Last Friday marked a year since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. There have been over 8,000 civilian deaths in Ukraine since the invasion began,. According to Ukraine, it's lost 9,000 troops in the fighting and Russia has lost 40 to 60,000 according to the British Ministry of Defense. The majority or clear plurality of Americans still support the approach the U.S. is taking, levying economic sanctions, sending arms, and accepting refugees; there has been some softening of support for these measures, mostly from Republicans.
To mark a year since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Galen Druke brings back two experts who first joined the podcast when the war began. Samuel Charap is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation and author of the book “Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia.” James Acton is a physicist and co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Together they describe why the war has not turned out as originally expected, what the risks of escalation are today and how the conflict might come to an end.