the, the, the, the situation in ukraine is growing increasingly dire as you creating and soldiers struggling to maintain the defense lines against russian aggression. so does that mean that the russian president is as in, closer to his goal of thieving? large parts of ukraine is both and believes he can simply rebuild the conflict. he has miscalculated strong words from germantown, smell well enough, charles, in support of your trade. however, they come out of time when his own body has emphasized the need to freeze the walk . the questions remains of costs. whose interest would this really so ukraine or

perhaps pull this down to the point we ask as quote and stoops gain ground. how is the gentleman me on the west? just font the hello and welcome to to the point i'm. you shall have us on here in berlin. and today my guest, newton ingenue, ben hodges, he's pharma commanding general united states army europe, announced german off globe. spec, future security and defense council f. s. the seat. next on the bottom movie, have mazda and lemmings. senior editor off the ball in bass newspaper, their dog and speaker. and usually i've been to ankle. she is associate professor at god as in khaki, national university, ukraine and with the things that go to the center for east europe and,

and international studies, stories and funded a very volume about them to you us, you didn't. let's start with, do you know ukraine is facing shortage of both weapons and soldiers? how long tend to really sustain? yeah, actually it's a huge problem because i, for example, i have a nephew in military forces, so few queen and they're almost on the 0, bought a lot. and then they complain in that the, even the unit needs a lot from a nation now. so it's a huge problem and the problem that for example, the eastern area, so if you play like harv, give my home see to, in my home region. and so my region under the constant shalon and that, that's and there are a lot of civilians who died and the who need to be recreated. so it's a huge challenge for your queen and not the only military bottle. so for, let's say a few shows for a tenant should include many teddy on way as,

as well. so this constant chilling and the lack of munition, they lack real kids. they lack air defense systems. what does that mean for they have more of it over there? yeah, it's also a great problem because people are overdue about 2 years being in the, in the model field. so now you clean young parliament is working on the new legislation to mobilize more people and the kind of assessment that we need, the 500000 more. and the more all of not only inside the army bought the, the level of, of social profusion is also decreasing. now. so a lot of sort of way of showing that it's so less tries to official let's to asked him zaleski himself. and people really gets entire, to even volunteers, even those ones, battlefields, and those core leaving on the, the constant total over the war. been from

a military point of view. what do you thing, how long can the soldiers really hold their positions? well, i think it's important to step back from the map a little bit. and, and keep in mind that after 10 years of war, for the russia having every advantage, they still only control about 18 percent of ukraine. the russian air force has failed. its 2 most important task, which is to gain total control the air and also to enter dic, the logistics bringing ammunition from poland into crime. they haven't destroyed a single train or convoy. one 3rd of the black sea fleet is now under water and they're having to pull back from surface to opal. the russian oil and gas infrastructure is being hammered every week. um, almost 10 percent of it has already been hit. the sanctions are having effect on russian rail. they can't get lubricants and spare parts so. so it's is too simple

to just focus on have dave or trenches in not folk and not think about the broader strategic picture of where we are. we know from history, the oars, a test of will ukrainian soldiers have far superior will to russian soldier. there's no rush and that was to be there. the test, the real test now is logistics and who can win this industrial competition? can it ukraine in the west or the russians? i think we will eventually witness. you seemed really optimistic, but what you can really needs right now are also funds and the $60000000.00 funds that us as not really using. do you think that the congress were minus to release that finally? so this is embarrassing to me that the united states is failing on a critical task here, especially when most of the congress, including most republicans, actually support ukraine. most americans support ukraine. so this is being held up for domestic reasons, by mr. trump and ukrainians, or are paying the price for it. i have to say that my president, who's doing

a good job otherwise has got to do a better job of explaining to americans why this matters to us. go to the american people. so they didn't, they put pressure on their congress when say why, why are we helping ukraine? so, america still discussing germany, meanwhile, has said another 500000000 utilize too little, too late. so it's a good question. i mean, if, if it comes to, to total sums, germany is the 2nd biggest contributor for the ukraine and in military and civilian assistance as well. so you can argue with the, with the, with the amount of money that is given in relation to, to your, uh, to the people you have or to the budget you have so that it's of the middle ground, something like price $12.00, something i, i would not say it's too little too late. they, they are supporting the ukraine low to the extent in some sometimes wishes. but

the, but you have to see the, the, there, there's a new, as a new strategic tactics from the ukranian army. this is a protecting the infrastructure of the, of, of russia, in russia itself, a rough injuries and things like that. so i think should be supported in doing that because this detracts the attention from the russians to many, many different places. they con, con, some trade that the ad defends and defense systems and one place. so i think this is so this is something to have to watch very carefully stand with limited resources. i ton, the ukrainian army is primarily focused on defending their positions against the russian forces. this is becoming increasingly challenging as the odd stuck up against them. let's take a quick look at what the situation is like on the ground. ukrainian soldiers in the donuts region are using ground,

a multiple rocket launcher from the soviet era. smaller slid or the room on it was there are few grenades, but not enough of them. beautiful. not as much as at the beginning when we could really fire and stop the enemy and one of the party in the east things are looking bad for you crate on several fronts. me, a hockey civilians are building more defenses to prevent russians from breaking through. russia is also heavy bombarding the south, at least 20 people were killed in a recent attack in odessa. these imperial emissions will continue to watch, like the way a lot to be and will not stop with fronts in germany. it's better to still continue craven later on a global scale. unimportant globe of them. but ukraine isn't just slow now. munitions. it's low on soldiers and the ones who have been fighting for 2 years are exhausted. do you ukrainian troops still have

a chance? been your thoughts? do they have a chance? well, that was the most depressing uh, doom or narrative. i've heard and i don't think it accurately portrays what's going on. of course are building trenches outside of our that we should been happening years ago. of course are doing this. of course, soldiers are tired. clearly ukraine has got to fix the personnel system there. there are probably 2000000 ukranian women and men that are military age. so the government, not the army, the government has to do the job of changing the necessary law, but also convince women and man that if you come into you created armed forces, we will not send you to the meat grinder and we will only put you in the right uniform, you'll get training, and then you'll be put in a unit so that you can do rotation. they've got to do that. but the, you know,

there's, there's another side in this war. there are no russians that want to be there. and when we talk about app div go mean people talk about a div could like it was stalingrad of these is as far in the east as you can possibly be in ukraine. so the, and the russians after a month mean that happened during the security current. so a month ago, they finally took a disc after losing $40000.00 soldiers. and they've only advanced one or 2 kilometers from there. so the russian, i don't think have the ability to exploit whatever success they are having. and that's bringing somebody down there now. sure. i'm on a just to produce 3000000 units of opportunity. i, munitions, i'm really wild in tie. a need to alliance can only produce $1200000.00 that's less than half of what restaurants producing. so despite all of the functions and everything, how is it that actually a student able to maintain this? you know, so it's a great question. um, obviously there are holes in the sanctions. i mean there are things that are still getting through from india, china to north korea, obviously of so that's,

that's a part of it. but you know, war is not a math problem. it's not like they made very 3 times this. what matters is what capability you have where you need it. and if germany and so like a taurus is equal to hundreds of artillery rounds and, and with the precision or the us, a tech comes the 300 kilometers attack comes every single russian headquarters, hard, killer piece logistics site in russian occupied ukraine. every one of them could be hit. that's, that's more important than how many houses of our clear grounds they have. it's the precisions would make such a difference. were you going to throw this in a bit? you know, your pin commission has triples, transporting profits generated by frozen russian central bank us that's through ukraine and drums and has said, and i quote, it is going to be an unprecedented violation of international law. so how is

structural really going to respond if that was to happen? well, actually, i, i, it's so what a popular mind the russian politician and diplomats, and about the violation of international law. a cool try to do to fighters the countries territories, torture and people who commit to the right. so yeah, it is, it is a one that is actively advocated by ukrainian, not the government, but that's but it as well because of the she was some assess which will frozen. but the, the, the point that the, this money as to what the rate is by the come to the school for the visa and money . and ukraine needs not only the supplies so far. i'm a nation, the huge demand of a now they reconstruction because we have like, 05000000. no for internally displaced people. there are of people more than 2000000 of them lost the ability to leave and the in the,

the community to so we need to repair residential areas. we need to repair in for us to auction the, it's a huge demand. the world bank assess language goes, which was released out like on. so i brought it 2 months ago. it was more than $453.00 billions of dollars, which i needed to, to pay. you're going to put it in context here. we're talking about $2.00 to $3000000000.00 euros per year, which is nothing except by the course. uh, but uh, from the point of view of your plan facility over there. kind of developed as a plan from the utah pen commission and the as you put in there now is a future movement to of, to develop all the plans and projects for the construction. so it's community based reconstruction is reconstruction them and building back better. and now people even would say more or less safe for a region. so the develop then how to, you know,

increase the capacity to give an issue. many 3rd and responsive pressure still will be attacking and it's real of that could in that again. so it's on this, and actually i will attack again, i'm mazda of german defense minister bought a speech, told us he recently emphasized that the rest has to be prepared for any situations . you said. now we saw last week, that's good in trip and that, that new to weapons and he said weapons on bad views. so is the last really preparing for the last at the moment? it's at least it seems they have prepared for it. uh, there was a report in the new york times back to, i think it was in the, in the ultimate, in the fall of to 22. when they really expected that the russians would use a nuclear weapons in ukraine. and they said the, the, the biggest problem by the crime in and they set the,

the like ability would be above 50 percent. um, what strikes me in this report is that the answer of a lot of being nuclear but conventional. this is something that the russians read but the here for the it with a lot of attention because it helps them the own calculation at the even though they might use atomic weapons, the west might not answer accordingly. so so yes and no booting is using the, the atomic threat as a, as a way to, to, to point to european countries, especially the drums because they are most afraid of them. um, but if you're, if you're focused on the like ability, then you can just raise the white flag and so we give up on the, on the other hand, if you ignore the likability that might lead to, to dangerous dynamics that, that you don't want to want to have so this is always,

if you fight is soup and nuclear superpower, that's, that's the dilemma you're in. so how do you think the rest would respond? because you said white flag. now i'm talking about about the story is i have his go to and he says, nobody really knows where the over and russia with that back. anybody in your know . so what we have to learn as allies in europe is to be prepared for any threat, especially for the threat which comes from pollutants associated any of these are extremely strong words. there is a strong words in that i would say it makes a difference. for example, if you're a member of nato not so to nato has to be prepared for any kind of threats against a native country because it's a, it's in, it's in the lines. um, does that include every other country in that region? i would say no, because nato is in the tech of nato is, is article fights every other country has to. it has to, has to come to help in any kind of threat is what do you think about plants?

i mean, what can happen? just sure. in principle, yes, but what does it mean in practice? i, i can see that all defense ministers saying that moving on from defense minister, let's 1st take a quick look at what's really happening in germany. so johnson to all of charles had promised a sizing vendor, a turning point, a historical shift in the countries of foreign and security policy in order to deal with russia. under charles, germany has indeed become the 2nd largest donor of veterans and munitions to ukraine, right off to the united states. but has charles really managed to keep us promise leaders from his own father to the s b d, all suggesting otherwise. this is a sneak ended, sorry. this isn't the time that we know the time you talk about how to wage will, but also about how to reasonable and edit, lay time on, sped talk, all the end. he kind of the suggestions made by the top says s p. d. policy has

triggered strong reactions and caused the green policy for administer babble to shake her head. she's referring to the you and report on russian will crimes and ukraine uses. i believe the anyone who reads this report will not bring up freezing the conflicts. again. this report reads like an absolute horace story. these basically an absolute test one. then comes criticism from within the cd defense minutes step. his story is agrees with his publish colleague. if i were to freeze of the conflict, whatever form it would take, would mean it only helps putin in the end put in have a chance to shop together with french president my con and publish prime is the task he has empathetically pledged to supply ukraine with more weapons out of time and is germany to support ukraine. how do you see that buttons on freezing the war really mean that boots and gets to keep order when he was occupied so far?

exactly what it means and bad luck for the millions of ukrainians that are in the occupied territory, the thousands of ukrainian children that have already been kidnapped and deported. we already know what happens in ukrainian villages when the red army shows up so bad love for them. i guess it's astounding to me that a senior german political official would say something like this, which i think is strategically illiterate. now the problem is the united states and the german government have got to make it clear that we weren't ukraine to when i'm proud the united states and jeremy the top to in terms of dollar or euro value. but that's, that's not the metric that matters. what matters is, have we do weird what our objective is and how much progress have we made towards that objective is, is not a, it's not a test of who gives the most. if that was the case, then estonia and look to any, it would probably be right at the very top because of the percentage of g d p. it's

about giving what's needed to win. and that clarity, i think, is what's really missing. but what's us winning mean that the russians will just pull out from any kind of occupied territory and so we give up, we so i don't know if they do it that way. that'd be great. but the ukrainians have to eject them back to the 1991 border that's that's present. jalencia said that everybody recognizes that's the southern border. so the chinese are watching to see are we serious when we talk about sovereignty, human rights, respect for international law? because if we fail here, we're frankly, it's much easier to support ukraine then it will be adding the endo pacific region . so i think the chinese may make a terrible this calculation the way the russians did. it doesn't freeze mean that we did the uh, how long would you fight for this, for this kind of and the, that they, that the russians were pulled out of every kind of occupied territory. freeze means we postpone the end result and,

and talk about the stop of the war. postpone every kind of questions. absolutely, the west can never give up the silver entity of shelf ukraine. everything like this . but try to find a supplement. let's say we may natal guarantees for the rest of your crane, but to have and will settle all the other questions related to point. so we ways to date, years with minutes process. so i don't know. i mean, this sounds me like the most nic didn't learn anything. minutes was not from the minutes process. yeah, i know, but minutes was not for, for nato guarantee. security guarantees for you. okay. okay. what so use and so germany would be willing to actually that's no good question. i'm just trying trying to argue what do what fries might mean if you see it from the positive side . well, let's say it reminds us. yeah. that we already to try it to produce the conflict then to of, to crania was a good by 10 years ago. it's to day when it was kind of a next by arrest consideration legally. so the ration of last was lead

a way to week. and your money actually increase its consumption alpha gas from russia to fault seems 2014. and of course, the kind of for rio and attempts to please the conflict. and during this time, russia just to begin is following, develop the uh, blo, how to a tech auditor thoughtful to your brain. so it's really wary, challenging to believe that the russia will hold to the eyes, you know, the points uh, that could be reached julian on negotiation. i don't believe these. you're also talking at the time the leaders of you uh, meeting in brussels for a 2 day summit. do you think anything concrete would come out of that? especially because it was just a few days back read need as of the volume. i try and read each other. yeah. oh, i would say that the i a final for the european union,

myself and the i call today to the utilization to ukraine and continue putting in school his students and a little dentist. that is, but we do understand that you look in union is note about defense and the, these kind of and assistance. so it would be nicer or it would be more clear for you creating an see if i may, to members will be more, let's say a. so let's see if a, in the, a government is to ukraine, that is why we could discuss whether there shall be any guarantees since that how to flows these conflict without any promises and the commitments from the maita member est, it says to they'll be no point to talk about the pros and cons if i think i see here different uh, both specters, also from ben and mazda. and when the leaders of the volume are triangle, very much all of the tried before unity. one could see the difference is that as

well, do you think that unity is really going to work there because of my current and charles are on completely different things inside them. and they, they face very different, a product in the old country, different dynamics. in principle, i would say um, okay, so i'll just don't say we need troops on the route that would cause address that might be a solution. but, but i'm not quite sure if even mccaul thinks about that in realistic terms. so front is now the only atomic power in europe since the great britain pulled out. so it has a certain kind of leverage that can have certain kind of power with the arguments. but i don't think they, um, the differences between mccaul and uh, and shoulds the, the go to the core of the problem. they both agree to support the ukraine. the fronts could do better, i think,

and supporting the shots can do better as in other terms. but, but in principle they are, they are in one boat. but you did start with domestic politics. so does that mean that for both france and germany domestic policy is actually shaping international and security policy of the moment? to a certain extent? yes, i mean, and it drove any of you up a coalition if, if you deal with the red, green and the a yellow coalition has very, very different interest in this kind of thing. so a chance that has to look for it for its own government and how it works a lot. so domestic policy shaping international policy. that's all the time we have . unfortunately, i know it does really quick or if you're watching us on youtube, do let us know your thoughts. what do you attain to me on the west should be doing thanks for your time. goodbye the

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