Shifting Tides in Ukraine - Lawrence Freedman on the Future of the War

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:01][music] >> Welcome back. I'm Max Bergmann, director of the Stuart Center and Europe, Russia, Eurasia program at CSIS.

[00:00:12]>> And I'm Maria Snegovaya, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia.

[00:00:15]>> And you're listening to Russian Roulette, a podcast discussing all things Russia and Eurasia from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

[00:00:33]Hello everyone and welcome back to Russian Roulette. I'm Max Bergmann, here with my co-host Maria Snegovaya. And today we're joined by Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London.

[00:00:44]Lori is a leading commentator on international strategic issues and the history of warfare, and the acclaimed author of numerous books. He's one of the big experts in the field when it comes to war studies, and he has an outstanding Substack that he co-authors with his son Sam. It is time of the comment is freed. Everyone should subscribe. There's excellent coverage of what is happening in the Russia-Ukraine war. We'll put a link to the Substack in our show notes, as well as some of the recent pieces that Lori has done about the war, which is what prompted us to get in touch and say we need to have him on the show. Thanks so much for being with us.

[00:01:16]>> My pleasure.

[00:01:17]>> Maybe to dive in, how do you assess things right now? Let's start broad.

[00:01:21]Where does the war stand now? We're now in its fifth year. We're entering a summer period. Where do you assess the state of the conflict right now?

[00:01:31]>> I'm reasonably positive about where it's gone, but I think the problem for anybody who follows this war is you're almost scared of optimism. You know, we've been here before when, especially at times during 2022 when the when the Russians really seemed to have screwed things up and were on the run, and they recovered. And then there was a counteroffensive which didn't work out so well. So it's been since 2023, I think it's been a pretty tough time. The Ukrainians have hung on, but the sort of optimism that led you to think that they could really push the Russians back has been in pretty short supply. What I think has happened really over the last 6 months is a number of things have come together, and they weren't wholly unanticipated. One of them was problems with the Russian economy. And I think people had been pointing to these difficulties really since late 2024. And although the Iran war has given some booster, I still think actually that the the war is a negative for the Russian economy as well. It eats away at confidence amongst the elite. It makes decisions tough. Russia does try to have a reasonably responsible fiscal policy, and in the in the fact of war like this, that becomes hard. Secondly, the Ukrainians have done an astonishing job with drone development. This is what really kept them going through 2024. And a lot of it has been simply to compensate for for weaknesses elsewhere in manpower and artillery pieces and so on. But they've taken it to a new level.

[00:02:55]I think it's very rare for somebody who tends to play down the importance of technology as a source of as a major driver of strategy. But in this case, it's been very important. It's important not just in the development of the so-called kill zone at the front line, but also in making it difficult for the Russian units to even approach the zone.

[00:03:16]And of course, the series of relentless attacks on Russian oil refineries and other and other targets inside Russia, including recently in the Moscow area, is important. And then this together in the fact that the Russian advance, which making reasonably steady progress even if it wasn't spectacular through 2024 and 2025, has more or less ground to a halt. Now, this may change. We're all aware that battlefield conditions do change. But I think the Russians are clearly struggling to find the manpower, the will. The tactics have had to change because of the drones. So, you're talking about infiltrating a few people.

[00:03:51]The idea of large-scale mechanized assaults of the sort we saw in the early years of the war now that just seemed a distant past. So, for all these reasons Russia is facing real difficulties and Ukraine in some areas is on the front foot. Now, this doesn't translate easily into the liberation of lots of Ukrainian territory, so we have to be careful.

[00:04:14]But, to my mind what it does potentially is undermine the main Russian narrative which is they're bound to get hold of all of the next over time and therefore you Trump administration should persuade Ukraine to give it up to avoid bloodshed. I think that narrative is already undermined and is further done so by by current Ukrainian successes at the front.

[00:04:36]>> It strikes me that the morale has really shifted in Ukraine's favor that I could see last year where the Russians could be quite optimistic. You had a new Trump administration was going to cut off aid to Ukraine that hopefully would squeeze Ukraine and they'd get on the good side of Trump maybe they could squeeze Ukraine even further, maybe restrict certain weapons flows. In 2024 it was quite clear that the Russians were optimistic because Congress was holding back Ukraine funding, they were making battlefield gains. Is it your sense that morale has shifted and how big a factor is morale in this war or in general? Is that the right lens in which to kind observe this?

[00:05:13]>> Well, there's two levels what the leadership is thinking and clearly Putin was very buoyant in early 24 when the Russian forces were were starting to advance. You had Avdiivka, you had Congress holding back on funds and still I think Ukraine was reeling a bit from the failed counteroffensive of of 23.

[00:05:32]And you read what he says then and he's very positive. I always make a point to read what Putin says because I think it is quite revealing about his state of mind at any particular time. So, he was quite pretty positive there and I think managed to stay so through I mean well, reading recently he still sounds quite positive though with less conviction than before. And then I think they saw Trump as a great opportunity, somebody who would put the squeeze on Ukraine and potentially deliver them. I know people think Trump and Putin are sort of joined at the hip, but actually I think they find Trump a disappointment because he hasn't really been able to deliver Ukraine. And of course, by cutting off so much direct American support to Ukraine, he's removed American leverage.

[00:06:15]So the Ukrainians now feel less bothered about resisting some of them what they see at the more outlandish demands. So I think at that level there you can see frustration on the Russian side. Morale at the front, I mean I don't go to the front.

[00:06:31]I'm I'm in no position to judge. One sense is that morale has never been great for Russian forces. I mean one of the puzzles of all of this is that when the Russians did have a good opportunity in 2024, they didn't really take it.

[00:06:45]Their tactics have been pretty unimaginative. It's hard to judge from social media posts and may not be wholly representative, but clearly life at the front has been pretty miserable for Russian soldiers. And so one doesn't get a sense of great morale. And Ukraine is tough too. I mean there have been there have been some stories recently about people felt left alone in beleaguered positions and sent enough food and supplies and so on. So it's pretty tough at the front. So I don't think anybody's got great morale there, but I think the leadership in Ukraine which incidentally seems to have been improved significantly over the last six months, not least with federal defense minister, does seem to be much more positive.

[00:07:27]>> Thank you so much Lawrence. Since you flagged this importance of the change in morale that is also driven at least in part by the really impressive battlefield performance of Ukrainians and also the drones advances that they recently had technologically. I think that some of the data that's impressive shows that for the first time in the war in March, for example, Ukraine launched more long-range drones at Russia than Russia launched at Ukraine. We literally every day hear and see videos of successful Ukrainian drones on the Russian territory. The significant effect, like game-changed that they having even on the Russia-controlled so-called land corridor that's connecting DNR and LNR to Crimea.

[00:08:03]However, my question to you is how sustainable do you think that is? In some of your publications, you do mention that in the past, the fortunes have been shifting, right? Russia, for example, was believed to have a drone advantage last year and at the end of last year, six months ago, that did not last. So, do you think we should draw strong conclusions from the current situation or maybe there are reasons to believe this is also not going to last.

[00:08:27]>> I think one has to be cautious. Looking back, I think there are So, there's an interesting question as why didn't the Russians maintain the advantage they seemed to have last autumn. And one answer is the Russian approach is to agree a model and standardize on it and build it to scale. And therefore, they're not innovating in the way that the Ukrainians are innovating. Every report from the front, from the Ukrainian drone operators, is the constant changes according to challenge being posed by the Russians with electronic warfare, the nature of the targets, or whatever. So, I think the Ukrainians have maintained an innovative advantage. Secondly, I think the Russians were affected by complacency on their side late last year. You look at uh what was being said. And this was being challenged by Western commentators. Putin and Gerasimov kept on being very bullish about how well Russian forces were doing, as if they were continually on the verge of a breakthrough. And it We're going to talk about this more. It's It's one of the Again, one of the puzzles of the war as to why as how much Putin actually knows about what's going on at the front line.

[00:09:33]It It fascinates me because most military organizations are pretty poor at passing bad news up the chain of command. And therefore most sensible senior generals have ways of getting the ground truth and checking what's going on. That just doesn't seem to be happening. And I think that's that's a just an interesting feature. Third, and I think we come back to this, is that Russian tactics, as well as technology, has just not been quite as innovative.

[00:09:59]They are capable of innovative organizations like the Rubicon groups and so on. So one shouldn't underestimate them. But the strategy they're following with their long-range attacks is a strategy they first adopted in October '22. Essentially, attacks on critical infrastructure and cities and make life miserable as possible for Ukrainians. But by now, they should be able to see this does make life miserable for Ukrainians. It's not war-winning. The Ukrainians got through a terrible winter and cold. While the Ukrainians have got a strategy. I mean, you can understand the strategy behind their drone strikes, their long-range drone strikes. And I think this raises an interesting question of of the leadership of the Russian campaign. But given all the advantages that they've had, why haven't they made much more of Why haven't they been able to use their advantages in manpower, their ability to scale up technology, the manufacturing base? Why haven't they been able to make more of it? And I think there is a sort of just a lack of imagination and risk-taking at the senior levels of the Russian military and government.

[00:10:59]>> I maybe want to follow up on the question you raised about how much does Putin know about the state of the war.

[00:11:04]And I'm also sort of at at two minds of this. On the one hand, I could see, well, you know, they must be hiding a lot of stuff from him. Can't imagine generals are very eager to talk about their lack of progress. On the other hand, he does not seem to me like a leader who is afraid of getting mired in the details. If we think of a Western politician or someone like Trump, you know, he gets distracted by his ballroom. Or you're focused on the next election or domestic policy issues or healthcare reform. There's always these other issues. It just strikes me that he's consumed with geopolitics and here is this in some ways his defining effort as Tsar of Russia is to take back Ukraine and to not be focused on what's happening on the front line. Also strikes me as I just can't really believe that and I guess I maybe you could elaborate a little bit on on on what you're thinking there about how Putin is observing this. Over to you.

[00:11:52]>> Well, I agree that it's surprising given the stakes. But this is a very centralized system. Everybody's reporting to Putin. And it's true, Putin can do hour press conferences and so on and give facts and figures and statistics and talk about things that they're doing which may or may not have much basis in reality. And I think that's part of the problem. In a autocratic system like Russia, people tell the boss what they think the boss wants to hear. They're discouraged from asking hard and difficult questions. Is this why should we be doing this? And then I think in the with the military, you've got a very special case because whereas Putin clearly has received and understood grumbles from civilian manufacturers, for example, about the consequences of high interest rates and labor shortages and so on. And he's probably aware of some of the comments from military bloggers, but less so than before because a lot of them being cut off. He's very reliant on Gerasimov. I mean, when he describes the state of the front, he's usually quoting things that Gerasimov has said a few days earlier.

[00:12:51]So he gets his information from around him who are supposedly in charge of these different spheres of activity. And as I said before, I think military organizations are always bad at getting bad news out because if you're at the front line and you've got a way of coping, all you need to do is send back pictures of somebody waving a flag in a village even if they don't last very long and say, "Look, we've made these advances. It's all going great. You can leave us alone."

[00:13:19]And this is the normal pathology of military organizations. But in this case, they don't have means which in other countries our our would come from journalists just sniffing around and saying well is it really as good as that? So they want to believe it. And there's a degree of wishful thinking. I was very struck in December reading Putin annual press conference when he was talking about Kupiansk which is clearly been in principle from our perspective pretty embarrassing because even when Zelensky turned up on the outskirts, Putin was still insisting that it was really held by Russia again against the evidence from independent analysts and so on. So he's saying well you you know you're you're asking why haven't we moved westward out of Kupiansk? And Putin's answer well there's a large number of Ukrainian troops in Kupiansk land and maybe 30,000 we have very large number who are trapped there. We've got to deal with them before we can but soon we'll be doing it and you can just sort of sense that stories are being told to keep him quiet and satisfied. And at some point you have to wonder whether he will be aware that reality may be a bit different but he hasn't got anybody else around him who's going to say you know Gerasimov has been telling you a load of A good government needs people or a good leader needs people around prepared to do that. I just don't think Putin has them. And we've seen that when individuals who've been in his court as it were have raised concerns, they've been pushed away, pushed aside. So you know the incentives aren't there. Yeah a parent once said of Lyndon Johnson that he might be the most misinformed person in the Vietnam war. And I I just sort of somehow wondered if that Putin is is the most misinformed about this war.

[00:15:00]>> Yeah, in some ways having {quote} insider knowledge, having an intelligence services at your beck and call, that's how you're getting your information from the GRU, FSB, and you you dismiss everything reported in the Western press because that's Ukrainian propaganda. And I can see how that puts you into a bubble. Maybe to shift gears a little bit. In last year, the year before, I was in Ukraine in in April of 2024, and the major focus was on whether the United States was going to pass another supplemental legislation. It ended up doing so.

[00:15:32]The Biden administration rushed to basically expend down all the money for Ukraine's defense that it could before it left office. In this war, there's been a lot of focus on Western arms, on what the West could provide Ukraine. And there still is with a lot of focus on Patriot missile interceptors. Is it your sense that it's sort of shifted that Ukraine defense industrial production has expanded to such a degree and become more sophisticated? Have they become less reliant on the West? Uh maybe financially, yes, but maybe not as much militarily. And maybe you could talk a little bit about how Western aid, defense production, are we in a new phase here?

[00:16:08]>> Yeah, I think financially they're very still very dependent on Europe in particular, and that's not going to change. That's why the recent loan was so important. So, that's going to carry on. I mean, it's remarkable what they've done with their defense industry, but there's still high-end kit that they're not going to get from elsewhere. And I wouldn't put it past them to develop their own equivalent to Patriot, but they haven't got it yet. So, they still do need Western kit, but they have made themselves far less dependent. And for the basics of fighting, they're producing a lot of it themselves. I mean, the drone production is quite extraordinary. And you certainly see coming quite common amongst European defense manufacturers, governments, to accept the relationship has shifted in the future. We are going to be drawing on Ukrainian technology and capacity, far more possibly than they will on ours. And of course, there's lots of joint ventures. A lot of the drones are being built outside of Ukraine for obvious reasons. So, I think there has been a shift, and it's important. What it means is that, as I mentioned before, the American influence over Ukraine has declined with the amount of support the administration has given Ukraine.

[00:17:19]I think the Ukrainians still want to stay in with the administration. They said they don't want a break, but Zelensky clearly does not feel necessary to fall over himself to praise Trump at every turn or or not contradict him. And I just parenthetically, I think Trump's response to Ukraine's offer of help on Iran was really a slap in the face. When a lot of countries were keeping their distance, Zelensky gave support cuz he would like to see the Iranian regime down, too. Offered to help with drone technology and Trump said that we we don't need Ukrainian help. They've got nothing to offer. We know all about drones and so on. And I thought you you could sense then so Ukrainians bristling with irritation. This is the thanks we get. So, the Ukrainians sort of hanging in there in their relationship with the United States, but they're clearly uncomfortable. Well, for the moment relations with Europe are good and better now that Orbán has gone, which helps a lot. So, I think there's just been a I mean, this may have all sorts of implications to peace processes and and so on. But for the moment, it's not clear that Ukraine can't cope with a lot of the basics just on the basis of their own capacity. And in fact, many Ukrainians, as I'm sure you know, would argue that the best thing that Europeans and others who want to help Ukraine can do is invest more in in their defense industries cuz they've got a lot of spare capacity without the means themselves to invest in it.

[00:18:43]>> Thank you very much, Lawrence. So, I guess the question uh a more comprehensive question is what happens next? Where do we go from here, right?

[00:18:50]You're a prominent scholar of uh strategy, strategic thinking in the historical context. And the same time, uh you do seem to flag that uh the Western strategy in Ukraine has been essentially to keep the Ukrainians in the fight, to attrit Russian resources, and therefore to force some sort of stalemated settlement. However, is that a strategy? Since you own uh work also flags that their outcome does not necessarily imply a Russian defeat, although it does deny Russia a victory.

[00:19:21]Accordingly, we should, as you say, be careful of falling for a potential cliff edge policy, the belief that Putin's regime at some point will reach a limit where they're no longer willing to sustain Russian losses.

[00:19:32]That definitely can happen, but we see that it has not happened for many, many years. And in general, as a long term watcher of Russian politics, we do tend to over-predict Putin's failures or Putin's regime collapse. So, essentially, could you explain your thinking here? Is this strategy really for Ukraine going forward? And how will it impact our world understanding of the war?

[00:19:57]>> Yeah. I mean, so a couple of points.

[00:19:59]First, people assume a strategy is something which points the way to a decisive victory. And sometimes it's just not there. I mean, you you you can't create a route to victory if you don't have the resources uh to get there at a particular time.

[00:20:13]You could imagine how at a later date conditions will change and and it'll be better for you. I mean, after all, I mean, a lot of strategies in war are wholly defensive. Ukraine's We couldn't have imagined in February 2022 what it's like now. If you'd written your scenarios for 2026, they wouldn't have looked anything like the situation we're in now. So, I think there's nothing wrong with a strategy that says, "This is what we can do for the moment, and hanging in there is actually quite important." Because the alternative to hanging in was probably a a Russian victory. So, that's the first point.

[00:20:50]Secondly, strategy is dialectic. It's interactive. What Ukraine can do depends on what the Russians can do. And as the Russians started this war, we're always looking what it will take to get Putin to accept that it's not winnable, that he needs to give up. Now, the stakes are very different for Ukraine. This is existential. It either survives as a state or it doesn't. For Russia, this is still a war of choice. It doesn't have to be doing It doesn't have to be in Ukraine. Putin chose to go there, and he can choose to get out. So, we're always left asking the question, "What will it take for that to happen?" I think I'd put it like this at the moment. I think Putin, for the reasons we've discussed, probably still believes in his victory.

[00:21:31]At some point, maybe this year, it should become apparent that current trends continue. I'm accepting that trends don't always continue, but if they do, then at some point, Putin is going to realize that maybe he should try to cut his losses. And now, there are indications that people in Moscow have been trying to suggest this would be a good time to do so. He still has a sympathetic American administration that would could potentially get him a far better deal now than than he could get at another time. That could happen. It wouldn't surprise me if, over the next few months, Putin, if his forces are not making more progress, decides that he needs to find a way out. This is not a prediction, but it's possible. The risk for Putin is that if he doesn't, the situation gets worse. I mean, this is Clausewitz's famous culminating point, which is every army has a point at which it's sort of exhausted. And the key thing is to try to win before that point arrives. If the point arrives and you keep on fighting, then it can become very counterproductive. And your front lines could get into serious trouble.

[00:22:34]And some elements of that may be happening in recent months, where the Russian lines are so thin. I mean, both sides' lines are pretty thin, but the Russian lines are so thin that it doesn't take very much from Ukraine, maybe a few hundred soldiers, to suddenly take back a a chunk of territory. And that is the risk for Putin is that if he leaves it too long, then ceasefire won't necessarily be as interesting to Ukraine as it is at the moment. And they could feel that maybe they've got a chance to liberate more territory before a ceasefire takes hold.

[00:23:07]So, how much I mean, there's no evidence that Putin is thinking in that way. As I say, I think he's basically he's stubborn and believes he has no choice but to carry on and that if he accepts anything less than all of Donbas, then the whole thing will be seen to be a failure. So, I've got no evidence that these sort of calculations are being made.

[00:23:27]But, I'm sure people in the Kremlin in Moscow can work this out, are aware of what's being said in the West, and are aware of what the military their own military bloggers are saying, and know that the situation is not great at the front. Ukraine's strategy to some extent depends on Moscow. I think they're doing everything they can to encourage Moscow to think about the prudence of keeping on with this war, but they they can't make them do it. The decisions have to be taken in the Kremlin.

[00:23:55]>> It strikes me that Russia may fall or Putin may fall into this trap of let's give it 6 more months. That's something we sort of saw during, you know, the war in Iraq. Tom Friedman famously had wrote many columns saying 6 more months, 6 more months.

[00:24:09]Where, you know, I could see Russia's right now saying, well, let's give the summer offensive time. We'll assess it in the fall. You get to the fall, then you say, okay, well, winter's right around the corner. We can crush their energy sector, and then and I is the Ukrainian theory of victory here though, one where you kind of hope that Russia keeps going and that they keep pushing because it does strike me that if Putin came to the negotiating table or said really offered or there was some signal that there was legitimate talks that Russia was very interested in actually having some form of ceasefire, then I could see the Ukrainians interpreting that as we're winning now. And now's the time to keep pushing. Putin is weak. He's suddenly conceded. And so, I could see the sort of shift where suddenly it's not the Russians resisting toxins the Ukrainian. I'm curious how you you know do you think that is the danger right now for Putin? Is that a viable strategy for Ukraine to sort of say six more months? Let's hope that Putin that this war sort of continues so Putin keeps falling into this trap and also strictly is rather risky because Ukraine is looking what could be another very brutal winter. So how do you see this from the Ukrainian perspective and that kind of six-month trap where maybe things things change maybe the defense industry gets better in Russia.

[00:25:25]>> Yeah, I mean you're right. The next few months are critical. I don't think the summer campaign is important. If it's no further forward or barely further forward in September, October as it is now, this will be a crisis I I would have thought for the Russian military which will be hard to hide over much. He may talk about our forces moving forward. That's why I think that is important. I think from the Ukrainian perspective it's interesting and there will be a temptation clearly if they think they've got Putin in trouble to want to take full advantage of it and try to get a much better deal than they would have done when it looked like to quote Trump Putin had the cards. And there is a risk for Ukraine in that.

[00:26:04]Nobody pretends that the the last winter was anything other than tough and they've lost a lot of capacity which they cannot generating capacity which they can only rebuild over time and they're doing quite a lot at the moment and they're trying to put stuff underground and and so on but it but it it's difficult. And I think also you know the Ukrainian society and people are tired. They may feel more optimistic now but it's been a long and difficult war and these regular attacks on their cities in which people get killed and youngsters get killed it is wearing and upsetting. So I think sentiment my sense I mean I haven't been there as recently as you but my sense is that they really would like a pause in the war. They need some recovery time and so if if if the serious ceasefire a real ceasefire was an offer I think they'd look at it pretty seriously. As I say, I think it is possible that Putin will just try for too long and then find that circumstances are working against him and that Russian forces are starting to go backwards rather than forwards. But we're not there yet. So, I think, putting it all together, as likely as not that the Russians will keep on fighting for the next few months, as likely as not the Ukrainians will hold them. At some point during this process, the Russians are going to have to make up their mind as to whether this is a losing game. And if they conclude that, they're going to have to work out how, without appearing to be throwing in the towel, they can maneuver themselves to a ceasefire of some sort without ridiculous demands being put on Ukraine. And because they've stuck so long to maximalist demand, basically the position that has been followed at the moment was set out in, you know, June 24, they haven't altered it since. You know, so talking about, you know, demilitarization, now Ukraine is now one of the most militarized states in Europe. There's a sort of an unreality about their position, but it makes it much harder to back away from it.

[00:28:01]>> Lawrence, many thanks. And for from historical perspective, what would you say are the closest examples in history that in some ways, you know, are comparable to what we see going on between Russia and Ukraine? Obviously, any historical parallel is fundamentally flawed, but I wonder if to to what extent, for example, you could compare this to Soviet aggression against Finland on 1939.

[00:28:22]>> Well, the Winter War is the one that people go to most regularly.

[00:28:26]>> So, any perspective on that would be appreciated.

[00:28:28]>> It's different. You know, what what has transformed this war is the front line is so different to any front line we've ever seen before. And to the front line we saw even in Ukraine up to the end of '23. So, even the Winter War, you know, involved battles and movement of troops and maneuvers and and on. You're seeing none of that at the moment. You know, you're seeing small groups of people pressing forward on buggies and motorbikes and sometimes on foot. Large areas of territory populated by very few troops. Uh don't give me everybody because as soon as you're spotted, you're likely to be killed. And there just hasn't been a front line like it.

[00:29:03]And it would be quite hard to reproduce it even in a future war because they've been facing each other for so long, these two armies, that they know each other pretty well. I mean, this war has been going on for a long time, longer now than the Great Patriotic War, longer than US involvement in the Second World War. This is a long war. And the two sides know each other pretty well and are aware of the dangers and not quite sure how to surprise each other.

[00:29:25]So, I don't see any parallels, really. I think this is quite unique. I mean, all wars, you know, have certain timeless features and all wars have their own singular properties, but I think this is quite unique.

[00:29:35]>> Maybe one last question. You know, Maria and I just returned from Ukraine, and one of the things that we found somewhat troubling talking to a lot of energy experts that there's no just sort of clear magic solution to the energy situation. That the Russians know where these targets are, they have ballistic missiles, Ukraine's not going to have that many Patriot interceptors, it looks like. And so, basically, these sites will be hit, they'll try to repair them, Ukraine will try to make do. There's lots of generators now in the streets of Kyiv and in of other Ukrainian cities.

[00:30:02]I'm curious from a historical perspective from targeting civilian infrastructure. There was also talk of maybe Russia would try to target Ukraine's water infrastructure this summer. Targeting civilian infrastructure, does that tend to produce results? That does seem, if you put something on the side of the ledger on for Russia is that their ability to cause real havoc and pain for Ukrainian civilians strikes me they have a real ability to do that. Are there examples in history where that's been successful in leading to a successful strategy? I'm curious how you see the Russian campaign against civilians, which is is a war crime, if that has sort of potential strategic outcome.

[00:30:43]>> It's difficult. The the sort of conventional wisdom based largely on the Second World War is that attacks on cities, unless they're with nuclear weapons, don't win you wars. People adapt. I remember, you know, these these attacks are they're very unpleasant, and nothing like the Blitz or Hamburg or Dresden. Tens of thousands died. These are attacks on infrastructure mainly in which people do get killed, but they're not carpet bombing or anything like that. But the conventional wisdom is as likely as not strengthens resolve. And if the people are really fed up and and miserable and annoyed about it, and even if they blame the government for not doing more about it, in the end, there probably isn't much they can do about it. So, even you know, during the great sort of air raids at the end of the Second World War against Germany, the Gestapo was still there keeping order and telling people not to panic and and not to publicize their complaint. So, that's the conventional wisdom. I think there are examples where populations with little confidence in their government might start to express their dissatisfaction more and their concern.

[00:31:44]But nobody's won a war as yet by this means. Even Kosovo war was not quite won by those means. So, I talked to a friend in Ukraine the other day, and she was commenting on which was the day where sort of big corruption scandal broken about Yermak and so on, and was saying, "And then along comes Putin to unify us again." Because at the same day there was a massive raid, and people are so furious at Putin, there's no way that they're going to give up for that. And I think that that would be the lesson I would draw on what's happened up to now.

[00:32:15]It was as harsh a winter as Ukraine had suffered, and one Ukrainian friend said he did worry in sort of February that it may just be too much to cope with, but they cope. People are very adaptable.

[00:32:26]So, it's tough, but they cope. That would be the the the conclusion I would draw. But it doesn't mean to say that Putin will draw similar conclusion. I think As I said, I think that the lack of imagination about their tactics and strategy. And they just keep on doing the things that they've been doing and don't vary them that much.

[00:32:43]>> Unfortunately, Lori, we're going to have to leave it there. We could go on.

[00:32:46]There's a lot more questions that I want to ask you, but I really want to thank you for coming on Russian Roulette.

[00:32:51]>> My pleasure.

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