Russia Analytical Report, Feb. 3-10, 2025

4 Ideas to Explore

  1. “If Putin does not get his way in negotiations, he appears confident that Russia can keep fighting for at least another year and get what it wants via the battlefield,” Alexander Gabuev of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center writes in his commentary for The Economist, entitled "Putin Thinks Time Is on His Side. Sadly He May Be Right.” “Ukraine, [Putin] calculates, lacks the time or resources to hold out indefinitely. Proving Mr. Putin wrong is possible, but it will take more Ukrainian blood and Western weaponry—and, perhaps more importantly than anything, more time than Mr. Trump’s impatience for a deal would seem to allow,” Gabuev writes.
  2. Russian forces “have been sufficiently reconstituted and adapted to sustain offensive operations for at least another year,” despite suffering “staggering” losses of personnel and equipment, according to Yurri Clavilier and Michael Gjerstad of IISS. Meanwhile, for Ukraine, the current main challenge is “manpower, specifically regarding management and allocation,” according to the two researchers. “Ukraine’s military has only ad hoc command formations above the brigade level, making inter-brigade communications and cooperation uneven and difficult,” they write. “The situation is not as dire for Ukraine as it was in early 2024, but it will still rely on Western support and improving its manpower-management to avoid further setbacks on the battlefield,” according to the two IISS researchers. AFU’s plans to transition to a corps-based command system may be one consequence of dissatisfaction with the existing command and control structure.*
  3. Why did Russia abstain from using nuclear weapons against Ukraine in the fall of 2022? “A correlation between taboo, the multilateral diplomacy initiated by the Biden administration in the fall of 2022 and Moscow’s receding nuclear rhetoric toward the end of that year may come closest to a causal link explaining non-use against Ukraine,” concludes Ulrich Kühn of the University of Hamburg in his analysis of the period when the CIA estimated the likelihood of Russia using nuclear weapons at 50% or higher as Russian forces were in retreat in Ukraine.
  4. “The industrial requirements for producing fissile material and fitting a warhead to delivery systems exceed Ukraine’s current capacity,” IISS’ Alexander Bollfrass writes in an article, entitled “Are nuclear weapons an option for Ukraine?” Rather than pursue nuclear-weapons acquisition or NATO membership, Ukraine should adopt “the ‘Israel model’ [which] involves a heavily armed state under bilateral protection by the United States,” Bollfrass argues in IISS. According to a Nov. 2024 estimate by Harvard’s Mariana Budjeryn, however, if Ukraine could somehow marshal the expertise and the engineering needed… it could get to a ‘Fat Man’ kind of bomb in several months.”NB: The next Russia Analytical Report will appear on Tuesday, Feb. 18, instead of Monday, Feb. 17, because of the U.S. Presidents' Day holiday.

NB: The next Russia Analytical Report will appear on Tuesday, Feb. 18, instead of Monday, Feb. 17, because of the U.S. Presidents' Day holiday.

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

Nuclear security and safety:

  • No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs:

  • No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Iran and its nuclear program:

"Trump Has a Rare and Short Window to Solve the Iran Problem — Here’s How," Richard Nephew and Ariane Tabatabai, War on the Rocks, 02.04.25. 

Humanitarian impact of the Ukraine conflict:

"'Be Cruel': Inside Russia's Torture System for Ukrainian POWs," Thomas Grove, WSJ, 02.10.25. 

  • "In the weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, the head of St. Petersburg’s prisons delivered a direct message to an elite unit of guards tasked with overseeing the influx of prisoners from the war: “Be cruel, don’t pity them.” Maj. Gen. Igor Potapenko had gathered his service’s special forces at the regional headquarters to tell them about a new system that had been designed for captured Ukrainians. Normal rules wouldn’t apply, he told them. There would be no restrictions against violence. The body cameras that were mandatory elsewhere in Russia’s prison system would be gone."
  • "The guards would rotate through Russia’s prison system, serving a month at a time in prisons before other teams took their place. Across the country, other units—from Buryatia, Moscow, Pskov and elsewhere—received similar instructions. Those meetings set in motion nearly three years of relentless and brutal torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war. Guards applied electric shocks to prisoners’ genitals until batteries ran out. They beat the prisoners to inflict maximum damage, experimenting to see what type of material would be most painful. They withheld medical treatment to allow gangrene to set in, forcing amputations."
  • "Three former prison officials told The Wall Street Journal how Russia planned and executed what United Nations investigators have described as widespread and systematic torture. Their accounts were supported by official documents, interviews with Ukrainian prisoners and a person who has helped the Russian prison officials defect."
  • "The officials—two from the special forces and one member of a medical team—have entered a witness-protection program after giving testimony to the International Criminal Court’s investigators. The two special-forces officers said they quit the prison service before they were forced to engage in torture but kept in touch with their colleagues who stayed."

For more commentary/analysis on this subject, see:

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

"Combat Losses and Manpower Challenges Underscore the Importance of ‘Mass’ in Ukraine," Yurri Clavilier and Michael Gjerstad, IISS, 02.10.25. 

  • Equipped but not staffed: Ukraine’s challenge for 2025:
    • The main challenge Ukraine currently faces is manpower, specifically with regards to management and allocation.
    • Ukraine’s military has only ad hoc command formations above the brigade level, making inter-brigade communications and cooperation uneven and difficult, and in the worst cases causing gaps on the frontline. Infantry battalions’ attrition remains the highest, with reported staffing figures ranging from 20–30% of full strength.
  • Staffed and decently equipped: Russia’s outlook for 2025
    • The IISS estimates that Russian equipment losses in 2024 amounted to around 1,400 main battle tanks (MBTs) and more than 3,700 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) and armored personnel carriers (APCs).
    • Despite these staggering numbers, Russia has been able to reconstitute some of these losses by relying on stored Soviet legacy equipment.
    • As of early January 2025, the IISS estimates that a minimum of 172,000 Russian troops have been killed and 611,000 wounded, of which at least 376,000 are severely wounded (disabled), with up to an accumulated 235,000 wounded but recoverable
  • While Russian forces are likely to degrade in the coming months, they have been sufficiently reconstituted and adapted to sustain offensive operations for at least another year; this would, however, come at a very high cost of equipment and casualties. The situation is not as dire for Ukraine as it was in early 2024, but it will still rely on Western support and improving its manpower-management to avoid further setbacks on the battlefield.

"Fighting the War in Ukraine on the Electromagnetic Spectrum," The Economist, 02.05.25. 

  • "For soldiers at the front, electromagnetic defenses are as vital as air: invisible when present, and disastrous when not. In July Ukrainian troops in southern Donbas found this out the hard way. Abruptly, Russian drones switched frequencies, from standard 700-1,000 megahertz to 400-500 megahertz, blinding Ukraine’s electronic-warfare (ew) systems...only when Ukraine understood what was happening, and secured new EW systems working at 500 megahertz, weeks later, were they able to stabilize the situation."
  • "The war of waves has been pivotal to the wider conflict. A continuous and intense contest between munitions and jammers is driving rapid change, as each side scrambles to find, monitor, occupy and attack increasingly rare gaps in the spectrum where signals can get through. “What you’re seeing in Ukraine is electromagnetic maneuver warfare in action,” says Thomas Withington, a fellow at the RUSI think-tank."
  • "The new war exposed vulnerabilities in Russia’s extremely powerful but bulky EW systems, which became liabilities lying within FPV drone range. They were forced to retreat a full 10-15km away from the front line, diluting their effect. Meanwhile, Ukraine began to make progress expanding its own EW capacity, with local producers scaling up production of trench-level EW systems."
  • "The newest challenges are last-mile automation and fiber-optic drones. Last-mile automation avoids most tactical EW shields, which have a range of about 50m, by guiding drones to near a target, and then using AI to visually lock on and strike."
  • "For now, most drones are still jammable. And Ukraine still has the edge in EW."

"The Added Dangers of Fighting in Ukraine When Everything Is Visible," The Economist, 02.06.25. 

  • "For centuries the “fog of war,” the inability to see through the confusion of combat, has been a given. No longer. The front lines in the war between Russia and Ukraine are now saturated with surveillance drones livestreaming video footage in real time. Everyone can see pretty much everything. Armies are having to work out how to fight on what is being called the transparent battlefield."
  • "The surveillance is layered. Orbiting satellites scan the Earth from space. Tactical drones have ranges of 200km or more. Smaller surveillance drones relay sightings to the operators of first-person view drones (FPVs), which carry a small munition to attack soldiers on the ground. Add a thermal-imaging camera and soldiers can also be spotted at night."
  • "To disrupt the omnipresent drones, Russians and Ukrainians are engaged in an electronic-warfare arms race. Operating in a village or a town means cellphone signals can be disguised in the welter of civilian connections. In the field, soldiers limit their use of phones to avoid creating an obvious cluster. Radios are adjusted to send weaker signals that can be picked up only over short distances. Soldiers cover themselves with “multi-spectral” camouflage nets to block heat signatures: invisibility cloaks against thermal cameras."
  • "Infantry now operate in small groups, which are harder to spot. The Russians have been able to make advances in recent months by sending handfuls of soldiers forward to gain a foothold."
  • "AI is being used to analyze surveillance data and cross-reference it with signals intelligence and open-source information, like Russian soldiers’ social-media posts, which can reveal their positions. But object-recognition software is in the early stages."

For more commentary/analysis on this subject, see:

Military aid to Ukraine:

  • No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

“Russia Hopes for Sanctions Relief," Alexandra Prokopenko and Alexander Kolyandr, The Bell, 02.07.25. 

  • In terms of what Russia wants from a deal, officials have repeatedly said any deal must recognize “the realities on the ground” — a reference to Moscow’s control of around a fifth of Ukrainian territory — and that a Ukrainian future in NATO is inadmissible. The idea of European peacekeepers being deployed to Ukraine is also unacceptable, not least because it would make it harder for Russia to re-invade in the future. Equally important for the Kremlin is the lifting of Western sanctions. In summer 2024, Putin said the removal of all sanctions was an essential precondition for Russia to enter talks.
  • Russia currently faces more sanctions than any other country in the world, a combined 15,000 measures. The US, the EU, Britain, Canada, Ukraine, Australia, Japan and South Korea have all imposed sanctions — but the Kremlin is only seriously concerned about those imposed by Washington, Brussels and London, a source close to a senior official in the presidential administration said.
  • Opinions vary among the Russian businesses and officials asked by The Bell about which sanctions they would like to see eased. Manufacturers and officials responsible for the “real economy” are most concerned with import restrictions and problems with cross-border payments. Macroeconomists and finance officials are more worried about the latest oil sanctions and the potential for them to affect demand for Russian oil in third countries, particularly India and China.
  • It is worth noting that no one The Bell spoke to believes all sanctions will be lifted. But they do expect a partial, targeted easing.
  • Putin, just like Trump, likes big package deals. It seems that everybody is moving in that direction. Possible talks between the US and Russia without Ukraine and Europe might lead to compromise, but in the long term they will likely work against security and stability in the region. The Trump administration cannot lift all sanctions, while a partial easing is unlikely to persuade Putin to make any serious concessions in return — especially since sanctions on Russia have nothing to do with Moscow’s concerns over Ukraine’s drift towards Europe. Russian businesses have largely learned to live with the restrictions, while still conceding that things would be much better without them. Nevertheless, any move from Washington on sanctions relief would, in Putin’s eyes, represent a success and signify the collapse of the Western “anti-Russia” coalition.

"Russia’s Costly Conquest in Ukraine," Andrew Kosenko and Peter Liberman, FA, 02.05.25. 

"Putin Thinks Time Is on His Side. Sadly He May Be Right," Alexander Gabuev, The Economist, 02.04.25. 

  • "Russia’s forces show little sign yet of running out of offensive steam. True, what little extra land Russia has seized in eastern Ukraine in the past year has come at the cost of huge casualties. The current burn rate of manpower cannot continue forever. But in the short run, Russia is replenishing lost manpower from pools of reserves. By contrast, less-populous Ukraine is struggling to recruit new troops."
  • "Then there is the economic frontline. It’s true that the cumulative weight of Western sanctions has constrained Mr. Putin’s wartime economy. But Russia’s technocrats have impressively managed the consequences of an overheating economy, high inflation, labor shortages and dwindling exports. At some point, these will become far more difficult to handle. But at least for the next year or more, Mr. Putin can probably count on the resources to pay for the war before the economy runs into real trouble. And given the fear that Mr. Putin instils in Russian society and among the elites, he is not worried about popular demands to end the war or plots to unseat him."
  • "Russians no doubt calculate that a Ukraine with no Western security guarantees would become an uninventable, depopulated rump, at risk of implosion. Ukrainians, of course, would be appalled by such a deal, which they would resist having rammed down their throats. Yet if Mr. Putin does not get his way in negotiations, he appears confident that Russia can keep fighting for at least another year and get what it wants via the battlefield. Ukraine, he calculates, lacks the time or resources to hold out indefinitely. Proving Mr. Putin wrong is possible, but it will take more Ukrainian blood and Western weaponry—and, perhaps more importantly than anything, more time than Mr. Trump’s impatience for a deal would seem to allow."

“Trump ready to double down on Russian sanctions, U.S. envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg says,” Caitlin Doornbos, NY Post, 02.06.25.

  • According to retired Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump is prepared to double down on sanctions for Russia to end to its war on Ukraine. “And if there’s anybody who understands leverage, it’s President Donald J. Trump, and you can see that with what he’s recently done [in other foreign problem-solving.]” Though Kellogg said Ukraine will need to keep up its military pressure on Russia ahead of negotiations, he lambasted former President Joe Biden’s strategy of promising to provide Ukraine aid “as long as it takes, as much as it takes” without cranking up the pressure via other elements of national power.
  • While the president this week has floated possible deal-making with Ukraine over access to its rare earth elements critical to U.S. national security, Kellogg said the president first “wants to stop the killing—just stop it—and then you go from there” on future negotiations. “I think we have some opportunities, and fortunately, I’m working for the master [of] deals,” Kellogg said… Still, the goal is to end the violence before negotiating such peace settlement intricacies, because “you can’t kill your way out of this war,” given Russia’s lack of interest in preventing massive losses of its own troops.
  • “For Russia, this is kind of in their DNA in military operations—basically, you’re in an attrition fight,” he said. “If you look at history, you’d never want to get into an attrition fight with the Russians, because that’s how they fight. They’re used to it. I mean, this is a country that was willing to lose—and did—700,000 in the Battle of Stalingrad in six months, and they didn’t blink an eye…. And so the pressure just can’t be military. You have to put economic pressure, you have to put diplomatic pressure, some type of military pressures and levers that you’re going to use underneath those to make sure [this goes] where we want it to go,” he explained.
  • Still, the war will not end without some sort of negotiation between Russia and Ukraine, Kellogg said. In recent weeks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signaled he may be open to ceding some territory to Russia in exchange for security guarantees—such as NATO membership or nuclear armament. “Very frankly, both sides in any negotiation have to give; that’s just the way it is in negotiations,” he said. “And that’s where you have to find out, ‘OK, where is this at? What’s acceptable?... Is it gonna be agreeable to everybody? No. Is it gonna be acceptable to everybody? No. But you try to run this balance,” he added.
  • After a meeting with Zelensky at Trump Tower in September, Trump discussed the reality of bringing Ukraine and Russia to the table, noting that “not only is it time” for a peace agreement—but that an agreement could be made “that’s good for both sides,” Kellogg said. “You have to approach that in a very pragmatic way, you know? I go back to Teddy Roosevelt and the Treaty of Portsmouth [that ended the Russo-Japanese War in 1905,]” he said. “The czar of Russia and the Japanese were ready to walk out the door [during negotiations] and Roosevelt basically got them together and said, ‘Both of you got to give a little’ and they did. “And what happens is you get Teddy Roosevelt the Nobel Peace Prize and the war stops. So I think when you look at that, and even more recent examples, that’s just the kind of the way it is.”

“America’s Ukraine war envoy is no dove on Russia. Neither is his daughter,” Jim Geraghty, WP, 02.10.25 

  • "If you were an American who wanted to ensure that the war in Ukraine ended on terms favorable to Ukraine, you would want the negotiations handled by someone who not only understands the Ukrainians’ position but also feels a deep personal attachment to the consequences of the Russian invasion. Someone like a retired Army general whose daughter has been running relief operations in Ukraine since the start of the war."
  • "Kellogg’s daughter is Meaghan Mobbs, president of the R.T. Weatherman Foundation and a graduate of West Point. The Ukrainians might not have a better friend than Mobbs. The R.T. Weatherman Foundation has been present in Ukraine since the start of the war. Its efforts include establishing and running a logistics hub on the Romania-Ukraine border and delivering more than 10,000 pallets of medicines, medical supplies and other aid to over 70 aid organizations and hospitals in Ukraine. Besides delivering aid, the foundation helps evacuate American volunteer soldiers fighting in Ukraine to the U.S. military’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where they can receive specialized medical care. It also repatriates the bodies of American volunteers killed in combat."
  • "Given a choice between Russian conquest or U.S. development of rare earth mineral mines, Zelensky will take Trump’s deal every day of the week and twice on Sundays. “We are open to the fact that all of this can be developed together, along with our partners, who can help us protect our lands,” Zelensky said at a news conference in Kyiv after Trump’s remarks. “This is absolutely fair. I talked about this in September when we met with President Trump.”"

"What Will We Have After Trump and Putin’s Negotiations?" Konstantin Remchukov, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 02.02.25.^ Clues from Russian Views. 

  • Never before in the modern history of superpowers have negotiations on war and peace issues taken place in conditions of a total absence of contacts at the diplomatic level.
    • As it became known at the end of last week from Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, the Russian side has still not received an agreement for the work of the new Russian ambassador. According to our sources, this will be Alexander Darchiev, head of the North American Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry
  • The inevitable negotiations on the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict will be difficult, but for their success ... it is important to stand on the ground of realism and an understanding of reality. It is necessary to imagine what is in the mind of the opponent, what system of goals, values ​​and attitudes.
  • There is no doubt about Putin's determination to go all the way to reach the administrative borders of all four regions included in the Constitution. However, achieving these goals will require great human sacrifices and material costs on both sides. These are especially heavy losses on the eve of the end of the conflict.
  • Saving the lives of soldiers is a noble reason for adjusting literally formulated guidelines. It is necessary to create one entity called Novorossiya from the already controlled territories of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Changes to the Constitution will not cause problems.
  • Any delay in the start of negotiations can be considered an additional opportunity for the Russian side to push all Ukrainian troops beyond the borders of the Russian Federation. Including its territory in the negotiating bargaining is still an undesirable scenario for the Kremlin.
  • Since compromises are inevitable, they will be made. Key issues: Ukraine's refusal to join NATO, security guarantees, recognition of Crimea, a range of financial and economic problems.
  • It is necessary to take into account that Trump's interests will also become a factor in the negotiating process. For Kyiv, the issues of post-war reconstruction and claims to our assets will be important. For Moscow, the issue of 16,000 anti-Russian sanctions. No one is going to lift them, and continuing to live with them in the new "world" is a pretense. Trump is interested in Russia's separation from China and, probably, compensation from our arrested assets for the Americans' expenses on military aid to Ukraine.

“Preparations For The Trump-Putin Meeting,” Tatiana Stanovaya, R. Politik Bulletin No. 3 (155) 2025, 02.11.25. Clues from Russian Views.

  • Moscow and Washington have commenced official contacts over the war in Ukraine, with preparations underway for a possible Trump-Putin meeting and the corresponding interim agreements. While the process remains non-public, fragile and reversible, negotiations have de facto begun.
  • The Russian side remains highly skeptical, but sees establishing contact itself as a measure of success. There is little confidence that Trump’s team will be willing or able to address what Moscow sees as the roots of the conflict. As a result, an immediate preliminary agenda is more pragmatic: a ceasefire in exchange for a snap presidential election in Ukraine.
  • As Trump allegedly prioritizes a ceasefire before engaging in substantive talks on Ukraine, it may further reduce Moscow’s expectations for securing a breakthrough or a favorable deal with the current US administration.
  • The prospect of negotiations has galvanized different factions within the Russian elite, with each group engaging in public discussions about potential parameters for the talks. The domestic policy overseers are positioning themselves as analysts, while media figures like Konstantin Remchukov are helping the Kremlin give a sense of urgency to the negotiations. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs remains skeptical, conservative and academic in approach.
  • Among certain factions within the Russian elite, there is increasing recognition that Ukraine’s deteriorating position, Russia’s military advantage, and the uncertainty surrounding any potential deal with Trump make it more beneficial for Moscow to prolong negotiations, exploit Kyiv’s internal vulnerabilities, and escalate offensives later to dismantle the Ukrainian state in its current form.
  • In this calculation, a snap presidential election in Ukraine could produce destabilization—a potentially favorable development for Moscow. Consequently, the Kremlin may support the idea of a temporary ceasefire and elections while, in reality, abandoning any intention of negotiating with Ukraine.

"In the Shadow of the Minsk Agreements: Lessons for a Potential Ukraine-Russia Armistice," Mykhailo Soldatenko, CEIP, 02.10.25. 

  • The Minsk Agreements contained ambiguities that helped the parties paper over their incompatible positions and facilitated a quick settlement; the February 2015 text was reportedly hammered out in a single seventeen-hour negotiating session in Minsk. But the vagueness of the document resulted in divergent understandings of what commitments Russia had made and what the exact special status for the occupied regions would be
  • There was also a lack of clarity on the steps toward a ceasefire and the sequencing of these steps in relation to Ukraine’s political commitments. Indeed, Ukraine argued that the political processes of elections, constitutional changes, and special status could not begin without a ceasefire and security. Russia argued that the sequencing was not necessarily linear and that Ukraine should begin those processes even before a true ceasefire took hold. As a result, each side blamed the other for the lack of implementation.
  • But a quick settlement is not necessarily a stable or enduring one, as Minsk demonstrated. Although time is of the essence, a reasonable level of clarity should remain a priority, and ironing out most issues may require time. Moreover, Ukraine must have leverage at the negotiating table in order not to be forced to make unacceptable concessions that would make it impossible to implement the arrangement.
  • In addition to substantive ambiguities, the Minsk Agreements were legally nonbinding. A legally binding agreement of this sort would have required parliamentary ratification under Ukrainian law and would have risked being deemed invalid under international law as a result of Russia’s unlawful use of force. Still, reportedly upon the suggestion of French and German leaders, Russia obtained a UNSC resolution endorsing the 2015 ceasefire to “create as much commitment as possible.” As Russia understands that a treaty imposed on Ukraine via unlawful use of force will be invalid, it will likely want to legalize such an agreement (if the text is to its satisfaction), including by obtaining a binding UNSC resolution, as was reportedly the case during the Istanbul talks. Ukraine and its partners would need to decide whether a legally binding instrument is an optimal solution for an armistice depending on the conditions and the aforementioned Ukrainian domestic limitations.
  • U.S. participation in any future talks—alongside the EU or key member states—will be crucial considering America’s critical role in Ukraine’s future security arrangements and broader European security issues, including NATO-Russia relations. 
  • American historian Stephen Kotkin opined that “the sine qua non of Ukraine winning the peace is an armistice and an end to the fighting as soon as possible, an obtainable security guarantee, and European Union accession. In other words, a Ukraine, safe and secure, which has joined the West.” Even this limited goal will be challenging to realize and will entail significant security and policy risks for Ukraine. If Ukrainian and Western policymakers consider this to be the least bad option, they should do their best not to repeat the Minsk Agreements’ fate.

For more commentary/analysis on this subject, see:

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

"Trump, Putin, Xi and the New Age of Empire," Gideon Rachman, FT, 02.10.25. 

  • You have heard of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. Now welcome to the age of neoimperialism.
    • The most striking moment in Donald Trump’s inaugural address last month was his pledge that the U.S. “will once again consider itself a growing nation—one that increases our wealth, expands our territory.”
    • His fascination with acquiring territory has startled even some of his supporters. But Trump’s expansionist ambitions are easier to understand, if seen as part of a global trend. The two other world leaders that he seems to view as genuine peers—Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping—also see territorial expansion as a key national goal and part of their personal claim to greatness.
  • Russian spokesmen often cite national security as a justification for the war on Ukraine. But Putin himself has obsessively returned to the idea that Ukraine is not a proper country but part of the “Russian world.” Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, once told a confidant that before invading Ukraine, Putin had listened to three advisers: “Ivan the Terrible. Peter the Great. And Catherine the Great.” These rulers presided over vast expansions of Russian territory, with Catherine advancing deep into Ukraine.
  • Xi similarly sees gaining control of Taiwan as key to China’s national destiny and to his own historical legacy. In a recent speech, he asserted: “Taiwan is China’s sacred territory.”
  • With no convincing strategic rationale for Trump’s territorial ambitions, the obvious alternative explanation is that this is about personal grandeur.
  • With the U.S., Russia and China led by men with expansionist ambitions, the implications are bleak for the current international system. 

 

For more commentary/analysis on this subject, see:

China-Russia: Allied or aligned?

"China Watches as Russia's Economy Teeters," Thomas J. Duesterberg, WSJ, 02.06.25. 

  • "Mr. Putin claims the Russian economy is doing fine, but it isn't. The combined effects of conscription, defense-production increases and a mass exodus of working-age men have led to labor shortages that are driving up wages and weakening the defense industrial sector. Officially inflation is 10%, though most economists think it's much higher. Rents in major cities are beyond the reach of most middle-class residents. Interest rates on commercial loans are 21% and expected to rise further, sapping the financial viability of Russian companies. Banks are challenged by Kremlin requirements to provide below-market rates and almost unlimited levels of credit to military-related firms. Moscow is cutting social spending to meet its war needs. The ruble is highly unstable."
  • "With U.S. leadership, sanctions have cut off Russia's ability to raise capital from Western sources. In 2023 and 2024 several auctions of ruble bonds failed. This suggests that Russian banks and oligarchs are increasingly reluctant to take on debt issued by the stressed Kremlin. Bond yields for 10-year sovereign issues have soared. The entire stock of sovereign debt has declined by 35% since the war began."
  • "China has also grown leery of buying Russia's war bonds as it fears sanctions on its own banks. Beijing doesn't want to lose access to the dollar-denominated financial system. Russia's only remaining sources of funding are its national wealth fund and revenues from oil and gas exports. The fund has been forced to liquidate holdings to pay for current needs. It held about $300 billion in foreign reserves before the war, which are now frozen. Its prewar domestic holdings, also about $300 billion, have been drawn down by two-thirds. At current rates the liquid reserves will be depleted sometime in 2025."

For more commentary/analysis on this subject, see:

Missile defense:

  • No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Nuclear arms:

"Are Nuclear Weapons an Option for Ukraine?" Alexander K. Bollfrass, IISS, 02.07.25.

  • The industrial requirements for producing fissile material and fitting a warhead to delivery systems exceed Ukraine’s current capacity. Moreover, redirecting resources toward nuclear development could weaken conventional military capabilities, leaving the country even more exposed in the short term. And the financial burden of nuclear development—spanning years of investment in infrastructure, technology and expertise—would drain Ukraine’s defense budget, further increasing its dependence on Western aid.
  • A third option for safeguarding Ukrainian sovereignty, beyond nuclear-weapons acquisition and NATO membership, has emerged. The ‘Israel model’ involves a heavily armed state under bilateral protection by the United States. A less prominent aspect of the proposal is the fact of Israel’s unacknowledged nuclear-weapons possession.
  • Kyiv’s interest in nuclear weapons, however rhetorical, is a response to the reluctance of Western leaders to develop a security framework for Ukraine, such as NATO membership, leaving the country grasping for options. Zelenskyy’s calls to Western partners to ‘Give us back nuclear arms,’ recognizing that Ukraine cannot build them on its own, may grow louder. It will be the responsibility of Ukraine’s Western backers to develop a credible and sustainable security package to protect it. If they succeed, they would salvage their non-proliferation credibility, too.

“The Fall Crisis of 2022: why did Russia not use nuclear arms?,” Ulrich Kühn, Defense & Security Analysis, 01.02.25.

  • By the fall of 2022, with Russian forces in retreat and Ukraine gaining the upper hand on the battlefield, these warnings had built up both in frequency and severity. On 21 September 2022, Putin issued a further, even clearer warning: “In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.” On the occasion of the forced “accession” of several Ukrainian regions on 30 September 2022, he reminded his audience that the United States had created a historic “precedent” with the use of nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
  • Early in 2024, press reports surfaced that the White House, back in the fall of 2022, was highly alarmed about the possibility of Russian nuclear use. Having picked up “various forms of chatter” within the Russian military about possible nuclear use in Ukraine in October, a Central Intelligence Agency scenario suddenly assessed “a possibility that seemed imaginable that fall—the likelihood of nuclear use might rise to 50% or even higher.” A detailed account by U.S. journalist Bob Woodward reinforced that notion. According to Woodward, the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons against Ukraine led the administration of U.S. President Joseph R. Biden to confront the Russians directly in numerous and threatening calls, to reach out to China and other states in order to influence the Kremlin, and to issue public warnings. In an urgent performance at a Democratic donor event in late September 2022, Biden publicly clarified the stakes:
    • “For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat to the use of nuclear weapons, if in fact things continue down the path they’d been going […] we have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis.”
  • The fact that, contrary to the U.S. assessment, no nuclear weapons were used in the Fall Crisis raises the question of why Russia refrained from using nuclear arms.
  • Comparing rationalist, normative, and institutionalist theories of non-use, this work finds that, in lieu of verifiable evidence, currently all major theories of non-use can to some degree explain why Russia abstained from using nuclear weapons in the Fall Crisis of 2022.
  • A systematic review of the literature on non-use helps to identify several factors that may shape decision-making in favor of non-use: fear of devastating nuclear retaliation, uncertainties about the politico-military long-term consequences, practical problems of tailoring employment, reputational concerns, the operation of an international taboo norm, or institutionalized co-operation to prevent unwanted use. Particularly theories centered on deterrence—before and during the Fall Crisis—and the operation of a taboo norm stick out when trying to explain non-use. A correlation between taboo, the multilateral diplomacy initiated by the Biden administration in the fall of 2022, and Moscow’s receding nuclear rhetoric towards the end of that year may come closest to a causal link explaining non-use against Ukraine.  

"Ukraine’s Dual Adversaries: Russia and North Korea," Andreas Umland and William Alberque, NI, 02.07.25. 

  • Today, the corrosive effects of Russia’s expansion into Ukraine on the global security order are being further aggravated by the increased involvement of North Korea in the Russo-Ukrainian War.
  • To preserve the non-proliferation regime, all signatory states to the NPT should be unequivocal in their support for Ukraine. They should provide military or non-military help to enable Kyiv to achieve a convincing victory on the battlefield, leading to a liberation of all Ukrainian territories currently illegally occupied by Russia. Upholding the logic of nuclear non-proliferation demands a just peace that does not allow Russia to harvest any fruits from its aggression, upholds respect for international law, including its central principles of national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and compensates Ukraine for its losses. 

For more commentary/analysis on this subject, see:

Counterterrorism:

  • No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Conflict in Syria:

  • No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

Cyber security/AI: 

"The Unintended Consequences of Deterring Cyber Attacks Through Nuclear Weapons and International Law," Verena Jackson, ELN, 02.06.25. 

  • Considering the challenging West-Russia relationship today, Russia has consistently demonstrated assertiveness in employing hybrid threats, including cyber attacks, as part of its broader geopolitical strategy. Its diverse toolbox includes interference in foreign elections, large-scale disinformation campaigns, and cyber attacks on critical infrastructure in Western states. Unlike traditional military confrontations, these hybrid operations are often conducted in the “grey zone” below the threshold of conventional armed conflict, making them difficult to attribute and respond to within existing legal frameworks.
  • In this context, nuclear deterrence faces a unique challenge. While it may deter direct, large-scale attacks, the nature of hybrid threats, especially those involving cyber attacks, allows adversaries to operate in this “grey zone” with easy deniability and test thresholds without crossing clear (legal) red lines. For instance, Russia’s willingness to deploy sophisticated cyber tools, as demonstrated in the NotPetya attack, highlights the limitations of conventional deterrence strategies. Even when such actions disrupt global systems or undermine national security, they often fail to trigger a response proportional to nuclear deterrence.
  • The reliance on nuclear deterrence as a countermeasure to cyber threats is loaded with legal, ethical, and strategic complexities that question its legitimacy and efficacy. International law, in particular the principles of proportionality and discrimination and the prohibition of the use of force enshrined in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, might allow the deployment of nuclear weapons to deter cyber attacks only in exceptional cases. International law imposes very high thresholds and prerequisites. Additionally, when assessing the legality of using nuclear weapons in cyber deterrence, some unsolved legal questions about traditional nuclear deterrence intertwine with unsolved legal questions about cyberspace, and so nuclear weapons do not serve as an effective cross-domain means of deterrence against cyber attacks.
  • From an ethical standpoint, the disproportionate effects of nuclear weapons do not align with fundamental moral principles. On a strategic level, using nuclear weapons as a deterrent against cyber threats poses the risk of heightening the potential for catastrophic confrontation and escalation.
  • Considering these practical and legal complexities, addressing cyber attacks requires a context-aware approach. This involves redefining existing international norms for cyberspace, improving attribution mechanisms (both technically and legally), and—above all—fostering resilience against cyber operations rather than expanding the scope of nuclear deterrence. Only by acknowledging the unique characteristics of hybrid threats, the international community can develop effective and legally sound strategies to counter them.

Energy exports from CIS:

"The Caspian Sea as an Emerging Energy Hub: Potentials and Limitations," Sergey Sukhankin, IFRI, 02.07.25. 

  • Overall, it should be positively stated that, based on its sheer capabilities, the Caspian Sea region could become an EU-oriented powerhouse in terms of both non-renewable and green energy. The main uncertainty, however, lies in the question whether the EU should pursue this outcome and commit to large and, due to various reasons, rather risky financial investments. To address this question, three summarizing aspects should be highlighted.
  • First, European policymakers should take into account the pronounced value-based gap between the EU and the Black/Caspian Sea partners and stakeholders that would be involved in developing such projects. Given the cultural, religious, economic and political proximity of Turkey to the above-mentioned players as well as its increasingly uneasy relations with the EU (in general and with individual states), Ankara could exploit its power and its position as a transit state to exert pressure on the EU to achieve desired outcomes. Under certain circumstances, the EU could be confronted with a scenario similar to that it had to face with Russia.
  • Second, there is the question of economic sustainability. Redirecting hydrocarbon supplies from the Caspian Sea region would require refurbishing existing and constructing new infrastructure as well as ecological challenges that might become an obstacle to the production of certain types of renewable energy (such as green hydrogen). Studies confirm that natural-gas use in the EU has been on the decline since 2022, whereas “[e]xisting U.S. LNG infrastructure can adequately address European energy security concerns [and] [a]ny increase in production would exceed current and future demand, and engaging in new long-term contracts carries considerable risks of oversupply.” This issue is also complicated by the EU’s strategic decision of decarbonization, which raises the issue of long-term demand uncertainty.
  • Third, Russia and Iran, which are now increasing cooperation in the realm of energy, will likely oppose the idea of other Caspian Sea actors increasing their role in the EU’s energy security. This drastically increases the risk of provocations and damage to oil—and gas—related facilities.
  • Given that going back to “business as usual” with Russia in terms of energy partnership is not on the table (and unlikely to be back in the next few years) and given the EU’s strategic course on avoiding signing long-term energy deals (which is already causing discontent among the Capsian Sea actors), the EU should pursue a hybrid approach. This strategy would include:
    • Continuing to rely on green/renewable energy produced in the EU and candidate countries as well as Canada, which is on the path of strengthening renewable-energy ties with the EU;
    • Continuing to source non-renewable energy from a variety of sources, including the Caspian Sea area—if local actors agree with terms and conditions favorable to the EU—without committing to long-term, costly and (geo)politically risky deals;
    • Prioritizing short-to-mid-term LNG deals—given the variety of contracts and multiplicity of sellers—over pipeline gas, which creates long-term commitments and poses various types of geopolitical risks
    • Strengthening ties with resource-endowed and politically stable (and trustworthy) countries, whereby Canada—given its endowment with conventional energy (LNG and oil), green energy and critical minerals—could become the EU’s prime partner.

Climate change:

  • No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

U.S.-Russian economic ties:

  • No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

U.S.-Russian relations in general:

"The Spark of ISKRAN:[3]Renowned American Studies Expert Sergey Rogov Has Passed Away," Vladimir Lukin[4], Kommersant, 02.10.25.^ 

  • Sergei Mikhailovich Rogov, an academician, long-time director, and in recent years scientific director of the Institute for the U.S. and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISKRAN), has died.
  • He must have a very short resume. He came to [ISKRAN] soon after its creation as a young junior research fellow and worked there practically his entire life.
  • Sergei Mikhailovich immediately became a noticeable person in what was then a very noticeable institute.
  • Sergei Mikhailovich was not a diplomatic and tactically flexible person. He did not accumulate influence, but gained authority. And he gained it with work, talent and persistence in defending his positions.
  • In my opinion, three main achievements of Rogov deserve special respect.
    • Firstly, he managed to preserve the USA and Canada Institute during the most difficult years.
    • Secondly, with his active participation, studies of Russian-American relations and their core part—the analysis of the relationship between the strategic potentials of the two countries—were continued and deepened at the civil, academic level in Russia.
    • Thirdly, Sergei Mikhailovich played a decisive role in the creation of a new generation of American studies in Russia. His concern for the formation of the educational structure at ISKRAN led to the fact that the New World in our country will henceforth not only be adored or hated, but also truly objectively studied.
  • S. M. Rogov was a major scientist, a major personality, a real… citizen and patriot of his country.   

“Where U.S.-Russia Relations Went Wrong,” Serge Schmemann, NYT, 02.04.25. 

  • "It was March 1994, more than two years after the Soviet Union disintegrated, and the debates within the U.S. Embassy in Moscow were heated… In the heat of the debate, E. Wayne Merry, the top political analyst in the embassy and one of the most forceful critics of shock therapy, set out a detailed case against it in a long telegram provocatively titled ''Whose Russia Is It Anyway? Toward a Policy of Benign Respect.''"
  • "In an essay last month about the telegram, Mr. Merry argued that America back then was falling for the old fallacy of trying to understand a foreign country ''by looking in the mirror.'' The push for free-market reforms in a country without any experience of a market economy or democracy was, he wrote, ''an especially virulent case of Washington institutions trying to ram a foreign square peg into an American round hole.''"
  • "There is little point 30 years on in playing the blame game. But the story of America blithely pushing destructive advice onto alien lands—from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan—cannot be retold too often. Those distant debates are a reminder that Americans exert enormous influence. If we are oblivious to or disdainful of the needs of other people, we are capable of enormous harm—to them, and to our own country's interests and standing."

“Donald Trump, the man in the mirror: Alexandra Prokopenko explains why depoliticized Russian elites may be counting on America’s returned president to save them,” Meduza, 02.05.25. Clues from Russian Views.

  • In an appearance on a recent episode of Alexander Baunov’s podcast, Prokopenko explained how Vladimir Putin’s consolidation of executive decision-making, the war in Ukraine, and the return of Donald Trump to the White House have shaped attitudes among contemporary Russian “nobles.”
  • Alexander Baunov’s premise for asking Alexandra Prokopenko about Russian elites (the interview’s “news peg”) was an exclusive report published last month by Reuters that claimed Putin has grown “increasingly concerned about distortions in Russia's wartime economy” and now “believes key war goals have already been met.”
  • She agreed that a loss of access to the president has enormously impacted senior figures in government and business. “Before COVID, there was a group of people with more or less constant access to the president. They saw him in person and had his ear. In addition to conveying information to Putin, they would pick up on things, discuss matters directly, and then disseminate this knowledge throughout the system. But Putin now mostly spends his time with his security detail.”
  • For Prokopenko, the most intriguing aspect of the Reuters report is the claim that Putin is supposedly satisfied with Russia’s gains in Ukraine to the point of halting the invasion. “I think this is a very important moment that highlights the Russian elite’s fatigue with the war,” she told Baunov.
  • Prokopenko noted one trend that is actually raising the business elite’s mobilization level: the president’s reluctance to intervene in conflicts and perform his role as an arbiter. Regional officials trying to meet federal quotas in the wartime climate have also been more aggressive with factories and offices, further eroding the business elite’s standing.
  • The intended audience for the Reuters story may even have been Donald Trump, in whom many Russian “nobles” place their hopes for a better future, said Prokopenko… “Somebody from the outside, cut from the same cloth, will step in and alter the course of events,” Prokopenko told Baunov, paraphrasing Russian elites’ rationalizations for their faith in the U.S. leader. “Somebody like [Nornickel President Vladimir] Potanin can look in the mirror and see himself as a version of Trump.” “If we reach a deal with Trump, there’s no need to run to China. That’s the multimillion-dollar question for Russian businessmen,” said Prokopenko.

“Book Reviews: Russia & Eurasia,” Angela Stent, Survival, Vol. 67, No. 1 (February– March 2025: 195–200) 

  • Goodbye to Russia: A Personal Reckoning from the Ruins, Sarah Rainsford. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024. Sarah Rainsford, the BBC’s correspondent in Moscow from 2014–21 and lifelong aficionado of all things Russian, was deemed a ‘threat to national security’ and expelled from Russia in 2021. Rainsford first arrived in Moscow just as the Soviet Union imploded, and she witnessed the initial flowering of a sense of excitement, opportunity and hope on the heels of the Soviet collapse. But she also saw the dark side of Moscow’s ‘Wild East,’ describing Russia as ‘a land of immense opportunity that became a deadly scramble for wealth’ (p. 57).
    • Returning to Russia in 2000, she covered the sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea. The authorities provided no information about what had happened for several days and refused offers of help from Western countries. By the time rescue operations began, it was too late to save any of the 118 people on board. Putin showed up a few days after the explosion and only met with the bereaved families ten days after the disaster. His handling of this first major crisis of his presidency showcased traits that would define his rule: ‘an instinctive dishonesty, wariness of the West and a chilling disregard for human life’ (p. 154).
  • Midnight in Moscow: A Memoir from the Front Lines of Russia’s War Against the West, John J. Sullivan. London and New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2024. John J. Sullivan served as U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2019–22, under the Trump and Biden administrations. In this compelling and dramatic memoir, he recounts the downward spiral of U.S.–Russian relations prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the unsuccessful U.S. attempts to deter Vladimir Putin, and the struggle to find an appropriate response to Russia’s attack and ongoing aggression. His observations about the challenges of dealing with the Kremlin are a sobering reminder of how difficult it will be for the West to interact with Russia for the foreseeable future.
    • The most important thing to know about Putin, argues Sullivan, is that ‘he was, and proudly called himself, a Chekist’ (p. 122). [Putin’s] KGB background largely defines him, but ‘Putin is also a savvy gangster, unbound by facts, law, morals or truth—he is motivated not only by power and money, but also by the grandiose ambitions of the most powerful and fierce Tsars in history’ (p. 185). This combination of an intelligence mindset, a Mafia-style code of conduct and messianic imperial ambitions, writes Sullivan, makes him both difficult and dangerous to deal with. He likens Putin’s rationale for invading Ukraine and subsequent aggression to Adolf Hitler’s actions in 1939 leading to the invasion of Poland.
  • Punishing Putin: Inside the Global Economic War to Bring Down Russia, Stephanie Baker. New York: Scribner, 2024. In this informative and absorbing book, Stephanie Baker highlights the challenges of sanctioning a globally integrated country as large as Russia, with its ample natural resources. Informed by a wealth of interviews with key players, she details how the United States and its allies devised unprecedented financial and trade sanctions after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and explains why the sanctions have not been as successful as the West had hoped.
  • After Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the launch of a war in the Donbas, the U.S. and its allies faced a dilemma: ‘How to coerce an opponent without the costs of direct military conflict?’ (p. 81)… Sanctions were placed on some of Putin’s inner circle, on some banks, and on foreign oil companies involved in energy projects in the Arctic. The value of the ruble tumbled and the Russian economy shrank 3.7% in 2015. Yet, as one of the sanctions’ architects told Baker, ‘what we didn’t anticipate was how little Putin seemed to care about the economy’s decline’ (p. 89).
  • Legitimating Nationalism: Political Identity in Russia’s Ethnic Republics, Katie L. Stewart. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2024. In justifying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Vladimir Putin insisted that Russians and Ukrainians are one nation. Yet he told his Security Council that, as the ruler of a country with more than 300 nationalities and ethnic groups, ‘I am proud to be… part of our powerful and strong multinational people of Russia’ (p. 5).
    • This highlights a challenge which Russian rulers have faced since Russia began colonizing its neighbors centuries ago: how to create an acceptable national narrative for its diverse subjects that will legitimize and guarantee the Kremlin’s control over them… She concludes that, for now, Putin’s authoritarian rule has managed to co-opt the leadership of these republics into accepting the narrative about Russia’s greatness and its existential fight in its ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine. But local resentment against Russian nationalist policies continues to simmer.
  • Uncommon Company: Dissidents and Diplomats, Enemies and Artists, William H. Luers. New York: Rodin Books, 2024. In 1986, as he ended his tour as American ambassador to Czechoslovakia, William H. Luers experienced first-hand the wrath of the Czech communist authorities after he made a speech commemorating the U.S. liberation of Southern Bohemia from Nazi rule. An old woman approached him offering the traditional greeting of bread and salt. He ingested the bread, only to become quite ill. German doctors who examined him in Munich shortly thereafter concluded that the bread offering had likely been laced with arsenic.
    • Luers, an American diplomat with a distinguished career both in the Foreign Service and as president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met), has written a compelling memoir stressing how important diplomacy and strategic empathy are in dealing with allies and adversaries alike. His experiences dealing with the Soviet Union remind the reader that there were far more contacts and channels of communication between the United States and the USSR during the post-Stalin Cold War era than there are between America and Vladimir Putin’s Russia, a development which he laments and insists must be reversed. Luers concludes by urging the U.S. government to talk to Putin to explore how the war with Ukraine might end. ‘The demonization of Putin is fully understandable,’ he writes, ‘but the need to converse with uncommon company, including your enemies, should override the hatred and hostility of the enemy’ (p. 396).

“U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan: Biden’s Failed Diplomat in Moscow. New memoir unintentionally lays bare his own missteps in the ‘march to war’ with Russia,” Lyle J. Goldstein, Responsible Statecraft, 01.31.25. 

  • In the frenzied rush to save Ukraine from Russian aggression, there has been scant attention paid to the origins of the conflict. However, an important memoir published in 2024 by John Sullivan, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2020 until 2022, could provide some answers. Ominously titled "Midnight in Moscow" the book shows just how belligerent towards Russia the Biden administration was at a fraught moment—and how little key American diplomats seemed to think of real diplomacy.
  • A careful study of Sullivan’s account reveals he was the wrong man at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sullivan had prior experience as an attorney and this helped shape his sheriff-like, good-versus-evil worldview. The result was an escalatory spiral in U.S.-Russia relations that ended in catastrophe for Ukraine.
  • The many grave errors made during Sullivan’s tenure cannot be ignored. By far, the most important revelation from his memoir is that the Ukraine issue was hardly even discussed at an important Geneva summit in June 2021 between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin.
  • An obvious example of Sullivan’s failure to seek compromise was his evident support for Washington’s poorly thought-out dispatch of Victoria Nuland to Moscow in October 2021 as Biden’s top emissary to negotiate on the matter of Ukraine. Nuland is reviled and indeed sanctioned in Russia.
  • Somewhat predictably, Sullivan concludes his book with a call to arms, urging Americans not to shrink from their “responsibility” to support Ukraine and bear the burdens of the new cold war. We can only wonder how history might have turned out if Washington still had diplomats who actually engaged in diplomacy rather than insults and escalations.

II. Russia’s domestic policies 

Domestic politics, economy and energy:

"Why Most New Emigrants Are Not Going Back to Russia Anytime Soon," Vladimir Ruvinsky, Russia.Post, 02.07.25.[5] 

  • In the first year of Vladimir Putin's full-scale war, which featured military mobilization, about a million people hurriedly left Russia. Between 15% and 45% have returned—2024 is even being hailed as the “year of return.”
  • Predictions for a mass return to Russia of skilled workers, primarily IT specialists, seem to be based on a not entirely correct, even erroneous, understanding of the motivations for their departure in general.
  • The initial emigration after February 24, 2022, is often seen as antiwar, ideologically motivated Russians, mainly from Moscow and St Petersburg, while after mobilization in September 2022, it was supposedly Russians from the provinces who left, fearing for their lives. The latter are widely expected to be the first to return to Russia after the war ends.
  • Your author has repeatedly seen the faultiness of this understanding when talking to Russians now living in various countries. Sure, mobilization might have been the trigger for fleeing to Georgia, Kazakhstan or Armenia—but often the basis for that decision was disagreement with the actions of the Russian state. The same is true of educated and financially secure Russians who left Russia for new jobs in Western countries.
  • This is also evidenced by surveys of emigrants conducted by the OutRush project (see Russia.Post here). They show that people from the initial outflow in spring 2022 (after the start of the war) and the subsequent one in autumn 2022 (after the start of mobilization) equally volunteer, participate in activism and protests, and donate to antiwar initiatives while abroad.

“Who is Putin’s Successor and What Will Happen to Russia?,” Roman Anin, IStories, 02.04.25. Clues from Russian Views.

  • Putin has already outgrown the presidential office. His propaganda, the church, his inner circle, and various other lackeys have spent years convincing him that he is not just a president but the father of the nation, tasked with a sacred mission to save Russia and restore its former greatness.
  • Being a president is a job, but a father of the nation does not work. He hands down his will from his sacred pedestal, and his chosen executors implement it on the ground. The preparation for building this pedestal seemingly began in 2020, when Putin amended the Constitution to grant the State Council—previously a purely advisory body—constitutional status and the authority to define Russia’s key domestic and foreign policies.
  • Who could Putin choose as his successor?
    • First and foremost, it must be someone he absolutely trusts, someone who, upon receiving presidential powers, will not betray his benefactor.
    • Secondly, the successor must piously believe in the infallibility of his idol and unconditionally fulfill his will.
    • Thirdly, he should not belong to an old, influential clan, as this could trigger factional conflicts.
    • Fourthly, he must have significant achievements in Putin’s eyes, both personally and for Russia (as Putin perceives it).
    • Fifthly, the successor must embody the vision of Russia that Putin is shaping.
  • At present, there is only one person in Russia who meets all these criteria—Putin’s former bodyguard, Alexei Dyumin.[6]
  • In May 2024, Putin appointed Dyumin as Secretary of the State Council, placing him in one of the highest-ranking positions within the Russian power structure. According to two former FSB officers interviewed by IStories, many within the intelligence services see Dyumin as the leading candidate for succession. Not only is he loyal to Putin, but as a colonel-general, he aligns far more closely with the current and future vision of Russia than other potential successors.
  • In my view, in the near future—by historical standards—Russia is heading toward a kind of duumvirate: the father of the nation enthroned in his own grandeur and a young “hero-general” dutifully carrying out his will. Together, they will prepare the country for a new major war—because they have nothing else to offer the people.

"Down But Not Out: Demoted Russian Officials Seek to Regain Former Influence," Andrey Pertsev, CEIP, 02.04.25. 

  • Influential members of the Russian elite like Nikolai Patrushev, Sergei Shoigu, and Andrei Turchak fell out of favor and were demoted in 2024. Since then, however, they have not slipped quietly off into obscurity, but instead have been vigorously trying to claw back their former power and status—and not without success.
  • Those like Patrushev, Shoigu, and Turchak are showing they are not ready to make peace with becoming irrelevant, or to simply wait for Putin to parachute them into another high post. This is a new sort of behavior in the Russian elite. Initiatives from below are becoming more and more significant, and any decisions made at the top—including those about demotions—are no longer seen as permanent.
  • Patrushev has displayed the most ingenuity, working not so much to regain the president’s favor as to expand his formal and informal powers. He’s building horizontal ties with influential elite groups that have a say on issues of national importance. However, alternative channels for interclan communication—like the Maritime Board—undermine Russia’s power vertical. Putin’s role as arbiter has already been weakened by old age and his obsession with the war in Ukraine. The continuing relevance of Patrushev, Shoigu, and Turchak is yet more evidence that this process continues.

"Why Putin’s Family Is Stepping Into the Limelight," Elizaveta Fokht, CEIP, 02.10.25.

  • Above all else, it was the war in Ukraine that brought Putin’s family and other young elites out of hiding. Even as pressure on the elite increased, it became possible for the first time to move in the open, without caring about public opinion. The appointment of Putin’s first cousin once removed as deputy defense minister might be seen as nepotism, but who has time to worry about corruption amid Russia’s confrontation with the West and the retaking of cities in the Donbas?
  • It is not clear whether Russian society takes issue with the activities and successes of Putin’s relatives. Yet nepotism and conflicts of interest surely register as secondary to the war, inflation, and other problems facing the country, and in any case, there are no independent institutions that might challenge the first family’s ascendancy—not anymore.

“Is Russia’s Economy Collapsing?”, RM Staff, RM, 02.10.25.

  • The past few months have seen a number of Russia watchers echo each other’s proclamations that the Russian economy is either already collapsing or close to crumbling. Will these predictions materialize?
  • Olga Chyzh and Roger Boyes are correct in pointing to malaises such as the shortage of workers and high inflation. As of late 2024, Russia was estimated to lack 2.7 million workers, with inflation reaching 9.5% and the Central Bank’s key interest rate was at a record-high 21%. Boyes is also right in pointing out that “bankruptcies are on the increase” … Increases in corporate bankruptcies cannot help impacting tax revenue flow to the Russian budget, which suffered from a budget deficit of more than 3 trillion rubles ($34.4 billion, 1.7% of GDP) for the third year running in 2024, according to the Russian Finance Ministry’s data cited by Reuters.
  • It would be wrong, however, to think that the only kind of recent economic news coming out of Russia is bad news (for Putin and the country he runs). For one, the IMF and World Bank estimate that the Russian economy grew by 3.8% and 3.4%, respectively, in 2024. Looking ahead, both expect the Russian economy to continue growing in 2025–2026, even though this growth is expected to slow down.
  • This growth, coupled with the aforementioned labor shortages, could partially explain a recent increase in real incomes … The Russian leader could also count on at least some of the countries’ business elites’ loyalty, as Russia’s rich got richer and more numerous in 2024, despite sanctions.
  • Russia’s budget revenues in December 2024 reached more than 4 trillion rubles ($40 billion), up by 28% compared to December 2023, the highest level recorded in ministry data beginning from January 2011, according to Bloomberg. … Russia's oil and gas revenues jumped by 26% last year to $108 billion even as daily oil and gas condensate production declined in 2024 by 2.8%, according to Russian government officials cited by Reuters. Despite remaining the world’s most-sanctioned country in 2024, Russia exported a record 33.6 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) that year, which is a 4% increase from the previous year, according to Meduza.
  • No economy is completely healthy, and Russia’s is, by far, no exception, particularly given Western sanctions and its rampant spending on the military-industrial complex and the war against Ukraine. Still, one has to wonder: can an economy that has been growing (or stagnating, depending on how you define stagnation) in the past two years and which is expected … to continue growing for another two years (albeit more slowly), be described as collapsing like a house of cards? 

Defense and aerospace:

  •  See section Military aspects of the Ukraine conflict and their impacts above.

Security, law-enforcement and justice:

  • No significant commentary or analysis in monitored publications.

III. Russia’s relations with other countries

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

"Beyond Ukraine: Russia’s Foreign Policy Challenges in 2025," Emily Ferris, RUSI, 02.04.25. 

  • [There are] three important current areas of foreign policy concern for Russia: its ability to project military and political power in the Middle East since Assad’s removal; its trade relationship with China, upon which its exports depend; and its relationship with client state Belarus, a key player in regional security and in Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
    • Following Assad’s ousting in Syria, the likely loss of Russia’s long-standing lease on its Tartus military base, formerly the jumping-off point for Russia’s interests in Africa, would have a serious impact on its ability to project power in the Middle East. But there is a domestic angle to this.[7]
    • The Ukraine war has exacerbated Russia’s economic dependence on China and a new U.S. administration makes this relationship more important than ever, particularly if Trump follows through on his threats to further sanction Russia’s oil and gas industries.
    • Perhaps one of the most underrated aspects of Russia’s foreign policy is its relationship with neighboring Belarus, which was briefly returned to the spotlight by the recent presidential elections. Russia’s plans for deeper political, security and economic integration with Belarus under the banner of the Union State have progressed quietly in the background over the past few years, since 2018.
  • Putin’s foreign policy concerns and their domestic implications are likely to drive some of Russia's engagement—positive and negative—with the new U.S. administration. But these issues indicate that even an end to the war would reveal a Russia that has changed significantly, with a trade infrastructure that has orientated itself eastwards, and burgeoning security issues that could have consequences for the rest of Europe.

"The UN Charter as the Legal Foundation of a Multipolar World," Sergey Lavrov, Russia in Global Affairs, 02.04.25. Clues from Russian Views. (This organization is affiliated with the Russian authorities.)

  • In 2025, with Donald Trump’s Republican administration back in power, Washington’s interpretation of international processes since World War II has taken on a new dimension, as vividly described in the Senate by new Secretary of State Marco Rubio on January 15: not only is the postwar world order outdated, but it has been turned into a weapon against U.S. interests. In other words, not only the Yalta-Potsdam order is undesirable; so, too, is the “rules-based order” that had seemed to embody the selfishness and arrogance of the U.S.-led West after the Cold War. “America first” is alarmingly similar to the Hitlerite slogan “Germany above all,” and a wager on “peace through strength” may be the final blow to diplomacy. Not to mention that such statements and ideological constructs do not show even the slightest bit of respect for Washington’s international legal obligations under the UN Charter.
  • However, today is not 1991 or even 2017, when the incumbent U.S. President took the helm for the first time.
  • Multipolarity is gaining momentum and, instead of opposing it, the U.S. could in the foreseeable future become a responsible center of power along with Russia, China, and other states in the Global South, East, North, and West. For the moment, it seems that the new U.S. administration will be launching cowboy raids to test the existing UN-centric system’s limits and durability versus American interests. But I am sure that this administration, too, will soon understand that international reality is much more complex than the caricatures that it is free to deploy before internal American audiences or obedient geopolitical allies.
  • While we wait for the Americans to sober up and realize this, we will continue to work conscientiously with our like-minded partners to adapt the mechanisms of interstate relations to multipolarity, and to the Yalta-Potsdam international legal consensus that is embodied in the UN Charter. 

"Prices and Volumes: Why Russian Exports Seemed Invulnerable to Sanctions and Why They Look Vulnerable Now," Re:Russia, 02.06.25. 

  • A slowing global economy, fierce competition in Asian metal markets, a weak harvest, and the increasing toxicity of Russian exports will erode the shock-absorbing effect of Russia’s non-energy exports. Overall, the early 2020s commodity price boom—fueled by war and sanctions—is fading, and markets are adjusting to reduced Russian supplies. In this cooling price environment, the focus is once again shifting toward securing market share and lowering costs. Russia is not well positioned for this competition. Just as the broad price surge of 2021 significantly boosted export revenues, even a gradual but widespread decline in prices could lead to a substantial collapse in earnings. Meanwhile, Russia’s pivot to a wartime economy has paradoxically deepened—rather than reduced—its dependence on imports. 

Ukraine:

For more commentary/analysis on this subject, see:

Russia's other post-Soviet neighbors:

"Can Georgia’s Shadowy Despot Survive?" The Economist, 02.06.25. 

  • “"On Nov. 28, the day the Georgian government announced it was suspending talks on joining the EU, the Royal District Theatre in Tbilisi performed “Phaedra in Flames,” a contemporary take on a Greek myth that deals with power, politics and emancipation. That night, the actors took no curtain call. Still in their wigs and make-up, they led the audience out onto Freedom Square, where tens of thousands had again gathered to protest against the reclusive oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili and his cronies, who have captured the Georgian state."”
  • “The drama has been sustained for more than two months now. Its energy comes in waves, and takes new forms, such as marches, strikes and flashmobs, but is not going away. Every night people block the square and Tbilisi’s main artery, Rustaveli Avenue.”
  • “The immediate demands of the protesters are new elections and the release of all political prisoners, including Mzia Amaglobeli, a prominent journalist who has been on hunger strike since Jan. 12. But what is really at stake is Georgia’s future. Is it to be a modern European country or, should Mr. Ivanishvili have his way, a backwater under Russia’s domination?”
  • “Mr. Ivanishvili is now faced with a choice: resolve the crisis through new elections or resort to yet heavier repression. Several factors may make him think twice about the iron fist. One is the economy… Even more than a financial crisis, the business families around Mr. Ivanishvili fear sanctions, which the West has threatened but hardly imposed.”

For more commentary/analysis on this subject, see:

Footnotes

  1. As of Feb. 4, 2025, Russian forces occupied 112,164 square kilometers (43,307 square miles), which constituted 18.58% of Ukrainian territory and which is roughly equivalent to the state of Virginia, according to Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group’s map.
  2. U.S. President Donald Trump has spoken to Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the phone to try to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war, he told The Post in an exclusive interview aboard Air Force One on Feb. 7.“I’d better not say,” said Trump when asked how many times the two leaders have spoken. But he believes Putin “does care” about the killing on the battlefield. “He wants to see people stop dying,” said Trump. “All those dead people. Young, young, beautiful people. They’re like your kids, two million of them – and for no reason.” Trump said he has a concrete plan to end the war. “I hope it’s fast. Every day people are dying. This war is so bad in Ukraine. I want to end this damn thing.” (NY Post, 02.08.25)
  3. In original version, it was “Искра ИСКРАН”
  4. Vladimir Lukin, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, an employee of ISKRAN in 1968–1987, Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the USA in 1992–1994
  5. The original text in Russian was published in the Moscow Times.
  6. See RM’s compilation of Dyumin’s views here.
  7. Syria is open to letting Russia keep its air and naval bases along the Mediterranean coast as long as any agreement with the Kremlin serves the country’s interests, Syrian Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra told WP. Asked if Russia would be allowed to maintain its naval port at Tartus and the Hmeimim air base in Latakia, Abu Qasra said: “If we get benefits for Syria out of this, yes.”

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. 

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

^Machine-translated.

Click to Subscribe

Russia Matters offers weekly news and analysis digests, event announcements and media advisories.
Choose and sign up here!