For NPR, Senior Advisor Alexander Gabuev analyzes the New Year's Eve strike on Russian forces, the Kremlin's reaction to the strike, and the state of the war in Ukraine. 

"SCHMITZ: Russian military bloggers said the Russian army was storing ammunition in the same building as the troop quarters. Why would commanders do that when they had to know that they would certainly be targets for Ukrainian rockets?

GABUEV: We definitely see a certain pattern here. The Russian military has made those mistakes very early on. And once the HIMARS - the high-precision weapons - that the Americans sent to Ukrainians throughout summer arrived, there were multiple incidents when the Ukrainians, having the right intelligence, were able to strike the enemy targets deep behind the front lines. And after 10 months of this war, mass incidents like this have mainly disappeared. The Russians have adapted. But this time, it took a big mistake of a commander to have troops together and with ammunition. So it shows that some commanders learned nothing."

Listen to or read the full interview here.