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since 1979b of a newer primary source for capitol hill providing balance unfiltered coverage of government taking you to where the policy is debate and decided all with the support of america's cable company. c-span 45 years and counting. powered by cable. >> next a look at the state of russia's defense industrial base as the war with ukraine continues details on a russian russiandefense leadership public opinion of the war russia's relationship with china and north korea from the center for strategic and international studies this is an hour and a half. >> the state of russia's defense ministry two years after the war that is what we're going to talk about today it is incredibly timely conversation comes on the heels of a new report released here a couple of months ago looking at the state of russia's defense industry called back in stock. to discuss that report discussed

the state of russia's defense ministry we have a fantastic panel. i'm joint first off but my colleague maria and also nonresident sam maria is a senior fellow for russia and eurasia sam is a senior associate nonresident violet with our program as well as an advisor with the russia studies program at the center for analysis. we are also joined dare as a senior fellow at the russia and eurasia program at our archrival across the street. [laughter] we are thrilled she was able to brave theet heat and cross the street to join us today for this conversation. but maria ite maybe i'll start with you paid let's jump right in. we released a report a few months ago called him back in stock it came on the heels of a report we did a year ago called out of stock. it sums up the basic assessment

russia has found its feet and was able to ramp up its maybe you could talk about the report alternate to his welfare. >> yes write this report in which we come to a sobering conclusion. the precious adaptation to this work is proceeding more successfully than expected and as pointed out hence the title. what are the origins of the success? we identified key areas that helped russia to adjust verse ft about russia continues to rely on the soviet stockpiles and the problem knows how much they have. but to the extent one can say from satellites the russian some storages on the battlefield they

have contemporary components like optics. at unfortunately if they have those they can keep going. in addition there are other factors to changeer the dynamic. first of all the overall of russia with revenues the economy of russia's growing 3.6% it is projected to keep going this year three-point to percent according to the imf. that's a result of russia's ability to continue vast energy revenues from the oil sales and reinvested into the economy. then of course there is the factor but particularly with china. one of the conditions of a ourreport as we are tracking daa tohi see russia really has substituted imports through

china. is a veryy interesting part with the influx of the components of the semi conductors the vast majority coming from china. to correlate. we know why he's traveling to china and what he is trying to achieve. and last but not least all those factors also contribute to a general shift in the accommodation for the more sophisticated military production to words more cheaper substitutes. we see that russia components results in the use of quality and weapons, but unfortunately as long as russia has a lot of those and they have a lot of

those for the reasons i said before, it can continue fighting this war. >> russia has been able to rely on huge stockpiles of reserve equipment, modernizing that equipment with whatever parts and components it can get and essentially good enough for the war at hand. sam, let me turn to you, maybe you can talk a little bit about how russia's defense industrial production over the last year, how that's impacted its battle plans in ukraine. there are sort of the war that it had, the army that it had that it went to war with in 2022 in february but now the army that it has now and match military needs and maybe you can talk about how russia may have to evolve there and i should say you are coming from sunny

florida which is less hot than washington, d.c. right now. over to you, sam. >> great to be with you all of you and actually it was actually interesting to work on this report especially as we try to update our earlier base on what we are seeing on the battlefield. russia has several things going for it, number one as maria identified, massive stockpiles of weapons and systems especially those dating from the cold war and modernized and put in the field, number 2, important element, russia able to sustain mass casualties without impacting military performance and, of course, last year and into this year switching from using private military companies and a lot of prisoners to now using a lot of contracting and enlisting military personnel russia has a lot of population and resources and something that ukraine hasha identified as very important element in russia's ability to hang in the fight and this is

something that we also identified in the report. it makes up older systems and russia's ability to learn partially, not fully but partially but enough to actually learn the worst mistakes from previous years and now to repeat them in combat over the past six to nine months. that doesn't mean that russia is achieving its stated goals. it's moving forward very slowly. it's wasting a lot of soldiers in the process but again it is capable of us training those casualties and moving forward and lots and lots of people involved in the process of upgrading, developing, redesigning and fixing weapons systems and a lot of times this is done at existing enterprises that were expand today accommodate this demand people working double or triple shifts.

has it been able to build new or largely i refurbishing, maybe yu can talk about how its able to equip its forces, what are the tactics it's right now? >> some of the newer tanks and armored vehicles, new system that is russia didn't have before 2022 such as iranian provided drones, a lot of commercial technology coming into battle which are fielded by russian forces on a regular basis such as chinese, civilian donated fte type drones and other uav's and very large quantities so it's a mix of some of the newer tech as well as some of the older and existing technologies and this war at this point in mostly tactical

engagements which take place anywhere 0 to 10 kilometers on the line of contact, you don't need sophisticated systems, lots of uav's in the air andem large-scale maneuvering is very dangerous and you need to maneuver in small quantities, soldiers and equipment and move sparingly and that type of scenario and older tank protected by armor is also good if you have and this is what we are witnessing probably over the past year or so since earlier report. good enough is good enough for russia not just to hang in there but try to take some ukrainian territory although -- >> maria, before i bring in -- so critical, that's what the report highlights, how has russia been able to resupply its -- its -- supply its testifies industrial complex? is it all china or are there

other means, how is russia able to sustain this given a year ago we were saying, well, it's actually really struggling to find replacement parts and components? >> well, we can thank globalization much in the same way that some pointed out russia is adjusting militarily, economically too, russia -- are able to very masterfully use what globalization has to offer and russia on top of everything else has customs union with soviet states, so beyond just china, even major technology -- key components elements like semiconductors machines and

contribute this t dynamic, turkey is very interesting instead of sending straight russia. products that go and components that go elsewhere to central asian states or russian borders go the russia but there's an effort some which comply with the western sanctions and the important difference is that china is quite careful and many other countries, they are very careful not to circumvent sanctions so we are mostly looking at the components but north korea and iran, north korea recent news probably become more importantl factor in the dynamic, this country is directed violated the sanctions. they have nothing to lose. we see ballistic missiles or shelf going straight to north korea, for example, to russia, so it varies and russia is

proactively seeking new opportunities going all over the world. we see foreign affairs and other high-level russian officials traveling all of the time trying to identify this elements, the countries which would be willing to sell sometimes back to russia which russia in the past could have sold to them oh so there's a lot of creativity and probably at some point this stream of opportunities will shrink. knot korea, for example, does not have vast stockpiles, nobody knows for sure.y so far, though, russia is more or less sustaining its levels of -- its current dine am nick the war even if, for example, in the end of the report identify certain witnesses. for example, it's not self-sustaining and north korea has been helpful but how long it

can be, can continue it's a big question. the key problem the dynamic,ics port controls. having said that, while, indeed, the controls have been circumvented that majority that supply to russia they have been created within the last year which suggests those are actually shell companies created deliberately for this purpose. but to the extent, so this the key problem that specially we need to be targeting and so far they have not been very successful. having said that on important area where to an extent expert controls have been able to improve additional to russia,

indeed, the components are more expansive and citing military producers who are complaining how they are supposed to be selling weapons, but components and consistently rising prices so it wouldn't be fair to say that sanctions don't work at all but unfortunately we doweledti much, much better. >> right, it's sort of like sanctions in a way to think about it, it'ste not whether thy work or not but that they are providing sort of like a tax that is being put on russia's supply chain. transaction cost and that's a cost worth -- worth putting in place. let me bring you in, i'm curious for your general a thoughts abot the state of russian stray and how russia responded since the war began to -- to ramping up its defense industrial production. >> well, thanks for having me and i like your reports so much and i hear people quoting -- >> that's why we brought youh. here.

>> i know. we are neighbors. >> i do hear people quoting from your report all of the time and so i think you've done an excellent outlining the problem when something is complex and intricate as this and i find myself in agreement a lot for anyone who else has to write on the defense industrial base. you guys set the tone from the very beginning. in terms of where they are at and how i'm seeing this i'm thinking lately about reconstitution and the definition restoring damage unit to sufficient level conduct capability. when we look out and we see russians, russian forces using bmp1's, mtlb's which almost raided all of the functional ones left really, really old equipments. if it works, it works, it's not going to work as well as b mp3er or bmp4 but they are using them,

siberia and far east and it's really great for me to see other people out there in social media nerd out along these facilities in the same way but do i is incredible the amount of tracking that's going on but i also think what's going on in the industrial base and you highlight the themes in the sense of revealed preferences.nc they are maximizing what they have, triple shifts, bringing in prisoners, trying to fill these labor gaps as well as they can and they are, they are increasing it but the space has plateaued, right, like you can't create new space in this factory unless you take it offline, retool it with materials from china but then you can't see the war effort or you take the part of your factories that are for exports and then you lose that market share or the parts of your factory that are dedicated right now to repairing not even new builds so there's all the structural things cooked in and why they cannot turn crank with

the exception of sam's area of expertise which is drones where they are making new investments so m we are seeing this very dramatic increase and n those kind of capabilities. i also see a lot of labor challenges for them in the defense industrial base and one of the things that i think is an interesting data point is that russia's defense industrial base is almost exclusively male and that's because women prohibited by russian law or soviet law before it working in careers because it's considered harmful tyto fertility. metals, you can't be a welder or working with petro chemicals, you can't do certain things that are related to jet fuel or anything like that, so i think about these choices that that they are making and not making m and it's just like how they solved manpower problem. we don't want to mobilize unless

we have to like we did once but we would prefer to offer expensive social benefits and entitlements and money and we will recruit directly from violent felons and that's fine because that's more stability, we like that, we will go with that, we will run that to the ground and almost like they are making the same choices in the industrial base, they are not sinking money at this time to enforcibly converting multiple civilian factories into defense firms. they're not -- they're not fully moving the economy into a wartime setting. they are moving along. they are partially but they haven't compelled labor. they haven't changed those laws to bring in more women, russian women, i guess, they're okay. sam would know they are recruiting women from abroad to populate the drone factories. so i look at this in the context of the choices they are making on the battlefield and the context they are making with the defense base and it seems to me at least for right now that there's -- they're willing to --

to press and crank to a certain point and i think it'll be really important for all of us who are watching closely what they decide to do with the next state armment programs and here is defense minister that we are talkingg about having that, this is a program come out at the beginning of next year and it will last until 2034. we will see if that's still on track and whether the team will make changes but that i think, that new plan will be revealing for what they do next. >> yeah, it's really interesting comments because i think we sort of going on about how we haven't too old up for wartime economy and with the presumption that has russia has and still facing these similar dilemmas of do you convert civilian industries, do you change kind of socially how your society is structured and they are not making crucial

decisions in part, sometimes you engage in a war that a country engages and they always hope it's short and it's always hard to plan for something to be extended. sam, i want to maybe ask for your thoughts on derrick's comments and how you kind of see some of the challenges perhaps to the russian defense industrial rampup. >> i think she outlined a lot of very important trends which are facing the russian defense but i would also like to add that russian defense sector and the russian government in general today are headed by relatively competent bureaucrats and we have the fact that we talk about russian defense sector and it's performance in the war because it's a lot of the competent bureaucrats that stand behind not just russia's economic performance but also military performance and all the

acquisition procurement and weapons development. russia has new defense minister. he doesn't have any specific connections to the military and didn't actually serve so he has battle to maintain russia's pressure to ukraine as well as continue acquiring and developing weapons, so what's interesting is what actually happened our report has come out and that is russian president has asked this new defense minister with opening up the ministry of defense to rapid innovation, scaling up innovation and possible cooperation with nonmilitary civilian efforts which are so uninstrumental, for example, when it comes to acquisition of uae's in this war. it's important to consider how the new defense minister and his entourage are going to perform when it comes to maintaining the

pace and getting systems out to the field and streamline to a much faster ability to get weapons and systems into the field. it's an uphill battle. it is a massive bureaucracy and that too has to be factored into this equation. so it is really a mix, on wasn't hand competent people moving to positions of power and they have to deal with massive machine which is very slow to move and very slow to adapt and so darrell was right to identify some of the problems which are facing the defense sector especially when it comes to acquiring additional labor and at the same time we have to consider that russia doesn't necessarily have too do things t 100%. older weapons and system is 80% solution and that is good enough

and this is what russia is experiencing right now. its weapons and tactics are good enough to keep pressure in ukraine and maintain pressure no n2024 rand beyond. this has to be considered as well. >> let me follow up on drones specifically. challenging areas for perhaps a very bureaucratic defense central complex because of how sort dynamic war has been and constantly evolving. how -- how -- what lessons do you take from russia's drone production. is this all of them sort of buying uranium and found ways to crack down on production and real issues when it comes to drone and have they shown an ability to evolve and adapt? >> russian military has been adaptable in fielding mid-range to long-range uav's such a

iranian provided flying under russian name and redeveloping some of the systems into more capable and more numerous uav's but when it comes to tactical uav's, russian military and most militaries around the world were completely on repair for impact of tactical uav systems such as those that have to operate at a very short distance and this is where civilian technologies almost at 100% capacity. those are purchased from china directly. and so it's a mixfor the russian military whenly it comes to analyzing its performance, on the one hand relatively stable development and fielding of military grade uav's especially those intelligence surveillance,

on the other hand, relies on some of the civilian efforts. as i mentioned, newly appointed belarus of opening up defense ministry to innovation is probably concerns some of the lessons learned already with using tactical uav systems, all of those rely in a very large parton imported components, chinese components almost at 100% capacity. russia claims it's substituting some of those components, domestically but it is far from achieving a full independence from china and that, f of course, goes for ukraine as well. there's no substitute for dgi drone and no substitute for quick and cheap assembly from drones from readily available chinese components and so russian government actually tasks its defense industrial complex to come up with solutions to rely less and less on china but that's a long

process and it's a long-term process and difficult processe and during war it becomes more difficult. let me follow on with a couple of other systems that we are sering employed in the war with impacts and both the russian use of glide bombs as well as missile strikes against in particular ukraine's energy infrastructure, i was in ukraine in early april and that was folks from the ukrainian minister of energy and the challenges are incredibly

significant, in fact, probably the experts on the impacts of russian missiles and drones are actually energy folks in ukraina who were able to rebuild energy and protect energy infrastructure but it does seem that the war has shifted from being in so ways a ground war to russia having more impact, more effects with its air force and i'm curious how much of that is tied to kind of defense industrial production. >> talk about the glide bombs, they are a huge problem for ukrainian forces operating positions on the grounds, command posts, cities, villages, they're all being impacted. and glide bombs dumb bombs that attach a kit to it, fan, it can

then glide to its target somewhat -- in somewhat precise manner but not as accurate as we would consider some of our ammunition. >> that's right. the rate in which the russians have used this has really gone up quite sharply in the last nine months in particular. it's a really big problem because as far as i can tell, they are coming from bases that are very difficult for thero ukrainians to range or they don't have the authority to use weapons they that's they do have to attack russian airfield with the exception a few in crimea, ongoing challenge and expensive and prohibitive to strike russian aircraft where they'll airborne to do this. it's much easier to get them while they are preparing or they just returned. that's one issue. the energy grid is another, i think president zelenskyy said a month ago that they're down to 50% capacity and they are trying to fix this as quickly as possible before the winter, the russians have been shipping away

at this since september of 2022 and they continue to do it, it's pretty methodical if you look at the strikes that just happened in the last few days, they are again targeting electricity and you can't factories that are populating, excuse me, supplying power to your defense industrial base, so many follow-on effects to this if we are talking about the defense industry, follow-on effects in terms of civiliansre like kharkiv. this is part of russian strategy. this is cook intoed the ten, it's -- it's make life so unconferrable for civilians that it's just not really livable. they become refugees and pushes the chaos to europe at least that's the design or puts pressure and that's where we are at right now. in the beginning it wasn't very effective because russia did not have drones that are supplementing these attacks on ukraine energy grid, now they

have both. and we have seen strike patterns become more complex complicatedn it's a cat and mouse game and the cycles are getting fast and tight right now so we are seeing adaptation in realtime. >> everyone in ukraine gets an alert that says take cover and if that's happening continuously it can be hard for people to get, maria, sam, how much is this contributing, is this the russian defense industry ramping up chinese parts and components, allowing their kind of missile production to ramp up where russia can use these, you know, expensive missiles for targeting energy infrastructure as opposed to, you know, battlefield effects? >> i will just quickly jump in but given the statistics which is really terrifying given by

zelenskyy who said that about 80% of thermal power generation instead of powered generation destroyed by in ukraine by this russian strikes, team in june and that gives the general picture and obviously my own friends in ukraine they just, every time they seem without light and demonstrate how bad the situation is even if we have to recommend ukraine for adjustment. they do provide private generators. and i'm sure some will be more qualified to comment but in general one is -- have been pointing out, one of the key elements of russian effective targets is the so-called ammunitions kill chains, drone chains that are various types of drones, some of them commercial,

actually imported directly from china, you can purchase them on amazon-like and each of them have their own different purpose, one of them identifies targets and then another targets the school and seems efficient. for russia and for all -- for all of the lack russian civil society, on the russian side ended up being quite successful in supplying those drones. according to ukrainian data, drones, 300,000 per month. that's all the volunteer effort on the ground unfortunately. >> sam, over to you. >> and i would agree with maria's assessment, one of the

more interesting aspects of dealing with numbers is that both sides are using the same language when describing the other side's language tactical drone use and tactical drone numbers. i think what's come to light after we release our report and we do rely on ukrainian numbers and ukrainian assessments is that even if the russian civilian society is capable of manufacturing the staggering number of drones, only a small fraction of them is going to be used in combat. a lot of them are going to suffer from poor quality, they are not going to fly out of the box right away, some of them will fly several kilometers and crash, massive amount of warfare on both sides with ukrainian and russian forces jamming everything thatt flies including own uav's and lots of countermeasures and ability to fly drones for both sides by the number of pilots and so russian

civil society right now is stepping up in a completely unprecedented effort to train thousands of fte pilots,. sometimes with state and regional financing but again mostly on people's own dime and so the large number of drones manufactured comes down to a o much smaller number actually fielded but that number could be several thousands of tens of thousands of drones used monthly is enough to maintain what we are seeing inre the field and movement and games and territory are incremental but we have to acknowledge the unprecedented involvement by civil society, lots of volunteers and start-ups some of which have become relatively mature efforts which have been sanctioned by the united states as they are capable of mobilizing society and people across the country and many cities there are

capable of delivering supplies, they are delivering of assembling and buying and purchasing, vehicles, cars a servele medical kits, clothing and everything that the soldiers need, in fact, on russian telegram channels there are daily pleas for very specific set of equipment which almost always includes medical supplies and chinese made helicopters and adds to russian defense industry to manufacture larger and morege expensive systems which are also fielded and so what we have towards the end of the report is this recognition that a combination of commercial components as well as military components are adding to do strengthening the russian military overall. >> let me turn to the shake-up of the russian defense ministry. so sergey is out and there's a

new defense minister andre with a finance economic background, this has sort of been seen as essentially russia now really focusing on defense industrial production preparing for a long war and other interpretations have highlighted that well, maybe, this is a shake-up that things aren't going so well and another interpretation as well, the beginning of -- we putin just won an election, quote, unquote an election, the beginning of a new time, logical time in that sense to start with -- with a new team. what do you make of the transition, shake-up, whatever you want to call it at the russian defense ministry and what do you think this pretends for the future of the war effort? >> well, i learned a lot about their motivations for how they ondo things and so it's importat to give a brief little history

here of sergey and putin. they are close friends, friends that have barbecues, they are very close. but sergey has a lot of enemies and extend to the defense industrial base and powerful oligarchs that putin also listens to and even annoyance within the military bloggers sphere isha quite intense at tie ores military itself. so i view how they moved him as a recognition by the kremlin that you know what, this isn't -- this isn't working out anymore, but he's my good friend and he's been very loyal to me, i can still use him and so he was given a very good position, he's now replaced perticev. initially i had pleasurebacks to sergocov until he was deposed for corruption. he was also an outsider from a financial background.

he was brought in along with makara to initiate comprehensive report, to break a lot of china and break it quickly and he was empower today do this by the kremlin, completely top toop bottom and starting new procurement program, a lot of new trainings for the personnel. he made enemies quickly, but he also would fire people, once he got too close to the money, investigating corruption schemes and he was involved in his own corruption screams that's when he ran into trouble and there was dramatic on russian tv his house getting raided and there were bags of money and this whole sort of business. i don't think that'sni actually the right read.

bilusev is an outsider, economic mind, not a bureaucrat that understood everything that's going to happen underneath him within the general staff and some of his people who report to him, he's not an outsider. he's been in moscow for a long time. inheriting a structure resistent to people looking to financial flows. so i -- i dent -- don't think he's going to do very well. he will do very well to a point and start to dig in their heels because there are long-standing relationships between the people in ministry defense and some start yanking onne those chains and investigating the money, that's when problems will

happen. so this is going to be interesting experiment, his personality i don't know particularly well but people whm worked with him in the past he's a crooky economist and i'm trying to figure out how that leadership style is going to make sense for the ministry, ministry of defense, we will see what he does with the state armment, you to have the money lined up for it so that'll be -- that's be the first thing so we will see how he does. >> sam, i want to bring you in. what do you -- what do you think of derrick's comments and has he said of on what is planning on doing or we are going to wait for the long-term russian armment program.

>> trying to get the civilian base plugged in to ross tech who doesn't want to give up market share because they are, you know, 20-year gig with group x and they don't want to bring in new. i mean, i hear what he's saying and the right thing to say but the structural nitty gritty with where the deals are made, i don't know. >> sam, over to you. >> i agree with darrell. belarusa is not -- the soldier to the ground to junior to mid-level commander who are blaming the military corruption on lack of weapons, lack of systems, lack of preparation and just overall state of affairs belarus comes in as someone who can salvage the situation. but, again, as dera pointed out he's going to be dealing with massive machinery that's resistant to change. innovation presents itself as an opportunity for him. he's known to be speaking truth

to power, one of his more famous video clips comes from a few years ago where he's talking to putin and is actually saying that russia -- russian uav sector, russian drone development depends on important components up to 95 or so percent and president putin acknowledges and wants something to be done. that was then and this is now. the administrative defense and the position of the defense minister is an extraordinarily high-profile position, all eyes will be on him and he's got very little room to make mistake. as dera also said he will be careful as to how select certain projects and apply himself but, yes, he would have to deal with dominance of most minister of defense procurement, he would have to deal with other massive enterprises which are doing

their own thing for years and do not necessarily want to change. one of the more interesting elements from this warar is how quickly russian soldiers were capable adapting to technology provided by volunteers and start-ups. on the small scale with different units having different levels of success but they are capable of adapting them including not just on air vehicles but ground vehicles and massive programs to build out different time intelligence reconnaissance and many other enterprises, so again, it's unclear what he's going to do. he knows all eyes are on him, hh knows he's the center of attention so he will bews carefl in what kind of boat he choses to rock. >> maria, you're a long-time reader of the tealeaves when it comes to the russian elite.

what do you make of -- of the shake-up that we have just seen in the russian defense ministry? >> well, i definitely agree with the comments of our participants especially the fact that the shake-up certainly is an adjustment, an effort to fight corruption is really is one of the regional scenes to have so-called russian military and we understand because putin as well is a a problem and i thinki agree that those interesting appointment, it looks fairly smart, it also looks like adaptation and the preparation for long-term, right, this is the person who may not be extremely creative innovative but it's somebody who probably has not been corrupt and delivering on the government orders so to speak. at least the way i read this appointment. i also wanted to bring interesting development and i work a lot these days -- in

contemporary russian elites and one thing -- one particular point that is straightforward after the last wave of appointments is this family nature of these appointments. right, we see increasing number of the elite kits so to speak, daughter, but more recently, with regards to the defense ministry specifically ana, putin's niece has been appointed deputy defense minister. it remains to be seen how they will deliver but to me what it says is that first of all, there is deliberate effort to make the system beyond just putin, right, we don't know who is going to be the next successor and probably a while until somebody is going to really be -- putin is not

going anywhere. but there is an effort to make the sustainable long term by replacing all members with new comers who are also loyal and the loyalty is ensured by them longing to the right network, to the right family which means to me again as an investment the in the long-term future and whilees we think of these people as not being and i would say that these people extent meaning that they probably believe the same ideas, ideas that putin embraces and makes point to incorporate into the system, the system gets used to them and they get yous todaye the system and it's reproducible over the long term and so-called -- probably quite hard for new comers to breakthrough except --

unless you are likely to be putin's guard at some point as example has demonstrated. in the footsteps of the soviet union and collapse but difference as some pointed out remarkable adaptability and now it's market economy and we have despite vast targeted number of sanctions that were specifically at undermining the foundations tof the system unfortunately tht the adaptation was quite successful. so we have essentially new emergent with much more adaptable soviet union which unfortunately think will constitute as sustainedit long-term threat to the west. >> nepotism doesn't seem like a great way to run a government. here use to your reaction,

putin's alleged niece being appointed as minister, doesn't strike me as best appointment. also i could see a lot of pushback within the ministry of defense and -- and, you know, the bureaucracy and the defense industrial complex. i'm curious what is your take on this. she's there to act as the resident minder for any changes that might be happening or grum gumbling. >> one year ago, coup attempt. >> her appointment to me in particular is interesting, putin has looked out for her and her husband for decades. i think they were given ownership of a coal mine, prettv

lucrative financially, she had a psychology degree from late 80's and early 90's and appointed to run defenders of the fatherland fund which is a new organization created since the start of the war that is allegedly to help russian veterans get their benefits and reintegrate back into society. that's what it is nominally supposed tont do. the efficacy of the organization, it wasn't particularly well fund today do that -- humongous task. internationally to understand the challenges ptsd and all of this and then they put her in charge and it changed tone pretty much immediately to a lot of sporting events for military

families which is -- which is important, i'm not downplaying that, but it became more of a tshow in some regions, some regions it's effective and some regions it's not based on the people that are working there. for her to be elevate today deputy defense position also nominally looking at social services to me is an important signal because russia whether they want to admit it or not they have a significant social problem coming home when the men are demobilized. by putting the niece on the job is a signal to everyone else like, this is important, it's also job for a family. they could have put her in another job and integrate veterans and make sure they don't come home at all or put them inne africa.

>> any thoughts on that before we turn gears? >> i don't know enough about her but one of the -- flow replacement and so there's a new generation of bureaucrats coming in at the highest leverages of power and her appointment represents part of that trend, apart of that is wait and see right now. >> well, let's turn to north korea. we talked about it briefly to kick off the conversation. putin just start trip, seemingly throwing out the window a century, half a century of russian action on -- on nuclear

nonproliferation and -- and really sort of engaging with north korea in away that we k haven't seen in a very long time. what does this say of the russian war effort? is russia just sort of desperate to get more artillery? is this the user going to his dealer and needing to get another re-up? how do you all sort of perceive of this visit and what implications do you take from it for russia's war effort? dera, let me start with you and go to sam and maria. >> quite an interesting trip. a lot of stalin, uncle stalin vibes from how they presented that but on the serious level, putin's poker face is much o better than joyce's poker face,

his poker face was very poor. didn't want to be there but he did what he had to do to get the artillery when it was needed and it was needed and the rate is high, failure rate anywhere i heard 25%, 50% of north korean artillery shells don't properly or don't fire at all. ich had the opportunity to help the washington post just today as the story came out about all of the shipments that are still ongoing from north korea into russia, their explosive cargo, that's all we know. they are marked explosives, one of the most dangerous categories and they are shipping them across russia to their depos, artillery to rockets, missiles and everything. all across they are dropping them off so it's not just artillery, there's other components probably going in as well. russia has very few partners,

north korea is one of them, congratulations, i guess. >> one of the things -- i think someone on twitter showed putin's posture when he was meeting with luca shanko, meeting in north korea, and forward leaning, not slouched back. what is your take on what this means for -- what this says about russia's current ongoing military efforts? are they, you know, looking at potential shortages of artillery? there's been a lot of focus on the u.s. and europe to match russia's, how do you -- what -- what takeaways do you have from this -- from this visit? >> well, ultimate survivor in the sanction's game and it's been avoiding sanctions for many decades. he was able to maintain its military and even redevelop and upgrade some of its older systems into new fighting systems and i think thatht experience is highly sought

after by russia and i believe russia and iran had a special meeting for their business people andal iran basically said that russiand doesn't have to relearn how to avoid sanctions and can use experience. i think the same could be said to north korea, russia can learn a lot about sanctions and few available partners to actually get what it means. after all north korea survival is secured by china and handful of other states. highly important for russia, apart, of course the fact that north korea military is actually legacy soviet military systems so the whole copy-paste principle applies. >> does this mean essentially that russia's first and only

priority right now is just it's war effort and that has become front and center andar front of mind for everything that is sort of guiding how russia engages globally? >> well, the war effort, yes, but against whom, that's the question? we tend to focus on the dynamic between russia and ukraine for understandable reasons but i think military alliance between russian and north korea based on the document that they signed, immediate military assistance guaranties that actually goes beyond just that, to me russia is really responding to western assistance to ukraine by saying, hey, he's supporting the country that fortunate me and i'm going to do the same and create problems to the country that's important to you which is south korea and that's one of the reasons why this particular trip has attracted a lot of western attention and a lot of concern because essentially we see this as attempted effort to build

this counterbalance, support for ukraine by creating this alternative alliance of the rock state, if youou will, where it goes beyond ammunition supply. we know that also north korea is sending short-range ballistic missiles which have been identified on the ground in ukraine, there's labor assistance because if they have issue in russia these days so north korea labor has been sent to russia and on top of that there's also -- also korean site. this is going to be some major deal breaker and i doubt given that north korea has probably quite limited resources but it's clear that putin is off to some long-term counterbalancing of the west and he will not lose an opportunity to create as many trouble as possible. >> encouraging listeners, viewers, sorry, to look at some of what our colleagues richard

shaw, one of the experts of north korea has done a lot of work and analysis on this and he sort of highlighted the potential for this to boomerang in a negatively for russia, positive way for the u.s. and south korea and japan and really cementing our relationship in that tri lateral bond as well as south korea and potentially doing more to support ukraine which is something that they perhaps indicated. >> ly quickly jump in, one of the ways thatui this can backfie is china because it's not clear whether china is pleased with the increase collaboration between russian and north korea, it's kept in the loop, i guess we will wait and see. >> okay, so we've done -- we have after an hour left. russian defense industry. i want to turn to maybe the level set on where we are in this war and then what we perhaps see or assessing from both ukrainian defense industry and our own defense industrial

production as well as europe. is proukraine site matching some of what we are seeing on the russian side. we have highlighting how russian is gearing up and responding but maybe we can look at ourselves and ukraine and how we see that ukraine is responding. we will start first on ukraine and the second half of the conversation, we will spend a few minutes there and go and look at where do we think the war is headed and what are some of the challenges ahead. maybe i can start with you, how is ukraine responding to dynamic? they're pummeling ukrainian civilian infrastructure. talk a little bit about that and how you see the current state of where we are in the conflict right now end of june, how does the russian offensive work out

and what does that say about where the war will go, lots of questions. >> yeah. large questions. >> ukrainian defense industrial base they have their own advantages and disadvantages. i think where the ukrainians excel is innovation and adaptation at lower levels, recognizing that there may be a problem with the center's ability to provide and so you need to develop on the ground networks and on the ground solutions and mover quickly on it andnd disseminate it. the ukrainian system is much more tolerant of that like recognizing that there is grassroots development r&d going on, things being communicated between units that don't necessarily force everything to go up in this vertical and then take time to matriculate down, so i think that's the big advantage but like so many things in ukraine they are still inheriting soviet system of the defense central base and some regulations that are cumbersome

and take a lot of time and are not efficient at all and so much red tape to get there from concept development to actually fielding in the hands of soldiers so there's a bit of tension between the official defense industrial base and the civilian organizations and the civilian -- private defense industrial firms that are trying to create solutions, reach out to international partners and get deals signed and having to run it through so i see some of the push and pull between the soviet kind of past and wanting to have a western outlook and western approach, very hard to do while you're in the middle of a war like this and especially this is just a real challenge for them, the russians from the start of the war continuously, they've gone after large

factories, little individual workshops now, so it's just a very, it's very dangerous, there's no sanctuary in ukraine if russia detects a drone manufacturing organization and has the resources and the targeting lock on it, they have the ability to do it. >> you can't just move these things around. >> they are trying to. it is incredible amount of work and other types of buildings which then you expose civilians to it if it's in the middle of the city, it's very complicated. very complicated in terms of disadvantage, russia has industrial defense and russians look at what is working on the ukrainian side and then they can bring it home faster and scale it up and then flip it around, the biggest challenge that i see

right now is the russian isr, intelligence reconnaissance strike, sorry, it's getting really, really tight and using drones and then having the ability to put like an ss26, srb within minutes -- >> advanced missiles. >> they are ballistic so they are quick. they are targeting anything from helicopters that are fueling up, they are able to target patriot, these are high-value targets that they keep tryingth to go after and are succeeding increasingly. >> so the targeting issue that we saw at the beginning to have campaign where it was like, oh, the russians see the target and can't strike the target as fast as we can and now they have shrunk this. >> they are really important to that. russia continues adapts its ew cycle and also i've suspect and

others suspect that they are somehow receiving commercial satellite imagery either provided to them by china or getting through shell companiesg from the west. ukrainians have noted this too where a site will bee imaged and then a couple of days later it's got a russian missile on it. hell companies to get that strategic isr problem? >> one the things we have seen is ukraine using its own indigenous drone production capabilities. particularly when at sea pushing back the russian black sea fleet. having the strategic effects i was in odesa the ceilings were open. there were ships coming through. also strikes on russian territory using ukrainian owned

develop technology. sam, is the focus of ukraine's defense industry is it drones? is that where they are really putting their effort? they are hoping to get you to loosen other systems. but the strike that is what they're going to do themselves. are they creating a division of labor? >> is definitely one of their major efforts but we see how successful they have been with striking so many russia of long-range aerial drones that can strike up to 1500 kilometers in sight russia which but most of russia's population infrastructure industry well within the reach of drones are maritime drones which have indicated their quite successful going after the russian fleet. that is not the only concentration in the ukrainian defense industry. they've been on the cutting edge

against russian drones and missiles. it is not just drones but atomic warfare, reconnaissance, development of different types of kinetic systems to shoot down drones. systems to design from both older cohort designs with some of the newer designs that are high tech know-how into the control systems and information. and data analysis systems and information sharing systems to enable all of these different military points to identify targets and to strike targets. in many ways the ukrainians are ahead of the entire world and that. it gives a run for its money to be more established military men in the world. >> back to the big broad question i asked a little bit ago. where do you see the current

state of the russian offensive? i ask this because now it's almost two months or roughly two months on from u.s. passing. it's supplemental assistance. it was very clear ukraine was holding on by its fingernails. but now, correct me if i am wrong here, eight is flowing it does not feel like russian advances on the ground have resulted in much more they may be a few tactical kilometers here and there. yet russia is throwing a lot out this. a lot at ukraine. did russia miss it's a moment? and then what does that say the current state of the war putin has to go to north korea to rip a supply? have the winds of the war shifted in ukraine's direction because of u.s. assistance? how do you see the current state

in the role of western aid right now? lex had two challenges that were urgent. one, needed supplemental needed weapons asap. they have that now it's flowing in and paid the other issue that is not been resolved as manpower and ukrainian unit. the ukrainians are aware of this problem. there is not a large enough immobilization. the changes on the margin that look into recruiting prisoners. they are aware of it and trying to fix it and pushing anything toward a deeply unpopular mobilization. they are not doing that. we passed that worst of in terms of the weapon scarcity issue. that is what is him blunting a rush it right now. they have created a pretty sizable salient they are reinforcing and it is very clear

at their best units for the putting most of their effort. i think they want to keep pushing a few critical roads are not far from his critical roads. to no combat experience. initially they had success, long story short that sector has been

reinforced and now it's stopped. to the question did russia miss a moment, well, it's been interesting for me to watch squander the advantages that were given to him by predecessor, mobilization of the economy with mobilization of the 300,000 troops, immediately committed them up and they licked their wounds and road out the ukrainian counteroffensive. this is what he is going to do. five attacks. it's his signature. so far they're able to calibrate the losses of the volunteers that they're getting, they're getting a certain amount each month and losing a certain amount, whatever the real numbers, 30,000 a month, i don't believe in. but in terms of the effects on the ground, they are calibrating tightly but this is why you see them not being able to push forward despite having all of

the advantages, despite having artillery advantages, despite the glide bombs and everything else. they are inflicting cuts on the ukrainian forces but they are not using their forces wisely, i'm not going to tell them how to do it but that's where they're at. >> so how do you things playing out on the front and maybe the role of western aid and its importance? >> i think it's important to knowledge that russia has capacity to wait out ukrainian capabilities and aid. has done so in 202020, 2023 and this year and can probably do the same next year as well. as well as the combination of military and civilian equipment to accomplish its many tactical goals, it is capable of doing so

simply because there's no acquisition to anything that's down at the highest levels, something that we have to acknowledge, if that this was work conducted by society in the west, everything would be different by now but in russia things are done from the top and there's no real resistance of any, way, shape and form to what the russian government wants and what the minister of defense is doing and so russia can continue to do the same and actually continue to gain territory and even to exert certain ukraine forces. western aid is extremely important in this scenario. ukraine has been able to hold back some of the russian attacks and advances by using aerial drones, for example, but even using those successful no substitute of using artillery shells, once aid arrives it

would give ukraine much needed ability, give them something to be stressed about at different parts of the front. we have to acknowledge once again that the ukrainian front is very large and forces are committed at different levels, meaning, there are different parts of the front that exhibit weaknesses on both sides and it's important to get western aid so it can continue with pressure and respond to russian counterattack with its ability -- >> i maybe want to down torn to where we see this war headed. marina, maybe i will start with you. but to pick up to the point that sam just mentioned about the kind of limited constraints on putin's ability to conduct war, high tolerance for casualties s

the russian support in the sense that we have credible casualty numbers, as you mentioned, though, the economy is running hot, you'll see a debate inside of russia that will really not debate is not the right way, angst that may develop with all the money in the defense industry but challenges on the social side. curious how you see russia the kind of russian public, for russian elite, long-term support particularly if there's no, there are gains but no sort of, you know, structural strategic gains after another year of fight if we enter 2025 and kind of a similar place. >> great question and i'm afraid we are learning about the russian society as the one --

our expectation and forecast as we see the responses to have russian society to this star, particularly at the start of the war many expected that we will see some sort of advance dynamic where the accumulation of losses of the casualties will eventually convert into some sort of social resistance on the ground but despite the fact that russian losses officially outnumber what the casualties by tenfold or more even, right, we are talking about 15,000 total in afghanistan, something like that. it still has not all convert today anything remotely close which suggests to me personally that the origin of the system most likely specified by analysts at the time in which the real origin to have problems came from the economic problems,

the fatigue with the system which then was triggered by the casualties and the war, loss in the system, right now we see something entirely different where as we -- some have pointed out the response of the russian make team to the war has actually resulted in quite unprecedented growth of the russian economy for now with the it's and i'm coming to that in a little bit and also actually the situation has improved dramatically specifically for regions which tend to be the losers in the putin system. we see military industry opens up and recruits more people in the regions traditional attempt to lag behind also the equipment was very quite successfully justed after the original edition which was not so popular, targeting, regions with

employment and people receive a lot of money in some instances enough to push -- so with this dynamic, you know, given the value of the human rights, life in russia, i would not expect social and there's more support for the war right now than it used to be several months ago, division of where things are going, but it also suggest that -- the regime in the economy,

probably, we have seen major crisis including the lapse happened after the -- so did the russian revenues. this is when we will see all of the dynamics that we have been discussing today crumbling including lack of investment in the military industry, lack of support for the society, payments to society, eventual losses in the battlefield which will definitely convert in decrease for support of the war but unfortunately we are nowhere near yet and want clear to take away from this is for us to try and do better in targeting russia revenues. >> yeah, no, targeting russian oil revenues is critical how is a big question, something that we will hopefully we will do work on. on the one hand if you want global oil prices, the united states is largest priers, you are trying to take off, it's 10%

of the global market share. tactical innovations that we should be looking out for in the next year, developments such as ai or in the drone space or is this going to be sort of back to basics with air power becoming a bigger player in the world. what are some of the things that you're looking out for in evolving battlefield or battle sea, battle face and air in the surviving landscape? >> well, i know russian side alooking at counteruas technology and there are a lot

of companies complaining they can't get the attention of the russian state like they want to develop something, we can implement it, so this is a priority effort for the russians and also for the ukrainians as well. in terms of game-changing technology, everybody is looking for the silver bullet, what's going to solve it, and there's not one. don't look to long-range attacks to solve the problem. it has to be -- it has to be a strategy. you to define what itsfectry look like and marshal your resources and actions in pursuit of that goal so i would like pretty soon for some kind of decision to be clarified on that point at least for the role that we play in town.

what can we expect moving forward through tend of this year and early into next, russia is starting to emphasize recovery of vehicles on the ball field. maybe that will change now that ukraine has more artillery shells but they are starting to realize that this is not an aninfinite and your report highlights t only 20% new build. maybe 75 to 80%, they do commit to a permanent change and they start building new factories and they really make that permanent investment to reconstitute the force as quickly as possible and pushing aside some of the

stability concerns that they have, we are not there yet but good to be vigilant. >> sam, over to you. >> the russian military is on the record for 3 distinct priorities involve involvement in ukraine. number one using artificial intelligence for data analysis and understanding the battlefield situation. number two, development of different types of uav's and aerial drones whether that includes using technologies from the civilian start-up community remains to be seen and finally, developing counterbattery fires, these are the 3 priorities that are actually we are seeing a lot of attention that aren't receiving funding but remains to be seen what russia's nearly large bureaucratic machine is going to implement that especially with a relatively former at the top of the entire

structure and they would be able to take control of the process which is are necessary to implement the technologies and initiatives into the larger military structure. >> let me ask finally about us a little bit in that whether our -- whether we are sort of ramping up our production enough and by us i mean the kind of ingeneral supporters of ukraine, u.s., europe, other countries around the world. the eu is actually meeting the end of this week, they are going to discuss something called euro bonds borrowing money, put the money to put down on contracts to ramp up certain production. they are unlikely to agree to that. but it strikes me that that's where we are still sort of falling short a bit on the kind of ramp-up, on the u.s. side the supplemental my understanding enables the 155-millimeter production of artillery, that's going to be ramping up. are we just sort of always lagging behind a bit where

russia is or are we lagging way far behind, how do you see this in terms of -- if we just project out that u.s. support and western support for ukraine will continue as is? >> we've ramped up a lot in terms of artillery rounds, we went from being dramatically far behind to still trailing but, you know, not equalizing but getting closer to it. and i think that's important. not just for us but for allies in europe as well, various german companies that have been particularly forward-leaning in this regard like ryan and what does it give us, ting russians would like nothing more to convince us that the only way to fight the war and have it not being escalitory, there's an entire style of war that the united states hone and improved and made pretty great and we are not using those capabilities

because they are escalatory. i challenge not to let the russians channelize you, yeah, to your larger question, though, i would say there's a few areas that they should be a wake-up call two years ago and still is not with respect to air defenses, we have global shortage of them. patriot is a very good system. there are not enough patriots, we are talking about asking for intercepters from allies and partners to keep feeding defenses for ukraine. this is a huge problem. it's a problem because the united states isn't particularly well defended neither is nato. these are some of our partners in asia demand the middle east, this is --

>> sam, final thoughts from you? >> i think we should be listening to ukrainians a lot more. i think ukrainians know what they need and want. ukraines have been studying the russian threat very directly and they actually have very important lessons learned for militaries in the united states and so actually absorbing a lot of that knowledge into our structure, into our acquisition, developing pipelines is going to be important to go forward. >> great, well, i want to thank you all, we are going to have to leave it, we are at time. but i think it's been a fascinating conversation again. i want to highlight the paper. it's back in stock, the state of russia's defenses industry after two years of the war, credit to my coauthors, nick and, of course, sam, you can get it online at our website, you can

find everything that dera is putting out. sam thanks for joining us from florida, maria as always. if you like this conversation also please take out your phone and where -- you listen to your podcast bring up that app and subscribe to the russian roulette where we focus on topics like this. you can check out the staff podcast where we look at a lot of the issues involving european union and nato, nato summit coming up and we will be incredibly steaming in hot washington in a few weeks. we will be doing lots of coverage on the russian roulette for that. thank you so much for tuning in.