My summary/semi-transcript while listening through, for anyone who doesn’t want to listen to video.
Andrea Kendall-Taylor: The US has taken a comparatively-weak position, and Russia has not backed off on demands; still looking for full subjugation for Ukraine. Defense Secretary Hegseth had stated that the US would not add Ukraine to NATO, that NATO guarantees would not cover European troops acting in Ukraine [that is, the US going to war with Russia if European troops were attacked there; this is built into NATO Article 6, so I don’t think that that’s much of a surprise, though the US could provide guarantees above-and-beyond NATO]. Lavrov ruled out any territorial concessions, and ruled out accepting any NATO country having forces in Ukraine. Russia conducted major attack against Kyiv right after negotiations, not letting up on pressure. Not clear how the US stands to gain other than Trump’s domestic political gains for ending the war.
Kofman: Russian position better-prepared in terms of specific published requirements. Pushing for Istanbul framework, where Russia had pretty extensive demands at beginning of war. Weimar Republic-style constraints on size of Ukrainian armed forces, constraints on Ukrainian domestic politics, constraints on language laws in Ukraine. If administration is willing to accept this as a starting standpoint, probably favorable to Russia. On the US side, administration mostly aimed at ending the war and then looking for post-war opportunities, in Ukraine and maybe increasingly Russia. Russia not just looking for concessions on Ukraine, but also broader concessions on European security and sanctions relief. Might be willing to accept reduced enforcement of sanctions without formal reduction of sanctions.
The problem is that the US wants to end the war, and Russia does not want to end the war. Russia either wants Ukrainian capitulation, which it cannot achieve on the battlefield right now, and Russia is not making the kind of advances that would lead to that at least in the near term, or major concessions on Western issues as on European security or bilateral concessions in US-Russia relations; the latter is what they are angling more towards right now. Why? Although Russia’s advantage on the battlefield is not decisive, they have had the initiative for some time. Given timelines, no obvious reasons for why Russia should negotiate a ceasefire. Second, administration has rapidly gone from policy slogan of “peace through strength” to very quickly moving to “peace at almost any cost and on the shortest possible timeline”. Unfortunately, time constraints drive negotiation. A party who wants to make a deal urgently has a weak position. What public material is available suggests that generally, Russia has the advantage in the negotiations.
Kofinas: What’s driving the urgency on the part of the Trump team? What are the constraints on Putin’s side in terms of ending the war?
Kendall-Taylor: Trump constantly makes argument that aim is ending killing, has over-inflated number of casualties, millions of people killed. Trump also has fixation on winning Nobel Peace Prize, thinks that doing this will get him that. Wants to have image of “peace President”, not “war President”. Notable to me how often Rubio/Vance/etc have stressed line that “it is only this president who can bring peace, this is the only person in the world who can do this”. There is the air of being a peacemaker. Hard to understand what drives the urgency other than more casualties per day. Think that administration does not recognize that they do not have a good-faith partner on the other side. Have heard Rubio say “everyone has to make concessions”, but have not seen anything out of Russian actions or behavior that suggests that they are prepared to make concessions. Think that they don’t realize that a bad deal here will only bring suffering in the future. An end to the war at any cost is not going to be a durable end to the war. We will find ourselves back in this predicament in the future. Concerned that Trump might not care about this as long as future hostility doesn’t happen when he is President. If it doesn’t happen in the next four years, then Trump can say that it didn’t happen when he was President. Concerned that Trump willing to make any concession as long as future hostility happens after Trump is out of office.
Kofinas: Is it fair to assume that you believe that there’s no larger strategic doctrine from Trump administration?
Kendall-Taylor: I believe that foreign policy under Trump might adhere to sphere of influence. Still early days, but think that might be start of move to carve up world into three spheres of influence where Russia would have say over some desired areas around Europe, near-abroad. China will maybe have a say over the Indo-Pacific and Asia more-broadly, while Trump administration is fixed on North America. Trump inaugural address talked a lot about Monroe Doctrine, expanding US borders, think that explains a lot of the hostility seeing against Canada, threats against Greenland and Panama, seems focused on increasing US influence in Western Hemisphere, and content to let other great powers in his understanding of the world do as they please in their respective spheres.
Kofinas: Michael, on the urgency in the US? What about urgency in Russian society, and how do Russians view this? How many see the US as an aversary that must be thwarted at all costs, and how much concerned about growing dependency on China, regaining access to Western markets in long term?
Kofman: On the Euro side, think Andrea has good take on it.
Kofinas: Don’t think that there is a clear strategy on US side then?
Kofman: I think that the administration has a clear idea of what they want. What they don’t have is a process. Reverse of previous administration, which had a process but no outcome. In Trump administration, they’ve decided that they want to end the war. I don’t think that they fully understand that getting a document with the words “ceasefire” on it is not an end to the war, and that the war is about more than Russia-Ukraine. It’s about Russia trying to re-litigate the post-Cold-War settlement security architecture of Europe. It’s a much bigger argument that we are having. How you end this war has implications for that. Secondarily, they don’t have a process. There are a couple reasons for that. Some of that is because they haven’t staffed up the administration at all yet. The people you would need to have in these jobs and positions are not there yet. The supporting tasks and processes you would need to have aren’t there, and the expertise isn’t there either. Maybe the mid-level people that have been nominated but not confirmed yet. Because of that, have a very chaotic process with a bunch of people competing to shape policy and not much by the way of buffering or interagency or any of this. What they also don’t have a process – that is, you go into negotiations. You want to have decent alignment between yourself and Ukraine, yourself and your allies, and then go into the negotiations with Russia. They are doing this a bit backwards. They’re going into negotiations with Russia – of course, Russians are prepared, have been thinking about this for three years – and we’re going to be a lot less prepared. The primary stakeholders like Ukraine and others are people that you have to engage with and align with first. Otherwise, you make a deal with Russia, you show the deal to Ukraine, and Ukraine says “you know what? We don’t want this deal, we’d rather fight.” Or you make a deal where you assume that Europe will continue materially-supporting Ukraine, or economically supporting Ukraine, but you haven’t actually gotten that agreed. That’s a part of the deal that Ukraine gets in return for the concessions that they make, but you haven’t actually negotiated that with the parties that need to bring that to the table.
Part of it is also, as Andrea says, is that Trump has a view of the war. It’s not an accurate view, but nonetheless it is a view that he holds. These are things that he said when campaigning and elected – I don’t know why people are surprised that he is doing them. I think more people are surprised by how he and the administration are approaching them. Statements by Waltz or Kellogg seem to confirm a more-traditional establishment position, and that seems to have gone by the wayside. Now what you have is a principal-agent problem in politics. It’s very clear that a lot of these folks right now are more agents and that the policy comes from the principal and there is fundamentally one principal.
Kofinas: Seems that the administration isn’t very coordinated, as way that Trump negotiates is often to contradict himself. Is that an operational problem in this administration?
Kofman: Yeah, and was in the last one. People say things and then look over their shoulder to see if that is the actual policy. I think that that’s why you see this veering back-and-forth from some of the senior appointed officials. They say something, and then they’re not sure if the thing they said is the policy that they represent. That is, they say something and then aren’t sure and need to maybe go back on what they said. I saw that with Hegseth, for example, about a week ago. He laid out the clear “nos” of what we won’t do, which Andrea enumerated, and the next day he came out and said “well, maybe some of these aren’t hard ‘nos’ and maybe we’re going to do some of these things”. He didn’t explicitly say that, but he seemed to be trying to walk back some of the things that he said the day before.
Kendall-Taylor: Remarkable to see people who previously held very different views on the war advancing different policies and statements. That’s a whole 'nother podcast topic. Trump’s control over people and their fear of saying anything that might be at odds with the President is very clear. Have totally changed their views and opinions to conform to President’s view of the world, because they believe that if they advance anything different to the President, that they will no longer be in their positions. That is another pretty remarkable piece of this. Top of the list would be Secretary of State Rubio, who previously held very different views on Russia, and now is not even willing to say that Russia is the aggressor.
Kofinas: Kofman, what are the factions that hold power in Russia, and how are they exerting influence on Putin in a manner that would have an impact on the course of negotiations in the way that political expedience might be driving urgency on Trump side?
Kofman: First, Russia is a personalist authoritarian regime. Putin’s been in charge for a very long time. Job one of regimes of this type are to eliminate any alternative to themselves. Folks will often think that Putin is endangered. I don’t think that this is the case. The threat, if they did one, is from the right. Over the past years, Putin has eliminated or exiled much of the opposition. Exiled Russian liberal opposition spends about half of the time fighting itself rather than the regime. I don’t think that it was that big of a threat to the regime for a long time anyway. The threat is usually from the inside, from populist forces, or from the possibility that someone from within the regime might defect to challenge it down the line. However, systems like that do a good job of eliminating alternatives. That’s how Putin has stayed in power for so long. I don’t think that there are any pressures to end the war. He does not have to mobilize the population. The economy is a somewhat-mobilized economy if you look at the defense-industrial production, but it’s not really a wartime economy. If you look at Russian defense spending, nominally it’s 6.3% of GDP. In practice, it might be 8.5%. This is a small fraction of what the Soviet Union spent on defense in peacetime. [I have made this point myself, that it got up to something like twice that in peacetime, and during something like World War 2, far above that.] They don’t need mobilization because they are getting enough recruits on a monthly basis. So it’s only a war that you have to fight in if you take money to do so. They are not seen as politically-relevant casualties; it’s not as if young people are being pulled from Russian society. It’s not unpopular the way it would be if you were taking 18-year-olds over the course of three years for a war of choice and imperial ambition. From my point of view the pressures there are low.
Okay, that’s on the political side. On the economic side, pressures are growing. Russia having hard time balancing a macroeconomic equation that they can’t square very well; they can do this for a while, but pressure growing. I don’t know how this is percieved by Putin and Russian leadership. The question is what do the leaders think of the numbers? Not easy to be in their head. Putin probably thinks that he has time, at least through 2025, probably thinks that he has time, doesn’t need to end war soon. Much more urgent for us for artificial reasons and for Ukraine. For Ukraine, think that the need to make a deal this year is probably real. Not necessarily a bad deal, but if you look at who has more time right now, probably favors Russia.
Lastly, way I would pose the question isn’t what are the pressures on Putin. There are some military and economic constraints. If they aren’t winning decisively by the middle of this time next year, their negotiating position grows weaker relative to their maximum demand. Bigger question is what Putin wants. Believes that Putin does not want to end this war without a victory. Here we should go back to how this war began. He could have made a deal in winter of 2021 or early 2022. People were willing to negotiate. He could have pocketed a deal, but he wanted the war. He had maximalist amibitions, and he genuinely wanted the war. The negotiations were not real. They were there to stall for time and deflect blame for the outbreak of the war, but the Russians weren’t serious about it. How about the current negotiations? Are they real? Yes, I think that they are. Is Putin willing to end the war on a ceasefire? Probably not. He still has fairly maximalist aims in Ukraine. Is he going to agree to a ceasefire without major concessions, without something that looks like a victory for him? I also don’t think that that’s the case. He doesn’t want one, and he doesn’t need one right now. It’s more about what he wants and less about internal pressures, even if he has some. Andrea might disagree but…well, I’d be interested in hearing her take too.
Kofinas: Fact-check. Do we have confident number for number of people killed in past three years in Russia as result of their actions in Ukraine and injury count?
Kofman: On the Russian side? Various estimates that are public. Usually official estimates from government, give top line, pretty good estimates from BBC and what-have-you. Most people don’t understand how casualties are counted, so most people asking don’t understand what they’re asking for. The way I would put it is KIA, MIA, and seriously-injured as unrecoverable casualties. If you include total casualties for everyone that is wounded, you will get not very meaningful number, because most people return to combat duty or job afterwards. Could count that as combat casualties, but not very useful as a figure. The big number out there on total casualties is maybe seven to eight hundred thousand; that’s not a useful figure to me. I think KIA…I tend to be very conservative, so back-of-the-knee calculation, so using open-source numbers that BBC has done, looking at the confirmed numbers on Russian side, maybe between 180-220k KIA. Maybe that number, bit greater than that seriously injured. Maybe 500k as fair estimate.
Kofinas: I’m not a military analyst, but that seems like a huge number. And not only does it seem like a huge number, but one that would create popular discontent. What explains so many people KIA or seriously injured without pressure on Putin and backlash on Putin? It seems like the pressure on Russia have been far greater than the costs to America.
Kendall-Taylor: Interesting question, because I think one of the key lines of analysis about Putin and Putin’s Russia is that he is not tolerant of casualties. One item that one heard in the runup to the invasion of Ukraine was that Putin would be averse to casualties, would worry about domestic instability, look back at Afghanistan when that became a major factor. Historically you had civil society groups inside Russia…what is that group, Mike, Mothers of Soldiers? That was a major mobilizing organization inside Russia. That was one thing that analysts on Russia got very wrong. Russia turned out to be much more tolerant and resilient to casualties than expected. One good reason for that, good political science research that talks about that. Of all authoritarian regimes, it’s the personalist regimes that are the most-resilient to casualties. By and large, leaders in these societies can ensure that casualties take place in the least-politically-important places in societies. That’s been the story of Russia: it’s been soldiers from the regions, lower socioeconomic groups, not ethnically-Russian. So he’s ensured that the politically-most-important Russians haven’t really been affected as directly by the war. He can pass the costs off to groups that wouldn’t be as prone to organize, mobilize, or be disaffected by the casualties. Other thing that Putin has done is to pay very large sums of money to people who enter war, money to families of KIA, has been big wealth-transfer mechanism. The most-disadvantaged chunk of Russian society have seen significant economic benefits because of their service and often loss in war. Also, ramped up repression against civil society during war, against organizations that might oppose war. Contributed to resiliency.
Kofman: Let me give some answers based on numbers. Russia deferred a lot of its casualties onto convicts, particularly some of the bloodier battles in 2023. Assault groups comprised of Storm-Z convict units are a notable percentage. These people volunteered from the prisons. Second, from the original invasion, a lot of the initial losses were comprised of LDNR, the occupied regions in Ukraine, the Luhank People’s Republic. These are people who also took significant casualties, particularly in the first year of the war. In the last year and half, the casualties have grown among contract Russians. But if you look at overall pool of casualties, you’ll see a couple of categories. First, politically-relevant casualties among the initial invasion force. Young soldiers and officers killed early on in the war. Then you quickly begin to see these casualties offset by those in LDNR and then convicts. Then you see the politically-sensitive casualties following the partial mobilization where they got about 300k men, quickly replaced by contract personnel and convict used in 2023 through 2024. Those are individuals who signed up to fight for money. From open-source information, we know that a lot of families encouraged them to fight and even sign up for assault groups where they had the risk of being killed, but the payout is even much higher on top of the bonuses. This kind of casualty composition…as Andrea says, not politically-significant groups and not seen as politically-significant. Not generating pressure from Russian society to end the war. Average age group of Russian casualties, as far as we can tell, is around 35-36. Not a young person’s war. On the Ukrainian side, it’s higher. It’s in the 40s. If it were 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds, you’d probably see more mothers out on the streets. But when average age is mid- to late-30s, then it’s a bit of a different story. Second part, this is gonna be a bit cold-blooded of me to say, but on the one hand, these casualties are greater than all wars combined that Russia has taken in all wars since World War II. On the other hand, these casualties are basically one large battle in World War I or World War II. For a country with a population of 145 million people, starting about 137 million people, these casualties are significant but not as great as they sound. What’s notable is that this is a war between two post-modern societies. Can’t extrapolate directly from casualties in WW2, because nature of societies was different back then. Much more casualty-tolerant. Birth rates were much higher – you could lose a lot more people, and the average agrarian household had 6, 7 kids. This also gets into the manpower/motivation issue. You’re dealing with two countries with bad demographic structures. Russia’s is bad, and Ukraine’s is worse. Neither country has the family structure to replace the losses, particularly among young people, that countries would have in the mid-20th century. Important to keep this in mind as well. Casualties are significant, not as much among young people. Notable because taking place in two post-modern societies that don’t have a high birthrate, and terrible demographics, but also not that great when the overall population size and duration of the war. Potentially one campaign in World War 1 would have produced this casualty set. So just giving you a way to think about it.
Kofinas: No, that’s great. I’m not as immersed in foreign policy and international relations as you two, but I haven’t heard this debated anywhere. So that’s useful. Let’s zoom out and talk about question of why these talks are being held in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producer in the world. Maybe also a critical player in the Middle East, important for Israel-Gaza, factor in Iran, good relations with US and China.
Kendall-Taylor: Historically you would pick a neutral city in Europe.
Kofinas: Budapest, right wing vibe?
Kendall-Taylor: Helsinki and Stockholm are in NATO now. Number of cities where the US and Russia have historically met…that set is shrinking. Budapest? Orbán has not played any meaningful role in any of this conflict. Early on, Turkey has played an important role. Don’t know why they didn’t end up back in Istanbul. Don’t know for sure. Putin and Trump have historically had good relations with the Saudis. Main criteria would be that it needs to be somewhere neutral. Rather short list of countries that meet that criteria.
Kofman: Makes sense. Intersection of Venn diagram of countries that US and Russia have friendly relations, seen as neutral, and countries willing to do it. Not much in that intersection.
Kofinas: Gets back to question of whether there is a strategy. Easy to be critical of Trump, I have, and the way he…gesticulates. But devil’s advocate, is it possible that he’s working on some larger strategic deal? Is there any daylight? Let’s examine it from the Russian perspective. Not ideal situation, dependent on relationship with China? Is there any opportunity to cleave Russia from China? Any possibility to bring them back into the Western fold anytime soon? At least decrease dependency on China in some way to advance US strategic aims in Pacific?
Kendall-Taylor: Question that is debated over and over again. I am highly skeptical that the reason for this outreach has anything to do with trying to peel the Russians away from the Chinese. I’ve heard Trump talk about the Nobel Peace Prize. Think that Trump just has affinity for strongmen and that Putin has been at the top of the buddy wishlist for a very long time. I think he is jealous of power that Putin wields in Russian political system and aspires to something similar for himself. I can’t play devil’s advocate on this one – I think that it is so egregious how he has shifted US policy towards Russia on a dime here. Just yesterday, the Security Council meeting, had statement to condemn Russia’s invasion and call for its withdrawal. What did US do? Voted against the resolution, with Russia and group of pariahs. North Korea, Syria, Central Africa Republica, Eritrea. How far the US has come, how detrimental to standing and influence in rest of the world. In terms of “is there a larger deal at play”…if there is one, I’d go back to previous point about spheres of influence, think Trump wants strong can do as they want, if Canada can be a 51st state, great, if we can have access to Greenland, why not? If we are the most-powerful state, we should be able to do what we want. If it’s the Gulf of Mexico, nope, it’s the Gulf of America. I think that’s his vision of the world, that the strong should do as they please, and so by that logic, I think he looks at Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as fitting as the way that he views the world. Highly skeptical that there is any grand plan to peel Russia away…people are debating it, but I am highly skeptical.
Kofinas: Playing the devil’s advocate: as much as Trump may have an affinity for strongmen, he also wants to be the strongest. He wants to be the winner. Curious decision to vote against the resolution to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It perhaps makes more sense if that’s a public signalling, but in private conversation other conversations happening. You don’t think that’s possible?
Kendall-Taylor: Explanation from Rubio was that we don’t want to antagonize the Russians. Come on.
Kofinas: I mean that’s the public…yeah.
Kendall-Taylor: I don’t know how to look at that in any other way than to say that Trump wants a deal so badly, the desperation and the desire to get along with the Russians that there’s a desire to work out a deal at any cost. It just selling out to the Russians. The thing that is so…I don’t understand the change in position. We used to talk about peace through strength, and that seems to be out the window, and instead it’s concession after concession. This disgraceful voting at the UN Security Council. I don’t understand the logic. I don’t understand how they think that they are going to strike any durable peace with the Russians when we are basically kowtowing major issues before we even enter into negotiations…if we enter into any major deal in which Russia has pocketed so many concessions…to get back to the Foreign Affairs piece, the point that Mike and I make is that Russia will pocket those concessions and strengthen for future aggression against Ukraine and the wider West.
Kofinas: It is curious, curious that Trump attacked Zelenskyy ahead of talks. Had some idea, though Mike threw cold water on it, would be that Trump might be trying to create space to maneuver politically for Putin if more hawkish factions on the right were applying pressure…
Kendall-Taylor: I think that you’re ascribing way too much strategy and intent. Really, what I think, and I’ve heard this from major US figures, is that he didn’t like the way that Zelenskyy corrected him and has taken a harder stance. I mean, I think that it’s that petty and personal. I think that he felt the need to be the strong, decisive leader, and try to put Zelenskyy back in his box. I don’t think that there was any grand play than that he didn’t like it or want to be talked to that way and so he went on the attack, and then has to double down. Hard to change course as a strong, decisive leader if he goes down that path.
Kofman: So far, I do not think that Trump’s approach is geostrategic, not really thinking in that way. Much more transactional and economically-oriented. I think that the Russians have seized on this, and so they are proposing economic deals, resource trades. A lot of these are very unrealistic, as companies are not going to rush to return to Russia.
Kendall-Taylor: Remind listeners too who was president in Riyadh. It was the head of the Russian Direct Investment Bank, which is a clear signal of the way that the Russians are approaching the administration.
Kofman: Yeah, they’re pitching them business deals. They’re trying to, in their mind, outbid Ukraine. Offering greater opportunities. And they’re trying to position sanctions against Russia as a big opportunity cost for us, which it isn’t. Even before those sanctions…if I were to show you the net volume of trade between US and Russia, it was tiny. Even though it had some critical material categories in there, like titanium and whatnot, things that are important to certain industries. But nonetheless, it was incredibly small. It was Europe that the principal balance of trade with Russia, not us. There isn’t a rush to the door of companies trying to get back into Russia – I’m sorry, you’re not going to see this. To me, Trump’s approach is much more looking for wins right now, and things that can be declared as wins rather than big-picture strategy. I also think that your question about Russia and China…isn’t really the way they’re thinking about it and wouldn’t work anyway. I don’t think that they’re trying to pull Russia away from China, and I’ve been very public in the past that I don’t think that that would work; I think that this is a magical misreading of Cold War history and I’m happy to get into why, but it’s…the sort of thing that briefs well and policy wonks can talk about but doesn’t work in practice. I don’t think that they’re trying to do that, though. From what I’ve seen, Trump does have some guiding views and preferences. If I may summarize them, and I’m no expert on the Trump administration, but it’s great-power politics over alliance bloc politics. It’s trying to end wars that he thinks are bad for everyone economically. Even if he doesn’t have the correct perception of who started the war, why the war took place, or what the consequences are of ending it, he’s prioritizing ending it in some shape or form. It’s pursuing naked-self interest over allies or traditional values. Kind of the old Lord Palmerston quote of “there are no permanent enemies and no permanent friends, only permanent interests”. A lot of conversations I have about the Trump administration seem to be people observing that someone has put a hole in the wall and trying to draw a target around it after the fact. It’s like post-hoc rationalizing of what’s taken place. I’m wary of that approach.
Last point. On my last comment about casualties, keep in mind that this is just a dart thrown at a wall by me, not statistics that you should take to the bank. Please don’t take that as “Mike Kofman gave a hard estimate” – there’s a pretty big cone of uncertainty on that.
Kofinas: Thanks for that. Next hour, want to talk about nuclear doctrine. Are we looking at a new approach to foreign policy that will transcend administrations, and what sort of world order will that create? Like, more realpolitik. Also want to talk about future of security in Europe. One thing that we can all agree on right now is that Europe has a lot of problems. [Kofinas then promotes a premium subscription for additional content.]
My summary/semi-transcript while listening through, for anyone who doesn’t want to listen to video.
Andrea Kendall-Taylor: The US has taken a comparatively-weak position, and Russia has not backed off on demands; still looking for full subjugation for Ukraine. Defense Secretary Hegseth had stated that the US would not add Ukraine to NATO, that NATO guarantees would not cover European troops acting in Ukraine [that is, the US going to war with Russia if European troops were attacked there; this is built into NATO Article 6, so I don’t think that that’s much of a surprise, though the US could provide guarantees above-and-beyond NATO]. Lavrov ruled out any territorial concessions, and ruled out accepting any NATO country having forces in Ukraine. Russia conducted major attack against Kyiv right after negotiations, not letting up on pressure. Not clear how the US stands to gain other than Trump’s domestic political gains for ending the war.
Kofman: Russian position better-prepared in terms of specific published requirements. Pushing for Istanbul framework, where Russia had pretty extensive demands at beginning of war. Weimar Republic-style constraints on size of Ukrainian armed forces, constraints on Ukrainian domestic politics, constraints on language laws in Ukraine. If administration is willing to accept this as a starting standpoint, probably favorable to Russia. On the US side, administration mostly aimed at ending the war and then looking for post-war opportunities, in Ukraine and maybe increasingly Russia. Russia not just looking for concessions on Ukraine, but also broader concessions on European security and sanctions relief. Might be willing to accept reduced enforcement of sanctions without formal reduction of sanctions.
The problem is that the US wants to end the war, and Russia does not want to end the war. Russia either wants Ukrainian capitulation, which it cannot achieve on the battlefield right now, and Russia is not making the kind of advances that would lead to that at least in the near term, or major concessions on Western issues as on European security or bilateral concessions in US-Russia relations; the latter is what they are angling more towards right now. Why? Although Russia’s advantage on the battlefield is not decisive, they have had the initiative for some time. Given timelines, no obvious reasons for why Russia should negotiate a ceasefire. Second, administration has rapidly gone from policy slogan of “peace through strength” to very quickly moving to “peace at almost any cost and on the shortest possible timeline”. Unfortunately, time constraints drive negotiation. A party who wants to make a deal urgently has a weak position. What public material is available suggests that generally, Russia has the advantage in the negotiations.
Kofinas: What’s driving the urgency on the part of the Trump team? What are the constraints on Putin’s side in terms of ending the war?
Kendall-Taylor: Trump constantly makes argument that aim is ending killing, has over-inflated number of casualties, millions of people killed. Trump also has fixation on winning Nobel Peace Prize, thinks that doing this will get him that. Wants to have image of “peace President”, not “war President”. Notable to me how often Rubio/Vance/etc have stressed line that “it is only this president who can bring peace, this is the only person in the world who can do this”. There is the air of being a peacemaker. Hard to understand what drives the urgency other than more casualties per day. Think that administration does not recognize that they do not have a good-faith partner on the other side. Have heard Rubio say “everyone has to make concessions”, but have not seen anything out of Russian actions or behavior that suggests that they are prepared to make concessions. Think that they don’t realize that a bad deal here will only bring suffering in the future. An end to the war at any cost is not going to be a durable end to the war. We will find ourselves back in this predicament in the future. Concerned that Trump might not care about this as long as future hostility doesn’t happen when he is President. If it doesn’t happen in the next four years, then Trump can say that it didn’t happen when he was President. Concerned that Trump willing to make any concession as long as future hostility happens after Trump is out of office.
Kofinas: Is it fair to assume that you believe that there’s no larger strategic doctrine from Trump administration?
Kendall-Taylor: I believe that foreign policy under Trump might adhere to sphere of influence. Still early days, but think that might be start of move to carve up world into three spheres of influence where Russia would have say over some desired areas around Europe, near-abroad. China will maybe have a say over the Indo-Pacific and Asia more-broadly, while Trump administration is fixed on North America. Trump inaugural address talked a lot about Monroe Doctrine, expanding US borders, think that explains a lot of the hostility seeing against Canada, threats against Greenland and Panama, seems focused on increasing US influence in Western Hemisphere, and content to let other great powers in his understanding of the world do as they please in their respective spheres.
Kofinas: Michael, on the urgency in the US? What about urgency in Russian society, and how do Russians view this? How many see the US as an aversary that must be thwarted at all costs, and how much concerned about growing dependency on China, regaining access to Western markets in long term?
Kofman: On the Euro side, think Andrea has good take on it.
Kofinas: Don’t think that there is a clear strategy on US side then?
Kofman: I think that the administration has a clear idea of what they want. What they don’t have is a process. Reverse of previous administration, which had a process but no outcome. In Trump administration, they’ve decided that they want to end the war. I don’t think that they fully understand that getting a document with the words “ceasefire” on it is not an end to the war, and that the war is about more than Russia-Ukraine. It’s about Russia trying to re-litigate the post-Cold-War settlement security architecture of Europe. It’s a much bigger argument that we are having. How you end this war has implications for that. Secondarily, they don’t have a process. There are a couple reasons for that. Some of that is because they haven’t staffed up the administration at all yet. The people you would need to have in these jobs and positions are not there yet. The supporting tasks and processes you would need to have aren’t there, and the expertise isn’t there either. Maybe the mid-level people that have been nominated but not confirmed yet. Because of that, have a very chaotic process with a bunch of people competing to shape policy and not much by the way of buffering or interagency or any of this. What they also don’t have a process – that is, you go into negotiations. You want to have decent alignment between yourself and Ukraine, yourself and your allies, and then go into the negotiations with Russia. They are doing this a bit backwards. They’re going into negotiations with Russia – of course, Russians are prepared, have been thinking about this for three years – and we’re going to be a lot less prepared. The primary stakeholders like Ukraine and others are people that you have to engage with and align with first. Otherwise, you make a deal with Russia, you show the deal to Ukraine, and Ukraine says “you know what? We don’t want this deal, we’d rather fight.” Or you make a deal where you assume that Europe will continue materially-supporting Ukraine, or economically supporting Ukraine, but you haven’t actually gotten that agreed. That’s a part of the deal that Ukraine gets in return for the concessions that they make, but you haven’t actually negotiated that with the parties that need to bring that to the table.
Part of it is also, as Andrea says, is that Trump has a view of the war. It’s not an accurate view, but nonetheless it is a view that he holds. These are things that he said when campaigning and elected – I don’t know why people are surprised that he is doing them. I think more people are surprised by how he and the administration are approaching them. Statements by Waltz or Kellogg seem to confirm a more-traditional establishment position, and that seems to have gone by the wayside. Now what you have is a principal-agent problem in politics. It’s very clear that a lot of these folks right now are more agents and that the policy comes from the principal and there is fundamentally one principal.
Kofinas: Seems that the administration isn’t very coordinated, as way that Trump negotiates is often to contradict himself. Is that an operational problem in this administration?
Kofman: Yeah, and was in the last one. People say things and then look over their shoulder to see if that is the actual policy. I think that that’s why you see this veering back-and-forth from some of the senior appointed officials. They say something, and then they’re not sure if the thing they said is the policy that they represent. That is, they say something and then aren’t sure and need to maybe go back on what they said. I saw that with Hegseth, for example, about a week ago. He laid out the clear “nos” of what we won’t do, which Andrea enumerated, and the next day he came out and said “well, maybe some of these aren’t hard ‘nos’ and maybe we’re going to do some of these things”. He didn’t explicitly say that, but he seemed to be trying to walk back some of the things that he said the day before.
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Kendall-Taylor: Remarkable to see people who previously held very different views on the war advancing different policies and statements. That’s a whole 'nother podcast topic. Trump’s control over people and their fear of saying anything that might be at odds with the President is very clear. Have totally changed their views and opinions to conform to President’s view of the world, because they believe that if they advance anything different to the President, that they will no longer be in their positions. That is another pretty remarkable piece of this. Top of the list would be Secretary of State Rubio, who previously held very different views on Russia, and now is not even willing to say that Russia is the aggressor.
Kofinas: Kofman, what are the factions that hold power in Russia, and how are they exerting influence on Putin in a manner that would have an impact on the course of negotiations in the way that political expedience might be driving urgency on Trump side?
Kofman: First, Russia is a personalist authoritarian regime. Putin’s been in charge for a very long time. Job one of regimes of this type are to eliminate any alternative to themselves. Folks will often think that Putin is endangered. I don’t think that this is the case. The threat, if they did one, is from the right. Over the past years, Putin has eliminated or exiled much of the opposition. Exiled Russian liberal opposition spends about half of the time fighting itself rather than the regime. I don’t think that it was that big of a threat to the regime for a long time anyway. The threat is usually from the inside, from populist forces, or from the possibility that someone from within the regime might defect to challenge it down the line. However, systems like that do a good job of eliminating alternatives. That’s how Putin has stayed in power for so long. I don’t think that there are any pressures to end the war. He does not have to mobilize the population. The economy is a somewhat-mobilized economy if you look at the defense-industrial production, but it’s not really a wartime economy. If you look at Russian defense spending, nominally it’s 6.3% of GDP. In practice, it might be 8.5%. This is a small fraction of what the Soviet Union spent on defense in peacetime. [I have made this point myself, that it got up to something like twice that in peacetime, and during something like World War 2, far above that.] They don’t need mobilization because they are getting enough recruits on a monthly basis. So it’s only a war that you have to fight in if you take money to do so. They are not seen as politically-relevant casualties; it’s not as if young people are being pulled from Russian society. It’s not unpopular the way it would be if you were taking 18-year-olds over the course of three years for a war of choice and imperial ambition. From my point of view the pressures there are low.
Okay, that’s on the political side. On the economic side, pressures are growing. Russia having hard time balancing a macroeconomic equation that they can’t square very well; they can do this for a while, but pressure growing. I don’t know how this is percieved by Putin and Russian leadership. The question is what do the leaders think of the numbers? Not easy to be in their head. Putin probably thinks that he has time, at least through 2025, probably thinks that he has time, doesn’t need to end war soon. Much more urgent for us for artificial reasons and for Ukraine. For Ukraine, think that the need to make a deal this year is probably real. Not necessarily a bad deal, but if you look at who has more time right now, probably favors Russia.
Lastly, way I would pose the question isn’t what are the pressures on Putin. There are some military and economic constraints. If they aren’t winning decisively by the middle of this time next year, their negotiating position grows weaker relative to their maximum demand. Bigger question is what Putin wants. Believes that Putin does not want to end this war without a victory. Here we should go back to how this war began. He could have made a deal in winter of 2021 or early 2022. People were willing to negotiate. He could have pocketed a deal, but he wanted the war. He had maximalist amibitions, and he genuinely wanted the war. The negotiations were not real. They were there to stall for time and deflect blame for the outbreak of the war, but the Russians weren’t serious about it. How about the current negotiations? Are they real? Yes, I think that they are. Is Putin willing to end the war on a ceasefire? Probably not. He still has fairly maximalist aims in Ukraine. Is he going to agree to a ceasefire without major concessions, without something that looks like a victory for him? I also don’t think that that’s the case. He doesn’t want one, and he doesn’t need one right now. It’s more about what he wants and less about internal pressures, even if he has some. Andrea might disagree but…well, I’d be interested in hearing her take too.
Kofinas: Fact-check. Do we have confident number for number of people killed in past three years in Russia as result of their actions in Ukraine and injury count?
Kofman: On the Russian side? Various estimates that are public. Usually official estimates from government, give top line, pretty good estimates from BBC and what-have-you. Most people don’t understand how casualties are counted, so most people asking don’t understand what they’re asking for. The way I would put it is KIA, MIA, and seriously-injured as unrecoverable casualties. If you include total casualties for everyone that is wounded, you will get not very meaningful number, because most people return to combat duty or job afterwards. Could count that as combat casualties, but not very useful as a figure. The big number out there on total casualties is maybe seven to eight hundred thousand; that’s not a useful figure to me. I think KIA…I tend to be very conservative, so back-of-the-knee calculation, so using open-source numbers that BBC has done, looking at the confirmed numbers on Russian side, maybe between 180-220k KIA. Maybe that number, bit greater than that seriously injured. Maybe 500k as fair estimate.
Kofinas: I’m not a military analyst, but that seems like a huge number. And not only does it seem like a huge number, but one that would create popular discontent. What explains so many people KIA or seriously injured without pressure on Putin and backlash on Putin? It seems like the pressure on Russia have been far greater than the costs to America.
Kendall-Taylor: Interesting question, because I think one of the key lines of analysis about Putin and Putin’s Russia is that he is not tolerant of casualties. One item that one heard in the runup to the invasion of Ukraine was that Putin would be averse to casualties, would worry about domestic instability, look back at Afghanistan when that became a major factor. Historically you had civil society groups inside Russia…what is that group, Mike, Mothers of Soldiers? That was a major mobilizing organization inside Russia. That was one thing that analysts on Russia got very wrong. Russia turned out to be much more tolerant and resilient to casualties than expected. One good reason for that, good political science research that talks about that. Of all authoritarian regimes, it’s the personalist regimes that are the most-resilient to casualties. By and large, leaders in these societies can ensure that casualties take place in the least-politically-important places in societies. That’s been the story of Russia: it’s been soldiers from the regions, lower socioeconomic groups, not ethnically-Russian. So he’s ensured that the politically-most-important Russians haven’t really been affected as directly by the war. He can pass the costs off to groups that wouldn’t be as prone to organize, mobilize, or be disaffected by the casualties. Other thing that Putin has done is to pay very large sums of money to people who enter war, money to families of KIA, has been big wealth-transfer mechanism. The most-disadvantaged chunk of Russian society have seen significant economic benefits because of their service and often loss in war. Also, ramped up repression against civil society during war, against organizations that might oppose war. Contributed to resiliency.
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Kofman: Let me give some answers based on numbers. Russia deferred a lot of its casualties onto convicts, particularly some of the bloodier battles in 2023. Assault groups comprised of Storm-Z convict units are a notable percentage. These people volunteered from the prisons. Second, from the original invasion, a lot of the initial losses were comprised of LDNR, the occupied regions in Ukraine, the Luhank People’s Republic. These are people who also took significant casualties, particularly in the first year of the war. In the last year and half, the casualties have grown among contract Russians. But if you look at overall pool of casualties, you’ll see a couple of categories. First, politically-relevant casualties among the initial invasion force. Young soldiers and officers killed early on in the war. Then you quickly begin to see these casualties offset by those in LDNR and then convicts. Then you see the politically-sensitive casualties following the partial mobilization where they got about 300k men, quickly replaced by contract personnel and convict used in 2023 through 2024. Those are individuals who signed up to fight for money. From open-source information, we know that a lot of families encouraged them to fight and even sign up for assault groups where they had the risk of being killed, but the payout is even much higher on top of the bonuses. This kind of casualty composition…as Andrea says, not politically-significant groups and not seen as politically-significant. Not generating pressure from Russian society to end the war. Average age group of Russian casualties, as far as we can tell, is around 35-36. Not a young person’s war. On the Ukrainian side, it’s higher. It’s in the 40s. If it were 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds, you’d probably see more mothers out on the streets. But when average age is mid- to late-30s, then it’s a bit of a different story. Second part, this is gonna be a bit cold-blooded of me to say, but on the one hand, these casualties are greater than all wars combined that Russia has taken in all wars since World War II. On the other hand, these casualties are basically one large battle in World War I or World War II. For a country with a population of 145 million people, starting about 137 million people, these casualties are significant but not as great as they sound. What’s notable is that this is a war between two post-modern societies. Can’t extrapolate directly from casualties in WW2, because nature of societies was different back then. Much more casualty-tolerant. Birth rates were much higher – you could lose a lot more people, and the average agrarian household had 6, 7 kids. This also gets into the manpower/motivation issue. You’re dealing with two countries with bad demographic structures. Russia’s is bad, and Ukraine’s is worse. Neither country has the family structure to replace the losses, particularly among young people, that countries would have in the mid-20th century. Important to keep this in mind as well. Casualties are significant, not as much among young people. Notable because taking place in two post-modern societies that don’t have a high birthrate, and terrible demographics, but also not that great when the overall population size and duration of the war. Potentially one campaign in World War 1 would have produced this casualty set. So just giving you a way to think about it.
Kofinas: No, that’s great. I’m not as immersed in foreign policy and international relations as you two, but I haven’t heard this debated anywhere. So that’s useful. Let’s zoom out and talk about question of why these talks are being held in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producer in the world. Maybe also a critical player in the Middle East, important for Israel-Gaza, factor in Iran, good relations with US and China.
Kendall-Taylor: Historically you would pick a neutral city in Europe.
Kofinas: Budapest, right wing vibe?
Kendall-Taylor: Helsinki and Stockholm are in NATO now. Number of cities where the US and Russia have historically met…that set is shrinking. Budapest? Orbán has not played any meaningful role in any of this conflict. Early on, Turkey has played an important role. Don’t know why they didn’t end up back in Istanbul. Don’t know for sure. Putin and Trump have historically had good relations with the Saudis. Main criteria would be that it needs to be somewhere neutral. Rather short list of countries that meet that criteria.
Kofman: Makes sense. Intersection of Venn diagram of countries that US and Russia have friendly relations, seen as neutral, and countries willing to do it. Not much in that intersection.
Kofinas: Gets back to question of whether there is a strategy. Easy to be critical of Trump, I have, and the way he…gesticulates. But devil’s advocate, is it possible that he’s working on some larger strategic deal? Is there any daylight? Let’s examine it from the Russian perspective. Not ideal situation, dependent on relationship with China? Is there any opportunity to cleave Russia from China? Any possibility to bring them back into the Western fold anytime soon? At least decrease dependency on China in some way to advance US strategic aims in Pacific?
Kendall-Taylor: Question that is debated over and over again. I am highly skeptical that the reason for this outreach has anything to do with trying to peel the Russians away from the Chinese. I’ve heard Trump talk about the Nobel Peace Prize. Think that Trump just has affinity for strongmen and that Putin has been at the top of the buddy wishlist for a very long time. I think he is jealous of power that Putin wields in Russian political system and aspires to something similar for himself. I can’t play devil’s advocate on this one – I think that it is so egregious how he has shifted US policy towards Russia on a dime here. Just yesterday, the Security Council meeting, had statement to condemn Russia’s invasion and call for its withdrawal. What did US do? Voted against the resolution, with Russia and group of pariahs. North Korea, Syria, Central Africa Republica, Eritrea. How far the US has come, how detrimental to standing and influence in rest of the world. In terms of “is there a larger deal at play”…if there is one, I’d go back to previous point about spheres of influence, think Trump wants strong can do as they want, if Canada can be a 51st state, great, if we can have access to Greenland, why not? If we are the most-powerful state, we should be able to do what we want. If it’s the Gulf of Mexico, nope, it’s the Gulf of America. I think that’s his vision of the world, that the strong should do as they please, and so by that logic, I think he looks at Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as fitting as the way that he views the world. Highly skeptical that there is any grand plan to peel Russia away…people are debating it, but I am highly skeptical.
Kofinas: Playing the devil’s advocate: as much as Trump may have an affinity for strongmen, he also wants to be the strongest. He wants to be the winner. Curious decision to vote against the resolution to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It perhaps makes more sense if that’s a public signalling, but in private conversation other conversations happening. You don’t think that’s possible?
Kendall-Taylor: Explanation from Rubio was that we don’t want to antagonize the Russians. Come on.
Kofinas: I mean that’s the public…yeah.
Kendall-Taylor: I don’t know how to look at that in any other way than to say that Trump wants a deal so badly, the desperation and the desire to get along with the Russians that there’s a desire to work out a deal at any cost. It just selling out to the Russians. The thing that is so…I don’t understand the change in position. We used to talk about peace through strength, and that seems to be out the window, and instead it’s concession after concession. This disgraceful voting at the UN Security Council. I don’t understand the logic. I don’t understand how they think that they are going to strike any durable peace with the Russians when we are basically kowtowing major issues before we even enter into negotiations…if we enter into any major deal in which Russia has pocketed so many concessions…to get back to the Foreign Affairs piece, the point that Mike and I make is that Russia will pocket those concessions and strengthen for future aggression against Ukraine and the wider West.
Kofinas: It is curious, curious that Trump attacked Zelenskyy ahead of talks. Had some idea, though Mike threw cold water on it, would be that Trump might be trying to create space to maneuver politically for Putin if more hawkish factions on the right were applying pressure…
Kendall-Taylor: I think that you’re ascribing way too much strategy and intent. Really, what I think, and I’ve heard this from major US figures, is that he didn’t like the way that Zelenskyy corrected him and has taken a harder stance. I mean, I think that it’s that petty and personal. I think that he felt the need to be the strong, decisive leader, and try to put Zelenskyy back in his box. I don’t think that there was any grand play than that he didn’t like it or want to be talked to that way and so he went on the attack, and then has to double down. Hard to change course as a strong, decisive leader if he goes down that path.
Kofman: So far, I do not think that Trump’s approach is geostrategic, not really thinking in that way. Much more transactional and economically-oriented. I think that the Russians have seized on this, and so they are proposing economic deals, resource trades. A lot of these are very unrealistic, as companies are not going to rush to return to Russia.
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Kendall-Taylor: Remind listeners too who was president in Riyadh. It was the head of the Russian Direct Investment Bank, which is a clear signal of the way that the Russians are approaching the administration.
Kofman: Yeah, they’re pitching them business deals. They’re trying to, in their mind, outbid Ukraine. Offering greater opportunities. And they’re trying to position sanctions against Russia as a big opportunity cost for us, which it isn’t. Even before those sanctions…if I were to show you the net volume of trade between US and Russia, it was tiny. Even though it had some critical material categories in there, like titanium and whatnot, things that are important to certain industries. But nonetheless, it was incredibly small. It was Europe that the principal balance of trade with Russia, not us. There isn’t a rush to the door of companies trying to get back into Russia – I’m sorry, you’re not going to see this. To me, Trump’s approach is much more looking for wins right now, and things that can be declared as wins rather than big-picture strategy. I also think that your question about Russia and China…isn’t really the way they’re thinking about it and wouldn’t work anyway. I don’t think that they’re trying to pull Russia away from China, and I’ve been very public in the past that I don’t think that that would work; I think that this is a magical misreading of Cold War history and I’m happy to get into why, but it’s…the sort of thing that briefs well and policy wonks can talk about but doesn’t work in practice. I don’t think that they’re trying to do that, though. From what I’ve seen, Trump does have some guiding views and preferences. If I may summarize them, and I’m no expert on the Trump administration, but it’s great-power politics over alliance bloc politics. It’s trying to end wars that he thinks are bad for everyone economically. Even if he doesn’t have the correct perception of who started the war, why the war took place, or what the consequences are of ending it, he’s prioritizing ending it in some shape or form. It’s pursuing naked-self interest over allies or traditional values. Kind of the old Lord Palmerston quote of “there are no permanent enemies and no permanent friends, only permanent interests”. A lot of conversations I have about the Trump administration seem to be people observing that someone has put a hole in the wall and trying to draw a target around it after the fact. It’s like post-hoc rationalizing of what’s taken place. I’m wary of that approach.
Last point. On my last comment about casualties, keep in mind that this is just a dart thrown at a wall by me, not statistics that you should take to the bank. Please don’t take that as “Mike Kofman gave a hard estimate” – there’s a pretty big cone of uncertainty on that.
Kofinas: Thanks for that. Next hour, want to talk about nuclear doctrine. Are we looking at a new approach to foreign policy that will transcend administrations, and what sort of world order will that create? Like, more realpolitik. Also want to talk about future of security in Europe. One thing that we can all agree on right now is that Europe has a lot of problems. [Kofinas then promotes a premium subscription for additional content.]