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Ukraine is set to increase long-range attacks inside Russia as an influx of western military aid aims to help Kyiv shape the war “in much stronger ways”, the head of the UK military has said.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin acknowledged the downbeat mood surrounding Ukraine’s defence in an interview with the Financial Times, admitting the country was facing a “difficult” fight to repel advancing Russian forces.
But Britain’s chief of defence, a key figure in the west’s military support for Kyiv, stressed that such a gloomy “snapshot” of the war failed to recognise longer trends more in Kyiv’s favour.
He said these included the latest packages of military aid from US and Europe, Ukraine’s increasingly successful long-range strikes, and Moscow’s “total failure” to choke off Kyiv’s vital grain exports via the Black Sea.
“The danger with any snapshot is that it [ignores] where we are now with where we will be in next couple of years,” Radakin told the FT, adding people should stop “feting Russia” and believing it “somehow has got major advantages”.
During an almost six-month hiatus over US funding for Kyiv that only ended this week, Russian forces have continued to pound Ukraine with heavy artillery, missiles and drones while making some limited territorial gains.
To seize back the initiative against Moscow’s larger army, Ukrainian commanders have pleaded with the west to provide more long-range, “high-tech weapons”. Kyiv has also attempted increasingly ambitious strikes inside Russia against production facilities and energy infrastructure.
In a significant boost for Ukraine, Washington dropped its reservations about giving Ukraine long-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles, secretly sending a batch earlier this month with a 300km range. Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser, on Wednesday said more will be sent now “that we have additional authority and money . . . I believe they will make a difference”.
But, after a drawn out debate, US President Joe Biden still directed his White House team to ensure the longer-range system was “for use inside Ukrainian sovereign territory”.
Radakin, by contrast, expressed no apparent qualms over Ukrainian attacks and sabotage raids inside Russia.
“As Ukraine gains more capabilities for the long-range fight . . . its ability to continue deep operations will [increasingly] become a feature” of the war, Radakin said, adding: “they definitely have an effect”.
The UK government has pledged this week to increase defence spending from about 2.3 per cent to 2.5 per cent of national income. In addition, it has raised military aid to Kyiv to £3bn a year and, crucially, signed long-term contracts with defence industry suppliers.
“You can moan about why this [the long-term contracts] did not happen earlier, but some things take time,” he said. In a side swipe at environmental, social and governance investment guidelines, he added: “the notion that investing in the UK defence industry is unethical, is offensive”.
Radakin said these long-term supply contracts had allowed the UK’s defence ministry to dig deep into its own stockpiles and hand over more capabilities to Kyiv — including more than 1,600 strike and air defence missiles, as well as another tranche of long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles.
After months of uncertainty over the west’s strategy in Ukraine, Radakin spoke with optimism about a situation where all Nato countries are “talking about spending more money”.
But even Ukraine has cast the latest round of support as largely helping to stabilise a deteriorating position. “I recognise that this is all less comfortable if you are in Kyiv,” Radakin conceded. “You also have to acknowledge that Russia has been able to conduct more effective long-range strikes than last year.”
Radakin also pushed back at criticism that the west had no overarching “glorious plan” as to how to help Kyiv achieve victory and had instead only given it enough military aid to forestall defeat.
“Don’t expect anyone to say publicly ‘this is the plan’ and A, B and C are now going to happen,” Radakin said. Some elements of Ukraine’s military approach “will be hidden . . . some will be dictated by a tactical or operational advantage, and some also depends on more foundational aspects”, he said.
Some of these factors “mature much more strongly next year than this year”, Radakin said. But they “will enable Ukraine to shape [the fighting] in much stronger ways than it has before”.
Additional reporting for Felicia Schwartz in Washington