Let's discuss the situation ian Ukraine and in a greater sense, the global diplomatic efforts to do something about it with doctor Jeff mccauslan, CBS News, military consultant, founder and CEO of Diamond six Leadership and Strategies, LLC, and Senior Fellow at Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership at the Naval Academy. Jeff, it's always a pleasure.
How are you, Joe, I'm doing very well. Pleasure to be with you.
Thank you. So it is absolutely self evident that this is a marathon and not a sprint. Can do you get any sense of what direction it's heading in? Is there a momentum on either side?
Well, it's totally seems to me that right now, I would rather talk about initiative in tempo, and I think initiative in tempo is on the Ukrainian side. Is there conducting a counter offensive, albeit one this movie more slowly than they would like than we would like, but still moving and at the same time the Russians are reacting to them, and that's what you want to happen in warfare. You want your opponent reaction to you, as opposed to the other way around. However, worrying to me is the
war also. I think in many ways it's escalating. It's escalating in terms of range and the locality of weapons,
it's escalating in terms of the geography. Now certainly the Black Sea has become a war zone, and it's escalating in many ways with the narrative, particularly on the Russian side, and the Ukrainians as well have begun their counter offensive not only against the land areas occupied by the Russians, but their counter offensive now includes drone strikes on the Russian capital Moscow, and they've done that several times over
the last couple of weeks. Now includes naval drones against Russian ships and the Black Sea, and the drone strikes against bridges connecting the territory Russian has occupied with Crimea. So I think an effort by the Ukrainians to isolate that.
But that war in the Black Sea, which is now unfolding after the Russians pulled out this big grain deal, really will reverberate across the planet, probably in arising grain prices which will affect a lot of poor countries, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, and potentially rising oil prices since oil is a major Russia is a major exporter of oil if in fact it slows that export coming out of those ports down there in the Black Sea and Sea Ivazo.
I want to get back to those trade questions in a minute, but before we do that, I think the drone attacks on the ships and the bridges are absolutely defensible and necessary in the rest of it. But I found myself wondering about the attacks on Moscow in particular, of the drone attacks, what effect do you think the Ukrainians are hoping to have and do you think they'll achieve their goals.
It's a little clearer though achieving their goal, But the goal I think certainly is psychological and political, as the Ukrainians many senior of Clanians think, including Zelenski, have said, you know, we're going to show the Russians that the war is coming to that they cannot be immune, they can't sit in coffee shops in Moscow and still continues to live their lives pretty quietly while this is happening in a far distant place. And I think so it's
more psychological than military. They're they're not going to destroy Moscow, They're not going to overwhelm Moscow. But it's bringing the war to the Russian people, who in many ways have largely been a meeting to the conflict, despite the fact that we know over two hundred thousand Russian casualties have been suffered in this conflict so far. And you know, it's interesting Joe, as a senior officer admitted the other day, was on a telegram I believe in it taken down
very quickly than in his division. About for every soldier who was for every soldier killed in action, only three were wounded, which is a pretty bad ratio. Doesn't say much about Russian medical support. Well, that's true that two hundred thousand casualies. Now the Russians have suffered seventy to seventy five thousand dead.
Wow. So my concern about the attacks on Moscow and trying to bring it home to the Russian people is that Putin's narrative from the beginning, which is ridiculous and false, is that this is a defensive war. We had to we were threatened. You know, NATO is closing in and we've got to denazify our neighbors, blah blah blah. I would think that, you know, the occasional cafe getting bombed in Moscow would actually reinforce that rhetoric that it's a defensive war.
Yeah. In any ways, that's why I said, you know, the rar is escalating in terms of the narrative, and that's part of that narrative that Putin is continuing to intensify. This is now an effort to destroy Russia. The very
existence of Russia's at stake. And so they do an awful lot to tie what's going on in Ukraine to the Great Patriotic War, which reverberates really too many Russians, and that course was World War Two, thirty thirty five thousand Soviet citizens dying in that particular conflict, in the glory of the Soviet military in driving back Nazis. That's why they paint the Ukrainians as being petically Nazis and fascist. So more as this conflict goes on and on and
he's not successful, I think he does a couple of things. One, more and more paint that narrative in those terms to try to maintain support, and second of all, more and more repression. You can't say too much in Russia about anything without being arrested and being accused of being against the Russian military, against the conflict, against the homeland, against Mother Russia, and those are themes that he is more and more employed.
Jeff mccauslin, CBS News, Military consultant on the line, Jeff, I'm not sure if you've been following the big diplomatic conference over the weekend. I guess about forty countries met
in Saudi Arabia to talk about the Ukrainian situation. Has anything come of that, or given what we were discussing before, the terrible food shortages in Africa that could well be caused by Russia cracking down on the great exports the energy markets around the world, is there any chance that these dozens of nations are going to join forces and put pressure on either or both sides to get to the table.
Well, let me try to. I still think they're going to be terribly successful. I think this demonstrates a couple of things. One, I think it demonstrates the Saudi Arabians once again trying to demonstrate that they are a global power, as they did when they opened up negotiations and relations with Iran, and so the Prince Prince Solomon trying to
demonstrate that he is actually a world player. Second of all, I think it shows that escalation geographically in terms of the reverberating or the widening effect of the war, particularly on those African countries which some may say our right famine if in fact those flu supplies are shut off
coming out of Russia and Ukraine. But I don't see there having a dramatic effect on the war, except for again to the narrative Krane was represented there them trying to convince more and more the countries to get off the fence and more and more isolate Russia as their hopes that might bring an end to a conflict. But again how they're going to do that is beyond me. In that I think that we see mister Putin doubling down the conflict, doing things to make it more and
more difficult for a soldier to avoid conscription. They've now expanded the draft to people in Russia up to the age of thirty. As a reservist you can be called back until you're seventy. So they're doing a number of things to expand the manpower, and based on just internal resources, it was seen to me that is clear mister Putin can carry this war on, probably for at least another year or two. And then, don't forget, he's facing re election in March next year, and so there's going to
be a constant drumbeat. I think of that narrative of us being under siege, which will urge people to vote for him, though the election will be fraudulent, and you know it's a foregone conclusion even before it begins.
Jeff McCausland of CBS News, Jeff, so so grateful for the insights, Thanks for the time, Thank you very much.
Bye,