'Desperation in the air': Putin suffers 'significant loss of face' following drone attacks on Moscow
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00:00 Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has ordered an audit of all bomb shelters in the capital.
00:06 It comes after three people were killed on Thursday when they couldn't enter an underground facility following a Russian missile strike.
00:12 Moscow has continued to hit the Ukrainian capital once again today, the sixth day in a row Kiev's been targeted.
00:19 The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Washington is seeking just and lasting peace for Ukraine.
00:27 The comments were made in Finland earlier today.
00:31 Blinken called Russia's war in Ukraine a strategic failure as he visited NATO's newest member.
00:37 We made every effort to get Moscow to de-escalate its manufactured crisis
00:43 and resolve its issues through diplomacy.
00:46 President Biden told President Putin that we were prepared to discuss our mutual security concerns,
00:53 a message that I reaffirmed repeatedly, including in person with Foreign Minister Lavrov.
00:58 We offered written proposals to reduce tensions.
01:01 Together with our allies and partners, we used every forum to try to prevent war.
01:07 US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaking there.
01:11 We can now bring in Peter Zalmayev, Director of the Eurasian Democracy Initiative,
01:16 who joins us from Kiev this afternoon.
01:18 Thank you very much for speaking to us here on France 24.
01:22 Talk us through what exactly Russia is hoping to achieve with these
01:26 consecutive days of strikes on the Ukrainian capital,
01:31 because it seems that things like critical energy infrastructure has not been targeted this time around.
01:36 Not indeed.
01:39 You know, let me just first sum up, you know, the last month, you know,
01:47 the capital of Ukraine suffered at least 18 attacks just in the month of May alone.
01:53 And yes, you're right.
01:54 Most of them have been concentrated, a combination of Iranian-made Shahed drones and missiles,
02:02 including ballistic missiles, Kinzhals.
02:04 They've been, you know, directed at the capital.
02:08 And it is clear that, you know, Vladimir Putin suffered a significant loss of face when
02:15 what is purported to be Ukrainian drones were sighted over the Kremlin,
02:20 were shot down over the Kremlin.
02:22 Since then, Moscow has suffered several waves of drone attacks,
02:27 obviously a huge loss of face for Vladimir Putin.
02:29 So there is a desperation in the air, quite literally, you know,
02:33 when his aides are reporting to him that they are hitting Ukraine's Patriot anti-defense systems.
02:42 And Vladimir Putin is under the impression that a few more such barrages and finally they'll be
02:48 able to show their TV audiences that, let's say, the Ukrainian parliament or the president's office
02:55 have been hit and destroyed.
02:56 This is something Vladimir Putin is terribly in need of.
03:00 Needless to say, the latest incursion of Russian citizens operating from the territory of Ukraine
03:07 into the Belgorod area of Russia, which is in the southern part of Russia bordering with Ukraine,
03:12 this is the second such attack.
03:14 It's happening on the territory of Russia.
03:16 It's quite unprecedented.
03:18 And you can just imagine what's happening now through telegram channels.
03:22 All these war correspondents and warmongers are accusing Putin of really dropping the ball.
03:28 He's looking increasingly weak.
03:29 And so these barrages you asked me about, I think they are a sign of desperation.
03:35 And we have seen attacks being carried out inside Russian territory by groups based in Ukraine.
03:43 Is this part of that counteroffensive as well?
03:45 Ukrainian officials have already dropped hints here and there that we are already
03:51 seeing the counteroffensive in progress.
03:53 Obviously not its main thrust, but a hybrid sort of way to begin it.
04:00 Mind you, Russia has been waging a hybrid war against Ukraine and against Ukraine's
04:06 Western backers, I would also venture to say.
04:09 And Ukraine is really following the lead.
04:11 Obviously, Ukraine is still outnumbered and outgunned.
04:15 Outgunned, it cannot afford to stage a kind of a good old frontal attacks against the world's
04:25 second largest army.
04:27 This is what Russia has claimed all along.
04:29 So what you're seeing is a softening of Russia's positions both on occupied territories just
04:35 today, a huge strike on the port in Berdansk, and the Azov Sea was reported.
04:42 It's happening throughout the occupied areas.
04:45 And now finally we're seeing incursions into the Russian territory, which are meant not
04:51 only to change the informational narrative and create panic among Russians and Russian
04:57 military command, but also to force Russians to relocate some of their forces fighting
05:04 in Donbass, let's say, to cover the border, which means weakening Russian forces for the
05:11 coming main thrust of the counteroffensive.
05:14 Peter, we had the French president Emmanuel Macron the other day who said peace will only
05:22 be decided on Ukrainian terms.
05:25 What does peace look like for Ukraine today?
05:28 Well, peace looks like something that is definitely not what happened following 2014 and 2015.
05:38 You could make an argument that we have sort of had this peace since 2014, which we haven't.
05:43 We've had this ongoing war with Russia for nine years now and counting.
05:50 So when we talk about peace, we definitely don't talk about some kind of a ceasefire,
05:55 which is what Russia's buddies in BRICS, such as Brazil and South Africa and China, first
06:01 and foremost, are agitating for.
06:03 Stop giving Ukraine weapons and let's sit down and talk.
06:06 This is a ruse, as we see it, by the Russian Federation to freeze the war so that Russia
06:11 has time to retrain, to rearm and strike against us.
06:17 Peter, can I jump in there for a second, because you spoke about Russia's buddies in BRICS,
06:22 because one of the things Ukraine and Western nations have tried to do is sort of shape
06:27 the narrative for the global south, something it has been unsuccessful in doing over the
06:33 past year and a half.
06:34 We've had multiple personalities from the United States, from Europe, from Ukraine who've
06:39 gone to various countries in Africa and who haven't managed to change anything realistically
06:47 on the ground when it comes to this non-aligned stance many countries in the global south
06:54 have.
06:55 Yeah, as far as the world sympathies, it would be naive to say that the entire world is lined
07:01 up behind Ukraine.
07:02 Yes, most of the countries will acknowledge, with the exception of some outright outcasts,
07:07 such as Syria and Iran, that Ukraine is fighting a righteous war.
07:12 But they claim that it's not their war, and they will be under no obligation to join the
07:17 sanctions regime against Russia.
07:19 Having said that still, when it comes to the instrumentality of it, even South Africa,
07:24 which was just recently reported as having supplied clandestinely Russia with weapons,
07:29 is denying that it ever did so, because there is the secondary sanctions that America is
07:33 enforcing.
07:34 They are working.
07:35 And so, yes, we still have to win the hearts and minds of the so-called global south, not
07:42 for lack of trying.
07:43 Ukraine has understood that it is missing in action when it comes to that.
07:47 And so we have our officials, including the foreign minister, fanning out across these
07:51 continents, including Latin America and Africa.
07:53 There is work to be done to counter this message that Russia is trying to sell, that Russia
07:57 is fighting an anti-colonial war against the Anglo-Saxons, as they claim, whereas it is
08:03 in fact Ukraine that is fighting against its former metropolis.
08:09 When it comes to NATO membership, this is something that has, of course, ruffled feathers
08:16 in Russia in the past.
08:20 What would be the ideal situation, in your view, that Moscow would be willing to accept?
08:27 Well, Vladimir Putin, I don't think at this point is willing to accept anything short
08:32 of Ukraine's capitulation.
08:34 He sees that this would be a sure stepping stone to his demise, both as president and
08:38 as a human being.
08:39 This would spell his death.
08:41 No Russian leader has lost a war in such a dramatic fashion and lived.
08:47 If several years ago we could have considered some sort of a security arrangement for Ukraine,
08:53 right now that Vladimir Putin has pretty much announced that Ukraine does not exist as an
08:58 independent country, it should be erased from the map of the world.
09:01 NATO remains the only guarantee of Ukraine's long-term security.
09:05 And that's why we're at such loggerheads, at such an impasse, that Vladimir Putin is
09:09 not willing to offer anything that Ukraine's Western countries are offering him, which
09:17 is return to the pre-February 24th borders.
09:22 And Ukraine is not willing to take anything under other than a full promise of a full
09:28 NATO membership.
09:29 Peter Zalmayev, we're going to have to leave it there.
09:31 Thank you very much for joining us on the program today.