School of War - Ep 119: Yaroslav Trofimov on the War in Ukraine

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

Yaroslav Trofimov, chief foreign-affairs correspondent at The Wall Street Journal and author of Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence, joins the show to talk about the early days of Russia’s war in Ukraine, how the battlefield has evolved, and where the war may be headed. ▪️  Times      •      01:48 Introduction      •      02:06 Growing up Ukranian     •      05:03 The collapse of Kabul     •      07:40 Leadership counts      •      10:14 Zelensky     •      16:20 How did Putin get Ukraine so wrong?      •      19:49 Touch and go     •      22:45 Draft confusion     •      26:09 Battlefield evolution     •      30:42 Countermeasures     •      34:33 Washington’s tepid support     •      38:11 Possible futures      •      40:26 Trump Follow along  on Instagram Find a transcript of today’s episode on our School of War Substack Buy the book here - Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence

Some of the best work we've done on School of War so far, in my opinion, has been about the war in Ukraine. I think of Fred Kagan's first episode in early 2022, revisiting his pre-war analysis of Putin's intentions, or Mark Galiati on the post-Cold War Russian military, or David Betz, on the return of static warfare and the defense last year. This summer will be doing a mini-series focused on the war with contributors to a new volume called War in Ukraine, Conflict Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World, edited by Howell. Brands, who's also the editor of Newmakers of Modern Strategy, by the way. And we have some all-star guests, both returning and joining for those episodes. And today, we'll be talking with a man who has more combat experience than the average

Marine, Yoroslav Trofimov, chief foreign affairs correspondent at the Wall Street Journal about Putin's invasion and the first year of the war, to which Yarrislav was an eyewitness. Let's go. It is a prescription for war, this Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamous. The bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stale. We continue to face a grave situation in Iran. We have people who not see buildings through.

We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall never surrender. For maps, videos, and images, follow us on Instagram, and also feel free to follow me on Twitter. at Aaron B. McLean. Hi, I'm Aaron McLean.

Thanks for joining School of War. I am joined today by Yaroslav Trofimov. He is the chief foreign affairs correspondent of the Wall Street Journal. He is also the author, most recently, of Our Enemies Will Vanish, the Russian invasion, and Ukraine's war of independence. Yaroslav, thank you so much for joining the show. Thank you for having me. I was wondering if we could start, actually, with your background,

and then with your work as a journalist before we get to the war in Ukraine. you grew up in Ukraine. Is that the case? How do you go from a childhood in Ukraine to being chief foreign affairs correspondent at the Wall Street Journal? Yeah, I was born in Ukraine. I grew up in Ukraine. I thought I'd be a painter.

I actually went to art school, which was one of the few schools in Kiev at the time that used Ukrainian as a language of teaching, which is how I was exposed to a lot more of this idea of Ukrainian identity, Korean culture, which was very much marginalized back in the Soviet times. And so when I was a student at university, you know, in 1989, 1990, I was actually quite active in this sort of Ukrainian Renaissance and Ukrainian independence movement. But then I went off to the U.S. to do my master's at New York, at New York University, and then, you know, became a foreign correspondent all over the world. So I started off in Israel, watching how Yasser Arafat arrived into Gaza. I was a few steps behind his Akrabin when he was shot in Tel Aviv.

And then after a few years working in Italy for Bloomberg and then for the Wall Street Journal, on 9-11, it turned out there's very few people on the staff of the Wall Street Journal spoke any Arabic. And so there I was on a plane first to Cairo and then to the Gulf and then Afghanistan. I spent quite a bit of time in Iraq driving up from Kuwait in my rented Yukon SUV that I signed up and will never take across the border to Baghdad. We actually drove through a town that had not yet been taken over by the U.S. military. And so all those guys in Iraq uniforms were looking at me strangely, like, who is this guy in a car with our plates driving through our town? And then I was living in Afghanistan as the bureau chief of the journal for nearly five years, from 2009, 2014. And so I didn't really cover much of Ukraine in that time. I did go once in a while.

I went there for the 2004 revolution, which was a very peaceful process. And having just come off some of the bloodiest assignments in Iraq, it was really heartening for me to be in Ukraine. And I remember we were writing this article saying how proud I was of Ukraine being such a peaceful country where such momentous political change was achieved without a single window broken, without a single person injured, which was true at the time because it was a conflict between Ukrainians. Of course, things changed dramatically in 2014 when Russia invaded and Russia brought in its intelligence personnel, its military personnel, and sort of the famous little green man. And then the war became bloody. And then blood was spilled. 14,000 people were killed in fighting in Dunbass in Ukraine at the time, and nobody really cared. Can I ask you, this is off topic because I want to spend most of our time talking about Ukraine and talking about the book.

But before we do, you know, you were in Afghanistan at the same time that I was, although for longer than me. That's a full five years, which is remarkable. And it's a reminder. I have a number of journalists friends. I have to remind myself from time to time. They've actually seen more combat in a lot of cases than the, than the, you know, the sort of median marine of that era. Were you surprised by the speed with which the collapse came in 2021,

given your extensive experience on the ground there? No, no. You know, people ask me to compare you quite often Afghanistan and Ukraine. And I think my experience in Afghanistan was that everybody knew that this entire venture will collapse the moment the U.S. leaves. And everybody behaved as a result of that with the timeline of very temporary time, short-term timeline. So everybody was stealing, basically, as much as they could in the government before the whole edifice crashed down. There was no expectation of permanence. And so when President

Biden announced the plot from Afghanistan, I went back and I spent much of the second half of 2021 in Kabul. And I watched how House of Cards, town-off to town, the district were falling. And I remember being in Kabul on August 14th, watching President Ashrafgani, inspect the troops at the edges of Kabul's pledge will fight, you know, never surrender. And then the next morning, you know, he was in a helicopter flying off to Abu Dhabi and the Taliban were in my hotel. And I think being Kiev in February 2022, so, you know, just a few months later, obviously I had this, not just me, but a lot of other people were expecting that the same, the same

story show will repeat itself in Ukraine. And President Zelensky will do Ghani and. leave. And in fact, a lot of Western leaders were urging him to do so. I mean, Boris Johnson told me that he had called him up and says, you know, look, you need to take care of yourself and create a government in exile in London, like the Polish government in 1939. And he didn't. And that was the big difference, of course. Yeah. You know, your view of Afghanistan is the same as mine and also the same as virtually every other Marine who I think, you know, served at the tactical or operational level, all of us were utterly unsurprised at the pace with which the collapse

occurred. I think we all intuited one way or the other, whether we were seeing things on the ground in a place like Helmand or following politics in Kabul or some combination of the two, that it would look more or less like what happened. So it was just amazing to me at least the appearance and I think the reality of surprise in Washington, not at the collapse necessarily, because everyone knew that that was obviously a risk, but that's how they would have put it. It's a risk and they seem to think it would take some time. And do you have any insight on that? Like what were the found?

I remain mystified at their mystification because to me, you know, based on a limited experience 10 years earlier, it went down basically exactly as I would have predicted. And I'm not alone in that prediction. I think even the Taliban were mystified because, you know, when the Taliban saw that the gates of Kabul are open, they actually called the Americans at the time and said, look, we have a deal. will not take over until you leave, what do we do?

And, you know, there was this negotiation with the U.S. government and with Ambassador Hayuzat and the U.S. military that was in Kabul Airfield said, we're not ready to take responsibility. So if the government vanished, you know, we have no objection to you coming in. And, you know, leadership matters.

It matters a great deal in wars. And, you know, Ashrafgani was not a leader. He chose to flee. He chose to be a coward. And once he fled, the entire system collapsed. and we have the results of it now. Things could have turned out differently in Ukraine as well. President Zelenskyy was facing great danger,

perhaps a greater danger that Asher of Ghana was facing, and he chose to stay. And with him, much of the government machinery remained. And I remember the transformation in Kiev. So day one of the invasion, there was chaos. Nobody knew who's on whose side. Nobody knew who's betraying Ukraine and working with Russians. There were all rumors of Russian special forces squads

in the air. in this city, there were shootouts, there were lots of friendly fire, because nobody knew who's what. The second day on Russian television, they were already broadcasting in Zelansky had fled, that he's in Poland, in Europe, and he came out in a square after nightfall and recorded this famous video, we are all here, but some of the top, top members of the government. And I think this video really rallied the spirit, because the next morning, I'm about driving through Kiev, And hundreds and hundreds of young men and women were coming out of the high rises and just lining up to pick up weapons and go to the front line. They were telling us that this is that the Russian missile hit a billion next two hours.

What are we going to do? We're not going to surrender. And this psychological break, I think it was very important because, obviously, as you well know, in wars, the will to fight is one of the most important and often have to quantify ingredients. Talk to us a bit about Zelensky, if you would. You've met him on several occasions. Your book, which is really excellent, by the way. You call it towards the end of the book, you say it's a second draft of history. You know, what you and others were writing in the papers says it was happening is the first draft.

This is the second draft. Essentially sort of history of the first year of the war. You know, give us an assessment of Zelensky. He's generally lionized here in the West for his leadership. And then he has sort of hostile critics, people who tend to be hostile of American support for the war. Take a dimmer view. what's the reality. Right.

I mean, as I was to a point about, the second draft of history, it is really a second draft because as I was writing the book, I realized that I didn't know and see a lot of the things in real time. So going back to re-interview the participants to see what was going on was really important in establishing a much more accurate record. Obviously, we cannot have a full record because the war is going on and lots of things remain classified.

Now, as for Zelensky, the fact that he stayed is a historical achievement. lots of people in his shoes would not have stayed. Kiev was about to be surrounded. And he knew full well, he was briefed by the director of the CIA, who had flown to Kiev just weeks earlier that the Russians want to capture and execute him, as well as much of the Ukrainian leadership. The other thing that he really achieved is that he was probably the best moment

for a Ukrainian president to be a showman, to be somebody from showbiz. Because he knew how to speak to audiences and convince them. And he spoke over the heads of Western leaders to the electorates, to the public opinion in his public university commencements, rock festivals, mobile festivals. And he really made that moral pace for Ukraine that drags reluctant governments in Europe and in the U.S. into doing a lot more things for Ukraine that they initially planned to do. And I think that's also a historic achievement.

Now, you know, as every year has lots of laws and, you know, clearly misjudged the severity of the Russian threat before the invasion, the country was not properly prepared. And again, you know, you can argue that when the Ukrainians looked at the Russian war plan and looked at the number of troops with the Russians had on the Ukrainian's borders, rationally, there was a point in the striking and said, this not enough. There is no way that will succeed with this. In fact, they did not succeed. You know, the plan was premised on false beliefs that Putin had that to Russians and the Ukrainians

are one people. The Ukrainians will lot of fight, and most of them will switch sides. welcome the Russian military with flowers. So it was irrational, it was crazy, but that's what Putin believed. And so since then, I think what struck me most, you know, in the front lines and the running crane is you hardly hear about Zelensky. You know, you don't see his portraits, you don't see, you know, the troops talking about him. As a one guy, you know, a special forces marine, you know, wore a patch on his body armor saying, I killed for Zelensky, and there was a joke, kind of a meme.

And he was, you know, his actually deputy battalion. So the thing is that, you know, Ukrainians know that they're not fighting for a particular politician. Some of the most dedicated soldiers and volunteer battalions come from political movements. They're very alien to Zelensky. And yet, it doesn't matter because he is the elected president. He's the only legitimate head of the Ukrainian state. And there is an alternative for now.

And so, you know, when he finds. fired the head of the military, General Zoluzna, lots of people grapples about it. But everybody knew that the worst thing they could do is to turn to political conflict. And Zolzni himself accepted the resignation. You got a medal from Zelensky. They hugged each other. And for now, he sort of went his own way, waiting for a better time once the war is over. It's kind of an impossible question to answer briskly.

But nevertheless, as briskly is you think you can attempt. What does Zelensky represent in Ukrainian politics? Like, give us a bit of an overview. What does he stand for? And what are these other disparate elements that have been united by Russia's invasion? Well, you know, when Zelensky was elected, he came in as an outsider. And he said, I'm the man of peace. I will bring peace with Russia.

You know, there will no longer be, as he said in his electoral manifesto, the only sound of explosions you will ever hear in Ukraine is the fireworks for celebrations. And also, he said, you know, I'm against corruption. So everybody in the party list that he brought to parliament was a new politician. And he tried. He talked for the Russians. The Russians were not interested in peace. They were interested in the capitulation.

And so even someone like Zelensky with his long connections to Russia, you know, he was working in Moscow for Russian state television, you know, 2014, realized that peace Russia with Russia could not be had because Russia just didn't want to accept a Ukraine that is truly independent. And that's, you know, that was the shift of the political base as well. because the Russian-speaking Ukrainians who used to be hoping for a rapporteur with Russia because so many of them had family across the border. They live in towns that had historically in a very tight business integration with companies across the border.

They were the ones who bore the branch of the Indonesian. They're the ones who were flattened, relatives were killed. And they're the ones who are the most hostile to Russia today. On the Russian side of things, you know, here in Washington, I have several people whose work and, and insights I respect greatly who called the invasion wrong in the sense that they were quite confident up until, you know, middle late February

that Putin wasn't going to invade, despite, you know, obviously all the all the noise that indicated that he would. And in a couple of cases, one is Fred Kagan, at AEI, who we've had on the show. It was one of the best episodes we ever did was after the fact of him dissecting his thinking on that. And if anyone who wants a time capsule of that period,

I commend people back to that episode. But I mean, at core, what had happened was, you know, he's a serious analyst of military affairs, and he analyzed the order of battle on the Russian side. And he says, it's crazy. You can't, you can't do it. You don't have the capabilities it will take to actually seize Ukraine. And so obviously, this is some kind of demonstration or bluff. There's no way. There's no way that this is serious. Of course, it turned out to be serious. You alluded pretty quickly to sort of Putin's mistaken assumptions about Ukrainian politics say more, and you've no doubt, you know, I don't know if you've been one-on-one with him,

but please tell us if you have, but you've been in the room with Putin, presumably, various points over the course of your career. Tell us about Putin in his worldview and how he got this so wrong. Well, I mean, the only time I was in the room with Putin was when he was in the room in President Trump in Helsinki at their summit, but I've certainly read, you know, what he's been writing and saying, and he penned this very long essay that he had been writing during his COVID isolation. He spent a lot of time reading books on history, and it's called the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians. And that's really a manifesto for the war. It was

right out to every member of the Russian armed forces, and it posits that basically Ukraine is an artificial state. Ukraine as a Russians, and the Ukrainian identity had been invented by the Austro-Hungarian general staff and lots of other crazy stuff, which he rehashed once again in a recent interview with Dr. Carlson. And first of all, it's completely misguided history, but also some of that may have been true 30 years ago, but he didn't realize how much Ukraine had changed in that time. Because the very idea of what is Ukrainian has been changed.

Back in the Soviet times, you know, Ukrainian was an ethnicity in a very sort of folkloristic way. You know, if you ate Borsh and danced the Hopak and, you know, both of your parents were Ukrainian blood, Ukrainian, and someone like Zaryansky was not considered the Ukrainian. And so when Ukraine became independent in 1991, it chose to become inclusive in the definition of what is Ukrainian. So anybody who lives in Ukraine and works for Ukraine is a Ukrainian with the difference of blood, religion, you know, ethnicity language. And that's why that became really the source of its

resilience because there was no cleavage along these lines once the world began. In fact, one would argue that the Russian-speaking Ukrainians were the, you know, the most. involved in the defense of Ukraine because there came from cities that were the suffered the most and that's why Ukraine today can have a president who happens to be Jewish you know Defense Secretary of Defense who happens to be a Muslim by Kremian Tatar and you know the head of the armed forces who happens to be born in Russia to Russian parents but you know still is a patronage of Ukraine after coming there as the young man and I think this sort of idea of Ukraine is very alien to Putin's

very sort of Soviet way of thinking and his idea about nationhood and nationalism. And there was a mistake. And I think the same mistake was made in the West because, again, you know, Ukraine was not really studied, not really known and people still clung to these old ideas that became outmoded very quickly. And Russia, I think, particularly had as a state, has always had a blind spot about Ukraine because if you think that they are the same as us, there is no need to study

them. To study them. And so, somebody was telling me the other day that Russia had. has more specialists in Swahili than in the Ukrainian. Just because nations that are far away and recognize to be alien, they have their expertise. But nobody wanted to make a career out of studying a country that they didn't think really exists. And that was one of the reasons for this fatal misunderstanding in miscalculation, once the invasion began.

You spent most of 2022, or at least a good chunk of 2022, moving around the battlefield, seeing different fights, you know, places like Kharkiv, Karsan, Mary Opel, places you talk about in the book, give us some impressions. What sticks with you in terms of your on-the-ground experience of the war as the shock of the initial invasion turned to the pendulum swinging really strongly against Russia that year? What are the experiences that most stick with you?

Yeah, well, you know, in the very beginning, it was really touching go. I mean, if you remember, the entire Russian war plan was pivoted. So it was premised, the entire Russian war plan was premised in the idea of Russian forces, Russian airborne troops doing helicopter assault on the airfield of Hostomel outside of Kiev, securing it and then landing a whole bunch of troop carriers with their armored vehicles that would then just drive several brigades into Kiev. And that almost happened. The reason it didn't happen is because the one National Guard battalion

that was defending the airfield was told that the Russian attack was imminent, and so they dispersed from the barracks. And an hour later, a Russian missile killed, instead of hit the barracks, would have killed pretty much everyone there. And so if these troops, there's a couple hundred young men, mostly conscripts, were not there to shoot down some of the helicopters to slow the advance and buy precious time for Ukraine artillery, and then for airborne troops to arrive in the area and make the landing strip unusable,

who knows what would have happened to Kiev? I mean, the Russian troops could have entered Kiev in its first day. But obviously, Russia didn't have plan B. And in coming days, it was striking to watch how much self-confidence the Ukrainian suddenly gained. Because after the first two skirmishes, after being able to destroy the slow and prepared Russian tank and armor columns that were moving on paved roads because, you know, the fields were too soft because, you know, it was a characteristicly warm and the snow-s had melted. And after, you know, all these images of burning Russian armor started spreading, suddenly they realized, oh well, you know, look, we can actually fight these guys. They're not that great, and they're not invincible.

And obviously, over time, the Russians learned. The Ukrainians also learned. There was a cycle of adaptation that goes on until now, as new weapon systems are introduced very slowly, as Russians find ways of dealing with that, and in the meantime, lots of get killed. The level of casualties of both sides is incomparable to any conflicts seen in the past generation or two, certainly not by a military like the U.S. military, probably since Korea. The national unity you speak of, the resilience in the face of the Russian invasion is sort of

there for everyone to see. But you do address in the book, and it's obviously an issue, this question of those who stay and those who go in the fight. It's always jarring to me to see that the draft age in Ukraine is as high as it is. It's just, you know, it's different from my experience of the American military. I know there's this debate right now. I'm probably, Perhaps it's actually been resolved about lowering it, you can bring us up to date on that. You know, if there are chinks in the armor here of national unity, where are they? Why are, you know, what is the rationale behind young men in their late teens and early 20s not being drafted, which to me would seem like sort of a first step, especially as things move into the obviously

attritional phase that they're in. Tell us about that side of the story. Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, not everyone rallied for the cause. And there were traitors, especially in the South, were a lot of the local officialdom, including the former mayor of Ferson had which sides to work with the Russians. Surprises that it didn't happen in so many other places, because the Russians did have an extensive network of influence agents and people that were in a payroll. They spent 30 years cultivating this. And sadly on D-Day, it truly turned out to be a dot except a few places.

On the system level, they couldn't count on that. And they didn't have much intelligence to go on once the word began. Now, as for the question of the draft, there is a little of course. confusion because Ukraine has a draft, a national service. And so people are eligible for the draft until 27. And the legislature was just changed. And then you have the mobilization. So once the war began, the draft, as it is, was suspended. And there were still draftees in the military, in the National Guarding. The guys fighting hostomal over draftees. They were 19, 20 years old. And then the adults, people over 27, were mobilized as part of the war effort. And the reason for

that is that, well, first of all, Ukraine doesn't have that many people in the age bracket because this is the children of the 90s, which were in a very difficult period across former Soviet Union across Eastern Europe. You know, very economically, it's the most difficult times since World War II probably. So the birth rates are very low at the time. And second is that once Ukraine tried to form all these new brigades, what they need is people who had experience. So if you want to find people who know how to drive a tank or fire a howitzer, you probably

need to find someone who has served in the Soviet army and Lerang had to do this during the two-year or three-year service in the Soviet military. And that's why so many of the people who were recruited initially and later on were in the 40s in the 50s, sometimes in the 60s. And there was also a psychological issue, I think, because the idea was that this is an existential war. The Russians are trying to extinguish Ukraine's future as a country. And so it's better to spare the young who have yet to have children,

or have yet to raise families. So at least the nation physically will not be extinguished. That was also quite a powerful argument because I've heard it for lots of people, not saying like people in the 50s saying, like, I want to go and fight because I don't want my sign to go and fight. And does it work? Well, you know, it's an issue. Obviously, if you're in the internet tree, you need to be fit.

And not a lot of people in Ukraine in the 50s are very fit. Well, not just fit. I mean, there's something about youth. I mean, there's a reason why in the United States, I don't think it's just force of habit that the Marine Corps is a young service and that it is designed to turn over. It's designed to only retain a few Marines for long careers. Most Marines come through, spend a few years and then go back out into the world, become, you know, citizens to go on with the rest of their lives. There's something about young men and the tasks of ground combat that to me naturally seems to go to the world. together, which was why to me this seems surprising. But I take the argument you just laid out. You've seen a lot of war in various places, perhaps especially Afghanistan. What is happening on the battlefield that seems to you to be something new under the sun? How is war evolving in iterative fashion on the battlefields of Ukraine? I think, first of all, the war, even as it began in Ukraine is incomparable to Iraq and Afghanistan, just by the sheer scale of violence as it's been inflicted.

And obviously, you know, in Afghanistan, Iraq, I didn't have to worry about, you know, the other guys having Air Force, cruise missiles or long-range artillery. You know, I think the risks were much more manageable, at least they had the illusion of being able to manage them. It was, you know, it was the values of which was in a much smaller scale. Now, I think what people are missing is also how much war has evolved in its two years, two years and a few months now in Ukraine. You know, the fact that drone war,

warfare is now part of the doctrine on every level, you know, from squads all the way to the sort of brigades. And drones have become basically a form of artillery. This is an artillery. You know, they have a first person to view drones and, you know, the bigger chemikaze drones. They have become obviously a crucial ISR platform on all levels and how it's all integrated now on both sides in Russia and Ukraine, but more in Ukraine because of Sterling, you know, It's now every level down to platooners squad.

They have their tablets, which it's kind of like an Uber for information for artillery. People can pick and they can see the drone feeds from the area. If you're an artillery unit in the area, you can just tap in there and say, okay, well, I see a target, permission to engage, yes. So it's all something I have not seen in the U.S. military. And I think the U.S. military has maybe a lot of things to teach to Ukrainians. And obviously the Ukrainians have been, you know, going through training in Germany and

other places. But also I think it has a tremendous amount to learn now because Russia and Ukraine are the only two countries with massive experience in this modern warfare that the U.S. hasn't really engaged in since, you know, I guess the near peer adversary since I would say Korea or maybe even before that. And the superficial impression that I have from afar is that the precision that the proliferation of drones and the proliferation of sensors, many of which are on drones, that precision has contributed to sort of positional warfare coming back. I mean, we're back in a war that looks a lot more like, you know, France in 1916 than much that has happened between

then and now. Do you see, is, first of all, is that accurate? Second of all, is that going to be the outcome for the foreseeable future? Is there something that's going to break one of the two sides out of that? Well, it's hard to bring the future. Unfair question. I'm in the habit. I ask a lot of unfair questions. I'll try to speculate in an informed fashion. I'll address the first part of it. I think you're right about the proliferation of sensors

and precision, cheap precision, because you know what. And a phy-dron that costs $300 to make, $300. It's one-third of the price of an artillery shell. So it's one-tenth of the price of an artillery shell that is not precise. And it can take how to tank that is worth millions of dollars.

and it's happening every day in the battlefield. And so on both sides. And so what we're seeing now is that the Vokrina of Combined Armours maneuver, combined warfare, is almost impossible because any attempt to amass armor people gets just covered within minutes and they get destroyed within minutes. And we see proof of this every day. There are videos every day of the Russian columns trying to advance, and they're just going to take it out like taking the decks.

And the same was happening with the Ukrainian. columns straight to advance to the failed Ukrainian country offensive last year, last fall. And so what is the way out of it? Well, it depends how and when each of the sides learns how to deal with the drones, electronic warfare, other country measures. It's constantly evolving. The things that worked in the battlefield, three months ago, no longer work there. That's when, you know, the U.S.

supplied drones were sent to Ukraine initially, switch plates. They turn out to be useless because the Russians are very hard. how the jam the frequencies right away. And so, and the Ukrainian military industries are now almost exclusively focused on on how to make all those different kinds of drones. From the ones that can fly a thousand miles, he's Russian airfield, Russian refinery, so the tiny ones that in every squad has. Can you talk about rendering switchplay is useless because of jamming?

Talk us through, if you would, the sort of cat and mouse game of countermeasures. What have you seen? What have been the themes there? What has been evolved? what has evolved in terms of counter-drone techniques on either side? Not just counter-dron. You know, hammers. Hammers was extremely efficient in the beginning,

but the Russians learned how to play with GPS and rather them a lot less precise. Same, you know, say with the J-DEMs, same with the Excalibur rounds, the precision, actually rounds. I've been talking to Ukraine artillery guys and saying, like, you know, we just get used them anymore because the Russians have learned how to deal with that.

And the problem with that is that all of this capability, were introduced in very small capacities over a slow period of time that gave the Russians the willing opportunity to learn how to upset them. And that has been the future of U.S. Assistant throughout the war. A Ukrainian general was telling me that, you know, a very good analogy, I think, is, you know, we had a fire in Ukraine and we had a bucket of water. And yes, we did enough water to fill a bucket. We got tens of billions of dollars of American aid. But it came in coffee cups, tiny coffee cups over a course of two years. And time matters.

I mean, we see it now. You know, the fact that the Ukrainians are outgunned once again, don't have the ammo. There was ground as a result of the rate of which the assistant is coming or not coming. So it's just fair to say, just sticking with the tactical question for a second because I'm kind of fascinated by it. And I haven't seen it with my own eyes. So I'm genuinely interested in these reports.

So is a general rule when you're talking about these UAVs or guided munitions of any it seems like it's electronic warfare measures on the other side that are the most potent countermeasures. Does that be fair? It is one of the things. Think about the electronic countermeasures. It also disables your own side. It's very hard to make it targets it. What also works for the Ukrainians when they fight against the Shahid drones, you know,

which the uranium-made drones that have been very effective at the beginning is still quite effective in destroying. Infrastructure targets with pretty big payloads is just, good old, you know, Maxime guns from the 19th century, you know, they pair the two of them, have a guy with the night vision goggles, sort of with the turbo goggles, and the terminals allow you to target it. And that seems to be working. I've seen positions, you know, they're sit on the top of high rises ringing Kiev, and these guys, you know, shoot them down every day or, you know, every few days. So there is no one solution, you know, there's a whole area of things that people have to do, especially, you know, as technology of all.

of both sets. And the Russians have been not very successful in stopping Ukrainian drones. Right. Coming after their, you know, refineries and other, in other economic targets. Right. And then I guess the lowest tech kind of solution I've seen at the very tactical level where you're talking about these little, you know, sort of squad platoon-controlled suicide drones. It's just netting, just having netting up around your position. Yeah, but, you know, if you're probably so, but it's also about the skill of the pilots. So, you know, some of them just fly under the net. There are also ways of, you know, the two ways

that blow up the net and go out of the net. So it's cost to evolving. It's, it's, it's, but having spent time with the operations with Jones, what surprised me is, you know, how much reach they can get and how little the Ukrainian countries work in many cases. I've seen by, you know, 20, 30 kilometers behind Russian lines, unobstructed and being able to, you know, to do things.

obviously GPS is all blocked, so you have to be, you know, you have to know how to do it. There's more and more use of artificial intelligence for targeting and for navigation. So, you know, the best brains of Ukraine are working on this. In Russia. You made reference to your, you quote this very compelling analogy of, we got enough water to put out the fire, but it came in tiny coffee cups. Give your own assessment of the Biden administration's support for Ukraine, such as it is, where it's been strong, where it's been weak, where you think things,

stand today. Well, you know, in the very beginning, the administration closed the embassy, walked away, you know, gave Ukraine 90 javelas, 9-0, against thousands and thousands of tanks and fighting vehicles arrayed at the borders. And basically, we said, you know, woodlocked, have an insurgency, Afghan style, you know, will see what you reach, you know, after 20 years. Ukraine was written off. You know, the Korean minister told me that when he went to the White House, two days before the war began, he felt, you know, warm handshakes from President Biden and the others, but it felt to him like he was basically giving a diagnosis of incurable stage for cancer. It was farewell for him and for the country. Then after Ukraine surprised everyone

by beating back the Russians around Kiev in the first month of the war, the move changed and very reluctantly American weapons supplies began. And throughout this process, the overriding priority was not to cross the Russian red lines. And President, Putin made a very explicit threat on the morning of the invasion, saying, you know, if you dare to interfere with my quote-unquote special material operation, you will see the consequences of the cat you've never seen before. And so, unfortunately, what has happened over this two years is that Putin didn't stop Western, but he throttled it to levels and to speeds that allowed him to regroup, reconstitutes,

and now to fight back and launch this new offense and al-Chief. He still has the same goals in the beginning of the war. He still wants to get Kiev. He still wants to get a desk, Harky, you don't extinguish Ukrainian states. So I attended the Halifax International Security Forum in the fall of 2022. And it was a really striking scene because at this point, it was sort of peak, maybe slightly past peak, but near peak optimism about the state of the war. So the period you cover in your book and is being slightly unfair, but only slightly.

I would describe the spirit of the conference, which of course, you know, for anyone doesn't know, This is sort of the Munich Security Conference, but without the bad guys. Exactly. No Russians or Chinese, et cetera, invited. This is sort of the world's democracies slash countries that are basically friendly to the world's democracies. And the Russian opposition. And the Russian opposition, sure, you know, convening to talk about security in the free world of the free world.

And the spirit of the convening was very disorienting to me. It was, you know, Putin tried to take Kiev and he failed. So basically, we're good. We're good. Like, it turns out the arc of history continues to bend towards justice. I'm being unfair. But, you know, I was struck at the time that at the optimism of things, even though the war was still raging and the prospects for its long-term resolution were murky at best.

And then, you know, sometime in 2023, maybe earlier, you know, you could probably pinpoint it better than I. You know, the pendulum swung back and this kind of grimness set in almost universally. It seems to be at the White House things, maybe they were always grim. But, you know, everyone sort of turned grim about the prospect of Ukrainian victory at some point in 2023 as we settled into what was clearly going to be a long attritional struggle. And people had to wrestle with a kind of obvious concern that in these long attritional struggles, the country that has more that can be attritted is probably in a significant place of advantage. Where are you now sitting here in April of 2024? What is your sense? of things to come, what kind of resolutions do you think are within the realm of possibility? Just help us understand the possible futures that could manifest themselves. Yeah. I mean, Jake Sullivan, when he came to Kiev just a few weeks ago, also said Putin has already

failed and patred himself on the back, much to the horror of the Ukrainians or many Europeans, I would say. I think what are we seeing now is this really interesting split between the U.S. and much of Europe. The Biden administration was sort of rallying everyone around in the beginning of the war. And many in Europe, France and Germany were sort of like looking for a way to negotiate it away. Now that U.S. funding has dried up because of the Republican leadership in the House, and the administration doesn't seem to be doing much about it. arguably there are lots of other things they can do by executive power that they're not doing

and just sort of having this alibi of what Mike Johnson is doing in the house. To America, it's understandable. War is far away. Ukraine is a political issue now, but it's also not seen by anybody on either side of the ill as something that affects the security of the American homeland. And Ukrainians are sort of abstract. There's not a lot of Ukrainian refugees in America. Lots of people, you know, have never met a Ukrainian.

In Europe, it's completely different. First of all, it's affected every country. Everybody knows Ukrainians. Everybody knows somebody hosts Ukrainians. There are millions of Ukrainians working in Europe, small children, young children. And the threat to members of European Union, to members of NATO is perceived as actually a real possibility

in the next few years. You know, the invasion of Poland, the invasion of Estonia is no longer considered unthinkable. And so people like President Macron, France now say that the war in Ukraine is existential for the security of the European Union. And you have a lot of wars, but you also have action. The Germans have started ramping up defense production. And it would probably be enough to cover Ukraine's needs next year, but not right now. So we are now with this weird time where Ukrainians are the weakest because American support

ceased. European capacity is not there to make up for that. And Putin is pressing ahead, trying to get as much as you can. So funny, hasn't been able to get that much. despite all his advantage in ammunition, there is 10 to 1, probably. He could take one city so far. Avdivka, which is a city of 30,000 people before the war, and lost tens of thousands of soldiers to do it, more than 1,000 pieces of armored equipment, tanks and APCs, you know, how it serves. And so there will be a fight, there will be an attrition war.

He's Russia really in a better position for an attritional fight as long as Western Spurk continues, not necessarily. there is one critical bottleneck there equipment. For every tank APC, how it's an MLRS that Russia makes or refurbishes from its Soviet age reserves, it loses two or three in the battlefield. And unlike Ukraine, it has nowhere else to get them from. Nobody's going to send tanks to Russia. And so at some point in two, three years, they will just not be able to continue

to the space or at all. And that's why, while the short-term attrition prospects are terrible for Ukraine, over the longer term, especially as Europe is starting getting serious, it's actually not so bad. So the question is, which society will crack first from within? I think this is a real question. Like in World War I, it will not be one in the battlefield. It will be one in the capitals, in the public mindset of the societies. And again, it's really hard to say. Russia's society, famously as the CIA elects to say, is hard but brittle.

So it looks invisible, but actually, as we have seen last year, with the pre-Gosional uprising, crack at any time. And in Ukraine, because of the war, because of, you know, politics has been kind of suspended for now. It's also how we say, you know, nobody is openly saying, let's talk to Russia. Nobody's openly saying, let's have, you know, surrender part of territory. And part because any politician who says that knows that the world is going to face a massive backlash. But some people in the kitchens are saying that. And so measuring that is extremely difficult. How long will the Ukraine's fighting spirit last?

Yeah. That's a totally fair point. And these things are so fluid and contingent that any time somebody says something, kind of like I did, make a blanket statement about who does better in attrition. Or, you know, the thing that I hear that always rubs me the wrong way is there's this Russian pattern of warfare where things go badly at first. And then they knuckle down and they overcome. It's like, well, that's true. I guess unless it's 1917.

Well, exactly. It laps pretty quickly. Well, 1905. Indeed. Yeah, yeah. You know, there's lots of wars that Russia has lost, you know. And, you know, the war they launched against Finland in 1940, it was not a very successful war.

Russia had nearly a million troops invading Finland, which had fewer than four million people at the time. Yeah. Yeah. Last question for you. How do you assess the prospects of a second Trump administration affecting the war? Well, you know, it's very hard to predict what Trump will do. He's saying you have a peace plan, but he also said if Putin doesn't accept a peace plan,

I'll double down on it for Ukraine. So Ukrainians are obviously afraid. They're also trying to work very hard with the Republican Party and with Trump himself to reach out, to cross the ale and to himself. For Ukraine, it's a necessity to make people understand that Russia should not be a partisan issue. It's an issue of national security around the West. It's not something that only Democrats should care about. I think the European governments are really, really, really worried.

I've been talking to a lot of officials. And that's why people are even now talking about in nuclear deterrent. Can France replace the U.S. and provide nuclear umbrella to the rest of NATO? But I think the biggest question is what Putin thinks. Because, I mean, Trump may not withdraw from NATO. Trump may actually end up helping Ukraine. What are I always going to do? But if Putin thinks that Trump is going to give him an opening to do things,

if Putin thinks that Trump will allow him to take more risks and make more, you know, inconsiderate, ill-thought, very risky decisions like the original version of Ukraine, maybe he'll do it. And that's what freaks out people in Ukraine. And that's what freaks out even more people in Ukraine. in the Baltic states in Poland, even in Germany. I should also say, in addition to your book, you had an excellent essay on extended deterrence in the journal.

Was it just last week? This past weekend, right? Yeah, thank you. Which readers should check out. In addition to Yaroslav Trofenov's book, Our Enemies Will Vanish the Russian Invasion in Ukraine's War of Independence. It's been a really fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for making the time and good luck with the book.

Thank you. Thank you. It'd be great. This is a nebulous media production. Find us wherever you get your podcasts. You know,