In The News

The Kyiv Independent's Illia Ponomarenko sits down with military analysts Michael Kofman, director of the Russia Studies Program at CNA, and Rob Lee, senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute's Eurasia Program, to discuss the current situation on the battlefields, Ukraine's planned counteroffensive and Russia's attempts to stop it, and the likely developments in Russia's war against Ukraine in 2023. 

Michael Kofman says that the argument about Ukraine’s diminished counter-offensive capacity “may be overstated; I think the main question is to what extent does defence of Bakhmut represent a strategy with diminishing returns relative to other options.”

Samuel Bendett says, "Russian forces began countering Ukrainian electronic warfare by launching very small DJI drones like Mavic2 in order to see how they behave in order to determine EW (electronic warfare) presence before launching larger and heavier DJI combat drones."

Michael Kofman says that holding Bakhmut has allowed Ukraine to grind down Russian power, but clinging to the town could be costly.

Samuel Bendett says, “It is likely that the Russians are going to continue to press around Bakhmut. The situation for the Ukrainian military there is very precarious.”

Michael Kofman says, "Gerasimov is exhausting the Russian armed forces with a feckless series of offensive operations, which may yield some gains, like Bakhmut, but [are] unlikely to change the strategic picture.

Sam Bendett says, “Wagner’s influence goes way beyond Ukraine, and it is a useful tool for the Russian state to operate in areas where they don’t want to operate officially.”

Michael Kofman says that the rest [of the mobilized troops] have probably been used to fill out under-strength battalions and build a reserve to rotate front-line units out of Ukraine.

Michael Kofman says, "Over the past year, Russian forces in Ukraine leveraged their advantage in artillery to make up for a lack of manpower. But they were expending more than half a million shells per month."

Michael Kofman says, "Neither of these armies look today the way they did at the beginning of the war. Both have taken heavy losses. Both have lost a lot of their best people and best equipment."

Dmitry Gorenburg says, "The Russian navy has been left to, basically, just firing occasional precision guided missiles at energy infrastructure and that sort of thing in Ukraine."

Cornell Overfield says, “I would be surprised if Russia had not explored the re-base loophole, and that they didn’t use it/floated it unsuccessfully speaks volumes to me.”

Samuel Bendett says, “Prior to February 2022, Russian military academia was full of logical, interesting, and relevant analysis on the evolution of AI across the world’s military forces. Yet, there is a huge gap between what they say about AI and the war they have ended up fighting.”

Michael Kofman says, " The Russian military is still far too weak. It has restored a lot of the manpower deficit they had and replenished the military in terms of the losses they suffered, in terms of personnel, but the quality of the force is very low.”

Michael Kofman says, "A change in leadership will not necessarily lead Moscow to end the war."

Jeffrey Edmonds says, "I don't know that it means Russia is going to suddenly run off and start producing a tremendous number of ICBMs."

Michael Kofman says, "The field of Russian military studies had almost died or was on life support, so I found myself in many respects trying to ... work to help revive the field."