Lawfare Daily: Ukraine Invades Russia

[Introduction]

Anastasiia Lapatina: The Foreign Affairs Ministry tied it right back to the long-range strikes restrictions in their statements today. They said that we are doing this because we do not have the ability to strike Russian targets deep enough into their territory.

Benjamin Wittes: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Benjamin Wittes with Anastasiia Lapatina and Eric Ciaramella.

Eric Ciaramella: Definitely the Ukrainians achieved operational surprise on the attack. It's actually amazing reading some of the accounts how much Ukraine managed to almost mimic the surprise that Russia thought it was achieving in the early days of the full-scale invasion.

Benjamin Wittes: Ukraine has invaded Russia. In a bit of role reversal, we're talking about the major Ukrainian operation inside of Russian territory, a thousand square kilometers of which are currently under Ukrainian control.

[Main Podcast]

Nastia, I want to start for the American listeners who think that Kursk is either a submarine that sank a couple decades ago or a battle in the Second World War that they read about in some history book, but that doesn't have any contemporary existence at all, what is Kursk, both the city and the oblast, and why are we talking about it?

Anastasiia Lapatina: You just did my job for me. So Kursk is an actual city in Russia. It's near Ukraine. It's very close to Ukraine. And it is also the name of an oblast, which is a Russian and Ukrainian word for kind of like a region. So something like a state, would be in the U.S. So there's a Kursk city in the state of Kursk in Russia, let's put it that way for the American listener. And this oblast, this region borders Ukraine. And we're talking about it because as people have probably seen in the media, for the first time since the Second World War, another state, Ukraine, is invading Russian territory and going into this region of Kursk in the direction of Kursk. And it's extremely significant and we're going to talk about it today.

Benjamin Wittes: All right. Eric, what do we know about what has happened in Kursk over the last few days? There's still something of a media blackout in Ukraine about it. The Russians are tearing their hair out, but with their usual degree of factual accuracy, what do we actually know?

Eric Ciaramella: So on August 6 Ukraine launched a surprise cross border attack, as Nastia was alluding to, with somewhere around maybe a thousand troops and heavy armor, and has captured a few dozen villages and localities on the border with the Ukrainian region of Sumy. And we don't know much, as Ben was saying, about the objectives of this operation, because the Ukrainian political and military leadership has maintained a pretty strict regime of silence, and actually President Zelenskyy only publicly acknowledged the operation several days into it.

So there's been very little about kind of the stated objectives. The Ukrainian leadership has said that there's no intention to occupy Russian territory for the long term or take, annex Russian territory or anything like this. So as best we can surmise, there are some kind of political and military overall objectives to something like this. The military objective basically would seem to be to draw Russian forces away from other parts of the front. As listeners are aware, and we've talked about on the podcast before, there's been this ongoing Russian offensive around Donetsk in the Donbas, in the east. And over the past few months, it has accelerated, and the Russians are making gains in the direction of the city of Pokrovsk, which is a major rail hub, transport hub, that would allow the Russians to be in a much better position to seize the rest of Donetsk Oblast, and defending that has been a key Ukrainian objective for the past couple of years. So what the Ukrainian military leadership probably wanted to do was to force Russia to make difficult decisions about force allocation and to pull some troops from the Donetsk direction in order to reinforce Kursk. We're not quite sure what's going on there in terms of the Russians moving around troops. So it's TBD on whether that operational objective has been met.

The political objectives I would argue are more significant and there are a couple. The first big one is that for Ukraine, the last year has been a series of grim news updates. So, first there was the failure of the 2023 Ukrainian counter offensive. Then there was the Russian winter offensive that culminated in the capture of Avdiivka, an industrial suburb of Donetsk. Then there was the massive Russian attack on the Ukrainian energy grid. There was the delay with the aid from the United States Congress, and now this offensive in the Donbas. So it's been a year of really difficult news for Ukraine. And so I would say one of the overarching political objectives was to change the narrative and to show that Ukraine still has agency and the ability to launch offensive operations. And both to show the domestic population, but Ukraine's partners as well, that Ukraine is not fully tapped out and still has this potential.

The second objective was to send a shock into the Russian system and to show, you fought this war on our territory the whole time, you brought the war to us, we didn't want it, and so now we're showing you what it's like to have a war on your territory. I know we'll talk a bit more about this, but you know, the Russian response has been, I wouldn't say predictably bad, but it has been somewhat shockingly inept, and Putin and his top lieutenants appear to have been taken completely by surprise and are really struggling more than a week into this operation to get their hands around the response.

So, again, I think those political objectives, and we should dive in a little bit more, are probably more significant and more likely to bear fruit than the military objectives, which this early into the operation, it's very hard to assess whether Ukraine is making any progress with respect to those specific military operational objectives.

Benjamin Wittes: All right, Nastia, which parts of that do you agree with, and what else would you say about either military or political objectives of the operation?

Anastasiia Lapatina: I think before, well first of all, I agree with everything that Eric said. I just think that it's also worth adding a little bit of context to the operation and how it's being conducted before discussing the objectives, because there are several really important points about it.

So one of them being, what really differentiates this incursion to the incursions that happened in the past, which of which there were several, is that in the past week Ukraine has been attacking Russia with its regular military. So it's regular army formations, instead of the small units of Russians and other foreigners and units like the Russian Volunteer Corps or Freedom of Russia Legion, which are these kind of interesting formations that Ukraine has had under the leadership of Defense Intelligence of Ukraine, which are comprised of Russians fighting on the side of Ukraine.

And in the past, when Ukraine has launched similar incursions into Russia, mainly into Belgorod Oblast, which is near Kursk Oblast, it all looked pretty much only like a PR stunt because there were photos and videos and commentary coming out like pretty much immediately after these incursions would begin. They would be very short lived, just several days, they wouldn't bring much if anything, other than just, a morale boost for Ukraine and some political clout, but they really didn't do much. Whereas right now it's very different. Right now it's regular Ukrainian military. And as Eric already said, the Ukrainian government and military for days have been completely silent. And the Ukrainian media also has had something of a blackout. There haven't been any leaks, any like photos or videos or details about this brigade or that brigade doing anything in particular. Also, if you listen to various commentators on Ukrainian media or podcasts, or if you just listen to anything in the Ukrainian media on the topic of Kursk, all journalists, keep saying that we can't say much because this is an ongoing serious operation. So-

Benjamin Wittes: And Nastia, is this because they don't know stuff or because they're not saying what they know or both?

Anastasiia Lapatina: I would assume it's both because I think some of the journalists and many of the journalists I of course follow here in Ukraine, are quite well connected I'm sure they know details that aren't available in public. But again because we're Ukrainians we actually understand what's on the line. We're not a New York Times umbrella reporter who was just parachuted here and doesn't really have the same connection to what's happening here. So Ukrainian reporters really take it seriously, right? If there is a media blackout, they stick to that. And that's what's been happening for days.

So, it was really interesting, like on August 8th, which is two days after the operation began, all that Zelenskyy said, and this was the first time he'd spoken about it, he said, Russia brought the war to our land and it should feel what it has done. The next day, he said that he discussed with the military officials the replenishment of Ukraine's exchange fund, meaning like capturing Russian soldiers so that Ukraine has more to bargain with during the exchanges of POWs. And then on August 10th, he said that he'd spoken to our top general Syrskyi about Ukraine's actions to push the war into the aggressor's territory. And actually up until today, at the time of us recording this podcast, this has been like the only information available. So everything else was speculation.

Benjamin Wittes: Speculation and reporting based on what's been released intentionally and unintentionally by the Russian side.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Right, right. So most of the analysis, things like reports done by the Institute for the Study of War or any other analysis for the last week, pretty much most of that, if not all of that was based on what the Russians and, military bloggers, as they're called, and the Russian side, what they've been releasing, because that has been the only side of the equation. So any kind of understanding of what village has been captured, what city has been captured, that's all coming from the Russian side.

And very often it's been very contradictory, which is why there has been this, in addition to the regular, confusion in wartime, the fog of war, we're also having this additional kind of layer of confusion because the Russians are panicking. They don't know what to do. The Russian media reported, Meduza, the Russian somewhat independent media outlet, reported that apparently the Russian authorities had no idea what was coming. And for three days, they couldn't figure out what the official narrative should be. So they were scrambling to give instructions to the Russian state media of how to communicate this. And they just said don't overdo it. Just praise the Russian military for kicking the Ukrainians out and things like that.

So basically the important part is that Ukraine is using its regular military and there is a media blackout and those two really important things indicate that this is a very serious operation and it's not a PR stunt as has been in the past. There's also a few things that I haven't really seen discussed anywhere but in some Ukrainian outlets, and that's kind of the symbolism of the whole thing and the timing of it. Because as we know Putin has this kind of affinity to interesting historical dates and like launching attacks on various days. And this time the Ukrainian incursion happened on August 6th, which is two days before the anniversary of Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008. And there was a photo of Ukrainian forces apparently entering Belgrade Oblast and holding two flags. One of them was Georgia's flag. And this hasn't been communicated much, but people in Ukraine definitely took notice, kind of alluding that this is some sort of like payback for what happened.

And then also this incursion happened during the Olympics. Just like Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008. Just like Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014. And also almost just like the full scale invasion four days after the Beijing Olympics ended. So that's just like a note on Ukrainian planning. It's quite interesting.

And the third, I'd say really important point about the operation, that's definitely, I'd say the most discussed in Ukraine right now is actually the reaction of Ukraine's partners in the West and in the U.S. Because in the past there has been this constant conflict and like talk of war between us and Ukraine about, deescalating and long attacks into Russian territory and how that could lead to escalation with Russia. And Ukrainians have been really unhappy about it. And in the previous incursions as well, America wasn't happy about it, wasn't happy about Ukraine using Western weapons for it et cetera, et cetera. Whereas now the Pentagon actually said that they don't see this incursion as escalatory at all. And they were totally on board with it. If you look at what they've been saying about it, they said, that apparently they weren't aware that this was happening, but upon figuring out what's actually going on, they said that Ukraine has the right to defend its territory. And the territory that Ukraine is invading is being used by Russia to launch attacks into Ukraine, into Sumy Oblast. So it's totally within America's policy that Ukraine can basically keep on doing it.

Benjamin Wittes: And that follows notably a decision I want to say about two or three months ago that the U.S. was relaxing the no attacks with U.S. weapons in Russia rule to exclude this territory-

Anastasiia Lapatina: Near Kharkiv.

Benjamin Wittes: -right around the border for purposes of alleviating pressure on Kharkiv. And so it's an interesting, I think, dialogue between Ukrainian operators and American policymakers where the U.S. says, okay, thinking about ATACMS and rockets, I think, fine for you to hit targets if they're, you know, attacking over the border. And the Ukrainians respond, how about this? A thousand people with armored, like into exactly those areas. And it forces a US contemplation of the limits of that policy. And we end up with a, yeah, that's okay. And we had a similar, I think, dialogue over use of U.S. weapons to hit targets in Crimea, where, again, the Ukrainians were like it's not Russian territory and we were like, oh yeah, that's right, that's okay.

And there’s a, I think it's an interesting question whether the dialogue actually takes place human to human before any of these attacks, or whether they really do take place by the armed forces of Ukraine experimenting with the boundaries of U.S. doctrine, and then the U.S. having to respond to that.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Well, yeah. So the boundaries of the American doctrine have of course been extremely frustrating for Ukraine. And this latest Ukrainian invasion of Russia, I can't believe I'm saying this, but it kind of highlighted this debate and very much brought it to the surface because now Ukrainians are saying like, guys, you've been telling us that, this is escalatory, that is escalatory, you can't hit this far, you can't hit that far. We're now using your Western-provided like heavy armor tanks to roll into Russian territory. Our top general Syrskyi said that we are now in control of roughly 1000 squared kilometers of Russian land. And Russia has no idea what to do with it. There is no nuclear war. There is nothing radical happening. They can't even evacuate their own people.

Like how, after this, you're going to tell us that we still can't have long range strikes on Russian airfields somewhere. Some people have been speculating that this is also one of the potential, perhaps, objectives of the attack, is to show to the Western partners just how much their view of Russia as this really strong, really organized adversary that we should be very cautious and very careful with, how much that image is overplayed. And how much they're actually very disorganized in many ways and how we shouldn't be so scared of them because here is Ukraine, the underdog, rolling tanks into Russian territory and Russians having no idea how to respond. I think this is going to influence the future deliberations on just how far we can hit into Russian territory a lot.

Benjamin Wittes: Okay, so you guys have set up beautifully my agenda for this conversation. We're going to talk about military objectives. We're going to talk through the two political objectives that Eric identified. We're going to talk Russian reaction and we're going to talk U.S. reaction. We're going to do it in that order. So let's start with the military objectives which is the easiest to discuss because we really don't know, but I want to throw three possibilities out and have you both reflect on them.

The first is goal is to get and hold some Russian territory, capture large numbers of people, people can be traded back for the rather large number of Ukrainian POWs, not to mention civilians being held by the Russians including 20,000 children. The land becomes politically embarrassing enough for the Russians that they are willing to contemplate evacuation of some of the territories that they've occupied in order to get it back. That's ambitious possibility number one.

Possibility number two is it's really a short-term local incursion for purposes of maximally embarrassing the Russians, destroying architecture and military hardware and encampments that are being used to attack Ukrainian forces, and to destroy some supply lines. And possibility number three, which Eric alluded to earlier, is that the main goal here is to cause the Russian armed forces to have to bring forces away from the front lines by way of weakening the offensive that the Russians have been engaged in, on which, candidly, as Eric's parade of horribles at the beginning described, the Ukrainians have not been especially effective at repelling. So, Eric and then Nastia, which of those three, or something else, do you think are most plausible as what the Ukrainian military is trying to do here.

Eric Ciaramella: I mean honestly, I think it could be a combination of all of them And I would add to it a fourth which is, you know, listeners will remember Russia's offensive around Kharkiv in May, and the Ukrainian army managed to stop that offensive pretty early, but Russia is still holding on to several villages on the border inside Ukraine in Kharkiv Oblast that are pretty close to the city of Kharkiv, second largest city in Ukraine. And so one kind of tactical objective could be to, create some sort of trade bait where Ukraine would give back this territory on the Russian side of the border in Kursk in exchange for Russia evacuating positions inside Kharkiv Oblast. And then again, that's not any kind of major event that upends the course of the war and change the trajectory, but it's more of a tactical move to get relief for Kharkiv city.

So, you know, again, when these military operations are planned, one has to assume that there is a sort of hierarchy of different kinds of objectives, and there's probably a primary one. But then there are different contingencies for if the operation goes well, if it goes poorly. There's a huge question, I think, about whether Ukraine has the capacity to reinforce its positions. It was largely entering unopposed for the first several days. And the pace of the operation has definitely slowed down as Russia has started to counterattack. But I do think there is a huge question out there about whether Ukraine has the resources to be able to occupy this territory for a significant enough period of time to really change Russia's allocation of forces or to get one of these tactical deals like we were talking about. Because that, Ukraine does have limited manpower. We've talked about this before. And if Ukraine has to start pulling guys from other parts of the front, already they did in order to do this operation, but it's a relatively small number. But an occupation force is going to be much larger than this kind of incursion force.

But if Ukraine has to start pulling resources away in order to reinforce a long-term position in Kursk, that's going to actually potentially weaken Ukraine's position on other parts of the front. So, I think we aren't, you know, it's too early to say. We're only a week and a day into this operation. I think in several weeks we'll have a better sense of whether, the Ukrainian leadership wanted to use this for one of those kind of shock and awe objectives, or if there was some sort of desire for a longer term or a medium term plan, at least to force some kind of trade.

Benjamin Wittes: Nastia?

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah. So, the Ukrainian government has only so far clearly articulated two objectives. Zelenskyy has talked about, thanking the Ukrainian military for taking a big number of Russian POWs because that could be used in exchanges. He didn’t specifically mention Kursk or anything. But he did talk about this at the same kind of time when there were all of these videos and photos coming out from the Russian and both, and Ukrainian side as well of like dozens of Russian soldiers being taken hostage. There were, there's a lot of material proving that that's taking place. And we can assume that Zelenskyy was alluding to that. And that possibly could have been one of the reasons why.

Also, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said at the press conference being held today, and I'm quoting Kyiv Independent journalists who are there right now. The spokesperson said that Ukraine does not have sufficient capabilities to carry out long range strikes with the weapons it has to defend itself. Therefore, it has, you know, to use these kinds of methods. Therefore, there is a need to, as he said, liberate these border areas from the Russian military.

Basically this spokesperson talked about the relentless attacks against the Sumy area, which is the oblast that's bordering Kursk Oblast. And Sumy 100 percent has been like our listeners may remember, we talked about the horrific attacks against Kharkiv, just like the everyday terrible attacks against civilian infrastructure. Sumy Oblast has been suffering from something similar to that. So basically the Foreign Ministry today said that this is why we're doing it, we're trying to create like a buffer zone to push the Russians further away so they don't attack Sumy.

So, this and the POWs exchanges are the only two things that have been sort of clearly articulated. But I'm sure that there's a bunch of different goals here together that are working together. I've seen some reports in the media that the Russians are already began to pull reserves from other areas to reinforce the Kursk situation, to reinforce their forces in Kursk. At the same time, also the spokesperson for the 32nd Separate Mechanized Brigade said that they --- and they're fighting in the Toretsk area in Donbas --- he said that they haven't really seen any effect on the frontline. I think he said something like there has been a slight drop in attacks but nothing meaningful that could indicate that it's happened because of the Kursk incursion. So, yeah, I think from a military point of view, those are the main kind of objectives, and I think the political ones are actually much more interesting.

Benjamin Wittes: Yeah. So let's move to the political ones about which we know more. And I want to start with the really fun political objective, which is the domestic morale boost matter that-

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yes.

-Eric raised at the beginning. You know, you have seen a kind of cheerful Ukrainian response on social media. A lot of memes, a lot of just excited reaction that is highly reminiscent of the early days of the full scale invasion when it became clear that Kiev was not going to fall in three days. And there were tractors pulling tanks and, lots of kind of fun, and that stuff has been really at a minimum over the last year for a lot of the reasons that Eric describes, but it comes back in full force over the last week. So, Nastia, describe the kind of domestic pick me up that this has been.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Well, so I think because Ukraine has struggled with morale for a while, and then also has struggled with morale and expectations that have been too high for, what then turned out, no apparent reason. And I'm thinking of the failed counter-offensive. Ukrainians, I think, have gotten much more cautious with how they perceive these things, right? So when it all just kicked off, a bunch of people who would talk about it, they would also say, but don't forget that the situation in the East is really terrible because it is. So, a lot of people would be like, okay, we can talk about Kursk, but also please donate to the direction, please donate to the military units fighting in the East because it's really tough, and blah, blah, blah.

I've seen some colleagues of mine even being skeptical of the Ukrainian government's decision to, and the military's decision to launch this incursion. Yeah, I've seen people just questioning, like, why would you do this? Like the front is collapsing. What's the point of Ukraine doing this? But as this whole kind of began to settle in and we started seeing that it looks like Ukraine isn't taking that many casualties. It looks like Russia is just completely lost and has no idea what to do. There has definitely been a morale boost. The Ukrainians have been pointing out the very interesting and not unexpected for us reactions from the Russian side. There was this video of a bunch of Russians standing and talking to a camera, pleading for Putin to come and save them because the local authorities aren't doing anything. And---

Benjamin Wittes: Yeah, Nastia, they said that you guys were behaving terribly and had-

Anastasiia Lapatina: Right.

Benjamin Wittes: destroyed their villages and that there was

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yes.

Benjamin Wittes: It was, it sounded like they'd been invaded by, the Mongols or something.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah, literally. They just stood, it was such a weird video that's been circulating online. It's just like several dozen people, and this grandma in the middle of it is complaining that NATO, like foreign tanks have invaded their village and obliterated in a matter of hours or something. And it just, again, points out just how different Ukrainians and Russians are, because not only has there been no adequate reaction from the Russian military, which I mean, okay, that's worth its own analysis, but there hasn't been any adequate reaction to what's happening from the civilians, right? Like your country is being invaded and we haven't seen any kind of the typical Ukrainian style, like horizontal organization where people get in groups, people try to-

Benjamin Wittes: Civil society snapping into action.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah, right, right. Which is exactly what happened when Russia invaded Ukraine. Everyone began helping everyone immediately. There's all of this self organization like, screw you, the government. We don't care what you do. We're just going to help ourselves. And that's just not at all happening in Russia. They're just filming a video pleading to Putin to come and save them. And it just highlights again, the difference between Ukrainians and Russians. But the morale boost is definitely happening. Though I do think it's important to note that at the same time people are being cautious, people are talking about the situation in Donbas. People understand that what's happening in Kursk isn't going to magically solve the war and it's, kind of, this balance that we're seeing.

Benjamin Wittes: Eric, talk to me about this aspect of it, because I have been surprised, honestly, at how big the, how excited the morale boost has been. I mean all of the threads that I'm on, various text threads, are all full of Kursk memes, they're full of jokes. Does this matter, or is it, you know this political aspect, does it matter or is it just a feel good thing?

Eric Ciaramella: I think it matters for Ukrainians because one of the key elements to winning a war of attrition, which this war is in an overall sense, is morale. And we had seen a steady increase in war fatigue when you look at the opinion polls going back to the winter. And, you know again, it's a complicated story, but there's been an increased openness to negotiations with Russia to end the war. Potentially some sort of concessions.

Now it's, again, those were the headlines of the opinion polls back in June and early July. And when you dig into the numbers, it's actually more nuanced about what Ukrainians are willing to consider giving up and not giving up. But definitely the Ukrainian leadership saw those trends in society and felt like, you know if there's no end in sight to this war, then you need to find a way to change the narrative and get people to believe again in the possibility of Ukrainian successes. What I will say though, and this is probably a more controversial point, boosting morale, it could be part of this effort to sustain Ukraine in a long war, but it could also be part of an effort to prepare the ground for some sort of talks.

And going into talks, first of all, from a position of weakness, as it would have been before this offensive, would certainly play to Ukraine's disadvantage. But the bigger part was that Ukrainian society, I think, still would have had a lot of trouble accepting the narrative around going into some sort of talks because it would have looked like capitulation from a position of weakness. So both the negotiating leverage with Russia, but also the narrative that Zelenskyy and others could spin to Ukrainian society. And now there's a possibility that Zelenskyy can say, okay we really demonstrated our power and ability to bring the war to Russia. But still, the front in the rest of the country is, not necessarily collapsing, but at least Russia's making steady gains, and we still need to enter some sort of talks to either end the war or have some sort of ceasefire.

And it's still very controversial in Ukraine, but now he can make the case that, we've demonstrated in principle that we can take the war to Russia. And so now we can get a more equitable peace. And again, just to be able to use that as the framing, because Zelenskyy, if talks do begin, is going to need the political space to figure out what the terms of some deal are. And that's not going to happen overnight, and so I think he's trying, potentially, to relieve some of the pressure that would come onto him immediately when some sort of talks are announced, and give him some space to pursue different formulations of a deal, everything from a no conditions ceasefire, which I think is, more plausible all the way to some of these more comprehensive deals, which I think are still pretty far away. So again, as Nastia said, that has not been articulated by Zelenskyy as an objective. I'm speculating here, but I do think given the trend lines and other parts of the front, this could be a way to get a big boost before a really tough period of going into some sort of talks, which would become much more likely, obviously, if Donald Trump wins the U.S. election.

Benjamin Wittes: So this brings us neatly to your second political objective, which you articulated was, which was just bringing the war back home to Russia and putting political pressure on Russia in the context of by humiliating Putin and showing that he is actually not capable. The strong man who's actually not capable of defending Russia's borders. You know, I hate to bring this up, but there is an example in American history of this, and it doesn't end well, right? It's Gettysburg where Robert E. Lee decides, let's bring the war home to the North, sends a big force into Pennsylvania. And of course it doesn't end well for the South.

And Nastia, you made the point earlier that there's some anxiety about this for this reason in Ukraine. Like, hey, we've got a front that's not doing so well and now you're opening up a new one with relatively small forces. I'm curious. And I want to reserve the Russian reaction for the next discussion. Like this seems to me to be a very different picture if they go in, they destroy a bunch of stuff, and then they leave, so it's like a Viking raiding party, than it is if you have an effort to hold the territory for any substantial period of time, and it works much better if it works than if it doesn't, right?

So if the Russians, beat their chests and for a few days and don't know what to do, but then come and effectively deal with the situation, then it's very different from if you cross the border, you take some villages in Kursk, you humiliate them, and then you leave. So how do the politics of this work from a Ukrainian-Russian relationship standpoint, what do the Ukrainian forces have to do in order to make this politically successful for the next two weeks rather than just the past week?

Anastasiia Lapatina: I honestly don't think that this is so much about Ukrainian military making the Russians feel something or do something. I think we've given up on that a very long time ago. In the very beginning of the war, Zelenskyy was trying to communicate directly with the Russian public and he was recording videos in Russia and appeals to common sense and things like that, and it hasn't worked. And, if you guys have met any Ukrainian, they will tell you how Ukrainians feel about the Russian society. So I honestly don't think-

Benjamin Wittes: No, I wasn't suggesting that this is an effort to communicate with Russian society. I was suggesting that it's an effort, when Eric describes the political objective of bringing the war back home, there's a communicative aspect of that, right?

Anastasiia Lapatina: It's about justice for Ukrainians. It's about us watching these videos of people fleeing their homes and being like screw you guys. We've been doing this for three years.

Benjamin Wittes: No, I'm sorry. I, I, like you don't make war for content creation purposes.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Which is, which was actually what I was trying to say. After what I've just communicated that I don't think this is about Ukraine and Russia. I think this is about Ukraine and the U.S. I think the primary receiver of this show has been America and our Western allies. And I, again, I'm not in the head of Zelenskyy or Syrskyi, but judging by the direction of the civil society and what everyone in Ukraine saying, I think this has been one of the main goals of the whole operation, is to show to America that, hey, you've been telling us that we can't destroy a Russian plane somewhere.

We have literally invaded their territory using your armor. Like what other restrictions can you place on us? I think the major point of this operation has been to highlight just how weak and disorganized Russia can be so the West stops perceiving it as this boogeyman who's going to nuke everyone and therefore we have to be so nice and polite with them and so on and so forth. I think like that---

Benjamin Wittes: That’s interesting.

Anastasiia Lapatina: I think because that's---

Benjamin Wittes: You think the main audience is Washington.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yes because that's what everyone is talking about these days.

Benjamin Wittes: Do you agree with that, Eric? Is like, because I've thought of it as like an effort to show the Russians we can still hit you where it hurts.

Anastasiia Lapatina: But they don't care.

Benjamin Wittes: No, no understood. Is Nastia right that the real point is not showing the Russians we can still hit you where it hurts. It's showing us we can still hit them where it hurts and we can use your weapons and you're not going to do anything about it.

Anastasiia Lapatina: And they aren't going to do anything about it.

Benjamin Wittes: And they're not going to do anything. So screw the rest of the weapons restrictions.

Eric Ciaramella: I mean that's interesting. I'm thinking about it. It is remarkable if we just zoom out and, think about how close the U.S.-Ukrainian relationship has become over the past two and a half years and how United States government had no idea that this was being planned. So, it-

Benjamin Wittes: And you're confident that we really had no idea it was being planned rather than that---

Eric Ciaramella: Yes.

Anastasiia Lapatina: I've seen some reporting, I think by the Guardian that some of the Western allies supposedly helped Ukraine plan it, they didn't specify the country.

Eric Ciaramella: I would not be surprised if there were Brits involved because they tend to do things on their own.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah, I've heard that, yeah.

Eric Ciaramella: But, in any case, it did surprise Washington. It put Washington on its back foot, and it was in reactive mode. I wouldn't say that the reaction has been full throated support. It has been more good luck and see what you can accomplish.

Benjamin Wittes: It's been infinitely tolerant.

Eric Ciaramella: It has.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Which is a big switch.

Eric Ciaramella: Yeah, it is a big switch. And I will, just to go back to Nastia's hypothesis here. One of the major turning points in U.S. policy on arming Ukraine happened after the Kharkiv and Kherson operations in fall 2022, when there was still a big question mark about how Russia would react to humiliating defeats on the battlefield and the loss of Kherson. There was that whole nuclear scare. Which I think was, you know, it was significant and real in the sense that U.S. policymakers at the highest level had genuine, founded concerns that Russia might escalate into the nuclear domain and did a lot of signaling behind the scenes, and in public that, there would be categorically different consequences if Russia used a battlefield nuclear weapon, to retaliate for the loss of Kherson or whatever.

And in the end, what did Russia do? It didn't do nothing. It annexed the territories. The four Ukrainian oblasts, including territories that Russia didn't hold at the time and still doesn't hold, and it declared a major mobilization, which did significantly alter the course of the war insofar as it got Russia much more committed, pot committed to some sort of victory by mobilizing hundreds of thousands of additional forces. But Russia did not retaliate or escalate in any kind of conventional definition of escalation. And what happened was that fundamentally changed the White House's perspective on how Russia would react to the loss of territory on the battlefield. And so that directly led to the decision to start arming Ukraine for the 2023 counter offensive. The decision to provide Abrams tanks, the decisions eventually to provide F-16s and all of that.

Those operations were successful from a Ukrainian perspective because it liberated Kharkiv Oblast and Kherson City, but they were really successful on the U.S. and partner messaging standpoint because it really led to this step change in U.S. policy. So going back to Nastia's hypothesis that the U.S. might have been the primary audience, I do think it's possible. Although again, going back to what I said in the beginning, there could be multiple audiences and I would just say that, certainly Washington was a big part of it. And the response so far, I think, validates the idea that actually Ukraine, to prove its point, had to just take matters into its own hands.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah, I think, as I said earlier, the Foreign Affairs Ministry tied it right back to the long range strikes restrictions in their statements today. They said that we are doing this because we do not have the ability to strike Russian targets deep enough into their territory. So they've articulated this, like I, and this is one of the reasons why I'm so confident that the U.S. was definitely one of the audiences.

Benjamin Wittes: All right, so let's talk about the U.S. reaction, because as you both mention, it's been interesting. It is not a full throated you go girl, but it sure isn't a stop this right now and don't use our weapons for it. And it's not, at least in my view, anything that the Ukrainians would or should be concerned about in terms of their future relations with the United States. And if part of the point here was let's see what happens if we push this policy to its absolute limit, the answer from the United States anyway is you get a pat on the back or at least not anything harder than a pat on the back.

So Eric, I want to start with you on this. You know, the U.S. has been extremely supportive of Ukraine from the beginning, but also quite conservative in its support in important ways, at least conservative compared to what the Ukrainians want. And this is part of a long-standing push and pull in which the Ukrainians say we need X, Y, and Z, and the U.S. says you can have X but not Y and Z, or you can have X and Y but you can't use Y in the following way. And the Ukrainians kind of chomp at the particular bit, and then three months later we accede to greater use of X and Y, and maybe we'll give you Z three months from now. And I guess the question is, I know that Nastia would say, we've shown proof of concept over and over again that the escalation will not happen, and that you guys are being hyper conservative here. Just let us run with it.

So what's the other side of that equation? Is there an answer that’s hey, this is a nuclear power with a gazillion nukes and it has interests, we have interests in interacting with it all over the world and, we can't be as hyper focused as you can, or is this just showing that the Ukrainians are just right?

Anastasiia Lapatina: FYI, I stand by everything Ben just put in my mouth. Yeah, I would say that.

Benjamin Wittes: I'm not putting words in Nastia's mouth. This is stuff that she articulates to me in a hundred text messages a day. So like I'm pretty confident.

Eric Ciaramella: Yeah. This is a longer conversation, maybe we can have this debate on a separate podcast, but you know I would say escalation management, which is an important aspect of any armed conflict, is an art and not a science, and there's no equation that you can plug numbers into and get some sort of 100 percent confident response, if I do X, then, Y is going to happen, but Z won't happen. And I remember when I was in the U.S. intelligence community, dating back to 2014 and the initial Russian seizure of Crimea, policymakers in three successive administrations, Obama, Trump, and Biden, would ask intelligence analysts if we do X or Y, on the policy side, in terms of giving Ukraine this or whatever, how will Russia react?

And none of us had a crystal ball, and we couldn't say with any certainty, but we had to use kind of context and historical examples and our knowledge of how the Russian system operates to make our best possible guess. And in some cases assessments were right. And in some cases they were wrong. But you know, like I said, this is a very, it's a very difficult thing. And as you get higher and higher up in the U.S. government, you have more responsibility for if things go wrong. And if you're the president and you launch headlong into some sort of policy. And this was President Biden's thinking from the start of the invasion, if he'd authorized, in his mind, F-16s to Ukraine in week two of the war and all of that, before he had really tested what Russia's limits were, then you could have ended up in some sort of spiral.

We won't know. It's an impossible counterfactual. But instead, the policy, I would say, was a reasonable, responsible, perhaps at times overly cautious, guess and check, and let's do this. Let's measure the Russian response, and then we'll do a bit more, and we'll measure the Russian response. Now, obviously that's frustrating on the Ukrainian side, because it draws things out. Ukraine doesn't get what it needs up front.

Benjamin Wittes: And people die in the meantime.

Eric Ciaramella: People die in the meantime. But if you're trying to manage this, and you have other equities, really, which is the security of Europe and you know the continued existence of the planet.

Benjamin Wittes: And Evan Gershkovich. I mean-

Eric Ciaramella: Sure

Benjamin Wittes: There's hostages,

Eric Ciaramella: There’s hostages

Benjamin Wittes: There's other borders.

Eric Ciaramella: Russia is arming the Houthis in Yemen, potentially, and it has this relationship with Iran and North Korea. And again, as the United States, you have different equities, and I'm not going to make excuses, but I'm trying to explain what the picture is at the national level. It's that you have to weigh the risks and benefits of different things. And I would say overall, the United States has moved way farther than I think anyone predicted in its support for Ukraine's military, including offensive operations. Not as fast as probably everyone would have hoped, but we're in a way different place than I think anyone could have predicted in February 2022.

But, again, getting back to the U.S. reactions now. I think from this, it is clear that the United States is not really as worried about this as maybe some would have expected. And whether or not that opens up the conversation to lift the remaining restrictions on the use of long range U.S. weapons in other parts of Russian territory, I'm not sure. And also there's a big, factor here, which is our domestic politics and the amazing, incredible, crazy things that have happened over the past couple of months in our, you know, election.

And we're really distracted and on the one hand, the president is less distracted cause he's not running for reelection. On the other hand, the whole apparatus and our media and our system is completely focused on the fact that this election is now completely different thing than it was in July or in June. So, you know, we've been distracted and I think it has maybe been opportunistically a good move on the Ukrainian side frankly to launch the incursion at this point when we're a bit focused on our own internal politics so that we wouldn't really have the bandwidth to spin up a kind of more negative response.

Benjamin Wittes: All right, so I want to go to Nastia on her reaction to all this but before I do, I want to just follow up with you on one thing, which is my impression is that the source of the American incrementalism here is twofold. One is a 70-year history of nuclear and relationship, military relationship, management with the Soviets and then the Russians. And just a sense that there are common law rules in the relationship between us. And one of them is that we don't fight each other directly, and so there's a real conservatism about anything that looks like the U.S. being directly engaging Russian forces.

The second, the institutional spot is that the U.S. military, the Pentagon, is a source of some degree of conservatism here. In Ukraine world, and by that not just Ukrainians, but hawks on behalf of Ukraine, Americans and Europeans, there's a lot of anger at Jake Sullivan. And I'm curious how much of this is, in your judgment, the incrementalism is, is that the Pentagon is a super big ship to turn, and how much of it is the interagency as represented in the person of the national security advisor.

Eric Ciaramella: Yeah, I mean I think that's not quite the right analysis.

Benjamin Wittes: Correct me.

Eric Ciaramella: The national security advisor is, when doing his or her job, a reflection of the president, a reflection of the president's policy priorities and thinking into the interagency. And I think that you know from what I know about how decisions were made, I believe that Jake Sullivan is representing what the president's thinking is. And the president's thinking on this war has been about helping Ukraine defend its sovereignty while keeping NATO allies together and while avoiding a direct war with Russia. Those three things. And sometimes they're in tension. And so you have to make decisions around that.

And so I don't see any evidence that Jake Sullivan is kind of undercutting positions of other cabinet secretaries who if left to their own devices would arm Ukraine to the teeth and all of that. I mean, Biden is somewhat of a cautious and conservative leader, all things considered, small C conservative on foreign policy. And doesn't want to drag the United States into an overt confrontation with Russia. And again, this escalation management thing, it's not just unique to Ukraine and Russia. We see it playing out with---

Benjamin Wittes: Sure.

Eric Ciaramella: Israel right now and its multitude of conflicts that it's, embroiled itself in. And you have a partner management problem in every situation, particularly in situations where you have close partnerships that are not part of a treaty alliance, where there are rules of the road and expectations that allies consult with each other completely.

Although even in the case of treaty allies, you have a country like Turkey, which has done all kinds of cross border operations into Syria and Iraq without U.S. blessing. But in the case of, again, Iran and Israel, you're seeing it play out now. Israel, you know, launched this operation to take out Haniyeh in Tehran and now is going to deal with a counter attack at some point in the next few days that is going to necessarily involve some sort of response by the U.S. military. So partner countries can create dilemmas for Washington where we have to risk our own assets. And we have to potentially get ourselves more and more involved in something in order to defend our credibility or principles or whatever. And I think that is part of the caution on Biden's part. So I don't think it's unique to Jake Sullivan or anything like that.

Benjamin Wittes: And you don't think it's institutional conservatism on the part of the Pentagon?

Eric Ciaramella: I mean I think the uniformed military tends to be conservative about these types of things. You had General Milley, when he was the chairman, say in late 2022 that Ukraine had reached the high watermark of its offensive operations and should go into some sort of talks. And, looking back in retrospect, one could actually say that maybe he had some sort of a point. I know it's a bit controversial, but seeing how 2023 and the beginning of 2024 have played out from the war of attrition standpoint, the lines haven't moved much.

On the policy side and the Secretary of Defense, I think, from what I can tell, they're maybe a little bit more willing to take some sort of risk, but there is this relationship between, the joint staff and the Secretary of Defense's office, and there's a push and pull. But, again, overall, I don't know that it's really institutional bargaining inside the U.S. government. And I think it's fundamentally, everyone knows that they're working for Joe Biden and Biden really is strongly supportive of Ukraine, but also does not want to end up in a war with Russia and getting that equation right is hard.

Benjamin Wittes: As Congressman Adam Smith, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee in the House said to me recently, the Biden administration has been perfectly clear about its objectives here. Help Ukraine win, don't blow up the world. Nastia you've heard Eric's remarkably clear articulation of U.S. policy and its sources and development, and I have seen your head nearly explode three times during his talk. So, your thoughts in response.

Anastasiia Lapatina: No, I think you’re overreacting to my reactions. I’ve heard Eric give this speech several times now. I've gotten used to it, but yeah, no, this just highlights just how different Ukraine's and U.S.'s approaches to Russia are. We are informed by completely different history. Ukraine is looking through a very particular prism on Russia and America has its own very specific prism. And the depths of this history between the three of us is like hundreds of years old, which is why everyone should tune in into the podcast that we're going to be making and publishing in many months about the relationship between the U.S. and Ukraine which of course involves Russia also. It's very unfortunate, but there is no way for us to see this in the same light, like it's impossible. There is literally like hundreds of years of precedent to it. So I think we just have to do the best that we can.

I wanted to interrupt Eric earlier, just to highlight that when he was talking about the fact that the U.S. is paying attention to its elections and just doesn't care about much else other than, maybe Iran also not doing nuclear blackmail or something else, like Russia --- is that the Ukrainian invasion of Russian territory hasn't made it to the front page of the New York Times in the last week. Like it's not even there, you have to go to the Russia-Ukraine war tab to see anything about it. Just yesterday I've seen something about global warming on the front page of the New York Times and not this incursion, which, to our group probably is extremely significant. Yeah, I just wanted to agree that yes, Americans are not paying attention much to this which is interesting, but yeah.

Eric Ciaramella: And, one coda too is we haven't talked much about the Europeans, but I've been actually much more surprised by the European response. Not by the British and Polish and Scandinavian responses, which have been predictably supportive, but by the German, French, Italian, sort of non-response. And even the Germans said at least the head of their defense committee in the Bundestag said go ahead and use German weapons.

Anastasiia Lapatina: And we should send you more of them.

Benjamin Wittes: It's the closest the Germans are ever going to come to a victory in Kursk.

Eric Ciaramella: Well, perhaps. But I think going back to Biden's kind of objectives of keeping the alliance together, I think this has also demonstrated that actually the Europeans are not really that squeamish either. And so really this is a big win for the Ukrainians on the PR and partner messaging standpoint.

Benjamin Wittes: Yeah. So let's close with a discussion of the most fun subject in this entire area, which is the Russian reaction. Putin described it as a major provocation and the reaction only went downhill from there. Nastia, you described the sort of pathetic video side of the reaction, but looking at the full scope of the reaction, it is remarkably incoherent and nuts. Give us your thoughts.

Anastasiia Lapatina: I particularly appreciated the reaction of actually the spokesperson, I think, to the State Department in the U.S. He said that-

Benjamin Wittes: Matt Miller.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Yeah, I think he said that Putin calling it a large provocation is, “a bit rich of him.” I really liked that considering that who's provoking who is a great question. Apart from that, it's really been really hectic. I mean, as far as I know, for days there hasn't been any announced official evacuation, which is a problem because there have been all of these photos coming out of pretty destroyed cities, which again, we don't even know if that was destroyed by Ukrainian attacks or Russian counterattacks because there have been also reports of that happening, right?

But just literally during the recording of this podcast, I saw on the news that apparently Russian authorities said that they're going to evacuate people from Kursk Oblast to occupied parts of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Oblast, which is very interesting and also a typical move by Russia. If you look at Russia's history vis-a-vis Ukraine this imperial tactic of settling our territories and moving a bunch of people to the newly occupied territories. They've done this in Mariupol. They've done this in Crimea. They've done this in a bunch of territories they've occupied. They're making it harder and harder for us to retake the territory because what do you do with the hundreds of thousands of Russians living there?

It's a really tough question and looks like they're going to be doing this here right now as well, but also that's like really far from Kursk. And if they're evacuating a bunch of people, I'm now thinking, does that mean that they're preparing for that territory to be occupied or in control of Ukraine long term? Cause they're not evacuating them like, I don't know, to Belgorod Oblast, like nearby. They're doing this whole swing across the Ukrainian territory.

Benjamin Wittes: Or at least they say they are.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Or at least, yeah, at least they announced it that they are. So that's interesting. But other than that, Putin has just been trying to cast blame to local regional authorities. There was this video released apparently of like a recording meeting between him and a bunch of governors and local authorities in charge of the situation in Kursk. And he was like scolding them and saying that it's not really working out and you guys should, you know, get your shit together. And he was probably signaling to other authorities in the region that like, I'm not happy about this. Do something about it. So he's just been trying to cause blame.

And there has been chaos and Russians in this video in these videos that started appearing are now like screaming at cameras, saying that the government doesn't care about us. Authorities are corrupt. They're lying. And they're lying so much. They don't care about us and they don't evacuate us. And there has been no help. It's just really interesting, to see them finally coming to their senses.

Benjamin Wittes: Eric, what do you make of the Russian's military reaction? It took a number of days for the Russian military to even get there. And Russia's big, it's not that big. You know, we have modern transportation architecture, right? Like you can, but it seemed like it was sparsely defended and then there was no second line. Keeping, you know, the Canadians could not keep a thousand people in Montana, with no matter how much armored armor you gave them. Why is there still a thousand square kilometers of Russia that is under Ukrainian occupation?

Eric Ciaramella: Definitely the Ukrainians achieved operational surprise on the attack. It's actually amazing reading some of the accounts, how much Ukraine managed to almost mimic the surprise that Russia thought it was achieving in the early days of the full-scale invasion, where only the top leadership knew. And then, 72 hours in advance, some of the officers found out and then only 24 hours in advance did regular troops find out that this was not a training exercise and they indeed were going to go into Russia. And so, it appears that the Russians had really no foresight or warning, or if they did, then it didn't make it up the chain.

So they were not prepared. It's taken some time for them to reposition assets. There's also institutional kind of rivalries and a little bit of chaos where the FSB under Bortnikov was initially put in charge of what was called the counter terrorism operation to fight enemy combatants on domestic territory. And then just today, Putin named Alexei Dyumin, who was his former bodyguard and the governor of Tula Oblast and deputy, he was deputy GRU head. He's held a lot of different positions, but now he's the overall kind of czar of this operation, which signals to me that Putin felt that the agencies and the regional governments were not up to the task on their own and needed some sort of high level intervention and someone who could speak with authority on Putin's behalf to be able to tell this agency do this thing and this ministry do the other thing.

So again, that just reinforces the overall point of the dysfunction of the Russian system that it's highly centralized and you get down to the ministry and agency and regional levels and when confronted with some sort of crisis, they just panic and choke because they're used to getting all of their instructions from the Kremlin. So all that is to say, it has been chaotic. It has been dysfunctional for the first eight days. But this chapter is not over yet, and eventually the Russians will get their ducks in a row and will respond and start to bring more forces and resources to confront the Ukrainian incursion force. And I think the big question now is when there's inevitably a Russian counterattack, already the Russians are stopping the Ukrainians in certain directions.

But when there's a more concerted Russian counterattack over, I would say the next one to two weeks, the question is, did the Ukrainians have the resources and the reinforcements to be able to blunt the counterattack and hold on to a certain amount of this territory? Or are the Ukrainians forced to retreat and say, we made our point, we got our prisoner fund replenished and objective achieved and operation over? Or are the Ukrainians able to, without taking significant casualties, hold the positions that they have taken? And we don't know the answer to that, but I think the answer to that will determine what this means in the medium to long term, because if the Russian counter attack is not able to evict Ukrainian forces, then President Zelenskyy has a really big card to play and has a certain amount of leverage over Putin to coerce whether it's talks or, some sort of tactical trade on Kharkiv that we were talking about earlier. But again, we'll have to see what happens.

Benjamin Wittes: We are going to leave it there. Eric Ciaramella, Anastasiia Lapatina, thank you so much for joining us today, but wait! Before we go, I have to advise everybody that Nastia has a new Substack, and at the risk of embarrassing her, I'm going to tell you all, it is called “Yours Ukrainian” and Nastia, tell us a little bit about it.

Anastasiia Lapatina: You're embarrassing me just a little bit, but yes, I have launched a newsletter about Ukraine and the point of it is really to just broaden the scope of things that are read about, because in my professional work for Lawfare, it's all very serious, political, legal, military things. But in my Substack, I can write about culture, about what people on the streets in Ukraine are talking about things that are influencing everyday Ukrainian society.

But then I also do, of course, cover things like what's happening in Kursk right now, because that's what anyone can talk about these days. So, I do a weekly newsletter with a roundup of all of the biggest events of the week, and then also some sort of deep dive into something Ukraine-related, phenomenon, event, piece of history. And I have some ideas of, for how to broaden this as well.

Benjamin Wittes: And where can people find it?

Anastasiia Lapatina: So people can find my Substack on, of course, yoursukrainian.substack.com.

Benjamin Wittes: Thank you both. And I just have this feeling that we're going to be getting together again relatively soon.

Eric Ciaramella: Thanks, Ben.

Anastasiia Lapatina: Thank you.

Benjamin Wittes: The Lawfare Podcast is produced in cooperation with the Brookings Institution. You can get ad free versions of this and other Lawfare podcasts by becoming a material supporter of Lawfare using our website, lawfaremedia.org/support. You'll also get access to special events and other content available only to our supporters.

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