Ukraine on the Brink

Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Institute for Government

News, Politics, Government

4.6 • 252 Ratings

🗓️ 28 January 2022

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As tensions rise on the Ukrainian border, are we at risk of Europe’s first ground war since 1945? Sir Lawrence Freedman joins the panel to discuss the situation, and to lay out the role the UK will play in the crisis. Back in Britain we still await the Sue Gray report, but now the Met are involved. What does the police investigation mean for Number 10? And in some good news it’s the end of Plan B COVID restrictions in England, but is our battle against the pandemic really over? “It would be really stupid for the Russians to invade a country of 40 million people, many of whom don’t like them.” - Lawrence Freedman “Nobody expects Western powers to fight in Ukraine, if the war takes place it’ll be between Ukraine and Russia.” - Lawrence Freedman “If Boris Johnson is spending so much time meeting MPs, is he giving the Ukraine crisis all the time it needs?” - Cath Haddon “It may be that many Conservative MPs have made their minds up, they’re just waiting for the Sue Gray report.” - Cath Haddon “The question now is, does the Conservative Party do more damage to themselves while they try to resolve this?” - Cath Haddon “As plan B ends there might be a temptation to declare ‘freedom day’, I don’t think that would be wise.” - Alex Thomas Presented by Bronwen Maddox with Cath Haddon and Alex Thomas. Audio production by Alex Rees. Inside Briefing is a Podmasters Production for the IfG. https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Winside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute for Government. I'm Bronwyn Maddox.
0:15.8	We waited and waited, we even delayed recording this podcast by 24 hours, but still Sue Gray did not
0:22.6	publish her report. Maybe she will have done by the time you've listened to this podcast,
0:27.0	maybe the Met Police will have forced the excision of everything interesting in it,
0:31.0	but for now, like the country and the Prime Minister, we just keep waiting.
0:35.1	So this week we're going to begin by looking beyond Westminster, one and a half thousand miles beyond, in fact, to the global waiting game.
0:43.1	Will President Putin invade Ukraine?
0:45.8	Russian troops are gathering on the border.
0:47.6	NATO forces are in place as well.
0:49.9	So what happens next?
0:51.3	What's the UK's position?
0:53.0	And let me pose the question that links this with the drama in Westminster.
0:56.9	Are these both aspects of defending our democracy and our values? We'll then catch up on the Sue Gray report latest.
1:04.2	Where is it and what's going on? And finally, COVID is on the retreat. Normal life is resuming, or is it?
1:09.8	We'll take a brief look at what comes next. I'm delighted to have with me two regular voices on the retreat. Normal life is resuming. Or is it? We'll take a brief look at what comes next.
1:12.4	I'm delighted to have with me two regular voices on the IFG podcast, Alex Thomas, program
1:16.7	director and former senior civil servant. Hi Alex. Hi, Bromwen.
1:21.3	Kath Haddon, Senior Fellow, dealing with many questions of the Constitution and Standards
1:25.4	in Public Life. Hi, Kath. Hi, Kav. Hi, Bronwyn. I'm also delighted
1:28.9	that we're joined by Sir Lawrence Friedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King's College, London.
1:34.6	Lawrence, thanks for joining us. My pleasure. Let's start with Ukraine. Lawrence, how serious is
1:39.8	the situation? It's serious because we've had a building up crisis for a while. The Russians have
	...

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