How Ukrainian drone attacks are wrecking Putin's war economy | Members Q&A

0:00 Hello and welcome to another Times Radio frontline question and answer. Now today we're answering comments from our channel members on frontline episodes and other videos about the war in Ukraine and its impact in the world stage. I'm Philip Ingram. I currently present Time to Front Line. Um and I'm a former senior British military intelligence officer, NATO planner and commentate on all matters geopolitics, defense, security, cyber and anything else that people um ask me to do. Um so I'll get straight into our questions. Um, first question today is from Valter. Welcome back, Valter. Um, and you're right up to um speed with what's going on in the news, I see. And you say to destroy um uh a UK US nuclear deal is damaging to NATO's capabilities. Why is Trump doing this? How many times do we

0:45 need to tell Trump that is important to keep our NATO allies? Well, of course, you're talking about the Australia, UK, US nuclearpowered submarine deal. Australia is not a member of NATO, but um this is five eyes community and it's looking at underpinning the future of the UK um nuclear attack nuclearpowered attack submarines. They fire conventional weapons. um Australia's decision to um not procure dieselpowered submarines but to par um to buy nuclearpowered submarines and they've already started training their crews in the UK and the US um looking for replacements for their Virginia class submarines and this was something that was um agreed and signed under Joe Biden. The United States have not said

1:32 they're going to destroy it, but that is a fair assumption given the fact that Donald Trump is looking at it to see whether this is um in line with his US first policy. I think we need to see what comes out of the United States, not a Donald Trump because the longevity of this deal is much longer than Donald Trump's presidency. Um and um the development is in its general infancy. UK has allocated billions of pounds into building more nuclear submarines under this umbrella and that gives it a basis that will still make it attractive to the Australians and hopefully continue to make it attractive to the Americans. Um but it is another signal of um America potentially withdrawing from some of its

2:19 international agreement support and will put into question any agreement that America has come up with and signed into. And that is just the reality that we've got with the Trump administration. Marty, you come in and you say $45 a barrel still feels like5 to$10 too high as a limit for Russian oil. Russia has production costs about $40 a barrel. So, why are they still allowed to make some very small profit and why? Um, well, Marty, I haven't got a clue why they're allowed to make some um profit, even if it's very small. Um, I think $5 a barrel profit um is not going to allow the Russians to continue to pay for the conflict in Ukraine. Um, it is going to impact the Russian economy as we're seeing across the board. Um and actually

3:04 you the Ukrainian um attacks against Russian oil storage infrastructure and refining infrastructure. You the the more storage that is taken out, the less oil the Russians can pump. Um and if the um refining technologies and capabilities are taken out, um the less stored oil can be refined and sold on as final products. Um the next stage would be to um uh improve our sanctions and actions against the Russian gray fleet so they can't move the crude oil around the world. Um and that would impact Russia's ability to deal with it anymore. But uh you're 100% right in your sentiment. We need to hit Russia's ability to pay for its conflict um with

3:51 Ukraine much better. uh and oil is one of the biggest ways that um it's funding this. Astro, you come in with the next point and you say, "Surely every Russian within sight of a road clogged up with trucks and even a passing curiosity will learn about Operation Spiderweb and the attacks on the tactical bombers. Um they will to a degree. Um and a lot of them know about it anyway. There has been open talk about it on Russian Telegram channels and the Russians are still monitoring uh telegram and getting a lot of their information from there. But a lot of that is then countered by what is coming out in the mainstream press and statements from Vladimir Putin. Um and Putin is describing it as a direct attack by the West. You know, we're we're seeing rhetoric um not um actually

4:37 linked to Operation Spiderweb, blaming the UK involvement in enabling Ukraine to do this. And therefore, he's stirring up anti-western sentiment and therefore support from the average Russians. Um, what surprises me continuously is given the fact that there's an awful lot of truth available for Russians, the level of support that Vladimir Putin is still managing to achieve um inside Russia and that's down to his domestic information operations and we're doing little to counter that. It's something that we need to do. Um, next point comes in from Sylvi. Um, hello again Sylvi. You say that you disagree with Kurt Vulkar that Trump remains focused. In fact, his cabinet full of incompetent oligarch egotists writes executive

5:24 orders which he signs in all ignorance. He's often heard to ask, "What is this one?" before signing an EO. Uh Trump is no way focused or determined. He is a child of a weak mind um and Putin orientated. Sylvia, you don't hold back, do you? Um Trump is focused in different ways. He's focused on his own thing and this is part of the problem. We don't know whe that that own thing is and his focus remains um until he gets his next briefing and then it changes. Um and that's again part of the problem. You the international geopolitics likes stability and the one thing that Donald Trump doesn't give is stability. Um, and this is where we need competent leaders around the world who don't react to

6:12 everything that Donald Trump does, who look at things from a slightly longer perspective. In intelligence terms, you know, the UK and the US reacted to intelligence tippers. This is where you get an immediate flash piece of information that says this is going to happen. Um, and we react to them in different ways. The Americans used to get an intelligence tipper that would typically say um there's an attack going to happen here and they'd start to react to it. I've seen them move B-52 bombers into a position on a on on the strength of a tipper. Um I used to get the tipper in and look at it and go, does that fit with what I'm expecting um around and other intelligence that I've got? And if it didn't, I put it in the pending tray. I went and made a cup of tea and I can guarantee 99 times, in fact 999 times

6:58 out of a thousand when I came back, the tipper had been changed because the interpreter um had changed his interpretation or her interpretation of the communications that intercepted and that completely different meaning um was brought into that flash bit of intelligence was brought in. I didn't have to then turn around to the B-52 bombers and say uh go back home again. The Americans did very often. Um so yeah, Trump is unpredictable and that is one of the big problems that's there. So Sylvie, I I agree with your sentiment in in going through. Um he he is more Putin orientated than not. I think he is jealous of Putin. Um he sees Putin as um someone that he wants to emulate in different ways. Um and that is not good

7:44 for the rest of the world. Where this is going to go, your guess is as good as mine. We just have to watch. Gives me lots to talk about. and you lots to comment on. So, keep commenting. Um, smart grant, welcome back. You're in um with the next one and you say, "Why are we giving airtime to the Klitschko misery when there's a war going on in Ukraine if um it's giving life to Putin?" If Ukraine falls, so does the rest of the surrounding nations. I can't really understand why so many commentators don't understand the critical nature of the Russian aggression if it prevails. Um the one thing and and you know I support Klitschko's commentary being brought and broadcast because the one thing it illustrates is that inside Ukraine and you know Vladimir Klitschko the former world heavyweight boxing champion is the

8:30 mayor of Keev. He is very influential politically across Ukraine. Um but he is very anti-zalinsky politically in what's going on. But he is allowed to make his comment. He's not ending up in some goolag somewhere in the um the wild depths of Ukraine having been tortured or poisoned with novvic or elsewhere. And President Silinski is quite happy that there are opposition voices that come out. That shows that they're living in a proper democracy. Um and I have interviewed um uh Ukrainian opposition MPs, some of them who support um President Zalinski even though they are um in opposition parties, some who disagree with some of the tactics that are there, but they're allowed to put their comments across. That again proves

9:17 the democracy and shows the difference between Ukraine and Russia. you know, anyone that speaks out against um Vladimir Putin's special military operation or against the military or anything else is immediately arrested and locked away and often tortured. And we see that political opposition, the likes of Klitschko at that level are poisoned with Novvic or other things. So, I see his interview as a good thing for Ukraine. Astro, you've come in again and you're saying you're calling on Philip, a presenter in the public eye. Thank you. Uh to catch up with the trends in face and eye makeup before doing my next broadcast. Having a great voice and great questions and ideas, it's not enough. I'm seeing so many possibilities with those

10:03 eyebrows. Well, I'll take my glasses off for you today. I've had my full makeup, but that's because I've been in talk um for three hours with Julia Hartley Brewer um up at the news and talk pay internally for the makeup artists to take me in at about six o'clock in the morning, release me about 9:00 having mixed three parts sand and one part cement and put the right colorings in to fix my face up um for for talk. Um in times tars, we're not as rich. Unfortunately, we need more people to subscribe. So, please encourage as many people as you can subscribe as possible and then we can afford to send me down to makeup. Um, I'm an old I'm a knackered old man. That's why I come across that way. But for you today, I had my makeup done. So, thanks for

10:49 watching this week's Q&A um and for posting your questions. Remember, if you want access to exclusive videos um and have your questions answered and for me to get makeup, please sign up for Times Radio membership. And of course, remember, we've now got our own podcast channel. So you can get us on podcast um at your favorite podcast outlet. Just search for Times Radio Frontline. Thank you.