Putin’s troops will abandon Crimea: How Ukraine will win the war | Ben Hodges

That would be a massive blow for Putin to have people streaming out of Crimea, trying to get out of there, the military getting out of there.And then at some point, Ukrainians are able to occupy it, not in amphibious landing, but just to take it because Russian forces will have left.

And I'm here with Lieutenant General Ben Hodges.Ben was commander of the US Army Europe from 2014 to 2017 and is a regular contributor to Frontline.Ben Hodges, thank you for joining me on Frontline here at the Chalk History Festival.

Thank you guys for giving me the privilege.

So Ben, you are a guest on Frontline and over the last few years you have stressed the importance of Crimea in this war for Putin.Recently, we've seen an uptick in drone strikes on oil infrastructure either side of the Kerch Strait, pushing Putin to ban fuel sales in the Russian -occupied territory.Does this spell the beginning of the end of the war?

I would like to think that, but I don't think we'll really know until after it's over where that beginning is. really was.I think it's indisputable that the momentum has shifted to the favor of Ukraine.Ukrainians have developed the capability to strike deep against Russia's oil and gas infrastructure, I mean, like over a thousand kilometers with precision, bypassing Russian air defenses.And then they've also figured out how to strike the critical infrastructure all around Crimea.to help isolate it.And imagine in a country like Russia, which probably has more oil and gas resources than almost anybody on the planet, you have queues at gas stations for gas shortages.

So I think the Ukrainians have hit on the theory of victory, how they're going to do this.And so far, the Russians don't seemable to stop it.

From that we've seen these attacks on oil refineries have paralysed Russia fuel sales with queues previous to the ban lasting over an hour long.It's resulted in Putin's navy reportedly being stuck at standstill.What are the implications of this?

Well, I think there's two or three critical implications.Number one, of course, the Russian people now are experiencing, are realizing that they've been lied to, that the Ukrainians are fighting ferociously and successfully, and that Russia's military has been stopped.And so now the Russian people, including the ones who were unbelievably in Crimea on holiday, were like, what the hell is going on here?So that's an important psychological factor, because at some point, even in Russia, and I always hear, oh, they're famous for their ability to suffer, okay, I think that that well of resilience is going to run dry.And so this is the psychological part of this, you know, getting really after the center of gravity of Russia's war effort is the willingness of people to continue to support Putin.That's one thing.

A second implication, of course, is the practical damage to the logistics infrastructure at the operational level, that all the stuff that Russia does in Zaporizhia, for example, Crimea, that part, Southeastern part of Ukraine is being wrecked.I mean, convoys cannot move down the road because the ability of drones to reach them.The bridges leading into and out of Crimea are being wrecked.Facilities on the peninsula are being wrecked so that Crimea is becoming untenable, not just for tourists,but for the Russian military.And then the third thing, of course, at the strategic level is the Ukrainian attacks on Russia's oil and gas infrastructure, which dramatically reduces their ability to export oil and gas to China, India, other customers that they have to do to sustain the war effort.

So there's a mental part of this.There's a psychological part of this.kind of a tactical level part and there's a strategic economic part.And I think it's because the Ukrainians understand those vulnerabilities and they have developed capability now, they can do that.What they need is more scale and they have to, of course, they have to sustain it.

When you say more scale, what does that?

So you cannot hit a refinery one time and then it's done.The Russians will get back out there, they'll repair refineries.And so to make this damaging the effect, you've got to hit the right part of a refinery.It's not just punching a hole in the big storage tank, which is cool to watch, but the key part is knocking out the guts of the refinery.And then you, it's also the most difficult to repair.So you've got to go back in there and hit it.

again and again.So that's what I mean, scale, having enough.And of course, the Russians will still knock down a lot, a high percentage of Ukrainian drones, not all of them get through.So you got to have enough to overwhelm the Russian defences.

You mentioned earlier about military logistics.Zelensky reported that the military logistic facilities had also been hit, as well as four radar stations belonging to Russian S -400 missile defence system and two panzer systems.What is the significance of this?

Well, of course, if you can knock out Russia'sair defenses, then your chances of getting more drones in to hit the actual targets go way up.So knocking out radar, knocking out weapon systems, those are important components of an overall strategy to knock out Russia's oil and gas infrastructure.And I've been impressed with how effective they have been at attacking air defense systems and taking those out.This is how Western militaries would do it also, by the way.We would be taking out the enemy's air defense capabilities, including all the radar.

So there's a level of sophistication that the Ukrainians have really developed that's, I think, beyond what most people thought was possible against the Russians.And frankly, what some people probably thought, well, the Ukrainians will never be able to do that.Obviously, they can.

Putin inaugurated the Kerch Road and Mail Bridge by driving a truck across it.How do you think he's feeling now?

This is a great question, actually.We don't really know how much Putin knows or what does he get.You know, there's, I think, a large group of people that believe that He's not being told the truth about how bad things are, how dire things are, because in that sort of culture and their system, you don't get promoted for delivering bad news or for maybe somehow being part of the failure.So I think this is a chronic problem they have with hard, bad news getting delivered to the boss.So I'm not sure how much he knows.Now, I do remember leading up to 2022, all I heard was,

oh, he's KGB, so intelligent, three, four dimensional chess, we're all playing checkers.And so, okay, well, if he's so intelligent, then surely he knows the people that he put in power are all corrupt and are probably not telling the truth.And so if he's so intelligent, he would have figured out and have his own alternative means.So I'm not willing to say if he only knew, you know, that he wouldn't be making these mistakes.I think he probably does have some sense.He cannot not know that in Russia, you've got massive queues for people trying to buy gas, or people are not able to go to Crimea for the summer the way they did in the past.

I suspect he is probably threatening with prison or execution or sacking most of his military leadership.But it seems that so far, all they've been able to do is increase the attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets.That is a problem.I mean, Ukrainians are still suffering, but they don't seem, I don't see any imagination on the Russian side.For sure, they would like to regain the initiative somehow, but now you've even got Lukashenko in Belarus, number one, apologizes to Zelensky.for what they've been doing.

And number two, supposedly, they have switched off or dismantled these transponder type systems on the border that were helping Russian drones fly into Ukraine after Zelensky threatened them.I think Lukashenko, who's the ultimate survivor, can see that things are changing also.

That's really interesting that you mentioned Belarus, because we also have another international body who's kind of changed theiron the Ukraine war, and that being Donald Trump.Donald Trump exited a meeting with NATO Chief Mark Gritter and said that the war for Zelensky is going pretty well.Obviously, this is almost a year after the meeting in the Oval Office.So what I'm wondering is, do you think this is Trump having a change of heart?Or do you think he's seeing all of these events happening in front of him and picking a winning horse?

I hope that the U .S.national security system, the joint staff, intelligence, that they're all communicating to the Oval Office, like, here's what's really happening there.The Russians are in big trouble.And then I hope that the president's decision will be, well, we better save my friend Vladimir.I hope it won't be that because, you know, frankly, the president's default setting is transaction, what's in it for me, how do we get some business deal out of this?

And instead, I hope he says, you know, actually it's in America's interest to get Russia off the table, remove that as a threat, so that if we do have to somehow confront China, China won't have the current Russia as an ally or as somehow help.I would like to think that he would do that.I've never heard them say something that would make me think he thinks that, but that's what I hope would happen.

Talking about other big news, Zelensky has just announced that he'll be starting a 40 -day offensive.

What would this entail?When somebody, when either side says we're startingan offensive thing, you know, there's different audiences for those kinds of announcements.I mean, certainly the military would not have wanted a big announcement of something that was coming.So I would assess that this is already well underway, whatever it is they're doing.But there is an important psychological and information component to this, you know, for your own people, for the Russians, for the White House.

And for European countries that are watching, what should we do?Most people want to be on the winning side.And so, you know, a challenge for years now has been countering the Russian narrative that it's inevitable that Russia is going to win.There's no way Ukraine, I even heard it today from a very, very respected person saying, there's no way, it's never going to happen that Ukraine could push back.So President Zelensky, I think is, trying to change that narrative.So that may be part of it.

But whatever it is, I'm sure it's going to include more and more of what we're seeing right now, the continued isolation of Crimea and rendering it completely untenable.I mean, that will be a massive blow for Putin to have people streaming out of Crimea, trying to get out of there, the military getting out of there.And then at some point, Ukrainians are able to occupied, not an amphibious landing, but just to take it because Russian forces will have left.I think that's probably in the mix somehow.But I think the real main effort is going to be on this continued attacks on Russia's oil and gas infrastructure.Because if they can't export oil and gas to China and India,

and other customers, it will be very difficult to continue to prop up this so -called war economy, paying people to come fight, all of this.I mean, it's already, I think, a fragile, artificially sustained economy.What I don't know is that Russia has not fully mobilized.They haven't turned to all the men in Moscow and St. Petersburg and said they've avoided doing that because I think politically it would be a real problem for him.So he still has some options, but I don't feel comfortable guessing about what they're going to do.

And bringing it closer to home, recently Germany ran its first public war game simulating a Russia attack on NATO Eastern flight.In an interview with the Euromedian, you highlighted that the simulation left out something critical, Russia's grey zone operations.Can you explain what these are and how it would alter the simulation?

Some people refer to these as hybrid because they're not, you know, kinetic.They're not a rocket landing on a Port of Ramerhaven, for example.But I've never liked hybrid because, you know, I think of hybrid cars and that doesn't exactly convey urgency.So gray zone operations are those things that the Russians are doing that are below the level of obvious Article 5, okay?Not necessarily kinetic.But it's drones flying over Frankfurt Airport or Berlin Airport or Copenhagen Airport or Warsaw Airport.

Sabotage of undersea cables and pipelines.Assassinations.people like right down the road here in Salisbury, the poisoning of Skripal, and the Shadow Fleet vessels going out to the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea.All of these things are illegal activities, and they are designed to scare populations so that populations put pressure on their government, stop supporting Ukraine.Otherwise, the Russians are going to do this to us.stop giving Ukraine air defense systems because we need them to protect ourselves.

So I think that those are the aims of these gray zone operations.And they're going to continue until we in the West figure out how do you inflict consequences on them when it's not always immediately obvious who did it.I mean, 99 .9 % of these things are either Russian, Russian -sponsored, Russian -inspired, using proxies that you paid a small amount of money.There's no big Russian flag hanging off of these things.But we have to figure out, how do you inflict some consequences on the Russians for doing these things?If we don't, then they will continue, and our populations lose confidence in the ability of governments to protect them.

This is not a good situation.

Ben Hodges, thank you very much for joining me on Frontline here at the Chalk History Festival.

Thanks very much for the privilege.