The Donbas battle

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: The ongoing struggle to fend off Russia’s invasion in Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed Monday that Russia now controls the “vast majority” of Sievierodonetsk. That is—or was—a city of 100,000 people in eastern Ukraine. That represents Russia’s latest victory in its focused offensive aimed at taking full control of the Donbas region.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: So what would it take for Ukraine to repel Russian forces in the Donbas region and beyond?

Here to help answer that question and others is Brent Sadler. He is a retired U.S. Navy Captain and a former senior Defense Department official. Among other roles, he served as Director Maritime Strategy and Policy with U.S. Pacific Command.

REICHARD: Captain Sadler, good morning!

SADLER: Hello! Nice to meet you.

REICHARD: President Zelenskyy this week again called on the west to supply weapons to Ukraine more quickly as Russia presses its offensive in the east.

What does the West need to provide more of right now? And what are Western nations not currently providing that they should?

SADLER: Great question. I think what’s happening right now on the front lines in the Donbas in southern Ukraine is turning into a slow moving war of attrition. And what needs to be most critically sustained is the munitions, small arms, like the machine guns and handguns that the Ukrainian forces are using, but also mortars and artillery rounds. And because they're using those at a very high rate, defending against a very slow moving but persistent Russian onslaught. As far as new weapons, there's really nothing at this stage that's going to create a strategic, rapidly changing strategic outcome of this war. It's probably going to still be slow moving. But that being said, there are longer range weapons, notably anti-ship weapons, and perhaps even mines designed to go after submarines that could open up the waterways in the south, so that Ukraine can regain its economic trade and in grain and fertilizers that the world needs. And to push back the Russian forces there. That'll help them stay in the fight for the long term.

REICHARD: Captain, you wrote an entire piece on this, but I’ll ask you to summarize it. You wrote that Raising the Cost for Russia’s Naval Blockade Can Avert a Prolonged War. How so?

SADLER: Well, Russia’s been blockading Ukraine, I think, with the intent to strangle them economically and the ability to isolate them. If Ukraine can complicate that, then that allows Ukraine to maintain its economic connections overseas, its ability to buy equipment and resupply its forces over the sea, where 70% of its trade was conducted before this war. Of course, they can bring in weapons and munitions across the border, but having a viable economy, especially as this war drags on, from months into perhaps even more years, I mean, that really this started in 2014. But if this offensive right now is to stretch on into years, they need to have a viable economy. So if you can stymie the Russians’ ability to strangle Ukraine's markets, their economy, that just accelerates the isolation and their inability to maintain their forces on the frontline.

REICHARD: We hear a lot about the ground war in Ukraine, but talk a little bit more about the rule of naval warfare in thisconflict. What can you tell us about that?

SADLER: It’s largely been a secondary aspect of the war. This is mostly a ground war. But yet it still has the ability to have a significant failure like the Russians’ loss of their flagship—the Moskva cruiser—to have significant loss of face. The Russians also are devoting a large amount of naval forces to conduct bombardments. Their submarines right now are safer, so they're launching cruise missiles to conduct long range attacks into the western part of Ukraine. That allows them not to have to send aircraft into or closer to Ukrainian airspace, which is something the Russian Air Force is still very hesitant to do.

REICHARD: Captain, you also served as a military diplomat in Asia. As you know, many Asian countries are bypassing tough Western sanctions, continuing to do business with Russia. That, of course, undermines the pressure the West is trying to apply. What, if anything, can the United States and its allies do about that?

SADLER: Well, China has been resignaling, with Chinese characteristics, Russian propaganda pretty much throughout Southeast Asia, South Asia, Africa, and Latin America uncontested or at least not challenged in an effective manner. So that would be the first thing is to try to get into and speak the language of those regions, of those locals, and to contest that narrative because once you start doing that the seniors will start to take notice. And you might actually see more support for sanctions. And that's something that has to accrue over the long term. It's too late to have an immediate effect. But you've got to play, if you're going to have any hope of having an impact. And we're coming late to that game.

REICHARD: This invasion has not gone as well as Putin envisioned. He’s had to scale back his ambitions. What’s his endgame now? What is he trying to accomplish?

SADLER: I still think his focus is the complete subjugation of Ukraine. That doesn’t mean he has to occupy the whole country. Now, that's not a goal that he's going to achieve in the next year or two. But that's still the longer term goal and the history in that region with Russia going back to Imperial Russia is they fought 10 wars over a period of 100 years with the Ottoman Empire then the Turks to basically conquer Crimea—what's Ukraine today—and they went as far south as the border in Bulgaria at one point. So I can see them taking little pieces over a period of time and take their time about it. He took too much, or he tried to take too big of a bite in February, and he learned his lesson and so he re-adjusted his plan. So back to, I think, traditional Russian incremental aggression.

REICHARD: Brent Sadler is a Senior Fellow for Naval Warfare and Advanced Technology at the Heritage Foundation. Captain, thanks so much for your time!

SADLER: Thank you very much for having me.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.