Today at 15:03
How do Western allies’ arms deliveries to Ukraine affect the current fighting? Is this enough, or are Ukraine’s allies simply afraid of Russia’s defeat? Why is the Kursk operation of the Ukrainian army so important?
Ben Hodges, a retired US Army officer who served as the commander of the US Army in Europe in 2014-2017, answered these and other questions in an interview with our host Henry Keen.
— Let me quote someone on x social network. “This must be depressing for the doomers out there who constantly criticize Ukrainian armed forces planning and execution. We should just give them weapons and get them out of the way”, end of quote. The guy calls himself General Ben. Is that an imposter?
— No, that was me.
— That was you? Well, I like that, sir. I mean, to be honest, if you ask me, this command should go directly to social media textbook. Making a brand new chapter, how to get 40 million followers was just one command, because all of Ukraine, Mister Hodges, I mean, all 40 million people are waiting for that command for three years. With such a command, are you telling us that the collective West said to say in the United States of America is too indecisive in terms of arming Ukraine?
— Yes. Even though I’m proud of what my country has done and others to support Ukraine.
We have failed the critical test of declaring that we want Ukraine to actually win, because it’s in our interest that Ukraine defeats Russia.
And if my president would say that, and then we would deliver everything that was needed to help Ukraine actually win more than just actually survive, and then I think other countries would feel confident to do the same.
— Is there anything can be done to fix the failure?
— I think the principal reason for our lack of decisive action is an excessive fear that Russia is somehow going to escalate and use a nuclear weapon. If the United States, Germany, the UK, and others go too far and actually help Ukraine win, I think this fear is excessive.
I don’t believe Russia will use a nuclear weapon. Of course, it won’t be a moral decision by Russia. They clearly have thousands of nuclear weapons and they don’t care how many innocent people they kill. But I think the Russians know that if they actually did use a nuclear weapon somewhere, somehow, it would be a catastrophe for them.
So, I think that everything Ukraine can do to help lower the anxiety that Americans, Germans, and others have about Russia using a nuclear weapon, would be an important step.
— I was recently interviewing an American diplomat, ex-United States ambassador to NATO and US special representative for Ukraine, Kurt Walker. And I asked him how he believes America in general feels about what is going on in the Kursk region in particular. And Kurt one word answer was “encouraged”. Are you encouraged in any way by what’s going on in Kursk, Mister Hodges?
— I think this Kursk offensive has accomplished three or four very important things.
First of all, it has changed the momentum of the war. It’s changed the narrative of the war. The inevitability of Russian victory somehow I think has been dispelled, even though we are only a couple of weeks into the counteroffensive in the direction of Kursk.
What Ukraine has accomplished has changed things. It also on the battlefield has created a bridgehead that denies a large area of the Kursk region to the Russians from which they used to launch drones and other attacks against Ukrainian cities. That now has been denied.
And it also creates an opportunity for Ukraine to move their own long-range weapons deeper into Russia so that they can strike airfields and other transportation and oil and gas infrastructure which before this were out of reach.
— Another question. Ukrainian armed forces just went smoothly and swiftly into Russia while Russian people are not fighting back. Well, at least Russian civilians in the Kursk region are not opposing the Ukrainian armed forces in any way. Why do you think that is the case?
— Well, of course, Ukrainians understand the geography and the population and the history of this area better than any of us would ever know. They realized that this was a part of the border that was poorly defended and that the people there would not be real keen to fight back the way that Ukrainian civilians fought back against Russian invaders. So, I think they understood that this was probably the case.
It also highlights the disjointed command structure on the Russian side. The FSB and the Russian general staff hate each other. The interior ministry, the Rose Guardia, the general staff, they hate each other. The border forces are probably even more corrupt than others, which is hard to imagine.
So you’ve got a situation on the Russian side where you do not have good information sharing, good analysis. They were not prepared. I think this was a result of good planning by the Ukrainian general staff to select this area for attack.
— Do you think, Mister Hodges, that Kursk region was the area for an attack and this is not the case for all disjointed Russia? All Russia is like corrupted and in any place the civilians would not oppose the Ukrainian army in any way. Do you think this is the case?
— I don’t know that Ukrainians would know that much better than I would. When I look at the area that they have cleared already, the geography supports this type of operation very well. The destruction of these bridges over the Seim River highlights this fact.
What appears to me that Ukraine recognizes by destroying these bridges, it helps create an area where a large number of Russian troops could be encircled.
But it also now puts Ukraine in charge or in control of the Sudzha gas hub. So there’s a significant potential economic impact there against Russia. And they also were getting closer to threatening the Russian nuclear power plant in Kursk, which also could have an impact. So this was not just any place on the map that they picked.
— On 24 August, Ukraine celebrates Independence Day. May I please ask you for a couple of words to address the Ukrainian nation?
— Look, Ukraine is inspiring all of us. I live here in Frankfurt, Germany. I see Ukrainian flags. I was back in the states this summer for several weeks in four or five different states. I would see Ukrainian flags everywhere. In Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and of course in Washington.
And even though we have not reacted decisively, as I would expect and hope.
The fact is most of the American population and most of the US Congress support Ukraine.
We are dealing with our own challenges here with our election year and the struggles that Americans still have to protect our own democracy that is inspired by what Ukrainians are doing to try and as a young democracy.
It’s proof that none of this is guaranteed, whether you’re a new democracy or one that’s 250 years old. You always have to fight against the autocratic forces that want to prevent people from enjoying the full freedoms to which they are entitled. So I think that the United States and Ukraine have a lot more in common.
Read also: Ukraine is changing the world politics. Interview with Kurt Walker
