You are listening to the War on the Works podcast on strategy,

defense and foreign affairs. My name's Brian Evans. I'm sitting here with my friend and

yours, Michael Coffman. Mike, thanks for joining the show. Thanks for having me back.

So there's a lot of fixation I think it's

fair to say on the forthcoming Ukrainian offensive. It seems to be all that

everyone's talking about. Can you walk us through what's happening in the war and what you think about this looming offensive?

Sure, so I think at this stage we're in a transitional period where the Russian Winter

offensive has largely peered out.

Russian military didn't achieve much in this operation, it expanded manpower,

material and ammunition and exchange for very little in the way of gains.

It looks like much of the Russian military switched to a defensive

posture in anticipation of the Ukrainian offensive operation. Yes, they're still fighting around

Bahmoud and yes, Ukrainian forces have lost most of Bahmoud, but we've talked about that extensively in

this podcast and I don't feel I need to retread that ground. I think that it

increasingly looks clear that the Ukrainian offensive operation if it's going to

take place and if it's going to be the spring

then naturally it's likely going to happen at some point in May although we don't know that for

a fact. My own view is that the longer Ukraine waits the better its odds of success because there's a higher

chance of putting together the equipment, have a longer timeline to train the requisite

forces, and in terms of how we think about the offensive is much more

that much better that they wait and try to get this right then try to do an offensive

early just to meet Western expectations or to change the narrative about stalemate or what have you.

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