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

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 Subzero 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 away suffering uh record levels of casualties particularly the North Koreans some horrible stories about North Korean soldiers just running around almost like children on mass on the battlefields and get being slaughtered the president of Ukraine Vladimir zinski has admitted that Ukrainian forces are unable

to retake occupied regions like Crimea and the dbass in an interview with French newspaper L Parisian zalinski said that only foreign diplomatic pressure could force Russia to withdraw from occupied territories sha Bell is a military analyst and joins us this evening Shan hello to you good evening Kate I mean this is I suppose many would argue a pretty obvious statement from zilinski but I think significant because in the past he's also 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 the Trump effect is the main one that Biden's uh 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 seninsky doesn't have to subscribe to that he's at War he can 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 and countries like that who are feeling the heat of Russia so they it's by no means a foregone conclusion that zalinski 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 uh much muted uh winter offensive last um uh last year by Ukraine that didn't you know ultimate ended ultimately ended up being 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 KH ke 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 away suffering uh record levels of casualties particularly the North Korean some horrible stories about North Korean soldiers just running around almost like children on mass 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 level 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 figh fighting in Western Russia's K region and we heard from a senior US military official that there were several hundred casualties and president zilinski shared a video today or within the last day that basically showed or claimed that Russian soldiers were to try and 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've went to Ukraine only a few weeks ago but I didn't go anywhere near the front line colleagues whove have have said it's just a 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 KK region where that's where the North Korean troops if you remember that's the area where Ukraine made a FY into Russia itself they made gains and they make gains but of course

if you were selinski 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 that 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 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 Dimitri Med 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 Eagle 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 meddev has used his telegram account to turn on the entire management team 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 punch line at the end

so be careful after all anything goes in London what do you make of that Sean well meev does rather shoot from the hip first of all secondly is that he can join you know 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 of abuse we've got to take this with pitch 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 medev throw out Idol threats all over the place it is it is Russia that invaded Ukraine it is Russia that committed atrocities across Ukraine and end up with hundreds of thousands of casualties and it is Russia that continues this brutal campaign so to start casting nurs and sort of criticizing and threatening other people who are 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 med of for death