Maxwell School News

“I think his strategy now is the same as it's really been from the very beginning, which is to try and figure out how to subjugate Ukraine. And that's the goal he's been after. And he's using really most of the means at his disposal to try and achieve that. If you look at his recent interviews, he does not want to concede at all that Russia is facing any serious problems,” says Brian Taylor, professor of political science.

The war likely won't end anytime soon, says Brian Taylor, professor of political science. “The simple reason is [Russian President] Vladimir Putin is not interested in a deal, he wants to control Ukraine and Ukraine wants to remain free and independent and sovereign. And there's no real overlap between those two positions at this point,” Taylor says.

“There have been a variety of efforts since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 to try and remake the U.S.-Russia relationship...Obviously a lot has happened since then and it hasn't worked out that way and from my point of view, the thing that has broken the relationship most of all has been the Russian war against Ukraine which began in 2014,” says Brian Taylor, professor of political science.

"I thought the Russian invasion two years ago would have been more successful. I thought Russia would have managed to seize and hold more territory than they did. ...That’s because Russia fought worse than I thought they would and Ukraine has fought much better," says Brian Taylor, director of the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs.