:51:51,400 --> 00:51:55,160
border areas end up somehow neutral. And then, I don't really believe that we'll ever

741
00:51:55,160 --> 00:51:59,280
get all the way to war-guilt reparations, that

742
00:51:59,280 --> 00:52:03,680
goes too far already - but never, never say, never say never,

743
00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:08,040
ever, because it's worth applying a bit of that Afghan principle here, that

744
00:52:08,040 --> 00:52:11,960
revenge is best served cold. Because indeed there

745
00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:15,799
were several Serb generals who thought, after the Bosnian war, that they'd

746
00:52:15,799 --> 00:52:19,280
gotten off scot-free. Twenty-odd years had passed, and suddenly

747
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:22,160
there was a knock at the door, and it was a British SAS commando saying,

748
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:26,520
'right then, off to the Hague we go.' And yeah, at some point

749
00:52:26,520 --> 00:52:30,319
the leadership in Russia might well change - situations can change - and in any

750
00:52:30,319 --> 00:52:35,160
case everything has to be investigated, international and national

751
00:52:35,160 --> 00:52:39,760
arrest warrants need to be issued at some point. So when the nutcase heads off

752
00:52:39,760 --> 00:52:44,040
for a bit of a holiday, the Spanish police go, 'hang on a second, this guy is

753
00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:48,680
a war criminal' - and off he goes. Yeah, well, it's possible somehow, it just

754
00:52:48,680 --> 00:52:51,720
feels like Trump is so transactional that he'd pull out

755
00:52:51,720 --> 00:52:57,200
of the WHO - he could well be crazy enough to run the UN into the ground, and then we'd

756
00:52:57,200 --> 00:53:01,480
get rid of the Hague too. So this whole international world order right now

757
00:53:01,480 --> 00:53:05,160
might head toward something pretty harsh, like Europe on its own. But

758
00:53:05,160 --> 00:53:08,720
even in that scenario, we just take European pride and

759
00:53:08,720 --> 00:53:13,200
build those capabilities, and then be worthy of Europe's forebears,

760
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:18,200
so that something good could come of this too. Yeah, so now we need to remember that, that

761
00:53:18,200 --> 00:53:22,640
Trump is shaking the transatlantic link harder than it's ever been shaken during

762
00:53:22,640 --> 00:53:27,680
NATO's 75-year existence. But we need to remember that within

763
00:53:27,680 --> 00:53:31,400
those 75 years NATO has existed, there's been room for all kinds of American

764
00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:36,599
presidents - some worse, some worse still. This is now just a four-year

765
00:53:36,599 --> 00:53:40,359
bump in the road. The next president, probably, even if they're

766
00:53:40,359 --> 00:53:44,760
a Republican too, will probably be a bit more normal, and especially since

767
00:53:44,760 --> 00:53:48,599
if Trump manages to carry out his measures, the US will be much

768
00:53:48,599 --> 00:53:51,880
weaker, both economically and militarily, than it is today. So, so, surely

769
00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:55,480
a correction will come, and the most important correction is fixing,

770
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:59,680
fixing these alliance relationships up. And even right now, it's not that Trump's

771
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:03,480
administration - well, they don't like the political side of NATO policy, but the military

772
00:54:03,480 --> 00:54:07,400
side is fine with them, they do understand the value of allies. But I'd

773
00:54:07,400 --> 00:54:10,440
say that even so, something has

774
00:54:10,440 --> 00:54:14,640
changed irreversibly, so that even if a correction

775
00:54:14,640 --> 00:54:18,599
does come, and a somewhat more normal president follows, still

776
00:54:18,599 --> 00:54:22,680
in Europe it's been seen that the US has turned its gaze away

777
00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:26,440
from Europe, partly - looking more toward the Far East. The US has become

778
00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:30,880
more inward-looking and more self-interested, and that's going to remain

779
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:35,920
the case going forward too, which means Europe, in this global

780
00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:41,079
competitive world we live in, needs to be stronger, and

781
00:54:41,079 --> 00:54:44,799
stronger economically, stronger militarily, and equipped with a tougher

782
00:54:44,799 --> 00:54:48,359
backbone. Because up to now, over these past

783
00:54:48,359 --> 00:54:52,599
decades, we've done quite a lot the way the Americans wanted - like, 20

784
00:54:52,599 --> 00:54:57,480
years of war in Afghanistan, just so that we'd be good

785
00:54:57,480 --> 00:55:00,680
allies. So going forward we need to, let's say, ask - what's actually

786
00:55:00,680 --> 00:55:05,599
in it for us. Yeah, now since you're there, by the way - this hasn't come up yet, but

787
00:55:05,599 --> 00:55:10,280
you're an MEP there, so - I honestly don't even really remember the time when we weren't

788
00:55:10,280 --> 00:55:15,400
in NATO, and we had to rely on the EU's security guarantees instead. And there

789
00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:18,559
still are, even now, countries like Ireland and others in the same situation

790
00:55:18,559 --> 00:55:22,520
we were once in. But, do you see there in the EU whether

791
00:55:22,520 --> 00:55:26,319
there's an actual defence dimension, or is it in practice just a

792
00:55:26,319 --> 00:55:30,200
NATO-parallel structure? The EU's challenge is that when it was originally created as a great

793
00:55:30,200 --> 00:55:35,520
peace project, the purpose was to keep, keep, keep the steel

794
00:55:35,520 --> 00:55:39,760
and coal union going, and through trade, tie together, tie together

795
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:42,400
the Germans, the French, the British, so that they'd never go to war

796
00:55:42,400 --> 00:55:45,559
with each other again. And that's succeeded brilliantly - real peace. But because of that,

797
00:55:45,559 --> 00:55:50,440
because it's a peace project, defence doesn't fit well

798
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:54,760
into its basic structure. But clearly the will has changed - there,

799
00:55:54,760 --> 00:55:58,400
it's clearly being recognised that Europe now needs to be made into a security

800
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:02,559
- and this really is the current Commission's line - that Europe is being turned into a security

801
00:56:02,559 --> 00:56:06,119
and defence union. Instruments are being created for it, capabilities like that,

802
00:56:06,119 --> 00:56:10,400
so it can build up that defence. And all the strategy reports on

803
00:56:10,400 --> 00:56:13,480
this, the reports, point toward talking about pretty big, big sums of money -

804
00:56:13,480 --> 00:56:17,520
we're talking hundreds of billions - that will be spent on defence and

805
00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:21,079
on developing security within the European Union. But at the same time we need to be

806
00:56:21,079 --> 00:56:24,599
careful about not going and reinventing the wheel

807
00:56:24,599 --> 00:56:30,480
when there's already a NATO tool that has defended Europe for 75 years -

808
00:56:30,480 --> 00:56:34,440
there's no point building it all over again. The European Union's role is to build

809
00:56:34,440 --> 00:56:38,640
tools for NATO by, well, building up a defence industry, which it now

810
00:56:38,640 --> 00:56:42,960
ought to know how to do, since it was originally built as an economic union. Now it's building

811
00:56:42,960 --> 00:56:46,599
defence industry and capability, building military mobility, which is

812
00:56:46,599 --> 00:56:51,160
a couple-hundred-billion project in itself - building proper military mobility

813
00:56:51,160 --> 00:56:54,480
across Europe, building

814
00:56:54,480 --> 00:56:58,680
comprehensive security, and doing research and development

815
00:56:58,680 --> 00:57:02,400
so as to create the kinds of capabilities we'll need 20 years from now, and

816
00:57:02,400 --> 00:57:05,160
building those joint capabilities, building European

817
00:57:05,160 --> 00:57:08,160
strategic airlift, European air-refuelling capability, European

818
00:57:08,160 --> 00:57:12,680
space capabilities - so that tools get built for NATO, so that we're not dependent

819
00:57:12,680 --> 00:57:16,280
on the Americans. In ten years we could tell the Yanks, 'go ahead,

820
00:57:16,280 --> 00:57:19,240
go fight your war out there in the Pacific in peace - we'll manage just fine here

821
00:57:19,240 --> 00:57:23,000
with the Russians.' 'Ah, no problem.' And, by the way, 'let's agree, by the way,

822
00:57:23,000 --> 00:57:26,480
that the next SACEUR won't be an American officer but a European officer.'

823
00:57:26,480 --> 00:57:31,640
So it's more balanced, that whole transactional relationship, so we're not so

824
00:57:31,640 --> 00:57:34,680
dependent on America. Then, in my opinion, it's on a healthier footing, and

825
00:57:34,680 --> 00:57:38,520
we can pursue our own interests better too. And even if the goals then end up

826
00:57:38,520 --> 00:57:43,319
leaning more toward Europe than over there in the States, we'd still manage fine. This

827
00:57:43,319 --> 00:57:47,160
building process is no easy thing at all, because Europe is, after all,

828
00:57:47,160 --> 00:57:52,319
quite the committee - dozens of countries with different interests. But

829
00:57:52,319 --> 00:57:56,200
here it's clearly been noticed, over there in Brussels, that people have woken up

830
00:57:56,200 --> 00:58:00,559
to the fact that something needs to be done about this now, we need to invest in it, we need to

831
00:58:00,559 --> 00:58:04,839
be stronger, more independent, because we can't stay at the mercy of one,

832
00:58:04,839 --> 00:58:08,799
one half-crazy American president in these matters, so

833
00:58:08,799 --> 00:58:14,039
the will is starting to be found. So, in a way, from Trump's election there's always

834
00:58:14,039 --> 00:58:17,480
something good to be found too, and the good part is that it shakes things up, it

835
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:21,480
forces Europe to grow up, without us always

836
00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:24,559
holding our hands out for American help - instead we could say, well, we can handle it

837
00:58:24,559 --> 00:58:29,200
ourselves too, because we have 45 million people, the world's third-

838
00:58:29,200 --> 00:58:35,039
largest market, and a huge industrial power, innovation-

839
00:58:35,039 --> 00:58:38,920
we have 30% - relative to population, we have 30% more, more

840
00:58:38,920 --> 00:58:42,280
AI researchers than the US and China have. We have a lot of

841
00:58:42,280 --> 00:58:46,599
the prerequisites to do these things quite well, really. Yeah, let's hope that indeed

842
00:58:46,599 --> 00:58:51,160
after this shake-up Europe really does get back on its feet.

843
00:58:51,160 --> 00:58:55,240
One more thing about this book - a good, good book, Pekka Toveri, on the war in Ukraine -

844
00:58:55,240 --> 00:58:58,799
it'll probably sell very, very well, and it really does have this

845
00:58:58,799 --> 00:59:02,640
documentary dimension to it, about the course of the war. And then also this kind of,

846
00:59:02,640 --> 00:59:06,359
at least for people who've done their military service, a lot of interesting

847
00:59:06,359 --> 00:59:11,079
war-technology description, and also this strategy, tactics and practical

848
00:59:11,079 --> 00:59:15,559
military-operations analysis. So it's worth it, in my opinion, in my opinion,

849
00:59:15,559 --> 00:59:19,599
buying or listening to it. Thank you for this

850
00:59:19,599 --> 00:59:23,400
visit, Pekka Toveri, and let's suggest a short Sisäpiiri segment too - would that

851
00:59:23,400 --> 00:59:27,520
work? I mean, I find this fascinating - now that you're there in the EU, there's

852
00:59:27,520 --> 00:59:34,119
this taxonomy thing, and it's almost comical - it wasn't that long ago that in the taxonomy

853
00:59:34,119 --> 00:59:38,640
war technology was frowned upon. And now, apparently, nothing is quite so fine

854
00:59:38,640 --> 00:59:42,119
an industry as dual-use technology. So, basically,

855
00:59:42,119 --> 00:59:46,760
technology that's also suited to defence or the arms industry

856
00:59:46,760 --> 00:59:49,920
and also has some civilian use. So let's - let's talk about this

857
00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:54,640
topic a bit more, briefly, over on the Sisäpiiri side. Would that work?