Cipher Brief exclusive: Former six-time CIA station chief Ralph Goff details the status of the frontlines in Ukraine and where Kyiv needs the most help from its allies.
EXPERT Q&A — The Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace this week underscores how far Russia is from the negotiating table and agreeing to a just, sustainable peace in Ukraine. Ralph Goff, a former six-time CIA station chief, got an on-the-ground account of this reality in Ukraine, telling The Cipher Brief about the meat-grinder tactics of Russia, and how Ukraine is relying on technology to defend against this.
Cipher Brief CEO and Publisher Suzanne Kelly spoke with Goff live from Ukraine, for insights into how Ukraine is faring with the battlefield reality of today, and why increased Western support is desperately needed. Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
The Cipher Brief: The Russian drone incursion into Poland activated NATO, with the EU responding as well. What’s your take on this through an intelligence filter?
Goff: The flight of anywhere between 19 and 23 Russian drones over Poland - which the Russians claim either didn't happen, or was some sort of mistake, or the Ukrainians jammed their drones so they wandered over Polish airspace, yada-yada-yada. Excuse after excuse - It was a test. This is Vladimir Putin testing the waters after the Alaska Summit, after the last two weeks of back and forth with the European allies about where to go from here in efforts to get Russia to the negotiating table. This is absolutely vintage Vladimir Putin who - like any two-year-old child - is testing his parents' forbearance.
In this one, at least in my opinion, he may have made a big mistake. This is a violation of NATO airspace so Article 5 applies. The Poles have already invoked Article 4, which isn't much but it does mean that NATO allies gather and discuss the issue. [Ed note: Right after our interview with Goff, NATO announced Operation Eastern Sentry].
But at the same time, Putin's made a mistake because he's given NATO a gift. He's also given a gift to the Trump administration where they can react by establishing a no-fly zone over all of Ukraine or maybe a no-fly zone over the approaches to Poland, including into the airspace of Belarus by saying, "Hey, because these drones are a threat to airspace, we're taking them out before they even get here." So we'll see. I think this is a real acid test of the will of the NATO allies and the will of the Trump administration to show Vladimir Putin that he can't always have his way.
The Cipher Brief: You've been traveling with a small group of folks to some of the areas along the front lines in Ukraine. What does ground truth look like there?
Goff: What it looks like is the Russians are making slow gains, but they're advancing slower than the Western powers advanced during World War I. So it’s nothing to brag about, but it is a steady advance and it's something that the Ukrainians are having a problem dealing with.
The challenge to the Ukrainians - because they lack the manpower - is to kind of protect their manpower, try to save lives and try to husband their resources in terms of manpower. Whereas the Russians are just throwing men into it. I mean, one of the most horrifying things I heard all week was from a commander out in one of the battalions who said they are capturing Russian soldiers who, from the time they left their house - to the time they were in Ukrainian captivity - was just 12 days. Twelve days from the time they left home to the time they were captured.
The Cipher Brief: So there's no training anymore. There's no training or organization, really?
Goff: There's no training. They're basically giving them uniforms, sticking them on a bus or a train, sending them out to the front, giving them a weapon and sending them out to fight. 12 days. However, technology is making a difference.
Unfortunately, the ratio of casualties which was always very highly in favor of the Ukrainians, is beginning to shift. The Russians are making adjustments. Putin is reckless, but he's not stupid. So, we're seeing a situation where the Russian casualty rate is diminishing a bit and the Ukrainian casualty rate is staying the same, but it's still a net loss for Kyiv. Ukraine just doesn’t have the manpower to match Russia.
One of the areas where they're having problems is in what we call the ‘mid-range’, anywhere from 40 to 70 miles from the front lines. The Russians are dominating that space right now. They're able to bring their forces in, distribute them for their assaults and trickle down, and the Ukrainians just haven't had the means to strike them in that zone to break these formations up before they get closer to the front, where the Russians will send 50 guys knowing that in the end, maybe only two of them will be alive. But if those two guys have advanced 50 meters, that's a gain.
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The Cipher Brief: The Cipher Brief was there with you just a couple of months ago in May and there was a lot of talk then about how there was a ‘no-man buffer zone’ that had formed along the front because of this ubiquitous use of drone technology. No one could actually go into that space without being targeted and killed by drones. Can you give us a sense of what day-to-day life is like on the front lines right now?
Goff: The day that we visited at battalion headquarters on the front, it was pretty quiet. We were watching 40 or 50 drone feeds at any given time, and there wasn't much going on there, but that said, there are times when the front becomes active. And yes, it is a death zone, but again, the difference now is that the Russians are willing to take casualties, so they will send men into that death zone, whereas the Ukrainians are forced to respond.
Let's say you have five Ukrainians in a position they successfully defend, and they hold off the Russians. Let's say they kill 10 or 20 Russians. But if they lose two guys, they're down to three. The next assault of 50 guys eventually comes and it just wears them out. So it is a numbers game. And the Putin administration, for some bizarre reason, continues to be able to recruit and mobilize. Mostly it's economic because they're recruiting soldiers from the poorest regions of the former Soviet Union, now the Russian Federation. These guys are being offered recruitment bonuses and money that is millions of rubles, which is thousands of U.S. dollars in comparison, but it's money they never would have dreamed of having. Then a couple of days later, they're either dead or in Ukrainian captivity. It's bizarre.
The Cipher Brief: You've spent a lot of time in that region professionally, and of course you're a retired senior CIA officer so you've got a lot of knowledge about what happens in these areas. If you were writing a report back today, what would you say are the top opportunities and challenges for the Ukrainian troops who are fighting along the front right now?
Goff: The top opportunities are that, if you're fighting guys who 12 days ago were sitting at home and you've been fighting a war for two or three years, you have a huge advantage in terms of your experience and your abilities, so they have that.
The challenge though, is keeping those guys alive. So for us in the West, for the United States, for NATO, I think the key here is to provide weapons, ammunition, and a non-ending supply. It can't be like last year when the bill before Congress to supporting Ukraine was frozen for months. Finally, it passed, but at the last moment, literally, and Ukrainians were hanging on by their fingertips then. Literally, it was like the cavalry coming over the hill to protect against the last charge of the enemy. So we can't allow that to happen again. We've got to enable the Ukrainians to be properly equipped and properly armed, and that includes helping them solve the problem of the mid-range distance with the types of weapons that can strike out 40, 50, 60, 70 miles from the front.
The Cipher Brief: The criticism has always been that the U.S. has given Ukraine just enough not to lose, but never enough to win. Is there anything in the places that you visited or from the leaders that you talked to that surprised you?
Goff: No real surprises other than it's just surprising that their morale is still so high. You go to these frontline units and their morale is high. There is no one sitting around morosely. And then you go to cities like one we visited on the Black Sea, it was a lovely place, and people were on the beach. It's a little weird at first to see people hanging out on the beach like a normal beach day, but then you think, "Hey, look, this is their daily reality," right? We're marking the anniversary of 9/11 in Ukraine where one could argue that every day is 9/11.
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