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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones and this is 7am.

Earlier this week, Vladimir Putin held a rally in Moscow.

Even as Russia continued to lose ground in his war in Ukraine, he was defiant; calling the west satanic and making the case for a greater Russian empire.

But the most significant thing about what Putin said that day was what it represented: a turn to the ultra-nationalism of the Russian far-right.

Today, Associate Professor at the ANU Strategic and Defence Studies Centre Matthew Sussex, on what Putin is likely to do next in Ukraine.

It’s Thursday, October 6.

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RUBY:

Matthew, Vladimir Putin is in the middle of what he's calling a national mobilisation. So hundreds of thousands of Russian men are being called up to fight in the war against Ukraine. Could you start by telling me why it is that Putin felt that this was necessary and the best course of action?

MATTHEW:

Well, one of the reasons is that he is running out of troops on the front line. The Russian official statistics on losses are pretty murky, but there are a few little data points we can use to give us a clue. Before he announced this mobilisation there were something like 40,000 ads for contract soldiers published in Russia itself. That's pretty significant given that that amount of losses would make his force in eastern Ukraine, in southern Ukraine really not very viable.

So he's called up this massive number, 300,000 people, and I think probably what he wants to achieve by that is to ensure that the forces he's got left in Ukraine are able to rotate out, rest, regroup, and so forth, because they've been there for, you know, seven, eight months and they're pretty exhausted. So he wants to effectively use a large amount of cannon fodder not to do offensive operations, but just to effectively block and hold the Ukrainians in time to regroup his main trained forces for another go in the spring. It's effectively an escalation by Putin to say, you know, I'm in this for the long term, I'm not giving up and I'm going to try and drag this war on as long as I possibly can.

RUBY:

Hmm. Let's talk a bit about what the decision means for people inside of Russia who are fighting, because we've seen reports of unrest at military centres. There's protests within Russia, people attempting to cross the border to leave the country. So there's been significant backlash, hasn't there?

MATTHEW:

Oh, look, there has. The one note of caution might sound is that they haven't really been significant protests against the war in Ukraine itself. People tend to either ignore it or, you know, if they are opposed to it. Then to keep that fairly quiet. Where they have expressed opposition is the prospect of them going to be sent and fight on the front?

Archival Tape -- Reporter

“At Russia's borders. Vladimir Putin's comeuppance. The lifeblood of his war in Ukraine. Military age, men, fleeing fears of conscription.”

MATTHEW:

The latest figure was something like 300,000 Russians have fled the country.

Archival Tape -- Reporter

“Long lines of cars waiting to cross from Russia into Georgia. Officials in Finland report a similar thing at their border. All of this as tearful families were bidding farewell to men leaving to go join the Russian military.”

MATTHEW:

So it's quite clear that a lot of people don't want to be part of this war. The Russian parliament, the State Duma, recently introduced a law that upped the minimum fighting age for Russians to 65 years old. So these are people from basically children all the way up to people who were starting to get elderly and started to get infirm, who potentially can get draughted.

Archival Tape -- Reporter

“Given the politics, you have to be brave to take to the streets of the 40 or so Russian cities and towns where people protested against the war and mobilisation. Over 1300 people were detained yesterday.”

Archival Tape -- Protesters chanting:

“No to war!”

MATTHEW:

Whereas a lot of the protests we've seen have been confined to the regions. If this unrest reaches the power centres of St Petersburg and Moscow, then potentially it is a bit of a challenge to Putin's rule.

RUBY:

Mm. And so at the same time as this mobilisation attempt is sweeping across Russia, we've also seen these referendums being held. They've been widely criticised, of course, but they've been held in four areas of Russian occupied Ukraine. And the claim is that these areas want to become part of Russia. Following that vote, Putin held a rally in Moscow to declare that he'd be annexing these four territories. Can you tell me a bit about that rally and what it was that he said?

Archival Tape -- Putin

“Today we are signing an agreement about joining Donetsk and Lohansk People’s republic, Za­por­izhia region and Kherson region…”

MATTHEW:

There were two events. There was an official ceremony in the Kremlin where a number of the elite were expected to turn up and look enthusiastic. They decidedly didn't. And then after that, there was a sort of rally type rock concert which was supposed to galvanise public support.

People were bused in there. State workers were basically told that you have to go to this rally and cheer and white flags. Very much a sort of emulation of what was experienced during the Soviet era when these things were quite commonplace. Putin had some very bizarre things to say in the annexation speech I guess...

Archival Tape -- Putin

“I want to remind you that their attempts to become masters of the world was not successful. And we are going to defend our country. And the West is hoping that they will remain unpunished for everything.”

MATTHEW:

He referred to the West as Satanists. He said they were people with different genders. And so effectively, he declared war on the West and said that Russia should fight a holy war against these sort of transsexual bogeymen from the West.
One of the things Putin has done with his big, ‘we had the West’ speech is to abandon the political centre. Most people don't realise that Putin paints himself as a centrist in Russia, that he's the one who takes the measured decision after the far right and the far left have done all that shouting.

Now he's effectively saying to the Russian people, well, I'm going to drag you all the way over to the sort of ultra nationalist position, and I'm not sure that necessarily is going to happen. Now, fair enough. Russia is a phoney democracy, and Putin doesn't have to rely on the ballot box to keep him in power. He's got ‘selector’-ates rather than electorates, so he's insulated in that respect. But, you know, you do need basic civil obedience in order to enact your policies. And so dragging the country of the far right is going to be, I think, something that it's really hard for him to accomplish.

RUBY:

Hmm. And Matthew, what can you tell me about what's actually happening on the ground in these four territories that Russia is in the process of annexing? Because it's not at all clear, is it, that Russia is actually maintaining any control there?

MATTHEW:

No, that's right. And, you know, it didn't even control all those territories on the day that Putin announced the annexation, or signed it notionally into Russian law. The good example is the city of Leman, which supposedly had been annexed by Russia and less than 24 hours later it was liberated by Ukrainian forces.

So, it's an ever changing map when it comes to Eastern Ukraine and Southern Ukraine as well. Just recently, there have been reports that the Russian front around Helson, around the south, has basically collapsed and the Russians are retreating back towards that city and the Ukrainians are pushing them back at a rapid clip.

So it is possible that this becomes not just a series of setbacks, military setbacks for Vladimir Putin, but ultimately really quite a humiliating defeat for him. And the question is, well, what does he do there? Is he a sort of gambler who says, let's roll the dice, or is he a gambler who says, well, it's now time to fold? It's very, very difficult to predict what he will actually do.

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RUBY:

Matthew, you might say that the war in Ukraine is looking increasingly desperate, isn't it, for Vladimir Putin? Can you tell me a little bit, though, about how the Kremlin is really selling the war in Ukraine at this moment in time? Is it being portrayed as a series of setbacks, ultimately in a war that can still be won? What kind of propaganda are we seeing within Russia?

MATTHEW:

Yeah, well, Russian messaging has changed really quickly. The previous narrative of this is one long, unending victory changed to, well, we have had some need to regroup operationally, which is code for retreating to we have had some setbacks. And now the narrative has changed to, well, we are fighting all of NATO and they are equipping Ukrainian forces and they are far better equipped and have more people than we do. And so is it any wonder that things are getting grim? That's one aspect of the messaging.

The other aspect is what the far-right is saying. And you have people like Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader, who is basically echoing what all the ultra-nationalists have been saying for a while.

Archival Tape -- Reporter

“The head of one of Russia's internal republics, Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, has gone on social media, naming and shaming the commanders behind the pull out from demand, saying they were distant from the front and terrifyingly suggesting Russia's response should be the use of low yield nuclear weapons.”

MATTHEW:

And then there's something kind of in the middle and something interesting, and that is where you have some really seasoned commentators start to say, well, when we look to who's to blame for this, you know, we should be definitely blaming bad generals and bad planning. And it's certainly not Putin's fault because, you know, he's been given bad advice. But really, you know, it's not our place to comment. We shouldn't get involved in politics. We should really only reflect the feelings of society and not represent the interests of the powerful.

Archival Tape -- Reporter

“It is very rare to see people in his elite remotely criticise him, let alone openly stand up and reflect that he may not necessarily have a full grip on events along the front line here.”

MATTHEW:

And I think that's also potentially an indication that Putin's grip on power is perhaps not quite as strong as we thought it was.

RUBY:

Hmm. And I suppose the concern is that if Putin's support does erode, he could do something more dangerous to try and win the war on Ukraine and solidify his role. Do you think that there is a chance that he might pivot towards what you were saying? Some on the more more hard-right is suggesting could be done things like bombing civilians and the threat of nuclear war.

MATTHEW:

Yeah, look, I mean, he's already escalated to an extent by bombing dams and power generation facilities in Ukraine. It's pretty counterproductive, like it's not cowing Ukrainians. It's not making them want to fight any less. In fact, it's making them want to fight more. So his conventional options are pretty limited. He's already committed about 60 to 70 per cent of his entire conventional army to Ukraine. It's difficult to see how, you know, even a complete full mobilisation would change that pattern for him.

So, in order to win militarily, I guess, you know, he does have that option of potentially using tactical nuclear weapons. But even so, militarily, that's going to be pretty counterproductive. And it would generate, I think an enormous amount of opprobrium globally crossing that line. That is a real rubicon that we haven't seen since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And it would make it very difficult, I think, for those countries that do remain cautious supporters of Russia, I'm thinking of China in particular here, to continue to support Putin. It's a very, very risky play to escalate to nuclear weapons.

I rather suspect that Putin would still just try and tough it out to see whether his mobilisation is able to blunt the Ukrainian advance. And the Ukrainians, of course, will be trying to alter that calculus as much as possible before those troops arrive to recapture as much of their territory as possible.

RUBY:

Hmm. And so, Matthew, as Ukraine continues to take territory back and they have laid out that they want to push Russia all the way back out of Ukraine to the border, is there a scenario that this might end with Russia holding less territory than when it began the invasion? Or do you think that Putin can actually force a victory here?

MATTHEW:

It is possible that Russia ends up with less territory.

When the war started, the Russians adopted a very risky tactic, which was to try and capture Kiev very, very quickly, take Zelenskyy prisoner or kill him or force him to flee, and thereby basically sap the morale of the Ukrainians and force a very quick end to the war. That obviously hasn't happened. And now Zelenskyy is saying, well, we're not going to negotiate with the Russians at all while Vladimir Putin is in charge. We are prepared to negotiate with Russia generally, but we're going to negotiate only with another president. So I think that's an indication of how much the Ukrainians tails are up as a result of their battlefield successes and the exceptionally poor performance of the Russian armed forces.

As I say, I think Crimea is something that's going to be really difficult for the Ukrainians to crack. I'm not sure that Crimea will change hands back to Ukraine any time soon, but increasingly this is looking like it's going to be very, very difficult for Putin to achieve his war aims or anything close to his war aims. Currently, he is about 15 per cent, and if he goes backwards, that will be horrendously humiliating for him and something that simply won't be able to be papered over by his his propaganda machine back home, which is, you know, to protect, in his words, the people of Donetsk and Luhansk from, you know, the fascists and to to establish a sort of Crimean corridor occupying all of the Ukrainian cities on the Black Sea and forcing Ukraine away from the sea, which, of course, would would turn it into a landlocked rump state and a very, very weak one at that.

So in that respect, I think he's failed already. And the prospects are that he will, in fact, fail even more, and that will have significant consequences for his own political fortunes.

RUBY:

Hmm. Matthew, thank you so much for your time.

MATTHEW:

My pleasure, Ruby. Thank you so very much.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

An arrest warrant has been issued for former One Nation senator Rod Culleton.

The 58 year old allegedly lied about his financial circumstances as part of his nomination as a senate candidate for the Great Australia Party at this year’s federal election – and was meant to face court in Perth on Friday.

And the record for Sydney’s wettest year in history is set to be broken by the end of the week, despite there being 12 weeks left in the year.

Rain expected this week will put this year ahead of every previous measure for the 164 years since records began.
Im Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See you tomorrow.

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