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Russian Roulette
A Battlefield Update from Mike Kofman
00:49:19
Max and Maria get another update from military expert Mike Kofman on the state of the frontlines in Ukraine.
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- [00:07]
A
Welcome back. I'm Max Bergman, director of the Stewart center and Europe Russia Eurasia program at csis.
- [00:12]
B
And I'm Maria Snigavaya, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia.
- [00:16]
A
And you're listening to Russian Roulette, a podcast discussing all things Russia and Eurasia from the center for Strategic International Studies. Hello and welcome back to Russian Roulette. I am Max Bergman here with my co host, as always, Maria Snagovaya. And today we are welcoming back a good friend of the pod, Michael Kaufman. Mike doesn't need much of an introduction, but for those who need a refresher, he's a senior fellow with the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International peace here in D.C. across the street from us here at CSIS. Additionally, he's a contributing. Additionally, he's a contributing editor at War on the Rocks, where he hosts the second best podcast on Russia in the Russia medium space, the Russia Contingency. It's a podcast on the Russian military and the war in Ukraine. Highly recommend everyone check it out. Mike is one of the leading military experts covering Russia today and we're thrilled to have him back on the show. Mike, thanks for being here.
- [01:16]
C
Hey, thanks for having me back, Max.
- [01:18]
A
Okay, Mike, we wanted to have you on the show to sort of initially do a deep dive on kind of where are we in the current phase of this war? Last fall, I think the last time we talked, I think the last time we had you on this podcast, we talked about where the war was going. Things were looking pretty dire for Ukraine. Russia was gaining territory at a rather worrying clip. Ukraine had invaded. Russia had seized territory in Kursk. Now we're halfway through the year. It's June 2025. How have the first six months of this year gone? Where do we currently stand? What's the sort of overview that you have when looking at this conflict?
- [02:04]
C
I think you have to take it a little bit back to the winter. Right. So going into the winter, things looked quite tenuous. And then Russia found some momentum, really slowed down. Part of that was the weather, part of that was exhaustion. The Russian side, they took pretty heavy casualties for the gains they were making in the fall. But also the Ukrainian military and Ukrainian political leadership made a conscious choice, an adaptation to the way the Russian military was fighting in 2024. Russian forces had generally eschewed any attempts at an operationally significant breakthrough. After the Battle of Diivka, they were essentially pressing their way through the front and it was very slow going for them. But you could see over time it was starting to work once again until late summer. All right. The Ukrainian military then invested heavily in expanding drone units, setting up independent drone regiments, even a drone brigade, and focusing on stabilizing the front to a combination of mines and traditional prepared defenses. Drone units trading Russian forces in this kind of range of 0-15 km and traditional artillery fires. Okay. And that began to show benefits overall in helping stabilize the front. And that was an adaptation, bold to the way the Russian military was fighting and, and also to the challenges the Ukrainian military was having with manpower and the fact that Ukraine mobilization recruitment was insufficient to keep up with both combat casualties, the AWOL issue, and the need to kind of generate additional forces in order to try to rotate units. So there were a lot of challenges last year and I think they started to get on top of some of these things once again to the winter. All right, now fast forward to where we are today. That was a bit of a prologue, but it's important to have I think that context. So coming out of the winter, you saw the intensity of Russian offensive effort pick up a bit in mid February. And that was focused primarily on Kursk, but also other areas. They were able to displace Ukrainian forces out of the curse salient come March. And then you saw a real increase in intensification of Russian offensive efforts around late March. And so we've been in a steady ramp up, you know. So the folks who kind of ask like, is the summer offensive happening? Has it started? And the answer is yes, there's not really going to be a discrete offensive. What you see right now is the Russian military making increased gains again akin to the way things were looking in August, September of last year along a couple of axes. So first, if you sort of followed the war, you'll be very familiar with some long running battles in Viet. Russian forces right now are essentially trying to create two big pockets. One around Konstantinovka troops called Konstaka, the other one Procrovsk. And they've been mostly advancing in between these two, cutting between the two of them. And then further southwest of Burkrovsk, past the area where they took Vilika Novasilka and Biodachny. Essentially they're right on the border, the regional border of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. They're barely a couple kilometers from him. Okay, there's another push kind of north of Liman and that's not time to create another access that could threaten Slovyansk from the north. There's still kind of slow going fighting around Kupiansk that hasn't gotten very far. And one of the other, I think particularly problematic axes, of which I really see two. The first one is the advance they've made between Pokrovska and Konstantinovka, which essentially threatens to create two sizable pockets in that area. But the second is a steady encroachment in Sumy and the fact that Russian airborne and naval infantry are focused there in establishing a buffer north of Sumy there. The terrain as such, that Sumi itself has kind of been in a valley. So now they're threatening northern Sumi and have forced an evacuation of outer lying parts of the region north of the city. That's quite problematic. Essentially what was the Kursk operation has now ended up in a sort of Russian buffer or incursion in Sumi oblast. So where we are today, the front is not collapsing. But you see Russian forces making increased gains from April to May. In May was over 500 square kilometers. That's not a lot, but a lot for me. Depends on what's kind of the three month trend. If it continues to increase, if we're going to into June and July as Russian offensive effort intensifies, then that's a bit worrisome. But you know, my general sense of it is that the front is neither stabilized on the key operational axes nor is it in a particularly dire condition either. Right. Ukrainian forces are still holding Russia to fairly, you know, incremental gains. Last part, you see the Russian military cautiously attempting to institute counter adaptations to the Ukrainian adaptations, which maybe, if you're interested, we can get into, which also to some extent are showing some results for them that as they look at the way the Ukrainian military adapted the fight in 2024 and stalled their offensive effort. So they are making investments to counter that.
- [07:18]
B
Thank you very much, Mike. Can I ask specifically about the manpower situation in Ukraine? You talked about it already, but specifically in the winter 2024 this was the major issue. And just recently in Ukraine we've heard Zelensky allegedly hinting at the possibility of lowering the conscription age to 18 years old. What's your take on this? Is Ukraine able to solve it? And also how about its domestic defense adaptation given the current situation?
- [07:47]
C
So the manpower situation, from my point of view has been one of the main issues since pretty much fall of 2023. And I haven't seen that change. It's the main issue last year. I think it's going to be the main issue this year. I was impressed by how well the Ukrainian military adapted to employ low density of forces, still hold the front line. The way they're fighting. But I think that manpower will continue to be a challenge for the Ukrainian military. The mobilization rate is simply too low for the force that needs to be sustained at the front if you want to enable any kind of rotation rather than exhausting the brigades that are there. The second problem was AWOLs. I think they've gotten much better in dealing with the AWOL issue, which was a big problem last year. This is absence without leave. And a lot of personnel would leave units they didn't like to go join units that they did like. But this is not a rational way to manage the force. So this is just a challenge as well. It may seem like, okay, well some percentage of these folks then went back to rejoin other units that they want to fight in. Yeah, but you can't manage a force that way. Like that's, that's a bit of a problem. So as far as lowering the age for recruitment, they launched several initiatives from every brigade trying to recruit personnel and advertise for volunteers to contract recruitment centers to an initiative to get younger folks to sign up under volunteer service contracts. But the numbers they've gotten, in my view are too low to address the overall problem as mobilization still makes up the majority of the personnel that the military receives. And I don't think lower the conscription age if they are even going to debate it. And Murray, I'll be very honest, I highly doubt Lisanski will do this. Just based on everything I know and seen in Ukraine. I don't think it'll solve the problem. First, a lot of younger people who wanted to go and fight have already done that. This is the fourth year of the war, not the fourth month. If people wanted to go and fight, they've had the opportunity to sign up and many of them have already gone and joined the military. Younger folks who wanted to join the military can do that. There is a path for, for doing this as well. So I don't know who they're, who they're, who they really get. Lastly, a lot of the, a lot of the younger people are Ukraine are not, not necessarily seen as in any way, shape or form a solution. And they are by far the thinnest demographic size if you look at Ukraine realistically. So the challenge Ukraine has is really one born of force management, insufficient mobilization of the manpower they do have, particularly in the 30, 40 year old category. And some of these can be addressed. You know, it's very hard to say can any country just solve the manpower problem in, in the war? It's not something you Solved. When you look at munitions, defense industrial mobilization and force issues like force generation mobilization, these are treadmills you're constantly running on. They're not a thing you solve during a war. Right. The problem that I saw emerge starting from late 2023, but particularly last year, is that the Russian recruitment effort was working. They have been recruiting an average of 35, 000 men per month, and they are still unfortunately doing reasonably well in recruitment early in 2025. So they're not only able to replace their high losses, they've consistently expanded the force. Right. If you look at loss replacement versus generating additional formations, it's probably maybe a 70, 30 split on their end, but they're recruiting at a monthly, sort of monthly rate that exceeds their unrecoverable losses. Right. So it's kind of the problem. And Ukraine's been offsetting the Russian manpower advantage by trying to find more tactically innovative ways of fighting to better integration to better tactics, better employment of technology. Manpower, I think, is going to remain an issue throughout the course of this war. Right. That's just the way I see it. You can. You can adapt to your disadvantages and emphasize your comparative advantages, but this is going to be. This is going to be a continued problem.
- [11:52]
A
I want to ask about Russian adaptation in a second, but it does seem that there's maybe been a strategic shift in how Ukraine is thinking about fighting this war from last fall. It seemed last fall, at least before the US Election, the Ukrainians had this focus on training brigades to do offensive operations. The idea that they would at some point go back on the offensive, punch through the war, take back territory. Now it seems a bit of a shift where Ukraine is sort of hunkering down to just sort of be on the defensive. Do you. Is that how you see it? Has there been a strategic shift in kind of how the Ukrainian military is now approaching this conflict to one where they're going to try to take advantage of being on the defensive, let the Russians come at them, try to trip the Russians as much as possible that way, but focus less on building new brigades and units with that idea that they're going to be able to punch through breakthrough and take the war back to the Russians?
- [12:52]
C
That's a good question. So I think early last year, when Syrsky came in as the commander in chief, he sort of pursued a strategy of active defense, which is, you know, in some areas, positional defense, but where possible, active defense, where Ukrainian forces locally counterattack. And they have done that throughout the course of the last year. Year and a half, particularly when Russian units are conducting rotation. It's a big point of vulnerability for, for both forces when they're doing rips and what have you. But beyond maintaining pressure and localized counterattacks, the big question is, is Ukraine going to attempt Kursk cooperation or not? Kursk was a surprise for me. So if you had asked me this question last June, I would have answered to you faithfully, to the best of my knowledge, that yes, Ukraine is largely going to pursue a defensive strategy of localized counterattacks and work to exhaust Russian offensive potential while expanding its own strike capabilities to really kind of work the body. Right. That is work critical infrastructure relevant to Russian economy or defense industrial production or rear support components. Right of the fight. And that would have been a very fair assessment, except it would have been wrong come August. Right. So the best I can tell you is yeah, I think so. I think. I don't know if what I learned from the curse cooperation is the same thing that Ukrainian leadership learned though. And that's kind of a challenge. So you have to keep that in mind that the people can make decisions on these things are not analysts. Sometimes I occasionally read like funny articles and reports by people who believe that analysts walk into a room and, and they tell policymakers what they think and policymakers listen, say these are amazing ideas. We should do everything you want to do.
- [14:34]
A
Mike. Mike, tell. That's how it works. And think tank, that's our.
- [14:38]
C
This is this. I think what happens when you're where you think that Tom Clancy films are documentaries and Jack Ryan just sort of tells people what, what they really should do in the meeting and they're like, okay, that analyst who none of us know, we should, he's really on it. We should listen to him instead of just saying don't invite that guy to the meeting again. Which is more likely, which is the more likely thing to happen.
- [15:00]
A
Definitely more likely. What do you think happened? What's your take on the Kursk offensive and now that we have some, some daylight between, between it and the Ukrainian withdrawal?
- [15:10]
C
Yeah, you know, I was very much willing to kind of give it the benefit of the doubt early on when it happened. I thought that it would have been much more successful as a two week raid. I thought tactically it was a success and it demonstrated that Ukraine still had offensive potential and can put the pieces together for some kind of offensive operation against a, a prepared defense, even if it wasn't, you know, the main part of the defensive line where Russian force were deployed. I think the challenge though is that I didn't see it having the operational effects that they hoped for. It eventually shifted some Russian drone units from the Danets front to counter the cursed salient. But then they shifted back and like German units are not mechanized divisions. They can elite German unions can firefight and run from one part of front to another. The problem was that the Ukrainian forces ended up kind of holding the salient. And the geometry of a salient by definition is unfavorable. You're surrounded on three sides. Okay, like that's the, the. Both the geometry and the geography was not favorable either. So I thought it was actually quite impressive and surprising that Ukraine military held it for that long. But it brought, it allowed Russia to use North Korean troops. They then expanded the use of fiber optic cable drones, eventually crimped the the few ground lines of communication available and then there was effectively a logistical collapse and Ukrainian military was forced to withdraw. I think my bottom line is on it is that it could have gotten a lot worse than it did. But did the Kursk operation change the dynamic of this war? No. Did it have very significant positive operational effects? I'm not even going to use the word strategic because you know, field. The word strategic gets abused for everything. It's debatable. My view of that is, is skeptical. It's not, not really. I think that, I think probably in retrospect that operation would have gone better if it was two weeks long rather than the many months that they ended up holding in curse. And lastly the downside, I mean there are a couple, right? Everything comes with, with opportunity costs. There's no kind of free lunch in, in making decisions like this is. Well, to some extent you've a lot of equipment was used up in that operation. That's probably one of few operations where the loss ratio of equipment between Ukraine and Russia was one to one or worse. It's very rare in this whole war. Usually Ukraine's attrition ratio on equipment is sort of at least 3 to 1 in its favor in most cases. So when you're in a time period where you're not expecting a lot more equipment, a lot more support from the west, you have to really manage your resources. You can't afford an operation that's kind of a bridge to nowhere where you're losing way too much equipment relative to what you're getting out of it. And so this is one example. But okay, the way the way I look is it could have got a lot worse than that. If you're asking me do I do I think Ukraine should do another Kursk operation in the future or do the cross border raids that I've seen in Belgrades and other places, these small scale attacks to try to pin Russian forces there, Are they the best use of Ukrainian assault regiments and Ukrainian personnel and Ukraine equipment? No, but I'm not in charge, I'm just an analyst. These are just my own views. You know, you take them for what they're worth.
- [18:31]
B
And Michael, on the topic of the badass Ukrainian operations, what's your take on the recent Spider's Web attack? And for our listeners who may have missed it, this is an effort on the side of Ukrainian security services to secretly smuggle drones into Russia, launching them from the back of trucks and using them to destroy a significant number of Russian strategic bombers. So some analysts say that was cool, but it's not going to radically alter the situation on the front line. But at the same time, others say that Russian strategic bomber is potentially a useful, really useful resource for Russia. And being hit is a really painful area where Russia was hit there. What's your take on it?
- [19:07]
C
Well, the words it was cool is definitely well established terminology in military analysis. So I will.
- [19:16]
B
You're welcome.
- [19:17]
C
Fully, fully support the sentiments of whoever said that. I too think it was cool. And, and with this sort of brilliant and kind of your diet assessment, what I, what I will add is I thought it was a very, very interesting and innovative attack. I know some details about it I've gotten to know that are not fully public, which makes it even more kind of interesting to me. I'm not going to share them on the podcast. Right. But what I will say is that that attack dealt a fairly significant blow to Russian long range aviation and to the park of Soviet aircraft, modernized Soviet aircraft that Russia had, which given the extent to which it degraded them, if you look at the impact, that's maybe 10% of the overall fleet, but probably 20, 25% or more of the operationally ready fleet. If you assume an operational readiness rate of around 40% for Russian bombers, which is I think fair, could even be worse. So I did the numbers, I think I posted them on Twitter at some point. I don't want to go back to the kind of the counts people can look at, but I think the battle damage assessment that has converged on a number of aircraft, so it depends on how many were damaged, but you're looking at a sizable impact. Is it going to halt Russian missile strikes, some of which are always delivered by Russian long range aviation, you know, IKH101 cruise missiles. No, probably not. It will degrade kind of the max level capacity that the Russian aerospace forces have, but it's not enough to hold them is a significant impact though on a fairly, fairly important assets to the Russian military. Yes, and actually in some respects it really damages Russian military power when, when you think beyond Ukraine, Russian ability to recon for, to reconstitute in many of these cases, Russia will not be able to reconcile the loss to this aircraft. It makes, it doesn't make 295ms. And 222m3s or Ts at best they recently restored the ability to make T160, but artisanally, I mean, at a sort of rate that won't substitute for the losses they suffered. So this was a very dark day for Russian long range aviation and it actually I think showed that a lot more things are at risk in Russia than Russian leadership might suspect. Now, of course, like the bigger takeaway is that the biggest screw up is obviously on the side of the fsb. The fact that for a year and a half multiple teams had put this in place, had developed a way to remotely operate these drones using Russian cell networks, etc. Etc. And had been able to conduct a simultaneous attack on, or attempt a simultaneous attack on five different targets. I think this is very impressive and very unimpressive performance by Russian fsb. What else can I add to it now? Yeah, like, but we shouldn't, I don't think we should straw man things and say, hey, does this attack change the, the game of the dynamic in the war? No, it's not meant to. But make significant impact, right? Does. It's very hard to think of any one attack that would do that. But this is, this is, this is notable. I guess if anything actually hurts Russia much more when it comes to Russian strategic operations and planning vis a vis NATO because they rely on large scale employment of long range precision guide conventional weapons. And Russia's biggest limitation is not ammunitions. It's a means of delivery platforms because it limits your saddle size and what you can achieve. And when you start cutting considerably the number of operationally ready aircraft available, that is, that is an impact. Right. So in many ways Ukraine is doing us a service. You know, even if that's a secondary positive effect.
- [23:11]
A
Mike, let me ask you sort of a broader strategic question about what is sort of Russia's game plan here militarily. You know, the talks between Russia, Ukraine orchestrated by this administration don't really seem to be going anywhere. It never quite seemed like they were really, you know, gathered any significant momentum. I think it seemed to me that both sides were kind of wanting to just blame the other side for why the talks weren't going to be successful. But it also seemed to me that if you're Russia, if you're Putin, you sort of see that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Now, U.S. support for Ukraine is likely in a glide path down. Weapons deliveries from the United States to Ukraine are continuing, but there's not going to be another supplemental. The Trump administration is not going to go to Congress, at least I don't expect it to, to ask for more funding. So that means, you know, all the money spent by the Biden administration is kind of that. That's it. That's a lot of money. So there's a lot more stuff coming. But, you know, what is Russia's game plan here? Is it have their maximalist goals shifted? You know, if you're the Russian general staff and Putin calls you in and says, you know, what's our, what's our theory of the case here? Are they just sor. We're just going to keep banging our head against this Ukrainian wall and hope that, you know, we break a hole at some point? What is the plan here? What is being told to Putin? And what do you think is the kind of broader Russian military strategy looking out not just over the next few months, but really over the next few years.
- [24:44]
C
Max? This is no easy question. Okay, so right up front, I don't know for a fact with the Russian planets, and anyone who says they do is probably trying to sell you something. As you know, Moscow is full of people who will always tell you that they themselves know what the plan is. And then you quickly find out that they also didn't know what the plan was. And sometimes, sometimes they don't. Sometimes genuinely, they don't know the plan because one person happens to decide the plan and he doesn't know what it is. Right? So it's not, it's not always dope. But with all those caveats in place, if we look at what we can observe from behavior, right? We don't like, we don't know the plan, but we can observe behavior first. It's clear that the Russian military intends to keep pushing through 2025. The idea that there's going to be a summer offensive and then something happens after the summer, and that's the window for negotiations, I think is quite wrong. In fact, I heard an argument like this last year that Russian military would be exhausted come summer, and they weren't. The only thing that's going to really slow them down is once we get into the winter, we get to December 2, they are probably going to start reaching diminishing returns once we do get into the fall and the winter. Right. Does that mean that Putin will decide that even though they do not hold the prospect of making significant gains on the battlefield that they should give up and quit? Not necessarily. I think a lot depends actually on macroeconomic factors and these other inputs these things on the other side of the ledger which significantly affect political decision making on to what extent is the worst sustainable. If it looks like the war is more or less sustainable to them like they feel they can manage it into 2026 then likely they'll try to keep going. That's my assumption. That's always my assumption. The safer assumptions the war is going to keep going rather than they're going to make a deal. And everything I have observed so far right in the last couple of months max I know if your opinion is different has not disabused me of that base. Base assumption.
- [26:32]
A
I think that's, that's my, that's been my base assumption. I mean especially if you look at it in the US role is going to be less supportive than you. There's reason for hope on their side.
- [26:44]
C
So, so when it comes to the US role and, and also also I think it's important to discuss what is was the fighting really about because let's say over under Russian offensive takes some more territory into the ass but the war doesn't get decided by who controls Percross. Okay. I know this town I've gotten to know pretty well or Konstantinovka fine But like if Constantinople is lost, the war is not lost for Ukraine. Right. So if the Russian military is able to even if they take Savannahska Doorsk and all done yet. Okay and what that's not really what the war is about. What's really being tested in the fighting is the fighting provides information for negotiations about whose hand is really stronger. And what's being tested is the question of what is less sustainable Russian offensive effort or Ukrainian defense. That's the matter in question because it informs negotiation and both these parties expectations but also the expectations of external actors who are material parties to the war. Does that make sense? So us Europeans whatnot. So that's what's being demonstrated over the course of these operations. And that's important to keep in mind that really what we're looking at is how, how do we, how do we assess each other our own respective expectations based on what we see happening on the battlefield regarding your support. Yeah, it's on a kind of declining glide path, but with a couple of big caveats. First, it's clear that what we've been providing Ukraine or things are actually programmed during the Biden administration and those things are going to run out at some point, I think after the summer. But there's still quite a bit that has been delivered. Together with European support and the prospect of Europe being able to buy munitions and other things from the United States, Ukraine can be sustained on spike. Second, this administration is not out of presidential drawdown authority. They haven't really used it. They still have the original 3.8, but the fact that they haven't used it tells us that while they are not. I'm trying to find the right way to put this because I myself don't fully understand it, why they are not walking away from Ukraine or at least it seems like they're walking away from walking away right now. They are also not interested in owning the war in any way, shape or form and keep framing it as the previous administration's war. So they don't want to authorize any new PD's right for Ukraine, which is problematic because they don't want this work to become their policy. Does that make sense? That's the way I interpret it. That's just my own view of it. But you know, like I'm, I'm another person. She's just like you are. So this is my own point of view. On top of that, they still have billions of USAI funding they're chewing through, which is going to take quite a bit of time because it's things that get put on contract that have to be made. So it's playing more money kind of in the mix there than people think or know from my point of view. Okay, next they could actually go to Congress and ask for another billion or two at least in replenishment funding for DoD. It's not going to dramatically change things, but a billion can go a pretty long way and then try to use that under this administration to authorize some more presidential drawdowns. I don't know if they're going to do that. I'm just saying the option is there. No, there's not going to be another major funding package or supplemental for Ukraine. That is very obvious. Right. Fully agreed with you on that. But another billion I think could be, could be in the offing lastly. So yeah, they're on a glide path. But Ukraine is increasingly more self sufficient for day to day battlefield needs. It makes a lot Europe's invest in Ukraine's defense sector. Europeans have picked up the slack significantly from the US over the last two years. I used to gripe about them quite a bit like, you know, kind of grudgingly and lovingly like, hey Europe, major conventional war in European theater. Maybe you should really get on top of defense industrial production and issuing multi year contracts for the thing that you say is existential for the security architecture, Europe. But judging by your body language, you seem to be very late to your own rhetoric. But they got there like not fully, let's say partially. Okay, so, so where we are this year, I think, yeah, Ukraine can be sustained through 2025. I do think I do see a lot of challenges in some areas later this year on munitions. And more importantly, the big question remains whether or not we are willing to keep selling, you know, key types of capability. Ukraine. Right. Interceptors for Patriot, PAC 2, PAC 3 air missile defense. Do we keep selling GMLRs for HIMARS? Do we keep providing certain types of munitions and parts? If we're willing to do that, then I don't think the situation is that bad for Ukraine. But you're also right in that there is no major sustained US investment in this war. There is no US effort to enable Ukraine to achieve something in this war either that I can see. Ukraine is in many respects going to have to pursue this on its own with Europeans. And the most that right now it can hope for is just sustainment of current level support and steady decline of that support. I agree with you. That's kind of the pessimistic conclusion I've come to. We're not in the worst case scenario, right? The worst case there was Trump administration in May saying, all right, timeline, you know, we ran it ran out of time. We're walking away. We're halting any further additional program shipments, we're halting intelligence support and no Europeans. We're not selling anything to you. Everything now is focused on the Indo Pacific. Best of luck to you. You know, in the situation that's not happening. So at least it's fair to say that we're very far from the worst case scenario. We're also quite far from the best case scenario too. Right? We are, we are in that unhappy middle. And I know what wars look like when people are prosecuting unhappy middle. Actually the US is the master of this policy wise in my professional career have gotten to watch several conflicts that we were involved in where we were absolutely the master of the unhappy middle.
- [32:42]
A
I mean it seems to me, just to sum up before turning over to Maria or I think on the Russian side. But it strikes me that this war is sustainable. They're going to keep fighting it. Hopefully things start to go better for them. And there's some hope that Ukraine just sort of keeps getting hollowed out, the Europeans don't quite step up, Trump administration pulls back faster, and then 2026, the Russians then just continue on and that the war has become sustainable in some ways, just like what a long war, you know, the US Was fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan or Vietnam, that you just keep going year by year. Now, all those conflicts ended up not going that well for us, but they were sustainable for. From, you know, until they weren't. Until we just decided we were done with this and that. I think that kind of seems to me what the Russian strategy is, that there's, there's a plan, there's a hope, let's see if you can get there, keep attriting the Ukrainians and then in a couple of years, maybe you'll actually get there. And if not, then you can sort of dial back, turn down, really ratchet up negotiations.
- [33:50]
B
And may I just add to that, that maybe Putin has read Paul Kennedy, famous historian and political scientist, who flagged that in the Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, his famous book that historically speaking, victory has repeatedly gone to the side with a more flourishing productive base. So when the Russians basically look at the material side of things, they may be justified to believe that they hold an upper hand in this story.
- [34:18]
C
Guys, okay, these are interesting points. I don't give you my perspective on, which is that I think that both sides in this war, Russia and Ukraine, are right now holding on, hoping first that conditions shift to some extent in their favor, especially when it comes to their respective negotiating positions. Both sides are pinning hope that the other one, their war effort will have to collapse for reasons other than anything that can be observed on the battlefield. And I know historically plenty of wars like this, okay, where the Russian leadership has been consistently telling itself something that observably isn't true, that Ukraine's on the verge of collapse, next offensive operation they're just going to the front will collapse of its own accord because of all the problems, or that the west will abandon Ukraine. We're not. And Ukraine's not on the verge of collapse, and the front line's not about the collapse either. So reality is Ukraine's proven remarkably resilient and a lot of kind of worst, worst case scenarios haven't happened. And you know, to some extent, I've Seen this quite a bit in the west, especially earlier this year. I started to see a lot of just sort of wishful thinking about the Russian economy. And while the Russian economy may not be in a place that they can sustain this war for the next three years, they seem okay through 25 and will going into 2026. That's just unfortunate reality. Now I hear a number of folks talking about some perfect storm in the Russian economy or other things that simply I can't see, certainly not this year and hoping that this is going to deliver to them some kind of positive outcome or there's also always the belief that hey, we have all these sanctions cards. We're not playing, we're not which some we do. But I'll put it this way, I'm a big believer in the impact of sanctions. I also believe that the sanctions community is by far the most optimistic policy community in Washington D.C. about what their ideas and policies can achieve in terms of expectations relative to performance. Just going off my own experience, I've always a bit skeptical what I've told that we have these amazing sanctions cards to play that will substantially alter Russian calculations, particularly in the sufficient near term. Right. Because you're looking at the next 12 years. You're not asking people give me a slow poison that will suffocate the Russian economy over the course of a decade. I mean that's great but the problem one is the war. So that's, that's where I'm a lot more, a lot more skeptical on how much, how much impact they can have on the Russian sufficiently relevant timeline. I think on our end part of the challenge is that unless the front is to some extent effectively stabilized, right. The Russian leadership and Russian leagues can continue telling them the story that just need to give it more time and eventually something will crack. Right. And to their, to their advantage. And so as long as they're materially advantaged, even if the Russian military tactical is really underperforming relative to the advantages they have, I think it's very clear by Russian behavior in negotiations that they don't want to make a big compromise. They're not willing to accept something like in Istanbul minus. And this goes back to kind of the very beginnings and the origins of the war. If you remember the original negotiations with Russia before the war began, Putin didn't want the deal, he wanted the war. I'm sorry, I've always been amongst those folks. Maria. Max, you will remember our conversations, you know, well before this, this, the full scale invasion began and I was quite confident that they were going to do it. He didn't want the deal, he wanted the war, and we're still in that place. He doesn't want the deal. He doesn't want anything approaching a reasonable compromise. Despite the fact that Russian military performance on the ground can't achieve Putin's political aims. What he wants is either Ukrainian or Western capitulation. It looked for a couple months like he couldn't get Ukraine, but he might get the U.S. now it's looking like maybe it's not gonna get us. So he's going back to trying to get Ukraine's. And that to me explains a lot about Russia's negotiating position. Right. And so from my point of view, that they retain fairly maximal score aims.
- [38:25]
B
Michael, to your point about Russian economic situation, we actually just released a report basically largely congruent with your assessment. So for once we actually align on the sanctions economy topic. But yes, I was to mention that unfortunately for Ukraine, the situation in Russian economy is not great, but it's also not dire enough. At the same time, our colleagues from Defense and Security Program released another brief just recently also showing, showing that the war is highly inefficient for Russia. That just to give you some estimates, Russia has paid extraordinary blood price for seizing less than 1% of Ukraine territories in 2024 and suffered as many as five times the number of fatalities in Ukraine in just over three years than all Russian and Soviet wars combined since the end of the Second World War. That seems tremendous, enormous. Now, the economic situation is also like, not great and they're losing a lot of weapons. So the question is, especially looking at the battlefield and the innovation, what do you think is the area that Russia could prioritize in terms of development of its potentially drones or electronic warfare tech going forward? Maybe it's worth for Russia to substitute for the way it's fighting with something more innovative. Now, do you have a sense of what's the best approach that the Kremlin is going to choose now?
- [39:50]
C
So first look on the stats. Yeah, but those statistics can give you cold comfort, right? I could show you World War I stats on number of manpower lost and munitions expended relative to territory gained. And I can show you how World War I ended for Germany. So you need, we need to be a bit careful on combat stats. I just. On the one hand that's all true and the Russian results are very unimpressive for what they spent on it, especially given that in this war one of their principal political aims is the acquisition of territory. On the other hand, their principal aim is Ukraine's capitulation and really destruction of Ukraine as a sustainable independent state. When I look at. I think the results on their end are quite unimpressive, but I don't think that that is their interpretation of it. Right. And what matters is how the political leadership and the military leadership actually interprets this. They see this as a regional war. They see this as a war not just with Ukraine, but also as a conflict with NATO. And the way they frame it. And of course, I'm sure it's a rationalization on their part, but I think from their. The way they frame it, they're not just taking Ukraine on, they're taking on United States and everybody else that support Ukraine. All right. Regarding the way they're. They're actually fighting. So they burned through a lot of Soviet equipment that they had in stocks. I think their biggest challenge moving forward is they've used. They're using up a lot of Soviet legacy. They still have quite a bit of it in the force. The depots are increasingly running empty, but there's quite a bit of equipment still yet to be processed. Russian new production probably amounts for 20% or less of what they're currently at getting when we look particularly at various types of major land warfare systems. But it is increasing. It visibly increased quite a bit. If you look at tank and infantry fighting vehicle production, it's. It's well below what they need to replace the loss in this war, but it's quite above what they were producing in 2022 and 2021. From a technology standpoint, they continue to online new types of drone systems, new types of ISR platforms, and new types of MUN types of electronic warfare capabilities. They had substantially expanded the use of fiber optic cable drones, and then those became much longer range systems. And it's starting to change the dynamic at the tactical level of the war. And I think people are missing this, particularly the last couple of months. What's been happening is that Russian drone units are now blowing fiber optic cable drones routinely at a distance of 20, 25 km behind the forward line of troops, with a max range of 50km. At least the spools go to 50km. That then now allowed them to attack a lot of the capabilities that are in the rear and close off ground lines of communication. And what they're investing heavily is still in the positional approach that's trying to displace Ukrainian forces by cutting off logistics and cutting off support to them. And this seemed to, I think, work for them in Kursk and So they're now using this everywhere they can. Second, they have substantially expanded their drone component of the force, following in Ukraine's footsteps and are actively trying to target Ukrainian drone teams because that's the part of the Ukrainian military that, for lack of a better word, is doing a lot of the lifting. If you look at where most Russian casualties are coming from or stopping Russian attacks, it's Ukrainian drones, right? In combination with mines, with traditional artillery. But if we kind of look at what is the engine of that fight at the tactical level on the Ukrainian side, it's definitely drone formations. Russian military is very much trying to come after them. Some of their adaptations are negative adaptations. They're not impressive unless you really like the sport of motocross and you think that motorcycle and light ATV assaults are like the future of warfare. But for me, a very useful case study for the tanks or obsolete crowd because I want them to take a good look at the last couple of months for all the people that want to get out of a tank and get on a motorcycle and try to assault that way. But this is again an attempt to get past the defeat zone that Ukrainian units have established. And Ukraine military actually is much more optimized to deal with mechanized assaults now than these types of attacks. We have a much longer conversation on kind of new technologies and things that Russia will be investing in. But in general you can see that they have substantially increased production of precision guided weapons of different types of drone systems, loitering munitions. Now you can see them employing a new light type of cruise missiles because it's one of the biggest gaps in everybody's arsenal today. Light, light, cheaper form of precision strike that can be used in much larger numbers. And this is the direction I think the war is going to go. By late 25, I think you're going to see Ukraine have much greater strike capabilities beyond just drones. Okay. And Russia trying to online larger numbers of cheaper strike systems that will allow basically much greater, much greater flexibility in how it employs presume striking abilities. And it's a much longer conversation. But what I basically see on the Russian side is both degradation in the force quality and how ground forces are being used in performing. And this essentially is, is one of the main problems, why they cannot execute any complex attacks of scale and why Russian higher level commands keep planning operations that the force can't actually execute. The tactical level, right. This is sort of I will draw you red lines on a map, but the force can't actually do those things. That's the problem. Once we get from once we get from army HQ to divisional hq, but then you get it to the battalion commander. The people that he has can't execute those stats. This is problem one. Problem two is they don't have a lot of enablers and they're trying different ways to, to break through the way Ukraine's mounting a defense, but not, not that successfully. But I hand they've got a lot better at dynamic targeting, precision strike and integration, how they run the fight. So there are areas where they've, in the areas where they've degraded significantly. Sorry, I too am working on some written products in this area, as I'm sure you know. But for those who are interested, I had a report last year on Russian military adaptation looking at 2022 through about 24. I think it's up on Carnegie's website. Maria. Max, I very much look forward to reading your report on the Russian war economy and checking out the findings from that.
- [46:23]
A
Yeah, well, we'll definitely put a link to your report in the show notes as well as our Russian economy. Pa. I sort of imagine it that Putin has sort of just, you know, looked at the, the map and he just sort of draws a red arrow towards Kiev and says go. And then, then us, then Russian forces and Russian generals say okay, they salute. Then they go.
- [46:43]
C
Max, can I, can I tell you a silly, a silly theory that I have? Because at some points I've seen Putin brief their gains in cities like Chasiv or other places or Vuhledar. And I think, I think this, don't quote me on this. Anyway, it's just like this, it's just a silly like bar theory what I think happens. But I think Gerasimov shows up with a map and the map is like really zoomed in. It's like really zoomed in on, you know, Konstantinovka or Prokrovsk or some town. Okay. And the map is like barely scale like 10x10km and you're showing how much they've taken over the last month. He's like, look, we've taken you know, 50% of this and it looks really impressive unless you zoom out to the entire front. And then you see that on 1200 kilometer front, you know, they've taken like this, this small city they used to have 60, 000 people living in at tops. But, but the map as he presents it, it looks quite neat. Part of reason I say that because I've seen Putin publicly state stats that they now control like 30 or 50 or something. And I think like, wow, somebody must have shown him a map shaded in red and told him, look, we're making all this progress. Look how much we control this. You know, I mean, I think military.
- [47:56]
A
Officers, it doesn't matter their nationality, are quite good at sort of juking the stats and demonstrating we did this in Vietnam and kill ratios and other things like that. You can find ways to sort of demonstrate progress, especially to a leader that is demanding it. But Mike, we are going to have to leave it there. This has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for joining Russian Roulette and as always, if you haven't, please sure to subscribe. Subscribe to our show and give us a five star rating. Additionally, if you haven't already, be sure to check out our sister podcast, the Europhile, wherever you get your podcast. And also be sure to check out Mike's podcast, the Russia Contingency through the Suite of War on the Rocks podcast. It's really excellent. And Mike, thanks again for joining us. Maria, thank you as always and we will see you next time.
- [48:49]
B
You've been listening to Russian Roulette. We hope you enjoyed this episode and tune in again soon.
- [48:54]
A
Russian Roulette releases new episodes every two weeks on Thursdays and is available wherever you get your podcasts. So please subscribe and share our episodes.
- [49:03]
B
Online and be sure to check out all the latest analysis by the Europe, Russia and eurasia program@csis.org.