Efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine have continued this week, but there are no signs of a major breakthrough.
Here & Now‘s Scott Tong speaks with Fiona Hill, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. She served in the first Trump administration as a Russia expert and later became a witness in his first impeachment hearing.
7 questions with Fiona Hill
Are there any signs that this war will end soon?
“No, I’m afraid not. I mean, I wish I could say that that would be the case. It would take some kind of major breakthrough, which is always a possibility. There’s always those outside chances that nobody should rule anything out. But there’s just no sign that Vladimir Putin at this particular juncture wants to give up anything short of pretty serious demands that it’s very hard to imagine Ukraine accepting, notwithstanding the fact that, of course, Ukraine is hurting from this war. Of course it is. And this war has been a colossal cost to Russia, too.
“And President Trump, to give him credit for this, is trying to create some momentum here. But the timeline is his. It’s Trump’s. It’s not necessarily the course of the war. There’s no catastrophic defeat that is facing Ukraine right now, although there are pretty considerable setbacks. And again, there’s nothing to indicate that the pressure’s got significantly high for Vladimir Putin that he’d be contemplating, you know, pushing for a peace deal at this point.”
If the U.S. really pulls back significantly on support for Ukraine, what would that mean?
“It’d be very difficult, and it would mean that the Europeans really will have to pull out all the stops to step up. I mean, there is action being taken, but the question is whether it’s going to be, you know, fast enough to do that. After, you know, the rather disastrous meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, there was a pullback of intelligence sharing and as well as a stoppage of weapons supplies to Ukraine, and it hurt.
“But I think there’s also an overestimation of the importance of U.S. intelligence sharing and, to some degree, some of the other assistance that the U.S. has been providing for Patriots to other missile systems and the fact that these are the silver bullets or the most effective ways of having Ukraine hold its own on the battlefield. I think the real secret for Ukraine now is to work very closely with European allies, and Secretary [Marco] Rubio is just making that very clear that they’d better move fast on this and to basically devise its own systems. It’s already been doing that, to be frank, but this, but this is significant, obviously.”
What should Americans know about Ukraine, its military’s innovation and the Ukrainians’ resolve in this war? We have not talked too much about military innovation in Ukraine, at least in the U.S.
“No, we haven’t, and we haven’t also accepted the fact that Ukraine’s actually right now got the largest and most capable military in Europe. But Ukraine was also something of a significant military power before the invasion. It was one of the reasons that Russia wanted to seize control of Ukraine. Ukraine, remember, 30+ years ago, when it’s part of the former Soviet Union, was one of the military arsenals, one of the major manufacturing sites for the Soviet military, and what you’re seeing now is the Ukrainians really picking up the pace of innovation on the battlefield of drones. I mean, yes, the Russians are learning from that as well and doing the same, but they’re doing it from the top down. Ukraine is really significant on the grassroots level on the battlefield.
“The Ukrainians have managed to take out a third of Russia’s Black Sea fleet using autonomous weapons systems, adapting the equivalent of drones in the air for the sea as well. And the Ukrainians will say themselves that Patriots, the kind of weapons systems that they were asking for before from the United States, are no longer as relevant on the battlefield or tanks, you know, some of these debates that we had before, that’s no longer the way that the battlefield is playing out.”
Russia is losing about 7,000 soldiers a week, according to Rubio. How can Putin keep sending so many people to the front lines?
“There’s two elements to that. First of all, it’s not just people who are killed, it’s also grievously wounded. So some people do get put back into action again. But Russia’s doing something quite remarkable. It’s actually using an almost entirely mercenary force in the sense that most of these are contract soldiers, so it’s paying for people to go, which is why people continue to go. In the Russian context, it’s a lot of money. A modern military obviously goes in with forcible conscription to major wars, but no modern military’s really kind of paying people what would be, you know, a pretty enviable wage if you’re in the normal labor force. And the Russians are calculating, and Putin and the people around him are calculating that they can do this for another couple of years.”
Is it possible that the war could continue for another two years?
“It’s entirely possible. As I said, absent some major change, Putin, I would think, has still got the upper hand in terms of not just the battlefield, although they’re already making very incremental gains for these horrific losses, but he’s got the upper hand right now in the propaganda and information battlefield.
“So, for example, the election of Trump was a great benefit for Putin because President Trump doesn’t want to continue this war in Ukraine. He would like to wipe his hands of it, so you know, so that is a major change that plays to Putin’s benefit, of course.
“But remember, for Ukraine, this is existential. They’re fighting for their right to exist as Ukrainians.”
Has anything about this war surprised you?
“It’s certainly gone different from [how] Putin imagined. And I think at that particular point, I mean, perhaps we couldn’t have imagined that, you know, the Ukrainians would be able to hold the Russians back to the extent that they have admittedly, of course, with support from neighbors and also from the United States.
“Putin thought this was a special military operation. Yes, it was an invasion, but he thought it was going to be like 1956 when the Red Army went into Hungary or 1968 when they went into Czechoslovakia, you know, for example. And that is actually the surprising element of this war that everybody should be taking on board: Russia, the much vaunted military power, has effectively been held to account by the Ukrainians, even if they haven’t been able to totally turn the tide and push the Russians back. They’ve been incredibly enduring. They’ve showed a lot of fortitude. They showed a lot of bravery. They showed a lot of persistence here.”
In this hemisphere, what do you make of the U.S. strikes on assumed drug boats coming from Venezuela, threats to Venezuela, and the argument from this administration that this is about U.S. national security?
“Linking it to what we’ve just been talking about it, the Russians see this as basically the United States and President Trump doing exactly what they’re doing in their neighborhood. Ukraine’s an issue of national security. It’s their realm to do as they will and to address threats. And so what we’re seeing as a result of this decision on the part of the Trump administration is that this actually paves the way for many other countries, not just Russia to launch similar kinds of actions in their neighborhoods and to describe things in any way they want to.
“You’ll also see as a result of what’s happened there and that recognition by some of the U.S. closest allies, including the UK, that they’re now very reluctant to share intelligence to the United States in the general region. You’ve got to remember that there are British Virgin Islands there. The Dutch, a whole host of other European countries, have equities in the broader Caribbean region. So there’s a lot of consternation and concern about this in Europe as well.”
This interview was edited for clarity.
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Jill Ryan produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Michael Scotto. Scotto adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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