Podcasts · Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

How Ukraine Turned the Tide of the War | Live from the Aspen Security Forum

20 Jul 2026 · 21 min

In recent months, Ukraine has clearly seized the initiative against Russia. Its impressive use of drones and autonomous weapons systems has put Russia on the defensive, while strikes on Russian energy infrastructure are causing gasoline shortages for ordinary Russians.

I speak with The Wall Street Journal's Yaroslav Trofimov about how and why Ukraine's fortunes have suddenly turned—and what comes next in the war.

We caught up at the Aspen Security Forum on the same day that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, even though Fedorov had championed many of the tactics that made Ukraine's advances possible. We begin by discussing that dramatic turn of events before broadening the conversation to the current trajectory of the war.

Buy Yaroslav's book about the Urkaine war from an indy bookseller here: Our Enemies Will Vanish

Links in the notes 1

• https://bookshop.org/p/books/our-enemies-will-vanish-the-russian-invasion-and-ukraine-s-war-of-independence-yaroslav-trofimov/36e4b99fac19949b?ean=9780593655184&bkshp-astro=t

The episode on the publisher’s site ↗ (opens in a new tab)