‘Ukraine Has Gone Through a Terrible Period’: A Q. and A. With Frederick and Kimberly Kagan

We’re at a crucial moment in the Ukraine war. After Congress’s monthslong delay in approving additional American aid — and the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive last year — Ukraine finds itself on the defensive. Russia is advancing at a number of points on the front. I wanted to get an unvarnished evaluation of the military realities of the conflict, and for that I could think of few people better positioned to provide insight than Frederick and Kimberly Kagan.

He is the director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project and was one of the intellectual architects of America’s successful surge counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq in 2007. She wrote a military history of the surge and is the founder and president of the Institute for the Study of War, which is producing in-depth, real-time analysis of the battlefield in Ukraine for the public and government leaders.

I found their observations about what is arguably the most consequential military conflict of the 21st century invaluable. I hope you find them as instructive as I did. This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

David French: The news from Ukraine has been grim for months. After the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive last year and delays in American aid, we’ve seen Russians make gains on the ground and in the air. Vladimir Putin seems optimistic about the course of the war, and Ukraine is bracing for a new Russian offensive in northeast Ukraine. What is the state of the war? Does Russia have the battlefield momentum?

Kimberly Kagan: The monthslong delay in U.S. military assistance allowed Russia to take the initiative and launch offensives across the theater in Ukraine. The aid is flowing again, but it is going to take a while for Ukraine to stabilize the lines and hold off the current and upcoming Russian offensives.

During the delay, Ukraine was starved for artillery rounds and air defense interceptors, depriving its frontline forces of firepower and air defense. By the first quarter of 2024, in some sectors of the line, for every 10 artillery rounds Russia fired, Ukrainian forces could return one shot. The Russians took advantage of dwindling Ukrainian supplies to pound Ukrainian positions with glide bombs — bombs with wing kits attached that allow them to hit targets dozens of miles from the point at which an aircraft releases them. The Russians launched a major campaign around the city of Avdiivka in Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine in October 2023. When Russia massed its glide bombs and Ukrainian artillery supplies dwindled, the Russians were able to take the city.