Bill Roggio on What’s Happening on the Ground in Ukraine

BUCK: Our friend Bill Roggio joining us now. He’s a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, editor of the Long War Journal, and a U.S. Army veteran. Bill, great to have you on.

ROGGIO: Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure.

BUCK: What do we need to know about the fighting right now in Ukraine? How is this conflict playing out right now?

ROGGIO: Yeah. Look, I think the common narrative that we’re hearing is the Russians have stalled, they’re bogged down, they’re demoralized. But I always say, “The map doesn’t lie.” When you look at the map of the Russian advances from day one, they’ve taken significant territory, and they’re prepared to surround Kiev, the capital. They’re in the process of encircling Ukrainian troops in the north, in the east, and in the south.

In the south, they’re close to fully taking control the strategic Black Sea territory. This is where Ukraine uses to export its food and other exports — and they’re advancing. It looks like they’re prepared, again, to encircle Kiev and then link up from the south to the north. It’s a long process. This doesn’t happen in days. This is a military operation that is unfolding. So the Ukrainians are in danger of losing half their country. They’re in danger of being encircled locally, again, in areas…

It’s already happened in areas in the east and in the south. But it’s in danger of losing literally half of its country if the units that are in and around Kiev can link up with the units in the south, and I’m seeing that develop on the map. You know, look, it’s a question of whether can the Russians hold this. That’s a separate question. But what I’m seeing is the Ukrainians who are fighting valiantly and harder than anyone, including the Russians, had thought, but they’re still losing this war.

CLAY: What’s the time frame here, Bill? I mean, you talked about what the Russian strategy is and that it’s taking longer than they may have anticipated. Obviously, we are still in the middle of bitter winter cold in Ukraine. As it starts to warm up, as springs arrives, what do you anticipate this battle looking like going forward based on what you’ve seen so far?

ROGGIO: Yeah, there’s a lot of “known unknowns here,” and one, if the capital capitulates, if the Zelensky government flees, this can wrap up in the course of weeks. I think I’m looking at timelines of a couple of months here. It’s always difficult to project out into the future. There’s a lot of factors. Do the Russians lose heart? Do their logistic issues…? Are they able to overcome logistical issues and other issues?

We have to remember, it took the U.S. military 42 days to conquer Iraq. It took them three weeks to enter Baghdad. I don’t understand why we expect… I see a lot of reporting — there’s the common narrative — the Russians didn’t take Kiev in two days and therefore they failed. But what I saw them do is launch a planned operation and they’re plodding through in the Russian manner. It’s not pretty, but it is moving forward.

Again, it just depends on how long Kiev could hold out, if it’s surrounded and if the area around it is encircled. But I think if things continue as is, we’re talking months before the Russians could take full control or at least encircle the eastern half of Ukraine. And I would draw a line south from Kiev all the way to just about Odessa, an area a little bit west. That’s significant area, over half the size of Texas.

BUCK: Bill Roggio with us now, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, editor of the Long War Journal. Bill, what could really turn the tide here? What are the possibilities? You mentioned the Russians logistically collapse, they lose heart, there’s some change, palace coup. That’s all on the Russian side. What are the ways that the Ukrainian side could actually shift the momentum here to not just slow down, but stall and even reverse the Russian progress?

ROGGIO: The only thing I think that would reverse the Russian progress — and I do not advocate for this, to be clear — would be intervention from

NATO. The Ukrainians’ forces are being ground down. They have not conducted any significant counterattacks in order to halt the Russian advance. All they can do is conduct a fighting retreat and hold on to cities. Now, what they can do is try and make a play to get the Russians to quit the fight if they burn them out, if the Russians…

Again, that’s back to the Russian side of the equation. The Ukrainians can make those things, make it so painful for the Russians that they either stop the offensive, halt their advance and keep what they have or they actually retreat from the country. I don’t see that as being highly likely. It would take some type of outside intervention in order for the Ukrainians to be able to turn the tide and look to eject the Russians from the country.

CLAY: Bill, what’s the impact if the Ukrainians got access to some of these airplanes, these fighter jets that have been much discussed as to how they might get into Ukraine? But we’ve certainly seen that Russia has air superiority and, by and large, the Russian advance has sometimes been very jumbled in terms of you felt like you could just fly over and drop a lot of bombs on those guys as they are very closely packed and not in any kind of fear of aerial assault. What would the impact be if suddenly Ukraine had access to jets?

ROGGIO: Yes. So it’s not just having the fighter planes. It’s being able to maintain them, where are they gonna be based, do they have enough pilots to fly them, do they have enough people to maintain them? Again, they could put a hurting on the Russian forces; it can blunt or slow down the advance. But unless they’re going to receive an air force that is hundreds and hundreds of planes, and they can base them and coordinate or regain at least some type of air parity at the very least and be able to launch sorties against those Russian forces that are amassed, I think the impact would be on the margins, frankly.

BUCK: Bill Roggio, Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Long War Journal, where he is the editor. Bill, appreciate your perspective today. Thanks for being with us.

ROGGIO: Thanks for having me, guys. Have a great day.

BUCK: Thank you.