Awaiting a Ukrainian Counter-Offensive

War on the Rocks

News, Politics

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2022

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mike Kofman joins Ryan once again to update us all on the war in Ukraine. The big thing that everyone is watching for is evidence of an impending Ukrainian counter-offensive. Mike explains that we don't see that yet. He also discusses fighting around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, some events that surprised him, Ukrainian strikes on Russian-occupied Crimea, the expenditure of munitions, and the possibility that Russia might hold referenda in the territories it currently occupies in the east and south of Ukraine. Ryan and Mike also discuss slowing aid from Europe and whether European backers of Ukraine will hold through the winter. The big takeaway, however, is the Russia seems to have lost the momentum at this stage of the war and appears to be waiting to see what Ukraine does next.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to the one rocks podcast on strategy defense and foreign affairs. My name's Ryan Evans and I'm sitting here with Michael Kaufman the head of the Russia team at CNA.
0:20.0	Hi again, Mike.
0:21.0	Hey, thanks for on me back. So the world seems transfixed, still, on the prospect for a Ukrainian counter-offensive to retake
0:30.6	Kirsun, which was lost to Russia earlier in the war.
0:35.0	And we're sort of now in this situation where not a lot seems to be happening on the ground,
0:40.0	Ukraine seems to be positioning its forces, although not necessarily for Khrushun, we don't know yet.
0:46.7	Russia is hedging, it's not concentrating its forces anywhere in particular in the south, and everyone just seems to be waiting for what's going to happen next.
0:55.6	Can you set the stage and explain what might be happening?
0:59.3	It's not easy to describe the currency situation just because it's a bit of a transitional
1:06.3	phase in the war. I think the best way to characterize it is that Russia has largely now seated the initial and the momentum in the war
1:16.3	and it seems to be positioned to try to hold on to the territory it has while
1:21.1	still trying to incrementally advance in the Don Bosse.
1:25.2	Ukraine seems to be engaged in a somewhat systematic campaign to try to degrade Russian military
1:31.4	capability, ground lines of communication, and I guess for lack of a better word,
1:37.8	soften up Russian forces and Russian ability to support the current units deployed, especially in the South.
1:45.0	I think there has been a lot of anticipation regarding this potential offensive, but there are assumptions
1:51.7	as to when it will take place, and the honest answer is I don't think we know I think that as I said before
1:58.6	When or where? Yeah, and and that's the second very important point I want to get to and I think I mentioned
2:03.7	before despite perhaps my own in a local fixation on Kirsun as an area of
2:08.8	vulnerability for the Russian forces that doesn't necessarily mean that's where the Ukraine
2:13.1	offensive is going to come. And, you know, I'm not going to speculate any
2:16.4	further beyond that. Simply to say I have heard from a number of colleagues
	...

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