We're closer to 'the end of the Ukraine war' than we thought: this will be the next big act

I wouldn't be astounded to see someone like London, you know, maybe struck by a Russian missile or three during a face -off over the Baltic states.I still think about a one chance in three that we'll end up in something.so big that everyone will get dragged into it and it will affect everybody's lives.It is certainly possible to imagine a South Korea, North Korea scenario where, you know, we end up with highly militarized Russia, highly militarized Eastern Europe.The one thing keeping Putin in power above all else is that Xi Jinping cannot afford to see him fall.

Hi, I'm Peter Apps.

I'm a global affairs commentator for Reuters.I'm also a British Army specialist reservist and a writer and historian.

If we cast our minds back to Iran's 1979 revolution, the Soviet Union had a surge of oil revenue in the short term.And this helped keep the Soviet system functioning for a while until the prices crashed in the mid 80s.And then ultimately, the entire Soviet system collapsed in the early 90s.With today's energy volatility, is history repeating itself?Is the current surge in revenue the only thing keeping Putin afloat, or is his regime already past the point of no return?

I don't think the energy price is the only thing keeping Putin in power because he spent what's now 26 years, longer than that if you'd go back to his background in the 90s, taking over the FSB and Russian intelligence and replacing Yeltsin.So he's gone to great lengths to make sure that there are very few domestic challenges to it.And those who might have been domestic challenges, so local General Alexander Lebed, for example, who was big in Chechnya in the 90s, died mysteriously in a helicopter crash not that long after Putin came to power.More recently, Alexei Navalny died in a Russian prison camp, again under, frankly, dubious circumstances in 2024.So it's very difficult for anyone to kind of oust Putin.And the war in Ukraine has, if anything, sort of cemented his position atop that.

military kind of structure.Having said that, the high energy price is obviously useful for him, and an energy price crash is going to obviously be something that would endanger the Putin regime.Having said that, it's quite hard to imagine that happening at any point soon, because what we've now seen as, I think, almost unquestionably an unintended consequence of Operation Epic Fury in Iran is that people will be nervous about the Strait of Hormuz even after this crisis ends, and it may well not end cleanly.I think most likely you're just going to see more and more energy sort of leaching out through the Strait of Hormuz, more and more governments, more and more ship owners finding ways to kind of get through, but still that really quite significant kind of risk premium on energy.The thing to look at alongside that, though, of course, is that the more that damages the global economy, the more that undercuts the price of energy.So the last time we saw energy prices this high was 2008.

Everyone was very worried about that, but then suddenly you had the global financial crash and oil dropped to about $30 a barrel.If what's happening in the Middle East produced a complete economic sort of paralysis, that would then undercut the price of energy and it would drop very quickly.There's quite a lot in play, but I wouldn't rule Putin out, whatever the energy price is over the next kind of few years.Although don't forget, he is old.You know, we're talking about mid -70s now, so we can't stay in power forever.

Yeah, that's an interesting point.With his plastic surgery, he doesn't look it.

I mean, it's interesting.I think if you look at Putin, I mean, he looks slightly different to the way he did 25 years ago, which is not very surprising.I think one of the ways in which he looks different is he looks less European than he did.And you realize that actually that's you.You can see that he's almost certainly got some Asiatic genetic heritage, as do many, if not most, Russians.And I think that's just an interesting thing to kind of ponder in that Russia is a Central Asian power.

it has its own relationship with China, which is based pretty much uniquely on a land border with China.If you think about China's relationship with everyone else apart from India, they're based on sort of maritime and trade relations across the sea, whereas Russia's relationship with China is based over being the two largest powers on the Eurasian continent.

Historians point out that factories win wars, Zelensky just announced that Ukraine has a 50 % surplus in production capacity.They're now looking to export their weapon systems and expertise to allies.And then when we look at the Russians, they're still producing heavy armoured vehicles.Is this another sign that Putin's war machine is way off the mark and Putin's time is running out?

I mean, I think it's a sign of how things are changing.And I mean, don't forget, yes, the Russians produce heavy armoured vehicles.and they have done for a very long time, and Russian armoured vehicles are, as they have been since the Second World War, renowned for being pretty tough to kill and easy to fix.But that doesn't mean that Russia is not churning out drones and Shahids.long -range strike capabilities, often with Chinese components, in the same way as Ukraine is. I mean, Zelensky is a master of describing a glass as half full.When he says they've got a 50 % production surplus capability, what he actually means is that they are missing 50 % of the money they need to turn those factories into reality.

And what he's actually doing is he's looking at the world and realizing that, particularly because the Americans are not able to deliver as much weaponry as the Americans had hoped, obviously they've used a lot of it in the Middle East.He's increasingly positioning Ukraine as the arsenal for Europe, and not just for Europe, but also for the Gulf states in the Middle East.Someone is probably going to buy out that capacity, because weapons, particularly air defence weapons and particularly long -range strike weapons, are what most governments feel they need at the moment.The other issue Ukraine has got, of course, is that its components are mainly Chinese.So when Zelensky says he can make his factories produce more, he's sort of half right, and they are gradually weaning themselves off Chinese components.But actually, if they were to step up that capability, they're dependent on buying stuff from China, and that brings its own kind of issues.

Ukraine is now hitting oil hubs and military targets as far east as Yekaterinburg and as far north as Saint Petersburg, so on the Baltic Sea.They've systematically dismantled Russian air defences along the border.In your view, is there actually anything Putin can do to stop these deep strike fireball attacks on his economy?

This is the really messy, dynamic of the conflicts that we've seen over the last particularly two years.And I would say that the first one to really look at would be that Indo -Pakistani four -day war in May last year, where neither side sent planes into each other's airspace.Same is happening in Ukraine.You don't see Russian bombers crossing into Ukrainian airspace.You don't see Ukrainian jets passing into Russia.Russian air defence primarily not aimed at Ukraine.

Russian air defense is primarily aimed at the United States and NATO.So yes, I mean, to an extent, the Ukrainians have taken apart Russian air defense, but actually what they're really doing is that they are avoiding going through what Russia considers its front door.So Russian air defense heavily based around Murmansk, heavily based around St. Petersburg, facing into Europe to stop American and European, German, Polish sort of long -range missiles striking the Russian heartland.The Ukrainians are coming around the edge, but actually the Russians are still pretty serious about defending a place like Kaliningrad, the naval facilities around Murmansk.And the Ukrainians are not striking at those facilities very much, although they did obviously last year with Operation Spider's Web that took out some of those bombers in the middle of Russia.But again, you'll note that the Ukrainians haven't done that since.

And that is obviously part of a live conversation, not just with Russia, but also with the United States.Because I think the US said to Ukraine at that point, be careful about targeting Russian nuclear assets, because we don't know what effect that's going to have on Kremlin decision making.

One of the alarming developments for Putin is a ground surge in people speaking out in Russia.So it's getting harder and harder to gloss over the economic and social reality of the Ukraine war.So, for example, 65 % of Russian enterprises made no profit in Q1, according to a recent report.Putin recently gave a speech where he seemed desperate to appear flexible, future -oriented, while his approval ratings dip.Peter, how close are we to seeing Putin actually overthrown from within?

I mean, I think still probably quite a long way, not least because there are several things, one of which I sometimes refer to as the Robert Mugabe syndrome.which is that actually once Mugabe in Zimbabwe got sort of older than about 75, no one was prepared to die in a revolution to kick him out because they thought he was going to go soon anyway.Of course, Mugabe lasted until his mid -90s.So actually, in Zimbabwe, that created a sort of almost two decades of time in which no one was quite willing to do anything because they thought the old man would go.And I think Putin is sort of approaching that kind of age now.I think what that means, of course, is that amongst the people who hold power in Russia.

So we're talking about the oligarch security services, the military, you will begin to see and you'll see the same thing in China, because Xi Jinping is obviously at the same age, people starting to manoeuvre to be the person who might replace Putin, might replace Xi Jinping.So if you look at what Boris Yeltsin did, he brought Putin up as the head of the FSB, and then as a deputy prime minister, and then as prime minister, and then as president very quickly in the space of three or four years.So obviously, there are a bunch of people in Russia who will want tothat person.I think Putin sort of showing flexibility, the most likely way in which that will show itself is less him being forced from power and more him being willing to do a deal with Ukraine to reduce, to either halt the conflict, pause the conflict, or stop it altogether.And if you look at comments made by people like the Estonian president coming out of Finland and so forth, these are the countries that watch Russia the closest.

And they are beginning to think in terms of there might suddenly be a deal, and Russia might suddenly be out of Ukraine, no longer be losing all these people, no longer be losing that kind of cost.At that stage, Putin has a pretty binary choice, although it's arguably not that much of a choice.One of which is to take the Russian economy and turn it back towards a peacetime economy, and the other is to maintain its current militarized state.And that decision will be reached in conversation both with those around him, but also with China.So if you think about the one thing, the one thing keeping Putin in power above all else is that Xi Jinping cannot afford to see him fall.And that's a pretty powerful argument for Putin staying in office, in the sense that the Chinese, who have both buy Russian energy, supply Russian components to Russian weapons, are really keen not to see regime change in Russia.

Because obviously, if Putin was to pull, that would raise questions over Xi Jinping.And so, you know, what you may see is the Russian economy remaining militarized.Now, mind you, the Chinese want that because they want the Russians to maintain that threat to Eastern Europe, because that keeps the Americans divided.And that's the kind of sort of big picture chess we're playing, because actually, when we talk about how close Putin is to falling, we're actually very close to having a conversation about how close Xi Jinping is to falling, to which the answer is, well, he's prepared to do whatever it takes to stop that happening.His position is quite a lot more secure than Putin's.But by that very nature, that helps secure Putin's position.

And again, you see, you know, interesting enough, you see the Chinese sort of back Iran up to a point, you know, still buying oil and so forth, but not much further.But I think that relationship between Russia and China is sufficiently strong that while the Chinese would abandon Putin if they thought he was definitely toast, in the meantime, they're going to do quite a lot to try and make sure that he stays in power.

Yeah, you mentioned their border that they shared together.I've seen reports of Russia potentially ceding some territory to China or making deals in that way to balance the books in terms of their economy.Have you seen that?

I think formal transfer of territory is very unlikely, not least that if you are Vladimir Putin, you've made your entire sort of raison d 'etre of creating a greater Russia, suddenly surrendering bits of bits of territory in Russia's Far East, is quite hard to do.And what you do, of course, see is a very interesting and quite hard to read dynamic over Chinese settlement in Russia's Far East.Because obviously, you know, it's always been the situation, I mean, always been the situation going back for centuries, if not millennia, that Russia's Far East is very sparsely populated.And China's kind of northern area, sort of north of Beijing, between Beijing and its border with China, is much more intensely populated.And the Chinese, up until recently, had a large surplus population who could settle in places like that.Chinese population dynamic, of course, is changing very fast.

Aging population, it's very unlikely we're going to see Chinese pensioners move into Russia.And they don't have that many young people.And if China is attempting to expand its clout into the South China Sea and particularly towards Taiwan.There are limits to how much it wants to kind of move north.Interestingly enough, though, we saw just after the full -scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, an edict from Beijing that textbooks and maps should show the original Chinese names of places around what is now Vladivostok and so forth.So it's definitely very much a live conversation.

And if you talk to the Ukrainians, One of the reasons Ukraine fought so hard in 2022 is there was a widespread belief there that if Ukraine fell to the Kremlin, then Putin would actually take a significant portion of the current population of Ukraine, ship them out not just to Siberia, where Russia has traditionally settled prisoners, but also right to that Far East, and actually would have used settling Ukrainians near that Chinese border as a way of securing that for Russia going forward.So lots of really interesting stuff going on.I think a bit like the Chinese -Indian border, the odds of it actually moving formally is quite low, but there's no question that there is a lot of movement, is perhaps the wrong word, but a lot of activity around that.And of course, if you are Russia and China, there are a whole bunch of things you're looking at.Primarily, it's your confrontation with the West that's important.The most important thing about that border, of course, is you can move energy across it without putting in a ship.

So, you know, pipelines and so forth, the more China can get energy from Russia without being dependent on the rest of the world, then the less things like hormones matter.

Thinking elsewhere, we're seeing a massive shift in the global South.Azerbaijan has pivoted towards Ukraine, and we're seeing Russian mercenaries struggling in places like Mali.Is Putin losing his grip on his traditional allies, and is he becoming more of a liability than a partner on the world stage?

I mean, you know, Russia only got its teeth into Mali about, you know, in 2021, 2022.You know, I think we're quite a long way from seeing that Russian backed government being ousted.You know, lots of interesting questions, you know, the Russians will tell you, tell anyone who's listening, that the Ukrainians are supporting Al -Qaeda and the Tuareg in Mali.You know, again, reports of the Ukrainians taking the side of the Sudanese government against Bargain Group in the early days of the civil war in Sudan.There's lots of moving parts in these kind of places.Azerbaijan is a really interesting question.

I was struck by Iranian drones a few months ago.Azerbaijan, a really big gas supplier to the UK now, really sort of moved into a sort of pro -Western orbit, whereas Armenia, its historic rival, has sort of quite a complicated relationship with the Kremlin.Essentially, the Kremlin seems to have abandoned Armenia during its war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno -Karabakh in 2020.So there's lots of quite complicated dynamics there.

Just on the EU membership, we've seen in Moldova, Transnistria, undergoing a, not a blockade, but there's been a tightening of the grip to get rid of the Russians that are there essentially, recently.Is that a worrisome situation for Putin?Or is he just gonna sign that, just leave that be?

Yeah, I mean, it's a really interesting point.So Transnistria, for those who don't know, is an element, is a part of territory that is claimed by Moldova.It's actually recognised as being part of Moldova.Moldova being this non -NATO, non -EU country on the Romanian -Ukrainian border.And Transnistria, which is the eastern part of that, has been garrisoned by Russian peacekeepers ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.And

those peacekeepers are very isolated because they are, you know, on one side is Moldova, on the other side is Ukraine.and while the Russians are able to sort of reinforce in small amounts, of course they're not able to do what Putin had hoped to be able to do if he'd successfully overrun Ukraine in 2022, which would mean to take the whole body of Ukraine.Then of course his troops would have joined up with those Russian peacekeepers in Transnistria and they would have been a very powerful position to then overrun Moldova had they so wished.That hasn't happened and now obviously, you know, There's a huge swathe of Ukrainian territory between Russia and its peacekeepers in Transnistria, and the Moldovans are stepping up a blockade of Transnistria to try and kind of, you know, in the hope that they can essentially sort of starve those Russian peacekeepers and that pro -Russian sort of government in Transnistria out.Simultaneously, Moldova has another region that is not a breakaway region, but might like to be called Gagauzia, where again, people speak slightly different languages, they're slightly separate to the rest of Moldova, and where the the leadership is not quite explicitly pro -independence, but is certainly looking to be more independent of the government in Chisnau, which is the Moldovan government.And Putin has been very much getting into bed with those pro -separatist elements in Gagauzia.

So that probably gives you a bit of a balance of risk, in that the more aggressively the Moldovans try and go into Transnistria, the more Putin will try and hold Gagauzia at risk.At some stage, that may well turn into a hot conflict.If you look at the other hot conflict, the other sort of frozen conflicts at the end of the Soviet Union, so Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, that went hot in 2008, and Nagorno -Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan.we already talked about, you know, there was a war there in 2020.It would be very unsurprising if there was a conflict over, you know, one of those regions in Moldova in the next 20 years, or things may be managed sort of quietly, you know, separately.I think it's quite unlikely at the moment because Russia is bogged down in Ukraine.

I also think that the real risk we're taking is that if Russia stops fighting in Ukraine, the place it will probably come next is, I think, probably not Moldova.But I think if Putin decides that the Baltic states, particularly Estonia, look weakly enough defended, that they're easier to attack than Ukraine is.That's particularly a big issue for the UK, because we have a battle group in Estonia with a framework nation for the defense of Estonia within NATO.then if Putin believes that the Americans don't want to intervene, then he might have a crack at the Baltic states.Lots of good news.The Americans have 15 tanks in Estonia.

That doesn't sound like a lot, but what that means is that you can't invade Estonia without killing Americans.And of course, the Americans have lots of bombers in Europe that they're using for the Middle East.So I don't think any of these are going to get hot at the moment.And I think the so what of that sort of perceived Putin weakness that you've been talking about is that we might be closer to the end of the war in Ukraine than we thought.but what the next act of that looks like.Definitely there will be stuff going on in Transnistria, probably Gagauzia, but actually the next big act might be the Baltic States, particularly if the Russians believe that those nations look vulnerable.

Maybe not under the Trump administration.I'd be surprised if anything happens, although Donald Tusk has been talking about a threat to Europe maybe as soon as the coming months.again you can see the Estonian president also just talked about Ukraine will come into an early end and maybe they need to talk to Russia but obviously with that come a whole bunch of worries if that happensthe Baltic states, then suddenly Europe is in a much riskier kind of position.

Zelensky recently made the simple but powerful point that Russia has 17 million square kilometers of territory, and giving up the 6 ,000 square kilometers in the Donbass, Putin would frame it as what's the issue?It's so small, it's negligible.But Zelensky says, well, of course, he doesn't just want that, you know, it's going to be more and more.So, I mean, what do you think?Do you think if they hammered out a deal, it would just be completely destroyed within a decade or so and a further invasion would carry on?

I mean, I think it's worth looking at what happened in the Korean Peninsula at the end of the Korean War.So ironically, at the end of the Korean War, the front lines were more or less where they'd started.Korea had been fought all the way over.So, you know, pushed almost, you know, the North Koreans and Chinese at one stage had nearly taken hold of Korea, the Americans and South Koreans pushed back around the Busan perimeter.And at another point in the war, the North Koreans got pushed back almost all the way to the Chinese border before the Chinese intervened.If there's a deal, I think the most likely thing is going to be the line of actual control.

which is, for example, so if you look at where the border is between India and Pakistan, it's where the ceasefire line was the last time they finished a major war.So if there's a deal to be done, I think it's the line of actual control is going to be the deal.If it's anything different to that, I can't see Putin giving up the Donbass that he's fought for.And by the same token, I can't see the Ukrainians giving up any land that they already hold, that they still hold.And that's one of the reasons why up until quite recently, I mean, the last few weeks, the assumption has been that what will actually happen is that Ukraine is happy to gradually keep pulling back.aware that it may gradually lose the whole Donbass, but by the time it has lost the whole Donbass, A, everyone will have been evacuated, and B, they'll have enough sort of, you know, enough defense industry and fortifications and everything else to be able to hold the Russians if they come again.

It's also worth pointing out the Donbass contains quite a lot of things like rare earths and so forth.So, you know, there are some areas of the Donbass that are more valuable than others.The Russians definitely don't want to lose that land bridge to Crimea.

I mean, that's the most important bit for them, Maribor on the coast.

It is certainly possible to imagine a South Korea, North Korea scenario, where, you know, we end up with highly militarized Russia, highly militarized Eastern Europe, in the same way that South Korea has conscription, and you actually have, you know, South Korea is a thriving society in its own right, very low reproduction rate, but you, I mean, I'm in the states where, you know, K -pop is a big deal.The future of Europe and Ukraine may be becoming South Korea.South Korea with Ukrainian characteristics.So yes, it could collapse at any point, just as we might get another war in the Korean Peninsula.But I think it's also possible, and indeed likely, I think, that wherever the front lines sit in this global confrontation, this what I call the battle for the world, in maybe 10, 15 years' time is where they'll stay.So, for example, if China takes Taiwan in the next 10 years, then Taiwan will be part of China for the next 300, 400, by the same token.

If it doesn't, then Taiwan will be part of that kind of Western facing world alongside the Japan and South Korea.As to whether an individual town or village in the Donbass is part of the Russian Chinese bloc, or the European bloc is what's being fought over now.And if we fight a conflict in the Baltic States, then things, you know, places like Narva, maybe one side of that line or the other, I actually I think, but I think, you know, if it's not, if it doesn't happen in the next decade, it may not happen at all.

And why?Why do you think that?

Partly because that's what's happened broadly with India and Pakistan, or India, Pakistan and China, and the North South Korea, we've shown that you can have these ceasefire lines that last for, in the case of Korea, to 80 or years.And also because at a certain point, whether you're fighting high intensity or not, sort of doesn't really matter.It becomes a bit Orwellian.So, you know, if you've read 1984, it's sort of, you know, Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania, and then it changes.North and South Korea have always been at war with each other, you know, on paper.And that is a chunk of the kind of political deal, both sides of the border.

So, you know, I can imagine the circumstances whereby, you know, Ukraine and Russia never quite made peace, you know, you might just have a ceasefire.And that ceasefire might, like, the North -South Korean ceasefire lasts for a very long time.Or again, you might have the sort of deal with India and Pakistan, where they're not officially at war, but they talk about the line of actual control, and neither side buys into that.I don't think Russia or Ukraine have enough people to be able to fight this sort of war in perpetuity as a live conflict.And so at some stage, it will have to sort of calm down.How close are we to that?

I think it will probably happen during the Trump administration.So this year, next year, or the year after.I'd be surprised if it happened in the next six weeks.But again, you are hearing those mutterings in Europe, you know, when it ends, it'll end quickly.

How close are we to a larger war?I mean, by having a continuous war in Ukraine, we're seeing rapid innovation, this race for weapon technology.And we've seenthat spill out into, you know, Hezbollah using FPV drones with fibre optic cables, for example.Are we just, you know, and when we think back to World War Two and the innovation there, you know, is our trajectory just so, it seems a bit dangerous now, do you not think?

It's probably the most dangerous period in human history, actually, because you've still got that threat of nuclear war.

you expect a bit more disruption.

I wouldn't be astounded to see someone like London maybe struck by a Russian missile or three during a face -off over the Baltic states at some point.Is it likely?It's probably less than 50 % likely, but more than 20.And an overarching war, I still think about a one chance in three that will end up in something so big that everyone will get dragged into it and it will affect everybody's lives in the same way, in the same way that I would say almost everyone in the Middle East is being affected by what's happened there.So yes, it's dangerous.I don't think we should despair.

I think we should do what we need to to keep these conflicts deterred.But yes, it's definitely an era unlike that which we thought we were going into.

You spoke about handshakes earlier.Reports say Donald Trump intends to invite Putin to the G20 in Miami.Does a handshake in Miami end the war or does it signal the start of a much more dangerous era where Russian expansion is effectively greenlit by the West?

Is it more dangerous than the beginning of 2022?I think the Biden administration was really worried in 2022 when the Russian invasion went wrong.and the Russians started falling back in a hurry that the Russians might go nuclear to protect Crimea.So, you know, we've had dangerous areas before.Again, you know, if there is a G20 in Miami and everyone attends, including Xi Jinping and Putin,then yes, there is definitely a window for things to end at that point.

On the other hand, there is also a window for the war to continue.I think the war has its own dynamics now.The Americans are no longer providing the principal sort of weaponry to Ukraine in the way they were.Ukraine is building its own weaponry.It's getting weaponry from Europe.I think it's entirely possible to envisage Putin coming to Miami and the war continuing.

And I think it's entirely possible to imagine Putin coming to Miami, the war continuing, and Zelensky visiting the White House again, or the US before or after.Although again, the Ukrainians were quite keen to avoid that because it brings with it a lot of risk, and it didn't go well last time.So I think, you know, there will be ways in which whatever happens, whether he turns up or not, these dynamics will continue.And, you know, yes, there are definitely those who are, you know, The word in Europe is that there is a greater chance of the war ending in the not so distant future than there was seen to be a few weeks and months ago.And you put your finger on it, you know, there are several opportunities for this to happen.

And the G20 would be one of them.