Dmitry Gorenburg: Russia security expert on Russia's likely response to Ukraine's first long range missile attack

Ukraine has fired its first set of US-supplied long range missile at a target inside Russian territory, just a day after the US granted permission for their use.  

Russia's defence ministry says five missiles were shot down and another was damaged, with its fragments causing a fire at a military facility in the Bryansk region. 

Russia security expert Dmitry Gorenburg says he's not expecting a massive response from Russia.  

He told Ryan Bridge they will play the waiting game.  

Gorenburg says they're waiting for Donald Trump to take over from Joe Biden to get more concessions. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the Ukrainians have taken advantage of American weapons and
fired long range missiles inside Russia. Sergei Lavrov, who's the
Russian foreign minister at the G twenty a few moments ago,
said we will take this as a new phase in
the war from the west and we will respond. Dmitri

(00:22):
Goreenberg is a Russian security expert. He's got expertise on
the former Soviet Union in Russian military. He was with Harvard,
now with CNA. He joins us this morning. Welcome to
the show, Thanks for having me, thank you for being here.
How do you think Russia will respond to something like this?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Well, I don't think there's going to be a very
strong response, and for a couple of reasons. One, they've
been expecting this for a while, so it's kind of
already kind of baked in. They did respond initially to
the reports with a large barrage of missiles in the Ukraine. Uh.

(01:00):
And then the second part is they're waiting for the
Trump administration. They see that Biden administration is at this
point is on its way out, and they think that
they can maybe get some more uh you know, changes
in policy out of out of Trump. So I don't
think they're gonna want to escalate too much in the
next you know, in the next couple of months.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
What's your theory on why Biden did it now? Is
it the North Koreans or is it because Trump's coming? Well? Both,
I think both. Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
They they want to get as much in place before
Trump comes in. On the theory that you know, while
Trump wouldn't potentially wouldn't approve this, uh, he's also potentially
not going to reverse the decision if it's already been made. Uh,
And they want to you know, set up the Ukrainians

(01:49):
for to have as much uh yuh, you know, leeway
and and success as possible.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
In terms of potent laring the threshold for the use
of nuclear weapons and signing that symbolically overnight got anything
to do with this or is that I mean, obviously
it's been well signaled, but should we read much into that.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
I think that I wouldn't be surprised if they were
holding in their back pocket and waiting for something like
this to to pull it out and say, Okay, here's
here's what we're doing. The overall change in nuclear doctrine
does have kind of writ larges related to Western supplies

(02:32):
of weapons and long range missiles and things like that.
So because one of the things they're afraid of is
you know, long range conventional strikes from the US. So
that's part of the change in the doctrine. But it
doesn't have anything specifically to do with this decision. It's
just kind of the larger confrontation having Russia in the West.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
How does this end? In your mind? There's been talk
of a DMZ being set up potentially between Russia and Ukraine,
you know, Ukraine agreeing not to join night for twenty years,
US weapons at the border manned by NATO soldiers, etc.
Does Putin do a deal like that?

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well, I don't. You know. All this talk of negotiation
right now is predicated on Russia actually being interested in negotiations,
and I don't see much evidence of that, to be honest,
because right now they see themselves as having great deal
of success on the battlefield, so they'll be happy to
participate in negotiations that result in what is essentially Ukrainian capitulation.

(03:33):
But the Western sides and even you know, whatever we
may happen with the Trump administration of the Europeans and
the Ukrainians themselves are not willing to go for that,
so I think I wouldn't expect a quick end.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
What on earth is his end game for Russia?

Speaker 2 (03:54):
The well they want to I mean they've they've stated
a quite clear they want to have a sphere of
influence over the former Soviet territory, and you know Ukraine
is the most important part of that for them. So
I think that plus showing that the West or NATO

(04:15):
and you know NATO alliance is weak and can't stop this,
that's that's the goal.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Thanks so much for your time to make sure. Gourenberg,
Russian security expert formerly of Harvard, now is CNA for
more Familily edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to news talks.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
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