Key Reflections

* Sergei Shoigu’s reshuffle was a political calculation rather than one related to the war against Ukraine. It was designed to insulate Putin’s rule for a further six years by replacing separate power centres from his inner circle. 

* After Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death, the Wagner Group was gradually brought under the control of the Ministry of Defence and state security services. Wagner now no longer resembles anything that existed beforehand.

* If Ukraine hopes to launch a successful counter-offensive next year, it needs to mobilise both its manpower and its economy. 

* Continued Western support for Ukraine is the surest way to end Putin’s aggression; the West must think more creatively about how to achieve this. 

* Russian fingerprints are present and consistent when it comes to developments in other theatres, like Georgia’s foreign agent law; Moscow can both subtly encourage indigenous pro-Russian pockets as well as take more active measures to influence, depending on the context. 

* The West should lead with a values-based approach, rather than only engaging with other countries on a transactional basis; this is especially true for regions that have often been more neglected, like Central Asia.

Transcript:

SG: Dr. Sajjan Gohel

AV: Alexander Vindman

SG: Welcome to the NATO DEEP Dive podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Sajjan Gohel, and in this episode, I speak with Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, who was the Director for European Affairs at the United States National Security Council.

Lieutenant Colonel Vindman was also at the Pentagon as the Political-Military Affairs Officer for Russia and as an attaché at the American embassies in Moscow and Kyiv. While on the Joint Staff, he authored the US National Military Strategy for Russia. His military awards include two Legions of Merit and the Purple Heart. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, Here, Right Matters: An American Story. He also leads the Here Right Matters Foundation, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to helping Ukraine win its war with Russia and rebuild afterwards.

Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, welcome to the NATO DEEP Dive podcast. 

AV: Thank you for having me on and looking forward to the conversation. 

SG: It’s a huge honour to have you with us.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has replaced his defence minister and long-term close ally Sergei Shoigu with an economist Andrey Belousov, at the same time Shoigu replaces Nikolai Patrushev, the Secretary of the Security Council of Russia. On the surface these seem odd changes, but in your opinion, what does this major reshuffle tell us? 

AV: Sure. Again, thanks for having me on. I think it is both an interesting timing for the change and interesting changes. I take a little bit of a different view in that; some analysts seem to think that Shoigu is being demoted. I’m not quite sure that’s the picture. I think in a way he’s being rewarded for his loyalty, and the Secretary of the Security Council, seemingly is a smaller portfolio, in that it’s not the Ministry of Defence, but it sits astride of all of the power ministries, and Nikolai Patrushev, who had been in positions since 2008, was considered one of Putin’s most loyal supporters, and a power centre in his own right. 

Frankly in my mind when I thought about the day after Putin and I thought about some of the worst-case scenarios, I thought that Nikolai Patrushev could potentially be his replacement. Meaning that there’s a group of hardliners that get together, in this hypothetical world and Putin is set aside, and you get an even more hardliner in the form of Nikolai Patrushev. He is a hawk. I’ve sat across the table with him on multiple occasions. And the fact that he is being set aside, to me, to a certain extent, is a way for Putin to further insulate his latest term in office, his next six years. And by eliminating a separate power centre, putting Shoigu into that position, somebody that’s entirely loyal to Putin.

What’s interesting is that Patrushev is also being pacified in that his son is taking a position as a deputy prime minister. Shoigu is moving out from the Ministry of Defence, where he was in kind of a technocrat role, he’s not a classic technocrat, he’s coming out of the Ministry of Emergency Services, but somebody that was supposed to be a manager, an effective manager. He’s not proven to be a particularly effective manager. He’s more of a loyal Putin supporter. So, the person that’s replacing him is in somewhat the same vein, certainly in  somewhat the same vein as the predecessor to Shoigu a guy named (Anatoly) Serdyukov, who is himself a deep technocrat, looked at implementing what was called new look reforms, major reforms within the Russian Ministry of Defence, and in again, a purely managerial role. 

Now Belousov is interesting. He’s an economist by background, by many accounts an effective technocrat that will look to leverage the military industrial base to support a war effort that’s more based on the principles of attritional warfare and outproducing Ukraine and the entirety of the West to win Russia’s war against Ukraine. All in all, it is still a bit of a strange shakeup. Russia has just launched what looks like it’s going to be a major summer offensive; launched a campaign to pressure Ukraine second largest city Kharkiv and make some territorial gains throughout the eastern flank of the theatre of war. And it’s a bit of a strange time to do it, unless you realise that the Ministry of Defence for itself doesn’t play a critical role, it’s really the General Staff, the uniform component of the military that plays the critical role, but still a strange time to do it. 

The last thing I’ll mention is that Putin did win a six-year term, ‘win’—seize a six-year term of office—and from a political standpoint, that’s when you start making some changes. So, I think these decisions are not really about Ukraine and the war effort so much, it’s a factor, but it’s a secondary factor. It’s about setting conditions for six more years of Putin rule, insulating Putin, positioning people where he wants them. It’s a political calculation rather than something purely around the war itself.

SG: You raised a lot of important and very interesting points that are very nuanced in understanding this dynamic. So, Shoigu effectively has remained quite a popular person in Russia and, as you mentioned, very close to Putin, Patrushev, effectively, some say was the second most powerful person in Russia, is now effectively also sidelined. And as you were talking about that, his ouster removes, I guess, an alternative power centre in Russia. Does Patrushev need to be worried about his own safety and security? Keeping in mind that people in Russia somewhat mysteriously die such as Yevgeny Prigozhin, who at one time was the head of the Russian private military company, the Wagner Group.

AV: Yeah, so I don’t think Patrushev has that much to worry about. Unless he tries to challenge this reshuffle, which I don’t think he will. I think Putin over the course of the past year since—it’s been about a year since Prigozhin launched his pitiful coup attempt/insurrection and then was relatively quickly disposed of months later. I think over the course of that year, Putin has strengthened his hand to a certain extent, amongst the security services. I think that he’s probably going to offer sinecure, it sounds like Patrushev is going to get a senior advisor role with some authority and access to Putin and Patrushev’s son, who’s been in the wings as the next generation princeling, has been offered a senior position to help kind of secure the Patrushev legacy and the fortunes. 

So, I don’t think Patrushev is going to follow the fate of more peripheral actors, because that’s what Prigozhin was, a more peripheral actor. This is an inner circle individual that’s now been shifted off. It’s happened before, Ivanov, the former Minister of Defence, was sidelined several years back, [and now] is living comfortably and peacefully. I think Patrushev is likely to be in that same role, because he’s inner circle and is going to be resigned to his fate more than likely. So, I think that’s probably the case here.

SG: And since Prigozhin’s death, killing…murder…

AV: Murder.

SG: Murder, right. What has happened to the Wagner Group as an entity, does it still function as the auxiliary arm for Vladimir Putin’s war machine?

AV: So, one of the critical components of Wagner and these private military companies is that there was a patina of independence or non-attribution to the Government of the Russian Federation. That doesn’t exist anymore. I think the utility of PMCs as a whole, except for the fact that they’re now funded by state owned enterprises that are footing the bill, but are subordinated and acting on the instructions of the security services and Ministry of Defence. I think that utility is now kind of gone. Step by step Wagner, over the course of the past year, was rolled in and subordinated in a very methodical manner into the Ministry of Defence and state security services. 

I think that process was managed very, very well in that the risks of rogue elements of Wagner in far flung places where the Russian security services themselves were not strong, were really, really well kind of mitigated. The gradual process of making sure that the chain of command was reinforced and that it was the Ministry of Defence or the security services that were pulling the strings, that became increasingly clear. So, I think that Wagner doesn’t really resemble anything that existed beforehand. It’s now an extension of the Ministry of Defence and Security Services, not a seemingly independent, private military company doing the bidding of whoever’s the payer. We know that of course, it was the Russian government and the Russian budget that paid for it. So, I think that the PMCs in general are not what they were a year ago.

SG: Well, thank you for clarifying that. As you mentioned, a little bit earlier, Russia is launching its most serious cross border ground assaults in Ukraine for quite a while, this summer offensive. There have been several months already of increased Russian air attacks on the city of Kharkiv amid a grinding advance in the Donetsk region. And there’s been concerns that they are making slow but incremental gains. What has aided Russia’s ability to escalate matters?

AV: So, I think first we should be clear that Russia is going to be successful in this very, very incremental approach. That’s not going to stack up into a strategic threat. It’s probably not likely to stack up into much of an operational threat, but they are likely to make some gains. The reason that that’s the case is because in a lot of ways Ukraine didn’t have an answer to the preferred techniques and tactics that Russia has been employing recently. 

One of those reasons is that Ukraine had a deep scarcity of support from the west for an extended period of time. Without the interceptors for Western air defence systems, Russia was able to press an advantage with regards to air power and achieve some form of air superiority localised. In achieving that air superiority, Russia was able to deploy these CABs effectively to just demolish strong points, and then advance through a cleared area. In the next layer, Ukraine didn’t have sufficient artillery to just repel advancing Russian forces. 

Those were some of the key conditions, the rest of it is not entirely new. For instance, the Russians have been using these wave assaults relatively effectively to make really small tactical gains, just overwhelming Ukrainian defences at very, very localised levels. So, that’s not new. It’s the depletion of artillery, depletion of airpower, and, frankly, Russia’s increased use of drones, FPV drones, that have allowed Russia to make some tactical gains. 

Some of those dynamics are likely to shift in the coming weeks. The artillery scarcity is going to improve, Ukraine is going to have more ammunition, Ukraine is going to have more interceptors to impede Russian use of airpower. The F-16s, when they come online, are going to have an impact, a significant impact. The maths on the ability for the Ukrainians to employ F-16s with AM20 missiles that have about 160-kilometre range, will not allow the Russians to fly their air power close to the front and employ CABs. So, that part is going to change. 

The part that’s not going to change that much is the Russians are advancing the cause of producing more drones and are going to be able to use those more effectively. So, I think the situation is going to stabilise over the coming weeks and months, reducing Russia’s ability to make gains, but Russia is still likely to make some gains. For me this year is mainly about Ukraine holding and building. Holding back Russian gains, trading space for time, trading some character, the limited amount of territory for significant Russian casualties, for some breathing room to defend in depth, and then building, the work will amount to a significant offensive next year. I think that’s the big picture. In the spring or summer of next year, Ukraine should have the capability to conduct some focused, successful offensives and put pressure on Russia. 

In order to do that it needs to do a couple of things. These are probably the most critical things. It needs to mobilise. It needs to mobilise manpower; it needs to mobilise its economy. It has not sufficiently mobilised its economy, it’s still running in a lot of ways in a peacetime economy. Even with the huge numbers of mom-and-pop drone shops, the industrial resources of Ukraine haven’t been leveraged in a sufficient way, and the manpower question has to be fixed sooner rather than later. They need at least 300,000 troops, about half of that to fill in depleted units and to add units to be able to rotate worn down Ukrainian units offline and the remainder to train over the course of the next year and change to be able to conduct an offensive. So, that’s the deeper picture from now kind of into next year.

SG: I have to say that it’s very reassuring to talk to you about all of this, because very often there are these pictures of doom and gloom that are being painted and sometimes this aspect of war fatigue comes in as well. And you’ve been critical of the negative news coverage of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, and sometimes the dire predictions that have been made. What more needs to be done to make people aware of why this war is being fought, why Ukraine needs to continue to be supported. You’ve explained a lot about the military dynamic, but what else can be done for people to be better informed as to the necessity of aiding and supporting Ukraine continuously? 

AV: I think that that strategic picture is absolutely critical. Just a quick comment on the optimism or casting doubts over the most dire predictions. I think there’s a lot in the story I just told between a potential successful Ukrainian counter offensive next year, and now—there’s a lot that needs to happen. Some of those steps are already in place. The passing of a large Ukraine aid bill is going to be helpful, the Europeans stepping up in a big way is going to be helpful. There are still some decisions absent. 

The West needs to make a decision about Ukraine winning. The West needs to make a decision about properly supporting Ukraine, dropping the incrementalism. The West needs to make a decision about training Ukrainians in a much more robust manner to conduct combined arms operations. Otherwise, it is hard to see how we get to a successful Ukrainian counter offensive. 

Now in addition to doing policy work, I’m actually conducting programmes in Ukraine to help with command and staff training, to help with localising and repairing Western equipment. These are programmes that run through a nonprofit as well as a for profit because frankly, some things are just too big to do in a nonprofit space. So, I’m not waiting, frankly in a lot of ways, I’m not waiting for the U.S. to make the decision, from a civil society perspective, there’s already some items that are in play that could help advance his cause.

The other side of the equation is that the Russians are really learning, they’re adapting and they’re making some changes to the way they fight this war, but they’re still a basket case. They’re still highly ineffective, they’re not going to be able to fix the problems with regard to corruption, they’re unlikely to fix the problems with properly training the force, they can’t fix the problems with regards to properly resourcing the force, even as they accumulate manpower, because even massive industrial base and investments that are putting into work can’t produce sufficient equipment for Russia’s war effort, it’s hard to see how they really make that turn. And increasingly they’re relying on old Soviet-era equipment. So, that’s not a formula for success. My balanced view is that I’d rather be in the Ukrainian shoes, and the Ukrainians have a better prospect, and a better theory for victory than the Russians do. The Russian effort is to grind and hopefully, in their mind, that grind is sufficient to put pressure on the Ukrainians to win. I don’t think that’s a theory of victory. 

Now, the big picture to your question is this should not be delinked from the geopolitical picture. Too often, this is seen as a discrete war in Europe. It’s interesting that we can make that kind of argument when the largest country in the world is fighting a war against the largest country in Europe, and the prospects of broader war spillover remain high, that, either by accident or miscalculation, Russia blunders into some sort of hybrid or direct confrontation with the West, not something that they want, but they can make a miscalculation about the resolve of the West and vulnerabilities around NATO, that NATO Article Five is not sacrosanct, that there is a fracture to exploit. It’s a problem, it’s a legitimate concern, because the President, our President, President Trump has offered that kind of prospect, that Article Five is not sacrosanct, that Russia could attack NATO and the U.S. would sit out on the side. It’s deeply problematic, and there’s a lot of room for acts of miscalculation. 

There’s also, I think, a lack of understanding about what the rest of the authoritarian world, because if they’re not outright coordinating in some sort of like villainous, buried chamber about how they want to operate, they’re certainly observing each other, sharing best practices, communicating, and that these lessons of Western resolve, the West being able to adequately support Ukraine to defend itself and push back on authoritarianism, are lessons that the Chinese are drawing conclusions about, that the Iranians are drawing conclusions about. I don’t think the inflamed atmosphere in the Middle East would happen if there was much more fulsome support for Ukraine from the beginning and Russia was more on its heels. I think the fact is that the lesson that the Iranians would be feeling is that the West is resolved, and that proxy warfare, or encouraging terrorist attacks wouldn’t be there. I think that was a collective error by the West to not demonstrate that kind of resolve. I think the Chinese are drawing some conclusions about how far they can push it in the Pacific. 

It is clear to me that the aggressive moves that the Chinese are taking in the South China Sea, with regards to the Philippines, is a way to test the Western resolve. It is a way to exploit Western distraction. And some people might argue, because of a hyper focus on Russia and Ukraine but I think it’s less than that. It’s a hyper focus on missing the picture on the threat to democracy and the inability to consolidate. The U.S. was attempting to lead a democracy union, a democracy summit to bring democracies together to defend our collective interests. We haven’t really carried that notion forward even under the threat of a large-scale war. And I think our adversaries are picking up on that. 

So, I think the urgency for support to Ukraine and resolve in pushing back on authoritarian aggression, is that these things are not only linked, they’re connected, and that what we’re seeing is a concerted effort of the authoritarian world to exploit potential vulnerabilities in the democratic world for gain and lock in those gains. So, it is a deep threat, it is probably the defining challenge of this part of the 21st century, and either the remainder of the 21st century will be one where you see a revival of democracies or one in which there is continued pressure and this trendline of a couple of decades of democracy unwinding persists.

SG: These are a lot of key points and you amply demonstrated the macro and the micro of all of this and the wider implications as to why it’s so important to be invested in Ukraine, because the fact is, as we’ve been discussing, it can, if it doesn’t go the way it needs to, it can embolden a lot of hostile state actors. There’s so much to ask you just to build on all of that, but I wanted to look at you as a person before we move on, because very often for our podcast, we want to understand the person and what motivates you and your background is fascinating, and just to delve more into that. So, you were born in Soviet Ukraine, but left at an early age to live in the United States. I can imagine it can’t have been easy to just migrate to because surely the Soviet Union wouldn’t just allow people to leave back in those days?

AV: So, I think “migrate” is a nice way of putting; we left as refugees. We left as refugees from the Soviet Union with really nothing. We left as a result of the US and the West living up to its values and putting pressure on the Soviet Union to alleviate the oppression of the Jewish population. We launched sanctions, the Jackson-Vanik sanctions, prohibiting some forms of trade and limiting grain flows unless the Russians made the decision to release the Jewish population and allow them to flee as refugees. 

Once my family made that decision, we settled in the United States. My dad was 47, arguably at the end of a professional career. He came to the United States with $750 in his pocket, and we started a new existence in the US. My dad settled into a professional role as an engineer, which is really quite unique to be able to leave without the credentials or anything of that nature. But he was quite specialised, and he was able to do that. And we grew up in the US as children of a public servant, a civil servant, who was a member of a union and had those social supports. It kind of shapes my own views towards a much more open-minded—I don’t know if I’d call it entirely progressive, I’d say in the UK context, this would be conservative, that we need to provide some basic social supports, like living wages, like a health safety net and things of that nature. But it allowed my family that came as refugees to flourish and participate in the American dream.

SG: That’s fascinating. You made a life and career in the military. What made you choose that path?

AV: I’m not sure if it was a conscious decision that I was going to be a career military officer. I did Reserve Officer Training, was commissioned as a second lieutenant, and initially thought I was going to probably do a short four-year stint or something like that, have some fun, maybe become a little more disciplined because I recognised back then I was not very disciplined and needed some way to focus my energies—probably a late bloomer, still somewhat immature. But what was fascinating is that the opportunities that the military provides in our system for advancement, for self-improvement, to learn a public service value set built upon the values that my dad inculcated into us. 

I had some pretty amazing opportunities. I had the chance to lead troops—I was a staff officer and a company commander during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. I had the chance to then pursue something more specialised, leveraging my language and cultural understanding as a US Army Foreign Area Officer, so a soldier-diplomat; get advanced degrees from Harvard, a Master’s at Harvard; pick up additional language; travel throughout the former Soviet space; really develop an interest and a passion to understand different cultures in different regions. And then I served in some pretty awesome positions. My first stint as a Foreign Area Officer was as an attaché in Moscow, you know, the World Series—the cricket championships, to put it in the UK context.

And then from there, I went back to the Pentagon and was the principal author of the US military strategy for Russia and the global campaign plan for Russia and how we operationalize the strategy—and then on that basis, I was selected to serve in the White House, to take the military strategy and implement it on a whole-of-government scale. And then after that, when I was forced out of the military after exposing Donald Trump’s corruption, I finished up my doctorate at Johns Hopkins, on the topic of US and Western policy towards Russia and Ukraine. I just turned in my manuscript; it’s my next book coming out in the winter. So, it’s been a pretty awesome trek, both in formal public service and now in civil society, still in my mind in public service. 

I get to run a think-tank called the Institute for Informed American Leadership, engage with the White House, now from the civil society perspective, engage with Congress in a whole host of relationships, providing policy advice, engage with your government’s leadership on occasion and European governments’ leadership, and when I travel to Ukraine, engage with basically the entirety of the Ukrainian national security establishment, still on the passions that I had for well over a decade and now implementing programmes as well as conceiving of ideas, so I feel blessed. Most people think about my story maybe more in a tragic setting—I think of it as doing the right thing, being forced out, and then just starting from scratch—much like my father did when he came to the US as an adult, but with better tools I guess.

SG: I think everybody who knows of you knows what a distinguished career you’ve led and how you led with a moral compass as well. It’s interesting that you have a twin brother, Yevgeny, who also served in the army. Is that a twin thing? Is it that you both just grew up with the same ideas? 

AV: I think there is a twin thing. My twin brother and I are very, very close. We talk to each other every day and spend as much time with each other as possible. I think that there is a stream of public service in my family. All my brothers have served in the military. My older brother served as a reservist, also in the army, my stepbrother served in the Marine Corps, and my twin brother and I made a career out of our military service. My twin actually was in the National Security Council with me and was also run out of the White House based on Trump’s retaliation and retribution, but as an indication of the strong passion we have for public service, he’s actually running for Congress in Virginia. And he might not say this, but I think by all accounts, by the political oddsmakers and so forth, he’s the clear frontrunner, and he’s likely to do well and probably, I don’t want to jinx it, but find himself in the next Congress. So, he will continue to serve as an elected official, is the intent. 

SG: Well, that’s awesome. If we can move back to the current situation with Ukraine and then also some of the wider picture—you’ve already explained it very well and, in much detail, —but is it fair to say that Putin just simply won’t stop with Ukraine? There is this argument that is made in some quarters that for Putin, this is just about Ukraine, this was about stopping Ukraine from joining NATO. Would he be wanting to stir up tensions as a follow-up to whatever is done in Ukraine? I’m thinking of, for example, tensions in the Republika Srpska, which is part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, or Transnistria, or even using Kaliningrad as a platform to antagonise countries like Poland and Lithuania. I guess what I’m saying is that this isn’t just about Ukraine for Putin. There’s a wider objective. 

AV: Sure. So, I think let’s start with that. I think the fact is he’s the ultimate spoiler, he’s the ultimate troublemaker. His objective is to decrease stability because in chaos there’s opportunity. In all of the different regions that you mentioned, there’s an opportunity for him to stir that kind of trouble, distract, test the West. So that’s just his kind of perennial role as a KGB—I guess he probably excelled at the KGB sabotage classes that he took at the KGB academy. So, I think that’s part of the story of Putin in general; he looks for opportunities in chaos and division. I would say, if that’s his general mindset, this war is entirely about subduing Ukraine. 

There’s a very famous Zbigniew Brzezinski line that’s actually also in my dissertation and in my book, it’s kind of the opening line, it’s Zbigniew Brzezinski’s refrain that Russia absent Ukraine ceases to become an empire, but with Ukraine subordinated and suborned, it automatically becomes an empire—probably not exactly right, but close enough. I think this is entirely about Ukraine. It’s about the conception of Russian power, and the centrality of Ukraine to Russian power, that Ukraine adds a huge amount of manpower and has a huge amount of economic heft. It adds the potential for Russia, with Ukraine folded back, establishing its own Eurasian pole in a multipolar world. And as long as he sees an opportunity to do that, he will. 

That’s why I think it’s absolutely stunning that we have not been much more thoughtful about how to bring Ukraine into NATO and end this theory. Because as soon as Ukraine enters NATO, that theory just evaporates. Putin is not in any way interested in a direct confrontation with the US or NATO, the collective power of NATO in the West is massive. The collective economic power is 25 times that of the Russian Federation. The military might is staggering, especially when you see the shortfalls of how the Russians have been performing. So, there is no interest in a conventional fight, and recognising that a conventional fight would be futile, and that you would automatically escalate to a nuclear war, there is no appetite for mutually assured destruction. That doctrine is ironclad. So, bringing Ukraine into NATO is the surest way to end Putin’s theory of victory around Ukraine, around aggression, at least with regards to the Ukrainian context. And it’s a problem that we’re not thinking more creatively about this.

Getting back to these other regional conflicts, I think that they are not something that Russia has a huge amount of bandwidth or resources to mess around in, but within the hybrid war context, within the ability to use limited resources efficiently and generally cause trouble, to complicate and distract, I think the Russians will look at that. I think you’re seeing that within the Moldovan context, Transnistria. Russia has a tiny footprint that would be absolutely and very quickly subdued—Moldova’s military is pretty small, but Moldova, with Romanian support, with Ukraine coming in from the other side —those forces would be very quickly subdued, then Russia would lose its kind of frozen conflict in that region. So, I think they want to ratchet it up without triggering something there that eliminates their pocket. I think there are probably some indications that the unrest in Georgia is an opportunity not that dissimilar to the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine to also use that leverage, use that relationship with [Bidzina] Ivanishvili, the oligarch that basically orchestrates this…the party is escaping me, the name—it’ll come back to me [Georgian Dream]. 

I think there are some hallmarks of Russian footprints in a more hybrid space in Georgia also, trying to gird the pro-Russian faction there and get them to subdue the will of the people, which is pretty amazing when you see how many people are out on the streets protesting against this anti-democratic step to have civil society register if they receive any foreign funds, similar to the Russians’ own foreign agent laws. So anyway, I think I see Russian fingerprints in a lot of different places. I don’t know if I would go so far as to be conspiratorial and say Russia has its own strings, but it’s certainly kind of nudging and influencing in certain regards, and is playing a more active role in certain regards, and playing a passive role advancing indigenous pro-Russian pockets to cause trouble.

SG: Just to ask you also about Georgia a little more—you’ve got a huge amount of experience on that country—is that being shaped and influenced by outside involvement, especially when it comes to Russia, because Georgia’s parliament has voted through a very divisive foreign agent law that has sparked weeks of mass protests inside the country. We’ve seen those images of the capital Tbilisi as well. Should we be concerned about that as a further expansion of Russia seeking to take advantage of its neighbouring countries and former satellite parts of the Soviet Union? 

AV: I think so. So let me give you an example—it’s not quite apples to apples, but relatively close. Before the Revolution of Dignity, you had Armenia that was making headway on an EU association agreement, and the Armenians were bribed and pressured to withdraw from that agreement and join the Eurasian Economic Union, Russia’s version of the EU. In the Ukrainian context, you had an eleventh-hour withdrawal of Yanukovich from the EU Association Agreement and a pledge to join the Eurasian Economic Union based on a bribe by some estimates 15 billion, but probably at least 10 billion dollars.

I think that there are similar pressures being put on Ivanishvili, whose fortunes are connected to trade with Russia, with incentives and pressure and sticks on Ivanishvili holding the line on his pro-Russian orientation. I think the fact is, because we’re not privy to the intelligence, we can’t know this with absolute clarity, but the hallmarks of Russia’s approach are there and consistent. I think the tactics that are being employed will also bear the hallmarks of what amounted to failed policies with regards to how Russia encouraged Ukraine to act under Yanukovich. I think this is going to backfire. 

The foreign agent law is definitely modelled on Russia’s foreign agent law. And that doesn’t have to be the Russians transmitting wholesale, it could be just some general encouragement. And then the indigenous efforts for Ivanishvili to neutralise civil society that’s been protesting the democratic backsliding and the criticism he’s been getting from the west. So, I think there’s definitely enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that Russia is involved in some way or another, nurturing the domestic feelings of Ivanishvili and his party to secure their own power in a similar manner in which Russia has operated in other parts of the region and former Soviet space.

SG: My producers and I were just discussing offline also about Russia’s role when it comes to some other parts of the former Soviet Union, in particular Central Asia, where we have seen Russia’s role, its presence, for example, say, in Kazakhstan, where Russia sent in troops when it looked like there could be a growing movement against the regime there. How does Central Asia play out when it comes to Putin’s agenda?

AV: More successfully, frankly, in a lot of ways. I think it’s because it’s so remote, and our resources to be able to support any democratic institutions have become much more scarce in that part of the world. Our interest in being able to engage with Central Asia has been very, very transactional and limited. I think frankly, in a lot of ways, it’s a bit of a shortfall in how the US and the West has engaged with Eurasia as a whole. My doctoral dissertation and thesis is that the US should recognise the centrality of values to interests and use that methodology as a compass heading to be able to engage consistently with a region instead of transactionally on a case-by-case basis. I think we see that where US interests are clearer, more resources are going in, but where US interests are more remote, it tends to be far more transactional. Certainly during the Global War on Terror, we prioritised our relationship with Russia, and the kind of influence that Russia could leverage in the Central Asian states, and allowing us air transit rights to get to Afghanistan, and we underserved our values with regards to engaging with those countries and urging or nurturing any seeds of democratic tendencies. Now, Central Asia is a little bit different in that you basically had communist apparatchiks take over and rule uninterrupted almost from independence forward. So, we didn’t really have as much means to be able to engage with Central Asia, but still, we certainly have prioritised Russia over our engagement with Central Asia in a lot of ways for large for large stretches of the post-Soviet period.

SG: It’s fascinating, all the insight and detail that you’re providing. A final question. You’ve been very gracious with your time, but we can’t let you go without talking about your appearances in Curb Your Enthusiasmbecause both myself and one of the producers for NATO DEEP Dive, Victoria Jones, whom you’ve met before, we’re both addicted to the show, and we both thought you’ve been brilliant in it. Quite frankly, I thought you stole the show in the very last episode of the last series, you put Jerry Seinfeld in the shade. How did these appearances on the show come about? How much did you also have some influence on the lines that were used in the show? 

Sure. So, I’ll start with that part. It’s almost unscripted. I would say any script that they have is more of a guideline and then you can play with it. So I think we’d maybe do five or six or seven takes, whichever one seems to land with feeling—I call myself an actor, I’m an actor—hopefully that translates that I’m giggling at myself—might capture in that moment, as well the general mood and theme of the episode, they’ll land on that kind of particular take, but lots of latitude. In the season before, I added the line of “call me colonel” in my last couple of words and stuff like that in that season. So, it was fun. I think I near nailed the role of playing myself but in a kind of a character manner. So, I think they casted well for that role. But I think in terms of how that landed, you know it almost didn’t. 

When I first was approached in the fall of 2020, I had just left military service and I declined because I thought it was too kind of off-brand and probably took myself too seriously and felt like I had to maintain a particular type of image or something like that. Ultimately, when Larry David came back on and was charming and invited me to come back on, what won me over is that we had a niece that was born about nine months before, and we had not seen her yet, and this was an excuse for my family and I to get first-class tickets to fly out to LA to do the shoot. So, I agreed on that basis and what I quickly realised is that it was fun, and that I should be open to new experiences. So now my test is if it sounds like it’s going to be fun, I’ll do it and try it once. It was a good thing to be able to do.

SG: Well, we’re all very grateful that you did do it. I hope in future series you’ll continue to play a role in that because your humour was brilliant, I have to say.

AV: I’m the comedian in my family, so I mean its natural!

SG: Well, obviously your kids will probably find it extremely cool that you’re in it. I’m very envious myself.

Well, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, you have been very gracious with your time. You are an exceptionally humble person. All your experience, all your knowledge is so important. You’ve helped provide us with greater depth as to what is unfolding in the world. And it has been a true honour to talk to you for the NATO DEEP Dive podcast, and hope you’ll consider coming on the show again in the future. 

AV: I look forward to it, and I look forward to meeting you in person. Thank you. 

SG: Likewise.

Thank you for listening to this episode of NATO DEEP Dive, brought to you by NATO’s Defence Education Enhancement Programme (DEEP). My producers are Marcus Andreopoulos and Victoria Jones. For additional content, including full transcripts of each episode, please visit: deepportal.hq.nato.int/deepdive. 

Disclaimer: Please note that the views, information, or opinions expressed in the NATO DEEP Dive series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of NATO or DEEP.

This transcript has been edited for clarity.