The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Battle For Ukraine's Cities

Episode Date: March 15, 2022

As the battle for Ukraine's cities, including the capital Kyiv,  steps up, the question arises about strategy.  From both sides, what is the aim of the attack and what is the theory behind the defence?  In his regular Tuesday commentary for the Bridge on the Ukraine war, retired foreign correspondent and military analyst Brian Stewart has his thoughts.  Also, a remarkable letter later in the episode from two listeners travelling parts of western Canada.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge, the battle for the cities in Ukraine, trying to understand military strategy. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario. Yes, we're going to talk strategy today, military strategy, trying to understand some of the positioning that the different forces in Ukraine are taking during this conflict. Understanding strategy helps understand how the war is unfolding. So we'll get to that with Brian Stewart in just a moment. But I do want to give you a heads up that later on in today's broadcast, podcast,

we're going to fulfill a promise I made last week on our Your Turn Day. I told you I had one letter, an amazing letter, that was going to take a little time. So I'm going to read it all later in this episode today. And it's from two young fellows, one from Mississauga and one from Calgary, who are on a road trip between Calgary and Vancouver and back again. And some of the things they talked about in terms of their country.

And I think it's really interesting. So we'll get to that. But first, strategy. One of the other things I mentioned last week is that for most news organizations, it's tough to have somebody who is kind of exclusively dedicated to military affairs or defense issues. It's tough because it's expensive, one, and two, there are long stretches of time where military affairs, defense issues are not kind of front and center for a news organization to commit to a journalist that space that beat can sometimes be difficult but that's not to say it isn't done you know

perhaps one of the best known defense specialists in Canada is David Buglisi, who works for the Ottawa Citizen and a number of freelance operations he does for other periodicals. But David is really well respected, not only by his audience and his news organization, but by defense experts around the world. So David gets the heads up on certain things. So does Murray Brewster from the CBC. Originally from Canadian press, Murray became kind of a military expert, if you will, if you want to use that word. And he brought that ability along with him when he joined the CBC a few years ago. So there are two of, not the only ones, but there are two of the Canadian journalists who are, you know, their number one beat is defense, the military. My good friend, Brian Stewart, is another one. And Brian's retired now, like I am, but he watches everything in terms of military issues.

He's been there. He's covered wars. He's dealt with the big issues. The big future looks at the direction in which military goes, but he also spends an enormous amount of time looking at the history of military affairs. And therefore, a couple of weeks ago, we started using Brian, using his expertise on Tuesdays on the bridge to get a sense of what's happening in Ukraine and why it's happening and to draw upon history to do that. And so once again today, that's exactly what we're going to do uh with brian because a couple

of things have come up in the last little while uh that um i i think warrant some explanation or at least some theorizing as to why they're happening so here's uh here's my latest conversation with retired war correspondent, retired foreign correspondent, retired military analyst, all these things are retired, but he's never stopped working. And he's still working as he does right now in this conversation. So let's have it. All right, Brian, a couple of things I want to talk about today to try and understand better i guess from the strategic side of of the military equation first of all a couple of days ago the russians attacked a ukrainian base just inside uk, across from the Polish border. Now, a lot of discussion around that dealt with this issue of, man, it was so close.

If it had fallen on the Polish side, who knows what might have happened in terms of a reaction from the rest of the world. But the fact is, it didn't fall on the Polish side. It fell on the Ukrainian side, where they were aiming. One assumes it was some kind of smart bomb, if you want to call it that. What do you make of that? Was there something wrong, you know,

in what the Russians did? I mean, they are on a military operation, as they call it, a war, as everybody else calls it. Was there something wrong about what they did well if i can open my comment by saying the whole invasion is horribly wrong and could well be a crime against humanity and a war crime uh so they're wrong to be doing anything inside ukraine however if you look at military logic and military strategies you point out, the surprise would have been had they not hit that base. It

seems a legitimate target of war because it was suspected to be, whether it was or not, we don't know, but certainly had reason to be suspected as where the nato weapons from from nato coming into the ukraine was passing through it was also a training base and in war a training base would be a legitimate target as well these were precision cruise missiles so it would be very surprising if the russians were to look at this and say that's where they're training and that's where a lot of these thousands upon thousands of anti-armor and anti-aircraft missiles are coming

through but we better not hit that base because that would be very nasty considering all the other things they're doing so in a war sense i don't see anything wrong with that i see that as logic and i see it again i go back to the fact i'm very surprised it has taken them over two weeks into the third week before they finally hit what was so obvious a target i think that underscores that their air force and their missiles have been having significant problems in their planning. But they're now starting to catch up. And if any NATO country should be wary that the Russians have laid down their own sort of red line very clearly here, that armaments going in to the Ukrainians will be hit along the point of from entry on into Ukraine. So I would expect to see a few hits

much closer to the Polish border than this recent one was, which is about, what, 15 kilometers, a dozen miles or so. I think they're going to get a lot closer than that in the coming weeks. Okay, here's the next area that I find more than a little bit interesting.

It's this whole issue of the attacks on the cities. We've seen now the attacks step up on Kiev. Yesterday's podcast, we were talking to somebody inside Kiev as the attack was happening there. Here's the question. You have all these different negotiating sessions going on between the Ukrainians and the Russians. And what they are partly trying to do is to find a humanitarian corridor to get people out, mainly women, children, and the elderly out of the cities. Now, the Ukrainians clearly want to move their citizens out,

their vulnerable citizens out. The Russians say they understand that argument, and yet they seem to put up every possible roadblock in the way of getting the vulnerable out of the cities. So explain the city's argument to me and how it would play out, given those two contradictory aims. Across the strategy boards of the various general staffs, yes, sad thing about war, it has such cruel logic to it, but there are logics to war. In the Ukrainian sense, their logic is to kill as many russians as possible to make it a very

unpopular war back in russia but they also know that to do that the best way is to make their cities uh small stalingrad separate stalingrads in these various cities kiev kharkiv mariupol odessa are all going to be there for the siege. The Russians, of course, would like the Ukrainians to fight outside in the countryside where they'd be most vulnerable to Russian attacks from the air and from their special missiles. So the Russians have to, as they advance, if the cities don't surrender, they surround them. They don't want to go into the cities. They're very anxious not to go into the cities. That's part of Russian doctrine.

Ukrainian doctrine is to bring them into the cities, if they can, to up their casualties. So the Russians will try, first of all, to starve the cities. At the same time i'm using more and more artillery we've seen very and only pinpricks of artillery if you compare it to the what the russians have done in the past for instance the battle of grozny back earlier in the century they were firing 4 000 salvos a day into that city uh now we're reporting on some explosions here and there it's going to get very very much worse but for them to win this surrender of the ukrainians they know that the cities have to get very hungry the citizens inside those cities have to put a lot

of pressure on the military to surrender they They can't go on like this. Ukrainian logic is quite the reverse. It's to get the citizens out of the cities, get them away from a position where they're using up all the food and water supplies and are suffering casualties, which are very demoralizing, quite obviously. So it's in the logic of the ukrainians to move the civilians out of those cities it's in the horrible logic of war for the russians to try and keep those citizens inside the cities they're not going to say we're going to keep them in because we want to

starve them into surrender they're going to say uh they're just going to not be able to agree upon a humanitarian exit point and they'll keep as many hundreds of thousands in these cities as possible. I think it's unfortunate in a way that many of these cities were not reduced in size before the war with all those warnings that came in, but they're not. So we're going to see a lot of that. And I think it's just the horrible situation that the Russians will say it's not in our interest to let the civilians out. If they do so, it'll be because the pressure from the outside world upon them, the pressure from China upon them, and the pressure on their own economy, which is going to be in desperate shape in another week, would just make them have to do it. But that's not something they would want to do by the logic of war i'm not sure that's clear enough it's it's a messy situation but

go back to medieval times a city and a castle sort of environment is surrounded by an attacker and it says to the attacker okay it's going to be a bad fight. I'm sure you'll let our civilians leave our castle and go out free. And so they won't be killed in this battle. The attacker is going to say, you must be nuts. Why would we let the civilians out and leave you with a lot of food and water that you can then drink for many more months and kill many more of our soldiers? That's the core logic that goes back thousands of years and that's what we're seeing played out now very sadly very horribly in in the ukraine and i i guess there's another uh element not as important as the ones that you've just

outlined to us which it's fascinating to listen to you're quite accurate it you know it's awful to listen to it's a terrible fact of war but it is a fact of war but the the the other issue is it would seem the ukrainians from a defensive position would prefer to fight in the city that the city is to their advantage right especially in a very flat countryside as they have most of in eastern ukraine uh it's hard to fight out in these a lot of wide open spaces in the cities you can turn a city into a great fortress we've seen this throughout history so many times stalingrad of course being the classic but you know smash buildings are wonderful to fight from because they're they give you a thousand points to ambush and resist from uh these ukrainian cities because of the

cold war experience they have deep underground tunnels that they can hide in put supplies in they're very very difficult and fighting in a city is the hardest form of combat, perhaps on a par with fighting inside a jungle that's very thick. But because the end of the attacker needs, they say nowadays, a five to one advantage. Well, the Russians don't have a five to one advantage. They don't have nearly enough soldiers to really fight a siege of a city that goes street by street, neighbor by neighbor, you know, and last for five, six, seven weeks. Remember in the Second World War, in 1940, Churchill said if there was an invasion by the Germans, the city of London alone fought neighbor by neighbor and street by street could devour an entire army in a matter of weeks. And

there's some element of truth to that. I don't think the Russians in northern Ukraine, coming in from down from Belarus, could possibly sustain five weeks of a street-by-street battle. So they're going to do everything they can to get the surrender without going in. But also, that does present them with big problems, though, because then they have to surround the city. So just imagine two big arms going around the city. And as the arms connect, the surface of those arms get more and more targeted by partisans in the countryside.

And small units that are able to pick off their armored vehicles, they're able to pick off, above all, their supply convoys with greater ease. So the more you surround a city, the more troops you have to keep moving in, and the more those troops become targeted. So sitting around a city is not pleasant, but going into it is 100 times more unpleasant. It's the middle of march almost now um things are changing in europe in terms of the the climate the weather conditions um you told me once this great term about general mud enters the battle uh tell me about that well this is a part of Europe where mud has always been a curse for armies. It's a wonderful agricultural area.

It's world famous for its magnificent agriculture. But it means in the wintertime is the best time to attack because the ground is hard. And once the thaw sets in, which happens to be in March, those fields turn to incredible mud traps for any kind of vehicle. Obviously, supply trucks, but even armored cars and tanks with their treads because the weight of them sinks deeper and deeper into the mud. This was a big problem with the first tanks that appeared in the British Army in, I think, 1916 around the Battle of Somme, that area, which was a very muddy area. The tanks sit down. The tanks do not want to be immobilized because then they're easy targets. They have to go forward.

But then to go forward, they have to find firm enough ground to advance on that's often a road when they move in the road they're then isolated and targeted very often so it's it's a very difficult place for anyone to fight it'll be difficult for the ukrainians as well of course if they want to use any of their armor or heavier weapons but mud is going to be i think very important uh as another crippling factor to the many problems of the russian supply lines which i think we've talked about before i mean they have a terrible supply mess logistics are always bad they don't have enough trucks for the number of military formations they move. And one reason they have such trouble is they have far more artillery and rocket shells than the NATO army.

So they're heavier. You need more things to carry Russian supplies forward. Usually they go by train for most of the time, but trains aren't going to work in this battle because the Ukrainians have the same gauge, which is rare in Europe. But they've sabotaged a lot of those railheads and a lot of the key keys to those rails are in the cities that are besieged. So they can't get to that as well. The mud will be another thickening factor that will slow the pace of the fighting down and probably give the Ukrainians a lot more advantage to pick off the targets, armored personnel carriers and trucks. Particularly now they have these incredibly powerful rifles that can fire from, you know, 1,800 meters away, 2,000 meters away with precision as sort of sniper rifles but

they fire these heavy cartridges that can in fact take out of one truck one shot a truck's gone they can sometimes take out armor personnel carriers and these are shot from distances far enough away it's very hard to locate the sniper that's doing that shooting. That's why these roads are just killing grounds, or could become, if they're slowed down that much, if mud, it could become even worse. You know, Putin must be just fuming at his generals, if it's true, in fact, that they were advising him that they could wrap this up in a matter of days.

Here we are into the third week with no end in sight the weather's turning the uh you know the cities pose the problems that you've already suggested um none of this is is working in this favor with the normal caveat that we use in a war is unpredictable you don't know what can happen and and and it would it would be a massive mistake to count the russians out at this point but it just seems at this moment nothing's going their way absolutely i think today the head of the national guard in russia said that the offensive was going slower than expected and while putin may go to his generals and say how come you didn't take that city in three days? They may say, but sir, you assured us the Ukrainians were ready to embrace us.

You said, you know, we went in there because you kept telling us this was going to be an easy takeover. And sir, let me tell you, it's not quite easy even three weeks in, let alone three days in. But again, everybody should be cautious that the Russians often make mistakes. They reform, they come back hard. They'll certainly come back, if Putin is as angry and irritated as he is, a lot more vicious and a lot more willing to risk the outrage of the world by hammering these cities with really horrific barrages. I just hope that doesn't happen. I hope he feels close enough to some kind of exit ramp that he'll say, this is not going to do me any good for the world and not at all good for my ally, China, which doesn't like the look of this at all. We're going to leave it at that for this day. Brian, thanks for this.

Look forward to talking to you again next week. It's great insight into military minds, military strategy, military tactics. And you've always been my go-to guy for that. So thanks again. Oh, my pleasure, Peter. Nice to meet you. Brian Stewart, you know, somebody who obviously I have a great affection for and a great respect for and love to listen to him break down some of these kind of stories for us.

And he's agreed to pop by every Tuesday while we're covering this in the way we're covering it right now. So that's Brian Stewart for this week. We're going to take a quick pause, but when we come back, a real change of pace, change of topic. Stay with us. either on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform.

And welcome to you if you're just joining us for the first time. We've had a lot of first-time listeners over the last couple of months and a lot of long-time listeners as well, so we appreciate all of you. As you know, on Thursdays, I love to get your reaction to different things. And so we kind of reach into the mailbag and pick a selection of the literally hundreds of letters that come in by email every week. Last week, I mentioned that there was one email that came in that was quite long. It didn't kind of fit in that Thursday programming,

but that I wanted to read it because I found it fascinating. So I'm going to use today to read it. Here's the background. Here's all you need to know. This is a joint letter coming to me from a few different places. It's from two fellows who are on a road trip from Calgary to Vancouver and then back again. They being Jordan Gray, who's 23 years old, lives in Calgary,

and Dylan Leonard, he's 24. He lives in Mississauga, Ontario. Both of them are, they claim, big fans of the podcast. So this week they took the bridge, the week that they had this trip, which was I think two weeks ago. We took the bridge on the road for our trip. Here are some ideas we'd love to share. Consider it a potpourri letter,

which is a term I use occasionally on the podcast when we have a collection of different stories. We haven't done that lately. We should. We've got lots of them. Anyway, here's the letter. And it's in point form. One.

One of our most rigorous debates, which we think would make for a great good talk, is who is the most politically successful premier in the country at the moment? We know successful is a subjective term, but we think it's down to John Horgan of B.C., Francois Legault of Quebec. Kenny is overly combative

and largely disliked in his province. Ford is doing well in the polls, but we can't help to think he's lucked out with an opposition that continues to accept mediocrity over leadership. Andrea Horwath has lost several elections straight and makes routine mistakes. Originally being opposed to vaccine mandates, proposing Ontario be a sanctuary province in the last election. Stephen Del Luca, he's the Liberal leader, and if you've never heard of him, you're not alone. Stephen Del Luca is dealing with a damaged Liberal brand and may not be the strongest communicator.

Whereas Legault and Horgan have handled their opponents skillfully and could be poised for a decade of governance. Two, it might go without saying, but the Freedom Convoy has a real western presence. We walked through a convoy protest in downtown Calgary, and in British Columbia we were greeted with pickups flying convoy 2022 flags, a little red Corolla with a F Trudeau sign, and a house by Abbotsford with a hold the line banner, and not some small banner, it covered their entire roof. Three, it was evident early on that these convoys had nothing to do with truckers or freedom. The war in Ukraine depicts what a fight for freedom really looks like. These convoys that continue in Canada are brigades for

privilege. Those taking part feel their slice of influence is shrinking and are losing faith that Canadian democracy has the ability to safeguard their advantages over others. Disinformation and right-wing populism have emerged globally as safety blankets for those unwilling to accept a world where religious minorities, racialized persons, and other underrepresented groups have a share of influence equal to their own. Aaron Wherry's piece is a writer for cbc.ca on minister christia freeland's long-standing fight for democracy underscores that this loss of faith in democracy may very well place the

convoys in canada and the war in ukraine at two ends of a very large debate. Four, the James Moore and Jerry Butts episode was amazing. That was a couple of weeks ago, right? Right here on the bridge, and it really was amazing. One of the most listened to podcasts we've done over two years.

I think it's in the top three or the top four. The James Moore and Jerry Butts episode was amazing. We look forward to hearing from them again. Parties picking their voters rather than focusing primarily on the issues is a concerning trend. It's something that is eroding Canadian democracy, and it's something we should all be concerned about. In fact, I'm trying to think of the right way to ask James and Jerry back on. They're both agreeable to doing another non-partisan show.

It's not easy for these guys. They are partisans, right? It's not easy for that. It worked really well, that first one. And we want to try and make sure it works really well on the second one as well the cities it's the way this next uh chunk of um points that the two fellows want to make and keep in mind they are jordan gray 23 from from Calgary, Dylan Leonard, 24, from Mississauga, who did this road trip together and had these varying thoughts about it

as they listened to the bridge. Just trying to imagine that. You know, you're driving through the Rockies listening to the bridge. Love it. Here's number five. We are sure you have been to Canada's's west many times oh yeah i lived in the west i lived in the west for 10 years i got my first job in the west really the northwest churchill manitoba then i lived in winnipeg then i lived in regina i had already lived in

victoria before my parents were living in Alberta. My dad was in the bureaucracy of Peter Lougheed. He was Deputy Minister of Health back in the 70s and early 80s. Anyway, we are sure you have been to Canada's West many times, so perhaps you can appreciate why one of us, the one residing in Ontario, finds Calgary's air to be unbelievably dry. British Columbia air, Ontario air, that's perfectly good.

Moist air. But Calgary? Almost zero humidity. Well, what's your point? It must work for hockey players because right now they've got the hottest team in the NHL. Aren't you impressed that I managed to get through that without even mentioning the Maple Leafs?

Six, while in Vancouver, we were amazed with their transit system for one simple thing, tap to pay. In Toronto, you need to load a Presto card for transit. In Vancouver, you can just tap your MasterCard or Visa. People in car-centered suburbs can look down on transit for being slow and generally inefficient. Adopting modern features like tap-to-pay is convenient and good for the brand.

With gas in Vancouver costing over $1.78 per litre, those were in the good old days, two weeks ago. Tap-and-pay transit is certainly welcome. 7. The Globe and Mail recently reported that the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom in Vancouver is $2,176 compared to Toronto where the average is $2,013. While in Vancouver, it is easy to see that its rental housing stock is often better maintained and has more for-purpose built rental units compared to the greater Toronto area. While Vancouver may be seen as having the wildly unaffordable housing and rental market, Toronto is not as far behind as many might think.

We, of course, were reminded of your conversation with Preet Banerjee a couple of weeks ago. It was a great one on housing. Who spoke about how to be a renter that thrives. That was a great conversation. And we would love to hear more insights from those with a racialized perspective. Eight. If one thing stood out more than anything, traveling from one major Canadian city to another, it is that racism is still very alive in Canada. You see it in some smaller towns where one of us, who's white, gets talked to,

while another one of us, who's black, gets mostly ignored or receives looks. Or even in Vancouver, where police will double back and stare for a while, maybe to see if they match the profile of someone with an open warrant. Finally, we think you should take the bridge on the road. With the worst of COVID hopefully behind us, live showings could now be possible. I'm sure many of us would love to see you, Chantel and Bruce, do a live good talk. We hope this letter reaches you well.

Thanks for keeping us informed and entertained for a good bit of our trip. Yours truly, Dylan and Jordan. I love it. I love that letter. I love the whole sense. You know, that was something that so many of us, when we were growing up, wanted to do, take the big road trip. Now, you know, some of us did a little bit on the road trip side

by hitchhiking in different parts of the country. Never could afford a car in those early days. But getting a chance to see the country and make some basic observations like these two did is great. And it's a good sign for the future for these two guys, but also for others like them who are interested in bursting out from their areas that they've grown up in and seeing the country and eventually the world.

Would we like to take the bridge on the road? Absolutely. I mean, when I took over the National in 1988, one of my passions was, and those days are a lot harder than it is now because of technology, but one of my passions was, let's take the show on the road as often as we can. Let's get out of the studio as often as we can. And, you know, that's easier said than done. It certainly was easier said than done back then little a little easier now but it's still a commitment on the part of a news organization to do that to get away from the downtown toronto-centric

view of the world which you can't help but have when you're locked in downtown in Toronto with all the people you work with who are also locked downtown with that kind of Toronto-centric view of the world. So it does exist. There are all kinds of barriers to try to prevent it from being a problem, but it's basically a problem. So the more you can get out and get away and listen to others, the better.

And that's why I did it as often as I could in terms of taking the show on the road, but also why I traveled the country giving speeches in different parts of the country. It was good for me. And it was good for us in the long run. Anyway, I'd like to, the bridge is not the CBC, okay? We're operating out of my little office in my home

in Stratford, Ontario, and to suddenly, you know, head out on the road. But I like the idea, and I know Bruce and Chantal like the idea, if we can figure out a way, an easy way of doing it, and an inexpensive way of doing it, we just, we may give it a try.

Probably not this year, but maybe next year. Okay. That wraps her up. Tomorrow, speaking of Bruce, this is Smoke Mears and the Truth. He'll be by. Thursday, you know, if you've got some thoughts on anything, the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com, the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com.

Friday, good talk. Chantelle LeBair and Bruce Anderson will be with us. So that's it for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. And we'll talk to you again in 24 hours.