Front Burner - What do drone strikes in Moscow, Kyiv signal about the war?

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

Ukraine has been dealt some blows in the last month. Kyiv has seen the most air strikes since the start of the war, and the city of Bakhmut is almost entirely occupied by the Russians. However, a shift could be coming. After receiving billions of dollars worth of international military aid, Ukraine may be ready to launch its much anticipated spring counteroffensive. And after a drone strike hit an apartment block in a Moscow suburb, some are asking whether it’s already underway. Plus, tensions between the powerful mercenary organisation, The Wagner Group, and the Kremlin are increasing, after more than 20,000 of their soldiers were killed in Bakhmut. Could Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin be a threat to Putin’s leadership? Paul Adams, the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent, has been watching this all closely and helps us make sense of the latest developments — and where the war in Ukraine could be headed. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jodi Martinson. Over the last month, people in Kyiv have been kept up at night. Around 16 different times, Ukrainians have had to look to the sky and scramble to shelter. It's the most bombardment the city's seen since the start of the war.

And this hasn't been the only blow for Ukraine recently. After nine months of fierce fighting in Bakhmut, leaving tens of thousands dead, the Russians have taken most of the small city. There is nothing. They destroyed everything. There are no buildings. For today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts. Meanwhile, a drone attack hit an apartment building in Moscow this week. And there have been tensions between the Kremlin and the Wagner Group.

That's the mercenary organization credited for Russia's gains in Bakhmut. This is all the backdrop to Ukraine's plan to launch its spring offensive, where many expect the country to deploy some of their newly acquired equipment, like the Leopard 2 tanks from Germany. For more on where the war in Ukraine is headed and the latest developments, I'm joined by Paul Adams, the BBC's diplomatic correspondent. Hi, Paul.

Hi, nice to be with you. Let's start with Kiev, where there's been a lot of airstrikes over the past month. How bad has that been? Kyiv, where there's been a lot of airstrikes over the past month. How bad has that been? I think at one level, it has been very bad. I mean, people I speak to who've been there throughout the month are pretty exhausted, frankly, because they've been woken up often, you know, right in the middle of the night, kept up for hours having to go down to their bomb shelters and basements. And, you know, this has been repeated sometimes several times a night, sometimes also during the day. And so I think psychologically

and physically, it's incredibly demanding. It hasn't done a great deal of damage. And in fact, one of the things that's been most remarkable has been the extreme success of Ukraine's air defenses, which have been improved significantly over the last six months or so. for the first time one of Russia's much vaunted hypersonic missiles, which the Kremlin had been arguing were simply, you know, they could not be intercepted. Well, they managed to shoot down six of them in one particular operation. And we're looking at success rates of anywhere, you know, in excess of 90, close to 100% sometimes. So the raids are happening every night, but they're not, generally speaking, causing much damage. And if the intention has been to exhaust Ukraine's air defenses, then so far, at least, it hasn't worked. And you mentioned how people are feeling exhausted. Well, we've

seen these videos of people piling into bomb shelters, and it looks a lot like it did in the early days of the war when we were seeing similar videos to that. And there was even one circulating of a wedding that had to move underground during an attack the other morning. during an attack the other morning. Are people able to cope with this extra level of stress this far into the war? I mean, I think at one level they are simply because in one sense, it's all rather familiar now. I mean, I was there when it all started. So we had some of that right at the beginning. I was there in October when the Russian infrastructure attacks began and someirens go off during the daytime, sitting on their balconies with a glass of wine and, you know, kind of enjoying it, because the danger is relatively slight. I mean, the thing you're most likely to get hit by, frankly, is falling debris, because when a missile is intercepted, of course, the pieces of that missile have to fall somewhere.

And so that's generally speaking what is causing damage. But I think some people are defiant. Others, obviously, anyone involved with looking after children, you know, cannot take those kinds of risks. So it is an exhausting routine, but it is a very familiar routine. Whether it is kind of wearing people down psychologically, I suppose in one sense it is. But if there's one thing I've learned about the Ukrainians over the past year and a quarter, it is that they are fantastically resilient and willing to undergo really quite considerable privations if they feel that know, all part of the cause. On the other side, there was a rare drone strike earlier this week that actually hit an apartment block in Moscow.

This morning, the Russian capital under attack from a swarm of lethal drones. Explosions just three miles from President Putin's country residence. Russian officials saying most were shot down, but buildings damaged, two people lightly injured. Ukraine hasn't commented on it or claimed responsibility for it, but could this point to a new direction in where the war is going? This was a very interesting episode and much mystery surrounds it, frankly. What was remarkable about it was not so much that a drone got through, because if you'll recall not that long ago, some kind of object exploded over the

dome of the Kremlin. No one quite knows what that was. Russia says all of this was a planned terrorist act and an assassination attempt on the president, but has provided no evidence to back that up. Ukraine says it's all staged by Russia. But this was at least eight drones, possibly more, fired from who knows where, and all arriving in the suburbs of Moscow at much the same time. Again, there was no real damage. The Russians said that they intercepted most of

them. But I think the psychological impact of this was quite considerable. And, you know, perhaps in some ways, whoever did it, whether it was Ukraine directly, and you're right that the Ukrainians said that they were not directly responsible for this, they did kind of leave open the possibility that there was some indirect responsibility. But whoever did it, the idea seems to have been to give Moscow a taste of its own medicine. Right, because if I understand, it was kind of a posh neighborhood. Yes. I mean, whether the targeting was precise or whether it was simply that the drones arrived

in the kind of southwest corner of Moscow, having traveled some distance possibly from Ukraine, we just don't know. No one has shed any light on what the purpose was. And I think that's deliberate. There's been quite a bit of ambiguity about Ukrainian or Ukrainian-inspired operations inside Russia for several months. Now, in all of those cases, the Ukrainians observed a studied silence, did not want to shed any light on what, if any, involvement they had. There is an assumption that they were behind all of those attacks. But I think that kind of constructive ambiguity works for them. So all of that is playing out because of attacks sent through the air.

Let's talk now about what's happening on the ground where the bloodiest battle has been in Bakhmut, a small city in the east of Ukraine that really doesn't seem to hold a lot of strategic importance. And yet it's been going on for over nine months of hard fighting there. What importance does it hold for both the Ukrainians and the Russians? I think in one sense, you put your finger on it simply by talking about the sheer length of time that it has taken. It's been, as you say, many, many months since the Russians decided to focus their efforts on Bakhmut. It is not a place, most military analysts agree, with particularly great significance in terms of its strategic location. It's not on any significant supply routes. Obviously, any city that falls opens the road for the forces to move on and try and

the forces to move on and try and attack targets further on. But I think it has acquired an importance simply because the Russians threw so much, so many resources at it. And because the Ukrainians, rather than simply accept defeat and pull back to defensive positions, decided for one reason or another that they were going to stick there and fight it out. And as one British official put it to me some months back, Bakhmut is useful for the Ukrainians because an awful lot of Russians are being killed there. And I think in the kind of awful, rather grim mathematics of this, as long as the Ukrainians felt that the price in Russian blood was significantly greater than the price in Ukrainian blood,

then it was a battle that was worth continuing with. And all that death, I mean, the videos that have come out from the fighting there are really brutal to see. What has the fighting actually looked like on the ground? are really brutal to see. What has the fighting actually looked like on the ground? Well, I mean, they call it the meat grinder. It has been a conflict that has swallowed up anywhere we think possibly in excess of 20,000 Russians have died in the course of trying to take this relatively small town. The trenches around it have looked like scenes from World War I. You look at the scenes there with trenches in woods that have been blasted, you know, the trees all smashed by artillery,

people huddled in muddy trenches full of water, rats scurrying up and down. All of those things seem awfully reminiscent of a bygone era. And then you've had in the city itself, these kind of waves of Russian conscripts, sometimes convict conscripts, who have been thrown forward in an attempt to absorb Ukrainian fire. You know, all of this has been just relentless and it's block by block, building by building. And it has just been an absolutely brutal affair, which, you know, ultimately has resulted in kind of a Russian success. They have most of that city in their control,

although in the last month or so, of course, we've seen the Ukrainians nibbling away on the flanks of Bakhmut in a way that has caused some to wonder whether, when the moment comes, the Ukrainians might simply grab it back again. From their side, they're shelling less. And on our side, they're shelling less. And on our side, we're more experienced and we have more mortar shells now. I'll see you next time. entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share

with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. You talked about the Russian losses there, many of them convicts who've been conscripted into the Wagner Group. Let's talk a little bit more about that group. So a mercenary group from Russia. We did an entire episode of our show here a few months ago explaining who they are and how they came to be.

How instrumental were they particularly in Bakhmut? Extremely. And, you know, it has been, you know, the person who has been most visible is the leader of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Seen here congratulating his men outside the train station in the center, claims Russian forces have now captured the entire city. He's filmed himself in and around Bakhmut many, many times. He's done these extraordinary videos sometimes in which he rants and rails against the failings of the Russian military to organize itself and to provide ammunition for his forces. And, you know, with every time he goes in for one of these ranting videos, people do wonder, you know, what's going on behind the scenes here? What kind of power game is playing out? of power game is playing out. Is he doing Vladimir Putin's bidding or is he somehow mounting some kind of private effort to establish his own political and military credentials and perhaps

offer himself as a kind of rival, which is a kind of a dangerous game because, you know, you kind of got to think that if he were doing that, then a bullet in the back of his head would be the most likely outcome at some point. And it has been surprising what he's been able to get away with for a long time now, what he's been able to say about Moscow and the support they have or have not had. But this recent video that he released, he's standing in front of a field of dead troops, calling out the Kremlin for not supplying enough ammunition. And he's so angry. Do you think he is a credible threat to Putin at this point? Do you think he is a credible threat to Putin at this point?

I don't think most Russia and Kremlin analysts, and I have to say, put my hand up, I am not one of those. This is not my field of expertise, but I think most people who understand the way Moscow works do not believe that Prigozhin represents a threat to Putin. If anything, he probably is still doing Putin's bidding. And, you know, if Putin wants to show his displeasure with the way in which the Russian military and the Ministry of Defense have operated and conducted themselves, then having Mr. Prigozhin ranting on screen about it perhaps is no bad way of getting that message across. I think if he were setting himself up as some kind of rival, I don't think he would last five minutes, probably. And so I think the relationship is still there, even if it feels at times as if it's a highly fractious one and one which feels dysfunctional. I mean, these rows that have been played out in such a public way have shown a level of

dysfunction at the heart of the Kremlin's military establishment. It's hard to see how that's really worked to Mr. Putin's advantage. Okay, and here we are almost at the end of spring. And for months now, people have been expecting a big spring counteroffensive by Ukraine to try to get back some of the territory that they have lost. And there have been billions of dollars of military aid donated. And there's this big recruitment push going on right now. There was another video that came out recently that was really a call to arms in Ukraine. It seems a little bit unclear on whether the counteroffensive has started yet.

Do you have a sense of what the reason is for the big delay? Well, I think in one sense, it probably has started. In fact, it certainly has started because if you watch closely the reporting coming out of Ukraine every day, every day is bringing reports of long-range Ukrainian assaults using some of this equipment that's been supplied by the West at such great expense, targeting all sorts of key Russian military facilities inside occupied Ukraine, troop concentrations, ammunition and fuel dumps, key logistical centers, the kinds of places that you want to soften up and degrade before you send armed troops, armoured formations across Russia's

heavily defended front lines. When we ask about Ukraine's wider counter-offensive, this is the response. It's already started. Already started. Last month, we advanced 100 metres, then 300 meters, then further. And it's also like that all along the front line. So that has been going on for some weeks now.

Now, whether we are reaching the point at which the logical next step arrives and we see the Ukrainian military trying to punch through the Russian lines. Well, clearly, we're not quite at that point. President Zelensky said the other day that the dates had now been set. But then every now and again, you hear talk of them not quite being ready. They don't have quite enough of the equipment they need. You know, they've been building up anywhere between eight and 12 new battalions, some of them equipped with Western-supplied armored fighting vehicles, tanks, demining equipment, all of the kinds of things you need to launch a sophisticated, complicated, coordinated assault on the Russian lines. And we don't know exactly where they are with that process of the buildup. It's clearly

at a very, very advanced stage. And it might be very, very tempting for Ukrainian commanders to launch that operation now. But, you know, they want to get it right. They sense that they may not have too many opportunities to do this. And so they are making sure that they have everything where it needs to be. And of course, all the while trying to disguise their intentions. So doing something over in one area while preparing to do something else in another area. And they know that it's going to be a whole lot harder because the Russians have spent the last few months digging trenches, putting up tank traps, laying mines. You know, the satellite imagery from some of those areas along the front line show an

extremely complex, deep layers of Russian defenses, which the Ukrainians are going to have to be extremely clever if they're going to breach. Lots of people say that this is going to be a long war. And former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, close ally of Putin, has actually said it could last decades. So any hope at all that this spring and now, I guess, summer offensive could actually bring an end to all the fighting? to all the fighting? I think you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in Ukraine or indeed among Ukraine's Western backers who believes that the end is close. You know, there is clearly a lot of fighting going on. And if you look at some of the commitments that the West has now belatedly been making to Ukraine, notably around supplying fast jets with the prospect of F-16s and maybe other sophisticated jets arriving in Ukraine. They're not going to be coming in the coming months.

They're probably, it's going to be next year before we see any of that sort of stuff arriving in Ukraine. And that indicates to me a sense that the West and Ukraine's Western backers feel that they are in this for the long haul and that the long haul is what, frankly, we should all be expecting. I think what everyone is hoping for in Kiev and among Kiev supporters is that whatever happens this year will simply change the whole nature of the conflict. It will definitively put Russia back on the defensive. nature of the conflict. It will definitively put Russia back on the defensive. It could,

you know, if it was spectacularly successful, begin to get back to the lines that existed back on February the 24th last year when this full-scale invasion was launched. That would represent an amazing success for Ukraine. And I suppose the hope is that that would begin to fundamentally undermine the Kremlin's whole rationale for this operation and perhaps drive home to Russians and the Russian military that this really isn't worth pursuing and perhaps might make the prospect of some kind of negotiated settlement a little bit closer. Okay, Paul, it's all very complicated and very upsetting still. Thank you so much for bringing us up to speed. You're welcome. Nice to talk to you. All right, that's all for today. I'm Jodi Martinson.

Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.