Six months of war in Ukraine

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: Six months of war in Ukraine

Marc Filippino
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Wednesday, August 24th, and this is your FT News Briefing.

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Twitter is facing whistleblower allegations that could hurt its case against Elon Musk. Somalia used to be famous for pirate attacks. Not anymore, though. But first, we’ll take a look at Russia’s war on Ukraine. It’s gone on for half a year now. I’m Marc Filippino, and here’s the news you need to start your day.

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Today marks six months since Russia invaded Ukraine. It’s difficult to know how many people have died, but Ukraine’s military says it’s lost 9,000 members of its armed forces. Russia has lost about 15,000 troops and an untold thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed. And it doesn’t look like the conflict will end any time soon. To talk about the trajectory of the war so far, I’m joined by our security and defence correspondent, John Paul Rathbone. Hi, JP.

John Paul Rathbone
Hi. Good to be here.

Marc Filippino
So JP, did people expect this war to last so long?

John Paul Rathbone
It’s really remarkable six months on, just to review how expectations have changed. In the beginning, people thought or many people thought, including a lot of western defence establishments, that the Ukraine government would fold in a matter of days and, and the Ukrainian forces would be overwhelmed by Russian might. But clearly it didn’t work out like that.

Marc Filippino
This war has, I guess you can divide it up into stages, right? Like, what has the arc been militarily for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

John Paul Rathbone
I’d say there’d be roughly three stages. And the first was a Desert Storm style attack on Kyiv by the Russian forces, which failed. Then the second stage settled down to this artillery war in the Donbas with each side shelling each other. That played to the Russian advantages and which have got massive artillery, and they kind of edged forward in the Donbas. And now we’re in the third stage where the front lines have basically stabilised. Everyone is digging in, starting to dig in for the winter. And Ukraine is being bolstered by western supplies of weapons, especially longer range artillery and these missiles called Himars that the US has supplied, and it’s picking off key Russian points of logistics, command and control centres, ammo dumps and seeking to corrode the effectiveness of the Russian forces.

Marc Filippino
Aside from how well Ukraine has done in this war, what has been most surprising to you?

John Paul Rathbone
One thing that I don’t think that Russia or even China counted on was the western response and the degree of unity that has lasted until this moment. The sanctions packages — the way that Nato’s hung together, the degree of financial and military support that the west has provided — hasn’t been as much as Ukraine would like but it’s definitely more than, than Russia or China, just as a spectator, was expecting. Another thing that surprised everyone is the performance of the Russian army, how they’d been poorly trained and poorly led, and I think the Russian army has been shown itself not to be a 12-foot tall monster.

Marc Filippino
So JP in the US at least, the war isn’t dominating the news like it had earlier in the year. I’m not sure if that’s the case in Europe too, but what do you make of public attention or media attention on Ukraine right now?

John Paul Rathbone
I was just discussing this with your fellow producer, Fiona, before we started the show. I think the amount of coverage has decreased, but my impression is it’s still right up there because everyone, at least in Europe, has got such an interest, a direct interest in what’s going on, be that higher inflation and what that means for the cost of living crisis. And that’s not even getting into the more existential aspects like the meaning of Europe and the future of Ukraine. I can’t speak for the United States. But I don’t think we can probably tell until September comes along and the news cycle really starts grinding forward again. Putin is banking on western public losing interest in protesting about the side effects. So I think it’s important and hopeful if the headlines remain there.

Marc Filippino
JP Rathbone is the FT’s defence and security correspondent. Thanks, JP.

John Paul Rathbone
Pleasure. Thank you.

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Marc Filippino
Twitter and Elon Musk are still locked in a legal battle. Elon Musk is trying to back out of his agreement to buy the social media site. Twitter’s trying to force him to follow through with the deal. But there was a significant development yesterday. Twitter’s former security chief, Peiter Zatko, came out with allegations that said Twitter misled regulators over its cyber security defences and fake accounts. The FT’s Dave Lee says this could damage Twitter’s case.

Dave Lee
The timing of this is incredibly fortuitous, to say the least, for Elon Musk. Central to his argument of getting out of buying Twitter for $44bn is that the company has been misrepresenting the number of fake accounts on the platforms, the amount of bots on the platform. Now, where Zatko’s allegations would be useful to Musk is that he’s essentially saying the same thing. He’s saying that Twitter executives were being deceptive about the bot problem. They said they may even have misled some of the company’s own directors about some of these problems. And so it’s almost certain that we’re gonna hear from Zatko in the trial. And this is now just a collection of pretty serious allegations from someone who’s extremely well respected in cyber security circles.

Marc Filippino
So, Dave, has Twitter responded?

Dave Lee
Yes, they’re basically trying to say that this, you know, as a former employee, he’s just wrong. And the timing, Twitter said, appeared designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter and its shareholders. So obviously, Twitter’s trying to draw the link there between the timing of this disclosure and the continuing court battle.

Marc Filippino
Dave Lee is the FT’s San Francisco correspondent.

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The waters off Somalia and the Horn of Africa are a vital shipping route. But the area is also famous for pirate attacks. One incident was even made into a Hollywood movie starring Tom Hanks.

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Where is the crew? I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m here with you. Where is your crew? I don’t know. Hell, I think I’ll get them up here. All right. I kill all your friends. One minute . . . 

Marc Filippino
That was the movie Captain Phillips. But when it came out in 2013, Somali pirate attacks had already peaked. And five years later, pirate attacks in the region had ended. This week, a shipping industry group said the Indian Ocean is no longer deemed high risk. The FT’s Harry Dempsey explains what happened.

Harry Dempsey
A whole industry formed around this of private armed guards who would work on the ships providing protection for them. And so those together with naval deployments in the region helped to drive down piracy, as well as the risk-reward calculus changing for those pirates. Because piracy, it became harder to make money from it. People were less willing to pay ransoms, and then other opportunities opened up as well for them, which included smuggling weapons to Yemen, where there was a war and smuggling people to and from there.

Marc Filippino
Harry says it’s significant for the shipping industry now that the region is no longer designated high risk. But it may be a while for the impact to filter through.

Harry Dempsey
So I think first of all, you will see the slightly riskier operators or less publicly exposed operators stop using armed guards and bearing that extra cost. But I think, you know, big household names like Maersk and MSC, they will still be concerned about any potential reputational risks from having their ships hijacked. And then if that decision from the insurance industry follows, that would help reduce the costs. But I think the other, sort of real life impact from it, is that by having a designated high risk area, that creates a perception that, that those areas are dangerous. And so for countries, not just Somalia, but also neighbouring countries such as Kenya, it’s had quite a negative impact on things like their tourism industry. And so it will be a relief for countries like Kenya.

Marc Filippino
Harry Dempsey is the FT’s commodities correspondent.

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Before we go, the first Russian oligarch superyacht is up for auction. Sixty three bids have come in for the luxury vessel, according to the auction house handling the sale. The yacht was impounded in Gibraltar in March. This was after Russia invaded Ukraine and authorities around the world began seizing the superyachts of sanctioned oligarchs. This one, in case you’re wondering, has a glass elevator, an infinity pool and a 3D cinema. It’s worth an estimated €60mn, and proceeds from the auction will go to JPMorgan to repay a €20mn loan that’s tied to the yacht.

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You can read more on all of these stories at FT.com. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

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