The War in Ukraine in 2025 with Michael Kofman
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Welcome back. I'm Max Bergman, director of the Stuart Center and Europe-Russia-Eurasia program at CSIS. And I'm Maria Snegovaya, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia. And you're listening to Russian Roulette, a podcast discussing all things Russia and Eurasia from the Center for Strategic International Studies.

The war in Ukraine in 2025. That's the topic of today's conversation. I'm Max Bergman. I'm the director of the Europe, Russia, Eurasia program here at CSIS. And I'm joined with two great colleagues. First to my left, Maria Snegevaya. Maria is senior fellow on the Europe, Russia, Eurasia program, focuses her work on Russia. And then Michael Kaufman. Mike, thanks so much for joining us. Mike is a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

let's just jump right in mike you were in ukraine recently i i can't even count how many times you've been since the war has begun um what is the current kind of state of play uh with with uh on the battlefield um how how have things evolved um since the last time you were in ukraine sure and thanks for inviting me back to the to the program max so what i would say is that i was in ukraine about a month ago and i'll be honest

the situation I saw was trending negatively compared to how things were this summer. Over the course of the summer,

It looked as though we were likely to avoid the worst case outcomes because the U.S. pass was supplemental. We were starting to fix the ammunition situation. Munition supplies were starting to get to Ukraine. There was the kind of early development of a follow-on strategy with Ukrainians, and Ukraine was addressing its manpower issues to some extent. Mobilization was showing really good results in June and July after the reforms to the mobilization laws.

Now, looking at the current situation, Russia unfortunately still retains a material advantage and the initiative along much of the front line. The principal Russian advantage is in manpower. I think for the first time in this war, we've closed the fires disparity between Russia and Ukraine. I wouldn't say that Ukraine has parity, but the Russian advantage is quite minor, both in artillery firepower and in drones. Ukraine invested heavily in drone production over the course of this year.

you know benefiting some extent with western support and has leveraged its own defense industrial complex in order to really increase the output of jones and i think on much of the front now has parity if not an advantage or russian forces the main russian advantage remains of course air power the use of glide bombs many of them are concentrated right now in the fight in kursk

and manpower. Russia has still been able to sustain recruitment over the course of this year. And despite fairly high losses, Russia has been pressing through the front in several parts over the course of the last six months. And unfortunately, rather than stabilizing the front, I think it's clear that the Russian rate of gain has been increasing every month since August. And the situation is most problematic south and around the city of Prokhorovsk, where Russian force had been steadily advancing at an increased pace over the past several months.

Also, of course, Tereza Chasvyar, Russian forces made some gains on the left side of the Oskil River by Kupyansk, and Ukraine likely will have to use that river as a sort of natural boundary. And going back to Kursk, Ukrainian forces are still holding Kursk, and Russia's taken considerable losses in the last two months trying to retake it.

But Ukraine has probably lost somewhere between 40 to 50 percent of the initial territory that they seized in Kursk in August. And we've just begun to see maybe the early signs of direct North Korean involvement, although I think many are still anticipating a much larger Russian counterattack at Kursk that will involve North Korean troops in some capacity, which they've been preparing for. Lastly, I'd say in the kind of overall assessment that

the situation i see as i see it um it's not catastrophic the front is not imploding but it is fragile and i think that given where we are there's much need for course correction i think there's a fair amount that ukraine needs to do but also great deal the united states needs to do as well in order to try to avoid kind of worst case scenarios and if you're wondering what i mean by that

Early in this year when things looked really difficult back in February and March, right? My concern, the concern of many other analysts was that if we don't address the situation, there could be a collapse of a part of the front this fall.

And in fairness, I think we avoided that this year. But I'm now increasingly worried that we might have simply postponed this outcome into the first half of next year. At the very least, it still looms as a possibility, given the trajectory that we're on, especially when you look at what's happening in southern Donetsk and as part of front after the loss of Uglodar and the coming loss of Kurohovo.

I mean, it seems like if we sort of go back to 2022, that when the war begins, the US, Europe and Ukraine all sort of escalate their efforts, their efforts, our efforts to support Ukraine, Ukraine's efforts to fight the war. And we've sort of been seeming in a steady state since then. The amount of US funding in 2024, relatively similar, I think, to in 2023.

But have we seen Russia really escalate its efforts in terms of manpower, the support from North Korea, also from Iran, the ramp up of its defense industry? And is it the case that we just haven't really matched, and we as in the West, but also Ukraine not mobilizing early enough, haven't really matched the Russian efforts to kind of, to really mobilize to fight this war, both from a manpower and from an armaments perspective?

So I would say with some caveats, right? The simple answer generally is yes, that after Russian mobilization in fall of 2022, both in terms of manpower, but also defense industrial mobilization and commitment to a long protracted war, right, being willing to pay those costs. I think the West was very slow to mobilize defense industrial production. When you look at ammunition production, for example, particularly in Europe,

I think that we underestimated what it would take to sustain Ukraine in this war, and a lot of things were done piecemeal over time. I think that we are often constrained by when we introduce capabilities and often having it basically be asynchronous with when you would have to introduce things in order to achieve at least kind of operational level effects on the battlefield.

And I think there are also significant structural issues that Ukrainians have to deal with, for example, training, addressing its manpower issues, that they really drag their feet on. And there's a component of this as well that I think Ukraine really needs to address, because at this point,

The reason Russia is advancing is not because of the decisive advantage in fires. And it's not also because of the decisive advantage in equipment. You know, you're seeing much of the Russian sort of day-to-day attacks are really small amounts of dispersed infantry. Russia, in fact, has significant constraints too, right? It's

uh feeding off of a soviet legacy and drawing down storage of soviet equipment and this too is unsustainable if you look at their loss rates they're going to have much bigger issues in the latter part of 2025 and they're forced to pay four to five times this year what they used to pay last year for the member contracting right so that too is also not a very sustainable trajectory for them but i think currently unfortunately they're operating on somewhat longer timeline right if you look at the issues they're going to be having relative to the issues that ukraine is having right now

And if you're asking from a counterfactual perspective, could this have been avoided? My answer is yes. Right. But it would have taken a different set of decisions in the West and also a different set of decisions in Ukraine, especially when the counteroffensive failed last summer. I think to some extent we have been adrift in terms of strategy going back to fall 2023.

certainly here in the United States. And to another, I think it's been a series of cumulative decisions or more accurately indecision amongst the countries involved and failing to make them at the right points, failing to make them early enough. Maria, let me turn to you. So the situation inside of Russia with Ukraine

We know Vladimir Putin is really committed to this war, but we also know that one of his major focus or the major focus is regime stability. The Russians have lost or suffered 500,000 plus casualties, according to reports. The economy is looking a little bit more bearish than it did, I think, six months ago.

How do you, as we approach 2025, what position is Putin in internally inside of Russia? How is he, do you think, viewing the battlefield and viewing the current state of his regime?

Thank you. Well, clearly the regime stability matters a lot for Putin. The problem is that the war itself had such a tremendous impact on the Russian society, Russian economy domestically, that this notion of stability actually has changed, I would argue. And arguably you can even make the point that it may be more stable for Putin to continue this war rather than stop it at this point.

First of all, the war is still being fought on Ukrainian territory. And as we speak in – based on Mike's excellent description, Putin's actually not losing. As a matter of fact, he is winning. He is pushing further into Ukraine at accelerating rate.

uh there is uh also um actually a little prospect of the military aid coming for Ukraine in the next year based on the statements of the incoming administration members so what is not to like why stop start

stop now when he's about to at least achieve his minimalist gains in Ukraine which is quote unquote liberation of Donbass and hulkan so meaning pushing further to the deeper towards the borders of those regions and you know with you know who knows with the change of circumstances he might actually come back even to his original maximalist goals which he means potentially even occupation of Kiev

In addition, economically, yes, things are not great. We see then inflation is accelerating, the central bank keeps raising its rate, but it's unable to keep it under control. Now the rumor is it will be at 25%, probably to no avail.

But it is sustainable. We are talking official numbers of the inflation 9 to 10 percent. In Turkey, the ruling candidate, the president, got reelected with much higher inflation, like a 60 percent. So it's still possible, and Russia way below that.

In addition, the military investment itself has become the main incentive that's driving the economy. So stopping that investment is actually not sustainable for the regime. The irony is that – the sad irony is that he has to keep doubling down in order to continue showing these impressive numbers of economic growth and whatnot, even if most of that, we understand, is not consumer well-being.

Nonetheless, it is still pushing the economy forward, and most analysts are convinced that even if the war was to stop tomorrow, the military expenditure levels will not radically decrease for that same reason, which in turn will create its own militaristic incentives, unfortunately. The society and the elites are somewhat consolidated. Yes, maybe it's a passive support within the society, especially we've seen growing numbers

of supporters for peace talks but not for peace in the sense that we are ready to leave Ukraine alone but for peace in the sense that all right well we've done this we've occupied new areas of Ukraine now let's just you know stabilize the status quo these people the majority of them are not ready to let go of the territories that Russia's occupied territories of Ukraine

Last but not the least, the manpower situation that Max pointed out. Just recently there was a new report released by Dmitry Nikrasov and Dmitry Gutkov. They actually did quite an interesting survey of the Russian man, 18 to 60 years old.

about how much, what would make them go to fight in this war. And the estimate is if the median salary was to be increased to 400,000 rubles, which is about $4,000 per month, there's about a million Russians

able, willing to go fight. Unfortunately, that's a huge amount, right? Yes, we see tremendous losses estimated at six to seven hundred thousand people, but allegedly there's even more of Russians willing. And even if this may be overestimated, still we understand that unfortunately Putin still has a certain leeway. All of that really makes me question to what extent Putin will be really interested in negotiating

making certain concessions to Ukraine or to the US administration, given that he's doing pretty well and he may be interested to keep fighting. I think it's a good segue to sort of bring in the Trump factor, the incoming administration. Of course, President Trump has said that he wants to end the war on day one. That may be rhetorical, but what

has suddenly the posture of Donald Trump and potentially his administration is shifting toward how do we bring this war to an end? How do we have negotiations? Something that the Biden administration wasn't really touching and wasn't really pushing the Ukrainians on. And I guess question maybe for you, Mike, do you see a race changing

to January 20th, where Russian forces are trying to do as much as they can before they potentially put down their guns on January 20th? Or is this just the war's just going to continue indefinitely? Do you see any signs of Russia potentially preparing for a future ceasefire and trying to take as much territory as possible before they sit down for talks?

No, I don't know what people imagine is going to happen on January 20th, but my first guess is absolutely nothing. Because to be perfectly honest, there's not a significant change in Russian pace of operations. There's no obvious reasons why Russians would or should negotiate on January 20th.

Despite, I think, many of the statements by folks from the incoming administration, I think they're going to have, to some extent, a bit of a discovery period when they see, one, what the current situation is. Second, what the state of funding is, because the Biden administration intends to expend pretty much all of the funding available by January 20th.

And the third is what the state of inventories is available and what their future options are for 2025. Plus, I don't know what the potential is for another supplemental from Congress, but I'm confident it will be structured very differently from the previous supplementals of 2023 and 2022. So with that in mind, I think the first order of business for them or the challenge for them will be to figure out how they're going to compel Russia to negotiating table, right?

The second is they may realize that actually the last thing they want to do right now is to start negotiations because their hand, to be frank, just going off of what some people have said, is certainly not a position of strength at this current point in the conflict. And they will have to rectify that and to look what they will have to do to rectify the situation on the battlefield. Because in a war, the dynamics on the battlefield matter quite a bit for your potential negotiating hand, right? This is a...

Not a new or recent finding. So with that in mind, I'm not sure that they will actually want to negotiate with Russia early on once they really get a full sense of what the situation is. And I don't see any reasons why Russians will negotiate. Nothing particularly spectacular happens for Russia politically on January 20th.

Maria, do you see it differently? Do you see perhaps there's more of a foreign policy reason, political reason that might prompt Putin to say, you know what, I'm worried about the economy. If we could stop fighting for a while, that could be beneficial. I'm sort of grasping here, but do you think that there's any, I mean, you sort of said in your first answer, but any thoughts

thing that could sort of bring Putin to the table here?

First of all, Putin is not really fighting for more territory in Ukraine. He's fighting for Russia's restored international status, right? He wants essentially to rule the world one-on-one with the United States. And from that perspective, I think he will be open to at least talking. But he does clearly, and this is actually pretty obvious from his recent statements, and Valda in particular, that he really wants the West to outreach, to allow him a little bit of the light. Mm-hmm.

Having said that, so the negotiations per se, I think, are possible. What is not necessarily possible is a certain compromise that would be acceptable for Ukraine, just as Mike pointed out. In addition, I want to flag one thing. Judging by the statements that were coming from the incoming administration's associates, members, they keep flagging that Putin is only after abolishing NATO membership prospects for Ukraine, right? And I think this is a misguided conception.

which we should reconsider given everything that we know about Putin and his relationship with Ukraine. Part of the story is definitely an effort to reestablish Russia's spheres of interest and have a certain leverage, certain control over Ukraine that goes beyond just NATO membership, but also politically. The EU accession, for example, will very much be on the table too, I would imagine, for Putin.

and demilitarization of Ukraine, which was part of the so-called Istanbul agreements at the start of the war, which probably are just not acceptable for Ukraine under any circumstances, and they probably will not be for the incoming administration's members too. So from this perspective, I think that Putin will be open to the talks.

And they probably will not lead far. Having said that, I'll just make one point that, you know, having watched multiple administrations come in, they usually come in with especially Biden 2020 campaign.

with this idea of parking Russia like like leaving Russia alone forgetting about Russia resetting or something along those lines in it and they always fail always fail every single time uh the relationship ends at the worst uh stage where it began and that was the case with Trump administration 2016 2020. I think that's in the way good news for Ukraine meaning that I don't think there is a really an opportunity to fully abandon Ukraine that's judging by historical experience

Mike, do you agree? And maybe we could also start to outline what are Russia's objectives? Do we think that Putin has sort of narrow objectives of just taking the Donbas fully or as he still maintained this kind of more maximalist objectives about bringing Ukraine under Russia's fold and sort of basically getting rid of Ukrainian democracy? But you wanted to come in first and then you could- Sure. I wanted to interject because the previous conversation, that was quite good and fascinating.

First, I completely agree with Maria. I think that previous administrations have all come in wanting to do China and wanting to focus on China and trying to figure out how they could park Russia...

or suddenly compartmentalize Russia away. Some even thought that there was some way they could use Russia against China, you know, this magical thinking that never goes away in DC. Was there something, how could we split Russia and China? What could we offer Russia? What could we do? Which, you know, doesn't make much sense to me. But nonetheless, I've heard it all, I think almost at this point.

And I was always disappointed, and if anything, it consistently encourages Russia and encourages Moscow because it gives a clear sense that, look, Europe is a secondary theater in your strategy. Everybody knows that. And then it looks like folks in Europe who are not part of NATO are maybe a secondary interest, right, in that secondary theater. At least that's the impression I think Russia got.

at the start of this previous administration and only encourages them to become more aggressive and more coercive in their demands. The other interjection I wanted to make, and this is going back to our negotiation conversation, I do think that there will be a negotiation on January 20th, but it's not the one people think. It's actually to some extent the much more important one. It's already taking place.

The first-order negotiation is between us and Ukraine. Ukraine wants to know what sort of security guarantees it can count on to make any sort of deal with Russia worth signing. Otherwise, there isn't much of a point to this agreement for them, even though – or even if they are losing the war. Why? Because that deal probably won't be worth the paper signed on. They'll agree to a rearming period for Russia, right? At least Russia is likely to benefit probably more than they will.

And then they will come back for a third continuation war. And so the big question right now is, and I think that's why Trump went to France, what can we agree on with Europeans? What sort of security guarantees can we put on the table? What sort of force, European force, might be cobbled together? What support they will need down the line? This is the first door to negotiation that needs to happen in order to then to be able to come to any negotiation with Russia, right?

And that's the first sort of agreements that need to be made. And I think that's where a lot of the issues have been over the past year. Let me follow up on that and we can park my previous question. I promised I was going to get to it. But it strikes me a little bit that the Europeans may be putting the cart before the horse here and talking about

Boots on the ground, French President Emmanuel Macron is in Poland today. And this is the part of the conversation. I think it's a totally worthwhile conversation

But it strikes me as we're sort of a long way away from talking about, from actually potentially having European forces on the ground. But it seems like you think it's the right time to kind of at least know whether there's a will, whether there's capacity, and to sort of set the, at least between European leaders and Ukraine, to sort of figure out if that's something that's on the table. I absolutely think it's the right time. I think many Europeans don't realize that

how soon they could be faced with the prospect of having to put together some kind of deployment into Ukraine next year if there is a ceasefire or an armistice, and that at the very least they need to understand and appreciate

that the incoming administration will likely want to shift as much of the burden for sustaining either this war or the post-war security environment as possible onto them. And I don't see a strong likelihood of any increased U.S. military presence in Europe. In fact, I think they'll be fortunate if there's not a decrease, or at the very least, if a decrease is not used as a potential threat or bargaining tactic, because it had been in the past under the Trump administration.

So with that in mind, I do think they're on the right path. I'm not surprised that France is leaning forward with ideas. The question is what will come of them. I also think that they're grossly underestimating the force package they'll have to commit. And I, to be frank, am not sure, given at least what I know of European force availability,

how much they'll be able to come up with. But nonetheless, as they say, politics is the art of the possible. It's a question of what can they come up with and they have to start working on it now. I want to get to the European component in a bit more depth in a moment. But that, I think, hits on what are Russia's objectives here and goals, because it would strike me

that for Vladimir Putin to see French and Polish forces inside of Ukraine would represent a strategic defeat for him, no? Given the kind of grand objectives that he had in launching this war. So do you see there's a potential for

that to occur for European forces to be on the ground for Russia to make that concession? Or does that happen just because Ukraine sort of invites them in and that's a way of kind of cementing the ceasefire? I guess it hits on what are Russia's objectives and whether you think there's still a belief that Putin can meet that. And this is for both of you.

Sure. Well, if you'd like me to address it first, well, I'll say yes. I think there are actually two questions here. The first one is what are Russia's objectives and do we feel confident enough that we fully understand them? And the second one is what is Russia's actual negotiating hand, right? In any war, you have minimal and maximalist goals, right? It's not sort of a one-zero equation. So there's a range of things you might be able to accept and it depends quite a bit.

on your actual bargaining position, how well you're doing. And of course, your objectives change over time in the war, right? They can be altered. So my own view is that while maybe the most minimal side of this is about territory, fundamentally, this is about Russia trying to impose its law on Ukraine, right? And their preference was obviously to subjugate Ukraine, not being able to do that. And I think

I think unlikely that they'll be able to return to Kiev. But nonetheless, their second order preference is to destroy Ukraine functionally as a state, right? And I think it's clear that at least as long as Putin's in charge, Russia will not cease with its attempts to do this. Even if we have some kind of ceasefire, we've been through this before, right? We know very well that a ceasefire can just buy us a continuation of war and not much else.

Too many folks, I think, often get enamored with the desire to get to a piece of paper that just says the word ceasefire on it, not understanding that this is not the objective in and of itself. This by itself does not actually end the war, achieve lasting peace, or do much of anything. Alleviate the need for aid. Right. You can't really need a lot of aid if there's a ceasefire. Right.

So with that in mind, I also very much appreciate what Maria said, which is many folks think for whatever reason that this is now much more focused on Jeff's territory. And it's not. I think Putin is quite serious about his maximalist demands and impositions on Ukrainian sovereignty, going from neutrality to a degree of demilitarization and whatnot. I don't know what the trade space is there. And you know I've never been one of those people who's claimed to kind of know what Putin wants.

But with that being in mind, what I would say is that I think that much will depend on what Russia's actual hand is. And the truth is that it's not strong enough for them to be making the demands they have been making. Because if Ukraine can avoid a major collapse of the front, if it can avoid this sort of emergency type of situation next year, especially if you look in the first half of next year,

then things become much more difficult for Russia. Russia's relative advantage to Ukraine, given their constraints, is still likely to decrease over time. I think ultimately they are dealing with a window of opportunity. And if Ukraine is able to stabilize the front, and I understand this is an if, and that's not what's happening now, unfortunately, and increase costs on Russia, because remember, there's likely going to be a sanctions package under this administration.

There will likely be the threat of additional sanctions packages under the next administration. Ukraine's strike campaign, based on its own indigenously produced means, is only going to increase. So the costs are only going to be increasing for Russia in the coming year. Then, ultimately, Russia's hand is not nearly that strong. Certainly not strong to be, like I said, making the demands that they're trying to make.

Now, regarding will it be a defeat for Russia if there are European forces in Ukraine? Yes, to some extent. I mean, from my point of view, given Russia's initial objective was sort of a coup de main and to install a pro-Russian regime in Kiev,

you know where we are in the war now almost no matter how this ends will to some extent be a strategic failure for russia but i don't like this administration talking point to be perfectly honest because not having russian troops running around kiev isn't exactly what success looks like and that's very far from you know good enough of where where we should be where we could have been right depending uh depending on decisions that could have made in this war so

I think it is quite possible that maybe for Russia, some kind of European force that's framed as a peacekeeping force would certainly be much more acceptable than let's say Ukraine entering NATO, which is what Ukraine wants.

I think for Ukraine will be a big challenge as well because the principal security guarantees they want are from the United States, right? Ultimately, to some extent, the grantor of European security with all due respect to European militaries. You know, my longstanding view that these militaries have evolved to be complementary to,

the United States Armed Forces and that currently at the state despite the improvements we've seen they're just not capable right now of coming together to affect any sort of a large-scale military contingency and respond to it on their own without extensive American support.

Maria. Yeah, I certainly echo most of the points that Mike made. I will also add one thing, that the cessation of fire per se technically, right, I don't think it means the end of the war, not only in the sense that the goals, Russia's goals will remain the same, and they will. Reading, for example, Russian military debates, right, we see very much that the objectives

strategic objectives there still remain the same, even if they change the tactical approach, right? They try to do what's achievable for them. They realize they're weaker than they thought they are. But nonetheless, they have not radically revised their strategic goals. That's one point. Second, even if there is a cessation of fire, unfortunately, Russia still has tremendous ability to inflict damage on Ukraine. And I'm talking, for example, of the, you know,

Continuous hybrid, for example, attacks right now, they already have destroyed about 70% of their energy infrastructure, according to Zelensky's comments. And unfortunately, this sort of hybrid indirect operations, I know, sorry, Michael, for using the word hybrid, they will unfortunately continue. So again, a lot will depend on how exactly that ceasefire, the ending of fire looks, because

the clear goal to continue destroying Ukraine will continue. And Ukraine has a huge territory, right? It's not small Israel. Even Israel is not fully dependent from the missile strikes. In case of Ukraine, it is much harder to achieve. And accordingly, it's quite understandable that Ukraine leadership looking at the situation kind of can help, but still tilt towards NATO membership because it's more or less the only, like,

security guarantee that they're in the first place, given Russia's tremendous potential for chaos and destruction. Having said that, yes, in the broader sense, I do believe that having European troops on the ground will be some sort of a defeat for Putin, and therefore it's very unlikely that he will accept that, going back to our previous point about the feasibility of these negotiations in the first place. And you still see him – you know,

attached to his maximalist kind of demands. And I say, I bring this up again because, you know, it strikes me that in war, and we have quite a bit of experience of this in the United States, of the sunk cost fallacy, that because you have lost so much, you can't really just cut your losses and get out. If you see a light at the end of the tunnel, then you try to pursue that. And despite the fact having lost 500,000 troops, that's both an argument to sort of let's end this, but it's also an argument of how could you just end this?

that you must sort of try to actually hit your broader objectives and simply taking the Donbass may not be that. And so I guess, are we too hopeful? Do you think right now as a country and in Europe and that...

that there's going to be any willingness on Russia to engage in talks? Or do you expect them to, you know, engage in talks credibly? Or will they sort of engage in shadow talks or simply not show up to any talks? I mean, how do you kind of envision, you know,

Russia reacting to an effort to sort of sit down and negotiate? I would say, like, I would choose the option engage in talks with the, you know, in shadow talks. Faux talks. Yes. First of all, in general, judging, looking at Putin's general calls

like he's been a powerful quarter century at this point, right? We have certain data set of observations. We see that the ability to revise a regional preconceptions is not something that he is not his strongest suit. In 2014, when they first attempted to blow up Ukraine and they tried to organize the secessionist movements, not just in Donetsk and Luhansk, but actually effectively

all over eastern and southern Ukraine and failed, one would have thought, and actually people fired from the presidential administration back then already, one would have thought that they'd reconsider their ability to co-opt, capture Ukraine. Instead, they doubled down, right? That unfortunate reality that's typical for autocracies altogether, that there isn't a lot of the feedback coming. And accordingly, they have this tendency to double down. So from that perspective...

I'm not confident that he's going to drop this, and I think the most perhaps credible comparison at what we're looking at is the war between, you know, the Korean War, where eventually the line stabilized after a lot of atrocities around the 38th parallel. But Stalin had to die for that to happen, and I believe, I suspect that this is where, the direction in which we had it as well. Having said that, there's still signs coming from the Kremlin that they're at least open to the talks.

First of all, as Mike pointed out, they're pushing really, really actively regardless of the cost further into Ukraine, arguably in order to have a better hand when these talks begin. And second, since Valdai, Putin is very actively engaged, it seems, in these active measures, flattering Trump, being open, like saying that Trump really has done something great, clearly setting some sort of, it seems, ground for at least a possibility of negotiations.

So, Mike, when we think about negotiations, do you think, you know, and there's an effort to sort of have negotiations set up at a certain date. I mean, do you think the Russians will show up to that while they're still fighting? Or do you think there could be a stop in fighting, a sort of brief pause as they engage in these talks? Or I guess, how do you think Russia is going to approach sort of an overture to kind of end things on the battlefield? Yeah.

So I could be wrong, but I'm deeply skeptical that Russia will agree to an early ceasefire. I do think that they'll be happy to engage in negotiations. And to some extent that somewhat worries me because I think Russia will try to potentially tie up the United States and envoy diplomacy and will spend months doing that. I'm sure they'll be happy to schedule a summit in Geneva or perhaps some other place in Europe.

all the while intending to make gains on the battlefield. And they've done this before and they've done it before in other contexts and conflicts like Syria, where they'd be happy to agree to some kind of de-escalation, which simply allows them to consolidate and then prepare for the next set of offensive operations. But I think at this point, continuing to press the Ukrainian lines favors Russia. And keep in mind, we don't yet know how this winter will end. As Maria mentioned,

Russian missile and drone strikes have very significantly crippled Ukraine's non-nuclear power generation. I increasingly thought that the situation was going to be a bit better than it looked in the summer and fall, but still, it's not clear how many missiles Russia has left to sustain these attacks, and we don't know how cold the winter will be. So there's a whole host of things that are happening besides just the situation on the front line.

With that in mind, I think that they'll obviously try to create a position of maximum leverage. And I think right now their expectation is that some part of the front, obviously, south of the Bukrovsk will collapse. And so it's a question of to what extent Ukraine can hold Russia to incremental gains.

And then what does the United States to pressure Russia into a ceasefire negotiations? I think Russia will be happy to put on the optics of being willing to negotiate with Trump, right? Not wanting to refuse them. And that's not particularly hard for them to do. As you saw in the first Trump administration, they were actually quite good at sort of engaging in kind of summit diplomacy, if you recall Helsinki and how it played out.

What I don't know is to what extent they'll be interested substantively in discussing things. I do feel that one issue we touched on earlier briefly is an important one. Yes, Russia's economic situation increasingly looks problematic. I don't think sufficiently so to really shape decision-making on the war in the next coming months.

But if Russia does not see itself, if Putin doesn't see himself as winning decisively, I'd say by the second half of 2025, then actually they are to some extent in trouble. And then I think that their hand begins to weaken quite a bit. I want to sort of play out the kind of 2025 in a minute, and especially how the importance of USAID and Europe's role. But maybe you mentioned Syria earlier.

Obviously, the collapse of Assad, the kind of current uncertainty over Russian military installations in Syria. Do you think this has any impact on Russian decision-making regard to Ukraine or Russia's military capacity when it comes to Ukraine? Is this going to shape at all? Will Putin be nervous of a second humiliation? Do you think that plays in at all to the future of the war in Ukraine?

It's a good question. I think right now it's a bit speculative because we don't know how Syria ends for Russia. Early on, there was expectation that Russians would be immediately abandoning their bases, and this does not seem to be the case. If anything, they seem to be drawing down and have negotiated a deal at a bare minimum for a withdrawal from Syria. There's a lot of rumors that they do plan to potentially leave the bases or that they're negotiating a deal for some presence down the line.

But either way, despite the visible defeat that Russia and Iran have suffered in Assad's sudden collapse, it's not fully clear yet how Syria ends for Russia. That being said, my own suspicion, this is just one analyst's view, is that it will make Moscow reticent

to back down and to compromise, especially after suffering geopolitical defeat in Syria. So in any negotiations over Ukraine, they might be more likely to press Maximus' demands and be more stubborn over it, especially given how Syria has just played out for them.

do you agree with that yeah i agree status matters uh for putting tremendously so i think in a lot of ways that uh less of a good news for ukraine um these losses but at the same time i think there's also the um soft kind of power soft effect that's less noticed on putin's worldwide perception right essentially it's similar it's visible that he's quite defeatable

when the push comes to show, and I'm hoping that maybe indirectly this will somewhat empower some of the Ukrainian allies to be a little bit more active in supporting Ukraine. Having said that, to echo Mike's point about the situation with naval bases in the Mediterranean, it's very funny to watch how the rhetoric of the Russian propaganda changed vis-à-vis the Syrian opposition, from all going all the way this, you know, unacceptable terrorists and Syrian rebels to our respectful Syrian partners at this moment.

And, yeah, the rumors have it that they're unfortunately unsuccessful in negotiating this maintenance of the bases. Thank you.

Yeah, it looks a little bit like the Taliban model, right? Where Russia is going to transition very quickly to what I think we've known for a long time to be true, which is both the cynicism and expediency in Russian foreign policy. That I'm sure they'll prove more agile than most in quickly recognizing HTS and finding a way to try to cut a deal with them or Turkey. I'm still a bit skeptical that they will get to keep the bases. I don't know. But the most important thing for Russia at this point

is Tartos Naval Base, just because there isn't another facility where they can refit and rearm, even though they might be able to refuel elsewhere in the Mediterranean. Their only alternative is to try to press Haftar to go to Tobruk and to maintain access to Syrian airspace to fly through it, right? Khmer Air Base is a really important logistical lily pad air base, but they have other ways of getting to Libya. Their biggest issue is that

it'll be very hard to ferry tactical aviation to Libya without being able to use this air base in Syria. And the second one is, of course, they have transit agreements, but they're a bit murky what the conditions are for overflights of Turkish airspace to go to Syria or Libya right now. Lastly,

The air base by itself right now, as of the last couple days, I've seen it. It looks like they're consulting there and drawing down, right? But there's still Russian air defense. There's still Russian helicopters there. But the truth is that with Assad gone, I don't understand what would be the reason to keep tactical aviation and an air base there. Who is the Russian Air Force now supporting, right? So they primarily need it as a logistical hub and a transit facility of anything.

But they may choose to withdraw just because they are quite vulnerable. As you can see, they are essentially surrounded by different types of rebel forces, such as they are called. And at any given point in time, we don't know what's going to happen in Syria. One of these groups could decide to not follow through with whatever deal Russians have made and to enact revenge for all the years of Russian bombing of the population and support of the Assad regime.

maybe let's turn back to ukraine and sort of project out as best we can into 2025. so mike in the beginning you sort of mentioned the usa now the biden administration uh really appears to intend to spend down the uh the the ukraine supplemental funding that finally passed in in april of last year uh and so

the Trump administration is going to enter office without really any money to provide to Ukraine.

How do you think this will play out? I know that the aid doesn't just end on January 20th. A lot of the deliveries will continue into 2025. What impact do you think this will have on Ukraine's military if there is no follow-on supplemental? And what do you think the prospects are over the course of the year should the United States simply stop providing aid?

Okay, so first my own opinion is a guess because now as you said we're projecting out and that's a polite way of saying speculating on the future where the code of uncertainty widens. We're in a think tank. So it's just a great euphemism for we are making educated guesses.

So first, I do think there'll probably be some kind of supplemental, but I suspect it's going to be primarily focused on the US defense industrial base and on China, right? Other adversaries rather than Ukraine. I don't think funding will be cut off entirely, but that's possible. Second, yes, there will be quite a few shipments thing that are still in the work, right? I think the biomechanical

is going to send as much ammunition that it can of different type to Ukraine. So Ukraine's not going to run out of ammo. It will still be able to sustain the fight and its military effort for quite a few months after January 20th. And we'll also make the investments necessary into defense industrial production here, technology, and whatever it is we're hoping to put into Ukraine's own defense industry. Just talk about drones, air defense, and other types of investments. This is USAI funding.

Okay, with that being said, when Trump administration comes in, they'll first want to decide, do they want to continue the shipments of equipment and all the other things that have already been paid for but have not yet been delivered?

i suspect they will they certainly will not want to be seen as the people cutting off assistance to ukraine and also why would you sort of kill your own hands to any negotiations right if your if your goal is to negotiate from position of strength then the last thing you'd want to do is sabotage ukraine's war effort that said um i think that they're going to be looking at the current situation uh in department of defense in terms of readiness and inventory

what's available in replenishment funding, and my current answer is I don't think there's much, and then trying to figure out how much more they're willing to draw down. And I know that you're going to follow up

The question of how much, to what extent Europeans can take over of this if there is a substantial reduction of U.S. military assistance to Ukraine. Is this a fair guess? This is a fair... You've predicted my question. Yeah. And I should just clarify, USAI funding, that is...

the money at the Pentagon. And what's important about that is that money is then put on contract, right? So you go to a U.S. company and they're going to do this before January 20th, sign the contract with U.S. company to provide, you know, X amount of stuff to Ukraine, deliveries sort of to be determined. That all has to be executed. That will happen over the course of the coming year, sometimes years.

So that will be obligated, but there's a lot of other stuff that you need more money to keep that sort of pipeline going. So on Europe, what's your take on whether the Europeans, because the Trump administration, Trump seems like he's going to come, Europe, you do this. And

I think that would be great in theory, but I don't think it's plausible in practice, at least for 2025. Sure. So I think when it comes to artillery ammunition, between the ammo we're going to send now and Europe's increased ammunition production, I think they keep Ukraine going through 2025. When it comes to various types of precision guided munitions like GMLRS, what have you,

I think, again, it depends how much the Biden administration sends now because Europe can't substitute for that. I think when it comes to all sorts of forms of material assistance, maintenance, logistics, it again depends how much we pay for right now. And I think a bunch of the funding, the contracts that will be signed now will be to try to cover as much as much of a period in 2025 as they can.

Can Europe take over the extent of your support efforts for Ukraine? No, it can't. And certainly not on short notice, right? They can certainly do a lot better now in 2025 than they could have done last year. But nonetheless, no, I don't think they're in a position to do that. I also don't know to what extent they can take over all the other various support activities besides material assistance that the US has been providing to Ukraine.

And I think ultimately Europe is going to struggle with any sort of quick handoff, right? I think this is a bit unrealistic. There are some areas where they might be able to sustain it. I think if the US cuts off sort of support reimbursements for

I'm trying to think the correct way to put it. Things like government salaries and what have you, I think Europeans definitely can take over this aspect of it. But when it comes to the whole sort of set of things that the U.S. has been providing, probably not. I think it'll be a challenge.

Max, maybe I can pass this one back to you since you're really the Europe expert. What are your thoughts on what Mike said and really how much also of the shock, of the positive shock perhaps the incoming presentation can present to Europe in order to finally make things change? Well, I think it could be a really positive shock if the US kept funding Ukraine, right? Then you would have this sort of potential double whammy. I think there's going to be a double shock to Europe.

that, as I think Mike mentioned very eloquently at the beginning, that European militaries are structured to fight with the United States. So if the United States pulls back, and it seems very clear that the Trump administration wants to sort of pull back a lot of its military commitment, U.S. military commitment to NATO, and, you know, I think perhaps with good reason, Europe should be able to take care of its own security. However, the problem is that

Europe can't do that overnight. It doesn't lax the key enablers. It's not structured to fight as Europeans. That's not how they're structured. They're a bunch of individual countries that then fight with the United States. There isn't really a Europe when it comes to defense. And so the big crisis will be if the United States begins to pull back, well, oh my God, we have to focus on making it so that we can defend Europe. And that's...

That's a good way to be thinking about it. The other problem, though, is then what's your willingness to provide some of the limited inventory that you have to support Ukraine? The Danish, for instance, have provided almost all their artillery to support Ukraine. And so you need to both ramp up your spending, not just to buy key enablers, air tankers, other things like that,

but also to ramp up production of things that are going to Ukraine. And it may just be, I don't think they have, A, the defense industrial capacity to really do this in a timely manner. I think they can build toward it. And they have made big strides, but...

in kind of an overnight, you know, getting stuff to Ukraine, ensuring European security by the second half of 2025 strikes me as it's just it's a very tall order. And I think what we see right now in Europe is this

no one really wants to confront that problem of European defense integration, which we've never dealt with before and Europeans haven't dealt with before. So there's a lot of like, how can we leverage certain financing? How can NATO do something or the EU do something, but not kind of an integrated plan on how to approach this. And I'll echo that by saying that's exactly what the Kremlin always thought was the weakness of the West, right? This short-term horizon. It seems like in order to commit

to increase defense spending. They need the guarantees that the war will be long-term, but that's why you want the defense spending is actually to end the war. So that sort of creates really conflicting incentives. That said, I do think that we consistently, and I may be the only European optimist in Washington and in Europe, maybe, I think we consistently underestimate Europe's ability to respond to crisis.

And Europe has, I think, demonstrated in response to the euro crisis, in response to Brexit, a degree of strength. And when you look at the new European Commission, you see a number of Eastern Europeans in very prominent roles. Kaya Callas is the new high representatives and essentially the foreign minister. There's a new defense commissioner. And there's

talk right now about mobilizing lots of money. And I think that's going to be the key question. And if they can do that, then I think they can begin to piece together a response. But Mike, let me bring you in. I was going to cheekily say that I don't disagree. It's just that Europe has a tendency to come up with solutions to a crisis once the crisis is over. Yes. Yes. And hopefully that crisis does not involve Russian forces having broken through the lines and then bearing down on NATO territory.

Mike, we have a few minutes left, but I wanted to sort of on one thing you noted about the stability of the front lines and kind of the state of warfare right now. It does seem that Ukraine is losing territory, but it's bit by bit. And there has been fears of perhaps a Russian breakout where they could punch through and we could see a collapse similar to what we saw in Syria, what we have seen in Afghanistan.

But it also strikes me that the nature of this war with lots of small drones, that if there was going to be a tank column that breaks through, that Ukrainians would be able to hit that column further down the line. I'm curious if you think this is a war where anyone can really break out.

Or is this is the way Russia would win this war is just through an inch by inch continuation of the fighting. So are you nervous about breakout? Are you nervous about kind of the continuous attrition over time? 2026, that's when we start to see, you know, Russia really think victory.

I'm nervous about the continued attrition because territory changing hands is a lagging indicator about what's happening in the force. One of the reasons I go to Ukraine to do field work there is to figure out what's happening between the two forces, not just how technology and tactics are changing, but what's going on with manpower, with force structure, and what have you.

The concern that I have isn't that there's going to be a dramatic sort of operational breakout by Russian forces. They are not fighting in a way to affect that, and they would struggle to take advantage of it because they are primarily pressing through with smaller groups.

And the nature of the fight right now isn't that conducive to it, right? The issue that I see is that Russian forces are increasing their rate of gain fairly consistently, right? Last month, it was probably around 750 square kilometers or something like that, depending on how you count. And they're not slowing down. They're speeding up, right?

So many folks can look at the sort of pace of territory changing hands over the last year and say, this is pretty unimpressive, you know, overall Russian gains sort of relative to their losses. But that's kind of missing the force for the trees. First, sorry, I said that backwards. I'm a bit jet lagged. That's missing. Yeah, yeah. It was close enough. No, I think it was close enough. I just flew in last night. But yeah.

My sense of it is that folks don't appreciate the casualties in the Ukraine side are quite high too. Russia's replacing its losses still steadily and Ukraine's not able to do so. And so what's happening is the manpower available, particularly infantry that Ukraine has to hold the front, has been steadily shrinking. The manpower levels have been going down and they're compensating for this lack of manpower with drones, right? That's the main force multiplier at the front.

It's been effective in slowing down the Russian rate of advance, but it's not a sustainable strategy. And Ukraine has also chosen to create new brigades that I think from just a fourth generation perspective has been a misstep and to mobilize a lot of men into the new brigades instead of following them all to replace their losses at the front. And this has led to experienced brigades slowly being worn down and traded over time, like 72nd Brigade of Vuklodar, for example,

And what I'm looking at is a steady fragmentation, loss of cohesion or defensive effort because with a lack of manpower, you have lots of units working with other units assigned to them, sort of a patchwork defense, right?

So to me, it's remarkable to some extent how parts of the Ukrainian military have gotten a lot better in terms of integration of drones, EW, and the better part of the force, the higher quality aspect of the force has improved. But overall, because of the failure to replace losses, because mobilization hasn't delivered, right, the rate of mobilization,

of people mobilized declined significantly after the summer and because of certain choices on on how to manage the force in Ukraine I think uh you see a degradation of uh of a large part of the force over time right and so Russia is just leveraging this manpower advantage to steadily press through

And yes, you're right. There's not likely to be a big breakthrough of the way people might expect from other wars where maneuver warfare was a big feature on the battlefield. But on the other hand, if it continues at the space and if the front doesn't stabilize, Russia doesn't need a big breakthrough of that type. Let me just follow up very quickly, and we just have a couple of minutes left. The mobilization, it strikes me that

Ukraine could do more on this front that you see a lot of young men in Kyiv and other places do you think that's gonna be one of the kind of demands of the Trump administration and can the Ukrainians do more especially if pressed by the West to really ramp up mobilization yeah so to be clear Ukraine is not out of men by any margin and although young men represent the smallest uh

uh demographic segment in Ukraine Ukraine does have a very problematic demographic picture Ukraine could be doing much better at mobilizing men not even those 18 to 25 just those 25 to 30. uh but there are a couple big issues that you have to address right and I'll briefly lay them out the first is that Ukraine still has to address the problem of basic training which I think has been deeply demoralizing to a lot of people that get mobilized their first experience

Second, I have to address the question of demobilization, which they refused to do early on in this year, because without addressing it, getting mobilized into infantry is seen by most as a one-way ticket, because it is. There's no way off the front line unless you get wounded or killed, right? And this is why nobody wants to serve in infantry. Everybody wants to serve in some other positions. But to hold the front line, the backbone of a force at the end of the day is its infantry.

Yes, may Ukraine point to equipment, of course, would be great if there was much more equipment available in inventories. But the issue of a dwindling number of basic infantry isn't a lack of mechanized equipment, right? Quite on the contrary. And in fact, there are increasingly cases where there are units of Western equipment, but perhaps insufficient crews for it because they've been cannibalized to be used as infantry, right? Now, Ukrainian military is cannibalizing part of the force.

pulling people from support positions, pulling people from the air force and sending them to fight as infantry because mobilization has not delivered. And lastly, again, we go back to force management and what you choose to do with the force, right? The decision to create new brigades, even though Ukraine doesn't really seem to have the people for them. And to be frank, we don't seem to have the equipment and we certainly did not promise 14 brigades of equipment either.

You know, that's a choice. And I think it's a choice that based on experience of 2023 probably is a misstep. Force allocation is a big part of it. You can get into all sorts of force employment command and control issues.

But ultimately, it comes down to this is a solvable problem. And if Ukraine does not stabilize its manpower situation, it will not stabilize the front line. The reason I think we know this is because Russia no longer enjoys a decisive fires advantage, and it no longer enjoys any kind of advantage in terms of employment of drones either, right?

So we can see that the fundamental issue, although these are all problems, equipment, you can never have too much ammunition, right? You can never have enough spare parts. And Ukraine is very right to press the West on this on a regular basis. Okay. Ukraine is not going to defeat Russia through manpower. It's clear Russia has more people, right? That's not by itself the path to victory, right?

But Ukraine can definitely lose this war if it doesn't address the fundamentals, if it doesn't address the manpower situation. That's sort of an optimistic or a good note to end on, because I think there's a sense of hopelessness at times that you hear in this conversation, but I don't think it is at all. But there's things that have to be done both on our side and the Ukrainian side. Maria, we are absolutely out of time, but I have one sort of final question. Do you expect anything coming from the Biden administration in the final weeks,

It strikes me that the energy side has sort of not been hit. And do you think we're going to see something? MS. I do. Just recently, there was a leak from Bloomberg. Maybe it's not so good that it emerged, but we know now that the Biden administration is finally seriously considering the energy sanctions. It's not clear which ones. It mentioned maybe of an Iranian type.

but this is a long overdue problem because Russia is fighting an economic war. Everything that we've discussed, including the manpower mobilization capacity, is based off Russia's having continuously the resources and the current sanctions they were somewhat effective. I'm not going to say they failed. They were somewhat effective in cutting off, biting off

some of the Russian revenues, up to 30% of what it would have gotten if there were no sanctions. Causing inflation. Causing inflation and altogether because of the discount that URLs now have towards Brent. But altogether not very successful in fundamentally undermining Russia's

Earnings revenues, which therefore allow the criminal the ability to sustain this war hands down. This is number one topic. And in that sense, the fact that we have this rotation in the administration may be a positive sign because Biden administration now has really a capacity to do whatever they want.

Hopefully, they learn the lessons from the past and that's what they do. We'll see. Yeah, there was, I think, seems like a political constraint on potential increasing prices at the pump. No longer really felt given the political dynamics and the fact that we just had an election. But I think it's also a good note to end on that there's also things that we can do on the economic side and Russia's experiencing economic strain. And if Ukraine and the West continue to support Ukraine, Ukraine takes the

take steps on mobilization could really even the dynamics and perhaps if there are negotiations or perhaps brings Russia to the negotiating table in a more cooperative mood than I think we kind of expected, than we expect based off this conversation. But unfortunately, we're at the hour mark or past the hour mark and we're going to have to leave it there.

Mike, Maria, I want to thank you so much for joining us. I want to thank the listeners for the viewers for turning in, tuning in. And if you enjoy this content, I highly recommend that you subscribe to our podcast, Russian Roulette. You can get it wherever you get your podcasts. Also, our sister podcast, The Europhile, where we talk a lot about all the events that are taking place in Europe. It's been a great pleasure to work with you all this year and we'll hopefully do it again next year in 2025. Thanks so much.

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