I Feel That Ice is Slowly Melting

It’s locked behind a paywall but I nevertheless must recommend the latest Russia Contingency podcast at War on the Rocks. Long story short, after a couple of years of grim, grinding attrition there are some real rays of light for Ukrainian military forces. Personnel management has improved to the degree that Ukrainian units actually seem to be at replacement plus, which is a significant change from recent trendlines. Russian casualty figures are very bad and, perhaps more importantly, the distribution of Russian losses (especially to the junior officer corps) is degrading capabilities across the force. The Russians also appear to have fallen an innovation cycle or two behind the Ukrainians on drone employment, mainly because of intra-organizational communications difficulties and the absence of Starlink.

Some notes of caution, both from Mike Kofman and Jack Watley (the podcasters) and from myself:

• Trendlines are not outcomes. Trends on many of these core questions have shifted and reversed before in this conflict, and they might shift again.
• The trendlines on Russia’s strategic air campaign aren’t so good. Russia caused a lot of damage over the winter and reconstruction is not keeping pace with additional damage. Because of my well-known views on airpower I tend to discount the idea that a strategic air campaign could actually cause a Ukrainian collapse, but smarter analysts than me take the possibility seriously… as does Kyiv.
• A subtle shift in battlefield dynamics can have a big impact on the negotiation table, but it does not obviate the need for negotiations. Slowing Russian progress is good, halting it is better, and reversing it is best, but even reversing it is unlikely to lead to an expulsion of Russian forces from Ukraine on a plausible timeline. Unless the Russian Army collapses (and this seems unlikely at the moment) or the Russian state collapses (even less likely) this war is still likely to end in a ceasefire with Russians on lots of Ukrainian territory.
• As I’ve been saying for a very long time, the really important parts of the negotiation are less the square miles and more the structures and institutions that will enable an independent Ukraine to thrive in the future, including security guarantees, a relationship with the European Union, and unrestricted armed forces. These are things that will determine whether the next fifty years of Ukraine’s history lean towards Poland or lean towards Belarus, and they are worth fighting and dying for.

Some other links:

• Excellent interview with Catarina Buchatskiy and Viktoriia Honcharuk on Ukraine’s drone innovation ecosystem.
• The Russian economic situation ain’t great but it also ain’t at “we should anticipate a collapse at any moment.”
• Putin has locked Russia into long-term dependence on Beijing. Gonna get worse before it gets better.
• Ukraine’s strategic bombing campaign is also reaping benefits.
• “Now we have glide bombs. Ho ho ho!”
• Deep dive on Ukrainian interceptor drones.