In The News

Michael Kofman says that holding Bakhmut has allowed Ukraine to grind down Russian power, but clinging to the town could be costly.

Samuel Bendett says, “It is likely that the Russians are going to continue to press around Bakhmut. The situation for the Ukrainian military there is very precarious.”

Brian Waidelich wrote, On 25 January 2023, Space News reported that the European Space Agency (ESA) no longer intends to send European astronauts to Tiangong, China’s newly completed space station.

The world’s 20 wealthiest nations met in New Delhi for the G20 summit. But the gathering on global cooperation was largely overshadowed by bitter disagreement on the war in Ukraine and concluded with no consensus. Amna Nawaz discussed the meeting, and China's and India’s support for Russia, with Sumit Ganguly and Elizabeth Wishnick.

Michael Kofman says, "Gerasimov is exhausting the Russian armed forces with a feckless series of offensive operations, which may yield some gains, like Bakhmut, but [are] unlikely to change the strategic picture.

Sam Bendett says, “Wagner’s influence goes way beyond Ukraine, and it is a useful tool for the Russian state to operate in areas where they don’t want to operate officially.”

Michael Kofman says that the rest [of the mobilized troops] have probably been used to fill out under-strength battalions and build a reserve to rotate front-line units out of Ukraine.

Michael Kofman says, "Over the past year, Russian forces in Ukraine leveraged their advantage in artillery to make up for a lack of manpower. But they were expending more than half a million shells per month."

Michael Kofman says, "Neither of these armies look today the way they did at the beginning of the war. Both have taken heavy losses. Both have lost a lot of their best people and best equipment."

Dmitry Gorenburg says, "The Russian navy has been left to, basically, just firing occasional precision guided missiles at energy infrastructure and that sort of thing in Ukraine."

Cornell Overfield says, “I would be surprised if Russia had not explored the re-base loophole, and that they didn’t use it/floated it unsuccessfully speaks volumes to me.”

Samuel Bendett says, “Prior to February 2022, Russian military academia was full of logical, interesting, and relevant analysis on the evolution of AI across the world’s military forces. Yet, there is a huge gap between what they say about AI and the war they have ended up fighting.”

Michael Kofman says, " The Russian military is still far too weak. It has restored a lot of the manpower deficit they had and replenished the military in terms of the losses they suffered, in terms of personnel, but the quality of the force is very low.”

Michael Kofman says, "A change in leadership will not necessarily lead Moscow to end the war."

Jeffrey Edmonds says, "I don't know that it means Russia is going to suddenly run off and start producing a tremendous number of ICBMs."

Michael Kofman says, "The field of Russian military studies had almost died or was on life support, so I found myself in many respects trying to ... work to help revive the field."

Michael Kofman says, "I think we were never seriously asked how the war could look if the U.S. truly backed Ukraine."