Aug 11, 2026 · 27 min · 10 segments
The ongoing war in Ukraine has recently hit a grim milestone: in June 2026 it surpassed the duration of World War One. In this episode of the We Society, **Michael Kofman** talks to host Will Hutton…
Michael KofmanGuest
Will HuttonHost
[gentle music] I think we should get onto sanctions and, and the role of sanctions.
They're not ineffective, are they? I mean, there's a certain amount of kind of sense that that, that they're pinpricks, but I know it's...
Is that, uh, is that a fair assessment of their, of their impact on Russia? I think they're more, rather more serious, aren't they?
On sanctions and their effectiveness, it's not easy to measure the effectiveness of sanctions, right? Uh, what I can safely say is that a lot of it comes down to enforcement, and ultimately you're far better off with them than you are without them.
they do substantially increase cost on the target state, and they do in various ways shape the be- behavior of the state.
They cannot, you know, achieve your aims in a particular, uh, dispute or conflict all on their own, right? They are in many ways shaping mechanisms.
So despite having a large population on Excel spreadsheets, they are largely fueling this war with contracted personnel.
That means the state is spending an exorbitant sum of money to get people who would otherwise be employed, because functionally Russia has almost no unemployment, there's a big deficit of skilled labor, and it also needs these people in, working in the defense industry as well, to continuously sign up, uh, for the war and to employ them, uh, across the front line in assault roles.
And increasingly you've seen the Russian military come under strain in 2025, where their unrecoverable loss rate, that is those seriously wounded and killed, is roughly equal to those they recruit on a monthly basis, which means the force can no longer continue expanding.
So the honest answer is can Russia continue to sustain this war at this rate of casualties in twenty twenty-six? Yes.
But the trend line for manpower recruitment and replacement for them has turned negative as of last year, i.e., they can sustain the war but with diminishing returns and with a much lower expectation of success.
That is, the, it's clear that time is increasingly not on Russia's side in this war.
If you look at Ukraine's current situation, at least military situation, it's not fragile and it's not desperate either.
If anything, Ukraine's done far better in twenty twenty-five than many folks expected, and those trends have continued into twenty twenty-six.
There are some people who argue it's, it's actually beginning to gain the upper hand.
Unfortunately, analysis of this war tends to go in a cycle of either, you know, doom and gloom, it's all over, to, oh, we're so back and Ukraine is now winning.
[gentle music] I think we should get onto sanctions and, and the role of sanctions.
They're not ineffective, are they? I mean, there's a certain amount of kind of sense that that, that they're pinpricks, but I know it's...
Is that, uh, is that a fair assessment of their, of their impact on Russia? I think they're more, rather more serious, aren't they?
On sanctions and their effectiveness, it's not easy to measure the effectiveness of sanctions, right? Uh, what I can safely say is that a lot of it comes down to enforcement, and ultimately you're far better off with them than you are without them.
they do substantially increase cost on the target state, and they do in various ways shape the be- behavior of the state.
They cannot, you know, achieve your aims in a particular, uh, dispute or conflict all on their own, right? They are in many ways shaping mechanisms.
So despite having a large population on Excel spreadsheets, they are largely fueling this war with contracted personnel.
That means the state is spending an exorbitant sum of money to get people who would otherwise be employed, because functionally Russia has almost no unemployment, there's a big deficit of skilled labor, and it also needs these people in, working in the defense industry as well, to continuously sign up, uh, for the war and to employ them, uh, across the front line in assault roles.
And increasingly you've seen the Russian military come under strain in 2025, where their unrecoverable loss rate, that is those seriously wounded and killed, is roughly equal to those they recruit on a monthly basis, which means the force can no longer continue expanding.
So the honest answer is can Russia continue to sustain this war at this rate of casualties in twenty twenty-six? Yes.
But the trend line for manpower recruitment and replacement for them has turned negative as of last year, i.e., they can sustain the war but with diminishing returns and with a much lower expectation of success.
That is, the, it's clear that time is increasingly not on Russia's side in this war.
If you look at Ukraine's current situation, at least military situation, it's not fragile and it's not desperate either.
If anything, Ukraine's done far better in twenty twenty-five than many folks expected, and those trends have continued into twenty twenty-six.
There are some people who argue it's, it's actually beginning to gain the upper hand.
Unfortunately, analysis of this war tends to go in a cycle of either, you know, doom and gloom, it's all over, to, oh, we're so back and Ukraine is now winning.
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