Geopolitics Decanted by Silverado

Since the start of the Russian invasion last February, it has been a commonly accepted wisdom that Ukraine will not try to retake Crimea - an action that many in the West worry will trigger an escalation - until it has taken back all of the territory lost since February 2022. 
In this episode, Dmitri Alperovitch once again talks to Sergii Grabskyi, a Reserve Colonel in the Ukrainian military, who challenges that notion. Sergii makes a compelling case that Ukraine is likely to try to retake Crimea as part of an upcoming new offensive.

Other topics covered in an in-depth conversation about the state of the war:
- Why Ukraine is fighting so hard for Bakhmut despite taking devastating losses there
- Why Kreminna and Svatove are even more important than Bakhmut
- The vital importance of the barely noticed fight at Vulhledar in the South
- Is it possible for Ukrainian forces to cross the Dnipro river
- Why the latest supplies of western Infantry Fighting Vehicles and tanks may not help as much as many think
- How Ukraine is maintaining the Noah's Ark of western weapons donations
- Why Ukraine has not attempted to destroy the North Crimean Canal and the real situation with the water supplies to Crimea
- Why there is only one real general in the Russian military
- Where is Ukraine expecting a new Russian offensive 
- Why the stories of Russian forces being unmotivated to fight is largely a myth
- Why Kharkiv remains a key priority for Russia
- Why Ukraine is not worried about a new offensive from Belarus
- and much more

Music: "There beyond the fogs" Ukrainian take on a popular patriotic song from a Russian rock band Lyube, rewritten with lyrics about the explosions in Crimea (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DSAnQrTELQ)

Dmitri Alperovitch talks with Russian military expert Michael Kofman about: - Why this war may be decided by which side can stretch their ammunition supplies the longest

- Putin's visit to Belarus and whether a new Russian offensive may be coming soon

- 3 areas in which Russian military has been outclassed by Ukrainian forces

- How Russian Military Intelligence (GRU) has performed in this conflict

- Whether Surovikin is the best military commander Russia has had thus far in this war

- What impact the delivery of Patriots batteries might have on Ukrainian air defense

- The importance of the partisan warfare Ukrainians are conducting against Russian logistics in the south

Dmitri Alperovitch talks with Michael Kofman

- The strategic impact of Russian terror strike campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure

- Likelihood of a near-term Ukrainian offensive to retake the South

- Is Ukraine trying to retake Kinburn Spit to control the Dniepier river?

- Would tanks help Ukraine break through the Russian trenches in the Donbas?

- Will we see significant offensive action this winter?

- Why the war will not stop at February 24 lines

In this episode, Dmitri Alperovitch talks with historian and Russia expert Mark Galeotti about:

- Whether Putin is capable of compromising his war aims in any potential future negotiations with Ukraine

- The real reason for why he chose to invade Ukraine

- Why he went ahead and annexed territories he didn't even have full control over

- The similarities between Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022

- Why Prigozhin and Kadyrov are no threat to Putin's hold on power

- Whether the sanctions and export controls are having much of an effect on the Russian economy and society

- How the people in Russia's intelligence services are reacting to the war (and what happened to SVR's Naryshkin)

- Why Putin is incapable of holding incompetent leaders accountable

- Why the bombastic rhetoric from Russian nationalist shock jocks on state television is not a portal into Kremlin's policy

- And much more!

In this episode, Dmitri Alperovitch talks with Dr. Danny Moore, a scholar of offensive cyber operations and a former cyber operator in the Israeli Defense Forces, about the successes and failures of Russian cyber attacks against Ukraine, the reasons for the lack of Russian cyber retaliation against the West, how the cyber component of warfare might play out different in a potential conflict with China over Taiwan, and the disturbing vulnerabilities of US weapons platforms like the F35 to cyber attacks

Why has Russia been unable to suppress Ukrainian air defenses? What is the true state of its missile stockpiles and production rates? Is the F-16 the best aircraft to provide to Ukraine to replace its old Soviet fighter jets? How can the West disrupt the chips supplies for the Russian military?

Dmitri Alperovitch talks to Justin Brock and Dr. Jack Watling from Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) about their findings from the recent trip to Ukraine

What lessons should Taiwan and its allies draw from the current conflict in Ukraine? Is the tank obsolete? Are commercial drones the future of warfare?

Dmitri Alperovitch speaks to Franz-Stefan Gady, a research fellow at IISS and a deep thinker on the future of conflict and war, about his recent trip to Ukraine and the non-obvious lessons for Taiwan from this conflict

Military coup or orderly transition? Nothing lasts forever and in this edition of the podcast, Dmitri Alperovitch speaks to Daniel Treisman, professor of political science at University of California, who specializes on Russian politics and economics, about how Putin's multi-decade reign of Russia might end