This week marks exactly one year since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine. There is now little doubt that Putin failed in his initial goals: Kyiv is still standing, Ukrainians are determined to keep fighting, and the West has so far stayed resolute in its support of Ukraine. If Putin had hoped to weaken NATO, the very opposite has happened, with Finland and Sweden on the cusp of joining the transatlantic military alliance.
But beyond the goals of one leader in Moscow, it is also clear that Ukraine has suffered horrors of a historic nature. By one estimate from Harvard University, more than 130,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or severely wounded, in addition to the deaths of more than 7,000 Ukrainian civilians. Ukraine’s economy and infrastructure have been dealt blows that will take decades to recover from.
What will another year of war look like? What can we glean from the current state of play on the battlefield? FP’s Ravi Agrawal spoke with two of the very best Russia experts: Angela Stent, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest, and Michael Kofman, the research program director of the Russia studies program at the Center for Naval Analyses. Watch the conversation or read the condensed transcript.
Angela Stent
Author & nonresident senior fellow, Brookings Institution
Angela Stent is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest.
Michael Kofman
Russia studies research program director, CNA
Michael Kofman is the research program director of the Russia studies program at the Center for Naval Analyses and an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for New American Security.
Host
Ravi Agrawal
Editor in chief, Foreign Policy
Ravi Agrawal is the editor in chief of Foreign Policy, the host of FP Live, and a regular world affairs analyst on TV and radio. Before joining FP in 2018, Agrawal worked at CNN for more than a decade in full-time roles spanning three continents, including as the network’s New Delhi bureau chief and correspondent. He has shared a Peabody Award and three Emmy nominations for his work as a TV producer, and his writing for FP was part of a series nominated for a 2020 National Magazine Award for columns and commentary. Agrawal is the author of India Connected: How the Smartphone Is Transforming the World’s Largest Democracy. He is a graduate of Harvard University.
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