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Russian Roulette
Max and Michael Kimmage Catch Up on All Things Russia and Ukraine
00:50:35
This week, Max spoke with Michael Kimmage about the recent headlines connected to Russia and Ukraine, and what they mean for the coming months.
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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'm Max Bergman. I'm solo hosting today while Maria is traveling. And today we're going to speak with our good friend Michael Kimmage for an around the horn episode on all things Russia and Ukraine. Michael is of course, a longtime friend of the pod, but for those who need a refresher on his illustrious resume, Michael is a professor of history at the Catholic University of America specializing in U.S. russia relations, and most recently served as the director of the unfortunately ill fated Wilson Center. Additionally, we used to be office mates on the policy planning staff at the State Department during the Obama administration. And most importantly, I should know that Michael is a former senior associate nonresident fellow here on our team at csis. Michael, it's great to have you back on the show.
- [01:18]
B
Wonderful to be back, Max.
- [01:19]
A
So I kind of wanted to have you on to sort of do a level set of where are we right now? It's the middle of the summer. Trump just passed the six month point in his in his tenure. Where are we with the war in Ukraine? Where are we with Ukraine, Russia? In some ways, it doesn't feel all that different than where we were a year ago. When you are looking kind of at the broader strategic landscape, where are we right now in this conflict? What do you see?
- [01:48]
B
It's an odd moment perhaps in the conflict in the sense that some of the problems that you see are almost as evident on one side of the conflict as they are on the other. And maybe that's just a testament to how long the war has lasted, that it is imposing strains and stresses on both sides that really register in the domain may be more of political economy than of raw battlefield empirical data and evidence. And so, yes, it's true that Russia for the last year has been making marginal gains on the battlefield. I don't think that that's really changed the nature of the war whatsoever, although it matters in the scheme of things that there's a small bit of momentum on the Russian side. The story that does not get enough press, I would say, is how difficult this war is on the Russian side. The enormous expenditure of materiel. It's estimated that there'll be a sort of a million deaths and casualties by the end of this year. That's the totality of the war for Russia. That's an astonishing number. And the Russian economy is by no means beginning to tank or anything like that, but it's showing a lot of strain. You know, it's a lot less robust and healthy than it was in the first year of the war. And it's burnt through. I think this is a phrase from a previous discussion of ours, Max. It's sort of burnt through the sugar high that the war gave the Russian economy in its first and second years. It's not as if Putin is accountable to any kind of electorate. But, you know, Russian politics is a mystery. And within that mystery, I would just say that things are getting worse. And in a way, you can point to similar, if not identical problems on the Western side of the ledger, that there are frustrations with the costs of the war. You see that in American politics. A couple of European countries, there are some political tensions, tensions beginning to emerge in Ukraine. I'm sure we'll get to those in a moment. And it's not a stellar moment of transatlantic cooperation by any means. It's not rock bottom when it comes to transatlantic cooperation on the war, but it's one, one area where things have gotten worse from where they were a year ago. And so it's like two huge sides in this conflict are now shouldering a very long term and very heavy burden. Neither is willing to give up by any means, and yet the burden is visibly growing heavier. And so I think we can kind of see not the outcome of the war, but we can sort of see the, of the next, is that whichever side is better able to hold that burden that really registers in the domain of political economy is going to start to emerge the front runner in the war. And it's very difficult to say at the moment which side that will be.
- [04:12]
A
Yeah, it strikes me that the strains are really starting to show. We had a report out a month or two ago noting that the Russian economy has sort of gone from a sugar high, as you mentioned, to the hangover. And the thing about a hangover economically, and I think, you know, physically is that you can continue on with a hangover. You have, you can, you can treat your headache with, with an, with Advil, you can sort of trudge through. It's, you know, can be debilitating, but it can also just be something that you get on with. And, and I think it's sort of unclear how debilitating the current economic state of the current economic situation will be. In Russia, I think it's something at least our report concludes they can trudge forward for a while. I do think that some of the things that we're seeing politically in Russia strike me as perhaps signs that, well, some of that financial strain means that that kind of 15% corruption that you just sort of anticipate, that if there's a project, 15% is being skimmed off the top into the personal bank accounts of various Russian officials and leaders and executives, becomes sort of not quite as sustainable. We've seen the apparent suicide of a senior Russian Cabinet official, I think the Transport Minister, and in some crackdowns, some arrests, some of Russian elite. And I don't necessarily think that is a harbinger of sort of a massive crackdown or unease amongst the elite of Moscow and St Petersburg wanting to strike back at Putin. But it does show signs of strain, needing to, I think, have husband resources a bit more carefully. And it does strike me that if the war starts to impact Moscow and St Petersburg, and we haven't really seen that yet, that could lead to some vulnerabilities. But I think what you see is something sustainable that doesn't strike me as there are significant politics happening at all, really, in Russia, and that Putin in some ways is probably more immune to dissent than perhaps it seemed like he was in the beginning of the war. You recently had a piece out in Foreign affairs, the limits of Putin's balancing act, what the Kremlin will sacrifice in pursuit of victory in Ukraine, along with it was you and Maria Lippmann. I was wondering if you could maybe outline what you think. Sorry, maybe you could outline the major thesis of that piece and what are the key takeaways?
- [06:43]
B
Of course, three parts to the piece, in essence. The first is that over the first roughly three years of the war, Putin achieved a kind of domestic political perfection in his terms, which is to say a society completely without dissent, you know, seemingly entirely loyal to the Kremlin. And the deal that Putin has struck with Russians, really, over the last 20, 25 years of his rule, you know, sort of came into harmony, or we use the term equilibrium in the piece that, you know, Putin gets to run the show, he gets all the power that he wants, and he has to deliver a degree of high degree of stability and predictability to Russian life. So even though the war is chaotic, you know, for most Russians in their domestic lives, things are structured and predictable. And, you know, the second part of the piece is that this phase is coming to an end and, you know, it's coming to an end, not so much because domestic politics is beginning to get turbulent in Russia. That's not the case at all. It's coming to an end because Putin is very, very far from winning this war. And that's something he really wants to do. And the only recipe for Putin to win the war, as far as I can tell, or as we can tell, Maria Lippman and I, would be something like massive mobilization, which is not off the table for Putin, or really sort of organizing the whole of society around the war effort. That's an option he could choose, and over time, it might make a profound difference in the war. But if he does choose that option, that's it for political equilibrium. It's not going to be this careful balance of people having private lives for the most part and then having to deal with what the Kremlin asked them to do on the other. It's going to be a dictatorial society, kind of top down and sort of very difficult. So not without precedent in other societies and other moments of countries that go all in on wars, but highly risky and highly dangerous. And then the third point, which I think really deserves emphasis at this moment, because I still think in the kind of general media, public conversation, we sort of overestimate how well in quotation marks Russia is doing with everything. There's a worsening of Russia's geopolitical position outside of Europe, which is really notable from where Russia was, let's say, five, 10 years ago. And so this would be Russia's non engagement in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, where Armenia is now getting closer to Turkey because of, you know, Russia's bad performance as a, as a partner. We have Russia really losing a lot of its position in Syria with the fall of Bashar Al Assad. And then we have the pulling of Iran by Israel. And, you know, Iran and Russia are not going to go to war together, but still they're pretty close partners. And that too has contributed to a real, you know, sort of diminution in the Russian position in the, in the Middle East. And so this big bet that Putin made back in 2022, that this is going to be the moment when Russian power comes into its own countries, a new order is sort of going to align itself around Russia and China, that really is not happening. And again, Putin is not going to face the overthrow of his regime because of that, but it does matter for his prosecution of the war, and it matters. Finally, last point that we try to make in the piece, it just sort of matters in how Putin sells himself to the Russian population. There's a real hollowness there. You're going to sort of sacrifice for national greatness. If you're going to make that deal with the population, you've got to deliver on the national greatness. And that's something that Putin is failing to do.
- [10:05]
A
Yeah. One thing that strikes me is, you know, morale can shift in wars. And it does strike me that the morale, the wind was sort of at the back of the Russians over the last year with maybe even more, maybe in the last year and a half with the US sort of not passing a supplemental or taking eight months to do so until April 2024. Then you had US elections where the Russians were sort of hoping, I think pretty clearly that, that Donald Trump would win and there'd be a shift in US Policy that came to fruition. And, and then so over the last six months, you, things seemed to be going pretty well. There were going to be negotiations with the US Sort of behind the backs of the Ukrainians on an economic deal. You know, I think the Russians were probably feeling quite good about themselves. But then over the last few weeks, there's been at least a shift in tone and tenor. The US Looks like it's going to continue to basically just keep doing what we were doing in terms of providing missile supplies and other deliveries to Ukraine, money that was allocated during the Biden administration. The Trump administration, or at least the Trump Pentagon hesitated about certain deliveries. The story was that, you know, after defending Israel, especially firing so many Patriot interceptors, the idea that they were going to be providing that to Ukraine when US Stockpiles have gotten low, that they put a freeze. This was approved by Secretary of Defense Hegseth, largely seen as coming from the Undersecretary of Defense Bridge Colby's office. And then Trump overruled that after there was some appeal from European leaders. Mark Rutte was here on Bastille Day, the NATO Secretary General, and it looks like that the tap had been turned back on in terms of deliveries and that Germany got assurances that it could provide more Patriots to Ukraine Patriot batteries and that it would sort of jump the 10 year queue to buy new Patriots from the U.S. now you can see this is a big shift on the other end. It basically just looks like the US Is continuing deliveries and agreeing to sell weapons to Europe. Not a huge shift, a huge change, at least in my mind. But, but from a Russian perspective, I could also see that kind of denting morale and that if this war just sort of trudges on over the next year and if the War starts coming to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and there's been Ukrainian strikes on some of these cities. And if that kind of expands, then I could see kind of a morale shift. I want your thoughts on both that idea, but also maybe we should pivot back to talk about the peace process. Doesn't really look like there's one. And to talk about the kind of shift that has happened in the Oval Office. But, and so back to you, Michael, on how do you see the kind of how things have evolved right now in Washington vis a vis toward Russia and how this administration is and how Trump is approaching the peace process? Is there a peace process to be had?
- [12:59]
B
Wonderful. Well, thanks so much for the questions, Max. In terms of morale, you can give two answers. One would be the one that traces Russian propaganda, and that's the very predictable answer. And Russia propaganda has said from the beginning that Ukraine is going to fold, US Is going to turn tail, Europe is not going to be there for, for Ukraine. And you can always find, especially if you're a propagandist, you can always find evidence that makes that look like the wave of the future. You know, protests in Kiev, Ukraine is going to fold, you know, outliers in Europe in terms of transatlantic policy. Europe has turned its back and the Trump administration will always give some kind of evidence that could suggest changes in the air and that the US Is not really behind Ukraine. And you've heard that message, you know, sort of ceaselessly from Russian propaganda, Russian media, from the beginning of the war to the present, we're going to hear it till the end of the war. So if you're in Russia, and that's what you want to hear, you can buy into that. And I'm sure that's a decent size of a decent amount of the population. On the other hand, if you're willing to take just a somewhat more marginally more candid look at the war from a Russian vantage point, to me, it just looks terrible. You know, again, going back to that number, a million deaths and casualties, that's a huge number, right? 57,000, I think it was, deaths in, in the Vietnam War for the United States. And that's a trauma that we're still living with. This is 20 times the size of that in, in a certain sense of measurement. For what on the Russian side? For, for the sake of the ruined city of Mariupol so that you can run the Russian flag over that, you know, the Donbass, which is an immiserated war torn area. Crimea is maybe a little bit isolated from the war, but certainly not much grinding, grinding progress, if you can use that word. Russia's more or less complete isolation from the west, you know, sort of humanly and economically. And for the sake of what, you know, what does any of this deliver to the average Russian who's not a, you know, sort of nationalist, dreaming of the reconstitution of this or that historic empire, delivers nothing but, you know, so death and cost and isolation. Yes, Russia has global partners outside of the west, that's true. But again, if you're looking at the world outside the Kremlin as a Russian business person, as a student, as a, you know, tourist, even the world has gotten smaller and darker because of this war and has delivered truly nothing to Russia in return. To me, that has to be significant for morale. So, you know, propaganda is going to do battle with that sentiment, but that doesn't seem to me like it's, at this point, much of a fair fight, that that sentiment is going to grow larger over time and maybe just quickly.
- [15:24]
A
To interject before pivoting to ask you again about the, about Trump and Russia and the negotiations. It does, you know, morale is important because it's, that's the, you know, if morale starts plummeting, people start thinking this war is a total failure and a lost cause and costing a ton of money and economically wasteful. And so if the economy starts really grinding, then sometimes it prompts people to say, we got to do something. And oftentimes those people are not necessarily the elites, but, you know, those with guns on the front lines that decide that this is a lost cause. So I don't, I'm not predicting that, but I think that's the sort of stress and strain that if you're Vladimir Putin and you already had Prigozhin launch his failed march toward Moscow, has to be somewhat on his mind and can be maybe even if that doesn't materialize, at least become something on Putin's mind that makes it, maybe he wants to dial down the conflict. But, Michael, maybe back to you on how you see things have progressed over the six months when it comes to the U.S. yes.
- [16:25]
B
Well, I'm sure that the merry go round will continue to turn in Washington for the next three and a half years. And so if it's one mood or one flavor now, it's going to be something else in a couple of weeks, and we'll either go through cycles or go in circles or some sort of very wavy line. It's definitely not a direct straight line toward any discernible destination. And that's the bottom line when it comes to Trump's foreign policy on tariffs and Europe and Canada and many, many other issues. So I always skeptical when I hear terms like transition point or inflection point when it comes to the Trump administration, because it's always the transition or inflection point that precedes within a few hours or a few days, the next one. But that kind of goes without saying. I think what's happened with the peace deal is something very fortunate, which is that sort of like the phony war or a phase of magical thinking has come to an end. There was never the investment in a real diplomatic process from the Trump administration. From the beginning, there was never that investment, nor in a different sense, did the US Ever have the leverage to end the conflict in any way that would have been acceptable to Washington. So you use the term hangover. There was a period of intoxication when it was believed that the charisma of the president and his willingness to serve as an honest broker was going to put an end to the conflict. Maybe that was not much more than a campaign promise. But, you know, that phase is no longer sustainable, it seems. And you do have statements from President Trump that are pretty strong for him vis a vis Putin, that he described Putin as crazy. And then he's also said that Putin feeds him BS on the phone, which I'm sure is. Sure is true. And so there's been a modest degree of distancing there. And here I'm a little bit more internally skeptical. But, you know, we'll. We'll see what the next days and months bring. A greater willingness, it seems, on the part of the White House to use the leverage that the US has, which is economic on the one hand and military on the other, to put just a bit more pressure on Russia. The kicker for the White House is going to be if they're willing to do that. And I think there's every reason to increase the pressure on Russia at the present moment for the sake of doing better with the war. But the kicker for the White House is that they're going to start to use the US Leverage. They're going to lose any sense that they can wrap this war up in the next six months or 12 months, which I think is just the truth of the situation. But I think that that's going to be difficult for Trump. So there's a bit more coordination, it seems, with Europe. That's to the good. Marginally, maybe unexpected from the events of this past spring and summer, you know, is Trump really willing to go to bat for Ukraine. I doubt it. But, you know, Zelensky, I think, has managed the relationship pretty capably. He knows how not to lose Trump at this point, which is maybe more important than knowing how to win Trump, because that's something that nobody really knows how to do. And he's done that pretty well. So it's, I think, strategically a good moment. Just a bit more honesty or a bit more accuracy of. Of description. But I worry a lot that Trump will lose interest in the next month. And, you know, what this war demands of any American president is the sort of thing that Trump himself is just incapable of delivering. It demands patience, it demands coordination, it demands sort of discipline type messaging on things if you're really going to have a very effective policy. And that's just not Trump at all. So the war puts demands on the American president that this American president can't deliver. And we're always observing, I think, that, that tension between what the war requires and what the White House is able to give.
- [19:36]
A
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. You know, I think with, with Ukraine, the, the worst has been avoided. You know, we saw what the. The worst outcome would be after that failed, after that horrendous Oval Office meeting in which US Intelligence sharing and weapons deliveries were frozen. And the intel sharing is particularly important because it really helps the Ukrainian military know what to shoot at. And without that, they kind of lose their eyes and ears. And there was a fear for a while that Elon Musk would cut off Starlink. That sort of dissipated, because if he was going to cut off Starlink, I think any country around the world would say, well, this is not really a reliable company that I can do business with. Fears of that have faded. And Starlink being critical for the connectivity of Ukrainian drones, of Ukrainian communications and the weapons deliveries. The Biden administration allocated just a ton of money before the end of the year because, you know, they got the money allocated from Congress in April, May of 2024, giving them a very short time frame to get all that money out the door. That was supposed to last more than a year, and in nine months, it was all allocated. So there will be a lot of weapons that are built. And that money went to defense companies. It's being built. And so Ukraine is going to continue to get a supply of US Weaponry. The problem is that's going to start to go down, but at the very least, it's enabled, I think, a period of transition as Europeans continue to actually expand production. And to me, one of the big developments from the Ruta meeting was merely that the Europeans were willing to cross the threshold of being willing to buy American aid. That's effectively what just happened there, is that instead of the US Providing aid, the US Is just selling weapons to Europe and Europe is then transferring them. And that's sort of what was already happening, that the European, most of the, a lot of the European weapon is American weapons, old American weapons that they were providing to Ukraine, that we were allowing them to do that. And so I think in some ways it means that Europe is just going to fill the void that the United States is leaving by deciding that it doesn't want to provide direct economic and military support to Ukraine. So we're now going to be doing it indirectly through the Europeans, and the Europeans are paying. If you're Ukraine, you know, it's not great. It's, it's a fine outcome. But then we get to the economic sanctions side, you know, or the tariffs that Trump has announced, you know, has given Putin 50 days. If not, there'll be secondary sanctions or secondary tariffs. And this is where I'm deeply skeptical, deeply skeptical. And we'll see. What are these secondary sanctions or tariffs? Well, it means US going after India and China in particular that are, you know, the huge purchasers of Russian oil. And, and look, I think the thing we have to realize here is, you know, that could work, right? We could, you know, Trump would, could get into a negotiation with Modi and say, look, I'm going to put these tariffs on you or these sanctions on you, whatever terminology you want to use, unless you reduce Russian oil. And then maybe we'll make some sort of side agreement, we'll start selling you more U.S. weapons that you have wanted. And we've held back for technology, security reasons. So maybe there's a deal to be had. But the reason why I'm skeptical is the only reason to be engaged in this sort of deal making process is because you're trying to hurt the Russians to support Ukraine. There actually isn't a huge economic benefit to the United States. In fact, there could be an economic cost because the Biden administration was very concerned about taking Russian oil off the global market. So if you know what these secondary sanctions are trying to do is basically take Russian oil off the global market, that increases global oil prices, hits Americans here at the pump. Now, you could say that Trump could engage the Saudis and the Emiratis in a way that the Biden administration struggled to and say, turn up, you know, open your taps, increase supply, offset that, you know, Russian oil coming off the market. That's all possible. It's possible that there could be this flurry of diplomatic activity to stick it to the Russians to help Ukraine, and that would be great. But so far, you know, I guess it's only been a week or so, but I'm not seeing any of this. And I just highly doubt that that's the sort of activity that we're going to do on behalf of another country when in the mean meantime, we have a flurry of activity going on with trade negotiations with the eu, with India, with Japan, because Trump has levied tariffs. So it would require the US to do a lot for Ukraine. And I just don't really see this administration doing very much at all for Ukraine.
- [24:07]
B
Yeah, it would make for a more interesting podcast if we ferociously disagreed on this point. And I just can't muster anything other than skepticism, as seems to be the case with you, Max, when thinking about this. Well, let me just offer the only two counterarguments I can think of, although my instincts are entirely yours on this point. And by the way, I think when Trump sets an ultimatum or a deadline, that's almost a clue that he's not going to follow through, you know, in two weeks there'll be this announcement or this or that is going to happen. 30 days and then whatever the, you know, sort of next stage is, it's never quite what was anticipated or predicted. And I'm pretty sure that that's going to be the case with this 50 day deadline. But let's just take two sort of arguments that take us in a different direction. Not really about Russia, Ukraine. And I agree Trump's willingness to sacrifice on behalf of Ukraine has to be incredibly small, up until now at least. But interestingly, in the second term, Trump has done a lot of things that are inflationary, and it doesn't seem to bother him all that much. We have the kind of peculiar quote, again, not about Russia, Ukraine, but if American kids get $2 for Christmas as opposed to $30 for Christmas, well, fine, we can kind of live with that. In other words, if there's a price that consumers have to pay for a policy that the White House decides on, so be it. And we've seen that with the tariff policy, we've seen that with various trade wars that economists think are just flat out wrong and foolish and unnecessarily inflationary, and yet the White House has been willing to pursue them. So this is a second term Trump that seems to be somehow less concerned or less afraid of inflation than maybe first term Trump or Trump when he's in the opposition or something else. So not inconceivable in general terms that Trump could choose policies that are inflationary if he sees some reason or logic to do so. And probably the reason or logic here is again, just not my second point, but a point that comes to mind in this context. It's really Trump with many things is driven by ego and vanity. And one of the stupid things Putin has done or Russian media has done in the last six weeks is to mock six months, is to mock Trump and to treat him like a lightweight and a bit like a clown. And there you can maybe see some willingness to sacrifice and for the sake, maybe not so much of saving Ukraine, but of annoying Putin and of annoying the Kremlin. So that's possible. And it's possible that he would accept a degree of inflationary risk to do so. The second point is that Trump seems to be willing to take risks. I'm not speaking here about inflation, but risks in the second term that again, were not quite there or quite there to that degree in the first term. So in the first term, we do have that episode where about 300 Russian soldiers, I think it was in 2018 Russian Wagner soldiers, were taken care of by the US military, a pretty big move on the part of the US that was much discussed at the time. And Trump was willing to do it. Here we have the recent example of the bombing of nuclear facilities in Iran. And here you not only had a lot of Democrats who were skeptical and a lot of national security folk, but you had a lot of people within the MAGA movement and pretty close to Trump himself, who thought this was not a good idea, and yet Trump was willing to do it. So he is a man of surprises. He is, at moments when he believes it necessary, willing to take risk. And perhaps, you know, there's maybe 5% chance of this happening, but perhaps this will fall into that category. He sees the point his ego and vanity is involved in this case, and it might be a risk he's willing to undertake. So that's the best counterargument I can offer. Max.
- [27:33]
A
It's a good counterargument. I don't find it super persuasive, but I think maybe, Michael, maybe we'll shift and I want you to put your policy planning hat on. And I think maybe we'll play a game of blue team, red team. And I think let's sort of take it as a baseline that the United States is not going to Apply very much pressure to Russia, is going to continue to sell arms to Europe for Ukraine is probably going to keep sanctions against Russia in place. Just given the look of it. Let's just assume sort of America status quo, but our aid basically is fading over time. You know, if you're policy, you know, you're policy planner and you have to advise the Europeans and Ukrainians sort of how to proceed, and I would then want us to play red team, what are we advising Putin to do in this situation? But what are you advising the Europeans and the Ukrainians to do? It does look like Europe is sort of recognizing that it's having to kind of carry the weight of the US Pulling back. And basically, you know, I used to describe it as quitting Ukraine. Maybe that's a little too harsh, but basically doing very little in support of Ukraine. The EU just passed its 18th sanctions package. It killed Nord Stream 2 forever. So Nord Stream will not return. Lowered the oil price cap, did really tighten sanctions sort of across the board, put more restrictions on the shadow fleet, and we're seeing Europeans really invest more in Ukraine. Part of, I think, was important about the NATO defense spending commitment, although I've been quite critical of it. But one important part is that you can account your aid to Ukraine as part of your defense contributions. It makes a lot of sense. And so Europeans incentivized, European countries incentivized to give more. But what, you know, what is the strategy here for Europe and Ukraine if the US Is just sort of going to be on the sidelines? Is it just to keep on, keep on keeping on keeping on, just to keep going and supporting Ukraine? What do you think the plan needs to be in Europe and in Kyiv right now?
- [29:34]
B
Yeah, it's a great question, Max, and it's a, it's, it's a really hard one to answer because the unspectacular and truest answer is implicit to your question. It is to keep on keeping on simply because the costs of losing, obviously for Ukraine, but also for Europe, are too high for Europe to change gears because of the tepid attitude toward this war in Washington, barring some massive sea change, which, which I agree is, is unlikely from the Trump administration. You know, it seems to me like Europe in particular could emphasize two points, and this is not anything that hasn't been proposed or anything that would be unfamiliar to a European leader. But in terms of emphasis, maybe that's where something strategic could be accomplished. And the first is to really think through the practicalities of the war and in particular, the issue of air defenses for Ukraine. What is it that will make Ukrainian cities safe and secure in the future to the greatest possible extent? How can Europe become the provider of those goods and services? And you know, of course, in tandem with Ukraine. But there's this agonizing dynamic to the war. I find when I look back over the last three and a half years. Let's just take the German case. You know, lots of, of discussion of the Taurus missiles and of sophisticated, advanced, advanced weapon systems. And that's a discussion that should be taking place. And you know, you can see that Maritz is trying to push forward in some of those areas. But then, you know, there are ways that Europe just lags on some of the simple aspects of the war. You know, ammunition and artillery shells and these kinds of things. And there's just regular reporting from the front that Ukrainian soldiers are not suffering a crisis, crisis of morale. They're very willing to fight, they're willing to carry on. Their morale is good, but they still need a lot of practical stuff. And so, you know, that is just very important for European leaders to focus on to, to, you know, to do the hard work that's involved in whatever production issues are there and not to get beguiled too much by the sophisticated stuff or not at the expense of really honing in on the practicalities in Europe continues to do less than it should according to its interests and priorities. I would say the second point again has been much discussed in the context of the war, but in terms of emphasis, I will bring it forward. And this is to enhance as much as possible the remarkable creativity of the Ukrainian defense industrial complex, whether that's on Ukrainian territory or elsewhere, and to enable the conditions that provide innovation. You know, we sometimes present, or there was a tendency in the second, third year, first year of the war to present Russians as neo Soviet. And they're slow and they're top down and they're vertical and they're uncreative and all of that. And that has often been the case for the Russian military. But Russia has changed and they came up with the glide bombers. And you know, there are ways that it's changing its, its delivery mechanisms for drone warfare and other things. And you know, Ukraine is changing quickly as well. But I think Europe can do a lot. I mean, after all, Europe is a technological powerhouse and probably 99% of that technological capacity has been non military until recently. Surely a lot more of that needs to be military. And Max, you would know all of this stuff much better than I. But the relationship that as you have in the United States between venture capital and research and research and development and military technology. You know, I don't think that Europe is great at that. And Europe has been slow to improve over the last three and a half years. But that's really, I think where European politicians and Germany is, is the most important example. But that's where European politicians have to succeed and have to flourish in the next couple of years. Because it may well be the case that you could have a breakthrough in advanced artificial intelligence in the United States and the Trump administration might not be willing to share that with the Ukrainians and, you know, might have other, you know, sort of directions and priorities. And so Europe needs to innovate as, as profoundly as it can. And that, that is in part a political question about how you, you know, sort of deal with the regulations, how you deal with the allocation of resources, et cetera. So the practicalities on the one hand and innovation on the other, none of that is, you know, a huge strategic rethink of the war, but it's the kind of stuff that you need to make progress.
- [33:38]
A
Yeah, I think, I totally agree. And I think for Europe, this is sort of a case of they've, they've done a lot right. There's been huge advances. European actually, actually European artillery production, I think is larger than, than U.S. artillery production. They've made all these strides. They're produc. There's the amount of money going into fence, into defense is really astronomical, yet it's still not enough. It's not integrated or coordinated enough. They don't have certain things that the Ukrainians really need, such as Himars systems and atacms and things like that. And so there are real deficiencies. And that, I think is why buying from the US and certain products is going to be essential. But, you know, Patriot is sort of missiles, sort of the perfect example. If I was in a Ministry of Defense in a small European country and I was going to buy air and missile defense, I would definitely buy Patriot. It's proven, you know, what you're getting with your money. You know, there's a French Italian version, the Sam tea that, you know, on paper is supposed to be just as good, but it's not used as much. It's not innovative. It's not. They don't buy, not selling as much. They don't iterate and improve it as much. So I'm not going to buy that. But what that means is collectively for Europe, that's a real problem. Means they haven't built out their air defense production because they've been buying America and meanwhile everyone trying to buy patriots around the world. And so what I think the EU needs to do is come in and make sure that there's huge orders also for European systems in addition to U.S. systems. And I think that's happening. The one other thing I would offer is I wrote a piece now a few years back saying that one of the deficiencies in the US Strategy is that we had no message to the Russian people. There was no sort of path back after Putin. And I get that this would be. This was very hard for the United States. You know, Putin had, had, had invaded, invaded Ukraine. Europeans in particular see Russia as just this, you know, threat that will never go away. So the idea of sort of offering Russia sort of a path back after Putin was sort of anathema. But the reason to do this is to sort of say, hey, there's an alternative here that you all actually are European Russians. You know, you want to be part of Europe. And it's really Putin getting in the way, and this war has really hurt that. And so, you know, if Putin goes away, though, and if this war were to end, there is an opportunity, there is a light at the end of the tunnel that could lead to an improvement of Russian European relations. And I think that would be something I would also suggest European leaders throw out. At the same time, they're putting massive money into rearmament. Offering that sort of fig leaf, I think could be important from a morale perspective or to undercut morale, make Putin a little paranoid, maybe entice some of the Russian elite that there is an alternative to just engaging in this endless war. But with that, I want to pivot, Michael, to what are you telling Putin. You're on the policy planning team there. I mean, it's less so what is your advice to Putin, but it's more of what are the strategies that he is getting? What is he thinking about with this war? Is it that he is still trying to pursue his maximalist aims of. Of taking Kyiv, or is it just that he just sort of sees it as, I'm going to give this another try, we'll try to break through, make more progress. But if not, then this war is just never going to end. Because if it ends, then Ukraine can join the European Union, potentially even NATO. So maybe it's just in his interest to have this war go on forever, and maybe he dials down the intensity of combat if it becomes clear that he can actually sort of break through. I don't know what. What is Your take of the kind of grand strategy that is coming out of Moscow. Right.
- [37:22]
B
It's a tricky strategic question to contemplate on the Russian side because you cannot disentangle it from the personal political position of Vladimir Putin. And Putin is not going to compromise that position. That's very clear. And he has immense power within Russia to do largely what he wants. And his ego, his very presidency, all of it is invested in the outcome of the, of the war. And the one thing Putin just inferring from his character, the one thing that he can't afford, is to be seen as a loser or to even, to have been, even to be seen as having made a mistake. And so it reminds me a little bit of the famous quote from John Kerry about the Vietnam War. Who's going to be the last soldier, the last man who wants to die for a mistake? You could certainly ask that question already in Russia. But Putin is never going to allow the war to be seen in those terms and will fight, I'm afraid, for a very long time for the sake of preserving the optics, for, for the sake of preventing the optics of losing from ever encroaching on his presidency. And so a lot of the strategic questions that Russia could have if Russia was able to have a cogent conversation about the war will never get discussed for that, for that reason. So let's just take that as a given because that's how the system functions, and that's an obvious element of it. And then, you know, even within that, I have to say I find a lot of the Russian choices very questionable. And so let's focus for a moment on the terrible events of the last couple of weeks, where it's like day in, day out, there have been all these drone attacks, not just on Kyiv, but even cities much further to the, to the west than Kyiv, of no strategic significance to the battlefields, to be sure, but this constant barrage on civilian life in Ukraine, I can understand why Russia's doing it on a kind of, of medium level, political slash, tactical level. You know, commanders want to show that they're doing something. They want to show enterprise, they want to get promoted, and this is what they're able to do. But the more civilians Russia kills, the further Russia gets from whatever political objectives it could have in Ukraine. Because to achieve your political objectives, you can't just use coercion at a certain point. You have to co opt local elites and do all the things that empires do to, to grow. And so even there, I think Russia is kind of screwing things, screwing things up. But, you know, the clear way of answering the question at this point is that Russia is, to a degree, where Germany was in 1944, 1945. It's sort of the Hail Mary approach to strategy, that you just sort of throw things at the war and you hope against hope that Zelenskyy is going to fall and that there'll be massive riots in Kiev or some huge element will emerge in the European Union. Freak election in Germany where the AFD gets to put its chancellor and the chancellor in Berlin, and then Europe sort of changes precipitously, or massive unrest in the United States, sort of civil war or something like that, that makes the United States just unable to function as a military power. But if those of your. Those are hopes, I mean, it's just. It's a little bit like, you know, Hitler aiming for the wonder weapon in 1944 that was going to deliver him for the war, or what the Germans speculated about in the spring even of 1945, that. That when Roosevelt died, you know, somehow everything was going to fall into their. Into their lap. So when a country is incapable of doing what we could describe as normal strategy, trying to achieve a set of objectives that would make a country more prosperous or more secure, when you're unable to do that, you know, I think you engage in a lot of delusional and wishful thinking, and I'm afraid that that's where Moscow is at the moment. But the hammering against Ukrainian civilians is, I think, a key to where Russia sees its strategic direction. And of course, I can, you know, mock all of this as delusional, wishful thinking and sort of off the mark. But, you know, wars are, of course, very unpredictable, and if Ukraine were to break in some ways, then you could see certain things becoming possible for Russia that are not possible at the moment. But I think it's, you know, very often over the last three and a half years, and especially over the last year, what you see in Moscow is. Is really the inverse of strategic thinking.
- [41:18]
A
Yeah. It also seems to invite the Ukrainians to also take the gloves off in some ways in response. It's not that Ukrainians have really had the gloves on, but they've been careful and not to sort of pummel civilian targets inside of Russia, knowing that Russia would, you know, could pummel their civilian cities back and have been, I think, very. Ukrainians have been quite judicious in trying to strike military targets. And it may just be now that, you know, if Ukraine. Ukraine has a big military defense industrial complex, they could develop and have developed Lots of long range drones that we know that Russia also struggles to shoot down. Ukraine has responded recently with, with a number of strikes and that that could really start to escalate from the Ukrainian side back onto Russia and then therefore bring the war burst. Some of the bubble of the Russian elite that is operating in some of these cities now, Moscow and St. Petersburg is quite, quite far. It's hard to strike. I do think that that is sort of, the more you pummel Ukrainian cities, the more it sort of invites that retaliation. It's also not clear to me that that would result in, in sort of weakening Ukrainian resolve. You know, World War II, it's sort of Nazi pummeling of British cities, sort of strengthened British resolve. Air power doesn't seem to actually create great morale shifts. So I think there, I think there's, there's, I totally agree with you. The strategic thinking here, I think is, is really wanting and it's sort of unclear what the objective is except to just have collective punishment on the Ukrainians and maybe some vague hope that this brings Ukraine to its knees. But I think it's, it's, it's destined to do the opposite.
- [42:53]
B
Maybe.
- [42:53]
A
One final question is to close out on some of the recent news out of Kyiv that there have been raids and arrests of the anti corruption offices and prosecutors that have been really important, I think in, in lending confidence to the United States, the United States to Europe in providing a lot of aid to Ukraine and snuffing out corruption in Ukraine or at least attempting to corruption has been a huge issue in Ukraine. So I'm curious what you see of the current government reshuffling in Ukraine. The steps by Zelenskyy against these anti corruption offices. Is this Zelenskyy really just trying to seize more control? Is this something to be nervous about or something to watch? What do you think?
- [43:39]
B
Yeah, great question to conclude with Max. So just going back very briefly to your previous thoughts before you pose this question. You know, I think one of the basic elements of strategy, certainly a military strategy, is to respect your adversary, respect your enemy. I think there have been times when that's not what we've really done vis a vis Russia. And we've sort of underestimated what Russia's been capable of. 2016 kind of comes to mind in that context for the, for the U.S. but Russia is chronically incapable of doing this with Ukraine. It was incapable of doing this at the beginning of the war. It was incapable of seeing that Ukraine could advance as quickly as it did in the fall of of 2022. And then, you know, the naval elements of the war have been very, very successful for Ukraine, again, to Russia's surprise. And the strike on the airfields deep within Russia this summer was a, was a surprise. So I think you're entirely right that Ukraine continues Russia, and it's just surprising that Russia is so surprisable in this, in this sense. And yet it tells you something very important about Russia and its lack of respect for Ukraine and in a way, how costly it is for Russia has been and will continue to be in this war. So two things to say about Ukraine present moment, and since you mentioned our time at policy Planning back from 2014 to 2016, these are all very familiar issues from back then. And for Ukraine watchers from before 2014, to be sure, an Achilles heel of Ukrainian politics from the vantage point of the US and from the vantage point of the west democratic countries and the Achilles heel of many post Soviet countries and certainly of Ukraine after 1991, is checks and balances. And there is a real problem in Ukraine that the executive has us has too much control over the judiciary. And this was a huge issue from 2014 to 2016, which our office worked a lot on. I'm sure that Ukraine has made quite a lot of progress since then, but it just hasn't gone away. And so what you see is Zelenskyy being in some respects a typical Ukrainian politician in a somewhat unfortunate sense, in that he's trying to amass a greater degree of executive power. And if you're a close Zelenskyy watcher from the beginning of the war, you've seen that this has been a problem, maybe not so much with the judiciary, but it's been a problem with Ukrainian media that Zelenskyy, who does have a strong media background, has like many time wartime, many wartime leaders, he's tried to control the information flow, prevent certain stories from coming out. US is familiar with this, from this in its own history with various wars. It's again, not unique to Ukraine, but it's a observable dynamic. And I think, you know, under conditions of martial law where there haven't been elections for the last three and a half, half years, maybe Zelensky is feeling like, you know, he has impunity to do these things and he's owed it, he deserves it. You know, he's the great wartime leader and he's, he's sort of unstoppable. And so, you know, I'm glad that there are protests. I'm glad that the international community, those Countries that are supporting Ukraine are speaking out about this. You know, the eu, other sources. I doubt the Trump administration is going to jump on this issue. But, you know, sort of backers of Ukraine are speaking out and that sort of to the good. But the second point I would make, and I hope that this is not blase, you know, too much taking Zelensky off the hook. I don't think that Zelensky is a classic authoritarian personality. I think if he were, we would have seen that sooner. You know, he does wear a kind of military garb. And so, you know, there are things to be concerned about there from the perspective of democracy and maintaining democracy. And Ukraine is not just not great when it comes to the institutional constitutional underpinnings of democracy. But Ukraine is very pluralistic and I think has remained so during the war. Strong civil society, etc. Everybody knows this about, about Ukraine. And Zelensky may find himself on the receiving end of that pluralism and of that civil society because of these very questionable moves in the last, in the last couple of days. But I think he will move through this. And I think this is the final point that I would make that the survival instinct on the part of Ukrainians and also the trust in Zelensky, both of those things are strong enough to ensure that Ukraine is not going to, at the time that it's trying to beat back really difficult waves of attack and waves of aggression from Russia. It's not going to devolve into civil war and it's not going to devolve into civil war over these issues. So let's report on it, let's talk it through, let's have a good transparent, open conversation about things that Ukrainian politics leaves to be desired and what some of the concerns might be for the next couple of months. But it's just not, I think, the moment when Ukraine begins to slide into, into political dysfunction. If we want to, to close out the conversation with a practical worry about Ukraine that is in this area. Let's think forward about the winter. Let's think about the cost of gas and electricity and just gas, electricity, energy supply in Ukraine over the winter as Russia continues to really degrade Ukraine's civilian infrastructure. And if anything would bring Ukrainian politics to a boiling point, it might be that the sense that civilian life is just becoming too difficult to bear. But it's not going to be these kinds of ultimately inside baseball issues within Ukrainian domestic politics.
- [48:32]
A
Yeah, I also, I totally agree. I also think this is where the role of the European Union is really important because the Ukraine, I mean, this is sort of the origin of what this is all about is Ukraine's desire to be part of Europe. And if Ukraine does move in authoritarian direction, if it does look increasingly corrupt, then the pathway towards European Union membership, the whole point of this is not going to advance. And this is something where the EU doesn't compromise. The EU is very litigious. The whole process of joining the eu, of adopting the key communitaire, the tens of thousands of pages of laws, is very arduous. And so I think Ukraine's going to be held to an incredibly high standard here. So in Zelensky, I think there's been a lot of concern in Europe and he's going to have to address those concerns in the Europe. This just means the EU is going to be on them like a hawk. And I think that's, that's incredibly appropriate. Michael unfortunately, we are out of time. We've gone over, there's so much more to talk about, but I want to thank you again for joining us. You're joining us from, from the Vilnius, the great country of Lithuania. So thanks for, thanks for beaming in and also thank you to all our great listeners for tuning in. As always, if you haven't already, please be sure to subscribe to the show. Give us a five star rating. Additionally, please be sure to check out our sister podcast, the Eurofile, wherever you get your podcasts and we will see you next time on Russ Roulette.
- [49:57]
B
Such a pleasure. Max. You've been listening to Russian Roulette. We hope you enjoyed this episode and tune in again soon.
- [50:10]
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.
- [50:19]
B
Online and be sure to check out all the latest analysis by the Europe, Russia and Eurasian a program@csis.org.