In The News

Jeffrey Edmonds says the pressing issue for Putin at the moment is that he's "been losing” and the "annexation, the mobilization — these are all measures he's trying to take to fix the problem."

Samuel Bendett says, “Russia has understood the benefits of uncrewed air systems but has failed to make the investments in the technology on a large enough scale.”

Samuel Bendett says, “I think this is more about attrition of key Ukrainian targets than about ‘game changing’ strategies.”

Michael Kofman says, "In this war there has been a consistent mismatch between Putin's political objectives and the military means to attain them."

Samuel Bendett says, “there is a lot of information that is bypassing official Russian state media about peoples discontent with the mobilization, peoples fights break out when the government comes to take away solders to the recruitment centers .”

Michael Kofman says, “The Russian military in Ukraine is "overstretched," it has lost the initiative and lacks the forces to defend a vast battlefield."

Michael Kofman says, “the 300,000 target was likely "notional." Russian commanders, would have mainly poor options deciding to do with the new draftees.”

Michael Kofman says, "In this war there has been a consistent mismatch between Putin's political objectives and the military means to attain them. At important decision points Putin has procrastinated, refusing to recognize the reality, until the options turned from bad to worse."

Elizabeth Wishnick discusses the renewed interest in the scope and depth of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership after the Chinese and Russian presidents met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan.

Michael Kofman says, “Russia can try to address the quantity aspect of the force but they can’t fix the quality, noting, in particular, the dearth of experienced officers and advanced equipment.”

Michael Kofman says, “Russian stop-loss policies, such as indefinite extensions of soldier service contracts and the end of a soldier's ability to refuse deployment, might have a more significant impact though. These measures would allow Russia's military to keep experienced troops in place as Russia faces counterattacks on multiple fronts.”

Michael Kofman says, “Still, the move could begin to address Russia's manpower shortages, in part because it would prohibit existing contract soldiers from quitting.”

Dmitry Gorenburg says, “Russia will probably use the additional forces in an effort to prop up units in Ukraine that already have suffered heavy combat losses, rather than attempting to build new units to deploy,”

Samuel Bendett says, “Ukrainians were sighted by the Russian Military massing forces, possibly preparing to press the Russians even further.”

Dmitry Gorenburg says, “I think it does become somewhat harder for the Ukrainians going forward. As the area Russia is defending shrinks, its ratio of forces to territory should rise.”

Michael Kofman says, “Vladimir Putin certainly has the will to continue this war, but he has been largely operating under the illusion that the Russian military was winning and would eventually win."