Now, the European Union's top diplomat
has warned against walking into what she
called the trap of allowing Russia to
keep Ukrainian territory in exchange for
peace. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today
program after last week's summit between
presidents Trump and Putin, the EU high
representative for Foreign Affairs and
Security Policy, Ka Callis, said such a
move would signal to Moscow that its
aggression had paid off. She accused
President Putin of making no effort to
move towards peace.
No, this is exactly the trap that Russia
wants us to walk into. I mean the
discussion all about what Ukraine should
give up. What is the concessions that
Ukraine is willing to do? Whereas we are
forgetting that Russia hasn't made one
single concession and they are the ones
who are the aggressor here. They are the
ones who are brutally attacking another
country and killing people there uh with
no uh I mean international law allowing
this. So, so let's keep the focus there
where we have to keep it to put the
pressure on Russia so that they would
come to the negotiation table and also
what kind of negot concessions are the
Russians making right now. They have
just increased their goals and and
wishes.
Well, Russia has also claimed today that
it captured three villages in the
Donetsk region, bringing it closer to
key Ukrainian defensive positions. Well,
what is exactly the situation on the
front line at the moment? Hannah Shalest
is the director of security programs at
the foreign policy council Ukrainian
Prism and joins me now. Hannah, thanks
for being with us. Is it possible to say
what the battlefield situation is? Is
Russia making gains? Obviously, it's
evolving all the time.
>> The situation at the battlefield is uh
very flexible or changeable depends what
word you would like to use because the
front line is huge. we are speaking
about the administrative uh uh borders
of five regions. We are speaking about
almost 2,000 kilometers of the different
front lines. So in this case, yes, there
are certain uh pieces of this front line
like in the Nesk region that are
currently in the very bad shape and uh
uh Russian forces being advancing. But
you need to understand that to take some
of these villages, it took them 11 years
uh because they started doing it in 2014
and with the really uh total destruction
of these villages. So nobody's living
there. It is just the ashes uh left
there. That is the price paid for
occupation of these new territories. But
at the same time there are other
territories in Suma region for example
where we just heard about the liberation
of the villages previously being
occupied by Russia. So e of if you ask
me if Russia um trying to advance, are
they currently at the offensive? Yes, it
is. As soon as the negotiation started
or been planned for uh Alaska, Russians
intensified their activities to gain
additional territories and to prove that
they are able of doing it. But at the
same time, we cannot say that the
situation is dramatically changing from
let's say what we had in winter.
What about the the situation on the
technology front? The use of drones by
both sides is obviously increased again.
How is that changing?
>> Uh that's complicated situation because
both sides are advancing and the
technologies are changing almost
monthly. So if originally let's say
three years ago Ukraine being uh much
advanced uh in terms of the new
technologies and the diversity of the
different drones that Ukraine used. So
uh due to the badly implemented
sanctions, Chinese support and Russian
war economy, they managed to produce
less variations but in the bigger
amount. For example, in Alaba, they use
the African forces and uh different
other foreigners just to build 247 the
uh so-called Shahed drones. uh but at
the same time uh both sides also advance
in terms of the electronic warfare
because against the drones you are
fighting with electronic warfare much
more than with the regular weapons. That
was the parity situation when none of
the sides really could go advanced. Now
we have the new types of the drones that
are already not the distance uh working
uh but with the uh um special cables and
the territories. If you go to the Herson
region for example, it's like in the
spider web over there because of these
uh um fabrics uh there. Now we are again
in this parity partially and both sides
are looking for the technological
advancements how to break through uh
through this situation.
>> Hannah Shalis, thank you very much
indeed.