Ryan Evans on Drones, Ground War, and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival

Summary

Podcast Summary:

The Gist – Ryan Evans on Drones, Ground War, and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival
Date: September 10, 2025
Host: Mike Pesca
Guest: Ryan Evans (CEO & Founder, War on the Rocks)

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Overview

In this episode, Mike Pesca dives into the state of the war in Ukraine, focusing particularly on the evolution of drone warfare, the grinding land conflict, and the political and tactical realities facing both Ukraine and Russia. The featured interviewee is Ryan Evans, an expert on modern warfare and founder of the influential “War on the Rocks” platform. The discussion brings clarity to what is truly shaping the war beyond daily headlines, exploring whether battlefield events or deeper strategic factors will determine Ukraine's fate as the conflict drags on. The episode critically examines leadership decisions, Western involvement, and the limits of high-profile technological strikes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Recent Cross-Border Escalation and U.S. Politics

• [01:09–04:43] Mike Pesca Opening:

  • Russia recently sent 19 drones into Polish airspace, resulting in a tense NATO response.
  • Pesca breaks down potential Trump reactions to Russian provocations, highlighting how different stances might embolden or deter Putin.
  • American and Western responses are scrutinized for both their performative and practical strengths/weaknesses.

  Quote:
  "Every part of Trump's decision tree will have a Putin counter reaction."
  — Mike Pesca [01:29]

• Media Sensationalism Versus Reality:
  Pesca corrects media mischaracterizations of Polish officials’ statements, pointing out that actual European leaders often sound less inflammatory than U.S. news clips suggest.

  Quote:
  "The way I heard it, that is not the thumb in the eye that ABC portrayed. That's essentially extending a hand, encouraging, not insulting."
  — Mike Pesca [04:43]

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2. Status of the Ukraine War: Drone Warfare and Ground Reality

• [12:01–14:29] War’s Current Phase:

  • Evans asserts drone warfare has been a key aspect for some time; the real shift is political, not technological.
  • The ground war has become attritional and stagnant, marked by very limited advances for Russia and ongoing Ukrainian resilience.

  Quote:
  "These attacks that Russia launches on Kyiv and other cities keep getting bigger, but they are fundamentally using the same systems."
  — Ryan Evans [12:31]

• Ukrainian Manpower & Mobilization:

  • Ukraine has not mobilized its youngest eligible citizens, leading to an older average age at the front and limiting their offensive potential.
  • The fight is increasingly characterized as one “being fought largely by middle aged men.” [14:11]

• Russian Tactics & Attrition:

  • Russia’s advances are slow but steady; they exploit gaps using large numbers of drones, especially fiber-optic linked FPV drones immune to standard electronic countermeasures.

  Memorable Image:
  "Across fields in Ukraine it looks like giant spider webs have settled over fields and it's just the remnants of these old fiber optic cables from drones."
  — Ryan Evans [14:05]

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3. Strategy and Impact of High-Profile Attacks

• [15:17–16:32] Russian Drone Strikes:

  • These are intended as terror operations targeting cities and civilians but are largely ineffective in breaking Ukrainian morale.
  • Russia has shifted to targeting government officials, but without major strategic breakthroughs.

  Quote:
  "These are basically terror operations... but that's not working. The Ukrainians are actually very dedicated and resolved to staying in the fight."
  — Ryan Evans [15:47]

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4. Key Factors Shaping the War’s Outcome

• [17:35–18:15] What Matters?

  • Fundamental variables are manpower, fortifications, and munitions, not drones per se.
  • Russians appear willing to absorb far higher casualties than Ukrainians, as most Russian troops come from non-elite, non-core demographics.

  Quote:
  "Putin has been willing to accept very high casualties, which seems to indicate that he doesn't really care that much about the losses."
  — Ryan Evans [18:15]

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5. Tactical vs. Strategic Successes and Leadership Decisions

• [19:54–22:02] Tactical Innovation and Bakhmut:

  • Russia centralizes and scales drone production better than Ukraine, which relies on a patchwork of independent efforts.
  • The defense of Bakhmut was a strategic failure for Ukraine; President Zelensky’s insistence on holding it led to the loss of veteran units needed for later offensives.

  Quote:
  "It chewed up Ukraine's most experienced units that were left at that time... a huge error and it chewed up a lot of manpower."
  — Ryan Evans [20:33]

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6. Ukrainian Counterattacks & Political Effects

• [23:45–26:35] Operation Spiderweb & Large-Scale Ukrainian Attacks:

  • Ukrainian ingenuity and patience led to successful strikes on Russia’s bomber fleet, but Evans cautions these don’t shift the war’s fundamentals unless repeated and broadened.
  • Such attacks boost morale and Western support but are not a replacement for regaining territory.

  Quote:
  "If Ukraine is able to keep delivering strikes like this... that could start to hurt Russia a lot more. And I hope that's what we see."
  — Ryan Evans [24:15]

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7. Critique of Zelensky’s Leadership

• [26:35–28:35] Zelensky’s Strengths and Flaws:

  • Praised for rallying Ukraine and earning global support (“Churchillian”), but recent political decisions—especially on mobilization and anti-corruption efforts—are criticized as major mistakes.
  • Notably, Zelensky removed a popular and effective general, a decision Evans frames as politically and strategically regrettable.

  Quote:
  "What he did when the war started... was extremely admirable... Where he's been less Churchillian is... on the domestic front."
  — Ryan Evans [26:45]

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8. U.S. & Western Aid, Policy, and Impact

• [28:35–29:34] U.S. Aid & Weapons Restrictions:

  • The West’s fluctuating support is disruptive, but ongoing restrictions on weapon use—especially rules against using Western arms for deep Russian strikes—matters more than funding cycles.
  • Evans advocates lifting these as a key to future Ukrainian effectiveness.

  Quote:
  "The Trump administration should have removed the Biden-era restrictions on deep strikes into Russia using Western weapons."
  — Ryan Evans [28:46]

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9. Military Aid: F-16s, Cluster Munitions, and the Donbas

• [29:34–30:47]

  • F-16s seen as symbolic/political more than tactically significant.
  • Evans argues, “cluster munitions would have been more important [for Ukraine] than F-16s.”

  Operations Outlook:

  • Russian offensives against the Donbas will intensify before winter, but major changes in the front lines are not expected.

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10. Prospects for Negotiation and the War’s Outcome

• [31:15–33:47] Diplomatic Stalemate:

  • Russia not interested in negotiation; seeks Ukraine’s capitulation—not meaningful security guarantees.
  • Summit agreements (like Alaska) serve as distractions, not solutions.

  Quote:
  "Russia is not interested in actually negotiating. Russia remains only interested in a capitulation."
  — Ryan Evans [31:49]

• What Will Decide the War?

  • Evans stresses that long-term endurance (financial, logistical, and societal) trumps simple territorial exchanges.

  Quote:
  "It's about Ukraine's ability to stay in the fight... That's what will decide this war, just as it decides almost all major interstate wars."
  — Ryan Evans [33:47]

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Notable Quotes

• "Every part of Trump's decision tree will have a Putin counter reaction." — Mike Pesca [01:29]
• "This is really a war being fought largely by middle aged men. And this is the result of a deliberate decision in Ukraine." — Ryan Evans [14:11]
• "I don't think this endangers his [Putin’s] regime in the foreseeable future." — Ryan Evans [18:15]
• "I think it was. I mean, the real damage of Bakhmut, this was an utter failure. And it's Zelensky’s responsibility." — Ryan Evans [20:33]
• "F-16s were much more of a political signal...cluster munitions would have Been...more important for the ground war." — Ryan Evans [29:37]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 01:09 — Pesca’s opening, Russia’s drone incursion into Poland, Trump’s potential responses
• 04:43 — Importance of distinguishing media spin from diplomatic statements
• 12:01 — Evans joins: The escalation and reality of drone warfare
• 13:25 — Ukrainian manpower, mobilization choice, and aging military
• 14:27 — Russian tactics, drone saturation, and ground realities
• 15:47 — Russian strikes on cities: Strategy vs. effect
• 17:35 — Manpower & munitions matter more than headlines
• 20:33 — Bakhmut: Ukrainian command errors and consequences
• 24:15 — Ukrainian strikes in Russia: Operation Spiderweb and its limited impact
• 26:45 — Zelensky: Leadership strengths and weaknesses
• 28:46 — U.S. aid, weapons restrictions, and strategic possibilities
• 29:37 — F-16s, cluster munitions, and battlefield impact
• 31:49 — Diplomacy: Alaska summit and Russia’s true negotiation stance
• 33:47 — Evans on “how this war will be decided”

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Conclusion

This wide-ranging conversation with Ryan Evans cuts through headline noise to reveal a sobering picture: despite technological innovation and occasional spectacular strikes, the war in Ukraine remains mostly a contest of endurance, manpower, and material—where strategic and political decisions can be as decisive as military innovation. Leadership decisions, both Ukrainian and Western, remain under scrutiny for their long-term consequences, while Russia’s willingness to absorb losses sustains its grinding advances. Tactical headlines may offer morale boosts, but, as Evans notes, lasting resilience and logistical stamina will determine Ukraine’s survival.

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Transcript

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[Mike Pesca]

It's Wednesday, September 10, 2025. From Peach Fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. Another day, another military incursion over international borders. Yesterday, Russia sent 19 drones to Poland. Poland intercepted three or possibly four of them, a much worse ratio than Ukraine. But there is a reason Poland is not currently at war. Or are they? Are we? That is the question. I believe Vladimir Putin wants to hang in the air. Putin's provoking Donald Trump in the west to suss out his reaction and his intentions. Every part of Trump's decision tree will have a Putin counter reaction. So here's one. If Donald Trump downplays the incursion, as he might, it is, after all, hard for a guy like Donald Trump to look ahead enough to see the second and third order effects of standing up for an ally if the transactional benefits aren't immediately, immediately staring him in the face, Putin would love this. It would open the door for more aggression and shake the NATO alliance. 2. If Donald Trump deals with Putin one on one interpersonally, this is how he likes to handle things. He talks things through with a rival. Putin would love that too. It gives Putin a means to get Trump's attention in the future. Also promising, I won't do it again. What he shouldn't have done in the first place will earn him points and rewards he shouldn't have been in a position to earn. 3. If Trump feels chastened and hemmed in by establishment gray beards telling him what he has to do, which is to respond forcefully and unambiguously, he just might revolt. He does this all the time. He doesn't like being told what to do. Leave me alone. He might say, why is Poland our problem? He might say, and who the hell is Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorsky to say this?

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Putin laughs at President Trump's peace effort. Since Alaska, he has only intensified the war. I hope that he backs his words with action. This was from the Polish foreign minister at a press conference.

[Mike Pesca]

Keep those very provocative words in mind, by the way. I have a corrective to them at the end of this. So the next thing is, if Donald Trump acts like every American president of the last 77 years, since NATO was formed in 1949, if he acts like that, if he draws a line, and if he says this will not stand, we will not waver, it will also be, in a way, a good signal to Putin. Okay, he might say, he is more serious than I thought. So let's see if Trump does this not for a day, but for a while. Because so far, the entirety of his response are the following words he posted on Truth Social. What's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones? Here we go. Where do we go from here? The entire world is watching nervously. And why are they nervous? Well, the facts. The actual facts, but also sensationalism. Remember the clip I played? That was from ABC News. Putin laughs at President Trump's peace efforts. Sikorsky said since Alaska, he has only intensified the war. I hope that Trump backs his words with actions. Here is the actual simultaneous translation of that press conference.

[Dan Harris]

Putin is mocking President Trump's peaceful efforts. Unfortunately, after the Alaska summit, instead of a ceasefire, we had an intensification of Russian attacks on Ukraine. So I expect President Trump will want to show Poland and all our authorities that what he said about Poland's security will be backed up by action.

[Mike Pesca]

So the way I heard it, that is not the thumb in the eye that ABC portrayed. That's essentially extending a hand, encouraging, not insulting. My God, this is literally the first time NATO had to scramble jets to shoot down Russian aircraft. Yes, I know it's unmanned aircraft, but this is serious, serious stuff. I hope the only people taking it seriously aren't the Europeans, which of course includes Vladimir Putin. On the show today we have war. It is getting rocky. So I bring you an interview with the CEO of War on the Rocks. My go to for information about how wars are actually fought. We recorded this yesterday before the drone incident or before this drone incident. But in this interview we talk a lot about drones and especially the grinding land war in Ukraine. Special Peska plus segment about the war in Gaza is also included for subscribers, but for everyone, here's Ryan Evans. Up next. 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So what I will do is I will take my spoken essays, I will put it into say Claude from Anthropic and I will take compel Claude to rewrite it with specific guidelines. I could emphasize the factual. I could say strip away the I could just give it the prompt to strip away the colloquial. You know what you could even do? You could tell Claude to write it in the style of and then you could name an author or two different authors and buy gum. If it doesn't do that. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop with good enough. It is really a collaborator. I will go through the essay, I will say I wouldn't say that. I would say that. I mean it's all what I said. But it takes spoken word, turns it into proper grammar, sometimes can turn it into the proper grammar in the style of Marcus Aurelius. If I want to appeal to a stoic audience, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. 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Sign up for Claude today and get 50% off Claude Pro when you use my link that's Claude AI slash the gist have to say before I even knew they were a sponsor, I Started paying full freight. I think I might have to go back and use myself as my own promo code. That's Claude AI slash the gist right now for 50% off your first three months of Claude Pro. That includes access to all the features that I mentioned in today's episode. Claude AI Slash the gist. With all the presidential level diplomacy, it's sometimes easy to forget that the United States is engaged in this diplomacy because we are engaged through funding and proxies in kinetic wars right now. And sometimes I think the update on the actual war fighting eludes us, but would inform us if we are to judge what's happening in Gaza in Ukraine. So the podcast I listen to most my go to, which is also an excellent website, is called War on the Rocks. The CEO and founder of that website, that podcast, Ryan Evans, joins us. He's also the founder of Bedrock Knowledge, which is a consultancy. Ryan, welcome to the Gist.

[Dan Harris]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Mike Pesca]

Let's start with Ukraine and the headline, but I want to get into beyond the headline. But the headline recently was a large drone attack on the Ukrainian main building in the capital. Reports are up to 8 dead, biggest attack yet. Has this war entered a new phase? Has it been at this phase for a while where Russian drones and then we'll get to the Ukrainian drones are how this war is being fought.

[Dan Harris]

I think that that started a while ago, but it's only entered a new phase politically, not really in terms of war fighting. The scale has certainly increased in terms of the employment of drones over the course of this year, but they've been a key part of the war for a while now. These attacks that Russia launches on Kyiv and other cities keep getting bigger, but they are fundamentally using the same systems.

[Mike Pesca]

Because when I check in on the ground war, things seem to be entrenched and people dying or battles being fought for sometimes feet of territory and not that much. And so sometimes I wonder if I'm just relegating this to the back of my mind, when still very important, if sluggish things are happening on the battlefield. But what we're doing in the media more is focusing on these high profile drone attacks. To what extent does that characterize the war?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, I think that you're largely right. The real issues here are not drones, in my view, but force reconstitution and manpower. Ukraine has made a political decision to not mobilize younger people, not subject them to a draft. So people below the age of 25 and partially as a result of this, all they really are able to do is hold the line against steady but very slow Russian gains. This means that the average age at the front on the Ukrainian side is actually around people around our age. I don't know how old you are, but I'm 43. So it's people around my age that are, that are fighting in the trenches and on the front and holding.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, I'm about 10 years older than you and people my age. You're looking good, maybe commanding people of your age.

[Dan Harris]

There are, there are people your age there too though. I mean it's really a war being fought largely by middle aged men. And this is the result of a deliberate decision in Ukraine. So the Ukrainian military has no offensive potential and is sort of holding the line or at least trying to.

[Mike Pesca]

How well are they holding the line?

[Dan Harris]

As I said, Russian advances are slow, but they are steady. And so Ukraine is slowly losing territory to Russia. And that's sort of the characterizing the phase of the war that we're in is this slow attrition. Russia trying to exploit advances and gaps and different tactics to do that. And the prevalence of especially first person view drones that are connected by a fiber optic cables to their operators, which means. Which makes them inured from electronic warfare interference. And there's just tons of these things. And I don't know if you've seen the videos, but across fields in Ukraine it looks like giant spider webs have settled over fields and it's just the remnants of these old fiber optic cables from drones that have been fired over the last year or so.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, they're like kites. They're like killer kites.

[Dan Harris]

Yes.

[Mike Pesca]

And so is it possible for the Russians to. Let me take that question again and say so how does the strategy, which has been sadly effective strategy of the Russians to hit population centers hundreds of miles away from the front, Population centers in Kiev, big cities, government buildings. How does that fold into what we're seeing with the slow grind of the gain in territory of the Donbas region?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, I'm not sure that part of the Russian strategy has actually been successful if you think about strategy in terms of meeting Russia's strategic and policy goals. So these, these are basically terror operations. They are large scale terror operations to terrorize civilian populations in major cities from Kharkiv to Kyiv and other cities as well, where they are trying to shock the Ukrainian populace into submission. But that's not working. The Ukrainians are actually very dedicated and resolved to staying in the fight. And so these attacks don't really work in my view. What's Changed is recently Russia has deliberately, it appears, tried to target Ukrainian government officials. There was a strike recently on the cabinet offices, for example.

[Mike Pesca]

This was my impression as well that the drone strikes get headlines and they're horrible, but the Ukrainians are resilient to it. If the Ukrainian will is to say yes, we will incur six deaths one day, eight deaths the next day, parts of buildings exploding, cement raining down on us. If the Ukrainian will says we will put up with this, then they're not going to be dissuaded. However, they don't have that option on their eastern front. And the slow attrition of ground war gains, that is the real factor in how this war will be decided. How if there ever is a peace, how that will be drawn up and which parts of Ukraine Russia will get. And we are focusing more on the high profile drones. But the slow grind is what really will defined define the definition of Ukraine for years to come, I think.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. As my friend and colleague Michael Kaufman has said on our show many times, this really comes down to manpower, fortifications and munitions. Those will be the things that determine Ukraine's ability to prevail.

[Mike Pesca]

The Ukrainians can have a defensive posture and they can't really repel, they can't gain territory. But how many losses can they make the Russians incur? Do we know if the Russians care about the manpower and, and, and artillery and armored personnel carriers and all the other aspects of their war machine that they're losing? Do we have any way to know when those costs will be really felt by the Russians?

[Dan Harris]

It depends what you mean by felt. I mean, Putin has been able to, has been willing to accept very high casualties, which seems to indicate that he doesn't really care that much about the losses. He has mobilized the population in such a way that the people, by and large, most of the people fighting on the Russian side are not from the sort of elite classes. They're often not even from Moscow. They're from other parts of the Russian Federation that are not core to Putin's most important constituents constituency. And he is able to keep mobilizing enough people to stay in the fight and accept very high casualties in very risky, sometimes human wave attacks and other tactics in which a lot of Russians get killed. I don't think this endangers his regime in the foreseeable future.

[Mike Pesca]

Have the Russians been tactically successful on the battlefield?

[Dan Harris]

Both sides are trying to innovate tactically. The Ukrainian force can be very innovative. But until they can scale these innovations, and that's really what warfighting is about is adapting and innovating and then scaling those. That's always going to put them at a disadvantage. Whereas Russia is slower to innovate and their innovations are much more costly in terms of human life, much more costly. But once they do come up with those innovations. So for example, if you look at the production of drones in Russia versus Ukraine, you know, in Russia these are centralized and they're able to produce lots of these things at scale. Whereas on the Ukrainian side you have a lot of independent workshops and factories and, and units have their own supply chains. In some cases it's not unified and easily scaled across the entire Ukrainian force.

[Mike Pesca]

Tell me about strategic victories. Sometimes there are high profile battlefield victories that come at high costs. I'm thinking of the Battle of Bakmut and at the time this was something that was debated as why are they even having this battle. It is a somewhat pivotal crossroads, but I think the general consensus was it's an important battle because each side defined it as an important battle and Russia won. Russia now controls Bakbut. But was this a sensible or strategic victory for them? Was the cost worth it for Russia?

[Dan Harris]

I think it was. I mean, the real damage of Bakhmut, this was an utter failure. And it's Zelensky's responsibility. There was no military reason, purely military reason, to hold the line at Bakhmut. What Zelenskyy refused to do earlier in the war and to some extent still refuses to do, although the situation has changed, is trade space for time to reconstitute Ukrainians offensive potential in an effective way and then launch an offensive on their own terms. What Bakmut did is Zelensky insisted on hold it, trying to hold it. It chewed up Ukraine's most experienced units that were left at that time. And they. He kept the veterans on the front taking the losses. And when he was building offensive potential while that was happening, he was using newly reconstituted units, sorry, newly constituted units and recruits, instead of saving his most experienced soldiers for the offensive that would then come. And as a result the offensive was a major failure. There's lots of other reasons that it was a failure. But the Ukrainian offensive last summer is widely regarded as a failure. There were some people in the west at the Institute for the Study of War and in the UK that were defending this choice and saying Ukrainians know what they're doing. But it turns out this was a huge error and it chewed up a lot of manpower and potential, unfortunately. And I think sort of set the course for the rest of the war up until this point where Ukraine is really forced to be largely on the defensive.

[Mike Pesca]

And we'll be back with more of Ryan Evans of War on the Rocks right after this. Lets map out this week's amazing destinations and travel tips.

[Dan Harris]

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New phones on the house. Bon voyage.

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[Mike Pesca]

We're back with Ryan Evans. He is the CEO of War on the Rocks talking about the situation with the war in Ukraine. One Ukrainian success was Operation Spiderweb, which was a drone attack that wiped out perhaps a third of Russia's long range bombers. Should we put this in a similar category as Russia's drone attacks on Ukraine in that there is a psychological aspect to it, but it really doesn't say much about these battlefield gains.

[Dan Harris]

I think it's a little too early to tell to be honest. Ukrainians should be commended for the immense creativity and patience. You know, this operation took a year to plan according to Ukraine in this strike where they smuggled drones into Ukraine, even tricked and conned Russian truck drivers to dropping off the shipping containers that had the drones inside of them near Russian bases Without these Russian truck drivers knowing that they were complicit in this attack and wiped out a bomber fleet or a third of a bomber fleet that was being used to terrorize Ukrainian civilians. And I think that matters, but I don't think it changes the course of the war in a meaningful way. If Ukraine is able to keep delivering strikes like this, not just against Russian strategic assets, but against energy infrastructure at greater scale, that could start to hurt Russia a lot more. And I hope that's what we see.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, so let's just stipulate that part of it is the will of the people, the fighting will of the people. And victories like this for the Ukrainian make them rally around the cause and the flag. And that's definitely important there. They counteract Dozens, maybe 100 Russian strikes. Is there reason to think that the Ukrainians have other initiatives like this in them? Not exactly. Not exactly with drones, not even targeting the bomber fleet per se. But do they have the capacity that we know of to pull off other surprising large scale attacks that could?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I don't have access to any inside information on this, but I definitely think so. And I hope we see more of these. And as you just indicated, you're very right that these do have a political element to them as they're kind of a shot in the arm for the Ukrainian populace. Same with Ukraine's invasion of Kursk in Russia. This was, over the long run, actually a waste of troops. But that's because Zelensky didn't call the retreat nearly early enough when it was pretty clear they wouldn't be able to hold it over the long term. But the initial thrust into Kursk was brilliant and was very politically important to Ukrainian morale and showing Ukraine's international partners that they were still in the fight and still could do these creative things. Their mistake was is they held on for too long and it became costly. But these operations do have a valuable political component to them.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. You've criticized a couple of Zelensky's strategic decisions. Has he? Well, you tell me, what's your assessment of him as a wartime leader?

[Dan Harris]

I think that Zelensky is a very talented politician. But let's not forget that before the war started, his approval ratings were extremely low. What he did when the war started, when he's saying, I don't need a ride, I need ammo. And taking the international stage in the way he did was extremely admirable and in some ways Churchillian. Where he's been less Churchillian is, you know, there's no coalition government in Ukraine. He has, I think, been not very politically clever on the domestic front. As I indicated, this decision to not mobilize Ukraine's youth is a major mistake. And he also recently tried to remove the independence of Ukraine's anti corruption investigators, which blew up in his face. You saw the biggest protests in Ukraine since the war started across the country and very sensitive to that.

[Mike Pesca]

The whole country was born out of an anti corruption impulse.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, certainly that's what Maidan was all about. So I think he's making a lot of mistakes now. Having his job is not easy. I don't think I could do any better. But I do think that his mistakes are known and identified and yet he still continues to make them.

[Mike Pesca]

Is there some genius Ukrainian general that if he had just been listened to, the Ukrainians would be doing much better?

[Dan Harris]

Well, you know, before Syrsky, you had the most popular person in Ukraine who was the commander in chief of Ukrainian forces, and Zelensky fired him and made him ambassador in London and basically took him off the board. You know, he was really the most popular. Not just the popular, most popular soldier in Ukraine, the most popular person in Ukraine. And I think that it was a mistake to remove him.

[Mike Pesca]

How badly have the Ukrainians been hurt by the lack of American funding of weapons systems and provision of weapons systems during the Trump administration, which has ebbed and flowed, we should say.

[Dan Harris]

It's kind of hard to tell because these decisions keep getting reversed. So I think the biggest problem is not that a package gets canceled and then greenlit again. As we recently saw, it's the continuing restrictions on how Ukraine is allowed to use the maximum range of these weapons. So in my opinion, the Trump administration should have removed the Biden era restrictions on deep strikes into Russia using Western weapons. I think that's very important because unless those restrictions are lifted, Ukraine has to do things like Operation Spiderweb where they have to be really clever and really covert to strike these targets. Ukraine should have free reign to be striking into Russia and I hope that's what President Trump does next. Although that's as always, a bit unpredictable.

[Mike Pesca]

Have the F16s made a difference?

[Dan Harris]

Probably not. I think the F16s were much more of a political signal and about long term integration into NATO supply chains. I think that, you know, Ukraine wants everything, right? They want every weapon and I understand why. So it's sort of like throw everything against the wall, ask for everything. I think that the F16s have probably been less consequential than clutch munitions would have Been had they been provided earlier in the war, for example, it's a less sexy capability but more important for the ground war. So, for example, I think if, if not for Zelensky's mistakes with Bakmut and if the United States had given cluster munitions to Ukraine in advance of their summer offensive, that summer offensive might have been last year, that summer offensive might have been much more successful. But unfortunately that's not what happened.

[Mike Pesca]

Paint the picture of where Ukraine is in terms of their defensive positions in the Donbass. The Russians don't control all of that region. Are we at a situation where the next few miles are going to be extremely difficult, especially for the Russians to gain, especially as winter comes?

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, I think so. Russia is going to throw everything it has against these fortified front lines until the winter sets in. And we already see Russian offensive operations building more steam. I don't think it will materially change the situation of the war between now and winter, though, but they will continue to grind against Ukrainian defensive positions and take some territory.

[Mike Pesca]

So what is your assessment as the ground freezes and maybe as diplomacy unfreezes, what's your assessment of the situation? What will Ukraine hold? What will Russia be able to try to get Ukraine to bargain away from? What points of leverage might there be for each side that a skillful negotiator could try to exploit?

[Dan Harris]

Well, the President Trump has made clear that he's sort of fed up with Russia, although we've heard that before. And then he reverses position.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes. And he just like you said, the freezing and unfreezing of missile systems. The same with his sentiment. Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

So I think that the real issue is, is that Russia is not interested in actually negotiating. Russia remains only interested in a capitulation. And there's a lot of confusion over what Alaska meant. You know, for example, when Steve Witkoff reports that Russia agreed to security guarantees in the west, we interpret that as well, Russia's going to let us extend security guarantees NATO style, in Witkoff's phrasing, security guarantees to Ukraine. But what Russia actually meant was security guarantees in the same way that the Budapest memorandum in 1994 had Russia, great Britain, United States as co guarantors of Ukraine's security. They don't mean an Article 5 style response like in the, in the NATO treaty. They mean that we go back to this situation before where Ukraine is essentially in Russia's strategic orbit and they are sort of have veto power over anything. Not that NATO troops and peacekeepers are going to be in Ukraine, which remains something that Russia is dead set against. So I don't think the Alaska summit really moved the ball in any direction. It just served as a sort of distraction on US Policy and we're sort of back where we were before.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. So let's imagine that territorial gains and just overall war gains are a chart or inputs and outputs. And there is a flow of Russian inputs. How much land they gain, how many troops get killed gaining this land, how much money it costs them. And then for the Ukrainians, there's a similar series of inputs. How much ground they can hold, how much will their people have, how much funding and weapons systems they get from the West. What's it all add up to in the most likely scenario that over the course of X number of years Russia is going to gain Y amount of territory?

[Dan Harris]

I don't really think about the war like that. And this is not just about territory. You know, territory is a resource just like any other resource in war. It's about the Ukraine's ability to stay in the fight. That's what major wars are decided by. They're not decided by miles of territory. They are decided by the ability of a country to remain in a fight, to stay financially viable in order to do that, to have logistics and supply chains that survive and can be reconstituted when they're disrupted. It's about this long term ability to stay in the fight. That's what will decide this war, just as it decides almost all major interstate wars.

[Mike Pesca]

Ryan Evans is the CEO and founder of War on the Rocks. Thank you Ryan.

[Dan Harris]

Thanks so much.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay, as promised, if you do subscribe to Pesca plus, we now have bonus content about the war in Gaza. Evans and I somewhat disagree, I would say about the possibility of any military gains having an impact on the degradation of Hamas. It's a good conversation, one that my subscribers get to regularly. To subscribe go to subscribe.mike pesca.com you can also get an ad free podcast without the bonus content or both combined. It is in fact the best way to help the show. Subscribe.mike pesca.com the gist was produced by Cory Wara, the very nimble and able Cory Warra. Ashley Khan is our production coordinator. Kathleen Sykes and I collaborate on the Gist list substack every Wednesday. It's a straight up Pesca profundities newsletter. There's a lot of labels here, but I will just tell you go to mikepeska.substack.com to see what I'm writing about. And Michel Pesca is COO of Peach Fish Productions Oomparu G Peru do Peru. And thanks for listening.

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