#Beijing #China #coalition of willing #Gaza #Hamas #Israel #Lebanon #military parade #peace talks #Putin #Russia #security radar #Syria #Trump #Ukraine

Moderator: Welcome, Palo.

Pavel Macko: Thank you very much, pleasant listening to the audience.

Fog of War

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

Pavel Macko: I’ll begin by noting that August has ended, which means the main summer season is effectively over. Both the Ukrainian side and the Russian side have evaluated the spring-summer Russian offensive.

Let’s be realistic – the Russians haven’t achieved any miracles. They attempted several attacks, captured several dozen villages, took several hundred square kilometers of territory, but they couldn’t capture any major city. To make it look like they captured one, they placed a flag on a pole in Kupiansk using a drone, which the Ukrainians then took down.

Simply put, the fighting is intense. According to Ukrainian estimates, the Russians have suffered losses of over 200,000, up to 290,000 this year. But they’re preparing for some major offensive. However, they haven’t made progress yet.

When I evaluate the summer campaign, it wasn’t effective at all from the Russian perspective. They tried to bypass cities, but they failed to break them. And that’s likely why we’re now seeing movements and regrouping of Russian units.

The Russians applied pressure across the entire front and tried to find cracks. Where it starts to crack, like glass, or when you throw stones, they quickly deepen that hole. They almost succeeded in doing this near Dobropillia, but the Ukrainians managed to prevent it in time. They tried it in Sumy, they’re trying it at Kupiansk, they partially bypassed Pokrovsk from the southwest, and even penetrated into the Dnipropetrovsk region, but they didn’t achieve any operationally significant successes. That’s why they’re now regrouping.

Strategic Bombing

We see again that the Russians are „negotiating peace“ by intensifying attacks on civilian targets. They are now attacking more on the central and western parts of Ukraine.

The goal is clear:

▪️To destroy infrastructure facilities

▪️Railway transport hubs

▪️Factories

▪️To bring shock to villages and cities

At least half of the targets are explicitly residential buildings, hospitals, and schools. The reason is clear – the Russians are trying to indicate to Ukrainians that those who are further from the conflict zone have been living too comfortably, and they want to force Ukrainians to capitulate by undermining the morale and psyche of the people.

We saw massive attacks in Kharkiv. This is a paradox because it’s a Russian-speaking city that has always been Ukrainian and they felt Ukrainian, they just spoke Russian. Putin and his troops are punishing them for that – just from one attack there were at least 12 victims, dozens wounded, and 100,000 residents were left without electricity.

They attacked Dnipro with Shahed drones, and in Odesa they even used Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea. They hit port facilities and a humanitarian aid warehouse. Again, what a „highly strategic“ target – a humanitarian aid center! A Kalibr missile has an accuracy of up to 5 meters. That means they could hit the room we’re sitting in, at least its corner. And it’s something that doesn’t make sense, that they attack a humanitarian aid warehouse under the pretext that there must definitely be strategic ballistic missiles or atomic weapons there. Simply nonsense, just like the entire Russian aggression.

In Kyiv, attacks with Iskander ballistic missiles continued, and they also attacked command and military centers. The air defense reacted. In the south, whether in the city of Kherson or in the Zaporizhzhia region, there is permanent artillery shelling. They’re trying to make Kherson uninhabitable – when they were driven out of there, they punish the residents so they can’t live there. Unfortunately, the attacks continue and are escalating.

Ukrainian Attacks

Moderator: What about the Ukrainians, how are they doing?

Pavel Macko: They continue, they’re trying to counter, they’re also changing tactics. We saw the first real attack with Flamingo missiles on Crimea. Initially it was thought they were Neptune missiles, but they released footage of it.

Moderator: And what are those Flamingo missiles?

Pavel Macko: The Ukrainians introduced Flamingo recently. It was a „fast track“ development – rapid development over a year. It’s a cruise missile that has a range of up to 3000 kilometers, it has up to 1125 kilograms of combat payload. It’s right at the sound barrier, slightly subsonic, a large missile. It has an accuracy of about 20 meters.

I think they were testing them in Crimea. It’s one thing to produce and test on a training ground, and another to deploy in real conditions. There were skeptics who said it was too large and slow, so Russian systems might be able to intercept it. But they tested it over Crimea, which is relatively well protected. Belbek is one of the strategic airports in Crimea.

They tested them there and gave the Russians a psychological signal that not only is Crimea not untouchable, but they can try it elsewhere as well. Russia is huge. What is an advantage when you want to occupy it is a disadvantage when you want to defend it. No one can defend all facilities against air strikes. Not even Russia can do that.

Then we saw attacks on the Tula region, and those weren’t drones, but Ukrainian intelligence operating in Russia blew up an underground explosives warehouse in a chemical plant. They do this cyclically – Ukrainians have their people directly in Russia and can operate there. It wasn’t just those drones that were launched from trucks and remotely piloted in the „Spider“ operation. I think they’re spinning more of these „spider webs“ there and will continue to catch Russians in them.

Moderator: We saw attacks in Krasnodar region and on oil facilities. But what caught my interest, we were recording last Friday and just before that, on August 28, they struck with a drone near Vladimir Putin’s palace.

Pavel Macko: That was in Gelendzhik on the Black Sea coast. He has a huge dacha there. They hit it there, indicating to him that Vladimir isn’t safe even there.

Development of Fighting in Individual Areas

Let’s go through individual areas. In the Kursk and Sumy regions, the fighting was milder. We see a significant shift – in the Sumy region, the Russians seem to have come to terms with the fact that they won’t make a breakthrough there and won’t move towards Sumy. Sumy was a good target, it’s not so far from the borders, it’s a relatively large administrative center. The Russians had already occupied it once, the Ukrainians pushed them out at the beginning of the invasion. They tried to get there again, but they’re withdrawing troops from there.

Intense fighting is still ongoing in Kupiansk, Lyman, Serebriansk forest. Serebriansk forest – west of Kreminna – has become totally confusing. The Ukrainians can no longer establish a line defense there because the troops have intermixed. I saw videos where a Ukrainian soldier was walking, the Russians thought it was their soldier, and then he shot them.

This Lyman direction is one to remember. It could be a place where the Russians will try to get across the Zherebets River in larger numbers and continue further to Lyman, so they can get the entire rest of the Donetsk region into pincers – from the south from Pokrovsk and from the north from Lyman.

Of course, fighting continues in Pokrovsk, Toretsk, Kostiantynivka. In the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, we see a slight stabilization of operations.

Regrouping of Russian Troops

To summarize, we see regrouping of Russian troops. The Russians are withdrawing from the Kherson region – not all units, but important elements. They’re strengthening the Donetsk direction and also withdrawing units from the Sumy region.

From the Kherson area, they withdrew the 70th Motorized Rifle Division of the 18th Combined Arms Army. This was a newly created division after the invasion. They have three motorized rifle regiments, a tank regiment, a reconnaissance battalion, self-propelled artillery – a brigade. It’s about 10,000 men. They’re moving them to the Donetsk direction, down to Pokrovsk.

From the Sumy area, they’re withdrawing the 76th Airborne Division. This elite airborne division is a „firefighter“ – when there was a Ukrainian breakthrough, when the Ukrainians liberated Kupiansk and were advancing quickly, the Russians deployed this division there. When they had a problem, when the Ukrainians pushed in the south, they also deployed the division there and managed to stop the summer offensive of 2023 Ukrainians at Orikhiv.

What are they trying to do? The Perun portal (Czech drone operators who collect money for drones for Ukrainian forces) described it quite well as a „long ball“ – in sports terminology, it’s a pass where when the game is „grinding“ somewhere in the middle, a long pass is thrown down the wing and a player runs onto it. They’re trying to get the entire area into pincers.

Tactical Changes and Drone Warfare

Both sides are trying various tactics. Last time we mentioned that it wasn’t so advantageous for Ukrainians to thin out defensive lines with drone operators. They are highly effective, but they have only limited capacity and the targets are known. As soon as they make contact, the Russians also know about it and start bombing.

The Russians have gradually changed their tactics. At the beginning of the war, they tried for rapid movement, combined arms combat. We all expected the Battle of Donbas to come – major combined arms maneuvers, modern mechanized forces, air cover, armored vehicles on the ground. That didn’t happen. They were able to deploy and coordinate a maximum of two brigades together, because they couldn’t coordinate more.

Today they don’t have as many mechanized forces. We see attacks with small units on motorcycles, on all sorts of things. Now they do it by bypassing lines in small groups, catching hold in some village where there is no military presence. From there they can direct drones, do other things. It’s like seeping, when you stain wood.

Moderator: I read today that artificial intelligence is already functioning and the first swarms of drones have been deployed. The Ukrainians deployed it, did you notice that?

Pavel Macko: I noticed, I’m writing about it in the magazine as well. I talk there about how generations of drones are gradually evolving. They already tried it in the fall last year, they had the first attempts on a smaller scale in the Kherson region.

Moderator: And is it effective?

Pavel Macko: It has the hope of being effective, because swarms of drones with artificial intelligence are relatively autonomous. You don’t have to pull them on cables, you don’t need as many operators. The problem is that when you have an FPV drone, you need one person with goggles or a screen who navigates the drone until the end, but can’t navigate other drones.

When you have some master drone and a swarm of drones, you get them to the target area and they select their targets themselves. In that program, you can even program target priorities. When the system sees artillery or an air defense asset, it ranks them numerically highest and leaves the infantry for the end.

Summary of Development in Ukraine

To summarize, last year it was expected that there would be a waiting tactic, because neither side had enough forces for a major offensive. Not like in World War II, when there was Operation Bagration, where there was a major breakthrough. That operation brought the Soviets hundreds of kilometers behind German lines, broke through them through swamps, through difficult terrain in Belarus, and got into an area where they had a strategic advantage.

This didn’t happen. Last year, in order to show positive progress, the Russians sacrificed an estimated 450,000 soldiers (variously killed, wounded, some multiple times). These are huge losses and they actually achieved nothing visible.

This year I’m positively surprised that the Ukrainians held on, because many times it looked like it was about to fall. Some troll wrote to me that Kupiansk, they already have half of Kupiansk. No, they’ve been fighting for Kupiansk for 2.5 years. We mention it every other week. They still can’t capture it.

Now it looks as if the Russians feel they’re treading water. This isn’t the right thing. Basically, they decided to concentrate pressure even more on Donbas, because they’re also on a ticking clock and climatic conditions will be different in the fall.

The estimate of several observers is that the Russians will try to make a breakthrough, create Guderian-style wedges – arms from the north and from the south, to get behind the Ukrainian forces and interrupt supply routes. It can be assumed that from these troop movements, they will also try to generate more mobile mechanized formations.

This is their last chance in this immediate period. It’s risky for the Ukrainians – they need to be careful. But it’s also risky for the Russians, because it’s a moment when the sports rule „if you don’t score, you’ll concede“ applies. If they overdo it and fail, as at Dobropillia (a small tactical episode), and if they don’t succeed at the operational level either, they’ll break their teeth. It may happen that there will be a „reverse“ – the Ukrainians will find a weak spot and push.

The last thing – Ukraine must be asymmetrical. An attrition war in the Russian style can’t suit them. They don’t have as much personnel, as much equipment, which is why many recommend they continue with deep strikes.

I registered yesterday’s report this morning – Keir Starmer says that some European countries will give Ukraine the means for deep precision strikes, long-range missiles. We don’t know if it will be Taurus or something else, but they should receive them. This is retaliation or a reaction to the continuing Russian attacks on cities.

Middle East

Moderator: Let’s go to the Middle East, to the Gaza Strip. How are the Israeli army operations continuing there?

Pavel Macko: The airstrikes are intensifying. The Israeli Air Force carried out several precise attacks on Hamas positions in southern Gaza, especially in the Khan Yunis area. There were civilian casualties again.

These operations are important because the Palestinians are also giving arguments to Netanyahu – they fired rockets. This means the job isn’t finished. And that’s Netanyahu’s argument: „The job isn’t finished, and until they lay down their arms, we must finish it.“

Israel is mobilizing reserves. When we analyzed the operation, we said they need about 60,000 reservists, whom they’re calling up again. This process is underway. Not everyone is happy with it, some refused to report.

There’s internal political friction in Israel as well. Some are against scaling down the operation, others on the contrary say it needs to be intensified and accelerated.

Moderator: And what do you think?

Pavel Macko: I think it’s complicated. It needs to be done as quickly as possible, have a plan immediately for how to replace the Hamas administration with something else and withdraw. The view that they will also want longer-term military occupation may ultimately prevail. I think it’s difficult.

From my experiences in Afghanistan as well – it’s not a problem to conquer something, that’s what the Israelis are trying to do now. Clearing is complex, but maintaining and subsequently building is almost impossible in this environment. I would try to avoid it.

The Chief of General Staff, Lieutenant General Zamir, said that no one should be mistaken – even though there’s talk that the operation will be from October 7, he declares that it’s already running and they have 40% of Gaza City under control, that they’ve entered parts where they’ve never been before, and they’re trying to clear it. Meanwhile, civilians are also being evacuated to southern parts beyond the Netzarim corridor.

Syria, Lebanon and the Red Sea

Diplomatic negotiations are taking place between Lebanon and Syria. They’re creating joint committees or commissions to address sensitive topics:

▪️The fate of nearly 2000 Syrian prisoners in Lebanese prisons

▪️Locating missing Lebanese citizens in Syria

▪️Demarcation of the common border, which they don’t have precisely marked everywhere

They’re trying to normalize relations between the countries.

Regarding Lebanon, last time we discussed that the US, through its emissary Thomas Barack, proposed a plan for Hezbollah to be disarmed by the end of the year. Reciprocally, the Israelis would withdraw their troops from southern Lebanon. And moreover, next year the UNIFIL mission from the UN, which has been there for almost 50 years, would be ended, and thus Lebanon would take full control of its territory. Hezbollah, of course, resists this.

In Syria, the situation in the south has calmed down slightly. Negotiations are ongoing between Israel and Syrian representatives about easing tensions in border areas (conflict between Druze and Bedouins). The Syrian government is trying to normalize relations, starting to send its ambassadors to surrounding countries and negotiate with other partners. It is planning, for example, a visit by the ministers of foreign affairs and justice to Beirut.

They will also try to normalize relations with Lebanon, which was largely a victim of Syrian ambitions in past conflicts. There were Syrian so-called blue berets in Lebanon and so on.

Moderator: What about the Red Sea?

Pavel Macko: In the Red Sea, we saw that Israel decimated a significant part of the military and political leadership of the Houthis, who are threatening massive retaliation. They say they can destroy Israel in a few hours. Of course, this is just rhetoric – if they could do it, they would have done it already, they’ve tried. They can cause harm, but Israel has indicated to them that the more harm they cause, the harder the counter-strike may be.

Strategic Background

Moderator: It happened far away, but also close. What do you say about the Chinese military parade and the activities of Prime Minister Robert Fico among world dictators who clearly defined themselves against the West, despite the fact that Fico was there?

Pavel Macko: Let’s take it step by step and I’ll start right with Fico. We saw a series of events – the Shanghai Coordination Group meeting, then the parade. China took advantage of the fact that Indian Prime Minister Modi and other guests came, they discussed the Shanghai Group and immediately afterward showed a parade for the 80th anniversary of the end of the war.

Robert Fico found himself in such company – it’s as if I found myself somewhere among the Taliban or the Sátora gang. He’s a collaborator and it’s outrageous, because all those political messages were about forming an axis – I don’t want to call it an axis of evil, but it seems like that to me – an axis of dictatorial, corrupt and inhumane regimes that are frustrated with the West and are going explicitly sharply against the West.

And suddenly there is the Slovak Prime Minister – we are the West! Now it doesn’t matter where the political boundary of the Cold War was. We are the West in terms of civilization. In fact, since we „expelled“ Cyril and Methodius, we’ve clearly been the West. We’ve also been left with the Latin alphabet, we are part of Western civilization and we’ve never been part of the Orient, or God forbid, Asia.

What is our Prime Minister even doing there? I understand that he wanted to do business in China. But he was flirting with Putin there, flirting with dictators like Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping. Being in the same party with these people is like if I were seen among a gang of vagabonds, extortionists. How could I show my face again?

Robert Fico in his video, and this interested me, said that he is the Prime Minister of a sovereign republic, legitimately elected. Well, to that I’ll say that he was elected with a different program. That program wasn’t that the Slovak Republic is going to war – so far ideological and possibly later physical – against its closest neighbors and allies. What, will we soon be attacking the Czechs or the Austrians just because they’re Western and we want to be some kind of „Chinese“? That’s not normal!

Secondly, we are a parliamentary democracy. The Prime Minister, regardless of what percentage Smer got (some 18 or 20, he didn’t get 50, but even if he did), is not a private person, nor a dictator, nor the boss of an armed gang or mafia, that he can say he is sovereign and decide to go somewhere. Let him look at our competence laws, let him look at what the role and position of the Prime Minister is.

The Prime Minister is the moderator of the government. One of the ministers, the „prime minister,“ who moderates the government. For such a foreign trip and the subject of negotiations, he must have a mandate from the government as a collective body. The government must have the confidence of parliament.

What Robert Fico is doing is bizarre. He is now openly spreading hatred against the West. And at a time when the West is negotiating security guarantees for Ukraine, Fico is threatening to undermine Ukraine and consulting about it with Putin. And he’s even pretending that he can do it!

I appeal to his party members and his coalition partners. We are a parliamentary democracy. None of you won the elections by saying that Slovakia would leave the EU, leave NATO, or that it would be inside NATO and the EU but as a pest that will, together with countries that are threatening to harm us, harm us.

Who does our Prime Minister represent there? Himself. It’s a terrible state, which hasn’t passed silently in the world media either. Our partners notice it. Sooner or later we’ll get a response like from Radek Sikorski, who recently indicated that we’ll get as much solidarity as we put into it.

Chinese Military Parade

Of course, the 80th anniversary of the war – there was demagoguery from China as well. When we realistically look at it, World War II in China was such that Chiang Kai-shek’s forces fought with the Japanese, while the communists harmed them behind their backs. Mao Zedong tried to steal what was liberated through guerrilla warfare. But it was Chiang Kai-shek’s army that eventually had to evacuate and go to Taiwan.

That’s why China is divided – the communists took over mainland China and Chiang Kai-shek’s soldiers remained on Taiwan. The Chinese island of freedom remained there.

The second thing is that, similar to Europe, there was massive aid from the United States. The US helped the Chinese the most in the Pacific region against the Japanese. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, they weren’t aiming to conquer the United States. They wanted to eliminate the US from the game so they wouldn’t interfere with their imperial goals. That’s what Russia is now trying to do with us – deter us, push us out. Why? So they can do what they want.

At the parade they showed:

▪️Hypersonic missiles

▪️Ballistic missiles with multiple warheads

▪️Laser defense systems

▪️Advanced drones including robotic fighters

I’m writing about it in the current issue completely by chance. In the continuation of the cycle about the development of military drones, we also write about a drone that China showed. It’s the „Loyal Wingman“ concept, where they presented this drone.

They also showed military robots, new fighters, tanks. It was a big parade – more than 10,000 soldiers in Tiananmen Square (4 km²). They showed a lot of equipment, a lot of soldiers.

What’s interesting and few people noticed – there wasn’t a single ordinary citizen there! Everything was cordoned off, isolated. Ordinary Chinese didn’t get there at all, everything was fenced off and cleared. Security measures. They had a lot of guests there. It’s atypical, because even in Red Square there are parades to build internal „awe“ among their own crowds. In this case, the Chinese relied only on big TV screens for their own people.

Moderator: You said they had a lot of weapons systems there. Are they really that good, or was it just a show? I remember how the Russians displayed their famous tank at Red Square, which they didn’t even manage to produce in the end.

Pavel Macko: China wanted to demonstrate, like every parade, power. It wanted to deliver several messages:

1) That it will resist the West

2) Xi Jinping’s speech was interesting (I don’t know Chinese, I rely on translations)

Xi Jinping always talked a lot about peace. It’s classic rhetoric, like our elected president – „president of peace“ in uniform with a submachine gun in hand. But they always emphasized it a lot. China has maintained a low profile line since the 70s. And now they seem to be baring their teeth – he talked less about peace, more about deterrence, intimidation. They also wanted to show technological superiority.

Are they really that good? Several aspects:

▪️Their weapons haven’t been demonstrated or tested in any combat operation yet (with the exception of a few older fighters that were in the Indo-Pakistani conflict and proved themselves)

▪️The Chinese don’t have direct military experience, so we don’t know if they can coordinate large formations and whether they would fall apart like the Russian ones that marched into Ukraine

But we must say that in some areas we see significant progress:

▪️Modern tanks – we don’t know how many they have, but they showed a lot of them. China is a large country and presumably can mass produce. We saw 4th generation tanks with reduced weight, increased survivability, they can network them – truly a modern tool.

▪️Hypersonic missiles – they’re a bit different from Russian ones. The Chinese have long concentrated on hypersonic missiles to destroy aircraft carriers. Why? Because the main competitor is the United States. The US is far away, but they have the ability to project power precisely on these platforms. Experts agree that they have this tested on mockups as well. We’ve seen various exercises in the South China Sea.

▪️Nuclear triad – its display wasn’t just a political effect. It’s a reality. China is intensively increasing its nuclear potential. It was a „younger brother“ like the United Kingdom or France. It’s starting to get into the triumvirate or trio of large nuclear superpowers.

▪️Drones powered by artificial intelligence – we definitely see that this has been tested.

The battle robots, the „wolves,“ were for show. We haven’t really seen them in action. Laser weapons too – they look good on the training ground when nothing is interfering, but in real combat we don’t know.

We don’t know about the coordination of troops, because rehearsing a show is something different. I practiced for Spartakiada – we rehearsed for a year and a half. We could turn an ordinary soldier into an athlete in gymnastics in a year and a half if you focus on it. But that still doesn’t mean we would really be such athletes or gymnasts in competitions.

And of course, those guests – it was clearly political theater and our Prime Minister played an undignified role for the Slovak Republic in it.

Convergence of China and Russia

Moderator: There’s a lot of talk about the convergence of China and Russia. It seems to me that Russia is already such a subordinate state of China, as if they were begging them. But another thing is that Trump is also trying to somehow win Russia over to his side. Does he even have a chance to attract them?

Pavel Macko: In my opinion, he doesn’t. It’s a misunderstanding of the dynamics and context. Trump wants to do something like a „reverse Nixon.“ Nixon with Kissinger at the beginning of the 70s drew China closer to the US, and that’s actually when China’s development began. Let’s be honest – we built up China from that backward country. It’s still at 71st place in GDP per capita, but it’s a large country, so 1.5 billion means something.

The Americans then attracted China, pulled it away from the Soviet bloc. But we need to state the context – the tension between the Soviets and China had been there since Mao Zedong came to power in the 40s, already during World War II. Mao accused the Soviets of not helping him enough against the internal enemy and in those external aspects as well. He wanted the Soviets to sacrifice even the western front just to help him.

There was rivalry, jealousy between them – what we see today in our government coalition. The coalition is failing, but they’re still competing with each other. This was also between the Soviet Union and China. The Americans took advantage of it and China got a „lollipop“ for it, which grew to gigantic dimensions and is today a comparable economy to the United States.

Can Trump achieve the same with Russia? He can’t, because Russia has removed that possibility that China had by its senseless annexation of Crimea and subsequently by its adventure in Ukraine. China grew on having a rich client – whether in the United States or in Europe. It wouldn’t have grown rich on African countries, nor on Latin American ones, which, even though they’re growing stronger, do so mostly for their domestic industry. And not to feed the Chinese.

We fed the Chinese. Just as we fed Arab countries in terms of oil. I mean the collective West. Slovakia didn’t, because we fed the Russians and we’re still feeding them.

The calculation is flawed, because Russia is already so economically dependent on China that a pivot to the US wouldn’t help it. It’s in subordination to China, despite the fact that it’s still a nuclear power with the most nuclear warheads, but that’s about all they have.

China showed at this parade that it’s no longer dependent on Russian technologies, that in aviation technology and stealth technologies it’s already far ahead of the Russians, and the Russians will have a hard time keeping up. China has a powerful economy, many times larger than Russia, and development potential.

The Chinese also function differently mentally. And Trump is trying to turn the chess pieces upside down and thinks they will stand. They won’t, because Russia is economically linked with Third World countries and China. Even if they ended the war immediately, they wouldn’t get back on such a scale that it would be strategically advantageous for them. They will continue in a close alliance with China and there’s no major conflict there.

Russians are always nationalists, chauvinists, they didn’t even like their own nationalities. Everyone who experienced Soviet troops knows this, how they treated officers from nationalities other than Russian. Russian nationalists look at the Chinese as monkeys, just as they do at Afghans, but that’s the Russian nationalistic mentality. The political system and state leadership, however, is aware that without China, Russia today cannot move anywhere.

NATO Responds to China’s Growth

Moderator: And is NATO responding somehow to this growth of China?

Pavel Macko: It’s responding. China is investing a lot of resources in capabilities like artificial intelligence, the development of artificial intelligence in the military. Their philosophy is that they won’t have such sophisticated weapons as the West. This was also seen with drones – they go for quantity and relatively good quality and try to connect it through artificial intelligence to achieve the strategic effect that they are equally effective even with cheaper devices.

Most recently, the North Atlantic Alliance – Mark Rutte after the parade said that China is beginning to be a global challenger and we need to look at it carefully, because it also conducts hybrid operations. It does them more cultivated than the Russians. NATO will have to very quickly add and develop cooperation with Pacific partners like Australia, South Korea, Japan, because China is becoming increasingly assertive.

Coalition of the Willing and Security Guarantees for Ukraine

Moderator: We’ll see if we can do that. But in Paris, the Coalition of the Willing negotiated security guarantees for Ukraine. While our Robert Fico was sitting somewhere in Beijing. What did they agree on in Paris?

Pavel Macko: In Paris, they claim they agreed on security guarantees for Ukraine. 26 countries offered their forces, which would even go to Ukraine at the moment when a ceasefire was concluded.

A controversy and discussion arose about whether Russia must agree. Mark Rutte said quite simply: Ukraine is still a sovereign country, and if peace is achieved, it can invite anyone to its territory.

Of course, we don’t know the details. As a soldier-expert, I can imagine that rules of engagement must be established, where the focus will be – whether they are to be monitoring, observation forces, or deterrent forces, or forces that would be able to stop the initial onslaught in case of a ceasefire violation.

They also communicated that it’s a coalition of the willing, because NATO as an institution won’t be involved in it. Since the United States, Slovakia, and Hungary will block Ukraine’s entry into NATO, they say it will be necessary to strengthen Ukraine’s military capabilities after achieving any peace solution.

For me, the statements of Yermak (I may not admire him in everything, but he’s the right hand of President Zelensky and deals with these issues systematically as the head of the presidential office) are important. He has repeatedly indicated that a good solution would be to move away from Russian megalomaniacal demands and freeze the conflict.

The Ukrainians can live with that – he gave a direct reference to Korea, where a peace agreement hasn’t been concluded to this day and the 38th parallel is still more or less a demarcation line. But the situation has stabilized enough that South Korea could grow economically, develop, and today is one of the very strong world economies, even in arms production it’s a relevant world player.

Moderator: And what should those guarantees be? We already gave guarantees to the Ukrainians in Budapest when they were giving up nuclear weapons, and we see how that turned out.

Pavel Macko: Let me look at both aspects. What should these guarantees be?

1) Military presence of guarantors – they would be on the territory of Ukraine. This is exactly why we also established military presence on NATO’s eastern flank – to be a clear political signal that if you violate the ceasefire, you’ll get into conflict with those guarantors as well.

2) Strengthening air defense – Germany proposed an annual improvement of 20% in the number and effectiveness of air defense systems. Start production in the West, help Ukraine produce some of it itself, and increase air defense capacity by 20% every year.

3) Support for ground forces – they would like to help build Ukraine four mechanized brigades or mechanized infantry brigades, which is about 480 combat vehicles per year.

In short, Ukraine is to receive such military potential that would be sufficiently deterrent – non-nuclear, but deterrent for the Russians. Weapons production in Ukraine would be strengthened. There would also be training support.

They also indicated that if Russia is not willing to sit at the negotiating table, countries are willing, if necessary, in cooperation with the United States, to impose new sanctions.

An important question, which is not finished and is to be completed, is American participation. What does „indirect American air support“ mean? I explained this on Czech television – that support must not only be for the situation when monitoring compliance with the ceasefire, but especially there must be a clear scheme of support in case there is a violation of the ceasefire and an escalation from the Russian side. Then there must be a clear and strong retaliation.

Moderator: I know you followed the Prague defense summit, which was also attended by the NATO Secretary General. It continues today. And we’ll return to that topic.

Pavel Macko: Next week in Piešťany, on September 12, we’ll have a live broadcast during the film festival. We look forward to all of you – to come see us, listen to us, but especially to give us tough questions that the two of us can’t think of ourselves.

Moderator: Well, I can think of tough questions, but I’m afraid to give them to you, whether you’ll be able to answer. But come to Piešťany, because even though we won’t be there as film stars, there will be a star sitting with me, Palo Macko, who knows what you’ll be interested in.

360 Degrees

Moderator: So, Pali, what’s on the radar?

Pavel Macko: We discussed the Shanghai Cooperation Group, we discussed the parade, so to finish it off, I would look more at that coordination group and at Taiwan, although we discussed Taiwan last week.

Moderator: And what would you take as the main point from that Shanghai Group meeting?

Pavel Macko: What comes out to me are those images of Indian Prime Minister Modi, Putin and Xi Jinping holding hands, talking amicably without interpreters and indirectly sending a message to Trump.

Of course, it was arranged for the cameras, because they don’t know each other’s languages, they can’t communicate without interpreters. The important thing is that Trump then looked (albeit in a later context, when he already saw Kim Jong-un at the parade as well), that they’re plotting against the United States.

But the reality is that when I focus on India, it needs to be seen as an epic failure of President Trump. I’ve analyzed this several times – India is, firstly, a democracy. Peculiar, but a democracy. It’s still a member of the British Commonwealth and the largest democracy in the world.

For the last 20 years, the United States has been building a strategic partnership with India to have a partner in the region, so that the world wouldn’t be hostile to them. And Trump has managed to completely disrupt this.

Joe Biden was building those relationships – he invited Modi during his previous term for a state visit directly to the White House. Trump has broken all of this like an elephant in a china shop, because the result is that Modi is now fraternizing with these „troublemakers.“

Modi is signaling by this that he will have a more sovereign foreign policy. This doesn’t mean he would fall into China’s arms. Neither does Putin really want to fall into China’s arms, but he can’t manage without it.

In the case of India and China, there are even more conflicts between them – five years ago they were shooting at each other. It won’t be such a warm friendship, just as the Shanghai Cooperation Group isn’t a warm alliance. It’s not a new NATO or some „East Asian“ grouping. It wants to appear that way, but we see that there are India and Pakistan, some countries are there just to control each other.

The important thing is that India is indicating by this that it will be opportunistic. Trump, for instance, made a mistake and wanted to impose sanctions against everyone. He assessed, similar to Europe, that India is a weaker opponent. He pushed only on India and China and left everyone else alone. So Modi said to himself: „If you treat me as a stranger, I’ll be a stranger, and you’ll still come yourselves and beg me for cooperation.“

It’s a pity. It doesn’t mean an immediate change in the world order, but we will really be in a regime of competing powers. India will potentially be economically stronger than China, because China is somewhere at the limits of its development. It’s said that India could, in 20-30 years, if it fulfills all the prerequisites, economically surpass China.

In the military field, I see it, I indicate it in the latest article coming out this week, that for example in the area of drones and unmanned fighters, India has progressed a lot and is trying to be independent, so it doesn’t have to buy either Russian, Chinese, or American ones.

Moderator: You often return to Taiwan. Why?

Pavel Macko: It’s an absolutely key neuralgic point. I indicated how Taiwan originated – by separation from China. China is trying to get it back, holds the so-called one-China policy. It’s very aggressive towards Czech politicians as well – if they negotiate with the Taiwanese, it immediately attacks them. Just as it’s sensitive about the Dalai Lama, it’s sensitive about Taiwan.

Now in Taiwan there’s of course an independent government, but I would like to return to how it would look if China attacked Taiwan. I was intrigued by publicist J.P. Linsley, a journalist who was, by the way, in Ukraine and survived the initial invasion there. He looked in more detail at how it would be if China attacked Taiwan.

Last week we saw an exercise where the Chinese again practiced landing on Taiwan and blockade. Many were afraid that when Putin attacked Ukraine, China would immediately attack Taiwan as well. They’re not ready for that yet, but they’re trying to build amphibious landing capabilities.

Many evaluated it that China „shifted from fifth to second gear“ when they saw how the Russians hit a wall in Ukraine, and slowed down their ambitions and pressure on Taiwan. That’s not entirely the case.

The problem is that if China attacked Taiwan, they wouldn’t be as unprepared as Russia was in Ukraine. Every month we see evidence that Chinese-Russian cooperation is very intensive. Behind the scenes, China supports the Russians. The Geran drones they produce, the Russians couldn’t produce without 80% Chinese components critical for these drones.

China is also taking military knowledge. There is a very intensive exchange of experiences in drone operations and all activities going on quietly. Everything negative that the Russians experienced in Ukraine, China is thoroughly analyzing. It’s getting direct data from the Russians.

There is intensive communication in the technological area. Intensive correspondence was detected between Rosoboronexport (Russian arms monopoly), a Russian research institute for control communication systems and Chinese components.

So in Russia there may be „chaos,“ but the Chinese are learning from it and trying to be prepared so they don’t surprise Taiwan (as Russia was surprised in Ukraine).

Moderator: And we’re at the end. Pali, a quote?

Pavel Macko: We may have already given it, I’m not sure, because 129 parts is a long time to remember each and every quote. Moderator: But you should remember them.

Moderator: It’s not about remembering the quote, but whether I’ve already used it. I have them archived, because I archive those numbers. Maybe we’ll publish them in a book now. Well, I have to react to how Robert Fico is acting uncollegially and against his „herd.“ So I’ll take the liberty of a quote from Benjamin Franklin.

Pavel Macko: But say it in English first, I’ll like that.

Pavel Macko: Yes, because there’s a good play on words in English – the same word is used in both the first part and the second part of that quote. Benjamin Franklin was supposed to say it when signing the Declaration of Independence of the USA. The quote goes in the original language: „We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.“ And in translation: „We must all hold together, or certainly we will all hang individually.“

Moderator. Thank you.

The post General Pavel Macko’s Security Radar 129 appeared first on Pavel Macko - Bezpečnosť, Technológie, Stratégie.

#360 #Alaska Summit #Fog of War #Macko #peace talks #Putin #Russia #stategic bombing #strategic backgroung #Trump #USA #War in Ukraine #Zelensky

Full transcript of the popular podcast in weekly .týždeň . Originally released Aug 15, 2025 (in Slovak).

Welcome to listening to the 126th edition of General Pavel Macko’s security radar, whom I welcome here.

Pavel Macko: Thank you, have a nice day.

Fog of War

Moderator: Trump and Putin’s meeting will begin literally in a few hours. We’ll return to the preparation and expectations in the background. On the battlefield, or even in the rear, nothing indicates that the war should end. So, Pali, what’s the development?

Pavel Macko: Exactly. We see that both sides are trying to achieve the maximum until the last moment. That means, no slackening of troop activity, that they are preparing to take some advantageous defensive positions, but intense fighting is taking place.

Moderator: I’ll start with strategic bombing. I just read that Ukrainians attacked some cargo ship with weapons.

Pavel Macko: I just caught this from you, that it’s an Iranian cargo ship in a port in the Caspian Sea, where they were transporting Shahed drones. This is a sign that both sides are going all out until the last moment. When we look at Russian strategic attacks, it has quieted down a bit in terms of cities. Nevertheless, the Russians attacked Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro on the 8th. On 10.08, they attacked in the Dnipropetrovsk region and claim to have destroyed 4 Patriot launchers and a radar, which should probably affect air defense. On the 14th, they attacked in Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk.

Russian intelligence says they focused on Sapsan or Grim-2 missile systems. They claim to have eliminated Ukraine’s capability in the area of these deep strikes.

I’ll comment on this a bit. The destruction of Patriots wouldn’t be something exceptional; we’ve seen it before. 4 launchers, that’s about half of a fire battery. It’s a serious loss because they’re looking for every single launcher. Here’s just my note, because even before, when they destroyed some part of a Patriot near Kyiv more than a year ago, it turned out that it had been sitting in one place for too long.

This is a mobile device. It is, of course, used for strategic defense in the case of Ukraine, but it needs to be moved. That means moving and implementing measures that the Iranians experienced – that we must have these devices protected. Not only against those large missiles that shoot it down but also against drones and other devices that its radar doesn’t normally see. That means, multi-layered defense must be done.

We’ll see if this is confirmed or not. Of course, it would be unpleasant, but again, this is a big war where neither side can remain without losses.

As for the destruction of Sapsan, I’m not sure if they really managed to liquidate these factories. Whether they tried to do it, whether it wasn’t just about the launchers somewhere in Sumy, but that there are those military armories in Dnipropetrovsk.

Here, I would say that sometimes silence is golden. I understand that President Zelensky needs to boost morale and that he talks about „we have already tested those rockets, we are ready,“ but when he presents it too publicly, he draws a lot of attention, because the other side will evaluate it as a real threat and will do everything to destroy it. It would be more sensible to produce a few hundred and then announce it and the next day make a flurry. But whether they really destroyed it or not, we will see by whether the Ukrainians will use them.

Moderator: Well, and what about the Ukrainians then, how are they doing?

Pavel Macko: The Ukrainians were also extremely active. You already mentioned that last event now, which I haven’t studied in depth yet, but when we look, they attacked virtually every day:

▪️August 9 in the Volgograd region – a refinery in Volgograd, by the way, the smoke can still be seen even now

▪️August 10 in the Belgorod region – ammunition depot

▪️August 11 in the Bryansk region – a railway junction used for military logistics (by the way, this was also part of that Kursk operation, that there was a possibility to eliminate several of those directions)

▪️August 12 in the Krasnodar Territory – they attack there often, but now they attacked fuel storage tanks, and not with air drones, but with naval drones

That means, they actually sailed across the entire Black Sea and hit with naval drones, which are in the Sea of Azov and hit coastal storage tanks. So it wasn’t quite the eastern Black Sea coast, but it was in the Sea of Azov. That means, they had to get to it or pass by Kerch unobserved under the Kerch Bridge.

Moderator: So that definitely caught my interest. I’m just waiting for when that Kerch Bridge will come up.

Pavel Macko: I think that at the moment it’s not such a priority that they would invest too much in it. The Russians are guarding it, and it wouldn’t give any operational advantage to the Ukrainians at the moment.

Moderator: And what about Pokrovsk? Is it really such a serious breakthrough as they say?

Pavel Macko: Well, now let’s look at those battlefields. The situation on that Donetsk front is, of course, tense. It’s like a tightly stretched string, where you just wait for it to snap.

I’ve been saying for a long time that the Russians are increasing that pressure, they have numerical superiority, they’re trying different tactics. And they managed a breakthrough with smaller units, they seeped through inconspicuously. And actually, under normal circumstances, if I looked at a 10-kilometer shift – well, that’s not like from Lužná to Bratislava. And I’ll say that in such a big war, it’s nothing.

Of course, but given that despite that enormous effort, enormous losses, we see those Russian advances – step by step, house by house, trench by trench, and it took them a year and a half – they actually made about a 10-kilometer advance over the course of this week.

Towards Dobropilia. I’ll just explain it, we don’t have a map, so it’s like:

▪️They’re fighting at Kupiansk. The fighting still persists there, nothing fundamental is changing. They’re trying to capture Kupiansk through that bridgehead, across the Oskil River.

▪️They’re fighting at Chasiv Yar, where they’ve already gotten behind that area, behind Chasiv Yar, but the Ukrainians are still holding in the northwestern part of Chasiv Yar.

▪️Kostiantynivka is free, but they’re kind of bypassing it.

▪️Battles similar to those in Chasiv Yar are also in Toretsk.

And to that, there’s also the area that is Pokrovsk. At Pokrovsk, they got from the south to Dachne, that’s southwest, that they bypassed Pokrovsk. But to Dobropilia, when they got further, there’s actually that road that goes from Pokrovsk and then goes north between Dobropilia and Kramatorsk. It’s such an important road that the Russians are trying to reach, because that would significantly affect logistics.

Despite the fact that terrain vehicles and the like are also used – the Russians at the beginning of the invasion, and the Ukrainians now need paved communications for large logistics. So it’s serious, mainly because they caught the Ukrainians being careless. Despite knowing that there’s huge pressure there, they allowed the Russians to make such a wedge with which they penetrated 10 kilometers. In this case, it’s quite a lot.

Because it allows, if it were to fall, for example, that Kostiantynivka, it would allow the Russians to open a gate for a larger attack or for the siege of Pokrovsk. But it’s not something that would mean that everything will collapse now and they’ll start advancing tens of kilometers. But the Russians will increase that pressure there.

We’re still talking about them looking for a place to push. Of course, the Russians don’t control 30% of the Donetsk region. And even if they didn’t encompass it, they want to have the most advantageous position, so that if by chance in the future, even after some ceasefire, the fighting is renewed, they would get as far as possible.

Moderator: We might talk about this tomorrow morning together, after the Trump-Putin meeting. You’ll be wiser, I probably won’t be, but you will be. Alright, let’s go to the criticism of Syrskyi.

Criticism of Syrskyi

Pavel Macko: Well, and this is related to precisely these battles. When we were talking here about him replacing Zaluzhnyi, we said, well, it’s a legitimate thing for President Zelensky, but by doing so, he’s also putting his hands more into those operations.

Syrskyi is exactly the person who has that long screwdriver and actually tries to manage, even micromanage, every unit. And here I would say that the criticism is partly justified, partly not.

Simply, no one changes. Zelensky took Syrskyi because he was the less rebellious one and asked less than Zaluzhnyi. On the other hand, it was known about Syrskyi that he’s that Soviet soldier. That he’s simply that unyielding one, that he commands. When he defended Bakhmut, he held Soledar for a long time, I criticized it, because they sacrificed three brigades in Soledar.

So the criticism is partly justified, but of course, you have to fight with what you have. You won’t have better ones. Here’s a different trend. When I was doing that study with those German colleagues from that first phase of the war, Ukraine still had those experienced soldiers from Donbas. And they really used mission command, or command through objective, they were independent.

But many of them also fell, many of them were rotated. And actually what happened is that we’ve now reached the stage that they had to mobilize and they’re using those officers who have those old Soviet habits. And really it’s as the Wall Street Journal wrote, that „a big Soviet army is destroying a small one.“

But that’s the worst thing the Ukrainians could have done. I’ve been criticizing it for at least a year and a half, that they must not adapt to Russian tactics, because Russian tactics are based on massive artillery strikes, aviation, and quantity.

It’s not true, as Tomáš Forró was writing now, that the Ukrainians are also lacking personnel, which is true, but that therefore they have no chance of winning and will lose sooner or later. That’s not true, because in history, rarely has pure quantity alone won. But of course, it’s a complex situation, the Ukrainians have to deal with it.

Middle East

Moderator: So, the Middle East. What’s new there? How is it developing?

Pavel Macko: The situation is influenced by the Israeli cabinet’s decision to occupy and clear Gaza. Currently, it’s such that preparatory work is underway. The General Staff is still planning the parameters of that operation. As we said in the introduction, a massive heat wave has hit not only Slovakia but also Israel. There, of course, it means something completely different.

At the moment, the order has already been issued for the evacuation of those people from the Gaza Strip. But the conditions or camp in the southern part of the Gaza Strip are not yet prepared.

Intense military operations were taking place. Israel again bombed several Hamas positions. There were also higher casualties. Thus, the humanitarian crisis is deepening. Although in one day, the Israelis released more, but significantly more trucks are prepared than they can let through continuously into that area.

What definitely caught the attention of all media were the protests and the killing of journalists. Up to six of them. Of course, Israel immediately said that the journalist, one from Al Jazeera, is or was… I saw photographs where he was photographed with those terrorists. That he was the head of a Hamas cell. That means, at that moment, he became a legitimate target, because that’s exactly the controversy, like when an unnamed „woodpecker“ in Slovakia infiltrated the media as a member of SIS [Slovak Intelligence Service].
Well, Peter Tóth.

Moderator: I was thinking, who is the woodpecker. Peter Tóth.

Pavel Macko: Well, that’s exactly where the boundaries end in a democratic society. Here we’re talking about when someone cooperates with terrorists, they can’t hide behind a microphone.

Of course, controversy was also caused by the statement of Bezalel Smotrich, a minister from those radicals, who again is considering expanding settlements in the West Bank. That’s not really the best time and the best topic to be opening now.

Moderator: Last time, last week, you mentioned that Israel wants to evacuate as many Palestinians as possible from Gaza City down south, by October 7 at the latest. And yesterday I read that they are also negotiating with some African country.

Pavel Macko: Well, and that’s interesting, because Sudan was divided, there’s also South Sudan, and actually Israel is also negotiating with South Sudan about potentially relocating parts of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to South Sudan.

Moderator: Permanently?

Pavel Macko: As soon as they come there temporarily and stay there for more than a year, it will be permanent, because these conditions are worsening in the Gaza Strip.

The city if it will be… because there was a conflict between Israeli forces, the Chief of General Staff says let’s besiege, they’re going to combine siege tactics directly through entry into the city or so-called „clearing operations.“ That’s why the evacuation orders were issued.

The problem is that conditions in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, in that open space where some tent city for 600,000 and more people is supposed to arise, don’t exist yet. I can’t imagine it, it’s also humanitarianly complex.

But on the other hand, these people will be pushed out of that area because of those operations, because otherwise there are huge losses threatened on both sides. And there’s also another risk, exactly the opposite, that Hamas, on the contrary, will try to forcibly keep those people in the Gaza Strip and in Gaza City. They will persuade some to stay, and some will be held there by force.

Moderator: I was completely shocked by the air supply and the fact that one of those packages hit a young Palestinian and killed him. How is it with that supply?

Pavel Macko: Overall, there have already been 23 such incidents. What’s the context? Gaza would need about 600 trucks daily to have such a smooth flow. There are several thousand trucks that are de facto already on the way, and now there are several problems.

The Israelis don’t recognize some unknown NGOs that help, because they don’t consider them partners. Part is stuck on some security checks and suspiciousness, so Israel wants to control each cargo, which delays it, but technically they could probably do it by putting more personnel there, making several control checkpoints, and getting a larger number of trucks into circulation.

To this comes an airlift, in which countries participate. Canada is extremely active, but also Spain and other European countries, which actually drop this aid. But that pallet has about one ton, that’s really the most crisis aid. There I would rather understand if some medical aid, medicines, and such things were dropped to get them as quickly as possible.

Israel allowed it because it trusts those partners that they won’t be dropping weapons and explosives there. But of course, those people are desperate. We’ve experienced this in Africa, we experience it in various conflict zones, that those people desperately lunge for that aid until the last moment. But that pallet is not a parachute with a person, it falls relatively quickly, which means, unfortunately, that accident happened, and there are several problems.

Strategic Background

Moderator: Strategic background. So in a few hours, what will happen?

Pavel Macko: Well, a meeting between Donald Trump and President Putin.

Moderator: And what do you expect from it? Are you optimistic?

Pavel Macko: Well, I have mixed feelings, to be honest. But Trump in his recent statements sounded quite reasonable, he was sending indirect signals to Putin, in my opinion.

But the risk is that he wants to meet one-on-one. This last happened, I think, in Helsinki in 2018, and nobody was enthusiastic about it, because he actually came with such very accommodating steps in favor of Putin.

Moderator: So one former colleague wrote that she wanted to faint to interrupt that negotiation.

Pavel Macko: Yes, I read that somewhere too. Well, what’s the risk? It needs to be said that Trump is not a professional diplomat and he’s up against a KGB agent, who has actually led the state all his life, has these Machiavellian methods under his skin, commands the world map, commands all these nooks and crannies.

It turned out that even with Kim Jong-un, that Trump is… I don’t want to disparage, he’s a president elected by 77 million Americans, so I’d prefer not to comment on him, but simply, he’s a person who is naive in this. Simply, he doesn’t have it studied, that’s the difference compared to Biden, because Biden was a long-time diplomat, a long-time politician. Trump was a real estate agent.

Well, and the problem is that he sometimes nods to something in good faith. It’s not that he’s bad, or too accommodating to Putin, but he simply nods in good faith to something that he thinks is fine, and then finds out that it’s completely different or off, because he sometimes has such childish…

Moderator: Maybe he doesn’t even realize.

Pavel Macko: Well, take for example, he was signing after being elected and after inauguration, he was signing some decrees and some orders, even with Spain, and he asked if it’s a country in BRICS. So Spain, that’s one of the bigger partners in NATO. A schoolboy here would probably know that, but again I say, this is the risk that simply the charm of personality, and we don’t know yet, of course, I wouldn’t go into these conspiracies, what all they have prepared for Trump.

From his statements, I saw a sincere effort that he won’t give it so easily to Putin. But Putin will try to use this situation, because he delayed everything, fulfilled nothing, and still demanded a meeting. Trump said he would mainly listen to him. Let’s hope it will be so.

But actually, it will all be about Putin wanting to open several questions and give that lollipop on which he wants to lure him, because we know that Trump, even in the election campaign, said that he would like to reduce armaments, that he would like simply… Because the INF treaty on those short and medium-range missiles. This strategic agreement fell. The last START is falling. And thereby there’s no replacement for those disarmament treaties from the times of the deep Cold War, and there’s a threat that a new round of the arms race will really be unleashed. Well, and the Russians are offering him that they could negotiate about this.

Moderator: Exactly. And that’s why the signaling needs to be seen in this context as well, because this is called diplomatic signaling. There will be the Zapad [West] exercise, and among other things, the Russians are communicating that in mid-September, they will practice with the Belarusians the use of tactical nuclear weapons, the use of „oreshniki“ [nut-crackers].

Pavel Macko: All this is supposed to make a bait and atmosphere. This is reflexive control. That’s exactly what influences the actions of the other side.

So let’s wait for the results. It’s a few hours. I’m curious myself, because it can go awry in all directions, but one thing is certain. We also discussed this with Martin Svárovský, that in the end, it won’t work without Ukraine. Ukraine has been at war for too long, has been defending itself for too long, and is too big to just accept a new Munich Dictate with the blink of an eye.

Moderator: In connection with tomorrow’s meeting, Chancellor Merz initiated a whole series of meetings of European leaders. How do you evaluate those activities?

Pavel Macko: I think it was necessary. I actually spoke on this topic, I think, on Czech Television last week, that this is exactly what they should be doing, that diplomacy should now be taking place behind the scenes.

Of course, there was something for the cameras, some of it was signals towards Putin, some towards Trump, so that it was also said publicly where some „red lines“ are in quotation marks, so that Trump would also be in the situation that he has to perceive it and can’t then subsequently say that he didn’t know about it.

But I would just pick out two aspects from it. First, what is actually like a prerequisite, on which the partners agreed. Because the atmosphere was good, everyone evaluated it positively. We know that behind the scenes it was probably ugly, as they say in English, so it’s less nice, but there was no discord in advance.

That means, what they at least agreed on was that the format of the negotiations should be such that any final agreement must be with the participation of Ukraine, perhaps other partners as well. Trump also promised that if they agree now, they could quickly proceed next week to trilateral negotiations, and perhaps there would be other partners there as well.

The second thing is that a ceasefire is an absolutely basic condition, that there must be some security guarantees, and the United States indicated that they could be engaged in this, we don’t know yet how, well, and that Russia will not have a veto, even though Trump said that he won’t let Ukraine into NATO anyway.

Moderator: Alright, and what if Putin doesn’t back down?

Pavel Macko: Well, if he doesn’t back down, then we’re in a situation where Trump has lost his pants and image, because in that case, he will look like a very weak negotiator, because he gave an ultimatum, which he even shortened. The ultimatum expired, but he didn’t actually implement anything. Meanwhile, of course, to avoid this stress, he sent Witkoff to persuade Putin. I think it’s on a good path, but I don’t trust Putin too much.

So I caught such a statement, from Trump’s first administration was Marshall Billingslea. He’s such an expert, a plenipotentiary precisely for sanctions, and he’s actually saying what would need to be done. Complete blocking, that simply those sanctions must come. And that would mean complete blocking against all financial institutions, completely cutting off the Russians from the SWIFT system, but also sanctioning secondarily all foreign banks that would try to produce some secondary, some parallel settlement system that the Russians could use.

Furthermore, immediately impose sanctions on several Chinese banks that have, for example, financed exports to Russia and to the aviation and defense sector. Because that machinery for the aviation defense sector went there.

Another thing is to announce sectoral sanctions on all Russian energy transactions, including secondary sanctions, that means, for the time being, there could also be those 25% sanctions that were announced, or tariffs on India, on China. This could be done immediately, and then that law could also come, which is actually in the American Congress. That’s Senator Graham and also Blumenthal. They have 84 co-submitters, so there’s strong pressure there.

And one important thing is that they could also add and expand sanctions on the Russian grey fleet. The United Kingdom did something, the European Union did. In total, there are more than 500 ships that are leased in Russia in all sorts of ways. They would be able to block them in some way.

Of course, if these measures were done, they would be able to throttle Putin by 600 million dollars a day and at the same time, those interests from these frozen parts or from those frozen assets that are there could be given to buy American weapons for Ukraine for the time being. So this would certainly help.

But these are things that we’ve known for, let’s say, three years. And with those sanctions, progress is so terribly slow that the Russians always manage to avoid parts of those sanctions in some way.

VAT on Arms Production

Moderator: Alright, let’s go to Slovakia. Some government politicians, and even the Slovakia movement, have an idea that they want to increase VAT on arms production and maximize the tax and license fees on arms companies, because they allegedly make extreme profits. That seems fine at first glance, you’re making money on weapons. What do you think about it?

Pavel Macko: Well, it has several problems. I would say it bluntly, that it’s dangerous stupid populism and in the end, it would harm Slovakia. Also our defense capability and it would prolong the modernization of the army. And it could drive those manufacturers out of Slovakia.

I’ll try to break it down a bit in two minutes.

First, increasing VAT doesn’t make sense. Those weapons and ammunition are sold primarily abroad, and VAT is applied at the final consumption in our territory. That means, when we increase VAT, on one hand, we’ve increased the defense budget, and right away we take it, because actually, the state pays that VAT to itself. That means, you just recycle your money, which would mean a significant increase in the cost of modernizing our army, which is probably not the best thing we could do in this situation.

As for those licenses and tax increases, well, we have some tax laws, as generally from the point of view of the rule of law. Making up special taxes, that’s like when they invented a special pension for Prime Minister FICO and wanted a special pension for the Attorney General, but not every one, but precisely that Žilinka. This is simply nonsense. This simply isn’t done, because it’s legally non-standard. There should be clear rules.

But quite essential is that good arms factories have always been a lucrative business. But this would actually make the sale of these weapons and ammunition to Ukraine even more expensive. That means, I’m surprised at the Slovakia movement, that apart from that lack of knowledge of economic principles, that we’re actually increasing VAT at home for our own army and making our modernization more expensive, that we’re going to penalize even the Ukrainians, because we’ve caught on to some statement by Robert Fico that „not even a bullet to Ukraine.“ Now we criticize him that he exports more there, that’s okay that we criticize him, but we don’t criticize him for the fact that those arms factories, those weapons are exported there. We criticize him for the hypocrisy that Robert Fico is actually presenting with this.

But now imagine, it’s supposed to be up to 5% of defense expenditure. And so, do we want to buy everything from abroad? Or will we sink our arms factories, or create an environment for them. I would, on the contrary, reduce income taxes precisely to motivate increased production and development of the sector and reduce taxes, or for example, give some state support.

Let’s take, in Vlkanová we have a Slovak arms factory, which grew on a green meadow, which built a quad – a combat vehicle, but the main thing is what’s on it. It’s actually one of the main tools for example for fighting against drones, which are becoming dominant on that battlefield, and they can export it, and we’re actually going to burden them with taxes now and punish them for success.

Simply, this is exactly wrong, when we look at the economy having just 0.2% growth now, one of the smallest in the entire European Union and in the eurozone. That curve of growth decline is horrible when we look at the last year and a half, and that’s not even fully reflecting all those consolidation measures, which are literally suffocating the economy. Let’s not rake and poke into what works.

World War II – Balkans

Moderator: So let’s go to the continuation of the cycle about World War II. Last time we analyzed the Battle of Britain here, and today we’re moving to the Balkans. What was happening there?

Pavel Macko: So briefly, there was the battle for the Balkans, for Greece. Albania was annexed by Italy already in 1939, but Mussolini was looking at Greece. Now he was frustrated by how the Germans were advancing everywhere with blitzkrieg. So he decided without coordination with the Germans to attack Greece. And it didn’t end well. It ended well for the Greeks, but only temporarily, unfortunately.

When we talk, these are battles in the Balkans, which eventually includes the occupation of Yugoslavia and ended with the battle for Crete. So I’ll briefly just first say those events:

On October 28, 1940, Italy attacked Greece from Albania with about 70,000 soldiers. It started with the Italians giving an ultimatum to the Greeks to allow them to advance at sea and to essentially surrender, submit, and subordinate themselves to Italian interests. But the war didn’t develop according to Italian expectations. The Greeks, first of all, stood their ground and said they wouldn’t back down and started fighting.

And subsequently, they even pushed those Italians back into Albania in early November. In December to January, in winter, Greek units advanced deep into southern Albania, to key cities, key mountain passes.

And in February, Britain got involved in it. I remind you that at that time, Cyprus was part of the British Empire. The British had interests in the eastern Mediterranean, and of course, Italian expansion into the Aegean Sea would have threatened their interests. So the British began helping the Greeks with the help of the Royal Air Force and their commando soldiers.

And the Italians got a thrashing. Then the Germans launched Operation Marita in April 1941, and on April 27, the Germans finally conquered Athens. Greece came under Axis occupation. And finally, on June 1, 1941, the resistance on Crete also ended.

Moderator: Well, you already mentioned at the beginning that the main cause of the Italian-Greek war was Mussolini’s imperial megalomania. And what was going on in Yugoslavia?

Pavel Macko: Well, I would still go back a bit to that Mussolini and maybe to those parameters, that when we look, Italy deployed 6 divisions and later increased it to 29 divisions and 400,000 soldiers. But they were poorly equipped, had very low morale, simply it wasn’t going well for them.

Greece started with 4 divisions and 50,000 soldiers, expanded it to 13, but they had strong defensive tactics, high morale, it was in the mountains. The United Kingdom then got involved, and finally Germany attacked in April with 24 divisions, led by Field Marshal List.

When I return to those causes, Mussolini imagined a new Roman Empire. He wanted to achieve all this in the Mediterranean, he wanted to expand Italy’s influence to Greece, to Yugoslavia, to the Balkans. And it was also such frustration, he was jealous of the Germans, that in that Axis, where he was together with Germany and Japan, he played second fiddle.

With Greece, there was of course long-term tension. By the way, October 28 is a very significant, memorial day in Greece. It’s called „Oxi“ day. Oxi was „no,“ because the Italians gave an ultimatum to the Greeks, and the Greek prime minister said that they shouldn’t submit, that simply they would defend themselves. Literally, that was the statement, „so there will be war then.“

And actually, when I now return to Yugoslavia, that’s an interesting development. Because Yugoslavia at the beginning was forced by the Axis countries to sign an agreement with these Axis countries and was like an ally, but that lasted only a few days. In March 1941, it reluctantly signed that tripartite pact under pressure from Germany and Italy.

Two days later, on March 27, there was a coup d’état in Yugoslavia led by pro-British officers. Yugoslavia became a monarchy, they installed King Peter II as the ruling monarch. This angered Hitler, because he counted on using Yugoslavia for his goals. Suddenly it was unreliable for him and a threat to his Balkan strategy.

The Italians also disappointed him, so he decided to solve things himself and directly. On April 6, 1941, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria launched a coordinated invasion of Yugoslavia. It fell in 11 days, Belgrade was heavily bombed. They divided that Yugoslavia. Germany occupied Central Serbia, Italy annexed parts of Slovenia, Kosovo, and Dalmatia. Hungary and Bulgaria also took a part, the Hungarians the north. And the Independent State of Croatia was established in that territory.

But a resistance movement emerged in Yugoslavia, and the country became a focal point of partisan warfare. This then had an impact on the entire course of World War II and further courses of battles in the Balkans, but even on the Cold War.

If we look at it, that resistance had two parts. One were the Chetniks. That was led by General Draža Mihailović. Later, however, those Western allies opposed him, because they suspected him of helping the Nazis in the fight against partisans. And the partisans, led by Josip Broz Tito, they fought in the mountains. They then received great support from the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the USA, and eventually gradually liberated that Yugoslavia.

The significance was that the March coup (1941) in Yugoslavia diverted German troops. They had to delay the operation for the invasion of Greece. Thereby, however, the Barbarossa plan was also delayed. The Germans didn’t manage to get to Moscow after the invasion of the Soviet Union before winter, and actually, it all broke for them. So that was probably the most important thing. And of course, Mussolini’s collapse.

360°

Moderator: 360° Pali, what’s on your radar?

Pavel Macko: Well, again, the situation in Congo, in western Africa, and in the Sahel region is becoming more complicated. The UN is paying increased attention to this. And the problem is that the Security Council holds such regular briefings. So they did such a briefing. It actually got like to the top. It also lit up red on my radar, because the Security Council was discussing it.

There’s a quite difficult humanitarian situation there. There are large such inter-tribal attacks. Well, and actually this something, if you remember that conflict between Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda, that was a very bloody conflict, so this is actually still about the same thing. That this area is such a hot cauldron, where it boils and at the moment it’s bubbling and boiling over again.

Moderator: Alright, and what kind of conflict is it? Where does it have its roots?

Pavel Macko: Well, that conflict, it’s a long-term conflict. It goes actually back to the colonial era, because there are several groups there, actually large numbers of inhabitants were relocated there.

And when I look, there was always some war there. Actually, this current situation is that in the Kivu area, there’s such an M23 movement – rebels, who have actually been fighting for a long time for some self-determination. There’s a big escalation of violence, they’re dragging Rwanda, Uganda into it.

But when I take it that those roots go really back to the fact that actually during Belgian colonial rule, large numbers of those Hutus and Tutsis were forcibly relocated from Rwanda to eastern Congo. And that of course caused long-term ethnic tension. Those ethnicities compete or vie for survival, for their living space, for access to food, to resources.

And there was a whole series of wars there. The Masisi War in 1993, then there was an uprising in 1996, which was led by Tutsis in Kivu and it grew into further regional wars, which drew in Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi. There was the so-called Second Congo War. And that is sometimes called the African World War. It was in the years 1998 to 2003.

Europe tried to intervene there, as did the UN. And actually, what happened then was that 9 countries and dozens of armed groups actually fought each other, everyone against everyone. So it’s very complex there, it will continue to be complex, there are those cycles of violence and various militias, and there are of course also geopolitical factors. Simply, there are long-term fights and unrest in the Congo area. It’s actually a country rich in gold, tin. But also other minerals that are mined there, some, for example, important for the electronics industry. There’s 80% of the world’s reserves of coltan, where there are two types of such elements, which are actually used in the electronics industry.

Moderator: You mentioned regional influences. How does it affect neighboring countries?

Pavel Macko: At the moment, it’s such that the whole surroundings are destabilized, and we have just in North Kivu 2.5 million people who have been displaced. And thousands more people are hiding in individual areas. There’s a total collapse of healthcare. Well, and there’s a lack of access to basic food.

This potentially threatens that if it doesn’t manage to be dampened, and the world’s largest UN mission is operating there between them, then we have a huge conflict, which can again change to the fact that more of these countries will actually get involved with each other. And that will also mean huge pressure on already broken countries, like Mali, Niger, and those others. And those refugees will simply move somewhere, presumably only northward.

Moderator: Last week we were talking here about Cambodia and Thailand. Those two countries were also filling world media. It’s somehow quieted down. Is there anything new there?

Pavel Macko: Positive, because so far the ceasefire is being observed. There was also some diplomatic development. Cambodia and Thailand held a meeting of that General Border Committee, or what we would call, that demarcation commission, in Kuala Lumpur on August 7. They agreed in detail on a 13-point ceasefire plan. The movement of troops was frozen. There’s a ban on attacks on civilians. ASEAN observer teams are being deployed there. So it’s a fortunately good development so far.

But even that short conflict has its humanitarian and economic impact. When I look at my notes, 130,000 evacuated in Cambodia, they report injured children. GDP in Cambodia will decrease by 3% this year and as a result of a 20% decline in tourism. And there’s a problem that they have rotating, migrating workers there. That movement will also be restricted. So here you can see that even such a very short conflict can have quite strong consequences.

Final Quote

Moderator: So let’s go to the quote.

Pavel Macko: This week I was thinking that we all have such great expectations. In the end, we’ll probably be disappointed. I would give one from Samuel Huntington, the author of the book about the clash of civilizations, very famous, popular, which came out in the 90s. And he says that „expectations should not be taken for granted, because you never know when you will be disappointed.“

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