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- [00:00]
A
Dan I'm Dan Kurtzphelin, and this is the Foreign affairs interview.
- [00:06]
B
Putin wanted the war, okay? He won the war from the very outset, during the negotiations in 2021 and the ultimatums he issued. He still wants the war, and he wants it more than all the other things currently being offered on the table.
- [00:22]
A
February 24 marks the fourth anniversary of Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine. After Moscow's initial onslaught, Ukrainian counteroffensives and slow Russian gain since the war has settled into a brutal pattern of attrition, adaptation and endurance. Ukrainian cities are rationing electricity as the Ukrainian military struggles to muster the manpower and munitions needed to gain a decisive edge. Meanwhile, the battlefield has become a hellscape of drones and artillery fire, with no clear breakthrough for either side in sight. Michael Kaufman has been one of the sharpest observers and analysts of the changing nature of the war, from Russia's troop buildup in late 2021 to the present in the pages of Foreign affairs and elsewhere. He has also considered the geopolitical implications of each new phase of fighting, what the continued threat of a belligerent Russia means for the west, and how Ukraine's allies can prepare it for sustained conflict. Now, as the war enters its fifth year, Kaufman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues that Russia retains battlefield advantages, but they have not proved decisive and more and more time is working against Moscow. Yet ending the conflict on terms acceptable to Ukraine, he writes, will not be an easy feat either. In this special bonus episode, I spoke with kofman on Wednesday, February 18, about where the war stands four years in and how it might change in the weeks and months ahead.
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B
Foreign.
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A
Mike, thank you for joining me.
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B
Yeah, happy dream.
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A
I was noting someone a few days ago that it was after reading a piece that you and Michael Kimage wrote for Foreign affairs in November 2021 that I was persuaded that a Russian attack on Ukraine was in fact coming. And since writing that piece, you've written a pretty essential series of others about the course of the war, with the most recent one, Ukraine's War of Endurance, coming just a few days ago. Since those pieces have served as a pretty formidable first draft of military history, I'm curious, as the war enters its fifth year, for your reflections on its fourth, if you step back from this particular moment, how would you characterize the progress of the war in the past 12 months? Especially what's changed and what hasn't?
- [02:32]
B
So I always have two perspectives on this. On the one hand, the battlefield dynamic changes every three to four months at the Tactical level, there's always new things, new tactics, new technology being used. Big picture, though, this has remained a war really characterized by attrition and positional fighting for the last two years, which is not unexpected in a prolonged conventional war, as both sides adapt to each other, but struggle to establish a kind of decisive advantage and break out of the equation. The logic that they've established, and that's because of these cycles of attrition, reconstitution, make it challenging for either force to either get enough advantage in material or manpower. And technology adds advantages that are kind of operationally relevant but may not strategically change anything in the war. If we look at last year in particular, for example, you saw a big shift at fighting at the tactical level. Ukraine had adapted to Russian dismounted infantry assaults by focusing on drone force drone units and substantially expanding production of strike drones. The Russian military saw that they could no longer attain any kind of gains to traditional mechanized assault or even through infantry attacks, and have switched much more to two tactics. First, infiltration, using very small groups of infantry just to go past Ukrainian forward positions, because at this point, Ukraine didn't really have cohesive defensive lines and trying to get into Ukrainian rear. And second, substantially expanding their drone force, their elite drone units. And most of last year, to me, the interesting part of the fight was a tug of war over the drone engagement zone, because who had superiority in using drones, had the initiative on the ground, had freedom of action, and could dictate the pace of battle. So you saw the Ukrainian force start out with a significant advantage last year, with that engagement zone being primarily over the Russian military. And over time, through both qualitative and quantitative developments, the Russian military push it more over the Ukraine armed forces. So there's a lot more parity by the end of the year.
- [04:34]
A
You write somewhat, I think, counter to the common view in the piece that Ukraine performed well in 2025 and that if you look at where it was at the end of this year, as opposed to the end of 2024, Russia's pace of advance was slowing. You know, a bunch of Russian operational failures. Talk a bit about Ukraine's success as you see it, and where Russia fell short. I think, again, contrary to the broad expectation you hear around the world.
- [05:02]
B
Sure. So even though right now I describe some negative tactical trends, if you look overall how 2025 went, despite having these advantages in material, in manpower, and despite substantially reducing Ukraine's advantage in use of drones, 2025 was not successful year for the Russian military. If you look at Russian advances, they mainly were along the axis. The Russian military actually didn't prioritize. Ukraine held Russia to incremental gains. The way the Russian military has been fighting, simply not conducive to attaining any kind of operationally meaningful breakthroughs. You saw Russian casualties go up over the course of the year, and as we got further into the fall and the winter, Russian unrecoverable casualties started to really go up and match the recruitment rate, so they could no longer expand the force. So the trend line in terms of manpower availability for Russian military started to become increasingly negative. If you look at them having China to sustain this pace of offensive activity in 2026, and bottom line, the Russian military had consistently made the bet that if they conduct offensive operations at a very high intensity, even though not large scale along this broad front of 700 to 800 miles, that eventually the Ukrainian military will crack, that they'll be able to grind their way through the front and there'll be a collapse on the Ukrainian military side. And that simply hasn't taken place. Right. They weren't even able to take the rest of Donetsk, and Ukraine still controls the last 20% of it. And it doesn't look like the Russian military is any closer to achieving that minimal objective. So it'll take them a long time to fight over the rest of Donetsk region, even this year. So, across the board, it's hard to say that 2025 went well for Russia, despite all their advantages. And increasingly, as they go into 2026, you start to wonder whether time is on their side. Because if you look at both their constraints, their combat performance, and the growing economic strain from sustaining the war, they're not much closer to achieving their objectives than they were a year ago, the past year.
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A
I mean, especially since Trump's. Not just since inauguration, but especially since that dressing down of President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office in late February, there's been lots of political and diplomatic ferment. Obviously, Trump promised to end the war in 24 hours. That has not happened. To what extent has that diplomatic and political drama affected the battlefield itself? I mean, on some level, it looks like things on the ground are continuing almost irrespective of what's happening in negotiations. But you also, I imagine seeing both sides kind of fighting for position and using the battlefield as an element of those negotiations. So how do you see the interaction between those two factors?
- [07:41]
B
So there isn't an immediate battlefield effect on the one hand, although it does affect, for example, recruitment in Ukraine. If people keep going through cycles of negotiations thinking the War might be over. It doesn't have a very positive effect for mobilization and for morale. Because if you think this war is going to be over, the United States is going to force both sides to settle it soon. Why should you necessarily enlist at this point? Where I think it does matter is, look, the reason we look at the fighting isn't because something will be determined in this war by who controls the next 10 kilometers of Donetsk, right? This war principally isn't about that. But the fighting informs the relative leverage that either side has in negotiations. And now it is increasingly not just about the tactical level or not just about who, who takes what territory, liberates more territory, but the relative positions of the two sides in the negotiations. The United States is serving as a catalyst both for a narrowing of positions right between Ukraine, Europe and to a much lesser extent, Russia. Because if you look at who the outlier is, that's not really narrowed their political demands relative to their actual military performance. It's definitely Moscow, but also informing relative size of expectations. You know, like, would Russia be able to take the rest of Donetsk if they just kept fighting for another year, or will it take them longer? Can Ukraine hold on? And so fighting essentially provides information both to Russia and Ukraine, but also to external parties like the United States that are trying to serve as the catalyst to force an end to the war.
- [09:14]
A
Do you see anything about battlefield behavior or tactical changes by either side that suggests that they are in fact preparing for a ceasefire or serious about that?
- [09:24]
B
Honestly, no. I think that the assumption on both sides is that this war is going to go on. And it's been so far very difficult for the United States to try to impose any kind of artificial timeline or ceasefire on this conflict. And you consistently see Trump administration trying to come up with a timeline by which they would like to get a ceasefire, and neither side reacting to it very well for a very particular reason. It's clear that Trump administration lacks sufficient leverage in this case. And it's also clear that the conditions aren't quite there. If you look at what's happening on the ground, the Russian military is advantaged, but not decisively so, such that Moscow can really make the demands that's currently making at the negotiating table. Ukraine is not in a dire state, nor is the balance field that fragile terms of organization, Ukrainian defense, that they need a ceasefire tomorrow or are in a position that they have to accept any deal. So they're negotiating actually from a fairly practical standpoint, that is objectively, their military situation is not nearly as dire as it's sometimes painted in Washington, D.C. it may not be as great as it's sometimes painted in European capitals either. The truth is probably a bit in the middle.
- [10:43]
A
I was struck in your piece, and this was persuasive that you, you know, you noted that if you, you know, if you'd gone back a year or if you'd gone back to that Oval Office meeting, Putin seemed like he was in a pretty great position. That was even true in, in August when he and Trump met in, in Anchorage. Putin has really screwed that up. Right. He's made a couple of assumptions that that proved not to be true. What did Putin get wrong? I mean, how did he kind of miss this opportunity that seemed to be at hand for him when Trump came back into office?
- [11:10]
B
I think if we're talking about Putin, he probably made two big bets last year. First is that pressure on this broad front will eventually force a collapse. And that's the bet the Russian military has been making for the last couple of years, actually, and it's not panned out for them so far. But the second was obviously the political bet that through Russian diplomacy, he can maneuver the United States out of the war and kind of collapse the Western coalition and then ultimately achieve what he wants that way. Right. Because if you get the United States to turn against Ukraine, sure, Europeans may still be with Ukraine, but there's a lot of critical things that Ukraine needs from the United States that Europeans can't easily substitute for, even if they are now providing the bulk of those systems. And yes, it definitely early on in the spring looked that way because Washington's view was that Ukraine was the problem in the negotiations. And it clearly changed much later, by late summer and fall. And ultimately United States actually sanctioned Russia, sanctioned Russian energy companies. And you saw both Russian intelligence and Russian material support for Ukraine continue, even though now it's paid for by Europeans, it's no longer aid, but nonetheless, Europeans come up with the money. We provide the capabilities, we continue to provide support. And in big picture, things haven't changed last year that much. Yeah, it might be a bit less, but you don't see it resulting in dramatically increased Russian battlefield gains. And if this goes on for another year, then leads to a big question mark. Okay, well, what's, you know, what's Putin's theory of success at that point? Right. If continues making us bad, how he got wrong is a good question. I think that this is my only. I think that Trump administration may have come in at first very optimistic about what they had to offer to Moscow and how Much Moscow might desire that more rather than continuing the war. The problem they have is that they inherently discovered that which many other people dealing with Russia have discovered. Putin wanted the war, okay? He wanted the war from the very outset, during the negotiations in 2021 and the ultimatums he issued. He still wants the war and he wants it more than all the other things currently being offered on the table. Okay? And I think they discovered it's going to be much harder to get Russia to agree to these things because they don't understand Moscow's priorities and don't really necessarily appreciate that sunk cost fallacies that often drive wars beyond the point where a decisive outcome can be achieved. Right. When leaders get stuck in the pathology of a prolonged conventional war, there is a degree of sunk cost to go into it. And lastly, leaders are often rational, but they're not necessarily reasonable. If Putin was a reasonable leader, we would not be marking the fourth year anniversary of this war, would we?
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A
You say he wants the war and that's because he's can't get out of the sun cost fallacy or because it's essential to his power at this point that the way the economy and society in Russia has adapted, it's better for Putin himself if war continues.
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B
That's a great question. I think it's an active debate in the community. First, I think that Russian society, Russian elites have adapted to this war at this point and actually will be a real challenge in a crisis for the Russian economy to adapt back. That's undoubtedly basically, if not a reason for it, non incentive. It's certainly clear that continuing the war is easier at this point for him than actually just stopping it from. From a pure political economic perspective, although you see that the Russian economy is actually genuinely struggling to sustain the war at this point. But secondarily, no, I think that he's committed to this for legacy reasons. He personally cares about Ukraine in the way that Russian elites, a lot of Russian elites don't and the Russian public generally doesn't. I think that Russian leadership is also to some extent deluded really about prospect for success, that they believe that if they're just able to continue this war, they will ultimately through sheer, will be able to outlast the west and that something will break. And that's the internal narrative, I think that's been happening there for some time. And also there's a strong tendency to misreport success. Right. You see military leadership actually throughout 2025 telling political leadership that they've achieved things on the battlefield that they didn't actually achieve. Right. That the war is going much better than it really is. And that probably plays a role as well as an active debate how much, how will Putin really understands the situation on the ground. But lastly, I think at the end of the day, the answer is simple. He committed to this. He mobilized the state to some extent in support of this war. And I think that he doesn't want to end it unless he achieves certain minimal things. He still thinks that he can do that. Right. There's ultimately a divergence of perspectives. Obviously. My article lays out one, I think, fairly objective point of view on it, but that's clearly not the way it's viewed. In Moscow, a lot of people were
- [15:58]
A
quite critical of Zelensky's approach to the Oval Office meeting last February, but he seems since to have found the right way of interacting with and managing the Trump administration. How have you seen his learning process over the course of the last 12 months or so on that front?
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B
Certainly Ukraine could have done a lot better early on in handling the Trump administration. And there's been a very significant amount of learning on that side in Kyiv and partly fostered by both folks in the United States and Britain and France. And you saw the dramatic change in interactions between Trump administration and Kyiv over the course of the summer and now heading into the fall. It's sort of night and day. Yes, there are, of course, differences that crop up. There was the pressure campaign on Zansky in November by Trump officials who sensed that due to domestic political issues, that he was weak and that they had a particular point at which they might pressure him towards a deal. But you see, the reaction is very different now. There aren't these public spats on Twitter. There aren't these sort of exchanges, and things are being handled much better, although it merits saying in part because Europeans are so actively involved in managing the relationship and constantly showing up like they did after the Anchorage summit, for example, in Alaska between Trump and Putin, Emilia showing up to do damage control. So active mitigation of damage control, I think has been a part of the process, but also a real change in approach from Kiev. And lastly, you know, there has been a steady, I think, shift in attitude in D.C. as well, which came in thinking that Ukraine was a big part of the challenge in getting to a settlement and then over time learning, no, that actually Russia is a big part of the problem and is the biggest part of the problem and it's not Ukraine.
- [17:48]
A
Do you have an understanding of what the Trump policy on Ukraine is at this point? I mean, it May. There may not be one Trump policy that are parts of the administration that have different views, but if you try to distill those into an actual policy. And can you come up with one?
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B
Oh, Dan, that is a great question. Is there a policy? I think there are policies, which is to say, it depends on who you ask in the administration. So it's clear that the one guiding policy is to attain an end to the war as soon as possible. Okay. To what extent the Trump administration is interested in attaining an end that is lasting or one that is substantially favorable, acceptable to Ukraine is debatable. And then it's a real question of, okay, is there really a separate Ukraine policy, or is there actually a policy towards the Russia Ukraine war? Right. Because if you read a lot of Trump administration documents at this point, whether it's national security strategy, national defense strategy, also, more importantly, let's forget these documents for a second, because I think you and I will both struggle to believe that Donald Trump himself reads them or spends a lot of time caring about what's in any of these documents. But if you look at the folks involved in the conversation, it's not clear to what extent there really is a Ukraine policy or how. How vested they are in. In the question of Ukraine and to the extent to which Ukraine fits in their policy towards Europe. It is to shift the burden for maintaining security in the European continent to Europeans as much as possible. That policy is very much clear. And I suspect in the future, Ukraine will essentially be a subcomponent of that broader point of view and that broader trajectory in US Policy.
- [19:29]
A
When you look at US Support, what are the things that only the US can provide at this point? Is it really just intelligence and air defenses? Are there other things that have to come from the US and that the Europeans can't. Can't pay for a backfill.
- [19:41]
B
Okay. So the big question of what we can provide from a capability point of view, yes, Europeans are now paying for most of this. That's true. I think that it's obviously air defense interceptors for systems that we provided that are essentially only made by the United States. It's certain types of precision strike munitions as well. It is parts maintenance and things for equipment that we provide to Ukraine over the course of the war. And its intelligence support of various kinds, I will get into, and I will put it this way, it's not that I think European countries can substitute for some of that, but they're certainly not in position to do all of it or to do it at scale. Right. And that would take considerable transition, I think, for them to be able to take that over from the United States. And lastly, so at the end of the day, the United States coordinates much of the security assistance to Ukraine as an effort at Security Assistance Group Ukraine in this Baden. And there's a whole village there of not just European colleagues but Western countries that are involved in that under separate mission on Sato. But we are still in the leading and coordinating role of quite a bit of this. And that's not to say Europeans can't fully take it over, but it would definitely, certainly be, I think, a significant
- [21:03]
A
transition lingering on Zelenskyy's approach to the US over the course of the past year. One thing that that's been striking, and this was especially clear at the his speech at the Munich Security Conference a few days ago, that he's going out of his way to trash some Biden decisions about, you know, fears of escalation or Russian nuclear use or not, you know, moving certain weapon systems quickly enough. Since we are at the four year anniversary, I think it might be worth looking back at some of those decisions as you reflect on the previous four years and what might have gone differently where, you know, if you could go back and advise decision makers to handle things differently at the time, do you think we might have been at a different place now?
- [21:43]
B
So look, I'll say I am annoyingly in the middle of this conversation because I think it's going to be a continued debate on whether if we had done things differently and if Ukrainians have done things differently, we would really have a difference in degree versus a difference in kind in outcomes. Right. Because it, it's quite a few ifs. Right. A lot of things are contingent in war that would have to come together for an outcome that's genuinely different in kind. So I don't subscribe to the simplistic narratives that if only we had done this thing at this particular point differently, a prolonged conventional war would have had a completely different outcome. That said, first, I think that definitely in the B administration early on there were exaggerated concerns about the risk of escalation first couple months in the war that probably delayed for a couple of months the organization of efforts to transfer capabilities to Ukraine. Although I think intelligence sharing in many respects changed on a dime at the opening of the war in ways that many of us as analysts couldn't possibly predicted, both from the United States and European countries. And it made a real difference on the battlefield for Ukraine. But the material support came later. And the other kind of thing that drove it was, I think US Military, based on its experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, had a really mistaken notion or how long it would take Ukrainian military to absorb these capabilities and be able to employ them, in effect. And that was simply a learning process, I think for US and Western militaries based on past experience and not having worked with a military like Ukraine's because
- [23:08]
A
the training had gone so poorly. The perception was in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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B
Yeah. I think the view was that, you know, our advanced capabilities would take a long time for Ukraine to absorb. But the truth is that Ukrainian personnel who already had fairly capable Soviet systems were transitioning from, let's say Soviet type artillery or Soviet type air defense to our type air defense wouldn't take nearly as long. This was an institutionalized military with folks had a pretty good technical background and would be able to pick that up a lot faster than many people US military expected. And when you look at that back then, there were certain assumptions about it. Those hard to argue because the practitioners, if they tell you it takes a certain amount of months to learn to use something who for you to tell them that they're wrong and actually takes less time than the person using it thinks it will. Until you see that in practice. Right. You as an analyst are not well positioned to go debate with a person who's actually practiced with it. I do think that the main criteria you can levy United States and other Western countries is that throughout the war a number of capabilities we deployed first, not at scale where they could make their greatest impact, but essentially trickle onto the battlefield in smaller numbers and secondarily often poorly timed with Ukrainian offensive and defensive operations. Right. For example, attack capabilities we deployed after Ukraine's summer 2023 offensive instead of before it, so they could deploy it against Russian rotary aviation or other capabilities that Russia had that were relevant to that operation. And so there are a number of these decisions that were made. For example, the decision to provide western armor to Ukraine was a debate for, for Germany for quite some time. And it cost probably a couple months late 2022. That said, I do think that the bulk of the choices on forced employment on strategy in this war were made by Ukraine and by Ukrainian leadership, particularly Ukrainian political leadership. Even just recently, last couple days, you see criticism from Valder Resolution, the previous commander in chief, essentially claiming that in the, in the big offensive of summer 2023, he wanted to concentrate forces along one axis and it was political leadership that forced him to split the force three ways. So, so the way I look at it, still a lot of decisions on Force management, on mobilization, on manpower and on military strategy were made by Kyiv. Some of the key offensives and how they were organized were ultimately made by Ukrainian political military leadership. And you sort of can't just have a view of this war as one that solely selects for Western support and Western decisions without the actual country and the military that was fighting this war too. And you could say they were structured and shaped by Western constraints, that's true, but there were a lot of choices that folks made that, you know, ultimately had the greatest impact in this war. And lastly, in, in many respects, the conversation on Western resistance tends to ignore that throughout certain periods of the war, there wasn't this Ukrainian force availability prior to the real launch of hostilities to kind of like portal out and train the West. Second, it really ignores what it takes to actually make these things happen. This is the kind of like magic wand theory of security assistance. How much time it took to set up the whole security assistance enterprise, training, logistics, and to build this pipeline. This was significant part of western efforts in 2022. Right. And you had to build it in order to be able to do it. Sometimes folks think, so why couldn't we just transfer the entire brigade's worth of stuff to the Ukrainian military? And the short answer is, the way I put it is, look, if you could build a bridge in three days, then you'd have a bridge in three days. And the only problem is that you can't. Right. Things aren't built that way. Right. So some of the historical counterfactuals fail because they simply don't appreciate the practical constraints.
- [26:46]
A
At Munich last weekend, there were lots of Biden officials sitting in the audience as, as Zelensky spoke, bristling at, at the criticism. And they similarly went to that 2023 counteroffensive and I think echoed the Zaluzhny criticism that Ukraine failed to kind of concentrate forces in the right way. And then they also, of course, pointed to what they saw as a serious risk of, of nuclear use by Russia. And in fall 2023, if Russian lines had collapsed, do you see some validity to their view there? I mean, would you have urged the Ukrainians to concentrate their forces there? And did you assess the nuclear risk as real as you observed it from where you sit in fall 2023?
- [27:28]
B
So if we go back to fall 2022, I think that was a geo nuclear crisis, and I don't necessarily think the risk was that high because the conditions were never met. Ultimately, Russian mobilization served to stabilize their lines and they were able to withdraw from Kherson. So we never got to a point where it was likely Russia might use nuclear weapons. But I do think that there's more to it and it tends to be underplayed. Okay. That said, it didn't drive anything in US Policy. So it's not like the United States in any way affected Ukrainian operations during that time. Things played out the way they did because of the situation on the ground. I myself was in Kherson in October of 2022 when I saw it. The second point on the Kherson of Biden administration during summer 2020, defensive. Yeah, there were recriminations about. Okay, my view was that we could have done a lot better, but only ultimately the concept of operations was unworkable from the outset for that offensive operation. I think a lot of things it would have needed were missing. And I think that the big choice on distribution of forces and fires and the decision to continue an offensive even though it clearly failed all the way up till November, was ultimately Ukraine's. And that's a conversation for Ukrainians to have amongst themselves. And they're increasingly having that conversation. I do think that what happened in this war. Right. Is the result of both Ukrainian effort and Western effort and supports. Right. And so when you, when you want to have a nuanced historical retrospective, you have to account for the fact that both the successes and the failures have to be jointly owned to some extent. Okay. And that it's hard to select for which was the most causal factor. For a very simple reason, outcomes and war tend to be multi causal. I'm very wary of anybody that points to a single cause for any outcome in a conventional war session as this. And it's not easy to say which had the, you know, the most significant effect.
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A
We'll be back after a short break.
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C
What if you could explore places in the news like a reporter does? I'm Nicholas Wood, a former journalist with the New York Times and BBC. And 15 years ago I created the travel company Political Tours. Our small groups are led by top correspondents around the world. Later this year we're off to Mexico to look at cartels, migrants and Trump. And then we're in Colombia and the Amazon. Come and join us. Go to politicaltours.com that's politicaltours.com if journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merryman. And in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau. Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [30:32]
A
And now back to my conversation with Michael Kaufman. In the new piece, you stress that the kind of key factor at this moment is how each side manages to endure and to exhaust the other. As you look at the Ukrainian side, where are the areas of weakness? If you worry about Ukraine's ability to endure, where do you see cause for real concern?
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B
So I think the long run challenge for Ukraine has been first and foremost, manpower challenges with force generation and a force whose combat strength is diminished on the front. Ukraine has compensated with drone units using technology and better tactics and you know, essentially the fact that their forces qualitative better than the Russian military to offset that. But the war remains manpower intensive. Drone warfare is manpower intensive. And at the end of the day, you need to focus on force generation and also force management. Right, Right. I think force management and others should command and control above the level of brigade. You know, the Ukrainian military is largely a brigade oriented military and for a long time had struggled to cohesively organize the effort above that of brigades who would often horizontally integrate the fight. But you know, beyond that, it wasn't nearly that well coordinated. Last year. They created cores which is starting to leave lead to significant improvement in how this effort is organized. But still, Ukrainian military tends to be very micromanaged from the top. And you essentially see a clash of culture. Right. Bottom up, innovation, mission command at the battalion level and below, and also senior leadership that basically sets a host of policies such as if you need to change your positions, you need approval from higher command or folks can't run a mobile defense because they're not allowed to withdraw from whatever they're defending, even if the geometry of the battlefield is really unfavorable, these sort of things. The only other one I would say is Russia's really expanded strike campaign against Ukraine over the last two years and you saw a near exponential increase in the volume of strike capabilities and drones are employed. That affects quite a bit. It's not just driving people out of cities necessarily or affecting critical infrastructure, particularly availability of electricity over the course of winter. It also affects defense industrial production because that too requires electricity. And so this aspect of the fight is important to keep in mind. And so Ukraine's often been on sort of two treadmills. Right. One is focused on the ground force, munitions, manpower, what have you and others focused on air defense and adapting to the evolving Russian strike campaign. Western air defense is primarily used against Russian ballistic missiles with high end capabilities like patriots, what have you, and Russian cruise missiles. Ukraine has worked to expand the use of interceptor drones to deal with the Russian one way attack drones threat, which is the bulk of the Russian strike packages. And I describe a bit of that in the article. But essentially that fight is a big part of the, of what's happening in the war.
- [33:30]
A
It is striking. I haven't been to Ukraine in a couple years and when you talk to people and, and even in Kiev and in other cities, there does seem to be a real kind of weariness this winter as they deal with, you know, freezing temperatures and almost no heat and electricity. That does seem like a, you know, not totally implausible theory of a success for Putin that you'll just have enough Ukrainians that get through this winter and just say they, they can't do it again without some kind of assurance that air defenses will improve. I mean, does that, is that reading wrong? And as you, as you look at the technical side of this, are there any innovations that you see coming on the Ukrainian side that might, you know, prevent the effectiveness of these kinds of missile and drone barrages next winter?
- [34:14]
B
So I think that this winter is a particularly cold one and that's a big part of the problem for Ukraine. The last two are rather warm winters and has a real impact on how ultimately effective the Russian strike campaign is. Despite all the hardships, Ukraine has proved remarkably resilient. And actually, if Russian strike campaign isn't able to substantially affect Ukraine this winter in the sense that, yes, people are struggling, yes, in cities like Kyiv, you basically have different. They've had days where there's only one and a half to two hours of, of electricity and heating available. That may be true, but the folks get to this winter, then it's a real question of what is Putin's theory of how he's going to further break Ukraine's will. Because I don't really see it happening just because it hasn't happened in practice. And to be frank, bombardment actually has a very weak track record of achieving significant political outcomes for the country that's not able to actually advance or achieve any kind of breakthroughs on the ground. Right, meaning striking bombardment strategy is a fairly weak substitute for inability to break the deadlock on the battlefield and historically has not played out well. In fact, I tend to have a fairly dim view of bombardment against civilian infrastructure as sort of the alternative. I don't Think it's going to work for Russia. Historically it's not worked for a lot of countries, although plenty of people have tried it, thinking, well, maybe it'll work for us.
- [35:42]
A
And on the manpower front, do you see mobilization debates evolving in a way that it will address those, or is that just kind of a, a hard constraint that's going to be a struggle for, for Ukrainians indefinitely?
- [35:55]
B
I think it's going to be a struggle for Ukraine throughout this war. I don't think it's ever going to be something that gets resolved. What I do think Ukraine can do is get much better at force management, the organization of the forces and what they do with the people they have. I don't just think that they think that and they can get much better. Also tackling the AWOL problem, the absent without leak problem, which substantially saps the strength of Ukrainian units. Folks who think that, look, you can just use technology and have nobody on the, on the front lines at all, I think are mistaken. And they forget the lawless technology is rather manpower intensive. Okay. And that ultimately you can't have a battlefield of just drones. If you do, you have a big issue. If somebody listening is saying, well why not? Because you are selecting for only one advantage and if the last year has shown that that advantage can be taken away by the opposing force, that you could lose it, then you might end up in a very bad place, right? Because you essentially have a single point of failure where you're only one part of your force is actually doing all the lifting. And if the other side does better in quality and quantity, then that could have a very negative impact down the line. The, the big challenge the Russian military has is despite having improved in drone employment and despite in several categories of drones substantially out producing Ukraine, they are not able to capitalize or take advantage of those developments last year. The way they are fighting and the issues that they have within their own force are such that they're not in a position to turn that and convert that into a significant breakthrough. So Ukraine is still able to hold them to incremental gains. At least that's been the story for 2025. But I want folks to listen to appreciate that we tend to extrapolate from the last phase of the war. The one thing we know is that things are going to change. And also wars are kind of unstable systems right there gradually then suddenly transitions. So this is a conversation assuming all things being equal, but who knows what the fighting will look like three or six months down the line.
- [38:01]
A
What about Russians staying power in A war of endurance. If you look at the new note in the article, the pretty serious manpower concerns that Russia has, and then of course, the economic strain. I think one lesson of recent history is that big economies can endure that kind of strain longer than we think. But it still does look pretty grave. How do you assess the chances of just kind of Russia being unable to really sustain this kind of offensive going forward?
- [38:27]
B
So, looking at the military and economy, on the one hand, I don't see something that will sort of tell us, okay, the Russian economy is going to collapse this year, or suddenly the Russian military won't be able to sustain the war this year. But I see a whole bunch of indicators that tell us time is increasingly not on Russia's side in this war and that the war had hit the point of diminishing returns for Russia probably end of 2024. To be honest, if we reflect on 2025, for a couple of reasons. First, yes, they were able to substantially reduce loss of equipment by instead fighting in a way that leads to much higher losses of manpower. Increasingly, their manpower advantage that they have had is running into a trend line that tells us they will not run out of people, but they will have difficulty sustaining the same pace of offensive operations this year as they did last year unless something changes significantly in terms of Russian combat. Loss of recruitment. That's the first issue, right? The way they are fighting is not leading to greater combat efficiency. It's not leading to greater gains at lower costs. It's not achieving you kind of significant breakthroughs on the battlefield. And so increasingly, it looks like this year might be more of the same from last year. And if that's the case, then I think it actually bodes very poorly for Russian objectives. Remember, Russia is the attacking side. It is a side that has the burden of offensive operations, and. And it's a side that's trying to take territory. Second, if we look at economic indicators, well, so most of them for Russia are negative. Russia is facing economic stagnation. It is particularly negatively affected by low oil prices, and it's forced to offer significant discounts on oil sales to countries like China. It is facing regional budgetary crisis. And that's quite relevant if you look at recruitment and contract bonuses they have to give to troops. Increasingly, the Russian military is seeing a slowdown in industrial production of any goods other than military. And military production itself is slowing down or leveling off a bit too, going into this year. And it's a real question, how long can they sustain budgetary outlays of 40% the government budget being spent on this war at about 8% GDP. Sure, it could be for the rest of 2026, but the truth is that the country will increasingly be at risk of external shock and crises. And there's not a great story from Moscow to tell about what things look like if they're able to simply carry the war from 2026 to 2027. Meaning nothing improves for Russia if we look over the course this year. Not from an economic point of view, not really from a manpower or equipment availability point of view either.
- [41:01]
A
The other change in policy is in Elon Musk's policy. There were reports early in the war that he was restricting Ukrainian use of Starlink terminals. There have been more recent reports that he's restricting Russian use. Is that a. A significant change? Is that. Is that a meaningful restraint on Russian action?
- [41:18]
B
It is. We've yet to see the full effects. So there's three things is going to impact. First, Russian use of strike drones of any kind, that we're starting to use mini Starlink terminals. Second, Russian use of UGVs, uncrewed ground vehicles. This is one area where Ukraine has led in substantially to offset their battlefield losses in the rear. And. And most of these use Starlink terminals. Right? It's the cheapest way to enable communications for UGVs. Russia had started to also expand use of EGVs, but again using Starlink terminals. There are some ways they can adapt using various types of WI fi bridges and relays, but it essentially eliminates a very easy solution for them to enable the use of these types of drones. But the most important one is organization of communications, command and control. At the tactical level. Russian force were not as dependent on Starlink as the Ukrainian military they adopted much later. But as they came to adopt it, particularly the last couple of years, they naturally became more dependent on it. And if you look at the combined effect of both having Starlink use cut off and having them to then employ other means of communications that may have lower data bandwidth or much harder to set up, or being much less portable or easily or easy to deploy. On top of that, Russian leadership itself had chosen to sabotage their military by starting to throttle Telegram, a messenger service that many folks here might be familiar with to try to push him onto a different platform. And so you see sort of a combination of these effects that will disrupt Russian command and control. Is the Russian military going to adapt? Yes. But is it going to affect latency in how they organize strike in their situational awareness, most likely. We just don't see. We don't know what the full impact will be down the line, and it's definitely going to affect our ability to employ certain types of drones.
- [43:06]
A
Setting aside your skepticism about the viability of the prospects of negotiations in the near term, as you look at some of the key dimensions of those discussions thus far, I'm curious how you read both the kind of prospects and the consequences of some of what's being talked about. I guess the first is territory. Zelensky still says he's not going to hand over the parts of Donbas that Ukrainians still hold. And that is seems to be a kind of core demand of Putin and something the Trump administration has endorsed at various points. How costly would it be to hand over that territory? There's, you know, in the reporting, there's talk of kind of line of fortifications and that it would be, you know, in fact, militarily quite consequential. But as you look at the kind of territorial dimension of this, what do you see as the right things to focus on?
- [43:51]
B
Yeah, I see that the defensive importance of Donetsk, or what's currently left of it in Ukraine control, is far less issue. I think it's a bit overemphasized because of the political cost of handing over any territory to Russia. And I understand why Zinski wouldn't want to do it and wouldn't agree to it and is essentially demanding a national referendum. I have no idea how that referendum would. Would pan out. I'm not sure anybody does. Yes, there have been polls, to be clear, but look, polls show one thing and then people vote a different way. So. But just to be honest about it, you never know. People will always answer one way because sometimes they feel they're supposed to answer a certain way. But you don't know how people ultimately vote on a peace deal. I think Trump administration sees us very simplistically as a land for security guarantees deal. The war is about much more than just land or Donetsk, and so it's not going to be just a land for security guarantees deal. I do think that their pressure is serving as a catalyst ultimately to advance the negotiations. I don't agree with people who see this as just performative. However, I think we're still quite far away from a deal on settlement. The situation on the ground isn't one that would lend either party to right now sign a deal that they think is disadvantageous. Secondarily, it's still quite far apart. The biggest issue I see, negotiations, ultimately, this war will have some kind of ceasefire agreement or some kind of settlement. Biggest Issue I see right now is that it's a problem with both a Russia, Ukraine unto it Ukraine, Russia, US Part to it, a US Ukraine part to it, and kind of a Europe, Ukraine part to it. There's a lot of moving pieces of who gives security guarantees to whom, who deploys or doesn't deploy a security assistance force. Right. Was he. Was the agreement between Russia and Ukraine, what does Russia potentially get that they want from the United States? For example, there's clear conversation on restoration of economic ties or lifting of sanctions as part of a deal. And the biggest issue I see is actually sequencing. And this may seem like the boring part of the conversation, but it's very important. Yes, there is a likelihood that a deal will be made. The question is, what is the likelihood that this deal will be implemented? Because that's the story of the Minsk1 and Minsk2 agreement. And often the folks who just want to get a deal and get to a deal don't spend enough time thinking through will the sequencing work, or is it too complicated? Who has to deliver what to whom? If you're just thinking about a deal over Donetsk where both parties withdraw, I'll give you an example of a likely debate. Should there be a ceasefire first before withdrawal? If there's a referendum to be voted on, one side will demand a ceasefire, right? So the other side would have to agree a ceasefire for them to hold vote. A referendum. Okay. Or does the United States have to offer Ukraine security guarantees first, then Ukraine considers this deal, I'm withdrawing from the Nevsk, or is it the other way around? Which goes first? Okay, so there's a whole host of sequencing issues you have to resolve, and often implementation, collapse and sequencing, and also the failure to follow through on things will reveal who's negotiating in bad faith. I have my own strong assumptions about who's negotiating in bad faith and will be revealed to be negotiating bad faith in this war, because the history on that is pretty clear. And I think that that will also come through in any deal that's made. And so, to me, the much bigger issue is the sequencing of it. The fact that you could get a deal, Trump administration could walk away and saying, we made a deal to end the war, but it's actually not implemented, and we end up in a situation of sort of neither war nor peace and essentially awaiting a renewal of hostilities.
- [47:24]
A
Would that advantage Russia or Ukraine? Would that pause be more costly to one of the other?
- [47:30]
B
It would many respects advantage Russia, I think, because if you think about people coming back to Ukraine, frustration of investment if you think about the importance of this kind of deal, potentially for Ukraine and for Ukraine's economic future, it will affect Russia because while Ukrainian military is ultimately mobilized and you could keep folks at the front line for some period of time, but eventually they too will want to demobilize and return to civilian life. And so to some extent, it would advantage Russia, certainly in the near term, when a deal is made, it's difficult to say years down the line who it would advantage if, you know, Russia doesn't relaunch the war. But certainly in the near term it will advantage Russia, and that's why Ukraine is so concerned. What's the point of signing a deal that's not worth the paper it's on? The Russia might break not long thereafter when they have a significant advantage over Ukrainian military and when the United States has turned its attention elsewhere and basically decided that this is a problem solved.
- [48:27]
A
What about the security guarantee side of this? We've seen in the past several months some pretty expansive versions of security guarantees put on the table by both the Americans and the Europeans, with significant European troops there. And American, you know, Article five, like security guarantees, what exactly that means is a separate question. I was struck, you know, again in Munich that you'd hear Europeans, you know, European policymakers say in private, well, do you really think that, you know, Europe's going to go to war with Russia, NATO countries are going to go to war with Russia over the Donbas, which indicated to me there was more skepticism there than appears to be in the headlines. How do you assess the prospect of real security guarantees coming to force as you've watched these discussions?
- [49:09]
B
So it seems like we have moved quite a bit on security guarantees being offered from the United States to Ukraine, maybe an executive and or legislative type of agreement. It won't quite be a treaty, but it functionally will have functional, will be a fairly significant global commitment. Europeans are putting together kind of this coalition of the Willing Security Assistance Force, and the big question is, are they actually going to do it? Are they faking it to make it or faking it to fake it to stay in the conversation? The security guarantees, in their respects, are security commitments. It's a package, right. And it's more like a term of art, the way I see politicians discuss it, which is how these things usually end up coming to fruition. Right? It's a commitment of sustained financial support for Ukraine and for Ukraine's military. It's a commitment of steady provision of capabilities and munitions to them as well. After the war, some kind of military presence and a clear contingency that if the ceasefire is broken, what United States and other Western countries might do in that event. So Ukraine doesn't feel like it's completely left on the lurch once it signs up to any agreement. There's questions abound on, okay, is this a part of the actual deal with Russia? Is anybody going to ask the Russian opinion on this? It's clear that most folks believe that this can only be done once a ceasefire is agreed. Okay, this is a. This is where the conversation on security assistance force. I continue to raise the issue of sequencing, which I'm not clear on. What happens first? Do we offer guarantees? Does Ukraine vote on the deal? And then also then who signs the deal? There's increasing information, the news that the United States wants Ukraine to hold elections. Zansky might want to hold elections and have a simultaneous vote on the deal because it's his best chance of potentially being re elected as a wartime president. How does all that come together? I'm sorry if I have in some respects more questions than answers. But it's clear though, that this has been worked on since the fall and that the negotiations have advanced quite a bit, both between the United States and Ukraine and between Europeans and Ukraine and Austrian Europeans. Right. There's also the question of do we offer the European force a backstop even though there'll be, let's say, no, US boots on the ground. Lastly, on to what extent they're serious or credible. Well, if they are real commitments, right. From both executive and legislative branches, they are significant. Ultimately, they're as credible as you believe that Donald Trump, as a current president of the United States, would act on them in defense of Ukraine. But they are commitments. They are commitments that carry reputational costs. And lastly, there's credible as people then make decisions to show that they're credible. Are forces deployed, other plans developed to support Ukraine, or is this a piece of paper, okay, that didn't have much behind them, Right.
- [52:06]
A
At the end of the day, random, 30 years later.
- [52:10]
B
Yeah, yeah. But also, look, with respect to NATO Article 5 guarantees. NATO Article 5 doesn't say all that much, to be perfectly honest. Right. It says that states, individual and collectively will provide military aid to the party. It doesn't say what that assistance has to be or what form it takes. And there is a reason why we have operational plans, why we have forward deployed NATO battle groups in Baltic countries, because just that guarantee in an alliance is not enough. You also have to do the rest. That's why throughout the Cold War, with a large US Military presence in Europe with regular exercise like Reforger to show that the US Was planning and committed to move forces to Europe in the event of a Soviet attack. So this is one of the challenges I often have as someone who spends our time doing defense analysis, is that the folks who want to issue security guarantees will often do that and then not necessarily think through the planning side of right. Are there going to be US Forces in Europe to do that? Because to some extent what I think Trump administration wants to do right now is a little bit contradictory. They want to download the US Military commitment to Europe while uploading the US Potential security commitment to Ukraine. And you can't have both from my point of view and their belief that that's fine because they'll just have Europeans do more of it. Europeans are not in a position to take this over from the United States. They're not in position to take this over from the United States for themselves, and they're not in position to take this over from the United States for Ukraine either. Meaning aspirationally, it's good to motivate European allies to make the right choice investments to be in a position to be able to manage European security and take the lead on that. But they're not there yet. The deal on Russia, Ukraine, war, look, if it doesn't happen next this year, it's a good chance it may happen next year, but it's going to happen much sooner than European capability arrives to manage this problem on their own. I think that is 100% a fair assessment.
- [54:12]
A
I want to, before we close, come back to this idea of theory of success you mentioned earlier. From a Ukrainian perspective, what is the most optimistic, plausible scenario for the next year?
- [54:22]
B
I think make the war effectively futile for Russia. Right. By that I mean effectively leverage their advantages to stabilize the front, hold the Russian military to incremental gains. Right. Increase Russian casualties as part of the solution beyond the recruitment ability, but also increasingly try to control operational depth and regain superiority in the drone engagement zone scale the current solutions they've already deployed to deal with Russian strikes to Ukraine protecting critical infrastructure and increase their own strike campaign against Russian energy export infrastructure in order to increase the cost for Russia. And together, Western countries increase economic pressure on Russia such that the main limiting factor for our ability to sustain the war increasingly comes to the fore in Russian decision making over the course of this year. I think that this is feasible. And again, I think Ukraine is seeking an acceptable end to the war where much of the rest they hope to gain at the negotiating table and not necessarily through one negotiation or singular negotiation. And that what you saw last year is a substantial narrowing of Ukraine's political aims relative to military means. And what's possible, one that still leaves Ukraine, I think, in a fairly good position if this war ends with prospects in the future. Right.
- [55:45]
A
With the caveat that you stressed earlier that we can't know what sharp turns we'll see in the war in the coming months. You know, you describe in the piece the war as one of both sides struggling to break out of the prevailing battlefield dynamic. Do you see technological or tactical innovations that might shift the balance dramatically in Ukraine's favor or against?
- [56:05]
B
I mean, okay, I think that for Ukraine, first, there are a host of technologies that the west could still transfer and provide Ukraine that will substantially enable Ukraine's own domestic production special strike capabilities. I do see there are technological developments that can allow Ukraine to regain control of operational depth on this battlefield. I don't see anything that are necessarily game changers. But just to be clear, I have a strong bias that there are no real game changers in a conventional war. The things that are game changers are ultimately the result of changes in operational concepts and force structure and organizational capacity. It's not just the technology that gets it's employed, it's how you employ it and how the force organize around its employment. And those take time to develop. They're not things that just show up overnight. Most things that are treated as game changers, they provide a limited advantage for a particular operation and they can enable operational success. But then they drive cycles of adaptation and outside develop counters. So it's very hard to find like a singular kind of game changer. To me, this is a very superficial way of looking at warfare, but I definitely think that there's a number of things Ukraine could do this year that could allow it to in the areas regain advantage and ultimately make the war much more futile for Russia. If you're looking at Western capabilities, look, I think that there are unfortunately real limitations in Western stocks and Western defense industrial production that folks need to be cognizant of. Understand that I don't see the United States or other countries providing a lot more, but I do see them providing more of certain type of boutique capabilities that can certainly help Ukraine over the course of this year. Right. And lastly, a lot of it comes down to how the force is used. There are certain things Ukraine's been doing. Let's take expanding a unrestricted warfare campaign against the Russian Shadow fleet both in the Black Sea and outside the Black Sea. Right. That can potentially affect Russian incomes. Increasingly, this war has become more regionalized. If you look over the past year in terms of Ukrainian activity and also Russian activity and Russian activity against NATO countries and then their airspace. So I do see potential developments that could change things. I also, though, see that both sides have consistently adapted to each other's approach and have struggled to really change the prevailing dynamic in this war.
- [58:37]
A
I suppose we should consider the flip side as well. If we're having this, you know, similar conversation a year from now and. And things have gone unexpectedly badly for Ukraine or unexpectedly well for Russia, what would that plausible disastrous course look like?
- [58:49]
B
Yeah. So, I mean, look, there's a lot you can't tell from just looking at how territory changes hands. These are lagging indicators. There's many things you don't see what's happened with within the two forces. Right. That's part of the reason I do field work in Ukraine, travel there every couple of months. And even then, you're still seeing really much more one side of the equation than the other. So there's always things to account for. Right. That one side might have a successful, more successful offensive operation than you might expect. One side is weaker than you might expect. That there could be a cascade effect or ripple effect. Let's say disabling Starlink for Russian forces could have much greater effect on our command and control than we anticipate. That's a possibility. Let's say Russia's strike campaign against Ukraine might hobble Ukrainian defense industrial production more than we know now, because in a choice between powering homes and cities versus producing capabilities you need, the country's obviously going to choose one over the other. We don't know how that's going to play out. And also there's lots of external shocks and external factors that we don't account for. I'll give an example. Let's say United States in the next couple of weeks launched a sustained strike campaign against Iran, and that consumes a lot of U.S. munitions and efforts and diverts them from Russia, Ukraine, or leadership in the Pentagon decides that it should. Okay. Because other wars, other conflicts will not wait for your work to finish. Right. And they can substantially affect both U.S. attention and the extent to which U.S. prioritizes the Russia Ukraine war. That's a possibility. There are economic shocks and events that could happen that could substantially affect the Russian economy as well, which is quite vulnerable to them. Right. It could affect prices for oil energy. There are things that the west could do, for example, to really go after the Russian shadow fleet. That would really cramp Russian revenue generation from exports. So there's a number of things that it's not that easy to account for.
- [60:52]
A
Mike, thank you for doing this on the four year anniversary of the start of this phase of the war. Thanks for the most recent fantastic piece and all the work you've done for Foreign affairs over the last few years.
- [61:00]
B
Thanks a lot. Thanks for hosting this.
- [61:08]
A
Thank you for listening. You can find the articles that we discussed on today's show@foreign affairs.com this episode of the Foreign affairs interview was pretty produced by Ben Metzner, Mary Kate Godfrey and Kanish K. Tharoor. Our audio engineer is Todd Yeager. Original music is by Robin Hilton. Special thanks as well to Arina Hogan. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts and if you like what you heard, please take a minute to rate and review it. We release a new show every Thursday. Thanks again for tuning.
- [61:42]
B
Sa.