Frontline: The War in Ukraine and Global Security

“If you have a command structure that thinks Russia is already in charge of a piece of territory and sends more people in, they die in their hundreds.”Putin’s self-deception is causing operational setbacks for the Russian military and making the prospect of a ceasefire even more remote, says Keir Giles.

“Ukraine has managed to attack Russia where it is weak.”Ukraine has managed to suppress Russian drones using manpower and armour in Lyman and hold its position, says former British Army colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon.

“Where is the secretary of state, Mr Rubio? … He is absolutely AWOL.”Witkoff and Kushner’s visit to Kyiv was “hard to watch” after they sucked up to Putin during their previous meeting in Moscow, says Lieutenant General Ben Hodges.

“Putin's pursuing his own delirious ideas... first he invented history, now he’s inventing biology,”A total consensus is forming across Russia that Putin has gone completely mad, as an exploding economy pushes the country to the edge with zero political mechanisms to remove him, says journalist Anna Zafesova. 

“The Russians have had a miscellaneous ‘F’ failure there.”Ukrainian firepower and drone control over logistical lines of communication have put 2,500 Russian troops in a “world of hurt” on the Kinburn Spit and around the Fortress Belt, says former British Army Major General Chip Chapman.

He was once Russia's richest man. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was thrown in jail for urging democratic change in Russia and since getting out and leaving Russia more than a decade ago, he has continued the fight. He says he was hopeful for nearly imminent change in Russia before the war started, but now thinks it will be a good 20 years before we see that "Happy Russia of the Future" Alexei Navalny always dreamed about. And Khodorkovsky believes Ukraine has ALREADY won the war.

On this episode of Frontline, Amy Kellogg sits down with Putin critic and exiled Russian politician Boris Nadezhdin for an extended interview. Boris was perhaps one of the the last anti-Russian politician not behind bars until he decided to flee the country earlier this summer under pressure.

Robert Fox, Defence Editor for the Evening Standard, talks to the Frontline's Philip Ingram on Putin's election troubles,Russia's "broken" economy and iconicalism on the Frontline, where Putin ordered the remains of 14th-century Russian prince, Dmitry Donskoy, to be taken to the battlefield as a spiritual boost.