Interview: Former British Air Commander Says Ukraine Must 'Inflict Maximum Pain' On Russia

Sean Bell served as a combat pilot and air vice marshal in the Royal Air Force and held several other positions in the British Defense Ministry. He is now a military analyst for Sky News.

In an interview with RFE/RL's Georgian Service, Bell said Ukraine was "finding ways to fight differently" in its war against Russia, highlighting Kyiv's recent incursion into Russia's Kursk region, as well as drone strikes on Russian energy infrastructure and military targets.

RFE/RL: There does not seem to be a consensus among experts and analysts on Ukraine's incursion into Russian territory on its border: calculated risk or reckless gamble? What side of the argument do you take?

Sean Bell: It's been described by many people as a gamble. You gamble when you go to Las Vegas and you don't know what the odds are, you have no influence on the outcome, you just gamble your money away. In military operations, this was a very well-planned military operation and it carried a lot of risks. There's no doubt that President [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy and his team will have war-gamed this several times, looked at, planned for the worst, hoped for the best; it was intelligence-led. It was almost certainly not just Ukrainian intelligence but also potentially some of Ukraine's allies helping to try to work out how best to achieve their objectives.

Now, what's not clear, as a former military guy, you only do these operations if there's a clear idea of what it is you're seeking to achieve. Now, it's not entirely clear to me what that is because simply invading Russia would appear to be very difficult. Let's be clear: Ukraine has taken about 0.003 percent of Russian territory. Russia is vast, and although a couple of Ukrainian friends of mine said, "We hope to see a Ukrainian flag planted in Moscow," clearly that's rather fanciful. Even Ukraine has said it does not intend to hold the ground.

So, this appears to be -- although it has not been verified -- an attempt to force President Vladimir Putin to be embarrassed by the fact he has given up land, humiliated Mr. Security, as [Putin] brands himself, [who] has presided over the first invasion of Russian soil since 1941 and therefore forcing President Putin to kick the Ukrainian forces out. And that would require battle-hardened troops, that would require Putin to bring troops from the Donbas [in eastern Ukraine[ region up, and that would therefore relieve pressure on the front line in the Donbas.

Now, if -- and that's a huge if -- but if that is actually what President Zelenskiy is trying to do, then militarily there's huge risks because Ukraine doesn't have a massive oversupply of troops and, therefore, in fact they will be paying a price for taking troops away. And if Putin does what I think a military guy would do, [which] is to turn around and say: 'Where is my main effort? My...main effort is in the Donbas. Am I threatened by this enclave in Kursk and potentially expanding to Belgorod? No, I am not." So, I could, as a Russian, simply focus my effort on the Donbas, know that it's made my life easier.

I've got probably 10 to 12 weeks before winter settles to try to seize as much of the Donbas that I don't have as possible. And then I'll move north and deal with this enclave later when I'm no longer on the offense in Donbas and I have some spare resources.

RFE/RL: If that's indeed true, who seems to be outmaneuvering whom here? Because if, indeed, Putin follows that kind of tactic, that means that he's also making sure that some of Ukraine's more elite and best forces are tied up in Kursk.

Bell: Absolutely right. In effect, he's fixed those forces up there. You asked me for my assessment. I think from a military perspective, there is a lot of danger with Ukraine's approach. But what we don't understand is the political potential of this, because history suggests that Russian leaders can very swiftly be brought down internally if they seem to be overstretching.

Sean Bell

And President Putin started this invasion of Ukraine probably expecting [it] to be over in a matter of days, maybe a few weeks. We are now two and a half years in; Russian people now are being fed a diet of lies, but gradually their sons and fathers are returning home in body bags. Gradually, hundreds of thousands of Russian people are going home badly injured without arms or legs. It's very difficult to hide that truth from the Russian people.

Now you've got 120,000, maybe more, Russians who've been evacuated from the front line. All of them will be talking. They'll be talking about how painful it is. Also, the Ukrainians have been mounting drone attacks across the country, taking the flight to Russia, making sure domestically, Russians realize they are in a war. Now, all of that will ramp up pressure on President Putin, no doubt. The question is whether it ramps it up enough for Putin to start to get worried.

RFE/RL: You described what would be, from the Russian high command's perspective, an ideal course of action, right? Let's also look at it from the Ukrainian high command's perspective. So, if Russia indeed does that, what would be Ukraine's response? Where does Ukraine go from here?

Bell: I think one of the challenges that Ukraine has faced throughout this is that they are the smaller nation. They have a smaller country, they have fewer resources available, both manpower to fight and money to wage war. And, therefore, the one thing that Ukraine has had to try to avoid is what we call attritional warfare. So, if you go back a few hundred years, my army would meet your army on the battlefield. We'd line up, we'd have a cup of tea, and then we'd fight, and the bigger, stronger army would win. If that is the way the battle descends, then Ukraine would find it very difficult to win.

So, Ukraine has to find a different way of fighting. Now, what Russia is doing effectively in the Donbas is grinding forward. All accounts suggest they are taking massive casualties, well over 1,000 a day. Even Bakhmut, which was described as the most bloody battle since World War II, had less than 1,000 casualties a day. And it does sound as if Russia can't recruit 1,000 a day now. It doesn't want to do another mobilization. So, Russia is just pushing really, really hard. It doesn't care how many soldiers get killed.

So how does Ukraine battle that? Well, part of it is that [Ukraine] inflicts the maximum possible pain on Russia, so that when they do achieve whatever objectives they have, they are vulnerable to the Ukrainian counterattack. The other way they can do it is to fight what we call asymmetrically.

So, for example, what is the center of gravity? It's a military term of Putin, but what is the thing that if Russia risks losing that it might stop the war? Now, one of those things is Crimea, for all sorts of reasons. The port of Sevastopol, the history of Crimea, Peter the Great, there's a lot of history behind that. And I'm not suggesting for one minute that I think Ukraine is capable of taking Crimea, but what it is about is putting that seed of doubt in President Putin's mind that it might be vulnerable.

RFE/RL Meets Shocked Russian Civilians In Town Captured By Ukrainian Forces

How would you do that? You would have to get rid of the Black Sea Fleet somehow. Well, Ukraine has quite effectively done that. You'd also have to threaten the lines of communication into Crimea, such as the Kerch Bridge. Ukraine has also demonstrated it's able to take that out. You'd also have to be able to attack the surface-to-air missile systems and the radars on Crimea that provide part of the defenses. Ukraine has also done that.

So, I think there are ways in which Ukraine might be trying to pile up pressure asymmetrically. And I think that's what they're trying to do with the Kursk region as well, is that they are taking some land and embarrassing Putin and therefore forcing a slightly different approach. Because, as you know better than I, it's a massive border between Russia and Ukraine. And it will be very difficult for Russia to properly secure its border. If you put a soldier every six feet, which is not particularly dense, you need over 100,000 soldiers, actually. And the numbers quickly gets up to a million soldiers. So that's not possible. It is a vulnerable border, and therefore taking the fight to Russia is quite a clever tactic if you're looking at the center of gravity.

I have no way of knowing what Ukraine is actually going to do. But finding ways to fight differently -- use drones to attack Russia's oil infrastructure; use drones to attack airfields and logistics supply hubs; invent their own ballistic missile, which we understand that Ukraine has done; invent long-range drones, which we understand they've also done -- all of that piles pressure on President Putin because he's better equipped for a conventional conflict, a war of attrition.

RFE/RL: Speaking of pressure, from what we've seen from President Putin over 25 years now, is he susceptible to that? Does he seem to be the kind of guy who is going to buckle under pressure or will he double down?

Bell: It's a really good question. I think the answer to that is he's undoubtedly the person who's going to hunker down, particularly because he's in his 70s now, and he clearly wants a legacy. He wants to see a big statue of him in the Great Hall.

He clearly set out wanting to make Russia great again. He wanted to stop the expansion of NATO. Well, NATO has expanded because of what he's done. Russia is not great again; Russia is a pariah on the world stage. And President Putin himself has been indicted by the [Hague-based] International Criminal Court. So, things aren't all going his way.

It isn't just about him. The danger with leaders like Putin is that they become very aggressive and simply hunker down. What is happening to Russia, the real power base in Russia seems to lie with the oligarchs and that tier of people. They are suffering. They are seeing their fortunes diminish. They are seeing that they can't go on holiday to Paris anymore. They can't send their kids to private schools in England. They can't go to America on holiday. And the prospects for Russia economically are looking worse and worse. Now, that is, I think, where the bigger threat to President Putin lies, where the people around him finally go, "This isn't right. This is not sustainable. This is one man's ego."

RFE/RL: Ukraine's incursion also demonstrated -- erased, so to say -- one of the bigger red lines that Russia and Putin had: that if Russian soil is attacked, something unimaginably bad is going to happen. And it didn't. And the question is, if Kursk is not a red line, maybe, well, Moscow is not either? How bold can Ukraine afford to be?

Bell: It's a great question. I think that leads on to a much bigger question, though, not just about how bold can Ukraine be, but how bold can the West be in supporting Ukraine. I think what's been fascinating at the start of this, that Ukraine had old Soviet equipment, and so therefore it was going to get trapped in a war of attrition which, as we said earlier, Ukraine wouldn't be able to win. What the West has done at the end of World War II, after tens of millions of people died, we established that that's not the way we want to fight in the future. What we want to do is use technology. And it costs a lot more money, but we want to use technology.

And I know it sounds basic, but let's take it back to medieval times where wars were gladiatorial contests between man fighting man on the battlefield: sword, shield. Then somebody invented the bow and arrow and that was considered cheating because people were being killed at a distance. And we laugh about it now, but at the time it was serious.

But now the West has decided that by using technology, by being smart, by using intelligence, and using drones, you can try to minimize the casualties and maximize the effectiveness. You don't necessarily need to blow up a whole headquarters to stop it working. You can take out the electrical power and it stops working.

At the start of this war, the West was the answer to the maiden's prayer for Ukraine. Ukraine is not a member of NATO, could never reasonably expect the West to help. And the West was very reluctant initially, because it was scared that it was going to be dragged into a war against Russia, and President Putin was very effective at rattling that nuclear saber to say, "Stay back, the West! Don't get involved," because Putin knew and knows today that if the West was actually to properly get involved -- for example, put a no-fly zone up -- Russia would have no answer to that. Russia's advances would stop in a heartbeat.

So, Putin knew that he had to keep the West out of the war, so he rattled that nuclear saber. But every step of the war, gradually Ukraine demonstrated it wasn't going to get taken over. It asked for tanks. The West went, oh, not sure. The U.K. stepped forward with [British] Challenger 2 [tanks], and the rest of the world stepped up. We had the same conversation about long-range weapons: "Oh, that might be dangerous." Eventually, [British] Storm Shadow [long-range cruise missiles], [U.S. long-range] ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) were given. The same with jets: "Oh, we're not sure." F-16s (U.S. fighter jets) have now been provided.

Every step of the way, Putin has rattled that cage, said that the West is being dangerous, but nothing has happened. And now, as you say, Ukraine is now operating on Russian territory. And actually what it's proved is that: What could Putin do if he actually launched a nuclear weapon, where would he launch it? Would he launch onto his own territory to take out Ukraine? That would be a disaster for him, bombing his own territory. Would he launch a nuclear weapon into Ukraine?

The irony would not be lost on Putin. He's the one who started this. He's the one who's gone in and caused millions of people to vacate. He's the own who's caused hundreds of thousands of lives to be lost. He's the own who has caused communities to be devastated; towns and cities to be leveled. So, he doesn't have any moral standpoint to actually use nuclear weapons. In terms of if he wants to make Russia great again, pressing a nuclear button is not the way to do it.

I'm a veteran of the Cold War and it was always called mutually assured destruction -- MAD -- because once you start a nuclear war, nobody can win, and everyone gets wiped out. So, Putin's legacy, which I think is really important to him, is to be seen as the savior of Russia, the savior of the former Soviet Union. Then being the master of its destruction is probably not the future he sees.

RFE/RL: Would he start an [all-out] nuclear war by targeting Ukraine with a tactical nuclear missile, though?

Bell: They do have a different policy, doctrine than the West does. They have this use of tactical nuclear weapons. I must admit as a military guy, I really don't know what that means. In the U.K., we have this phrase: You can't be a little bit pregnant. You either are or you're not. You either use nuclear weapons or you don't. The effect of those nuclear weapons depends on the size of them, but it's still a significant escalation. And I think Putin will be playing with fire if he did that.

The Cuban Missile Crisis is really the last time we saw nuclear weapons really get put on the table. And it was DEFCON 5, DEFCON 4, DEFCON 3 (danger alert levels used by the U.S. military); there were weapons being married up with missile systems; there were aircraft launched. You know, that's when it really gets serious. At the moment, there's no suggestion that any of these nuclear weapons are being moved around, getting ready for use. So, this is much more rhetoric-based, and Putin's got a history of that.

RFE/RL: Speaking of F-16s, I can hardly find a better person to ask about the impact and whether we should expect more F-16s, apart from those already promised and already on their way. And also, how has Ukraine performed so far in the sky since their arrival?

Bell: Yes, there's a lot in that question. So, the Russian Air Force is much better equipped than the Ukrainian Air Force, and Russia should have established air superiority over the whole of Ukraine. It was not able to do that. As a result of that, despite having only a few aircraft and having to hide them away, Ukraine's air force has remained pretty much robust. It's not very effective, because it hasn't got very many aircraft, but it has survived.

By getting F-16s, let's be clear: F-16s aren't the answer to the maiden's prayer. They are old aircraft; the most recent ones were built in 1991 -- so, 30 years ago. But they are a significant jump in technology compared to what Ukraine was operating. In terms of numbers, my understanding is Ukraine has been promised about 80 so far, with President Zelenskiy asking for nearly 200. But let's be clear: The problem here is not the aircraft, the problem is the pilots. Because you could put F-16s up on the front lawn in Kyiv today, and you wouldn't have the pilots in Ukraine to fly them.

It's not about just flying. I'm a pilot. I could sit in virtually any airplane, go up, down, left, right, slow. That's not difficult. Operating that incredibly complex piece of machinery with radar, defensive aids, weapons, target solutions, infrared solutions, the lot -- this requires a huge amount of training, but also a lot of experience.

Even when you are combat-ready on a frontline jet, as I was, you are the worst pilot on the squadron. You're like a young kid who's just passed his driving license. You need three years of experience of flying the jet before you're considered to be a good frontline pilot.

So, the point being that Ukraine is trying to get used to flying these F-16s. It's put some of its experienced pilots in. But they will still take a long time before they get used to that aircraft…. So, it's not the aircraft themselves, it's the pilots, and tragically in an incident a couple of days ago, the pilot was lost as well, and that means that you've got one fewer pilots that are trained ready to fly those F-16s. So the challenge is getting the pilots trained up. There's no point putting more aircraft in, they'd just be target practice for the Russians.