Original subtitles

the U.S Marine Corps so uh is

so

let me present you Mr Kaufman and

overall thank you very much for being

here with us today

um

yeah thanks for having me on uh on your

program

all right so um yeah let's go straight

into Carson to to begin with um

so what do you think about Russian

retreat was just like something

inevitable for them maybe in a few

months because of the attrition of the

fighting or this was just a measure in

order to do to say okay we are going to

secure the whole front we are going to

say bye to her son and and that's what

we are trying to do what do you think

yeah so I think the Russian military was

on the wrong end of a battle defined by

attrition

I thought that the main reason they

withdrews they were being pressed out

and they could have maintained the

position there longer but the reality is

that there were no prospects in staying

in Kirsten on the right Bank of the

river first the Russian military had no

chance of a counter-offensive there

right so any territory they lost they

were going to essentially uh be steadily

pressed towards the river and towards

the main Crossing Point second they were

down to a set of fairies and one main

crossing point at novocac of kadam

third I think the bigger issue was the

need for them to conserve ammunition

they used up too much artillery

ammunition over the spring and summer

and they had to consolidate the front

and elect a more defensive strategy this

looked to be sir vegan's argument based

on anecdotal evidence of what we know uh

was his position

and that's why they were drew that said

as you probably know they withdrew with

the bulk of their Force intact and their

equipment and they stripped a lot of the

equipment they couldn't actually take

with them and it was a pretty organized

cohesive operation a retrograde

operation that looked very different

than what happened on archive or even in

Limon

so uh the bulk of the forces that they

had and they use mobilized Personnel

that they deployed to cover their

retreat

we're able to get across the river and

now you see some of them being

redeployed to fight at Bachman uh I will

tell you that your son of a solves

interesting battle

um

you know I won't say that I especially

spent the tremendous amount of time

there but I did get to go there in

October myself so I was uh

uh let's say uh near relatively near the

front lines but

um it it was a grinding fight okay

Ukraine had basically uh

two stages where the pushed Russian

Force was pretty hard at the beginning

around uh August 29th 30th and then

again a month later beginning of October

but the losses were significant on both

sides and despite everything that's been

said about the efficacy of High Mark

strikes the truth is that after four

months the Russian military still could

Supply artillery to the front and still

could withdraw from across the river

so it it's a very effective system but

it's also a very valuable lesson for

folks who believe in silver bullets in

individual Technologies rather than the

aggregate effect of these capabilities

and how forces are able to employ them

all right so um generally speaking

um we could say or I I think that's your

opinion right that there wasn't an

immediate threat to the logistics of

Carson it wasn't like you know all

Crossings are getting bombed and all of

that just that it was a decision in

order to reinforce the whole front

that's it well no I mean it was growing

I think Russian military saw the writing

on the wall that over time that position

was going to become untenable

and uh there was no point to stand

yourself because it was just a question

of time right Ukraine could have kept

that offensive going well into the

winter and then into the spring

and I think from the Russian point of

view if they were going to withdraw

eventually what was the point

right because they could save a lot on

front of space

then fix their Force density to to

territory ratio and redeploy on other

parts of the front so I think that

actually was withdrawing from Crystal

was probably one of the smarter things

they could have done from a strategy

perspective yeah absolutely

um now what about the the quality of the

mobility mobilized forces on both armies

do you think that any of them has a

higher quality than the other are they

more or less equivalent what do you

think on that

well I mean one of the questions first

question was how would we know right so

right mobilization usually starts off

as a pretty chaotic and haphazard

process because militaries are not set

up to take in such large numbers of

personnel even when they say they are

they aren't right

um

you know on the Ukrainian side they

enacted mobilization at the outside of

the war they quickly found that they

actually didn't have a lot of the

equipment and the weapons that they

would need to equip the force and

mobilization was Ukraine's principal

strategy for dealing with a large-scale

Russia invasion

mobilization provide the Manpower they

needed they created additional units

battalions with them and they raised

their Force Readiness by a substantial

amount they too were in practice a

partial mobilization Army

uh it it had demonstrable effects

several months into the war right

mobilized Personnel allowed Ukraine to

hold the line in the spring and in the

summer although they too had morale

issues they do had they also had a lot

of problems with folks that had very

little training that were deployed and

that weren't very interoperable with

other parts of the force in general

um

the unintangeables you know I think it's

pretty obvious that the Ukrainian

military's favor okay but good luck

measuring those you know why we call

them intangible it's because you can't

measure them if you can measure them

then they would be tangibles right so

analytically you know it's it's a bit of

a salt licking ice cream cone to try to

try to imagine metrics for intangibles

but

um on the Russian side mobilization

started off quite poorly but that's

because they were not mobilizing in the

spring when they still had the force and

the Personnel to train it a lot of the

equipment right and I would have been

much more dangerous if they done in

April they were mobilizing into the

Windsor when they already spent a lot of

the personnel and the equipment they had

to equip an additional part of the force

and they weren't deploying them in for

an offensive they were essentially

deploying them as a desperate measure to

stabilize the line all right so the

first people they threw up the line were

just there to try to hold it

but you know after after now we can say

uh

around maybe two months or so or a bit

less than that you can see that it's a

phase process that the initial Personnel

they deployed did actually help them

stabilize the line that probably they're

going to conduct a rotation but the rest

of the units are in training and maybe

about half are in Russia half are in

Ukraine and it's going to continue on as

a phase process and you won't be able to

really judge its effects for probably

another three months from my point of

view February is a good time to look to

see what Russia can or can't get out of

mobilization

people are are a bit overly eager to

make uh claims in the space but for

Ukraine mobilization showed its real

effects more towards May June and for

Russia I don't think you're going to see

enough to have a judgments about what

judgment mobilization will yield for

them until later this winter you know

the quality I think Ukraine overall is

better off and Ukraine has the benefit

of having access to different Western

training programs although they're quite

small you know there's a program in the

UK it's only for a couple of weeks and

it's fairly anemic in terms of its

throughput rate it's it's an effort that

will scale but if you think about the

size of the Ukrainian military and if

you think about how many additional

units they create of immobilized

Personnel relative to the number of

people being trained it'll take quite a

bit of time uh what else can I say in

this on this matter all right and what

about the industrial part of the

mobilization do you think that Russian

industry can get enough resources in

order to increase their artillery

Immunity on production you know when uh

to a strategic effects or do you think

that they will have to you know to um to

trust in different countries in order to

get enough ammunition to deal with such

thing

so those are two separate questions so

first can I get the resources to make I

guess your questions about artillery I

mean probably their main choke point

will be on the chemical side right not

in the actual making of artillery shells

part and they've definitely mobilized

ships across the defense I've gone to

double and triple shifts so they think

they have the components right you see

them making deliveries throughout the

course of the year

uh

I don't know the actual state of the

industry in the choke points I'll be

very honest I've seen a bunch of folks

try to examine the space but it's not

very easy

are they going to need to try to get

ammunition from countries like North

Korea yeah most definitely nobody's

going to make enough ammunition for

their use rate the Russian military is a

fires-based military it's going to

consume ammunition at an incredible rate

even if they try to conserve it okay

nobody can make ammunition to sustain a

conventional War at this intensity of

fighting it's a problem by the way it's

a problem on the the western side too

just to be clear the

Ukraine consumption of artillery

ammunition relative to what is being

produced on a monthly basis in the

countries that are supplying it is an

issue

it's a medium to long-term issue it's

not an issue website for tomorrow but it

is most definitely a problem

so yeah the the long story is short is

no Russia's not going to be able to

produce enough artillery ammunition to

sustain the war at this rate

and they're going to have to try to

depend on external sources they can get

to them or they have to change things up

write that and now that um you know

Ukraine as they are suffering with all

of these attacks on their electricity

Network and all of that as they will try

to counter attack let's say uh attack

inside Russia attack their sometimes

their uh their own electric Network all

of that kind of things

do you think that uh to a certain extent

um let's say oh sorry sorry I forget the

question sorry

um

um okay so let's go into military

culture because it was something I was

really curious about it and do you think

in the end that

um in comparison to strategy doctoring

equipment uh it is very important or

what you think on it how you evaluate it

yeah I think military culture is very

important

um

you know culture often will supersede

Doctrine at the end of the day Doctrine

can be whatever you like and Doctrine

can be really brilliant theoretically

right but then when you try to turn into

practice you find that aspects of your

military culture are are such that the

doctrine doesn't work in practice right

so for example

challenges the Russian military has is

doctrinally they're fairly rigid

tactically and they put together uh

Maneuvers through kind of individual

battle drills and are pieced together

the Tactical level formations don't have

much of a planning staff right so the

commander picks the course of action

then they sort out logistics and they're

very heavily driven and the challenge in

that system is it's a garbage in garbage

out system if that is bad then the

planning's very bad and the Maneuvers

selected is isn't going to work okay

um what that means in practice is you

know about mdp sort of military

decision-making process what that means

in practice

is that uh doctrinally it makes sense

given the quality of the force they have

because a lot of the thinking is much

more when it comes to operational art

and higher echelons

but tactical level they have big issues

because the military culture in Russia

is one where people

um falsify what happened all the time

and so they write that you know 100 of

the helicopters took off and struck you

know 70 percent of targets but that's

not what happened at all and then

commanders are operating on that base

and you can see in this war

that you know a an attack is conducted

by a set of units who believe that they

are following up an initial offensive

and that offensive had already broken

through or degraded defensive lines but

that didn't happen basically everybody

reports success when it didn't take

place so it's a system of weak

accountability and law of falsification

and it has nothing to do with corruption

um it has a lot to do with just military

culture so that's one area where you see

uh Russian military culture

um not meshing well at all with

doctrinally how they like to do things

uh particularly tactical level

um that shows a much more interesting

conversation writ large if you want to

get into it we can get into it but I I

actually would say that

um in some respects Russia and Ukraine

Doctrine are not that dissimilar

yeah that's the the other point um how

different you maybe you don't know this

to such extent but

um how different is the Ukrainian

military culture from Russian

yeah I mean that's where that's where a

lot of differences

probably line on Military culture uh

Ukraine's uh I would say much more of a

ground up decision-making military where

there is preference given to veterans in

decision making and it's a much more

democratic uh process in um in military

planning and suicide views

also Ukraine's different military

culture in that uh they they care much

more about the force in the Russian

military you can see officers have a

fairly callous approach to how they use

troops they have a very sort of early to

mid uh 20th century mentality in how

they treat the force and how they uh

deal with personality they don't care

about they don't care about the

individual Warfighter whereas ukrainians

do you see the way Ukraine tries to

fight is actually focused on forced

preservation and not throwing away

people

um I think I saw from my point of

anecdotally I just saw a big difference

in accountability

on the gram side and that's a aspect of

culture it's not something you can

easily train sorry anybody who's

listening to this on HR who thinks that

annual

um uh trainings via PowerPoint Institute

a military culture of accountability I

don't think that's the case all right

it's the kind of thing that uh stems

from leadership and by the way another

thing that people think is true but

really isn't that this big difference is

because Ukraine has an NCO Court not

really I mean Ukraine doesn't have a

western style NCO core actually how

would it have a western style nco4 if

like half the military is mobilized okay

to begin with as of since February okay

where did all these ncos suck all these

uncles come from you don't see that

actually in Ukrainian military so much

like you see uh

soldiers independent of rank but with

veterans say

right uh take on initiative take on

leadership and yes Ukraine has on CEOs

but a lot of that is kind of validation

and projecting I think in in Western

military is because it's a strong desire

to believe that Russians are doing

poorly because they're not like us and

ukrainians are doing well because they

are like us that's not really true

actually in terms of force structure and

Legacy inheritance from the Soviet Union

the Ukraine military is a lot closer to

the Russian military than people think

yeah absolutely agree on that by the way

um now I don't want to steal you so much

time so I will ask you just the last

question and which is I'm speaking about

the Strategic culture do you think that

the Russians really are willing to

sustain a high intensity two three four

years war or they are just trying to

okay let's stabilize this maybe launch a

small offensive in dombas whatever but

let's end the war as soon as possible

what do you think

so

my last name says that this war is going

to go on that the Russian leadership is

committed to it Wars are fundamentally

contests of Wills

and uh they have the world to keep it

going their main problem is that they

have a mismatch between military means

and political aims they don't have the

military means and

even though they've downsized kind of I

think minimal War aims are still well

beyond what what the military can

actually achieve I think that if if

there's any variation on that strategy

it's that Russian leadership at some

point would be willing to pursue a

ceasefire but that's only so they can

reconstitute the force and then launch

uh continuation War that's one of the

likelier trajectory actually of this

conflict is that however it ends there

probably will be a follow-on war if

neither side achieves what they think

are are at least their minimal War aims

yeah I think the main challenge in the

Russian military's side is it has to do

with sustainability material

availability and sustainability right

Manpower quantitatively they fix to an

extent qualitatively they still have big

issues

artillery ammunition is going to be the

probably the biggest constraint on the

Russian military moving forward

and secondarily equipment and the

political Lucia may have

the the world to continue the war right

but they're going to consistently be

running up against

actual material constraints and the fact

that the the military uh has fairly

consistently underperformed although in

the last month month and a half you've

probably seen

the songs that build the revision of

Russian strategy and more competent

leadership come into effect on their

survey can and more importantly a

stronger linkage between the military

and the political leadership's

understanding of what's actually

happening in the war because previous to

that it seemed clear to me

that Putin had very little idea of the

reality on the ground and he was being

fed uh a very Rosy picture where the war

was going and Russian prospects for

success and after Hurricane was no

longer possible to feed him this

information which by the way goes back

to the earlier part of our conversation

about military culture right if if

company commanders make things up and

Battalion commanders made things up that

the end at the end of that string

they're the chief of general staff in a

meeting who is saying things about

what's happening in the war and Russian

prospects in the war to Putin and he too

is dissembling right and you can see how

this carries through

like can you see the you can see the

coherency of the system and the problem

of that military culture

all right so so that's all

um thank you really Matt for for with us

with for being with us uh here today

sorry for because I was a little bit

nervous to be fair and yeah that's it

thank you very much really I'm sorry uh

thanks for having me on your program and

enjoy uh your weekend and uh but let's

find an opportunity to chat again maybe

at some point down why oh I would love

to so thank you very much

foreign

bye everyone

oh

I will