Note: Shortened transcript of original slovak podcast as from Feb 20. 2026.

Fog of War

Situation in Ukraine

Moderator: What is the overall situation in Ukraine?

General Macko: For the first time in a long time, after 2.5 years, we saw that not only were Russians biting off pieces of Ukrainian territory, but we also saw that Ukraine executed local counterattacks and even regained more than 200 square kilometers of territory.

This is not yet some strategic turnaround, but we see that Ukrainians still have the capability for local counterattacks on land, where they are outnumbered against the Russians.

Strategic campaign continues

Regarding the strategic campaign, it naturally continued. The Russians again generated large packages of massive attacks. They do this cyclically – they did it before the Geneva talks.

🔹Russians rely on quantity

🔹Ukraine demonstrates deep strikes and is capable of hitting very deep into Russian territory

Overall strategic picture: we are in a war of attrition. The talks didn’t move significantly anywhere, despite it being important that they took place.

Zelensky said at the Munich conference that de facto there is no power plant in Ukraine that has not been hit and somehow damaged by Russian forces.

News from the front line

When we look at the front line overall, there are no fundamental changes:

🔹Near Sumy, Russians advanced in one village, but it’s not a breakthrough

🔹No substantial change in Kharkiv region

🔹Relatively quiet around Kupyansk as well

🔹The biggest battles are traditionally in the arc from Lyman through Kostiantynivka, Myrnohrad-Pokrovsk (Donbas)

🔹More pronounced activity in eastern Zaporizhzhia region, where Ukrainians gained the mentioned 200 km²

Deep strikes from both sides

Air warfare continues. Russians had two massive strikes – before the Munich Conference and just before the peace talks in Geneva. They do this cyclically – we saw it before Abu Dhabi, before Alaska.

This is apparently an attempt by Russians as part of large-scale psychological and hybrid warfare against the West, where they try to demonstrate their capabilities.

Key Russian production numbers:

🔹They produce around 130-150 missiles monthly

🔹Thousands of drones monthly

🔹At least 130 drones daily (modernized Gerans)

New Russian capability

Importantly, Russians can now also use Gerans in combination with other reconnaissance drones to hit relatively mobile targets. This was something they couldn’t do at the start of the war – that’s why they bombed railways, because they couldn’t hit trains.

State of war after four years

It’s incredible, but next week it will be 4 years since this war began and the fifth year is starting.

When we look overall, we are absolutely clearly in a state of war of attrition – this is war until total exhaustion.

Personnel problems on both sides

🔹Russians have around 700,000 soldiers in Ukraine

🔹Casualties are high on both sides

🔹Ukraine depends on external sources

Explanation of fallen exchanges: When Russians advance and Ukrainians withdraw, they sometimes don’t have time to take their fallen with them. When Russians move forward, they can collect their fallen, while Ukrainians don’t have this opportunity.

Territorial gains over two years

Over two years, since Russians gained initiative, they gained only 1.5% of Ukrainian territory:

🔹They had 29% in summer 2022

🔹It dropped to 17% in autumn 2022

🔹Over years 2023-2025, they reached nearly 20%

🔹They still control 9% less than at the start of the war

For comparison: In the same time, the Soviet army would have marched through and conquered half of Europe.

Technological innovations

Ukrainians led in technologization:

🔹Focus on drones (aerial, ground, naval)

🔹Have drone forces as independent units

🔹Drone units integrated in combat formations

Russians respond:

🔹Centralized it through the Rubikon system

🔹Modernized electronic warfare

🔹All possible jammers to protect their own forces

Middle East – Gaza and Israel

Moderator: What’s new in Gaza and Israel?

General Macko: Nothing substantial over the past week. Besides Trump’s non-functioning plan, low-intensity, continuous Israeli campaign continues:

🔹Destroying infrastructure

🔹Poor humanitarian situation

🔹Hamas has sporadic activity

No fundamental changes in southern Lebanon or the West Bank.

Important change: The United States announced they want to completely withdraw from Syria in the coming weeks and months. This relates to the new government getting the situation under control.

Strategic Background

Geneva Negotiations

Moderator: How do you evaluate the trilateral talks between the US, Ukraine, and Russia?

General Macko: They fulfilled my expectations – I had no great expectations. Russian communication before the talks already indicated it would be even worse than in Abu Dhabi.

Why did the negotiations fail?

Russians changed the negotiator – they put Medinsky in charge again. He’s a cold, very uncompromising hawk. Statements from February 9th and 10th showed that:

🔹They want major geopolitical concession from the West

🔹They want protectorate over Ukraine

🔹Regardless of territorial agreements, they want to control all of Ukraine

🔹It should be disarmed and without guarantees

Negotiation participants

For the US: Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner (Trump’s personal envoys)

For Ukraine:

🔹Rustam Umerov

🔹Kyryl Budanov

🔹Andriy Hnatov (Chief of General Staff)

🔹David Arachmia

For Russia:

🔹Medinsky

🔹Mikhail Galuzin

🔹Igor Kostyukov (GRU chief – Russian military intelligence service)

Negotiation results

No progress – key issues couldn’t be resolved:

🔹Territorial arrangement

🔹Security guarantees

🔹Ukraine’s future status

First day: 6 hours of negotiations
Second day: Only 2 hours

Zelensky was dissatisfied that sensitive issues weren’t discussed. Ukraine’s position: territorial integrity is non-negotiable.

Trump’s deadlines

Trump set a deadline that has no connection to battlefields, but only to American supplementary congressional elections, where Republicans are doing very poorly.

Zaluzhny’s Presidential Ambitions

Moderator: Zaluzhny indirectly hinted in an interview that he could run for Ukrainian president. How do you see this?

General Macko: It’s an interesting matter. He didn’t formally express it, but the tone of the interview suggested it. He gave an interview to Associated Press.

Controversial claims

Zaluzhny claims that in 2023, just before the Zaporizhzhia offensive, half his forces and ammunition were taken away – a decision by the president and General Syrsky.

Commanders‘ reactions didn’t please Zaluzhny:

🔹They criticize him for bringing this up now

🔹They claim he’s not entirely right

🔹They see the situation differently than he communicates

Historical context of the 2023 offensive

After rapid counteroffensives in autumn 2022, expectations arose for a major Ukrainian counteroffensive. Zaluzhny focused on Zaporizhzhia region, but meanwhile Russians built strong Surovikin line.

Problem: If the direction of attack is expected, it’s no longer the main direction or doesn’t have such a chance to succeed.

The situation in 2023 was different:

🔹The West gave almost no support

🔹Support started coming only in March-April

🔹Troops weren’t trained on Bradley, Leopards

🔹There were information leaks about brigade movements

Criticism of Zaluzhny

Soldiers criticize: He’s trying to retroactively absolve himself of responsibility and shift it to others. Now is wartime – it’s not the most fortunate timing.

Zaluzhny no longer has the popularity he had when he was at home. Instead of talking about what he would do differently, he talks about who’s to blame for what.

Munich Security Conference

Moderator: You write in detail about the Munich Security Conference in our weekly. How do you evaluate it?

General Macko: It was one of the most tense conferences. The greatest expectations were about how the American delegation would react.

Shocking report on the state of the world

The report had an image of an elephant and the headline „Under Destruction“ (instead of the usual „Under Construction“). 120-page report spoke of demolition of international order.

Main demolisher: The United States, which after 1945 de facto built it, protected it all along and guaranteed it.

Conference atmosphere development

Last three years:

🔹2024: Erosion, losing benefits from international arrangement

🔹2025: Already decay

🔹2026: Conscious destruction

Key presentations

Rubio: Had a soaring speech, but then it was totally erased by the visit to Slovakia and especially Hungary, where he showed they don’t care about unity with Europe.

Merz: Said the international order is gone, rejected nuclear armament of Germany.

Macron: Classically – Europe must be self-confident, sovereign and must build its own capabilities.

Chinese paradox

Interesting paradox: The Chinese, who according to Trump benefited from the international system, now act as the biggest protectors of that system.

China tries to benefit as much as possible from the internal contradiction between the West and gain attention not only from third world countries, but also Europe.

Slovak non-participation

The fact that Slovakia wasn’t there is a catastrophe. Either they weren’t there because:

1) We don’t have people capable of such communication (like Blanár)

2) They can only manage departments, not discuss at this level

It’s a great shame for Slovakia – our voice is not heard.

Comparison with Finland

Our president had a program: halusky, Italian cuisine at the Olympic house – that was all. The Finnish president had a 19-point program. Finland is similarly sized, has similar capabilities, but is more advanced.

The difference in presidential output is the difference in country output and citizen success.

Slovak armament

Moderator: In connection with the American Secretary of State’s visit, the Ministry of Defense announced it wants to buy another 4 F-16 fighters and HIMARS rocket launchers. Is this good?

HIMARS – yes

General Macko: I’ll start with HIMARS – as the war in Ukraine shows, there’s a renaissance of artillery, but it’s better to have precise artillery and deeper strikes.

Ours are requesting HIMARS with extended range:

🔹150 kilometers or

🔹PRECISION STRIKE MUNITION up to 500 kilometers (PrSM, original ATACMS)

Missiles are fired from the same system, only the container changes.

We have similar equipment: We had older HIMARS missiles for our rocket launcher, which was combined – it could fire Soviet standard 122mm and NATO MLRS standard from containers.

Advantages:

🔹Rocket launchers we have are on old Tatra 813 chassis

🔹We could manufacture this in cooperation and participate in production for other countries, if put on new chassis

🔹Could cooperate on manufacturing rocket pods or containers

F-16 – not a priority

We have 14 fighters on order (12 combat + 2 training, but really combat two-seaters).

Arguments for additional purchases:

🔹You need 2 minimum in sharp readiness

🔹Another 2 in reserve

🔹Needed for training

🔹Part always in inoperable condition

My opinion: I would be against those fighters. Not because it’s illogical, but it’s not a well-set priority.

After 20 years we’re still behind with one brigade – they’ve wanted a mechanized brigade from us since 2004, so we’d have at least one that can defend us.

Let’s finally complete that brigade and then dream about castles in the air.

Energy security – dispute with Croatians

Moderator: How do you see the dispute with Croatians over the Adria pipeline?

General Macko: I look at it from security perspectives:

Paradox of Slovak approach

On one hand:

🔹We contracted 60 billion euros for defense in 3-4 months (framework agreements)

🔹We consolidate, but arm competitively

On the other hand:

🔹We are totally vulnerable in energy security

🔹We committed to still take Russian oil

What Fico forgot to mention

When attacking Ukraine together with Orbán, he forgot to mention:

🔹Russians bombed Ukraine

🔹Russians bombed a reservoir, thereby also affecting the pipeline

🔹If Ukrainians were repairing, why wouldn’t they solve freezing people in Kyiv first?

Problem of dependence on one source

Instead of source diversification we’re still dependent on one source, where:

🔹Russians use it as a weapon

🔹They use their weapons on the pipeline too

🔹We endanger Slovakia’s stability and security

Croatian position

Croatians speak clearly:

🔹Adria’s capacity is sufficiently large

🔹You can import any oil, but not Russian

🔹EU didn’t give exemption for Russian oil through pipelines

🔹„We won’t burn our fingers“

Real reason for dispute

Fico tries to save the Hungarian model:

🔹They used dumping prices due to Russian embargo

🔹They bought substantially cheaper

🔹But gasoline and diesel are more expensive than in countries with „expensive“ non-Russian oil

🔹Hungarian company takes huge margins

Slovak citizens get nothing from this.

Security risks

Endangered is the entire operation of:

🔹Economy

🔹Health systems

🔹Security systems

🔹Transport systems

The question is appropriate: Should prosecutors look at this? What are the property relationships here?

Security Council

Security council is called regarding ex-minister Tomanová, but not called regarding energy security after 15 years of inability to diversify oil supplies.

360°

American-Iranian negotiations

Moderator: How do you evaluate American-Iranian negotiations in Geneva?

General Macko: Great progress was not achieved. They were open, both sides said so.

Primary problem

Iran says: There’s no force in the world to deprive it completely of nuclear program. It needs uranium enrichment for its own nuclear power plants – otherwise it would be strategically dependent like Slovakia on Russian oil.

USA insists on: They want absolute certainty – 100% guarantee that they won’t have any nuclear program at all.

Escalation instead of agreement

It was clear this would be the stumbling block. That’s why we see escalation:

🔹Poland calling citizens to immediately leave Iran

🔹Trump said he’ll decide „within hours“

🔹He has a secret security meeting

🔹Estimates speak of possible attack over the weekend

Trump’s maximum pressure strategy

Trump needs to make the threat of immediate attack credible:

🔹Recalling citizens

🔹Warnings

🔹Media leaks

🔹Creating psychotic atmosphere

Compared to last week: I don’t think Trump will attack, but the probability of strike has significantly increased.

Cuba

Moderator: It seems the communist regime in Cuba will end. How?

General Macko: So far it looks like similar scenario as in Venezuela. Marco Rubio (his family comes from Cuba) hinted at this during Maduro’s arrest.

American strategy

They’re pushing it to the maximum – applying maximum pressure:

🔹They know Russians won’t be able to help them

🔹They blocked oil deliveries from Venezuela too

🔹Mexico also said they won’t supply oil

Cuba’s state

Cuba was left bare:

🔹Problems since the 90s

🔹Garbage accumulating

🔹Energy outages becoming dramatic

US goal

So they don’t have to invade, they try to achieve that the regime collapses itself. Maximum „tap on the leaning structure“.

Problem: It doesn’t guarantee stable conditions, just a more favorable regime for Americans.

Trump’s Peace Council

Moderator: Is Trump’s peace council an attempt to create a new UN or just entertainment?

General Macko: Everything points to it. He had big ambitions – not just for Gaza, but for the whole world. Eventually he reduced it.

Problems with conception

Reason for reduction:

🔹Invitation was sent to 60 countries

🔹Few of them responded to real membership

🔹Not one paid 1 billion for permanent membership

🔹Russians are still evaluating the possibility

The whole thing is built on „lifetime president Donald Trump“ – one person out of 8 billion people decided to lead such a council.

First session in Washington

At least 40 countries participated (majority observers):

Members: UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Bahrain, Pakistan, Turkey, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Kosovo, Albania, Argentina, Paraguay.

It’s not a balanced organ representing the world.

Gaza program

Financial commitments:

🔹9 countries pledged 7 billion USD for reconstruction

🔹Americans 10 billion (didn’t say from where)

🔹Minimum 70 billion needed

Military mission:

🔹20,000 soldiers + 12,000 police

🔹Soldiers provided by: Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Albania

🔹Commander: Major General Jeffers (former special forces member)

🔹Won’t have UN mandate – only this council’s

Implementation problems

Gaza is unstable, Hamas not disarmed – basic prerequisites for mission functioning are missing.

Western allies are skeptical – they perceive it as an attempt to replace UN and create order dominated by Trump.

Controversial invitations: Netanyahu, Putin (Putin conditioned participation on unfreezing Russian assets).

Closing Quote

„Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character – give him power!“

Abraham Lincoln, US President who died in 1865 by an assassin’s hand.

The post General Pavel Macko’s Security Radar – 152nd Edition appeared first on Pavel Macko - Bezpečnosť, Technológie, Stratégie.

And we are joined by retired Lieutenant General Pavel Macko. Welcome. Good evening.

Good evening, I wish you.

So let’s discuss both meetings in Geneva together. First, let’s go to those two-day trilateral negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine. Do you expect any fundamental breakthrough from them, which simply hasn’t happened in those previous negotiations so far? Will it happen now in Geneva?

Trilateral negotiations USA-Ukraine-Russia

Quite honestly, I don’t expect any fundamental breakthrough. Nevertheless, those negotiations are important. But it must be said that we had two rounds of negotiations in Abu Dhabi, where they made progress, where it was also good that those negotiations got some format and some structure, where there are actually several working groups for different areas. It’s good that in both delegations there are people who have a military background, whether it was – I don’t mean Kyrylo Budanov there as the former head of that intelligence GUR, but I mean including the chief of staff from Ukraine and the head of GRU from the Russian Federation. There was an economic component and generally a political component in these negotiations. However, what’s essential is that the key issues that prevent any conclusion of agreements are: first, Russia doesn’t accept any security guarantees from the West and any Western influence or Western assistance to Ukraine after a possible conclusion of peace agreements. Second, Russia has large territorial demands, and third, Russia also has demands for changing the political regime in Ukraine and even demands for further fundamental geopolitical concessions from the West, in Europe and generally in relation to Russia. This is further underlined by those current statements of Russian representation, when already on January 14th at a public assembly, regime representatives and Putin indicated that they have more than those territorial demands, than formal recognition of those four illegally annexed regions, but that they would actually be interested in additional regions as well. Subsequently, Lavrov clarified that they would be interested in Kharkiv region, Dnipropetrovsk region, Odesa region and thus also Mykolaiv and Kherson, and this is something that is completely outside the framework. And moreover, Russians are increasing additional demands. The latest statements from February 9th and 10th and from February 14th even go further, where Russia clearly basically signals that it’s interested in such a solution that would mean de facto absolute capitulation of Ukraine. That pattern can perhaps be found in history only in connection with the approach of Nazi Germany, when actually today’s Russian rhetoric speaks about wanting a pro-Russian and friendly Ukraine, de facto some Russian protectorate, where Russians would decide what will be in that truncated remainder of Ukraine. And these are likewise problems and likewise insurmountable contradictions in that vision of future possible arrangements. These, in my opinion, will lead to the fact that although they will negotiate about some minor details and those peripheral matters of peace agreements, it will get stuck precisely on these hard demands. And the change in the very head of the delegation by Medinsky coming again indicates this hawkish position of Russia, which will probably predetermine the results of these negotiations as well.

Russian play

So what does this mean, that Russia is playing for time, that it’s delaying?

Unambiguously, Russia still feels in the position that it still has trump cards in its hands. It’s raising its stakes and actually any concession or attempt at an accommodating step, whether from Ukraine or the United States as a sponsor of these negotiations and simultaneously a supporter of Ukraine, it interprets as disunity and weakness and thereby raises its stakes and systematically attacks Ukraine. It tries to use maximum economic, military and psychological pressure. After all, winter is still peaking in Ukraine and massive energy attacks on energy facilities have an effect. Zelensky confirmed over the weekend during the Munich Security Conference that practically every single power plant in Ukraine is affected in some way and damaged. Russians continue in this and will continue on the front as well. Even though we see there that Ukrainians have some partial tactical successes on the border of Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, Russians still have the feeling that by this postponement of a possible solution to that conflict they can gain more and that militarily, even if very slowly and at the cost of high casualties they are advancing, so currently Russians will still push to gain as much as possible from a possible agreement. Moreover, rejecting security guarantees gives the possibility to repeat such aggression in the near future and try to bring it to the end. That means, all this is the result of Russian ambitions that perhaps exceed their real possibilities and capabilities, but so far they see that it allows maintaining a certain disunity in support of Ukraine. We see that Europe doesn’t have sufficient capacity – it’s hesitant – and the United States also changes actually those its approaches to supporting Ukraine and to pressure on Russia all the time. Russia senses some chance in this, that by such stretching and partial concessions and then again raising stakes, it can actually stretch time and undermine that unity or that position of Ukraine and its allies and supporters.

End of war in June 2026?

Washington wants to end the war by June according to Volodymyr Zelensky. We’ve heard similar deadlines in various statements, as you’ve already indicated, but without results. Can the American administration succeed this time and also, above all, how? Because Zelensky talked about Americans wanting to exert pressure on both Ukrainian and Russian sides. So what could this be about? What kind of pressure has the White House not yet resorted to?

Here we need to start perhaps from the end, that this deadline is given by the internal politics of the United States, because they have midterm elections or those partial elections to the American Congress. And so far it looks like the support for the Republican Party is quite small and that therefore the Donald Trump administration could lose the majority not only in the Senate, but even in the lower chamber, that means in the House of Representatives. Thereby that possibility of such sovereign rule of the current administration would be significantly limited. Congress could start blocking many steps of President Trump. That means, if he talks about this deadline, it’s not at all some effort to end the conflict at any cost in favor of Ukrainians or Russians. Simply, Donald Trump wants to present some result. As for those possibilities of pressure and tools, well, we’ve already seen the entire spectrum. First, after the American administration took office, he tried it on Ukraine in that famous discussion in the Oval Office, which was even before the actual negotiation and de facto ended the negotiation. Trump pressured Ukraine and said it has no cards, he wanted to achieve a quick result, it didn’t work. Then we saw a series of various concessions, pressures, ultimatums. We saw that in Alaska Trump thought he had achieved some agreement with Russia, but de facto he only gave Putin legitimacy and gave him a podium and red carpet. He abused that. Then came harsh or demands for harsh oil sanctions. Finally, a law is passed in the American Congress. We see that the United States started seizing tankers of that shadow fleet. That means, this is probably the path by which if the United States wanted, they could pressure Russia. But honestly, I think that if such a settlement comes or at least a cessation of fighting by June, it won’t be exclusively the result of American pressure, but rather it will be a combination of several factors, where also that American pressure, but also continuing sanctions and worsening conditions for the Russian economy and for oil export could lead to such a situation that Russia would get to a point where it would already see that it has no possibility to gain more and with a certain degree of frustration would agree to some negotiations. It’s less than 50 percent probability that such a thing will happen. Of course, some sudden break, reversal, something like a collapse on one side or the other can also come, because we really don’t know in depth even that Russia, which still pretends to have the upper hand and wants to gain more, how it really is. Those strongman speeches and this raising of stakes can also be a negotiating tactic that’s supposed to cover up that Russia is not doing as well as it tries to present outwardly.

Iran nuclear program

Let’s go to those second negotiations in Geneva. The second round of indirect nuclear talks between Iran and the USA will also begin. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in this regard announced to Donald Trump that a potential nuclear agreement must include stopping the uranium enrichment process by Iran and also dismantling the entire Iranian nuclear infrastructure. Is this something that Tehran will agree to, in your opinion?

Hard to say, but probably not. We see that the previous nuclear agreement, from which the United States withdrew, had some gaps even in the vision of Donald Trump and his administration. Currently it’s such that Donald Trump is pushing that vision of absolute prohibition of any uranium enrichment. This is something that will be rejected, because Iran will object that it’s prepared to give up the military program, but that it cannot give up that civilian program, which is vitally important for its energy system. Iran faces many problems. It has oil, which is under embargo and practically only China buys it, but on the other hand it has huge problems with water resources, it has large economic problems. We saw a massive wave of unrest that was originally caused rather by economic problems and subsequently came even that political frustration. Iran is currently conducting military exercises in the Strait of Hormuz and indicates that in case of escalation it could put up armed resistance or try to expand or provoke conflict in the wider Persian Gulf region. This would of course complicate global trade in oil products and liquefied gas. So these negotiations will involve complex bargaining. Currently, however, it doesn’t look like the negotiation should reach some quick agreement. It will probably get stuck precisely on the fact that Iran won’t be willing to agree to such ultimatum demands that would completely deprive it of any control over its nuclear program, including that energy nuclear program. The United States will increase that pressure, because Trump also cannot actually accept just some partial agreement. Moreover, in the US Congress in connection with the previous agreement, a law is also passed. And thereby such a nuclear agreement would have to be submitted by Trump to Congress for approval and there are also various opinions and rather opinions on a hard policy toward Iran prevail, regarding control of its nuclear facilities.

Retired Lieutenant General Pavel Macko was speaking. Thank you very much for your time and for your commentary and I wish you a peaceful night if possible.

Thank you for the invitation and likewise a pleasant evening.

The post Two important negotiations in Geneva appeared first on Pavel Macko - Bezpečnosť, Technológie, Stratégie.

Note: This is a transcript of the original broadcast at .týžden in Slovak language

Moderator: Welcome to listening, and I can hardly believe it, to the 150th edition of the Security Radar of my friend General Pavel Macko. Welcome, Pavel.

Pavel Macko: Thank you very much, pleasant listening.

FOG OF WAR

Putin’s „Ceasefire“ on Ukrainian Infrastructure

Moderator: How did Putin’s ceasefire on attacks against Ukrainian infrastructure turn out?

Pavel Macko: It turned out like all the ceasefires that Putin declared – simply big talk. He actually used the time when he didn’t attack for those few days – he didn’t even keep to those 7 days. He used the fact that he accumulated missiles and drones and made an even more intensive attack, which was even harder for the Ukrainians to stop.

This means that his effect was far higher than if he had attacked every day. And that’s actually the result of Putin’s „ceasefire“.

But it’s essential that none of us normal people, who know this, expected Putin to make any fundamental turn. But the falseness, even complete monstrosity of these peace activists was confirmed, who are actually making a defense of such aggression and claim they are trying to achieve peace. In reality, they are trying to achieve Russian victory.

Overall Picture of the Week

When I look at this overall, the overall picture of the week on several levels is as follows:

▪️First: Russia is intensifying pressure on multiple front sections, but any advances are not large

▪️Ukraine is achieving local counter-attacks, especially near Kupiansk and Kostiantynivka

▪️This winter campaign is extraordinarily exhausting – after several years, actually for the first time during these 4 years of war, when it’s truly the toughest winter

▪️The impacts are enormous and meanwhile the Russians have also gained some additional resources

▪️Ukrainian air defense after 4 years is exhausted

▪️Russian losses are however record-breaking – in January they again lost 30 thousand soldiers

▪️On the other hand, they are massively replenishing equipment and continuing that long-term war economy

Diplomatically: Russia is again stalling for time, not retreating from its demands and actually negotiating only to prevent greater pressure, greater sanctions and a tougher stance from those countries and Ukraine that want to achieve that ceasefire and ensure that this war finally ends.

Situation on the Front Lines

Moderator: So let’s go to the front line and I suggest we go to Kharkiv and Kupiansk.

Pavel Macko: Good. When we look at Kharkiv and Kupiansk, there were partial counter-attacks by Ukrainian forces. Near Kupiansk, they managed to regain some positions again.

When we look, I have notes here that Russia has been pushing for a long time from the north and east. They also had such a bridgehead on the other side of the Oskil river and the Ukrainians managed to push back in these areas.

Other Front Sectors

Lyman, Siversk, Sloviansk: There we know that fighting is already taking place in Siversk. Russian units continued attacks toward Novoselivka, Vykhivka, Serednie, Drobysheve and Dybrova, but there was no fundamental advance there.

Near Kostiantynivka, Druzhivka: Ukraine conversely achieved significant successes.

Near Yablunivka: The Russians advanced slightly east of the city.

Pokrovsk, Myrnohrad: There the Russians were slightly successful. Reconnaissance-sabotage units penetrated directly into Myrnohrad and increased pressure along one of the main transport routes. Ukraine however repelled dozens of attacks around Rodynske.

Zaporizhzhia Oblast: The biggest battles around Hulyaipole have been continuing for a long time. West of Dobropillia. But it’s extreme there – the Russians attack 32 times daily on just this one small front section.

In Kherson: There the classic shelling continues. The Russians still claim in those negotiations that they want Kherson back, but de facto they want to completely destroy it just like the destroyed Vovchansk and all those cities on the contact line.

Middle East – Gaza and Israel

Moderator: Let’s go to the Middle East. Are there any changes in Gaza and Israel?

Pavel Macko: That overall picture is… The ceasefire formally continues, we were supposed to move to the second phase. But it’s actually eroding:

▪️Israeli activities continue

▪️Hamas reacts similarly or provokes clashes

▪️International mechanisms are not yet functioning

▪️Humanitarian crisis (the situation is difficult)

Indeed, now the crossing at Rafah has also been opened, but it’s insufficient, the UN components are not functioning there either.

Problems with Humanitarian Organizations

Israel called on Doctors Without Borders to leave the Gaza Strip because they again suspect them of collaborating with Palestinians – not the citizens they should serve, but collaborating with Hamas.

Moderator: I read such a report in the Israeli press – there was their own reporter who showed one Palestinian doctor who during the war appeared as a doctor, showed victims, everything. And in the end it turned out he was a Hamas officer. Good, let’s continue.

Pavel Macko: Exactly, there are also honest ones there, but by providing legitimacy or legend for that cover, it naturally irritates the other side.

Administrative Arrangement of Gaza

When we look further, the administrative arrangement of Gaza is unclear. The United States – we talked about Al-Shat here, who is supposed to be there, that former Palestinian Authority minister, could be the administrator, temporary head of that administration, some bureaucratic government. However, it’s not yet in the situation where it would really function.

Reconstruction is at a dead end, because as long as there’s no stable and secure environment, the donors don’t have confidence, don’t give money there and there are no mechanisms that would implement it.

Security Situation

As I indicated, there was a series of clashes and attacks. Hamas and its security components conducted operations against groups they designate as Israeli-supported gangs.

In other words, other Palestinians, who don’t identify with Hamas, who maybe have a different view on how things should function in Gaza, are already also targets, so Hamas is already attacking its own.

The Israelis consolidated somehow, adjusted that yellow line. Of course, this immediately caused Arab outcry that they want to reduce even more or reduce Gaza’s territory.

Creation of New Administration

Moderator: How is the creation of new administration in Gaza progressing? Because without that we won’t move forward.

Pavel Macko: Definitely. This is what I already indicated in that overview. The border crossing at Rafah opened. There’s a limited number of patients who can cross from one side to the other.

The US is pushing for that multi-phase plan– meaning a full transition to phase 2, including an international security mission and gradual reconstruction.

But since there’s no agreement on disarming Hamas, they haven’t moved anywhere, therefore territorial administration hasn’t moved either, because one is subordinated to or conditional on the other.

Therefore those players like the United Arab Emirates prepared a project of some Emirati complex in southern Gaza, where they want to actually house thousands of displaced Palestinians.

But the project is politically controversial, because again Palestinians reject relocation to zones controlled by Israel, because that’s in the part that’s behind that yellow line on the other side.

So nothing has been achieved there yet and these new institutions can’t establish themselves.

Fundamental Problem

Moderator: When I look at this as a layperson – because I am a layperson – it seems to me that without Hamas being dispersed, things won’t move forward there.

Pavel Macko: We’ve been saying this since the beginning, since October 7, 2023. Why don’t they disperse it? Because we’ve seen that it causes large collateral losses. Therefore everyone turned against Israel.

On the other hand, we see that President Trump already asked for a Nobel Peace Prize for this, but he didn’t get it. Good anyway, because that would be unfair. And now we see that even he can’t push this through.

This means that this conflict will continue as we’ve been saying for a long time. It can be stabilized only when there’s willingness from the Arab side, first directly from the ranks of Palestinians, whom Hamas has been indoctrinating for a quarter century, because it completely controlled there.

And precisely these clashes – this is exactly about the fact that as soon as there’s a slightly different opinion, people from Hamas immediately liquidate them there, murder and shoot their own.

Second: Arabs never gave up – and I mean Hamas and these radical components – they never gave up the goal of complete liquidation of Israel.

And as long as they don’t give this up and as long as international security forces don’t come there, who will run into the same thing Israel runs into – that they will have to do the so-called dirty work, that they will also have to militarily strike those unfortunates who won’t want to cooperate in that ceasefire – this will continue.

Situation in Syria

Moderator: What’s happening around Syria? We said that the biggest tension…

Pavel Macko: First, there are conflicts of interest between Lebanon and Syria, because there’s a part of those fled officers hiding in Lebanon.

There’s Hezbollah, which is no longer a political favorite in Syria after the replacement of Bashar al-Assad, because they fought against this al-Shar. So that’s one part.

It calmed down there, but recent weeks saw strong conflict between the new governmental power and SDF forces including Kurdish units.

Ceasefire and Integration

From January 20 a de facto ceasefire has been in place there. It looks like the situation is stabilizing.

Kurds are really in the weakest position in the last 10 years. They had to leave the western bank of the Euphrates river, had to move to the eastern side, but ended the fighting. They also ended in other areas.

What was originally promised when Bashar al-Assad fell is happening – that integration will occur. Only that integration is not now that the entire SDF would integrate at once, it’s integrating by individual regions, by individual cities and communities.

What is negative on one hand for those Kurds, because therefore they don’t create some compact whole.

From the governmental power’s perspective it’s advantageous in that no parallel command is created – because we see this in Bosnia and Herzegovina, how it looks: there’s that federation, but actually Republika Srpska does whatever it wants anyway.

This political-administrative arrangement of Syria still awaits its solution and the military one is such that the government is trying to integrate those armed components into a unified army.

Lebanon

In Lebanon the situation is still tense and there are some pockets of resistance, Israel had to react again.

And mainly it shows also there that similarly as in Syria, the political situation is very unstable. They had an interim government basically since that explosion – if listeners remember, since that huge explosion in the port in Beirut – there was such a provisional governmental regime.

And this continues. The only thing that changed is that Hezbollah’s role and position is weaker.

STRATEGIC BACKGROUND

Three-Party Negotiations on Ukraine

Moderator: Main attention focused on three-party negotiations on Ukraine. So can you somehow briefly evaluate them? But it seems to me that nothing is moving anywhere.

Pavel Macko: Basically you’re right. We’re already done with this conclusion. But I’ll still explain it a bit.

We had two rounds. The first round was January 23 and 24. We already partially discussed it. Then came the second round.

First Round of Negotiations

I’ll first recap that first round, because it’s important for understanding where we’ve moved.

In that first round there was actually direct contact between Ukrainians and Russians through – with the presence of the US as mediator after almost 4 years.

And it was the first round. No one had great expectations that peace would suddenly emerge there. It was at such a higher working level.

Ukrainian delegation:

▪️Rustam Umerov

▪️former defense minister, today head of security council

▪️Kirill Budanov

▪️former head of HUR and now head of presidential office

▪️Chief of General Staff

Here I need to explain – Syrsky is the main commander of Ukrainian forces. That means he is the commander. And what we have as chief of staff, they have as chief of general staff. And that general was also there.

Russian side had Dmitriev there – economic-political negotiator and had the head of Russian GRU there.

Results of First Round

That means, that format– first, what happened was that a framework and format for negotiations was established. Professional working groups were established in which details will be discussed.

Main topics were addressed:

▪️Territorial issues

▪️they didn’t agree on anything, there’s a key dispute

▪️Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant

▪️also a problem

▪️Security guarantees for Ukraine

These are actually two such dealbreakers or showstoppers, as it’s said in English. These are the brakes, obstacles so far insurmountable. That means security guarantees and territory.

Because Russia still claims that Ukraine should give up territory that Russians haven’t been able to somehow encompass even after 4 years of war.

Atmosphere of Negotiations

Moderator: What’s the dynamic of those negotiations, what’s the atmosphere? That’s also important there.

Pavel Macko: Both sides claimed it was productive and substantive, meaning they had content. When I already hear the word „productive“…

Ukraine said that yes, these were substantial negotiations, that concrete steps and practical solutions were addressed, which set aside those two most important issues I mentioned.

The US also designated them as productive and appreciated what I also appreciated, that those technical military teams negotiated together, because the ceasefire also needs to be agreed upon military-technically, so that the first shot from one drunk soldier doesn’t restart the war. Because that can also happen.

Russians proved that they don’t have willingness for peace, but meanwhile intensively attacked and said that military operations will continue until Kyiv accepts their demands.

In other words, Russians probably both for domestic audience and for their audience in the third world, are playing such a game – this is called hardball in English, such a tough game.

Basically they want, even if they’ll have to concede from those demands of theirs, they want to sell it as their clear victory. Of course, everyone sees that’s not true.

And if Russians don’t catch the right moment that they won’t gain more, the exact opposite can happen, that they can also collapse. Ukraine can of course also collapse – it’s closer to it than Russia, but it’s a very complex situation.

Summary of First Round

So it was something new after 4 years. They didn’t insult each other after these negotiations, so it’s already important that the negotiation was substantive. I would summarize it that way.

Key conclusions:

▪️Created a framework but didn’t bring results

▪️Territories and security guarantees (this is simply the stumbling block)

▪️Russia uses parallel attacks as a pressure tool

▪️Therefore reducing trust from Ukraine and its supporters that those negotiations are sincere

▪️USA, to not lose face, is trying to keep these negotiations alive

It’s noteworthy that the State Department, foreign ministry, is not represented there, meaning those who are there are not classic diplomats.

Second Round of Negotiations

Moderator: How do you evaluate that second round?

Pavel Macko: That second round progressed, because quite logically, from what I explained in that first round, it was more about procedural issues, formats, who with whom, when, in which groups.

Now it was more about real negotiations, within individual groups they negotiated in more detail.

From what we have – of course, detailed record of these negotiations is not publicly available – so:

▪️That long-term dispute continues

▪️Security guarantees are still without concrete progress

▪️USA acts as mediator

▪️both sides remain relatively firm

Russian Provocations

Russians escalated energy attacks, and this even during the announced ceasefire, which of course Kyiv designated as violation of agreement. It was visible when they bombed a classic conventional power plant and then also a heating plant near Kyiv.

Russians thought that by this they would scare the rest, that if you don’t yield to us and won’t negotiate with us, or accept conditions, we’ll attack. They don’t want to negotiate, they just want Ukrainians to accept conditions – so somehow we’ll continue and you’ll be even worse off.

Of course, they’re abusing this time when there are extreme frosts there.

Positive Progress

But they moved forward in what Zelensky also expected and wanted. They moved forward in the expected prisoner exchange– 314 or 324, I’m not sure now what that number was. The first 150 were already exchanged.

It’s good that also on that Russian side, besides those nationalists, extremists and such clowns like Medvedev, who shouted that all those prisoners of war should be killed – for example from Mariupol, those who were now almost 4 years in captivity – so they returned from that captivity.

Because war also has its rules, we have Geneva Conventions for that and this is something that Russians should also observe.

Further Development

The rest is that they’ll continue, they’ll probably meet next in the United States.

But that Russian strong pressure rather causes greater support for Ukraine from its supporters.

NATO Reactions

Moderator: I noticed that when the NATO Secretary General was in Ukraine a few days ago, he got to taste how a massive Russian attack tastes. Can this somehow change NATO’s approach?

Pavel Macko:It’s already changing, because if I listened carefully to Rutte’s statements, for example his predecessor talked about Ukraine’s integration into NATO and so on, but that language was diplomatic.

Now Rutte had relatively harsh language toward these Russians, said unambiguously that this is proof that Moscow doesn’t want peace. And it’s not some pretext.

Russians thought that hard attacks would help– and otherwise they miscalculated strategically in this, just as they miscalculated on February 24, 2022, because they quickly jumped away from that negotiation. They were persuaded by Macron, by Joe Biden. Scholz called Putin several times, Macron called even a few hours before that invasion. Putin saying that invasion wouldn’t happen, but he wanted to play that tough game, attacked, knocked out his front teeth and still can’t get out of it.

And now it’s the same, that Rutte gave very sharp statements. I put it in a table because we prepared that scenario together.

He said – this is a quote: „This peace will be lasting not because papers are signed, but because it will be backed by hard power.“

Change in NATO Position

This means, if Russians now refused that no foreign soldiers would be there, no support for Ukraine, because Russia wanted a weakened Ukraine that would be a puppet in Russia’s hands, this is changing.

And when they decide in the future to take control of Ukraine, they can do it politically through their extensive agent network and install a new Yanukovych there, or they can do it again militarily, that they would complete what they haven’t managed so far.

After they gather strength – like now with those recent attacks – let’s imagine that we give Russians a year or two pause to re-arm, re-equip and then strike Ukraine again.

This is now changing, NATO’s position as a whole is also changing, where it says it will continue this support and interprets this Russian attack as an attempt at terror and pressure. And therefore arguments for those robust security guarantees are strengthened.

End of New START Treaty

Moderator: The last treaty on control of strategic nuclear weapons, New START, ended. So explain what that agreement was and why it ended?

Pavel Macko: I would probably also like us to make this today’s main topic, to get a broader perspective for our listeners.

What the New START Treaty Was

So first that New START– this was the last functioning agreement, signed by Barack Obama and the Russian president, which actually limited strategic nuclear weapons.

But I’ll say what the development was here.

Historical Development of Nuclear Agreements

During the Cold War, in the late 60s, these powers got into a situation where they achieved huge numbers of nuclear weapons, because that paranoia and mutual suspicion, where we found ourselves in arms races, ended in:

▪️Russians eventually had more than 40,000 nuclear warheads (today they have 5,400)

▪️United States at that peak had more than 32,000 nuclear warheads

A large part of this was also tactical. We had large-caliber artillery shells and such short-range missiles there.

This means that even for regular battlefield combat it was calculated that these nuclear weapons would be used in clashes between these states, while hydrogen bombs were rather mounted on those long-range means, whether intercontinental missiles.

First Negotiations

Those negotiations ran already 1968-1969, but somehow they didn’t manage to conclude. Of course, Nixon’s pressure and move also with China eventually convinced the Soviets.

I’ll just enumerate them. There was a whole series of agreements:

SALT– this was that first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, 1969-1979.

Very quickly then came SALT 1, where strategic carriers were also limited, meaning the number of missiles and those other means.

A second treaty SALT 2 was also negotiated in 1979, but it wasn’t ratified. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan then and they didn’t ratify it, but both sides more or less adhered to it.

ABM and INF Treaties

In 1972 the ABM treaty was also concluded – this was limitation of anti-missile defense, where the number was set at maximum 200, later adjusted to 100 anti-missile systems.

The problem is that when one side starts building too strong anti-missile defense, it forces the other to increase the number of those offensive means.

I forgot one important one – this was the INF treaty – it was called about banning medium and short-range missiles between Gorbachev and Reagan in 1987.

This was absolutely crucial for Europe. In Europe we were in the range of 3 to 8 minutes response time, meaning the risk of accidental nuclear conflict was enormous.

By completely eliminating these missiles, that space was cleared, and therefore only space for those intercontinental missiles was left. There’s at least half an hour for reaction there.

This means that even in case of some stupid escalation, the red phone could still be used, and those missiles could be sent to self-destruct and stop a potential attack. This couldn’t be done with these medium-range missiles.

START Treaties

Then after the end of the Cold War came the START agreement in 1991. From huge numbers, those numbers were reduced even more significantly and we actually got to today’s numbers.

There was START II, which also banned those multiple warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles, on those heavy ones. Because you can cheat there. You say you’ll have only 100 intercontinental missiles, but put ten of these warheads in each.

Russians have Avangard prepared this way. In the final flight stage it’s as if you again had ten missiles. Suddenly you have thousands instead of hundreds. So this treaty was important because of that.

New START

Then this agreement, when it ended, actually that new START was negotiated, where limits on warheads and carriers were set. And it was extended a few years ago for 5 years, but this extension expired, a new agreement wasn’t concluded.

New START parameters:

▪️1,500 deployed strategic warheads

▪️meaning those they can have in operational regime

▪️700 deployed carriers

▪️800 total carriers

▪️this includes strategic bombers

Control Mechanisms

So there were mainly detailed inspection mechanisms. Both sides announced where they have those forces, where the US has problems with those Russian mobile ones, but they always had to notify major movements.

And both sides could visit those places. Of course they didn’t go into the guts of these systems, but they could verify whether those measures are being observed, whether they secretly haven’t built additional forces, whether they secretly don’t have some additional missiles there. All this has now ended.

Why the Treaty Ended

When I say it formally, Russia suspended participation in 2023 and subsequently the United States also reacted, but formally the treaty was valid, no one violated it.

This happened mainly because when the war in Ukraine started, Russians supposedly for technical reasons started blocking these verifications, these on-site inspections.

The reason– on one hand I understand them, it was paranoid, because they were at war with Ukraine and feared that during those inspections Americans would learn something they could then pass to Ukrainians.

On the other hand Americans said– there’s no point going into such an agreement that can’t be verified, as we also said before with the Budapest Memorandum and so on…

So this was absolutely crucial. They considered the US as a hostile side. This was part of that Russian rhetoric, that Putin constantly says, because when he’s not succeeding, he says that first he wanted to denazify and demilitarize everything. And when he’s not succeeding, he says he’s actually fighting the entire West. And this is that propaganda that goes around.

Chinese Factor

Another thing was that there were also those negotiations and considerations that China announced a large nuclear program, even to triple the number of its warheads by the decade, it already has 600 warheads now.

China has such an ambition that by 2035 to have parity with the United States in some components and in its region or catch up with Russia and the United States.

And after 2040 China wants to already be an equal partner also in strategic nuclear weapons to the United States.

Chinese Triad

This means that China started building the so-called triad. The triad is that you have:

1 ) Those ground intercontinental ballistic missiles

2) You have them then on submarines

▪️these are well protected because they’re hard to detect, meaning it’s a second strike weapon or last judgment, that when everything fails, even if that country was destroyed, it has the ability either semi-automatically or even automatically to respond to that strike and destroy the other side

3) And there are then aviation means – strategic aviation.

Russians invested more in those aviation means in those cruise missiles with nuclear warheads, which they now use only with conventional warheads directly on Ukraine.

Why New START Finally Fell?

I said that it fell actually because:

▪️United States wanted a broader agreement

▪️Russia wanted a different agreement, because it conditioned it, wanted to balance and offset other things on it

▪️China didn’t want any agreement yet, said it’s not yet that player that should be regulated

Russian and Chinese Armament

Moderator: I notice that Russia demonstrated new weapons and of course we’ve seen it also with the Chinese. And those Russian conventional ones aren’t very trustworthy. But should we fear those Russian nuclear weapons? And what about the USA? Are they falling behind or not?

Pavel Macko: Several aspects. It’s true that Russia modernized and quite massively. I wouldn’t underestimate their nuclear arsenal.

Russian Nuclear Forces

First, insiders know that there are really elite troops there. These aren’t those bums called ground troops that they showed at the beginning of the war. It’s more professional there.

But we’ve seen accidents there too, but that was mostly during tests. This means we can’t say in what technical state those missiles that are in operational service are.

But we know that Russians demonstrated in 2018 a series of those displays – Avangard, Zircon, which can also have nuclear warheads.

Hypersonic Systems

Sub-warhead is a small missile inside that big missile. There are several of them. These are so-called hypersonic gliders, which can still maneuver.

They have their own engine, can change flight path and fly at that hypersonic speed, which by the way all ballistic missiles fly.

But the difference is that the glider can still maneuver and fundamentally change direction and can go hundreds of kilometers elsewhere than where the original missile would fall.

Russian Modernization

So Russians modernized. They have:

▪️New Yars and Sarmat missiles

▪️New submarine-launched ballistic missiles (which are launched Bulava)

▪️New submarines of Borei class

▪️New cruise missiles Kh-102 (Kh-101, which they used, this is some derivative)

▪️They have those Avangardes, Poseidon, Burevestnik

Principally Russians modernized, because the Soviet Union left them old junk. And they were aware that conventionally – and then they also introduced professional army – conventionally Russia didn’t have a chance not only against NATO, but also potentially against other rivals. And therefore invested asymmetrically in nuclear arsenal.

Chinese Expansion

What about China? China is expanding. But of course from that low base. China was that below-average student, below-average player, even lower than United Kingdom and France.

France has 290 and United Kingdom some roughly 250-245 of these warheads.

China started building its potential. Just as it builds its conventional army – visible that it has 5th generation fighters, stealth fighters already better than Russians, that it invests in other means.

It started investing in this too, but started from that low number:

▪️Had in 2010: 200 warheads

▪️Today has: 600

▪️Heading toward at least a thousand by the end of this decade

Chinese Triad

But it’s also building a triad. As it starts expanding in that Pacific and sees that the United States has dominance there, it’s building nuclear triad. That means new nuclear submarines and also hypersonic systems.

We’ve seen several of them now on parade and this is precisely because of that rivalry in Indo-Pacific and also fear of American anti-missile defense, which is strengthening. Now we’ve heard about Golden Dome.

American Nuclear Forces

Moderator: And are the USA falling behind or not?

This is interesting, because a lot in professional journals and so on was criticism when Russians introduced these hypersonic systems, then Chinese also conventional and potentially also nuclear systems, which are for example designed to destroy those aircraft carrier battle groups.

When you have a hypersonic missile, the opponent can’t stop it anymore, you put a nuclear payload there, so you can actually erase that American advantage – aircraft carriers, Americans are rulers of the seas with them. What the British Empire used to be.

They have 9 battle carrier groups– those are aircraft carrier battle groups, several fleets, they have large Pacific, Atlantic fleet.

Criticism of American Lag

When China developed this, many evil tongues say that the US fell asleep, don’t have hypersonic systems, didn’t pay much attention to it. But I’ll mention several aspects.

It’s really true that Minuteman III are missiles from the 70s, but technologically they were much more advanced than those Russian missiles that were in forces. But the US didn’t modernize them.

They have only one warhead, can’t even add others, while Russians meanwhile made an upgrade where they don’t have multiple warheads mounted, but can and know how to do it relatively quickly.

So in this segment the US seemed to lag behind.

New American Programs

Currently running is a program for Sentinel upgrade or replacement of Minuteman III. Otherwise Sentinel is also that invisible reconnaissance drone RQ-171, but these should be Sentinel missiles, which should be ready by 2030. That’s still 5 years, but it’s an extremely expensive project, so the question is whether it will be successful or not.

But the US has strategic aviation, where unlike Russian aircraft they have absolutely top-notch stealth bombers. B-2 were already excellent and now B-21 Raider are absolute world top.

China and Russia don’t have even a chance yet to catch up to them in this in the next decade.

American Strength in Submarines

Main US strength lies and there they modernized, or had highly advanced technologies – and those are missiles launched from submarines.

In this they are absolute top. Still their Trident 2 D5LE missiles are unmatched, so they don’t even need to modernize them.

Golden Dome

Currently, I won’t discuss this today, we’ll discuss it another time. Golden Dome is not only protection from space against missile attacks – those are just sensors, but Golden Dome is supposed to also ensure maintaining connection, that all those submarines and fleets in stealth mode, even after nuclear explosions, should function and should be able to communicate with each other.

Should We Fear Nuclear Arms Race?

Moderator: So tell me this one thing – should we fear that nuclear arms race or not?

Pavel Macko:There are several scenarios. It started when there were 30-40 thousand warheads on both sides. We’re far from that happening, it would cost enormous expenses and I believe it won’t go to this limit.

The truth is that absence of all agreements can cause distrust on both sides and we see that even Trump indicated they might resume nuclear tests. These by the way are also agreed to be banned, but that comprehensive ban treaty wasn’t ratified.

This means it’s not legally binding. Only so far it was quietly observed.

Possible Scenarios

So there are several scenarios:

1) Quiet voluntary continuity and waiting for a suitable time when they sit down for negotiations. This would probably capture what Trump said.

When Trump said that when New START expires, it expires, that we’re simply not under such pressure that we must accept any pressure from Russia and we want to have China in it too. So that’s the first scenario.

2) New arms race– that’s the worst, that new arms race comes, meaning Trump will invest money and launch it.

3) Trilateral negotiations– that all three nuclear players and basically also militarily biggest powers USA, Russia and China sit down and try to agree.

4) Fragmentation, regionalization of that nuclear deterrence – meaning Europe including France, United Kingdom and others. That it fragments and we already have 9 nuclear countries and more can be added.

5) Crisis escalation– absolutely worst scenario, unlikely but very dangerous, is crisis escalation, that simply at some moment these conventional conflicts get out of control and one side will demonstrate use of nuclear forces.

I think that currently we are in scenario A– meaning quiet voluntary continuity and attempt at negotiation.

Slovakia in Security Context

Moderator: And where do we find ourselves in this, Slovakia?

Pavel Macko: I’m looking for a decent word. We are disoriented, trampled in the ground. We buried ourselves there like moles, only we didn’t choose good terrain, because we buried ourselves in some swamp and it’s leaking into our mole hole from all sides.

Slovakia is being left out of all these security discussions. As I indicated those scenarios, we actually don’t know where security will move and how it will transform.

Problems of Fico’s Government

Into this comes hysteria of this Smer government, which does knee-jerk politics in four world directions and breaks its allied relations to the core.

We saw Epstein, that actually our top representatives get caught in traps… Even if it’s not confirmed that our prime minister met with Bannon or not, by the way Fico was at that same CPAC forum last year, where Bannon was hailing and after him Robert Fico… not right after him, but later Robert Fico spoke, while even such a leader of extremists from French National Front left after this hailing. Even for him it was too much. Our prime minister stayed there. And that’s a problem.

Lies About MiG-29

The last cherry on top is that the prime minister shouted at the previous government that they are traitors, that they disarmed Slovakia. Now the prosecutor, who was pro-Smer, and I dare say this, let them be angry at me or not, if needed, I would give dozens of arguments…

Moderator: Pro-Smer is not a good expression, she just helped Smer.

Pavel Macko: Yes, to be correct.

Even she found that the law regarding donation of MiGs and S-300 was not violated and prosecutor Remeta explained it in detail, how it really was. Fico lied yesterday at the press conference when he again said that S-300 was modernized.

And yet I know he has many generals, even loyal to him, who could have advised him and said it’s nonsense. But apparently he doesn’t ask anyone, because Fico doesn’t ask anyone about anything today.

From Fico’s foreign trips we have no outputs and conclusions. Not even the confidential ones. Simply there are no records from those negotiations, which is complete nonsense. This never was in Slovakia.

Tunneling of Slovak Army

Actually I’ll now remind you of one thing. And that’s something I probably also announce that I’ll likely file a criminal complaint, because if this government went to prosecute the previous one for that donation, then the prosecutor now confirmed what that government claimed, what I claim, that here enormous damage was arising during MiG maintenance.

When through the company of Fico’s friend Výboh subscription contract was made, where Russians committed that for that money they will maintain the number… I know that number, but I can’t say it because Minister Gajdoš refused to give it to me officially on my request, so I could publish it, how many of those 12 fighters we originally had should be permanently combat-ready, but it was roughly two thirds.

And we sometimes achieved only one tenth. And the prosecutor also said that at the end we had one fighter that was combat-capable and flight-capable, but we paid money for that full contract.

This means that not the previous government, but Fico’s governments tunneled Slovak armed forces and endangered the security of the Slovak Republic.

360°

Iran and Negotiations with USA

Moderator: Let’s look at developments around Iran. Will a new agreement be negotiated and the situation calmed, or will America have to strike there?

Pavel Macko: The question is whether America dares to strike there, because that’s actually why it didn’t strike during those protests.

They could actually provide an argument to that extreme Iranian government that it would unleash a kind of side conflict, that it would actually start some conflict in the Persian Gulf and therefore escalate the situation.

This would of course allow that government to make extreme measures at home, to suppress any opposition and could endanger American interests in that space, also American forces that are there.

American Military Preparation

Therefore Americans moved those aircraft carriers there, they have mighty force there now that could really strike.

I don’t think and Americans never indicate that they would want some ground invasion or landing, as we saw also in Venezuela, but they can very drastically strike those key targets in Iran.

But they also don’t want to do it, because it can be just a spark for a bigger conflict. Therefore there’s that offer for negotiation.

Today they should meet also with help of intermediary countries that try to give some negotiation format.

So that tension is very high, but it must be said that these negotiations today (February 6, 2026) are a real attempt at de-escalation.

Content of Negotiations

But chances for some fundamental breakthrough are small, we already have a long podcast, so I’ll just briefly say what those negotiations should be about.

First that dynamic or tension is illustrated by the fact that United States called on its citizens to immediately leave Iran.

Khamenei again said that if the US attacks, that conflict will change into regional war. That’s what I indicated.

Demands of Sides

When I return to those negotiations:

USA demands:

▪️Complete removal of enriched uranium stocks – Iran is willing to negotiate about this

▪️They want to also limit the ballistic program

▪️meaning those carriers

▪️And end support for regional militias like Hezbollah, Houthis and so on

Iran still insists that it’s prepared to negotiate only about that nuclear program, but ballistic missiles and those revolutionary guards and those various clones of revolutionary guards they bred throughout that region – those proxy groups – it doesn’t want to discuss this.

Qatar, Turkey and Egypt try to somehow act as intermediaries, but we’ll see.

Development Assessment

Simply, it will be first contact, that risk is high.

My assessment is that the US will balance between what I said, that risk of large escalation, but at some moment at least some limited strike may come.

I can even imagine they would strike directly at Khamenei.

Final Quote About Negotiation

Moderator: You spoke here today twice, or several times about negotiations and I know you prepared such a negotiation quote. So tell us and say who created that quote.

Pavel Macko: So: „If you approach negotiation with the assumption that the other person thinks the same way as you, you’re wrong. It’s not about empathy, but about projection.“

And it was said by Chris Voss– he’s a popular author of several books, former chief FBI negotiator.

The post Security Radar of General Pavel Macko – 150th Edition appeared first on Pavel Macko - Bezpečnosť, Technológie, Stratégie.

#ceasefire #drone #Fico #Israel #Peace negotiations #Putin #Russia #Syria #Trump #Ukraine #USA #War in Ukraine #Zelensky

Welcome to the 128th edition of General Pavel Macko’s Security Radar.

Moderator: Welcome, Palo.

Pavel Macko: Thank you very much, I greet the listeners and wish you a pleasant extended weekend and holiday.

Moderator: And I’d like to ask one more thing – today in Banská Bystrica we commemorate the Slovak National Uprising, and I haven’t read that Robert Fico would be there, so I’m curious if he will come at all.

Pavel Macko: Well, I’m curious about that too, but I’ll be honest, I don’t even want him to go there, because a person who shows neo-Nazi gestures to support one of his prosecuted friends probably doesn’t deserve to stand on the podium.

Fog of War

Moderator: So, General, what is the development on the two main battlefields? Let’s start with Ukraine.

Pavel Macko: I’ll go straight to the point. We always start with strategic bombing, and we had the opportunity to see it yesterday. The Russians attacked furiously again, it was one of the largest attacks.

We already have 21 dead and four dozen wounded. In total, yesterday they launched:

▪️598 Shaheds and various decoys (they release decoys to blind the air defense system)

▪️31 missiles, including two Kinzhals

▪️12-13 Iskander-M or KN-23 missiles (those are Hwasong missiles from North Korea)

▪️The rest were Kalibr missiles from vessels and Kh-101 missiles from aircraft, which the Russians regularly use

This time, the primary target was Kyiv, where they hit 17 different objects in multiple districts of the city, directly in the center. We have 48 wounded here in Poznan. That was the information in the morning when I prepared the materials.

Of course, among other things, the British Council in Kyiv was also hit (that’s their representation, similar to the Polish Institute in our country) and the location of the European delegation, which, by the way, is led by Slovak citizen Katarína Mathernová, the EU Ambassador.

This means that the Russians, with precision weapons that have an accuracy of up to 5 meters, hit the representative mission of the European Union. Any coincidence is ruled out there. It was intentional to have something explode near the EU diplomatic mission. The effect was perhaps greater than the Russians originally wanted to scare those people, but that’s the principle.

It is an absolute negation of any Russian interest in peace. They systematically continued these strategic attacks. Previously on western Ukraine – we even had an attack in Mukachevo, which is a district town very close to our borders, where they attacked an American factory.

There are only three conclusions to this:

1) The Russians will escalate these attacks; they have absolutely no interest in any negotiations

2) They will increasingly focus on infrastructure

3) And this is an important conclusion – I haven’t caught the Russians declaring that the mentioned factory produced anything for the defense industry. It’s ordinary consumer electronics. It cannot be ruled out that it might also do something for the army, but the Russians would be very happy to boast about it to justify the attack on this target.

But they actually attacked this factory directly. This is proof that the presence of American companies somewhere in Ukraine is not a security guarantee. And at the same time, that Russians attack anything that can harm Ukrainians. And they don’t care at all whether it’s a military target or not. Because if that factory wasn’t involved in anything and is located on the opposite end of Ukraine, it in no way contributed to Ukrainian military potential, nor did it threaten Russian aggressive forces that have no business being in Ukraine.

Moderator: Okay, and what about the Ukrainians?

Pavel Macko: The Ukrainians, of course, are trying to respond as well, escalating their campaign. We’ve seen that they’re now really focusing on the energy industry, Russian oil refineries, but also on important railway junctions.

So the Ukrainians, in return, managed to strike near Moscow, where they actually complicated the fuel supply of Moscow itself. Most recently, they also struck 170 km north of Moscow on an important railway junction, but those were diversionary-sabotage actions. That means they blew up trains with fuel, taking that station and junction out of operation for some time.

They attacked similarly in other areas as well. For example, what we saw – at the beginning of the week they attacked one refinery, then in the middle of the week in Novoshakhtinsk, a refinery in the Rostov region, which set the area on fire. Later it was the Siziran refinery in the Samara region, and the Volgograd refinery already cyclically.

They also attacked the Druzhba oil pipeline. This, of course, was met with great displeasure from the Slovak and Hungarian governments. It should be said here that the Hungarian and Slovak Republics have seriously jeopardized their own energy security, because they are aware that a 3.5-year war has been going on in that area, that this is a legitimate target, but even accidentally it can happen that there will be damage… After all, planes don’t fly over Ukraine precisely because there is a war.

And everyone must count on the same thing, that any critical infrastructure, whether intentionally or accidentally, can become the subject of an attack, or be damaged as a result of combat activities. This happens regularly. And we are shouting about Ukrainians that they are terrorists who are defending themselves, but an explosion next to the building of the European Union diplomatic mission, where our Slovak citizens are, that’s okay?

Not to mention that this is a clear attack on the European Union, the Russians are clearly demonstrating that they will continue to dare. And this confirms what I have been saying for a long time, that if we give the Russians an opportunity, if one presents itself, they will also attack the North Atlantic Alliance and then try to de-escalate very quickly by threatening to use nuclear weapons. This is a proven Russian doctrine, it does not change, it is officially exercised, trained, written, and is also implemented by Russian state bodies and Russian political leadership.

Moderator: And I’d like to ask one more thing. Well, why don’t the Ukrainians do the same? Why don’t they start bombing Moscow?

Pavel Macko: Higher moral standard, and the second thing is, the Russians do it – first, they are supported by rogue states, criminals such as the North Korean regime or Iran, and quietly by China, which is a communist regime, although in China communism as a social system no longer rules, but communists rule there and worse, because they actually use hard profit capitalism with perverse exploitation of child labor, but at the same time, it’s simply a gang of communist party leaders who actually have totalitarian power in the country.

And those regimes of Putin and Xi Jinping are very close to each other. Russia can afford, in quotation marks, to do what it wants because it has a huge nuclear arsenal, which Ukraine gave up according to the Budapest Memorandum, and Ukraine is dependent on the help of all the rest of us. And with politicians like Fico, Orbán, but of course others who are critical now, like Polish President Nawrocky, well, Ukrainians cannot afford to do the same in that war as would be demanded, like the Russians. They simply have to maintain that higher standard.

Moderator: Well, you also mentioned some Hungarian, but that’s not a Hungarian Hungarian.

Pavel Macko: Yes, he has the nickname „Magyar“, otherwise he is a Ukrainian of Hungarian nationality, Major Robert Brovdi, he has been known for a long time. He has always been very active since the beginning of the war, he is a Ukrainian patriot. This proves that it does not depend on ethnicity, but that identification with one’s state and the willingness to defend it against an external threat is primary.

And now, it’s a complete bizarreness, because the collaborationist, anti-Hungarian, and anti-European government in Budapest has even put this ethnic Hungarian fighting for Ukraine’s freedom against external aggression on a list saying that he must not enter the Schengen area for three years. To this, the Poles, again Radek Sikorski, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland, immediately responded that they are inviting him to visit Poland and that they will ensure his safety on Polish territory, which is also in the Schengen area.

And here I’ll just remind you, it’s good that you asked about that, that Hungary is the gateway and hole for Russian agents and various murderers and arsonists who come to the European Union, because Hungary has simplified the visa regime for Russian citizens at a time when a major war is being waged here.

This means that Hungary’s rhetoric is unpleasant, it is explicitly anti-Ukrainian. Hungary also has territorial claims on Ukraine, so there is a sense of predatory interest there. I’m just shocked and fascinated by where is Slovakia’s national-state interest, because in this case with Druzhba we are talking about the government of the Slovak Republic instead of ensuring energy security, because it knows that it can happen there by accident, stubbornly promotes the interests of a private Hungarian oligarchic company, which actually controls Slovnaft. We so generously privatized it under Mečiar and then our tunnel makers quickly passed it on to a Hungarian company. And actually, one private Hungarian company is now blackmailing two states and the entire European Union because it has political cover. This is a total betrayal of national and national-security interests by Robert Fico and his government.

Continuation of Fighting in Ukraine

Moderator: Let’s go to the battlefields. How are the fights continuing? Is that Russian penetration into the Dnipropetrovsk region serious?

Pavel Macko: Of course, it’s always something worthy of attention, because the Russians are indicating that they could continue beyond those four formally annexed areas, and by doing so, they are literally exposing themselves, I would say, because they reveal those primary goals, that they would really want at least all of Left-bank Ukraine.

I’ll explain for the listeners – Left-bank, when going in the direction of the river flow, everything that is to the left or east of the Dnipro River, so from Kyiv to the east (but the Russians would probably like to get Kyiv too), all the way to the estuary is everything that the Russians would like as a minimum goal. Lavrov confirmed that he wants all of Ukraine.

But when I look at it, so far that penetration is small tactically. On the contrary, the Russians also face the risk that if they get too far, the same thing could happen to them as at Dobropillia, that Ukrainian forces will close the loop around them and they will be surrounded. But the Russians are demonstrating their determination by this.

But there is a broader context here, which I wanted to get to even with those military operations. At that tactical level, the Russians are now systematically bombing bridges across the Dnipro. This means that they are really preparing conditions for the future to disrupt the supply of Ukrainian forces. If they happen to achieve a breakthrough, whether in the Donbas or somewhere else, so that they can advance as quickly as possible to the Dnipro River and to those large population centers of Zaporizhzhia and the city of Dnipro.

This is not imminent yet. When I make a roundup:

▪️In the north, intense fighting, but no change in situation or positions, I mean, whether in Kursk, Sumy, or Kharkiv regions

▪️When we look at Kupiansk, they attacked Sinkivka again. I’ll explain this because until now we’ve been talking about them being beyond the Oskil River in the north, near Kupiansk, where they created such a bridgehead. They are not succeeding in continuing further, so they are again increasing pressure on the opposite bank of the river, just on the northern outskirts of that town of Kupiansk, where Sinkivka is right in the way. So they attacked there now, but those attacks were repelled

▪️When we look at those other directions, Lyman, Toretsk, there are intense battles, attacks were repelled

▪️The situation around Pokrovsk is serious, but it is stabilized. The Ukrainians eliminated that Dobropillia penetration, but that is actually east of Dobropillia. The Ukrainians eliminated this and the situation is more or less static.

Only the Russian pressure is escalating in terms of aerial bombs and other materials. Otherwise, there is no significant breakthrough from either side. We also saw yesterday intensive bombing by Ukraine, whether by drones, even by gliding bombs, of Russian positions along the southern front, in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

If this continued longer, we would start monitoring it intensively, because it could also indicate that Ukrainians might try to change the situation in this area, but so far it rather looks like it’s preventive.

Moderator: And it’s in the Kharkiv region, not in the Kherson region?

Pavel Macko: I said Kharkiv, I apologize. It’s in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, because I was talking about the south. And it’s exactly there that they attacked their bases, their warehouses, even trains with fuels. And it seems to me that at this moment I would assess it as prevention. Simply put, they are trying to reduce the Russians‘ capacity and strength so that they don’t happen to think about another attack or another offensive in the south.

Middle East

Moderator: The Middle East. Why hasn’t a ceasefire agreement been reached so far? How is the situation developing there?

Pavel Macko: The situation there is of course complicated, there are a lot of emotions around it, as well as many contradictory reactions from politicians on the international scene and the media. Of course, those media, when it’s Al Jazeera, is strongly pro-Palestinian, always looking at it from their angle, then there are international media that try to be objective, then there are Israeli media, which even when they are opposed to Netanyahu, portray the situation a bit differently. So it’s difficult to navigate sometimes.

Currently this week, what happened in the last few days – Hamas formally said that it publicly accepts the Qatari-Egyptian proposal for a 60-day ceasefire, where they would actually also release roughly half of those hostages.

Meanwhile, however, Israel has already approved the plan that we discussed here – a five-phase plan. Now the first phase is running, and that is a plan to conquer the Gaza Strip, to completely control Gaza City and Jabalia, which should complete Israeli control over this area, and then in further phases, the Israelis intend to clean it up, but at the same time later hand over control to some authority other than Hamas.

Why was no agreement reached? Israel first demonstrated that it is capable and ready to carry out that operation. The most intensive phase is to begin no later than October 7th. The preparatory phase is already running, which means that evacuation has occurred, people are being resettled, and at the same time Israel is tightening the noose, which means there is intensive bombing of Hamas positions.

In this area, they have not yet entered with the main force into that space, but they are creating such a closure around that city. To one side, they are letting refugees into camps that are being prepared in the more southern area, and at the same time, they are trying to increase pressure on Hamas.

Quite logically, an agreement was not reached because Israel, in a situation when Netanyahu got approval for this plan, and they also completed that detailed military operational plan last week, wants to increase pressure, because this is just another delaying step from Hamas. Israel wants to resolve it now.

Meanwhile, pressure is increasing to address the humanitarian situation that exists there. The losses are also escalating, and we have also seen large demonstrations in Israel. Because family members are impatient. This is understandable, but there is also the other side of the coin, which says that Hamas has not offered to return your relatives. He offered that part of them, mostly the dead and some of the living, will be returned. And that means, what will happen after those 60 days? The conflict will continue again.

It’s a difficult situation. When we look at the international scene as well, there is strong criticism, largely justified, of the way those operations are conducted by Israel. On the other hand, there is strong support from the United States.

Moderator: And the Czech Republic.

Pavel Macko: I know that, but militarily it’s not that significant.

Moderator: What’s happening in Syria, Lebanon, or in the Red Sea?

Pavel Macko: In Lebanon, the effort to disarm Hezbollah continues. At the same time, we know that next year the mandate of those UNIFIL units will end. And Lebanon, quite logically, in an effort to avoid a larger conflict with Israel, is trying to disarm Hezbollah instead.

Now is the opportune time, because conditions are not favorable for Hezbollah in Syria either. Iran is – I don’t want to say weakened, but certainly its influence is not what it was before, and it has other concerns. It needs to recover from the blow that was dealt to it several weeks ago.

When we look at Syria, the consequences of that conflict in Suwayda are still being addressed. That’s in the southern province, where there were attacks on Druze and fighting between Druze and Bedouins, in which government troops got involved. Israel responded to this. This week we saw strikes from Israel that were on the positions of some Syrian units near Damascus. Behind this is the fact that Israel had some of its reconnaissance-observation and eavesdropping devices, which these troops also attacked. So Israel was cleaning it up there.

The Syrian army – it is not a compact unit. There were various armed factions there, which tried to integrate Kurds in the north. In the south, they integrated various tribes. Today’s president was previously a leader from that main group, which overthrew the government of Damascus with finality. He is trying to integrate it, but we are talking about more than two dozen different groups there. Israel still suspects some of them of being too closely connected with Hezbollah and is trying to eliminate this threat.

I’ll also mention, since the Houthis attacked Israel again, and that was around August 22nd, that’s last time, if we were recording the radar, they sent rockets to Israel, cluster rockets with cluster munitions. And to this, of course, Israeli planes struck back at locations in Sanaa and in other areas at warehouses with fuels and weapons. This means that Israel is responding to this and trying to maintain the safety of navigation in the Red Sea, but mainly to respond to these Houthi attacks.

Strategic Backstage

Moderator: Today I read such an article that the German Chancellor declared that there will be no meeting between Zelensky and Putin. So, the German Chancellor is apparently well informed and knows well what is happening. Palo, what is the state of those preparations for negotiations between Zelensky and Putin?

Pavel Macko: What I’ve been indicating before is being fulfilled, even when we were with Martin Svarovsky at your place in that video, that it will eventually be decided elsewhere. The Russians are looking for pretexts to prevent Putin and Zelensky from meeting. We now saw that attack on Kyiv.

Lavrov has again confirmed that the conditions are not there for it. Putin is willing to meet with Zelensky even when he has in his hands an agreement with which he will definitely agree. At the moment, Putin feels that such an agreement should be the unconditional surrender of Ukraine. Of course, Ukraine not only doesn’t feel up to that, but it can’t do that either.

The latest news also includes those security guarantees about which the Russians spoke so „positively“ and vaguely in Alaska. I have pointed out in several other interviews that we are amateurs even at the highest diplomatic level, that we don’t want to read those nuances. When the Russians say something, what is the nuance there, one needs to weigh not just every word, but every comma, period, and accent mark, because it can completely change the meaning.

The Russians actually just needed to gain time. They are trying to play a big strategic game with the United States and with President Trump, where Putin is gaining the upper hand, because Trump does not have the strength and determination to use the tools he has. He still thinks that for some big deal he will get the Nobel Peace Prize. Of course, he won’t get anything, and the conflict continues.

Trump has now approached India more strongly and increased those secondary tariffs to 50%. That’s a kind of selective approach, because he doesn’t have this resolved with China, but on the other hand, it’s at least an indication that in a situation when the Nobel Peace Prize is not in sight, and he looks like a loser in these negotiations, he has to do something and does what is logical. And there is also talk about some sale of longer-range missiles.

Let’s wait, because we’ll find out when those missiles are already flying. There is, of course, such controversy that meanwhile they were restricting the use of longer-range weapons on Russian territory, but there is also some disharmony between the Ministry of Defense and Trump himself, because that has already happened once with the export of those weapons that had already been approved by the previous government to Ukraine.

When I return to the core of the question – the Russians do not want to negotiate, and most recently they said that under no circumstances do they want security guarantees that would consist of having some troops from NATO member countries. They will not accept that.

This means that the fight will continue to the total exhaustion of one side or the other, and we have to think carefully about what we will do. I mean we collectively, the West including Slovakia, although I give the Slovak government zero chance of helping anything. On the contrary, it is capable of carrying out sabotage against Ukrainians, but at least it has been doing political diversion for a long time.

But it can be expected that it will have to come to increased supplies for Ukraine. Ukraine must withstand this. I don’t quite understand the Russian strategy, because for example this attack on Kyiv was senseless, because they had a far greater number of militarily more significant targets they could attack, and simply they are trying to continue conducting that psychological warfare.

But by doing so, they are actually undermining their efforts. Really that Russian warning finger, that caution, we can also hit your European mission, even that is not safe. That is completely before any efforts for a ceasefire, which paradoxically can unite the EU except for exceptions of these two countries.

Moderator: I heard that Erdogan is preparing some steel dome in Turkey. Is it some kind of equivalent to that Israeli Iron Dome? Or what is it actually about?

Pavel Macko: At the very least, by that naming, because they called it Steel Dome, they are trying to imitate something. Iron Dome is iron as such, and Steel is this hardened iron, which is steel. They deliberately chose that name – Golden Dome was also invented by President Trump.

Turkey previously bought S-400 from the Russians, that didn’t meet with much response. Most recently, it has turned out that the Triumf system is not such a triumph as many would imagine.

Turkey, which by the way, and I wrote about it, and I’ll give advertisement to the continuation of that saga about drones, so in the magazine .týždeň in the latest issue I wrote that Turkey is one of the strong players in the field of military drones and is trying to build something like air sovereignty. After seeing that it is occasionally the subject of some sanctions, because we know that they were excluded from the F-35 program, temporarily also from F-16. They regained that with the nod to the entry of Finland and Sweden, that they will be able to maintain F-16 in an operational state.

This week they presented a system, which is actually something similar, but Iron Dome. That Israeli system is a short-range system and is also for such high intensity of those artillery shells and for lower targets and for rockets, but not for that long distance. This Turkish system is from Turkish manufacturers, they also use their own rockets there. Its plus is that it’s quite an interesting solution according to what is publicly available. It is also designed against drones.

This means that it already reacts, the development is such that this integrated complex system of medium and short range responds to drones and can similarly up to those 30, maximum 50 kilometers act also against rockets. This means that it is also an anti-missile shield.

They should also protect the area around the Dardanelles, Bosphorus, where it is absolutely key infrastructure. It’s such a combination. They have ground stations, they have mobile launchers, 47 launchers. It’s in the first package they put together. But there is also a combination of radars, sensors, both on land and at sea. This means also from naval platforms. And some firing means are also from naval platforms. So I will definitely follow it.

Moderator: But the Turks must not find out that you’re watching it.

Pavel Macko: But no. They know that it is being watched by more significant people than me. And therefore they kept the details relatively secret, because parameters of such a system are commonly given. The Turks kept them secret. This means we don’t really know what the reach, range is there.

Slovak National Uprising and Its Legacy

Moderator: We have already mentioned the 81st anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising in the introduction. At this very time, when we are recording the podcast, the speaker of parliament and the president should already be speaking in Banská Bystrica. We still don’t know if Prime Minister Fico is there as well. So we’ll see when we finish recording this podcast. What would you like to say about the Slovak National Uprising?

Pavel Macko: It seems almost absurd to me that this gang of semi-fascists goes to honor the Slovak National Uprising. They stole the Slovak National Uprising from the Slovak nation. It was appropriated by extremists whose rhetoric is purely neo-Nazi, or then extreme.

A prime minister who, in support of some Bombic or Danny Kollár, shows a White Power gesture, or some right-wing extremist gestures, which are very close to fascism. That’s just something that’s terrible. When you take everything they do, who they ally with, that they’re also thinking about integration with Republika, that they already count on them as a future possible partner, given that Andrej Danko is not able to deliver some MPs, even last time he brought such nobodies there to parliament, and he remained the only one from the Slovak National Party, so it’s bad.

But I’ll put it in context. What do I want to convey? First, I want to greet all the still living veterans of the Slovak National Uprising who fought. When I was still serving, at one of the previous anniversaries I had the honor to present medals to 793 of them on behalf of the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces as a deputy chief of the general staff. Unfortunately, it is natural with that age, most of them are no longer alive, there remain just a few. Some of them are active, some less so, but respect and honor belong to all of them.

The message of the Slovak National Uprising is, in my opinion, underappreciated and also profaned by what we just talked about, but also by attacks of such as the Kotleba people, who not so long ago were hanging a black flag on the county office in Banská Bystrica on the anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising.

It should be said, because there will now be many historians talking, and there will be many outputs on this uprising, that that’s why we also left out World War II today. But I’m not going to analyze the uprising itself in detail either. But I want to say, it was an uprising of the Slovak nation, it wasn’t just a handful of rebels. It was that healthy part of the nation, which stood up primarily against domestic fascists, against the domestic regime, which collaborated with Nazi Germany.

And of course the uprising was prepared for a long time. It was then finally accelerated, in the end there was a betrayal, so it had to take place earlier than planned, there was no synchronization of the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps, the Soviet army, that they should pass through Dukla and start liberating the territory as quickly as possible together with those two East Slovak divisions, which were actually supposed to let those troops through.

What was essential was that it was primarily an uprising against one’s own domestic Ludak regime, where that healthy part of the Slovak nation rejected this totalitarian regime, which murdered its citizens and even paid for it to Nazi Germany in Reich marks for each killed Jew or Roma. That is something incredible.

The message is also in the fact that they fought. Despite knowing that they were going against overwhelming odds, they fought. They also fought against the Nazis, but it wasn’t a pure uprising just against the Nazis, it was an uprising against a regime that was then supported by the Nazis and who then, when they saw that the regime might collapse, also decided on a massive occupation of Slovakia. But the cause and effect were clear there – the primary cause was dissatisfaction with this regime, which was a pro-Nazi regime.

These heroes, whom I still salute, and the government of moderation and others, proved that one should not say that one must not fight against overwhelming odds. Because we’re now hearing from our government representatives that the occupier will leave one day. No, they stood up and started fighting, because they knew that it was important to stand up to evil, and that when that evil uses weapons, you have to stand up to it with a weapon in your hand.

Today, these government representatives, in a forum other than that podium in Banská Bystrica, would probably say that they were some charlatans who fought instead of capitulating and unnecessarily prolonged losses and war. It’s the opposite. Simply put, there are moments when one needs to resist, and fortunately, the Slovak nation had this moment in that uprising, and it is one of the strongest historical moments. Our nation stood up against evil and did not look at whether they had a chance to win or not. It simply stood up because it was the right thing to do, and therefore I think we should value the message of this uprising.

The current situation is bad and is coming to a head, so we need to say again what all the bad things were that the insurgents rebelled against. What all happened after the suppression of the uprising, that Slovak citizens also participated in it, or mainly in some cases, and what rhetoric they used to discredit these insurgents. What rhetoric some politicians use today to discredit democracy in Slovakia or to discredit Ukraine’s effort to survive under the pressure of external aggression.

360°

Moderator: What’s on your radar?

Pavel Macko: I would mention two things. First, Taiwan and again Africa. Unfortunately.

Moderator: And why Taiwan again?

Pavel Macko: Chinese military exercises are currently taking place around Taiwan. It’s called „Joint Sword“ or „Common Sword“ in that strait. These are Chinese military maneuvers. They were launched last week on August 26th. They continued for several days and practiced a blockade of Taiwan. Precise strikes on key targets.

In short, they wanted to demonstrate that when they decide militarily, they are able to block maritime routes in that strait – the Taiwan Strait. That is the area between Taiwan and mainland China. They also had their own aircraft carrier there. They involved fighter planes and the coast guard there.

One should also mention the political context here. Beijing again labeled the Taiwanese president as a parasite and declared that as soon as he will push for complete independence of Taiwan, that means war.

It is strategically important for us. We’ve already discussed it here in that Taiwan is one of the key manufacturers, a completely dominant manufacturer of semiconductors. Today we can’t move without semiconductors. In one such better upper-middle class car, e.g., in a German one, there are 37-40 thousand different electronic components, while Taiwan produces:

▪️100% of advanced chips for artificial intelligence

▪️More than 90% of advanced chips overall

▪️60% of all semiconductors.

Moderator: Okay, and what about Africa?

Pavel Macko: Well, in Africa, Sudan. We haven’t talked about it for a long time. And that conflict really isn’t subsiding, but is escalating. On one hand, there is a complex situation in Darfur. The Sudanese army and those RSF forces or Rapid Support Forces, or rapid reaction forces, rapid support, are fighting there. Those are those rebellious generals who have their own agenda.

And actually, the siege of the capital in Darfur has been going on for a long time. The fighting continues intensively, recently those government troops have seemingly partially gained the upper hand. On the other hand, we see that in the eastern part there are other rebel groups, which the Sudanese government accuses of being fed and supported by Eritrean forces and politicians.

The situation is deteriorating. If we last talked about 5.6 million internally displaced refugees, today we are talking about 10.8 million people. With that, 25 million people have problems with nutrition and food, who are in immediate danger of famine breaking out.

Of course, the international community is not able to somehow organize, suppress this. That conflict is too strong, we don’t have the capacity and probably not the will to go into such a conflict, because it has already been experienced in Somalia, when in the early 90s those fights were taking place between individual factions. The Americans, when they came to help, in the end it ended with the retreat after the fall of that Black Hawk, because those conflicts are very complicated.

Always, when an external player comes there, and it doesn’t matter what kind of international unit, so always the problem is then that in the end somehow the domestic hostile factions group against external forces. So I mention that conflict because RSF tried to declare as if a competing government. The UN Security Council rejected it against that government, because actually there is still a threat of the disintegration of Sudan.

In a situation when we see that that whole sub-Saharan belt, we talked about it last time, is already in disarray, so this is a further deterioration of the situation. A conflict that has been going on since April 2023 has also exceeded more than two and a quarter years.

Moderator: Unfortunately, the Russians are also meddling in their own way in this conflict. Why? Is it so?

Pavel Macko: Unfortunately, in that we see that the Russians are daring, and that they are that source of instability in the world. And there isn’t even any ideology behind it anymore, just ordinary, God-forsaken stealing and plundering of resources.

Moderator: We’re at the quote, so we’re at the end. Sorry, Palo, let me intervene.

Radovan Macko (publishing director): I would like to announce to our listeners that we are planning to come to them. I’ll interrupt you again. This, who is speaking, is Macko, but not the general. It’s Rado Macko and he’s the publishing director.

I am now announcing an important message to you. Dear listeners, we are coming to you this time on September 12th. We will be broadcasting our security radar with General Pavel Macko at Cinematic in Piešťany at 5:30 PM. We cordially invite you and look forward to seeing you.

Pavel Macko: I am also looking forward to it and will be on the road directly. I will be returning from France, where I have some lectures, but I will be even more motivated to get to the domestic audience.

Quote

Moderator: So, a quote. We mentioned the Slovak National Uprising. Today is a holiday, the anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising. I suggested that it wasn’t just a small group of people. That it wasn’t even just a communist uprising, as it was then profaned during socialism, that the communists appropriated that uprising.

Pavel Macko: So I’ll allow myself such a quote from Kornel Filo, a member of the Slovak National Council for the Democratic Party from 1946:

I must emphasize that this was truly and in all consequences a nationwide uprising, a spontaneous explosion of the entire Slovak nation against Nazi neo-paganism, oppression and enslavement. That part of the nation, which our ill-wishers today so gladly label as reactionary, participated in this national uprising. On the fronts of the Slovak National Uprising, ladies and gentlemen, up to 60,000 Slovak Catholics fought.

See also:

General Pavel Macko’s Security Radar 127 – Pavel Macko – Bezpečnosť, Technológie, Stratégie

General Pavel Macko’s Security Radar 126 – Pavel Macko – Bezpečnosť, Technológie, Stratégie

General Pavel Macko’s Security Radar – episode 125 – Pavel Macko – Bezpečnosť, Technológie, Stratégie

The post General Pavel Macko’s Security Radar 128 appeared first on Pavel Macko - Bezpečnosť, Technológie, Stratégie.

The possible warming of relations and ending of the war from the Trump-Putin summit in cold Alaska quickly cooled down. Allies are discussing security guarantees, which however will not be according to NATO’s Article 5. Hamas would now agree to a temporary ceasefire, but Israel already has a military operation plan.

#France #Macko #Peace negotiations #Putin #Russia #security guarantees #security radar #Trump #UK #Ukraine #USA #War in Ukraine #Zelensky

Transcript of a popular podcast prepader together with the weekly .týždeň.

Moderator: Welcome to listening to the 127th edition of General Pavel Macko’s Security Radar. Welcome, General.

General Macko: Thank you very much, pleasant listening.

Fog of War: Developments in Ukraine

Moderator: What is the development on the two main battlefields? Let’s start with Ukraine.

General Macko: I’ll start traditionally, let’s go to the strategic bombing. Despite intensive negotiations taking place at all possible levels and diplomatic messages, the clearest message of how the Russians mean it was precisely by sending missiles and drones to Ukraine. This makes it clear to everyone what they are after – to drag out time.

The most massive attack was on the night of August 20, where they hit Lviv, Mukachevo, Lutsk, attacking mainly western Ukraine. In Mukachevo, just a few kilometers from the Slovak and Hungarian borders, they attacked an American factory. This is also an answer to those who say that when the United States will mine minerals there, it will be a sufficient security guarantee. This resonated sometime after February, but it’s not like that.

They also attacked the Pavlohrad Mechanical Plant. The Russians still declare that they destroyed stocks of Sapsan missiles. I don’t know that, Ukraine of course doesn’t confirm it anywhere.

Similar to how Ukrainians recently showed the Flamingo missile… In this case, it’s better to stick to the principle „don’t shout hop until you’ve jumped“. Why? It’s clear that Zelensky needs to say such things to boost the morale of his own population and soldiers. But here it’s better to maintain operational security. Russian intelligence services have indications, but they never have precise information, we shouldn’t give it to them.

It’s not good to hint at what I have and what I can do with it. If the Ukrainians wanted to create a real psychological shock, they should have fired that Flamingo at a proper Russian base. It is said that they have already done so, but probably not yet.

The point is that the first moment of surprise is key. Flamingo is a large missile with a large radar signature. It’s a subsonic missile that flies like a cruise missile. This means it will be detectable by Russian systems. The Ukrainians should have done exactly what the Russians do – release a large swarm of drones, confuse Russian systems, and in between send them one proper hit.

We’ll see if the Ukrainians will use those Sapsan or Grim-2 ballistic missiles. Russian claims about their destruction are probably a hoax, just like claims that they destroyed twice as many HIMARS as were ever delivered to Ukraine. And despite that, HIMARS are still firing.

Ukrainian Counterattacks

When we look at the Ukrainian side, of course Ukraine also tried to return these attacks and was relatively successful. They had a massive drone attack from the night of August 19 to 20. The Russians claimed they didn’t cause damage, but independent sources report infrastructure damage in several places.

The Volgograd oil refinery and the railway station in Voronezh were attacked again. Something exploded in the Ivanovo region. Ukrainian intelligence claims that Konstantin Nagayko, the Russian commander responsible for the attack on Kharkiv, was injured in an explosion. It was probably an action by Ukrainian intelligence services.

Summary of the Situation

To summarize, my comment would be that the Russians are dragging out peace negotiations (they claim they no longer want a ceasefire, only peace) and currently, from a strategic bombing perspective, they are concentrating on Ukraine’s industrial base. They are trying to undermine it to the maximum extent possible and intersperse it with attacks on the civilian population. Of course, as winter approaches, they will again concentrate on energy infrastructure to take away their breath.

Developments on the Battlefields

Moderator: How are the Ukrainians doing? Did they manage to stop the breakthrough at Dobropillya?

General Macko: It looks like yes. That initial hit was very successful. This means that Ukrainian forces brought in reinforcements, divided the Russian formation into several parts, but couldn’t completely finish it off. The Russians are of course reinforcing it, but the Ukrainians…

We don’t have a visual aid, of course, we’re in the radio version, but imagine something like an oval with an arm coming out of it – like when you inflate a glove and a thumb sticks out. That was the protrusion at Dobropillya. The Ukrainians blocked it, divided it into several parts, but now they are trying to further attack the base from which that protrusion came, to release the „steam“ from this area.

The Ukrainians are relatively successful at this. It is true that the Russians have the 8th Combined Arms Army there, they have the 51st Combined Arms Army, they attacked there with elements of at least three brigades. Of course, the forces are thin on both sides. If we’re talking about a brigade, it’s certainly not 3,500-7,000 soldiers, because Ukrainians had even larger brigades than the Russians. But the Russians are pushing reinforcements there because they know exactly that if they lose momentum there, they won’t be able to threaten the rest of Donbas.

So now it has stabilized a bit, but it’s basically a success for the Ukrainians – they contained it, pushed back. They also had a small success around Pokrovsk, where for the first time they cleared the interior of Pokrovsk from sabotage reconnaissance groups and slightly its surroundings as well.

On the other hand, the Russians slightly advanced in the vicinity of Chasiv Yar and Toretsk. Not that they would control those cities, but they got a bit further beyond them. They slightly advanced by one settlement in the Dnipropetrovsk region, but from the Russians‘ perspective, this is probably propaganda, suggesting that they could attack in that direction as well.

The last thing I would like to mention – there are signals emerging that the Russians could shift pressure, since they’re not succeeding directly in Donbas, more to the Zaporizhzhia region, to the southern front.

Addition to Dobropillya

General Macko: I have just one note about that. I caught quite a good analysis from the Czech profile Perun. They are guys who have been working with drones for a longer time. They talked about why the breakthrough at Dobropillya happened – the Ukrainians thinned out the defensive lines there. We discussed this a few episodes back, we said that instead of a continuous line, they created „strongholds“ or support points with drone operators.

But of course, the other side also reacts. The Russians have a unit and system called Rubikon, which we also discussed. They use Rubikon in such a way that they don’t attack directly just the first line, but mainly the supply routes, convoys, and destroy the troops‘ supplies. This proved successful for them in the Kursk region, and that’s why the Ukrainians eventually withdrew. They had good terrain there, but it also had a disadvantage – it was channelized, they had only a few valleys and roads through which supplies could be delivered.

Now it’s interesting that NATO has also started building a drone wall or drone barrier in the Baltics. The wall alone is not enough. It needs to be said that you always need a combination of means. In the end, war is always about will, and there must also be a soldier with will.

Moderator: When you mention drones, everyone imagines only those that fly, but now I notice that Ukrainians use many ground drones. Is that real?

General Macko: It is real. I’ll also do a bit of advertising for the weekly, because I started writing a series about drones. This issue contains the history of drones, which might surprise many – drones go back to the First World War. So it’s nothing new.

I recommend getting the latest issue of the weekly. But to return to the question – yes, Ukrainians are significantly progressing with ground drones. They were successful with naval ones, they cleared the Black Sea Fleet from Crimea, and now they are more significantly deploying ground drones.

My conclusion from this is that it’s important. The battlefield is becoming more technological, nobody can stop that, but in the end, every war is a battle of wills. Where there is will, those defend themselves. When we don’t have will, no technology will help us.

Middle East

Moderator: Let’s move to the Middle East. How is the situation developing there? Hamas allegedly already agrees with a 60-day ceasefire. I’ll allow myself an assessment – it’s certainly the result of Israeli pressure that they agree.

General Macko: Definitely, because Israel announced that it’s no longer going to negotiate. They approved the decision to go and occupy the rest of Gaza. We discussed those goals and stages in detail last time. Last week, Israel started planning a detailed military plan. They had a strategic plan, which we discussed, and the detailed military plan, which I hinted at last time, Israel has now announced that they have completed it.

The Americans pressed Hamas or the Palestinians to engage in negotiations. Hamas announced that it is ready to negotiate. Because they said they are ready for another 60-day ceasefire.

Netanyahu, of course, said: „You know what, we’ve already decided and we’re going to strike you, we have a military plan.“ Netanyahu has now suspended those operations, but again, it’s more of a negotiating strategy, a communication strategy, because militarily he already has things prepared. After all, we all know that those measures were set up so that only preparatory military activities are to take place now. The main task is only from October 7, because they said they would start at the earliest on October 7, and they would also symbolically start the sharp combat phase on the anniversary of Hamas‘ attack from October 7, 2023.

So now these are the so-called „shaping operations“ or „forming operations“, where they are building conditions… On August 8, they already issued an evacuation order for people to leave Jabalia and Gaza City. Now logistical infrastructure is being built in the south. So regardless of what Netanyahu said, the main combat operations would not have started anyway. But he created space and pressure on Hamas by that: „You know what, this is the last chance, we’ll suspend it, and this is the last chance for you to come to an agreement. We won’t go and kill all of you, but you won’t be in power anymore, you must leave the Gaza Strip, there will be some other authority instead of you, and you must demilitarize.“

And they don’t want that. They don’t want it because again the trick with the two-month ceasefire is: „Okay, so out of those 50 hostages, we might return 30 dead ones and 10 live ones, and we’ll keep those 10 again and we’ll drag out time again.“

Despite all the criticism of Israel at this moment, it’s good that Israel is pretending to be more restrained and wants to wait and see what Hamas actually agrees to. And if it doesn’t meet its parameters, it will pressure them: „Okay, I’ll pull out not from the drawer, but from those topographic pouches, the battle plans, and we’ll go and finish it.“ Or we’ll agree in such a way that we won’t have to negotiate on another ceasefire, that this will already be a permanent ceasefire.

We’ll see how it develops, but in the meantime, during that week, exactly what happened was that they completed that military plan. Operational and tactical planning has some time sequence. I’ve been dealing with this for years, also at allied levels. Those large contours of the plan were clear, different alternatives, so-called „branch plans“ – branching of plans, what will be if… – to calculate all possible reactions. And Israel has now completed this.

Meanwhile, some security operations continued. There was bombing again in southern Lebanon. Here I just remind that Lebanon is disarming Hezbollah. The Lebanese government has issued clear instructions to disarm Hezbollah.

Netanyahu appears a bit controversial, with his tough talk and speaking about Greater Israel. That’s fine to some extent, but what disturbs me, and maybe it’s counterproductive, is the further expansion of settlements in the West Bank, because it will provoke further reactions that divert attention from the core of the problem, which is now in Gaza.

Moderator: I would like to ask about those settlements, because to laypeople like me, it sounds like: „Well, they’ll build a few houses there, so what? What could bother anyone about that?“ What is the principle issue with building those settlements?

General Macko: The principle is that the West Bank, according to the original UN resolutions when the state of Israel was created, was assigned to the Arabs. After the Arabs expelled… we were saying here that Israel, when it was established, had about 750,000 inhabitants. And the Arabs in that first Arab-Israeli war, when Czechoslovakia was still supplying weapons and aircraft to Israel for it to survive at all, in response to their being unsuccessful in that war and not destroying the state of Israel, expelled 850,000 Jews from their countries where Jews had lived for centuries. That’s more than the population of Israel itself.

So the Israelis placed them on their territory, but it was dense there and there isn’t water everywhere. In the desert, it’s not easy. So these Israelis, for at least 20 years, or Jews, were in refugee camps. Many established settlements, they said: „Okay, when you expelled them from your countries and we no longer have space in what was allocated to us,“ so they established settlements and settled those Jews also in territories originally assigned to Arabs and built some settlements there.

Now it’s controversial because if some two-state solution is to be made in the future, then Israeli settlers, when there is suitable land, want to go there and they go into the risk that they will be in that hot cauldron with a population that doesn’t want them there, and they still build settlements there.

It’s exactly like when the Russians bring their own people everywhere… That’s why it’s controversial, because it disrupts the compactness of the territory, and the Arabs fear that in the future, when there is some arrangement, Israel will also claim that part of the territory because it already has settlements there.

Strategic Backstage: Trump-Putin Negotiations

Moderator: Since the last radar, the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska took place, followed by Zelensky’s negotiations with Western leaders in Washington. It even looked like a trilateral Putin-Trump-Zelensky meeting could take place this week. But I didn’t believe it at all. But it’s starting to get complicated again. How do you personally evaluate that development? You certainly see it through slightly different eyes than we laypeople.

General Macko: What we more or less agreed on with Martin Swarovsky, when we were last at your place in a joint video before the negotiations, is being fulfilled – that we don’t have great expectations from these negotiations.

Why? Because I also have to look at the symptoms that accompany it. If you give an ultimatum to someone like Putin, and then you yourself send your emissaries, that was Witkoff, who went to Moscow two days before the ultimatum expired, and that meeting in Alaska was arranged, which is fine…

I also supported it, because the United States, unlike our Minister of Foreign Affairs or Prime Minister, have that displacement and are the player that can contribute to ending the conflict. They have all the tools for which the Russians would have to think whether they want to go into confrontation with the United States, or they realize that they cannot win that war anyway, so it’s better to end it.

The problem is that when you send negotiators and then the ultimatum expires and despite that, the Russians don’t agree to a ceasefire, you’re sending a signal that you don’t have the will to continue and bring things to an end. It could have been done like this: „Okay, we’ll negotiate in Alaska, but a ceasefire must occur by August 8, and when it doesn’t… then we won’t negotiate.“ Or: „We’ll negotiate, but when a ceasefire doesn’t happen, I’ll impose sanctions in the meantime, and when we agree in the negotiations, I can suspend or cancel them, but since I’ve given an ultimatum once, I must keep it.“

Otherwise, we teach the opponent that we are not so determined, we are not so decided, and therefore they will drag out time with us. And that’s exactly what happened.

I laconically noted on social network X that the problem today is that the Russians have nothing, but they have a lot of vodka and will. And we have almost everything, but we don’t have that will. And therefore, in the end, not our economic strength, not the military strength of the collective West, not Ukrainian determination, but Russian will to continue in that war will prevail, and the Russians will drag out time.

So very briefly: In Alaska, there were indications that the negotiations could lead to a result, but neither side said the complete details. The good news was that Trump, after Merz and company intensively negotiated with him before, and Zelensky too, doesn’t dare to accept something right away, but he didn’t want to appear as the bad one who would a priori accept Russian demands. That’s why he adjourned it and said that we’re almost close to an agreement, but… this is a quote: „Until everything is agreed, nothing is agreed.“ That’s what President Trump said at that press conference, where he gave the first word to Putin.

Then he said he would consult with allies. He consulted with allies, the allies even with Zelensky traveled to the White House. Those negotiations were constructive, but with two major strategic conclusions:

1) The first was that the US will not provide troops for potential security guarantees. What is leaking, although no one will confirm it to you, is that more or less internally, the United States is reconciled with the fact that Ukraine will have to cede territory – but not just any territory for any territory, but Donbas, that it will have to cede. And that is the „Fortress Donbass“ or „Donbass fortress“, which has been fought over not for 3.5 years, but for 11 years.

I’ll remind you that when that Russian war started, the Russians occupied, with those so-called rebels, who were actually members of the Russian intelligence service, or Wagner Group members, or „soldiers on vacation“ (Russian soldiers on vacation), also Sloviansk. Ukrainian forces conquered it and pushed them out, and that’s when they built that strong defense in Donbas. And that was also Lysychansk, that was also Severodonetsk, which later fell. Then Bakhmut also fell, but they still have that rampart, fortification, and those economically important cities.

So the Ukrainians cannot surrender this, because firstly, the Russians were not able to conquer it militarily. Maybe they will gain it in 10 years, but until then, if the West did exactly what it should, Russia would collapse and economically would have to accept other conditions.

So it was said that the United States does not support Ukraine in NATO. Well, strategically, they probably agreed with Putin: „We won’t provoke you, you need guarantees.“ Putin himself said in Alaska that Ukraine also needs guarantees. So it was agreed that they would agree. And that’s always such… I say that what happens behind the scenes is important.

Western allies, since they knew that the United States would not go into direct confrontation, that they don’t have too much will to push for sanctions, and that at the same time Trump is impatient and wants to have it over with as quickly as possible, so they said they would give security guarantees. And those were then negotiated during the week.

So if it won’t be Article 5, we all knew that Ukraine cannot be admitted to NATO now during the war, but until the last moment, not only Jens Stoltenberg, but also the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, assured that it’s only a matter of time before Ukraine will be in NATO. And now we’re deviating and saying that we’ll give it other security guarantees.

I don’t want to say I don’t believe them, but it’s important for Putin to believe it. Because if something is to deter you, you must be convinced that the other side will do it. I’ll translate it for laypeople: If we say that we’ll give security guarantees such that peace will be agreed and we’ll put troops there to supervise the implementation of the agreement and the Russians will also know about it, then the Russians would have to agree with it, because otherwise they won’t sign the peace or it will be a pretext for them to continue the war.

Theoretically, we wouldn’t have to ask the Russians. But it would have to be credible, because all those security guarantees lie in the fact that it doesn’t matter whether you put 5,000 or 500,000 soldiers there. In the end, it must be that if after the conclusion of peace, Russia attacks Ukraine again, those who provide security guarantees go to war with Russia. I don’t mean by that that they go to destroy Moscow, but at minimum they will go into a sharp war with it to kick it out of Ukraine. And until Putin has the feeling that this is absolutely guaranteed, he won’t believe it.

2) The second thing is the United States, and here I will be positive towards the United States. The United States said they won’t put troops on the ground. It’s quite logical, because it’s really the case that we, Europe, have the primary interest in security in Ukraine. And therefore quite logically, J.D. Vance, with whom I don’t have to agree on everything, says: „So put your own troops then.“

But the United States must have a firm commitment, even if they won’t have a commitment in Article 5 to Ukraine, they must have a firm commitment to their allies. And they also said that they will support us from the air. And that air support can be logistical. They have a huge transport fleet, so they can quickly bring in supplies and reinforcements for allied troops.

It can also be combat. They have combat aircraft, we’ve seen that they can, with those aircraft carriers and aircraft they have in Europe today, and with tankers they can bring in, get to that area very quickly. They can maintain what they maintained over Iran – continuity of combat operations. Not that we fly for 3 minutes, fire a missile, and have to land. They can keep aircraft in the air, they can create continuous pressure, they have means like long-range missiles and the like. So theoretically, they could do it.

And now we see Russia’s reaction – at this moment, Russia is starting to speculate. They say that China should also be in those security guarantees. Logically, it seems fine. On the other hand, we in Europe can probably say that we don’t need it. The Russians are creating an axis with China and North Korea. And besides North Korean soldiers, we don’t need Chinese soldiers in Europe either. Let China guard its space in Asia nicely and not stick its horns into Taiwan, the Philippines, and beyond, where it’s pushing. Certainly not into Europe. Because that wouldn’t be a true guarantee.

And the Russians want such a guarantee… I can imagine, for example, Turkish troops as separation troops. Because the Turks have relatively good relations with both sides. We’ll see how it develops. But I’m starting to suspect that the meeting, as you suggested, won’t happen. Already now, the Russians are saying that they first need to negotiate things at the working level. Trump has actually already said that the Russians and Ukrainians should go to negotiations themselves.

And here I’ll give a final anecdote. President Trump boasted. First, he said that he had already closed or ended 5 wars. Then 7. Now he said 7. I’ll leave it for another podcast, but I want to say that, for example, between Serbia and Kosovo, there was no imminent war threat. That was virtual from Trump.

Where credit can be given to him is certainly in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, because those parties also negotiated with the White House. And they also humiliated Putin because they went to close it in Washington with the assistance of the United States. And the United States is also involved there in the corridor between Karabakh and Armenia.

When we look at India and Pakistan, Pakistan nominated Trump for the Nobel Prize and India says you had no hand in it at all, you weren’t involved. And finally in Cambodia and Thailand, yes, China and the United States assisted with that, pushed, but the mediator was ASEAN. The Prime Minister of one of the ASEAN countries was the main sponsor who secured that agreement. But of course, these two big ones, the USA and China, gave that political-strategic signal that they are behind that agreement, they are pushing for it, and so it happened.

Weapons Deliveries for Ukraine

Moderator: How will it be with weapons deliveries for Ukraine?

General Macko: These weapons deliveries continue, various formats are being negotiated. What was said holds true, that the United States will sell those weapons to NATO and NATO will pass them on to Ukraine. Financial mechanisms are being sought for how to finance it. I think this will continue.

Several initiatives have been announced, because here we need to have a clear scenario: As long as Russia keeps dragging out the war, Ukraine needs that support and help. We’ve seen that Trump is even using his so-called „presidential drawdown authority“. This means that without Congressional approval, he can reduce part of the army’s supplies. Here we’ve returned to the regime that was roughly under President Biden.

But for domestic politics, President Trump now has an excuse, because he’ll say: „I did everything for there to be peace, but the Russians won’t listen, so I have to help the Ukrainians.“

Moderator: Yesterday he even said that Biden forced the Ukrainians only to defend themselves, that war cannot be won by defending and that the Ukrainians should attack. Did I explain it correctly?

General Macko: Bingo! That’s exactly what I said back in April of last year, when I said that everyone says Trump is unpredictable. We knew that. I said, prepare for a roller coaster.

But what was essential was that I said that Trump, if he gets angry, can go into it radically. And those are the remarks about whether Zelensky is willing to attack Moscow and so on. Because it’s like this: Even if Ukraine doesn’t want to defeat Russia on Russian territory, in defense you can avoid losing. But you can never win. No war was ever won by defense.

Anniversary of August 21, 1968

Moderator: Yesterday we commemorated that sad anniversary of August 21, when the Russians invaded us. You, from what I know, were also at some memorial events. But I would first ask you if you could comment on such a simple fact that Prime Minister Fico didn’t say a word about it.

General Macko: I think it’s completely clear. In ’68, the world was divided into two camps. And our ancestors had no choice. And despite that, they had collaborators here who legitimized the entry of Soviet troops.

As Juraj Mesík wrote yesterday in a commentary for one newspaper – let’s tell the truth, that people didn’t write about Soviets anywhere when those Russians came here. They wrote „Russians go home!“ And by Russians, they meant that empire. Now we’re not talking about nationalities that they drove into it from their country and those partner states.

But when they came here, we still had collaborators who sanctified it. But back then our ancestors couldn’t help themselves against that enormous superiority that rushed in here during the night. But today we can choose. And today we have collaborators here who are again speculating to go this same path, and it’s outrageous that the Prime Minister did not comment on this.

But something else is also outrageous. Foreign Minister Blanár did comment. And purely technically, if I didn’t know what he said before and who he is, what he said was correct.

Even the President expressed himself. I allowed myself to needle him and troll him yesterday, because the President said that we must be in the European Union and NATO to not experience something like this, for it not to be repeated. So I’ll remind everyone, and I’ll be bad and biased, that the President began his presidential campaign by taking a photo with the Russian Federation’s Ambassador Bratchikov. And that testifies to his sincere interests in Russia, where he still hasn’t understood that Russia is an aggressor, that Russia has been conducting this imperial policy for the last 300 years, and that we should be on guard against Russia, and not collaborate with them or collect points from misguided citizens who would even today welcome these occupation troops on our territory.

Moderator: And where did you spend yesterday?

General Macko: I spent it in Trnava. It’s true that Patrik Lenghart, a university teacher, an activist, convinced me to also join a civic association, an activity called „Wednesday,“ where we are trying to limit the influence of foreign powers, in this case Russia, here, because the Russians are trying to create again an atmosphere in Slovakia like the one that preceded the invasion in ’68.

So I was with Michal Kocáb in Trnava, there were also artists who supported it. It was a more than two-hour event, we were reminiscing about the symbolism of these events, but also those threats and what is happening in Ukraine, what is the connection between what is happening in Ukraine, the year ’68, and what can happen to us if we’re not careful.

This same thing was expected from our government. It didn’t have to explicitly attack Russia, but it should have given a clear signal to citizens: „This is happening in Ukraine and that’s why we’re going to support Ukraine and our common interests within Europe.“

And do you know what the Prime Minister did? It’s not that he didn’t express himself. The Prime Minister also made the headlines of Indian newspapers. I follow those English-language and Indian ones, where he made headlines. And for what does our Prime Minister make world headlines? He didn’t get there with any reform, he didn’t get there with anything extraordinary that would be in Slovakia. Slovakia got to the headlines of world media the most during his governments when they killed Kuciak, when he attacked Macron and called everyone in the West warmongers. And now again, because he said that Slovakia will block all European support activities towards Ukraine.

History of the Second World War

Moderator: Let’s go to history, the cycle from the Second World War. Last time we discussed the Balkans, if I remember correctly. What was happening to the east of us?

General Macko: This worked out for us and factually it’s not a plan, I can tell the listeners. Because the original plan was that we would get to the Slovak National Uprising, but that can’t be realized, that war was longer, more complex.

We’re missing from that picture, when we take from the year ’40 to ’41, the Soviet Union and what was happening in its surroundings. And a lot was happening there. Outwardly, the Russians or Soviets pretended to be a neutral power, but in reality, they were very active.

I’ll remind that we discussed the Winter War, and it ended in March 1940 with some peace agreement. The Winter War with Finland. The Russians understood that they wanted to have that Karelia to secure the defense of Leningrad then, but they knew that they couldn’t turn Finns into Russians, so they left the rest alone, because they got a beating right in that first phase anyway. In the second phase of the Winter War, they were a bit more successful.

But what continued? The Soviets continued to cooperate very intensively with Nazi Germany. They were allies. When we look at spring-summer 1940, they expanded and occupied – they did an Anschluss – the Baltic states: Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia under the pretext of protecting their western border. They called it „securing the western border“. And as if they were protecting these nations. So in June they occupied them. And in July they immediately annexed them. They created Soviet republics in these three countries and annexed them.

In June 1940, the Soviet Union also forced the cession of Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia from Romania. That’s today’s Moldova. In the fall, the Soviets under Stalin tried to conduct diplomacy. They plotted even more with the Nazis.

I remind that the Soviet Union on September 17, 1939, attacked Poland, 17 days later than Slovakia and Nazi Germany. And they divided Poland between them. So Stalin, based on those Molotov-Ribbentrop pacts, tried to get closer to Hitler and Nazi Germany. They wanted to divide Europe and the world.

So Molotov in November 1940 visited Berlin, where he negotiated about the possible entry of the Soviet Union into the pact of three powers, which was Germany, Italy, and Japan. In short, the Soviet Union still in November 1940, for its dirty imperial interests, after it stole the Baltics, after it stole Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, wanted to become part of the fascist axis of Germany, Italy, and Japan. I’m just reminding all those Russophiles.

On June 22, 1941, a breach was made to that, when the Germans attacked the Soviet Union. That’s why the Soviets say, because you have to translate those words, „treacherous attack“, because even under communist propaganda, you’re older, Jeno, you remember it, that they always said „treacherous attack on the Soviet Union“. That was in those Czech documentary films. Treacherous in that they were the closest allies of Nazi Germany and it betrayed them when it already saw that they weren’t sufficiently prepared, and implemented Operation Barbarossa.

Moderator: What military operations did the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, so this word I’ve already removed from my vocabulary, undertake in this period, besides that Winter War?

General Macko: Let’s say directly Bolshevik Russia – the Bolshevik Communist Party was then called the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik). Literally.

Well, that occupation of the Baltics, that was a lightning military operation without a declaration of war, where they actually sent units, occupied strategic points, and forced governments to resign. Now, that’s why I’m reminding of this, this is exactly like through carbon paper, this is what the Russians do systematically. They did it in ’68 here, they landed at Ruzyně, stole, took our political leadership to Moscow, and subsequently established their regime here, installed their people here, with whom they then ruled.

They even forced on us a treaty, which our Prosecutor General Maroš Žilinka, an associate of this Petrushev, where he goes to the Hermitage and walked with him a few years ago, talked about, and that’s such a shame. He said that it was an excellent treaty, that it was far better than the defense cooperation agreement with the United States.

And this is Slovakia, and this is what we don’t realize – those threats, that the Russians are coming, and it doesn’t matter whether it was Tsarist Russia, whether it’s Bolshevik Russia, whether it’s now post-imperial Russia. The Russians have always done this – they occupied key squares on the chessboard, replaced the pieces, took control, when they couldn’t control, they destroyed everything with bombs, missiles, tanks.

Moderator: How did the neighbors react to everything that those Russians got up to?

General Macko: Well of course, and that’s another explanation of why history sometimes happens as it happens. Because besides this, they also conducted covert operations and repressions in those occupied territories.

Just as here after 1945, even before the communists took power here, they exported people illegally to gulags, they did this in these countries too. The NKVD, which was the predecessor of the KGB, the Soviet secret police, carried out extensive purges, deportations, arrests in newly occupied territories, to destroy potential resistance and ensure Sovietization. This is what would await Ukrainians if Ukraine fell, this is what would await all of us if they fell.

So the reaction of those countries was quite clear. Poland was dismantled. There was only domestic underground resistance there, but it was dismantled. Finland, since it lost territory in that war, after the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union, quite understandably joined the German side, because they hoped to at least recapture lost Karelia.

Romania also had to cede that Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina in 1940, so later it joined the German invasion against the Soviet Union. Hungary was watching very carefully, because when they occupied that Bessarabia and Bukovina, the Russians came closer to the borders of Subcarpathian Ruthenia, which was then in Czechoslovakia, but the more southern part was Hungarian-speaking, and the Soviets pushed in there. So Hungary also joined the war against the Soviet Union alongside Germany.

I mentioned Poland, and the Slovak state – we had relatively normal relations with the Soviet Union and under the influence of those events, we also joined and sent the Rapid Brigade on June 22, 1941.

In other words, with its disgusting imperialist policy, Russia pushed those countries, which could have been either neutral or perhaps even allies with them, into Hitler’s fold, because in the end, those countries had no other choice if they wanted to survive. They had to join where they thought they would be better off.

360°: Africa

Moderator: What’s on your radar, Pali?

General Macko: I have several things there, but it’s Africa again. That’s a beautiful area. The main thing that caught my interest from those agency reports is that the Nigerian army reported on a significant operation in the Lake Chad basin, where they eliminated the highest leader of Boko Haram.

This drew attention also because of the importance of that region, because we’re talking about Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, and Niger. The operation is considered quite a big blow to the jihadist group, which has been plaguing that region with violence for more than 10 years. These are just hard-core jihadists.

Besides that, there was an interesting incident that a bomb exploded near a military air base in Colombia, as if violence was returning there. There was a fight there also with Maoists who were hiding in the mountains. Tension in Syria, intra-Syrian tension, was renewed in connection with the 12th anniversary of the deadly chemical attack near Damascus. These are such unresolved problems.

But what stood out to me the most was that Boko Haram.

Moderator: And what actually is Boko Haram?

General Macko: Boko Haram was founded in Nigeria, in the northeast, by some Muhammad Yusuf in 2002. By the way, it’s similar to how Hamas was formed. There was also a Yusuf there who founded Hamas.

It started as a religious movement that opposed Western-style education. Actually that „Boko Haram“, „haram“ means forbidden, and that „Boko Haram“ was like „we don’t want this Western education“. Just as the Taliban started in Madrasas somewhere in Pakistan, and also tried to return to Islamic conservatism, Sharia law.

But of course, subsequently it began to radicalize there. Yusuf was killed outside of court during skirmishes, they had a new leader, and he was no longer concerned with education or culture, but with a hard jihadist uprising. First they focused on Nigeria, then they went to Cameroon, Chad, and Niger and exploited the permeability of borders and those various ethnic ties. And they started to stick their necks out.

I remember that they kidnapped schoolgirls, raped them, but that’s less known now. In 2015, they then pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. The Islamic State was supposed to be a worldwide caliphate, Islamic, that would control the whole world. And they declared themselves as the West African province of the Islamic State.

And just a statistic: That uprising caused 350,000 deaths, 3.2 million displaced people in that area, in the Lake Chad basin. Of course, agriculture, trade, access to health services were significantly disrupted.

So a multinational joint operational group was then formed there, composed of units from Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, and Niger, who tried to fight against them. Then we had units in Mali, even international ones, and a European mission, which also tried to help locals in Mali against these Islamists.

But in Mali, what then happened was that a military junta seized power and kicked out these units as well.

Moderator: And what do the Americans, French, and Russians do with these juntas, with those local ones, in this area?

General Macko: And this is interesting, because we discussed within the Security Radar that a belt of those West African juntas was created. ECOWAS was 15 countries that were in that sub-Saharan area and West Africa, which cooperated as an economic association like the European Union or something similar. And they broke away, because there is a junta in Mali, in Burkina Faso, and also in Niger. We discussed this recently.

And now what happened? The United States, along with the French, had a base in Niger, from where, in cooperation with those local governments, they helped fight against these Islamists, jihadists. After the junta took power in Niger, they kicked them out, so the United States and France withdrew their troops and left that area.

Moderator: And imagine who is there…? Can I guess? Russians.

General Macko: Exactly. The Russians wormed their way in there, the Wagner Group came there first, and now the Russians have done it in such a way that they created the Africa Corps. By the way, the Africa Corps is a Nazi legacy from the past, Erwin Rommel commanded it. So the Russians have now built, following the model of those Nazis, the Africa Corps. These are basically successors to the Wagner Group, but the Russians now openly admit that they are supported, financed, and sponsored by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

These are trying to do several things there. First, to keep those juntas in power, to help them against the Islamists, because they disrupt order there, and mainly to mine diamonds and other minerals. To earn money.

Russia is strategically focused on this – they are trying to monopolize. This is also in Ukraine. There are large gas deposits around Crimea and in some parts of Ukraine. When the Russians take it, Europe will still be dependent only on Russian gas or from the rest of the world.

This is something that happened – after the collapse of the colonial empire, the Western world seemed to be less interested in Africa, abandoned it. 65% of natural resources today are controlled by China, and Russia is trying to grab the rest as quickly as possible.

Moderator: And what about the French?

General Macko: The French, unfortunately, are gradually leaving from there. They are losing influence there, even though they were former French colonies.

And the Russians, exactly as always. Let’s take it. In Europe, the Russians say that they still celebrate victory over fascism, even though they brought the second totalitarianism. And a moment ago we said that they were close allies – the Soviets and the Nazis. So although the Russians say, they maintain that tradition that they fight against fascism, at the same time they are the biggest sponsor and supporter of these extreme right-wing movements throughout Europe.

And in Africa, they do the same – they say that they help countries against former colonialists and the like. And gradually, in silence, they build their Russian colonies there. I just remind that in reality, Russia, where its territory is today, never built colonies and went straight to annexation. As Putin said, where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, it is ours. „This is ours.“

And this is a message probably also in connection with the anniversary of August 21, 1968, and the occupation of Czechoslovakia. Russian troops have already entered here twice. And that’s why Putin still thinks he has a claim to this whole Central and Eastern Europe. And it would be ideal for him if there were puppet governments here, like in Belarus. Because Lavrov also said this week that it’s not just about some territories in Ukraine. That they want to have such a political regime in Ukraine that they need and want.

And this is actually a warning and the main message of this week. Beware, these are permanent Russian imperial interests, here and in Africa. They will have cutthroats, killers there just to keep those countries under their influence.

Quote at the End

Moderator: What could perhaps be a quote for this difficult week?

General Macko: I’ve been saying for a long time that Russian imperial policy has not changed from Tsarist Russia through Bolshevik Russia to the present day. It’s just called differently. And that Putin dreamed of re-establishing Greater Russia. He’s a man from the KGB, raised on one teat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the other from the KGB, and that stayed with him.

And that these people, supporters of Russia, like our red revolutionary Blaha and similar ones, actually still preach some Red Revolution, which, regardless of the victims, is supposedly the best for society.

So I’ll remind what none other than Sir Winston Churchill said about this regime: „Everyone sees how communism decomposes the soul of a nation, makes it miserable in peace and vile in war.“

Read also:

https://pavelmacko.sk/2025/08/14/general-pavel-mackos-security-radar-episode-125/

Analysis of the Situation on the Ukrainian Front with General Pavel Macko – Pavel Macko – Bezpečnosť, Technológie, Stratégie

The post General Pavel Macko’s Security Radar 127 appeared first on Pavel Macko - Bezpečnosť, Technológie, Stratégie.

#Economic impacts of sanctions #Europe’s role in conflict #Geopolitical strategies #Global energy policy #Moscow negotiations #Peace negotiations #Russian-American relations #Secondary sanctions #Steve Witkoff Diplomatic Mission #Trump-Putin negotiations #Ultimatum to Russia

Transcript of an interview for weekly magazine .týždeň

Editor: General, Donald Trump’s negotiator, a certain Mr. Witkoff, met with Putin, and I read that they exchanged signals. So please tell me, what signal are they sending to the public? What do you think happened there?

Pavel Macko: We need to view this on two levels. First, I’ll address the meeting itself. Steve Witkoff is still an envoy, or special representative of President Trump. This means that whatever he says isn’t random thoughts and ideas, but a message he’s meant to deliver from President Trump. And of course, he’s been briefed, he knows how President Trump thinks and reasons, so he knows how to respond accordingly.

Steve Witkoff had previously met with Kirill Dmitriev. He’s a similar negotiator on the Russian side, but he wasn’t just present at all negotiations. He’s also the person responsible for developing international economic cooperation.

American Ultimatum and Strategic Game

And here’s what’s important: the Americans are now playing it by giving an ultimatum to the Russians. It expires on August 8th. When this ultimatum expires, President Trump will be in a position where he’ll have to do something. He will therefore implement the tariffs he promised, but this will put him in an uncomfortable situation and potentially in a trade war with other partners.

This is a difficult chess game. We have the United States on one side and Russia on the other, but with allies like China and India, without whom President Trump cannot seriously pressure Russia. And if he pressures these other two countries, he can of course damage relations.

So President Trump decided to shorten this ultimatum, set it for August 8th, and came out with very harsh language, expecting Russia to make some concessions.

Three Theoretical Possibilities for Russia’s Response

Theoretically, there were three possible directions:

1) Russia could say: „We don’t care about you, we’ll do what we want, we have our goals.“ They are saying that, but they won’t respond to any pressure or threats.

2) Russia could agree to these negotiations and actually stop firing and start negotiating. But President Putin can’t do that immediately, because until now he’s made too strong statements and has been doing exactly the opposite.

3) The third theoretical possibility is that he makes some minor concession to again, as it were, pull honey strings under President Trump’s mustache and delay the tough decision.

The Goal of Wednesday’s Negotiations

So today’s negotiations were about Steve Witkoff coming to explain to President Putin how the United States really means it and how determined they are to go into possible sanctions and some hard confrontation with Russia and Russia’s other partners.

Or at the same time, and this is the second level, if the Russians are more conciliatory, then he probably also had on offer this possibility of normalizing relations between the United States and Russia. This has been talked about for a long time. Protocol delegations at the level of the embassies of Russia and the United States have met several times, where they discussed the possible normalization of relations.

But of course, as long as the war in Ukraine is not resolved, as long as Russia does not respond to President Trump’s basic demand to cease fire and enter into peace talks, it is difficult to expect any normalization.

Trump’s Negotiation Philosophy

In short, Trump plays it with his philosophy of negotiating from a position of strength and creating maximum pressure. And at the same time, it’s according to what Americans call „carrot and stick“ – on one hand there’s maximum pressure, and on the other hand there’s normalization of relations.

So they discussed, agreed on something, or informed each other of something with President Putin. Witkoff has a cordial relationship with Putin. So let’s not be misled by those pictures and footage. He of course has to convey the position of the United States, and the United States, led by Trump, has found itself in a situation where they are threatening or have to push, and Putin is in a similar situation.

The Role of Europe and Global Impacts

Editor: In this context, one question comes to mind – what about Europe? Can’t it join those secondary sanctions? Can’t it support Trump?

Pavel Macko: It could support President Trump, and that’s essential. I’ve already suggested it. What they agreed on or told each other today is an attempt at the last minute to at least postpone that dramatic decision, because the moment things are set in motion, everyone will be angry, because it’s a big game.

Here, global flows of raw materials, trade partnerships can ultimately be redirected, in short, the great chessboard of the world can be rearranged. I’ll explain why right away.

Changes in Oil and Gas Trade Flows

Because after Russia started the invasion and Europe, the West, and the United States led by Biden then began an embargo and sanctions against Russia, Russia’s exports of oil and gas items to Western countries dramatically decreased.

But at the same moment, the Russians found alternative markets, where they redirected to India and China. India even increased imports of Russian crude oil more than five-fold, which was of course at a discount price. Similarly with China.

The Position of China and India in This Game

And here is the difference now:

▪️ China takes up to 47% of all Russian oil exports. But it mostly consumes it for its own consumption, because China is significantly increasing energy consumption. That economy is growing rapidly, even overheating, and needs a large amount of energy. Of course, China has other sources, but at least 15% of all imports to China in these energies are from Russia, and that’s something that can’t be easily replaced, redirected, or changed. So China will try to defend itself against this and won’t cooperate with the US, because it’s also a question of their energy interests and what they call energy sovereignty.

▪️India uses similar rhetoric, but in India it’s a bit different. India consumes part of the oil domestically, which means it processes it into gasoline and other products and consumes it domestically, but it also exports a large part of the products. In short, India significantly helped itself with these imports of discounted Russian oil in a situation where the Russians couldn’t place it anywhere else, and now the United States actually wants this to stop.

Possible Impacts of Sanctions

This means that the United States is potentially in a situation where if they want to fulfill their commitments and strategy and put pressure on Russia, they will introduce direct tariffs on Russians, but the trade there is very small, it’s only 3 billion dollars, which is nothing.

But if they introduced those secondary tariffs, meaning 100 percent tariffs on other countries, then Slovakia is also at risk. I’ll come back to that, but mainly China and India are key here, because:

▪️China takes, as I’ve already said, 47% of Russian oil

▪️India takes 40%

This means that if he somehow put pressure on these two countries, Russia would have a problem. While Trump has the possibility to put more pressure on India, because it takes beyond its consumption, with China they will probably look for some compromises.

Strategic Impacts and Possible Scenarios

Simply put, China can’t just redirect everything elsewhere because of the United States. On the other hand, China has large trade relations not only with Russia but also with the United States and is economically connected with the West and has large markets there.

The Role of Europe and the G7

To your question – in this case, Europe and the entire G7, or the European Union and G7 can play a key role and help Trump:

1) First, not to lose face

2) Second, to push through that peace will eventually come to Ukraine

And actually push on these partners, because that would be such a weight, such a heavy weight category, where both China and India would have to strategically consider whether it’s worth it for them to spoil all relations because of the Russians and remain in some economic-power vacuum in the long term.

Possible Development Scenarios

In any case, regardless of how it plays out, it will still have some strategic impacts:

▪️Either there will be a short-term disruption in oil supplies and increased prices, which will stabilize over time,

▪️Or there will be another embarrassment for the United States, and therefore countries not only like Russia, but also China and India will behave even more assertively, and our role in the world will continue to diminish, and we will be in a disadvantageous strategic position.

Trump’s Options to Mitigate the Situation

For Trump to mitigate this, he of course has several tools, because it’s not just directly those sanctions on Russia regarding oil:

▪️Trump has the option to extend sanctions to other companies and individuals who in some way have a stake in leading Russia’s war in Ukraine.

▪️He has the possibility to completely cut Russia off from SWIFT, where many say that the Russians would come up with some alternative payment system, but it’s not that simple and can’t be done overnight.

▪️Finally, they can also take measures in the military field, one of which is, for example, a dramatic increase in support for Ukraine and the cancellation of any restrictions.

All of this is in play.

Europe’s Position and Conclusion

And unfortunately, we are so far a passive player. We (the EU) have some customs agreement with the United States, but Europe also has a relative advantage at this moment, because it is no longer so dependent on Russian oil and Russian gas. After all, it has also adopted the goal of completely cutting off from Russian oil and Russian gas.

Of course, this means that we can return to it in the future, but when Russia ends the war, when a peaceful solution is found, and then Russia will just be one of the players in a competitive environment.

This means that this is a big game, which can also end up with nothing. Like many of President Trump’s threats.

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