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By David French

Opinion Columnist

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Russians are also advancing very slowly in other parts of eastern Ukraine and have been attacking the city of Kharkiv with missiles and bombs for months, including a recent strike deliberately targeting a civilian shopping complex. The Russians launched a limited ground offensive in northern Kharkiv Oblast in late May 2024 that the Ukrainians have so far stopped from making major gains.

Frederick Kagan: Ukraine has gone through a terrible period over the past several months. That’s what’s made the situation look grim, and it has been grim.

The surprising thing, though, is that the Russians really have not made very significant gains. They took Avdiivka and have advanced some miles beyond it, but they haven’t gotten to any particularly important location in that area, and their attacks have really been slowing down. The Russian drives toward Chasiv Yar have been far less successful than expected, although the Russians may well still take that important settlement. The new Russian ground offensive in Kharkiv stalled, although the Russians seem to have attacked before they’d finished concentrating their forces — possibly to take advantage of the last window before U.S. military aid started arriving — and the Russians can resume larger operations in that area in the coming weeks.

The Russians, in other words, have not really been able to take advantage of the gap in Western support to make very significant gains. And they continue to suffer from serious challenges of their own, including the poor training of their soldiers and the often unrealistic demands of their commanders. But the key is that the Ukrainians have found ways to do more with less during this difficult time, as they have all along. The Ukrainians continue to innovate technologically and tactically — finding ways to use small, inexpensive drones to destroy armored vehicles, for example — and, above all, remain determined to fight, whatever the odds. The Russians will renew their offensive this summer, but it will confront Ukrainian troops that are increasingly well supplied as increased Western assistance arrives.

David French: When I was in Ukraine last May, I was struck by the fact that a number of senior Ukrainian defense officials seemed less optimistic about the course of the war than many Western analysts. They expressed concern in three specific areas: numbers, munitions and air defenses. Specifically, they were worried about Russia’s manpower advantage, its enormous stocks of artillery ammunition and the glide bomb attacks that were proving devastating on the........

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