In The News

"Providing cluster munitions to Ukraine, at this stage, could have a significant impact beyond what other capabilities might achieve,” says Michael Kofman.

"If Russia wants to do something covert with Iran, this is an advantageous location. It’s on the river that flows into the Volga, so you can bring parts by ship from Iran covertly," writes Samuel Bendett. 

Michael Kofman says that precision warfare can counter some advantages of mass: Ukraine was outnumbered 12 to one north of Kyiv. It can also complement mass. Software-based targeting saves around 15-30% in shells, according to sources familiar with the data. But what precision cannot do, is substitute for mass.  

Michael Kofman says, “I suspect the way Moscow hopes this will play out is the commanders will move to Belarus and then possibly decamp for operations in Africa. Meanwhile, they will try to get back Wagner’s heavy equipment, and then figure out how to use the rank and file that chooses to stay.”

Michael Kofman says “Prigozhin’s mutiny was ultimately a desperate act of someone who was cornered,” said Michael Kofman, director of Russia Studies at Virginia-based research group CNA. “His options were narrowing as his bitter dispute intensified.”

Dmitry Gorenburg, Elizabeth Wishnick, Paul Schwarts and Brian Waidelich write, "there is widespread consensus among analysts that, although Russia and China have been moving toward closer cooperation through the entire post-Soviet era, the trend has accelerated rapidly since 2014."

Michael Kofman says, “I honestly think that Wagner probably did more damage to Russian aerospace forces in the past day than the Ukrainian offensive has done in the past three weeks.”

Samuel Bendett says that Putin, too, had lost something essential as the smoke cleared. As a head of state, he “was unable to fully exercise monopoly on forced violence and control.”

Samuel Bendett says, “Ukraine is advancing slowly in certain parts of the front it is advancing several kilometers here and there. The fighting is going to be very difficult, simply because the Russian military had time to dig in and we mentioned this last week and the week before.”

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."

Samuel Bendett says, “They [FPV drones] are indeed getting embraced more at the tactical level. It is unclear to what extent the high command is on board, but at least it seems not to be in the way.”

Samuel Bendett says, in Ukraine today, “commercial quadcopter and FPV [First Person View] drones are treated as expendable munitions. Both sides recognize that the adversary EW is having a massive effect on such drones, but it’s not cost-effective to proof them against EW. It’s just cheaper and easier to get large quantities of COTS [Commercial Off-The-Shelf] UAVs and replace lost drones.”

Samuel Bendett says that such a payload "can cause damage against vulnerable sites like energy infrastructure," but would not be sufficient for an assassination attempt against Putin.

Samuel Bendett says that the U.S. has primarily sent existing technology. It was unclear whether the U.S. had ever sent a weapon that was created from scratch for use specifically in Ukraine.

Sam Bendett says, “The counter-offensive has just begun, so it is important not to jump to any conclusions based on evidence seen on social media. Obviously, there will be losses when one side tries to breach the other side’s defenses. Over time the Russian military had time to dig in, so Ukrainian attacks are going to be met with a lot of resistance. “

Michael Kofman says, “It is too early to judge the operation, as much of the fighting has only reached Russia’s initial lines. The indications are that Ukrainian forces have made gains, digging into Russian lines, but also that the fighting is heavy, resulting in losses.”