In The News

Samuel Bendett says, “Ukraine already demonstrated that it can reach deep inside Russia with UAV strikes that targeted military bases which are supposed to be well protected and are located far away from the Ukrainian boarders.”

Jonathan Schroden says, “The Iranians have military jets, drones, and anti-armor weapons and the Taliban have little to nothing to stop those capabilities. Which means the surest way for the Taliban to lose what few tanks they have is to employ them operationally against the Iranians.”

Samuel Bendett says, "The general assessment of drones like TB2 is that they work well without sophisticated air and electronic warfare defenses arrayed against them.”

Ken Gause says, “When Rodman was there, he visited Kim Jong Un in Wonsan … there were a lot of Kim relatives, including Kim Sol Song [his half-sister], but there was no son there.”

Michael Kofman says, "It may require multiple offensives on multiple fronts and will likely be conducted over the period of several months rather than days or weeks."

Michael Kofman says, “The battle for Bakhmut is less important in terms of territory and more in its impact on both forces and what it reveals about them.”

Samuel Bendett says, “Volunteers are still the main source of quadcopters for the Russian forces. It looks like the MoD would like its soldiers to think they can request a quadcopter via official channels, but it’s not clear how many are using such channels.”

Jonathan Schroden says, “We ran a bunch of different calculations, scenarios, etc. One of the common themes in terms of force structure requirements that emerged from those is in almost every scenario we looked at, there was a higher demand for PSYOP forces, for civil affairs forces, for undersea warfare and maritime capabilities, than what the force has today.”

Michael Kofman says that the Ukrainians will only have enough weaponry and ammunition, and time, to launch one major offensive this year, using their newly arrived Western supplies and employing thousands of troops trained by the U.S. and UK among others.

Samuel Bendett says, “Russia claims to have a multilayered drone defence in Crimea, with nets, buoys, planes, helicopters, ship-based and shore-based batteries. This is a lot of resources dedicated to catching a small and relatively inexpensive surface vessel.”

Michael Kofman says that retaining the city had helped sustain support from Western countries, proving it was making a difference.

Kevin Pollpeter says, “I think the inclination is to release less information rather than more information, because even if they are using it for something like satellite servicing and repair, it doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be used for more offensive or more military activities.”

Samuel Bendett says that the use of nets is increasing, though it is not clear how widespread their use is. Ukrainian forces have repurposed fishing nets and chicken-wire fences and built custom metal mesh structures.

Samuel Bendett says,” at least as of this Monday, Ukrainian forces are slowly counterattacking along the flanks around some of the Wagner positions. Some of the Wagner positions are possibly in danger of being encircled.”

Dmitry Gorenburg says, "There's definitely space for improvements.” Taking nuclear weapons and destruction out of the equation, "the Russian submarine threat is the greatest threat that Russia poses to NATO." However, there is now "definitely an appropriate level of awareness of the threat."

Michael Kofman says, “Ukraine seems to be attacking with forces that are unlikely to be related to the main effort. Hence hoping to fix Russian units at Bakhmut and roll back gains over the past few months, while setting the conditions for a major offensive that probably will take place elsewhere.”