Putin is afraid to to fight with NATO, but he wants Russians to think that they are at war - expert Grant

Russia has suffered quite devastating strikes on their strategic airfields. They took it extremely painfully, although we might have hoped for better results.

 I think the most important thing for the strikes inside Russia is that they're obviously sending a real message, the one  that needs to be sent to Russia - that Russia can't just do what it likes and not have some retaliation; that the strategic strikes from Russia towards Ukraine appear to be easing off, and I think that's probably either because they are running short of missiles or just because it's becoming technically more difficult for them to coordinate everything without risking ships on the sea or aircrafts now in places where they could be hit in their worry by Ukraine. So what is happening is a good thing for me on both sides at the moment. What we've just got to hope is that there is not a strategic airstrike against Ukraine that actually hits something important. I mean it is hitting the energy - yes, but it's not destroying the energy, and that's a positive thing. It's not killing it so that it can't be recovered, and we’ve just got to keep our fingers crossed that nobody fires something at one of the nuclear power stations, for example.

 This is an extremely important message, and we will hope that such messages will reach as far as possible. Because it is extremely unfair when the Russian Federation destroys our civilian infrastructure, while their strategic military facilities are in peace. Let's hope that this will have a significant impact on the development of the situation. Putin in his last speech declared a long war. We understand that such a war dictates certain conditions and that our key task is to make sure that the long Russian plan is completely crossed out by our initiative. But the Russians are also preparing to open additional front lines. How do you see this situation, in particular the prospects of the long war?

Oh that's a huge area question. I agree with the first point which is really important. Russia understands that this war will go to Russia. I'm not 100% sure that those attacks will have an operational effect on the battlefield that we're fighting on. Strategically yes and maybe it will start to turn more people against Putin and make him understand that he's losing which is a good thing. Operationally there is a real problem if Putin does decide to open more fronts because he's just got so many more people than Ukraine, so if he opens a front in Belarus, then it's going to eat up more Ukrainian resources, more Ukrainian people, Ukrainian soldiers in battle, and that's not a good thing which is why it is so important that the counter-attacks start again as soon as possible pushing the Russian forces backwards. Because the Russian forces are still very brittle, morale is extremely low and therefore they've got to be hit. All the time that they are allowed to attack Ukraine means that that gives them time to actually think about what they're going to do next, and that's not a good thing. Russia must be put onto the back foot, as we say it in cricket, so that their center of gravity is behind them, so that they start going backwards and are not sure what is going to happen next. That is why it's very important to coordinate strikes with the ground attacks so that there is a coherence between a strike and an attack at the same time, because that is the sort of thing that actually makes them not understand what is going to happen next. Centralization of the artillery and centralization of the strategic war must be linked totally and completely to the front line battle. It must be completely coherent with the frontline battle, because otherwise it gives no benefit to the frontline battle. There must be stronger coordination in that respect not just hitting juicy targets because they're a juicy target, but trying to actually do something that breaks open the front line for the battle commanders. That's got to be the priority at the moment because we've got to start moving forward. If there is a delay over the winter, it is to Russia's advantage because Russia will have time to do more mobilization, more training and raise the quality of the enemy against us. So they must not be allowed to delay, they must be kept moving and kept running and that's a different thing from what we're doing at the moment. 

Why are the Russians constantly trying to attack in the Bakhmut direction with such hellish hysteria? It seems that Donetsk region has become a kind of cornerstone of this phase of the war for them. Although, perhaps, now they are just trying to regroup, while the attention of our society and the international community is focused on Bakhmut. Why are they attacking Bakhmut so bloody, senselessly and at the same time so confidently?

It's impossible to tell why they've chosen that particular place, maybe because there's good logistic areas behind it or something but they have chosen it, it's quite likely of course that Putin said get Bakhmut, and so that's what they're doing, as they're just doing what the commander said. It’s Bakhmut today but remember, go back 10-12 weeks and it was Izium that was the problem. And it looks to me as though Russia will always be trying to push somewhere and the M80 brigade got behind Izium and the whole thing collapsed very quickly. It would be exactly the same in Bakhmut. If we can get behind the Bakhmut frontline, it will collapse. I don't I think it really matters whether we call it backward or whether we call it somewhere else because I think that after Bakhmut, if we take it and start moving forward Russia will concentrate on somewhere else because their aim is just to kill and tie down as many Ukrainian forces in one place as possible. They've got to fight somewhere. Bakhmut is where they've chosen. 

How do you think the situation in the South will unfold? The southern segment of the front is one of the key ones, and our task would be to split the temporarily occupied territories of our South in order to make the Russians make a really fatal mistake. The second problem on our side is the availability of resources, in particular powerful armored vehicles. But the Russians are also aware of the danger that may arise for their occupation troops. How problematic would it be to break through the Russian defense in the South?

To break the defense in any area you have to concentrate forces in other words you actually have to decide on how you're going to break through and the Ukrainian activity at the moment of concentration of force is concentration of artillery into the rear area, but as I just said if you're going to concentrate force with artillery into the rear area and kill logistics and everything, you have to follow that up very quickly with an attack, otherwise you give the enemy time to bring back what you've taken and what you've killed from them. And the fact is that if there is a breakthrough strongly towards anywhere, towards Melitopol or towards Crimea, then there will be an awful lot of Russian soldiers who want to start running away. Therefore, as I said, the longer one delays in the south, the more confidence that they will get, the more time they have to build trenches, or do something else. I know it's very difficult because of the equipment and ammunition but the Russian side has exactly the same problems. So we have to be confident that the Russians are not as strong mentally as the Ukrainian forces. And I think it's that mental confidence that is the key to this. We must not wait, because waiting is to the advantage of Russia.

Every day is the advantage of Russia and therefore, movement has to be kept going forward - somewhere, anywhere. I know in the north there is movement but wherever there is movement, it must be reinforced so that it becomes a powerful movement. And I will finish on this by just saying that if this is going to be a long war, and you talked about the long war in a previous question, then the most important thing that Ukraine must do now is training for the next people to come into the battle and especially for officers - for captains, majors and lieutenant colonels who are the people who are doing the battle. Because there's huge bravery on the front line,  huge bravery, but there is also not an understanding of all the battle drills for all the different types of battle and those battle drills and those battle skills have got to be taught more. Soldiers are being taught some of them in the UK and will in Poland and in the Czech Republic. But we need the officers -  captains, majors, lieutenant colonels to be taught how to manage the battle drills, how to manage battle so they don't lose as many soldiers, so that every time they attack it's clean, neat and nasty because they understand what they're doing. So we need to get to restart the training centers and actually to get the officers, the best ones some of them must come out of the front line and teach and some of them must come out of the front line and learn, and then go back into the front line stronger and more capable, because it's only this the brain and the skills of Ukraine that will win this war, not just equipment from America, not ATACMS. The war is going to be won on the ground and it's got to be people who know what they're doing, and we have to go up another level. Bravery is not enough when you're fighting Orcs you've got to be clever as well.

The situation is somewhat reminiscent of the Soviet-Finnish war waged by Stalin. Our nation is preparing, but perhaps we need some additional solutions in the current situation. We are aware that the enemy will actively use the so-called northern bridgehead. Maybe not now, maybe in three weeks, a month, two, but Kyiv remains under threat. The assassination of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus shows that the Kremlin has already taken the Belarusian scenario into development, and it is a matter of timing. The key point is that it is not even the Belarusian armed forces, it is the armed forces of the Russian Federation, from which they could form a combat-ready large formation in Belarus. And the key task is not to let this happen unnoticed. But 50 or 60 thousand new Russian soldiers and officers does not mean a combat-ready group, because it would also involve armored vehicles, aviation, and a sufficient number of artillery offensive systems. How do you see the pace of creation of a combat-ready Russian grouping in the North, in particular in the Republic of Belarus?

The first thing is I heard yesterday that they are actually undergoing some form of mobilization or pre-mobilization in Belarus, and they're actually controlling all the individuals now. So all the men have got to register and they effectively try to stop anybody leaving the country, so there is obviously some activity taking place but I don't necessarily agree with you that they can produce a strong powerful system, because they don't have the people there that will want to do it. A lot of the Russians who've gone there are not battle-hardened Russians, they're new people. What they can produce from there is just more orcs, in other words, another orc type battle of just throwing people in and against Ukraine. I don't see any coordinated great battle because, for example, Belarus has actually been sending ammunition and equipment to Russia, so I'm not sure that that ammunition and equipment is going to come back again because a lot of it's been killed and used already, the ammunition certainly. So the actual logistic space behind the Belarusians is weak, and it's that logistics space that will give them strength or not. They could attack, and it would be a problem because of the numbers but the places that they've got to attack through are also quite narrow and also can be quite well defended. Remembering that we now have a lot more people in Kyiv who've been to battle and therefore it won't be their first battle which it will be for the Belarussians.

So I think it can be a problem, but it's a problem of numbers and not of quality.  But numbers have strength of their own as we know.

If we are talking seriously about Putin's strategic deployments and strategic plans, in particular the blitzkrieg scenario, when he tried to seize power in Ukraine and in Kyiv within a few days. This plan failed, they did not have any additional plans in the general staff - this happens, the general staff usually prepares for the past wars. Now they are trying to stall for time and regroup all their resources. At one time, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George said that the issue of moral rightness is extremely important, but the issue of resources is even more important. Accordingly, we understand that they are slowly beginning to prepare and gather their resources, but the Russian defense program does not have enough of the same chips, properly configured systems for the production of high-precision weapons. But it is clear that they are starting to produce tanks in three shifts. What do you think, roughly, if we take the operational time, what period are we talking about regarding a long war? How long will Russia be ready, how many forces will it have to wage a long war against Ukraine?

They have the capacity to keep going for several years. There’s no question about that. Russia’s got the people along with the base equipment to do things, to actually keep producing enough to keep Ukraine under pressure. What is important is that Russia is gearing up for a total war. Ukraine is not. Ukraine is still not actually focused on this war at government level sufficiently. We're still thinking about other things - security plans, roads, we're not totally lined up for how we are going to fight this war totally if Putin keeps going. I think at the Ukrainian side there's still too much hope that things will go nicely, that we will get things from America, that we'll get ATACMS and not enough planning of what are we going to do if we don't get all these things or if Russia keeps going and keeps going and keeps going. This is what it did in the Winter War. It just kept going, just kept throwing numbers until it became too difficult. And Finland knew that it couldn't keep winning. We could be in this position if we don’t care for. So I think that Ukraine has got to take the long war understanding which is why I said preparing more officers and people for fighting, starting to look at all businesses whether all of them can produce weapons and systems for war. More ammunition, more everything from your own Ukrainian resources. Because if Putin keeps going or he is replaced with someone else who hates Ukraine, this war could go on for a long time. And people have to be prepared for that and not remove hope from that equation, as well as start being hard and nasty about how we're going to win this and hold the line. Because even when you get rid of everybody out of Crimea, which we will, Russia can keep going, because it could then attack back into Kharkiv or attack Sumi or attack Belarus as you said. So this war is not just finished. Ukraine has to put itself onto a different level and think long term and not short term - let's get some more equipment from America and everything will be alright. It may not be so, we have to be serious about this. 

Putin, understanding his limited human resources, limited motivation, can move to the scenario of the so-called total war. He dreams about it, he just cannot convince Russians why they should die en masse in the war against Ukraine. But we see that he is achieving, despite all this, some success. His soldiers are not too morally prepared, but in any case they participate by "bureaucratic inertia": they go to the front, they die, and it does not affect now somehow fundamentally. We can put this matter aside. At the same time, Putin is preparing for protracted stories that can drag on and on. Accordingly, our task is to achieve very concrete results as soon as possible. When it comes to offensive operations, concrete results are very often tied to armored vehicles,  to tank groups. Tanks are a serious story, but we still do not see M1 Abrams. We are told some stories that this is some extremely high-tech equipment and that it takes a lot of time. The same applies to long-range ATACMS and aviation, in particular F-16. We did not even get a chance to deploy Patriot systems on our territory. We see a certain dosage, that is, we are being helped - this is extremely important, extremely good. But in order to conduct a very clear and concrete offensive activity (we are talking about our territory, our land, which we have to liberate), we need certain powerful tools, which I mentioned. How else do we convince our Western partners, I am talking about specific countries of the European Union, the UK, the US? Sometimes I have a feeling that there is some unwritten agreement: maybe Putin threatened or promised to use nuclear weapons to raise the stakes of the conflict if we get what we need (conventional means of warfare).

 I don't think it's about threats. You see you have a large group of people who want things to go back the way they were, in other words, what was happening from 2014 to 2022 was acceptable to them because it didn't actually bother anybody, it only bothered and killed Ukrainians, it wasn't bothering the rest of Europe. So you've got all these people who are terrified of what might happen next, they're worried that Ukraine might win and that Russia might break up. Because if Russia breaks up, then suddenly nuclear weapons will end up in seven-eight countries. And then there's a whole load of problems just like after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and I think that some of these leaders especially in America, some of these advisors in America are simply not mentally capable of dealing with this. They want it nice and simple, they want it easy, they want Ukraine to just go back to the 24th of February and say okay now we'll have peace. And they think that Russia will give them peace. They don't understand Putin, they don't understand the way Russia is in its ork-like thinking about Ukraine. And so there is a stupidity in all this, a stupidity of people that are culturally not on top of the subject that are still looking at Russia through German eyes, through French eyes, through American eyes and not seeing what this war and what this battle is about really. They don't understand it and therefore, they think that if Putin is given a backdoor, a way out that he will take it and he will be happy, and that everything will be nice again like it was before. But it's not going to be nice again because Russia is not about to let it be nice again in the same way.

Now why are they not giving weapons? They're not giving those weapons clearly because they are frightened that if they give those weapons to Ukraine, Ukraine will win easily, and if Ukraine wins easily, what happens next? They don't have an answer for what happens next. They don't understand how the war can finish, and they're worried that it will get only worse. And so we are in a stalemate position, which is why I go back to what I said is that Ukraine has to stand on its own feet, and it has to stop relying on everything coming from outside, as well as to start working out how to do things itself - whether that's more robots, more drones, more training,  more everything. But to rely on people changing their understanding in America, in the White House is dangerous because many of these people do not have mental capacity to actually change their views because as you remember, the Ukrainian war is only a five minute a day job in the White House. American economy, American politics take up 80 percent of the day.  They're not thinking about Ukraine all day. You're lucky if you get 10-15 minutes a day, I should think from some of these people. The rest of the time they're worried about their votes, the Democrats and the Republicans are worried about winning their American business. So you need to think differently, and I suspect you have the same problem. Germany has historic links with Russia and wants it to go back to nice cheap oil so that the German economy can keep going. France with Macron who wants to be the leader of Europe and thinks he can cut a deal with Putin because conceptually culturally he has no idea what Putin is like and he doesn't bother to find it out. So we have problems in those areas. 

 On the one hand, I understand the reason for such a cautious US strategy, it is quite effective, but there is one "but": our brothers and sisters are dying every day, Russia is shelling us every day and is preparing to commit an act of winter genocide - in particular, to destroy our civilian energy infrastructure. I would like to clarify with you: is Putin afraid of the expansion of the war or, on the contrary, does he want it? When a Russian missile flies into the territory of Poland, it is one story, as if by accident. Then a missile accidentally flies into the territory of Moldova. Putin may use this psychological moment to try to frighten our European partners, because, one day he may say, "it is not clear whose missile can fly towards Berlin", and the German air defense system can miss it. Accordingly, this may apply to other European capitals. Is Putin afraid of the expansion of the war or would he like to stimulate it? Perhaps he believes that he was created to launch Ragnarok?

I think it's a bit of both, I mean he does not want to fight NATO. Putin's generals and Putin know that he can't win a war against NATO and he can't win a war against the U.S. and that is quite clear. What he wants is for the public relations of that to actually turn inwards, because Putin is thinking inwards, he's not thinking outwards about NATO, he's thinking inwards about his own position and his own money, and his own group of people, of actually keeping them in power. So he's concerned about not losing power. What he wants is the picture of NATO fighting him but not the reality of NATO fighting him. He's no fool in that respect and he's got the picture of NATO fighting him at the moment. He's got all this equipment coming. I mean there are many thousands, millions of Russians who are convinced that there are Americans fighting on the front line in big numbers -  not volunteers, they don't understand volunteers, that's beyond their comprehension that someone will come from America and fight like that just for Ukraine. Why would they? But they think that NATO is already inside Ukraine and fighting, and that is the message that goes out that you see on television in Russia - that we are fighting NATO. So he already has that as much as he needs. The rocket in Poland, the rocket in Moldova, they are nothing, they're just slight damage from a daily battle. They're not deliberate attempts to do anything, because he's had time to do something, he's had lots of time to bring NATO into this war and he has not. He's had lots of time to put a rocket into the Baltic states or seriously into Poland and he hasn't done so. And if he hasn't done it by now, I don't think he's going to.