Svitlana Moronets

Feb 9, 2024

Vladimir Putin relished being interviewed by American journalist Tucker Carlson, who doesn’t seem to know much about Russia, Ukraine or the war. The old autocrat turned a two-hour interview into a monologue and spent most of it talking about a fictionalised history of Ukraine. In one of the rare moments when Carlson dared to interrupt Putin and ask about the war, Putin said he didn’t start it. ‘This is an attempt to stop it. We have not achieved our aims yet, because one of them is denazification,’ he said, and then continued to talk about neo-Nazi Ukrainians.

Maybe, that was ‘the truth’ Carlson had promised to reveal in a teaser to the interview, saying that it would open the eyes of the Americans and offer a different angle than the western media had previously explored. Putin kept repeating the tiresome Russian rhetoric that his country had been a ‘victim’ of Nato expansionism, explaining that he had to annex Crimea, invade Donbas in 2014 and then start a full-scale war in 2022 to protect the Russian people. It was a defensive campaign, he said.

Putin also avoided answering Carlson’s question about whether he was satisfied with the territories he had occupied so far. He claimed to want ‘to achieve a resolution to the situation in Ukraine through negotiations’, but complained that Kyiv is proposing conditions Russia cannot agree to. Putin didn’t specify which conditions exactly he objects to, but Kyiv has demanded that the Russian army leave all of Ukraine’s lands and that the country must pay reparations.

‘Shall we end here or there is anything else?’ Putin asked at the end of the interview. Carlson, looking lost and exhausted, answered: ‘No, I think that’s great.’ But the interview was far from great in the eyes of Ukrainians: there are many questions Carlson should have asked Putin but didn’t. For example, why did his army bomb a theatre in Mariupol, killing up to 600 civilians? Didn’t Putin claim that he started the invasion to protect the Russian-speakingpopulation, not to slaughter it? The same question goes for a Russian missile strike at a railway station in Kramatorsk that killed 63 civilians. What about mass graves in Izium and massacre in Bucha? What about everyday missile attacks on civilian infrastructure all over Ukraine?

Carlson also didn’t ask about the fates of more than 20,000 children who have been deportedto Russia. Or what really happened when an Il-76 plane crashed last month, which was allegedly carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war. He didn’t question why Russia had disregarded the Minsk agreements or the Budapest memorandum. He didn’t even ask about Russia’s internal issues: why has Boris Nadezhdin, the only ‘anti-war’ candidate, been banned from participating in the upcoming presidential elections? Why is Alexei Navalny in jail? Why are Russians who dare to protest the war immediately arrested?

This list of questions could go on forever. Putin used the interview to feed a wider western audience with his long-standing disinformation about the Russian invasion, and about Ukraine being an ‘artificial state’. The interview will also serve as a promotional campaign for an internal audience in Russia; already, state-controlled media have proudly been writing about the 80 million people who watched the President speaking. Elon Musk, who hosted the interview on X (formerly Twitter), must have felt satisfied.

Those who believe in Russian propaganda might have enjoyed the show, but everyone else just got bored. Putin shows no real intention of ending his war against Ukraine.

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Portrait of the week in Ukraine

• Tucker Carlson released an interview with Vladimir Putin. More below.
• Volodymyr Zelensky sacked Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s army chief. Colonel-general Oleksandr Syrsky has taken his place.
• A bill intended to draft more soldiers passed first reading in the parliament. More details about Ukraine’s conscription crisis here.
• The US Senate has voted to proceed with a bill that includes funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Republicans had previously blocked the bill because it contained an overhaul of immigration policy.
• The situation around Avdiivka, a besieged frontline town in Donetsk Oblast, is becoming ‘critical’, according to officials. Russian forces have entered the residential areas and are storming the city with large numbers.
• Russian forces are attempting to break through Ukrainian defences near the city of Chasiv Yar, near Bakhmut. The attacks are being carried out by small assault groups, supported with drones and artillery, the Ukrainian military said.
• Ukrainian soldiers have claimed that Russia has started using Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite communication system in occupied territories. It is claimed the service was supplied via Dubai.
• Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree creating a separate branch of Ukraine’s Armed Forces dedicated to drones.
• Yulia Laputina, Ukraine’s veterans affairs minister, has resigned. This comes after Zelensky said he was planning a reset of Ukraine’s leadership.
• The Turkish drone manufacturer Baykar has started building a factory near Kyiv. The company will employ around 500 people and the production of drones will begin next year.
• The deputy mayor of Nikopol was shot and killed in his car yesterday. There are currently no suspects.
• Ukraine’s intelligence chief has askedCanada for a donation of 83,000 rockets that are awaiting demolition at one of the country’s military bases.
• The Kremlin is intensifying efforts to normalise western discussions of Ukraine ceding territory to Russia as a legitimate way to end the war, the Institute for the Study of War reported.
• An overwhelming majority of Russians (77%) support the war and believe Russia will ultimately be victorious, a 6% increase from last month, a poll by the Levada Center found.

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Wider reading on the war

Ukraine is in a bind over mass conscription – Svitlana Morenets (The Spectator)

Who is General Syrsky, Ukraine’s new chief commander? – Dinara Khalilova (Kyiv Independent)

Russia’s adaptation advantage: how Moscow is now outlearning Kyiv – Mick Ryan (Foreign Affairs)

Ukraine is about to get new US long-range bombs. How will it use them? – Dinara Khalilova (Kyiv Independent)

Inside Mariupol: Russia’s new Potemkin village – Alison Killing, Polina Ivanova, Peter Andringa, Chris Campbell, Sam Joiner and Caroline Nevitt (Financial Times)

…….

Quote of the week

‘Dear Republican Senators of America. Ronald Reagan, who helped millions of us to win back our freedom and independence, must be turning in his grave today. Shame on you.’

– Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, on US Republican senators stalling on the approval of a bill which includes, among other things, aid for Ukraine.

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The war in numbers

Graves in Mariupol from March 2022 to Feb 2023

10,000

At least 8,000 lives were lost due to Russian attacks, according to Human Rights Watch

Workforce lost in Ukraine due to mobilisation

10-20%

The army has announced a bill to conscipt thousands more

Scheduled IMF loan to Ukraine

$5.3bn

Kyiv is preparing for budget cuts in case US aid is stalled.

A note from the author: Thank you for your interest in this newsletter. I hope it helps you to understand my country – and the war – better from a Ukrainian perspective. If you enjoy the Ukraine in Focus newsletter, please forward it to someone you know: you can sign up here. My writing for The Spectator can be found here. All feedback is welcome: svitlana@spectator.co.uk

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Svitlana also produced a piece on an important topic for today’s Speccie, but it’s behind their paywall. What is visible is here :

In the second world war, the average age of a combat soldier was 26. In the Falklands, it was 23. For Ukrainian soldiers, it’s 43. The war in Ukraine has been, so far, fought mostly by fathers so their sons and daughters can rebuild the country when the fighting ends. But resisting Russia has cost so much and has continued for so long that the Ukrainian army is depleted. What to do next is a question that’s not just dividing the country but its two foremost leaders: President Volodymyr Zelensky and Valery Zaluzhny, the head of the military.

Ukraine’s 600-mile front line is being defended by 880,000 soldiers, according to Zelensky. Most of them have had no rest from fighting since the start of the full-scale war two years ago. Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s iron general, who played a key role in repelling Russian attacks and reclaiming around half of the territory initially seized, wants to recruit up to half a million more men. Building up reserves will allow the military to replace those exhausted by fighting, injured and dead. Russia plans to conscript 400,000 more soldiers; Ukraine needs to respond to this challenge. Zelensky, however, has not only refused Zaluzhny’s proposal but intends to remove the general from his post, saying a ‘reboot’ of the Ukrainian government and military command is required.

Zelensky’s objection is partly on the basis that 500,000 new conscripts would come with a hefty price: at least £10 billion for training, pay, clothing, food and equipment. That’s about a quarter of Ukraine’s government spending for this year and almost half the military budget. Western aid cannot be used to pay soldiers, and given Ukraine’s deficit, Zelensky has said the recruitment drive is unaffordable.