At this time of year, you know there's no foliage on the trees; therefore, there's very little cover. It's fiercely cold,

several degrees below zero. It's difficult to survive. The ground is solid, so you can't dig trenches. It's not really the

ideal time to be doing combat, and yet Russia is still pushing hard, suffering record levels of casualties,

particularly among the North Koreans. Some horrible stories about North Korean soldiers just running around, almost like children, en masse on the battlefields and

getting slaughtered. The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has admitted that Ukrainian forces are unable to retake occupied regions like Crimea and

the Donbas. In an interview with French newspaper Le Parisian, Zelenskyy said that only foreign diplomatic pressure could

force Russia to withdraw from occupied territories.  Shabnam is a military analyst and joins us this evening, Shabnam.

Hello to you. Good evening, Kate. I mean, this is, I suppose many would argue, a pretty obvious statement from Zelenskyy,

but I think significant because in the past he's always talked about territories and not retaking them or

conceding them, even if NATO membership was part of the deal. And that's not what we've heard from him

today. No, but I think we have to—I mean, there's a lot of flatsome around this. The Trump effect is the main one—

that Biden's philosophy has always been not to let Ukraine lose, whereas President Trump's made clear he wants to

stop the war now. That may sound subtly different, but it's completely different, and in effect, that leads you to the

inevitable conclusion that Trump's going to force some form of negotiation. Now, of course, Zelenskyy doesn't have to

subscribe to that; he's at war. He can choose to negotiate or not, but he knows if he stands alone, that will be an

incredibly difficult position for him to take, but he also knows that if he gives too much ground, that um, that Russia will

come back again. And therefore, there's a lot of Europe, particularly Poland and countries like that, who are feeling

the heat of Russia, so they it's by no means a foregone conclusion that Zelensky will simply capitulate, then

that Putin will win. There's a lot of water to flow under this particular bridge just yet, as um, as we're in the

depth of winter. Sean, I wonder if you could just um, describe uh, where we're at with the stage of war. There was sort of

a much more muted winter offensive last um, last year by Ukraine that didn't, you know, ultimately ended

ultimately ended up being incredibly tough um, for the country. Uh, where are Ukraine at the moment? There

are kind of a couple of things going on, but it's sort of worthwhile checking how they're doing in this war. Yeah, if you

look at last year, as you implied, we were waiting for the spring offensive. If you remember that the West had piled in lots

of aid, and there was much anticipation that, as Ukraine had done in the north in Kharkiv, they'd swept Russia out, that they

do exactly the same in the spring/summer last year. Unfortunately, the front lines didn't really move, and for the rest of

the year, and certainly for the whole of this year, Russia has been on the front foot. Now, traditionally at this time of

year, you know, there's no foliage on the trees, therefore there's very little cover; it's fiercely cold, several degrees

sub-zero. It's difficult to survive; the ground is solid, so you can't dig trenches. It's not really the ideal time

to be doing combat, and yet Russia is still pushing hard, and suffering uh, record levels of casualties, particularly the North Korean... some horrible stories.

about North Korean soldiers just running around almost like children en masse on the battlefields and getting slaughtered, but all of this appears to be Putin just

pushing as hard as possible to get as much territory as possible in anticipation of a 20th of January, uh, you

know, opportunity for conversation. But let's be clear, you know, Ukraine is on the back foot. Ukraine is losing at the

moment. It doesn't have the weapons; it doesn't have the people. Russia isn't taking a sustainable approach to this; it

can't afford to sustain these levels of casualties. But for these few months of the winter, it's doing all it can and I

think almost certainly preparing itself for what it hopes will be a joyous occasion when it will be able to bring

the war to a close, but also secure the four regions, the land bridge from Russia down to Crimea, and Crimea, and then

declare victory back in Russia. Some of those Russian casualties, of course, are North Korean troops fighting in

western Russia's K region. And we heard from a senior US military official that there were several hundred casualties,

and President Zelenskyy shared a video today or within the last day that basically showed or claimed that Russian

soldiers were trying to cover up how many North Korean troops were losing their lives; were attempting to conceal

the identities of dead North Korean troops by setting fire to their faces. There are some horrible stories coming

out, um, from the front line. Uh, I've not—I went to Ukraine only a few weeks ago, but I didn't go anywhere near the

front line. Colleagues who have said it's just a horrible scene of devastation—World War I, but the stench

because a lot of the bodies are left there on the battlefield—um, it's just horrible. And there is no doubt in the K...

region where that's where the North Korean troops, if you remember, that's the area where Ukraine made a foray into Russia

itself; they made gains, and they make gains. But of course, if you were Zelensky, sorry, if you were

President Putin and you thought there was a negotiation coming up, you would not tolerate Ukraine's being on any inch

of Russian territory, and that appears to be why they're throwing the North Koreans at that battle. It appears

that Ukraine had been pushed out about half out of the region they were in, and they're holding out at the moment. The

real question is what price are they going to pay for holding on to a little tiny postage stamp of Russian territory

which actually carries no great negotiating, um, position at all. I think what's fascinating as well, though, I mean,

I think we're going to end up as well with some really interesting conversations in Europe because just

because President, um, uh, Trump doesn't want to continue fighting, there will be a number of nations in Europe, particularly

those closest to Ukraine, that will be very uncomfortable with the prospect of a Putin victory, and therefore there are

other options that, you know, the West doesn't just have to walk away. It can take up the slack of American money and

weapons, or it could step in and actually put boots on the ground, put a no-fly zone in place. Yeah, you make a good point.

In actually the silence that we've had pretty much so far from some of those nations when we talk about what Trump

might be planning when he comes into office, um, I do want to bring another story to your attention, uh, that that you

may well have seen. Russia's former president, Dmitry Medvedev, he's a close ally of Vladimir Putin, uh, has said that, uh,

Editors of this paper, *The Times*, are legitimate military targets. Here's Steven Swinford, *The Times* political editor, just explaining the story. Lieutenant General Evgeny Kirillov was assassinated by Ukrainian special security forces, um, in recent days, and we

wrote a leader in the wake of that which said that this was a legitimate act of defense by a threatened nation, basically

arguing that it was justified. So *The Times* did the leader, and Medved has used his Telegram account to turn on the

entire management team of *The Times*. He says that they are lousy jackals and should be considered legitimate military

targets, and then he adds a kind of punchline at the end: 'So be careful, after all, anything goes in London.' What do you make

Well, Medved does rather shoot from the hip, first of all. Secondly, is that he

can join, you know, *The Times* can join a long list of people on the wish list. I'm certainly on one of them as well. I I get

more than my share of abuse. We've got to take this with a pinch of salt, frankly. Uh, one of the pillars that we um fight

for in the West is freedom of speech, and um, we have a military; they stand on the wall, they stand proud, they'll be

standing firm over Christmas, standing to defend our nation. And the fact that people like Medved throw out idle threats

all over the place… it is Russia that invaded Ukraine; it is Russia that committed atrocities across Ukraine and

ended up with hundreds of thousands of casualties; and it is Russia that continues this brutal campaign. So to

start casting aspersions and sort of criticizing and threatening other people who represent the very pillars of

our society that we stand to protect, frankly, we shouldn't give it a moment's coverage; it is a complete waste of time.

and just shows a hint of desperation from a man afraid of death

Russia suffers ‘record levels of casualties’ as winter freezes battlefield

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