‘Putin may be prepared to go to the limits’: Antony Beevor and Serhii Plokhy in conversation

The military historian Antony Beevor joins Serhii Plokhy, professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard, on Spectator TV this week to talk about the war in Ukraine. This is an edited transcript of their discussion.

Putin’s plan

ANTONY BEEVOR: I’m alarmed by the latest developments. The encirclement or imminent encirclement of Severodonetsk could cut off a large number of Ukrainian troops, leaving them in an impossible position. It’s a move that suggests Russia’s real attempt at the moment is to seize Severodonetsk and the area around it, and to cut off Ukraine from the Black Sea entirely. This is deeply worrying because it means that Putin could then say, right, we will negotiate on this basis – and Ukraine will be totally vulnerable. It could be attacked at any point in the future. So I don’t see a truce, let alone a peace, based on that sort of situation.

SERHIL PLOKHY: There is a real danger that one of the major cities in the east of Ukraine, Donetsk, could be completely surrounded, and then we could potentially see the replay of the Mariupol story, which is an awful one.