You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on strategy, defense, and foreign affairs.

My name's Ryan Evans and I'm sitting here again with Mike Kaufman, the director of the

Russia Studies program at CNA. Thanks for joining the show again, Mike.

Yeah, always good to be back.

So things have been a little lively on the front in Ukraine out east. Do you want to talk about that?

In the last two weeks we've seen the opening of several Russian offensive operations,

namely at Wuchodar in a southern part of the

Nietz, where you've seen the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade attacking with some of the best equipment

that they have available, and the Russian 76 guards

airborne division counter-attacking Ukrainian forces and Kramina. Now the Russian

forces have not been especially successful with Hphodar and in some respects it's not surprising they attempted to attack at Pavovka which was just south of Vukudar back earlier in the winter several months ago that didn't go very well they took pretty heavy

losses I think that Russian more elite troops or at least the way they're

considered to be more lead have probably lost on their offensive edge because I

think they've been

replacing losses to mobilize personnel but in general what it tells us and

this by way very different type of attack than the way you've seen Wagner operated Bachmut.

These are mechanized forces with armor, some of their better equipment, and some of their better

troops, is that the Russian military has likely begun offensive operations and these are early

attacks and early efforts to seize positions. There's also been a series of

Russian attacks to try to get better positions as operational,

likely to better level out their front ahead of an anticipated

a Ukrainian offensive that might come in the spring. So the short story from my

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