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The outbreak of the war.
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Both presidents Putin and Zelensky vowed to end the fight with victory within a year.
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Well, two years on, there's still no end in sight.
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Joining me in the studio is Professor Michael Clarke to talk a bit more about this in depth.
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So at the start of this conflict, what are your thoughts then? That was two years ago that we were perhaps stood here talking about what lies ahead, two years on...
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Yeah, I mean, I think we're seeing the return of industrial warfare to Europe.
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I've been saying that for a little while.
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We didn't think we would see it after 1945 but it's back with us again now, which means that it's the war is won by the side that can gear up its industry to fight long campaigns in what is going to become some sort of war of attrition.
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And it began two years ago, the Russians as it were created a pendulum swing towards themselves.
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They moved against Kyiv, they moved westwards from the Donbas, west to try to take this land bridge towards Crimea, which they did.
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They took Kherson. They got stopped at Mykolaiv, they got stopped at Mariupol for quite a while and they were stopped in Kyiv and that was critical.
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And then the pendulum began to swing back to Ukraine.
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In the autumn of 2022, there was a quick surprise offensive in Kharkiv which was successful through the Russians out of Kharkiv altogether.
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There was another one; west of the Nipper River in Kherson in Kherson Oblast.
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And then we thought the pendulum was moving decisively back towards Ukraine.
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There was a big offensive, Ukrainian offensive that started on the fourth of June.
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It concentrated on outer Kyiv, south trying to cut this land bridge.
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It only got about 30 kilometers because of Russian defenses.
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And then the pendulum has begun to swung back to Russia again.
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They've tried all along the front to make inroads and last weekend, they succeeded at Avdiivka and that is strategically quite important because it might allow them to take the rest of the Donbas.
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And when Avdiivka fell last weekend, that was a big plus for Russia, a big negative for Ukraine.
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And so I think we'll see as the year goes on, the Russians will try to consolidate in the Donbas.
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The Ukrainians, I'm sure will try to put Crimea under more pressure, but I don't think either of them will make any really strategic breakthroughs this year.
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We're looking really at the beginning of next year, which is why it comes back to the industrial capacity that both sides can employ.
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And also in the long game of war that we're talking about here, funding is so, so important, and we've seen over the last few months that support perhaps is waning in that area, financial support.
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Yeah, this is a rough chart of the degree of support that's gone to Ukraine so far.
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So this is in billions of dollars and the eu has put in about $90 billion.
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The United States has put in about $70 billion and is looking to put another $60 billion in.
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That's the aid that is stalled in Congress.
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But of course, the red and the blue is important.
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The blue represents financial support.
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So the EU has kept the government running in Ukraine.
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The Americans have kept the military running in Ukraine. That's the red.
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That's really important because without the extra $60 billion, the Americans won't deliver, can't deliver legally any more ammunition.
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So they haven't had any more supplies since December.
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And of course, Donald Trump, his influence on the Republicans is holding back that aid package so far very effectively.
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It probably won't go through, not in the form that President Biden wanted it to.
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Ok. So what can we expect then moving forward, do you think?
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Well, this has become a conflict which is about more than Ukraine itself.
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Of course, it's about the existence of Ukraine.
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It's about the independence of Ukraine.
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The Russians say that Ukraine doesn't deserve to exist.
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It should be part of Russia.
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And every now and again, they make genocidal statements about the Ukrainians and sometimes we think they might be satisfied with the Donbas this time, but there will be another time and so on.
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So it's about Ukraine, but it's about more than that as well.
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The Western world has committed itself again and again to supporting Ukraine.
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And it seems to come down to a sort of a competition between these two men, a 71-year-old traditional dictator warmonger, as opposed to a 46-year-old former comedian, who is now the savior president of an independent Ukraine.
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But it's about much more than that.
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The Western world has said that Ukraine is the crucible for the ability of the Western democracies to push back against this tide of autocracy, which seems to be taking over the world.
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And the rest of the world, the global South as we call it, is standing back to see what happens.
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And if the Western world is seen to be a paper tiger, is seen not to be able to deliver on its commitments,
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then the rest of the world will take due notice of that and will begin to lean towards Putin and Xi Jinping in China and other dictators on the assumption that the world is really now moving in their direction.
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Ok, so, so interesting, Michael. Thank you as always.
