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00:00In other news, Ukraine launched the largest drone attack of the Russian capital overnight.
00:04According to Russian authorities, 11 drones were destroyed over Moscow.
00:08In total, 45 Ukrainian drones were reportedly downed across Russian territory.
00:14The latest attacks come as the incursion into Kursk continues.
00:18This Wednesday, the deputy head of Russia's Security Council says negotiations with Ukraine
00:23are off the table.
00:25For more, we can bring in Samuel Rahmani, Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services
00:29Institute.
00:30Thank you very much for joining us here on France 24.
00:33Now, when Ukraine started this incursion into Kursk, one was under the impression that Kyiv
00:39was doing this to get an upper hand in any negotiations.
00:42But now with Moscow saying talks are off the table, where does it leave Ukraine?
00:47Well, the Russians are playing a double game with the talks.
00:50Obviously, you see hardliners like Dmitry Medvedev consistently brand the Ukrainian
00:55government as an illegitimate regime that cannot be engaged in dialogue with.
00:59But you also see other Russian officials in the past, like Dmitry Peshkov and even Vladimir
01:04Putin, as recently as June 14th, talk about the prospect of talks.
01:07I don't think we should take a single isolated statement for Dmitry Medvedev as a sign that
01:12negotiations are impossible.
01:13I think that Ukraine, if it can make more gains in Kursk, is probably increasing the
01:17likelihood of future diplomacy.
01:19How do Ukraine's NATO allies view this incursion?
01:25Well, I think that it caught some NATO allies by surprise and probably some others less
01:28by surprise.
01:29I think that there was obviously some coordination with the United States on this, at least coming
01:34from the statements from John Kirby.
01:36But the Germans, for example, were somewhat left in the dark.
01:39But even though the Germans may not have been consulted on very readily, they're also not
01:43objecting to the use of their weaponry on Russian soil.
01:47And it's very possible that when Ukraine was going to NATO countries and asking them
01:50for permission to use their weapons inside Russia, they were talking about it in the
01:54context of some kind of territorial incursion.
01:57So even if they didn't know about Kursk specifically, they probably knew that Ukraine was going to
02:01try to do some kind of a strike into Russia at some point.
02:04But Samuel, I have a question.
02:05I thought the weapons were allowed to be used for defensive purposes.
02:09But is it considered defensive purposes if the weapons are being used on Russian territory?
02:15Well, I think it can definitely be considered to be defensive.
02:17It depends on how you define defensive.
02:19And that might be defined very differently by Kiev and other NATO allies.
02:23If you're talking about trying to derail the Russian war machine and firing drones on what
02:27funds it, which is oil refineries, perfectly legitimate.
02:30Of taking drones on metallurgy factories would be perfectly legitimate.
02:36And Russia's occupying territory inside Ukraine with heavy fortifications that are hard to
02:40trespass.
02:41So deliberate your own territory.
02:44The only way forward might be to do a land swap deal.
02:46And Ukraine can frame that as defensive also.
02:49And Russia's also striking across the border in Sumy, which is right across the border
02:53from Kursk.
02:54One could assume that Ukraine launched this incursion into Kursk before the winter sets
03:02in, but also before the presidential election in the United States.
03:07We don't know what's going to happen there.
03:08Yes, Kamala Harris is up in certain polls.
03:12But one never knows, right?
03:14Is there much of an appetite for this conflict to continue much longer and be settled just
03:19on the battlefield?
03:21Well, I think that there probably is a concern in Ukraine, obviously, about what a Trump
03:26presidency would mean.
03:27And the planning for this would have likely occurred long before August the 6th.
03:31So it probably was at a time when Trump was leading Joe Biden on average by about 5% in
03:35the polls.
03:36And he was talking about ending the war on day one.
03:40So I think that this offensive may have been done with that in mind.
03:42But regardless of who is president, there will very likely be some kind of a division
03:48between Republicans in Congress and whoever's in the White House, even if Harris is there.
03:51And the Ukrainians need to show that this war is winnable to get more American support.
03:56And that's why they're doing this offensive, too.
03:58Because I think over the past 18 months, when we saw the failed Ukrainian counteroffensive,
04:02when we saw Russia make incremental gains in Donetsk, in places like Bakhmut and Chez
04:07The feeling in Washington, amongst many, was that the war was not winnable.
04:10And now Ukraine has changed that paradigm potentially.
04:14It seems to have changed the paradigm for now.
04:16I want to talk about something that's going to happen on Friday.
04:20We're going to have the Indian prime minister who's going to be going to Kyiv.
04:23His first visit, Narendra Modi's first visit to Ukraine since the conflict broke out.
04:28The first visit by an Indian leader to the country in some decades.
04:31Clearly, Modi will have to walk a very fine, tricky line, because on one hand, New Delhi
04:39doesn't want to alienate Moscow.
04:43I mean, Modi was just in Russia last month, hugging Vladimir Putin.
04:48And he also doesn't want to leave Kyiv out in the cold.
04:53What can we expect from that visit?
04:56Well, I agree with you.
04:57India has definitely got a very delicate line to thread.
05:00Obviously, India views Russia as one of its historical, all-weather, trustworthy partners.
05:06We've been in times when the United States has supported Pakistan, and China has been
05:10aggressive towards it.
05:11So it definitely does not want to do anything to blow its relationship with Russia.
05:15What I think Modi will try to do when he visits Kyiv will be, number one, try to assuage
05:20Ukrainian concerns about India's enabling of sanctions violations.
05:24There's a lot of concerns in Kyiv, for example, right now about how European oil is simply
05:28being refined in India, and that Russian oil may be being refined in India and then being
05:31sold to Europe.
05:32And then the second thing would be to show that it is a contributor to a broader peace
05:36settlement and is a potential leader in terms of a global south peace solution that might
05:41be different from the solutions that China has proposed, which Ukraine sees as giving
05:45up too much territory, or South Africa and Africa has proposed, which have been criticized
05:49in a similar fashion.
05:51Yeah, New Delhi actually says that he will, Modi will be looking to discuss a resolution
05:57to the conflict.
05:58One wonders if that's going to be a diplomatic resolution, a negotiated resolution, given
06:02that Moscow says it's not willing to talk.
06:04We'll see how things span out.
06:06Samuel, thank you very much for that.
06:07Samuel Rahmani joining us today.