In Moscow's Shadows 256: Desperation, Escalation, Mobilisation

Putin is being pressed by some within the elite to call it quits and freeze the war on the current front line, by others to step up and try and impose a quick military solution. His natural impulse is to put off decisions, but Kyiv's campaign against Crimea may make that impossible. He seems determined to hold out for the last bit of the Donbas, so he has to escalate. With other options, from nuclear demonstration to stepping up the covert campaign in Europe not being viable, all he has is expanding the force in Ukraine, and that will require an unpopular and dangerous mobilisation. 

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Transcript

Three Words For The Moment

MG 0:00

What about to the three words? Disparation, escalation, mobilization. Hello, I'm Mump Galliotti, and welcome to my view of Russia in Moscow Shadows. This podcast of varying length, frequency and format, yet always reassuringly low production values, is supported by generous and perspicacious patrons like you, and also by the crisis exercise software company Conductor.

Freeze The War Or Escalate It

MG 0:51

So if you go back to the war, as I've mentioned, within Russia there is this unexpectedly public debate that has been going on between those who say that really we should try and fix the war now, freeze the front line, declare a triumph, say we're willing to talk, start trying to unspool the whole sanctions mechanisms, etc. And those who say no, what we need to do is actually escalate, hit harder to impose a military solution on Ukraine, which doesn't mean rolling tanks through Kyiv or anything like that, of course not, but nonetheless it means actually not just being able to take the Donbass, but being able to dictate the terms of a post-ceasefire deal. And really in that context, it's worth noting the degree to which they actually share this common assumption that this is a war that risks otherwise sliding into something of a forever war status at best, but more to the point just cannot be allowed to continue at this level forever. There is a sense of diminishing returns that, particularly now that Russian casualties are disproportionately high compared with both recruitment, and I'll come on to this later, and also territorial gains made, a sense that something needs to be done. And at the same time, there is a sense, I think, of I wouldn't say a perceived opportunity, but let's say a window of opportunity closing. And that is precisely a sense that Ukraine is obviously doing a lot more damage to Russia through its long and mid-range drone and missile strikes. And that this is actually also wooing Donald Trump. Donald Trump, who after all has a pathological fear of being associated with any kind of defeat, and at the same time will naturally want to align himself slash suck up to those he regards as winners. And so the Ukrainian capacity to actually present themselves as, to use his particular vernacular, having the cards, means that he is now less likely to be favouring Russia and push some kind of Moscow favourable peace deal. I mean this is actually the tragic irony that support for Ukraine might actually encourage Russia to be all the more heavy-handed. Whether or not actually Trump's support really means anything in practical terms, in terms of a sort of change in political, diplomatic or intelligence sharing, I don't really know. But the point is there is this perception that something has to be done.

Fuel Strikes And The Security Contract

MG 3:42

Because after all, let's just break down more the pressures building up. We know about the strikes on Russian oil refineries and distribution hubs, which are causing serious issues in terms of not just export earnings, I mean they've now frozen all diesel exports, for example, but at the same time problems for Russians at home. And it's not just the inconvenience and the embarrassment of the kilometer-long queues at petrol stations. It is also, firstly, that this has an economic impact on productivity. It certainly affects the trucking industry, and politically speaking, again, it creates this sense that Russia is not necessarily in control of the situation. I mean, I'm minded that this is a slightly roundabout parallel, so bear with me, is with the social contract that Putin essentially agreed with the underworld when he became president, which was look, we won't specifically go after you, sure the police and the prosecutors will try and catch you, but we won't in a way treat you as enemies of the state, so long as you don't do anything that looks like a challenge to the state, and a key element of that was dialing down the overt street violence, which had been such a phenomenon of the 1990s, the drive-by shootings, the car bombings and the like, simply because that symbolically made people believe that the state was not really in charge. And conversely, by bringing an end to that, even though there were still all sorts of contract killings and the like, but they weren't in this indiscriminate, scary way, it very quickly established the sense that there was a new order. So actually the symbolic attributes of providing security to the Russian population has a very significant political impact. And remember, we are in election year, and sure the State Duma elections are not going to be free, fair, and honest, but nonetheless it does matter what public sentiment is, because if you're going to announce an overwhelming victory for United Russia, well you would rather not have to rig it as much as the wolf that.

Crimea As The Pressure Point

MG 7:03

So the problem of actually keeping Crimeans fed, watered, and perhaps even more importantly powered up is a very serious one. There's not really at the moment any real evidence that the Ukrainians are planning some kind of military assault to take back Crimea. If nothing else, that would divert troops, too many troops, from other fronts. Instead, it's more just about making the occupation untenable. And look, Crimea matters. Crimea is indeed the jewel in the crown of Putin's imperial conquests. It's that one bit of Ukraine that every Russian felt really was rightfully theirs beforehand. No one's really sitting there thinking Russia is incomplete without Kramatorsk. And therefore, this might well force Putin's hand, does not allow him that luxury of not making a decision. Is if all that weren't enough, there's no real sense from the Russians' part of any kind of diplomatic movement. And I think this is actually one of the problems, because pressure without some kind of vent, you know, some kind of route that allows them, and I'm not talking about an off-ramp in the sense of a sort of a polite way for Putin to keep to say face, but you know, any kind of real route for diplomatic outcomes is problematic.

No Diplomatic Vent And Trump

MG 8:20

The NATO summit, I know there was a lot of sense in certain Western capitals that, oh, uh a really good, strong declaration from the NATO summit in Ankara is going to make the Russians think again. I have no reason to believe that's true. I don't think they imagined it made any difference. But what does matter and what the Russians have picked up on is again that the rhetoric provides no no sense of NATO also looking at a diplomatic process to run in parallel with the offensive military process. And I mean just as a little sidebar, by the way. I mean, this Ankara summit is described as a great success, even though you know it it saw Trump attacking his allies and repeating his demand for Greenland at one point. I mean, the bar has really moved for what represents a successful summit. But as regards Trump, well, I think Izvestia said it right. Washington has nothing to offer Moscow to resolve the Ukrainian crisis. I think they have I mean they haven't given up, you know, if if if the um Kushner and uh Whitkov Roadshow returns to Moscow, they will see what they can do, but I don't think they're really imagining it. And from Moscow's point of view, there is also a fear that Ukraine is going to resolve one of its key problems that it's faced in prosecuting this war, which is manpower. Now, this is a real issue. I mean, essentially, conscription has become near enough press ganging. There's a lot of opposition to this. Um, we saw, for example, in Lviv, really a virtual riot caused by precisely the so-called bussification teams. But from Moscow's point of view, there is a fear, and I think it's an exaggerated fear, but nonetheless a real fear, that this will at least be partially resolved by conscripting Ukrainian refugees in Europe. Now remember, I mean, according to Eurostat, there are 4.4 million refugees in Europe. Now, obviously, most of them are women and children, even though, I mean, that that represents roughly speaking, I think 1% of the EU population. But anyway, there is this sense, and it's certainly something that is being discussed, that you know, particularly the uh able-bodied men folk could well be pushed or encouraged to return back to Ukraine to fight. Now, I am, as I say, I'm really not convinced that this necessarily will happen, or certainly not at the speed or the scale that Russia fears. But remember, you know, Putin and those around him are convinced that really it is Europe that is the malign force behind this war. And therefore, clearly it's more able, you know, they're more able to tell themselves that of course the European leaderships will, you know, even if it means driving the proverbial coach and horses through their own human rights law, will find ways of dislodging these Europe these um Ukrainians and sending them to fight because this is Europe's war. I mean Moscowsky Kamsamolet's talking about, you know, given the well-known paradoxical thinking and ingenuity of Kyiv strategists, which is an interesting backhanded compliment, um, but raises the spectre that Kyiv will be able to draw on what it calls a million dissatisfied refugees in the rear onto the front lines. So it's not necessarily a particularly comfortable moment for the Kremlin. You have huge numbers of Russians grumbling in petrol queues. You have the very real concern about quite what to do with Crimea seemingly taking away the let's just let the war continue on its own momentum option. You have no sense of any kind of diplomatic movement, and indeed a fear that the West slash Europe is in fact all the more committed to some kind of military solution, and if need be is willing to provide the manpower, Ukrainian manpower, for the war to continue.

Escalation Options And Their Costs

MG 12:25

So something has to be done, but what? Well, Reuters citing three sources close to the Kremlin, and although look, I'm often quite suspicious about journalists claiming that they have all these people within the Kremlin or the presidential administration or whatever that are willing to talk to them. Because I I do feel sometimes that seems a little bit overraged. I would not, on the other hand, suspect that of Reuters. You know, Reuters is still doing exceedingly serious work in Russia, and it is also in some ways, I think, you know, used as a channel to signal views to the West. So I think, you know, I certainly I'm not going to question this at all. And anyway, their argument or their or their claim, based on these sources close to the Kremlin, is that Putin has actually dug in his heels on capturing the rest of Donbass. And indeed, had actually recently admonished some advisers who had proposed seeking a sort of a ceasefire on the existing front line. So although this doesn't necessarily say that he's chosen escalation, nonetheless it is clear that he's certainly seems to have chosen not to take the option that, frankly, I I would have recommended to him, which is just simply look, call a halt now, rather than really sort of fixion these two remaining fortress cities. Because really we're talking now about Klamotorsk and Slavyansk. And frankly, I mean, although I'm sure Putin continues to be fed comforting lies from Garasimov that it's going to happen this autumn, it was going to happen last autumn too, and I'm really not convinced it will. Okay, so he has to do something, and just simply stopping the war now is something that he's been willing to rule out. Well what else can he do? Well, look, there are a lot of options and frankly all the options are self-harming to a greater or lesser extent. They all have very serious price tags, which is one of the reasons why he hasn't turned to them yet. I mean if we run through, we've got to quickly deal with the nuclear one because it keeps being raised by certain figures, and and some people are understandably worried. Not that we would see some sort of full-scale nuclear assault, but the possibility that fact a non-strategic, in other words, tactical nuclear weapon would be exploded as a demonstrative act, you know, maybe over the Black Sea or somewhere else, just to more or less say, look, we are willing to escalate. Well, first of all, that only works if people believe that you are, that you, you know, the next step could be a strike on Lviv or wherever, and I'm not quite convinced that that credibility would be there. Secondly, this would absolutely galvanize the West, and in some quarters there might even be a sense that actually Putin has become too great a danger. And although I'm not necessarily convinced that most or all Western countries would be willing to contemplate some kind of assassination or similar operation, remember that if you are Putin, you really do believe that that's how the West operates and that they are out to get you. So I think, you know, if nothing else, Putin's own paranoias might incline him against that. And arguably just as important as all of those, if not more so, China and India would be very, very annoyed by this. They've made it absolutely clear, indeed, China more recently, they've kind of restated it, that they do not want to see the nuclear taboo waived. For their own reasons. This is not about humanitarianism, this is about pragmatism. So anyway, I think really for the moment the nuclear option we can put to one side. They could scale up their covert operations in Europe, particularly targeting the factories, the industries that support Ukraine, and indeed the transport links, and maybe even particular influencers and politicians and the like. Again, though, this would absolutely galvanize the West. Even if you claim that it's nothing to do with you, you know, you're not gonna get away with it. And therefore, I think again there is a sense that although absolutely we're gonna see this covert campaign continuing and probably scaling up slightly, I don't think we're gonna see some kind of dramatic step change in just how ambitiously aggressive they seek to be. How about a direct attack on the West then? Which again is is is the big fear that is constantly being raised. Look, I think this is highly unlikely. We had recently the Polish news outlet ONET reporting that sources close to the president, Karol Nowrodzki, had said that the Americans had issued several warnings to Warsaw about a plan to attack the country, and that got a lot of attention for a while. It turned out that all this was about, even if one fully accepts the the reporting at face value, is that there had been discussions in the Kremlin about what they could do if a political decision is made to escalate against Europe. And look, these are these are kind of contingency plan discussions, which of course are going to happen, just as I'm sure in the West there are contingency discussions for what could happen if Russia became that much more problematic. So in in fact, there was not there was much less there than met the eye, which is often the case with these screaming headlines, that when you look to paragraph 17, you see that in fact there's not much there. And indeed, whatever the politicians might say, and again remember they are they are at least in part motivated by the need to justify this dramatic increases in defence expenditure, we've had the professionals often actually trying to downplay things. I mean, most recently we had the head of Estonian military intelligence, Colonel Kivisilk, saying we still see no military preparations from Russia to carry out an operation in the Baltics or this region in the near future. Sure, near future. But again, that's that's the kind of time frame people operate to. Then we had what was described as a senior NATO official who was interviewed by the Times in the context of the Ankara summit, saying, I see absolutely no indications whatsoever that Russia is interested in any sort of conflict with NATO. I mean, we can't get much more definitive than that. And I think generally that is the line that we're getting. Sure, at some point in the future, when the war is over, and once Russia has had some time for military reconstitution, well then perhaps it will pose a potential threat. But that's not going to do anything about Crimea tomorrow. Then there is the option of increased targeting of civilians. Now look, there's obviously a terrible toll of civilians being killed in Ukraine, but this is an interesting thing that I've actually been speaking to a few people of late within various military and political infrastructures, people who actually are professionally looking at this. And the consensus is that yes, these are civilian casualties that are created as, to use the ghastly expression, collateral damage. In other words, it's not that the Russians are trying to kill civilians, it's that the Russians don't mind killing civilians if they get in the way while the Russians are actually hitting the targets they want. Because beyond the occasional sort of symbolic cultural target, essentially what are the Russians hitting? They are hitting energy infrastructure, particularly petrol stations at the moment, and they are also hitting industrial infrastructure. The factories that produce drones, that produce components for the Ukrainians' own cruise missiles, that do all the all the necessary work to keep the Ukrainians in a position to be able to launch these long-range strikes into Russia. So, you know, these are, you know, let's be perfectly honest, legitimate military targets. The point is because so many of them are within cities and the like, one can question just the targeting of them because it is also killing civilians. But that's the point. They could, the Russians could, pivot to actually looking to maximize civilian targets in the belief that this would break the Ukrainians' will. Now, putting aside the fact that it is deeply unlikely that that is the case, you know, these kind of campaigns very rarely have that effect. At the same time, every strike that you're launching against apartment buildings and the like is a strike that you are not launching against a factory that is turning out drones or similar. So actually this would allow the Ukrainians, at admittedly terrible human cost for themselves, but nonetheless actually to build up their military capabilities, which is something that Russia's military planners perfectly well understand, and again so makes it much less likely that they'll go that in that direction. So if you have gone through all the various other options and ruled them out for whatever reason, usually on the grounds of practicality, what are you left with?

Mobilisation As The Only Lever

MG 21:38

Well, you're left with escalating the war on the ground in Ukraine, on actually trying to do precisely what those hawks have been arguing, which is accepting short term political costs as well as economic costs, in the hope that you can quickly assert your control on that remaining twenty-ish percent of Of Danetsk region, that is the last bit of the Donbass that is is unconquered, and you might say would bring Russia to the point where it is possible Putin would be willing to call things quits and actually just sort of freeze the conflict. But if you're gonna do that reliably and rather more quickly than the current sort of rather glacial pace, that needs troops. And troops, well, you're not gonna get more troops just simply by trying to offer yet bigger bonuses, A, because you can't really afford it, you can scarcely afford to pay the ones you're getting at the moment, and B, once again we have this concept of diminishing returns. Essentially, you have already drained the pool of those people who are actually willing to fight for you. So, no, if you want troops, you need to be thinking about mobilization. Just the usual mid-episode reminder that you're listening to the In Moscow Shadows podcast. Its corporate partner and sponsor is Conductor, which provides software for crisis exercises in hybrid warfare, counterterrorism, and civil affairs. But you can also support the podcast yourself by going to patreon.com slash in Moscow Shadows. And remember that patrons, as well as knowing that they're supporting this peerless source on all things Russian, get a variety of additional perks depending on their tier, including articles I've written, the most weekly Gavarit Moskovar press briefing, and other bonus content like the Chronicles of a Different Russia alternative histories. And you can also follow me on Twitter at Mark Galliotti or on Facebook Mark Galliotti on Russia. Now back to the episode. So the chain of logic is something has to be done. Something has to be done relatively quickly because of the Crimea factor. There isn't really any scope to do something through diplomatic means, other than just simply freezing the front line as it is now, and Putin seems to have ruled that out. There isn't really any scope for escalation in other ways, and therefore you are just simply left with escalation on the battlefield. And although people often say, look, this is not just simply a war about territory, it is about wider politics and Ukraine's sovereignty and so forth, perfectly true. But the point is this is a war that is currently defined by territory, and in many ways it is territorial advance by the Russians that will both allow Putin to feel that he can negotiate, which is the point when issues of sovereignty come into play, and it is also essentially the main index of whether or not Ukraine is successful, which gives it the muscle in Washington, DC and elsewhere. And progress on the front line is not entirely dependent on just how many troops you've got. Of course, people make the case that this is a war that is defined by drones and such like, but in some ways, all the other variables are already factored in. It's not as though Russia can suddenly invent new countermeasures to drones quicker than it already is trying to do. If you're looking for that one lever to pull that might actually be able to affect the situation on the battlefield, I cannot think of a lever other than the issue of numbers of troops. Again, if people have any other ideas, do let me know. So personnel personnel numbers matter. Now there was an interesting, very recent report this past week coming out from the company Sibyline, which goes into the various staffing challenges of the Russian military and explores the possibility of a rolling mobilization, which is in other words, instead of a kind of big bang when you suddenly announce a wave of mobilization and that you're gonna bring a hundred, two hundred, three hundred, whatever, thousand Russian men to arms, which will have a huge political backlash. I mean, this is the point we've got to make. The reason why this has not been done is when Putin did it before in autumn of 2022, it was deeply unpopular. You had more people fleeing the country than ended up being actually recruited in into arms. And that was in circumstances which were arguably rather more propitious rather than now people are not already they're feeling disgruntled and so forth. But anyway, rather than that, the idea is you have a rolling mobilization, which is a much more subtle thing. So you are just sort of setting certain targets, calling people up as reservists, but fewer scattered around the country. So although obviously it will be noticed, it doesn't have quite that same political shock factor. The thing is, though, this would almost certainly be able to allow the Kremlin to address the discrepancy that is currently emerging between recruitment and casualties. Yes, it would do that. I mean, at the moment we're in a situation in which recruitment is down and casualties are up. The first quarter of last year, the Russians were able to recruit 86,900 volunteers. The first quarter of this year it was down to 72,200. So that's a distinct diminution. The key point is though, in that same period, if you look at the difference in casualties, that's deaths and serious injuries, in other words, people who are no longer able to fight, well, that's gone up. Now in this quarter we had maybe a hundred thousand dead or wounded, whereas in the quarter before, the the figure was probably closer to 80,000. So in other words, last year, in the first quarter, the Russians recruited more than they lost. At the moment, they are losing more than they recruit. And you know, as a result, the the force in Ukraine is slowly creeping down. Now, it's at a rate which is going to mean that it it can it can continue to absorb this for a long time, but what it does mean is that sure, rolling mobilization allows you to close that gap, to keep your force at its current strength, maybe even increase it slightly, but it doesn't give you that big bang. It doesn't give you that opportunity to substantively change what's happening on the ground. It just simply allows you to continue as things have been going. So recruitment is proving a problem. And indeed, not just the usual recruitment of offering people huge sums of money. Um there was an interesting recent post from Igor Gyrkin Strelkov, the ultra-nationalist who's currently behind bars in the prison system, but he can still post on Telegram. And he noted, quote, for over six months now, we haven't seen any recruiters for the stormtroopers, in other words, the assault troops, apparently because the few willing are caught while still in pretrial detention or immediately upon arrival. So, in other words, you know, i if you look like a likely lad who would be willing to go and fight, you'd you know, you'd probably never even get to the prison camp in the first place. Joining the army from the ranks has become such a rarity that is now being judged on a case-by-case basis. Whereas in the summer and autumn of 2024, when I first arrived at the colony, prison colony, people were actually leaving for the war in droves, and even waiting three to four months to be drafted. So in other words, there were more people that then they could actually process, so they so people were waiting for months. That's not the case now. So even the the prison system, and it's worth noting that if this war, and this is kind of slightly tongue-in-cheap and slightly tasteless, but if this war has been good for anything, it has been good for prison overcrowding in Russia. They had a serious problem. Now they're actually closing prisons down because of an insufficiency of them. But the point is, again, that that source seems to be pretty much tapped out. So there would have to be some kind of mass civilian mobilization. And as I said, there would be huge risks. Though it has to be said that just as shifting to civilian strikes would be unlikely to break Ukrainian will and might indeed actually stiffen the sinews, so too, it is worth noting that there's some suggestion, some evidence to suggest, and it's only preliminary, that the deep strikes within Russia by Ukraine are causing a certain degree of kind of rally round the flag, or at least anger at the Ukrainians. But that might offset a tiny fraction of the anger and dismay that a mobilization wave would cause, but by no means do the whole job. When would it happen in any way? Obviously, from a military point of view, you want to be doing it as soon as possible. Because there is a lag, there is a lag of at least a month, and probably more like six weeks, between actually announcing a mobilization and start sending out the electronic call-up papers and actually having soldiers who've been through their basic week or so refresher training and have been armed and have been actually assembled in units and moved to the front. So the military would want it now. The political managers of the system, though, would be much, much less comfortable with that. Precisely because of the aforementioned elections taking place in September, and the desire not to have basically alienated a huge swath of the electorate before then. The Czech president Pietr Pavel told the Telegraph this week that Putin could declare a general mobilization after these elections. What he said was, I believe that the window is there for us to keep pushing and giving Russia a clear message that we are willing to start negotiations. And remember, this is a retired general, but nonetheless he's talking about negotiations. But anyway, what he says is then Russia will have parliamentary elections in September. President Putin will hardly declare declare mobilization before, but once the elections are over, then the window will shrink. Now, and I think that's that's pretty fair. From the political point of view, you would not want to do it now. But the point is if you wait until September and late September at that, well, you are essentially saying that Crimea has to hang on for months. And also, again, let's say you announce your mobilization on the 25th of September, just after the elections, which will also be, it has to be said, widely regarded rightly as a sort of cynical move by the Russians. But you're not really going to have your troops ready until the end of October, when arguably A, your campaign will already be pivoting to hitting energy infrastructure in Ukraine rather than anything else, and B, it may not be the ideal conditions for major military offensives. You've neither got the deep freeze, which means that the ground is hard and such like, but nor do you have summer conditions. You've probably got a period in which there's still not enough leaves on the trees to provide cover against drones. There may be a lot of bad weather in terms of rain, which is a good thing, because again it that helps keep the drones out of the way. But generally speaking, you know, it does mean you're going to have to just hold on and hope nothing changes over the next few months. And it's worth noting, after all, that there are some people who are trying to talk down the risk of mobilization. Tsargrad, the ultranationalist outlet, said Is it really that close to the next troop recruitment, i.e., mobilization for the special military operations zone? Of course not. With such statements, the politician, it's based on again Pavel, is attempting to destabilise our society. But the scaremongering about mobilization has long since lost its effectiveness. Well, it's always a good rule of thumb to assume that the rumours that the most rabid nationalists are eag most eager to try and scotch are the ones that probably either have the most truth behind them, and or are also the ones that are most potentially dangerous to the warmongering community. And I think that's very much the case here. If you are some kind of hawkish warmonger, if you actually would quite like the idea of mobilization because you want to see the war taken all the more forcefully to the Ukrainians, what you want to avoid is there being too much of a panic beforehand, a panic that precisely those, as you would see it, lily livered political technologists who are more worried about elections than the battlefield would then use precisely to try and persuade Putin to put off or shelve the whole idea. So, you know, at present, obviously it's very hard, hard to tell, but nonetheless, it does look as if Russia, or rather the Kremlin, is trying to inch itself into a position in which it can and maybe will launch a mobilization. Because after all, the practical preparations have already been done. They have now linked, for example, the databases of the Voyen Comat system, the military commissariats that send out the mobilization orders, in other words, the the unwelcome news that some reservist is being called up, to the record system at border control. So, in other words, the moment that a call-out notice is sent to you, at that same point, assuming the system works, and look, this is Russia, I'm sure with enough payment, there's always ways around things. But anyway, assuming it works, at that point you can't leave the country. And indeed, it's worth noting that's another reason why groups like Zagrad want to talk down the prospect of mobilization. Because if people start to think it's about to happen, then they well m may well preemptively flee before they have these stop notices put out on them. So, you know, nonetheless, so there is this system, and especially if it can catch Russian society by surprise, it probably will be very effective. Though it's worth noting, there has been, to the best of my knowledge, no large-scale test of this system. And if we do see that happen, again, that will be quite a definite warning sign that a mobilization might be on the cards. And also just simply the whole debate is in some ways preparing the ground. On the you know, on one level, it's good to be able to shock Russian society with a mobilization so that you have caught your pool of recruits before they've managed to go to Georgia or Armenia or wherever. But on the other hand, actually having a debate does begin to prepare society for the fact that this could happen and maybe makes it less shocking when you do. So, you know, is this going to happen? Look, I obviously I don't know. But on the other hand, I do think that it is much more likely than it has been for a long time. And in many ways, actually, what's happening in Crimea makes this more likely. I mean, it would be one of the tragic ironies, and it's not that I'm therefore saying, oh, therefore the Ukrainians shouldn't be doing this. It's just I do hope that they have thoroughly thought this through, is precisely because by creating the potential for a panic on Putin's part. Well, as I said, Putin doesn't like making decisions quickly and he doesn't make them easily. When he's actually stamped into a decision, he tends to make bad decisions, which he then regrets. But the point is it might be a bit too late by that point.

Escalation Spiral And A Rough Summer

MG 37:57

What this really represents is a situation in which Moscow might be doing politically what it is sometimes accused of planning to do militarily, and that is escalate to de-escalate. In other words, dramatically increase the pressure to force the other side to accept certain terms or accept certain context, you know, to stop the war or whatever it is, to reduce the pressure. And in a way, this is precisely what Ukraine is doing with Crimea. Stepping up the pressure on Moscow in the hope that it makes Moscow react in a way that actually scales things down. But of course, you know, the risk is it pushes the other way. And look, this is, we should note, a time when Ukraine is also facing its own pressures. I've talked about the the whole issue of actual uh having enough troops and the basically the anti-press ganging riot in Lviv, which may just simply be a one-off or it may be a sign of the times. We've already seen all these little videos of people rallying round to try and help someone who's being grabbed by the the um military commissariat people and just wrench them away. Air defence is clearly a serious problem. At the moment, essentially Russian cruise missiles are unchallenged, particularly because of the lack of patriot interceptors. And although Trump has promised that, oh, the Ukrainians will be allowed to license produce patriot missiles, assuming that does happen, and I think it's fair to say that occasionally Trump does promise things which don't then turn out, but even if that happens, it will take years to build the factories, the production lines in order to be turning out patriots. I think I remember seeing somewhere that, you know, actually this is going to be useful for Ukraine for the next war, but not for this one. We had General Zalushny, the sort of future, maybe future president across the water. Anyway, the former commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian military, now ambassador to London, warning in again, it was quite an interesting article, that actually Kyiv cannot take for granted that the West will be willing and able to provide the same level of support indefinitely. And finally, you know, we we must remember that the Russians are still advancing in the Donbass, even if at terrible cost, even if not at a rate which would make them likely to be able to take those two remaining cities by this autumn. But nonetheless, in aggregate terms, they are still conquering more territory than the Ukrainians are able to liberate. So actually, this also helps explain why the Ukrainians may be willing to take more risks at the moment, seeing this as a potential moment in which they can try and escalate to de-escalate themselves. And that's the uncomfortable and in some ways scary situation, is that as things stand, both sides seem to feel that they have most to gain through some form of escalation rather than anything else. And this does create the risk of a sort of self-sustaining escalatory cycle on both parts. But as ever, I always seek to try and end on a slightly upbeat note, and perversely there is a degree of hope to be found in this, in that this war was always likely to get ugly uglier before it got better. In some ways, both sides have to do their worst and fail to get what they want before there's likely to be any kind of meeting of minds and any kind of resolution. Now again, obviously Ukraine and Russia are not in the same position, one is absolutely the aggressor and the other one is trying to defend its territory and its its sovereignty. You know, but but still that is a sort of a natural dynamic. And I am again a slightly sort of off-beat kind of parallel, but I am slightly sort of reminded of what happened in the earliest year of Gorbachev's period as general secretary. He had inherited this very ugly war in Afghanistan. A war which he could actually plausibly say was not his. He hadn't been part of the decision-making process which had set the troops in, and he clearly wanted to be able to withdraw. But at the same time, he was not politically in a position in which he could just simply decree that. And so actually, if you look at the first year of Gorbachev's general secretary, the war escalated. More troops, more attacks, more casualties. Why? Well, in some ways he had to give the generals their head. In some ways he had to say, Okay, you've got a year to show that you can actually win this war or that you know that we're on a trajectory towards winning it. Give it your all and if you are not able to do that, then we'll have to do things my way, which will involve negotiating our way out. Now again, hugely different circumstances, and certainly Gorbachev is no Putin, Putin is no Gorbachev. But nonetheless, that sense that when you are caught between the imperatives of people who advocate escalation and people who advocate withdrawal or at least ending the war, sometimes you've actually got to try out, you've got to well, all we are saying is give war a chance. You've got to actually demonstrate that there is not a economically and politically viable route to victory before you could end. So this could be, in the long term, in a very painful way, a positive thing. But as I say, in the meantime, I do have a nasty feeling that we are heading into an even rougher and uglier summer. Which is, okay, I will confess, a depressing final note on which to end. Well, that's the end of another episode of the In Moscow Shadows podcast. Just as a reminder, beyond this, you can follow my blog, also called In Moscow Shadows. You can follow me on Twitter at Mark Galliotti or Facebook, Mark Galliotti on Russia. This podcast is made possible by generous and enlightened patrons, and you too can be one. Just go along to my Patreon page, that's patreon.com slash in Moscow Shadows, and decide which tier you want to join, getting access to exclusive materials and other perks. However, whether or not you contribute, thank you very much indeed for listening. Until next time, keep well.