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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome to another episode of Frankly Fukuyama. I am really delighted to be talking to Dara Masiko. She is currently at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She was at the RAND Corporation as a military analyst who has been following very closely the Russia, Ukraine war. And prior to that she had worked in the Department of Defense. So, Dara, welcome and thanks for talking to me. Thanks for having me. Why don't we begin with just this basic assessment of where the war stands right now. One of the big problems, I think is that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have been convinced for a long time that Ukraine was losing the war and that there was no way that it could possibly win the war. In fact, he, Trump recently, I think, got Ukraine mixed up with Iran and claimed they had no air force and no navy and you know, know so on and so forth. And a lot of his political posturing has been based on the kind of assumption of an inevitable Russian victory. And yet, you know, we're into year five and it hasn't happened yet. So can you just tell us, you know, where you think the, the military conflict stands at the moment?
- [01:20]
B
Sure. And happy to do that. And I, I think it's important starting out, just making the Note that in 2026, Ukraine has not been receiving the type of weapons that, that they were accustomed to for the last year, a year plus. Their manpower situation is stable, but arguably it's not great. And even with those very difficult situations right now, they're still holding the Russians largely steady. This myth that the Kremlin would like us to believe that somehow Ukraine is, is losing badly or is about to lose badly, it's just not borne out by the facts on the, on the battlefield. Both sides are entering into their summer offensive period and counteroffensive period. We see a lot of adaptations and innovations coming online on both the Ukrainian side and the Russian side too. I am reticent to use the word stalemate, but both sides are really limiting each other's forward progress right now. So the front lines are not really moving and that, that's, that's where we are now heading into the summer.
- [02:19]
A
So apart from the front lines not moving, there's also a long range war that's been going on. So the Russians do these barrages of attacks with ballistic missiles, shahed drones that keep hitting Ukrainian cities and the Ukrainians have engaged in a really remarkable long range campaign against Russian oil infrastructure. What's your assessment of how, you know, the long term effects of those campaigns and their sustainability?
- [02:52]
B
A few things. So I found in the last four years of this war that when there is a situation on the ground which I would describe as an impasse or something close to an impasse, we see a weight of effort, effort, focus more on the long range strike campaign. And I think that's where we're at right now. Again, this, this happens once or twice a year really. There's a season for that increased emphasis on the long range strike when there's not really a ground solution. And right now we're seeing the area that I think Ukraine probably is experiencing the greatest vulnerability in is its ability to intercept Russian ballistic missiles. There's really only one system that can reliably do that. There's, they're experimenting with others. But the main interceptor is the Patriot system and it is a very resource intensive endeavor to try to intercept the number of ballistic missiles that Russia fires at them in a barrage. And they're becoming more effective over time. That is my one area where I, I do see a lot of anxiety on the Ukrainian side, especially if we start to look towards the end of this year and what that does to their interceptor stockpiles. The war in Iran has caused a lot of diversion on the US part and what we're providing to our allies, which then has a trickle down effect on the number available for Kiev. Now on the flip side of that, we are seeing a growing long range strike campaign from Ukraine into Russia. Just today, I think they hit an air base near the ural Mountains about 1700 kilometers away from the front line with drones and allegedly destroyed one, possibly two of Russia's so called 5th gen 7 stealth fighter. So you know, there, there is, there is that campaign going. It is making a real problem for the quality of life in Russia. The Internet is shut down in large metropolitan areas to deal with this threat the best way they know how, which is bluntly. So it is, is expanding to what operational end, though it's not yet certain to me. It puts additional pressure on the air platforms which degrades Russian strike intensity, which is a benefit. But everyone's testing and probing and trying to get through and that process continues to evolve for both.
- [04:56]
A
I take it that the Patriots are a real problem because they're very expensive missiles and a lot of them have been diverted to the Middle east because of the Iran war. And I mean at some point the rate of use is going to exceed the existing supply. Is that, is that something that's going to happen relatively soon?
- [05:15]
B
Well, I'm not sure how many they, they have right now left, so it's hard for me to make an exact prediction. I know that they were hoping, the Ukrainians were hoping to go to our partners in the Gulf in exchan counter drone expertise in exchange for Patriot interceptors from some of these nations who have a fairly large supply there. Those countries, given the situation with Iran, are not in a position where they want to give those up right now. Unfortunately. My understanding is that there is a, there is investment back into Ukraine flowing from the Gulf in exchange for their counter drone expertise. But it's not that direct barter, one to one swap that Kyiv was hoping for. My understanding is that they are trying to experiment with other Western air defense systems to see if they can push them to their technical limit and intercept Russian ballistic missiles. But so far it's, it's still Patriot.
- [06:10]
A
Okay, well let me go back to the ground war and I think that a lot of people are not really aware of the way that ground warfare has changed, you know, in the last couple of years because of the use of these relatively cheap drones. As I understand it, basically maneuver warfare is really impossible on that front because anything that moves can be seen and anything that can be seen can be hit, including armored vehicles that, you know, in previous decades were actually extremely difficult to destroy from the air. Is that, is that the case on both sides? And does one side have an advantage and what does that imply for the future of ground combat?
- [06:54]
B
This, this is a, a major, major issue that I think a lot of militaries are grappling with right now. The Russians, for their part, in looking at their literature and what they write about it, they acknowledge fully that this is the greatest operational challenge that they are facing right now in this war and that they don't have an operational solution for it. So they've, they've correctly identified the problem and how critical it is to solving, but they don't yet have a solution. The Ukrainians also are grappling with this issue. I, I don't want to overstate. Mistakes are still happening and both sides are able to take advantage of them. I wouldn't say that maneuver warfare is obsolete or it, it doesn't work. It actually, it, it can. We've seen both sides exploit breakthroughs and, and territory changes hands even now. But usually when that's happening, it's because the drone teams themselves are being targeted and destroyed, thereby creating this pocket of opportunity that if you can sequence your operations correctly, you can still maneuver in that envelope. And that's what both sides are trying to work out right now is how do I eliminate the drone teams of my adversary and exploit that opportunity. We are also seeing alternative methods. The Russians are tunneling now we're going back to World War I trench tunnelers and then countertrench tunnelers. I mean, this is, this is 100 years ago problem and now we're seeing it again as a way to bypass drones. We're seeing that the Russians have understood that smoke obscurance for their vehicles actually works to confuse the drone teams a little bit. And I think the Russians have identified a 30% reduction in casualties when they are doing smoke obscurance on vehicles. So now they're applying that to infantry. So now we're seeing Russian infantry with their own individual, for lack of better word, smoke bombs that they will just drop and detonate and, and then have an opportunity to evade the drones. So we're, we're seeing all these tactical micro adjustments. But that core issue that you're focusing on is one that they're grappling with in this war. Haven't solved it. We are grappling with it in the US Military. And I, you know, again, this is where I think we're a little hurt by not having a bigger on the ground presence in Ukraine. It's hard for us to, for my perch, looking at the US army, hard for them to understand these things when they're not physically present, they're observing remotely. But it's, there's something that's missed, I think, and I think we're still missing it. When I hear about different concepts that we're talking about right now, I think it's, we're missing something.
- [09:23]
A
So one of the things that makes this conflict really different from a future conflict involving the US Or NATO forces is the fact that there's no air superiority on either side. Neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians have really ever had air superiority. And I've heard a lot of old time, either armor officers or Air Force people say, well, that makes a big difference. In a future conflict involving the United States, we will have air superiority. And therefore this drone drone warfare that we're seeing in, in Russia, Ukraine is not going to apply. I wonder what you think about that, because it's an interesting question actually, what it is that air superiority would really buy you, that drones can't provide. Obviously you would have said they would, they could hit operational targets that are several, you know, dozen clicks behind the front lines. But even that now is, is being contested. Do you think air superiority would actually make a difference in a, in a future conflict involving the US or NATO?
- [10:30]
B
I think so absolutely. And you know, we shouldn't over correct on, on this war as a template for that reason because air power is so critical to how we fight. But I have heard those arguments as well. I've heard it stated with a lot of more confidence than I think is really warranted. I would argue that Operation Epic Fury is showing the limitations of that approach. We have air superiority over Iran. It's not a question that that's happening. And yet critical force protection errors made in, in terms of the run up to Operation Epic Fury and in the opening weeks where our bases and facilities were quite vulnerable. Yes, we have very advanced air to air capabilities that we use to downshaheads once they're airborne. But those do not provide the necessary support for our facilities or for our troops if they're deployed in a UAS saturated environment. A warthog is not going to solve this problem as much as we all enjoy the A10 Warthog. But you can' burden the Air Force with the counter UAS mission and force protection mission anymore when there's, they will be saturated with so many other targets at much farther ranges than this. You have to have layers of this. I didn't see it in the opening phases of this war. I didn't see it as part of the force protection plan. A cram is not going to get the job done. And we've seen that that's true. And now we've imported Ukrainian expertise into centcom, thankfully, and they are there with our partners and with us providing some of their expertise and their capabilities. But one might ask the question, why wasn't that done years ago? And why wasn't that done certainly in the run up to this operation?
- [12:09]
A
And then there's a big cost benefit calculus that is also becoming very evident where you're using extremely expensive systems to shoot down relatively inexpensive drones. And that's something that can, I mean a Patriot single Patriot missile is like, like $4 million or something along those lines. And a shahed drone is $30,000. And you can't keep going at that, you know, at that rate of expenditure.
- [12:36]
B
No, no, certainly not. And, and it's also, it's also just a numbers and a saturation game. Any air defense system can be overwhelmed. We already saw that in, in Epic Fury. So you really, really need a layered approach. And where, where I saw the layered approach break down was at the very, you know, the base level of, you know, base protection. And then teams deployed outside the base, you know, roving around to, to get leakers that may have Slipped through. So, you know, this should be, it should be a wake up call and a learning lesson.
- [13:09]
A
Okay. And let's also go back to the manpower issue. So I think that people have been aware of Ukraine's difficulties. I mean, it's a smaller country, it has a smaller population base as opposed to the early days of the war. There's a lot of people trying to avoid the draft because they just don't want to be put into that meat grinder. But I think that the manpower problems on the Russian side are also quite extreme. And if you believe the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, they've just been losing people at a much higher rate. First of all, you think that's true, and if so, what are the Russian problems with sustaining the kind of force levels that they've got?
- [13:51]
B
I, I think again, and I think both sides are experiencing these, these pressures. It's now four plus years into the war. The population on both sides know what they're signing up for. They're signing up for basically indefinite service. Both sides are signing up for extended time at the front with little to no rotation. They, they are both of them experiencing the, these challenges for Russia. They are struggling. I wouldn't say that it's at critical points right now, but the numbers that are being circulated by the Russians and some Western sources, they're all different. And I don't have a lot of confidence in those, the numbers. But what I look at is signs of strain in the system itself. Right. You know, when, when wages and social benefits go up, that's a sign that there's a problem getting people. When they're more coercive about recruiting university students, that's a big indication of strain. When they're recruiting more from Central Asia, that's a sign of strain. So all those signs of strain are present, but I think they're still getting the juice from the squeeze. And it's not, it's not really impacting their, on the ground game at this point. I view it that both sides are straining, both populations are wary in their own way. What this means, I think is that there's, there's not going to be some fundamental Russian armored fist that's going to emerge from behind the Urals and smash through this. They don't have that capacity.
- [15:21]
A
Right. The other thing that's undergoing strain are obviously the defense industrial bases of both countries. Although I must say that the Ukrainians have done this remarkable job in building up their own domestic industries, particularly in drone technology and ecosystem ew and so forth. Can you talk a Little bit about that.
- [15:41]
B
Yes, they are incredibly innovative when it, when it comes to overcoming small daily problems they're encountering to these larger issues. And I think there was a recognition some time ago that American partnership comes with risks or relying completely on outside donations is not really possible. So they've made quite a lot of investment in their own domestic capabilities here. And I think the majority of what they need, they're actually producing. If we look at drones or some of these other type of systems repair logistics, they're doing a lot of that themselves. Where they still need that outside support are some of these more exquisite capabilities like F16 and the maintenance and the, you know, the air defense systems and of course the intelligence support that they're getting. But really it is a story of innovation and self sufficiency and not waiting around to get hit by a train. I mean they're, they're, they're working on their own indigenous capacity. Sometimes I think they look to like an Israel type self sufficiency model, but they really have their own, their own style and their own partnerships that they're engaging in. And what I see in I guess a receding American role here in this process of arming Ukraine or supporting Ukraine, individual NATO countries are making their own defense arrangements with Ukraine and getting reciprocal benefits. So whether that's the Scandinavians or whether it's Western Europe or even Southern Europe, they're making their own bilateral investments in Ukraine and they're both getting something from it. So that, that process really accelerated in the last 12 months.
- [17:15]
A
Yeah, it would be nice if that extended to the United States as well. One of the, as I had mentioned to you before you started talking, that I've been flying FPV drones as a hobby for quite a few years and one of the things that I simply do not understand is, you know, most hobbyist FPV drones cost under $1,000 and to this day there's not a single American company that produces a consumer sub thousand dollar drone. I actually asked one prominent defense tech CEO why that's not possible and I didn't get a really good answer for it. You know, I think that we're trying to make cheaper drones, but at the moment there's still, you know, you're still talking about a couple orders of magnitude difference in costs and it really does seem to be a problem with the American procurement system that we like to gold plate things and you know, make them much more complex. You think that's an overall correct assessment?
- [18:14]
B
Well, I, you know, there's, I think there's the reasons why drones are so cheap in Ukraine. And that's because they use some sub components that we probably, we don't want to use. Whether they're from bootleg, getting bootleg materials from China or even, you know, that's, that's a huge problem. And in our, our base rightly doesn't want to get involved in any of that. So that, that's, that's one factor. But I agree, I mean this technology is not, not overly complicated and there should be a way to push prices down or someone should be stepping into that void to do it. I just, you know, putting on my hat as a Russia specialist, they've had that problem too where someone tries to step into the breach and make a low cost option and then all of a sudden the Russian defense primes are very insecure about it and will move to, to kind of crush that innovation. So, you know, I just, I'm on the lookout for that kind of behavior here. I don't see it quite as directly, but there certainly is a demand for it and I wish I had more expertise to say why that demand isn't being filled.
- [19:16]
A
Yeah, well, let's talk about the Russian side of this because they've been innovating as well. In the early days of the war, everybody was saying, oh, they're slow moving and clunky and over centralized and so forth. And yet they've done quite a lot of innovating in electronic warfare and the drones themselves. How would you assess the overall state of, of the kind of Russian defense tech sector? Do they have smaller companies that, you know, like the Ukrainians do?
- [19:43]
B
They do. So the, the interesting thing about the dynamics here and, and this, this comment is, is one partially I learned from Katerina Bondar at CSIS when we were doing an event together, we both realized in the course of the conversation that the Russians started out the war highly centralized and have been moving to decentralized as best they can. The opposite is almost true for the Ukrainians because they were a little too decentralized at the beginning. Right. So they're moving at the speed of light and innovation because they have to, to survive. But it was very chaotic picture, if you're looking at it from the Ministry of Defense, let's say in Kyiv. There was no way to manage all of that. And so they've been working on trying to organize this and centralize it a little bit more. So you've got two sides calibrating to find the right spot of central mix versus decentral innovation. And they're they're both still feeling their way through it. On the Russian side, they still, of course, it's a state owned enterprise, very heavily centralized. That innovation at the bottom, whether it was drones or whether it was EW or whether it's, you know, bootlegging Starlink and then integrating it into multiple ways, which ultimately came back to bite them when Starlink was turned off. There is a method to innovate, even in a closed system. And they, they have found it. They've found powerful patron government that will pick a winner, like a winning technology, and they will protect it in the system from being devoured by like, you know, the defense Primes or others. And that's how we got the Rubicon elite Russian drone unit system like that, that was a startup and then it got protected and then it's grown from there. So they, they are innovative, they are learning, and I think that a lot of people have missed that. The Russians have been quiet about it, but they are capable and have shown that they can correctly analyze their problems and work on a solution. They're still messy at the front and they don't implement things well, but there is a lot of learning going on. And, and to deny that that's happening really does a disservice to the dynamics of this war. Ukrainians will tell you, if you go to the front and chat with them, they're like, the Russians are always testing, they're always experimenting, they're always trying to find something. And once one unit gets a tactic or some kind of combination of works, we see it spread throughout. So there, there is, there is that learning there too. In addition to some of their, you know, rather doomed methods of command and control. If you're a Russian soldier, there is still that intellectual process that's happening.
- [22:13]
A
Well, actually that was the next thing I was going to ask you about. Apart from the defense tech sector, just in terms of command and control of ground forces, it seemed that the Ukrainians had actually absorbed a lot from the United States in the years prior to the war in terms of things like mission orders or commander's intent. You know, the American doctrine of delegating as much authority to the lowest possible command level so that junior officers could take the initiative and didn't have to follow, you know, precise instructions. Whereas the Russian command, you know, was still very centralized and very rigid. Have they changed that aspect of the way they control their ground forces?
- [22:56]
B
The Russians have not. So we are seeing a situation on the Russian side where they lost a very large percentage of their, what was their professional enlisted corps in the first year of the war and then they've been stashing it with mobilized and people they can drag off the streets, people who want to just pay in former felons, criminals. So there is a degradation and force quality there. And the culture is becoming, based on the makeup of who's in the army now increasingly criminal. You have, you know, felons who are trying to earn their way back to freedom. You have people with alcohol or substance abuse coexisting beside that like rump element of professional soldiers. So it's not an easy blend. If you're a new lieutenant, you're, you're walking into a platoon and it's a bunch of hardened 50 year old felons.
- [23:49]
A
Yeah.
- [23:49]
B
You know, you're going to resort to some pretty brutal methods to control and contain that situation. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing a lot of historical echoes from the Chechen wars, the Soviet experience in Afghanistan, even some of the practices that we would probably use the word torture, you know, to describe what is, you know, punishment on the front line on the Russian side. So that's happening. It's, it's worsening in my opinion. So when we talk about why the Russians aren't able to make progress given all their advantages, well, you know, look what's going on in the units. We've got that a bunch of people who don't want to be together suddenly forced to be together and survive. It's, it's not ideal. I would say on the Ukrainian side it's more of a mixed picture than, than people might, you know, know about. And I think there, there's a major generational split on the Ukrainian in the armed forces between those who were educated, maybe more senior officers who were educated in a Soviet type model even through the 90s and people who are generally 35 and under who didn't really have an intellectual memory of any of that and that there is a break in this, in the type of style between the more western style that you're talking about and the, you know, sort of the Soviet inheritance. And there is some friction there along generational lines, right?
- [25:05]
A
Oh yeah. So they're both understood that they're experiencing their Commander Syrski was more of the old style officer.
- [25:13]
B
Oh yes, he was, he's a Soviet, you know, Soviet educated. He and he and Gerasimov were, you know, similar age cohort and you know, educated in the same way. Way. Right. When they are encountering problems operationally, they're all, you Know, going back to a baseline education that was nearly identical. So there, there is some friction in that system and it's changed over time. As you really had a lot of Ukrainian casualties in that newer generation, lieutenant, captain, major were killed in the early phase of the war. Now you've got reserve officers back in, so you're, you're getting like kind of re. Sovietized in a way to a point.
- [25:49]
A
Point.
- [25:49]
B
But just, you know, in terms of what I've seen, the trust relationship is really the difference maker. Units and Ukrainian units, there's a lot of trust up and down from command to enlisted and that's the difference.
- [26:01]
A
Just as a matter of curiosity, I mean, the American army really relies very heavily on senior enlisted, that they're the ones that really supply the discipline and the, you know, the kind of long term experience. Does either the Ukrainian or Russian armies have a senior enlisted corps or rely on NCOs nearly to the same extent?
- [26:23]
B
I would, yeah, I would, I would say on the Ukrainian side, yes. Like in, in terms of practical, you know, daily functioning of the units, the senior enlisted are, are doing a lot of, a lot of those tasks. You know, there, it's just, it's a different kind of relationship between NCOs and officers in the Ukrainian military than, than we have. It's just very kind of removed. But they do entrust them to do, to do quite a bit it. On, on the Russian side there is. They, they play a disciplinary role, but it's more like enforcement, you know, just really brutal methods of, of enforcing.
- [26:57]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, just to wrap this up, do you foresee any changes in the battlefield in the coming year? Breakthrough in either side? I mean, obviously the political negotiations are being carried off in a completely different channel where it looks like the Trump administration has basically lost interest in and you know, it's not going to put much effort into. If Donald Trump thinks he can still end this war through negotiation, I think he's probably been disabused of that quite a while ago. You know, on the ground, do you see anything changing from the current equilibrium that we seem to have settled into?
- [27:35]
B
No, I see some innovative tactics emerging on both sides, but I think they are methods that either side are going to respond to. So yes, I think that one of the changes we might see coming up is that Russian forces are experimenting with replacing Starlink now. And so they're experimenting with something called mesh command and control. Right. So you have a bunch of remote controlled shaheds and there's one operator controlling all of them. And they're relaying together what that means is that we could see a world in which shahed attacks become much more complicated. To balance that, Ukraine is really making a lot of strides in ground based robotics. Right. They're trying to fill that gap that they have with infantry and target Russian infantry using robotics. The Russian development has been a little sluggish in this development. A lot of demand apparently is collapsing because there's no Starlink anymore. They don't work. So no, I, I don't. The only thing that is on my horizon to continue to monitor is the air defense interceptor picture because that is a globally diminishing good depending on how if we're, if we're launching, you know, epic Fury Part 2 Soon, I don't know, you know, that's going to chew through a lot of those stockpiles and then there just won't be much for Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia unfortunately has learned that investing in ballistic missiles is the way to go. Over time we see more and more ballistics and less and less cruise missiles coming into Ukraine. So that's, that's a bad situation. Ukraine's not going to sit around and wait for it. They're already thinking about how do we, you know, disable these launch platforms. We got to do that now. Waiting around for answers. They're charging forward as best they can and that's what they're trying to do. You.
- [29:15]
A
Well, it's a, it's a depressing situation in my center at Stanford. We've invested a lot of time and effort, you know, working with mid career Ukrainians, but it's just so exhausting and you know, it's hard for me to imagine what it's like, you know, at the senior levels, from Zelensky on down, the kind of exhaustion that they must be feeling and also, you know, without a sense that there's actually a, a path towards a resolution of the war. It must be, you know, very mentally tough to be in that situation. But I have to say that they've, you know, endured far beyond anything we expected early on in the war. So they just deserve an incredible amount of respect and admiration.
- [29:59]
B
They do. And we're seeing them, we're seeing them get it. Whether it's partners in the Gulf or in Europe or in Asia who are interested in learning from them directly and developing those partnerships, ships to reinforce everything that they've learned. They've paid in blood for a lot of operational excellence that we're seeing today that they're exporting to others. So we would be, we would be wise to import that learning and knowledge and tradecraft into the American military.
- [30:25]
A
Yeah, very much so. Ukraine, I think, is going to be one of the most, I mean, if they ever make it into NATO, they're actually going to be one of the biggest military powers in the alliance. And it would be a great benefit, you know, to the rest of Europe if they could assume that role.
- [30:41]
B
They're already training some of our NATO allies right now.
- [30:43]
A
No, no, that's right. That's right. And with the United States fading, that becomes all the more important. Well, anyhow, Dara, thank you very much for talking to me. This has been very instructive, and I'm really glad that you are following this so closely. I think you've all along been one of the most acute observers of the military conflict. So thank you for doing all of that.
- [31:05]
B
Thank you.
- [31:08]
A
Thank you for listening to the Frankly Fukuyama podcast. If you like this podcast, consider subscribing to American Purpose and my Frankly Fukuyama column@www. Persuasion.community. this is a new podcast, so please do share.