so russia is consolidating its control over the city of mario paul with the apparent surrender
of the ukrainian soldiers who'd been holding out in the azo style steel works they could
soon be sent home though in a prisoner swap with ukraine at the same time ukraine's got its first
russian soldier pleading guilty to war crimes tensions over those soldiers and now a bid by
sweden and finland to join nato to get the latest on the war and some expert analysis
we're pleased to welcome back to the program tonight dr malcolm davis senior analyst at
the australian strategic policy institute he joins us this time from washington dc
uh professor dr davis good to see you thank you for coming on tonight
my pleasure as always well the saga of the mario pole steel works appears to be nearing
an end close to a thousand ukrainian soldiers there according to russia having surrendered
more than that uh reportedly now more than 1700 uh there are still some commanders in there possibly
but the idea now is that russia and ukraine are going to swap prisoners are these ukrainians
going to make it back and how do you see the prisoners fitting into any broader negotiations
look i hope they do make it back i think it's within it's in russia's interest not harm them uh
certainly under the geneva convention uh prisoners of war are not to be harmed now if russia violates
that convention uh then that just adds to the list of atrocities that they've committed already
but certainly i think from russia's perspective they can do a prisoner of war swap um and get
some of their people back in return for these defenders at the asval steelworks spa
well at the same time ukraine's now uh putting soldiers on trial for war crimes and they got a
russian tank commander pleading guilty to killing a civilian on a bicycle if that's the direction
ukraine is going i wonder what they expect will happen to the soldiers now in russian hands
because we've had russia all this time uh claiming nazism in eastern ukraine or west eastern ukraine
so we could see those kinds of charges pop up again what do you see happening there
the russians certainly weren't like that um but you know they have been too many
war crimes everyone understands that and i think it's perfectly within the
right of the ukrainian government to put those um prisoners that have committed war crimes on trial
uh and as you say that the the first one that went on trial has pleaded guilty so uh i think that
you know the next step in that regard is any sort of uh diplomacy between russia and ukraine
over the defenders of the azerbaijan steelworks versus some sort of prisoner of war swap um
but i think as your reporter is indicating uh the fighting could uh sort of bog down into some
sort of uh stagnation period where my side can really make advances and so now is the time to
be working on that diplomatic angle and speaking of diplomatic angles uh you know as that is that
uh the battle's sort of in a stalemate stage finland and sweden they're now applying for
membership in nato but there's opposition from turkey which says they've basically been harboring
kurdish terrorists a decision on their joining has to be unanimous though of course because
these countries are promising to go to war on each other's behalf so first of all do you see
turkey uh holding fast to its objections i don't in the sense that it will do more harm
to turkey's interests than it will in terms of uh allowing sweden and finland to join
yes turkey has a grievance against those countries i don't know that it's particularly justified
but if turkey were to block the accession of sweden and finland nato then it's going to
essentially incur a great deal of political cost uh within the alliance it would not be seen as a
as a cooperative or friendly act by turkey at a time of great crisis it would be seen to
actually assist the russians so i don't see turkey holding fast to this they're posturing to
negotiate some sort of compensation but i don't see this as essentially a no-win
situation and i wonder about russia's reaction if they do end up joining russia has basically
said it's not a big deal unless other nato countries are deploying weapons there
but i wonder perhaps if it could lend credence to this idea held by many in russia including putin
that they're they're being encircled and possibly that boosting what many say is flagging morale uh
look i think that you know the russians will not look favorably on this um but really nato makes
its policy choices not to please russia but to ensure its own security uh so bringing in finland
and sweden dramatically boosts nato security in the north it weakens russians russia's ability
to project power through the baltic sea and it does i think make it easier for nato to deter
any russian threat against the baltic states um i think that the russians will certainly uh not like
this and they will probably move military forces closer to the finland border potentially including
nuclear capable units and i think that if they do that then nato would need to respond
with deploying additional forces to ensure that deterrence is held fast if they don't
then that sends the wrong signals but i don't see this necessarily as being fundamentally changing
the situation in ukraine this is about a broader strategic competition between nato and russia
and a calculated decision no doubt finland's aware of of all that uh it could face on its border with
russia um well doc uh if we could look at one last question and that is the devastation for
ukraine and the ukrainian people we all know how bad this has been for them and then on the russian
side we've seen some sometimes extravagant claims of of damage to their forces uh realistically what
do you see as the as the losses on the russian side in terms of uh their military well the losses
are now seeming to range from about 25 to 33 of the an initial forces deployed into the ukrainian
uh operation uh by the russians so that's a substantial loss um the russians have
effectively lost a great deal of their armored funding vehicles their tanks uh they've taken
heavy losses with infantry um so it's going to take the russians a long time to recover from this
and the key issue is if the war does essentially move to a phase of a frozen conflict
um with ukrainians building up their capabilities as a result of western assistance and the russians
trying to reconstitute their capabilities through re-redeploying fresh forces um
it's likely to be a race that the ukrainians win and then the question is do the ukrainians
launch a second counter-offensive to try and retake the donbass potentially even crimea
and i think that's really the critical point because if the ukrainians start making serious
gains against the russians in the donbass and potentially threaten the crimea then it's more
likely that putin would escalate rather than essentially withdraw and accept the fee indeed
well uh dr davis uh we're going to have to leave it there this time and have you back on again
thank you as always for sharing your insights with us we appreciate it thank you very much