Andriy Zagorodnyuk was Ukraine’s minister of defence from 2019 to 2020. He is Chairman of the Centre for Defence Strategies and is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. To mark the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine, he spoke with Russian Cold War historian Sergey Radchenko. The pair disagreed on Russia’s objectives, the possibility of a negotiated outcome, what a Ukrainian victory might look like, and the fate of Crimea.
Sergey Radchenko: Thank you for joining me today, Andriy. I’d like to start by asking: where are we in this war a year on?
Andriy Zagorodnyuk: Russia is still attempting to pursue its original goal of destroying Ukraine. We haven’t yet seen any change in their policy or strategy. We are pushing Russia back and still intend to free our country from the invaders.
SR: Have the Russians not adjusted their strategy to the evolving circumstances? Destruction may have been their original plan but given the setbacks they have experienced, wouldn’t you say they may have a different objective now?
AZ: Their strategic goal hasn’t changed, but the planning element has.
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