I'm John Batchel with Bill Rajo, Senior Fellow Foundation for Defense of Democracy,

keeping the Long War

Journal and a major report on Long War Journal and at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy

website, check that as well. John Hardy following the war in Ukraine, and we are now past the

anniversary of the fourth anniversary of the start of war, February of 2022, beginning our fifth year.

John, a very good evening to you.

My memories of those early days is that the U.S. expected Russia to roll over the Ukrainian forces and take Kiev.

I remember video of a young woman holding an automatic weapon. to roll over the Ukrainian forces and take Kiev.

I remember video of a young woman holding an automatic weapon,

weeping, as I recall, she was quite frightened,

asked by the correspondent, do you know how to use that?

She said, they trained us, but I don't know how to shoot.

And I thought at this point, it could be over.

However, it didn't happen.

And all these years later, I puzzle about why it didn't happen.

Yes, the Ukrainians wouldn't leave.

But at the same time, what was the Russian war plan? And I remember in particular a column of Russian equipment, maybe included tanks, I don't recall, stuck on a road not moving,

just sitting there for days after days. It was a big puzzle to report. Do you recall that column?

And do you recall when it was that we, in the media, finally figured out that it wasn't going well for the Russians. Good evening to you,

John. Hi, John. Hey, Bill. Thanks for having me back on the show. Yeah, you're bringing back

some pretty wild memories of kind of sitting up all night in my apartment in deep in Washington,

D.C. and kind of trying to gather what information we could

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