Jade McGlynn with an Update from Ukraine

Summary

Russian Roulette – “Jade McGlynn with an Update from Ukraine”
CSIS | Center for Strategic and International Studies
Recorded: August 1, 2025 | Released: September 4, 2025
Host: Max Bergmann (MB)
Guest: Jade McGlynn (JM), Senior Associate at CSIS & Research Fellow, King’s College London

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Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth interview with Dr. Jade McGlynn, a leading expert on Russia’s war in Ukraine, who reports directly from Ukraine. The discussion spans the military and civilian situation in Kharkiv and Kupiansk, Ukrainian innovations in defense, the harsh realities of life under Russian occupation, recent political developments inside Ukraine, and prospects for negotiations and Western support. McGlynn’s candid, on-the-ground insights offer listeners a clear-eyed view into both the hardships and resiliency displayed in Ukraine’s ongoing struggle.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Situation on the Ground in Kharkiv and Kupiansk

• Persistent Threats to Kharkiv:
  Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city and of major symbolic importance, endures constant Russian bombardment due to its proximity (40km) to the Russian border.

  • “The city is a very hardy city, people sort of keep on, but of course it's suboptimal to be bombed every night, I think, to put it mildly.” — JM [01:58]

• Kupiansk’s Strategic Importance:
  Rising concern as Russian forces slowly advance toward Kupiansk, a critical railway hub essential for Ukrainian logistics.

  • Russia is “just throwing men at the problem and slowly but surely advancing.” — JM [03:55]
  • If Kupiansk falls, “Ukrainians would have to pretty much abandon this logistical center,” which would be “serious” but not imminent—possibly two to three months away. — JM [04:25]

• Public Mood in Kharkiv Region:
  Residents display exhaustion over constant attacks but show little panic about catastrophic front line collapses; adaptation and a longing for normalcy prevail.

  • “It's a marathon, it's not a sprint… People are really tired, understandably.” — JM [07:11]

2. The Air War and Ukraine’s Defensive Adaptation

• Air Defense Limitations:
  Kharkiv is comparatively less protected than Kyiv—due to proximity to Russia, lack of time to react, and the high cost/limited number of Patriot systems.

  • “Most of the air defense in Kharkiv is… guys driving around in jeeps and pickup trucks with jammers, with machine guns.” — JM [11:30]

• Russian Drone Adaptation:
  Russia has evolved its drone technology with AI-guided “Heran” (Shahed) models, making them harder to shoot down and more capable of evading electronic defenses.

  • “Now it might see... the AI system will work out... ‘that maternity hospital actually has loads of electronic warfare jammers’... so instead I'm going to go to this children's hospital nearby instead because that doesn't have any electronic warfare around it.” — JM [12:33]

• Ukrainian Ingenuity and the ‘War of Adaptability’:
  Ukraine’s defense is a story of continuous innovation, mass-producing new drone interceptors and rapidly updating tactics and electronics.

  • “What you really want is not... one innovation... What you want is a really good team that is really good updating a general type of product.” — JM [13:38]

3. Ukrainian Defense Industry: Pride and Realities

• Domestic Production Up:
  Ukrainian-made defense products constitute about 40% of what’s used on the battlefield, with soldiers preferring locally produced tech due to its practicality, low cost, and adaptability.

  • “They mainly want Ukrainian products” — JM [15:34]
  • “A lot of western systems just don't work. They just don't work.” — JM [15:55]

• Contrasts with Western Procurement:
  Denmark’s direct funding into the Ukrainian defense industry is lauded for its efficiency vs. the UK’s more domestically focused procurement.

  • “In Denmark, what they've done is... just going to put it directly into your defence industries in Ukraine.” — JM [18:04]

• Supply Chain Challenges:
  While Chinese components are prevalent due to cost, efforts are underway (e.g., with Taiwanese collaboration) to localize chip production and secure non-Chinese supply chains, even at higher cost.

  • “Those drones are a little bit more expensive... but... still way cheaper.” — JM [21:33]

4. Life in Russian-occupied Territories

• Escalating Repression:
  Since the failed 2023 counteroffensive, the occupation has intensified—ubiquitous surveillance tech, policing, forced assimilation.

  • “Now in the occupied territories, if you buy a phone, it comes preloaded... with special facial recognition and other forms of software…” — JM [23:15]
  • “There are at least 16,000 Ukrainian civilians... currently in Russian prisons for suspected pro-Ukrainian sympathies.” — JM [26:29]

• Resistance Continues Despite the Risk:
  Violent and nonviolent Ukrainian resistance persists, including sabotage, assassinations of FSB officers, but social-media “flag” stunts are largely dismissed as unrealistic.

  • “Nobody is walking around Melitopol with a Ukraine flag. That's not happening in Melitopol. I mean that's just, it's just not realistic…” — JM [25:24]

• Economic and Demographic Collapse:
  Massive depopulation: 9 million previously, now ~3.6 million (excluding Crimea). Unemployment and homelessness in Mariupol sky-high, with urban life in Donetsk and other cities severely degraded.

5. Forced Migration and Settler Colonialism

• Encouraging Ukrainians to Leave:
  Pro-Ukrainian residents are often pressured to leave; properties are confiscated and given to settlers (frequently from far-east Russia or Central Asia).

  • “They will often not stop you from leaving. But the thing is, they will just confiscate your house.” — JM [31:05]

• Psychological Toll:
  “The psychological anger and hatred that, that spurs certainly makes these people very energetic...” — JM [31:36]

6. Domestic Politics and the Anti-corruption Crisis

• Zelenskyy's Misstep:
  Signing of law centralizing anti-corruption bodies under the Prosecutor General (a presidential appointee) sparked Ukraine’s first large-scale protests since 2022, seen as a power grab.

  • “It was just absolute sheer arrogance. And I think it was, I think at the time I described it as a stab in the back to those fighting at the front.” — JM [33:57]

• Civil Society Response:
  Protests were mature and calculated, balancing outrage with awareness that public division could be exploited by Russia.

  • “It was very impressive how Ukrainian society, just ordinary Ukrainians stood up and protested about it, but also in a really clever and mature way because they knew that, you know, Russia was going to make absolute hay with it…” — JM [34:14]

• Complex Domestic Dissent:
  Criticism of Zelenskyy does not equate to defeatism or pro-Russian sentiment; many pro-defense Ukrainians are among his sharpest critics.

  • “Sometimes that's a weird framing I see abroad: ‘oh, people are against Zelensky and that means they don't want to fight the war anymore.’” — JM [35:14]

7. Prospects for Negotiations and Perceptions of the West

• Peace Talks? Not Serious (for Now):
  No real belief in ongoing “negotiations,” with Russia seen as unserious, sending ideological figureheads rather than true policy-makers.

  • “I don't think anybody here pays any attention to the negotiations, really, because everybody knows they're not serious.” — JM [38:41]

• Russia’s End-Goals:
  Russia aims to either destroy Ukraine militarily or turn it into a dependent state like Belarus. Pressure on Russia is increasing but not fast enough to force meaningful change soon.

  • “They're trying to achieve in the political field what they cannot achieve on the military side. That's all.” — JM [38:58]

• Ukrainian View of the U.S. and Europe:
  The withdrawal or delay in American support is met pragmatically; pressure is on Europe to do more and to recognize Ukraine’s importance for continental security.

  • “There's a really much more sort of pragmatic approach to it. Like, well, yeah, that's a real nightmare that... we're going to be losing a lot of American support, but we've just got to get on with it.” — JM [42:51]
  • “Among many [in Europe], there's a tendency to just... moan about President Trump, which, yeah, it's fine, but ultimately it's our continent and we're responsible...” — JM [41:00]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It's a marathon, it's not a sprint. And I don't think you have that kind of adrenaline of the sprint that maybe you did have in 2022. But people are really tired, understandably.” — JM [07:11]
• “Most of the air defense in Kharkiv is... just guys driving around in jeeps and pickup trucks with jammers, with machine guns.” — JM [11:30]
• “A lot of western systems just don't work. They just don't work.” — JM [15:55]
• “In Mariupol, the unemployment rate is between 80 to 83%. The homelessness rate... is 40%.” — JM [27:49]
• “I think the chances for peace this year are still very low. I think as we get into 2026, it sort of depends what types of pressure are put on Russia.” — JM [39:57]
• “If Ukraine, God forbid, falls, then Russia's our problem. Plus... they've got all of Ukraine's resources. So even not on a moral case, just in a purely kind of national self interested case like the UK, who is the UK's main enemy? Well, it's Russia and there's another country that's fighting Russia. It's pretty common sense that you would help that country.” — JM [41:43]
• “It also had this very weird effect that... of making people like Zelenskyy again. Not because they really liked him, but... hey, that is our Zelenskyy. We can beat him. You cannot beat him.” — JM [43:36]

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Key Timestamps

• Kharkiv/Kupiansk update: [01:46–05:10]
• Public sentiment in Kharkiv/eastern regions: [05:10–08:41]
• Air defense realities in Kharkiv: [08:41–14:23]
• Ukrainian defense industry innovations: [14:23–19:55]
• Supply chains, Danish procurement, and industrial lessons: [19:55–22:24]
• Occupied territories: repression, resistance, demographics: [22:24–29:53]
• Migration, property, and settler colonialism: [29:53–32:26]
• Zelenskyy’s anti-corruption law and domestic protest: [32:26–37:48]
• Negotiations and Western perceptions: [37:48–44:01]

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Conclusion

Jade McGlynn’s reporting paints a vivid portrait of Ukrainian endurance and the staggering toll of Russia’s ongoing invasion—on military, political, and human levels. While defense innovations and societal resilience are sources of pride, the situation remains dire, particularly in the occupied zones. Political blunders test, but do not break, Ukraine’s sense of unity and drive for self-determination. Geopolitics may shift, but the psychological and material stakes for Ukraine—and Europe—are immediate and profound.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome back. I'm Max Bergman, Director of the Stewart center and Europe Russia Eurasia Program at csis.

[B]

And I'm Maria Snigavaya, Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia.

[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'm Max Bergman here solo while my co host Maria Snegavaya is on a well deserved vacation. And today we're speaking with our colleague Jade McGlynn to get an update on all things Ukraine. Jade is a research fellow at the Department of War Studies at King's College London where her research centers on Russia's war in Ukraine. She has published two fantastic books, Russia's War and Memory Makers, the Politics of the Past and Putin's Russia. And most importantly, she's also a non resident senior associate here at CSIS with our very own Europe Russia Eurasia Program. Jade, welcome back to the podcast.

[B]

Thank you. Lovely to be back.

[A]

I do want to note for our listeners that we recorded this on August 1, 2025 before I went on vacation. So if there's events that have happened since then, they won't be covered. But this is recorded on August 1, 2025. So Jake, let's jump right in. You are currently in Ukraine. You have been on the ground in eastern Ukraine in Kharkiv and Kupiansk. How are things right now in Kharkiv? Kharkiv is I think the second largest city in Ukraine. It's constantly being pummeled by Russian air assaults, by Russian attacks. What's the situation on the ground there?

[B]

As you correctly said, Kharkiv is the second city. I think also symbolically it plays a huge role. It was actually the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic for a while and it's sort of a key symbolic city of the East. And of course it lies about 40 kilometres south of the Russian border, which in hindsight was a bad place to put it. But there's not really much you can do about it now. Is under constant bombardment, as you say. The city is a very hardy city, people sort of keep on, but of course it's suboptimal to be bombed every night, I think, to put it mildly. One of the things that's really starting to worry people at the moment is the situation that you briefly referred to around Kupyansk. And I should be clear, lest your listeners think that I am far braver than I am, that I actually haven't Been, you know, that close to Kupyansk, because it is just the front line. There's been a lot of coverage in the media about Pokrovsk, and rightly so. And as the Russians are sort of coming closer to Pokrovsky and also some of the fighting around Chastev Yar. And whilst I completely understand and support that there is this coverage of the war in Donetsk region, what worries me is that people are not looking at the same, and I'd be very happy to provide a sort of map link so you people and listeners can understand what I'm talking about. But there's a bulge into Kharkiv region. So Kupyansk is about an hour's drive, maybe an hour and a bit's drive east from Kharkiv, and it was under occupation in 2022 and then was liberated in September 2022. And the problem now is that the Russians are getting closer again in that traditional, pretty grim way of just throwing men at the problem. You can't say that they're making these huge advances, but they just have more men, right? So they're just throwing men at the problem and slowly but surely advancing. And the issue is, is that Kupyansk, just underneath the city or the town, there's a really important railway hub. And I think it's been discussed quite a lot. You know, the railways are really central to Russian logistics. I mean, I think they're pretty central to a lot of people's logistics, but especially they play an oversized role of Russia. And I think the worry is that if the Russians can take the city or the town of Kupyansk, then essentially the Ukrainians would have to pretty much abandon this logistical center of. It's called Kupyansk of Vozlovy or Kupyanskuzhyol, or in Russian. And then it's able to connect up to another logistical site high in Russia. And then, of course, Pokrovsk itself is a really important logistical site. And just the situation for the Ukrainian armed forces would become much harder. We're not at that point where this is imminent. We're probably in the very worst situation. It would be around a month and a half from Kupyansk, falling more likely about two to three months. But it's a serious situation, and it's one of those things where I've been kind of surprised at the lack of coverage of it, because it's one of those things that we're definitely all going to talk about after it happens. And the trajectory at the moment is very much towards it happening. So thank you for asking me about Kupyansk, because having been to the city, and of course because it's in my beloved adopted home region of Kharkiv region, it's something that really worries me in speaking to some of the soldiers who are fighting up there, is something that's really worrying them, too.

[A]

When you're there in Kharkiv and in the Kharkiv region, when you're talking to people, do you get a sense that people are consumed by the potential fear of the line collapsing, of Russians sort of breaking through, or is there when you talk about the general exhaustion of it's not good being bombed, I think we can all sort of understand that. But what strikes me a little bit also quite unnerving is it's not simply that there could be, you know, Shah drones and other things landing, but that maybe in three months, maybe there's a breakthrough and that you and your family are trying to get out or trying to flee or you're going to be under Russian occupation. Is there a sort of a constant fear of that or has that sort of subsided? Is there confidence in that kind of Ukrainians are going to hold the line and that, you know, they're just going to be pummeled for a while now. And while that's obviously terrible, that that other fear of needing to kind of maybe have a go bag or thinking about evacuating or worrying about what would happen if the lines start to really move, is that fear of kind of collapse on the front sort of dissipated?

[B]

I think there isn't a fear of collapse on the front because that is not likely. And the Russians really aren't doing. When you look at the amount of money and men that they spend on it, they really. They are not doing spectacularly. That is in no way to underestimate them. You know, I'm very pleased that I'm not in the trenches fighting them. So I'm not part of this. Oh, you know, Russia is not all that strong, but it isn't all that strong. It's neither as weak as we make out nor as strong as we make out, essentially, in terms of how people react to it, to be honest with you, I find wildly different ways. I do spend a lot of time in Kharkiv, obviously, that's kind of where I'm based. But I always spend a lot of time in Dnipropetrovsk. Sometime in Donetsk region, not much because it's scary, to be honest. And sometime in Zaporizhzhia region as well. For example, last time I was in Dnipro region was a few days ago. Last time I was in Donetsk region was about a month ago. Same for Zaporizhzhia region. And I think it depends where you live in terms of what your focus is. I think in the city of Kharkiv, people feel quite secure because Kharkiv stood up so massively for its defence on 24 February. And Kharkiv is also just a really hard city to take. I mean, it changed hands three times during World War II and it was never taken, just each side, just the Nazis or the Soviets just left it. So it's a hard city to take for lots of kind of just lucky reasons. Okay, they did not luck out of the actual location close to Russia, but they got some good hills and some good tunnels. I think, though, that more what ties people is just a kind of sense of when will it just stop? Like, when can we do life again? And people have adapted hugely. I mean, the other day I was just watching for about 45 minutes as some people were doing punting, kind of rowing down the Lopan river in Kharkiv. And it was a beautiful day and the Ukrainian flag was flying. And it probably made me so much more sad than kind of seeing any of the ruins in that moment, because I thought, well, why can't people always live like this? You know, because they just want to live their lives. They're just at home living their lives, but they can't. So I think it's more. It's a marathon, it's not a sprint. And I don't think you have that kind of adrenaline of the sprint that maybe you did have in 2022. But people are really tired, understandably. Sometimes I actually wonder if it's my place to wonder whether or not people should have a bit more fear. Not in Kharkiv, but let's say in Donetsk region or other parts. Dnipropetrovsk region, have a bit more fear of the Russians coming. Because I think sometimes people don't understand in Ukraine what actually happens when the Russians occupy. I know there are units now that are working very hard on making sure that people are aware of what will happen. But I think that's been a bit of a comms failure from the Ukrainian government, if I'm honest.

[A]

I want to ask you a bit about the air war being waged against Kharkiv. The Ukrainians have limited air defense. They have to kind of husband their Resources in particular, protecting military sites, the military forces that if you don't have enough air defense, you're going to sort of sacrifice civilian populations in some ways because it's not strategic in terms of the war. Also protecting Kyiv. They Ukrainians view that as particularly important. Is air defense really active in Kharkiv? Is there any sense of resentment maybe towards Kiev's getting protected? Harkee is not, I'm curious, sort of what's the sort of reality on the ground there? Do they feel just totally exposed or is, you know, air defense quite active and protecting the city all the time? It's just stuff will inevitably get through.

[B]

I smiled a bit when you started talking because I think just like in any country, everyone always has resentment was Kyiv, that Kyiv gets everything because it's the capital. And I mean, I won't. I won't speak for America, but I can definitely speak for Britain and say, you know, I don't. I'm not sure I see any more resentment towards Kiev than I see towards London.

[A]

No, no one, no one in America resents Washington.

[B]

That's great. That's great. That's really good to hear. I've obviously been reading fake news in a more serious answer. So the patriot systems, if we go to the kind to the big boys for the start, and then we'll get into what are more everyday forms of air defense. But they are mainly focused around Odessa, Kyiv. My antennae is there is one system out east as well. But ultimately patriot systems are expensive things and you are going to use them if your economy is going through what the Ukrainian economy is going through. Yeah, it's not there for a humanitarian mission. It's there to also protect, you know, and bluntly, having a functioning economy is also, you know, pretty important for humanitarian needs as well. In terms of Kharkiv. The problem is, is that Kharkiv is in a completely different situation to Kyiv. In Kyiv, if like a cruise missile or a kinjar set up and sent up into the air, you have a warning system and you have time that you just don't have in Kharkiv because it's so close, they send them over from Belgrade. That's why, you know, when there was that shift in American policy during the Russian effort last year in May to retake Kharkiv. That's why it made such a huge difference when weapons could be used against Belgorod. You, if you remember, there was that kind of caveat. You can use them to stop them taking Kharkiv and you kind of have to have that because Kharkiv is so close to the border, you do need to be able to strike in because otherwise they just, you know, move it all right to the border, you can't touch them sort of thing. So that really made a big, big difference. But most of the air defense in Kharkiv is. And indeed, to be honest with you, for a lot of the country is actually just guys driving around in jeeps and pickup trucks with jammers, with machine guns. And I know that that probably sounds like old plucky, and there's a reason that they do that, because you wouldn't be using patriots to shoot down shahid anyway, because it would just be a complete first. It would be a waste of money, and it wouldn't necessarily be that effective. One of the issues that we've seen recently is because Russia has updated the shahids, which it calls Heranyi. Everyone calls them shahids after the Ukrainian kind of initial model, but calls them harani. And there's a new model of the Khurani, which is harder to shoot down because of the way it functions, because it's AI directed. Let's say, for example, you want it to go and blow up. Okay, so let's think as Russians, we want it to go and blow up a children's or a maternity hospital. So we put in the location of the maternity hospital. Previously it would just go there, but now it might see, oh, on the way the AI system will work out, or that maternity hospital actually has loads of electronic warfare jammers they're going to disable. So instead I'm going to go to this children's hospital nearby instead because that doesn't have any electronic warfare around it. I mean, this is all just hypothetical. But that's essentially how it works. I mean, of course, it's not hypothetical the Russians bombing children or maternity hospitals, unfortunately. But this particular situation I'm discussing, and that's made it much harder to shoot them down, they also are now at really incredible speed, I think something like hundreds of kilometers an hour, which is very difficult. There do seem to be now some new drone interceptors. The ever efficient. Sounds like I'm going to be sarcastic, but I'm not. They are truly very efficient. Ministry of Digital Transformation under Minister Fedorov have been working on drone interceptors recently, and they're starting to really scale up mass production. And they're what's needed, actually, for the. For the shaheds, because they're so cheap. When I speak to Westerners who are interested in Sort of what weapons Ukraine is and isn't using. And I'm by no means a weapons expert, it's just obviously you take an interest in these things if you're living in a place that gets bombed a lot. They seem to think that there's going to be one innovation or one type of innovation and you know that will solve it. But really I would say it's very much a war of adaptability. So what you really want is not oh, this is a really good product because it could just be a one off. What you want is a really good team that is really good updating a general type of product. Whether or not that's electronic warfare, whether or not that's first person view drones, whether or not that's reconnaissance drones, whatever it is, whether or not it's bomber drones, glider drones, you know, lots of different types of drones, whether it's interceptors, whatever it is, you mainly want to find a company that can quickly repair because you need it to be cost effective. Because the other side are doing things really cheap as well. Maybe not as cheap as Ukrainians are doing it, but still pretty cheap. Seems that apparently North Korean slave labor isn't that expensive. So you need to be able to continuously update and adapt. And it's not just about innovating, thinking of something new. It is about making sure that innovation remains fresh. And I think that's what we're seeing in air defence as well. And also sometimes just really methods of I'm just going to have to drive around the edges of, I mean not me, the air defence people. So you have to drive around the edges of the city waiting for when they see a shahed and then try and shoot it down or other types of drones.

[A]

And how do you assess the Ukrainian defense industry right now? It seems like one of the great developments of this war. I mean great in the sense that it's a symbol and example of kind of Ukrainian ingenuity in responding to Russia's invasion. Ukraine of course had a very sizable defense industry prior to the war. It was a major part of the Soviet defense industrial complex, but rapidly evolving, developing a drone industry and also maybe on the air defense side as well, which I think it's a little bit less coverage. How do you assess the Ukrainian defense industry and also what are people saying about it in Ukraine? Are they sort of praising, you know, the Ukrainian innovative capacity or are they sort of complaining like why don't we have enough of this? Is there praise and complaints at the same time? What is your take and what Are you kind of hearing on the ground about Ukraine's defense industrial capacity?

[B]

People are very proud of it. So it currently makes up about 40% of what they're using on the battlefield. People are very proud of it. And bluntly with soldiers that say, maybe we try to help, you know, if they need something or just like we know, or that I know, they mainly want Ukrainian products. There are some things Ukraine can't make versions of, like patrons, many other things. But when it can, they want the Ukrainian version because the western versions actually, you know, and I'm very happy to tell you off camera on a level, which, which specific ones, but since I don't want legal problems, I will just be generic now. A lot of western systems just don't work. They just don't work. And, you know, there's. I was talking with a friend the other day who serves in a very prestigious part of the Ukrainian armed forces, and he was talking about European manufacturers, you know, who were really devastated when they got back, like the feedbacks they gave them, you know, some of their type of drone to test. And they were really devastated because they're like, but it worked in, you know, it worked in Latvia. It was perfect. And I said, I don't care. You might as well, you know, of course it worked in Latvia. That's a completely different scenario to whether or not it'll work in Donetsk region. Like the airspaces are. They're just completely different realities. And of course, the European versions are much more expensive than Ukrainian versions. And they tend to not work. They tend to not really be like, easy to use for the soldiers. They're often a little bit too far out. Too much money is spent on design. I mean, I remember going to the testing ground to look at an unmanned on the ground vehicle that can sort of carry. It can either carry wounded people away, or you can mount it with machine guns. And then you use it almost like a games control. You can control it from your games control a few kilometers away. I think it was up to 3km, if my memory doesn't escape me. And it was funny because you're talking about, talking about the cost. The cost was about $30,000, $33,000 for one of these vehicles. And then they were explaining, or a friend, so not the producers themselves, but Fran was explaining that they knew of an exact equivalent in a central European country that cost €350,000. So what's that about $400,000? And when you actually looked at it, looked them side by side, I won't lie, the European merchants. It did look better. It definitely looked more professional. I can see why you would want to buy it, but to all intents and purposes, I don't think it worked any better. And you had this here for, you know, not even a tenth of the price. So this is where I think the Danes have been really clever. And I mean, everybody loves the Danes, right? But, oh no, actually, sorry, I forgot you've got some issues going on there in America over Greenland. But in Europe I love the Danes.

[A]

I'm also connected to the Swedes, my wife being Swedish. So we try not to have a lot of love for the Danes, but yes, we're having some.

[B]

But I really like the Danes in terms of the Danish model because it's so clever. What they've done is if in the UK it tends to be not fully, and I'm being, I'm being a bit harsh in generalizing it this way for the purpose of comparison because there are many good bits about the British model. But if in the UK and many other countries it tends to be, okay, we're going to help Ukraine with £1 billion or whatever, but we're going to spend it kind of on stuff we make in the UK and then send it to you in Denmark. What they've done is said this is, you know, a set amount of money that we've got, let's say a billion, and we are just going to put it directly into your defence industries in Ukraine. And they go through the Defence Procurement Agency which is overseen by civilian and civil society organization structures. And as we've seen, civil society is very much alive and well when it suspects that corruption or something untoward is going on in Ukraine. And through that they just get, they just buy so many more things. Of course it's perhaps a little bit, you know, every country has their own national interest. It's inevitable that countries are going to want to build stuff in their own countries just to send it off. But I think it raises an interesting question for European countries which is, you know, what is our priority? Is it to beef up our industrial bases whilst helping Ukraine, you know, in their kind of a mixture of priorities or equal, or is it to actually just get stuff to Ukraine? And I would say as somebody spending a lot of time in the east of Ukraine, that I would suggest that their priority is the latter and that they speed up and get stuff and maybe think as well about what they can learn from Ukraine rather than try to kind of flog their billion dollar products because probably most of them don't work and they're going to need that knowledge because I think as President Trump obviously has a very different method of delivery. But I think American presidents have been saying for a really long time that Europe needs to be able to take care of itself. And if they actually want to be able to do so, then they need to be learning from Ukraine, I think, rather than lecturing.

[A]

No, I think that's a great point. The EU Defense commissioner, Andreas Kabilius, the former Lithuanian Prime Minister, was recently in town here in Washington and made the point very clearly that the goal of all these new EU defense initiatives is actually to incorporate Ukraine into the European defense industrial base. So instead of seeing Ukraine as distinct from the EU defense industrial base, because Ukraine is a candidate country, you want to incorporate it. And that just doesn't seem that there's European defense industry can really compete with Ukraine, especially how it's iterating on the drone development in particular. The one issue though is that, you know, Ukraine is using a lot of parts from China, you know, as low cost inputs as possible. And you know, in the US system, for instance, you know, you try to supply chain security is paramount and that leads to then higher costs because you can't really manufacture, you know, a lot of the inputs, parts and components into a lot of these small drones. And so Ukraine's reliance on China, I think there's going to be an interesting how that progresses over time. But if you're Ukraine and you're fighting a war and you can get the stuff, it's sort of.

[B]

That's tomorrow's problem though not so much actually. It's funny you should say this because a friend of mine has, and it's funny it should be in reference to Lithuania because a friend of mine who began working with Lithuanians, whom the Taiwanese had helped to produce chips that were not Chinese, that were supply chain safe essentially. My friend is Ukrainian. He has now brought over that production into Kyiv directly. And those drones are a little bit more expensive. They are, but I mean a third more expensive than the usual Ukrainian costs. So still way cheaper. So I think there is awareness of that because lots. Nobody here particularly trusts the Chinese side. I think one of the bigger issues in many ways as well has also been the Chinese, you know, especially since Chinese special forces have been captured fighting with the Russians. Another issue is the way that China has just swept in and massively exploited in I think several senses of the word, Ukrainian natural resources in the areas occupied by Russia that obviously nobody else is going to do business on. But they've Done business on and taken some very rich and needed really specific forms of metals. And again, I'm not a critical metals expert but my research does focus on the occupied territories. So there's different elements like various forms of kind of manganese and all of these different metals that are needed for production of many, many things.

[A]

I think that's a good segue. I want to sort of jump across the line into the Russian occupied territories. You have been one of the most keen observers of what is happening in Ukrainian territory that Russia currently holds. You wrote a terrific report for us last year here at CSIS titled Crossing Ukrainian Resistance to Russian Occupation, which we'll put in the show notes. That was roughly a year ago. How are things in the occupied territories? Is life improving or what's your kind of take? Is there a resistance that is still active, that doesn't get a lot of coverage or what is happening?

[B]

I'm not going to lie, I'm not going to cheer you up before your holiday or your vacation. Max, things are pretty bad in the occupied territories. The situation there has been got considerably worse even since I wrote my report because the occupation wasn't really fully, fully, fully entrenched though. I mean it was already very grim until after it was clear that the 2023 counter offensive had failed. And after that then they really sort of, they went up a level, let's put it that way. One of the things that I was talking about with somebody just earlier is the introduction. So now in the occupied territories, if you buy a phone, it comes preloaded or indeed any device comes preloaded with special facial recognition and other forms of software that ensure you're not speaking to anybody, basically not from Russia or Belarus. And there's just a complete tracking system. There are special messenger services, they're trying to force everyone in the occupied territories to move on to. And whilst in Russia they probably wouldn't be able to force people to move on to these messenger services in the occupied territories. They can, because currently, if we exclude Crimea, and I'll explain why I'm excluding it in a second, There are currently 3.6 million people in the occupied territories, excluding Crimea, but there were previously 9 million, so. And you have so, so many thousands of FSB National Guard group, I mean it's a real police state. They have vehicles that are kitted out so that after curfew they drive around and they can listen like into what people are discussing and they can make sure that there are no electronic devices that are connected to routers that they are not aware of and already able to track. I mean it's, it's very hard. Bizarrely, in that situation, there is still active resistance every fortnightly on a different podcast, Ukraine the latest. It's a British podcast from the Telegraph. I do an update of resistance activities in the occupied territories. I did the latest update today and for different reasons that I won't get into now. There was a smaller number, I think six active resistance. And just to be clear of what sort of thing I'm talking about, I'm talking about the assassination of an FSB officer in the occupied territories by people on the ground. I'm talking about sabotage, you know, blowing up cars, like that. Sort of one of your real traditional, like SOE as we would call it in Britain sort of resistance. So very active violent resistance. Of course there are other forms of resistance that also continue, but to be honest with you, it's not possible. You do still see sometimes sort of social media types putting out, oh, this is a photo, you know, from of me with like a Ukrainian flag standing in Melatopolis. But I'm sorry, I just, as somebody who understands the electronic situation there, understands that the FSB has a backdoor key to telegram and that these people are communicating on telegram. I really struggle to believe it. Maybe it serves a good informational purpose and you know, and, and good luck to them. But I don't, you know, nobody is walking around Melitopol with a Ukraine flag. That's not happening in Melitopol. I mean that's just, it's just not realistic. I mean, if it were, you would be immediately taken, tortured and sent to a prisons somewhere in the Far east. Just so people are aware. Melitopol is occupied since the very first sort of days of the full scale invasion. And it's a city in a partially occupied region of Ukraine. So it's in a region called Zaporizhzhia. The city Zaporizhzhia in Zaporizhzhia region is not occupied. It's free. But then Some sort of 60km down you have Melitopol, which is occupied. There are at least 16,000 Ukrainian civilians who are currently in Russian prisons having been arrested for suspected pro Ukrainian sympathies. And the number is probably much higher, but that's the number we know of. Unfortunately, there's not really anything you can do for them and it's very hard to find them because they're in a legal limbo because of course Russia insists they're Russian citizens, but they're not in terms of passportisation. When I wrote the report, there were still many, many flaws where Russians had not met the quotas or the collaborators. Official Russian agen had not met their quotas, forcing people to take Russian passports despite taking away health care. Now the passportization figures are close to being met because anybody who does not take a Russian passport by 1st September 2025 will be treated as a foreigner and an alien in their own homes. Even if you just never left your home, you know, you just live in your home, in your street, where you've been brought up, where your parents live, where your grandparents lived. By the 1st of September, if you choose not to take the occupier's passport, you will be most likely deported and forced to leave. It would be very hard for you to continue living there. At the same time, what Russia's doing is massive settler colonialism. So sending in just hundreds of thousands of people, often not Slavic Russians, so not White Russians is what I mean. They often tend to be from some of the kind of Far East Russian nationalities or from migrant workers like from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan. And that is causing huge problems. Firstly because they are given preferential rates, they're given preferential mortgage rates, they're given preferential access to different things. And when you think about, I mean, the situation in a kind of more, perhaps more boring and mundane, but I think equally as important because, you know, most people don't live their lives through grand narratives of who am I, what am I, how Ukrainian am I? Most people just like to have electricity and water and to be able to eat and work, and that's something that the people in the occupied territories cannot do. In Mariupol, the unemployment rate is between 80 to 83%. The homelessness rate, if we define homelessness as not having a roof on your house, is 40%. There is essentially no real economic activity. Any repairs that have happened are purely repairs for the military. So there's, for example, been repairs of port, and there's been both the Berzhansk and Mariupol port, and there have also been repairs of some railway lines, but they have no civilian cargo. It's purely for military transportation. In Donetsk, people very often are in a situation where they're getting water once every few days. I mean, even pro Russian collaborators are writing about, you know, the awfulness of the fact that people, and forgive me, but people are unable to flush their toilets because they do not have water. I mean, this is a city that in 2012 hosted the Euros. You know, Beyonce played in Donetsk. This was, you know, a beautiful city. Very modern. I mean, now it's, you know, really on. On the boundaries of kind of, I suppose, what we would call modern civilization because there is just no water. And it's a situation that if only the occupying authorities and their collaborators spent as much time trying to solve the problem as they do writing up propaganda about how they're solving the problem. You know, people might get water at least once every three days, but they don't. And so we, you know, this is the situation in the poor people of Donetsk region and to a certain extent, Crimea region have to live with.

[A]

You talked about the population decline. Are people fleeing? Are they able to get out, escape to Ukraine or perhaps maybe go to other parts of Russia? Because if they're, quote, unquote, Russian citizens going elsewhere, are you seeing population trying to get back into Ukraine or just leaving the area?

[B]

I can send a report. I mean, I didn't write it, but it's really interesting if people. It's in English as well. If people are interested in actually some of the figures here that can provide, you know, a more detailed overview. Just if there's anybody who's kind of really geek like me and wants to get into the figures. But as a more. More general answer to your question, people are still leaving. I think most of the people who wanted to leave, to be honest, if you have left already, because we are now quite some time into the occupation, weirdly, in a way that's quite different. And that I think many people that I speak to at least don't expect. They encourage pro Ukrainians or you people or Ukrainians to leave. I mean, if they're not, if you're not doing something where they're going to grab you and torture you, they will just start to make your life really difficult. Like, you know, you can't get housing, you can't receive this. You constantly get stopped at checkpoints. Just things that they know that, yeah, maybe you're not doing anything they can prove, but they've heard that your sympathies and sentiments are for Ukraine just to encourage you to leave. And they will often, if you're perceived to be pro Ukrainian, they will often not stop you from leaving. But the thing is, they will just confiscate your house. And they've done that already to lots of people. I mean, just, absolutely. Just, just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands, they just take over your house. And I have to say, for many of my friends who fled in the early days, I think that's one of the things that from the occupied territories I think that's one of the things that really greats and traumatized them the most is the idea, you know, you know, sometimes like you wake up or you've had a long day, you just want to be in your own home drinking coffee or just whatever it is, you know, you just want to be in your kitchen or, you know, your, your living room. And just the idea that your home is still there, your furniture is still there. Right, because nobody evacuated with their sofa. And obviously presuming that it hasn't been bombed, but there are ways for you to check that. And now there are just random Russian occupiers, like sitting on your sofa, drinking from your coffee machine. I think the psychological anger and hatred that, that spurs certainly makes these people very energetic, I'll put it that way. So it's not impossible to leave if you want to. It's expensive though, and you do have to go through a lot of filtration. The only people for whom it's more difficult are men, men of fighting age. That's really hard for them to leave.

[A]

Maybe to shift gears back to the other side of the line. Back in Ukraine in recent weeks, the Ukrainian government basically faced a domestic crisis of their own making. Zelenskyy signed a law on July 22 that gave authority over the nation's two primary anti corruption bodies to the Prosecutor General, who's a presidential appointee. And then Ukraine experienced basically its first large scale protests since the full scale invasion of 2022. In the aftermath, Zelenskyy has tried to sort of walk back this new legislation and he's emphasized that he doesn't want to sort of lose the unity of Ukraine. But domestic, international observers, this seemed like a real power grab by Zelenskyy, some pointing to, you know, seeing what Erdogan has been doing in turkey, and a U.S. administration here that doesn't really care about seemingly international corruption. And so this was seen, I think, internationally, particularly in Europe, as here's an opportunity. You know, Zelensky sees this opportunity to try to strengthen his control, get rid of not just critics, but a threat to many, I guess, in his administration that could be potentially accused of corruption. How do you see, see this? You were there on the ground as this was happening. What's the sort of reaction inside Ukraine and what's your take on this?

[B]

I mean, to be honest with you, you've described both my take and certainly the take of literally everybody I've spoken to. And you've written about it pretty succinctly. So I don't have so much to add. It was just absolute sheer arrogance. And I think it was, I think at the time I described it as a stab in the back to those fighting at the front. I don't know why he and Yamak and others were so arrogant to think they were going to be able to get away with that. I think some of the factors you discussed definitely impacted that decision. But I thought it was very impressive how Ukrainian society, just ordinary Ukrainians stood up and protested about it, but also in a really clever and mature way because they knew that, you know, Russia was going to make absolute hay with it, which is why there haven't been protests. People have been very upset about many things. I mean, it's Ukraine, like I love Ukrainians so, so much, but they're so hard to like tell to do anything. They're very, they have a very strong, like anarchic or, I don't know, just like Hetman kind of Cossack, Het Street Zelensky and others. They've got away with the fact that, you know, Ukrainians understand that like any internal sort of protests will be used by Russia and they don't, you know, their main enemy is 100% Russia. And you know, many of the people I know who are most critical of Zelensky, they are some of the most patriotic and most fiercely kind of committed to fighting this war because sometimes that's a weird framing I see abroad is, oh, people are against Zelensky and they're kind of, that means that they're, they don't want to fight the war anymore. And actually I would say that Zelensky is as weird as it sounds, he is not seen as the kind of most patriotic or pro war figure. I don't want to say pro war, pro self defense in Ukraine's case figure. I mean, the most popular person until the Oval Office fiasco was General Zaluzhny, who's now, of course, Ambassador Zaluzhny in London. But he's certainly not a man prone to making unnecessary compromises with the Russians. And one of which is to say that Ukrainians are just, yeah, yeah, let's keep on fighting forever. They're not. They understand, you know, there's a situation and they are probably going to have to accept a temporary, you know, pretty unfair deal at some point. I think the question is how unfair. And I think the question as well is do partners, and this is a bigger question for Europe here, realize that any deal with Russia will only be temporary, not because, oh, you know, we're already ascribing bad, bad, bad, bad intentions to Russia. But because, I mean, just yesterday, main article in Russian newspaper is there are no other variants. There must be nobody left alive in Ukraine. I mean, they're quite clearly sort of telegraphing their intentions. And like, I. I mean, we were speaking then about the occupied territories. That's what peace looks like. That's why Ukrainians are fighting. That's why you fight if you're from Kharkiv. Not because, oh, you just really like fighting and you've got nothing else to do but you. To do war, you know, and ask, have to ask other countries for money, but because people don't want to live in a space where every two streets there's a checkpoint where you can just be thrown out of your house, your wife raped in front of you, you're then tortured, then you get out and somebody's taken your house. And then it's also the people who tortured you, and they live there. I mean, they're just really difficult human injustices to come to terms with that people don't want to live under. And also, you know, that this generation, let's say of people who were born sort of from the late 80s onwards, they know these stories of what the Soviet Union was like from their parents, but they've not lived under it. So they know what the reality is and they know how good their reality is for all of Ukraine and any countries, you know, many, many flaws. And there are so many, of course, it's a free, democratic country where if somebody tramples over your rights, you have a way to hold them accountable, you have a way to defend yourself. People won't just come and take your house and live in it. And I think sometimes these sorts of values that admittedly do sound rather abstract in a Western European context, for example, like freedom or dignity, I think they have quite, quite visceral meanings. When you live, you know, 30, 40 kilometers from the front line.

[A]

You sort of touched on my final question, but it's sort of, how are Ukrainians? And how are you kind of seeing the prospect for negotiations with Russia and sort of a settlement to the fighting or a ceasefire? And maybe sort of one additional question, because I think your accent exposes you as not being American. And I'm curious how the Ukrainians, how the Ukrainians are perceiving of the United States presently, you know, given the past support for Ukraine under the Biden administration, which there is still a ton of frustration and aid not coming fast enough, and then how it's being perceived now as we're sort of approaching, you know, in some ways towards the end of the summer, there seems to maybe have been a shift within how Trump sees the conflict. But so I'm curious how Ukrainians are seeing negotiations, how you see negotiations, and how they're perceiving the United States as well.

[B]

I don't think anybody here pays any attention to the negotiations, really, because everybody knows they're not serious. I mean, they're sending Medinsky, who was actually a really big focus of my PhD, which submitted in 2020, because he's just this crazy historical ideologue who's not really that influential. I mean, he's not influential in terms of policy. He is influential in terms of writing history books and state ideology, which, as you know, because Maria and Michael and I wrote about this for csis, is an important part that sort of guides policy and actions and decisions. But still, I mean, he's not a serious person who will decide when the war ends. They're trying to achieve in the political field what they cannot achieve on the military side. That's all. They've not given up. I mean, their aim is to destroy Ukraine in the sense as a, like an independent state, so it could exist like Belarus does, essentially not really sovereign. And whether or not they achieve that through military means or whether or not they achieve that through political warfare means are just exhausting and completely just destroying that country. Because, you know, not all. There are very few countries, I think, who would have kept it together as well as Ukraine has over the last few years. But many people are traumatized. There are many, many problems in society, of course, like there would be in any. In fact, I would say fewer. If I think about what happened to you, I don't even want to think about what would happen to UK society. So I think the chances for peace this year are still very low. I think as we get into 2026, it sort of depends what types of pressure are put on Russia. I mean, we keep on hearing, oh, Russia has these and those stockpiles and yet never uses them. And now recently we've started to hear, including from the Financial Times, I believe, more credible reports about the fact that Russia is really running low on a lot of Soviet equipment that it simply cannot replace for a mixture of specific reasons that some of these parts aren't made anymore. And secondly, because of sanctions, it doesn't have access to equipment. So the Russians are also under pressure. I think the problem is that the Ukrainians are under more pressure. That's how I would put it. So I think there's still a lot more that could and should be done, particularly by Europe. I mean, one of the things that I have found very frustrating or it's got a bit better recently. I do feel like many in Europe are making, many European countries are making the right steps and starting to take this seriously. But you know, among many, there's a tendency to just kind of sit and, and moan about President Trump, which, yeah, it's fine, but ultimately it's our continent and we're responsible. And if Ukraine, God forbid, falls, then Russia's our problem. Plus, plus, you know, they've got all of Ukraine's resources. So even not on a moral case, just in a purely kind of national self interested case like the UK, who is the UK's main enemy? Well, it's Russia and there's another country that's fighting Russia. It's pretty common sense that you would help that country. I mean this. But yet sometimes listening to politicians in the UK get the impression we're doing out of the goodness of our heart. And I think that then leads populations to not understand, you know, okay, well, why are certain disability benefits being cut, but we're spending all of this money on support or on defense. And I think if you don't have honest conversations, countries have national interests and it's legitimate to pursue them. And that actually foreign policy is not a question of morality a lot of the time. Yes, ideally it would be. And of course it's in our interest as democracies or liberal societies to defend other democracies and liberal societies because we're going to get on better with them. But it doesn't just mean, oh, something bad is happening. Therefore we have to kind of respond often in a way that has no effect on stopping the bad thing happening. I don't think there's any chance of a peace plan working this year, maybe next year if more pressure is applied on Russia. But Russia is the block to peace, not Ukraine. I mean, Ukraine, I think we've seen that this year. I think Ukraine's made that very clear. Russia wants Kharkiv, it wants the rest of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Region occupies almost all of luhansk and about 60 to 70% of the other three regions, you know, is demanding that people who've never lived under Russian occupation be handed over to them. That's, that's entirely unacceptable, I think for any, any reasonable person that, you know, ordinary Ukrainians should be handed over to a life of kind of abject misery in a Very kind of, I would even say totalitarian system of the occupied territories. So unfortunately, the war, the war continues in terms of what people think of America. Actually, I, I found it when it was all happening, you know, sort of February, March time. I find it much easier to be in ukra. There's a really much more sort of pragmatic approach to it. Like, well, yeah, that's a real nightmare that we've lost. You know, we've clearly lost. We're going to be losing a lot of American support, but we've just got to get on with it. We didn't have much American support on the 24th of February either. What do we do about it? This war is still coming on. I'm still going to be bombed tonight. My brother's still fighting them. I can't sort of sit here and just doom scroll what President Trump is saying because in fact, if anything now I have to plug in a little bit more. So it very weirdly actually provided a bit of an electric shock, I think, to some parts of Ukrainian society that maybe had slightly, because of being in the, in the Western part, or maybe they didn't have somebody who served or whatever that maybe become slightly disconnected from the war. I think it sort of connected them. And it also had this very weird effect that last week Zelenskyy put a real end to, of making people like Zelenskyy again. Not because they really liked him, but I think because there was this sense of, hey, that is our Zelenskyy. We can beat him. You cannot beat him.

[A]

Jade, I think that's a great place to end the conversation. I want to thank you so much for joining us today and as usual, thanks to all our great listeners for tuning in. If you haven't already, please be sure to subscribe to our show and give us a five star rating. Additionally, if you get the chance, be sure to check out our sister podcast, the Europhile. Wherever you get your podcasts, we will see you next time on Russian Roulette.

[B]

You've been listening to Russian Roulette. We hope you enjoyed this episode and tune in again soon.

[A]

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[B]

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