Putin Will Not Stop Until He Is Stopped

Ukraine is not fighting Russia. It is fighting an Axis, Russian soldiers, Chinese electronics and technology, Iranian drones, and North Korean troops on European soil. His estimate, at least 6,000 of them, perhaps 30,000 more to come, and something like 10 million artillery rounds out of Pyongyang. Four governments, different objectives, one shared aim. Tear down the rules of the international order and replace them with rules that suit authoritarians. And the man making that argument

was the National Security Advisor of the United States to President Donald Trump. One date before we start. This is a talk, not an interview, and it is not new. General McMaster gave it on the 8th of September, 2025, in London at the Ukraine Freedom Summit to a room full of Ukrainian veterans, defense industry leaders, and active soldiers. The news and the questions at the end has moved on since then. The argument has not. Welcome to the Ukraine Military History

Podcast. I'm Sam Cook, a West Point graduate, Army veteran, and later an assistant professor of history at West Point, where I studied European and German military history and taught European and Russian history. I founded the Borderlands Foundation. I've been in Kyiv since 2018, and I've stayed here during the war. This show is for the people who need to know. Military professionals, government officials, defense tech executives and founders, and the investors backing them.

Everyone working together to win this war and secure the Western order. And Ukraine's, of course. Ukraine is the most experienced army in the world in modern war. And the lessons are now being written under fire. We bring them to you straight from the people writing them. And those lessons run deeper than this war. For 3,000 years, the great armies of history have marched through this land. Scythians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, the Slavs, Mongols, the armies of the Sultans, armies of the West, and of course Russia.

War runs through Ukraine. We are building the world's best military history center on the ground where most of it has happened. One word from our sponsors before the show. The full story at the end. This podcast is made by the Borderlands Foundation through its two centers. The Ukraine Military History Institute preserves and translates the lessons of Ukraine's wars. This show is its work. The Ukraine Center for Traumatic Stress heals the men and women who fought them. And this March, both come together in Dallas.

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Stay for the history, because this is the part I've been waiting for. Someone of his rank to say out loud. 1916 on the Western Front, the machine gun and the massed artillery had stopped the offensive from working. The German answer was the elastic defense. Thin out the front, put your depth behind it, and then infiltration tactics. Hutier tactics. Small teams going in and attacking in depth. And he is honest about the uncomfortable truth. It took the tank to give mobility back on the battlefield.

And this time, he says, the technologies will be much different. Stay for one person controlling one drone becoming one person controlling many. And what computing at the edge will do to that. Stay for the four truths, he mentions, because they are the heart of this talk. War is an extension of politics. War is human. Thucydides said fear, honor, and interest 2,500 years ago. and nothing has replaced it. War is uncertain and war is a contest of wills, which is where he says Afghanistan was lost.

We talked ourselves into defeat. And stay for the very end for the line he borrows from Secretary of State George Shultz, which is the argument in one sentence. Negotiation is a euphemism for capitulation unless the shadow of power is cast across the bargaining table. And when the talk ends, give me two more minutes for the reads at the end. That is where you can find out how you can help us and how we can help you. Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, former National Security Advisor of the

United States. Ukraine Freedom Summit, London, September '25. Let's get into it. Welcome to another episode of the Ukraine Military History Podcast.

Hey, well, what a privilege it is to be with all of you, especially our Ukrainian heroes and veterans here. And the topic is the future of war, what we're learning from the war in Ukraine. So I'm going to approach this topic with a great deal of humility because we have veterans here. And I'll try to be very quick and hear what's on your minds, what you'd like to add to the conversation or maybe correct or amplify any of the points that I make here. And I've just organized a few observations at the different,

what we would call like the levels of war, some strategic observations, operational, technological, tactical, and then a discussion of continuity and change. I'll try to do this, do this, as I mentioned, pretty quickly. At the strategic level, I think we have to acknowledge that what we're coping with today, what Ukraine's coping with today, is not just the aggression of Russia. It's the aggression of an axis of aggressors, which include two revanchist or

revisionist powers on the Eurasian landmass of Russia and China, as well as North Korea and Iran. And there has been this idea for a long time that what we have to do is prevent this war from escalating. And what we have done is talked ourselves, I think, out of confronting this axis in a way that would allow us to weaken that axis. And there are many people, I think, who are under the delusion still today that this axis can be persuaded to break apart, that you can divide, especially China and Russia, when

I think instead the opportunity has been and remains the opportunity to glue them together, to tape them together, because all of them have overextended themselves, I think, based on a perception of weakness, weakness in the West in particular, especially the United States and Europe. And what I mean by that, the perception of weakness really goes back to the unenforced red line in Syria in 2013, which I think was a precursor to the first invasion of Ukraine

in 2014, and the disastrous self-defeat and humiliating withdrawal in Afghanistan. I think you can draw a direct line between that and the February 2022 massive reinvasion of Ukraine. So I think we have to recognize that this axis of aggressors is provoked by weakness. And we have to portray strength against that entire axis. I need to go through all of the statistics in terms of how much support China is providing by feeding Putin's ATM, by giving him the electronics and the hardware necessary to

sustain his onslaught against Ukraine, or to talk about North Korea. We have North Korean troops fighting on European soil, maybe at least 6,000, maybe up to 30,000 more coming. And of course, North Korea providing about 10 million, I think the number is, rounds of artillery. And Iran providing Shahed drones and so forth. So I think the first strategic lesson is that really we should be taking on the entire axis of aggressors. because they're working in concert with one another. They have different objectives maybe,

but what they share is an objective of tearing down the existing rules of international discourse and replacing them with a new set of rules that are sympathetic to their authoritarian forms of government and in China's case, its state mercantilist economic model. All we have to do is just listen to the language of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting in Beijing, and where, you know, the celebrations at the end of World

War II that were, you know, an effort to warp history in favor of China's, you know, China's interpretation of history. I think the second huge, you know, observation here that we can make at the strategic level is the importance of strategic depth. There's going to be a panel on that. So I'll just quickly talk about aspects of that. And of course, depth has to do with our defense industry, our capacity to generate the weapons and the ammunition at scale that's necessary,

but also depth in all of our armed forces. I think what the Ukrainian armed forces have showed us is that you need a whole range of capabilities, but you need the capacity, you need the depth in your force to be able to sustain operations over a longer period of time. And that panel, I think we'll talk more about that observation at the strategic level. But depth also is geographic depth and depth across domains. I mean, the war is, you know, whether it's not quite as obvious, but this war is playing

out in space as well, because it's the combination of the surveillance and intelligence collection capabilities, including drones, which I'm sure we've been talking about quite a bit, but low-Earth orbit satellites, for example, and now the ability to absorb so much data make sense of it, and just dramatically increase the transparency of the battlefield. So war, future war, which is the topic of this short talk here, is going to space. And that trend will continue.

And I think it could be quite dramatic if there's another war, maybe even as this war continues, that much more of the activity will be carried out in the space domain. And then, of course, you don't have to say this to our Ukrainian brothers and sisters, but wars will affect your homeland. Of course, this is direct onslaught on Ukraine. But you see by the broader shadow war that Russia has been waging against Europe, that Russia is already waging a war against the homelands of European countries as well, cutting

undersea cables, blowing up warehouses, putting out assassination contracts, and of course, the various forms of cognitive warfare that Russia has been perfecting over many years. The United States is subjected to this as well. And Russia and China, I think, will continue to work together in this area, in the cyber domain, for example, going after vulnerable infrastructure, the various Volt Typhoon attacks that have been uncovered in the United States. So this is the trend.

And we have to consider that future war will be, I think, affected by a broader coalition of this axis of aggressors. We need depth and the war will be carried out in depth and it will affect our homeland as well. And then the third point, which we've seen, is that war will span not just beyond, it'll go beyond conventional means and incorporate this kind of, you know, the shadow war, cognitive warfare, war against our own societies in many different ways.

infrastructure, but also the cognitive war that is meant to diminish our will. At the operational level, I think what we're learning from our Ukrainian brothers and sisters is the importance of doing everything we can to build capabilities into our force, to restore mobility to the battlefield. When I look at what's happened in Ukraine, oftentimes I think it really mirrors to some extent the Western Front in World War I.

When you had a situation where, with the advent of the machine gun initially, and then the massive artillery, that the offensive was no longer viable. What happened under those conditions, what the Germans called in the 1916 period, Materialschlacht with like massive artillery, is their solution was the elastic defense. because troops who were forward, much like today, who are forward are vulnerable to FPV drones and other capabilities. They had to create greater depth in the battlefield, thin out the front lines

with just machine gun outposts and so forth. And then to restore mobility on the battlefield in the 1917 into 1918 period, especially during the Ludendorff offensives, the idea was to use infiltration tactics or Hutier tactics, very small teams that could infiltrate, get behind the front lines, attack in depth. And this is, I think, what we've seen Russia try to do with these offensives and so forth. So I see a lot of analogies between these adaptations in World War I.

But of course, it wasn't until the advent of mobile protected firepower in the tank that mobility was really restored to the battlefield. And we saw that, obviously, with the attacks in 1940, for example. So the technologies will be much different to restore mobility to the battlefield. But I think at the operational level, we need a whole range of capabilities to do that. And of course, as I mentioned, with these observations at the strategic level, we have

seen the battlefield in depth become very transparent because of drone capabilities, because of low earth orbit capabilities, but also the whole range of big data analytical and AI-related capabilities to make sense of all that data and create a high degree of transparency. So at the operational level to restore mobility, I think the second key observation is we have to develop a whole range of capabilities to blind our enemies and deceive our enemies. And I won't go into any details about that,

but I think there are specific things we could talk about our future panels here could maybe take on. And the third observation is that warfare is going to continue to be conducted across multiple domains. This is air, sea, land, space, cyberspace. And Ukrainians have showed that to us with tremendous innovation, especially in the maritime domain. I said, well, among many other areas, but in the maritime domain, in which without a navy,

They have been able to develop capabilities that have driven off the Black Sea fleet and inflicted very severe damage on that fleet. So, again, operational, I think, what it will take to restore mobility. What will it take to deal with this transparency on the battlefield on blind adversaries?

And then what capabilities can we develop to ensure that we can operate across all those domains and combine capabilities across domains to retain, to seize and retain the initiative, to essentially regain the initiative at the operational level. Then on technology and its effect, obviously, this is the statement of the obvious, is that autonomy and drones in particular, combined with artificial intelligence, is really going to bring us to a new frontier of how we can employ these capabilities.

because at the moment, you know, in many cases, and this is already evolving and changing, you have one person controlling one drone, especially those that are designed to avoid electromagnetic warfare. And what's going to happen is it's going to go from one person controlling one to one person controlling many. And that's going to be because of the ability to put computing power at the edge, to have self-healing mesh communications capabilities.

And because you have computing power at the edge, the ability for kind of machine learning and adaptation at the edge, such that autonomous systems can be given missions, for example, rather than be mainly like a loitering munition or a means of applying firepower or targeting particular enemy capabilities. So on technology, this evolution in autonomy and going from the one to the many, I think, is what's really critical.

The second is more an observation on how important it is to have a continuous communication between the masters of fighting, like those who are here today, and the designers, and to shorten the innovation cycle. What Ukraine has done, I think, is just astounding to me in terms of how quickly capabilities can evolve based on that working together. I'm under attack here by some form. I hope it's not a drone, you know.

But the ability to innovate so quickly and to be so competitive in that cycle of innovation to stay ahead of the enemy. But finally, I guess I would say on technology, as we think about future war, we have to think about the continuous interaction of opposites of certain capabilities, offensive and defensive capabilities. drone and counter drone capabilities. And we have to remember there has never been one single decisive capability in war, right? We had the submarine and the sonar, you know, the bomber

and the radar, the machine gun, the tank, the tank, the anti-tank missile. And so as we develop defensive capabilities, counter drone capabilities, we have to recognize, you know, that continuous interaction. There are some who want to make a linear projection based on the technologies as we're observing and being employed in Ukraine. But we have to recognize there will always be countermeasures, and we want to be ahead on that, on anticipating those countermeasures,

developing them ourselves, and combining them with new and evolving capabilities to maintain our competitive advantage from a technological perspective. At the tactical level, as I mentioned, from a defensive perspective, I see this kind of a continuity with the elastic defense and the depth. I think also, though, as some people want to think that this is forever changing the kind of tactics, I also see the predominant sort of focus on the importance of close combat overmatch as well.

And so I think we want to keep that in mind, that we need to have these longer range capabilities. We have to adapt to defend ourselves from them, but at the same time maintain overmatching close combat. There are some people, I think, who are looking at the experience in Ukraine and thinking that what we need exclusively are longer range capabilities. But I think what also you see from Ukraine is it's really the control of territory, populations

and resources that are vitally important today and will be vitally important in future war as well. And so you need units who are capable of close combat overmatch and who have not just the range of technological capabilities. but the stamina, the courage, the cohesion, and so forth to be able to fight and win in close combat. The second observation, there are three observations in each of these areas, is that obviously the vital importance of logistics.

And from what I'm learning from the experiences I'm trying to stay as closely connected to it as possible is the tremendous struggle of sustaining combat forces at the front line when an enemy has these longer range systems and there's this transparency on the battlefield. So I think at the tactical level, putting logistics kind of up front in the evolution of doctrine and how we're going to integrate new capabilities so that we can sustain our forces effectively and to do that over a long range and contest it.

And then, you know, so the defense and the elastic defense is important, close combat overmatch and logistics. And then finally, what I'd like to talk to you about is as we think about future war, I think what we are biased toward most often is to understand the changes, changes in the character of warfare. And of course, we're seeing that dramatically in Ukraine and all of you veterans here have experienced it. But I think we also have to remain cognizant of continuities in the nature of war.

And, you know, there's an American historian, Carl Becker, he said that anticipation, memory of the past, anticipation of the future should walk hand in hand in a happy way. And I think when we get into trouble a lot of times is when we neglect continuities. For example, you know, I think there are four continuities is the way I think about it. And all of these apply to what are some of the most significant aspects of the war in

Ukraine in my mind. The first is, you know, war is an extension of politics. Okay, everybody knows that, right? Clausewitz said that. What that means is what we have to do is conduct military operations in a way that contribute to a sustainable political outcome. There are some people who want to divorce what they would like to see as a political outcome from what has to happen militarily. And I see this with this drive to, hey, we want a ceasefire, we want peace.

But I think what we can't neglect is that winning still entails convincing your enemy that your enemy's been defeated. And for one, I don't believe that Vladimir Putin will stop until he is stopped, and he won't be stopped until he concludes that he's losing the war or that he can't continue the war, at least, at an acceptable cost. The second continuity is that war is human. People fight for the same reasons that Thucydides identified 2,500 years ago. Fear, honor, and interest.

Oftentimes, when we look at really an effort to try to end a war, we mirror image the other. We don't think about, you know, what are the emotions and the ideology that drive and constrain the other. And I think that this has been an element of the discourse around the prospects for peace in Ukraine as well. And if we want the best shot at peace, we have to recognize that human dimension of war.

And of course, as the warriors here know, at the tactical level, that human dimension of war has everything to do with unit cohesion and your unit's ability to continue to fight under the most difficult conditions of combat. And that comes from the qualitative aspects of preparing for combat and particularly developing confidence, unique confidence in their ability to fight together as a team.

But also the bonds of trust that build up when you train and you build a high degree of cohesion or you fight together for a period of time. And of course, the ethos that you develop in our armed forces, especially the ethos that revolves around certain principles we're committed to, our sense of honor, you know, that we're more afraid of letting fellow soldiers down than we are of any enemy bullet. And then also our willingness to sacrifice for each other and the mission.

And as I see the sustained combat that Ukrainian armed forces have been in, I think that it just highlights to me the courage and the valor of Ukrainian soldiers, but also the need to make sure that units at times get a break, that they can train together, and that there's an opportunity to generate unit replacements that can come into the fight after developing that degree of cohesion and confidence and so forth.

So I have great admiration for the Ukrainian armed forces because I'm very cognizant of this human dimension of war that people often neglect. And I think this is Ukraine's greatest competitive advantage because their soldiers are so well motivated to protect their families, to protect their homeland. And the Russian aggressors, many of them are pressed into service and are motivated more by maybe an SVR person behind them with a pistol to their head. The third continuity is that war is uncertain.

And I think that we've seen in the war in Ukraine these predictions of kind of linear progress in the war. And there's never really linear progress in the war because of the continuous interaction. And because of the brilliance of Ukraine, when people were saying, you know, Ukraine doesn't have the assets it needs to continue to challenge Russia, then you see an operation like Operation Spiderweb. Or you hear that, you know, Russia is really strong. This is kind of one of Putin's ruses, right?

One of his elements of deception is to portray Russia as very strong. And as you see, the massive losses that they've taken, the effect on their economy, and most recently, the strikes against, I guess, Russian oil refineries, which I think is having a very significant effect and is a brilliantly conceived priority to go after. And then finally, as we all know, war is a contest of wills. And it's so important for us to understand that continuity.

I think that what happened with us in Afghanistan, the United States, UK, and our other allies, it was self-defeat. I mean, I think we talked ourselves into defeat. And I think what is most important for leaders in countries that are at war is to explain to their populations continuously and effectively really two things. What is at stake? That's pretty apparent to Ukrainians is their survival. And the second is, what is a strategy that will achieve a favorable outcome and acceptable cost and risk?

And I know there's going to be a panel later today that's going to talk about that as well. So what I'd like to do is end there and just see what's on your mind. So I mean, we're talking about this broad topic, the future of war. I've offered some observations at the strategic, operational, tactical, technological, and some enduring continuities. but there's a heck of a lot of expertise and experience here and I'd love to just hear what's on your mind. So ask a question if you like,

but if you'd like to just make an observation, I'd be happy to hear it and learn from your perspective. So over to you. I can't really see because, can you see, is it because I'm afraid that the light might be blaring off my head at you also. Okay, all right, so, okay, go ahead. Were you calling people? Perfect. Oh, thank you. Thanks. Thank you.

Hi, Tobias Ellwood, former defense minister from the UK. So we've met in the past. Great to hear you speak again. And I think everybody would concur with what you say. The elephant in the room seems to be that America and Europe are not on the same page. We've had that devastating attack on Ukraine only a few days ago. And I can't help imagine, but across capital cities in Europe, everybody's asking themselves, what level of audacity must

Putin stoop to before America, before Putin realizes that he should be challenged, that Trump realizes that Putin isn't somebody we can do business with. Russia can't be trusted, and we shouldn't be doing a deal with Moscow. So my question to you, sir, with all your experience, and I think, as I say, we all agree is until America and Europe are on the same page, then any talk of a ceasefire is simply playing into Putin's hands. You touched on the Shanghai Security, sorry, Cooperation Organisation,

Putin rubbing shoulders with China, with Xi should give a firm indication as to where his loyalties lie, where he wants to actually go. And that is the bigger geopolitical challenge, which I'm not sure even in Britain, we're coming to terms with where our world order is going. So how do you persuade your former boss to come to the table on the European side and not court Putin? Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for your amazing leadership over so many years. Let me just offer a few thoughts on this. First of all, I think you have to be able to counter Vladimir Putin's deception and influence campaigns. And the way Putin does this, right, with many Western leaders, he tailors it to the leader. Because, you know, the SVR and GRU, they study these leaders and try to understand really how they can manipulate them as best they can.

And Putin has a great track record, you know, from Chancellor Merkel to really all U.S. presidents, I would say, you know. But he has kind of a four-step process that he goes through that you have to counter. The first of these is that Putin will, first of all, you know, he'll first of all flatter the leader, right, and try to ingratiate himself to the leader. And you've seen this with President Trump, but many others as well. You know, the portrait that

he had done for him, telling him he went to pray for him after the assassination attempt against President Trump and so forth. But he makes many public statements that are meant to flatter that leader. The second thing that he'll do is that he'll try to create a sense that he is aggrieved, and try to create a sense that there's some kind of mutual aggrievement there. Because of NATO enlargement, there's been so many offenses against him.

The idea that he's fighting against Nazis in Ukraine or something, he's somehow aggrieved. The third thing he'll do is that he will hold out the prospect for some really big deal or something great that could be done together. In this case, all these efforts to try to talk about issues other than Ukraine. You know, wouldn't it be great if we could reduce nuclear weapons? Wouldn't it be great if we could, you know, fill in the blank?

And the fourth thing that he does is he portrays any other alternative as weak or his competitors as weak, like he's trying to do with President Zelensky. He portray himself as strong, the other as weak. So you have to counter that. But I think the two main arguments for Americans that are really important at this stage is that, first of all, that the war in Ukraine is connected to this axis of aggressors, right? To the broader competition with China, with Russia, with North Korea, and Iran.

And the second is the observation that unless the Russian threat can be dealt with abroad, it can only be dealt with at an exorbitant cost once it's going to reach our shores. You know, and and I think that a lot of Americans and this is what President Trump channels sometimes. They feel like they have a lot of work to do at home. Right. Like we have a lot to do in the United States. And and so why don't we just focus on ourselves? Right.

And and what they don't realize is that is the degree to which Ukraine has been fighting a war for all of us on this frontier, you know, between civilization and I think, you know, this kind of barbarous alliance. between Russia and China and North Korea and Iran. But it's a great question. It's the argument I've been trying to make in The Economist and other places. But I think all of us need to continue to help our citizens understand how the war in Ukraine is intrinsically important for Ukrainians,

for humanity, and for humanitarian reasons. but also how it's important directly to the interests of those citizens as well.

If I can just interject very briefly and just make sure that everyone for panel, the next panel alongside HR is all mic'd up and that would be wonderful. I think there's a couple of people I'm able to get their mics on ahead of the next discussion. And we'll take one more question and then there will be further questions after the next panel discussion, which of course HR will be part of as well. So yes, one more please. Okay, after you. Hi. Do we have the microphone down here? It's just coming from the back.

There's another one. Oh, here. We have one here. Hi, my name is Alessandra Franzi. I'm a student at the London School of Economics on Diplomacy and International Relations, and I'm in charge of foreign affairs for a small party in Italy, Liberal Democrats, and I ran for the European elections, just to give you a picture. I wanted to ask you about, after Anchorage and the meeting there, the bombing of Kyiv, and then the Global

South meeting in Shanghai. It's a pretty clear sign of how things are. So my question is, in addition to the support, and financial support, and cooperation for the army and weapons and the war, What is the role you think that diplomacy should play as well, especially in the middle and long term as we all leave this planet? So at some point we need to use the diplomacy and the role of women in war as well and in diplomacy as well.

OK, so I would just say that what's really important about, you know, about Anchorage was that Putin didn't get what he wanted. What Putin wanted in Anchorage was he wanted the United States to approve for conditions for a ceasefire that were unacceptable to Ukraine. And then to use that gap to drive a wedge between the United States and Ukraine and the United States and Europe. I think that, you know, thankfully, President Trump, you know, didn't buy Putin's efforts there.

And then I think European leaders had a very major role in that. So if you think of diplomacy as being conducted by heads of state as well as diplomats, I think the diplomatic effort by European leaders was very effective before Anchorage and after Anchorage. Now, what is the role for diplomacy now? I think what's really important is that diplomacy cannot be effective unless there is a commensurate military effort to achieve the outcome you want to achieve.

I think in recent years, we've come into this habit of divorcing what we're doing militarily, and maybe from an economic perspective and a sanctions perspective, from what we want to achieve politically. A great example of the United States doing this is announcing kind of our withdrawal timeline for Afghanistan, while at the same time engaging in this dialogue with the Taliban Political Commission in Doha

and having this delusion that we could achieve a favorable diplomatic outcome without doing what was necessary militarily. So Secretary of State George Shultz, who used to be at the Hoover Institution where I am, until he passed away at the age of 100, he said that negotiation is a euphemism for capitulation unless the shadow of power is cast across the bargaining table. So I would say to answer your question, what's necessary to get to a diplomatic progress would be really two things.

One is sustained support for Ukraine, which we're on a path toward with Europeans providing the financial aspects of the support for their weapons and U.S. weapons. I would like to see added to that a long term low interest loan to Ukraine to purchase other weapons that they want or whatever they want to do with that loan. that was similar to like the loan to Finland in 1919 to protect itself against the nascent Soviet Union, a loan that was paid back in full, by the way, to the United States.

So sustained support for Ukraine would be step A. Step B, I think, is maximum pressure, not only on Russia, but on the axis of aggressors who are aiding and abetting them. And all of them are in positions of profound weakness economically at this moment. China and Russia both. And so I think that those, to answer your question, it would be don't divorce diplomatic efforts from what you're doing from a military and economic perspective. That's a recipe for disaster.

And then the second would be sustained support for Ukraine and maximum pressure on Russia.

Just one final brief one, please. Thank you, Pete. — Thank you. Sorry for taking the time. H.R., first of all, we are very honoured to see you here and to have you here, so thank you for this. And just in the development of your recent answer. So, I — and this is genuine — I'm from Ukraine, and I'm interested, as I might have a limited view from my country at war. So on the scale of, let's say, let's apply five more sanctions to Putin, from this scale to the end of the scale, let's say, I don't know, bomb the

Kremlin, and whatever. What do you think the leverage is that the free world has on the aggressor, on Putin and Russia? Because I think the sanctions are not effective, and it's obvious that we will see no boost on the ground yet. —

Yeah, thank you. Well, I mean, there are seized Russian assets that could be put to use for Ukraine. I would say that would be step A. But the European seized assets and the U.S. seized assets. The second thing I would say that, and there's an essay on this, gosh, I'm trying to think, by Marshall Billingslea on what we could do right now. It's like 10 sanctions. And I would just refer you to that. Maybe we can find it and pass it out. But I would say that there is a lot that can be done

based on the frailties in the Russian economy at the moment, right? We know that the economy is stagnant. He can't grow the economy. He never diversified the economy. He's sitting on piles of cash that he can't convert. Financial pressure still has a big role here, especially if there are secondary sanctions on banks that are facilitating illicit transactions, Chinese banks, for example. And then I think working on this problem from the outside in, from the shadow fleet perspective, the secondary sanctions on,

or as President Trump likes better tariffs on countries that are purchasing Russian oil beyond what's permitted and so forth. We saw this with India. I think maybe not a great move geostrategically, but along those lines. So I think there's quite a bit that can be done. I'm not an expert in this area. The essay by Marshall Billingslea, I think, was very effective. It seemed to identify effective measures. And I think all of those should be taken immediately.

I don't think this incremental approach is working because, as you're alluding to, Russia has become very adept at sort of adapting to these sanctions. And we know, and there's been a lot of reporting on this in just the last several days, of the degree to which the group of dictators who got together in Tianjin and in Beijing are working on ways that they can circumvent these kind of financial and economic sanctions.

That was General H.R. McMaster on The Future of War. 36 minutes recording in London on the 8th of September, 2025, in front of a room full of Ukrainian veterans, industry leaders, and soldiers. This is not a Russia problem. It is an Axis problem, and the Axis was provoked by weakness rather than by strength. And the stalemate everyone treats as permanent is not new. The Western Front lived through it, answered it with elastic defense and infiltration,

and only got mobility back with the tank and reorganization around it. This time, the answer will be with different technology. General, thank you for the history, for your honesty about the Afghanistan being a self-defeat, and for saying in public that Vladimir Putin will not be stopped until he is stopped. Before the ads, one ask: help people find us. If this talk taught you something, share it. Send it out to one officer, founder, or investor who needs it.

Subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and on Apple, leave a five-star review. The honest reason we are asking is that we don't have a huge marketing budget. The reviews are the budget. And a share is how the next speaker, like this one, will find this show. Now, our sponsors. Starting with the one thing I want you to act on. March 15th to 18th, 2027. In Dallas. The Ukraine Freedom Summit. In cooperation with the George W. Bush Institute. At SMU's Cox School of Business. Four days.

A defense technology exhibit of real Ukrainian battlefield systems. Open for defense companies to sponsor. With the U.S. premiere of the documentary, Drone War One. and a charity dinner. The Ukraine Freedom Golf Tournament, the Defense Innovation Forum, government, military, policy, defense tech founders and investors hearing directly from Ukrainian soldiers, officials and industry leaders. And the future of Ukraine Day. The full schedule is on the site. This is where we let you meet the people writing history now.

Attend, sponsor or both. The link is in the description. And the team on that golf course is the point. Ukraine Center for Traumatic Stress is the foundation's second center. Led by Major General Vladyslav Klochkov, the man who commanded the moral and psychological support forces of Ukraine under General Zaluzhnyi. His vision: turn the trauma of this war into strength, with world-class care built by Ukrainians for Ukrainians. The first program is Rehabilitation Through Golf,

a team of wounded combat veterans training for Dallas. $5,000 puts one of them on the first tee. Flights, training, their place in the tournament. Donate to the center to back Klochkov's team. The link is in the description. That is a tangible thing you can do today. Ukraine Military History Institute makes this podcast free with full transcripts at ukrainemilitaryhistory.org. If you're a serving military or veteran, register on the site. Everything we publish is free to you.

University course, the journal, and the officer workshops are coming soon. The Borderlands Group, the defense consultancy I run that funds the foundation. We work with Western defense and technology companies here in Ukraine, and the general's point about shortening the loop between the people who fight and the people who design weapons is the entire reason we exist. If that is your world too, watch my free talk on Why War Matters. It was made for defense tech founders and executives,

and it shows you how we work and how to work with us. The link is below. Finally, StoryFunnels. A former national security advisor laying out the four continuities of war in a room full of Ukrainian veterans and active soldiers. In a week, the feed will have it buried. That is a problem we built StoryFunnels to solve, and it's how this talk reaches you for a month after it airs. articles, clips, posts in your own voice, put where search engines and AI systems actually surface them.

One episode in, a month of content out, it's live at storyfunnels.ai. My name is Sam Cook. Thanks for listening to the Ukraine Military History Podcast, where we make sure that Ukraine's heroes are never forgotten.