Free Republic

Vladimir Putin’s troops “may not hold on to Bakhmut,” a military analyst has said. Michael Kofman of the Center for Naval Analyses, a US research group, said Russian forces will “find it difficult to defend” Bakhmut now Wagner mercenary fighters are withdrawing from the city. “And so they may not hold on to Bakhmut, and the whole thing may have ended up being for nothing for them down the line,” he told the War on the Rocks podcast in an interview on Tuesday. Russian forces declared victory in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut last month after a nine-month battle...

In this episode of MWI’s Urban Warfare Project Podcast, John Spencer is joined again by Michael Kofman, director of the Russia Studies Program at CNA. He researches Russia and the former Soviet Union, specializing in Russian armed forces, military thought, capabilities, and strategy. He also recently returned from Bakhmut, Ukraine—the scene of intense fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces over the past several months. In the conversation, he describes that trip and what he learned there. He also analyzes the situation from the perspective of both sides in the battle, including their approaches and motivations, as well as the battle’s...

Amid indications that Russia is planning to resume offensive operations in spring 2023, Ukraine's allies are scrambling to provide Ukraine with sufficient artillery ammunition.But this requires scouring the globe for munitions to feed Ukraine's polyglot collection of Soviet-designed guns and the dizzying array of howitzers and rocket launchers supplied by various Western countries."Ammunition availability might be the single most important factor that determines the course of the war in 2023, and that will depend on foreign stockpiles and production," US defense experts Michael Kofman and Rob Lee wrote in December for the Foreign Policy Research Institute.The US has vowed to...

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a deeply flawed military operation, from Moscow’s assumptions about an easy victory, to a lack of preparation, poor planning, and force employment. Less attention has been paid, however, to Russian force structure and manpower issues as a critical element now shaping outcomes in this war. Plans rarely survive first contact with an opponent and militaries invariably must adapt, but strategic force structure choices can prove decisive. Force structure reveals a great deal about a military and its assumptions of what wars it plans to fight and how it plans to fight them.