Could the Russia-Ukraine war be in its final stages? | Inside Story

Russia's President Vladimir Putin says the Ukraine war may be over soon. Attacks have been intensifying in recent weeks. Stalemate on the battlefield is increasing political pressure for an end. So, could the conflict be entering its final phase? This is Inside Story. Hello again, I'm James Bayes. After a parade marking the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the Ukraine war may be nearing an end. Those comments are coming under sharp scrutiny. How Europe's worst conflict since World War II may finish and on what terms is yet to unfold, what is clear is that there's increasing pressure to stop the fighting. And a stalemate on the battlefield is adding to fatigue. Military casualties continue to rise as civilians have come under attack in both countries. Internet restrictions in Russia have failed to stop Ukrainian drones but have increased public frustrations. The Kremlin will be wary of such sentiments ahead of parliamentary elections in September. So, how important are Putin's comments and why has he made them now? We'll discuss all of this with our panel of guests in a moment but first this report from Amur Boteng. A scaled back parade in Moscow. Victory Day commemorates the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II and the millions who died. Usually an annual display showcasing Russia's military might but this year there were no tanks or missiles in sight. A shorter ceremony and fewer guests too, reflecting fears of Ukrainian drone attacks with officials also saying military hardware was needed on the battlefield. The great feat of the generation of victors inspires the soldiers carrying out the goals of the special military operation today. They are confronting an aggressive force armed and supported by the entire NATO bloc and despite this our heroes move forward. Speaking to reporters after the event, Putin said he thought the Ukraine conflict was coming to an end. The West promised assistance to Ukraine and began to escalate the confrontation with Russia which continues to this day. I think the matter is coming to an end but it's still a serious matter. Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky has been visiting his troops awarding soldiers for their war efforts. He maintained his mistrust of President Putin and condemned Russia's actions in Ukraine. Today on May the 8th when most of the world remembers and honours the soldiers of the Second World War, those who defeated the Nazis, we must recognise that today's Russian Nazis are continuing their war and are still trying to restore the very same insane order that was defeated in World War II. Our defence against the Russian invasion is not just the defence of Ukraine alone. It is not just protection of our independence. Russia threatens nearly all of its neighbours and all of Europe, not just one country. Zelensky was speaking hours before President Trump announced a three-day ceasefire which took effect on Saturday. I asked and President Putin agreed, President Zelensky agreed, both readily and we have a little period of time where they're not going to be killing people and that's very good. And they also agreed to give a thousand on each side, a thousand prisoners back. Moscow and Kiev each declared their own short ceasefires last week and have accused each other of violations. That follows an upsurge in attacks in recent weeks. Ukraine hit several targets, including a major Russian oil refinery in the city of Perm, about 1,500 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. Russia carried out a series of attacks across Ukraine, killing dozens of people. More than four years since Russia's invasion, the conflict appears to be at a stalemate and all sides will be assessing whether Vladimir Putin's words this weekend could be the first major signal that the war may be nearing an end. Amar Bhateng, Al Jazeera, for Inside Story. So could there be an end in sight to more than four years of deadly carnage? Let's discuss this with our panel of guests today who are joining us on Inside Story. In Vienna, Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky, permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. In Istanbul, Bob Seeley, former member of the UK Parliament, journalist and former British soldier. And from Berlin, we're joined by Ben Ariss, the founder and editor-in-chief of BNE Intelli News, a business media company with a focus on Eurasia. A warm welcome to all of you and thank you for joining us on Inside Story. Can I start with you, Ambassador Polyansky? First, I think for our viewers, the OSCE, we need to explain the organisation that you are representative of Russia to. It is a vehicle for East-West cooperation set up during the Cold War. There is obviously not much of that right now, it seems. Can I take you to your own country? You were not there, but it's always a very important day, Victory Day in Red Square, yet it was unusual. There were no tanks, there were no missiles, there was no heavy armour, very few world leaders and you had to shut down your mobile internet because of the threat from Ukrainian drones. That's not the image of a country that's winning a war, is it? Well, it's a question for discussion. What is the image of a country winning a war and what is winning a war? We always wanted to get peace with our neighbour. We wanted to have a normal country at our borders, the country with which we signed the treaty after the Soviet Union collapsed in the beginning of the 90s. So for us, winning the war is stopping the war and having a country where the rights of Russian-speaking population will be respected, where there will be no attacks on the freedom of religion, where the human rights will be respected, where Nazi criminals will not be whitewashed, something like this. So it's a philosophical question. As far as the parade in Moscow, I think that this was a decision not to provoke Zelensky, who is now eager to do everything with his sponsors to undermine the peaceful efforts that are still underway by Russia and the US, who wants to continue the war for the sake of his old skin and for the sake of his henchmen. And that's why I think it was a wise decision not to give any other possibilities for provocation for this Kiev regime. You say winning the war is stopping the war, but four years ago your country started the war. I first met you and have interacted with you a lot at the United Nations, where you used to be the deputy ambassador. A fundamental breach in 2022 of the UN Charter, the most important document in international relations, was it not? I know this perception, James, and I remember you also claiming the same things, but we were absolutely clear that in 2022 we exactly came there to stop the war, the war that was ongoing from 2014 and the war that the others didn't want to observe. And you also cited the war that the others didn't want to notice. And also we were absolutely clear about the fact that the UN Charter should be respected in all its integrity. And one principle of UN Charter, like territorial integrity, shouldn't be put on top of everything else, on the respect of human rights, on the respect of determination, the right of people to determination. So it's not cherry-picking, it's a serious document, and that's where we are on different pages with a number of our international partners, and that's the sad reality. Well, we'll discuss some of these issues throughout the program, but let me bring in Ben, Ben Harris. Ben, you know Russia very well, you spend a lot of time there. This image of Victory Day, this is a very important national event, commemoration that takes place in Russia, with no military hardware whatsoever, possibly because of attacks from Ukraine. Others have suggested that much of the equipment can't actually be spared because it's needed on the battlefield. Either way, this is rather embarrassing, is it not? It is. As you say, this is a key event in the Russian calendar, and the Russians don't call it the Second World War, they call it the Great Patriotic War. And the reason is that they threw everything into it. And simply look at the number of people that died on the battlefield. The Allies, the UK, and the States were about half a million men each, and in the Soviet Union, they lost some 27 to 29 million people. I mean, it's two orders of magnitude bigger. And so every single family in the Soviet Union felt it. They'd lost somebody in the battlefield. It was an absolute slaughter. And they claim and take credit for actually ending the war against the Nazis because of this enormous sacrifice. And so for Russia, it was incredibly painful. There's a thing called the Immortal Regiments that marches every year, where families carry pictures of their grandfathers who they lost in the war. And so to scale it down is, again, it's not an insult, but it's certainly going to hit home with the public that this was a major event that people, in the run-up to it, everybody writes on the back of their cars these expressions, T-34, the tank that won the Battle of the Kursk, and thank you, granddad. It's like a slogan on the tailgate of every car. So to scale it down, I think it was very embarrassing. But then, as you suggest, the threat of Zelensky, now they've developed these long-distance drones. And the fact, just a few days before, a Ukrainian drone hit this high-rise luxury apartment block. I used to live just up the road from it. And it's a short few minutes flight to its square, which threatened that if they put their most expensive hardware onto the square, as they usually do, then the Ukrainians might have been tempted to actually go and hit it and try and assassinate Putin. And this was a very real threat. So we saw an escalation in the days before, where Moscow ordered all the diplomats in Kyiv to leave their residences, to leave the city, clearly threatening a massive bombardment of the center of Kyiv, particularly the administrative buildings, which hasn't happened before. And this threat was taken so seriously that there was traffic jams on all the roads out of Kyiv the day before the parade took place. So it actually got quite tense. And with these long-distance drones, you could imagine that Zelensky would make this gesture. In the end, he rather humorously issued a decree on the night before, saying he gave Putin permission to hold his parade and even included the GPS coordinates of exactly Red Square and said, this has been designated a no-strike zone. So he got some PR out of it. But like I say, it was all very fraught and got a lot of press. Bob Seeley, drones, as we've heard, can reach both of the capitals in this war, Kyiv and Moscow. You are an author, a former UK member of parliament, but you're also the director of a British-Ukrainian drone company. And now it's clear Ukraine is not just targeting strictly military targets. You're aiming your drone company on behalf of Ukraine at things like oil infrastructure, causing terror to ordinary civilians. Are you not adopting the same tactics that you condemned when they were used earlier in the war by Russia? James, hi. I'm not a representative of the Ukrainian state, and I don't pick the targets that the Ukrainians want to choose. And whatever the Ukrainians choose should be within the rules of war. But to be fair, Bob, I accept that, but you are making weapons for them. Yeah, for sure. We're supporting a democracy, and we're working with the Ukrainian military to support a democracy, which, as you point out, James, was invaded by Putin's Russia back in 2022, and which has caused huge damage to that society. And actually, we should be thanking the Ukrainians for doing a remarkable job in defending their society against this unprovoked and despicable invasion, and which was accompanied by disgusting human rights abuses, which will stain Russia, sadly, for that great country, stain that great country for decades to come. And they have destroyed their relationship with one of their closest brother nations for reasons which can be discussed at length in future, but for no real constructive reason except to try to reverse history. So I'm actually very proud of what we do, and I think the Ukrainians have done a remarkable and good thing. I got involved in this in part only because I'd written a book about the Ukrainian war and about Russian theory of warfare, and tried to explain to the world about how Russia combines military tactics, but also non-military tactics as well. So you say, James, this will bring the war to an end, or President Putin is now talking about bringing the war to an end. Firstly, I'll see that when I believe it. But secondly, if the conventional war grinds to a slow stalemate because Russia can't make further progress, they will choose other means, Putin will choose other means, be it criminal, be it political, information, economical, to prevent Ukraine's genuine independence, because this is a fixation of Putin and Putin's security elite. So we need to keep supporting Ukraine. And in the end, when Russia becomes a democracy in the years and decades to come, they will look back at this war with a sense of shame, but also a sense of actually great respect to the Ukrainians that they fought to defend their state. Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky, let me pick up on those, mention of those comments by President Putin, because you know President Putin very well, and he is very careful with his words. He said these comments in a news conference after the parade. I'll read the exact quote. I think the matter is coming to an end, but it is a serious matter. Is that a throwaway comment? Does he make throwaway comments? Can you tell us any more about that comment? I wasn't, of course, at this press conference, but I read the text of it, and I think you should consider it in entirety and not pick up certain moments, because in the context of the Victory Day celebration, President Putin also said one very important thing, is he said that the special military operation will continue until all the goals of it will be implemented, and this is something that the others omit. Also, this comment was made after the conversation with President Trump, and during this conversation, it was confirmed that the United States will still try to convince Zelensky to make peace and to stop sacrificing his people for absolutely unnecessary cause, but I wanted to react to what I heard, if I may, because some comments were very strange. I don't know what hard stuff my British colleague is smoking, having this very distorted picture of reality, but the reality is totally different. First of all, of course, we gave diplomacy some space after the Anchorage meeting, and it is absolutely natural that our campaign has become less intensive. That's absolutely correct. But if you read the data from the battlefield right now, I think it would be hard for you to ignore that we are now making big advances and we are on the way to take the last stronghold of the Ukrainian army in Donbas. Ukrainians, of course, want to keep this information in the shade, but it's very difficult to do it because this is absolutely obvious for military analysts. Also, it's very good that you, sir, raised this issue of Britain and other states helping Ukraine because one shouldn't forget that we are fighting not Ukraine as such, we are fighting NATO. NATO is very much involved in this hybrid war with Russia. You yourself have a relation to a factory that produces weapons for Ukrainians, and this is a direct implication in the war. You also know that the Ukrainian drones are now crossing the airspace of Baltic states, of Finland, to hit Russian targets. It's also direct involvement of NATO in the war. So, of course, when we have to make calculations of whom we are fighting, we are fighting the whole of NATO. We are fighting the hybrid war. It was, of course, NATO who provoked this war. It was NATO who started this thing in 2014. It was NATO enlargement that was the casus belli for this whole situation. And also some comments on the victory parade, if I may. Well, it's not an unusual thing to have less equipment there at the parade. You shouldn't forget also that this is not the only parade in Russia. Almost every city was parading and there was military equipment, there were a lot of people, there was this immortal regiment. I myself was participating in a very impressive parade of immortal regiment here in Vienna, where several thousand people were marching in the center of the city and we were greeted by everyone. And this also shows that the approach and the sentiments towards this military campaign are the same. Okay, Ambassador, can I just jump in? Ambassador, in a moment I'll bring you in, Bob Seeley, but just if I could pick up quickly on the terms you're using, you're still saying it's a special military operation after four years, given the death toll. This is a war, is it not? And also this ceasefire, Ukraine offered an open-ended ceasefire. Why doesn't Russia agree to that to really kickstart diplomacy? And then I'll bring in Bob. Okay, so the first one was the special military operation. And not, well, you know, if you want to see what a war means, then look at Gaza, look at the devastation that happened in Gaza. And if you look at Kiev, at other Ukrainian cities, you will see that life is going on there. Nightclubs are booming. Ambassador, you've lost more troops in this war than you lost in Chechnya, more troops than you lost in Afghanistan. You've lost more troops than any major power has lost at any time since the Second World War. James, did you calculate these losses? This is also part of hybrid game, hybrid war. You know, when there are bodies exchanges between Russians and Ukrainians, and I think my colleagues will confirm it, there were like five or six exchange of bodies there, and the proportion was about 1,000 bodies of Ukrainians exchanged for 30, 35 bodies of Russian soldiers. I think that's the most telling thing about the proportion of casualties. Saying this, of course, every life loss is a tragedy. I need to bring in the other guest, Ambassador, but very quickly on that point. On that point of an open-ended ceasefire, can you just give us a quick answer on that, because I then want to bring in Bob. Open-ended ceasefire will bring us to the same situation where we were at the Minsk agreements. We know that this will be only a smokescreen for rearming Ukraine and for helping it to heal its wounds. We want a long-term, sustainable, durable settlement which need to address the root causes of this conflict. That's a nice, clear answer. Bob Seeley, you wanted to come in. Yeah, I know the ambassador has to come out with the sort of party lines. I would just say they are, even he must accept how ludicrous they are, but just on a couple of the serious points. The Ukrainians are fighting because you've invaded their country. If you stop invading their country, that's probably a good cue for them to stop fighting. But to say that somehow Zelensky's bought this invasion on himself, I think it's just ludicrous. And just on the hybrid warfare point, because it's a great line that the Russians repeatedly push about this sort of NATO hybrid war. If you go to Russian military doctrine, the characteristic number one of modern warfare, as thought of by you guys, Valery Gerasimov and the general staff, which is the brain of the armed forces and a very intelligent organization, it is true to its credit, they will say the first characteristic of modern conflict is the unification of military and non-military tools. And the Russian military doctrine specifically states within that is political, economic, informational tools, espionage and other means. And the more you treat the general public like fools, you may well get away with it. But as soon as you're up against anyone who knows what they're talking about, ambassador, you just lose credibility, which is a shame considering you're a senior spokesman for your country. And I think that is sad for you and Russia as well. I do agree with one thing that the ambassador said, and that is when he said that let's put this statement in context. And whenever President Putin talks about peace, in order very often to try to re-engage with the United States and to re-engage with the US negotiating team so that they don't lose them, the Russians don't lose their influence over them, they immediately say, but all the aims of our war have got to be fulfilled. One quick line from you in response, because I do need also to bring Ben into the conversation as well. Yeah, thank you, James. I just wanted to ask the question to my British colleagues. I will lose the comments about my credibility aside. This is my thing. I wanted to ask him, you say that Ukrainians are fighting because we invaded this country. Okay, this is your interpretation, but can you explain to me why is this forced conscription taking place at Ukrainian streets right now? Why people are being hunted like cattle and put at the battlefield against their will? Why the public opinion polls are showing that Ukrainians don't want to fight? Okay, Ambassador, we've not got a lot of time, and I do want to bring in Ben on the point that you made about the state of the battlefield right now. Earlier on, the Ambassador said, Russia is winning. We're going to see big victories soon. How do you assess the current military situation, Ben? We're still in a stalemate. I mean, if you watch the tracking, then in the beginning of the year, the Russians were taking a lot of territory, hundreds of kilometers. More recently, they've actually been losing territory again. But all said and done, this is all at the margin because 20% remains occupied. The front line is stuck. The no man's land between the line of contact is a kill zone because of the drones that we had this big push to take Prokofsk, an important strategic logistics hub. And the Russians walked in there and took it, but then they couldn't hold it because anybody that went onto the street was being killed by drones. And that's where we are. There's not much, you know, advancing or retreating going on. I think the Ambassador's right that Russia is making slow progress towards taking what's left of the Donbass, this defensive line, which is a key goal for the Russian military. And it's simply they're wearing them down. They have these enormous FAB 3,000 kilo bombs, and they're dropping 1,000 a week, and they're just wearing them down. And as the Ambassador was alluding to, that the Ukrainian armed forces have a severe problem with manpower. And so they have this very harsh conscription scheme where they're going and grabbing people off the street. But I just wanted to come back briefly to the ceasefire that Putin was alluding to. And I'm actually kind of optimistic having listened to him for more than 25 years. I think that the clock is ticking. And on the one hand, the Russian economy is really hurting. I mean, it's really suffering. And people I talk to in Moscow are saying situation is getting worse, and they've got the repression with the shutdown of the internet, which is really upsetting people. So the Russians don't want the war to continue. And the same thing coming out of Kiev. People, the war fatigue there is getting very, is very strong as well. And Zelensky's popularity is slowly falling in the polls. But the other half of this argument that's much less talked about is that this is a golden opportunity for Putin to get out of the war and also to get the sanctions lift. And I think that's very key for him because he can do a deal with Trump. And Trump has shown himself willing to do that, to lift the sanctions. Let me bring in Bob Seley, if I can, as a supporter of Ukraine. Let's add into the mix, of course, there is another war going on. What impact does that have? Because certainly President Trump has not been focusing all that much in recent weeks on Russia and Ukraine until he took credit for this ceasefire. James, I think from a military perspective, from students of military affairs, whether you're Qatar and the UAE and you want to get into the drone market yourself and you understand that this is a new era in warfare, I think what you're looking at is the big issues are the autonomization, automation of warfare using AI, not only comms, advanced comms, but link it to machine learning with drones and swarm drones as well. So we're talking about the kill zone being now 40 kilometers, maybe very soon this year, 50 kilometers wide, so 25 kilometers either side of the front line in Ukraine. Two countries in the world that are pioneering this warfare, one of them is Russia and one of them is Ukraine. And they're both now trying to hone those skills of using drones on the front line, the rise of the machines and taking humans away. And I think people in the Middle East and in NATO and in North America are seeing how warfare is going to evolve in future and they want to understand that because they want to make sure that they're in the cutting edge of defense so they can protect their countries. Bob Seeley, Ben Aris and Ambassador Dmitry Polyansky, thank you for joining us on today's Inside Story. Stay tuned to Al Jazeera for updates from both Moscow and Kyiv with further analysis on our website, aljazeera.com. Your comments are welcome on our Facebook page. That's facebook.com forward slash AJ Inside Story or find us on X, just look for at AJ Inside Story. For now, that's it from me, James Bayes and all the team here. Remember, though, Al Jazeera's coverage continues in a moment. Stand by for the latest.