The Telegraph I'm Francis Dernley and this is Ukraine, the latest. Today, as Ukraine reels from the dismissal of its popular defence minister Fedorov, we examine the speculation surrounding his southern departure and offer details of his successor. We also bring you the latest on Ukraine's extraordinary campaign in the naval theatre, where more than 100 Russian vessels have been struck in little over a week, before bringing you our regular segment on the occupied territories. Finally, with British Prime Minister Sakeer Stama, one of Ukraine's strongest international supporters leaving office on Monday, we assess what his successor Andy Burnham will mean for the war. bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with victory. The Russians is not what he is. First, we will defend our health for Ukraine, also our freedom and our European values. If I'm president, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours. We are with you, not just today or tomorrow, but for a hundred years. We can't let the Russians win the Russian. Nobody is going to break us. We are strong. We are Ukrainians. It's Friday, the 17th of July, four years and 143 days, since the full scale invasion began. And today, I'm joined by Dr. J. McClinn from the War Studies Department of Kings College London, and our senior producer on Ukraine the latest Lillian Forcer. But first, the major updates in another significant 24 hours. The major news of the day, of course, continues to be the fallout of President Zelensky's decision to sack his defense minister, Mikhail Ophederov, sparking protests across the country. The two malts continues, and we're going to go into much more detail on it shortly. But starting with the military updates, Kiev's extraordinary naval campaign continues, with Ukraine's unmanned systems forces claiming to have disabled a further 11 or 12. Shadow fleet vessels in the Black Sea and sea of Asov in a single day, including five oil tankers, a gas tanker, three cargo ships and two tugboats. Beyond the direct disruption, it's causing the Russians logistically, it's already having very real consequences in terms of the number of ships traversing the sea of Asov over the past 12 days, with a considerable decrease recorded over that period as we have mapped. As if answering one of the questions put to us in our segment answering your questions in Wednesday's episode, Commander Brovdi said the strikes were not aimed at sinking the vessels, but avoiding environmental damage by disabling the ship's navigation and communication systems rather than sinking them. Before turning to the ground war, some extraordinary footage allegedly from Russia's seaport of Novorossisk has been shared by foreign sailors showing a Ukrainian attack. It's believed to be from all the way back in May, but has only just been shared, most likely because of the consequences of it being made public. It gives you a flavour of the kind of defensive maneuvers adopted there and the continued importance of machine guns to try and shoot down the drones. It's a similar story for certain cities in Ukraine, of course, as we experienced in Odessa last year during an air raid that we recorded for you. That southern port city in Ukraine is being especially targeted at the moment. Another two were killed there last night and eight wounded, including two children. Air defence continued to be a major problem not just for Ukraine, but for Russia. According to Radio Liberty's examination of satellite imagery, Moscow has redeployed S-300 and S-400 air defence systems from as far away as the Arctic and other remote regions to try and strengthen protection against Ukrainian drone strikes. But in terms of Moscow's attack specifically, Zaparija in the southeast also got hit badly yesterday with three killed and two reportedly injured, like Kwaisumi in the northeast also saw casualties and damaged buildings. On the front lines, no major changes of territory, according to the ISW Russian forces may be intensifying offensive operations around Slaviansk. And Ukrainian officer there claimed Russian forces have increased their number of assaults from five to seven per day in spring to between 22 and 26 attacks per day at the moment, in small groups either using motorized vehicles or as dismounted infantry. You may recall that a couple of weeks ago we mentioned an astonishing claim that newly arrived Russian recruits on Ukraine's front line survive an estimated 20 to 30 minutes before being killed or wounded. Some were skeptical of that as well we, but CIA director John Ratcliffe citing US intelligence consistent with open source reporting has now reiterated that claim while speaking at the Pennsylvania Defence and Innovation Summit. He said this, "Our intelligence is consistent with some of the reporting you may have seen in Ukraine. AI-powered drones have gotten to be such specialized, low-cost killing machines." Now, harnessing the power of data and AI was one of the major priorities of Kiev's former Defence Minister 35-year-old Fedorov. As Roland and Alex discussed yesterday, the decision by Zelensky to sack him has sparked widespread unhappiness across Ukraine and beyond, with accusations that he has sided with an old Soviet model of defence. And perhaps society represented by Commander-in-Chief Zelensky than the more new, innovative one represented by moderniser Fedorov. Fedorov argued, for instance, that decisions made on which military brigades to support, including with drones, were made on the basis of loyalty rather than data all too often. It's impossible to develop the system on this basis, he said. Thousands of people gathered in downtown Kiev and other Ukrainian cities, some chanting "re-appoint" and "waving placards heavily critical of the decision." Here's what's happened since. Fedorov said that he has rejected an offer to stay on as a presidential adviser, framing his firing as the fruit of a power struggle with Zelensky over his efforts to reform the Defence Department. He claims that he and Sergei both asked Zelensky to fire the other, but the president refused both demands until finally giving in when the general gave Zelensky an ultimatum. Now some may ask, why Zelensky would keep Sergei in that scenario? But it is worth bearing in mind something we've touched on before. Sergei is unpopular with the soldiers, but his more traditional infantry-based tactics, some argue, have been successful in limiting Russian advances. Fedorov, as somebody leaning more on technology, limiting the danger of life to soldiers, was always going to be a more popular figure. And one could ask whether Zelensky could afford to prioritize innovation at the cost of the essentials. The obvious historical parallel is General McClellan in the 1860s, beloved by his soldiers for a strategy of not risking their lives, but one that could never have won the Union the War. Fedorov's parting move was to file paperwork that could direct billions in EU loan funds to European and US anti-blessed missile technology for Ukraine. Part of the reason for that, I would argue, is that Fedorov is seen rightly or not to symbolize Ukraine's vital role as a cutting-edge drone superpower, which can teach Europe how to fight and sell her weapons. Now that figurehead, that symbol, is gone. Despite that, Fedorov gave his firm backing to Zelensky, though those under him, including renowned drone unit commander Pavlo Yelyzerov, resigned from his position of deputy commander of the Ukrainian Air Force in protest calling, Fedorov's removal a great evil for the country's defense capability. There's now a new acting defense minister. He'll need to wait until August to be formally appointed when parliament returns, assuming they're willing. He's the acting security service of Ukraine, the SBU Chief, Yevhen Kamara. He previously led the agency's Alpha Special Operations Center, which has played a key role in Ukraine's long-range strike campaign, and before that was known for leading the operation to liberate Snake Island. He's a highly regarded figure, the one who has avoided the spotlight. Well, I'm going to bring in Jade now. This is a dramatic 48-hour period. Jade, first of all, before we come to your regular section later on, what was your reaction to the removal of Mr. Fedorov? On a personal level, I was saddened by it. I think like many Westerners, and indeed many Ukrainians, I was fond of the sort of vision that Fedorov espouses. I was fond of his approach, and I think maybe mindset. But I think some of the reaction, including by Westerners, I'm not sure that it's always centered some of the kind of nuances and complexities of what the Ukrainian protests are about. I'm a Westernist, Aingness. And I think that, in part, some of the anger may be among Westerners, and this is probably true for me as well. Fedorov represents the Ukraine that we all buy into. This re-innovative, a bit cool, young, very technically capable, all about efficiency. And I think the other side, some of the kind of various forces with whom he's clashed, perhaps, there represents Ukraine with which we're much less familiar, and bluntly we're less fond. Now, I include myself in that camp as well. I also have a preference, you know, I have an opinion, but coming back at it from the analysis, I think that's a good example.
that's often what has come for me in some of the Western reactions and that I think we should be careful not to add in any hysteria because ultimately like this is Ukrainian's country and we can all go home to a different one and a minister has been removed in the middle of an existential war and it wasn't just that he was removed, once the Prime Minister resigns all of that government is removed, that's how it functions, it wasn't specifically about federal vote or if it was that's something I can't prove because that would be a political decision in corridors that I'm not in and people have come out and they've protested and they've protested peacefully and they've made their voice heard and that seems to have had an impact on who President Slensky is considering for the Minister so far on popular decision people have come out to protest in an entirely legitimate and legal way and then decisions have been seemingly influenced by that political voice, certainly President Slensky said that that's not a sign of complete and total rotten collapse. I would like to maybe make a bit more of a structural or systemic point and I'm going to start about what some of the protests I think speak to more broadly and I'm going to start with a bit of a vignette. So in December 2013 there was a Ukrainian investigative journalist Korty Chana Chornavill and she published photographs of the then Interior Minister's Mansion so this is the Interior Minister Vitaly Zaharchenko and this was under Janikovic. Now within hours of Chornavill publishing photographs of the Interior Minister's Mansion men had run her car off the road and beat her badly enough to hospitalize her. When the government collapsed a couple of months later following the revolution of dignity Vitaly Zaharchenko fled to Russia and he's currently still there and he's also being tried in absentia in Ukraine for treason and for supporting Russia's full scale invasion. At the time that all this was happening a man called Oleg Tatarov was a senior official in that same Interior Ministry in the main investigations directorate and it was his directorate that ran the criminal cases against Chornavill, the brave investigative journalist. Oleg Tatarov was decorated on Zaharchenko's recommendation, the man who's currently being tried for treason, as is 2020 Oleg Tatarov has been the deputy head of the president's office. So let's express president's office responsible for supervising Ukraine's law enforcement agencies. He's still there this morning and some of his close allies have been promoted in this government reshuffle. Now I imagine most people are going to assume that I'm turning this into an anti-Tatarov case but that's not what I want to do. I want to explain why Tatarov is there and how this links into the protests. So I'm not suggesting of course and there is no evidence that I'm aware of that Tatarov had anything to do with the situation around Fedorov but I want to talk about it because I think that Tatarov is a pretty legible example of something that doesn't always have a name but also is pretty relevant to why the Fedorov Rau is not really about Fedorov alone. A state, any state but a state at war, it has one scarce resource and it's not necessarily money or ammunition, those sometimes they have been very scarce as well. But as trust, you're the president, you're going to need people who will do something at two in the morning without a paper trail, who aren't going to leak it and who'll still be there next month. So you use the people that you know and that's not a Ukrainian issue. It's just a different type of technology for getting things done when the formal system is unreliable or too slow. But a network of trusted people, like people like to type, they're loyal to each other, they're not loyal to the institution or really to the state and over time a network like that inevitably is going to develop interest of its own which is simply that that network continues to exist. So it's not patriotism, it's not treason, it's just self perpetuation. And I think often when we look at Ukraine, we're often reaching for this very black and white, this person is loyal hero, this person is a traitor or a Russian agent. And I speaking to somebody yesterday, very well seasoned Ukraine hand, they're saying Ukraine is like 500 shades of gray. And I have to say that that's very much my interpretation as well. It's very complicated politically. Most of the time as well, this network's interests and the interests of the state will line up in the network or deliver, it moves fast, it's loyal to the president, it gets things done, that's why it's tolerated and that's why it survived a pretty long time in a Tatarov's case, survived since before the revolution of dignity. And if it was just parasitic, then it would have been cut out years ago, it's messier than that. And I think the problem is what happens when the interests of the network and interests of the state diverge because there's not necessarily a mechanism to detect it, let alone correct that. So how do you tell the difference between a decision made in Ukraine's interests and a decision made in the networks interests? And that's the real cost. And I think that's where we come back into Fedorov, as I said, I like Fedorov's method, I'm not neutral here, but if we think about against the insider network, which is how we stupid and you know, Alexander Jockich had a wonderful tweet yesterday explaining how Eastern European politics works, that you have the insiders who may be in formal positions or may not, and they run things, then you have the domestic politics facade that's for domestic audiences, and then you have the foreign politics facade, which is for foreign audiences. Also, why is Fedorov threatening to this kind of thing? Well, the insiders capital, and you see this in Westminster as well, this is not Ukrainian thing, it's opacity. So their value is that they're the person that you have to phone because there's no other way to get the thing done. Now, if you bring in somebody who's in the higher instinct is to turn processes into systems, into data, into dashboards, into rules that will work, whether or not you know anybody, with that succeeds, the insider becomes pretty unnecessary. Some of Fedorov's approaches, they were kind of an existential threat to what made these networks function. And I mean, because he wanted to change the system. So Ukraine has passed incredible amounts of reform, the laws passed, the agencies get created, and then they get administered by people whose method is personal. As opposed to let's say, God, it's more systemic or transparent method. And so then the reform becomes a new surface for the network, rather than a constraint on in the worst case scenarios. You can have 12 years of reform, but then the same layer of people intact. And digitalization is so interesting because it's the one thing that maybe you know, would not be capturable in that way, in the same way that a new agency can. And I think that's why Fedorov and his removal has mattered symbolically far beyond just Fedorov and why the reaction was so much bigger than one ministry. Well, thank you, Jay, for that very deep and important insight. And of course, we'll be returning to this continually, I think, over the coming days and weeks as the full implications of it play out. But I also just wanted to ask before I continue with the rest of the updates, for your perspective on the new acting defense minister, Kamara. Well, certainly, like a lot of my friends in Ukraine, I think, is the legend. It's what I'd say, first and foremost, a accomplished legend. But it's interesting that there's a lens cube as originally thinking of appointing Klamenko. He's currently the interior minister. There's been a lot of criticism of him from some Ukrainians, sort of suggesting that he's Soviet-minded Klamenko, I mean, but then as all have come out and, and also, of course, would come under him because they're in the National Guard and had a very different view and been supportive Klamenko and some of the things he's allowed to happen and Bogdan Kratervich, himself formerly of as of also kind of insinuated that Klamenko had been quite helpful in terms of some of the reforms around identification and helping return young people from the occupied territory. So again, 500 shades of gray rather than just like Soviet at Monster, thus as new cool guy. In terms of Kamara, though, I mean, he would be a much more popular option, but there are a number of barriers because he would need to leave than the minister of defences as civilian role. He's very talented and very popular person. I don't think the question is whether or not he would do a great job. He seems to have done a great job in many places. But the question some people are asking is this feels like a real awkward way of getting in somebody more popular than Klamenko and would it not be better to leave him in his current role since he's doing a good job? Well, thank you very much for that, Jade. I mean, I just I suppose got to ask the fundamental question here, which is, you know, how do you think this is all going to play out in such a, do you think that we are at the end of this process going to still see an innovative Ukraine that is developing the technological pace that we've seen over the last few weeks and has had some of the successes that we've seen these last few months? Or do you feel that this is a step back? And this is actually going to have tangible impacts on the battlefield over the coming months? I see federal's role is almost facilitating processes that existed anyway. So I don't think that innovation is going to change. I mean, some of the shifts in terms of, for example, like the success of the middle-strike campaign, that was a strategic shift that was ongoing and I don't know exactly when the final decision was taken but broadly that trajectory towards taking that decision and predated federal. And again, deep stress a lot of that was about Flamingo and building up a few cranes, own domestic industry. So although I think that federal has had a real number of accomplishments, you know, and he's self-reported on them and I, again, I'm a fan of the federal, but I'm just trying to keep it balanced because this is such an important discussion. So I don't think we can talk about Ukraine anyway. I think unfortunately, what I would say is if we return back to the sort of two systems, as opposed to a story that I was trying to explain, it feels like a defeat of an approach that I think is needed. Is it completely perfect? Should it be allowed to just be 100% that will be probably not an approach that I think is needed? That's just my opinion for Ukraine to continue to
maintain the strategic upper hand and that's through transparency. Having a system that makes the soldiers mission more effective and easier to use Fedorov's own language, I think that is the aim of the game. And I'm sure that in the general staff they believe that that's what they're doing as well and I don't always think the Fedorov is a siss-ki, though to a certain extent Fedorov has invited that I don't always think that's a helpful lens of viewing it, I think it's about two different systems. We've seen this in other cases, we've seen it with Tripati, you think about Kulabba, you know, who there was that awful moment at press conference where I think it was a siss-ki news journalist asking me how does it feel that Andrew, you're a Marcus fine, you're ministry and I think people are tired of the office of that system, the first kind of pally inside a system winning even when the results would suggest that the more structured institutionalised data of approach is the one that's needed and I think Ukrainians are quite clearly making that opinion, they made it very loudly yesterday and Ukraine is a democracy and they will have to react to these protests and indeed they're already has been reactions. Well thank you Jade very much for talking us through that and we'll come back to you in a moment for your more regular updates on the occupied territories and the resistance there, but first let me just continue with the rest of the updates. Zelensky's reshuffle has also seen other names leave and enter the fray. The new Prime Minister is Serhi Kuretsky, CEO of State Oil and Gas Company, NAFTAGAS and a man who's said to have a good reputation. But Tali Kim, the current governor of Mikolaivo Blast since 2020 has also become veterans affairs minister. Now I mention him because on his last trip to Ukraine, Dom spent the day with him and will bring you that interview very soon. Teemot Hashenko, head of the Kiev City Military Administration has also been removed, though with no reason given. The capital has suffered some of the worst attacks of the war in recent months, so it may be connected with that. Stay tuned for more on the reshuffle next week. Two final bits of news before I go back to Jade. Kiev has repatriated another 501 bodies of people who in Russia claims are Ukrainian service members. Ukrainian investigators and forensic experts will conduct examinations and identification procedures to determine the identities of those bodies, a statement read. In the past, it was found that some Russian soldiers were among them, which Ukraine claimed was deliberate to avoid having to pay compensation to families or reflected a negligent attitude. And lastly, in preparation for our section later on his successor, outgoing British Prime Minister Kirstama has been awarded Ukraine's highest foreign honour, the order of freedom, in his final official visit before he leaves office. He seemed close to tears upon receiving it and gave Slentsky a framed Ukrainian flag that had hung above Downing Street in February 2022 as Russian tanks rolled towards Kiev. The two leaders laid reeds at the wall of remembrance before holding one-on-one talks in the Garden of the Presidential Palace. Then, Starma announced a 300 million euro funding package to help deliver that squadron of 16 advanced Swedish grip and jets to Ukraine by 2029. It's far too early to assess Starma's legacy when it comes to the war, but he was considered in Kiev to be a steadfast ally diplomatically, if somewhat cautious militarily. So that brings us up to date, but let's go now to our regular segment with Jade on the occupied territories and particularly the resistance. I suggest flag that if you didn't see it yesterday, Adley interviewed Ken Harbure, who did an interview with various figures in the resistance for a piece he did in the Atlantic, a really popular interview with many of you. And Jade, I think I'm right in saying that you actually assisted with that story. Is that right? Yes, it's true. I'm known Ken for a while since I helped him and his team for a film that they made about the persecution of Protestants. In the occupied territories, I introduced them to some part of some of my friends, and I introduced them to some pastors. And then for this as well, am I helped to make some introductions for him for the feast and to generally give a few kind of more academic insight as well. But yes, I highly recommend people do listen to that interview. It's very, very interesting, particularly on the role of women in the resistance. But Jade, where would you like to start today in terms of the updates of what's going on in the occupied territories? Well, only have one update. So after we had a kind of brief reprieve where there were quite a number, I'm certainly in last fortnight updates. We've returned to normal figures, but now we've gone back down again to this reduction that we've been seeing more broadly, since the huge success of the Middle Strikes campaign. So the one case was about how in Dynetsca, partisans have been making and scattering metal spikes along the main road. So this is quite like an SOE style sort of example. Most of the time I'm like, "Well, it's not like the SOE, it's not like well, but here and then every now and again some part stands will do this." I'm like, "Oh, you know, think of your own supply argument, you know, we've all got our priorities." But yes, so along the main road to the ones that are used by the military leadership, by military vehicles. So they already have a lot of problems getting along these roads and now the ponds are just made even more difficult for them. And interestingly, Russian media picked up on this, a fair amount in particular, the block not websites or like collection of websites, which focus on the occupied territories on southern Russia. And I find it interesting because when I was living in Varonezh for a bit in 2017 and 2018, I used to read block not a lot because it was very popular in Varonezh and now I have to deal with it, not because I like it, I should be clear because it's really quite nasty, kind of populist, nationalistic Russian kind of tabloid news just to find out what's happening in Varonezh and now I get to read its dulcet tones about what's happening in occupied separation as well. Interesting. Well, it's fascinating as you've been talking about for some weeks now how the the shift in the campaign has changed the resistance. But I think the main subject that we were going to talk about today is actually this new website that you've launched Jade. Now I know that this has been mentioned previously, I think, but perhaps you could just for those who perhaps haven't heard about it before. Can you give us a summary of it? What it's doing and its purpose? Yes, well, it's actually finally public now. So rather than you know, the concept that exists in my head and numerous ethics review and data processing applications, which are incredibly important, but in the middle of it sometimes can feel incredibly tiring trying to explain to Western research bodies why it has to be dealt with in a certain way is difficult. But yes, so it's a website that exists, you know, there's excellent data about the occupied territories, some of which comes even from inside there. Some of it is published by the occupation administration themselves, but very often we look at it almost as separate cases or even separate aspects. I mean, even we do that because we focus on the resistance. I would say we've good reason, but because we do that and we have this kind of separated and siloed approach often, I think we don't bring it into understanding what it looks like in an integrated sense. So what does it look like as a system? What does the occupation look like as a system as an architecture of destroying Ukrainian identity, of reciprocation, of massive exploitation, expropriation? What does it look like when you start to add it all together and then also, who are the people responsible? Where are these decisions coming down from in Moscow? How does this work on the ground? And so what we've tried to do is at King's College is to try to create a site and thus end the link that kind of we use eight different frameworks across different themes. So we look at governance like who's in charge? We have a big database that we've collected, who are the occupation officials? Where do they come from? Are they locals or are they from Russia? How does that change depending on their seniority? You're looking at the economics, stuff like China's role that we've discussed on the pod before, looking at the grain expropriation, looking at various corrupt schemes. We've got civilian life. Again, that looks at stuff like living standards, the cost of things. We have what jobs are going, identity and culture and religion. So we're speaking about the Protestants a second ago, but also just the population replacement. You know, the arrival of 90,000 at least Russians in Marry, and what that does to the city, how differently they live. Of course, the very important topic of education and militarization, and that's something that we're currently doing a much bigger project on actually. There'll be much more information coming on this, looking at whole gamma and network of different child militarization organizations essentially. And that links into, yes, just the militarization that happens there, but also into the broader school curriculum. And of course, into the adoption of Ukrainian children and into the kind of orphanage systems and coercion resistance and security. The one for us, information space, we have a huge database that we're only expanding. That looks at just how Russian media covers the occupied territories. What are the themes? What are the things they're talking about? How do they frame this? How do they frame that? What don't they talk about? And then finally, a wonderful research, who's part of our team, Lisa Monasterova, has focused on accountability and legal. So she's written a wonderful piece as well about collaboration, legislation, and some of the flaws in that. And we've looked at civilian detainees. It's another big focus. So I should say it's not just me. There's a great research team that's enabled it, and also that's part of it. So two of the research team are themselves from the occupied territories. Obviously not based there now, because that would not be safe. I have the eight of us, are Ukrainian, and then the other three are Western and I'm the only English person, but all based around England, the other three. I should say that the website will have in the episode description, of course. And for those who are who're just listening and want to search it right now, it's totinsight.org. Of course, tot being temporarily occupied territories.
This is a really vital research resource and I think it's not only of use for those looking into this subject in a research sense but for anybody who is compelled as we all are to look so deeply into this issue. I think it's a really important thing so I'm sure it will be a great success and as you were saying, I hope is that this will expand. Are there bigger ambitions for it longer term? Yes, definitely. I mean, for a start there's so much data that we still have to get on the site and I mean one of the things I've been trying to do is to create it. I do want it to be a research resource because I do think that academia we're right about this enough, we're not studying it enough but I also want it to be useful just as providing good quality data to journalists, to policymakers, to people working in the accountability sphere. So on the data area we've really focused a lot on visualisation so that people can quickly look and they can say, okay, why hear that Russia's stealing its real creating grain? Okay, well I'll go on to the state grain operator, see what's happening there and you can just get some figures and some nice pie charts to very quickly understand what that means and then if you want to get into the detail, the dashboards are interactive so you can. You can look at who are the companies behind it, obviously we have to be careful with some of it because of British law and I mean, I'm getting fired from things which I'm personally quite interested in as starting a massive legal scandal. I would say that if you work at an organisation, if you're looking through the materials and there's information that you find interesting but it's not as far as you do and you work for a responsible organisation, please do contact us because we have also incredible amounts of data in private repositories that we are able to share but that it would not be appropriate to publish. So elements like that. So I'm really interested for any feedback because it's taken a long time, a lot of this is data that's been being collected over many, many years by different people. So it's taking a long time to work out a kind of organisational schema that makes sense for people but we have so much more and we're really interested. We want to make it as useful as possible because the whole task is to try to explain more what is happening in the occupied territories in a data driven and research led way. Well Jade, thank you so much for that. As I say we will have a link in the episode description in the show notes for those who want to look at it and I highly recommend that they do and of course we'll hear again from you in the, well in a couple of weeks time but all of us Jade and thank you very much. Thank you so much Frances, thank you. Now unusually for this podcast I'm going to turn to British domestic politics for a moment because even if you're not listening here in Brighton you might have heard that we are imminently going to have a new Prime Minister. His name is Andy Burnham but other than his name you could be forgiven for not knowing that much about him. In fact we had this email from Scott in California who writes "coming from the US it seems that Burnham has come out of nowhere. Tell us about it Scott. Who is he? Why does it seem as if he's been anointed as the next Prime Minister? Why him over so many other potential candidates? And perhaps more importantly where do you think he will stand on the UK's relationship with Ukraine?" So we thought we do a bit of an Andy Burnham primer and to help with this we've drafted in our senior producer Lillian Forset who until recently as you can tell from her laptop sticker worked on another podcast here at the Telegraph The Daily Tea and was very much immersed in the world of British politics. So Lillian great to have you behind the mic or Ukraine the latest. Where do you want to start on Mr. Burnham then? Well let's kind of break down Scott's question because it's a valid question. I think in the last few years Andy Burnham's become a bit more of a household name in the UK but he makes a good point that he does seem to have come out of nowhere until recently and we'll get to this he wasn't even an MP in British Parliament he was a a mayor up in Manchester in the north of England and he's descended on London and all of a sudden he's going to be Prime Minister. So yeah let's start from the beginning who is Andy Burnham? So the basics he's 56 he comes from a pretty ordinary humble background he grew up near Manchester he studied English at Cambridge University your alma mater Francis I know you're quite excited about this. The only because he's the first Cambridge educator Prime Minister since Stani Baldwin in 1935 exactly well there's a very particular rival between Oxford and Cambridge and lots of British Prime Ministers historically have come from Oxford so it's a big deal in a sense. He's also the first British Prime Minister to have studied English apparently he loves Chaucer who's very famous historical English poet and he's a fan of Everton Football Club which is a football club based in Liverpool and so just reading up on his background in preparation for this there's a sense that he was a very bright young man and one anecdote that I loved was that in October 1991 he returns home from Cambridge he's 21 and he wrote to the Guardian newspaper to complain about Philip Larkin not making it into the newspapers league of great poets and he said wearing the odd cycle clip and drinking a pint of beer or two doesn't stop you from writing great poetry. You've underscored this fact that he humbled background from the north of England and that's also significant. Yes exactly so again this might be something that maybe doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to people outside the UK unlike Andy Burnham's background everyone in the UK and in England especially is going to be very innately familiar with the north south divide but to people outside the UK it might not make as much sense so I'll kind of explain that a little bit. There's a perception and I suppose a reality to the north south divide which is firstly cultural so the north has a reputation for being a lot friendlier people who visit the UK on holiday might have noticed for example that up north you're more likely to strike up a conversation with someone in public transport something that in London brings us out in a cold sweat we like to be very silent on the tube we don't like to chat particularly. Speak for yourself really. Well I was just going to say actually as a southerner I think the London and the south get a bit of a bad rap on that front I think people are friendly but they're maybe less chatty with strangers so that's kind of one element of it the north obviously has big cultural exports like Oasis they're from Manchester the Beatles are from Liverpool a lot of towns in the north of England have very industrial routes whereas in the south it's a bit more corporate and a lot of the money in the UK is based in the south and based in London so it's a cultural divide and a lot of political power is really concentrated in London as well and that's something that actually Andy Burnham has spent a lot of his career trying to address. Absolutely so he is known as the King of the North just remind us where this one comes from. Exactly so I'd like to go back a little bit and just talk about how he get started in politics because as Scott said you could be forgiven for thinking that he's come out of nowhere a little bit but he's actually now I would say one of the better known and actually better liked Labour Party politician so the Labour Party is on the centre left of British politics it's Kier Starmer the current prime minister's for the next day or so party and admittedly it's not a very crowded field of popular Labour Party politicians because Kier Starmer and most of his government are pretty spectacularly unpopular and despite pitching himself as a bit of a whiz kid a fresh face who's kind of come into London from Manchester with with something a bit new and exciting he's been around the block for a while so he starts out working in Westminster in his 20s then he's first elected to Parliament in 2001 to a seat in Greater Manchester which is near to where he grew up he served in the governments of Tony Blair Gordon Brown he actually stood to be leader of the party in 2010 and 2015 obviously both unsuccessfully but it was in 2016 when he stands down from Parliament to run to be mayor of Greater Manchester that he really starts to raise his profile in Manchester and also nationally and so yeah the the King of the North title that comes about from his time in Manchester and there's two sort of big headline successes I guess you could say from his ten yearship he's very popular and part of the reason for that is he reforms the bus network he calls it the bee network he brings it back into public ownership it's seen as a big success and then the next one which really I would say puts him on the map nationally is during the Covid pandemic he stands up against the then conservative government of Boris Johnson he gives this big speech and he basically says no more we're not taking any more restrictions he accuses Boris Johnson of seeing people in the north with contempt and he really pushes back and this is a huge moment for him and that's when he gets this title the King of the North and he's just really a huge lead in the process yeah exactly and like I say he's really popular so he wins it first in 2017 with 60% of the vote and then he's reelected in 2021 with an even bigger majority so he really starts to become known on the national stage at this point but there's been some questioning of how much of this is built on image rather than actual substance and I know that the telegraph did a piece recently that was looking into actually how much of this is built on on debt and there's been a lot of costing of how much this was costing taxpayers in Manchester and I think that there'll be increased scrutiny as to how much of this really very very well crafted but nonetheless a crafted image that he has managed to use to as you say bring him to power very swiftly I mean when do you think that he started eyeing up number 10 downing street yeah so it was around autumn last year every year in the UK all the political parties do these conferences when they talk about their big priorities and at that point Andy Burnham was on maneuvers we would say on on the daily tea that phrase was getting bandied around a lot and he was refusing to rule out running basically for the leadership and this was at a time when the the Labour Party and also really the public.
just completely losing faith in Kirstama. He wasn't really putting out an inspiring message. He wasn't taking people with him. He was embroiled in a few different scandals. And there was a sense that maybe he wasn't gonna last. But at this point, there's one big problem, which is that according to Labour Party rules, you have to be a member of Parliament to run. And for that, he had to win a by-election. So it basically means someone needs to stand down or be sacked, an MP, and he needs to run in their seat. So without going into too much detail, there's one by-election in a place called Gorton and Denton, which is up north in the north of England. And basically, Kirstama indirectly blocks him from standing. So Kirstama would say, "There's nothing to do with me. "There's a committee that decides these things, "but the committee's full of Starmer allies. "So it's effectively Starmer. "The blocks him from running." So he can't become Labour leader and therefore the Prime Minister. A few months later, more recently, there's another by-election, another MP stands down in the north of England. And I think by this point, Kirstama's seen the writing on the wall as he decides not to block Andy Bannon from running. And within a few days, this process is being started of electing a new Labour Party leader. And that's the only reason for that. And that's the Prime Minister resigning as well. - Yeah. - Which is putting more and more pressure on Starmer and hence where we've got to. So it can seem very aware that people described it and Scott described it as being a nointed leader from nowhere, but just under score for listeners. Why it is that somebody who leads a party becomes Prime Minister without an election? Yeah, so this feature of the British political system and we saw this under the Conservatives as well. They had three Prime Ministers without actually having a fresh election. And in effect, the leader of whichever is the biggest party in Parliament, whichever party has the most seats, is the Prime Minister. At the moment, that's the Labour Party. It was pretty loveless majority. There's not a lot of love for Kirstama in the country and there wasn't even when he got elected, to be honest. But they have a massive majority and therefore when their leader resigns, they pick a new leader and that leader becomes the Prime Minister. Well, that brings us then into the fundamental question for our purposes, which is what's his stance on Ukraine? This has actually been something that's quite hard to piece together hence why you've been doing the research on this. The Coussey's been mayor of Manchester. He's not been on the national stage in quite the same way. We've had to start quite low down with some small things that he said, but he said a little bit more recently, I think. Yeah, so this is one of the big question marks around Andy Burnham. And actually, to be honest, we don't know a lot about many of his policy positions. He's still deciding on who his cabinet is going to be, so we'll find out more about that on Monday afternoon, we think. And one of the criticisms of Andy Burnham over the years is that he's a bit of a political weather vane. We've had a few hints about his policies, including on Ukraine. So it looks like his Starmer's track record of being very supportive of Ukraine. Obviously, he led on the coalition of the willing. We expect that to continue. Obviously, there was a bit of a love in when Kirstaam was in Paris recently meeting the coalition of the willing leaders for the last time, and he was given a gift by Macron. And when he resigns, the Lensky was very gushing about thank you for supporting Ukraine. So there's a perception that Kirstaam has done quite well in that particular domain. And Andy Burnham's actually praised him for his record on Ukraine and said that we need to basically continue being a backer of Ukraine. So in that sense, not a extreme concern for Kiwi? Exactly. Yeah, so he has actually written a piece in the Times newspaper. He said, we must rebuild Britain's hard power to face a darker world. He set out his key guiding principles. He says, first, stability where it matters most, our commitment to NATO and the UK's nuclear deterrent will remain absolute. Our relationship with the US will remain critical as our most important defense and security ally. And Britain's support for Ukraine will not waver. We know that British security and wider Euro-Atlantic security are inseparable from what happens in Ukraine. So that's all looking very positive. We've also had one more hint about his position on Ukraine, which actually came from our friend, Joe Barnes, the Telegraph diplomatic editor, who spoke recently to the probably outgoing foreign secretary, Evet Cooper. She's almost certainly going to be replaced. But she told Joe, Andy is 100% behind the support for Ukraine and feels very strongly about that. And also the continuing support for NATO for all of the issues around our security. We've talked about continuity on a lot of these issues around security and our alliances as well. So there's no reason to assume, at the moment, that there's going to be a big change on Britain's position on Ukraine under Andy Banner. Well, thanks very much, Leon, for doing that research. As I say, he's going to be-- somebody that we're going to be talking about a lot over the next few weeks. Britain does continue to play a key role in the European sphere as leader of the coalition of the willing in effect with the French. And indeed, as these conversations about defense and the European spirit continue, so it felt important for particularly for the benefit of our international lives to give you a grounding in that. Any final thoughts on him? Leon, do you think it's going to end in tears? I don't know. I think it's going to be really interesting to see how his communication style plays out in the role of-- It's got a huge sense of fashion, doesn't he? Yes. So he did a speech recently up in Manchester. And one of the big things he wants to do is to devolve more power from number 10 in London and create what he's calling number 10 North. So more of the operations of the Prime Minister happening out of the North of England, specifically Manchester. And he gave a speech on it in the North of England. And he said his team gave him special permission to wear what he called his Manchester uniform, which was basically a dark t-shirt and a blazer. So not a suit. And this is kind of something he's become a bit known for. T-shirt and blazer. That's-- Yeah. That's for really. He's seen as a bit more kind of normal and accessible. And he-- That's not normal. Sorry. Well, he-- I mean, people seem to quite like it. And his calm style is also just much more social media savvy, whereas someone like here, Starma, like you were reporting on earlier this week. Now that he's freed from the shackles of the premiership, he seems to have relaxed and come out with a bit of a personality. But Andy Burnham seems to have that already. Let's see whether he keeps it while he's imposed. Because I think the pressure on number 10, obviously, got to here, Starma very much. But we'll see how that kind of communication style and that aura, because at the moment, is quite vibes based how that holds up in number 10. Well, I think also he's going to be a real challenge for him to potentially get stuff through Parliament. If, as they've already, it's going to be the same MPs that Starma had since gone into power. They're going to be have the same question marks about taxation, about defense spending. So in a sense, he could very quickly come up against the same issues. And I tend to think, from my time when I used to work in the houses of Parliament here, that if you've ever lost a leadership election, which Burnham has twice now before this one, the chance of ever winning a general election in the country is greatly reduced. You're just lacking something, a lacking in X factor. And I think he's been very lucky. He's played his cards very well. But how strong is the deck, as it were? That's all we've got time for this week, another big week for obvious reasons. We'll be back same time, same place on Monday. Until then, have a great weekend. [MUSIC PLAYING] Ukraine the latest is an original podcast from the Telegraph, created by David Knowles. Every episode featuring us in the studio, maps, and battlefield footage is now available to watch on our YouTube channel. Subscribe at www.youtube.com/atUcrainthelatest. There's a link in the description. If you appreciate our work, please consider following Ukraine the latest on your preferred podcast app. And leave us a review, as it helps others find the show. Please also share it with those who may not be aware we exist. You can also get in touch directly to ask questions or give comments by emailing
[email protected]. We continue to read every message. You can also contact us directly on X. You'll find our handles in the description, as ever we're especially interested to hear where you're listening from around the world. And finally, to support our work and stay on top of all of our Ukraine news, analysis, and dispatches from the ground, please subscribe to the Telegraph. You can get one month for three, then two months for just one pound at www.Telegraph.co.uk/Ucrainthelatest. Ukraine the latest was today produced by Rachel Porter. Executive producers are Frances Dernley, Louisa Wells, and David Knowles. My name is David Knowles. Thank you all for listening. Goodbye.
PodcastTranscript AI