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Speaker 2: Surprise Easter truce is being criticized by Ukraine Voladomya Zelenski
Speaker 2: says despite forces being ordered to stop military activity, Russia
Speaker 2: has still been firing. The thirty hour truce was supposed
Speaker 2: to last until nine this morning, New Zealand Time. Joining
Speaker 2: me now is Kiev based foreign policy and security analyst
Speaker 2: Jimmy Rushton. He's with me, Jimmy, Good morning.
Speaker 3: Hi, Oh, good evening. Yes it is in Keef.
Speaker 2: Sorry about that, Yeah, was there any truth at all?
Speaker 3: So there was a suspension of Russian drone and missile
Speaker 3: strokes on Ukraine, so we haven't experienced any air raids,
Speaker 3: which has been a definitely a relief for the civilian population.
Speaker 3: But I've spoken to three separate sources in the Ukrainian
Speaker 3: military who are currently deployed in the front line, and
Speaker 3: they're in different sections of the front and they've all
Speaker 3: experienced Russian assaults, Russian drone strikes on their positions, are
Speaker 3: toy fire, etc. So from their perspective, no, there has
Speaker 3: not been a truce and This really has been another
Speaker 3: case of put In really trying to play the West
Speaker 3: for falls. He's trying to show the Americans that they
Speaker 3: are interested in peace, when in fact they aren't. And
Speaker 3: this is just really another a deception on the Russian part.
Speaker 2: Well, is anyone believing him? What are the Americans are
Speaker 2: talking about getting out of the whole thing? But are
Speaker 2: they believing him? What do they care?
Speaker 3: It's very difficult to say. To be honest, the Americans
Speaker 3: have very sophisticated monitoring, signal intelligence capabilities. They will know
Speaker 3: exactly what's happening. Whether they choose to acknowledge it is
Speaker 3: another matter, because we've seen the Trump administration denied basic
Speaker 3: reality in the past. I remember a couple of weeks
Speaker 3: ago they were talking about Ukrainian soldiers being encircled in Kursk.
Speaker 3: That absolutely did not happen. That never side actually claims
Speaker 3: that it did. So if the Americans choose to trust
Speaker 3: their intelligence, then hopefully they'll understand that you know this,
Speaker 3: this Russian truth is nothing of the sort, and it
Speaker 3: really is a manipulation employed by the Russians to pretend
Speaker 3: that they are ready for a peace deal.
Speaker 2: So it is they monitor and good enough that they
Speaker 2: will know who fired the first shot under the truth of.
Speaker 3: Course, absolutely. I mean they have incredibly sophisticated spice aatellites.
Speaker 3: They will know exactly what's happening, and they have you
Speaker 3: know that they still have advisors in Ukraine. They have
Speaker 3: there's there's regular communication between Ukrainian military and the American military,
Speaker 3: so they will know exactly what's happening. And hopefully that's
Speaker 3: being fed up to the White House and hopefully Trump
Speaker 3: has an accurate summary of what's happening in Ukraine on
Speaker 3: his desk tomorrow morning.
Speaker 2: Hopefully he reads that what about the human I mean,
Speaker 2: what was putin saying in pursuit of something humanitarian? I
Speaker 2: mean I scoffed when I read that. What was your
Speaker 2: response and the response in cave to putin talking about
Speaker 2: humanitarian considerations.
Speaker 3: Well, it's just ridiculous, isn't it. This is a country
Speaker 3: which has stepped up their assaults on civilian areas. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's no accident or coincidence that we've seen multiple mass
Speaker 3: casualty missile strikes in Kluv and Swummi. Recently there was
Speaker 3: that horrific attack which killed nearly forty people. Number of
Speaker 3: children as well. And yeah, we're seeing almost every day
Speaker 3: significant missile strikes, drain strikes on civilian population areas, and yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean again, if Putin was worried about civilian casualties
Speaker 3: and you know the humanitarian cost of this, well, he
Speaker 3: could simply order Russian troops to withdraw to Russia and
Speaker 3: that would be the end of it.
Speaker 2: It almost feels preposterous to sect because we know how
Speaker 2: that's not going to happen, doesn't it. But that is
Speaker 2: the simple question. It's all up to him just get.
Speaker 3: Out exactly exactly. And the thing is, Putin's command of
Speaker 3: the Russian information environment is so complete that he could
Speaker 3: order withdraw tomorrow and then tell the Russian people that
Speaker 3: he's achieved all the objectives of his special medity operations
Speaker 3: he likes to call it, and they probably believe him
Speaker 3: because you know that they the Russian people generally believe
Speaker 3: everything the government tells them because they have an extreme
Speaker 3: sophisticated propagand the network and they're incredibly controlled. So you know,
Speaker 3: it's in his power. He could stop it tomorrow if
Speaker 3: he wanted to, and he is the one person in
Speaker 3: the entire world could stop it tomorrow.
Speaker 2: If he wanted to and Ukraine and Keev. What are
Speaker 2: Ukrainians pulling their hopes on. Is that Europe stepping up
Speaker 2: and potentially some new cruise missiles or are they are
Speaker 2: they assuming that jumps out that the US will just
Speaker 2: quote take a pass.
Speaker 3: I think the Ukraine's are relatively realistic. I don't think
Speaker 3: they're putting their hopes on any one thing. I think
Speaker 3: they understand that really, if this war is going to continue,
Speaker 3: and it looks like it is, it's really going to
Speaker 3: be on them. It's going to be on their mainly,
Speaker 3: I would say their drone production production, because this war
Speaker 3: is now a drone war. It's not really about Artilly anymore.
Speaker 3: Though Artilly is still important. It's now about whoever can
Speaker 3: put the most amount of these small FPV first person
Speaker 3: view drones into the air. And the Ukrainians are making
Speaker 3: they've they've made incredible strides of this, and some of
Speaker 3: their factories are churning out huge amounts of drones four
Speaker 3: thousand a day in some cases. Yeah, they're incredibly impressive.
Speaker 3: So I think for the Ukrainians they understand really that
Speaker 3: nobody is going to come to their aid. There's there's
Speaker 3: going to be support from Europe, but it's not going
Speaker 3: to be the sort of support that's going to win
Speaker 3: the war, so they're really going to have to fight
Speaker 3: for themselves.
Speaker 2: Jimmy, I look out for yourself. I really appreciate your
Speaker 2: time this morning. That's Jimmy Rushton. He is a Key
Speaker 2: based foreign policy and security analyst.
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