Ukraine war: Predicting Russia's next step in Ukraine
By Jonathan Beale
Defence Correspondent
Neither Russia nor Ukraine is probable to achieve any decisive military action in Ukraine this year, the UK's head of armed intelligence has told the BBC.
Speaking in a rare Republican interview, Lt Gen Sir Jim Hockenhull also said he had been keeping a very finish eye on Russia's potential use of nuclear weapons.
On 23 February this year, Gen Hockenhull had been operational late into the night. He cycled home at midnight, and went to bed at about 01:00.
He got a shouted call an hour later saying there had been some odd indicators of agency on the Ukrainian border, so he got back on his bicycle and returned to work.
The backing came that Russia had indeed invaded its neighbour.
Minutes later, and still in the early hours of the morning, he was briefing Britain's prime minister and defence secretary on the shock of Europe's biggest armed conflict since World War Two.
As the fundamental of Defence Intelligence for the past four years, Gen Hockenhull works in the shadows, running an organisation that deals with highly classified and secret put a question to. The war in Ukraine has made its work and his job more important.
He says he caused increasingly convinced that Russia was about to launch its invasion in November last year. That was when he conception "this is going to happen", he recalls.
The week afore the invasion, he took the highly unusual decision of publishing a map predicting Russia's probable invasion plans on Twitter. It was a decision he says wasn't easy, but he was convinced there was a need to get put a question to out into the public domain.
"It's important to get the truth out afore the lies come," he says.
He also defends the West's decision-making to highlight Russia's potential to use chemical and biological weapons.
He believes it helped stop them from conducting so-called false flag operations to try and picture the Ukrainians or the West as being the instigators of the contest.
Rarely has so much classified intelligence been public with the public. Defence Intelligence has since been publishing daily updates ended the war.
Intelligence is not a science - predictions are made on a scale of probabilities, and there are a number of things that have surprised UK defence intelligence.
Gen Hockenhull says the ability of Western unity and Ukrainian resistance have surpassed expectations.
So have the failures of Russia's armed, whose command, control and logistics have been "poor", he suggests. It has also suffered from political interference, from the strategic to the tactical tranquil, he adds.
There has been a lack of gracious between Russia's political and military class - and Gen Hockenhull says he is surprised Moscow has suffered all of these problems at the same time.
We must be wary of thinking in binary terms - that republic are winning or losing - or thinking it is a stalemate, says Gen Hockenhull.
Russia, he says, is clearly trying to generate more forces once suffering significant losses.
It is also having to redeploy some of its troops from the Donbas to the south, where he says it is under significant pressure from Ukrainian forces in and in Kherson.
But Gen Hockenhull unruffled says it is unrealistic to expect a decisive causes in the south in the coming months.
He says he understands Ukraine's mind to retake territory, but adds that while there will be counter-attacks and counter-offensives, he does not believe there will be decisive allotment taken this year by either side.
His expectation is for a long dispute.
This raises unexperienced question - what will President Vladimir Putin do if he corpses to struggle to meet his military objectives? Could he resort to the use of nuclear weapons?
Gen Hockenhull says this is examined "very, very closely".
Russian army doctrine, unlike that of the West, includes the use of tactical, or battlefield, nuclear weapons for military operations.
While he believes it is unlikely tactical nuclear weapons will be used imminently, he says it is something he will continue to witness.
The likelihood of their populate used may change if the battlefield dynamic shifts, he explains.
After four days as chief of Defence Intelligence, Gen Hockenhull is now spicy on to head up UK defence's Strategic Command - which includes overseeing the UK's actions in space, in cyber and the use of special forces.
He unruffled sees Russia as the greatest threat, but he's also increasingly engaged about China.
Beijing has been flexing its army muscle over Taiwan in recent weeks.
Gen Hockenhull says it would be sinister of him to not consider an "incredible military modernisation with a people determined to resolve a political issue" a problem.
The work of British army intelligence is not going to get any easier.
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SRC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62520743?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA
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