Command and Politics in the War Between Moscow and Kyiv

**Ryan Evans** (0:09)
You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on strategy, defense and foreign affairs. My name is Ryan Evans. I'm the founder of War on the Rocks. This episode is essential listening if you care about what's happening in the war between Russia and Ukraine. We cover a lot of ground with our stellar guests, Dara Massicot and Mike Kaufman, both of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This episode is brought to you by Noda, the original platform and hardware agnostic, autonomy orchestrator, operationally deployed, tactically trained, and architecturally distinct from every other layer in the autonomy stack. Noda doesn't build platforms or their autonomy, it puts them to work. Find out more at warontherocks.com/noda, that's N-O-D-A.
In the middle of this episode, I have a bit of a conversation that I think you'll really enjoy with Noda's Chief Technology Officer. Enjoy the show.
You guys came back from Ukraine fairly recently, a few weeks back, have a great episode of the Russian contingent that just came out that we'll run a clip from. But overall, what were your big impressions and learning points? Just very brief one-minute answers, basically.

**Michael Kofman** (1:10)
I came back believing that overall, Ukraine's in the best positions been in this war since 2023
Things on the front in a lot of areas are stable, except for the Donbass, and some areas the front's more dynamic, where Ukraine's actually prosecuting offensive operations. It's kind of a slow-moving, crawling offensive. Got some insights on the success of the middle strike campaign and predicting Russian logistics. And while it's definitely had a significant effect in suppressing Russia's offensive potential, I think it's also clear that by itself, it's not going to stop the Russian offensive or lead to some kind of collapses in Russian lines either, depending on how things go and whether it can be scaled up. And I think, lastly, Ukraine's main issue heading into the fall and winter is not the situation at the front line, although there's a couple months of intense fighting ahead. It's the air and missile defense situation and the fact that the Russian ballistic missile threat continues to grow. And the deficit of interceptors for Ukraine missile defense is the leading problem, and there's no obvious solution to it ahead of the winter. That's the one thing Ukraine has to deal with.

**Dara Massicot** (2:12)
And for me, I was just comparing the podcast that we did with you, Ryan, about a month ago, and some things that stood out to me, that I think we didn't get wrong, but there's just additional details that give nuance to it, was about Russian combat effectiveness, and I think we had spoken about how their tactics really haven't changed, but when you go there, you see that they're constantly trying to adapt and come up with new ways to reintroduce armor into the battlefield, and their new tactics don't necessarily succeed, but that they're trying to learn. Secondly, we had some really good conversations about some advanced technologies that Russia is going to be putting on the battlefield in the next couple months, or changing the percentage of their use, so that's going to change some things for the Ukrainians in terms of air and missile defense.
And then finally, just seeing Russian performance through the Ukrainian eyes helps me understand how pervasive or not certain phenomenon is inside the Russian military, like the extent of hazing and what does it actually mean for battlefield outcomes. The problem is present, but it's not causing the Russians to break down or lose the ability to fight, and they push on the Ukrainians every day. So it was just really good to get additional nuance and perspective.

**Ryan Evans** (3:20)
Another week of the war in Ukraine and claims from Kiev and Moscow about territory taken versus territory lost. You know, in Ukraine, it seems taken some about 700 square kilometers of settlements back. Russia claims to have taken some territory back. Does any of this really change the situation? I know we've talked before many times about how this isn't just about territorial exchanges, no breakthroughs here, no new axes, no new pockets, it's fair to say.

**Michael Kofman** (3:44)
I think it's important to address the underlying dynamic, which is first that Ukraine this year has had a slow moving, also crawling offensive since early February in Zaporizhzhia. And Zaporizhzhia is one region of Ukraine where both Russia and Ukraine are prosecuting offensive operations. Second, Ukrainian forces on their third course stabilize the situation around Liman as well. And so the difference between this year and 2025 and 2024 is actually the battlefield is more fluid rather than the common perception of it that it is static. And secondarily, the both sides have been trying to find a way to break through, at least at a localized level, and to return some ability to the battlefield.