The war in Ukraine has transformed.
In February, when I spoke to Michael Kofman, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, about the course of the war, he said something counterintuitive: “Time is not on Russia’s side.”
Russia is much bigger than Ukraine. It has a much larger population and a much larger defense industrial base. History teaches us that wars are often won by the side that can bring more men and more resources to the field of battle.
But time has passed since that conversation, and Kofman has proved to be correct. The war is not going well for Russia. But how badly is it going, really? And does potential defeat make President Vladimir Putin even more dangerous?
To answer these questions (and more), I reached out to my friend Kori Schake, a senior fellow and the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Kori and I traveled together to Ukraine in 2023, and she has visited there since.
I’ve spoken to Kori before for The Times, and I always find her to be interesting and insightful. Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Kori, you just got back from Ukraine, and I’m very interested in getting your assessment of the state of the war. And let me start by telling you what the zeitgeist feels like to me, and you can tell me what’s correct about this and what’s incorrect.
The tide of the war is turning. Ukraine’s deep-strike capabilities are materially harming the Russian economy, and Ukraine’s medium-strike capabilities are harming Russia’s ability to supply its forces in the field. On the battle line, Ukraine is inflicting catastrophic losses on Russia to such an extent that Russian advance has slowed to a crawl, if it’s even advancing at all.
Therefore, this would be the time, a very good time, for Vladimir Putin to choose a cease-fire. Let’s start with the good news before we get to the bad news. What’s right about that analysis?
I think almost everything is right about that analysis. There’s clearly been a shift of momentum. The Ukrainian defense industry has got its gears meshing such that it can produce quality products at scale. So, that’s what you’re seeing with the drones, and with the long-range strikes. The Russians have been taking about up to 35,000 casualties a month when their replacement ability is lower than that.
The sand’s clearly running through the hourglass for the Russians. There’s a stalemate on the ground. President Volodymyr Zelensky is trying to focus attention on the air domain as the place where the war will be won. I think that may be a little bit too optimistic, but the facts on the ground are clearly giving the Ukrainians momentum and giving heart to the fight so that they can continue to endure this.
So, if almost everything I said was correct, where’s the “almost” in it?
Well, the Ukrainians are operationalizing a version of what NATO doctrine in the 1980s called “follow-on forces attack.” You hit the logistics lines, you destroy their ability to repair and resupply and reinforce. And they’re doing that extraordinarily well. And they are also driving the war home to Russia with long-range strikes. Where I’m a little bit nervous is that Ukraine has run very short of air defense, and the Russians are targeting civilian targets that Ukraine can no longer effectively protect.
And so the civilian casualty figures are going way up in Ukraine, which tells me that the Russians’ strategy is adapting, and they are letting go of any prospect of military success — and as they had been trying to do by attacking Ukraine’s energy supplies, they’re trying to break Ukrainian will to fight.
I also have long worried that as Russia loses, Putin would have such a difficult time remaining in control after the costs of an unsuccessful war, that he could do something dramatic, like escalate and attack Ukraine with nuclear weapons in order to say, “We didn’t need a conventional victory. We achieved regime change with weapons that only Russia and a few other countries have the power to possess.”
I’m glad you brought that up because it’s been hovering in the background from the beginning of this conflict, and it feels as if the nuclear question has receded out of the conversation. Should it come back if Russia’s battlefield fortunes reverse any more than they already have?
Let me answer your question simply. Yes, it should come back into the center of the conversation. But not as the Biden administration projecting its anxiety about it into the public realm.
Instead, I think, NATO commanders have got a better handle on it — which is to say that Russia will not succeed no matter what type of weapon it uses, and if Russia should use a nuclear weapon, we could join the war on the side of Ukraine, we will send NATO disaster assistance teams to Ukraine, we will make sure Vladimir Putin ends up in The Hague.
We’re not powerless in Russia’s decision-making. And just because it threatens or attempts to enact a nuclear use doesn’t mean we’re shy of penalties we can apply before, during and after.
When do you get nervous about nuclear weapons? What are the particular lines you would look at? So here’s one I’ve thought of, and you can tell me if you think I’m wrong: if, in fact, there was a Ukrainian thrust that cut off Crimea, or if Putin thought Crimea might fall. To me, that might be one of his red lines.
I’m nervous about the Crimea scenario you just outlined. I’m nervous about the Russians being driven out of territory in Ukraine, and wanting to look like they’re winning, even as they’re losing. Those are the two that really strike me.
But we have the ability to monitor very carefully any movement toward nuclear use. And we would have the ability to interdict it. We are not the only country that would have the ability to interdict it, and conveying that to the Russians, repeatedly and early on, would be, in my judgment, a pretty effective deterrent, because the only thing worse for Russia than losing a war in Ukraine is being incapable of defending its own territory against intervention by the United States or other NATO allies.
Let’s talk about Russian escalation short of nuclear weapons. When we were in Ukraine together in 2023, I vividly remember the defense minister talking about how Ukraine was genuinely worried about sheer numbers. I believe the phrase he used was “a million men with Kalashnikovs are dangerous.”
What are the prospects of Russia moving toward total mobilization? In other words, how many more men can Russia pull into this fight if it chooses to go all in short of nuclear weapons?
I’m skeptical that Russia has much margin for horizontal escalation, for putting more forces in the fight — in part because the cost of recruiting them has gone way up. Because Vladimir Putin is not confident enough of his control of the country to mobilize men for the war in Moscow and St. Petersburg. And because the Russians had to appeal to the North Koreans for troops to be able to stay in the fight.
And press reports suggest that they are scamming Kenyans and others into service by pretending that they are coming on work permits to Russia. So, if Russia had the ability to throw more soldiers into the fight, I think it would have already done it by now.
Let’s talk about support for Russia from the outside. We’ve seen North Korea deploy troops. China has an immense defense industrial capacity. To what extent is China supporting Russia, and what is the prospect of China escalating its support for Russia to try to guarantee that Russia at the very least doesn’t lose the war?
China clearly wants Russia not to lose the war. And it is not unhappy with a Russian bloodletting that is also a Ukrainian bloodletting because it keeps Europe and the United States focused on Europe rather than on Chinese predatory actions in the South China Sea and in and around Taiwan.
China clearly likes to see it go on, but it’s been very careful to keep its banks largely out of the range of potential sanctions and to provide material equipment but not in the form of missiles or easily identifiable military kit. So it’s requiring some reverse engineering for the Russians to get Chinese parts.
And it’s clearly not providing soldiers, which the Chinese have a surfeit of and could. So, I think they like it to keep going, but they’ve got bigger fish to fry.
Let’s look at support on the other side of the equation. As of right now, what is the status of American support for Ukraine? Everything from are we still doing intel sharing to what kind of weapons are we providing, or selling, and what kind of aid are we providing beyond sales?
The American government is not providing any new financial support packages to Ukraine, which is a big change and makes it hard for Ukraine to keep its government up and functioning, and to keep providing assistance to victims of the war.
We are no longer directly providing military equipment to Ukraine, but we are permitting NATO allies to purchase it and provide it to Ukraine. So, there’s still a pipeline of American weaponry that allies are paying for.
The most important thing we can provide to Ukraine and are providing to Ukraine is intelligence support. You’ll remember that the Trump administration cut it off for about a week, early on in the second term, but that quickly got reversed and hasn’t been interrupted.
I think the two parts of the American government that continue to be strongly in support of Ukraine being able to defend itself are the C.I.A. and the American military. I’m sorry, I should have also put the N.S.A. in that category. And so, a lot of targeting information, a lot of battle damage assessment, access to satellite imagery — lots of good cooperation is going on there. And at this point, that is what Ukraine needs that only we can provide, and we are providing.
When I was in Odesa for the Black Sea Security Forum a little bit ago, I was really struck by the number of American veterans of military service and of the intelligence community who are swarming in and around Ukraine because they understand that Ukrainian sovereignty is in America’s interest, and that Ukraine deserves our cooperation and support. It gets showcased in Matt Gallagher’s wonderful novel “Daybreak,” about American veterans who go to fight in Ukraine. And I actually saw the dynamic that the novel outlines in real time when I was in Odesa.
I recall the same thing from Kyiv when we were there. It was swarming with Americans who were helping in all kinds of different capacities. It was really striking.
Yeah, veterans who were medics were going to volunteer. I was sitting near a young man on the plane on the way to Moldova who was making his way to Ukraine, and he said, “I don’t have any skills. I’ll just unpack boxes and do whatever needs doing.”
It’s a reminder how often the American government fails in foreign assistance, and American charities, faith groups and just average Americans want to do something good in the world.
We are more than our government, thankfully.
Absolutely.
Right now, Kyiv is vulnerable to missiles because Ukraine is apparently exhausting its supply of Patriot interceptors. There is a deal that is being struck to allow Ukraine to manufacture interceptors, but unless I’m wildly incorrect, they’re not going to be fielded anytime soon. There is a long ramp-up to manufacturing missiles. In the meantime, what is the prospect of protecting Ukrainian airspace?
The prospects are dim of protecting Ukrainian airspace. I mean, of the 68 missiles Russia reportedly shot overnight and early on July 6, none of the 20-plus ballistics were intercepted, and they were incredibly destructive to civilian lives and infrastructure. But what the agreement does is convey two really important political symbols. Domestically, it conveys to Ukrainians that help will come if you continue to hold out. And the message it sends to Putin and the Russians is, “We’re going to continue to fight on for the sovereignty of Ukraine, and assistance is going to come to them if they continue to hold out.” So, it’s a message domestically that Zelensky can reassure his own people with, and it’s a threat to the Russians.
The European Union and Britain are stepping forward with a very large loan for Ukraine. You are seeing the European defense establishment sort of rousing itself and the European defense industrial base rousing itself. But again, all of that takes time. As of right now, is Ukraine primarily in the fight because of the emerging Ukrainian defense industrial base? Or has Europe been able to fill a larger gap than we thought?
Europeans have rushed to fill the gap, and nobody more so than Germany. It’s really striking how serious-minded the Germans have been about accepting that Ukraine sovereignty is the leading edge of Europe’s security. Rheinmetall, the big German weapons manufacturer, is co-producing both in Ukraine and in Germany. The Norwegians, the Swedes, the Finns, the Danes are clearing out their own stockpiles and buying U.S. weapons in order to provide near-term support to Ukraine.
But exactly as you suggest, David, the Ukrainians have had a shrewd strategy of understanding that it’s not good enough to rely on outside assistance forever, and they used the time of American assistance and now of European assistance to build their own at home.
The way that they are adapting is something that the American military couldn’t or wouldn’t do because it fights connected. The Ukrainians fight more autonomously unit by unit, so they have an internal market of weapons deliveries, and if it works, you buy more, and if you use it well, you get more opportunities.
They’re really innovating fast, and what looks to American military eyes as quite sloppy and hard to scale is unquestionably working for them.
It almost sounds like a free-market approach to weapons procurement in the middle of a war.
It absolutely is. And the innovation rate of the Ukrainian military is what has prevented them from losing.
You know, David, the most poignant thing I heard when I was in Ukraine was one of their military commanders saying how much he wished that in 2022 Ukraine had the military it has now. Because it could have won the war in 2022 if it had a military as rapidly innovative, as battle-hardened, as judicious as the Ukrainian military today.
Russia has innovated as well. It has these Rubicon drone units, for example. Is it the case that you are having a sort of a seesaw integration cycle where one innovates and the other one responds? Or has Ukraine been consistently ahead of the curve? How much has the Russian military transformed during this conflict?
In general, Ukraine innovates quickly and struggles to scale and standardize what works across its forces. And the Russians have the reverse virtues and the reverse vulnerabilities. They are slow to integrate, but good, once they have a solid answer, at standardizing it across their forces.
Where Russia has successfully innovated is in areas where it has traditional strengths — electronic warfare, for example. But what the Russians are not good at is imaginative innovation. And there, they have regularly lagged behind Ukraine, and then had to figure out what the Ukrainians were doing and figure out how to copy it.
We’ve talked about Russian manpower, we’ve talked about Russian innovation. Now let’s talk about the Russian economy and defense industrial base. We’re four years into a war that is consuming men and material at a staggering rate — at rates we haven’t seen in Europe since the world wars. And Russia’s still in the fight.
This is now a war economy that we’re dealing with, and how formidable will that war economy be after the war is over?
Something like 40 percent of Russian government spending is on military and security, and the Russians have completely shifted their economic model and their manufacturing to war production — and compromising their future in the process.
They’re essentially eating their seed corn by making the war effort the central element of their economy. You don’t see innovation in other places, you don’t see business start-ups in other places.
My nominee for Bond villain is the head of the Russian Central Bank because the fact that she has kept the economy functioning at all these four years is an act of real genius, but at some point, it’s going to break, and we may not be very far from that point. The Russians are cutting into their financial reserves in order to support the war effort.
Our war in Iran was a huge economic boon for Russia, because we temporarily lifted restrictions on sales of their oil.
If the war ended tomorrow, it would be uncontroversial to say that Ukraine is a more powerful military right now than it was before the war, almost without question. Maybe one of the most powerful militaries in the world.
Yeah.
As for Russia, if the war ends today, is it less powerful than it was when it started? Or does the fact that it has ramped up its defense industry — and has a drone-trained and drone-experienced army in a way that no NATO country does — mean that Russia is (perversely enough) more powerful, or has it been weakened?
Russia has, in my judgment, unquestionably been weakened. I saw an estimate that the life span of Russian recruits from the moment they arrive at training is between 10 days and three weeks.
That’s not a military good at warfare. That’s not a military that is culling a cadre of battle-hardened leaders who make good judgments. That is a heavily conscripted army that’s being fed into a meat grinder.
I read a fascinating Wall Street Journal report essentially saying that our European allies are further down the road of planning for a life without an American alliance, or a life with an American alliance far more tenuous than we might realize. What’s your thought right now as the state of NATO and the state of European-American relations?
The Trump administration has destroyed trust in the United States as a security partner, much less a security provider. And it will take a generation to restore that trust. What Europeans are desperately trying to do is be palliative enough not to provoke a narcissistic and self-destructive Trump administration while they replicate those capabilities that the United States had been relied on to provide.
And what is most interesting to me is that if you take the endoskeleton of the United States out of the alliance, Europeans won’t fight the way they would fight with American abilities. They will have to find a way, a European way of war, that will be different, and that will make it harder for us to fight in unison because they are going to evolve in ways that play to their advantages without relying on our advantages.
That’s interesting. I had not thought about that. This question might be too nerdy to get into, although my readers are — and this is nothing but an abundant compliment — very, very nerdy, but what are the capabilities where Europe just has giant gaps?
First is intelligence. The second is command and control. The United States military fights as an integrated unit. The commanders are talking to the airplanes that are synchronizing strike patterns, and the Navy is providing support. So the integral nature of a war that can rely on American command and control would be impossible for others to replicate without us. We’re the integrator of everybody’s forces.
What you would likely see is less combined arms. So air, sea, space, land being divergent efforts rather than integral efforts. They would have much less ability to strike with precision at great ranges.
Even before the weaponry that we gave to Ukraine, almost all of them would run very shallow on ammunition. And so it’ll be a different way of war. And likely one less precision driven, less accurate, more costly — in human lives and in damage. But I don’t think we should doubt that Europeans can and would fight without American help. I mean, the Finns aren’t going to say, “The Americans aren’t coming, so we’re done.”
And by the way, I think the Finnish Army could defeat the Russians all by itself — even without 31 other NATO allies joining in.
That’s a bold statement. Is that a reflection on the quality of the Finns, or the problems of the Russians, or both?
Both!
Who are you seeing as stepping up in capability? Who is still too far behind? I have seen a lot of frankly disturbing things about the availability of the Royal Navy. It’s a very small fleet, highly capable but small, whereas it has seemed as if the French Navy has flexed its muscles. But that’s just, you know, amateur me from the outside. Where are you seeing strengths and weaknesses in the alliance?
Amateur you from the outside is exactly right. I do think there is a crisis in British defense, and it’s a crisis of size, of readiness, of willingness of the government to spend what is needed to manage the threats. George Robertson, who ran the 2025 British Strategic Defense Review, gave an interview to The Financial Times that is incredibly damning about the failures of British defense policy.
British defense policy is built on the assumption that they would never fight a war without the United States by their side. One of the reasons the French are looking so strong at the moment is that the French operate on no such assumption.
And that goes back to de Gaulle. De Gaulle very intentionally set them up to be independent of the United States.
Absolutely. There are a lot of good militaries in NATO, and almost every single one of them is better than the Russian military.
The Polish military has really come into its own; the Finns are amazing. The Swedes, despite us thinking of them as ABBA, actually have a terrific military. The Danes are very good.
Is there anything that I have not covered that I should have?
We have for too long acted as though the Russian military is both capable and winning, and the person who best punctured that false assumption is the former British chief of the defense staff, Adm. Tony Radakin. And the way he did it was to use the example that if you had put a snail on the Ukrainian-Russian border in February 2022, it would have made more progress into Ukraine than the Russian military has made into Ukraine. I think that is such a fantastic little vignette that shows that we’re acting as if the Russians are succeeding, the Russians are good at this, and they’re really not.
That’s a great dose of perspective to end on. Thank you so much.
It was a pleasure, my friend.
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