By
Benjamin Hart,
staff editor at Intelligencer who joined New York in 2017
Iran, not Ukraine, is currently at the center of America’s volatile foreign policy. But while the U.S. has shifted its focus elsewhere, Ukraine has been more than holding its own. Its military has increasingly taken the initiative in the country’s east, where small factions of Russian and Ukrainian troops are locked in a hellish form of drone-based hybrid warfare. Ukraine continues to inflict heavy casualties on Russian forces, and has sometimes even clawed back small portions of territory it has lost over the last few years, though major breakthroughs seem all but impossible. Perhaps even more significantly, Ukraine has been able to hit Russia’s interior with drones and missiles, even in Moscow, which has spooked Vladimir Putin and a war-weary public. Still, the oil crisis caused by war in Iran has handed Russia a temporary economic lifeline. (Ukraine’s drone expertise, meanwhile, is suddenly in hot demand in the Middle East.) And Russia continues to bombard Kyiv and other cities across Ukraine two of its most intense attacks have come in the last few days, including a devastating barrage Saturday night.
Since Russia’s invasion, I have periodically checked in with Michael Kofman, a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and perhaps the foremost expert on the conflict in the U.S. We spoke once again last week about Ukraine’s improved position, its biggest vulnerabilities, and whether an end to the war might arrive anytime soon.
