In The News

Samuel Bendett says, “Wagner mercenary group has rushed its soldiers, basically World War II style, against the Ukrainian positions and overwhelmed large parts of the Ukrainian defense forces in the Bakhmut. Wagner and the Russian claim to control a significant part of Bakhmut, in fact, they claim to control all of that.”

Dmitry Gorenburg says, “A normal army structure is like a pyramid. There are very few generals, more colonels, and so on, the pyramid expands towards the base. And the Russian army began to look more like an oval, the base was removed from the pyramid. There are too many mid-level officers. They have no one to command. It got to the point that some of them only had warehouses with equipment under their control.”

Jeffrey Edmonds says if Ukraine can maintain and operate them properly, "they're great for the Ukrainian force," Edmonds said, explaining that "the whole reason tanks were created was to make a static situation fluid."

Jeffrey Edmonds says, "I think the Ukrainians want to, at some point, launch counteroffensives. And that's much more effective with heavy armor — as much as you can get."

Samuel Bendett says the idea of the AI-enabled combat robot is to "replace a soldier in dangerous missions, and to make missions more effective.”

Christopher Steinitz says, “We learned that CFE had a particular focus on both infrastructure and engagement with partners and allies, so we designed the wargame with those considerations in mind.”

Anthony Freedman says, “Our current and projected systems [for MCM] are not really suitable for [a contested] environment, even though expeditionary MCM is probably the best capability in that environment.”

Michael Kofman says, “The U.S. is making up the difference from its stockpiles, but that’s doubtfully a sustainable solution. It means the U.S. is taking on risk elsewhere.”

Nilanthi Samaranayake says, “The heightened state of strategic competition between major powers calls into question to what extent the cooperation we have seen previously may be possible in the Indian Ocean in the future.”

Jeffrey Edmonds says, “It is very evident that the Russians do not care about collateral damage when they are conducting these strikes against reportedly critical infrastructure. And there is certainly an aspect of this that the Russians want civilian casualties in an attempt to undermine the Ukraine ability to resist.”

Samuel Bendett says, “This reconnaissance fire/reconnaissance strike contour is the main defining element to date of the war in Ukraine, both by the Ukrainians, who are very successful in integrating drones with their artillery strikes, as well as the Russians.”

Michael Kofman says “This is why Bakhmut is a battle that I think was advantageous to Ukraine, but now there are questions about how much the cost of fighting for Bakhmut could impede Ukraine’s overall strategy for this winter or spring.”

Samuel Bendett says, “Moscow considers the Arctic key to its national security and economic development – this was enshrined in its government statements, policies and especially in its Maritime Doctrines since the early 1990s.

Samuel Bendett says, "The size and the scale of drone use in Ukraine supersedes all the previous conflicts."

Samuel Bendett says, “I think Ukraine needs a lot of these systems distributed very widely across the entire depth of the front. It would need hundreds of these systems around large cities, around large military facilities, around military bases, in main infrastructure facilities and the like.”

Samuel Bendett says, “I think Ukraine needs a lot of these systems distributed very widely across the entire depth of the front. It would need hundreds of these systems around large cities, around large military facilities, around military bases, in main infrastructure facilities and the like.”