TRIGGERnometry - Is Ukraine Winning? - Tom Cooper

Episode Date: September 19, 2022

SPONSORED BY:  Better Help - Online counseling and therapy - get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com/TRIGGER  The Ridge Wallet: Win a Ford Bronco or $75k when you purchase Ridge Wallet products. Use Code “TRIGGER” for 10% off your order at https://www.ridge.com/TRIGGER Tom Cooper is an Austrian aerial warfare analyst and historian. Check out his fantastic Medium articles at https://medium.com/@x_TomCooper_x Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ | Channel ID: UCo_8zzSxKeL3arKWVuP8wdQ Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/​​​ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/​​​ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod​​​ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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In most of cases, the system Putin has doomed this part of the operation to failure. Why? Because Putin has assigned his favorites into specific positions within the Russian armed forces. So nobody is going to challenge him if he's got a bad idea. If he says, you know, I think this is what happens, is it very unlikely that the generals are going to be like, hold on a second, because if we do this, then X is going to happen. The problem is this is the way you see it.

And this is the way plenty of other people see. But Putin, in his own position, he's constantly seeing himself surrounded by competition, by contrains, by opposition or whatever, you know, some kind of threat for him. It's different from his point of view. And this is what we have to keep in mind, that Putin sees the things entirely differently than you do

than anybody else does. Putin is Putin. He's not you, he's not me, he's not somebody else, he's just Putin. For the best, it's better, in the interest of politicians and the economy, it's better to fight a war to profit, not to win. Because if you fight to win, you send 1,000 artillery pieces to Ukraine. Ukraine defeats Russia tomorrow in the morning. And the war is over.

Party's over. Yeah, and what then? Nobody's earning anything from that. Nobody. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissen. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

Our brilliant guest today is a military analyst and historian who's been one of the most objective voices covering the conflict in Ukraine. Tom Cooper, welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you very much. Very nice to be with you. Well, it's great to have you on the show. So let's talk about the conflict. We wanted to start by just recapping from the beginning for people who maybe saw the initial

events, didn't really follow everything that happened. So can you just talk us through what happened in the initial phase of the Russian invasion? Yeah, sure. What happened early on was that there was an attempt, obviously not even properly planned, but driven by Putin's demands for. for Russian or selected parts of the Russian armed forces to overrun the Ukrainian leadership, to knock out specific parts of, or paralyse actually, actually, parts of Ukrainian armed forces. But foremost, to overrun and to decapitate Ukrainian political leadership, which means foremost government.

And the idea was obviously to land on four major airports around Kiev and from there to drive into downtown Kiev to whether kill or at least arrest the government and replace it by somebody who would have been friendlier to Putin. That was the original idea. Because of this, the initial ballistic and cruise missile strikes were not as intensive or as effective as they might have been if there was a wish to really knock out the Ukrainian armed forces right from the start and to destroy them, so to say, their leadership as well. The idea was obviously to capture the government and that everything was depending on this solution, capturing the government, on removing it. And obviously there was a lot of illusion about Ukrainians, so to say, rising, to greet Russians coming in and eventually three days later to hold military parades in Kiev and Kharkiv and everything is fine and great and Ukraine is now Russia again. It's really interesting the way you put that, because it's in very simple terms. Now, I'm going to ask you a layman question, Tom, and take this as broadly as you want to. But what went wrong? Because when the invasion started, I think there were a lot of people thinking,

well, this is, you know, this is a mighty power of Russia against Ukraine. They've got this huge army. they've got the weaponry, they've got the men. Why hasn't it gone to plan? What went wrong? It is the Putin system that went wrong. In this Putin system, everything is based on actually one factor, which is survival of Putin as president of Russia, retaining him in power so he can continue collecting cuts from,

or the cut from all the possible enterprises from the state and so on and reaching himself, maintaining himself in power and his friends in power. So in order for this system to survive, they have to lie all the time. One of the lies is that

Ukrainians would be some sort of well, more than brotherly people to Russia and because of this they would be looking forward to to be un-slussed, so to say,

rejoined into the modern Russia and that they would greet Russian troops and that they are controlled by some sort of Nazi regime which is suppressing them, terrorizing

and genociding Russians and so on. So this basic idea was a big lie. And it came so far that even Putin lied to himself. He fell for his own illusions. This is what went wrong. And because of his own illusions, he sent the Spetsnars and the VDV, this is Airborne, Russian airborne troops, into Ukraine under entirely wrong conditions.

He has sent them in, expecting them to meet only light resistance, if at all, and to rapidly achieve their aims. And this is what didn't work, because the Ukrainians rose, even if there was lots of chaos, and even if there was shock and surprised by this initial attack, they took up arms and defended and fought back. This is what was unexpected for the Russians. And Tom, when you talk about things going wrong,

when you describe the initial phase of the attack, which is attempting to take over the airports and decapitate the regime, it sounds a little bit to me like what a superpower might do to a small country in the Middle East. You come in, you remove the head of the regime, and then you take over. And it obviously didn't go down that way.

But after that, we obviously saw these columns coming in from the north and the big attack in the south and obviously the push in the east. And those haven't even in the... in the initial phase, they were, they made some progress, but they were repelled. Can you talk to us about that phase of the invasion as well? Yes, of course.

Yes, it was an idea, you know, of a quick takeover that was fundamental to the entire plan, if there was really a plan. The way the things look like Putin didn't even discuss this plan with Choygo and Gerasimov. He simply ordered specific field commanders, commanders of, of, combined arms armies of the Russian ground forces to, let's say, for example, move to Brigade A from place B to place C and capture the government. It was that simple. And then the idea was to follow up, you know, because this light airborne troops and special troops, they cannot hold any kind of area for an extended period of time. They cannot do that on their own, because they can't do that on their own,

because they are lightly armed and they cannot do that without supplies. This meant that they have to follow the light troops, and this is also part of standard Russian warfighting doctrine, so to say, to be followed by ground troops, which in the case of Russia is always mechanized units. They do not call them mechanized, they call them tank units, or they call them motorized infantry or whatever else, but they are mechanized units, and to follow and to secure, to help the special forces and airborne forces to secure the areas they have taken during the initial strike.

And then came again, what happened as next was twofold, so to say. In most of cases, system Putin has doomed this part of the operation to failure. Why? Because Putin has assigned his favorites into specific positions within the Russian armed forces. Favorites who were permitted to enrich themselves on condition of unaccountability to anybody except to Putin, and on condition of providing him with his cut from all the money they were pocketing all the time. This is how Putin's system Putin works. Works so that you appoint your friends and less of family members, but foremost friends or aides or associates or whoever, into specific positions where they are cashing from huge contracts.

They're signing with the state. And then they're overpricing all the time. And from this income, they are financing Putin. And when he needs something, he just needs to call and he's getting his money or his failures or whatever else in return for this, for appointing people to such positions. And it's the same in the army. On the other side, because of this, the army has never completed its reforms. It has never really converted itself into a professional force. And the generalist commanding it are incompetence.

They are Putin's favorites, but they are not there because of course. merits because of their skills or capabilities, but because they are Putin's favourites. Sorry for this reason. Are you tired of using bulky old wallets, giving you a bulge where you don't want it to be? My old wallet was massive, so it brought all the ladies to the yard, which was a huge distraction and got in the way of my esteemed work on trigonometry. Ridge wallets have an incredible solution for you. This is mine, sleek, stylish and with an industrial look to it.

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Tom, isn't it also part of the problem as well? Like you've got a guy like Putin at the top who, to put it mildly, is a little bit ruthless, right? So nobody is going to challenge him if he's got a bad idea. If he says, you know, I think this is what happens, is it very unlikely that the generals are going to be like, oh, hold on a second, because if we do this, then X is going to happen. The problem is this is the way you see it, and this is the way plenty of other people see it.

But Putin, in his own position, he's constantly seeing himself surrounded by competition, by contrahands, by opposition or whatever, you know, some kind of threat for him. And this is why he has established for him. he has established, for example, the Ros Guardia. Ross Guardia is a paramilitary force which is responsible solely to

Putin. It is not responsible to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, but it is responsible solely to Putin. Why? Because he wanted to make sure that in the case that the armed forces would stage a coup against him, he has his own military force to counter such an operation.

So you have the Ross Guardia as sort of Petorian Guard for Putin. Responsible solely to Putin. you don't you do not you barely see it fighting on the front lines in Ukraine but it's always in the rear secure in the back the rear areas you know towns behind the front line villages behind the front line checking what is local population doing but also keeping an eye on the Russian armed forces fighting on the front line so therefore you know it's it's different from his point of view and this is what we have to keep in mind that Putin sees the things entirely differently than you do

then anybody else does. Putin is Putin. He's not you, he's not me, he's not somebody else. He's just Putin. Well, Tom, as someone who's from Russia, I hear everything you're saying, and it's very familiar to me, both about Putin and the military hierarchy and so on.

But people would argue that while obviously there were failures from the Russian invasion at the beginning, they did manage to capture significant territory in the northeast around Kharkov. they managed to capture a huge swath of land in the south. That's the point, yes, yeah. Yes, they managed to eventually grind down the resistance in Mariupil in the southeast, on the Sea of Azov and capture that.

They've made significant progress in the Donbas. It's cost them a lot, but they have over the last six months. Yes, eventually they had to withdraw from Kiev and so on. But they've still made a lot of progress. you would, I think a lot of people would credibly argue. Why were they able to do that? That's the point. There was a part of, the only part of the Russian, what is initial Putin's plan for takeover of Ukraine that did work was in the south. There are also the most combat experienced element of the Russian ground forces was deployed.

This is the 58th combined arms army. And next to it, there was a 49th combined. Army. These two armies stormed from Crimean, from the occupied Crimean Peninsula, towards the north. And now the 58 had a very important task, which was to reach Zaporosia and to reach Maripol from the west, from the west. And the 49th had at least an important task, which was to take Kersen, take Mikhailive, and then advance all. the way to the border with Moldova, where there is a part of Moldova, east of the Nester River, controlled by Russian separatists, so-called Transnistria. And in that way, Putin was aiming not only to take away the entire Ukrainian coast

away from Ukraine to bring it under his control, but also to establish land connection to Transnistria. And these two armies have, thanks to treachery. obvious treachery on the part of, I don't know exactly which. Treason. Treason, yes. Exactly. Treason, on the part of higher ranking officers in the Ukrainian armed forces, it has worked flawlessly, really. They have reached Carson within two or three days. No problem. They have closed the siege of Maripo within two days. The only thing that didn't work was the capture of Zaporosia.

But otherwise, this is what brought the biggest conquest. In comparison to this advance in the south, you have advanced in Kiev area and Cheninhev areas, in the north and in Kharkiv. All of them failed. The 35th Combined Arms Army did manage to reach Outskids of Kiev, but in turn was almost cut off from its supply line. and there was this huge, because there was only one highway it could use to reach Kiev.

So it was slowed down, bogged down by its own supply problems. The 41st Combined Arms Army, which was advancing when Cheninhev, fell apart in the process of advancing on Cheniniv, in the face of relatively light resistance by one and a half, something like one and a half Ukrainian brigades. So it fell apart while advancing for 70 to 80 kilometers to Chennehiv. You have the first God's Tanks army, the elite of the Russian armed forces. It fell apart while passing by Sumi and trying to advance towards Kiev from the east. And worst of all, the two armies that were advancing, that the task with capturing Kharkiv, they also actually fell apart in the process.

I mean, there were only two Ukrainian brigades offering serious resistance in the Kharkiv area during the first week of war, and they didn't manage to drive around the city. They didn't even manage to drive, they did manage to drive into the city for a few hours, and they were destroyed to the last almost. So this part, northern part of the invasion,

failed miserably. This is where the Russian armed forces fade from Putin's point of view. And this is why he's... terribly mad about them already since months. Also, why he's punishing them by these constant orders for assaulting, heavily fortified urban areas of eastern Ukraine ever since. On the contrary, in the south, he just, you know, ordered,

okay, you have taken what you have, secure it, and that's fine with me. They are not punished so much. They are even reinforced by airborne troops now in August. This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key to a mystery that could heal your heart? Well, that's Tova's reality. An elderly widow working at an aquarium. Tova forms an unlikely friendship with their cramudgeonly, Marcellus, whose remarkable intelligence leads her to a life-changing discovery. Watch remarkably bright creatures with your remarkable mom's this Mother's Day

weekend, only on Netflix May 8th. So Tom, looking at the situation now, do you think the Russians are going to be happy with what they have? Or would they regard this invasion as a failure at this particular moment? Okay. When we talk about Russians, I'm again, I'm a little bit insistent in this regards. There is Putin. Then there are Russian, let's say, nationalist, chauvinist, extremists, whatever we want to call them. And then there are Russians. Okay. Now, Putin is not happy. But because he's all the time forced to downsize, his aims for what he wants to do in Ukraine. Initially, he wanted to take over all of the country,

then just the country east of the Nipro River, then now just secure Luhansk and Donetsk and Kersson and Zaporosia. Meanwhile, he is even to less than this and so on and so on. Then you have the Russian extremists who are actually misused by Putin for his purposes. This is where you get the story about history of Russian. and Ukraine is so complex and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They're daydreaming about things, you know, have actually no other purpose but keeping or helping keep Putin in power.

Most of them have actually no say in any kind of decision making. They are just, you know, led to cash their income from TV appearances and so on, or by being representatives in the Duma in the Russian parliament. Then you have the rest of the Russians. And what is this rest of the Russians actually doing? This is the majority of the population, over 90%. Nobody really knows because Putin wouldn't let us know, wouldn't even let them know what do they want.

Some of them are probably pro-Putting or at least pro-Russia against Ukraine and really convinced that Ukraine is controlled by some kind of Nazi regime. Others apparently do not care. They want to survive. They are fighting their everyday life for survival, fighting the everyday struggle for survival, nothing else, you know. So it is making quite distinctions between this. But crucial point is Putin is not happy with what he has achieved or failed to achieve so far.

And he is definitely determined to continue, you know, holding as much of Ukraine as possible. And Tom, this brings us nicely onto last week's events where there was a huge counterattack. There was a small counterattack in the south near Hirsson and a big counterattack which was very successful in the north. And I am someone who's observing this conflict and I have my loyalties, but I also tried to be objective about it as well, of course. And while I was very happy to see the counterattack succeed in the way that it did, I was a bit concerned that people in the West got over-excited about it because, yes, the Russians abandoned a lot of military. equipment, yes, ammunition, yes, land, but they didn't lose huge numbers of troops. There was no major encirclements. How significant, first of all, was the counterattack?

What should people in the West, who are lay people like us watching this take away from it? A lot of people seem to think this is like the end of the war. Can you tell us what this actually means? It is just another episode in this war, nothing else. I have to Even if trying to explain this to a layman I have to go into a little bit of technical details For example, the number of brigades deployed in Kasson

for this counter-offensive in late August is the same like the number of brigades deployed for this counter-offensive in eastern Kharkiv a few days later So the force is not that different or anything where there is a difference is that in eastern Kharkiv, the Ukrainians have managed to find a sector of frontline where the Russian artillery was not that overwhelming them

as it is on other important parts of the front line. And this enabled them to concentrate the artillery, lots of forces, which is some seven or eight brigades, on a very small area, to power, quickly overpower the Russian frontline and punched through to get into the rear of the Russian front line. In Kersen, they didn't manage that fit yet.

In Kersen, they are all the time trying to bridge the Russian front line, but so far have, with a few temporary exceptions, they have not managed to reach this breakthrough at operational level, as it's called in the military vocabulary. So what happened then?

In Kasson, they have moved the frontlines. They have pushed the Russians back. They have liberated lots of places. But overall, the Russian armed forces in Kasson are still, well, depleted but intact. They are still operational. What happened in eastern Kharkiv is that once they have breached the front line, which was a sector of frontline which was poorly occupied by the Russians, they have managed to drive through very deep into the Russian back.

What then happened was. inertia, so-called inertia. In response to several Russian counter-attacks, all of which came from the north, the Ukrainian troops moved, or involved Ukrainian brigades, moved towards the north too. It is also

so that by trying to move from Balaklea towards Assad, towards the Isium, they were slowed down by ever stronger units of Russian army. So instead on Isium, they went for Kupiansk instead.

This has collapsed the entire northern section of the Russian front line. It threw everybody into chaos, and this is what resulted in this massive retreat and lots of vehicles being abandoned and so on. And Ukrainians liberating dozens, 30, 40, 50, 60 villages, Kupyansk, and everything else, reaching the Osce River. But the actual aim of that operation, that is a guess, I do not have any kind of evidence for this, but this is logical, was actually to drive into the rear, into the back of the first guards tank army in the Isium area. And this is what they have, they have not initially managed.

First, there was too much resistance. And second, the road network between Kupyansk and Isium, there's only one highway. It is not a direct highway. It is not running around the Osce River. So they had the problem to approach this area. And when they finally approached EZEU, they have passed by the town because there were too many Russian forces inside the town. They were still resisting too fiercely. And at that point in time, it would have been crucial for the Ukrainian troops on the southern side of the resulting bulge, so to say,

to punch through the Russian front lines and to close the traps, so to say, around the First Guards Army. They have attempted to do so, but they didn't manage that. And this is why the First Guards Army actually managed to run away, to escape. Of course, it has lost, what, 100, 150 tanks and 100 armored fighting vehicles and so on. But if you check the losses, you can see that Russia's lost very few artillery during this operation. It is something like 18, 20 artillery pieces. This is nothing. One should keep in mind that the entire Russian front line is held together the fact of their artillery,

but their superior artillery. So if they would have suffered a loss of 100 heavy guns, that would have been a massive loss for the Russians. But tanks and infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, Putin cannot care less because it's not hurting him. He has 10,000 of these stored somewhere around Russia. He can always replace them. But artillery pieces, this would have been much harder to replace. And on the contrary, they have managed to extract most of their artillery towards Swatova area.

And those, as much as an immense success, especially because it is the first major Ukrainian offensive that has really been successful on its own, so to say, where Ukrainians have really beaten the Russians. This is why it is important. This operation is far from ending this war. It is just another episode in this war. The First Guards Army has started itself. The Russians have established a new front line along the Osce River. That's it.

You know, now Ukrainians have to find another place where they are going to attack again and perhaps achieve something similar. In the meantime, we shouldn't forget that Russians remain on offensive, on initiative, all the way further down south, you know, southeast and Ukraine from They are still attacking backmoot. They are still attacking along the former line of control and so on and so on. So it is far away from ending this war. And Tom, other causes for optimism, because I was reading some of your articles on Medium,

there's a lot of, I think, it's weaponry that the Ukrainians haven't yet received yet, which means that they'll be strengthened when it comes to the battles in the coming. months? For cautious optimism. The point is that, yes, the USA has promised yet more weaponry, but most of that is ammunition. Ukraine is not about to receive yet more heavy artillery, and that is the problem. Russia remains superior in regards of artillery and vastly superior to Ukraine, just like before these two operations. This is what is holding Kerson together, Russian forces in Kersson together. This is why their front line is not collapsing because they still have more artillery than Ukrainians over there, which means they are still capable of hampering Ukrainian

attempts to drive between their Russian fortifications between Russian strongholds and outflank them and cut them off from their supply lines. This is the reason why is that so important, the artillery. And we don't, we don't. The West hasn't still hasn't taken care to provide enough artillery to Ukraine. And this is not going to change anytime soon. And why not, Tom? Why not? Well, as we can see, it's a little bit complex issue.

For example, the United States and the European part of the NATO have lots of old artillery pieces, caliber 155 millimeter in their reserve. They are stored for 20 years, sometimes longer, and so on. They're not in use. but they're not delivering them. What they do deliver artillery pieces or weapons system

which are currently in production. Why? Because this is bringing profit. It means that governments, whether the US or governments of the European part of the NATO, can spend to buy yet more weapons

that are currently in production from the defense sector. This is pure profit profit, nothing else, which is the sole reason. Tom, why is that so? Because, why is that so? This is because the defense sector, the companies which are selling these weapons, which are manufacturing them, sorry, this is like in every other aspect of our economic life,

they are bribing governments to buy weapons, not to deliver reserve or old ones from the reserve. That's how it works. What I was going to ask you then, I suppose the obvious question is, Does the West actually want Ukraine to win? Yes, but the West does want Ukraine to win. But in the West, you do not have, the politicians in the West, they do not have this clear idea of fighting war to win. For them, fighting a war is an opportunity to profit,

for companies, for private and corporate interests, supporting them, paying their election campaigns, and so on, for such interest, to profit. So you have the same situation like all the time since Vietnam, or Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, you know. For the West, it's better, in the interest of politicians and the economy, it's better to fight a war to profit, not to win. Because if you fight to win, you send 1,000 artillery pieces to Ukraine.

Ukraine defeats Russia tomorrow in the morning, which is now hyperbola. And the war is over. Party's over. Yeah, and what then? Nobody's earning anything from that. Nobody. But if you keep Ukraine afloat and supply it with weapons which are currently under production, your sponsors in the rear, the guys in the shade in the shadow,

they are profiting, everything is fine, you know, and we go on just like nothing happened. The only thing disturbing all of this, the party is this story with, with gas deliveries and high energy prices. Oh, gosh, this is a little bit disturbing because, you know, the population is against this and we have to do something in the curb, the high energy prices,

we have to keep this under control, in order at least to pretend we are trying to keep them under control and so on, although it would be very easy. But, well, that's liberal democracy and economy. And Tom, what difference is winter going to make to this conflict? because it's around the corner in a couple of months, and Ukrainian winters are notoriously bitter.

Yeah. Well, what is making, it's going to bring bigger advantages for Ukraine. Primary reason so far, why the Russian armed forces were relatively successful, which is actually just one segment of Russian armed forces, this is the ground forces, have been successful in the last, let's say, since April, since it got warmer in Ukraine, is the combination between their, the UIVs, Orland 10 in particular, and their artillery. Olland 10 is a rather rather primitive military system.

It's not even military. It's actually only the diffuse region wings are military grade. Everything else is actually bought on open market. Canon cameras and Canon video cameras and ECM systems. Everything they install into these UAVs is civilian-grade. which means that it cannot work at temperatures below 5 degrees centigrade. Which in turn means as soon as it's freezing outside, the Russians are going to be blind along the battlefield. Then they are going to have huge problems with finding the Ukrainians along with that.

This is why Russians have now rushed to buy U.S. from Iran, because Iran, thanks to China's support and technical support and know-how, and even organization of production in Iran, Iran is capable of delivering military-grade UAVs. So the Russians are obviously planning to replace their own UAVs, which are useless in winter, by Iranian UAVs. We're going to see if this is going to be effective or not. But generally, Ukraine should be on advantage. That's very interesting, because I would have thought that it would, you know,

it would help the Russians because they push them back and they can. And look, again, I'm a layman, but you know, you can restrict, you know, the flow of goods and whatever else. He just thinks the Russians are invulnerable to the cold. Yeah, yeah, exactly. He spent a lot of time around me. Yeah. But I would have thought that it would help them to kind of not starve the Ukrainians out, but certainly make things far more uncomfortable for them.

I mean, we have to distinguish between Ukrainian armed forces and Ukrainian civilians. We have, there are millions and millions of Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine. feeling this war on their, you know, direct impact upon their everyday life. They are going to be freezing, they are going to be hungry, and so on. And they are not going to survive without extensive aid from the West and from Kiev and so on. This is one part of the story. But Ukrainian armed forces, they have no problem. They are already in the process of distributing winter clothing and winter equipment to their troops.

So this is not going to be that much of a problem. floating, food, fuel. As you can see, the Ukrainian supply system is working perfectly. And Russians have massive problems just trying to find it. You know, in order to hit it, for example, from the air, with cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and so on. They're not successful in this regards. So this is not a problem for the Ukrainian armed forces. On the contrary, because of the system Putin, because of all the lies,

which they are feeding their people for decades already, And because now they're starting to realize the extension of these lies, the morale is very low. And then you have the system Putin in regards of command system, where Putin is bypassing all the normal chain of command in the armed forces and all the issue, direct orders upon field commanders, which is spoiling everything. He's throwing, you know, every single day he's throwing the Russian military doctrine and strategy out of the window, ignoring them completely and issuing ever new orders for assaults on specific

objects and so on, which result in heavy casualties. But he can't care about this. Why? Because he thinks that his favorites owe him a favor or returning a favor, all the favors he has granted to them. So this is a vicious circle inside Russia, which is going to result in further debuckles like this one in eastern Kharking now. This is going to happen time and again. However, in between of this or such debacles, there are going to be, you know, periods of many months

where the Ukrainians we have to maneuver to find such big spots in Russian frontlines in order to exploit them. That is going to be crucial for the coming winter. Hey, Konstantin, do you want better mental health? I'm from Russia. We don't have mental health. deal with mental health? You drink vodka, then go out and wrestle bear. If you live, you feel better. If you die, you're not real men. What about the bear's feelings?

It's Russian bear, it has no feelings. People don't always realize that physical symptoms like headaches, teeth grinding, and even digestive issues can be indicators of stress. And let's not forget about doom scrolling, not sleeping enough, sleeping too much, under-eating and overeating. Sleeping too much, under eating. This is Western disease. Therapy has really helped me in my life to concentrate and focus. It's really important to have someone impartial who you can talk to

about the tricky issues that you're struggling to deal with. Therapy has played a really important role in helping me to deal with my ADHD and become better in all areas of my life. Why is he telling them how weak he is? Drink vodka feel better. Better help is custom. is customized online therapy that offers video, phone and even live chat sessions with your therapist. So you don't have to see anyone on camera if you don't want to.

Trigonometry funds get 10% off their first month at Betahelp.com forward slash trigger, especially if they're not real men. That's B-E-T-E-R-H-E-L-P dot com slash trigger. Tom, just a very quick question before I move on the conference. conversation. What is your estimate for casualties on both sides? I prefer not to mix into such discussions because we do not have any kind of firm figures. We do have official claims de facto from Ukraine. We have an external not from Russian side, but we have nothing really dependable in this regards.

I do estimate that Ukrainian casualties are actually higher than Russian. I don't know how much, but it plays in the nature of things. They were lightly armed and they are poorly protected, especially early during the war. And as much as more combat experience than the Russians, meanwhile, they are offensive. When you're in offensive, you are automatically suffering, heavy casualties, and so on and so on. But generally, I'm sorry for people who have died. I'm sorry for those who, even more for those who are maimed, or for you know, injured in whatever other way, but I find it pointless to talk about casualties because it's

leading nowhere. We're discussing propaganda from both sides, and discussing propaganda is pointless. Sorry for that. No, no, of course, I agree. That makes sense. That's why I asked you, because I have no idea, even though I keep a pretty close eye on the conflict, because, like you say, both sides, you know, they have the point of communication and war is to win.

it's not to communicate the truth. So you talked about the civilian infrastructure and so on, and one of the things we saw, as it seems to me, at least correct me if I'm wrong, is the immediate reaction from Russia to the Harkiv counter-assault has been to attack civilian infrastructure, power lines, water supply lines, etc. What do you make of that? Is that just, you know, the Russian regime being angry and lashing out? Is it? more strategic, what's going on there? It's part of that, you know, primarily it's a punishment. You shouldn't forget that as ex-KGB, Putin is foremost an extortionist.

He's going to blackmail everybody and everything. He is ruling by blackmail. He came to power by blackmail. He's ruling by blackmail and his sole political program is, you know, whom cannot blackmail today. And it is the same in this case. Okay, Ukraine has resisted. me, then have something of this. Here is your resistance, I'm destroying your infrastructure. It's as simple as that. Punishment. I see. And one of the things we talked about earlier in the

conversation that I really wanted to discuss with you is you mentioned that in addition to Putin's regime and ordinary Russians, there are also another sliver of people in between who are actually protesting against Putin privately or in their private telegram channels and whatever, who are saying that Putin is weak and he's not doing enough. And what he needs to do is announce full mobilization, put the economy on a war footing, mobilize every man between 18 and 45 or whatever it would be, 35, and announce that this is no longer a special military operation. This is a full war. Russia is at war and use the entirety of the Russian economy and military to defeat Ukraine. That's what they're calling for, that hasn't happened so far. Do you think it will? No, it's not going to happen.

There are plenty of reasons for this. The first is it would cost Putin, Putin lots of his money, which means what he is extracting from the Russian economy and state every single day. That would cost him, it would cost him too much for this. But Tom, how much money can a man need? He's already one of the richest people in the world. I don't know. Ask Putin, sorry. I don't know. I mean, he's, he, he's, there are stories about him bunkering, what, 800 billion somewhere in the West and in China and wherever. I don't know how much more he needs. I don't know, but he obviously has no end of needs in this regard.

But let's get back to your earlier question. The next problem is that the Russian state and administration is, as we call it in German, kaput. It's broken down. I mean, it's bordering on collapse. It's not working. So let's say he would try to, he announces general mobilization. First of all, he would have a massive problem just with, you know, how many people would actually follow that call. There are well-informed Russians who say more than 50% would ignore it.

It would be an absolute catastrophe for Putin. Then secondly, this would result in huge gutterings of armed people around Russia, which is a threat for Putin. whether they are controlled or not by officers of his armed forces is secondary. It is a threat for Putin. Thirdly, what would the Russian armed forces get from that? They would get, let's say, one million, perhaps two million of recruits. Okay, and who would train all these people?

Who would keep them supplied? Who would keep them warm? Who would tell them where to sleep by night? there are too few officers and non-commissioned officers left in the Russian armed forces to do this kind of job, organization and logistics

for such a huge army. So it would take, you know, they would get millions of people into the army and this would stand around the barracks and we don't know what to do because there are too few commanders to command them actually. Just to command them, not to talk about

training them. And then you have, you know, all of these. is rolling further, who is going to issue with weapons, who is going to train them on weapons, who is going to form coherent units from them, from platoon, up to company level, to battalion level, to brigade level, to divisionary level. There is not enough of officers. There is not enough of non-commissioned officers left in the Russian armed forces to do the job.

So what they are doing is to recruit from different associations, veteran associations. These are people who are already trained and they have the history of service in armed forces and they are already, you know, it's easier to refresh their training in two or three weeks and send them to the frontland. This is what they are doing. Most of such people are serving in private military companies, which is one of the things that is, I would say, quite ignored in the rest. Just how many battalion tactical groups, for example, Redut, private military, company or Wagner, which is much better known, have on the frontlines meanwhile, how dependent on their operations is Putin, meanwhile? This is something nobody is talking about. Everybody

is talking about Russian armed forces. But whenever you check all the major advances of Russia of the last four or five months, it's always a private military company that led the advance, you know, the led to penetration of the Ukrainian front lines. So It's working a different way It's working a mobilization Already, but it's silent I want to come back to the PMC

Yeah I want to come back to the PMC But go ahead for instance No, but Tom See, maybe I take a romanticized Approach to this and I think to myself You know nobody is going to fight harder For their country than a Ukrainian soldier Or a Russian soldier

What you're saying is these people Are effectively mercenaries Yeah But doesn't that mean that they're going to have less allegiance to the court that they're fighting for because they're there to get paid, essentially. What should an average Russian fight for in Ukraine? It's as simple as that.

I mean, okay, Putin is promising, you know, you can take loot with you, and if you get killed, your family is going to get a new ladder. Great. Would you like to go fighting somewhere for a new ladder? I wouldn't. As simple as that. So, you know, what Putin is getting is some, so to say, outcasts. in his armed forces, or weapons freaks, you know, and such people, they are already serving

in armed forces. When they get shot away, he has to find some kind of replacements. So the easiest way to finding a replacement is not a mass or general mobilization, but recruiting veterans, and this is what he is doing. And this is how he come already so far that even veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan in 1980s are serving on the front of times. I mean, these are people in their 60s. So this is how it works in Russia,

because normal way it doesn't work. What is normal to you or to me, here in Europe, in the UK or in the United States, is not normal in Russia. Russia has its own normality, and this is entirely different than in our case. You shouldn't forget that 50% of Russians do not even have a water closet inside their home.

They have to go outside into some kind of cabin. Okay. What should they fight for in Ukraine? It's either for loot or for Lada in the case. They can get killed or something else, but they're not... Or for money. Or for money in the private military company, as you say. So this is what I was going to ask you about, because I agree with you.

I've been following, and it seems to me that all the breakthroughs, certainly in the Donbass are being made by these private military companies. So why is their combat effectiveness higher? Because I see videos of you Vgeny Pregosian, the head of Wagner, recruiting people from prisons now. How are they, that's what they're doing. How are they having such success relative to the rest of the Russian armed forces? Well, relative success, because they are drafting, they are recruiting veterans,

people who have combat experience, who have served. Whether you take Wagner or Redwood, these are the leading private military companies in Russia, especially, but let's ignore Wagner, which is well known for a while, let's take Redut. Redut is based right next to major airborne units in Peskov area. So this means they are neighbor. As soon as you, the day after you have quit your service in the airborne forces, you exit your barracks and vis-a-vis there is a base of Redoubt PMC. So what shall you do? Russia is huge. Perhaps you have already some other job. perhaps you are going to find a job in some kind of private security company inside Russia or not.

But let's say in a significant percentage of cases, you're not going to find any kind of job, or at least not in better paid, but what Redut is offering. So you go to private military company. And by serving such a company, at earlier times you had an outlook of, you know, seeing something of the world, serving in Syria, Libya, in Central Africa, Republic, excuse me, I'm smiling about this or laughing about this, because, you know, for average Russian, it is a lot. They do not manage to travel around. They do not have the money for that. It's true. Yeah. So what do you have now? You have incentives. Okay, let's go serving in Redwood.

And Redwood is full of former airborne troops, veteran airborne troops. And they are sent, They were sent to Kiev together with airborne troops and Spetsnows at the start of the war. Nobody is talking about this. I don't know why. But they were there. They lost an entire battalion tactical group in Kiev on approaches to Kiev. Nobody is talking about that. Not even Ukrainians.

I don't know why. So it's a strange situation, actually. I think we are not paying enough attention at this aspect of Russian war efforts, so to say. But if you check the associations of such. of veteran associations, of paratroopers, urban troops, of Cossacks, of this, and that this is over a million of people. So this is an enough, you know, huge enough pool for Putin to recruit from them. And Tom, why isn't it, if you say that winter is going to favor Ukraine more,

why isn't Putin just going to go all in and just go, right, we need to make the gains now. Let's go all in, let's demoralize them, let's defeat them, and let's get this over with as soon as possible. He's doing this all the time. He's doing this all the time. The problem is just that due to system Putin, it's not working. He was promising this kinshal hypersonic missile,

which is going to destroy any kind of enemy against which there are no defenses. Half the NATO is crying about we don't have these defenses against this weapon. And what happens eventually, Generally, Kinshiel is impossible to make operational without Western information technologies. So what happens then? He fires one in, what was that, April or something, or March.

He fires another one about a few weeks later, and then now he has ordered a third deployment, and the missile just crashed inside Russia. It's not working, and why is it not working? because of system Putin. Imagine running a high technology enterprise under Putin's rule. You can't do that because you need a huge investment of money. But Putin is not investing into the Russian economy. He's bunkering his money somewhere in the West or in China or wherever.

So you are now a CEO of, let's say, a small enterprise. You launch something in a garage and you want to develop ITs and we want to make a hardware. You need hardware for such an enterprise. Where do you get this hardware? Russia is not manufacturing it. You have to import everything from the West. And this is already a crucial moment.

You constantly need an intake of Western high technology in order to develop Russian high technology. And you have a massive problem with this. This costs a lot of money, which you don't have because you all the time have to pay Putin's share. As soon as you are successful as an entrepreneur, in Russia, you have to pay Putin his cut. Otherwise, you lose your enterprise and he appoints one of his favorites. This is what is happening all the time under Putin's role, actually even earlier.

So it's not working. The system is not working. It's collapsing all the time. It takes ages to collapse completely, but it's collapsing. It's in the best way. And I suppose the question leading on from that, Tom, is how long is Putin? and the Russian forces, how long are they going to have the stomach for this fight?

Because this can't carry on forever, surely. I don't know. I'm not into predicting future. I don't have any kind of a crystal ball to say. But, you know, as soon or later, there is going to be a big collapse. Right now, the situation is still so that Russia's a fatalist or how else to describe them enough to follow their orders. The mass of Russian troops are, you know,

They are like that, okay. You know, I don't have my own opinion. My superior commander told me this, let's go do that. You know, what he says, let's follow his orders. That's the way they think. And when you check some of the interviews of Russian prisoners of war taken by Ukrainian journalists, there is one who specialized in such interviews. And you even hear from Russian soldiers, they say,

I'm surprised how much are your troops, Ukrainian troops, free to decide for themselves, what are they going to do? We don't have this. You don't even think that way in Russia. You receive your order and you follow your order. Period. That's it. That's what you do. In Ukraine, you discuss your order with your superior officer. You don't like something.

You post a video on Facebook and say, with unit so and so, we are refusing to fight because our officer is corrupt or incompetent or sending us into combat without necessary support. This is Ukrainian concert and it's work. It works. You know, actually, you don't have such a concept at all. And Tom, you were talking about the military technology side of things, which brings us

onto an issue we haven't discussed yet, which is, of course, sanctions. And I think the lay people in the West think of sanctions as one thing. So military technology and oil and gas, and it all kind of just blends into one thing. And there's a lot of people saying sanctions have been counterproductive. because Russia's oil revenues are going up. Talk to us about sanctions. Are they working? Which ones are good? Which ones are bad? You know, what is the future of all of that? And what is the impact on Russia today? For the start, matter of fact is that Putin's entire military buildup. It's a big show, actually, but let's call it a military buildup.

Was financed by the West. So there's a difference, you know, to the last 20 years and now. From this point of view, it's more important considering that the mass of Western customers for Russian oil and gas assign long-term contracts, it stipulate that either you buy it or you don't buy it, but you have to pay. So you have to pay no matter how much have you imported from Russia. So in that regards, you know, even if, let's say, let's take Austria's example. Austria now would say, okay, I'm canceling my contract signed last year by our holy chancellor, who is now working for Google, by the way. And let's now stop importing Russian gas.

Osteel would still have to pay several billions a year. It's not importing a single ounce of Russian gas. And that until 2040, which is, what, 18 years from now. So ideal situation for Putin. Wait, would Austria honor that contract in the current situation? Would Austria, sorry? Honor the contract. Would they pay?

Well, Austria would have to pay, yes? It would have to honor it, yes. What else? You guys take the rules too seriously. It is the way the world is made. There is no reason. There is no superior reason. God didn't show himself up and said,

oh, you're Austria, I'm not going to import Russian oil anymore. What else? should happen, a huge, a massive supernatural or nitro catastrophe destroying whatever. But Austria has to continue importing, and foremost it has to continue paying.

Germany is the same case. France, Italy, in front of France, the same case. This is why Putin hasn't canceled these contracts yet. He could cancel them, like he has canceled in the case of the Netherlands. In this case, he didn't cancel the

contracts because he's profiting anyway from this. And, okay, of course, our government could now say, well, okay, we are going to cancel this contract, but then we have to pay penalties, even more so because the contract stipulates that we have to pay, continue paying, whether we buy or whether you import or not. So, you know, it's... Okay. So those sanctions, I'm assuming, are not going to have the effect of the West ones. What about military technology transfer and all of that? It is, for example, the the freezing of federal Russian reserves, it's hurt Putin massively,

it took away sometimes 25% of his money. Then high technology, freezing high technology, this is by far not exploited enough, this field. One could really penalize Russia much more in this regards. They are still managing to buy, if nothing else, from Japan and from China. Okay, China is even more reluctant to sell high technology to Russia these days than Japan.

is or South Korea is. So there is still a lot opportunity in this regard. One could still hit Russians much harder in this regard. But it shouldn't mean that sanctions are not hurting Russia. They are hurting it badly. And we are going to see how much just during this winter. And it starts hurting the Russian population as well. What's that going to look like, Tom? When you say that's hurting, what is that, what are we going to see in Russia? Well, in worst case, what is, what is, Sometimes around 1917 that Russians do not like to be hungry and freezing in winter. It could happen the same.

It could be the same, exactly the same, like in 1917. It was women working in ammunition factories which rose us first. And then the October revolution began. We are going to see. Perhaps it's going to happen, perhaps not. I don't know, but it could happen. Let's say this way. Are you optimistic about the future, Tom?

Has this gone better? Generally, I am. Generally, I am because generally I see humanity as a positive, a positive, how should I say this, positively developing appearance in the nature. I mean, we are doing lots of idiotic things and killing each other and killing the nature and so on, but sooner or later, at least five before 12, you usually get sane.

You know, after hitting the wall with our foreheads from 500 to 1,000 times, you usually get sane and reasonable and start doing things the right way. So I think it's going to be this way in this case as well. I said, generally, I'm optimistic about the future. Well, on that happy note, at least, Tom, we will wrap it up there. We're going to ask you a couple of questions for our supporters. they've already submitted for our locals. But before we let you go, and by the way, thank you so much for this.

I'm sure we would love to have you back when there's more developments in this conflict in the future. But the question we always ask our guests before we let them go is, what is the one thing that we're not talking about as a society that you think we really should be? Except for this war. No, I mean this seriously. I think we should generally be discussing Putin's involvement in subverting the entire Western democracies. There are several books, at least one of which I could recommend right away, discussing this, but it's still not enough.

But he has seriously subverted our societies, I mean, from inside out. And we are feeling this every single day. And it's not just in the UK, not just in France, not just in Austria or Germany, it's really everywhere. He has the presence behind the curtain, so to say, and he's still pulling strings around. This is one of the things. And the other things is... What does that look like? What are you talking about?

Putin has massive, they call this black cash, massive amounts of money on accounts owned by his favorites in the West. and he's, with help of this cash, he's influencing even the justice systems of entire countries, UK in between of this, not only USA, but UK and France and Austria and so on. So these are immense volumes of money which he's using to subvert our societies. And this is what I think should be intensely discussed and sorted out. you know nothing happened so far to anybody in this regards nobody was you know made responsible for for letting himself for herself being bribed by all this money it is actually destructive for our societies I agree with you

Tom Cooper thank you so much where can people read your updates tell everybody where to find your work online well it's the easiest is on medium.com If you check Ukrainian war and Tom Cooper, you can easily find the link. I mean, if I check the link, just a second. Precisely. Medium.com flash at Tom Cooper. Tom, it's been an absolute pleasure. We're going to have some questions from our local supporters just afterwards.

But thank you so much for coming on the show. you've been a wonderful guest and very illuminating. Very much, my pleasure. Thank you very much for inviting me to this show. And if you've enjoyed our episodes, they always go out on Wednesdays and Sundays, 7pm UK time, 2pm Eastern Standard. Our raw shows go out Thursday, Friday and Saturday. And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go,

it's also available as a podcast. Take care and see you soon, guys. Sessna says, how significant are China to Russia and Russia to China military relations? And could they become more significant given attrition in the Russian military at the moment?