Ukraine’s Apparent Strategy in Recent Incursion to Strengthen Its Hand in Future Negotiations: Geopo

And at least 14 people are dead today and 44 others injured from a Russian strike on a shopping mall in the town of Eastern and Eastern Donetsk. That's according to Ukrainian officials. This comes on the heels of Ukraine's surprise attack on Russia's Kursk region. Russia is now reportedly declaring a federal-level emergency and sending reinforcements. Joining me now to discuss the state of war in Ukraine is John Sitlidis, geopolitical strategist at Trilogy Advisors and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. John, thank you so much for joining us. Good to be with you, Steve. Thank you. It's great to have you, John. John, so if you could sort of break it down for us, how has Ukraine's recent unexpected incursion into Russia affected the balance of power, if you will, and the territorial control in the ongoing conflict? Keep in mind, first of all, this is just four days old. It's very early to tell what the long-term impacts, if any, are going to be. And I would say initially the strategic importance of this incursion, or one might more accurately say the first invasion of Russian territory since World War II, is not going to be significant in and of itself unless somehow Ukrainian armed forces are better able to break into Russian territory more deeply, perhaps take over a major gas metering station that connects the Russian pipelines through Ukraine into Europe, which of course could wreak havoc on European energy supplies going into the winter at the end of this year. And potentially the prize could be the Kursk nuclear power plant, which I think the Ukrainian forces might look to overtake in order to gain as much leverage as possible in a possible upcoming peace summit, perhaps the end of this year, or any negotiations with Russia in the months ahead. That was going to be my next question for you, John, is how might these developments sort of influence future negotiations with Russia and ultimately the overall trajectory of the conflict? It's going to be the critical issue going forward, I think, Steve, because it seems from right now, again, the last three or four days, and this is still very early, we're in the fog of war, there's major propaganda pushes coming out of both Moscow and Kyiv on this operation or this incursion. But it seems that the Ukrainian armed forces, from President Zelensky on down, made a decision to move armaments and fresh recruits, fresh soldiers over into this area, this soft, vulnerable area along the Russian-Ukrainian border, rather than hold up critical defenses in eastern Ukraine, where Russia is expected to be making major advances in the next several weeks, potentially into the fall. So it seems that the priority right now is to strengthen Ukraine's hand as much as possible, again, at a peace summit, or more importantly, because I doubt a summit will be the negotiating platform, whatever negotiations Russia and Ukraine decide to enter into, especially with, I think, increased American and European pressure on Zelensky to find some type of a negotiated settlement here. So I think it's going to be critical. The question is going to be, can Russia attack massively enough with reinforcements over the next several days to push Ukrainian forces back over the border, or can Ukraine successfully dig in, hold territory, and gain more leverage in any upcoming negotiations? John, what are you hearing when it comes to the resolve and the morale of both Russia and Ukraine, but more so Ukraine, seeing how they have taken more of the brunt of the impact of the war thus far? How could the outcome of the U.S. presidential election affect the conflict? The morale issue is critical, more so on the Ukrainian side, at least to date, than on the Russian side, although this could be a humiliating slap in the face to Putin. And we'll see, again, if this is an enduring incursion into Russian territory, it could weaken Putin's standing in terms of delivering stability, security, and geopolitical resurgence to the Russian people. But we know that the Ukrainian armed forces are suffering from a very, very rapidly declining morale. Again, keep in mind that the Ukrainian people and armed forces have been suffering under two and a half years of profound and brutal attritional warfare. Russia has a much larger army, much greater armed forces, and is able to produce artillery shells, rockets, and missiles far faster than Ukraine is able to procure them from the U.S. and from NATO. And our understanding is that many of the recent recruits are terrified of being sent to Donbas in eastern Ukraine, what they call the, quote-unquote, meat grinder of that particular part of Ukrainian territory right now. So this could also be a shot in the arm for Ukraine short term, depending on how much they can continue to humiliate Russia. So I think in many ways, this is more symbolic than strategic or substantive in terms of military gains. What happens with the U.S. presidential election, Steve, I don't really see much influence from the Ukrainian battlefield on the elections. But certainly, whether Donald Trump wins or Kamala Harris wins, I think will portend very different outcomes for the war. Johnson, ladies, really appreciate your perspective on this. Thank you. Thank you for having me.