In Episode 496 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Yaroslav Trofimov, Ukrainian-born chief foreign affairs correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and author of Our Enemies Will Vanish, about the Russia-Ukraine war, CIA director John Ratcliffe's recent visit to Moscow, and the growing risk that Russia will escalate beyond Ukraine's borders to test NATO's Article 5, how America's entanglement in the Middle East has depleted Western missile reserves and emboldened the Kremlin, turmoil inside Zelensky's government, China's role in prolonging a war it wants neither side to win, and the deepening fracture in the transatlantic alliance.
Yaroslav and Demetri begin their conversation by trying to make sense of the war — its origins, its stakes, and the prospects for its near-term conclusion. They assess claims related to the CIA director's recent trip to Moscow, the form that any potential Russian attack on NATO could take, and what the Europeans can do to try to stop it. They also discuss the political turmoil surrounding a recent shakeup in President Zelensky's cabinet, claims of corruption, and whether Western countries can be expected to continue supporting Ukraine amid declining public support for the war and mounting political resistance movements led by Europe's far-right parties.
The second hour examines Western strategic thinking and the widening schism between Washington and the capitals of Europe's largest countries. They discuss why Yaroslav believes the West's difficulties begin with a flawed diagnosis of the war based on the comforting assumption that this is a fight over territory in the Donbas rather than a contest over the future of Europe, the ideological sympathy many on the right feel toward Moscow, the nature and limits of China's support for Russia, how the war against Iran is reshaping the strategic battlefield by consuming Washington's attention and roughly half of US Patriot and THAAD interceptor reserves while bolstering Russian oil revenues, the implications for Taiwan and US allies in the Pacific, and why Europe increasingly views America not merely as an unreliable ally but as a potential strategic threat—a shift that may have mortally wounded the transatlantic relationship as it has existed since the end of World War II.
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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
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Episode Recorded on 09/02/2026