From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.

Hello and welcome to Free Expression with me, Jerry Baker, from the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

Thanks very much for joining us. If you don't already, please be sure to subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or elsewhere, and please leave us a nice review.

Today, is Russia on the brink of historic military

defeat in Ukraine? In the last week, a dramatic Ukrainian counteroffensive has pushed Russian forces

back in the critical northeastern part of the country around the city of Kharkiv, and the Ukrainians

have recaptured vast areas of territory seized by Russia earlier in the war. All this, of course,

while in other parts of the country, particularly in the south, the Ukrainians are also pushing

back against Russian forces. The move has shaken up what was looking like a stalemate in the war

and is even raising hopes that the Ukrainians may be able actually to inflict an astonishing

defeat on Vladimir Putin. Let's to talk about these latest developments,

I'm joined by Fred Kagan. Fred's one of our sharpest analysts and historians of all things military.

He's written widely on military history and contemporary war. He's been a professor at West Point

and an advisor to the US and other governments on military strategy. And he was highly influential

in developing the successful surge that helped turn the tide in the Iraq War more than 15 years ago. He's now director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute, and he joins me now. Fred, thanks very much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. So Fred, give us a sense here. You've been following this very, very closely, the war in Ukraine since the Russians invaded in February. These developments

in the last week, particularly in the north, particularly around Kharkiv, with this Ukrainian

push that seems to have punched through Russian lines, sent Russians retreating and recaptured

vast swathes of territory there. Give us a sense, if you would, of how significant this

push has been in the last week? Well, it's extremely significant.

It's the most significant development since the Ukrainians defeated the Russian attacks around

Kiev and drove the Russians to retreat from Western Ukraine and try to focus on the East.

And in many respects, it's more significant even than that. The Russians around Kiev had reached a point of culmination. It was clear

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