War in Ukraine: The best hope for humanity is that President Putin’s generals oust him, says Colonel Tim Collins

Vladimir Putin has lost his mind and the big hope for the world is that his generals turn against him, an Ulster-born military expert has said.
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Colonel Tim Collins, who commanded the Royal Irish Regiment in the 2003 Iraq War, said that he had real fears of the worst case scenario in Ukraine – a nuclear exchange.

The News Letter contacted Col Collins to get his view on how the Russian invasion was progressing.

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Asked his assessment of Putin’s approach to the conflict and his intentions, Col Collins said: “I think Putin has lost his mind, and with someone mad anything can happen.

A cigar chomping Colonel Tim Collins seen in Iraq in 2003, when he commanded the Royal Irish RegimentA cigar chomping Colonel Tim Collins seen in Iraq in 2003, when he commanded the Royal Irish Regiment
A cigar chomping Colonel Tim Collins seen in Iraq in 2003, when he commanded the Royal Irish Regiment

“Hitler in his bunker said the German people had failed him and needed to be destroyed. Putin might feel the same.”

Col Collins, who was born in Belfast, added: “The thing that hangs over us all is that he could use tactical nuclear weapons. That could escalate into a nuclear exchange. It is a post-war doctrine.

“If there was such an exchange most of Europe, north America and the old Soviet Union would be destroyed, there would be a debris cloud and radiation which could go into the atmosphere and envelope world for 50 or 200 years.”

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Col Collins said that President Putin will not be bothered by the international condemnation of his actions.

“Outrage is irrelevant to him,” he said. “His wealth is being attacked, his military is compromised, it is being stopped. He has thought long and hard about this, the oligarchs are heavily compromised. We need to be careful how we approach them.

“The only thing going for humanity is that the other generals, they might turn against him.”

When asked his view of the sort of progress that the Russians making in their advance to Kyiv, Col Collins said: “This clearly hasn’t been very well planned. This was launched in the mistaken belief they would be welcomed as liberators, but they have suffered massive reverses.

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“The Russians have gone back to artillery-led doctrine — you blow up everything, like the plan on the first day of the Somme in 1916, and that didn’t work then.

“That is why there is a 40-mile convoy — the amount of munition needed for that is massive.”

Col Collins, who was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and then Queen’s University, continued: “Russia has air superiority, but not air supremacy.

“The logistics have been badly planned. The cyber capability hasn’t materialised, except in isolated areas around the pro Russian region of Donbas.”

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Col Collins said that Putin “may take Kiev but think about the construct of the nation called Ukraine — regardless of their nationalities originally, anyone who now identifies as Ukrainian stands shoulder to shoulder against Russians. He can only achieve stabilisation by force. That means decades of cost and there can be no victory — they have so alienated the population. Thus the more he wins the more he loses”.

He added: “Ireland was a pro British place during World War One but after the ill-advised executions by General Maxwell of participants in the 1916 Easter Rising, public opinion shifted and independence became the will of the nation. Ireland became ungovernable, and another solution was needed.”

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