Russia Analytical Report, April 20–27, 2026

5 Ideas to Explore

  1. Former director of the CIA William J. Burns draws three lessons from the past weeks of the Iran conflict in his op-ed for NYT. First, “managing difficult foreign policy problems well takes time and patience.” Second, there is “no substitute for harnessing all the instruments of U.S. national security.” Third, “‘mowing the grass’—using blunt force against immediate threats with no long‑term plan for success—has only seeded the lawn with wider problems.” Iran is “battered but intact” and more hard‑line; the Strait of Hormuz is now “a more potent source of influence”; U.S. alliances are frayed; and the war has “thrown a lifeline to Vladimir Putin, resulting in more energy revenue and diminished U.S. military inventories at a time when Ukraine had been making progress on the battlefield and the Russian economy was facing its own dire straits,” according to Burns.
  2. Kateryna Bondar argues that the image of a rigid, inept Russian military is “dangerously out of date.” After four years of war, she writes in NYT, “Moscow has developed an impressive, pragmatic approach to military innovation” that “prioritizes what works over what is elegant, what scales over what is ambitious and what delivers battlefield results over what impresses on paper.” Russia has made unmanned systems and AI a national priority, aiming by 2030 for “one million specialists… in the unmanned sector” and for 95% of priority industries to reach “readiness for the implementation of artificial intelligence technologies,” she writes.
  3. Russia could, “in the most favorable circumstances,” generate enough combat power within a year after fighting in Ukraine ends to start a regional conflict against NATO, the Military Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands (MIVD) claims in its annual report. “A military conflict between Russia and NATO is not unthinkable, but as long as Russia is fighting in Ukraine, a conventional war against NATO is virtually excluded. At the same time, Russia is already making concrete preparations for a possible conflict with NATO,” according to MIVD. Andriy Zagorodnyuk speculates that in an attack against NATO’s eastern flank, Russian forces would likely pair small‑group infiltrations with mass drone and missile bombardment to “paralyze NATO’s ground forces and render its airpower much less decisive.” That represents a challenge for which recent exercises have shown the alliance’s “shocking lack of preparedness,” Zagorodnyuk writes on CEIP’s website. For a recent RM survey of Western officials and experts on under what circumstances and when Russia may attack a NATO country, check out this link.*
  4. Chernobyl has become both “a unique laboratory… on the biology, ecology and sociology of nuclear accidents” and “one disaster layered on another,” The Economist writes on the 40th anniversary of the disaster. This U.K. newspaper notes, citing hydrometeorologists Gennady Laptev and Oleg Voitsekhovych, that post‑1986, tap water contributed “no more than 10%… and probably closer to 1%” of long‑term internal radiation, with “the rest” coming from food, especially milk. Agricultural radiologist Valery Kashparov finds that “peaty and sandy earth gives up its contaminants… far more readily” than rich black soils, and that “oats disproportionately draw in strontium; peas, cesium.” Microbiologist Olena Pareniuk shows reactor‑dwelling bacteria are breaking down corium while Jim Smith argues Chernobyl’s main legacy is “a multigenerational case of the heebie jeebies” about radiation. Today, ghost towns of Chernobyl’s exclusion zone, long “emptied of people after the catastrophic explosion and meltdown” in 1986, now serve as training grounds where Ukrainian troops “practiced defending the irradiated land against a repeat Russian attack,” according to NYT.
  5. By lowering borrowing costs to 14.5% from 15.5% on April 24, the Bank of Russia has become “something of an outlier among central banks, many of which are contemplating an increase to rates to contain the pickup in inflation that has been triggered by the latest war in the Middle East,” according to WSJ’s Paul Hannon. Hannon further explains that “Russia is a major energy producer, and therefore less vulnerable to the reduction in energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz than many others.” Hannon also reminds us that in new forecasts released earlier this month, the IMF “raised its projection for [Russia’s economic] growth in 2026 to 1.1% from 0.8%, citing higher commodity prices.” According to Table 1.1. “Overview of the World Economic Outlook Reference Forecast” in IMF’s April 2026 outlook, of the 16 selected individual countries in the table, only four countries saw their GDP forecast revised up from the IMF’s January 2026 update, including Russia. Eleven other countries’ GDP forecasts were revised down, while one did not change. Of the four countries whose GDP forecasts went up, Russia and Brazil saw the greatest boost with a 0.3% revision.

I. U.S. and Russian priorities for the bilateral agenda

Nuclear security and safety:

“Scientists are still learning from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster,” The Economist, 04.21.26.

  • The article calls Chernobyl “a unique laboratory: an unnatural experiment that four decades on continues to produce valuable lessons on the biology, ecology and sociology of nuclear accidents.” Hydrometeorologists Gennady Laptev and Oleg Voitsekhovych found that post‑1986, tap water “provided no more than 10% of their total long‑term internal radiation dose, and probably closer to 1%,” with “the rest” coming from food, “in particular, milk.” Now, as cooling ponds drain, they report that “strontium levels in local waterways have begun to rise above WHO drinking‑water guidelines.”
  • Agricultural radiologist Valery Kashparov says “the soil probably matters most: peaty and sandy earth gives up its contaminants… far more readily than black, humus‑rich soils,” and that “oats disproportionately draw in strontium; peas, cesium,” while “wheat and potatoes… leave more radionuclides in the earth.” His countermeasures include feeding livestock “Prussian Blue that binds to cesium,” turning “iffy milk into a form (such as butter or cheese) that can outlive dangerous radioactivity,” and adding lime or mineral fertilizers—though he stresses any playbook must reflect “local economies, dietary habits and risk tolerances.”
  • Microbiologist Olena Pareniuk has shown that reactor‑dwelling bacteria “are breaking down the wildly radioactive mixture of melted uranium fuel, concrete and metal known as corium,” leading her to remark that “whatever material human beings create, nature will find its bugs to decompose it.” 
  • Jim Smith notes that evacuation has become “a well‑documented experiment in rewilding,” and argues that, beyond a limited health impact, Chernobyl mainly left “a multigenerational case of the heebie‑jeebies” about radiation that has shaped global energy policy.

“40 Years After the Meltdown, War Layers Another Disaster on Chernobyl,” Andrew E. Kramer and Evelina Riabenko, New York Times, 04.26.26.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

“How North Korea Won: The Strange Triumph of Kim Jong Un,” Jung H. Pak, Foreign Affairs, 04.21.26.

  • Pak writes that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine created “an unprecedentedly favorable environment in which Kim could assert his usefulness.” By 2023–24, according to South Korean estimates she cites, North Korea had shipped “short-range ballistic missiles, antitank missiles, and portable antiaircraft missiles to Russia, in addition to more than a million… artillery shells,” and eventually “11,000 troops” plus “more than 20,000 shipping containers of munitions.” Ukrainian intelligence, she notes, now assesses that “North Korea now supplies as much as 40 percent of the Russian army’s munitions.”
  • In return, Pak argues, Putin has paid with foodstuffs, oil and sanctions‑busting access, and is “likely providing” technology that the U.S. commander in Korea warns will “enable advancements of [North Korea’s] weapons of mass destruction program over the next three to five years.” She highlights reports that Russian modernization has made North Korean missiles “more accurate,” and that North Korean troops have gone “from using World War II tactics to managing on the battlefield with drones.”
  • Pak concludes that Kim can now “dial down his support for the war in Ukraine and undermine Putin’s war effort” if dissatisfied, giving Pyongyang new leverage over Moscow and making North Korea “a preview of the obstacles the United States will face as this new order takes shape.”
  • See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

Iran and its nuclear program:

“Trump Seeks to Abolish Iran’s Nuclear Stockpile, a Problem He Helped Create,” William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, New York Times, 04.25.26.

  • Broad and Sanger write that as Trump tries to “negotiate or intimidate his way out of the war he began with Iran,” he confronts the legacy of having scrapped the 2015 deal he called “a horrible, one-sided deal”: once he withdrew in 2018, “the Iranians went on an enrichment spree,” so that today the IAEA says Iran has “a total of 11 tons of uranium,” enough “to build up to 100 nuclear weapons.” Under the Obama accord, they note, Tehran had shipped “12.5 tons” to Russia, “about 97 percent,” leaving “too little nuclear fuel to build a single bomb.”
  • The authors stress that almost all of the current stockpile “accumulated in the years after Mr. Trump abandoned the Obama-era deal,” yet he now demands Iran “halt further enrichment” and hand over the fuel, while boasting that “the DEAL that we are making with Iran will be FAR BETTER” and that the JCPOA “was a guaranteed Road to a Nuclear Weapon.” William J. Burns is quoted saying any good deal now needs “tight nuclear inspections, an extended moratorium on the enrichment of uranium and the export or dilution of Tehran’s existing stockpile,” warning that “unless the lines are clearly drawn and strictly monitored, the Iranians will paint outside them.”
  • They note that Trump’s 2025 “Operation Midnight Hammer” airstrikes “set back” facilities at Natanz, Fordo and Isfahan, but “said little or nothing about the survival of Iran’s cache of enriched uranium,” which Witkoff calls “a move towards weaponization — it’s the only reason you would have it.” Experts like Edwin Lyman and Thomas Cochran estimate the stockpile could yield “roughly 35 to 55 weapons” or even “50 to 100 bombs” if further enriched, while Matthew Bunn cautions that “we can’t bomb away their knowledge” and that an enrichment plant “comparable in size to a grocery store” could easily be hidden in Iran’s mountains.

“Russia Says It Can Take Iran’s Enriched Uranium. Will That Happen?,” Ned Garvey, Moscow Times, 04.20.26.

  • Garvey reports that Russia has “repeatedly offered to remove Iran’s highly enriched uranium (HEU)” since the U.S.-Israeli attacks began, but on Friday Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the offer was “not currently on the negotiating table,” adding that Washington had “no interest” in it. Rosatom chief Alexei Likhachev has described Russia as the “only country with positive experience cooperating with Iran,” and nuclear adviser Dmitry Gorchakov tells the paper that transporting and storing Iran’s roughly 440 kilograms of 60% HEU would be “well within Moscow’s capabilities,” even under wartime conditions, provided there is coordinated deconfliction with the IAEA.
  • The article stresses Russia’s bid to play nuclear middleman: Gorchakov calls the scheme a potential “win-win,” arguing that “Iran can trust Russia more than it trusts Washington,” and points to earlier U.S.-Russian cooperation moving 500 tons of Soviet HEU to the United States. He says the main technical challenge is “how to collect it and be sure about the specific amount of destroyed material,” but that “what to do with it next is not very important, they can find solutions.” Politically, however, “this all rests on Trump,” and Gorchakov concludes, “I have many more questions for Trump than for Putin.”

“Here’s How Trump Can Get Us Out of the Mess in Iran,” William J. Burns, New York Times, 04.24.26.

  • From the Iran conflict, Burns draws three lessons. 
    • First, “managing difficult foreign policy problems well takes time and patience”: perfect outcomes are rare, decapitation strikes are an “illusion,” and the real question is what can be achieved “at an acceptable cost” over time. 
    • Second, there is “no substitute for harnessing all the instruments of U.S. national security”: force without “patient, painstaking diplomacy” and serious use of intelligence will fail, so any deal must pair tight inspections and a long enrichment moratorium with sanctions relief and a multilateral arrangement to keep the Strait of Hormuz open “without allowing an Iranian tollbooth.”
    • Third, he warns that “‘mowing the grass’ — using blunt force against immediate threats with no long‑term plan for success — has only seeded the lawn with wider problems”: Iran is “battered but intact” and more hard‑line, the Strait is now “a more potent source of influence,” U.S. alliances are frayed, and the war has “thrown a lifeline to Vladimir Putin, resulting in more energy revenue and diminished U.S. military inventories at a time when Ukraine had been making progress on the battlefield and the Russian economy was facing its own dire straits.” Burns concludes that while “we didn’t have to dig the hole this deep,” there is still time to “put our shovel down, learn some hard lessons, and apply them with a little more humility.”
  • Burns concludes: “We didn’t have to dig the hole this deep. Fortunately, there’s still time to put our shovel down, learn some hard lessons, and apply them with a little more humility.”

“The Iran War Is Highlighting—and Expanding—Authoritarian Collaboration,” Joshua Kurlantzick, Council on Foreign Relations, 04.21.26.

  • Kurlantzick writes that Iran “has also benefited significantly from autocratic partners’ help,” stressing that “China and Russia, among others, have continued to provide critical support to Iran during the war.” He notes that “Russia has sent Iran sophisticated drones, which have been adapted as Russia learned lessons from the war in Ukraine,” and that Moscow has “helped Iranian forces with drone targeting, cyberwarfare, and signals and electronic intelligence,” according to U.S. and European officials. These systems, he says, have “done significant damage to U.S. bases near Iran, killed U.S. service members, and forced the United States and its partners to deploy many of their interceptors.”
  • Situating this in a wider pattern, Kurlantzick points out that “China and Russia announced a ‘no limits’ partnership in 2022,” and that in 2025 “Russia also signed a defense cooperation deal with Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger,” while Myanmar and Russia concluded a four‑year security pact that makes them “almost allies.” He argues that such ties show autocrats “are gaining the strength needed to make this collaboration work,” noting that authoritarian countries were responsible for “nearly 50 percent of global gross domestic product in 2022.”
  • The article highlights Russia’s role in attempts at dedollarization: “Facing sanctions after the start of the Ukraine war, Russia has already collaborated with China and other states to create financial transfer systems that often use the Chinese yuan instead of the U.S. dollar in order to avoid the SWIFT transfer system,” while Iran’s decision to let only “consumers paying in Chinese yuan” transit the Strait of Hormuz further boosts the yuan. Kurlantzick also notes that even U.S. partners are edging closer to Moscow, quoting Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in Moscow praising Vladimir Putin’s “very positive role in dealing with this uncertain geopolitical situation.”

“Meeting with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi,” Kremlin.ru, 04.27.26.1 Clues from Russian and Iranian Views. Machine-translated from Russian.

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

“Is Norway really a war profiteer?,” Richard Milne, Financial Times, 04.21.26.

  • Milne notes that after Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine, “Norway has earned about $140bn more in 2022 and 2023 from petroleum… than it did in 2021,” and that Nordea’s Robert Næss now reckons it has made “at least an additional $8bn from the conflict in Iran.” One EU minister quoted calls Norway “nothing less than a war profiteer,” arguing that “given how much extra it has earned because of the suffering in Ukraine, it should be much more generous in support to Ukraine,” while Swedish editor Peter Wolodarski says it is “a moral paradox to grow a sovereign wealth fund on the back of a tragedy that Ukraine is paying for in blood.”

Military and security aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts:

“Russia Is Building Tomorrow’s War Machine,” Kateryna Bondar, New York Times, 04.21.26.

  • Bondar argues that the old image of a rigid, inept Russian military is “dangerously out of date.” After four years of war, she writes, “Moscow has developed an impressive, pragmatic approach to military innovation” that “prioritizes what works over what is elegant, what scales over what is ambitious, and what delivers battlefield results over what impresses on paper.” Russia has made unmanned systems and AI “a national priority,” aiming by 2030 for “one million specialists… in the unmanned sector” and for 95 percent of priority industries to reach “readiness for the implementation of artificial intelligence technologies.”
  • She says Russia “experiments relentlessly,” citing Shahed drones that have undergone “more than three dozen major modifications in less than three years,” including work by students at a factory that is “effectively a school and the school is a research and development lab.” Ukrainian intelligence, she notes, suggests Russia is already using fully autonomous V2U drones that “navigate, autonomously identify targets and strike independently,” and although they sometimes hit civilian targets, “they are already in use” because “Moscow is neither waiting for technological perfection nor constrained by ethical hesitation.”
  • Bondar highlights battlefield software like Glaz/Groza, which “compresses the time from target detection to artillery impact from hours to mere minutes,” and stresses that Russia’s most important decision has been to elevate private initiative: volunteer networks and “garage-level” development praised by Defense Minister Andrei Belousov have made Russia “a hub of entrepreneurial vigor” in drones, while “the United States remains constrained by centralized requirements, slow acquisition and limited integration.”

“The New Revolution in Military Affairs,” Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Carnegie Endowment, 04.20.26. Clues from Ukrainian Views.

  • Zagorodnyuk argues that Russia’s war on Ukraine has entered “a new phase, one defined less by territorial gains than by intense technological competition,” with both sides turning the battlefield into “a live environment of continuous military‑technical experimentation.” Ukraine champions a “distributed, bottom‑up innovation model,” while Russia pursues a “centralized approach, with the state playing a dominant role,” but “both have moved far beyond prevailing Western practices.”
  • He highlights the rise of “affordable precise mass”: Ukraine has “produced millions of drones,” reportedly “4 million in 2025,” and “despite accounting for 20 percent of force personnel, drone units deliver over 80 percent of enemy casualties.” Russia routinely launches “hundreds” of Shaheds, “recently almost one thousand per night,” exploiting low unit cost to “exhaust Ukraine’s air defenses.”
  • The air domain, he writes, is fragmenting: control of manned aviation “no longer guarantees” control over “dense swarms of low‑altitude tactical systems,” so air superiority becomes “band‑limited,” and “ground maneuver in Ukraine has become extremely difficult in areas saturated with drones.” Russia has shifted to small assault groups, while Ukraine relies on net‑centric systems like Delta, which fuse sensors and drones so that “sensor‑to‑shooter cycles” shrink to “minutes, sometimes seconds.”
  • A core lesson is that “rapid and near‑seamless adaptation has become a determinant of combat power,” with Ukrainian brigades acting as “focal points for experimentation” and industry embedded in frontline feedback loops, in sharp contrast to Western acquisition models where long cycles and contractor control over maintenance can “slow adaptation cycles and reduce operational flexibility.”
  • Zagorodnyuk warns that what is emerging—cheap, scalable, increasingly intelligent unmanned systems—meets the criteria for a new revolution in military affairs and that “a kinetic conflict with Russia would not be fought on familiar doctrinal terms”: Moscow would likely pair small‑group infiltrations with mass drone and missile bombardment to “paralyze NATO’s ground forces and render its airpower much less decisive,” a challenge for which recent exercises have shown the alliance “a shocking lack of preparedness.”

“Three dangerous illusions about ending the war in Ukraine,” Sviatoslav Hnizdovskyi and Valerii Pekar, New Eastern Europe, 04.20.26.

  • The authors argue that Western debates project “its desires onto Russia’s reality,” and insist that any strategy must aim at a peace in which Russia is “neither willing nor able to threaten Ukraine, destabilize Europe, or support aggression in other parts of the world.” They call it an illusion to expect that “a ceasefire, a leadership change in Moscow, or a negotiated settlement will restore something like the old order,” because “the old order is what produced this war.”
  • On Russia’s internal trajectory, they warn that democracy is not “just one good election away,” since in Russia “these foundations were never properly built” and what exists is “a system designed for control, with coercion and propaganda used as routine tools of governance.” They argue that openings since 1991 have grown “shorter and weaker than the last,” and that much of the opposition has been unwilling to confront “Russia’s imperial heritage,” so betting on a quick democratic transition leads the West to “under‑invest in everything else: containment, alliance resilience, long‑term defense capacity.”
  • They describe Russia’s war machine as becoming self‑sustaining: Moscow is “raising the next war generation” via Yunarmiya and drone training for children, has redirected hostility so that “the main enemy is framed as Europe and the wider West,” and runs a war economy where “demobilization now threatens not just the war effort but the domestic political settlement that has formed around it.” In parallel, Russia is embedding itself in an “authoritarian supply chain” with China, Iran and North Korea and building alternative routes like the Northern Sea Route, while boosting state media budgets by 54 percent—evidence, the authors say, that “the Kremlin knows its grip on domestic information is fragile.” They conclude that “a ceasefire is not a neutral interval”; as long as Russia “uses time strategically and the other uses it for relief, the intermission itself becomes a weapon.”

“Putin’s troubles: Facing mounting economic and military pressure, the Kremlin may try to muddle through – or escalate,” Ondrej Ditrych, EUISS, 04.27.26.

  • Ditrych notes that the IMF has raised its 2026 forecast for Russia “by +0.3 %, to 1.1 % of GDP,” and that in March the federal budget is expected to collect “USD 9 billion in oil extraction taxes – twice as much as in February,” thanks to the Iran war’s oil spike. Yet he points out that in Q1 the deficit already hit “1.9 % GDP, or USD 60 billion – exceeding the planned deficit for the whole of 2026 and double the level recorded in the first quarter of 2025,” while Putin has publicly admitted GDP “had shrunk by 1.8 % in the first two months of 2026.”
  • Under the surface, he writes, “interest rates remain high, consumption is falling, and Central Bank chief Elvira Nabiullina has warned of a severe labor force shortage, with unemployment at 2 %.” The National Wealth Fund’s assets have “fallen by more than a half since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine,” and the Kremlin is resorting to “unorthodox ways to intervene,” even as the FSB’s attempts to “restore order to the internet” have triggered rare public discontent and mean that “the ‘good tsar’ Putin himself… is no longer shielded from public ire.”
  • Militarily, Ditrych says “there is little for Moscow to celebrate”: Ukraine “has regained the upper hand in drone warfare, inflicting more fatalities on Russian forces,” has “stabilized the front line,” and is set to bolster its forces with an EU loan that allocates “€60 billion to cover Kyiv’s military needs,” while Russian recruitment is “likely slowing.” He concludes that the regime may try to “muddle through” but, if Putin decides the window to freeze the war “on favorable terms is closing,” he could opt for “a darker scenario: escalation,” so Europeans “should not be intimidated,” but accelerate deterrence and support for Ukraine.

“A War of Attrition in The Skies: Russia adapts missile and drone strike tactics, while Ukraine attempts to disrupt Russian missile production,” Re:Russia, 04.22.26.

  • The authors describe a new Russian air campaign profile: record‑scale, long‑duration, multi‑wave attacks using “up to a thousand” drones and dozens of missiles, hitting “civilian infrastructure” across multiple regions. Large raids on 23–24 March used “948 drones… and 34 missiles,” and on 15–16 April two waves involved “44 missiles, including 19 ballistic missiles, and 659 UAVs,” devastating civilian targets in Kyiv and Odesa. Military experts say the aim is to “exert sustained pressure on Ukraine’s air defense, overwhelm it, and expose its vulnerabilities.”
  • Using Re:Russia’s calculations, the piece notes that average daily drone launches rose from “about 115 per day” in early 2025 to “around 180” later in the year, then to “240 drones per day” after the March–April raids, while missile launches climbed to “around 7.5 missiles per day” (over half ballistic) in late 2025 before dropping back to “3.1 missiles per day” in April 2026. The decline in ballistic use is “highly likely” linked to Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s Votkinsk plant and “Kremniy El,” which “in practice likely amounts to a complete shutdown of the facility” supplying electronics for Iskander, Kalibr, S‑300/400 and other Russian systems.
  • Despite some success attacking Russia’s defense‑industrial base and launch sites, the article warns that “the inability to counter ballistic missile strikes remains one of Ukraine’s principal vulnerabilities.” Russian missile and drone strikes last winter “brought Ukraine to the very brink of a humanitarian catastrophe,” and the authors say that “by next winter, Vladimir Putin will undoubtedly begin preparing well in advance” for a renewed large‑scale campaign against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. With “80% of Ukraine’s territory” lacking defenses capable of stopping ballistic missiles, they argue Kyiv must combine deeper strikes on Russia’s missile production with a new European air‑defense architecture in which Ukraine is “an integral part.”

“There is no better spur to military innovation than war,” The Economist, 04.23.26.

  • The article argues that Ukraine’s drone‑and‑robotics surge is reshaping the war’s balance against Russia. President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukrainian drones and robots conducted “more than 22,000 missions” in the first three months of the year and that Ukraine recently captured a Russian position “using only UGVs and drones, without any human troops.” Russia is believed to have suffered about 35,000 casualties in March alone, “96% of them… caused by drone strikes,” meaning that “for the first time since the invasion began, Ukraine is killing and wounding Russian soldiers faster than the Russian authorities can replace them.” Russian forces have largely abandoned big mechanized assaults for small infantry probes and are instead intensifying bombing of Ukrainian cities.
  • Ukraine’s “industrial Darwinism” in defense tech is contrasted with Russia’s state‑run programs. Some 2,300 Ukrainian firms now compete; drone output has risen from 800,000 three years ago to a planned 7 million this year, and a Ukrainian official claims a “1.3 to 1 advantage over Russia in FPVs.” Ukraine has extended fixed‑wing drone range to “as much as 1,500km,” striking energy and air‑defense targets deep inside Russia, and produces “well over 1,000” interceptor drones a day. Russia still holds “a clear advantage in ballistic missiles” and glide bombs, but the piece concludes that Ukraine has “caught up with, and in some instances leapfrogged, Russia” in unmanned warfare.

“The general came to the podium and could no longer remain silent: ‘How much redder can these lines be?’” Yuri Baluyevsky speech covered by Tsargrad, 04.24.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • Former Chief of the Russian General Staff Yuri Baluyevsky told a Public Chamber conference that “Russia was the first to reach hypersonic speed” [in weapons] and that “we shouted on every corner: we have weapons that no other country has, and is unlikely to have soon. But the dangers for our country have not become less.” Referring to repeated Western and Ukrainian strikes, he asked: “We talked about ‘red lines’ in one of our speeches. Well, how much redder can these lines be?”
  • Citing an Ukrainian drone attack on one of Vladimir Putin’s residences and strikes on Russian AWACS aircraft and other targets, Baluyevsky said: “I was waiting, well when, when will we start fighting for real?” He warned that “either there will be a strong Russia, or there will be no Russia at all,” and claimed that Western “partners” are “clearly telling us: ‘You may live through 2027, but in 2028 we will definitely come for you.’”
  • He then asked “are we going to keep conducting this [special military] operation for several more years, to wear them down? Whom will we exhaust? All of Europe, all of NATO… And what about us?” While noting high oil earnings, he said “in the long term we perfectly understand the situation” and quoted Putin’s warning that if Russia does not find answers to these threats it will “finally turn into a raw‑materials appendage, a periphery servicing the world economy.”

“On the Current Situation,” Aleksandr Kharchenko, Witnesses of Bayraktar Telegram channel, 04.20.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • Kharchenko opens bluntly: “No we’re not coping. All of us together. Me, and you, the one reading this text.” He argues that for four years Russians have “lived in a suspended state” where “the army is fighting, and the rest of us could more or less ignore it,” and that after repelling Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive “we convinced ourselves that victory would just fall into our hands. We only had to wait. No, it didn’t.”
  • He warns that Ukraine has “shifted to unmanned technologies” and is “doing everything it can to move toward a war of robots,” while also “moved to total war,” sharply ramping up mobilization and “inserting religious narratives into their propaganda.” By contrast, he writes, “we’re still worried about the price of a latte. That’s a dangerous trend. In war between a pragmatist and a fanatic, the fanatic wins.” Under the current balance, he insists, “we won’t be able to break their back” and are being “led down the path of controlled escalation. That’s a sure road to the scaffold.”
  • Kharchenko calls for “mobilization and a shift to total war with all available means and resources,” conceding that “our lives will get worse—but we will live,” because “no one is going to leave us in peace.” He ends with a definition: “Total war, in my understanding, is not blocking the internet. Total war is mobilizing all available resources and using them as efficiently as possible. Without the internet and communications, we won’t transition to a war of robots.”
  • See this link for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

Military aid to Ukraine

“How to Fight an Economic War: A Field Manual for a Ruptured World,” Edward Fishman, Foreign Affairs, 04.21.26.

  • Fishman argues that in the new era of weaponized interdependence, “the United States and China possess the most formidable arsenals, but as the war in Iran has shown, smaller powers can also exact devastating costs,” noting that Tehran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz “sent energy prices soaring, forcing Washington to shift its war aims.” He stresses that chokepoints such as Hormuz or dollar finance matter for Russia, too: “When they have a choice, states don’t weaponize interdependence—they weaponize dependence.”
  • On Russia, he recalls that after Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014, U.S. sanctions “spurred China’s leaders to build homegrown payment systems,” a warning that overuse of sanctions against Russia and others is “eroding the foundations of American economic power.” Later, he notes that fears of oil prices have repeatedly blunted coercive campaigns: in March, “to bring down oil prices after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, the Trump administration eased sanctions on Russian oil, delivering windfall profits to Moscow without extracting any concessions on Ukraine.”
  • Fishman concludes that Washington must practice “disciplined, coordinated” economic warfare and build an “economic security alliance” that neutralizes the coercive power of rivals “such as China and Russia,” or risk sliding into “economic fragmentation that leaves the United States less prosperous and less secure.”

“Aftertaste of the Twentieth Package,” Ivan Timofeev, Valdai Club, 04.25.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • Timofeev calls the EU’s 20th sanctions package “the most scandalous in the entire history of Brussels’ restrictive measures,” noting it was blocked by Hungary and Slovakia until Kyiv made concessions on the Druzhba pipeline. Yet he argues that while “the new sanctions are numerous” and their details matter, “they hardly change the situation qualitatively in the sanctions regime.”
  • He writes that the EU has again expanded blocking sanctions on Russian “defense, industrial and oil companies, their managers and owners, as well as prominent public figures,” but judges that these measures “do not make much weather,” since transactions between such firms and EU jurisdictions “were already close to zero.”
  • On export controls, Timofeev writes that “back in 2022–2023 practically all dual‑use goods and a significant part of industrial goods” were already covered, so new extensions “do not add quality.” Restrictions on Russian imports likewise “continue” but without a qualitative shift.
  • He highlights continued efforts to fight Russia’s “shadow fleet,” noting the number of tankers banned from EU servicing has risen “to 651,” which “probably complicates logistics, but does not prevent it,” and that EU is adding legal hurdles to tanker sales to Russia via third countries. The number of Russian banks under transaction bans has risen “to fifty,” which may be “sensitive” for some using SWIFT, while use of Russia’s SPFS messaging system still draws threats of secondary sanctions.
  • The most notable innovation, he argues, is extending export controls on certain industrial goods to Kyrgyzstan, after EU authorities recorded import and re‑export growth “of hundreds of percent,” sending a signal to other states. At the same time, he notes Brussels has lifted sanctions from several foreign banks that stopped Russia‑linked operations, “showing that it is ready to lift sanctions in case of ‘behavior change’,” though the number of such targets “may turn out to be too large.”

"Russia Will Never Agree to Peace in Ukraine," William Dixon and Maksym Beznosiuk, The National Interest, 04.26.26.

  • Dixon and Beznosiuk argue that “since 2022, Putin has engineered a domestic political system in which perpetual war is no longer a consequence of ambition, but a structural requirement for regime survival,” so “a ceasefire—even a ceasefire on terms largely favorable to Moscow—would now destabilize the Putin regime more acutely than continued war.” Using Milan Svolik’s framework, they say the Kremlin’s “external aggression and internal repression” are “two expressions of a single internal political logic.”
  • On elites, they write that Putin has “moved to close [coup pathways] off through deliberate elite fragmentation and systematically raising the personal cost of dissent,” noting arrests of governors and the quiet sidelining of figures like Dmitry Kozak, so that “political rank no longer guarantees protection once loyalty, usefulness, or discipline comes into question.” Rosgvardia has been turned into “a praetorian guard answerable only to the president,” with “340,000 soldiers, tanks, artillery, and its own ‘General Staff’,” modeled on Iran’s IRGC.
  • Among the masses, they highlight that “an estimated 29 percent of GDP” is now spent on war and that in some regions “a soldier’s salary now dwarfs the local average by a factor of 15,” while value‑added tax has been hiked to 22 percent and social spending cut “from 38 to 25 percent.” Political prosecutions have “tripled,” VPNs and WhatsApp are banned, and new laws restore FSB‑run detention. Their conclusion: “we can no longer negotiate our way out of Putin’s necessity for war; we can now only outlast the system.”

Vladimir Pastukhov on the struggle for Donbas, Telegram, 04.23.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • Pastukhov asks whether there is “any other meaning to the struggle for the remnants of Donbas, apart from the symbolic,” for either Russia or Ukraine. From Moscow’s view, he writes, “to break through something comparable to the Maginot or Mannerheim lines and then stop and end the war… is complete absurdity.” If Russia really pays “a couple of hundred corpses for some heaps of bricks and scrap metal,” he argues, “you have to go further at once,” toward Kharkiv, Odesa, Kyiv; if no such plans exist, “why can’t the war be ended without paying this price?”
  • On the Ukrainian side, he says, “the puzzle looks no better.” If Kyiv understands that “sooner or later the Russians will still take these ruins, whatever it costs them,” it must also grasp that “the Russians in case of success will not stop at this,” so “the price of the question will be much higher for Ukraine.” He calls the current struggle “a game of Russian roulette, but with a clockwork mechanism,” and suggests it might be more logical to “spend the forces needed to hold this fortified area on creating new defensive structures.”
  • Pastukhov concludes that “the practical meaning of the fight for the remnants of Donbas has long since disappeared for both sides,” and that the war “continues by the subjective inertia of ruling elites.” He muses that a Nobel‑worthy idea would be a solution that lets “both Moscow and Kyiv save face,” for example turning the area into a “Donetsk Liechtenstein or Monaco”: self‑governing, “outside Russian and Ukrainian jurisdiction,” with both armies withdrawn and a long‑term freeze, because “both sides are tired — all the indicators scream about it” and the war “in any case must be wrapped up.”

“‘This is not my war’: sociologist Elena Koneva on why Russians are ready for compromises and Ukrainians are not,” Maria Litvinova, Republic, 04.26.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • Koneva reports that both societies are exhausted, but in radically different ways: for Russians, “the most popular word is ‘fatigue’,” whereas for Ukrainians it is already “not fatigue, it is exhaustion, whose scale we can hardly imagine,” she says. She notes that in Russia “33% of families have a relative fighting,” while in Ukraine it is “60–70%,” and that 76% of Ukrainians speak of “severe psychological experiences and traumas,” 71% of deteriorating health, 62% of lost income or work, 35% of losing loved ones and 18% of losing their home. Paradoxically, she stresses, “with such a level of suffering one could expect” more readiness for compromise, “but we see the opposite.”
  • Explaining why Ukrainian willingness to compromise fell (while Russian willingness rose from 48% to 63%), she argues that “all conditions of a truce one way or another sounded in the context of peace talks, and peace talks for Ukrainians have been compromised by Trump.” In her data, “if they trust Trump, optimism and readiness for compromise are much higher,” but after the Oval Office humiliation of Zelensky “the index of readiness… fell by 8 points,” and “it became clear that one cannot particularly count on an American-style peace process.” Trump, she recalls, “radicalized Ukrainians with his open contempt,” and in Russia temporarily boosted support for the “special military operation” from about 52% to nearly 59%, “simply justifying the war in the eyes of some doubters.”
  • On Russia, Koneva says society has entered a phase of “stupor”: people “just stop thinking anything about the war,” yet when questioned more deeply “it is absolutely obvious that there is no meaning in this war for them.” War-related consequences now touch “about 90%” of the population, from bombardments and infrastructure failures to digital bans, and “this digital factor of negativity toward the ‘SMO’ is the most mass.” All loyalty indicators, she notes, are falling, and even Putin’s “Teflon” ratings “have now gone down,” forming an “avalanche” that “can hardly be stopped” without ending the war. Crucially, she insists, Russians experience the conflict as imposed: “This is not my war — that is essentially the main answer,” and because “a people’s war did not work out,” any new war, including against the Baltics, “cannot be even somehow understood or supported” and would instantly trigger accumulated negativity.

“Russia Will Never Agree to Peace in Ukraine,” William Dixon and Maksym Beznosiuk, The National Interest, 04.26.26.

  • Dixon and Beznosiuk argue that “Putin’s regime structurally requires perpetual war in Ukraine,” insisting that a ceasefire “would now destabilize the Putin regime more acutely than continued war.” Drawing on Milan Svolik’s framework, they write that the Kremlin’s external aggression and internal repression are “two expressions of a single internal political logic”: to solve both the “problem of power-sharing” and the “problem of control,” Putin has built “Fortress Russia,” where an external enemy justifies “asset seizures, travel bans, detention facilities, and the praetorian guard itself.” Without war, they contend, “elite coordination remains structurally impossible” no longer, and “this system cannot survive a settlement.”
  • They describe a war economy that ties peripheral regions and industry to continuous conflict: enlistment bonuses “dwarf” local salaries, defense contracts dominate regional economies, and “an entire industrial ecosystem… cannot survive peace and will use the means at its disposal to oppose it.” Meanwhile, urban middle classes face a “historic betrayal” via tax hikes, austerity, and a “digital panopticon” of bans and surveillance, all justified only by “national emergency.” Putin, they argue, “cannot turn Russia into North Korea” because Russian elites “have wealth to lose and somewhere to go,” and China “would much prefer a functional yet dependent Moscow over an open-ended liability.”
  • For NATO, the authors insist, this means that “we can no longer negotiate our way out of Putin’s necessity for war; we can now only outlast the system.” They call for permanent, sovereign-based NATO formations and a “strategic wall” in places like the Suwałki Gap, likening the pressure on Moscow to Reagan’s SDI. Europe, they argue, must become a full “strategic pole,” sustaining a 5 percent-of-GDP defense effort and building an indigenous arms base. Ukraine should be treated not as a “crisis” but as “the primary engine of Russian containment,” with the goal not necessarily a democratic Russia but “a Kremlin that is no longer compelled to be confrontational just to maintain power”—a goal they describe as “realist, not idealist.”
  • See this link for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

Great Power rivalry/new Cold War/NATO-Russia relations:

“The Strongman Era Has Peaked,” Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy, 04.21.26.

  • On Russia, Walt writes that Vladimir Putin has been “extremely skilled at keeping himself in power, amassing vast wealth, and eliminating potential challengers,” but argues that his decision to invade Ukraine in 2022 was “a blunder whose consequences Russians will rue for many decades to come.” He says “the cost to Russia has been enormous,” its “dependence on its richer and more dynamic Chinese partner has grown apace,” and it is “falling further behind the rest of the world in the areas of science and technology on which future power will depend.”
  • Walt notes that the war has triggered “Sweden and Finland” joining NATO and “Europe… rearming,” so that “even a decisive victory over Ukraine—which is not a foregone conclusion—will not reverse Russia’s downward slide among the great powers.” His bottom line on Putin is stark: “Although Putin is likely to hold on to power for as long as he lives, Russia will be less prosperous and secure than it would have been under a different leader, and his brutal style of rule is not likely to attract a lot of imitators.”
  • Walt concludes: “Many countries will continue to be led by autocratic leaders, and I’d bet that some of the strongmen discussed above are more likely to be in power for life than to step down voluntarily or be removed by others. Illiberal “democrats” such as Trump or Erdogan (or Narendra Modi in India) aren’t about to vanish from the world stage. And some of the world’s leading democracies—most notably the United States—face enduring problems of polarization, gridlock, excessive inequality, and the erosion of democratic norms. But the swagger that strongman leaders enjoyed a few years ago may be fading, and their policy failures have demonstrated the limitations of relying on one person’s judgment.”

“Will Article 5 of the Washington Treaty work, and will the United States stand up for Europe if a conflict with Russia begins?” Dmitry Medvedev, Telegram channel, 04.21.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated. 

  • Medvedev asks whether NATO’s Article 5 would function “if a conflict with Russia begins,” calling this “not at all an idle question,” given “deranged European leaders… whipping up the topic of war with our country,” and naming France and Poland as “today’s front runners in militarist Russophobia” who are “preparing for joint nuclear exercises.” He adds that UAV production for Kyiv on European soil has “added extra tension to the storm cloud atmosphere on the continent.”
  • He answers his own question bluntly: “So will the Americans hitch themselves up for Europe in such a case? In my view, no.” The reason, he says, is that “Washington really doesn’t need Europe—and doesn’t feel the slightest pity for it,” describing Europe as “that annoying, harmful distant relative who’s gotten used to stuffing himself from the master’s table.” As an ally, he claims, “Europe is a zero,” with “economies… sagging badly, migration… out of control,” while the U.S. has “a mass of its own internal problems” and “the last thing [Trump] needs is a large scale conflict with our country.”
  • Medvedev concludes that Europeans “should not count on active U.S. intervention” in a conflict with Russia and must “assess your capabilities without factoring in those of the United States,” urging them to “look at how well covered your military production sites are… how your energy sector and transport are protected,” to “recall the latest events of the U.S.–Iran conflict,” and to “count your arsenals, including, of course, the nuclear component.” 

“Europe Prepares for a Longer War in Ukraine, With No Strategy to End It,” Steven Erlanger, New York Times, 04.25.26.

  • Erlanger writes that with Trump “preoccupied with the war in Iran,” Europe is bracing for a drawn‑out war in Ukraine in which “neither Ukraine nor Russia has a clear path to victory.” James Sherr says Europeans increasingly see “a fundamental incompatibility of interests and objectives between Ukraine and Russia, and the only sensible course is to continue to stand with Ukraine and deny Russia a victory by military or political means.” Germany’s defense minister Boris Pistorius states bluntly that “Russia has never taken [negotiations] seriously,” while analysts note Ukraine now expects that any resolution “will take place on the battlefield, if at all.”
  • The EU has approved a €90 billion interest‑free loan for Kyiv and is rolling out a 20th and 21st package of sanctions aimed at “Russia, its economic interests and its oil exports through its shadow fleet.” Yet, as Claudia Major puts it, Europe still “lack[s] a theory of victory for Ukraine”: the idea was to pressure Russia to change its calculus, but “we never gave the Ukrainians enough to do that,” leaving Europe essentially “keep[ing] the Ukrainians in the game until something in Moscow changes.” Erlanger notes that European officials hope Vladimir Putin will eventually “accept that Moscow has gained what it can in Ukraine,” but they recognize that “Mr. Putin wants to deal with Washington, not Brussels,” limiting Europe’s ability to shape an eventual settlement.

“Ukraine Is Europe’s War Now,” Kim Mackrael and Laurence Norman, Wall Street Journal, 04.24.26.

  • Mackrael and Norman write that “the fight against Russia in Ukraine is now firmly Europe’s war,” as the EU approves a €90 billion (about $105 billion) loan to keep Kyiv afloat through 2027 while the Trump administration has “stopped providing military aid to Ukraine and sought to mediate an end to the war.” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk hailed the summit where the loan was agreed, saying, “For the first time in years there are no Russians in the room… Huge relief,” a jab at ousted Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán, long seen as Moscow’s ally. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the package proof that “we are not empty, and we are strong,” and said it could help push Russia toward negotiations, but he stressed that “during the war we need everything and everybody… We need the United States.”
  • The article notes Europe still cannot replace key U.S. roles, such as supplying critical interceptors against Russian ballistic missiles and providing battlefield intelligence. Some European states are now buying U.S. weapons and passing them on to Ukraine; Germany alone has pledged $4 billion focused on air defense, drones and joint production. Yet Ukraine’s funding gap is already growing, with diplomats estimating an extra €19 billion needed next year, meaning Brussels may have to seek another “tens of billions” in 12 months even as nationalist parties in France and Germany call for an end to Ukraine aid. Still, EU leaders judge that keeping Russia “tied down in Ukraine” is preferable to facing a more direct threat to EU borders, and Zelenskyy warns that “Ukraine does not need symbolic membership in the EU” when it is “really dying” to defend Europe.

Public Annual Report 2025, Military Intelligence and Security Service, Netherlands, April 2026. Machine-translated.

  • Russia is described in the MIVD service’s annual report as “the greatest and most direct threat” to peace and stability in Europe, with the war in Ukraine presented not as a limited territorial fight but as part of a broader Russian effort to remake Europe’s security order. 
  • The report says the war has an “existential character” for the Kremlin.
  • The report warns that Russia could, “in the most favorable circumstances,” generate enough combat power within a year after fighting in Ukraine ends to start a regional conflict against NATO.
    •  “A military conflict between Russia and NATO is not unthinkable, but as long as Russia is fighting in Ukraine, a conventional war against NATO is virtually excluded. At the same time, Russia is already making concrete preparations for a possible conflict with NATO. The MIVD assesses that Russia, under the most favorable circumstances for it, can generate sufficient combat power within one year after the end of hostilities in Ukraine to initiate a regional conflict against NATO.”
  • On the battlefield, MIVD says Russia continued the war “unabated” in 2025, still making incremental gains on several axes, while its main effort remained the capture of Donbas, especially Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. 
  • MIVD estimates that since the 2022 invasion, Russia has suffered about 1.2 million permanent losses, including more than 500,000 dead, while Ukraine has suffered about 500,000 permanent losses. It adds that the trend in 2025 became “unfavorable for Ukraine” because Ukraine is far less able than Russia to replace those losses.
  • MIVD argues that despite those losses, Russia is rebuilding and expanding its forces, and that combat experience from Ukraine has made them not just larger but better: “not only bigger, but also more effective” than before the war, especially in drones and unmanned systems. 

“Global military spending rise continues as European and Asian expenditures surge,” SIPRI press release, 04.27.26.

  • SIPRI reports that world military expenditure reached $2,887 billion in 2025, “the 11th year of consecutive rises,” with the global military burden at 2.5% of GDP, its “highest level since 2009.” The top three spenders—the USA, China and Russia—spent a combined total of $1,480 billion, or 51% of the global total. Researcher Xiao Liang says “global military spending rose again in 2025 as states responded to another year of wars, uncertainty and geopolitical upheaval with large-scale armament drives.”
  • U.S. spending was $954 billion, “7.5% lower in 2025 than in 2024,” largely because “no new financial military assistance for Ukraine was approved,” after $127 billion had been approved over the previous three years. Program Director Nan Tian warns the decline is “likely to be short-lived,” noting Congress has already approved “over $1 trillion” for 2026 and that spending “could rise further to $1.5 trillion in 2027 if President Trump’s latest budget proposal is accepted.”
  • Russia’s military spending grew 5.9% to $190 billion (a 7.5% of GDP burden), while Ukraine’s jumped 20% to $84.1 billion, or 40% of GDP, making it the 7th largest spender. SIPRI notes that “in 2025 military expenditure as a share of government spending reached the highest level ever recorded in both Russia and Ukraine,” and that military outlays by European NATO members “rose faster than at any time since 1953,” with Germany’s spending up 24% to $114 billion and Spain’s up 50% to $40.2 billion.

“Britain is losing its hybrid war with Russia and is unprepared for conflict, warns top former U.S. aide,” Sam Kiley, The Independent, 04.26.26.

  • Fiona Hill, member of the Harvard Board of Overseers, former NSC senior director for Europe and Russia and co‑author of the UK’s 2025 Strategic Defense Review, warns that Britain’s contingencies for current and future shocks are “not fit for purpose.” “In the UK, our systems are not designed to cope with major disruptions,” she tells The Independent, adding that “the NHS cannot cope with mass casualties,” the country needs to “build up food supplies and systems to cope with disruption to imports,” and “we don’t have archives of maps digitized and no analogue systems to use if digital systems collapse.” With “no single minister responsible for national resilience,” she argues, “it is up to the leadership to come up with a plan,” but “there is no sign the government is taking action.”
  • Her co‑author, former NATO secretary general Lord Robertson, accuses ministers of “corrosive complacency” and of failing to implement the SDR’s sixty‑two recommendations, amid a political trade‑off between welfare and defense. Senior officials say the UK is already “operating in a space between peace and war,” with Russia as the “principal threat.” Hill notes that Vladimir Putin’s hybrid war “is not confined to military targets alone”: it includes cyber attacks and assaults on “supply lines, power grids and even food,” at a time when there are “so many soft targets around the UK it’s impossible to count them,” and “no effective system even to monitor small drones” that could be weaponized.
  • Dr Sidharth Kaushal of RUSI warns that “the preparation moment of sabotage takes years and years, and that is what we’re seeing,” pointing to a 30% surge in Russian surveillance of undersea cables and pipelines, while Hill highlights the risk that Norway’s Langeled and Vesterled gas pipelines—supplying “60–80%” of UK gas—could be hit. Emergency‑planning expert Stephen Arundell argues that the UK has “not been investing in resilient matters because we’ve had a very long, sustained period of peace,” contrasting Britain with Norway, Sweden, Finland and war‑hardened Ukraine, where “every city’s mayor is responsible for coordinating emergency services” and civilian survival is run from integrated bunkers. The Ministry of Defense responds that the UK has “the resources we need to keep the United Kingdom safe,” stressing 24/7 readiness, NATO’s “collective defense capabilities,” and “up to £1bn in new funding” for air and missile defense announced after the Strategic Defense Review.

“Can the Germans fight?,” The Economist, 04.22.26.

  • Germany’s first-ever national military strategy is framed explicitly against Russia: it warns that “Russia is creating the conditions for a war against NATO” and commits Berlin to rebuilding a force that was “more or less empty‑handed” when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The plan aims to give the Bundeswehr “technological superiority” by 2039, including deep‑precision strike, and to meet a NATO spending target of 3.5% of GDP by 2029, with a defense budget that could exceed €160 billion—turning Germany, in Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s words, into “the strongest conventional army in Europe.”
  • The strategy treats the Ukraine war as “a teacher, not a blueprint,” seeking to import Ukraine’s rapid combat innovation—cheap unmanned systems at scale, fast kill‑chains—into German planning, while warning that “Russia is creating the conditions” for broader confrontation and that Europe cannot rely indefinitely on the United States. General Carsten Breuer says Germany will focus on collective and homeland defense to make deterrence credible against Moscow, and is trying to expand the force from 185,000 to 260,000 troops plus a 200,000‑strong reserve; a new law obliges 18‑year‑old men to declare their willingness to serve, and the debate over restoring conscription is explicitly driven by the perceived Russian threat.

“The welcome return of German military might,” Editorial Board, Financial Times, 04.24.26.

  • The FT welcomes Germany’s first-ever defense strategy as a long‑overdue response to “the return of Russian aggression” and growing U.S. disengagement. Unlike the UK and France, which still flirt with global power projection, the paper notes that Berlin is “laser‑focused on the Russian threat,” seeing Moscow as preparing for confrontation with NATO while already waging “hybrid” war to destabilize Europe—most recently by cutting Kazakh oil supplies to a German refinery. The strategy aims to make Germany “the strongest conventional army in Europe” and the “linchpin of conventional defense,” expanding professional forces from 185,000 to 260,000 by 2035 plus 200,000 reservists, and achieving “technological superiority over the enemy” by 2039.
  • The board highlights the emphasis on long‑range precision‑strike missiles—capabilities currently unique to the U.S. within NATO—combined with drones and mass‑produced systems whose value has been proved in the Ukraine and Iran wars, and on expanding defense‑industrial capacity as a core element of deterrence against Russia. It cautions, however, that Germany’s recruitment problems, slow bureaucracy and spending on “legacy systems like heavy armor” may hamper implementation, and argues that Europe now has more to fear from Berlin’s reluctance to deploy force—e.g., its objections to sending troops to Ukraine as part of a stabilization force—than from any revival of German militarism.

“Hungary’s Shift Unlocks New Opportunities for NATO and Ukraine,” James Stavridis, Bloomberg, 04.23.26.

  • Stavridis argues that Viktor Orbán’s landslide defeat removes “Putin’s top ally in Europe and a Trojan horse inside the alliance” at a moment when support for Kyiv is under strain. As prime minister, Orbán “did all he could to undermine European support for Ukraine” and used NATO’s consensus rule to delay Sweden and Finland’s accession “for more than a year.” His ouster means “Hungary will no longer seek to hamper European engagement and support for Ukraine,” so that “more direct military, financial and humanitarian aid can flow to Kyiv” and NATO will have “a freer hand to provide training, intelligence, technology and logistical support to the embattled Ukrainians”—“very bad news for Moscow,” he writes.
  • “With the nation likely to swing away from Moscow, it’s not just Ukraine but also its border with Serbia that looms large, given Putin’s constant efforts to expand Russian influence across the Balkans… The end of Viktor Orban’s long political domination of Hungary is great news on many fronts, not least for the NATO alliance,” Stavridis writes.

“We are Morally Bound,” Grigory Yavlinsky, 04.23.26. Clues from Russian Views.

  • Yavlinsky tells a Vatican conference that the “bloody confrontation between Russia and Ukraine,” escalation in the Middle East, “growing political difficulties and possibly the wide-ranging political crisis in Europe,” and “the politics of the U.S. President Donald Trump” together “draw a line on the world order that had existed for almost eight decades.” He warns that we are seeing “the destruction of the system of nuclear arms control treaties” and that the danger of a “real big war, which… will almost immediately become nuclear, is being irresponsibly ignored.”
  • He argues that a new “arms race” in high technology and AI is turning politics into “okhlo‑populism,” where “democratic procedures are being used to form regimes which rely to a significant extent on the straightforward manipulation of the public at large through digital technologies,” leading to a “devaluation of the significance of human life, freedom and dignity.” Against this, he calls for a “policy based on the values of the Human Soul,” where the state and Church “focus on the human being, his and her soul, life, and freedom,” and where the 21st century becomes “the age of the individual… and not the era of digital technologies and artificial intelligence.”
  • Looking to Europe, Yavlinsky says a “dignified and promising future” requires “a free and united Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok,” calling this “the only strategy which will make it possible to preserve Europe” and new sovereign states, including “Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Russia as well.” He concedes that integrating Russia “on an equal footing” after its “boundless tragedy regarding Ukraine” will be “exceptionally difficult,” but insists “there is no alternative,” and concludes that “we do not merely have an opportunity, but are also morally bound to speak out this very moment” and seek “a way towards a dignified future.”

“Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with the Public Television of Russia,” Russian Foreign Ministry, 04.24.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • On Ukraine, Lavrov insists that President Vladimir Putin has “repeatedly said—including in relation to the Ukrainian crisis—that our objectives have been made perfectly clear,” claiming Moscow’s goals in the “special military operation” are fixed but any agreement “should not undermine the fundamental security interests of the Russian Federation or the rights of Russians and Russian-speaking populations, including residents in Donbass, Novorossiya, and Crimea.” He calls EU talk of clarifying Russia’s “red lines” “simply ridiculous as those have long been articulated,” and labels such an approach “to a certain extent, racism.”
  • Lavrov portrays the West, and especially Washington, as discarding international law, saying “we are witnessing the Trump administration openly declaring that they do not want to know anything about international law, and that they will be guided by their own morals and instincts.” He argues the United States seeks “dominance in global energy markets,” citing sanctions on “companies like Lukoil and Rosneft,” and claims Europe is “now seeking to entrench a form of neocolonialism,” including by forcing states that want Russian energy to “buy it at twice the price because Russia needs to be ‘punished.’”
  • Looking ahead, Lavrov says the key lesson of history is that “the weak are beaten,” and concludes “we must be strong,” stressing that Russia’s task is to turn its “resilience of spirit, vast natural resources, and scientific potential” into “cutting-edge technologies.” He adds that “leading in artificial intelligence will be a defining factor in global leadership,” and that Russian diplomacy must “create favorable conditions for achieving these strategic objectives outlined by President Vladimir Putin.”

“Opening remarks by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a meeting with leaders of non-profit organizations,” Russian Foreign Ministry, 04.24.26. Сlues from Russian Views.

  • Lavrov tells NGO leaders that “the collective West policy is posing the main threat to international peace and security,” accusing it of seeking “to dominate and continue dominating” while using “illegal sanctions, plunder, the theft of other countries’ sovereign assets, blackmail, threats and, of course, the use of military force,” citing Venezuela and Iran as “in blatant violation of international law.” He says “a war against us has been openly declared,” with the “Kiev regime… used as the tip of the spear,” and quotes Belgian generals saying Ukraine is “helping them buy time” to prepare for war with Russia.
  • On Ukraine, Lavrov claims the U.S. is “the only” actor that has publicly acknowledged “underlying causes of this conflict,” quoting Donald Trump as saying “Ukraine should forget about NATO,” which he calls “one of the main underlying causes.” He adds that Americans are “ready to factor in the realities on the ground… following the referendums,” and even to recognize “the entire Donbass—Donetsk and Lugansk regions (no one is even thinking about disputing the status of Crimea anymore)” as part of Russia. By contrast, he says, “the West is in the grips of hysteria,” with Zelenskyy insisting he “will not leave the Donetsk region” and Europeans pushing “multinational stabilization forces” that would give the “Nazi regime… security guarantees.”
  • Lavrov argues that Western “civilizational aggression” includes “the legislative eradication of everything associated with Russia” in Ukraine, the destruction of “canonical Orthodoxy,” and attempts to “rewrite the history of the Great Patriotic War.” He praises Trump for being “open about his plans,” saying he “never misleads anyone,” and insists that Russia will keep building ties with the “World Majority,” asserting “we continue to believe that strength lies in truth” and that those who impose their ‘truth’ by force “are historically destined for oblivion.”

“‘We forgot that Europe is the source of all humanity’s misfortunes,’” Sergei Karaganov, Russia in Global Affairs, 04.23.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated. (This organization is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)

  • Karaganov tells Russian TV that “we must understand that once again Europe has unleashed a war against Russia,” adding that the “initiator of this war was the United States of America, which dragged Europe in,” and that “a world war has begun. It is being waged in Europe largely by the hands of Europeans,” while the United States “warms its hands at the fire of the European war.”
  • On Ukraine, he insists that “we are fighting in Ukraine not with the unfortunate, deceived Ukrainian people… we are fighting there with the collective West, above all with Europe,” and argues that “Europe must finally understand that it will be destroyed if it continues its aggression,” because “the sooner it understands, the fewer of our people will die.”
  • Karaganov calls for a doctrinal shift so that “in the event of a war unleashed against us by an adversary superior to us in demographic and economic indicators, we are obliged to use nuclear weapons,” and urges appointing a theater commander “with the right and the duty to use nuclear weapons if Europe does not retreat or even surrender.”
  • He proposes escalating steps: first “symbolic targets or communication hubs… with conventional munitions,” then, if Europe “does not stop,” moving “to a higher level” including “tests of nuclear weapons,” and, if needed, “strikes on targets in Europe with the promise that if they continue, the next waves of strikes will be nuclear.”
  • While conceding that “Europe is part of our soul, our culture,” Karaganov says “Europe is the source of all the main misfortunes of humanity and Russia,” and concludes: “Europe must be stopped. If we do not stop it, we will have to destroy it… The beast must, if not be finished off, then at least be harshly put in a cage.”

“The EU summit in Cyprus has begun forming a military alliance without Washington,” Konstantin Remchukov, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 04.26.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • Remchukov writes that at the informal EU summit in Cyprus, leaders not only agreed a €90 billion loan for Ukraine and a 20th sanctions package against Russia, but “took a step toward the practical implementation of Article 42(7) of the EU Treaty—on mutual defense,” effectively discussing “strengthening their own defense foundation, up to a scenario in which Article 42(7) partially replaces the role of Article 5 of the NATO Charter.” He says this reflects “NATO‑centric European security experiencing U.S. insufficiency.”
  • He notes that Trump’s cooling toward NATO has most frightened “the noisiest in anti‑Russian rhetoric”—the Baltic states, Finland and Poland—who “rapidly sobered up” about their “defensive vulnerability” if they provoke an “unusually tough reaction from Moscow.” Yet by “boosting the resurrection of Article 42(7)” these “small but noisy countries” will “obviously end up on the periphery of Europe’s mechanism for making military decisions,” as “old Europeans” are long irritated by activism “absolutely disproportionate to their real power.”
  • Remchukov argues that activating Article 42(7) “fixes the line toward forming in the EU its own system of collective defense,” the “contours of a European NATO without the USA,” and warns that the resulting “militarization of the EU economy” will increase military infrastructure near Russia’s borders, which “Russia at the doctrinal level regards as a threat to its national security” and will answer with measures including “deployment of medium- and shorter‑range missiles” and further development of hypersonic systems.

See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

“How China and Russia Can Exploit the Iran War,” Jon B. Alterman and Ali Vaez, Foreign Affairs, 04.21.26.

  • Alterman and Vaez argue that the U.S.–Israeli war on Iran has given Moscow and Beijing “a significant opportunity” to “undermine U.S. interests,” “sap U.S. power, gain intelligence on U.S. military systems, and erode the U.S.-led order.” They say Russia and China are likely supplying Iran with imagery and signals intelligence and closely “monitoring American military operations… just as the United States is assessing the Russian military through the war in Ukraine.” For Russia, Trump’s waivers on oil sanctions are “an economic windfall,” while battlefield lessons from Ukraine have been fed back into improved Shahed drones that Moscow is now helping Tehran upgrade, tightening their military partnership.
  • Politically, the authors write that Moscow is “particularly happy about the damage the war is inflicting on U.S. alliances,” calling the widening gap with Europe “the best news Russia has had in years,” and arguing that a drawn‑out Iran conflict will “deepen U.S.-European tensions and solidify this trend.” For China, the benefits are “mostly political and diplomatic”: Beijing casts itself as a “responsible global power,” using Pakistan to broker a cease-fire and presenting itself to U.S. allies as “a level-headed partner for peace,” even as it quietly supplies Iran with missile‑related technology. At the systemic level, they contend the war “undermines the idea of a U.S.-led international order,” since if Washington wages “wars of choice” it “cannot credibly object to Russia’s assault on Ukraine,” and conclude that Moscow and Beijing’s ideal outcome is a “simmering, low‑grade conflict” that ties down the United States and nudges Iran into “total dependence” on them.

“The Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership Needs a New Quality,” Dmitry Trenin, Russian International Affairs Council, 04.23.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated. (This organization is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)

  • Trenin writes that today’s “dynamic state of international relations” is “a struggle for a new world order,” and, citing Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, calls it “a struggle ‘not for life, but for death.’” He argues that the failed “evolutionary transition from a unipolar order to a multipolar one” means that “de facto ‘heterogeneous’ multipolarity already exists, but there is no order,” so the fight over the future system, “given the factor of nuclear weapons, represents a functional analogue of a world war.”
  • This “war,” he says, is already being fought “in ‘hot’ form in eastern Europe and the Middle East,” and “in ‘cold’ form in the Asia‑Pacific region,” with echoes in Latin America, Africa and the Arctic. Its character is defined by Washington’s attempt, through a “powerful global counteroffensive,” to “contain the growth of the influence of China, Russia and the countries of the World Majority” and to “restore” its position as “if not a global hegemon, then the leading power in the world.”
  • Trenin stresses that “for Russia, Europe over the past year has in fact taken the place of the United States as the current military adversary,” whereas for China, EU countries and Britain remain “the most important economic partners,” which is one reason “a military alliance between Russia and China is impossible today and, perhaps, not needed.”
  • Still, he insists that while leaders speak of a “strategic partnership without limits” that is “more than a military alliance,” Moscow and Beijing now need “much closer coordination and deeper interaction on the most important geopolitical and geostrategic issues.” They should “not only stand back‑to‑back, but act shoulder‑to‑shoulder,” including “trusting exchange of assessments of U.S. foreign policy” and some coordination toward Washington.
  • On deterrence and nuclear issues, Trenin argues there is a “need to develop a common Russian‑Chinese approach to the problems of nuclear deterrence and strategic stability in a multipolar nuclear world,” taking into account “strategic non‑nuclear systems,” the “revolution in military affairs” (drones, robotics, AI, etc.), and new domains of struggle “in cyberspace and outer space.” If, at the start of their partnership’s fourth decade, the two states advance on these fronts, he contends they can form “the core of a coalition of a new type” capable of more effectively resisting “hegemonist powers” and helping bring about “a more balanced and more just world order.”
  • See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

Missile defense:

  • No significant developments.

Nuclear arms:

“P5 perspectives on the 2026 NPT Review Conference: Russia,” Nikolai Sokov, European Leadership Network, 04.21.26.2

  • Sokov argues that Russia comes to the 2026 NPT Review Conference “in a visibly stronger position than it occupied just a year earlier,” largely because of “actions taken by other states—above all the United States and Israel—and Moscow’s decisive response to them.” Russian officials now “speak with greater confidence” and see “an opportunity to consolidate alliances and expand support across the Global South.”
  • He notes that at the UN Commission on Disarmament Russia called U.S.–Israeli strikes on Iran a “direct attack on the NPT,” accusing Washington of using “non‑proliferation rhetoric” as a pretext for aggression and comparing the operation to the 2003 Iraq invasion. A Foreign Ministry statement said U.S. and Israeli motives “have nothing to do with the non‑proliferation regime” but aim “to destroy the constitutional order and eliminate the leadership of a state they do not like.”
  • Russia now stresses that attempts to dismantle Iran’s civilian program violate its rights under Article IV and insists that a state’s nuclear‑energy rights are “independent of the nature of its political regime,” which Sokov links to Moscow’s broader attachment to “sovereign equality.” He says this stance, closely aligned with China’s, will be central to a joint courtship of Global South states.
  • On proliferation risks, Sokov notes Lavrov’s warning that more countries now believe “only possession of nuclear weapons can be a reliable guarantee of defense,” a trend he says “carries serious proliferation risks.” Russian officials cite North Korea as having drawn “relevant conclusions” from past U.S. actions.
  • Regarding Article VI, Sokov expects Moscow to deflect disarmament criticism by blaming the Western P3 and emphasizing that steps “cannot be separated from a broader political‑military and strategic context.” Russia will present its pledge not to exceed New START limits as “restrained and reasonable” against expected U.S., French, and British buildups, and highlight talk of renewed U.S. nuclear testing as a threat to the CTBT.
  • He predicts no unified P5 front: instead “a Western grouping and a China‑Russia alignment,” with the RevCon revealing “significantly closer cooperation between Moscow and Beijing” and “deeper fault lines” with the P3.
  • Sokov concludes that with debates likely “more contentious” and consensus unlikely, Russia believes its positions under Articles I–II and IV are relatively strong and that, compared to Western nuclear powers, it is “less exposed” on Article VI, so its delegation will approach the conference “with a degree of confidence” focused on winning Global South support.

“Belfer Center’s Inaugural Carnesale Convenings Probe the Future of Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Extended Deterrence,” Jack Lennon and RM Staff, Russia Matters, 04.23.26.

  • On April 15, 2026, Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs launched its new Carnesale Convenings series with a question central to American national security: can a “frayed” nuclear nonproliferation regime survive rising geopolitical tensions and new proliferation pressures? 
  • Belfer Center Director Meghan O’Sullivan moderated a wide-ranging discussion to answer that essential question with speakers including Graham Allison (Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard University), Rose Gottemoeller (William J. Perry Lecturer, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Research at Stanford University), Laura Holgate (Former Ambassador to the IAEA and Belfer Center Senior Fellow), and Matthew Bunn (James R. Schlesinger Professor of the Practice of Energy, National Security, and Foreign Policy at Harvard Kennedy School). 
  • Graham Allison’s early remarks meditated on President John F. Kennedy’s March 1963 concern that the United States could face “a world in which 15 or 20 or 25 nations” possessed nuclear weapons by the 1970s… Allison iterated the remarkable fact that only nine states currently possess nuclear weapons and emphasized the quiet success of the nuclear nonproliferation regime… but bets “Nine will not be the number [of nuclear-armed states] at the end of the next decade.” 
  • Matthew Bunn similarly fears that the current war with Iran “has greatly increased” Iran’s incentives to build a nuclear weapon, and he considers the U.S. use of force for nonproliferation purposes both “illegal and ineffective.” In his assessment, the odds of Iran developing a nuclear weapon within a decade are “bigger, rather than smaller” than they were a year ago. However, Bunn noted significant “costs, risks, and dilemmas” along the path to a secure nuclear deterrent, which ultimately make him “one of the last standing optimists” willing to wager that only nine states will possess nuclear weapons in the next decade.
  • Stanford University’s Rose Gottemoeller highlighted that emerging technologies must be considered when evaluating the possibility of arms control, including space agreements. Regarding space-based systems, Gottemoeller sees “fantastic monitoring opportunities” available to the United States, Russia and other countries, and value in reevaluating DoD’s previous hesitancy to “go down the verification route” on the Outer Space Treaty due to advances in verification capabilities. Gottemoeller believes the United States can continue to approach arms control agreements with the Russians and Chinese “in the pedigree of SALT,” and perhaps even leverage U.S. and Chinese leadership in AI to set “guardrails” on emerging technologies.
  • O’Sullivan and Holgate reflected on how renewed great power competition has hindered the efficacy of international institutions. Holgate shared, “geopolitics have invaded what had been for so long considered a technical agency. “Russia, in Holgate’s view, works “actively to undermine” the IAEA’s independence and verification tools to protect “client states” such as Iran and Syria.
  • As Allison emphasized, “History… does have an arc, and trend lines frequently continue along the path that they run. JFK’s quote was a forecast of nuclear anarchy that would have been a word in which we would not have been able to live our lives… While proliferation pressures may be making themselves felt, time will tell if Allison’s or Bunn’s proliferation wager is correct, and whether the international community will find common cause in support of the IAEA the NPT as advocated for by Holgate and Gottemoeller.

For more analytical coverage of the event, check out this link and this link.

Counterterrorism:

  • No significant developments.

Conflict in Syria:

  • No significant developments.

Cyber security/AI: 

“Anduril, Palantir and SpaceX are changing how America wages war,” The Economist, 04.20.26.

  • The article says the Iran war has exposed “the woeful economics of using traditional weaponry against cheap Iranian drones,” quoting Pentagon official Emil Michael: “You don’t want to spend a $1m missile to take out a $50,000 drone.” In response, the Trump administration is “turning to a new clique of defense upstarts”—Palantir, SpaceX and Anduril—a trio of “neo-primes” that “have close ties with gung-ho figures in the Trump administration” and are making “the giants of the military‑industrial complex increasingly nervous.”
  • The Economist notes that although legacy primes still dominate sales, investors value the three neo‑primes at “more than three times” the big three traditional contractors, helped by Trump’s push to lift the defense budget to $1.5 trillion and to boost spending on “drones, counter‑drones and AI.” A key attraction is that the newcomers “mostly shun cost‑plus contracts,” preferring fixed‑price deals that push them to “iterate quickly,” exemplified by SpektreWorks’ LUCAS suicide drone going from prototype to deployment in Iran in eight months.
  • But the piece warns that rapid embrace of the neo‑primes could “backfire”: Anduril’s ability to “ramp up manufacturing” is “untested,” the Pentagon risks being “locked into” SpaceX or Palantir systems, and “all we are doing is creating a new breed of legacy primes,” as one industry insider worries. It adds that increasingly “cozy relations between the Trump family and the neo-primes”—including Trump’s public defense of Palantir and his son’s VC stake in Anduril—raise concerns that partisanship could jeopardize bipartisan support for defense startups.

Energy exports from CIS:

“Russia’s Coal Industry Is Running on Borrowed Time,” Alexey Gusev, Carnegie Politika, 04.22.26. Clues from Russian Views.

  • Gusev writes that first‑quarter data show the Russian economy “on the brink of a major crisis,” with key sectors faltering while “the oil price spike caused by the war in Iran means Moscow can afford to delay its response by a few more months, but it won’t solve the problem.” Coal is singled out as a sector “incapable of emerging from a systemic crisis,” whose “gradual demise is having serious consequences for the socioeconomic situation” in regions such as Kuzbass.
  • He notes that while coal exporters earned “over $17 billion” in 2021 and “as much as $22 billion” in 2022 when prices hit $400 a ton, the loss of Europe (previously “up to 50% of Russian coal exports”) and rail bottlenecks mean that in some cases it costs “as much as $70 a ton” just to move coal to Far Eastern ports, leaving Kuzbass with a shrinking coal sector and a GRP that fell 0.5% between 2021 and 2024 “compared with growth of 13.7% across the country as a whole.”
  • According to Gusev, Moscow now sustains an “uncompetitive coal industry not for economic reasons, but for social ones,” with powerful lobbyists like former Kuzbass governor and now energy minister Sergei Tsivilev ensuring “state subsidies, transfers, and tariff exemptions” that mask rather than fix structural problems. He argues that wartime “military Keynesianism” offered a missed chance to shift miners into defense or the army, and concludes that by blocking the “inevitable” post‑industrial decline of coal monotowns, “the Kremlin’s obsession with the Ukraine war… simply increases the risks of a systemic crisis further down the line.”

“U.S. Sanctions Zigzag in New World of Economic Warfare,” Alan Rappeport and Ephrat Livni, New York Times, 04.26.26.

  • Rappeport and Livni say Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s mid‑April vow not to extend a waiver on Russian oil was reversed “two days later,” when Treasury “quietly issued another 30‑day reprieve,” prompting Volodymyr Zelenskyy to say “every dollar paid for Russian oil is money for the war” and Senate Democrats to denounce a “shameful” U‑turn. They note the waiver “has been filling Russia’s coffers with, by some estimates, as much as $200 million per day,” and quote Sen. Chris Coons: “No country has profited more from this war than Russia.”
  • The authors argue the zigzag “underscored the haphazard state of U.S. statecraft,” as Washington also granted then let lapse a 30‑day exemption for Iranian oil before launching “Operation Economic Fury,” extending a global blockade of Iranian ports. Bessent likens it to “a financial bombing campaign,” and he and Trump insist Iran “will be unable to store any more oil in a matter of days and will be forced to shut its wells.”
  • Jennifer Kavanagh calls it “a kind of whiplash in terms of policy” and evidence the administration “did not expect this to last this long,” while Edward Fishman says the “haphazard use of sanctions” reflects that “we don’t have a playbook for this kind of economic warfare,” as Iran’s closure of Hormuz and use of a shadow fleet turn energy markets into a battlefield.
  • See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

Climate change:

  • No significant developments.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

“Russian Big Business Lobby Outlines Most Promising Opportunities for Potential Renewed U.S.-Russia Cooperation,” Russia.Post, 04.21.26.

  • The article reports that at its March congress the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) listed areas for possible future cooperation with the U.S., including “development of mineral deposits and extraction of natural resources in Murmansk Region, the Southern Urals, Siberia and the Sea of Okhotsk,” “cooperation in the Arctic,” “cooperation in space,” “cooperation in energy, including nuclear energy,” and resuming supplies of “Russian rolled products made from aluminum alloys and titanium for U.S. aviation companies.”
  • The RSPP also proposed restoring cooperation with U.S. metallurgical firms for “carbon‑graphite products” and developing joint projects in renewables, including lifting sanctions on Russian makers of “photovoltaic modules and converters, electrical equipment for solar power plants.” The authors stress that this is “not the official Kremlin line,” noting Dmitry Peskov’s statement that Vladimir Putin “had not discussed joint projects with the U.S.” at the congress.
  • At the same time, the piece highlights that “Putin has reportedly told business leaders that he intends to continue the war in Ukraine until ‘we will get to the borders of the Donbas,’” underscoring the gap between big business’s wish list for future U.S. cooperation and the Kremlin’s determination to keep fighting in eastern Ukraine. AmCham Russia head Robert Agee is quoted saying he hopes “U.S. companies will return to the Russian market” and that “we are already working on a number of projects, and we are talking about big sums.”

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

“The Russian Intrigue of Miami,” Dmitry Suslov, Kommersant, 04.27.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • Suslov calls the invitation to Russia and China for the G20 summit in Miami “a very important step” that fits Donald Trump’s logic of talking to “rivals and opponents.” For Trump, he argues, dialogue is “a means of managing relations, preventing escalation and advancing one’s own interests,” not a “reward for good behavior.” The move, he writes, “confirms the intention of the Trump administration to some extent to normalize relations with Russia after the end of the Ukrainian conflict,” above all via “selective economic cooperation” that the White House hopes will “somewhat weaken the Russian‑Chinese linkage by creating alternatives for Russia,” even as Washington uses linkage to press Moscow for “additional concessions” on Ukraine.
  • At the same time, Suslov says the invitation “strengthens the split between the United States and Europe, and within Europe itself.” He attacks the EU line on isolating Russia as “stupid and counterproductive,” arguing that with Washington changing course “the European Union (plus Britain and Canada) has been left alone and thus, in fact, isolates itself.” For the European “party of war,” he contends, Miami is “even worse than Anchorage,” because attending alongside Putin clashes with their boycott policy. If Moscow “prolongs the intrigue” over whether Putin will go, Europeans must choose “either to abandon the policy of boycotting Russia or to refuse to participate in Trump’s summit,” risking a serious transatlantic clash. Yet Suslov concludes that the Miami invitation “may become the trigger that forces Europe to abandon the ostrich policy of isolating Russia and build a direct dialogue with Moscow,” potentially creating mechanisms “that reduce the risk” of a direct Russia–Europe war.

“The U.S. is turning its back on Russian asylum seekers,” Lilia Yapparova, The Boston Globe, 04.23.26.

  • Yapparova reports that since Trump’s return to office, U.S. immigration authorities have deported “possibly hundreds of Russian asylum seekers,” citing estimates from Russian America for Democracy in Russia (RADR), which also believes “another 1,000 Russians who have requested asylum are being held in U.S. detention facilities.” 
  • The piece follows cases such as truck driver and anti‑Putin protester Alexander Topilin, who legally crossed under the CBP One program but was later detained at a Texas checkpoint despite having “immigration papers and work permit… in order,” and told his documents were “fake.” His wife drafted a habeas petition with the help of ChatGPT; he was released but now wears an ankle monitor and awaits an asylum hearing. Another activist, Vladislav Krasnov, who publicly opposed the war on Ukraine, spent over a year in detention, was denied asylum by a judge who rejects about “90%” of claims, and was nearly deported before receiving an emergency stay “while he was in shackles waiting to be taken onto a plane.”
  • Yapparova notes that in 2025 Russians received asylum rejections in “31% of the cases reviewed,” the highest rate in 24 years, and that Trump has fired “more than 110 immigration judges.” 

“Missed again,” Pavel Koshkin, senior researcher at the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies (RAS), Ekspert, 04.26.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • What Koshkin has described as the third attempted assassination of Donald Trump on 25 April during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington came “against the backdrop of a record drop in presidential popularity” and “adds another vivid stroke to the picture of polarization in the United States.” Koshkin stresses a pattern: as in July and September 2024, “they tried to shoot the head of the White House when his political positions were unstable.” This time, Koshkin claims, the attack overlaps with “record” unpopularity amid the U.S.–Iran war, immigration raids and deportations, and economic instability.
  • Although the incident “could” help Trump to distract the public from domestic and foreign policy problems, Koshkin concludes there is “no basis” for real political gain.” There are now “far more haters of Trump, conspiracists, and skeptics than before,” polarization encourages disbelief, and “many have already become convinced that Trump pathologically bluffs,” so they are unlikely to “take a new political action movie at face value,” according to Koshkin. While leaders of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Spain, Mexico, Israel, Pakistan, Lebanon, India, Venezuela and the European Union condemned the shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner in Washington, DC, and expressed relief that President Donald Trump, his wife and other attendees were safe, a 20-minute search by RM staff at around 1:00 pm on April 27 (U.S. East Coast Time) revealed no such public expressions by the Russian leadership. Russia’s mainstream media mainly rewrote Western press reports on the incident. Some Russian bloggers did the same, while others offered their analytical take. Editors of one prominent pro-Kremlin Telegram channel, Rybar (or rather what looks like its U.S.-focused side project Amerykar (t.me/rybar_america) ) wrote: “There is no doubt that the president will virtuously turn this situation to his advantage. The incident has not only temporarily frozen his public war with the media, but has also become the perfect argument for lobbying his longstanding idea of building a new, ultra-secure banquet hall in the White House with bulletproof glass and protection against drones. In light of today’s shooting, such security initiatives are now unlikely to face serious resistance.” Another, far less known Telegram blogger, Druid, echoed Rybar, speculating that Trump will seek to extract “political dividends” from the incident, heroizing himself, while Democrats would have to “tone down” their criticism of the incumbent. Another less known figure, Russian political scientist Malek Dudakov, speculated that the attacker targeted Trump and that there would be “quite a lot of precedents of political violence of that kind” in Trump’s America.* 

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

“Russia Is Making Bank on Trump’s Iran War,” Keith Johnson, Foreign Policy, 04.21.26.

  • Johnson reports that Moscow’s fossil‑fuel takings in March hit “a two‑year high, with income of 713 million euros a day and tax receipts of 7.4 billion euros for the month,” according to CREA, and says “that windfall has a godfather: Trump himself.” Since the Iran war began on Feb. 28, “global oil prices have jumped more than 50%,” the normal Urals discount has “evaporated,” and after Trump twice “eased sanctions on Russian energy exports,” “volumes in March were up 16% and seaborne crude revenues were up 115%.” Isaac Levi of CREA sums up: “Russia is making a huge amount of money off the Iran war… everything is looking great for the Russians right now, though it all depends on Trump’s mood.”
  • Ukraine’s long‑range campaign has “rained fire upon Moscow’s Baltic oil‑export entrepôts,” heavily damaging Primorsk and Ust‑Luga and, most recently, sending the Tuapse refinery “up in flames,” Johnson writes. As a result, Russian oil flows from the Baltic and Black seas—“three‑quarters of everything it ships by sea”—are “down by half in the last month.” Zelenskyy claims “$2 billion in damage” to Russian oil installations in recent weeks, but Levi says “the skyrocketing prices and the sanctions waivers are outweighing whatever Ukraine does.”
  • Johnson argues that repeated U.S. sanctions waivers have allowed Russian crude to “flow freely to China and India,” creating “a recipe for an oil‑fueled revival of the Kremlin’s war machine.” Even if this “shot of oxygen may not be enough to entirely revive the Russian economy,” it is “sorely needed and warmly welcomed in Moscow.” Petras Katinas predicts, “We will see it in April. They will get even more revenue compared to March,” calling the surge “an early celebration, if not an early Christmas, for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin” and warning that “we might end up funding Putin throughout the war.”

“Russia’s Central Bank Continues to Cut Rates. Borrowing costs were lowered to 14.5% from 15.5%,” Paul Hannon, Wall Street Journal, 04.24.26.

  • “The Bank of Russia lowered borrowing costs to 14.5% from 15.5%, which are now down from a 2025 peak of 21%,” WSJ reported. “In a statement, the central bank said it might reduce borrowing costs further as demand and supply move into balance,” according to WSJ.
  • “The continued reduction in borrowing costs makes the Bank of Russia something of an outlier among central banks, many of which are contemplating an increase to rates to contain the pickup in inflation that has been triggered by the latest war in the Middle East,” according to this newspaper’s analysis.
    • “Russia is a major energy producer, and therefore less vulnerable to the reduction in energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz than many others,” WSJ writes.
  • “In new forecasts released earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund raised its projection for growth in 2026 to 1.1% from 0.8%, citing higher commodity prices. However, the central bank Friday left its forecast for growth unchanged in a range between 0.5% and 1.5%,” according to WSJ.

“Is Russia’s economy really on its last legs?,” Alexander Kolyandr, The Spectator, 04.21.26.

  • Kolyandr says Swedish intel chief Thomas Nilsson’s claim that Russia’s economy is far weaker than it looks and that inflation is really “closer to 15%” is “less than convincing.” He agrees Russia “lives on a mortgaged future” with “grave structural challenges,” and that “Vladimir Putin has been applying lipstick to this pig for years,” but argues that in “their eagerness to paint the picture blacker still, [spymasters] have got the numbers badly wrong—and in doing so, they are doing Putin an inadvertent favor.”
  • On inflation, he writes that if it were truly 15%, “the effect on the ruble’s real exchange rate would be dramatic,” but “Chinese exports to Russia have been slowing for over a year,” and retail volumes are only “declining marginally,” both consistent with a slowing, not spiraling, economy. The 15% figure, he suggests, “likely derives” from Romir data that cover only fast‑moving consumer goods, so “it is not a conspiracy: it is comparing apples with oranges.”
  • On the deficit, Kolyandr argues that if it were understated by $30 billion, this would show up “in significantly higher inflation… or in a surge of domestic borrowing. No such surge… is visible.” Higher oil prices after the U.S.–Israeli war on Iran mean that “at that price, the arithmetic runs heavily in Moscow’s favor,” and planned cuts have been shelved. Citing BOFIT, he notes there is “no compelling evidence of extensive systematic data manipulation,” and warns that a narrative of a secretly collapsing Russia leads to “policy built on inflated assessments of Russian weakness,” which “is a gift to Putin, who knows exactly what his economy can and cannot bear.”

“Putin ordered a falling economy to grow. How will officials cope with this demand?,” Alexander Kolyandr, The Bell, 04.21.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • Kolyandr writes that Vladimir Putin, “dissatisfied with the decline of the Russian economy,” summoned officials for a second economic meeting in a month, demanding explanations for why GDP fell 1.8% in January–February and why forecasts were wrong, and ordering “measures to resume growth and balance the budget” despite “sharp fluctuations” in external markets.
  • He notes that the slump affects “manufacturing, industrial production as a whole, and construction,” yet “Putin did not talk about the structural problems of the economy,” even though “they have not gone away,” and that the windfall from higher oil prices due to the U.S.–Iran war will not solve them; last December, Putin had called slower growth “the price for preserving the quality of the economy and macroeconomic indicators.”
  • Finance Minister Anton Siluanov’s first response was to signal early resumption of foreign‑exchange operations under the budget rule, saying the government “must be more flexible in connection with the changing situation.” Kolyandr comments that this is a rare moment when the minister describes the rule “not as a rule,” turning it into “manual control” and meaning that for markets “the rule ceases to be an anchor.”
  • Siluanov tried to calm fears about a three‑month deficit of 4.5 trillion rubles (vs. 3.8 trillion planned for the year), calling it “predictable” and explaining that the ministry had “advanced government spending,” including pre‑paying defense contracts for companies that “needed ‘working capital’.” Kolyandr argues this “creative accounting” both cosmetically worsens early‑year figures and quietly “expands the actual channel of military financing without fixing it in public budget statistics.”
  • The article concludes that the Iran war has “given the Kremlin a fiscal respite,” which it is using “not to strengthen the economy, but to relieve political pressure.” Kolyandr warns that all three pillars—backing away from rule reform, treating the deficit as a technicality, and hiding part of war spending in seasonal payments—“work only while there is an oil bonus”; when prices turn, “none of the three supports will hold,” especially as a high key rate and weak growth mean “the debt begins to grow by itself, even without new spending.”

“Mood in Russia turns bleak as war in Ukraine drags and economy suffers,” Catherine Belton and Natalia Abbakumova, Washington Post, 04.26.26.

  • Belton and Abbakumova report that state pollster VTsIOM now puts Vladimir Putin’s approval at 65.6%, “its lowest level since before the beginning of the war and a drop of 12.2 percentage points since the start of the year,” compared with historic highs of “as high as 88%.” Russia’s economy “contracted by 1.8% in the first two months of the year,” they note, while non‑payments of commercial bills hit a record $109 billion in January and the number of companies owing taxes reached 439,900, according to Rosstat and Aktion Accounting. Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov admits reserves “are largely exhausted.”
  • Economist Robert Nigmatulin told a Moscow forum that since 2015 GDP growth has been “about 1.5% per year,” while “consumer prices have increased by 77%,” concluding, “we’ve lost everything and still we are the poorest,” and asking, “can we invest in a country with leadership like this?” Sanctions and war spending pushed interest rates “above 20%” before easing to 14.5%, and Janis Kluge describes Russia in a “strange twilight zone” between temporary oil windfalls and “worsening” underlying dynamics.
  • Ordinary Russians describe a “digital Iron Curtain” and collapsing living standards. Tatyana, 53, says “we already lived behind the Iron Curtain once… now we have a digital Iron Curtain,” while Irina, 46, notes “sales have dropped,” “prices have doubled, and for fruit and vegetables they’ve tripled,” and Igor, 19, speaks of “a complete sense of hopelessness,” adding “everyone wants to leave… living here is difficult, expensive, and bleak.”

“Entangled In Russia's Faltering Economy: The Fate Of Its Respected Central Banker,” Mike Eckel, RFE/RL, 04.21.26.

  • Eckel writes that while it was clear Russia’s economy was “grinding its gears,” the fact it is now “outright screeching to a halt, if not shifting into reverse” appears to have surprised even Putin, who publicly scolded his economic team—including Central Bank head Elvira Nabiullina—over GDP falling 1.8% in the first two months of 2026 and a deficit that has “skyrocketed to 4.5 trillion rubles.” Former adviser Aleksandra Prokopenko says the slowdown is no surprise to “anyone who has been paying attention,” noting that the earlier 4.9% growth in 2024 was driven by war spending.
  • Analysts quoted stress that Nabiullina is “one of the few positive aspects of Russian economic leadership,” in Richard Portes’s words, and that firing her would “unsettle the one institutional anchor that has maintained credibility with markets,” as Prokopenko puts it. Nicholas Birman‑Trickett warns that if the Kremlin installs a loyalist, “the entire business ecosystem will panic,” since “a ‘yes’ man would be terrible.”
  • Eckel notes that labor shortages, high interest rates and a “largely exhausted” stock of reserves have left the system unable to “self‑correct anymore.” Yet he cites Prokopenko to argue the televised dressing‑down was likely performance: in Putin’s system, “whoever last spoke to him shapes his framing,” and public pressure on the economic bloc “doesn’t necessarily signal” a change in who controls monetary policy. With Nabiullina’s mandate expiring within a year, the real question, she says, is whether an independent central banker will still be “convenient for the Kremlin.”

“The politics of terror,” Simon Kuper, Financial Times, 04.23.26.

  • Kuper argues that the concept of “radicalization” now applies not just to lone‑wolf terrorists but to “world leaders,” citing Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump as “recent case studies of radicalization towards violence.” Drawing on Beatrice de Graaf and Niels Drost’s book Putin’s Tsarist Dream, he says Putin appears to have “evolved from uncomplicated Machiavellian grifter into sincere extremist,” pointing to Putin’s 6,800‑word essay on the “historical unity” of Russians and Ukrainians and his claim that Russians are “the true Christians” in “the third Rome.” Kuper notes that Putin in 2018 said Russians killed by foreign nukes would “go to heaven as martyrs,” and that in 2022 he urged soldiers invading Ukraine to sacrifice themselves by quoting Jesus: “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends,” while the Russian Orthodox Church in 2024 declared he was leading “a holy war.”
  • Kuper contrasts earlier eras of foreign policy made by committees with today’s “typical major power… ruled by one old man who can radicalize his own followers,” writing that “probably nobody since Stalin has wielded as much military force single‑handedly as Putin and Trump do today.” He argues that international‑relations theories assuming states rationally “pursue their interests” miss how individually radicalized leaders can drive wars of aggression such as Russia’s in Ukraine, and concludes that intelligence services “need to relearn the psychology of individual radicalization” now that “individual radicalizations drive history.”

“Another wave of public outcry tests Putin’s rule in wartime Russia,” Dasha Litvinova/AP via Washington Post, 04.25.26.

  • Litvinova reports that popular blogger Victoria Bonya’s 19‑minute appeal to Vladimir Putin—viewed “31 million” times—tells him “there’s a lot you don’t know,” claiming “people are screaming at the top of their lungs now. They’ve been robbed of everything they have, and they continue to be robbed. Businesses are dying.” She “emphasized that she supports Putin” but argued “ordinary Russians and his own officials are too scared to tell him the truth.” In a rare acknowledgment, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin had seen the video and that “a lot of work is being done” and “none of it is being ignored.”
  • The article links this outcry to internet shutdowns officially justified by Putin as necessary to “prevent terror attacks,” layered on top of years of censorship, blocking WhatsApp and Telegram, and pushing a state app “seen by many as a surveillance tool.” Tatiana Stanovaya writes that his comments signal the security services “are doing everything correctly, and it will continue for as long as they see fit.”
  • Economic strain and the grinding war in Ukraine deepen frustration. Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov says reserves “have been largely depleted,” and Putin admitted GDP “shrunk by 1.8% between January and February.” Levada’s Denis Volkov says discontent rises “when the mood starts to get worse, just because life becomes harder,” while Mark Galeotti cautions that “none of this can be taken to herald the imminent end of Putin’s rule,” since there is “no meaningful organized opposition” and his control of the security apparatus is “unchallenged.”

“Meeting with members of the Council of Legislators,” Vladimir Putin, Kremlin.ru, 04.27.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated.

  • Putin tells federal and regional lawmakers that Russia’s political system and all branches of power have demonstrated “strength and stability, genuine sovereignty, [and] readiness to fight for the vital interests of the Fatherland,” praising deputies for opening “their own front of resistance, of struggle for Russia, for its security and for its future.” He insists that those who thought “multi‑party democracy… is our vulnerable spot” have “of course, been mistaken,” because for Russians “love for the Motherland, the desire to defend it, is above all else… Without this Russia cannot exist.”
  • On the war, he says that “on the key, defining issues all parliamentary parties, all regions, speak in solidarity, from a single position,” and that this is seen “above all in support for the special military operation and in steps to strengthen Russia’s defense capability and security.” He touts an expanding system of “special social guarantees” for combatants and their families—citing new laws on free education, credit holidays, exemptions from certain duties and taxes, and easier access to social contracts for veterans starting their own businesses.
  • Addressing economic and regulatory policy, Putin backs United Russia’s proposal to postpone regional repayments on budget loans, telling the government and parliament “let’s do it this way,” and calls for legal support to “stimulate economic growth” and build frameworks for “technological leadership,” including AI. Crucially, he criticizes an overly prohibitive approach, warning that it is “counterproductive” to “fixate only on bans, restrictions, [and] on working out new kinds of punishment for violators,” because “excessive barriers slow down development,” and arguing that Russian legislation must be “flexible, dynamic, progressive, and oriented toward the future. This is Putin’s thinly veiled attempt to respond to a recent surge in public discontent with the authorities in Russia, which has translated into a decline in his popularity (although the level of this popularity—had it belonged not to Putin, but to a democratically elected and democratically governing leader—would be welcomed by any such leader). A combination of factors lies behind this discontent, including the increasing restrictions and bans on the use of the Internet and messenger apps, such as Telegram.

“Who Is Responsible for the Demise of the Russian Internet?,” Maria Kolomychenko, Carnegie Politika, 04.23.26.

  • Kolomychenko argues that after oversight of the Runet was handed to the FSB’s Second Service, the Russian internet resembles a security update that “starts blocking access to the internet altogether.” The new handlers, whose remit includes “countering ‘ideological sabotage’ and persecuting dissidents,” see the web not as infrastructure but “a suspicious and chaotic environment that requires constant filtration,” so their “tried and tested toolkit consists of bans, fines, and blocks.”
  • She calls the resulting period “the worst in the history of the Runet,” with “regular mobile internet shutdowns, whitelists of approved sites, a complete block of WhatsApp and Telegram, fines for reading ‘extremist’ materials, and a crusade against VPNs.” This crackdown followed the Crocus City terrorist attack; she reports that it was likely then that Vladimir Putin met Second Service chief Alexei Sedov, who offered to “bring order to the internet” and “received carte blanche from the president.”
  • The crackdown has sparked “a bureaucratic battle” between Sedov and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s digital team, and “greatly irritate[s] a significant proportion of Russian society,” contributing to what she calls “a painful blow to Putin’s approval ratings.” Yet Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stated that “the internet restrictions will remain in place for as long as necessary,” leading Kolomychenko to conclude that the state has “opted for complete ideological control and is prepared to bear the costs,” and that with security officials now treating every packet as a threat, “it will be virtually impossible to delete or roll back this calamitous update.”

“‘Electoral democracy is a direct path to the rule of plutocracy,’” Sergei Karaganov, Russia in Global Affairs, 04.23.26. Clues from Russian Views. Machine-translated. (This organization is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)

Defense and aerospace:

  •  No significant developments.
  • See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.

Security, law-enforcement, justice and emergencies:

  • No significant developments.

     

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

Russia’s external policies, including relations with “far abroad” countries:

“Will Bulgaria’s New Leader Cast His Lot With Europe or Russia?,” Carlotta Gall, New York Times, 04.23.26.

  • Gall notes that critics describe Rumen Radev, the long‑time president who now leads the victorious Progressive Bulgaria coalition, as “pro‑Russia, in the pocket of President Vladimir V. Putin,” warning he could be “a Trojan horse inside NATO and the European Union” akin to Viktor Orbán. Analyst Dimitar Keranov points out that Radev has “called for dialogue with Putin’s Russia, opposed sending military aid to Ukraine, denounced the 10‑year Bulgaria‑Ukraine defense agreement signed last month, and reaffirmed that Crimea is Russian,” a 2021 remark he repeated in the campaign even after later acknowledging the annexation violated international law. Radev himself said on election day, “I hope we will develop practical relations with Russia, based on mutual respect and equal treatment,” and predicted future steps to reset relations “between Europe and Russia based on a security agreement.”
  • Yet Gall stresses that Bulgarian public opinion has shifted sharply against Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine: in 2024, 49.5% of Bulgarians held a negative view of Putin and only 22% a positive one, while surveys show support for Russia “continued to decline through the course of the war.” Bulgaria remains strongly pro‑EU and more supportive of NATO than before, and experts such as Vessela Tcherneva expect Radev to prioritise meeting EU rule‑of‑law conditions and securing recovery funds, even as observers like Keranov warn that with a single‑party majority “he has more room than any Bulgarian leader in nearly three decades” to translate his Russia‑friendly rhetoric into policy.
  • See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

Ukraine:

“A New Phase of Adaptation: What the Return of Parliamentary Politics in Ukraine Tells Us,” Balázs Jarábik, Carnegie Politika, 04.24.26. Machine-translated.

  • Jarábik argues that after Andriy Yermak’s departure, “the president’s office no longer controls the Verkhovna Rada as tightly as before,” so “a number of centers of influence have emerged,” including a pro‑presidential camp, a more autonomous Servant of the People faction and an informal “anti‑presidential coalition” of opposition, anticorruption bodies and parts of civil society. The result is “a situation in which none of the centers of influence is able to impose its own agenda,” yet “the system continues to function,” and this balance is “quite stable.”
  • He notes that the ruling party lost a stable majority “two years ago” and now relies on ad hoc coalitions, while many Servant of the People deputies feel their “political contract with Volodymyr Zelenskyy has exhausted itself” and that prolonging their five‑year mandate in wartime “rather hinders their future re‑election.” At the same time, “dozens of deputies are under investigation,” and MPs increasingly believe that if EU‑backed anticorruption bodies “destabilize parliamentary work,” then “responsibility for the reforms proposed by the EU should not lie only with the Verkhovna Rada.”
  • Looking outward, Jarábik writes that Kyiv is “probing the limits of what is acceptable in relations with its main donor—the EU,” resisting “politically sensitive reforms,” while also recognizing that Europe “views Ukraine more as a buffer against Russia than as a full‑fledged integration partner.” He warns that as the war with Russia drags on and the EU makes aid more conditional, Ukraine risks becoming a state “strategically oriented toward the West, but institutionally weak, politically vulnerable, and not ready for full‑fledged European integration.”

“EU Enlargement: Ukraine as a Special Case—the Western Balkans as the Norm,” Barbara Lippert, Nicolai von Ondarza, Frauke M. Seebass, SWP Comment 2026/C 17, 04.20.26.

  • The authors argue that since Russia’s 2022 full‑scale invasion, enlargement has become “a geostrategic investment in [the EU’s] own security,” but stress that “none of the current official candidates fully meet the ‘fundamentals’ of the rule of law, democracy, and fundamental rights.” They warn that Ukraine’s accession, given war damage and size, would be “a challenge of a different nature,” with especially heavy implications for Cohesion and Agricultural Policy, and say rapid or “emergency accession” could create “a special status for the country… within the EU.”
  • On Russia, they note that enlargement is also about “wherever [the EU] faces geostrategic competition, for example from Russia or China,” and that eastern candidates Ukraine and Moldova are “subject to military attack, under threat, or partially occupied by Russian troops.” NATO membership for them is “improbable… in the medium term,” while “the EU… cannot offer them adequate security” on its own.
  • They therefore propose a “new type of accession association” for Ukraine (and linked Moldova), combining “full and consistent” gradual integration into the Single Market with “a substantial security and defense partnership.” This “accession association,” they argue, would “anchor Kyiv in the EU,” leverage Ukraine’s defense-industrial experience, and allow “willing and capable member states, along with the United Kingdom as a nuclear power,” to work with Kyiv on “effective European defense structures” closely tied to the EU and a European pillar of NATO.

“Meet the New Leader of the Free World,” David French, New York Times, 04.26.26.

  • French’s answer to his own title is explicit: the “new leader of the free world” is Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He writes that Ukraine, “a nation that was supposed to dissolve within days of a Russian invasion,” has “fought Russia to a stalemate, revolutionizing land warfare in the process,” become “an indispensable security partner in the western alliance, including in the war against Iran,” and that “by word and deed, he’s showing Europe and the world how the post-American free world can preserve its liberty and independence.”
  • French argues that Ukraine now fields “the largest and most battle-hardened land force in the western world,” with an estimated “roughly a million men and women under arms” in 2025 and a military that is “the only western force that has fully adapted to modern drone warfare.” As Trump’s second term “causes generational damage to American alliances,” he concludes that “for the first time in my adult life, the moral and strategic heart of the defense of liberal democracy doesn’t beat in Washington… It’s in Kyiv, where a courageous leader and a courageous people have picked up the torch America has dropped.”

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

“Shifting Power Dynamics in Kyrgyzstan: The End of the Japarov-Tashiyev Era,” Bruce Pannier, Foreign Policy Research Institute, 04.21.26.

  • Pannier recalls that Kyrgyzstan was once seen as Central Asia’s “‘island of democracy’” but says the tandem of President Sadyr Japarov and GKNB chief Kamchybek Tashiyev “greatly weakened the roles of opposition political organizations, civil society, and independent media,” even as the country was “arguably, more stable than at any time” since independence. That stability “might be coming to an end” after Japarov abruptly dismissed Tashiyev on 10 February, followed by “a wave of officials sacked” and restructuring to bring key structures “under the control of the president,” a sign that “something far more serious than a rift between two friends was happening.”
  • He traces the “Eki Dos” (“Two Friends”) from their rise under President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, their 2012 conviction for “trying to overthrow the government,” and subsequent split, to their reunion in the October 2020 upheaval when Japarov went from prisoner to acting president in ten days and on 16 October named Tashiyev to head the GKNB. Together, they “set out to radically change Kyrgyzstan”: a new constitution “vastly enhanced the powers of the executive branch,” the GKNB was strengthened, and organized-crime boss Kamchy Kolbayev was “eliminated.”
  • Pannier details how the tandem “neutralized a once energetic political opposition,” with party leaders jailed, new electoral rules that “diminished the role of once-powerful political parties,” and pressure on independent media such as Kloop, Temirov Live, Azattyk and 24.kg. Public protests were curbed by blanket bans on rallies in Bishkek and other cities that have been “routinely… extended and remain in effect in 2026.”
  • The break came after an open letter from 75 former officials and public figures called for a snap presidential election, amid uncertainty over Japarov’s term. Within a day, Japarov fired Tashiyev “in the interests of our state, in order to prevent a split in society,” removed the Border Guard Service from GKNB control, created an Investigative Committee reporting directly to him, and oversaw a purge of GKNB leaders, ministers, mayors and even eight newly elected deputies—“mostly people close to Tashiyev.” Tashiyev left the country, then returned to be questioned as a “witness” in a corruption probe involving Kyrgyzneftegaz and relatives.
  • Pannier notes that Japarov has moved to “boost his own image and support base” with promotions, housing for soldiers, and reminders of “our shared victory” in taking full control of the Kumtor mine, while appointing a new Security Council secretary who “graduated from Russia’s Federal Security Service Academy,” possibly signalling a bet on Russian backing. The Constitutional Court has now ruled that Japarov can run again in 2027, but “with Tashiyev at his side… Japarov seemed assured of victory. Now that is no longer certain,” since Tashiyev remains “one of the best‑connected and most powerful figures in Kyrgyzstan” and could still marshal support against his former ally.

“Why Azerbaijan and Iran Stepped Away from Confrontation,” Wilder Alejandro Sánchez, The National Interest, 04.25.26.

  • Sánchez notes that on March 5 “Iranian drones crossed into Azerbaijani territory and attacked the Nakhchivan International Airport,” while “another Iranian drone reportedly hit a school in Shakarabad,” injuring civilians and causing “significant damage at the airport,” though “no confirmed fatalities” were reported. After threats of retaliation from both sides, “the incident in Nakhchivan did not escalate,” because “the two governments quickly engaged in diplomatic dialogue, and no further incidents have been reported since then,” as Baku and Yerevan seek to “remain neutral” in the wider Iran war.
  • To defuse tensions, Azerbaijan “chose the path of humanitarian assistance,” sending “hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid, including food products… and medical supplies, to Iran to help the civilian population (primarily the Azerbaijani people of Iran) affected by the war.” The article stresses that ties are structurally fraught: Iran hosts “tens of millions of Azerbaijanis” in provinces such as Ardabil and East/West Azerbaijan, a community that “was treated like second‑class citizens during the Pahlavi dynasty and has continued to be badly treated by the Islamic Republic,” with restrictions on “the use and teaching of the Azerbaijani language, cultural traditions, and history.”
  • Quoting Karim Sadjadpour, Sánchez warns that when the airstrikes stop “we will see an Islamic regime that will be more brutal than before,” inheriting “a country in ruins… and a population that hates them,” so Tehran’s mentality is “kill or be killed.” He suggests Azerbaijanis “may attract some of this new wave of repression,” but judges it “unlikely that Tehran will want to open a new theater” against Baku, even as “the suffering of the civilian population of Iran—Azerbaijanis, Persians, and everyone else—is unlikely to abate.”
  • See these links for more commentary/analysis on this subject:

Endnotes

  1. For reporting on this meeting, see, for instance, “Iran’s Foreign Minister Is in Russia for Talks With Putin on Middle East War,” Ivan Nechepurenko and Sanam Mahoozi, New York Times, 04.27.26.
  2. See also "Protecting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in turbulent times: European and P5 perspectives on the 2026 NPT Review Conference," Federica Dall’Arche et. al., European Leadership Network, 04.27.26.

 

The cutoff for reports summarized in this product was 10:00 am Eastern time on the day this digest was distributed. Unless otherwise indicated, all summaries above are direct quotations. 

AI was used in production of this digest.

*Here and elsewhere, the italicized text indicates comments by RM staff and associates. These comments do not constitute a RM editorial policy.

Slider photo: The Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the New Safe Confinement structure that was built to shield the damaged Reactor No. 4, is seen on Monday, April 6, 2026, from the abandoned town of Pripyat, Ukraine, where the workers at the plant once lived. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

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