Interview: Could A Demilitarized Zone End The Ukraine War?

Lieutenant Colonel Jahara "Franky" Matisek is an active-duty U.S. Air Force officer, a former command pilot, instructor, and Bronze Star recipient, and a professor in the national security affairs department of the U.S. Naval War College. He has researched and written widely on issues of technology in future warfare, hybrid warfare, and security force assistance.

In a conversation with RFE/RL's Georgian Service, Matisek talked about the state of the Russian invasion at the 1,000-day mark and whether the United States has really done all it can for Ukraine. He also floated the notion of a huge demilitarized zone between Ukraine and Belarus. And he said Kyiv's surprise cross-border incursion in Kursk already called "B.S." on Moscow's threat of a nuclear response to invasion.

Matisek's views are his own and do not represent the official position of the U.S. military or the U.S. government.

RFE/RL: Roughly 1,000 days into Russia's full-scale invasion, where do we stand in the Ukraine war? How is it looking?

Jahara "Franky" Matisek: In some ways, it's looking worse, in other ways, it's looking better. The things I would say are looking better are that you have more European unity on training and equipping Ukrainian forces. I would also contend that the U.S. has actually been quite lackluster in the training of Ukrainians, that we've only trained about 20,000. So any perceptions that the U.S. is doing everything for Ukraine, it just isn't true. I would argue that there is also concern about what the next [U.S. President-elect Donald Trump] administration might be doing in regard to the Ukraine war.

And if we must put on our "doomcasting hat" about where this is looking more negative, it is obviously the insertion of North Korean troops into the war. That adds another element. The question becomes: Is this just a limited insertion of 11,000 North Korean troops? But when you start hearing rumors that the North Koreans may end up giving Russia up to 100,000 troops, that's highly concerning because, through the course of the war, Russia seems to be running out of viable manpower to do effective combined-arms maneuvers and have a well-trained and well-equipped army to carry out current operations. So they have to rely on "meat-wave" assaults (operations with large numbers of troops with little regard for individual survival), and the meat-wave assaults work as long as, from a Russian perspective, those people were disposable anyways.

You know, it is very telling about how they work: They basically force the Ukrainians to expose their defenses and positions to take care of the meat-wave assault. Meanwhile, the Russian VDV [Airborne Forces], who are obviously comparatively better than most Russian forces, are able to then use precision fire over time to basically slowly pick off Ukrainian defenses.

Again, the negative is that the Russian war machine continues to grind on. They are still taking more territories, especially in eastern Ukraine. And there is a big question mark as to whether Moscow has achieved its war aims of undermining Western political support for keeping this war up into the third year, especially as we don't know what the incoming Trump administration is going to do.

RFE/RL: With all that in mind, in this theater of war, which act are we watching, and how far are we from the grand finale

Matisek: If you're [Russian President Vladimir] Putin in Moscow, you obviously want to exploit this sort of lame-duck presidency [of outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden]. So you could argue it's quite good that the Biden administration finally relented on allowing longer-range strikes [by Ukraine] into Russian territory. And the Ukrainians have already launched several ATACMS [ballistic missiles into Russia]. The range of the ATACMS is only about 300 kilometers....

RFE/RL: Isn't it a fallacy to refer to them as long-range? They are distinctly short-range. We're not talking about Tomahawks here.

Matisek: Well, for the [U.S.] Army, 300 kilometers is a long-range weapon system. But you're 100 percent right, long-range for the army means something very different from the navy or the air force. I'm an air force pilot, so when I think "long-range," I think I can hit anything on the planet from wherever I am. I like to use the term "anti-strategy" for the narrative that the U.S. basically got cornered into allowing long-range missiles and deep strikes into Russia when it's 300 kilometers. You can drive that in a few hours; that's not long-range if it's a day trip.

So the fact that we even allowed ourselves to get into that debate -- self-defeating, self-deterring, loop or spiral or cycle, whatever you want to call it -- is really unfortunate because, again, it gave the narrative to Putin, which he obviously seized upon.

He just released a new, updated Russian nuclear doctrine. The two biggest things he did in there were [to assert that] any conventional attack on Belarus is now considered an attack on Russia. And the other thing I found very notable is the inclusion of verbiage -- essentially it's directed at Ukraine -- about a country attacking us with the support of a nuclear power -- so that's potentially the U.S., the French, the Brits -- we consider that also within the realm of a response with nuclear weapons.

I think it's "red line" bluffing, because the U.S. and the collective West have been crossing Moscow's red lines for the last three, four years. But it's an attempt to control the narrative and to signal to the West that "Hey, you can't touch this because we've now drawn the line [whereby] your participation in this war, the very act of it, makes you culpable in a potential nuclear war."

RFE/RL: In that case, they don't need to wait for another escalation by "the West." By that Russian logic, the United States is already involved and is therefore a potential target for a nuclear strike. So what are they going to do to implement it?

The Tavberidze Interviews

Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Vazha Tavberidze of RFE/RL's Georgian Service has been interviewing diplomats, military experts, and academics who hold a wide spectrum of opinions about the war's course, causes, and effects. To read all of his interviews, click here.

Matisek: Well, I don't think it's any change because Russia already had a nuclear doctrine that if their territory is invaded they're allowed to have a nuclear response. Well, the Ukrainians already demonstrated that that was a line of bullshit. So I don't think the Russians are using a nuclear weapon anytime soon. The Russians can talk, they can rattle the saber about this all they want, but in the end, it would actually do more harm to the Russian war machine. It would hurt them even more, it would make them more isolated. The rest of the world is going to judge the actions of Moscow and them using a nuclear weapon when the survival of the Russian state and Russian leadership is not at stake.

RFE/RL: If we could return to the second half of the previous question: How close are we to an endgame, provided the current trends continue and assuming no Trump intervention happens?

Matisek: I could see this going on another three years.

RFE/RL: Looking at the battlefield, is there still a case to be argued in favor of Ukraine winning this on the battlefield, retaking all its territory and driving Russians out, or has that ship sailed?

Matisek: If I were to cast this into a campfire metaphor: Imagine a big campfire, and if the campfire is the standard of retaking Luhansk and [the rest of] Donbas and Crimea, the chances of that happening are merely a warm ember, and the fire is mostly out. So it does not look good, given current trends, things that I do believe could change -- that would be the European Union sending an EU-flagged mission into Ukraine and drawing a line in the sand, saying that "Russian forces will not cross these lines because we view this as an invasion of Europe."

RFE/RL: How likely is that, given what we've seen from Europe? And curiously enough, one of the peace plans that emerged from President-elect Trump's camp actually includes creating a demilitarized zone and manning it not with U.S. but European troops. So now, without a hint of sarcasm, how realistic is it that Europe says yes to that?

Matisek: The idea of the Russian forces eventually making it to Kyiv or farther west over the next three to five years would compel the Europeans to do that, along with the Americans telling the Europeans, "You have to do this."

And there is a model for this; it is basically how North Korea and South Korea had to be essentially split up. Is that a best ideal outcome? No, of course the best ideal outcome is all Russian forces leaving the entirety of Ukraine. But we have to go back to being realistic. How much are the Americans and the Canadians and the Europeans willing to fight and die for every centimeter of Ukrainian territory? And that becomes a question of political willpower and domestic politics. I think it's just an easier sell having to lock this in place.

And you essentially create a huge DMZ [demilitarized zone], essentially between Ukraine and Belarus, Russia, and the occupied parts of Ukraine. And that would just basically be millions of land mines and Ukrainian defense bases, with probably European Union-flag forces essentially as observers, peacekeepers, and as a part of that sort of deterrent line. It would essentially become just one big trip-wire deterrent, if you will. That would be an ideal outcome for a lot of countries, especially in Europe. It's really depressing and unfortunate, but it's hard to make that case to the average American or average European, that this war is worth actually fighting and dying for. It's worth fighting for, yes, but…

RFE/RL: Dying for it is a different matter.

Matisek: Exactly.

RFE/RL: We are talking hypotheticals now, right? If that plan became a reality, somebody would have to man the DMZ, right? It couldn't be only Ukrainians.

Matisek: It would have to be a European Union-flag mission. NATO would not want to be charged with that type of mission.

RFE/RL: Because of Article 5 [of the North Atlantic Treaty, providing for common defense in the event of an attack on any member]?

Matisek: Yes.

RFE/RL: Then we enter the very murky territory of who would actually be willing to send troops there. And further, equally murky territory would be what happens if there is any sort of renewed military conflict and those troops get in harm's way?

Matisek: So, on the first point, I would argue that most Eastern European countries are willing -- the Baltics would be willing to send forces, and Poland for sure -- and then it becomes kind of murky after that. I would argue the French would probably be willing to do it, and I bet the Germans would also be willing to do it. And I would argue we already kind of know who'd be willing to do this, because a template kind of exists: NATO has the EFP, the Enhanced Forward Presence, in the Baltics already, a sort of trip-wire deterrent force.

RFE/RL: But they are very conveniently under the NATO umbrella. These ones wouldn't be.

Matisek: Yes, but, for the sake of argument, there is enough overlap between the EU and NATO, they could use an EFP, they could borrow part of the EFP construct. And I would contend that you would probably get a similar mix of forces from the EU in addition to the Canadians and the Brits and even Norwegians, I bet.

RFE/RL: Since we are discussing armies and, to an extension, manpower: Which is the more pressing issue for Ukraine at this stage, shortage of equipment or shortage of manpower?

Matisek: It's manpower, manpower, manpower. The Europeans and the Americans and the Brits, all these countries that are willing to train Ukrainians, they could train more; it's just a question of whether Ukraine can send more. And get them enough military-aged men and women, as women are also allowed to serve in the Ukrainian Army. So that becomes a huge part.

We know it's in Germany's interest not to allow Ukraine to fall either; I think a big report came out just last week about the anticipation that, if Ukraine were to fall or be abandoned, that Europe would expect 10 million to 15 million Ukrainian refugees and that would be way more disruptive economically and politically.

So, yeah, it's manpower. The only thing you can do to offset the manpower things is having more and more drones. Because they don't have the manpower, you really see the Ukrainians emphasizing cheap drones that are unjammable, that use AI, and that is a way to overcome the manpower issue. But at a certain point, you still need people on the ground to man the drones.

RFE/RL: We have already discussed the ATACMS green light from the United States. Let's circle back to it. What has shifted in the Biden administration's calculations that made them think that now is the time?

Matisek: Oh, it's definitely that the administration has been under a lot of pressure because of the insertion [into Russia's Kursk region] of the 11,000 North Korean troops. They've been under a lot of pressure, I think, internally and externally, about letting the North Koreans get involved in this war without any sort of tit-for-tat-type response. The South Koreans are quite upset and angry about this as well. So this had to be a natural response.

RFE/RL: The general consensus seems to be that it's coming way too late, but still the question needs to be asked: What's the expected impact?

Matisek: Again, the tit-for-tat escalation by the current administration has just been too little too late, constantly. That seems to be a theme -- too little, too late, too much open debating, too much time to give Russia an ability to adjust before these weapons and stuff are used so that you can't exploit them in the moment. I guarantee you, Russians did their best to disperse after that announcement, in terms of massing formations and trying to get things out of stockpiles, just to minimize how much damage can be done by ATACMS. So that's what I find unfortunate about it, that the U.S. is trying to incrementally escalate but do it very openly, and that actually undermines the intent and the purpose. And honestly, this is still a war, so when you do things like this, it makes it feel more like a war of politics and diplomacy than an actual war of militarily defeating Russia and neutering their ability to invade a neighbor ever again.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.