Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Michael Kofman
Michael Kofman is a Senior Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and recently returned from the Ukrainian front lines with a realistic assessment of the latest developments in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Episode Summary
Is the Russian military actually losing ground, or adapting faster than Western allies realize? Fresh off a tour of the Ukrainian front lines, Senior Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Michael Kofman delivers a realistic assessment of the latest developments in the Russia-Ukraine war. Kofman explains why Ukraine is in its strongest position since mid-2023, how Russian military commanders reporting false progress to Putin may lead to a mismatch between goals and means in the war, the strategic implications behind Ukraine’s recent command changes and political shifts in defense procurement, and why it’s critical that NATO learns what it can from Ukrainian force exercises to be prepared to face Russia’s next post-war threat.
Sir Richard Dearlove and co-host Kate McCann unpack the latest and most significant news stories in geopolitics: the launch of Sweden’s own civilian intelligence service, whether President Trump’s rhetoric on Iran reflects uncertainty or strategic deception, and the data supporting the skeptical American attitude about AI.
In this episode:
(02:13) Sweden to Launch Its Own MI6
(06:01) Trump Hyperbole and Iran
(09:18) America’s AI Skepticism
(12:26) Interview with Michael Kofman
(13:10) State of the Ukrainian-Russian Frontlines
(15:30) Russian Military Goals vs. Means
(19:43) Russia’s False Picture of Success
(23:17) Evolution of Warfare on the Frontlines
(28:58) Assessment of International Response
(33:18) Patriot Missile Licensed Production Timeline
(37:02) Changes in Ukrainian Defense Leadership
(43:28) Corruption, Procurement, and Funding in Ukraine(
48:58) Russia’s Threat Post-War(54:50) Ukrainian Morale on the Frontlines(57:18) Defining the Front Line of Fighting
(01:00:21) One Decision to Watch
(01:02:47) Takeaways, Audience Comments, and Wrap Up
Show Notes:
The Next Russia Threat: Moscow’s Military Power After Ukraine | Foreign Affairs: www.foreignaffairs.com/russia/next-russia-threat-michael-kofman
Hosted by Sir Richard Dearlove (former MI6 Chief) and co-host Kate McCann (Political Editor at Times Radio).
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Transcript
COLD OPEN
Kofman: The Russian military has changed in how it fights and the capabilities it uses to fight. So we have to reassess what that looks like. Is our traditional advantage in air power going to automatically answer the threat of millions of drones fielded by thousands of personnel across Russian drone battalions and drone regiments? I will tell you that the last two years of exercises where Ukrainian forces played the role of the opposing force, we have not done well in them. Yes, in some ways the Russian military got worse, in others got better, and it's clear that we have work to do to deal with the future Russian military threat.
INTRODUCTION
Mccann: Hello and welcome to One Decision. I am your host, Kate McCann, and I'm joined by my co-host and former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove. Hi, Sir Richard.
Dearlove: Hello Kate. How are you? I'm technically on holiday, but I'm not really on holiday. I'm still doing my podcasts.
Mccann: I'm well, thank you.
Mccann: Well, where are you? Because you're always somewhere interesting in the world. Where are you today?
Dearlove: I'm in a very beautiful part of Cornwall, not by the seaside, in the Tamar Valley. It's a magical area which is actually not much visited by tourists and I love being here because one feels remote and calm despite the storms blowing across the geopolitical world.
Mccann: Well, that's a place I would quite like to be. I'm in sweltering London and it's about 35 degrees today, and we would quite like some rain. I didn't think I'd be saying that in summer. But hello to wherever you're joining us from around the world. I hope you're enjoying your summer too. We've got a really great guest for you this week. We always say that, don't we? But I have to tell you, Michael Kofman is an expert on the Russian military and the Russia-Ukraine war. And he's just come back from the front line in Ukraine. So he knows exactly what's going on on the ground there. And he hasn't just been once. He goes every three or four months, so he can see the incremental changes in a way that very, very few people can. He's going to talk to us today about what he's learnt and about what's going to happen next when it comes to that war with Ukraine. And some of the things he says might surprise you. You can subscribe to One Decision on YouTube, of course, or wherever you listen, so you don't miss any of our interviews. But first, it's time for In Brief, where we take a quick look at some of the biggest geopolitical news this week. And Sir Richard, one of the things that really interested me is the story that Sweden is launching its own MI6. People might be surprised it didn't have one already.
IN BRIEF: SWEDEN'S NEW INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Dearlove: Well, I'm a little bit surprised by that comment and to be honest I haven't managed to track down the origins of the story. But let me just say, hitherto, I mean, Sweden has a very effective military intelligence organization and it's long established and, you know, despite Sweden's technical neutrality before it joined NATO, it had extensive links with most of the Western intelligence services and it was an impressive outfit and had quite a lot of interesting material to offer its partners. I think what they must be implying when it says that created MI6 is presumably a civilian intelligence organization which will supplement the military and put more people operationally on the ground, not under military cover. But maybe amongst Swedish diplomats or other Swedish organizations which can provide positions for intelligence officers who will be more aggressive, I think, given their NATO membership now, in collecting intelligence specifically, I think, on Russia and Russia's allies. So I mean that's the interpretation I put on it. And in a way, I think what they're doing is doing what the Finns have already done, because the Finns have a military intelligence organization. They've also joined NATO, but they have a more civilian structure as well, in addition to that outfit.
Mccann: That's exactly what it is. But what I didn't realize about the reason behind this is that, as you say, they already have this military capability. So Sweden reckoned to be quite good at knowing what was going on in terms of on a battlefield or in terms of military intelligence. But they basically were completely blindsided by what happened in Russia because in 2022 — and they were not the only ones, there were others in Europe too — they judged the intelligence service, which is run by the military, which is known as MUST, I guess. It basically said that it was too risky. They thought it was too risky and irrational for Vladimir Putin to launch a full-scale war and that he would never do it. And of course they were proven wrong. And so this is born out of the fact that they recognized they had a blind spot, which they needed to fix, which I think is so interesting how, you know, we often think about Europe being in a position to, well, I suppose, help Ukraine out. But I wonder whether — and our guest will get into this I think later on today — I wonder whether if the tables were turned, you know, how capable would we really be as European nations compared to where Ukraine is now when it comes to actually fighting a war?
Dearlove: Yeah, I think the question you raise is worrying. And I think part of the problem on the intelligence side is you get a better fit with organizations like CIA and my former service if you have an intelligence organization that isn't dominated by tactical military thinking. And, you know, which the Swedes have always been good at. But you want a more strategic capability that can look at bigger issues and I think much of it is gonna boil down for a country like Sweden to liaison. So liaison with partners that are established who have that capability and they can then talk to them on more equal terms. I mean what Sweden does have is a pretty serious interception service, like NSA, for example. But they don't talk much about that. But they and the Finns are reasonably sophisticated in those areas and work, I think, pretty closely with the Americans.
IN BRIEF: TRUMP CALLS OFF IRAN STRIKE
Mccann: Should we move on? Because I've been dying to ask you about this. President Trump, Donald Trump. Now there used to be, not even that long ago, there used to be a time when Donald Trump made an announcement about a war or a strike or an attack and everybody would around the world would sit up straight, they would listen, the rolling news would be on 24 hours a day, analyzing exactly what he might mean. Over the last couple of days, President Trump has said that he called off one of the biggest strikes, I think, since World War II on Iran, because he thinks that there is a possibility of peace talks. And this news has been reported, but has gone broadly unnoticed, I would say. It has not been analyzed in depth, it has not been picked over, it has not been — you know, there are not thousands of people trying to work out exactly what this strike might be. And I wonder, Sir Richard, whether we've reached the point now where people are just not taking President Trump seriously anymore.
Dearlove: I think Trump hyperbole is a real problem and he makes these statements. Each time he makes one, as you say, there's been previous interpretation, people are getting a little tired and disillusioned. Does he mean what he says? And the other side of that coin is that, you know, deception is part of statesmanship. So not really being sure what he's thinking or what he's gonna do next could be interpreted in some circumstances as strategic advantage for the United States. But I think in specifically, you know, the problem has been generated by the war on Iran, by the war in Iran. And I think it's following a sort of rhythm. And that rhythm is, you know, whether the negotiation's serious or not. And my theory, which I've explained before and I stick with, is I think there's different views within the Iranian administration. I think there are some people that want to negotiate. There are some people that are talking to the Omanis as intermediaries. But on the other hand there are those, particularly in the IRGC leadership, who are probably opposed to any progress in negotiation, who are in control of the military strategy of Iran and therefore can act in a way which sabotages the talks when it looks as though they're making progress. So I think this sort of on-off situation is pretty characteristic of the conflict. And I think I've said before, you know, it's continuation of the conflict by other means. That's my feeling. And I don't think there's any particular reason at the moment to think what's happened in the last 48 hours is especially different. I think I would predict some sort of Iranian military response and a return by the Americans to attacking targets in Iran. At some point, maybe that rhythm will change, but at the moment it doesn't look as though it's going to. I don't know whether you agree, Kate.
Mccann: I do agree with you and I think that's completely right and I find it quite depressing, but I think it's another one of those where what we hear from President Trump does not match up with the reality. And I do think that the IRGC, certainly elements of it, are now dug in and potentially more determined than they were before, because they've seized on this opportunity with the Strait of Hormuz and I think, you know, the repercussions from that will be felt for some time to come.
IN BRIEF: AI SENTIMENT — PEW RESEARCH POLL
Mccann: I just want to end finally because last week there was an episode of our podcast with Gina Raimondo. And she highlighted American skepticism of AI and it won't just be America. There will be lots of people around the world listening to this thinking, well, yeah, I'm not really that into it either. And some research has affirmed what she said. We thought we'd just bring you a little insight. Pew Research has done a poll which said 40% of US adults say AI will have a negative impact on society over the next 20 years. Only 16% said it would be positive. 31% said AI will negatively impact their own lives over the same period of time, 23% said positive. So more people think AI will be good for them than for society. And 63% of Americans also said AI is moving too fast, with 71% saying it will make their personal information less secure. So Richard, is there anything good about it? Give me something, give me some light. What's the good thing about AI for you?
Dearlove: Good thing about AI, it does certain tasks very well. I mean, I use it already myself quite extensively. And, you know, it's a wonderful quick method of assembling information, which you can then work on in a way which would have been impossible in the past because it would have taken you such a long time to gather it. So it is a shortcut. But I think what I've encountered, particularly in the States when I've been there, is the real concern amongst lots of people about employment. And for example, I've been heavily involved in the insurance industry professionally. A lot of what's done, let's say, for claims or writing policies, I mean that all the clerical work which can be done by AI is going to displace large numbers of employees. I mean you could say, well, it will increase commercial opportunity. But I think we're in that really unknown territory where it will do certain things very well. I mean, one of the things I think one I like to quote is how clever AI is at medical diagnosis. It can improve the performance of doctors without, as it were, putting them out of work, if you see what I mean. So that their judgments are more complete and better. And you know, I think the hope for all of us —
Mccann: Yes, it's amazing at that.
Dearlove: That as we learn to live with AI, it will improve productivity. It won't, as it were, displace people. And of course, I think one of the comments that we received from listeners was someone talking about a wage paid to everybody — universal income, whether they worked or not. And I think many economists, when you mention that, are up in arms and saying that's totally impractical.
Mccann: Universal income.
Dearlove: But I think, you know, we're on the cusp of a big societal change. The question is whether it's going to be handled in such a way to make it overall positive in outcome. Is it an industrial revolution that will bring economic benefit or is it going to be catastrophic? I don't think we can answer that question yet.
GUEST INTRODUCTION: MICHAEL KOFMAN ON THE FRONT LINE
Mccann: A note of positivity. I'll take it. It is now time for our interview, though, so let's get into it, shall we? Ukraine's war with Russia is well into its fifth year with no end in sight. And this week we take you to the very front lines of the conflict with military analyst Michael Kofman. Kofman is a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a contributing editor at the news site War on the Rocks. He's also a firm believer in the importance of establishing ground truth. And, crucially, and I'm delighted to say, Michael, that you're joining us now and you are just back from a tour of the Ukrainian front line. The perfect person to have on the podcast at this point. Michael, welcome to One Decision.
Kofman: Well, thanks for having me on your podcast.
Mccann: I think for both of us, we are really interested to hear your reflections. I know that you go often to Ukraine. I know that you have, you know, one of the best understandings of this conflict of anybody we're likely to have on this podcast. So could you tell us how you found it this time round? What was the front line like?
WHAT'S THE SITUATION LIKE THIS SUMMER?
Kofman: Sure. So I tend to go about every three, three and a half months to Ukraine and along much of the front line, perhaps not all of it, but most of the active parts of it. And I think that in the summer, which is usually the hardest period of fighting, typically for Ukraine — that's when terrain cover returns. That's when the Russian offensive period is the most intense, for folks to understand that there's a seasonality to the war. Things often get a lot harder over the course of the summer compared to the winter. And the terrain allows the Russian military to employ infiltration tactics to advance faster. But overall this year, it is fair to say that Ukraine is in the best position it's been in since summer of 2023. The Russian offensive effort is yielding very little in the way of territorial gains. And although there's a couple of troubled areas along the front line, on much of the front line, the situation is stable. And this year, in contrast to previous years, there are two areas of the front where Ukraine actually has the initiative and Ukrainian forces are themselves prosecuting a localized offensive operation. And so the front is actually a lot more dynamic this year than it was last year. Ukraine is not just holding a passive defense. And secondarily, you see increasingly that the Russian military has a series of challenges, both on their own end when it comes to manpower and how they're prosecuting offensive operations, and also because of Ukraine's expanded strike campaign into Russian operational depth. But all that being said, it's clear that there's months of hard fighting ahead. The Russian military has not stopped its offensive operations. The offensive intensity is only going to increase in the next couple of months. Most people are trying to hold on till October, when terrain cover disappears, it gets colder, drones become much more effective. So there's still quite several months of hard fighting ahead this year. And I don't want to paint an overly rosy picture, but to make clear that by and large, Ukraine in many cases has had a bit of a turning, if not inflection, point in this war and is doing much better this year than they have the past two years in the conflict.
WHERE DOES PUTIN GO NEXT?
Dearlove: Can we move away just briefly from the military dimension and accepting that analysis, which coincides with other assessments I've heard recently. I mean, where does Putin go next? Is this an indefinite continuation? Because I mean, what's striking at the moment I think is amongst some of the informed bloggers in Russia and elsewhere in sort of client states of Russia, there's growing criticism of Putin's policies. Is this significant? Is there a shift politically, or are we just stuck in this conflict for another year or so?
Kofman: It's a good question. It is not easy to predict from the military situation necessarily what political leaders will do. Logically you would think that one informs the other, but over the course of a war like this, leaders tend to fall into the pathology of sunk costs. Once they've been in the war for so long, they can't quite picture how to end it and they're sort of stuck pursuing these unrealistic maximalist aims. I think for Putin the problem for a long time has been a fundamental mismatch between the political goals of the war and the military means. And that the Russian political objectives in this war are simply not achievable with the military means they have available and most importantly the way they are fighting. And this year is illustrative of the fact that they're not likely to do better. If anything, they are likely to do worse. That is, the peak military potential that they had in this war was probably last year around last summer. And if anything, it's going to steadily now decline. That's a bit of a deterministic prediction, but simply looking at the way things have been going for the Russian forces on the battlefield over the last 12 months, I think it's fair. Now, is this war going to go on for another year? I can't necessarily predict that, and I often tell people, you know, military analysis is not fortune telling. I wish it was, and I think, wish it was that easy. What I can say is the main challenge I see in convincing or compelling Putin to change his mind or opinions first. It's clear that the Russian military is not accurately representing the situation on the ground to their political leadership. In fact, on Russian military maps, they are consistently around 15 to 20 kilometers forward of where they actually are. Okay. And that creates the erroneous sense of progress where it is not. And that also helps explain the position that Putin may be taking, in part because he is being convinced by the military that they will inevitably take the rest of the Donbas. That sort of success is taking longer for them, but nonetheless they're going to get it. Even though on the ground, it's increasingly fair to say that there's no evidence they will take the rest of the Donbas this year, or even necessarily next year. The second part of it is also that I think that Russian leadership is waiting until the winter. Because if we step back from the front line, there's a second part of this war, which is both Russia and Ukraine have extensive strategic strike campaigns targeting each other's economy, defense industrial sector, and critical infrastructure – energy energy, heat, water management, what have you. Ukraine's has expanded significantly in the last two years. But Russia at this point can see that they have largely spent Ukraine out of missile interceptors for ballistic missiles. And that means that if the next coming winter is as difficult as the last one — and the last one's pretty harsh — or even not necessarily as difficult, that Ukraine still will have a significant problem maintaining critical infrastructure in the population of the cities. And all this is to say that I suspect it's unlikely Putin will make a deal that is acceptable to Ukraine and to other Western countries involved before the winter, until he sees the results of the winter strike campaign, because that is an opportunity for Russia to claw back some of the leverage that they've lost over the past year. This is at least an analyst point of view. I do not live in Putin's head any more than anybody else on this call. It's just the purpose of combat operations is often to provide information to political leaders about the leverage that they have or will hope to have, you know, as the future unfolds.
WHY IS PUTIN OPERATING UNDER A FALSE PICTURE?
Mccann: Michael, there's so much to unpick there. Can we start with what you said about the fact that President Putin doesn't have a full picture of where his own military is on the ground? Because I find that fascinating. That presents an alternate reality that Putin is operating under. And as you say, it may help to explain some of the things that are happening that other people can't necessarily explain with logic. How long is it sustainable for the Russian military to give a false picture of success? How long until they're found out?
Kofman: To me, it is until Ukraine is able to mount the more significant offensive operation that leads to a loss of occupied territory such that the Russian military can't hide it. And so the challenge is not only convincing Russian leadership that this war has long ago reached a point of diminishing returns. The challenge is you need to have specific events that convey a very different picture and different information. That is, that not only are Russian troops not likely to just achieve the minimalist territorial aims that Putin has in his ambitions, taking the rest of the Donbas. But that actually Russia's likely to lose more and more of the territory it currently occupies, that the war has gone in the opposite direction. And currently that's not the picture in the Kremlin. And in all honesty, that's generally not quite the picture on the ground either. In net gain terms, Russia's still eking out some positive gains in terms of square kilometers, even though the battlespace is a lot more contested this year, but it is increasingly at risk. It's an outstanding question to what extent can Ukraine's strike campaign — which is carving out Russian operational depth, targeting logistics, command and control, the key things that a military needs in support areas — whether that is setting the conditions for a more effective offensive operation, or if it's simply going to suppress Russian offensive potential such that it creates some kind of window of opportunity for negotiation. So that's kind of what Ukrainians hope. But this is my view — that ultimately Ukraine will need to be able to demonstrate that they can take back more terrain in order to change the picture in a way that cannot be publicly hidden. Because otherwise, even many analysts for the past year and a half debate, those who map territorial control in this war, have a significant variance between them month on month as to how much territory the Russian military has taken or not taken, because for quite a while the battlefield is a gray zone where presence doesn't confer control. And so as positions are marbled in cities like Kostiantynivka and other places —it's not clear how to map it because in some ways nobody controls the space going back maybe five to ten kilometers from what you think is a notional front line because there is no front line. This is not a battlefield marked by trenches and held positions that are cohesive defensive lines. They're essentially pickets and troops infiltrating through them, something that looks more like this. And you can map it as a gray zone. And you could say that the way Russian troops do, they'll commonly advance a few troops into a city with a flag, take a video of it, and claim that they've advanced that far and taken this amount of terrain. Whereas in reality they haven’t — there's just a couple of people with a flag that have gotten far enough and that's it. And they weren't able to control it. But that's essentially what they do to then draw a map and saying that they're ten kilometers further than they claim they are. CAN UKRAINE'S FRONT HOLD — OR IS IT A STALEMATE?
Dearlove: One of the things, Michael, that I've been studying recently or reading recently is the Ukrainian construction of defensive lines in depth, particularly along the fortress cities on the Eastern Front. It would seem if you read in detail about those, it's making, as it were, the Ukrainian line even more impregnable than it's been hitherto, and that, you know, one really is building a situation of stalemate. I mean, the Russian army — one of the things they're usually good at is battlefield engineering. And presumably they've done the same. So aren't we sort of really heading into almost — I wouldn't say a frozen conflict, but frozen front lines?
Kofman: I don't think so, and I'm gonna tell you why. So this was perhaps a fair opinion in 2023, after the failed Ukrainian summer offensive against very well prepared Russian defensive lines. Here's where we are right now. Ukrainian forces as they slowly retreated had used the time to establish a series of defensive lines, some smaller and some very large ones, defensive works. These are now optimized for the current operating environment, defined by drones and defined by tactics that are very different from 2022 and 2023. 2022 and 2023, I would say, were much more traditional, conventional phases of the war, marked by heavy concentration of artillery and combined arms maneuver tactics led by mechanized formations. Anyone familiar with 20th-century battlefield would have felt at home watching the war of 2022 and 2023. With the addition of drones for the purposes of reconnaissance and targeting, but nonetheless, there were almost expected phases where one side has the offensive, then the other side takes on a counteroffensive, and so on. That's not the case, and it hasn't been the case since late 2023. So Ukraine has built out several defensive lines designed to stop two things. First, any types of Russian mechanized assault, which are much more effective because they're backed by mass precision, which is the effect derived from the vast amount of tactical strike drones available on the battlefield. Secondarily, they've developed lines that prevent effective infiltration. Essentially an approach that prevents small groups of Russian troops from infiltrating, even though Ukraine does not have cohesive defensive lines and a sparse amount of infantry on the front. And so in key areas it's holding. As far as the fortress belt of cities goes, yes, they are fortified, but actually some of the main defensive lines end up being built behind them, simply because Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka all lie more in a valley with high ground in front of them and high ground behind them. And also you can't build defensive lines too close to the drone kill zone. So you end up building them where you can, which is usually further to the rear, because that's just the way in practice it works out. On Russian battlefield engineering — and this is why I said I don't think it's quite a stalemate. Here's the issue. The Russian military had been significantly advantaged in combat engineering. It's generally an advantage over other militaries because if you look at the amount of combat engineering assets they have, both organically and in formations at higher echelons, it's a vast amount. The Russian military does know how to dig well. Russia had probably more mines than most countries combined on earth and put millions of them in place. So has Ukraine. And they know how to build prepared defensive lines. If there are a lot of things that they don't know how to do well, but this one in particular they know how to do. The reason why it's not as big a factor right now is for the past two years almost, they have largely been advancing with small infantry assault groups and increasingly through individuals infiltrating through Ukrainian lines. Where they do that, they do not build defensive positions of their own. First of all, they can't, because the kill zone imposed by Ukrainian drones is such that where you advance, you cannot pull up equipment and start building defensive lines of your own. That's physically impossible. Secondarily, they're largely taking over abandoned Ukrainian defensive positions. But what Ukrainian forces had observed as of last year is that where the Russian military advances by infiltration, it doesn't have the force density to quickly consolidate, start building defensive lines, and do the things that they were doing in 2022 and 2023. And so it makes them actually vulnerable to counterattack. And that's why Ukrainian forces have two counterattacks ongoing — one by Third Corps around Lyman and one by a group of air assault brigades down in Zaporizhia. And the Russian military did not invest much in building defensive positions where they've been advancing for the last year and a half for another very — I think straightforward – reason, not just because it's practically hard, but because they've been on the offensive for so long they don't think they have to, if this makes any sense. That is, it's been so long since they felt they faced a real threat of Ukrainian counterattack that they've largely eschewed building prepared defenses and become accustomed to the fact that the war had been going their way. And much of the problem they are facing this year is due to the fact that they've done very little to change how they're conducting ground offensive operations on the ground. In part due to a degree of lazy thinking that even though their approach has been increasingly combat inefficient, they're still going to grind out the gains they want and they're still going to take the terrain they want over time.
WHAT SHOULD THE INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE BE?
Mccann: Michael, can I — because your reflections represent a difficult picture for Ukraine, I think it's fair to say. And the perception often when we talk about this war at the moment is that Ukraine is doing much better than people think and, you know, maybe there's a chance. And obviously everything is much more complex than that. What is your assessment of the international response at the moment? Because if, as you say, Russia is building towards an offensive in the winter and Ukraine can see that coming, what should the response from the international community be? Who — you know, let's be fair — is still saying maybe there's talks, maybe we can find a way, maybe there's a possibility of a deal?
Kofman: Ukraine is actually doing very well. Like I said, it's doing much better than it had been in the past several years. We're kind of debating, okay, does Ukraine have the upper hand? In some areas it does, in other areas it doesn't in this war — but what can it use it for? Well, now the outstanding question is has Ukraine established a long period of lasting advantage, or is this more like a window of opportunity? And if it's a window of opportunity, then a window to do what? Some think Ukraine should try to negotiate during this period. Ukraine has actually been trying to negotiate. The main problem is that the Russian leadership remains recalcitrant. They refuse to downsize their political goals in line with their actual military performance in this war. Okay. So that's just the problem of a counterparty in that conversation. And the only way to get Russians there, from I think the point of view of many, is first to compel them. And second, it's going to take more time. Like Ukraine generally had a reasonable strategy as to how to compel Russia to end the war on terms that would be acceptable, right? Stabilizing the front line, addressing the air and missile defense picture in the country, and steadily scaling up the strike campaign against Russian energy export infrastructure and the thing that Moscow needs to financially sustain this war. This was a reasonable strategy. I think it was and is a decent theory of success. What should the international response be? By and large, Ukraine is doing well when it comes to international backing. Europeans have come through with $90 billion, which is enough, I think, for at least around 18 months to help sustain this war. Those who were serving as roadblocks to these packages for Ukraine, like Hungary, have fallen out of the picture due to elections. The US has in no way abandoned Ukraine. If anything, it's clear that the Trump administration has steadily shifted towards Ukraine and away from its attempt to act as a neutral arbitrator. American support, particularly when it comes to intelligence — another thing Ukraine receives — continues. It's just that Europeans are paying primarily for the military assistance we are sending, but the money is there to provide it. The main issue I see is that Ukraine's still heavily dependent on air and missile defense from the United States. And there's an issue first and foremost of sheer material availability. We do not have a lot of these capabilities available and we don't make them in sufficient numbers. And then secondarily, many of our European partners have already given a lot of what they have and they don't have much available either, because Europe has never been in the business of buying a lot of ammunition for key capabilities to begin with. That's just a matter of fact. And that's a long-standing issue that Europe will have to address when it comes to rearmament, right? European magazine stocks for live capabilities weren't very large. And so there wasn't much to give when this war came, when it comes to advanced capabilities for things like Patriot air defense or missile defense systems. But yeah, in terms of support, I think a lot of it now has to do with technology transfer, far less provision of discrete systems. I think Ukraine produces a lot of what it needs for day-to-day battlefield requirements. And I think that if the United States and the European countries were more willing to transfer certain enabling technologies for Ukraine's drones, for Ukraine's missile programs, Ukraine would have already been producing on a much larger scale the kind of systems that it needs to better enact this campaign that it's currently prosecuting.
THE PAC-2 DEAL — WHAT WAS ACTUALLY AGREED?
Dearlove: Trump had said that he was allowing Ukraine the proprietary information to manufacture Patriots. He seems to have equivocated on that point recently. Do you — because clearly that's going to be a very important factor in the autumn, if we, as it were, accept, which I do, your analysis of the increased missile threat in that period.
Kofman: First of all, it's for PAC-2s, which are primarily for air defense, not missile defense. They have a secondary missile defense function. And it's licensed production that will take quite a bit of time to start up. So unfortunately it's not going to impact anything this fall or winter.
Mccann: Michael, when you say quite a lot of time, how long do you mean?
Kofman: That's a great question, Kate. It really depends on what people are talking about. So far, there's been a notional agreement of something, something licensed production by Ukraine, and nobody is sure what they're talking about. And that's part of the challenge with the announcement of this deal, and I think, Richard, that's why Trump is equivocating. Because publicly there's an announcement made, but people don't understand that actually a lot of the technical details of what's being talked about hasn't been agreed. First of all, where is this going to be made? Outside of Ukraine and then shipped to Ukraine with European money? Or inside Ukraine? How will a large assembly facility be made survivable inside Ukraine? Just a basic question, considering that the Russian military regularly targets defense industrial production in Ukraine in its strikes. Next, how will this production be done? Licensed production is one thing. It doesn't mean that all the different defense contractors involved in production of the system are willing to transfer the things that would be required in terms of intellectual property and whatnot to make this happen. And third, folks can make licensed production agreements all they want. It doesn't mean that the supporting defense contractors are going to increase production sufficiently to make this happen. I hate to sound a bit pessimistic on the score. But I think what Ukraine actually really needs is first for the United States and Europeans to reach deep and come up with as many missiles as they can for this winter, which is what Zelensky's been asking for on his recent trip. That is, go much lower in terms of readiness in key munitions and interceptors that they have, because Ukraine needs as much as it can to get to this winter. We can produce more later. We can always produce more later. And we are increasing production, it's just going to take years to ramp it up. And second, Ukraine needs to develop its own domestically produced low-cost interceptor, ideally with Western technologies. I do not believe that any kind of licensed production deal for PAC-2 is going to necessarily solve this problem. I could be wrong on that, but I don't think it's going to come in time for the coming autumn or winter. Next year, it is possible that increased production will certainly have an effect. I still don't think that the increased production is going to happen in Ukraine. And unfortunately, this deal was announced without any of the specifics being worked out, which is par for the course for the Trump administration. And I think that is why Trump's equivocating, because most likely, Richard, he then had a conversation with the leading defense companies, Lockheed Martin, and supporting contractors under them who make the other parts for the missile. And then they explained to him, probably — I'm just hypothesizing here — that actually it's not clear where this is going to be made, how long it would take to online production, what licensed production actually means and what Ukraine can reasonably expect to produce, and all the other things that go into a deal of this kind.
THE ZELENSKY CABINET CHANGES — MILITARY LEADERSHIP
Dearlove: That doesn't surprise me as an answer. Can we just also look briefly at the changes in the Ministry of Defense in Ukraine and the leadership of the army? They look to be largely political in terms of explanation, or maybe due to personality clashes. Are they gonna change anything militarily? And I've got a sort of subset of questions. Talking to my own Ukrainian contacts recently — probably not as extensive as yours, but they're quite well informed — there still seems to be a big problem of corruption in terms of military procurement in Ukraine. So could you comment on both of those issues?
Kofman: On the change in military leadership. So you had the dismissal of Fedorov as the Minister of Defense, which went very poorly, and the Ukrainian public is still out protesting in the streets demanding his return. Then the dismissal of the previous Commander-in-Chief Syrsky and replacement by Drapede. I will offer just my own personal point of view. First, Fedorov wasn't just a popular minister presiding over the last six months of success. He was previously minister for digital transformation, which with an attendant team was responsible for many of the key technology initiatives that I think helped enable Ukraine's success over the past several years. I won't personally credit him with these things. It's not just about a person, it's about a team of individuals around them. But he had been working extensively on many of the initiatives that people have come to know in Ukraine, whether it's Sky Fortress, Sky Map, Brave One Marketplace for drone teams, line of drones, UGV development for logistics. It would be a long shopping list of things that his team had worked on. And actually his previous portfolio was responsible for much of the first-person-view drone production in Ukraine as well. So I do believe that he was quite influential in the course of this war and more importantly, the people around him. And when he came to the Ministry of Defense, he attracted fairly prominent, well-known people from across the Ukrainian defense ecosystem to join him, and they were working on rather interesting things. So I think his dismissal comes at a very bad time. It was completely unexplained to the public, as I'm sure you can appreciate — why at a time when Ukraine seems to be winning would you dismiss a very popular and successful Minister of Defense when he just had his team in place after six months and looking like they were making good impact, right? Normally you replace your military leadership team when things are going poorly. You don't replace it when things are going well. Especially when you have no causal explanation to the public as to why you're doing it. You get where I'm coming from on this issue. All right. So the Ukrainian public was quite upset. They had two demands. One was to return Fedorov to the post of Minister of Defense. Zelensky does not look like he's going to do that, and I don't think it's going to happen. And so he took the second demand that they had, which was dismissal of Syrsky, who was a deeply unpopular commander in chief, and replacement by Drapede, a well-known general who is seen as very different from him in terms of leadership style and his ideas overall on how to run the force. Is that going to bring about change, both of these decisions? Yes, significantly so. First, the replacement of commander in chief is not just a replacement of one individual. As Drapede comes in, he will replace a significant percentage of Ukraine's general staff, which was personally appointed by Syrsky, and likely change a big part of the Ukrainian military's approach to both force management and force generation. That's going to have a significant impact, and you're probably going to see immediate changes. We've already seen decisions on manpower allocation, for example, no longer prioritizing manpower for Ukrainian assault regiments, a halt to creation of new brigades and so on and so forth. So these are actually very important choices on force generation, force management that a commander-in-chief makes, and an audit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to get a much better understanding of where things stand. Second, it will unfortunately involve a period of not paralysis, but, as I'm sure you can appreciate, a loss of momentum. This is what happened when Zelensky replaced the previous Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhny with Syrsky. New commander comes in, you have people on the staff, they don't know if they're going to be in place or not, or if they're going to be sacked. They don't know if what they're doing is the right thing or the wrong thing. So obviously you have a few weeks during which people are essentially looking around and not sure if what they're doing makes sense. And so you do have a loss of momentum as you have a turnover and you have a replacement of personnel. And a change in the overall strategy for the war or at least key parts of it. Next, when it comes to the Minister of Defense, yes, there will be an impact because firing Fedorov meant that a number of folks under him that were very well regarded in the space resigned. And so I think it is a loss for Ukraine. They'll continue working and helping the Ukrainian war effort, personally, but I think it is a loss. And I think he was pursuing important initiatives that it's not clear that the new Minister of Defense Kamara will be able to effectively execute. I think a lot depends on how much of Fedorov's team stays versus how much of it goes in the coming weeks. That's an outstanding question. But yes, the bottom line is that there will be a change and an impact. The replacement of commander in chief, from my point of view, is certainly a change for the better, that in the medium term it will have a very positive result for the Ukrainian military. Although it won't fundamentally change kind of the big picture constraints. You know, it's not like putting Drapede in place of Syrsky will change the fact that Ukraine simply doesn't get enough interceptors to deal with a Russian ballistic missile threat. Some of these big picture things I raise, they're not altered by these command decisions. I think the change of the Minister of Defense and the unexpected sacking of Fedorov will certainly alter things for the worse. And it's unfortunate that he has now essentially left that team and even more unfortunate in how it was handled. And you can tell that by the number of people protesting in the streets, right? It's not my opinion. It seems to be the opinion of a lot of Ukrainians. Lastly, with regard to corruption — I'll be frank that I don't focus as much on this aspect of Ukraine in my work, but I see corruption fundamentally as a tax on effectiveness. And I think Ukraine has made considerable progress on this, certainly relative to where it was years ago. But I think it still has a ways to go. And I think that one of the issues that led to the sacking of Fedorov wasn't just his disagreement with Syrsky on military strategy and the vision for this war, and who has basically bureaucratic purview over what, which was real. I think it was also Fedorov's commitment to effectively administer the Ministry of Defense's budget, procurement, and his decision to procure the things that he felt the Ukrainian forces needed in order to fight in a technologically sophisticated and a more asymmetric way relative to Russia, rather than necessarily agreeing to the procurement request of the general staff, or let's say not standing or ongoing procurement requests that had been kind of recurring in the system for things that Fedorov felt that the military didn't need or should be reallocated for other capabilities, other technologies. And so it wasn't just a dispute over military strategy or mobilization or other things. It also was ultimately a disagreement over what to procure and why. Whether in wartime or in peacetime, in any ministry, the procurement budget has significant interest behind it in the defense industrial complex and various companies and individuals. That's the case in Ukraine. That's the case in the United States. There are winners or losers when choices are made in defense procurement. Okay. And there were definitely some big losers from the choices that Fedorov was making.
ARE WESTERN ALLIES ASKING HARD ENOUGH QUESTIONS?
Mccann: But should we be worried about that, Michael? I mean, I suppose to that point this happens everywhere and this is kind of run of the mill in war, but should we be worried about it? Is that something that Western allies should be looking more closely at than perhaps we are right now?
Kofman: I mean, Kate, I'm always of the opinion that Western allies should be taking a close look as to how the funding they're providing is being spent. And I have always been of the mind that the United States and other countries should be taking a more active role in looking at how capabilities and things we're sending are being distributed and to make sure that we have good alignment with Ukrainian colleagues on their military strategy. That our role in this war — I'm speaking now from a purely American point of view, although I think as Europe has taken over much of the resourcing for this military effort as of August of last year, it's certainly incumbent amongst Europeans as well — the role of Western countries in this conflict is not simply to play some kind of Amazon delivery service where requests are filed and we simply ship things without question as to what is the strategy, is this the most effective thing, is this what Ukraine needs right now, etc., etc. We are at the end of the day, for many years now, material parties to this conflict, and we should be having a fairly active role and robust conversations with Ukrainian colleagues.
Mccann: I was gonna ask you whether the Ukrainians were willing to give us that access. Are they willing to be open about that? But is that why he's gone?
Kofman: I think that's actually one of his areas of disagreement with Syrsky. I never got the strong sense of the general staff under Syrsky of being nearly as keen for that two-way conversation as I suspect the incoming commander-in-chief will. So there's a positive and a negative side to the story, Kate. I think the incoming commander-in-chief has a very different view of the need for engagement with Western partners. And I think Fedorov certainly was, right? And I don't think that's necessarily the reason why he's gone. No, there's one more positive aspect of his leadership in the Ministry of Defense of the last six, seven months that I worry we may lose and hopefully we won't. But the bottom line is that — and I'll close on this point. The US has at times taken a more hands-off or sometimes more hands-on approach. The challenge with the Europeans now having the primary responsibility for at least financially handling material assistance to the Ukrainian forces is that first there's a host of European countries that are trying to coordinate this within organizations like NSATU under the Security Assistance Group Ukraine Wiesbaden. The US is now increasingly trying to push Europeans forward in taking over the entire role of the Security Assistance Group Ukraine that previously was led by the United States and a US lieutenant general. What I've noticed in European colleagues is that they are often insufficiently deliberate or forceful in making their desires known about how funding and capabilities should be spent and what they should go to. And part of that is the unitary actor problem — there's a lot of different countries in Europe providing assistance to Ukraine, but part of that is just a very important stylistic difference in not being quite clear that Europe also — European countries also — have clear ideas and intentions behind how their assistance and how their euros are being spent.
TRAINING THE RUSSIAN ARMY?
Dearlove: Michael, can I just add, on a slightly different tack, we're running out of time, but I think it's an important point. One thing that worries me about this conflict in the medium to long term — you know, in spite of Russia's overall poor performance — we're training the Russian army really in a very determined way to fight a modern European war. And the longer it goes on, if they can learn the lessons from the battlefield in a way, the more dangerous Russia becomes. I mean, do you agree with that observation?
Kofman: So, for those interested, I had a lengthy article, Richard, that I wrote exactly on this subject in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs, on what the Russian military would look like after this war. And the answer is, of course, we don't know — it depends on what timeline — but two things have happened to the Russian force over the course of this war, and they're somewhat contradictory effects. On the one hand, the Russian military significantly deteriorated in quality and its ability to conduct large-scale offensive operations and had largely optimized itself for small-scale offensive operations on a broad front, and it's going to take them a long time to recover the actual quality of the force, personnel, junior leadership, to conduct a kind of large-scale offensive campaign that we've often worried about against the Baltic states. Okay? That's a positive side. And how long is — it's actually a bit of a narcissism of small differences. I think I wrote five to seven years. That's actually not that much time. I think it's longer than the current public position maybe of many NATO member states, that something like two years after this war. But frankly, anything ten years or less in defense planning timelines is a very short amount of time. This is important, I think, for listeners to understand. In my profession, ten years or less is a very, very narrow timeline that you have to prepare against. And ironically, for political leaders, it's actually a very long timeline. And often for them it might be beyond their next several set of elections, and it's not their problem. So as a defense analyst, you always get into a conversation where you're trying to explain to political leadership why they need to take steps today to prepare against a contingency that is maybe seven years on the horizon, and to them it's well beyond their political term, right? But to you, it's actually something that you need to prepare for now. Because if you're going to invest in rearmament, expand the force, change the force posture from where units are based now to where they ought to be based, all those things need to happen now for you to be in the right position X number of years down the line. None of those happens on a short timeline. So just to be clear with folks: when we make these estimates, if seven or ten years sounds like a long time to you, in defense planning it's not. The area in which the Russian military significantly improved is twofold. First, Russian forces built out a significant percentage of the force that now employs millions of tactical strike drones and hundreds of thousands of long-range one-way attack drones. It got much better in reconnaissance-fire, reconnaissance-strike, dynamic targeting, and then translating theory into practice — the kind of things that that military couldn't do early on in this war. And so, on the one hand, from the standpoint of being able to do large-scale offensive operations, it got a lot worse. From the standpoint of being able to destroy an enemy force, of getting much better at targeting in tactical and operational depth, it improved significantly. And it now has a lot of experience in both organizing strike campaigns and also has spent years adapting to the types of Western capabilities that were initially developed to counter the Russian military, many of which have been deployed by the Ukrainian armed forces over the course of this war. This does not mean that in a future hypothetical conflict between Russia and NATO, our defense capabilities would be ineffective. And at the end of the day, this was not a Russia-NATO war. That war would play out very differently. And I'm not worried that NATO would lose a war to Russia. Okay. Certainly not if the United States is involved. What it does mean is that we need to revisit the current military contingencies we use for planning in potential conflicts with Russia. The Russian military has changed in how it fights and the capabilities it uses to fight. And so we have to reassess what that looks like. Third, there are now some open-ended questions about our traditional advantages and how we plan to fight that we now have to ask. Is our traditional advantage in air power and the air superiority we expect to enjoy going to automatically answer the threat of millions of drones at the tactical level fielded by thousands of personnel across Russian drone battalions and drone regiments? Air power by itself isn't just automatically adapted to these threats. These are all things you have to work on. Similarly, we have to answer: can our forces operate in this environment? Are we prepared for it? I will tell you that the last two years of exercises with Ukrainian troops, where Ukrainian forces played the role of the enemy team, of the opposing force, have all consistently shown that we have a very long way to go to adapt our militaries to this threat environment. We have not done well in them. We are learning, some of our militaries certainly are. But I'll be very frank, the results of the last two years — and these are very simple exercises, they are not truly simulating what the Russian military could do, I want to be frank about that — have all kind of shown a consistent pattern of results. And our war with Iran, now speaking from a US perspective, has also shown that we have underrated certain threats from one-way attack drones and the risks they pose to our forces, our capabilities, and personnel, that we definitely need to work a lot more on our adaptations and investments. So the short answer is yes, in some ways the Russian military got worse, in others gets better. And it's clear that we have work to do in defense planning and force adaptation and how we integrate these technologies with our traditional advantages to deal with the future Russian military threat.
MORALE ON THE FRONT LINES
Mccann: Michael, we're running tight on time, but I have a couple of questions for you before we ask our final question of this podcast, if that's okay. On your experience on the front line, because I think our listeners will be really interested to know what that's like, and many of them won't ever have experienced anything like that at all. What is morale like there at the moment? I mean, we often think about this from the Ukrainian side, but when you encounter people, either civilians or people who are on the front line working, what's the morale like? How do they feel?
Kofman: Well, if you're talking about troops and soldiers, so morale's gotten a lot better in the last six to eight months, on the one hand. It's very clear to me that the morale has improved because there's a general sense that Ukraine is doing much better now and people can feel that on the battlefield. They're holding much better. And it's obvious to many troops that things have changed, that there was an inflection point in the war in the latter part of 2025, and it's felt in 2026. The Russian military is objectively doing much, much more poorly. Despite the continued offensive pressure, you see that the Ukrainian forces in most parts of the front are holding. Okay, that said, this force is exhausted. Most of these people have been fighting for years. There's still a significant deficit of manpower. There's still a shortage of personnel to conduct rotations. And people are simply tired. They're tired of fighting. They're not tired such that anybody wants to give up or concede to Russian demands, but people are generally tired. This war has gone on for over four years. And many people are also tired of military life. It takes a toll. For those unfamiliar with kind of the battlefield realities or, you know, the day-to-day grind, it takes a toll on people and on their families. As far as kind of morale, I think two things are true in general in Ukraine. On the one hand, people are really tired of this war and want it to end. On the other hand, nobody wants to give up and give in to the current Russian demands. And certainly if the view is that if you're going to concede the current things that Russia wants, then having fought this long wasn't really worth it. You know, what's the point of defending the Donbas for four and a half years, or honestly since 2014, if you're just gonna give it away? Why did thousands of people die to defend this territory and saying that it was key defensive terrain if you're then just going to cede it, right? Especially if the Russian military so far does not have a clear means of taking it. And that's a — I think that's a very fair position.
WHAT'S IT LIKE BEING AT THE FRONT?
Mccann: What is it like being there? I mean, how easy is it for you to get to the front line? Is it definable? Do you know when you're there if you're not told? I mean, what is it like?
Kofman: It's certainly definable. It requires a lot of contextual knowledge and situational awareness because the way the media often describes the drone engagement zone as 15, 20, 25 kilometers from the front line, the honest answer is it really depends on where you are, what part of the front you are. Terrain matters, and the part of the front you're on really matters. On one part of the front line, being 15 kilometers from what is notionally the forward line of troops may be okay, and on another part of the front line it might be exceedingly dangerous. The same thing goes for other distances. It really matters. The transitions are very stark. The transition from Sloviansk to Kramatorsk is now a very stark one and it wasn't before. As the war consumes cities and they go from being fairly livable areas with maybe brigade command posts to then you start to see life slowly dying in the city and then civilian population eventually evacuated, and then at some point you no longer see that the city's viable at all. Brigades have left it. Now that is a forward position for a battalion. Now you've gone from a relatively vibrant city with cafes to you're the only vehicle in the entire city on the road, which is a very, very unsettling feeling. Okay. And that's a transition I've seen in a number of cities over the course of this war. If you do this work every three to four months, you have a fairly decent situational awareness and picture of what's happening at the front line, but you do have to update it because things that were safe three months ago are not necessarily safe now. Cities that you could have easily driven to three months ago, now you can't drive to, or at the very least, the risk is much higher and you really have to assess why you're doing what you're doing. It's not just the advance of enemy forces, it's also the change of technology. What you could do in 2022 and 2023, you most definitely could not do in 2025, just in terms of how drones were being employed and the nature of the threat. But yeah, generally you do know. And here's the thing — I do this work alongside Ukrainian military, Ukrainian forces. So, you know, I am regularly working with them and many different units of different echelons to figure out, okay, what is the situation in the area of responsibility —what do they think is the best course of action? And sort of judging accordingly what the risks are. That's the way I've been doing it. And yeah, there have been close calls over the years. I've been doing this since 2022, naturally. It's a war zone. And that's why I tell folks, don't do this unless you have to and unless there's a clear reason for why you're doing it. You know, please don't come to the front line because you want to get a sense of a conventional war and engage in war tourism.
ONE DECISION TO WATCH
Mccann: Yeah, the war tourism point I think is a very good one to make. We ask everybody who joins us on this podcast for the one decision that they are watching out for this week. What is the one thing that you think our listeners should have their eyes on, that they should be aware of?
Kofman: I mean, if it comes to the Russia-Ukraine war, I'll be honest, I don't see a sort of singular thing. One question that was out there was that Ukraine was very interested, according to public reporting, in the ability to employ Starlink-enabled drones over Russian territory, or at least some part of it. And the reason for that is that there's no available defensive solution for the Russian ballistic missile problem. That the only possible way forward was to employ the strike drones that Ukraine had to displace Russian missile launch systems further from Ukrainian cities. That is, the only options available were offensive ones. So far it's clear that there hasn't been a positive resolution because it's something that seems to require both the approval of Donald Trump personally, but also Elon Musk, right, who ultimately controls SpaceX. And we are where we are. But that was one — and is actually one possible decision that — kind of seeing it discussed in the press — if you were to ask me, I think could give Ukraine much better options for the winter. If you're going to ask me, what is one thing that could change, that could be changed fairly quickly, in time for the fall and winter — not licensed production of Patriot-2s that nobody quite understands what this deal is or how long it'll take to see the results, right? Not the sort of attempt to get more Patriot interceptors where it's clearly the United States is unwilling to provide more, especially given how many we spent in the surrounding war. But a decision that could change things — it's this. And the last one — we'll see how the dust settles when the Ukrainian Rada comes back on all these decisions. Yeah. Zelensky had left several things hanging when he came to the United States and the Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, took a recess. But we'll see how the dust politically settles in Ukraine with these protests and ultimately his decisions on who's going to be Minister of Defense. That's still an outstanding question. Sorry, I gave you two things to look for instead of one — cheating a bit, but —
Mccann: You're very welcome to. And we're delighted to have them. Michael Kofman, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. It's been really great having you with us. Thank you.
Kofman: All right, thanks a lot for having me on your programme.
Dearlove: Thank you, Michael.
POST-INTERVIEW DISCUSSION
Mccann: Well, so Richard, I think that was a great, you know, in-depth conversation with Michael. I mean, he clearly knows so much about what's going on in Ukraine right now, not just on the ground in that zone as he was talking about at the very front line, but also the kind of mechanics of the government, about the way that money's being spent, about the way that decisions are being made. What stood out for you?
Dearlove: Well, I guess my overall impression was he gave a better assessment of Ukraine's position than I was expecting. Okay, people are saying that Ukraine has secured something of an advantage in the conflict, but there are a lot of — reluctance — there are aspects attached to that judgment that say, well, yeah, they're doing reasonably well, but there are still huge problems. Okay, he maybe was saying more or less the same, but he was being pretty optimistic about where Ukraine positions itself at the moment. And I found that actually rather reassuring. And I think the other conclusion that I would draw from his analysis — and I think it's probably one of the best public analyses available — you know, the Russians really are not getting anywhere. The question I asked him at the beginning, okay, where does that leave Putin's policy? I mean, it does leave it almost in stasis. Okay, there will be — and I think we've all anticipated that — more missile attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure when the fighting diminishes in the autumn, but that's really tough as they take out critical infrastructure in Ukraine, and they haven't necessarily got the defenses. That seems, you know, to be the next difficult stage for the Ukrainians unless they can improve their missile defense with assistance from European nations. But I mean, as he pointed out, a lot of these things take long-term planning because of the technical complexity and the idea that somehow you transfer Patriot technology to Ukraine isn't particularly realistic in the short term. It's a medium to long-term issue.
Mccann: Yeah. I thought that whole section where he explained actually what's been agreed here and what hasn't was really, really useful. Because we do often in the media talk in shorthand about, well, America's given Ukraine the ability to build these Patriot missiles and that really isn't where things are at. And as you said, you know, there is a worry now that Donald Trump has realized the implications of this deal and is trying to maybe walk it back a little bit. But look, we've had our say.
LISTENER COMMENTS
Mccann: We love hearing from you, our listeners, and lots and lots of you are now getting in touch. If you want to send us a question, send us an idea for an episode that you'd like to hear, or give us your comments on something we've already done, our email address is hello@onedecision.com. You can drop us a note there, or you can comment under any of our episodes wherever you listen to podcasts. And lots of you are. Hello to Roy David from Reading, who says I'm grateful to be able to listen to your podcast. It's very well presented — we shouldn't read out praise really, should we — but he says it's very well presented and extremely informative. I'll carry on listening to every episode and I'm looking forward to the next one. We are glad that you are. A couple of you — someone from Germany, someone who watches on YouTube — has written in in response to a conversation we had with Vali Nasr, saying the analysis took into account the historical and societal complexity of Iran, which this person found very valuable. “I wish this nuanced and multifaceted perspective would appear more frequently in broader media discourse on Iran. So a more balanced and realistic image of the country would be conveyed.” That's a really interesting one. And there were a couple of people who got in touch about AI and about China, something that we talk about really frequently on the podcast. That was in response to last week's episode with Gina Raimondo on AI, the AI tech race. So if you missed that, do have a listen. Lots of people were really interested in that episode. So thank you for all of those. And as I say, if you want to send us your thoughts, it's hello@onedecision.com.
CLOSING
Mccann: That's it though for this episode. You can join us every Thursday for more conversations about world events that go beyond the usual headlines. You can subscribe to One Decision on YouTube so you don't miss out on anything we put out there for you. And there's plenty more on onedecision.com too. I'm Kate McCann and I was joined by Sir Richard Dearlove. Thank you so much for listening.
