Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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 three years on. That's the topic of today's discussion. I'm Max Bergman. I'm the director of the Europe-Russia-Eurasia program here at CSIS. And I'm
And on February 24th, 2022, Vladimir Putin launched his brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It's almost three years to the day.
The war is still raging with massive geopolitical implications and to discuss the current state of affairs, we brought together three of, I think one of the foremost experts on Russia, Ukraine in this war. And we're really pleased to be joined by Maria Snagovaya, my colleague here at CSIS. Maria is a senior fellow here and leads our work on Russian foreign policy sanctions in the Russian economy.
Dara Masico. Dara is a senior fellow with the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and is one of the leading experts writing today about the Russian military and the war in Ukraine. Previously, Dara was a senior analyst for Russian military capabilities at the Department of Defense.
And last, but certainly not least, is Michael Kimmage, the director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center and previously a professor of history at the Catholic University of America. And from 2014 to 2017, he had the proud honor of being colleagues with me at the Secretary of State's policy planning staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he oversaw the Russia-Ukraine portfolio.
Derek, maybe we'll start with you to sort of set the scene. We're three years on, war is still raging. What is the current state of the war in Ukraine? What does the current dynamic look like on the ground?
Well, thanks for having me. So basically, the Russians are continuing their pressure along the front, and it's concentrated in a few areas. In Donetsk, near the city of Pokrovsk, they continue to hammer and try to chip away and bypass the city. The Ukrainians built a layer of defenses around the city proper, and so the Russians have learned to flank around it. To the north, they're also pressing in areas near Kupyansk.
And then they're still working on trying to push the Ukrainians out of Kursk in Russia. So it's...
I would say it's still mostly unchanged from when I was there in October. There's a few areas, territorially, that have changed hands the Russians have taken. But all in all, it's still pretty tense along the front line. The main advantages, I guess, that you could look at for the Ukrainian side and the Russian side, the Ukrainians are very good at inflicting damage on the Russians with drones. So they're holding the line using those kind of technologies and first-person view munitions.
The Russians, unfortunately, are able to regenerate forces a little bit better than the Ukrainians are. So a unit will press, sustain a lot of damages, but then they can pull back, regenerate, and then go again. And they also have glide bombs, which is still an issue. The main difference, I would say, between now and the fall,
is the use of wired drones, fiber optic drones. You can't really jam them. They're a big issue for the Ukrainians. They're working on their own to try to match. And this is just where we are at at this phase of the war. The attrition is heavy. The casualties are terrible on both sides.
territory doesn't really change hands but the more interesting and troubling aspect about this is what is happening to the to the units that are defending they're getting hollowed out now if you went back a year ago and said okay
we are where we are today and looked at how would you sort of characterize the war having progressed? I mean, it seems like the Russians have just gone on countless offenses that have gained territory, but maybe not as much as they had hoped for and that the war seems pretty static. Ukraine also launched its own offensive into Russia, into the region of Kursk.
Are the lines moving or is this, can we characterize this as a stalemate where both sides are just bludgeoning each other and not really getting very far? Well, I think if you zoom out, it looks like a stalemate. The areas of movement are really concentrated in a few particular areas. But in those areas, it is an incremental gain on the Russian side. So, you know, looking back a year, looking back at it now,
When I hear statements like, "Oh, the Russians have an overwhelming advantage and they're going to win this," that's not accurate. They're throwing everything they can at it, but they do have damage inside of their units, inside of their combat capabilities that limits how far they can move. The persistent surveillance on the battlefield is deadly for both sides, and that's why we don't really see this kind of large movement anymore. I don't think we're going to see that. You're not expecting any major breakthroughs.
Maybe we could talk a little bit about the munitions level. This has been, I think, a major concern for Europe and the United States that
Ukraine, at this time last year, the funding had run out of U.S. military assistance. Then a supplemental passed in April of last year. What is the kind of armaments dynamic look like? Are the Ukrainians being outshot by the Russians? And what does that dynamic look like?
Well, yes, I mean, they have not really had an artillery advantage in the war. And it's been ebbed and flowed depending on how far apart it was.
No, right now, my understanding and this is consistent with what it was in the fall is the main problem that the Ukrainians are facing is not ammunition. I think the tail end of the Biden administration tried to push a lot of equipment forward as much as they could, and the weapons are still flowing now. They haven't stopped. And I think that's important to point out, too. I mean, there's
bit of autopilot that is going on at this time the main problem is manpower main problem for the ukrainians is infantry they are not getting in enough people for the casualties that they're sustaining they are coping with it with drones with good drone use and they they have actually really really boosted their own domestic drone production which is a positive thing i don't think we should we should um
avoid talking about in case aid stops, they still have that domestic capability. But I do worry about the manpower situation because I don't see a lot of solutions in the near term for them. Yeah, I saw that with the drones when I was in Ukraine firsthand. But the manpower, have there been any steps by Ukraine to sort of address it? They
started the mobilization belatedly, but have there been any recent reforms? And is Ukraine looking at pursuing sort of different tactics here? MS. They have. They're actually – they're doing – I think they've correctly assessed what they need to do and they're doing it. So a few of those things are collapsing these new series of brigades that just really didn't have the manpower behind them.
very empty. And so they just they did away with that. They're taking all the people they have for those and they're putting them in the experienced units on the front line. That is a relief.
for those units that are experiencing significant shortfalls. Another thing is they are looking at which units are the strong units, basically. Who has a good commander? Who has battlefield success? And they're taking those particular units and building them up from brigade to a larger core. They're trying to choose the strong and reinforce them. So that helps.
But there's a longer-term issue here of there's a trust issue going on. You know, when we were there, it was described to me as people are certainly willing to fight. I mean, that was the case in all the units that we met with. That's still the case now. The will to fight is strong. But people are not willing to sign up to basically fight and die for a tree line if they don't understand the objective or what the point is. Ukraine is a very different society than Russia.
Okay, and like they're used to, you know, having like trying to understand what the orders are and what's the mission and the units that succeed have that kind of command relationship that we would probably say is more like Western in style. It's a command style and transition.
So they're working on it long term, and that must happen regardless of how the war ends or not. This is critical for them to resolve. But short term, I – there's still real challenges. Maybe one final question for you before we turn to Michael about the negotiations and Maria and all of you.
So militarily, do you see a situation where maybe both Russia and Ukraine could just be like, we're not going to get anywhere, time for talks, and that the military situation on both sides is sort of pointing in the direction of let's have negotiations? Is that...
Are you sensing that or? I mean, that's a political question. You know, so if we just look at the situation on the ground, the Russians are throwing
People and equipment at this and they're sustaining casualties and they just keep doing it I mean they've been doing this now for a year a year plus same thing taking seeing significant casualties in the process and just recommitting people no matter how poorly wounded or how badly wounded they are that we're not seeing people on crutches on the Russian side being sent in I mean, it's it's it's bad but again, the Russians have not stopped what they are doing and
They don't stop the attacks. They haven't stopped missile strikes. Drone strikes are heavy. And this is all since the election. So if there was a thought that, oh, maybe they'll ease up a little bit to see what that does for talks, I haven't seen it. And, you know, on the Ukrainian side, they're just trying to hold the line. Yeah.
Michael, let me turn to you. It's been a very eventful last few weeks in transatlantic relations as well as in Russia, Ukraine, U.S. policy. There were talks that were held between the U.S. and Russian side led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Riyadh.
What did you make of these talks? Is there anything that you're pulling out from what we saw earlier this week? Well, it's interesting to analyze the U.S. side, which is very significant in all of this, because in a way the initiative has been coming from Washington in the last couple of weeks, and the changes have been coming from Washington. On the one hand, it's a very public way of pursuing diplomacy that you see happening
social media postings and a lot of messaging from Secretary of Defense Hegseth, Secretary of State Rubio, Vice President Vance, and President Trump, of course. On the other hand, I think the administration has been
less than forthcoming for reasons one can understand about what agenda it's pursuing. So you see certain benchmarks and impulses that are being given in the public communication, but it's not effortless to discern what the U.S. agenda is. I think you can make a few inferences. I wouldn't do it with total confidence, but one, of course, is that the U.S. is not going to wait for Ukraine to conduct diplomacy. That's already obvious. Secondly, the U.S. is not going to be deferential or
Overly solicitous of Europe. So Europe can come along if it wishes. That's sort of how I read this form or style of diplomacy, but it's not going to be as it was under the Biden administration and probably would have been under the Harris administration that it's really going to be kind of a joint transatlantic endeavor with lots of consultation and back and forth.
There's the issue of critical minerals in Ukraine, which is sort of the news of the day in terms of General Kellogg and his meeting on this particular day. Maybe you could outline...
a bit of what happened there. - Right, well I wish I knew the details with sort of more clarity, but it seems like on the US side there have been various requests put forward about investment and access to critical minerals in Ukraine, and this sort of in return retrospectively for prior commitments of military aid and perhaps as a foundation for future commitments of military aid. So there's that, which is a novel development.
And then there's an ongoing conversation with different layers of messaging from the Trump administration about what security guarantees could look like. Perhaps a European force, which Foreign Minister Lavrov has already rejected, perhaps some other configuration. So it seems like in these respects, by really pushing the envelope diplomatically, a kind of approach to Ukraine that involves a degree of economic statecraft,
And, you know, some speculative conversation about what security guarantees could look like after a hypothetical ceasefire. This seems to be the outlines of the U.S. agenda and position. That's the best that I can characterize it, but it's not...
It's not easy to do because it's happening very fast. And the agenda itself to me still seems like it's under wraps. Yeah, I mean Europeans for months have been debating a European force, a European peacekeeping force, European boots on the ground. It all sort of struck me as a worthwhile conversation but putting the cart before the horse to some degree because you have to get to an actual ceasefire peace agreement.
But I think what kind of struck me and I think struck a lot of analysts is that it seemed in some ways the talks seemed when it pertained to Ukraine were sort of talks about talks, were sort of talks about how to have negotiations about ending the war. But then there was sort of this other side piece that seemed very much about U.S.-Russia relations.
and improving or expanding US-Russia relations, which I think caused a lot of consternation both in Kyiv and many other European capitals worried about the US security presence in Europe, given some of the comments from Secretary of Defense Hegseth about transferring responsibility for European security to Europeans, but at a moment that you, where the US may reduce forces, may that become part of Europe's
of talks with Russia. What did you make of the kind of bilateral effort? Is this sort of a new, you know, another attempt by an American administration to reset relations? How did you see this? I think that's fair. I think it's a good way of characterizing it, although I don't think that the word reset has come up from the Trump administration, maybe for obvious reasons, because there's a track record of failure with that particular word. I think they feel entitled to
to a new go-round, that they don't want to inherit the constraints and the problems of the past, and so they want to define things in their terms. You know, it is, of course, the case that President Trump, when a candidate, did sort of campaign on ending the war quickly, on conducting negotiations with Russia and a different kind of relationship with Russia. So in that sense, none of this should really come as too much of a
a surprise. It was signaled and outlined earlier. And I think that there are two open questions. I think that your characterization of it is exactly right. They were talks about having talks. They didn't seem to go that badly as such, but there was no date announced for a Putin-Trump summit, which is
perhaps in the offing, perhaps not. So it's not clear where exactly the next steps are going to be in this regard. Maybe a kind of contact group or the team that President Trump has empowered and there's something of a Russian team and maybe they'll just keep on going until something ensues or perhaps something will not ensue from this. It's very, very difficult. It's difficult to tell. And then the other interesting aspect of it all is that over the last three years,
Russia has steadfastly refused to compartmentalize its relations with the U.S. So it's put the Ukraine war front and center. Everything is about that. Everything is about a very high degree of confrontation, hostility, etc. And the Biden administration was not eager or interested in compartmentalizing either. It also felt there's an intractable issue between these two countries that's going to be hashed out.
And in a sense, one country is going to prevail over the other. In a way, on a dime, both the U.S. and Russia have completely shifted in that regard, at least rhetorically. I don't know. On the level of action, I think there's a lot that remains to be seen. But rhetorically, the compartmentalization has occurred, and we have the messaging from President Trump. He wants to work on business issues with Russia. He wants to work on nuclear issues. He wants to work on a whole host of issues in addition to Ukraine, and I think Putin has
signal some kind of similar ambition, emphasizing again certain economic points that he thinks might be of interest to the Trump White House. So the format is very important, the kind of new structures that have been empowered. That's, I think, one of the things to watch. And then the other thing to watch is whether this compartmentalization comes into effect, because it would really be something new after three years of non-compartmentalization. Before turning to Maria, I mean, one of the, I think,
major complaints about these negotiations was both from the Europeans about being cut out but the Ukrainians weren't there also um and it kind of struck a lot of people that if you're going to have talks you need to have you know both warring parties
And to have these talks, it didn't seem like the Russians made any concessions, have not actually seemed like they've made a concession to actually sit down with the Ukrainians. How do you think, how, well, first, how is Kyiv interpreting these talks? And there's been sort of now a war of words between presidents, between President Trump and President Zelenskyy.
pressure on President Trump calling Zelensky a dictator, urging the Ukraine to have an election in the which Ukraine has put off because of the war questioning Zelensky's popularity. And I think Zelensky has sort of pushed back on that. And that has led to really bad optics at the very least between Washington and Kyiv. So maybe what's what's your sense of of how Kyiv and how Ukraine is responding to this?
Well, I mean, I think it's clear that there's just a very high level of concern in Ukraine. This is not what Ukraine was asking for. It was not its preference. And this is a pretty acute moment of tension. I mean, certainly the greatest it's been since the start of the war between the United States and Ukraine. But to back up just for a moment and to take this from a somewhat different perspective, take this question from a somewhat different perspective.
Two points. I think you can understand the logic of what President Trump is doing in the following way, whether it will succeed is another question, but you can understand the logic in the following way, that to move quickly, which is obviously his intent,
You can't have too much consultation because if you consult with the how many 27 members of the EU plus UK plus, you know, plus UK plus plus Ukraine and slows things down and makes them more complicated. The diplomacy would get watered down and you have less wiggle room and less
leverage. So as a matter of tactics, you can understand why you might proceed in this way. And of course, it is the prerogative of an American president to meet with a Russian president. It's not a breach of protocol. There's certainly no etiquette that argues against it. It's a choice, of course. And you can kind of understand why, for the sake of speed or for the sake of flexibility, this might be done. But the second point... Maybe just a quick thought on your first point. Yeah, I mean, the U.S. has indeed negotiated with
with Russia over the heads of Europeans on all sorts of nuclear issues, the new START treaty when I was in government. The difference though is that there was an effort to also reassure the Europeans about that we're not sort of undermining their security. And I think that's the part where the other side of the Munich Security Conference, especially with Vice President Vance's remarks and others, that we're sort of
Giving it to Europe in sort of both ways locking them out and then also providing the opposite of reassurance. That's absolutely correct interjecting that there's a kind of upping of the ante when it comes to grievances that the Trump administration has with Europe at exactly this moment and that's that's that's very very relevant as as context, but the second point is that
you know, it's very important for the US at the moment for the Trump White House to understand not just the nature of its leverage, which is considerable, because of all the military assistance the US gives to Ukraine, but it's very important to understand the limits of its leverage. And the limits of his leverage mean that if you're going to have successful diplomacy, it's going to have to be a lot about persuasion,
uh it's going to have to be about persuasion on the ukrainian side if the us is going to push past certain ukrainian thresholds which could of course uh happen because of the situation that dara just described on the battlefield europe is an extremely important actor in all of this because of the aid it provides because of its equities in the region in ukraine uh because of you know refugees that europe has absorbed etc etc
And so there, either you need to get the buy-in or through consultation, you have to understand what the interests are or you have to persuade. And you could add in to make it even more complicated. It's what makes this diplomatic situation so enormously complex that Turkey matters to this and China matters. And there are other powers that are going to be
relevant to a diplomatic, a true diplomatic solution to the crisis, to the war that's happening before our eyes in real time. So, you know, the U.S. can drive the tempo, it can drive the media conversation, certainly, but when it comes to diplomacy, there are so many limits on the leverage
that that's going to push the U.S. back, I don't know, into the arms of the Europeans, that's hard to predict, but it's going to push the U.S. back into a mode where consultation process multilateralism is just going to be unavoidable. No, I think that's a great point. Maybe something we'll pick up later in the conversation, because it does strike me that Europe...
In some ways, we think of Europe as sort of weak and feckless, but actually with their economic and military capacity, while not being anywhere near what we have, do have the resources, at least potentially, to sustain Ukraine's war effort and therefore enable Ukraine to essentially say no to a deal that Ukraine may not want to agree to. But Marina, I want to turn to you maybe to offer your insight into Russia's perspective here.
I saw that the Russian stock market went up, the ruble strengthened this past week following the talks. And to pick up on Michael's point about leverage and the leverage over Ukraine, which I think is quite extensive that the United States have, it doesn't really strike me that the U.S. has that much leverage over Russia. What is Russia trying to get out of these negotiations? Is it after peace? Does it want to kind of end the war or what?
How do you think Russia is approaching this? Well, first of all, the state in Moscow, based on the reporting that we're getting, is complete and utter elation to the extent that the Kremlin is overcautious not to lose its luck accidentally. And – How do you say spike the football in Russia?
So it's almost too good to be true, exactly. To them, that's one of the reasons as to why the Kremlin so far has tried to maintain very moderated comments on the issue. But we do know that allegedly Putin tried to delay his federal assembly address, which typically would be scheduled at the end of February, which is one of the indications that the Trump administration
Putin meeting is in the making and then he probably would like to appear and like report this breakthroughs happily to the parliament. So certainly the economic situation is also like we see all these indicators of the hopes that are pumping up. The extent to which we'll see a lot of progress
At this point, I agree with Michael, it remains to be seen, but it's clear that, if anything, Max, to your question, the leverage that Washington could have had over Moscow has been quite diminished.
in the last weeks primarily approved unilaterally by the US talking points. So they already have given up a lot of what Moscow was hoping to achieve, including territorial concessions allegedly, at least verbally, no NATO membership for Ukraine, and even
some election in Ukraine that appear to be quite important for Putin. I will flag that, again, we do not know for sure what sort of, what has been discussed in Saudi Arabia during the meetings between the Russian side and the U.S. side.
But some of the talking points, talking about how exactly these negotiations could potentially proceed, including the freezing of the front line, then elections in Ukraine and then specific details, arrangement to keep the peace in place. Actually, to me, they're quite reminiscent of the Minsk two, where you remember there was the same sequence of the event. First, you freeze the line, then you hold elections, then you seize control of the border to Ukraine.
And this is very interesting that the Kremlin seems to have this playbook that it keeps pushing forward across various contexts.
Also, the insistence on keeping this point about elections in Ukraine seemingly unrelated to the territorial occupation of Ukraine tell us that the maximalist goals of the Kremlin are pretty much still in place. Otherwise, why would the Kremlin be pushing so eagerly the election, which allegedly, in the Kremlin view, could bring a pro-Kremlin candidate to power?
I believe it's highly unlikely, but the Kremlin is not particularly known for adjusting its priors regarding Ukraine. That is not something that we've seen in 2014 or '22, for that matter – 2022.
So accordingly, the thinking may be that even if not the pro-Kremlin candidate, but then they maybe can get some sort of political disabilization in Ukraine, which would eventually allow the Kremlin strong leverage over Ukraine. So the maximalist goals appear to be still very much there. This is also congruent with what we have seen the U.S. Intel reporting just a couple of days ago.
But when it comes to the leverage that the US administration can have over Russia, this is very questionable. We know, as a matter of fact, that sanctions lift has been consistently discussed.
But this where I not fully agree with Michael's point, I do not necessarily believe that the Kremlin is compartmentalizing this issue to the extent that maybe Trump's administration would love it to believe it. Because sanctions were introduced specifically because due to Kremlin's unprovoked aggression and invasion of Ukraine.
And separating this issue from the war in Ukraine really will be – was and will kind of be very welcome by the Kremlin because it's precisely what the Kremlin has always been saying. It's been saying that the sanctions weren't justified and completely illegal on the side of the West, and so they should be lifted regardless of what is happening in Ukraine. So if anything, this is again one of the Kremlin's aspirations from the start. MR ZELTAKALNS: One of the –
theories about Russia right now is that, well, they're maybe not making the gains they hoped on the battlefield and their economy is starting to sputter.
Do you think Putin is under pressure economically to try to end this war, to try to have a negotiated settlement because of the Russian economy? What do you – how much pressure is that putting on Vladimir Putin right now? Yeah. Well, the Kremlin – the domestic Russian economy is not doing great, and it wouldn't be right to say that sanctions do not work.
They do create significant strain on the Russian economy. There is growing inflation and there is slowing down economic growth, which altogether create the risks of stagflation exactly what you'd expect given the Kremlin's war-Kinesianist model that is known for creating risks of stagflation.
Nonetheless, most analysts, most economists assess that even under given constraints without sanctions lift or anything like that, the Kremlin can continue the war for a couple of years at the very least. Domestically, we have also seen more or less
compliant elites and society with a war and if anything a reshuffling of the society in a way that makes it easier for Putin to achieve, sort of sustain his goals. So there is no imminent pressure on the Kremlin that would push it towards the
the – towards the table, negotiation table. But at the same time, I would also disagree with some of the talking points of the U.S. administration that, you know, Russia is completely invincible, right? As Dara pointed out, there is actually a lot of damage that Russia sustained. It so far is able to deal with it. But it's not getting any better, and altogether, if sanctions were to be reinforced,
Because Russian economy has lost a lot of the protection mechanisms that would have otherwise helped it in case of a big blow, for example, an incident that would push the oil prices down for a while can be really detrimental for the Kremlin. So it's not invincible, but it's also nowhere near complete collapse.
Is there any sort of domestic political pressure right now on Putin? It's been about a year since the murder of Alexei Navalny. The liberal opposition has largely fled Russia, especially in the early days of the war.
Is there any signs of kind of internal strain amongst Russian elites, amongst the oligarch class that really just wants to get rid of sanctions, cut a deal, and we can maybe reopen to the West? Is there any inclination of that and sort of dissonance when it comes to support for this war inside of Russia?
I would say that going back to business as usual would be popular among the elites, especially the oligarch groups, but it's important to keep in mind that the control is in Silovii's security service hands who have very hawkish and revisionist aims that have not been so far achieved. So the maximal goals have remained as predicted. If anything, Putin has consistently
pontificated said that he expected the West resilience to break down. He always said, and that is actually congruent with the Soviet vision of the West, that new democracies are highly unstable, unpredictable, they can't commit to something in the long term, and eventually a new candidate will come to power who would sort of abandon previous commitments. And unfortunately, it looks like in that regard, Putin was not wrong based on the new developments in the US politics.
Accordingly, if anything, that reconfirms the Kremlin that they have a very good understanding sense of the West. And if anything, they can do basically, they can achieve the goals, which do not only include control over Ukraine, a reminder, right? But there's much more ambitious goals regarding the radical revision of the European security for NATO to go back to 1997-1998.
borders and whatnot. That, I think, will very much remain in place. And if anything, many within the criminal elites will feel empowered to do that. In fact, we already see, like, rumors of them saying the same thing.
Great. I think we've done a really good job at sort of setting the current stage of sort of where things stand. I mean, it strikes me, and I'm curious if anyone agrees or disagrees with this, but I think the kind of Russia expert community is quite skeptical that negotiations are going to result in sort of a firm and lasting peace or that they'll make a lot of headway.
I mean, do any of you see kind of a clear path for these negotiations to result in something that is somewhat stable or even a ceasefire outcome where the shooting stops and both sides can sort of lick their wounds and maybe prepare for round three, but at the very least stop fighting? Do we see a scenario in which that comes about, Dara, maybe? Yeah.
I'll put you on the hot seat. MS. Yeah. Well, so both would benefit from a ceasefire in different ways, right? The Russians will reconstitute. They're already doing that regardless. The Ukrainians can have an opportunity to address some of these manpower and training issues, refit some of these units. The Ukrainian units are not able to rotate off the line very often because the Russians target them ruthlessly when they're doing it and there's not a strategic reserve available.
A ceasefire would allow them to have that opportunity. There's different types of things like physical barriers and minefields and things you can put in place. But from a larger perspective, the new administration is talking a lot about economic recovery, economic development. Let's partner with Kyiv and sign this document on rare earths and oil and everything else.
But it's not really a good business investment for whichever businesses to invest in Ukraine if they're still taking missile salvos every month. There has to be some kind of agreement in place where the missiles will stop, the drone attacks will stop, electricity can be restored. I mean, these are the kind of things that if they're
Trying to use economic development as a policy hook, which, you know, I have some concerns about that. But you have to have a ceasefire in place in order to pursue that. And I don't see that same kind of a...
attention like here sign this document on rare earths but there's no security agreements in place they're incompatible right this is one of the the major challenges for Ukraine in economic recovery attracting businesses to invest in Ukraine that are going to build physical factories and things like that or or mining facilities that could be targeted is is is a real challenge I guess Michael I mean how do you see the prospects right now for
for success in terms of either just stopping the fighting or a long-term peace agreement. Well, of course, as all of us do at this table, I wrote a piece about this a few days ago and offered two suggestions that the diplomacy should be very incremental in nature and should be very private in nature, and it does seem to me
Shockingly, the White House didn't listen to my advice in this regard. But let me just lay out what I think is the most optimistic case scenario for negotiations, because as you say, Max, there's a lot of agreement about where things could go wrong, but it's useful maybe just as an imaginative exercise to see where things could go right. So the most optimistic scenario I can come up with is not one that revolves around a ceasefire and not one that revolves around a document Minsk
like referring to the diplomacy that was conducted in 2014 and 2015 where documents were signed but they had very little bearing on the actual situation. So not a sort of Treaty of Versailles type diplomacy, but instead, and there was an inkling of this in Riyadh, instead a kind of concerted effort to moderate, minimize,
and, you know, sort of draw back the war itself. And the inkling that I noticed was the trial balloon put forward by the Trump administration that there could be reciprocal diminishments in strikes on electrical grid, that Ukraine would strike less in Russia and Russia would strike less in Ukraine. That's something that Foreign Minister Lavrov immediately swatted away. But it seems to me like in theory,
That's a very good approach because there has to be the realization in both countries, Ukraine and Russia, that neither is going to win completely. There has to be a realization in ways that Dara has just been laying out that the costs on both sides are very great. And there has to be the realization that on both sides, it's not visible yet in Russia, it's a little bit more
picturable in Ukraine, but there could just be cracks in the political edifice. But we say that Russia looks solid and stable, but so did Russia look solid and stable in 2023 when a military mutiny occurred to the surprise of everyone. And now we're even more into this long and terrible war. And so the pressures under the surface have to be even greater. So if there are those incentives, I think there might be the potential for scaling back the war. And the appeal of this model to me
is that Putin doesn't have to lose face by claiming that he's giving up on some of his objectives. And Zelensky doesn't have to lose face in the sense that he has to commit to recognizing Russian occupation or annexation of Ukrainian territory, which I suspect is just a no-go in Ukraine, regardless of what is asked for Ukraine by Ukraine.
by outside countries. So I think negotiation could maybe accomplish that, that a year from now if we have this conversation, and in a sense I hope we don't have a fourth year anniversary conversation, but if we do that we would be talking maybe not about a finished war,
because the incentives are still there to keep fighting for reasons one could go into, but we could be talking about a smaller war. That's about as optimistic as I could get. So if one can pursue a kind of private incremental diplomacy along these lines, I think it has a few prospects for doing good. Put some guardrails on the war. Maria, what are your thoughts?
I would just say that it depends on how ambitious President Trump is about revising the existing U.S. foreign policy direction. But to me, it's not completely unfeasible in view of everything that's happening that there might be some arrangement that Putin and Trump can come up with.
Just because it seems that the key challenge to both of them in this regard is actually the liberal foreign policy, the way that it's been shaped until now. And some of the talking points on Trump's administration seem to be hinting in that direction. I don't know if that's achievable, and really a lot will depend on how well the Kremlin is able to play its cards. But so far we have seen the Kremlin very aptly, I'd say, credit where credit is due.
choosing its rhetorical point in a way that really echoing a lot of Trump's
For example, Putin has said before that 2020 election was stolen from Trump, that the war wouldn't have started if Trump was the president, and that Trump took the bullet like a hero. And in response, he's getting a lot of his token points actually echoed often by the U.S. administration members, like, for example, the fact that Ukraine may have started this war. Ukraine is the one to blame, not Russia.
So I don't know, I guess a lot remains to be seen. It's very much in flux. But as we know from books like Sergey Ryazhin's Ghost Around the World, the Kremlin ambition really goes way beyond
goes way beyond Ukraine. It's about running the world. And it's not completely unfeasible that the new reset between the U.S. and Russia could have elements of that in mind. If we're thinking ambitiously, as the U.S. president and the Russian president seem to be thinking, that is not completely off the table at the moment.
To give my sort of hot take on this, and Michael, as a historian, as the child of two historians, I think worries me a lot that Vladimir Putin has gotten into history in his sort of later years. Now, he's in his 70s, of course, in the summer of 2021, sort of wrote about Ukraine's importance to Russia and Russian history in a very sort of warped perspective on Ukrainian history. But to me, he's been in power for 25 years.
He is effectively, I think, thinking about his place in history as Vladimir the Great or Putin the Great. And where would he be in history if he agrees to just take a little bit of territory in the Donbas for a war that lasted for three years? And so I'm nervous that the maximalist objectives that
Russia had at the beginning of this war. And, you know, Dara could correct me if I'm wrong, but, you know, the initial invasion was pretty maximalist on what they were trying to achieve. And then we've seen a year of massive offensives that haven't gotten very far, but have sort of don't really seem like they're, you know, turning down the efforts there.
And I guess my concern is that, you know, I think they see an opportunity to basically sideline the U.S. from supporting Ukraine. And that what we saw last year, around this time last year, is a Ukrainian military that was withering on the vine without U.S. weapons supply and that Europe maybe doesn't have the capacity or ability to come in and
and backfill or the speed of which they can do that. And so another year or so, if we're, you know, unfortunately maybe talking about this a year from now or maybe two years from now, that then, you know, in a war of attrition, one side usually, you know, breaks down first. And so, Darren, maybe if we could transition to the pessimistic view, you know, hypothetically, if, if,
Russia is not intending to actually have a settled negotiation here, but maintaining its view of a maximalist objectives of subjugating Ukraine and basically eliminating Ukrainian democracy.
What are they hoping for militarily? Are they hoping that Ukraine runs out of weapons? Or how would they, you know, if that is, Putin is giving the order to its military, what is he telling them to plan for? And how do you think they would implement that? You know, I think, you know, we've had three years of this phase of the war moving into the fourth. And we're seeing Russian policy decisions and revealed preferences from how they're choosing to fight this.
Because you don't see Vladimir Putin tapping into the 25 million men that they claim that they have in strategic reserve to do this. They did one time 300,000 emergency mobilization and they're buying everybody else off with very good benefits, very good wages. But that is a policy choice. He does not surge people into this to decisively end it on
on some terms I mean this is it's it's managed politically with what he can get away with at home and so I I think about that and I think you know people are like oh the Russians are willing to do xyz no they haven't they haven't been willing to to throw people into it and and you know the same could be said for the Ukrainians as well their demographic situation is bad but there are plenty of men walking around the streets in Ukraine of all ages I've seen them
But the policy choice is we are not going to use these people like World War I. We're going to use drones and FPVs and other things like that to try to minimize the casualties. That's a policy choice too. So, you know, Putin, I think probably minimum.
would like it in a world where he occupies all of the areas that he annexed into Russia, right? Illegally. Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, Kherson. He does not have the military to deliver that to him. And he will not have it for several years. And again, all of that is completely fungible based on what kind of support goes into Ukraine, what decisions they make on the ground. So reality is,
hits him in the face every time. He just doesn't have it. And the metaphor that I used a year ago, and I think it's still true, is I think of it, the Russian military, as a car that has blown its transmission. It cannot get into the higher gears because of the damage and the casualties and the losses that it has already sustained. So it's flooring the gas. At like 20 miles an hour. At 20 miles an hour. I have had a Ford Thunderbird that blew its transmission on a highway. I know what it's like.
and he's flooring the gas and they're using motorcycles, they're using you know Ladas, they're using donkeys, they're using all these things to stretch out what they have left in the Soviet stockpile to do this but again
They're trying, and this is all that they can do right now. But my concern is that the challenges that they would face materially don't emerge, I think, this year. They emerge next year. And my concern is if the war comes to a conclusion this year before they have scraped the bottom of the barrel, they'll conclude that this works. Yes. And that's very dangerous because every time they conclude that something works, they do it.
MS TRUDEAU: Again, but bigger. And that has terrible implications for Ukraine, has terrible implications for Europe. Michael, I want to turn to you, but one quick follow-up. We saw North Korean forces fighting Ukrainian forces in Russia and Kursk.
Is there a danger or something that you're watching of a real manpower pipeline coming from North Korea, that this was sort of the beginning of what could be a much larger flow of North Korean forces into the battlefield might then help Russia address some of its manpower concerns? MS. I would say that as a test, if that was a test to see what the reaction would be globally and from the West, I would say that it was –
failed. They're really what kind of punishment did Russia and North Korea face from adding these forces to the fight? They didn't. So in terms of what lessons they draw from that, why not do it again and just keep doing it? Now, that particular force has taken a lot of casualties. In the meantime, they rested and recovered and they're recommitting them at this point in time. But again,
what price did either one of them pay for doing it, I think they will expand if given the opportunity and there's an opportunity. Michael, you wanted to jump in. I just wanted to amplify the point that Dara is making, thinking about it not in military terms but in diplomatic terms. And it's a difficult one, I think, to describe clearly. Russia...
can't be seen as losing a war that it's unable to win and that's very relevant for the negotiations. So yes, a kind of phony ceasefire, you know, Minsk's trial commitments to things that Russia is never going to do, you have to worry about that a lot with the diplomacy because Russia does have certain incentives, I think, to pause, that an operational pause, if that could be achieved, would
would benefit Russia, but in terms of the core ambitions, which are not easy to figure out, we don't have hard evidence on this,
But if Russia were to accept where it is now, sort of the territory it has behind the line of contact, which is something that's sort of in conversation about these negotiations, in my assessment, it's much too little for Putin. He may have insufficient capacity to get further, but the ambitions are certainly still there. I would guess for a kind of, you know, a set of layers when it comes to the ambition, but Odessa probably, not just...
Kherson, maybe all of the Black Sea coast and if not Kyiv itself, although I think that that remains as a kind of aspirational
maybe fantasy you could say but it's it's sort of still there what one in a very academic way might describe as suzerainty over ukraine that russia has veto power over ukraine's core foreign policy choices i think that ambition is absolutely still baked into putin's approach to this uh to this war he's not gonna negotiate that away no so the question is how much capacity do you have to limit that ambition to contain it to control it i know csis has done a lot of work on the notion of
containment I think it still remains very very relevant but any negotiation with Russia at the present moment that doesn't factor in the scope and scale of these ambitions is going to have a hard time moving forward so that's that's really important the capacity question is one question the ambition question is another but the ambition question has to remain front and center in our in our perspective. Rui I want to turn to you on mobilization but maybe just a quick point it does strike me that when it comes to
You know, what is this about? You know, we have a picture of the Maidan Square behind us. This is ultimately, I think, about what happened 11 years ago where Ukraine wanted to have a European future. And I think for Russia, that remains the thing that they need to stop, right?
Ukraine sort of moving closer to the European Union, being involved within the EU. There's been some conflicting signals there. NATO, they definitely want off the table, and apparently has the Trump administration. But it does strike me a situation that settles the conflict but enables Ukraine to sort of further integrate with Europe is a real loss for the Russians. And I therefore...
struggle to see how they would actually stop fighting because once you stop fighting you enable you sort of open that door for Ukraine to I think run toward toward Europe even faster just very very quickly you could stop fighting and you could seem to stop fighting yeah and in this scenario seem to stop fighting is very probable stopping fighting very improbable and and one of the things that that struck me and I think we we should talk about is you know when you
when you walk the streets of these various cities in Ukraine, they only look Soviet on the outside, right? The people are not the same. Like you can see in real time, like the Russian-ness or shared Soviet just drain out of the country. It's not, it's now a Ukrainian country and it just doesn't, I feel like they don't understand that in Russia. The buildings look the same, but the people are, they're different now. They're different. And the ability for Russia to absorb people
this back into the Russian body politics strikes me as bizarre, although, you know, we see a situation in Georgia where, while it's still sort of on the cusp, you know, that in some ways might be this sort of model that at least the Kremlin holds out hope that for them, that they can, you know, buy their time, corrupt Ukrainian democracy from the inside and then take it over. But given this, how brutal this war is, it seems really awfully hard to believe. But Maria, um,
The question of mobilization, Dara mentioned it, Putin has all these men that he could just call up and not pay, would be great for the Russian budget, they would have to incentivize people. It strikes me that he's having to balance concerns about his own regime stability to some degree and doesn't want people to get this war to become very unpopular and for him to become very unpopular.
Do you think he might push the mobilization button? We saw him do it in September 2022 when things looked particularly bleak for the Russians in the war as they were on the back foot. Do you think he might do that again this year?
Well, Dara, definitely feel free to correct me, but 2022 situation seemed necessitated by absolutely difficult situation on the battlefield for Russians when they lost a lot of territory that they occupied back to Ukrainians as a result of the counteroffensive.
Right now they seem to have stabilized the situation and accordingly the economic structure that they built in order at least to hold on to the territories that they occupy and keep pushing forward seems to hold. So the new model works for the situation that they've got even if it doesn't really allow them to achieve all of their objectives.
That's the first point. Second, I do not personally believe the concern is really with the regime stability as much, since even if mobilization was indeed the single most striking blow to Putin's popularity over the last three years, so self-inflicted, if you will, nonetheless, I just published a report analyzing the polling response to the challenges. It bounced back really quickly within several weeks.
Indeed, the balancing back was associated to some policies that the authorities have taken to slightly minimize the damage. But nonetheless, I think the lesson that we learned that the Russian society tends to sort of digest the shocks and adjust to them. So I don't think it would be as detrimental to Putin if he was to announce the mobilization as many would expect.
Having said that, I do believe one of the problems with such a large-scale mobilization is actually economic in nature. And that is because the Russian economy really is functioning at the full potential in terms of labor, and there is huge labor shortage. And just extracting in a very crude way a lot of people from various countries
industries without allowing an adjustment would be actually problematic for the economy and for the military industrial adaptation among other things more than it will be problematic for Putin personally I think and that is possibly one of the major reasons why the Kremlin has avoided doing that instead it's a flexible model and again the Kremlin is
very like has very Soviet thinking in a lot of ways about the world but the instruments the tools are very modern very contemporary right we see that everywhere like the use of internet for disinformation purposes but also the use of the market means for all sorts of the needs that they use that they have and this flexible adaptation allows people decide all right based on market incentives
who wants to go fight. And typically those are people who are struggling to have decent jobs. Accordingly, they're basically trading their lives in return for these generous benefits. And that's the system that seems to be working. Actually, it takes away the sort of
less people who do not find necessarily the need within Russia and essentially allow the country, the society just- - Less vital workers are being- - Less vital and those maybe who have the flexibility to do that.
So I think it's a model that's very efficient and the Kremlin so far has the resources to do that. A recent report by our colleague from Berlin, Janusz Klugis, shows that in the last quarter, 2024, the Kremlin again pushed up the price tag for these new so-called volunteers, which allowed them again to increase the recruitment without again having to go to the harder choices like mobilization.
Derek, I want to maybe come to you. We are running short of time, but one issue I think that would be really concerning to me in Ukraine is the potential for U.S. military and economic support to dry up. With the shutdown of USAID, Ukraine was the largest recipient of development aid. So that is gone, or at least for now.
The military aid you mentioned is still flowing, but a lot of that is from the contracts that were signed with industry in 2022, 2023, and 2024, and that may continue.
for a while, but do you see a situation where Ukraine becomes quite militarily desperate and can Europe maybe step up to fill some of the gaps that might emerge over the coming months or maybe really towards the end of this year? How do you see potentially the role of Europe coming?
do they need to step up as essentially to fill the gap that could be left by the United States? MS. Well, I think no matter what, Ukraine needs to turn to European suppliers more. There's just a lot of turbulence coming from D.C. right now on this issue. In terms of what they can support and what they can make up for, it's highly variable by weapon type. Artillery shells is probably the best-case scenario, and if ours dropped away completely, then that's a 50 percent reduction at least in terms of what Ukraine gets.
But the bigger problem is more some of the more advanced systems like Patriot and some of the other air defense systems that we supply from here would run out. There are European variants like NASAM and IRST that are very good. It would be very problematic for the Ukrainians, but I don't think it's a full stop to the war. So much of this at this point relies on artillery and drones and air defense.
But I think if there's other issues like intelligence and planning, if that gets turned off, then that's a whole nother, you probably don't have time to open that, can't warm it up, but that's another problem. - Great, well maybe final question for everyone. I guess if we're projecting ahead, and you can take this question anywhere you want to see it, how do you see the next year playing out?
You can be specific. I'm not gonna force anyone to make any sort of specific judgments on where they think things are going, but what are the things that you're looking out for for the next year? Things that maybe we should be watching for? How hopeful are you that this time next year we won't be having this conversation? So maybe Michael, start with you.
Well, I think the diplomacy is really, really complicated. And we've already laid out some of the reasons in the course of the conversation. The issues themselves are complicated. The territorial issue is highly complex. The security commitment to Ukraine, which Ukraine is going to demand if it's going to go through with a ceasefire or some kind of armistice, that too is not...
easy to figure out and to repeat myself the number of moving pieces, you know, all of the European countries, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, these are all countries that are supporting Ukraine. So the US is one piece of their coalition, but certainly not the only one. And then, you know, the global picture for this war and the way in which it's a war that matters to many different parts of
many different parts of the globe. That to me would suggest not that negotiations are destined to fail, but they are not destined to succeed quickly. In fact, they're very unlikely to succeed
And so in a way, the situation, this may be consistent with the first three years of the war, is going to be driven by events on the battleground, unless you would have huge policy shifts. And Dara was just describing the potential for one of them, that if the U.S. would really decide to withdraw aid to Ukraine, of course, that's a choice that the U.S. could make unilaterally, that would have a big effect on the battlefield, and that in turn would have an effect on the diplomatic situation.
story of the war, but it's still going to be the military situation driving the diplomacy rather than the other way around, I suspect. I could be proven wrong on that point, but I'll make that prediction, and that therefore means that
major significant diplomatic changes are likely to occur slowly. So maybe six to eight months from now I still have a hard time imagining it, could be the poverty of my imagination, but maybe a kind of diplomatic termination to the war is something to think of a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, and that again speaks to the sheer complexity of all of the things that go into this war and all of the things that will go into its termination.
Yeah, final thoughts. Yeah, so I've heard the language out of Secretary of State Rubio that negotiating a ceasefire but not getting to a durable settlement is just going to inevitably lead to another war in however many years after Russia takes an opportunity to reload, Ukraine does as well.
um in terms of of what that looks like in in terms of investment even if we have a ceasefire ukraine still needs a lot of support rebuilding itself and creating reliable defenses but i also think that the administration needs to think about what kind of
sticks that they can use here, because there are things that Russia fears coming into Ukraine – long-range strike, boots on the ground, basing. Like, these are things that can be used as leverage, as negative leverage against the Russians if they violate an agreement. I think that has to be backstopped with that negative leverage.
I think that even Donald Trump at this point agrees that the negotiations and the settlement will take longer. I've heard him recently say it may take up to a year. So we may as well find ourselves in a very similar situation next year, albeit it's clear when probably with a way less active role of the United States in Ukraine than before. Probably a stronger role of Europe, Europe really has gotten an opportunity to make major
game-changer potentially for example by coming up with resources to purchase a little aid in the United States in case it gets cut down but The Kremlin I think has also on its side incentives to keep pushing forward In Ukraine in light of everything that we've discussed at least for the next half a year Just to see if indeed there will be a possibility for major break through on the front line I think that one of the reasons why it will be in the Kremlin's interest to try and allow
prolongate these talks. The talks can continue without necessarily there being a ceasefire. And I also would not be surprised to see, again, in light of the recent developments, some agreements or some sort of negotiations going on between the United States and Russia and potentially even some sort of reset, partial sanctions lift as a result of this situation.
well this has been a fantastic conversation i mean my one thought on on this this question is i think the military situation doesn't look like it's going to alter significantly over the next year i think it seems pretty clear that russia may make gains but ukraine at least will continue to have the weapons flow from us from maybe not from our direct aid from last year but from the contracts that were signed and that there's a real potential for europe to make itself a real actor over the next year uh
where if it steps in militarily with significant aid, also the economic assistance, that I think Russia may find itself
not needing to necessarily negotiate with Washington, but much more with Europe, who then have taken over as the major backers as the United States maybe moves to the side. I don't think that's the intention of what Washington's seeking right now, but I think that's maybe the outcome. And so while it looks very bleak, I think, for Ukraine potentially in these negotiations,
As long as they sort of stay firm on the battlefield and there's no significant breakthrough, and Europe is there to support them, that may hopefully lead to a situation where maybe this time a year from now we're talking about negotiations, but maybe it's not Washington – between Washington and Moscow. So that would –
maybe be my sort of hopeful optimistic end to this conversation. Um, but we're going to have to leave it there. I want to thank you all so much, Maria, Dara, Michael. Thank you. This has been a fantastic conversation and thank you all, uh, for, uh, to our viewers for tuning in. Uh, if you like this conversation, let me please recommend that you go and subscribe to our podcast, Russian roulette, as well as the Euro file, which looks at all things, uh, transatlantic, uh,
relations. And we also have a new report out looking at the coming collisions in transatlantic relations. Those collisions may in fact be here, but it's a report that sort of goes through all the different policy areas where Washington and Europe may have some real tensions. So with that, I want to thank you all for tuning in and we will see you next time. You've been listening to Russian Roulette. We hope you enjoyed this episode and tune in again soon.
Russian Roulette releases new episodes every two weeks on Thursdays and is available wherever you get your podcasts. So please subscribe and share our episodes online. And be sure to check out all the latest analysis by the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at csis.org.