From Alaska to the White House to the Battlefields of Ukraine
War on the Rocks
War on the Rocks
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 22 August 2025
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the wake of summits in Alaska and Washington, the war in Ukraine has become as much about competing diplomatic positions as it is about hard realities on the front. Ryan sat down with Dara Massicot and Mike Kofman to discuss what Putin really walked away with, how European leaders are trying to shore up Kyiv's position, and whether the conversation over security guarantees could reshape the balance of the conflict. Along the way, they dig into the debate over territorial concessions, battlefield attrition, and what all of this means for Ukraine's ability to endure.
This episode is supported by Legion. Trusted by special operators and the Defense Department, Legion builds secure, agentic AI for the most sensitive environments — on local servers, in isolated networks, or in government clouds — without ever training on customer data. Learn more at: https://warontherocks.com/legion
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on Strategy, Defense, and Foreign Affairs. |
| 0:14.8 | My name is Ryan Evans, and the founder of War on the Rocks. |
| 0:17.4 | In this episode, I sat down with Derramassico and Mike Kaufman of the Carnegie Endowment, |
| 0:21.6 | and we spoke about the tumult of diplomacy over Ukraine and what's happening on the battlefield. |
| 0:27.3 | This episode is brought to you by Legion. |
| 0:29.4 | Every defense professional knows that AI is critical for maintaining a competitive advantage. |
| 0:34.3 | But most solutions compromise operational security the moment you plug them in. |
| 0:38.5 | Legion changes that. They build secure agentic AI for the nation's most sensitive environments, |
| 0:43.7 | on-premises, air-gapped, or in GovCloud, and their platform never trains on your data. |
| 0:48.3 | Trusted by the Defense Department and the Department of Energy, Legion helps agencies work |
| 0:52.4 | smarter with AI for search, content creation, |
| 0:54.5 | and workflow automation up through IL6 classified environments. You can learn more at war on the rocks.com |
| 1:01.6 | slash legion. Enjoy the show. So a lot's happened since Putin walked on to the president's red carpet in Alaska. Let's briefly go through |
| 1:14.7 | what the main outcomes of Alaska were briefly, because I'm sure most of our listeners read the news, |
| 1:19.8 | and then let's talk about what happened in Washington when Zelensky and several European |
| 1:26.8 | leaders arrived as well. Darry, you want to walk us through |
| 1:29.6 | briefly what the big outcomes were and what you think it meant? Yeah, and looking at both events in concert, |
| 1:35.5 | I would say that the main issues that came out of the summit in D.C. this week were European security |
| 1:43.1 | guarantees, or at least the discussion of how to formulate that, |
| 1:47.1 | an agreement on a bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelensky, although there's some |
| 1:52.0 | question marks from the Russian side, and then following that if it happens, a trilat. So I think the |
| 1:56.9 | most tangible outcome from this is waiting to see what the Europeans are going to put |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from War on the Rocks, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of War on the Rocks and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.