An Interview With Andriy Zagorodnyuk

How Ukraine Goes Forward From Now

Hello All,

In my last weekend update, I mentioned a fascinating and important new piece published by Andriy Zagorodnyuk. Andriy, picture below, was Defence Minister of Ukraine from 2019-2020 under President Zelensky, and now helps run arguably the most important Ukrainian strategic studies think tank while playing a very active role in the Ukrainian effort to defend their country. He has also published widely in the US and Europe about the war, in places like Foreign Affairs, RUSI, Chatham House, and, Carnegie. He has just published a very important piece on Ukrainian strategy going forward, and he calls for Ukraine to follow a plan of “strategic neutralization” I mentioned in the update.

I have learned a great deal from Andriy over the last few years. He is measured and grounded in his analysis, does not sugar-coat pills, and at the same time tries very hard to look into the future and think strategically for Ukraine. I believe you will find his answers both interesting and important.

I also will keep the whole interview free for everyone, as I believe its so important, and only include some comments for subscribers at the end.

For full disclosure, these answers were communicated to me by Andriy through voice messages. I transcribed them and he has approved them being published. If the language sounds unusual, its because of this.

Andriy Zagorodnyuk Interview

1. In your article you discuss Ukrainian victory coming through a policy of "Strategic Neutralization." How does Ukraine best achieve this autonomy while still fighting a war with Russia?

I do not believe that Ukraine can do this by getting involved in a long attritional struggle with Russia. We must find a way to gain a material advantage on the battlefield to mean that the Russian military begins to fail to achieve its strategic goals (I talk about this in the Carnegie piece). We need to make sure we use this to gain a significant asymmetric advantage.

I think we can look at the course of the war on the Black Sea to have an idea how that will happen. In the naval war we used new technologies to fight a very effective asymmetric war against the Russian fleet, driving it back to port and making it clear that the surface ships of the Black Sea Fleet could not undertake the roles that they were intended to do.

Operations Spiderweb is another example of how we need to use technological and strategic methods to cause very expensive and advanced parts of the Russian military to fail in their ability to undertake its missions.

If we can do this, we can at the same time start building up the institutions of our state and economy while under Russian threat. This has happened with other states, such as Israel, for instance. In the 1960s and 1970s they had to build up the infrastructure of their state under the constant possibility of war, confronted by states that were much larger, which they could not conquer and which at least partly seemed set on their destruction. Israel instituted a strategy that made sure that these states failed.

2. How Are Drones/UAVs changing the war?

UAVs/Drones are completely changing our combat assumptions and expectations about how the war is and will be fought. Operation Spiderweb is only a small example of this.

Unmanned systems are key to this and in some ways we are just scratching the surface. Historically speaking today’s drones can be seen as aircraft at the start of World War II—but we can see where how aircraft would develope by the 1960s, 1970s, and further into the future. Something similar is happening with UAVs, but on a much quicker timeframe.

They key advantage we need is to be able to adapt to and with these new technologies faster than Russians. We must always try to be faster than the Russians. So far the situation is mixed. We know the Russians have been unable to answer some of our adaptations, but we have struggled as well in adjusting to things such as Russian shahed capabilities. This highlights a general problem that we need to do better in defense against the combined Russian UAV and missile attacks, which have caused a great deal of damage. So we must invest more to defend against such attacks.

Ultimately the side that wins the UAV adaptation race will have the greatest advantage in the war.

3. What aid from European partners does Ukraine most need to help implement such a strategy?

European states, including those in the EU, the UK and Norway are arguably the key allies for Ukraine now. We have been really heartened by papers such as the recently released EU White Paper on Defense Readiness for 2030 and the new UK Defense Review. We endorse these completely as real signs that Europeans now understand that Russia is a threat to all of Europe, is an imperial state and needs to be restrained. We see an enormous shift also in Germany right now, from the government to intelligence agencies, with their understanding of the Russian threat.

Many Europeans now understand that Ukrainian resistance is key to buying Europe time to rearm and gain some strategic autonomy. There also seems to be a growing European understanding of the damage Russia can do to Europe if not restrained.

4. Can it be achieved if the US will not provide much or any aid?

We must be realistic. There are certain capabilities, such as Patriots, parts for Bradley AFVs and artillery barrels, etc., that we can only get from the USA. So we need to keep a positive dialogue going with the USA to try and unlock such supplies.

We hope that the US will come around to selling these items either directly to us or even through European partners. That is why we need to impress on the Americans that we are willing to negotiate a ceasefire in good faith, to convince them of the truth that we are not a roadblock to peace—but Russia is the main block to peace. We see signs that this might be happening. We will keep trying on this and positively engaging the Trump Administration.

5. How do you assess the fighting at the front line? Considering the effectiveness of defensive firepower, including UAVs, does either side have the capacity to make fast movements?

We do not expect the Russians to be able to make any strategic breakthroughs. The Russian summer offensive is ongoing in our estimation and they are able to make “slight” gains in places such as Sumy and Donbas. However, we do not assess that the Russians have the ability to substantially change the situation.

Where the Russians have made some of their small advances, we generally believe it was down to finding a place where we did not have enough drones. As we scale up UAV production, this will hopefully happen less and less.

On the other hand, we are also probably going to be unable to push the Russians back in any considerable way in the immediate future. In the future that will only become possible if we can gain a major advantage in the drone (UAV) war, which would require strong coordination between government ministries and industry. And it is crucial that we learn from certain units/brigades in the Ukrainian army which are showing themselves to be particularly skilled with the new technologies—a form of structural reform. If these successful brigades can be used to teach other brigades their methods, we should be able to build up larger units that can fight the Russians more effectively. If we can do that, we may be able to create a serious quality shift in our advantage.

We also must be careful to secure our military production as the Russians are constantly hunting our factories.

6. How would you assess Ukrainian morale?

Morale is holding up well, all things considered, because we have no alternative if we want to live. In one way, many people believed Trump’s promises that the war would end soon, and this raised expectations and gave hope—even if at the same time they deep down had doubts that Putin would ever agree to anything. Putin is still seen as wanting to end Ukrainian existence as a people and nation. When the negotiations did not work out, therefore, it was expected even if it did lead to a small letdown in some quarters. Now we do not believe that it will be possible to devise terms for an “acceptable” armistice with Putin.

Ultimately as I said above, there is a widespread understanding in Ukraine that we have no alternative to fighting. So there is also determination. We do not see people leaving the country now, people are still chipping in and determined to survive. There is certainly no desire to accept Russian dictation on the terms for a deal.

So we need to keep on going.

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